WTF Friday: Typical Wackos

Do you remember the olden times, before Election? Fruit grew on every tree, and children’s laughter came from every hall and bough. There was brisket on every slab, a truck in every garage, and every Manuel was king. What a golden time it was—a gone time.

This is how we live now. This is our true-true, for another 4.5 days. Help us. Anybody. Help us?

Please?

1) After the election, we’ll be faced with a difficult task: We must rebuild. Fortunately, a friendly Japanese conglomerate has come up with a plan to connect Dallas and Houston with a high-speed train.

Now, Texas conservatives hate trains. Goddamn, do they hate trains. You wouldn’t believe how much they hate trains. But most of that hatred of trains is premised on the fact that governments usually have to spend money to build and maintain them, unlike highways, which are conjured by a paste made from pixie dust and black tar. But the Japanese rail proposal involves no public funds, so they’ll love it, right?

In steps Thelma Taormina, past-life Viking and current leader of the We The People Are The 9-12 Association, Inc./We Surround Them in Houston (real name). Taormina once gained fame for pulling a gun on a guy who tried to install an electrical “smart meter” at her home. But now she’s heard about the Far-Easterners and their train. She’s mobilizing. She knows what this is about: It’s the UN.

Everyone who has been on our mailing list for a while now knows that the plan for high-speed rail from Houston to Dallas is a part of a much bigger plan entailing Agenda 21, and a total deception to box us all in to the areas that the elite wish us to live.

Yes, the elite are coming to box us in—to… Houston and Dallas. Nothing says “New World Order” like Houston, a city which can’t even figure out how to use zoning laws. When fascism comes to America, it will swathed in Astros gear and carrying a rail pass.

2) Your humble correspondent has tried to record some of the weirder moments of this year’s nauseating electoral carnival ride, but I don’t think I’ve written or read a single thing stranger than Jonathan Tilove’s hallucinatory chronicle of his time at Greg Abbott rallies in Frisco and Abilene. (That might just be sleep deprivation talking, but I doubt it.) Abbott has come to travel the campaign trail and meet that great mass called “the people,” and Tilove, of the Austin American-Statesman, has tagged along. He meets some friendly fellows:

I arrived early for his appearance at Mattito’s Tex-Mex and was standing by myself amid the milling crowd, when a nattily attired man in sport jacket and tie approached me, looked me up and down, and with a look of disgust said something to the effect of “nice outfit.”

[…]

Unsure of where this was going, I mumbled some kind of apologetic, nondescript reply.

“It looks like you slept in it,” he said. And then, after another look at me, “How many nights?”

[…]

“Typical wacko,” my critic said to me, at me. He turned, walked a few steps away and posted himself. When I turned to look at him he trained a contemptuous glare at me.

Here’s the thing. Journalists—actually, I’m just going to single out male journalists here, though our XX-chromosomed companions are by no means universally excluded—are, as a rule, terrible slobs. Even when we look nice, we don’t look great. But Tilove, given his membership of a generally sad-sack cohort, is, I believe, an above-average sartorialist. I would testify to this belief in court.

I walked over to him and asked, “Did I do something to offend you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Breathe.”

My look betrayed my shock, and so he elaborated, just so I would know my shock was not misplaced.

“You are breathing my oxygen.”

Shaken, I walked away. I went into the men’s room and looked in the mirror. I looked pretty much like I always look, my attire no worse than usual.

From such simple encounters do existential crises emerge.

Solidarity to you, Mr. Tilove.

But that’s not even the weirdest thing that happened to Tilove as he tagged along with the Abbott campaign. In Abilene, Tilove meets a woman named Renee Higgins and her two friends. Comes the question: Fellas, what do you think about things?

“I didn’t have a problem with the liberals until this past six years and I’m sick and tired of everybody saying this is racism and this is not politically correct and I want to tell you, in my opinion, until we put God back in our schools, our homes and our government and our country, we are going to be under judgment,” Hayes said.

Sounds good. Renee, what did you ask General Abbott? A query about West Texas’ water infrastructure needs, perhaps? A critique of his higher education plan? An appeal against high-stakes testing?

Higgins also asked Abbott a second question, about reports she heard of the convicted pedophile murderer in a local prison “who wanted an eight-year-old little boy as his last meal.” “I said to him, ‘Is this a for-real deal, surely they wouldn’t do it,’” and he’s like, ‘No way that’s going to happen.’”

And she said it on camera:

We may not know much about the kind of governor Greg Abbott is going to be, but thanks to the diligent citizen journalism of Madam Higgins, we can say this much: He has taken a strong and decisive stand against cannibal pedophiles.

3) Elsewhere in Frisco news, here’s state Rep. Pat Fallon, whose most notable achievement in public life is a law which allows teachers to say “Merry Christmas,” telling a joke about how Wendy Davis is going to hell:

4) Up in Senate District 10, Democrat Libby Willis, in a tough fight with tea party organizer Konnie Burton for Wendy Davis’ soon-to-be-former Senate seat, has a new mailer out. It’s a great one. Here it is:

This, Willis boldy declares, is her vision for Texas’ future. In these hale and hearty fellows, we see the full flowering of the Democratic project here in Texas, in a way few candidates have been able to effectively communicate.

These obviously healthy guys have benefited enormously from improved access to health care across the state—they’re in tip-top shape. Policies that enable Texans to reap the rewards of our economic boom while building a social safety net have given these fine folks more disposable income, which they’ve spent on accessories and decorations, which in turn feeds the economy. The shirtlessness conveys a carefree and easy-going feeling. And yet at the heart of it, they embrace nominally conservative concepts and language so central to the state’s DNA, like “freedom,” and “marriage.”

The result: A happy, friendly, fun-loving state. Very well done, Willis campaign. Let’s flip it over:

Oh. Wait—I don’t understand. Willis didn’t do it? What do Homosexual-Americans have to do with this?