October 13th, 2023
This is a silly and rather embarrassing entry,
but it wonderfully illustrates my general stupidity...
So, a few months ago, on a dreadfully hot Sunday evening, I was briefly chatting with one of my redneck friends ... and when I asked, what he was busy doing, he said that he was sitting in the kitchen, baking pot-brownies and watching an episode of
LONE STAR LAW
.
Naturally, I had never heard of this show before. But since I had nothing better to do, and because it seemed interesting enough in that moment, I decided to give it a try.
The first thing I learned was that East Texas has actually a lot of greenery to offer, which, admittedly, rather surprised me, because in my uneducated mind, I had always pictured Texas to be a bone-dry, dusty, barely prairie-ish kind of wasteland, where horses have no name and filthy, sweaty men are constantly spitting on saloon floors (when they're not busy shooting each other).
I blame Sergio Leone for this blatant misinformation.
Anyway, in case you have never come across this show either, it's a "reality"-TV drama/whatever series that follows various Texas wildlife officers on their daily patrols. The show was OK-ish, and I watched it for a while, only really skipping over the boring fish-parts (as one does).
At one point, a bunch of guys were caught illegally hunting on somebody else's property (or something like that, I don't quite remember), and when the officer issued them a ticket, he explained that they do always need
(what
sounded
to my German ears like)
a "
signed
F.R. DAVID
" from the landowner, or else them being there was considered trespassing...
... and I thought to myself:
"Oh, an
F.R. David
??? Like ... the 80s singer??? That one-hit wonder?
Did he name himself after a legal document??? How clever. How quaint. How very 80s."
I didn't think much of it at the time, I just found it mildly amusing. But when I heard it being mentioned for the
third
time later on in a different season, I curiously wondered:
"OK, so what kind of legal document
EXACTLY
is this
F.R. DAVID
now, huh???"
I tried to google it, but whatever variation of "FR David legal document Texas" I entered, the only results that came up were either said singer or his stupid song.
Urrrrgh
.
Convinced that I was going about this all wrong,
I decided to better ask some of my US American friends instead...
As I presented my question to each of them, explaining the context of how and where I had encountered the term, I
emphasised
the possibilty that I
may
have completely
misheard
the whole thing, but that it
sounded
like "
F.R. DAVID
"
to me.
Disappointingly, NONE of them had ever heard of such a legal document either,
but they ALL remembered that stupid song.
Grrrrr
.
When I asked a dear professor friend of mine about it (who turned out to be just as clueless in this regard as everybody else), he offered to pose the question to one of the
chatbots
, which he had grown quite fond of in recent weeks.
I told him that I considered this to be a total waste of time, because I would not believe a single word these treacherous machines are selling as facts, but he went on to ask it anyway...
The bot's reply was the following:
"No, the mention of F.R. David in the TV series "Lone Star Law" is not a reference to Texas law. F.R. David is actually a French singer and songwriter known for his hit song "Words" in the 1980s. The mention of F.R. David in the show could be a cultural reference or a humorous nod to the artist, but it is not related to Texas law."
While it was quite possible that this
"F.R.DAVID"
had nothing to do with Texas law at all, nor that it was a legal document of any kind, I absolutely
refused
to even for a second entertain the ridiculous idea that it might be a "humorous nod to the artist" or a "cultural reference".
I mean, seriously ... a one-hit-wonder from 1983 was supposed to have had such a cultural impact and significance, that the mere mention of the singer's name in the middle of Bumfuck Texas 30 years later would instantly be understood as a very specific reference??? --
Oh, FUCK OFF !!!
Since I was still determined to get to the bottom of it (mainly because I hate unanswered questions, and this entire thing was beginning to get on my nerves), I figured the next step would be to get closer to the source.
So, I contacted the
TEXAS PARK & WILDLIFE
department directly...
I instantly noticed that they were having images from that TV show all over their website,
so I confidently created an account and sent them an email.
I introduced myself ... politely apologised for possibly being about to waste their precious time with a silly question ... and then went on to explain the whole thing in sufficient detail. I even made it a point of maybe having
misheard
what sounded like
"
F.R.DAVID
"
to me. Yes, I even included the possibility that it might perhaps indeed be a (regional) cultural reference, an idiom or colloquialism of some kind.
In closing, I once again thanked them politely for their attention, and assured them that I would be most delighted, if they found the time to get back to me with an answer to my (admittedly not
that
important of a) question.
Two days later, I found a reply in my mailbox. It read:
Anna,
We are not sure what verbiage you are referencing in the show.
If you have better wording, we might be able to respond with an answer.
Thank you,
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
WHAT. IN. THE. FUCK ?!?
Seriously ???
At this point, I was prepared to contact the producers of the show, but (luckily, I suppose) the
ANIMAL PLANET
website was either under construction or down for good (it wasn't quite clear to me at the time), and there seemingly was no way to contact
anyone
regarding further information.
Besides, I really had better things to do, anyway ... so I thought:
"Oh, well ... fuck it then, I guess."
Last night, desperate to find something to watch that was at least
halfway tolerable
and that I hadn't seen countless times already ... I ended up watching the new mini-series
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
(2023).
It appeared to be a DYNASTY-style mishmash of bits and pieces of POE thrown together, and while at first I was kind of annoyed by the whole thing, I didn't really have any expectations (other then it probably being crap like most new things are), so I eventually took it for what it was and kept watching...
Then, in episode 7, it happened:
Madeline Usher and Roderick's wife Annabel-Lee (yes, I know, it kinda makes you groan at first) are sitting in the kitchen, discussing some clever financial/corporate power scheme, when Madeline says:
"...And that won't stick either. He never signed an F.R.DAVID."
WAIT. WHAT ???
I went back a few seconds, switched on the subtitles ... and there it was:
