Posted on 02/22/2003 5:57:15 PM PST by TXBubba
Who needs France? We have Tex-Mex By John Kelso
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, February 21, 2003
You can't go wrong making fun of France, since the French live there and it is just so much fun to taunt the French.
Look at it this way: It's the only country featured in a famous poem that ends with the words "someone's underpants." It was the only country ridiculed in Mel Brooks' western comedy, "Blazing Saddles," when Dom DeLuise and a chorus line of like-minded male dancers were shown kicking up their heels and doing a number called "The French Mistake."
France has been so ineffectual militarily over the years that it has a kind of toast named for it. As in, "You're toast." It is a nation that excels at wine, cheese, perfume and soup. The French Boy Scouts probably have a merit badge for broth.
So you can't go wrong by thumbing your nose at France, even if you didn't intend to thumb your nose at France. Just ask Andy Fisch- trom, a wedding photographer and yoga teacher who moved to Austin from Marin County, Calif., three years ago.
Andy noticed when he got here that Texans are ate up with the notion that everything is bigger in Texas. He thought this was unique.
"Coming from Marin County, we didn't have that," Andy said. "Nobody in Marin County wears T-shirts that say, `Marin County Rules' or `Don't Mess With Marin.' " You can understand that. Northern California isn't the kind of place to print shirts that say, "My hot tub's bigger than your hot tub."
So about half a year ago, to make light of Texas-big, Andy printed a bunch of bumper stickers and T-shirts that say, "Texas: It's Bigger Than France." At the time, people didn't get the joke. Andy didn't, either. "There's nothing to get, really," he wrote on his Web page, www.biggerthanfrance.com.
Guess what? Last week, the bumper sticker got a mention in Paul Bedard's Washington Whispers column posted on U.S. News & World Report's Web page, www.usnews.com.
"Bush aides are chuckling over a new bumper sticker that pokes fun at France's refusal to join the president's pressure campaign on Iraq," it says in the column. " `Texas,' it says, `is bigger than France.' "
France's reluctance to help clobber Iraq wasn't what Andy had in mind when he came up with the concept. In fact, it wasn't even an issue at the time.
"I created it without a political agenda," he said. But now that he's selling lots of shirts and bumper stickers because of the mention, he'll roll with it. In the first six months, Andy figures he sold 250 shirts. Since the mention, he's sold 150 more. And, thanks to France, he's having another 144 printed up.
"Even if people from the extreme right wing want to rally around it, that's fine with me," Andy said. "Bring on the kooks."
You know why the French don't want to invade Iraq? It's because they have a pretty country with pleasant scenery and they don't want anything gumming up this country club deal they've got going for themselves. France is like those little old ladies who have living rooms at home where the furniture is covered in plastic, and you're not supposed to go in there and sit on it and mess it up.
Well, France doesn't want you sitting on it, either.
The U.S. News blurb about the bumper sticker even made it onto a conservative Web page, www.freerepublic.com. The shirt slogan drew various comments insulting France, obviously posted by Texans.
"I bet those nasal-talking sissies would keel over if you fed 'em a decent jalapeno," someone wrote. "Chicken fried steak? YUM. Chicken fried snails? YUCK," wrote another. "Texans also have (and know how to use) bath soap," wrote another.
Andy has no dog in this hunt. But he'll accept the money. "I've been doing this by the seat of my pants," he said. "But it's kind of fun and kind of exciting now." So thank you very much, Jacques Chirac.
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.
He got the idea a year ago huh?
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a260075.htm TEXAS --- BIGGER than FRANCE !!! WE NEED OUR OWN CONVENTION. ( posted 05/17/98 )
That makes him about four years behind the "kooks".
Buy his stuff hell ..... lets track him down and kick his a$$.
Well far be it for me to speak for everyone on FR, but those of us who are in good standing with the Curmudgeons Guild just pick one sentence and jump on it. It's our job, though sometimes we make a joke just to see if anyone here has a sense of humor ..... or humour in honour of our British friends.
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