What the Natives Do

For those of you wondering what a winter weekend in Dallas might be like, here's a photo of it:



Yes, it is approximately 30 degrees outside, and there was ice on my windshield this morning. One of the dangers of ice in Dallas is that because it is so rare, no one carries an "ice scraper" in the car. Being the enterprising soul I am, I used the lid of a large plastic mug to clear my windshield of its icy veil.

For those of you wondering what people in Dallas do for fun, here's one option:

Last night, I had the good fortune to be invited to a Robert Earl Keen concert at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. My friend won tickets to the concert by calling a radio station at an ungodly hour of the morning; she kindly shared one of those tickets with me. Two good omens began our evening: (1) it was supposed to rain ice (also known as sleet), but didn't; and (2) we saw the sign for this fine establishment upon reaching Fort Worth:



You just don't see many businesses owned and named by a "Lisa," what with my name having completely lost its popularity right around the time I received it. We struck gold again by finding excellent parking near Billy Bob's, complete with a parking attendant dressed like someone attending a Bears game at Soldier Field in Chicago in the dead of winter.

Inside the honky tonk and dance hall, there was quite a scene to be seen. What you see here is dancers under a sparkly saddle that substitutes for the traditional disco ball:



The number of dancers increased exponentially when the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" was played:



Although this picture, of drunk girls posing on a fake steed, is very blurry, I still like it a lot:



My camera phone doesn't hold a candle to my Nikon, but it does its best in the face of limited lighting and the rush to take a photo before the professional photographer can get mad at an amateur one.

Going to Billy Bob's last night reminded me of the significant role women played in the Old West. Put simply, the women ruled Billy Bob's! Two particularly funny women reigned supreme on the dance floor, trying out kicky moves and tailoring their pantomimes to the song lyrics. There apparently wasn't a self-conscious thought in their heads at the fact that they were the only same-sex pair on the floor--they were just having fun! So were the numerous seriously drunk women who populated the ladies' rooms at Billy Bob's. A particularly brave woman permitted her oh-so-confident male dance partner to spin her around the floor (literally) by her wrist and ankle when he wasn't propelling her around in upright circles at a speed and with an arm angle that reminded one of an airplane preparing for takeoff.

The Keen concert almost seemed like an afterthought in light of the great people-watching we had already experienced. But we partook and the music was great! He played several of my old favorites, including "The Road Goes On Forever" and "Gringo Honeymoon."

A nice finishing touch to the night was our encounter with a few band guys in our parking lot. No, not that kind of encounter! We noticed the oddity of these appropriately ragged and cool-looking band guys having a "W" sticker in the back window of the big white truck into which they were loading equipment. In a move that shows the spirit of adventurousness that is one of my friend's most excellent qualities, she encouraged me in my desire to quiz the guys about the cause of this cognitively dissonant choice. The less ragged of the two boys, asked, "Why does a cool band guy like you admire George Bush?," said, "W Rocks!!!" Given his deeply thoughtful answer, we concluded that W makes him feel like one of his own is in charge of things. The other guy, who had long, curly black hair reminiscent of a youthful Howard Stern, said he works in an oil warehouse and that the warehouse is empty when a Democrat is in the White House. We probably should have asked him if he was old enough to legally work in an oil warehouse the last time a Democrat was in the White House, but instead accepted his self-serving, but at least rational, answer as being superior to that of his dimwit buddy. And thus ended our Friday night outing in the West.