Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Saturday & Sundry Memories: Mysteries in S.W. USA.

Mention of UFO sightings in a bunch of predictions by a "time traveller", featured in my post dated 2 January 2019 set my mind back almost five years, to a post I wrote in February 2014. I enjoyed re-reading that post myself (inner narcissist coming out) so shall re-air it, lightly edited, for the weekend.



Back in 2014, we had recently watched an "indie" movie on DVD: The Wicksboro Incident. It's one of the genre often labelled "found footage", in documentary style though purely fictional. The film's theme: Wicksboro, a fictional small town in far south-western Texas, disappeared with its inhabitants sometime in the early 1950s. One survivor emerges from hiding decades later to tell his story to two amateur film-makers. His story involves ... aliens. 'Nuf said. A passing reader who stumbles across this blog at some future point might wish to see the movie, I will not spoil it by expanding further on the plot. The film, around 70 minutes long, starts slowly but builds. There's lots of shaky camera work, dark, almost blank screens with voices only, to reassure us that the DVD hasn't stuck in its groove (or whatever).

That film underlined, for me, how an area of south-western United States, New Mexico, part of southern Colorado, and south-western Texas seem to have developed mysterious connections to strange happenings, modern legends, the weird and the would-be wonderful. On our trips, over the years around these areas, we've visited a few locations of mysterious reputation. Roswell, New Mexico always comes to mind first.

We first visited Roswell, New Mexico in 2006, the UFO Museum and Research Center was then situated in the main street, in what appeared to be an old movie theater. A new center for the museum was under construction further down the road.

We read many of the numerous exhibits: newspaper articles, sworn affidavits and other printed material displayed around the walls. The main part of the museum deals, unsurprisingly, with the reported UFO crash near Roswell in 1947. There are, among many other things, reports and signed statements from witnesses who saw evidence of the crash and collected wreckage. Evidence of a request for "child size coffins". In several of the statements, witnesses reported seeing purple colored symbols, hieroglyphic-like, on a strip among the wreckage. There's a statement by a woman medical officer, detailed to take notes at an autopsy of bodies following the crash. She was later sent to England, and subsequently is said to have disappeared - or has not been heard from again.


Who can say how genuine any of the material is, after 60 years have passed? And yet, why would ordinary, everyday people have fabricated such a story, back in 1947 on a summer evening just before midnight, without reason? In those days there were few, if any TV programmes about extra-terrestrial phenomena to ignite the imagination. There were few sci-fi movies. What else but "a happening" could have sparked reports of such a bizarre occurrence as this? We discussed our feelings about the whole Roswell story later, after our museum visit, came to the conclusion that "something" did happen on that night in 1947. The "something" was covered up by lies from those in authority at the time. Lies from government downward are not unknown, even in current history, which fact inclined us to believe at least some of the stories told by witnesses.


On a 2005 trip to see Anasazi cave dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado we happened across a UFO Watchtower in the San Luis Valley, near Hooper. The site was run by a friendly lady who told us tales of strange sightings she and others had experienced. She also told us that some Native American tribes believe that their ancestors came from "the stars".





On a later trip, 2011, celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary, in the far north of New Mexico, we intended to see what we could find relating to some strange legends surrounding a tiny town called Dulce, on the border of Colorado and New Mexico, close to the Continental Divide, where altitude reaches 7 to 8 thousand ft at various points. Google search "Dulce, New Mexico" for numerous tales of varying incredibility about Dulce and what lies beneath Archuleta Mesa! We, unfortunately, decided to turn around and head home just before we reached Dulce, due to unexpected wintry weather, altitude (7,871ft), and a few uncomfortable health issues.

