A Texas Thing
by Wayne Surber
Back in the early 90's as I was wading through the bliss-less years
that will forever be known as high school, I would have never imagined
that I'd be so interesd in a story based on high school football. My
arty kid self, with longish hair and Megadeth jacket, would've
probably guffawed at the mere thought of my mid-thirties self sitting
down to even contemplate writing a sentence about high school
football, much less a full length journal entry about it. But then
someone went out and produced and orchestrated this thing we will
forever refer to as FNL.
strutted out onto the field for the first of many unsuccessful
attempts at winning the state championships. To this date, they still
haven't won. Sometimes when I watch the show I like to pretend that
the other team is Clark. Hell, one time, I swear it was. But 1978 was
4 years after I was put on this earth. It wasn't until the early
nineties that I'd passively ignore all the football goings on about
me. They were from a different place than me. I knew a few footballers
from growing up with them, but by no means was I ever one of them. I never would have imagined that football or stories centered around
football in a small Texas town would be something that would bring me
on the verge of emotional breakdown on a regular basis. In my
experience, few things have been able to capture the feelings I have
of my home state, but I have to give it to the team at FNL, they
really have hit the nail on the head. Being a transplant from Texas has its pluses and deltas for a guy
living in Brooklyn, NY. Texas has always had its mystique of
badassedness and I've never been want to play along. I think, as a
dramatical story, while maybe FNL struggles to portray the realities
of high school footballers or any real football teams as I've heard
some express, it does a phenomenal job at expressing the complexity of
Texas politic and persona. I've always been struck by these vague accusations that I've gotten
whenever I mention where I'm from. Everyone asks one or a handful of
the basics: where my gun is (I sold it), did I ever have a horse (I
did), do I have boots (I do), am I proud of BUSH (I'm not), or Don't
mess with Texas. I guess we have our famous politicians (Johnson, The
Bush Family, and the like) to thank for much of these simplifications
and misunderstandings of the Texas nature, if there is one. Or perhaps
we can pen it on our 'liberal' hollywood or our 'liberal' media. Either way, I've generally have enough of those kind of things. And I
actually miss home quite often. So, when economics prevented me from
heading back Friday Night Lights has done a really great job at
filling the gap between phone calls to family for feeling back home in
Texas. Shit, I think my accent is coming back, even if the actors are
mostly not Texan. Moral of the story is I love the show. I think its 'family values' are
stronger than some of the chronic bullshit that's spewed on the
airwaves, liberals and conservatives alike, and get true comfort from
the emotional roller coaster of a ride this show and ensemble of cast
puts me through. I'm only at Season 2 thus far. I hope it keeps up.
Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose.
