The Un-Texan: A Quinn Martin Production

"The birth of a child, your first kiss from a new lover - neither compare to that sweet moment when your hangover finally goes away."

Those sage words are one of only two things I accomplished today in the fog that followed a friend's birthday party at Brown's Social House last night.  The other "accomplishment" adorns the top of this page and makes less sense even if it was more fun to make.  I will try to explain:

Artist's representaton

This morning I browsed Facebook while waiting for the hammering in my head to subside.  It was there I noticed that one of my friends, writer, editor & fugitive American Bob McIntosh (@BobMcVictoria on Twitter), was himself friends with a man named Hud Bannon.  

The name immediately appealed to to the child in me who spent hours parked in front of the television watching re-runs of Quincy, Barnaby Jones, & The Streets of San Francisco on WWOR.  I could just imagine "hot-shot detective" Hud Bannon sliding across the hood of his black '71 Charger (hemi, of course) as he chased down drug kingpin Mookie Davis.  So, in tribute, I created the above image and sent it along to Bob for laughs.

As it turns out Hud Bannon is a writer, author of the blog The Un-Texan, among other things, and though that’s not his real name it damn well should be.  I haven’t yet had the chance to delve into the man’s work but what I have seen so far concerns things near and dear to my heart:  America, truck stops, dusty roads and the strange carnival of people who inhabit all three:

“Looking at Delta Dawn's bare shoulders and back was like gazing across several acres of pale, drought-stricken ground in the harshest light of day; from the front she looked like all of those acres had gathered themselves into a shivering heap that might collapse at any moment. None of that seemed to bother her in the slightest.”

                                    -          Hud Bannon, "The Un-Texan"

Click on over to the man's site using either the link above or by clicking the image at the top of the page.  On a related note, does anyone know the name of the guy who narrated Barnaby Jones & The Streets of San Francisco?  This is the stuff they should teach in school.