What's Bully Reading? 2024 #18 (During Jury Duty): Last Chance Texaco by Rickie Lee Jones

It's afternoon and I'm back from lunch in the jury duty waiting room, wondering if or when they're going to announce "BULLY, THE LITTLE STUFFED BULL" to report to the bailiff, whose name, despite my television expectations, will probably not be also named Bull. In the meantime I have finished another book (yes, I'm a fast reader!), Rickie Lee Jones's autobiography The Last Chance Texaco.


I (and John) have been big fans of Rickie Lee since her 1979 debut album (remind John to tell you how he rode his bike from Clay to Cicero to buy the LP at a record store on Route 11...well, actually, that's just about the entire story right there), and I really enjoyed her autobio. She's had a tough life not only as a woman in the music business but growing up with inattentive or hostile parents, with lots of family tragedies and runaway stories. But it's not downbeat, and I really whipped through it eagerly this afternoon.





Some general little stuffed observations:

Rickie Lee Jones was apparently one of the Cautious Twins:



"The Cautious Twins" (Sheriff's Department of Los Angeles County, 1960), narrated by Dick Tufeld;
riffed by Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff on The Mads Are Back, October 20, 2020
OH GEEZ! Now her life is like the British safety film with the cartoon birds.


Tom Waits cries as he sees Superman: The Movie:


Rickie Lee Jones is a Trekkie just like us:


Van Morrison: always and forever a jerk.


Well now, this reminiscence of the last months with her mother certainly hit me square in my heart's own memory.


Two hoofs up to Last Chance Texaco, doubly so if you're a Rickie Lee fan.

---

And I am done with Jury Duty for eight years. They did not call me up.

We got a video at the end imploring us to tell our friends that jury duty is important and to convince them to also do it. So...to all of my pals, I guess...go do jury duty! Right now!

Quite frankly, I don't think little stuffed bulls should be on juries, but that's just me. I would have told the judge that, but I couldn't see all the way up to his desk.

"This man has been accused of stealing cookies..."

(tiny voice from the jury) "GET THE ROPE!"