One particular little village on Highway 64, Dulce, was going to fascinate yours truly because of stories of UFOs, aliens and a massive 7-layered underground government facility said to be nearby - under a huge mesa. There are also stories/legends of a UFO crash near Aztec village in this area. Again, there's a ton of information, comment from locals and researchers online. Some, if even half-true would be hair-raising. It involves bio-tech experiments (which I can believe), mutilated cattle found regularly around the area (documented), alien cooperation following a firefight between government troops and aliens or "grays" (which I can't believe).

I'd guess that there really is, or was, some kind of underground facility in this area dating from 1950s through 1970s. The fear of nuclear war was fierce then.
The US government, paranoia-filled as usual, could easily have decided to experiment, attempting to plan for all eventualities: mutations, radiation effects, etc. etc. Where better than this wilderness area with plentiful natural underground caverns, easily extended and modified, for use without much chance of discovery? That part of the stories isn't hard to believe, given the atmosphere of those times.

We didn't reach Dulce though. We stayed overnight in Chama, a village 25 miles to the east. The temperature was frigid up there in the mountains, some of what we'd assumed was remnants of the winter's snow remained in the fields and forests over the highest parts of the route.

Neither of us slept a wink that night though. The altitude was probably getting to us both. My husband, restless, decided to get up and play on the laptop. I experienced a severe attack of allergic sneezing which brought on a sharp sinus headache and it simply wouldn't let up. In addition I had developed a troublesome sore on my ankle. We both wondered aloud whether to carry on west or head back to Oklahoma next morning. When we looked outside at about 7 AM we decided at once! Snow had coated the car, and it was still snowing. Probably not at all a surprising find to the locals but a bit disconcerting to southerners like us, spoiled by an unusually warm spring. I hadn't packed any warm clothes. We had to layer up with what we had. It was Sunday, no shops were open to buy warmer clothing - there were no shops around anyway! I'd also managed, somehow, to get myself multi-bitten by an insect (goodness knows what insect would be around in those temps!) I still have 3 itchy bites on my left earlobe, several down the left side of my neck and a cluster of bites on my chest. And they ain't love bites!! We headed home on Sunday morning.

A trip to the Big Bend area of southern Texas in 2012 threw up yet another oddity. In the village of Marfa stories of "the Marfa lights" or "ghost lights" are common. Stange lights, with no logical explanation, have frequently been observed near U.S. Route 67 on Mitchell Flat east of the village. These have gained fame due to some observers having theorised a connection to paranormal phenomena....UFOs, ghostly apparitions etc.
A half-hour drive west of Alpine found us in Marfa, a tiny town made famous by some mysterious lights which appear, intermittently, in the vicinity - Wikipedia explains.


Interestingly the fictional Wicksboro Incident, mentioned at the top of this post, took place in the same general area as Marfa - possibly chosen by its creators because of "the lights"?

I shall remain among the "don't knows" on the topics of UFOs, ghosts, and strange goings-on in general - until I actually experience something to fully convince me otherwise. The experience mentioned below was getting there, it did bring goose bumps. It was an incident unrelated to UFOs and aliens, but still strange. In Santa Fe, New Mexico some years ago, celebrating either my birthday or my husband's.
We had wandered into a hotel lobby thinking it to be the entrance to an arcade of stores. We noticed a bar, still early evening quiet, decided to have a birthday drink there. I considered taking the seat near the wall at the end of the old copper lined bar, but decided it looked rather dark.
I pulled out the next stool along, then felt guilty for leaving a single stool empty, in case a couple might want seats later on - but still, it somehow didn't feel right to move to the end stool. Later in the evening, when some live entertainment was about to begin, it was announced that a beloved regular in this bar, a lady well known in Santa Fe (local singer or musician) had died of cancer a couple of days ago. The seat at the end of the bar had been her usual place to sit. The barman brought her usual drink and placed it there, in her memory. The hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle !

Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Beto O'Rourke - Texas let him down in 2018. How about 2020?

