Pride and Joy

I did a feature story about vocalist Ray Pride and the Crack Pipes for this week's Chronicle. They're all big music fans with stacks of records, so I enjoyed talking to them. The Crack Pipes' show last Saturday night at Hole in the Wall was extra tuff as well.

So long as you're there, check out the latest news about the big ass temple and secretive compound being erected in rural Schliecher County by the breakaway sect of fundamentalist Mormon polygamists led by fugitive Warren Jeffs. If you're a creepy looking white man looking to impregnate lots of 16-year-old girls, this might be the spiritual framework you've been waiting for.

I'm headed for the sleepy little B&B town of Glen Rose today on special assignment. It's almost a 400-mile round trip, but a mission is a mission.

The Nate of Self-Hate

A TV review is no place to go and shake someone to the core of their being.

Instead of offering the standard chuckle-worthy snark, Heather Havrilesky's Salon column about this week's episode of Six Feet Under (warning: spoilers) is a wake-up call to the not-entirely-living. It's a big glass of ice cold truth in the face of anyone given to fits of cynical detachment, spiraling neurosis and/or self-sabotage.

I don't particularly like the character of Nate Fisher, yet he's the one I most often find myself identifying with. Why the hell is that, Heather?

"What's brilliant about him, as a character, is that he embodies the very worst of the so-called sensitive, liberal, enlightened, privileged white world. He has a cushy job, a smart, beautiful wife, a reasonably sane family, and an adorable daughter who never babbles on tediously like most toddlers. So what does Nate do? He goes crawling off to screw a relative stranger and tricks himself into believing that his infidelity is a piece of some greater search for meaning.

"In other words, Nate embodies all of our selfish urges and all of our pathetic rationalizations for indulging those urges. He's a big, sad child who finds it impossible to connect with those who actually matter to him, who are in his life, who care, and instead goes running after wholesome-seeming strangers whose complicated needs aren't apparent to him yet.

"But here's the sick thing: Nate has, from the very beginning, served as the perfect blank protagonist onto which the viewer is meant to project him- or herself. The degree to which we despise Nate is directly proportional to the degree to which we hate our own selfish, lazy, endlessly rationalizing selves."

Well, goddamn. That ruins my whole weekend.

Texas Funk 1968-1975

I just got word this week from DJ Gabe Vaughn of the Second Line Social that the excellent Texas Funk 1968-1975 compilation is being released in the U.S. on Stone's Throw/Now-Again. The album features 21 rare Lone Star funk sides, including the amazing "Psycho (Parts 1 and 2) by Austin's own Fabulous Mark III. I wrote a story for the Chron about Texas Funk back in 2003 after buying the Jazzman U.K. import version at Waterloo and deciding it was worth all of $18.99.

The track listing for the U.S. version is different from the Jazzman release, presumably because of licensing issues. A stateside version of this disc has been in the works for some time now, so it's great to see it finally come to fruition. This is definitely worth checking out if you're into funk and/or Texas music history.

Gabe tells me he'll be spinning hard funk sides at the local Texas Funk release party on Friday, August 12 at Flamingo Cantina along with a couple of other DJs. Sounds like my kinda record party.

Sony Settles with Spitzer

On Monday, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced a settlement in the pay-for-play case against Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Under the agreement, detailed here, Sony agreed to stop making payments and giving gifts to radio station employees in return for airplay of label artists. Sony also agreed to pay $10 million to provide music education to New York State residents.

I suppose I should feel outraged, but it's not like the music business hasn't always been rotten in this regard. And it's not like this settlement has much chance of stopping pay-for-play, either. The money will just go someplace else.

If you really want to feel the ick factor, take a look at the 59 pages of Sony correspondence at the bottom of Spitzer's press release. The idea of some greaseball b-market jock hitting up label reps. for a free laptop or rental car in exchange for spinning shit records just seems sad and pathetic all around. If you're going to be on the take, at least have the decency to demand an 8-ball of coke and a hooker you can snort it off of.

