Choctaw Bingo

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In the version of "Choctaw Bingo" that Alexa seems to prefer, singer/songwriter James McMurtry introduces his song to a live audience with   "Alright . . . we'll start this next set with a song about the north Texas southern Oklahoma crystal methamphetamine industry . . . " and then launches into nearly a nine-minute version of life in America's meth belt.

McMurtry's tale is about a family preparing for a road trip to southern Oklahoma where they will join in a family reunion at Uncle Slayton's, an older relative who lives out in the woods with his Asian bride.  Slayton is an old time moonshiner who has changed with the times and now cooks meth because the shine doesn't sell as well as it used to.  In order to make the trip to the reunion as painless for the parents as possible, the kids will be sedated with cherry coke and vodka - or Benadryl.

The song describes several family members who will be at the reunion, each with memorable eccentricities, yet each also sadly stereotypical of denizens of the meth culture.  The cast includes "Cousin Roscoe," Slayton's oldest son who was raised by his mother in East St. Louis and is headed to the reunion in his "semi-truck" until he is waylaid by a traffic accident in Muskogee;  "Bob and Mae"- Bob is a small town football coach who purchases a cache of guns and ammo on the way to the reunion;  and, "Ruth-Anne and Lynn," a pair of sisters  from Baxter Springs, Kansas, who are second cousins to the singer and to whom he is sexually attracted.

As McMurtry populates his musical narrative with characters who seem readily recognizable, even with their quirks, he also gives a rolling tour of the sights along the way to the reunion, including two of the more iconic vistas on the Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44 as it crosses Oklahoma), including the McDonald's which sits on the turnpike overpass near Vinita, and the large neon smoke rings at the "Indian Smoke Shop."

The song, "Choctaw Bingo," gives the dominant society a hard look into an American counter-culture that is on the rise.

James McMurtry is a formidable guitar-playing country singer, but it s his songwriting ability that sets him apart from many other recording and performing artists.   McMurtry has a unique ability to capture the essence of characters and their environment, and he knows how to weave them into a realistic narrative, writing skills that were undoubtedly nurtured and enhanced by his English professor mother and his Pulitzer Prize-winning, novelist father.

The son has done them proud.