The Texas Rib Meat Massacre

All this Texas talk and no mention of Whata.

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Jonah’s vision quest isn’t ending anytime soon, which means there’s an opening for a continuing stream of guest hosts to captain the lumbering vessel that is the Remnant. Today, Sarah Isgur takes the leading role, and her guest is fellow Texan Kevin Williamson, who joins primarily to discuss everything you could imagine about the Lone Star State. Topics include recent impeachment drama, Ted Cruz’s chronic case of annoying-itis, the strange state of local politics in the state, and the heresy that is sauce on Texas smoked ribs. Stick around until the end to hear what all of this has to do with Ken Paxton’s crusade against the mystical deep state.

Show Notes:

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  1. Clark.Monson

    One other thought: having lived over 10 years in the DFW area, I certainly have a soft spot in my heart for Texas, but I will also never be able to explain why Texans love Texas so much. It has to be, acre for acre, the scenically blandest state that still has mountains. For anyone who doesn't love overpowering heat, the weather is awful. The culture is fine and certainly well-defined and unique, but so is Wisconsin's, or Georgia's, or New Hampshire's, or that of a good many other places. I liked it just fine as a place to live, but one thing I noticed is how many out-of-town friends who moved there didn't stay for more than a few years. It's got a great economy that draws people there. I'd be curious to know what percentage stay for the long haul.

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  2. Clark.Monson

    This is going to be my hobby horse here, but as someone originally from Utah, is it too much to ask that people stop acting as though it's a mostly rural state? Roughly 3/4 of the population lives in either cities or suburbs in the reasonably large agglomeration that is the greater Salt Lake-Ogden-Provo metro area (what locals call the Wasatch Front). If Texas is an urban state--and having spent a significant chunk of my life THERE, I agree, it absolutely is--Utah is at minimum a suburban state. It's not really a rural state (though a lot of the population's politics might as well be rural elsewhere), unless vast expanses of nothing surrounding metro areas in which the vast majority of the population lives qualifies it as a rural state. In which case, so are Texas, New York, and a whole bunch of other urban states.

    Utah's not Wyoming, Idaho, or Montana, which actually are rural states. It's more like Washington State in the sense of one large urban/suburban agglomeration anchoring a sparsely populated rest of it. (No offense to Spokane, of course).

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  3. Echack

    I am surprised that Sarah didn't know Porter. It's a few miles north of Humble and Kingwood. Astronaut Robert Crippen is from Porter.

    On Dallas vs. Houston. I was raised from age 4 in Houston, and moved to Dallas when my girlfriend (now wife) was at Southwestern Medical School. A few observations about Dallas in the late 1970s-1980s:
    - Dallas was essentially trying to be New York City West. While the TV show "Dallas" was centered around oil and you would have believed that Dallas was an oil town, oil was less important than banking, insurance, and fashion, all of which have strong NYC ties. Houston is the oil town in Texas.
    - a reflection of the NYC influence was in how people dressed. A friend was offered a job as a receptionist at a Dallas downtown law firm with an incredibly high salary, higher than I made as a software developer. However, she had to buy all her work clothes in the designer section of Neiman Marcus.
    - women in Dallas would be sure to do their hair, makeup, and dress nicely to go to the grocery store.
    - the politics were incredibly screwed up. All the different racial groups were at war with each other over the spoils of government. Black politicos hated the White and Hispanic politicos, and it was reciprocated.

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    Dave in Houston

    Oh, and KDW is 100% correct on Paxton not being AG in a fictional Trump 2 Administration due to his lazy eye.

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    Dave in Houston

    On the topic of names: remember, “Dan Patrick” was not his original name, it was Dannie Goeb. He changed it for radio.

    Sarah is spot-on about KC burnt ends.

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  6. Joshuamwalker

    I’m a lifelong Texan, grew up in Dallas and made my way to Houston as an adult. The most shocking thing to me about moving to Houston was all this Dallas hate. The local news even has a segment called “Dumping on Dallas” where they make fun of Dallas. The funniest part to me is having grown up in Dallas we never had any animosity or anything to other parts of Texas (not including Austin because they’re basically California at this point), but nobody in Dallas cares or even thinks about Houston. It’s one way hate.

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    1. Clark.Monson

      I met plenty of Dallasites who looked disdainfully on Houston in the 10 or so years I lived in Dallas, but it wasn't hatred, more just a sort of dismissiveness. If people from Dallas have to think about Houston, many of them do so condescendingly, but yeah, you're right that they generally don't think about it.

      I could have lived in Houston if the weather weren't even worse (i.e., hot and humid) than Dallas.

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    2. Joshuamwalker

      PS thanks for having Sarah back, I know maternity leave is important and all but she really does make the podcasts better. Contagious enthusiasm and nerdery.

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    Ben Connelly

    This was fun! I think a lot of us were waiting for this. Good job guest hosting, Sarah, and congratulations. Kevin’s role as guest-co-host worked well.

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  8. Mark

    Ah, very refreshing. Kevin, you have proven your bona fides. Born in Amarillo and you know about the town of Phillips, which no longer exists. When my dad was playing high school football in Perryton, Phillips was in their district. He said those were always the most bruising games. Because it was a company town, the Phillips corporation would survey their employees from across the country and when they identified someone who had a son that was good at football, they moved the family to Phillips. So they were like a tiny little football super town.

    Additional points for having family from Palo Pinto county. We might be related.

    Obligatory tip of that cap to Houston. It's an interesting town, better than its reputation, but my knowledge only runs so deep. R.I.P. Danton's blues brunch.

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    1. Clark.Monson

      Perryton! There's a blast from the past for me. One of my last assignments at my first job out of college was counting pigs at an industrial farm in Perryton. I suppose there's a reason the Biblical prodigal son "came to himself" while feeding pigs. Nothing makes you question your life choices like spending a lot of time around pigs, haha.

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      1. Mark

        You couldn't be more right. I went to work on those very same pig farms in high school when I thought I was getting a raw deal from my old man on our cattle ranch. I quickly learned that cow s*** is infinitely preferable to pig s***.

        And thus, I returneth to the family cattle ranch as a dog to his vomit... or something like that. The prodigal son reference is spot on. Haha!

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  9. Fidlerrich

    "Ken Paxton’s crusade against the mystical deep state." Nice. About as close to 'mythical' as you can get without actually saying it.

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    Chevesl

    I’m a transplant from the Carolinas and have lived in San Antonio and now Dallas. I love Texas and am grateful for the opportunities it provides. This was a fun conversation. But Sarah is dead wrong about one thing: Dallas is not some provincial “old money” town at all. I’ve lived and worked in Uptown/Downtown Dallas in BigLaw, small law, and the public sector for 13 years and I have literally never heard a single person say that.

    You can say a lot about Big D—it’s superficial, kinda dull, obsessive about money—but people flock here because it doesn’t matter who your daddy is or what country club you grew up a member of. Do those people exist? Every city has them. But Dallas is the land of opportunity for transplants willing to work hard.

    Need an example? Jerry effing Jones. He’s an Arkansas wildcatter who made his pile mostly in Oklahoma but became Dallas royalty when he bought the Cowboys and won 3 Super Bowls. People dog on him for 2 decades of football mediocrity, his vanity, and his trail of steakhouse bathroom trysts with waitresses—but no one looks askew at him for not being “old Dallas money.”

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