Prelude: My red-state cultural knowledge is very lacking. OK, onto the rest of this post: I was at Fox earlier today and met a guy named Larry Gatlin. He said he was a NR fan, so I went out of my way to be extra friendly. “Where are you from?” I asked. “Austin, Texas–by the grace of a great and good God!” he replied. So I got the picture, this guy was a character. We bantered a bit and he eventually asked if, with WFB’s recent hand-over, I am now “the stud duck, the major rectum at National Review?” Me: “Stud duck?!? Well, gosh, I don’t know. Bill handed over ownership to the magazine to a five-person board, and now, etc., etc.” Gatlin: “Now what Buckley did when he started, when everyone thought he was walking around with two heads, now that’s a stud duck. I think maybe you’re a baby stud duckling.” We settled on baby stud duckling. Gatlin explained how some of the personal testimonies Monday night at the convention were so stirring that they made him “nearly go Pentacostal,” as he waved his hands in front of his face as if he were about to faint. Trying to warm a bagel in the microwave, he asked someone to help him with “the radar machine.” When the Fox harisylist asked him if he wanted his hair done, he bent forward and shook his full head of slightly unruly hair and asked, “Whaddya think?” A couple of times I came close to asking why he and his friends were at Fox News. Then as I was leaving I caught that one of the other guys was named Gatlin. That’s when I began to clue in: they must be brothers, brothers means musical act, they must be country musicians. I called KJL who confirmed they are indeed a country act and that my encounter, in certains circles, would qualify as “pretty cool.” So, there it is. (PS–I swear he said “major rectum.” If anyone has any idea if “major rectum” is a Texasism, and why it would be a flattering one, I’d love to hear from you.)