What is Hip?

"So ya wanna dump out yo' trick bag.
Ease on in a hip thang,
But you ain't exactly sure what is hip.

"So you started to let your hair grow.
Spent big bucks on your wardrobe.
Somehow, ya know there's much more to the trip."
-Tower of Power, 1973

While no real "hipster" would ever cop to such a handle, those carefully- cultivated patinas of smug detachment are like porn: you know them when you see them in the aisles of Savers and the booths of Kerbey Lane.

If you're brave, smitten, and/or horny enough to want to hook up with these maladjusted creatures of the night, Austinist's hilariously helpful guides to snagging Austin hipster girls and guys might lead you in the vague direction of deliverance. Then you'll really be sorry.

Brady Season Two

Season two of The Brady Bunch drops on DVD tomorrow. Although I prefer the latter day episodes, there's plenty of immortal Brady lore to be had in season two, including:

1. The "itching powder in the sleeping bags" episode ("The Slumber Caper") where the boys ruin Marcia's groovy slumber party. I was quite a little prankster growing up, but I never saw itching powder, nor did I ever hear of its use except in this episode of The Brady Bunch.

2. "Mom always said don't play ball in the house." Peter hears Bobby say that over and over again as he slowly caves from guilt after breaking mom's vase and having his brothers and sisters cover for him so he won't get grounded and miss a camping trip ("Confessions, Confessions").

3. Jan and Cindy see Greg smoking (smoking!) after school and rat him out to mom and dad ("Where There's Smoke"). Hell, at least it wasn't dope, right? Significantly, smoking was more tolerated among youth in 1970 than it is now, making this one of the few Brady episodes that might be more relevant today.

4. Season two featured two classic "Crazy Jan" episodes, including one where she makes up a boyfriend named "George Glass" in a lame attempt to one-up Marcia ("The Not-So-Ugly Duckling"). This is the episode that birthed "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" Then there's "Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up?," in which Jan shows up at a party in a hideous wig and gets laughed right out the door by her friends.

5. Finally, my favorite season two episode, "Our Son, The Man," in which Greg dons shades, lets the fringe fly and turns dad's study into a groovy little hippie pad.

Jody's Got Your Girl And Gone

Here's an interesting and depressing feature story from yesterday's Austin American-Statesman (via the L.A. Times) about the strain long wartime deployments are putting on military marriages.

After braving roadside bombs and snipers, some soldiers are coming home to divorce papers and empty bank accounts. One poor guy in this story called home from Iraq to check his voicemail only to hear sweet nothings spoken by his wife's lover. Aside from the "Jody" syndrome, some spouses left behind simply decide they like being on their own better. Whatever the reason, the Army divorce rate has jumped more than 80 percent since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started.

Pet Voyeurism and Rick Santorum

Ever wonder what your pets think when they see you having sex? Do they know what it is you're doing? Does it excite them? Upset them? Do they feel like a kid who accidentally walks in on his or her parents?

According to a textbook human interest story in yesterday's Houston Chronicle, response varies from species to species and pet to pet. However, male pets are often protective of their lady owners when some Aramis-reeking lothario invades its territory, especially if the pet sleeps in the woman's bed.

By the way, Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Mr. "Man-On-Dog" Himself," is Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show Monday.

Hump Day Honky Tonkin'

My pal David W. and I finally made it over to the new Brentwood Tavern Wednesday night. Neither of us had food, but their patio overlooking scenic Burnet Road was a nice place for a pint. Unbeknownst to us, the Tavern officially closed at 10, but they let us hang around until 10:30. It seems like a nice neighborhood place, but I'll have to try the food there before giving them a total thumbs-up.

We went from the Tavern to Ginny's Little Longhorn, where Justin Trevino was playing his regular Wednesday night gig. Vocalist/bassist Trevino was joined by a steel guitarist and a drummer. The classic country trio's sound was fuller than you'd expect, and they had the tears in beers vibe down pat. Trevino's voice reminds me a bit of Don Walser, too. He's a worthy compliment to Dale Watson's long-time Thursday night stand at Ginny's.

