DRAFTING COMMITTEE SUBS WHILE THINKING ABOUT GOOD TIME CHARLIE AND THE CHUPACABRA

Mark it down. Monday, April 9, 2007. The single most productive day that Billy Clyde has experienced all month.

Three summaries, four bill analyses, two sets of talking points, and, get this – an entire, 13 page committee substitute that the client actually likes. Not a single person yelled at me all day. And I’m so far ahead I can actually engage in a full day of people lobbying tomorrow.

Life = Good.

A few things I’d like to share, if BC may be so bold.

NUMBER 1: Now that Easter is behind us, we can look forward to Christmas, the next great Christian holiday. Some people look forward to that day as a time of reflection, a time to praise our Father for blessing Earth with his one and only Son. Youngsters eagerly await the arrival of Santa Claus. Others just appreciate the time away from work.

All that is fine and dandy. But for Billy Clyde, Christmas 2007 will be like no other. It is, I have it on good authority (Charlie Schnabel) that December 25th will be the opening day of Charlie Wilson’s War, perhaps the most anticipated feature film since talkies were invented.

The book is just fantastic. Please, I implore you, read it before you see the film. BC acknowledges he was a tad bummed upon hearing that the film version was gonna be directed by Mike Nichols and Charlie Wilson was gonna be played by Tom Hanks. They’re both outstanding, but it didn’t seem like a snug fit.

But as a worldwide leader in the anti-pessimism movement, I decided to look on the bright side. Hanks has actually been very good in almost everything he’s done, Nichols is one of our better directors, and Julia Roberts is pretty damn good, too. Plus that Phillip Seymour guy, or whatever his name is, has a starring role, and he seems to be a hot property these day.

Anyway, I ran into Mr. Schnabel down in E.1 last week and asked him who was playing him in the movie. (In case anyone doesn’t know, Schabel was Secretary of the Senate when Mr. Wilson served in that body and served as his Congressional chief of staff for, if I’m not mistaken, a very long time.)

Schnabel said his character got bumped from the film because the Hollywood big-shots – get this – thought the audience would prefer a Hollywood starlet with big hair and even bigger breasts. Though, in all fairness, as Schnabel gets up there in age these days, he’s developing a pretty decent rack himself. Whatever.

More – much more than you would ever care to know – will be written about this upcoming cinematic extravaganza in the coming months. But in the unlikely event you care, here are a few reasons, in exact order, why Billy Clyde is so excited:

** Charlie Wilson was my very own state Senator and Congressman for most of my life.

** He only dated beauty pageant winners and Playmates 30 years his junior.

** He personally ended the Cold War and forced the collapse of the Soviet Union. That took a big “to-do” list item off the table for all of us.

** He pretended to be a womanizing drunk while secretly running a war out of his Congressional office in a God-forsaken place and actually won. People thought he was either delusional or just playing the Big Dawg, but he really was conducting a war and NOBODY REALLY CAUGHT ON.

** He was an early and vocal supporter of civil rights and East Texas timber interests.

Read the book and look forward to the film, cuz we gotta move on to ...

NUMBER 2: The spiritual Godfather of this blog (he, in turn, would probably call me his problem bastard child) posted an interesting piece day about, of all things, the mysterious El Cucuy. Guess being a major committee chairman and key cog in the House leadership doesn’t take ALL your time.

I know about El Cucuy because, in my freshman year at UT, I had a roommate from McAllen, a dude who seemed to never sleep (or go to parties, or date, or play basketball, or watch the teevee; he studied electrical engineering and I was in the Liberal Arts college, so we sorta had different priorities) and he blamed it on El Cucuy. It became a running joke after he explained to me about all things El Cucuy related.

Hadn’t thought much about El Cucuy until a few months ago, when I was reading a novel by Ben Rehder – the absolute greatest Austin novelist you probably haven’t heard of, but should. He writes the best books about Hill Country game wardens, drunken poachers, high fences, deer hunting, political intrigue and hot babes. His last book centered around the Chupacabra, which is sorta the critter version of El Cucuy.

My uncle used to tell me stories about the Chupacabra when Bill Clyde was knee high to a Shetland pony. BC never really believed those stories. Nevertheless, he was careful when alone in the woods. Who knows?

In any event, if El Cucuy and the Chapacabra are making comebacks, then society is heading in the right direction.

Oh, and Mr. Chairman blogger dude: since you’re on that special TYC committee that meets all the time, how about this for a fix. Tell the kids to behave, else El Cucuy will GET you. And tell the sadistic guards and administrators to shape up, lest a whole pack of Chupacabras will lunge at your throats.

Something to think about, plus this ...

NUMBER LAST-O:

Billy Clyde tries to serve his friends and neighbors via this Web Internet site blog page. Can y’all do me a little favor?

I gotta go do a deal at UT later this week with a pretty little edgy blonde chick who has opinions and actually knows something about blogging, and an old overweight guy who knows a ton about state government. Best I can tell, I’m supposed to be the designated dumbass.

So if you have any material or clever one-liners – hell, whatever you got would be appreciated -- please send it my way. It’ll count as your obligatory good deed of the week. If it’s really amusing, I’ll just read it and that will fulfill my part of the show.

Thanks dudes.