Results of Tuesday's midterm elections in the USA turned out less dramatic than hoped for. A "blue wave" didn't exactly inundate Republican politicians throughout the land, but some of 'em did get their feet wet. Democrats took back the House of Representatives, but the Republican majority in the Senate remains, and has even increased some. Two years of virtual gridlock are in our political future, better than two years of the Trump administration being able to easily push through more potentially disastrous policies.

My biggest disappointment on Tuesday evening was learning that, in Texas, Beto O'Rourke (mentioned in this post) didn't beat Ted Cruz to take his Senate seat. O'Rourke is a young, charismatic and dynamic Democrat with some of the same characteristics as my own hero, Bernie Sanders. I'd love to see him as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election. I've looked at his natal chart with that in mind. Astrotheme has his birth data, but no time of birth is known - a 12 noon chart will have to suffice.

Beto O'Rourke, born in El Paso, Texas on 26 September 1972.






Chart below is for 3 November 2020, date of the election, set for noon.




I'm not going to interpret his natal chart in relation to his personality - though with all those planets in Libra he is bound to exude charm and charisma! What I'm looking for is any correlation between his natal planets & points, and the planetary line-up on election day 2020.

Look first to Capricorn!

His North node of the Moon is conjunct Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn! I wrote a post in 2011 titled "The Rhythm of Life is a powerful Beat" - a snip from that:
"I've found, looking back on my life history, that there has been a distinct rhythm. Important turning points have taken place in time with the cycle of the lunar nodes. The Moon's nodes, points where the orbit of the Moon crosses the ecliptic, take around 19 years to complete a full cycle. Significant events have coincided with the Taurus/Scorpio nodal axis returning to its position at my birth, or to its inverse position, and/or with a transiting planet conjoining one of the nodes. Perhaps, in my case, this rhythm is intensified because of my Cancer ascendant, ruled by the Moon; or because Uranus (natal Sun's ruler) is conjunct natal South lunar node. Both my marriages, important career changes, a major operation, and significant love-related first meetings have these connections."

I'm interested to see whether the same kind of rhythmic pattern will apply in Mr O'Rourke's case. I shall look out for any reporting on Beto O'Rourke in coming months and years!

Monday, September 17, 2018

Music Monday ~ Willie & Beto

Texas senatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke (Democrat) joined Willie Nelson onstage to play and sing "Will the Circle be Unbroken" among other numbers at Nelson's annual July 4 Picnic in 2018.


"In two weeks’ time, Willie is scheduled to be one of the headliners for an O’Rourke rally in Austin -- the first time in the singer’s long career, according to Rolling Stone magazine, that he’s done a public performance for a political candidate."
See HERE

Willie's Republican fans are not impressed
Fox News headline:

"Willie Nelson fans furious over announcement that he'll headline a rally for a Dem candidate."

I like many of Willie's songs but I'm not an avid fan, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings were more my cup o' tea - and I'm probably as left as they come, politically, in this 'ere Bible Belt of the USA. When my country music fandom was honed, back in England, I had no knowledge of American politics, didn't care a jot about that, I loved what I heard, that was the end of it - still is, where music is concerned.

As it's Music Monday, here's one of Willie's lesser known renditions - a Bob Dylan song. The lyrics are kind of apt for current circumstances.

Gotta Serve Somebody




Full lyrics HERE

Snip:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody............

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Texas Tidbits

Last week we travelled into deepest Texas to visit husband's younger daughter who now lives in Killeen, it's a city just a little northwest of Austin. Here are a few choice Texas sightings from husband's camera. (Clicking on the photographs should bring up larger or clearer versions.)

You know you're in Texas when the hotel chain has had thousands of yards of carpet woven, just to make sure you know it!



On turning a corner one day, I wasn't too sure we were indeed in Texas! Maybe a fellow British ex-pat lives in that house.




I'm always happy to see junk transformed to art!



I suspect this little collage was unintentionally arty - or maybe not:



Boar-ing:


A car junk Christmas tree - nice!