Clocks, Cows and Udder Confusion

Hope ya like daylight savings time because it's on the verge of becoming the new standard time in the U.S. On Tuesday, a House-Senate conference committee agreed on language that would extend daylight savings time by two months as part of a comprehensive energy bill.

Under the proposed plan, we'd "spring forward" the first Sunday in March and "fall back" the last Sunday in November, giving us nine months of daylight savings time and just three of "standard" time. However, the resulting hue and cry over the time change now has Congress stepping back and reconsidering their zeal to mess with the clocks of 250 million people.

Supporters say we could reduce nationwide energy demand by as much as one percent, or 100,000 barrels of oil, per day. Some research indicates the extra hour of daylight would reduce the number of car accidents since people tend to drive faster on the way home than they do on the way to work. It might also cut down on crime since it's harder to do crimes without the cover of darkness.

Naturally, there are also some drawbacks. At the top of the list is the idea that little kids would be walking to school in the dark. It doesn't seem there are as many kids walking or biking to school these days, though. At least not in my (relatively safe urban) neighborhood.

Then you have dairy farmers complaining about how any time change messes up their cows' milking schedules. I don't quite understand that. Why can't they just milk the cows an hour earlier or later? Is there anyone out there who can explain this to a teat-shy city boy?

This is an Emergency!

When I was in third grade, I'd come home after school each weekday and watch reruns of Emergency! on Channel 11 in Houston. Seeing Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe save people's hides just in the nick of time made me want to become a paramedic when I grew up.

As I got a little older, seeing Julie London in those form-fitting Rampart Hospital nurse pants made me want to grow up to be Bobby Troup, London's bandleader/songwriter husband, who played Dr. Joe Early on the show.

Since this was a Jack Webb production, Emergency! relied on curt dialogue and tightly boxed plotlines moved along by repetitious prompts like the memorable dispatch tones heard whenever Station 51 got a call. Watching the show now, I crack up every time they cut to the same ragged stock footage of a speaker on the wall broadcasting the location of the latest emergency. If you drank a shot of tequila every time they showed that speaker, you'd be plastered by hour's end.

Fans of Emergency! are fortunate to have Erika and Rozane's exceptionally thorough tribute site to visit for episode guides, character sketches, cast news, bloopers and MP3 files of those unforgettable dispatch tones. Even better, a DVD of 12 season one episodes is set for release on August 23.

Shacking Up, Marriage Down

A new census-based study by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project finds the annual U.S. divorce rate for married women has fallen from a peak of 22 per 1,000 married women in 1980 to just under 18 per 1,000 in 2004. But don't chalk this up to traditional values. The decline is largely because fewer women are getting married and more are shacking up.

In 1976, 77 out of every 1,000 single women got married. By 2004, the study found fewer than 40 per 1,000 single women got married. Meanwhile, the number of unmarried opposite sex couples living together has jumped from less than half a million in 1960 to more than five million today.

The National Marriage Project is alarmed by these findings. The Project bills itself as nonpartisan, but their primary mission is to promote the institution of marriage, which of course is inherently partisan. They question the commitment of cohabitating couples and worry about the progeny of these unions, yet you won't find them advocating to extend the magical elixir of marriage to same-sex couples. That would just get in the way of their agenda, so they make like abstinence-only advocates and pretend same-sex couples simply don't exist. Clever, no?

Not surprisingly, the Project also has a long history of tweaking research to support conclusions designed to discourage any intimate relationship other than marriage. The Alternatives to Marriage Project provides a useful summary of how they do it here.

