Baby's First Blizzard

Just in time for 2011, the family and I are back in Austin from a two-week holiday trip to New England to visit Kate's family. Alex and I had the added pleasure of experiencing our first blizzard together. The well-insulated residents of Worcester, Mass. don't consider 12 inches to be a lot of snow, but it was far more than I've ever seen in a 24-hour period. Although we didn't have a proper sledding device, Kate improvised nicely with string and a plastic bin so Alex could have an approximated sleigh ride. I don't think he knew quite what to make of it.

Oh Christmas, Up Yours!

X-Ray Spex vocalist Poly Styrene and her daughter Celeste sing "Black Christmas" from Styrene's forthcoming solo album, Generation Indigo, due March 2011. A Class of '77 punk rock icon singing a reggae Christmas song with her kid may sound like a novel proposition, but it works.

Farm Aid 2

On July 4, 1986, my high school pal Alex Botas and I trekked up Highway 290 from Houston to Austin for Farm Aid 2. Willie Nelson's benefit concert for America's family farmers was originally slated to take place at UT's Memorial Stadium. Then they announced it would be held at Southpark Meadows. Finally, the show landed at Manor Downs, a dilapidated horse racing track that offered little in the way of amenities.

At 17, I hadn't yet discovered that sitting in a shadeless, dusty field in 100-degree heat with 50,000 people is no way to enjoy music. I remember we had a cooler stocked with cans of root beer, but they wouldn't let us bring in cans, so we just poured the root beer into the cooler and ladled it out with paper cups. We didn't think to bring food, blankets or sunscreen. A nice lady in her thirties found us pitiable enough to donate a couple of sandwiches from her well-stocked cooler to our lost cause.

We got there in time to see Willie join War for a round of "Why Can't We Be Friends?" and stuck around through the fallow rock jam session led by Bon Jovi. I should've known it was going to be anti-climatic when Don Johnson was drafted to introduce everyone. Joe Walsh meandered through an unsteady "Rocky Mountain Way" before Motley Crue's first-string drunk driver Vince Neil showed up to sing "Smokin' in the Boys Room" while Willie and his longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael played along just for fun.

If you think the TV clip below sounds bad, imagine how it sounded a quarter mile away from the stage.



After four or five hours, we gave up and drove into Austin to watch the rest of the show on TV in a cheap motel room.

Father's Day Cake

Kate made this awesome chocolate cake for my first Father's Day. While I do enjoy bikini-clad girls and American football well enough, the fact that Kate put French fries on an equal footing with the other two things demonstrates just how well my wife knows me.

Patty Melts for Two

If you’re short on change for Valentine’s Day, Whataburger has a deal for you and yours. Dine in between 5 and 10pm on Sunday, Feb. 14 and they’ll give you a free Patty Melt Whatameal when you buy one.

This may not sound like the most romantic dinner on first reading, but if you bring your own tablecloth, silverware, candelabra, vase, flowers and smooth saxophone solo, you can easily create a pitch-perfect homage to John Cusack in Better Off Dead. Remember, it’s the thought that counts.

Sadly, this offer does not apply to lonely hearts with an appetite – two people must be present when ordering. However, there’s no law stopping you from soliciting an expedient “Patty Melt Partner” in the parking lot.

Who knows? Maybe he or she will be the one you’ve been looking for all along.

Depressed Christmas

On Thursday, John Seaborn Gray listed his picks for most depressing Christmas songs of all time on the Houston Press music blog. Sure, John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison” is pretty grim, but Gray overlooked the yuletide suicide note right in his own backyard.

Culturcide’s “Depressed Christmas” was the B-side of the experimental Houston group’s 1987 single, “Santa Claus Was My Lover.” I played it just now and Kate offered the following succinct assessment:

“It woke me up from my nap in a very unpleasant way. Make it stop!”

Greenberg Turkeys at Central Market

I’m a big fan of Greenberg Smoked Turkeys. My family has been ordering these Tyler-based birds for generations, but recent years have found everyone from Oprah to The New York Times climbing on the Greenberg hosanna wagon.

Not everyone digs the ultra-smoky flavor of a Greenberg turkey. You give up some moisture to achieve that degree of smokiness, too. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine a better Thanksgiving weekend activity that pilaging a dilapidated Greenberg for oversized smoked turkey sandwiches.