It was a surprise to see this guy in the hotel bar one evening. He was in semi-civvies, but instantly recognisable: the Killeen Mall Santa of some 18 years' experience.



The old Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells has deteriorated further since we first passed by some years ago. It was once, long ago, a popular vacation destination for "the beautiful people" - its story is available in several places on the internet, including at Wikipedia, HERE.

The city of Mineral Wells, as a whole, now seems depressed and down-trodden, reflecting the dismal state of its once-prized hotel .




In a very, very junky junk/antique store in town we saw a few remnants of the Baker Hotel's brighter days.




LOL! Almost home, but still in Texas:




The Remains of the Day (apologies to Kazuo Ishiguro for use of his book title).




Tuesday, November 07, 2017

Senator Murphy's Important Words

A Senator saying all the right things, following Sunday's mass murder in Sutherland Springs, Texas :
Sen. Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut.)

"The paralysis you feel right now – the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen – isn’t real. It's a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby, designed to assure that no laws are passed to make America safer, because those laws would cut into their profits. My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach, once again, when I heard of today's shooting in Texas. My heart dropped further when I thought about the growing macabre club of families in Las Vegas and Orlando and Charleston and Newtown, who have to relive their own day of horror every time another mass killing occurs.

"None of this is inevitable. I know this because no other country endures this pace of mass carnage like America. It is uniquely and tragically American. As long as our nation chooses to flood the county with dangerous weapons and consciously let those weapons fall into the hands of dangerous people, these killings will not abate.

"As my colleagues go to sleep tonight, they need to think about whether the political support of the gun industry is worth the blood that flows endlessly onto the floors of American churches, elementary schools, movie theaters, and city streets. Ask yourself – how can you claim that you respect human life while choosing fealty to weapons-makers over support for measures favored by the vast majority of your constituents.

"My heart breaks for Sutherland Springs. Just like it still does for Las Vegas. And Orlando. And Charleston. And Aurora. And Blacksburg. And Newtown. Just like it does every night for Chicago. And New Orleans. And Baltimore. And Bridgeport. The terrifying fact is that no one is safe so long as Congress chooses to do absolutely nothing in the face of this epidemic. The time is now for Congress to shed its cowardly cover and do something."

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Saturday and Sundries

We're currently re-watching the 1970s TV mini-series Centennial, via a DVD set. I never tire of this story - often think that it was my love of Centennial, and another mini-series and novel, Lonesome Dove, which set my mind on the right track for my move across the Atlantic, and at a late stage of life. I still wake up surprised some mornings, to find myself smack-dab on the Chisholm Trail! That cattle trail is not the exact one featured in a chapter of Centennial - but it's comparable.

On this viewing of the TV adaptation of James A. Michener's epic novel - we're two-thirds through the series, as I type this - what I've noticed most is how, though passage of time has brought massive changes in lifestyle, especially in the 21st century, in deeper aspects nothing much has changed. The pattern of killing, retribution killing, then killing again, remains. Much of today's killing is done far away from the USA in the Middle East; retribution occasionally occurs here at home as well as directly, abroad. It's as though this nation, born in blood, is fated to live on in blood. There were some good men then (fictional in this case, but actual also), there are good men now, but never enough - then or now.

My 2008 archived post on Centennial is HERE.






Husband's new blog/website Cabinet Card Photographers has taken him many long hours of research work, which he has enjoyed and pronounced addictive.







Fall foliage Prediction Map -

It's interactive - could come in useful for leaf-peepers.




MASSES
by Carl Sandburg

Among the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was amazed;

On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I stood silent;

Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts.

Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers, mothers lifting their children—these all I touched, and felt the solemn thrill of them.

And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor, patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars; innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble ruins of nations.




If an infinite number of rednecks
fired an infinite number of shotguns
at an infinite number of road signs,
they'd eventually recreate
the complete works of Shakespeare
in Braille.
Ann and the Bullet Holes
 I discovered the truth of it when on vacation, meeting  Himself, in 2003.





