The Orlando etched in my soul isn't a modern metropolis; it's pure '90s nostalgia. It's the electric cobalt of wraparound Oakley sunglasses with those distinct orange lenses. It's the defiant swagger of a No Fear tee. It's the raw energy of bands like the Nature Kids alongside the rise of Matchbox 20. It's the iconic Lil' Penny commercials and Shaq's earth-shattering dunks. That's the Orlando that lives within me.
Every few years it seems like someone picks up the banner for John Anderson as one of our country’s truly great artists, and, inevitably, the people who have been here the whole time are appreciative, but it fails to really generate the kind of renewed interest the faithful think he deserves. It’s fun and then John settles back into his routine – playing shows in beloved haunts and occasionally appearing on RFD-TV.
When I was in journalism school the New York Times reporter Adam Clymer visited our class. Someone asked him for advice for a young journalist and he said we should get out and see America before it becomes completely homogenized. From his perspective, this was still a weird and wonderful land. He was right, too. Yes, people are glued to their phones and Walmarts abound, but the geography rules.
Beneath all the highways, sub developments and strip malls, there is a lost kingdom. A once-real, now-mythic place called Florida. The name literally means The Land of Flowers. It is a place of vulgar abundance, a place of underground springs, plentiful fish, wildflowers, panthers, bears, alligators and pumpkins. There is no place else on Earth — and probably in the universe — that looks like it.
It was very, very hot and the entire session was recorded in one afternoon and released as an EP called Moejadkatebarry. The label address on the record was 5721 S.E. Laguna Ave. Stuart, Fla. How did Moe Tucker and Jad Fair end up in this little town? This article originally appeared on July 3, 2012, on darrenwhitecreative.com.
After a hiatus, I returned to blogging last year, drawn to sharing the rich tapestry of my life: family tales, the art and music that moves me, and the transformative power of travel. My aim is to delve deeper into these passions and explore new horizons through writing. My personal journey has been a path to self-discovery, and I'm eager to share those insights and experiences here.
Allsup met Buddy Holly at Norman Petty's legendary studio in Clovis, N.M. in 1958. He played guitar on about 10 of Holly's songs, including the classic "It's So Easy." A lost coin toss kept Allsup off the plane that took Holly's life. This article first appeared in the February 2008 issue of Parker County Today.
“A friend of mine told me that was the Florida in me coming out … There were a lot of straight roads in Florida. I always wanted to get myself a big truck and just whistle right down the Sunshine State Parkway, just double-clutching my way.” This article originally appeared Sept. 30, 2010, on darrenwhitecreative.com
Even in liberal Hollywood, cowboys are cool again. Yellowstone – a TV show I’ve never watched and have no interest in seeing – has reinvigorated America's fascination with ranch life. Beyonce posed wearing a cowboy hat astride a horse on her latest album cover, Cowboy Carter.
Three sisters board an orphan train headed for Jacksonville. They were not mythologized like the Western cowboys or the Irish and Italian immigrants of the Northeast. Yet stories of struggle like the 2017 film The Florida Project seem to echo Priscilla, Ida and Louvenia’s story. We all come from somewhere. I come from these women and I come from this story.
I watched Yacht Rock: A Documentary on Max this weekend, and I thought it would make for a good opportunity to reflect on this odd little subgenre that has become its own cottage industry over the last decade or so. The documentary focuses on a certain type of bouncy, smooth adult contemporary music popular in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
How can one of the biggest media markets in the nation produce such ineffectual, booster-happy journalism? How can a city with limitless financial resources fail to build anything beautiful in brick-and-mortar? How can a place that hosts concerts daily fail to capture the national imagination with any consistency?
There’s not much chance to turn around until you reach Cedar Key, where everything is built out of that dark, weathered wood. You see kids with coolers selling various morsels like oysters and clams on the side of the road. This article first appeared on darrenwhitecreative.com on Feb. 11, 2013.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s book God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, the title character addresses a convention of science fiction writers. He’s drunk. He thanks them for understanding that “… life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that’ll last billions of years.” This article first appeared on darrenwhitecreative.com, Aug. 10, 2012.
I don’t have any other marketable skills. I am unfit for manual labor (tried that), my math skills are remedial (that means bad) and I’m too honest for sales (didn’t get past the interview). Writing keeps the lights on, even if they aren’t burning brightly.
As I was eating two tacos and a bag of store-bought chips – which cost me, all told, about $22 – from a food truck with an absolutely horrible name, it occurred to me that I cannot remember the last time I had a good meal from a food truck.
Japandroids released their fourth and final record, Fate & Alcohol, last week and so it seems like a good time to write about this band, the emotions their music stirred in listeners and who at least one of those listeners was.
"I take ideas from things I like on older saddles. We started creasing the borders on the saddles really just because it was something I saw on older saddles and liked." This article appeared in the July 2007 issue of Parker County Today.
A year after their guitar player was shot to death, a Weatherford metal band perseveres. This article appeared in the October 2009 issue of Parker County Today.
