Rambling Boy

Lonn has been musing recently about a long-lasting phenomenon; the continuing popularity of Larry McMurtry's 1985 novel, Lonesome Dove.

On this edition of The Rambling Boy, Lonn attempts to dissect this phenomenon.

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn recounts the life and his friendship with Marvin Watson, who recently passed away.

Several months ago, Lonn wrote a column about Tejano cowboys who had become vaqueros in the Wild West shows that toured America and Europe in the early-twentieth century, but it looks like he forgot to mention one well-known South Texas performer.

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn explores the life and times of Frank Yturria.

How did a talented musician, who was jailed in a Tennessee prison for his sticky fingers, come to write a composition about Big Spring, Texas?

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn explores the story of Frank Grandstaff, who among other things, wrote the West Texas themed cantata by tapping out notes on various surfaces with a pencil in his jail cell.

On this edition of The Rambling Boy, Lonn gives his thoughts on walls of all shapes and sizes - From the Great Wall of China to proposed, modern-day iterations.

"Texas took took its name from a tribe of Indians called Tejas who lived in villages of funny little rounded houses, planted gardens, and had an interesting culture of their own." - That's an excerpt from Siddie Joe Johnson's Texas, Land of the Tejas.

But is that the whole truth?

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn explore the true meaning of "Tejas"

"Marfa has always been a refuge for individualists and eccentrics." -Lonn Taylor

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn discusses his latest book, Marfa for the Perplexed, a collection of essays he has written throughout his time in the Big Bend, focusing on important characters and historical events in Marfa and Presidio County.

Some say you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig - Well, in the same vein, you can also tattoo wings on a pig, with similar results.

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn talks about how the process of tattooing pigs turned personal after two artists claimed to be first to do it.

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn talks about Bob "Daddy-o" Wade, an artist in Austin who helped shape Texas Cosmic Cowboy counterculture in  the 1970s.

Daddy-o has been adorning the Texas landscape with giant sculptures, incorporating iconic Texas symbols, for forty-years.

From a thirty-five-foot high pair of cowboy boots to a forty-foot long wire and polyurethane iguana named Iggy, and even that mysterious, bullet-ridden van parked in front of Marfa's Lost Horse Saloon.

Lonn Taylor has been lucky enough to meet quite a few authors, of which he says are generally some of the most interesting people.

On this edition of the Rambling Boy, Lonn talks about how one of the most interesting and luckiest authors he's ever met has been A.C. Greene, the former book page editor of the now defunct Dallas Times-Herald.