After years of being available only via mail order, Central Market is selling a limited number of Greenberg turkeys in stores this year. They’re charging $49.95, which is steep, but worth it unless you have the gear and gumption to smoke your own in the backyard.

Cable tragedy averted!

Time Warner and Viacom kissed and made up just before midnight. I found out by switching on Bachelor Party with Tom Hanks on Comedy Central this morning. Not a bad way to start the ol' año nuevo if you ask me.

Kate and I rang in 2009 and the wedding of our friends Mitsi and Josh. It was a fun, classy affair at the Austin Woman's Club, a cool Victorian Gothic chateau (ca. 1874) located in the historic Bremond Block behind the central library. We got to see the First Night fireworks go off from the balcony, too.

Now it's time to take down the Christmas lights. My mom used to say it was bad luck to leave Christmas lights up after January 1. I think she just told me that so I wouldn't be one of Those People who leaves them up until March.

Of Milk and Marley

Merry post-Christmas from Houston, where temps are expected to flirt with the 80 degree mark later this afternoon. Kate and I arrived here on Christmas Eve to enjoy some down time with family and friends.

Right now I'm feeling too lazy to do much of anything beyond drinking coffee and reading news feeds. We may catch a movie later today if I can overcome my aversion to crowds. To that end, I'm thinking "Milk" instead of "Marley and Me." I'm not expressly opposed to the cockle-warming holiday movie as a concept, but paying eight bucks to sit in a room with a hundred other people to watch something I know will make me weep doesn't sound like a good day off.

I should probably ask myself why the depiction of a dog's life and death is more likely to activate the waterworks than Harvey Milk being assassinated by a vicious, Twinkie-eating bastard, but that's a whole 'nother hour on the couch.

If you've got the money, I've got the song

If you have last minute holiday shopping or seasonal dining to do, be very careful. There's a song out there with its eye on your wallet.

According to this consumer blog entry from KVUE News anchor Terri Gruca, music can influence your purchasing decisions and businesses everywhere are searching for the perfect cut to make you hand over the dough-re-mi. "Research has shown it can make you feel sophisticated, wealthy or, if you're really caught up in it, music makes you forget how much you're spending," Gruca asserts.

It doesn't take science to make a believer out of me. I once purchased and consumed three corn dogs at a traveling carnival in the parking lot of a shuttered Woolco all because the Tilt-A-Whirl DJ was playing "Rock and Roll, Hootchie Koo" by Rick Derringer.

Beetsolonely's Secret Santa Corner

Need a holiday gift for a friend or loved one who happens to be an overly nostalgic child of the 70s? My old pal Chepo sent me a photo of this $28 T-shirt from Wire and Twine earlier today.


Yes, it's an authentic replica of the spiraling rainbow "CBS Special" logo that used to precede all those Charlie Brown specials. And who can forget the jazzy, vaguely Polynesian-sounding musical accompaniment?



If you really want to go all out, throw in A Charlie Brown Christmas on DVD and a box of Zingers.

Thanksgiving in pilgrim land

Kate and I are winding down from our third turkey dinner since arriving in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. We've had a short but very full visit. It's cold here, but not as cold as it could be this time of year.

Aside from visiting with family, we've been taking it very easy. We did squeeze in a short walk through the woods with Kate's longtime chum Caitie earlier this afternoon. The woods here take on a different character with each season. Coming from Texas, being in an environment with four distinctive seasons is really quite remarkable.

Our JetBlue flight leaves from Logan at 8am tomorrow. Since we're driving into Boston from Worcester, we'll need to wake up around 4:45am and amp ourselves up with some large regulahs from Dunkin' Donuts. It's already way past time to start nudging ourselves toward sleep, so I know we'll need the traditional New England pick-me-up.

The best Halloween party ever

Like every other hour-long TV drama during the Seventies, this (non-Halloween but seasonally appropriate) episode of ABC's The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries featured a guest spot from Paul Williams. Read all about it at Kindertrauma.

Hit it, Shaun!

Sweet Emotions

Valentine's Day turned out to be one of the best ever. Kate made a fine meal of shrimp and heart-shaped crab cakes and I bought some chocolate-covered strawberries from Amy's Ice Creams for dessert. Then we watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm from the new season six DVD Kate gave me. It was a fine reward for resisting the temptation to subscribe to HBO.