Wot - no astrology?
This Twitter offering, from #Rejected Horoscopes, might be good for a titter:

Monday, November 21, 2016

Back to it...Trump-related talking-headitis


Yes, that's me. We spent couple of days in Paris, Texas, just for a change of scene.

I saw more political commentary on TV during the last few days than I'd seen during the past 6 months, partly due to the hotel's numerous TVs forever broadcasting Fox or CNN throughout the hotel: in the breakfast room, on the walls outside the elevators on each floor. I must've been feeling masochistic because I actually watched a bit of MSNBC one evening, on the TV in our room, when waiting for something else to begin. Missing Netflix is an unfortunate side effect of taking a trip away from home!

Those darn talking heads are so irritating! Back home on Saturday, after Netflixing we caught the later part of SNL. I was happy to see some of their skit writers must have been feeling the same - suffering from talking-headitis. Watch the skit HERE.


A level-headed article by Luigi Zingalesnov in the New York Times on 18 November:
The Right Way to Resist Trump is one of the few reasonably sane pieces on our political situation I've seen so far. A snip from the early paragraphs:

Five years ago, I warned about the risk of a Donald J. Trump presidency. Most people laughed. They thought it inconceivable.

I was not particularly prescient; I come from Italy, and I had already seen this movie, starring Silvio Berlusconi, who led the Italian government as prime minister for a total of nine years between 1994 and 2011. I knew how it could unfold.

Now that Mr. Trump has been elected president, the Berlusconi parallel could offer an important lesson in how to avoid transforming a razor-thin victory into a two-decade affair. If you think presidential term limits and Mr. Trump’s age could save the country from that fate, think again. His tenure could easily turn into a Trump dynasty.

Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.

We saw this dynamic during the presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton was so focused on explaining how bad Mr. Trump was that she too often didn’t promote her own ideas, to make the positive case for voting for her. The news media was so intent on ridiculing Mr. Trump’s behavior that it ended up providing him with free advertising.

Unfortunately, the dynamic has not ended with the election. Shortly after Mr. Trump gave his acceptance speech, protests sprang up all over America. What are these people protesting against? Whether we like it or not, Mr. Trump won legitimately. Denying that only feeds the perception that there are “legitimate” candidates and “illegitimate” ones, and a small elite decides which is which. If that’s true, elections are just a beauty contest among candidates blessed by the Guardian Council of clerics, just like in Iran..............

It's Music Monday - almost forgot! Something else we watched on TV in the hotel, on PBS - Friday, was Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs. I like Alan Cumming - I would wouldn't I, his birthday is the same day as mine, but his was many years later, of course. He's not a great vocalist by any means, but does know well, using his impressive acting abilities, how to present a song - that is very, very important. Here are YouTube clips of a couple of the numbers Alan sang in the show:

The Ladies Who Lunch



And in calmer mode - before he took his jacket off: Somewhere Only We Know


Monday, August 08, 2016

Jiggity Jig....

Home again, home again....

Our trip to find higher, cooler ground seeking relief from Oklahoma's sizzling heat was, "like the curate's egg - good in parts". After a night in Amarillo in the Texas panhandle we headed for our chosen higher ground in New Mexico, that state's Las Vegas - nothing like its counterpart in Nevada, from what I've read of it. This Las Vegas, a medium sized town, is not far from Santa Fe, which though lovely, would be choked with tourists at this time of year, so we gave it a miss.

We took a couple of scenic circular drives around the Santa Fe National Forest area, upon which Las Vegas borders. Temperatures were mostly mid to high 70s to mid 80s during the day, felt just right to yours truly! Las Vegas' elevation is 6,424 ft, it felt fine for us. We probably drove through much higher altitudes, with no ill effects.