Two Hours I Want Back

I can't believe I lost two hours of my life watching the disgraceful 1999 movie Pushing Tin on FX this weekend. It's a Lifetime-style TV movie of the week that somehow got made as a big budget Hollywood film. I figured I'd at least enjoy the air traffic control aspect of it, but that was just a phony backdrop for an overwrought, poorly-realized love story. John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton compete for wives and airspace while learning a bit too much about each other in the process. My hope for a catastrophic mid-air collision grew more fervent with every scene.

Pushing Tin isn't a noble kind of failure. It sucks without taking risks. They aimed right at the middle and made the Applebee's of filmed entertainment.

Inertnet Security

I've spent most of the weekend trying to undo the damage wrought to my PC by trying to install a demo version of Norton Internet Security that came with my Linksys router. Because of an apparent licensing conflict with my existing Norton SystemWorks software, I can't install Internet Security.

However, the installation shield did throw a bunch of common files into my shared folder that I couldn't delete. When I tried to get rid of them manually, Windows quit running. After reinstalling Windows, all of my old settings were gone and I still couldn't get online. I guess that's what they mean by "Internet Security."

Time to Ditch the Land Line?

Yesterday I discovered yet another drawback to having VoIP (Voiceover Internet Protocol) phone service as opposed to a traditional land line: you can't split the signal. I normally use a cordless phone, but I keep an old Western Electric-style slimline model on hand for whenever I record phone interviews. When I tried to plug in that phone, my cordless stopped working. Naturally, Time Warner tells you none of this when they sell you digital phone service.

Wednesday's Dallas Morning News had a story about how cell phones now outnumber land lines in Texas (registration required). Lots of people are reaching a point where it just doesn't make sense to maintain a land line. I have to keep one because wireless reception and fidelity are still pretty terrible by comparison. That's no good for phone interviews. VoIP's reception isn't as sharp as a traditional land line, either, but it's still way better than what I'd get from wireless.

Then again, my cell is an cheap-ass Virgin Mobile Kyocera base model I bought three years ago for $59. You'll think I'm really glad to see you if I hug you while it's in my front pocket.

Arabic Assassin Fired as Baggage Screener

The mad lyrical flow at Houston Intercontinental Airport suffered a major setback last week with the firing of Basaam Khalaf - a.k.a. the Arabic Assassin, from his job as a baggage screener.

While Khalaf passed his background check and worked at the airport for seven months, TSA officials were unaware of his rap career until they peeped his website. Just so you know, the TSA doesn't want musicians day jobbing among the Samsonites if your songs "applaud the efforts of the terrorists on September 11th, encourage and warn of future acts of terrorism by you, discuss at length and in grave and alarming detail various criminal acts you intend to commit, state your belief that the U.S. government should be overthrown, and finally warn that others will die on September 11, 2005."

Khalaf insists his Arabic Assassin alias is only for publicity and his violent rants are merely flights of fancy, not terror. "Everybody wants to label all Arabics terrorists just because a couple of people messed up," he told the AP. "Well, I'm going to play along with that character. I'm going to let you think I'm one."

That'll show 'em.

Little Ol' Ex-Homeowner Me

My ex-wife and I are selling our old house today. What a weird, bittersweet feeling that is.

I moved out almost a year ago, so I've had some time to process the loss of what I thought would be home for many years (to say nothing of the marriage itself). The finality of signing the house away brings a lot of that stuff back to the surface. It's tough to think about what's gone, but it feels good to be moving on.

Now who wants a piece of divorce cake?

The Smiling Face of American Malignance

The complacent press corps finally is waking up to the ugly truth: Karl Rove is a pus-filled tumor on the American body politic that needs to be excised, dissected to benefit future generations and thrown in an incinerator with the dirty needles and soiled sheets.

You just know Ol' Turd Blossom breathed a silent sigh of relief when London was bombed last week. Surely he thought we’d return to lockstep post-9/11 nostrums about standing united in rage on the corpse of irony. Crank up that threat level and everyone stands down, right? Not this time, Blossom.

