My honey found an excellent interview with a Texas Original over in that FW Press magazine. Highly recommended for all those who love Texas Music.

Steven Fromholz is a guy I’ve loved since I was about fourteen years old. Shaking his hand after he played at our place last August left me practically speechless — all I could say to him was “Thank you for coming, Mr. Fromholz.” And then I backed off three feet, and I’m sure, just stood there with my mouth open, catching flies.

It was shocking to hear about his stroke earlier this year. The guy’s a durn river guide / trail guide / horse guide — “healthy as a hog”, as he put it. The good news is that he seems to be coming back from it just fine, if a little bit slower than he would like.

If you’re of a mind, you can donate directly to the fund mentioned in the article from Steven’s website. Part of the proceeds from our ad sales for Raz will be going to the fund, as well. Steven’s a pure Texas treasure, so let’s make sure that he gets the time to heal properly.

I had long ago written off the Dallas Morning Snooze as a useless, home-town trumpeting piece of fish-wrapper. Well, they’ve gone and started a blog for the editorial board. It’s a damn fine piece of work coming from a paper that I read for practically forty years. This might actually make me go spend 50¢ and see what the rest of the paper is doing. I even bothered to send an email to this Dreher cat, who seems to be leading the charge:

Mr. Dreher,

I quit reading the Snooze years ago, as it was(is) borderline AP wire stories cover to cover, and the dullest, most predictable op-ed board in captivity. Simply amazing to see the Snooze do this, and I hope it continues the way yall are doing it now. I might actually buy one, instead of the FW paper.

Enable comments immediately, though. Don’t force email, unless it’s completely unworkable.

My humble congratulations on generating excitement that I never would have thought I’d see at a paper I’d written off.

That hurts me personally to speak so kindly of the old dozy Snooze. Why, I might have to change a stance that I thought I’d set in cement about a decade ago.

USS Clueless

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING

(Captain’s log): The new refrain is “Bush lied about the reason for attacking Iraq. He claimed that Iraq tried to purchase Uranium from Africa, and that wasn’t true.” Therefore… only they don’t proceed with the “therefore” because their unspoken therefore is “therefore we shouldn’t have attacked Iraq; we should have pursued other approaches and left Saddam in power.”

Don’t look down here. Nothing I can add to it. Except to note that one of those Fake Greek Guys gets a whooping, which is always sweet for a homer like me.

Just finished the new lineup for Raz on the Braz. How could you possibly go wrong with Billy Joe Shaver as your Saturday night headliner? I once dragged my poor, currently-sick bride out somewhere this side of Llano to see Billy Joe play in a tiny little honky-tonk. This was at a point in her life when she felt like all she needed to know about music could be summed up in some New Back Street Kids in Sync crapola. I like to think that, that was the night she started warming up to the Right Side of Life.

Davin James, of course, is one of them guitar-slinging purty boys that Texas churns out on a regular basis, kinda like world-class bicyclists. You know, one in a million — pass ‘em on the street every day…“Look out that window…” Seriously, I can’t wait to hear Davin play under the pecans, outdoors. Last time I saw him was at a Rockzilla show, I think.

Larry Joe Taylor needs no introduction, seeing as how he’s managed to build up his own festivals that draw more than 15,000 people. At one time, I wanted that festival for my own place, but 15K is a teeny bit more than I can handle, unless I stick ‘em all in the old gravel pit.

Anyway — I am thrilled to death with the work my partners, Terry and Tana Rasor, have done putting together a great musical weekend. If you’re in Texas, I hope you’ve got the cojones to come spend an August weekend camping with us. It’s gonna be hot no matter where you are — might as well spend it drinking cold beer under the trees with a river close by.