We had intended to return via a different route, visiting some towns in the northern Texas panhandle: Borger, Pampa, Dalhart and Dumas, with overnights in Borger, and in one or t'other of the latter two. Here we hit mild snags. It appears that, in this part of Texas, authorities are dipping into a rather big budget-pot to carry out extensive road repairs and road re-bulding. In both Dalhart and Dumas traffic was absolutely chaotic, due to ongoing road repair through main thoroughfares. Dalhart was especially bad with, in addition to road repair and re-building, some very deep holes being excavated to hold pipework.

So, on we drove further south, to Childress, Texas. Dang me though - the first two hotels we enquired for a room were both full! I asked if some festival or fair was going on in town, but was told, no - many hotel rooms had been taken over by squads of construction workers. These were not yer old fashioned car outside-the door motels, by the way, they were the Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn type! Ah well...it's good to know the workers are being well looked after, for working in this triple-digit heat can be no easy task!

So...on we had to go, yet again, this time to try our luck in Vernon, Texas, a little further south and, actually not that far from home. It was getting late, though, husband was nearing, or had passed, his driving limit for the day. We found a very nice room in Vernon, decided to stay for 2 nights giving us time to explore the area, including Seymour, Texas, with its history of discovery of dinosaur bones in the area. We didn't actually see anything of reptilian interest, the museum was closed when we came upon it. We shall return when the weather cools down.

Checking in at the Vernon hotel, the couple ahead of us, guy and gal, very tanned, in sleeveless tops, bandanas atop heads, had obviously been travelling by motor cycle. They told us, when we met in the elevator later, that they had driven from Louisiana that day and were headed for Montana. Yikes! And in this heat! Temperatures in the afternoons in this part of Texas were ranging from 104 to 107 according to our car's gauge and roadside signs.

We noticed, in small towns we passed through, that many stores hadn't bothered to open, including any antique stores we came across. I guess that keeping the stores cool enough to welcome shoppers would be too expensive, and would cancel out any small profits. We did find one or two antique stores open, struggling to cool using fans, but that wasn't working - we could stay inside for only a short time. Some tiny towns seemed completely closed down - not a body to be seen, human or animal!

We'd have been wiser to have stayed in New Mexico longer, and returned home via the quickest route. Hindsight!


A few photographs from husband's camera are below. Most of the best scenic views couldn't be captured, because of winding roads with dangerous drops on one side. There were disconcerting road signs here and there warning of falling rocks. We've never had a problem with this, but I do recall that, once in Tenerife, Canary Islands, on vacation from the UK years ago, seeing results of the fall of a very large rock which had barrelled down a cliff side, directly hitting a coach full of tourists, crushing the 'bus, killing passengers. So I don't take those signs lightly - fingers are crossed while driving through such areas.

Clicking on images should bring up a better view.



The once Black Hotel in Borger, Texas, about to be demolished. See story HERE.



So there really are non-Republicans in Texas (in addition to commenter mike!) Registration tag blurred - to protect the innocent.



This was a surprise roadside attraction as we passed through Shamrock, Texas: The U-Drop Inn, also known as Tower Station and U-Drop Inn and Tower Café. It was built in 1936, along the historic Route 66 highway. See Wikipedia's page.

 Himself.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Arty Farty Friday ~ Jaxon

Jack Edward Jackson
(May 15, 1941 – June 8, 2006), better known by his pen name Jaxon, was an American cartoonist, illustrator, historian, and writer. He co-founded Rip Off Press; many consider him to be the first underground comix artist, due to his best-known comic book God Nose (sample HERE).


Snips from a tribute piece dated June 2006,
by Joe Gross, American Statesman staff writer:

Jackson was born May 15, 1941, in the south-central Texas ranching community of Pandora, the descendant of Texans who settled here during the Republic years after 1836.

To his friends and admirers, Jack "Jaxon" Jackson was an artist's artist, an historian's historian, a Texan's Texan. And to his artistic credit and financial detriment, Jackson was always a little too ahead of his time.