Kate used to sing along to Aerosmith as a kid, so I bought her a best-of from Steve Tyler and the aging man-boys along with a red nightshirt set and one of those plastic toy microphones that makes an echo-laden, metallic sound when you sing into it. My thematic concept was "slumber party in a gift bag."

Unfortunately, Kate had already purchased the red nightshirt set I'd gotten her. In fact, I was with her when she bought it, but my male mind had no recollection of this until she came to bed wearing said sleepwear the night before Valentine's Day.

Despite the panic that swelled up inside me at this realization, I managed to purchase a new hot pink nightshirt set during yesterday's lunch hour. I really had to stretch the meaning of "hour" to do it, though.

Merry Massmas 2007

As you may have surmised from the lack of posts this week, I have been on holiday. Kate and I flew to Massachusetts Friday afternoon. After a two-hour layover in Houston, we arrived in Boston just before midnight. After scraping several inches of snow off our rental car, we drove to Worcester and got there just before 2am. We stayed with Kate’s mom and her stepdad, Michael.

Kate spent Saturday afternoon looking for wedding dresses with her 12-year-old sister, Eloise and her stepmom, Phyllis. Meanwhile, I had lunch with Michael and his son, Patrick. Michael was kind enough to show me around Worcester, pointing out various historical and cultural places of interest. Worcester has a grand train depot and lots of cool older buildings, both of which are in short supply in go-go Austin. We even got to see a real live American bald eagle at the EcoTarium, where Kate’s dad was once executive director.

When Kate finished her dress hunt, we picked up her sister, Eloise and drove down to Rhode Island for the night to visit Kate’s dad and his wife, Mary. Poor Eloise was subjected to all eight minutes of “Free Bird,” courtesy of the local classic rock station. After arriving in Portsmouth, we sat down to a superb roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner. Then we had homemade brown sugar ice cream and conked out early.

Kate and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood with her dad and Eloise on Sunday morning. Although there was plenty of snow on the ground – at least by Texas standards – it really wasn’t all that cold. Being closer to the coast probably helped on that count.

We drove Eloise back to Worcester that afternoon, stopping at Weintraub’s Deli for an amazing corned beef sandwich and their house label birch beer. I also had a cup of chicken soup to ward off any pathogens inadvertently acquired during our travels. I don’t care what Marc Katz says – there’s really no such thing as authentic East Coast deli food in Austin.

Kate’s family has a long tradition of attending the Christmas Revels show at Harvard’s Sanders Theater. The Revels started back in 1971 and are now a venerated Cambridge tradition. Phyllis graciously took Kate, Eloise and me to the Sunday night performance. The Revels spotlight the winter solstice traditions of a different culture every year. This year’s culture was the Balkans, which offered lots of colorful costumes, acrobatic dancing and haunting women’s choral pieces. The entire audience was invited to sing “Dona Nobis Pacem” and I was vaguely able to follow along thanks to Kate’s pre-Yule tutelage.

Christmas Eve day was comparatively low-key. We wrapped gifts in the morning and had lunch with Kate’s mom and Michael. His two sons were there, too. Then we visited Kate’s grandparents and her Aunt P.K. in Paxton. We took a nice walk through Moore State Park as the sun was setting. There we saw an 18th century mill along a placid flowing stream. It was about the most picturesque thing I’ve seen all year, so naturally I didn’t have a camera with me.

Because Kate has three sets of parents, one set of grandparents and an extended family gathering to visit, Christmas was something of a whirlwind. I think we ended up doing seven separate gift exchanges this year. That’s a far cry from the sparsely attended Bloody Mary Christmas morning I typically do in Houston with my folks, but it was fun getting to see everyone and eating all that food. It was also my first white Christmas, though no snow actually fell during our trip.

Speaking of H-town, four of Kate’s cousins are planning to converge there in June for the big Red Sox/Astros showdown at Minute Maid Park. Now I really need to find a way to get good tickets for that game. Naturally, I’ll be the only ‘Stros partisan in the bunch.

We ended up at the Wellesley home of Kate’s Aunt Charlotte on Christmas night. Aside from the excellent food and company, Kate showed me the back garden where we’ll be getting married in September. It was covered in snow, of course, but I was able to imagine how it might look in late summer. We stood on the freezing cold porch and I remarked that next time we were there, we’d be just about married. That helped warm me up.

Kate’s mom took us to the Worcester Art Museum on Wednesday. Worcester has one of the best smaller art museums in the country. We spent a couple of hours there and had lunch. I’d like to go back sometime and see some of the exhibits we missed.

