PopMatters.com has an excellent 20 question with Ft. Worth native and alt.country gadfly James McMurtry – who Stephen King has called “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation†(Entertainment Weekly) – From the feature:
You want to be remembered for…?
Oh, perhaps…not screwing up my son any worse than I was screwed up. Of course, we don’t get remembered for what doesn’t happen on our watch.
During the waning years of the Carter presidency, Israel invaded Lebanon. The often portrayed as spineless Jimmy Carter told the Israelis to go home if they still wanted spare parts for their jets. The Israelis pulled back and waited for Reagan, who let them roll into Beirut and create one unholy mess. Reagan sent in the US Marines as a “symbolic presenceâ€. Over 300 of those Marines died when a truck bomb blew up their barracks and a few more died from sniper fire.
When Walter Mondale suggested that perhaps the intervention had been a bad idea, since the troops had been sent in more or less for the hell of it with no clear military objective, he was accused by the Reaganites of saying the troops had “died in vainâ€. Anybody remember what didn’t happen under Carter?
In case tyou were wondering what to do with those tax returns, McMurtry’s latest release, Just Us Kids, drops April 15.
That “Dirty ol One Man Band from Texas: Scott H. Biram will be wheeling his First Church Of The Ultimate Fanaticism selling his brand of sanctified chicken-fried country blues music this spring and will be over in the 