It was a pleasant surprise to see reporters asking about the Plame leak over and over again on Monday, holding that Son of One Tough Grandma’s feet to the fire for a change. Maybe they’ve figured out they should be mad as hell about their own complicit role in Rove’s treachery. After all, this is a government official who blew the cover of a CIA agent in a time of war to get back at her husband for not towing the line on Bush’s crooked justification for diverting the war to Iraq in the first place. I’d say that equals roughly 1,000 Oval Office blowjobs.

Although he deserves worse, forcing Rove to resign would be cause for celebration. I don’t expect we’ll see him go to jail, though. Rove’s legal defense – saying “Joseph Wilson’s wife” instead of “Valerie Plame” – is just Clintonian enough to let a rich, well-connected white man skate.

They’ve really restored dignity to the White House, haven’t they?

Grande President and CEO Step Down

Today's Statesman reports that Grande Communications president Joe Ross is stepping down. Ross plans to stay on as an adviser until a successor is found. The news comes just six days after Grande CEO Bill Morrow stepped down.

Interim CEO W.K.L. "Scott" Ferguson says the resignations don't indicate problems with the company. With Grande's initial network build-out well underway, Ferguson says "It's more of a marketing game and more of an operational game now."

I don't have the knowledge to comment any further on these developments, other than to say a brand new high-speed network doesn't count for much if you can't even squeeze clear local signals from it.

As a local (San Marcos) company, Grande can really capitalize on residual animus toward Time Warner, particularly in a city like Austin where a lot of people are predisposed against multinational corporations as a matter of principle. It would be a real shame if that opportunity was wasted on something as basic as making sure Fox 7's Simpsons reruns don't cut out.

Free Chili Dogs Tomorrow!

I've never seen an appetizing photo of a chili dog, and this one is particularly repulsive. However, that shouldn't stop you from getting a free chili dog at Weinerschnitzel tomorrow from 5-8pm in honor of the hot dog chain's 44th birthday. While you're there, you can also get a free thimble-size Tastee Freez cone.

Weinerschnitzel may be America's largest hot dog chain, and Nathan's Famous may be the most venerable, but my favorite is still James Coney Island in Houston. Austin had its own James Coney Island on Congress for a year or so, but it closed down in 2003. Downtown Austin wasn't a good location for them. People in suits don't like taking a chance with chili cheese dogs. More importantly, there's no drive-up business downtown. I wish they'd talked to me before moving in.

Who Wants Pork?

Having followed the Albertson's circular religiously for several weeks now, I can authoritatively say this week is a good one for their 10 for $10 promotion. Particularly if you like pork. I purchased five heaping pounds of pork loin chops for $5.26 yesterday.

A lot of single people living alone are scared of buying family packs of meat, but the savings is too substantial to pass up. When I get home, I carefully separate the chops into single serving portions and freeze them in Zip-Loc bags. Whenever I'm in the mood for pork (insert bad double entendre here), I defrost a Zip-Loc bag in cold water and grill it up. I'm sure this seems like well-duh stuff to some, but I still get plenty of satisfaction from my meat maximization system (here, too).

Baseball, Hot Dogs and Crack Pipes

Last night, I went to my first Round Rock Express game with Rev. Ray Pride of the Crack Pipes. We were doing an interview for a story I'm writing about them. Baseball moves slowly enough to where you can get into pretty involved conversations without missing too much of the action.

The Express were coming off a road trip and their equipment got delayed, which delayed the start of the game by more than half an hour. Between that and the impending All-Star break, Round Rock had no gas in the tank. Nashville won easily 4-1.

I can't watch baseball on TV unless it's the playoffs, but it's always fun to go to a game. Especially when the most expensive ticket is $10.

Dirty Pitts Screws Austin Out of Vote

The Texas House of Representatives passed a regressive school finance bill this week by one vote. Now it turns out that the deciding "yes" vote came from Rep. Jim Pitts of Waxahachie, who signed a paired absentee voting agreement (see below) with Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin, who would've voted "no." Then Pitts changed his mind and voted anyway. The bill won final House approval Thursday and is headed for the Senate.

