James Rubin
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James Rubin
@jamesrubin.bsky.social
110 followers 220 following 22 posts
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Reposted by James Rubin
bgrueskin.bsky.social
Here's Horton on Merle Haggard

www.welcometohellworld.com/life-is-a-pr...
That made it all right to be from Bakersfield when a lot of people weren’t all right with that. When people might physically recoil at your destitution or wonder if you could read. Here in your corner was Merle, and he was truthful about where he came from, about being an ex-con who had lived in a boxcar in Oildale, and people were fine with him. He legitimized people like my grandparents and all of the other displaced people in the parts of California people try to get away from. He legitimized everybody who got up before sunrise to drive trucks or pick cotton in some of the most desolate towns in America. Towns where it never rained. Towns of dirt and canals and corrugated sheet metal. Every time he had a hit record, he told you it was perfectly normal to wake up with a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table instead of any food and stare out at a highway. He made you think that you, too, could do something besides stand in a field or sit in a truck, but that if you had to, well, that was all right too.
September 27, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by James Rubin
bgrueskin.bsky.social
And here is a wonderful piece that her son, an esteemed WSJ reporter, wrote after her Olive Garden review hit the big time.

www.wsj.com/articles/SB1...
When Mom Goes Viral: Marilyn Hagerty, 85, Is Talk of Social Media
Some people pursue celebrity. Others stumble into it as they are rushing off to bridge club. My 85-year-old mom, Marilyn Hagerty, a newspaper columnist, is in the latter category.
www.wsj.com
September 17, 2025 at 12:35 AM