I was telling Heathen this morning that living in Lubbock was like (please forgive the expression) like living in an abusive relationship.  There are so many good and wonderful people in this town that it's worth living through the weather, the flatness and so on. Then there are those who just  put nice people masks on.  More after the jump.

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Heathen  (who ordinarily has the sense of a horny monkey that's run headlong into its bars too much) explained the Lubbock paradox rather simply.  Heathen's take on the situation is simple-people in this town want to include everyone in everything, as long as 'they' are just like 'them'.   They just don't recognize the fact that some people, look, act or think differently from them selves.  It's kind of like the church culture of "our church welcomes everyone, except those who don't agree with everything we say" or to put it in a more digestible form  of a car club "we welcome all low-riders, as long as the cars are Fords".   It's like a hillbilly saying, "I like both kinds of music, country and western", they don't even recognize that there IS rock, and classical, and so on.  Having grown up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood with people of all religions (and lack of them) this can be a little frustrating for me.  When I hear "everybody is invited" I think yes, this means pastors and tattooed folks, Hispanics and cops, waitresses and bankers....you know..everybody.  In Lubbock "everybody" tends to mean "everybody like me".

Of course this article is brought on by the art trail nonsense.  They for sure have the 'everyone like me' complex.  I saw this especially when they finally got a couple art knuckleheads to try calling me on the carpet today.  The problem is, they forgot I am NOT like them and I'm not like anyone they've encountered before, so their dumb little intimidation tactics don't work on me.  I MADE my name calling people like this out, so I wasn't about to back down from them. To me they're like "Judge Smalls" from Caddyshack (picture), self important buffoons and blowhards whose only way to feel good about themselves is to pretend that they are superior to others.

I think a lot of this stuff also has to do with small town attitudes.  You know for the most part, people tend to move on to a town bigger than the one they came from. It's just something inside people that says they have to move 'upward' or onward.  I think tons of people born in Lubbock move to Austin, Dallas or somewhere out of state; and then the Lubbock population is restocked with people from the surrounding towns.  Well, I hate to tell small town America this, but small towns are not hotbeds of diversity.  These small town folks are used to everybody going to the same church, the same barn dance and the same schools.  In their small towns, 'people know their places" so when they say "everybody" they don't have to say "except you".

Lubbock is slowly changing. I see people with tattoos and ear gauges being hired for regular jobs now.  I see policeman no longer on guard when some of us scruffy types around.  I wish change could happen a little sooner, but it doesn't really happen in seismic shifts often, it's often very gradual and involves little things like the guys in the front of a business getting together with the people from the warehouse, or people just being respectful, instead of suspicious or hateful to people they run into in the streets.

I hope all of you will act as agents of change in your lifetime. No one should be put upon or singled out. People should never be judged by their looks and that includes skin color as well as the clothes they wear. There's a commercial running now for Sportcenter, that is probably truer to real life than most realize.  In the commercial, the straight oddball looking anchor gets off work then lets his hair down and rocks out to Slayer.  It's new and funny, but it just points out the old adage 'you can't judge a book by it's cover'.  Just remember, if any one ever looks down on you, that goes to show how poor their character is, not yours.

 

I know this article was a little 'heavy' for a radio blog, lighten up by checking out that commercial I was talking about.

 

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