Aside from being an egregious violation of parliamentary procedure, Pitts effectively robbed East Austin of its vote on a bill that would lead to tax increases for the vast majority of its citizens. Be sure to remember that if you ever have the misfortune of conducting business with this thief.

Perhaps Austin restaurants should start asking for Pitts' credit card before he's allowed to order. If he's out shopping, it might be prudent to have an employee follow him around as a precaution. Maybe Pitts' name and photo can be posted by the cash register next to all the bad checks. Just be sure his money is in your hand before lifting a finger.

The Rains Came

After being teased with a 20 percent chance of rain for well over a month, the summer skies finally put out for Austin last night.

It was a real gully-washer, complete with thunder, lightning and some impressive wind gusts. Early reports say the rain came down too fast and ran off too soon to make a huge dent in the drought, but a little bit is better than nada. Especially when you've been through dry spells that didn't break until late August or early September.

I took my daily nightly walk of contemplation around 10. The night air was still humid, but much cooler than it's been since mid-May. Although the thunderstorms had passed, there was an excellent lightning show in the eastern sky. Arroyo Seco wasn't seco at all. What a nice respite from the oppressive, energy-sapping triple-digit heat we've been having.

Having Fun in the Workaday World

As I reported some months back, the location of my Government Job is about to move. Like all but the most senior staff, I'll be going from having my own office to having a cube the size of a handicapped toilet stall. That means we have to get rid of a ton of crap.

Instead of just having a plain old Get Rid of Crap Day, they've decided to try and make the process fun by having a contest to see who can get rid of the most crap. We've been divided into teams and everything.

My knee-jerk reaction to this can politely be described as bemused cynicism. I don't quite understand the need to make taking out the trash even more time-consuming by coming up with ways to pretend it's fun.

Nevertheless, I don't want to be the annoying asshat who takes the piss out of well-intentioned efforts to make the workplace more pleasant. That's no fun, either. In fact, I feel sort of guilty for even thinking this way. So I'll be cooperative and go along to get along because that's Just the Kind of Guy I Am.

Capitalizing words that don't need capitalization for artistic effect: now that's fun!

All Connections Go

After one last trip to Best Buy, I finally found a USB network adapter that works with TiVo. What a good feeling it was to have a successful program information download after all these weeks. I think I know how those boys in Mission Control must've felt after Apollo 13.

Having gotten TiVo up and running again, I now realize I could've saved myself hours of anger had I not opted to redo the initial guided setup when Time Warner's digital phone service wouldn't call out. I could've installed wireless hardware right then and there as opposed to taking the TiVo box to a friend's house with a land line and tying up their phone for over an hour. Don't ever opt to redo initial guided setup on a TiVo DVR unless you absolutely have no other choice.

And here's something else: even if I wasn't getting HBO, I'd still like Time Warner Cable's channel line-up better than Grande's. With Time Warner, I get News 8 Austin, TXCN (Belo's Dallas-based statewide news network which gets feeds from WFAA in Dallas, KHOU in Houston and KENS in San Antonio) and KLRU 2 (which shows the BBC News weeknights at 6:30). That's what happens when you have a journalism degree.

The only Grande channel I miss is Boomerang from Cartoon Network and its Bullwinkle reruns. However, Time Warner does have some of Boomerang's programming on one of their On Demand channels.

Dr. Hartley Kept Me Sane

Between the oppressive 100-degree heat and making several fruitless trips to Best Buy in unsuccessful attempts to reconnect TiVo to the outside world (apparently standards mean nothing when it comes to USB network adapters), I can't say yesterday felt like being "on holiday."

The one thing that kept me from throwing something at the wall in a fit of pique was decompressing with a couple of Bob Newhart Show episodes when things got tense. I'm slowly working my way through season one on DVD. It's hard to imagine such wry, subtle humor surviving on American network TV today. People don't have time to wait 2 or 3 seconds for a joke to become funny anymore.

