I wrote five pieces for Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown website about West Texas in promotion of Sunday's episode. There are book and movie recommendations, tips before you make the trip here and a phrasebook. My favorite piece is about Molly Ferguson, who found love along the border.
Click on the images to read each piece.
This post is part of #the100dayproject that encourages creatives to do an action every day for 100 days. I've chosen to write an article or blog post every day. Previous posts for this project can be found here.
ALPINE – It’s been 50 years since Robert “Bake” Turner was part of the New York Jets football team that won against the Baltimore Colts at Super Bowl III in 1969. The team is celebrating the golden anniversary during the Sunday’s game versus the Colts. While Turner is unable to attend the reunion in New York, being a part of that winning team on January 12, 1969, was fabulous.
“When you’re in a sport like that, a pro sport, it all is fabulous,” said Turner. “Everybody loves you. Everything’s free. It’s just a lot of fun, so it was great for us.”
Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Namath led the Jets as quarterback for the Super Bowl and was named the game’s MVP.
The winning team received a key to New York, and Turner turned to commercials and music. He performed on late-night talk shows such as The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and the Ed Sullivan Show. He did commercials for hair cream and after-shave lotion that brought him back to the Big Bend. He was also the DQ Dude for a year, saying the slogan “Nobody makes them like Diary Queen.”
He said he made more money doing those commercials than when he was playing professional football. He took his friends hunting for quail in his new Cadillac Convertible.
“I came home and thought I was the big stuff in 1969,” said Turner.
He said he heard there was some jealously here and there, but he guess that’s a part of being part of a winning football team. Turner’s football career started in Alpine though.
“If you live in Alpine, you start playing football when you can walk, and I did,” said Turner.
After he graduated from Alpine High School as a quarterback and running back, he went on to play as a wide receiver at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, which was then known as Texas Technological College. He was first drafted to the Colts in 1961 before he traded to the Jets in 1963.
“No matter where I went, people asked me where I was from. Alpine, Texas. I made sure I told them that,” said Turner.
But as time went on, things started to taper off. The team wasn’t winning as much. The players started to get a little older and a little beat up. After he played a year with the Boston Patriots, Turner retired from football and returned to Texas. He lived in Dallas with his family, but after a divorce and his son went to college, he revisited Alpine and decided to move back.
“It was so easy going and friendly and fun and the price of property was reasonably cheap, so I bought some lots and came back,” said Turner.
It’s been 15 years since his return.
Now people can catch Turner playing his 1965 Gibson guitar he bought from a friend in 1975. He’s performed almost every year at
Viva Big Bend music festival and plays community events.
Music has been part of Turner’s life since the days of the singing cowboy and King of the Cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, respectively, but has been playing since Turner’s dad gave him a guitar when he was 12 years old.
Music and football were always directly related to Turner, but his greatest fun is playing music for people.
MARFA – The Inside Out Project made a spontaneous stop last Thursday afternoon in Marfa. A truck that replicates a camera was parked for two hours for people to take a free larger-than-life portrait outside Ballroom Marfa.
The global participatory art project, created by French photographer and artist JR, travels across the world taking large format portraits of the community members. The photos are then wheatpasted in a public place. The photos taken in Marfa were pasted on the walls outside Ballroom Marfa along US Highway 67/90.
According to the Inside Out’s website, over 260,000 people have participated in 129 countries. The van is currently traveling across the country to encourage and register young people to vote. The truck traveled from Austin and stopped in Marfa on its way to El Paso.
A group from the non-profit Public Art Fund happened to be at Ballroom when the truck arrived and were among the first in line that sunny afternoon.
Three Stripes employees rushed over after their shift to participate as well as Marfa Public Radio staff.
This isn’t the first time the project came through West Texas. Former Marfa resident Amber Hockeborne first brought the project to Presidio in 2013 that included portraits of high school students along the Presidio/Ojinaga border. Hockeborne took the 200 portraits herself which were then printed in JR’s studio in New York City. The photos were then displayed along the fence between the two port of entries for Presidio Arts Festival in 2015.
JR co-starred and co-directed the 2017 Academy Award nominated documentary “Faces Places” with film director Agnès Varda, which was shown by the in front of us fi lm series. He was not part of the caravan in Marfa.
The photos will hang outside Ballroom Marfa until November or until Ballroom or Mother Nature takes them down, whichever comes first.
For more information on The Inside Out Project, visit insideoutproject.net
Every year, Viva Big Bend brings over 50 bands to the Tri-County area: Marfa, Fort Davis, Marathon and Alpine. It’s always a good time. I was invited to take photos this year so I spent the weekend running around capturing as much the Texas music as I could and all the dancing.
Thank you, Stewart Ramser and Viva Big Bend for having me.
My friend James Kim asked to publish some of my photos for our friend Ka Yoland’s story on The Frame about Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love in 2015.
It was an honor.
You can listen to Ka’s story and see more of my photos at The Frame.