Inside Joe Taylor’s Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum — unique on its own merits — is a room that Joe called “a fossil billboard art museum.” It displays large painted canvases of rock and pop vinyl album covers from the drug-fueled 1970s — just about the last thing you’d expect to find in a 21st century Creationist museum in western Texas.
Joe painted these large artworks, replicas of iconic records by rock groups, and for ten years they were displayed in the windows of record stores in Hollywood. David Bowie, Bob Marley, Carly Simon, Peter Frampton, Three Dog Night — it’s a galaxy of Me Decade superstars.
Joe confessed that he gave Suzi Quatro an abnormally large head because she was “a little snot,” but that he liked fellow Texan Waylon Jennings: “a local boy; I fixed his teeth.”
Joe regaled us with tales of meeting music celebrities such as John Denver and The Rolling Stones, and said that he was working on a memoir of his experiences. Should be a good read. Joe has already authored several other original works, including Long Hair, which relates how anti-God communist infiltrators conspired to “get the woman out of the home and into the man’s work force.”
My family recently stumbled onto this museum and could not resist visiting. Clearly Joe Taylor is a genius, and an artisticly talented one. That does not make him educated. He is a sad case – a person with a high IQ who was evidently raised in a family that could not handle science, and that made sure this science curious kid got brainwashed until he doesn’t recognize what he sees, only distortions. These are simple desert folks, much like swamp people, and their range of experience is limited, to put it mildly. I know exceptions, but the norm is people who are 90% religion and 10 % education. Doesn’t make much room for science.
Let’s dismiss the outlandish paleontology exhibits for a moment. There is plenty of other garbage in this place that should convince anyone this place is a joke. They have, under a thick layer of dust, a composition baby doll they say belonged to a classmate of Buddy Holly’s. And a jackalope, which, in case you don’t know, is a rabbit with antlers glued on it’s head, usually found in restaurant lobbies. And that chaqacupra. In this area, wild dogs are common. I’ve seen several in the farm area around this museum. Surely Joe Taylor has too, and knows better than to call them chaqacupras. They look a little like hyenas, but my dh, who grew up around here, says they were pets that got dumped bred with each other and became wild and vicious.
The giant bone exhibit never even says the bone really exists. It says Joe was commissioned to sculpt it. If, as he says, these bones are so common, why would he have to sculpt one? Like everything else in this museum, this exhibit is absurd and the museum overall is pathetic.
The exception is the posters, everyone of which I remember seeing along Sunset Blvd. Many of those artists were seriously strung out on drugs in those days. Drugs were everywhere. I saw one of his subjects overdose with my own eyes, and know too well how hard it was to avoid joining in. I remember being an art loving teen, thinking what a cool job that would be. It is a pity Mr Taylor didn’t stick to this career instead of becoming a crackpot potholer, destroying and manipulating artifacts so that responsible scientists have less evidence to work with. This man robs us all of an opportunity to learn the truth aout our common past. And he teaches students ( including children) lies that will make them ignorant and the laughing stock or any institution of higher lewrnig. of If that weren’t the case, this place would be really funny. As it is, it is more likely to anger anyone who cares about education.
Inside Joe Taylor’s Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum — unique on its own merits — is a room that Joe called “a fossil billboard art museum.” It displays large painted canvases of rock and pop vinyl album covers from the drug-fueled 1970s — just about the last thing you’d expect to find in a 21st century Creationist museum in western Texas.
Joe regaled us with tales of meeting music celebrities such as John Denver and The Rolling Stones, and said that he was working on a memoir of his experiences. Should be a good read. Joe has already authored several other original works, including Long Hair, which relates how anti-God communist infiltrators conspired to “get the woman out of the home and into the man’s work force.”
November 22nd, 2010 at 6:06 am
Suzi was not (and is not) “a little snot”!
March 18th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
My family recently stumbled onto this museum and could not resist visiting. Clearly Joe Taylor is a genius, and an artisticly talented one. That does not make him educated. He is a sad case – a person with a high IQ who was evidently raised in a family that could not handle science, and that made sure this science curious kid got brainwashed until he doesn’t recognize what he sees, only distortions. These are simple desert folks, much like swamp people, and their range of experience is limited, to put it mildly. I know exceptions, but the norm is people who are 90% religion and 10 % education. Doesn’t make much room for science.
Let’s dismiss the outlandish paleontology exhibits for a moment. There is plenty of other garbage in this place that should convince anyone this place is a joke. They have, under a thick layer of dust, a composition baby doll they say belonged to a classmate of Buddy Holly’s. And a jackalope, which, in case you don’t know, is a rabbit with antlers glued on it’s head, usually found in restaurant lobbies. And that chaqacupra. In this area, wild dogs are common. I’ve seen several in the farm area around this museum. Surely Joe Taylor has too, and knows better than to call them chaqacupras. They look a little like hyenas, but my dh, who grew up around here, says they were pets that got dumped bred with each other and became wild and vicious.
The giant bone exhibit never even says the bone really exists. It says Joe was commissioned to sculpt it. If, as he says, these bones are so common, why would he have to sculpt one? Like everything else in this museum, this exhibit is absurd and the museum overall is pathetic.
The exception is the posters, everyone of which I remember seeing along Sunset Blvd. Many of those artists were seriously strung out on drugs in those days. Drugs were everywhere. I saw one of his subjects overdose with my own eyes, and know too well how hard it was to avoid joining in. I remember being an art loving teen, thinking what a cool job that would be. It is a pity Mr Taylor didn’t stick to this career instead of becoming a crackpot potholer, destroying and manipulating artifacts so that responsible scientists have less evidence to work with. This man robs us all of an opportunity to learn the truth aout our common past. And he teaches students ( including children) lies that will make them ignorant and the laughing stock or any institution of higher lewrnig. of If that weren’t the case, this place would be really funny. As it is, it is more likely to anger anyone who cares about education.