The Great American Reach Around - Texas and Mexico

Dallas, Texas

America's number one export of shitty TV reruns has secured the place of Dallas for years to come in the minds of viewers around the world. It is a place of big oil men and big ladies with big shoulder pads and big plans to make big money.

A fitting reputation for a big city in a big state, but not entirely accurate. In the years since J.R. Ewing guzzled his last Bourbon and Branch Houston has become the oil capital of Texas, while Dallas has transformed into a mecca for America's high-tech industry.

A friend of mine once described Dallas derisively as "America's biggest suburb," built fast and cheap with very little thought to history or efficiency. I can't say whether or not that's an accurate description, but it may have been that same quality that prompted filmmaker Paul Verhoeven to cast Dallas as the shiny corporate utopia of his underrated classic Robocop. Its featureless and sterile urbanism were well-suited to convey the downsides of future America.

Outside of the eponymous TV show, Dallas is probably best known to Americans and the world as the place that killed John F. Kennedy. Far be it for me to blame the city for the President's death, but Texas was decidedly anti-Kennedy. They hated the New England liberal and his then-controversial non-black-hating ways, although they did love native son and Kennedy VP Lyndon Johnson. In the end, maybe Dallas killed JFK to open the door for the Texan to creep into the White House like a twangy wizard.

As for Texas, America has a love/hate relationship with the state. It represents a lot of what we consider fun and adventurous about our country. The cowboys and the ranches, horseback riding in the desert with just a shotgun and some spurs between you and a rattlesnake or a drug-crazed Mestizo. It's a romantic vision of America that exists now as a series of tax-break ranches owned by celebrities and a bunch of creepy racists in tacops gear driving back and forth around the Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants to run down in their SUV.

Those of us with not to much fondness for our current President can't help but feel that we owe the fictional character he has created of a homespun good old boy in love with clearing brush to Texas. I'm not too certain what Texans think of Bush these days, but every time he swallows his New England accent long enough to stammer out some anecdote about Buddy chasing tumbleweeds around his ranch it reminds most of America of why we hope Texas burns to the ground.