Just as we did last year, our final night in New England was spent in Petersham at the rustic family farm house of Kate’s friend, Caitie Huppert. Before dinner, Caitie had everyone join hands and told us how good it was to have us there. Although I’ve only known them since last Christmas, the Hupperts really have a way of making one feel welcome. In fact, the same can be said of Kate’s family. That’s just one more reason I consider myself to be one very fortunate Texan to be by Kate’s side.

Christmas Time for the Jews

Anyone who loves the Phil Spector Christmas album will dig this Robert Smigel "TV Funhouse" segment with Darlene Love on vocals from last year's Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live.

Toys "R" Us Animated Christmas Ad

This animated Toys "R" Us spot from the mid-70s is one of my all-time favorite Christmas commercials. It always made me feel warm inside when it came on. The explosion of toys at the end is like something out of a dream.

Tree with All the Trimmings

This past weekend, I ended my self-imposed two-year sabbatical on Christmas trees with a vengeance. Kate and I picked out this six-foot Douglas fir and decorated it Saturday night to the strains of Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas and Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You.

I'd planned to put the tree near my front door, but it was too wide and unwieldy to fit there. Instead we placed it in the converted garage den, or as I call it, the Rompus Room. Hopefully I won't accidentally kick it over while singing along with Van Halen's first album.

The other good thing about this year's tree placement is that it's further away from my bedroom. I used to have bad dreams about Christmas trees coming to life and attacking me.

Atonement with All the Trimmings

Last year, UT journalism professor Robert Jensen climbed into hot water (again) by suggesting that Thanksgiving in America should be a day of atoning for visiting extermination upon indigenous Americans instead of eating ourselves into a big fat stupor in front of the TV.

From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.

Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.

Jensen's polemic is still making waves today, as evidenced by this post on Dallasblog.com. It's interesting to see how many folks reflexively disavow any connection with less-than-savory elements of our history even though the America they tell us to love or leave was clearly afforded in part by those elements.

Unlike Jensen, I wouldn’t go so far as to do away with Thanksgiving, nor would most who’ve ever tasted a Greenberg smoked turkey. I am thankful for all the good things in this country and in my life, but it wouldn’t hurt us to swallow a little crow with our Thanksgiving dinner every now and then.

Pre-Halloweekend

My former roommate Kevin Fullerton blew into town from Seattle on Friday with his pal Kelly in tow. After Kate and I met them at the airport, we headed for Trudy’s North Star for margaritas and migas. Trudy’s keeps their kitchen open until 2am on Friday and Saturday, which makes it the natural go-to sit-down eatery within stumbling distance of my house. Eating migas at midnight made me feel like I was in Las Vegas.

Saturday was spent gathering costume elements for the evening’s festivities from Goodwill and Savers. I settled in on a convict Elvis look and Kevin went as a Hot Wheels car. Kate made for an alluringly naughty Catholic schoolgirl and Kelly donned green hair to become the Chicken of the Sea. We made it to two parties and briefly stopped by the Victory Grill to see the Darling New Neighbors and the Unbearables performing as the Zombie Rock Orchestra. Sadly, the Neighbors finished before we arrived, but the Unbearables proved to be a toe-tapping closet pop delight. We were thoroughly enjoying the show until someone started up a smoke machine that smelled like a pee-filled vaporizer.

We drove out to Blanco on Sunday and gorged ourselves at Riley’s BBQ on the town square. I never see Riley’s in lists of best barbecue places, but Kevin and I have always had really good brisket there. The all-you-can-eat beans are a nice touch so long as you don’t mind driving back to Austin with the windows down.

On the southeast side of the town square, there is a paved path to the Blanco River that gets you into Blanco State Park without having to pay admission. The path goes right by the second largest live oak tree in Blanco County. We decided to climb the tree, demonstrating a complete lack of faith in my body’s ability to avoid falling. I was quite visibly petrified and I didn’t even get that far up in the tree. By contrast, Kevin scampered up the 400-year-old trunk like a monkey. I always was kind of an indoor kid.

We walked down to the river as the sun began to recede behind the treeline. It had been a picture-perfect day weather-wise and we couldn’t resist having a go on the swings. Everyone should swing from time to time. It keeps you young at soul if not heart. We finally had to abandon the swings when some actual children showed up.