January 20, 2008

  • Hondo Crouch (aka “The Grand Imagineer”)

    I‘m not sure why so many people are looking for “The Grand Imagineer” lately, but their search engines end up pointing to my old Failure to Launch post.  (Who would have guessed that Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew McConaughey, Texas, and sailing would have anything in common?)  As a result of all these hits, I realized my links for the sailboat itself no longer work.

    If someone is looking for the story behind the name of the sailboat in “Failure to Launch,” Internet Archive still has it up at http://web.archive.org/web/20070204110432/http://www.grandimagineer.com/boat.html.

    But in summary, “The Grand Imagineer” got its name from a poem about a man named Hondo Crouch, aka “The Grand Imagineer.” And in case even *that* website goes a-missing, as so many things on the Internet end up doing, I repost the poem below:


    His Heart Was So Full Of
    Mischief

    The moon made its slow poke circle
    From
    the Highland Mall to the Capitol Dome
    May scientists forgive me my
    reference points
    But I spent the evening home
    Whilst the
    powdery Saturday caravan
    Showered and wound up downtown
    Yet
    the moon took a dim view of romance
    Because of all the clouds

    I
    sat there in my dark garden
    Like a messenger out of work
    While
    my neighbors played country music
    The kind that doesn’t hurt
    The
    moon kept shining and hiding
    Like a love against the law
    So I
    closed my eyes in sequence
    And I sang to what I saw

    Texas
    swing out of your saddles
    Abilene pick up your cards
    Houston
    blink up from your blueprints
    Dallas stop smiling so hard
    One
    of your cowboys is missing
    By the name of Hondo Crouch
    His
    heart was so full of mischief
    It grinned open and slipped out

    From
    raising sheep and eyebrows
    To singing asleep with beer
    He was the
    Sunday mayor of Luckenbach
    And the Grand Imagineer

    He
    held conversations looking sideways
    Tugging his mustache toy
    His
    remarks always seemed like secrets
    Kept between gray haired boys
    Heck,
    he was a talking treasure
    Though his tongue stayed in his cheek
    He
    spread a blanket of stories over Texas
    So other storytellers could
    sleep

    by Charles John Quarto

    Who was Hondo
    Crouch?


    Excerpt about Hondo
    Crouch

    “He was the “Clown Prince of Luckenbach,” and entertainer of star quality who
    refused for years to make money from his comic gifts. He [was a] rancher. A philosopher. A
    poet. A music man and inspiration for the hit song “Let’s go to Luckenbach,
    Texas.” Hondo Crouch was a Texas folk hero.

    “Before he died in 1976, Hondo helped stage at Luckenbach a series of zany happenings –
    from all-female chili cook-offs to Great World’s Fairs — that became so popular the tiny
    town almost got trampled out of existence. But there was more Hondo than spectacular
    spoofs.

    “He had a gift for seeing past facades and into the true nature of the human comedy –
    and tragedy — that we all live inside our hearts. His style ranged from lighthearted
    teasing to barbed satire, from pratfalls and pranks to rueful reflection.”

    Excerpt from http://www.lone-star.net/mall/literature/hondo.htm

    References:
    1.  Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php)
    2.  Internet Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20070204110432/http://www.grandimagineer.com/boat.html)
    3. http://www.lone-star.net/mall/literature/hondo.htm