If you are a longtime reader of this award-winning, hastily written column, you know that I love the State Fair of Texas more than I love putting my man privates in a vise and inviting strangers to crank on it. (Editor's note: Gordon, this comparative doesn't work.)

I love everything about the State Fair. In fact, the stuff of other people's complaints is the stuff that fuels my great experience. You probably think I am kidding and being backhanded, but you are wrong. The whole thing makes me feel electric to the universe, like a kid again, gobbling the world with hungry eyes.

Sure, there are the Dumpster smells and the rigged games, but that is all part of the kitschy mélange that makes unsanitized America so diggable. I love petting zoos that leave my hands smelling like goat ass, and I love the chance to get swine flu from an actual pig rather than Tim from sales. I love the car show, with all the latest expensive kick-ass models smeared with greasy handprints and toddler snot. I love the carnies who look like they are full of pre-existing conditions and one cross word away from cutting me.

I love the earnest country kids in starched blue jeans standing beside livestock trailers back where cotton-candy smells give way to barnyard odors. I love tasting the latest whacked-out culinary creations like fried cookie dough. In fact, I swear I came up with deep-fried butter as a joke in this column some two or three years ago, but poor record-keeping and a lack of effort have prevented me from locating it.

But the best part of the fair experience is the people-watching. I love to see how my fellow Americans actually look. Living inside Douche Perimeter (Uptown) tends to skew one's perspective on our species. Not everyone in Texas wears Ed Hardy and leases a car.

The fair is full of real folks with real canker sores. These are people who are quick to laugh and quicker to yell at their kids for losing a quarter. These are not the people who order a salad at a buffet. These are people who wear tarp-sized Looney Tunes T-shirts and aren't too self-conscious to eat turkey off the bone. These are Americans, and I'm one of them.

So if you want to catch a glimpse of me this weekend, I'll be at the State Fair of Texas, loving life more than I probably should.

Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com.

"

"

Print