TEX SKERBALL: MY STORY

Hi you’all.  Firstly I would like to thank the kind folks at this website for providing me with a platform for my work.  I don’t have my own website and my halfwit son Jimster may let his fingers fly around the computer keyboard like he’s flying a goddam plane but he don’t know how to build a website yet.

I don’t know much about this Graham Parker fella or his buddy John but my music appears to have touched their souls so profoundly that they’ve given me this space to let loose. Anyhoo, I have been told that peoples are interested in my background and such, seeing as I’m new on the scene and all, so here’s a little bit of it.

Well, I have been around on the music scene for a while in actuality. Years back, I used to pick guitar and perform backing vocals behind a bunch of fine musicians known as the Buncie Family.  There was Algernon “Bobcat” Buncie on guitar and voice, his bride Brandine “Hatchet Face” Buncie on fiddle and voice and depending on availability, a few other of the Buncie clan would appear on stage, including Bobcat’s legendary brother Charlie “Sticky Head” Buncie on one string bass and any number of very talented Buncie kids.

But then that type of “Hollerin” music, as it was known in the backwoods at the time, went out of favor somewhat so I went back to earning a proper living doing what runs in my family, namely digging roots.  I know, I know.  I do say in my song “Glue ‘n’ Chickens” that I work all day at the loggin’ camp, but you can’t always believe a song. Although I have also been employed in that good trade from time to time but now the mountains where I come from are somewhat decimated due to overforestation or whatever that fancy word for cutting down too many trees is.

Digging roots?, you ask.  Well, that means going out to the marshy spots and pulling up moss. What use is moss?, you may also be asking.  Well, I pull up a whole mess of nice thick sphagnum moss and stash it in burlap sacks and keep it moist and all and a fella from the city comes along once a week and buys it from me.  Next time you buy yourself a ficus tree or whatnot from some fancy New York garden store you look at the moss they got packed around the pot and think of me.  Could have been me that pulled it! It’s a job that don’t seem to go out of style and I figure I’ll be doing it for years to come.  That’s digging roots.

What mountains you from, Tex?, you may also be asking.  Well, that don’t matter would be my answer!  Mountains is mountains and everyone who lives in them is crazy as hell anyhoo. But now since I been appearing on youtube people up here think I’m gonna quit the digging roots mountain life and go off and be some fancy pop star or something.  Uh uh.  I am getting calls from TV shows though but I watch how that David Letterman and all those clever fellas like him make fun of boys like me and I don’t think I’m gonna take the bait. No, I reckon I’ll probably continue to carry on as I have been and post a tune up now and again as the hankering comes to me.

My halfwit son Jimster may not be the brightest star in the firmament when it comes to academics but he’s smart as a two headed timber rattler in others and knows how to work this new computer that was donated to me from the back of a unguarded tractor trailer. And don’t forget to look over him and his monkey ass pals efforts they post under the handle “BagsNHags.”  Some funny stuff for just kids I’ll tell you what.  Makes me laugh fit to beat the band anyhoo.

Well, time I was getting on.  My retard brother Dashiel needs his supper and I gotta check on him to make sure he’s not gotten a hold of any of my chickens and a pot a sniffing glue cos he does unspeakable things if he gets his hands on those two parties, as my song will attest.  He lives up behind in the shed so I ain’t got far to go.

One other thing before I take my leave.  I have been told that I am a very political writer.  Well, there’s no excuse to being ill informed what with the internet and all and truth is I always was a reader, something some people up here frown upon but they just the ignorant ones and there’s fewer of them than you might think.

Some of thems predudiced too but I am not and I welcome Mr. Obama to have a set to at things after Bushie and his crowd used the country as their personal crapping hole.  I wish Mr. Obama luck.  He’s gonna need it.

Shoot, I can hear Dashiel hollering out there for his supper. You’all take care now and if you do buy some pricy Asian tree from some fancy garden store and the moss is all dried out, take it from me it was as fresh as a daisy the day I sold it to the man so it ain’t my fault.

All the best to you and have a great holiday season!

Tex.