by Wilbur
I was raised a Liberal Democrat. We were taught in school that being liberal was a good thing. I accepted Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and the Great Society with glee because Mr Cole, my high school civics teacher told me that was the needed change for the country. Then I graduated high school and moved out into the world. By the time Reagan came along I was shifting to the right. Back in the day nothing came easy in Texas. To use a Texas slang we were "PoDunk!" While cars were rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit and common workers were collecting $8.00 per hour I got a raise working in a pool hall from .50 per hour to .75 per hour and had to learn to shoot pool to buy my baby, Wilbur, milk! On the streets of Killeen I learned there was absolutely no free lunch.
Now, looking back, I've made three fortunes. I'm working on a fourth and I'll get there. Detroit is in ruins and why is that? Detroit is the product of that same liberal thinking Mr Cole instilled in me back in 1969.
In Nashville I learned that if you write a good song the record labels will beat a path to your door. I heard malcontents moaning the blues down at Shoney's every day, going on about how unfair the system was, and that people of little or no talent got all the breaks because of their connections with Roy Acuff, but another friend, Johnny Carter Cash told me no one could be more connected than he was and he couldn't write a hit to save his soul! I wrote over 3,000 songs, some I thought were pretty good, and could never get a cut. I didn't have it. What I did have was a peculiar talent for raunchy country comedy and after a brief discussion with Ray Stevens one day while we were standing in line at a grocery store I became Weird Wilbur. Acuff-Rose put severe restrictions on material streaming out of Music Square so Michael Lee Davis and I formed our own label and sold albums at concession during my shows out on Briley expressway RIGHT across the street from the Grand Ol Opry!
John Brandt had a day job at United Artists and that company rented it's space from Steve Dreamstreet who slipped us a key and during the night we slipped into the state if the art studios and recorded and mixed "Weird Wilbur Rides Again" which you can find to this day on iTunes!
I came back from Nashville and my wife and I began real estate and stock investments. Before it was all over we owned four houses, three near Austin and one in Killeen where I currently reside.
When I hear someone say, " I don't got no chance cause I'm black. I got to get a special deal," I literally laugh right IN their face. I am white trash that never owned a car before I was 25 years old and even then it burned oil! I went from feeding my family on a $17 meat pack from Well's Slaughter House to flying back from California and some IRS agent asking for a check for 1.5 million dollars and looking at me like she had good sense!
And yes, I, by that time, was a very conservative Republican. There are people who are content to stand in line and wait for Obama to hand them their daily bread and then there are people like me who drive by the welfare office in a Mercedes on the way to Logan's Steak House for lunch.
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