Who We Are

QUIZ ANSWER

“Madison Cawthorn spent campaign donations he was supposed to return on ‘egregiously’ frequent trips to Chick-fil-A and now can’t pay donors back, report says.”

I know you were thinking the Bahamas or Las Vegas or someplace wonderful. But, the answer is Chick-fil-A! He spent it on egregiously frequent trips to Chick-fil-A.  That ain’t easy to do, Honey.

 

 

JUANITA JEAN HEROWNSELF – Juanita is owner of The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., Fort Bend’s only professional political organization. Her main qualification to comment on Texas politics is that she owns pink cowboy boots. Not just one pair, but several. Most likely, you don’t.

Through diligent research, it has been discovered that Juanita is the daughter of Judge Clyve T. “ByGawd” Bell and his bride, the lovely and talented Lillie Jean Bell, who was known in a four county area for her unique ability to lasso while singing opera.

Juanita graduated from Elite Beauty School in Del Rio, Texas, (whose motto is: We never heard of you either) first in her class, and after a brief stint with the Buck Pochek Professional Waterskiing and Ring-O’-Fire Extravaganza, she settled down in Richmond. Her first husband, Bubba Hank, died in a semi-tragic Nascar pit stop accident. Juanita has found no good reason to remarry.

BUCK POCHEK – head honcho in charge of The Good Folks at Buck Pochek’s Rural Entertainment Promoters and General Purpose Feed Store. In Juanita’s words, “Buck Pochek is living proof that maybe God created one gender too many.”

Buck has glow-in-the-dark business cards with the ink still wet, prefers neon light to sunlight, fixes stubborn traffic lights with a handy 12 gauge shotgun, lists being able to roll back an odometer as job skill on his resume, and has been married so often that they keep his name permanently on the bridal registry down at the hardware store.

Buck drives an old Cadillac that suffered severe hail damage years ago. He collected the insurance money but spent it on a trip to Gulfport, Mississippi, where he met the fourth Mrs. Pochek. Buck’s car sports the remnants of several bumper stickers – Buck’s favorite is an obscene gesture with “Nuke This, Saddam!”

Buck has spent some time in jail for insurance fraud, mooning a gun control rally, and assault with a toilet seat (the details of which are better left to sealed court records). Buck’s main source of income is his Army disability check and some residuals from a couple of slip and fall accidents lately.

THELMA LUCILLE FRONTAGE – still wears her 1968 Homecoming Queen tiara to every Lamar Consolidated Homecoming game. “It’s tradition,” she explains, but most people think it’s just because Thelma ain’t parked too close to the curb. Her seat ain’t in the full, upright and locked position. Buck once kept Thelma busy at the library for a month trying to figure out the speed of dark.

Thelma greatly enjoyed her four pregnancies – especially the part where she became the three time land speed world record holder for eating Twinkies. Thelma gained a few pounds over the years, and while it is not true that she capsized a tugboat once, she does use a semi-trailer inner tube as the required standard life preserver on river outings. Thelma holds the national distinction of being the only 350 pound amateur golfer with a completely leopard skin and feather golf cart.

Thelma’s hairdressing skills include the highest beehive hairdo in the state of Texas. “The taller the hair, the closer to God,” is her motto. She is a provisional member of the Belles of Heaven Republican Women’s Club.

BUBBA X – is a classic model relic from the 1960s, complete with a brief but highly productive membership in the Black Panthers, where he was known under another name prior to the FBI relocating him to the Greater Sugar Land area, where he could blend-in relatively unnoticed. All went well for three days. Then BubbaX applied for employment as head golf pro at Sugar Creek Country Club, totally unaware that golfing skills were somewhat necessary for such a job. After several months of litigious threats and butt-stompin’s, BubbaX accepted the position of bartender at Buck’s newest icehouse, although he felt it was a waste of his corporate managerial skills and his almost complete collection of self-help tapes.

He adopted the name BubbaX following an ill-fated attempt to sell life insurance door-to-door in Quail Valley, when he was known simply as Bubba. Bubba’s size – he looks like he might have eaten his brother – and his opening line to sell life insurance – “You never know when you’re going to die.” – was not as successful as he had hoped. He caught a bad case of attitude following several trips to the Grand Jury and added the X to his name. It has stayed like a comfortable pair of shoes.

Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo – Primo started his career at the Salon as a hair sweeper and general handyman but quickly worked his way up to Deputy Director of Homeland Security for the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon (DDHS/WMDBS). Above his desk (actually, a disused styling station due to a permanently clogged sink) is a sign which reads “NO TERRORIST ATTACKS SINCE: Feb 2, 2012.” That was the day Buck Pochek lost his brakes and ran his Cadillac through the front window. Primo and his cousin, Jesus Hachecristo, “relocated” some heavy planters from in front of The Power and The Glory Megachurch to prevent a repeat, and so won the security gig.

Primo is also the bass player for Freakin’ Freddie and the Pearl-handled Frontloaders, a Bitchin’ Betty and the Sequined Backhoes tribute band. They had a minor hit of their own with their cover of “You Can’t Spell Crazy Without AZ.” He draws the line at playing in drag, except for those rare occasions when he sits in with the Backhoes.

EL JEFE – El Jefe met Juanita Jean some years ago when he opened El Jefe’s Beer, Bread, and Pickle Emporium just up the road from the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon. He savors anything made with his home grown yeast, but especially those things that go well with his South Texas Pucker Up & Slap Yo’ Knee Bread n’ Butter pickles, made especial for the Holidays and coming soon to an HEB near you.

A native Texan, El Jefe’s is proud to be the great-great grandson of Orange Julius Smith who joined the Texas Rangers in 1860. He was born in North Texas to a jen-u-wine Bible-thumping praise and glory preacher and to the daughter of a jen-u-wine Bible-thumping praise and glory preacher, receiving more Bible & ear lobe thumping before he was 6 than most are privileged to get in a lifetime. Because of his pure and crystal-clear upraising, he now practices his own spiritual tradition of worshiping every Sunday at Our Lady of the Perpetual Bloody Mary & New York Times. He was elected Deacon of the parish many years ago.

El Jefe rants regularly on social media, and is an equal opportunity insulter of all proclivities. He’s sure he’ll insult you, too, and likes to proclaim that he’s old enough to not care about what you think of him or his hand crafted pointy toed roach killer boots made way-the-hell-out-there in Fredericksburg just for him.

So there.

JET HARRIS – Jet Harris is a Houston ex-pat living up in Dallas territory.  The year Jet moved up to the big D, she went to the state fair for the first time only to see that Big Cowboy Statue burn to the ground. The only thing good about Dallas is that the Astros play up there in Arlington sixteen times a year. She believes that the Designated Hitter is an affront to the almighty Baseball Gods.

She met Juanita Jean and El Jefe a decade ago at a dive bar in Midtown where they rode mechanical bulls and talked about Rick Perry’s good hair and El Jefe’s pointy-toed boots. They’ve been compadres ever since.

Born and raised in Houston, Jet comes from hardy coal-miner steel-mill union stock up north and would chain herself to Ted Cruz before she ever crossed a picket line.

See y’all around the beauty salon.

Nick Caraway is a special education teacher from Houston. In fact, he’s a third generation native Houstonian. Caraway has written five books on the side. Most of those are around baseball. Like his namesake, Caraway has spent a lifetime on the sidelines observing and commenting in various blogs.

That’s how he ran into El Jefe and Juanita. They’ve also shared a love of good barbecue as one can only do in Texas. Interestingly in a small world kind of way he’s crossed paths with Jet as well. Nick likes to linger and observe. He also loves his Astros.

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