Jackson published the underground comic book "God Nose" in Austin in 1964, three years before alternative funny books sprang forth half a continent away in San Francisco. " 'God Nose' was printed in secret in the basement of the Texas State Capitol building on a state-owned printing press," said Moriaty. "He hawked it on the Drag. Little old ladies claimed he was a godless Communist and others claimed he was a fascist. It was a nice, middle-of-the-road comic book."
Five years later, he founded San Francisco's seminal Rip Off Press, which would become a staple of the burgeoning countercultural economy. His comics moved away from hippie-flavored shock value and into Texas history well before nonfiction cartoonists such as Joe Sacco galvanized the form.

"Jackson was first, but he was stuck in Austin," Fantagraphics co-founder Gary Groth said. "Robert Crumb was better able to tap directly into the zeitgeist in San Francisco." Jackson moved to San Francisco in '66 to join the "Texas Mafia," the transplanted Texans who were juicing up the San Francisco scene. He became the art director and informal accountant for the Family Dog, a music booking concern founded by fellow Texan Chet Helms, for whom Jackson created wild posters.


By the late '70s, Jackson had returned to Austin, where he produced comics about Texas history, including "Los Tejanos," "Lost Cause," "Comanche Moon" and "The Alamo."
"Jackson's histories were studies in misapprehension and out-of-control appetites," comics critic Tom Spurgeon wrote on his "Comics Reporter" Web site. "(They were) authoritative portraits of a region whose future was shaped from the buffeting winds of greed and desire.
Fantagraphics published "Los Tejanos" in 1981. "(Jackson) was doing this stuff long before it was commercially viable," said Groth. "Jack was a genuine historian, and there was an authenticity to the art, that gritty visual aspect. He could really capture that period, re-create it, dramatize it and make it relevant to readers. But it's historical, and how many Americans really want to know about history?"

"These are confrontational histories," lifelong friend and writer Mike Price said Wednesday. "He defied his readers not to wallow in glamorous mythology."



But Jackson's study of history wasn't confined to comics. An independent scholar who published a number of works on Texas history, Jackson's books included "Los Mesteños: Spanish Ranching in Texas, 1721-1821," "Almonte's Texas: Juan N. Almonte's 1834 Inspection, Secret Report & Role in the 1836 Campaign" and "Indian Agent: Peter Ellis Bean in Mexican Texas."

.....the years of laboring on the cutting edge — if not the more lucrative center — of art, comics and history took a toll on Jackson. Tina Jackson, his wife of 22 years, said Jackson was struggling with prostate cancer and diabetes at the time of his death, which is being investigated as a suicide. Jackson also is survived by his son Sam, 19.

ASTROLOGY

Born 15 May 1941 in Pandora, Texas. Chart set for 12 noon as birth time unknown.



What should "show up" in Jaxon's natal chart? An indication of his avant garde attitudes (first underground comix artist); drawing skills; interest in history/tradition....

There's a potent line-up of planets in Taurus, the sign ruled by Venus, planet of the arts, it includes Sun (self) flanked by and conjunct Saturn (tradition), Uranus (avant garde) and Jupiter (publication). Additionally, Jupiter conjoins Mercury (communication) and Venus (art) in communicative Gemini - what better astro-portrait of Jaxon could we wish for? Cherry on top: Neptune (creativity, imagination) harmoniously trines Sun and other Taurus planets from Virgo.

Mars (energy, aggression) in Uranus-ruled Aquarius squares Taurus Sun, and some other Taurus planets - what's going on there? Possibly a reflection of the artist's inner irritability/anger with worldly events: "God Nose...there's vice in high places" and his way of publishing his feelings?

Natal Moon's position can't be established without a time of birth, it could have been in either Capricorn or Aquarius, an argument could be made for either; and they happen to be signs ruled by the two planets flanking natal Sun (Uranus and Saturn).