Program Notes

A highlight of my first year in California has been talking about Texas to non-Texans like it’s a distant, far-removed culture with which I have an intimate understanding. I offer the stories of the great heroes of my people like Jim Adler the Texas Hammer, Mattress Mack, and Buc-Ee the Beaver. I quip about how I come from a dirty alligator-infested swamp called the Gulf Coast and its mosquitos prove that everything really is bigger in Texas. I like to play up this idea that I’m the second coming of The Beverly Hillbillies, because the best inside jokes are the ones you have with yourself.

I romanticized Los Angeles for years as a place I could trade the I-45 views of pro-life billboards, 30-ft tall American flags, and boundless car dealerships for the I-10 views of the San Bernardinos and the San Gabriels. Many will disagree, but I really don’t find Los Angeles to be all that different from Houston now that I’m here. They’re both too sprawling for their own good and make it nearly impossible to navigate without a car. While LA objectively has the better weather, they both have random days of heat that are so intense it is dangerous to be outside. Lastly, there are hateful people in both places.

This piece captures a specific, complicated feeling I can’t begin to unpack, mainly because I’m still not sure what it is. I do understand one part of it—being an outsider is an uphill battle, but what the insiders don’t want you to know is that nothing is stopping you from creating your own inside.

The text is an abridged version of the folk song “San Antonio Rose”, which I had never heard before writing this piece. I heard Patsy Cline has the classic recording if you want to compare our interpretations.

For Texans—there is a musical quote in this piece I want you to find. It repeats a few times. Hopefully it will make you smile and bring back what are either fond or traumatizing memories of Go Texan Day.