I wouldn’t go that far.
But the affection that so many on this thread seem to have for this twerp is puzzling.
Yeah, it’s a sore spot with me, having this leftist, drug-addled creep somehow be considered a symbol of Texas. Were this scuzzy-looking, dope-hazed hippie to be found perched on any streetcorner in the far-to-wide Texas towns of my kin in their day or before, he’d either be immediately thrown in the jug or stomped on by the locals and then tossed in a ditch over the county line. The REAL Texas didn’t put up with such trash in their midst.
He’s just become a pathetic icon of Texas to urbanized yuppies who gravitate to edgy ‘outlaw’ country during their mid-life crises, and think themselves tough rebels, listening to Michael Berry on the radio, and immersed in roadhouse dreams of a never-neverland of libertarian individualism and utopianism, as they zip along the farm roads and byways between I-35 and I-45 on their plush-seated motorbikes.