Dog Canyon: You Might Come Back as a Dancing Wizard

By
Glenn W. Smith
– January 10, 2010Posted in: Culture, Media, Music

Dog Canyon, Big Bend, West Texas, just north of the Mexico Border. No sounds but birds and the crunching of sand and rocks under your boots. You figure the black bears, coyotes and mountain lions hear that crunching, too. Walking in the wilds of West Texas’ Dog Canyon will make you pay attention.

We wanted to give you something of the flavor of Dog Canyon, the place out west that lent us its name.  So some us returned to the Canyon. We took along some music and our friend Derek Carroll, cinematographer extraordinaire. The song’s an old one, first recorded by the psychedelic band, Sopwith Camel, in the 1960s. Shortened a bit from the original, it’s one of our favorite desert songs. We’ve been singing it for many years.

When it was time to give this new site a name, DogCanyon came to mind almost like magic. There was no real reason, ‘cept it was the name of a place we loved. Rationalizing a decision made because of the sound of the name and the rough beauty of the place, we could point out that Dog Canyon is accessible but challenging in some ways. Accessible and challenging wouldn’t be bad traits in a political and cultural blog.

Dancing Wizard Grab Dog Canyon: You Might Come Back as a Dancing Wizard

There’s also the native critter, the coyote: playful, curious, surviving, flourishing in all environs. Not a bad symbol. That’s where the Armchair Coyote you see at  top-right of the site comes from.

It is true that the U.S. Cavalry’s Camel Corps broke down in the canyon. Something about it was too hard on the beasts. Don’t be misled by some liberties in the video. It’s unlikely you’ll see wild descendants of some camels said to have gotten loose in the 19th Century. But you never know. Like the web site: you never know.

As a boy, Woody Guthrie came through the area once. He wrote about coming upon a river full of naked women splashing in the Rio Grande, wondering aloud why God hated him so much to “lose me here among these old bumpy rocks” with a vision of angelhood so near but so impossibly far away. It’s in his book, Seeds of Man, and he gets downright bawdy in his recollection of the bathers.

I first came out here when I was 16, and I’ve been back most every year since. When city lights “hit me like a blizzard,” as the song says, there’s something magically restorative and maybe transformative about Dog Canyon and the Big Bend.

That’s as good a reason as any for naming DogCanyon.org after the place.

The Dog Canyon Band and Blogger Corps:

Derek Carroll — Cinematographer

Chris Jefferies — Sound; vocals and guitar

Margie Becker — Producer, editor

Johnny Bradley — Bass

Katie Smith –  Fiddle

Glenn Smith — Guitar, vocals

“Blog the Dog” closing tag inventor — Jeff Crosby

Special thanks to the late Molly Ivins. Some years ago, Molly decided to take Texas state Rep. Elliott Naishtat on the Dog Canyon hike. She thought she oughta prepare the New York native for the unexpected, so Molly taught him what to do if a mountain lion happened upon them. Raise yourself up as tall as you can, make claws of your hands and roar like a monster. Elliott practiced for a day and a half. No one’s seen a mountain lion since. Elliott often re-enacts his cat-intimidating pose, even when the cat in question is quite stuffed.

Blog the Dog.

Elliottbobcat2057 Dog Canyon: You Might Come Back as a Dancing Wizard

Related Articles:

Tags: , , , , ,

About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”