At 4 pm every Sunday, a hundred or so people cram themselves into a tiny Texas roadhouse and anxiously wait for Sissy to shit. Welcome to The Honkiest Tonkiest Beer Joint in Town: Ginny’s Little Longhorn, home to Austin’s infamous Chicken Shit Bingo starring Sissy the chicken.

The concept is simple. Drop a numbered, plywood grid on the pool table. Seed the playing field and cover with a chicken coup. Strike up the band, get yourself a free chili dog and a few $2 Lone Stars, buy a ticket and pray that Sissy takes one on your number. Few things are stranger than rubbing humid, boozy elbows with German tourists who are madly ranting at a constipated chicken. “Acht, Huhn! ACHT!!!” But games of chance are universal and so is beer and chicken shit on a Summer Sunday in the Lone Star State. This must be why God blesses Texas.

From somewhere out there,
Gabe

Since I’ve been in Texas, a lot of people back home have asked me, “What’s it like scouting for t-shirts from a trailer park in Texas?” Well, that’s easy. Just follow these simple steps and you too can experience it for yourself.

Before you go to bed in your closet, turn the heat up to 110 and ask the cast of Rosanne to stand outside and yell obscenities at an imaginary dog every hour on the hour until dawn. After no sleep, get up at 5am and open your front door. Stick a hairdryer in your face, and engage the trigger. Wave at your neighbors who’ve been smoking on your porch since 4:30am, and then drink yourself a nice tall glass of warm hose water. Put a pair of shorts and a t-shirt in the dryer for a good hour, and then set the oven to broil. Don’t bother getting in the shower—that’s just a small box where the humidity feels like being literal. Go back inside your closet and brush your teeth with some more hose water. When your clothes are done, quickly put them on, slam two beers, stick your head in the oven, and try and get the casserole dish to sign a contract on the spot because you’re leaving town soon.

And the best response to a pitch made by a sweating salesman: “Is this your idea?”

Now accepting applications for T-Shirt Scout: Louisiana Bureau.

Sweltering somewhere out there,
Gabe

It’s been documented that Eskimos have an unusually large number of words for snow. Which makes sense given the fact that it makes up 98% of what the Eskimo sees on a daily basis. Following suit, I have come up with 250 words for “nothingness”. Most of these terms involve guttural sounds and tears, especially when describing the planet of West Texas. Read on…