I think Suzanne Pleshette's Emily Hartley is the best TV wife of all time. She's smart, she's funny and that rasp in her voice is sexy as hell. The mellowing of Lorenzo and Henrietta Music's opening theme as Bob gets on the train to head home to Emily is another intoxicating aural cue that curries my favor. I can't think of a better advertisement for the "button-down" life.

Single and Lovin' It!

In honor of Independence Day, your neighborhood H-E-B has a real sweet deal on a prime bachelor meal.

First grab yourself a Night Hawk frozen dinner for $1.58. I'm partial to the Beef Patty 'n Gravy meal, which consists of a charbroiled beef patty, potato rounds (guess someone copyrighted tater tots) and sweet corn with sauce. Then pick up an in-store coupon and get one pint of H-E-B Creamy Creations ice cream for absolutely nothing! Night Hawk dinners are made right down the road in Buda, and they're loved by starch-happy playboys throughout the American South. There's even a tribute page!

If by chance you've got a hot Fourth of July date, buy two Night Hawks and two Creamy Creations (chocolate for your lady friend, of course) along with a quart of beer to split. If H-E-B says you can only use one coupon, try going through another checkout lane. But don't tell your date you used a coupon or she'll think you're a cheap bastard.

I Just Wasn't Made for These Times

Yesterday I took my TiVo DVR to a friend's house and managed to successfully run the setup program using a traditional phone line. Unfortunately, TiVo still won't download program information via my own Time Warner VOIP-based digital phone line. I was hoping a DSL filter might help, but it hasn't. Unless I manage to make a successful phone connection in the next two days, I'll no longer be able to record programs with TiVo.

From here, it would appear hooking TiVo up to a wireless home network is the only workable long-term solution. I suppose that's not the worst outcome, but I'm still pissed off because neither Time Warner nor TiVo is particularly forthcoming about these incompatibilities. I've had to spend hours figuring it out myself through rage-inducing trial and error.

This whole episode has made me a less desirable person to be around. Colleagues at the office comment on my uncharacteristically swart demeanor. My tense, robotic gait scares women and children alike as I barrel through supermarkets and shopping malls. That little Michael Douglas in Falling Down character I'm normally able to keep in check is just a little too close to the surface.

People are starving to death, dying of disease and getting blown apart in wars. And I CAN'T EVEN WATCH because my TV won't work right! What kind of existence is that? ANSWER ME!

I'll Have To Run It By My Editor

If you're in a band (or if you're a budding publicist), take a look at Sam Machkovech's column in this week's Dallas Observer to learn how not to pimp product to the local press. Rule number one: don't force a writer to listen to your demo over dinner at his mother's house.

My one beef with Machkovech's piece is that he reveals the magical line, "I'll have to run it by my editor" for what it often is: a polite way of brushing off the overly zealous. I thought that was a trade secret!

The Laws Have Changed

Remember how hard it was to be an underage drinker, hanging out in the U-Tote-M parking lot on a balmy Friday night, trying to convince a sympathetic adult to buy you a six-pack? Well, it's about to get a whole lot harder in Texas. Under a new law that goes into effect September 1, any adult convicted of knowingly purchasing or furnishing alcohol to someone under 21 faces an automatic six-month driver's license suspension.

Although providing booze to minors is already a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a $4,000 fine and up to a year in jail, that law is primarily used to go after errant retailers and clubs. The automatic license supsension takes aim at the cool uncle types who are just trying to help a (younger) brother out. Parents and guardians can still furnish alcohol to their own kids, but who wants to get drunk with their parents?

When I was a teen, I remember thinking how good the teens of the late Seventies had it. The drinking age was 18, Vietnam was over and penicillin took care of what ailed you down there. Now it seems like I'm the one who had it easy with regard to the consequences of vice.

For most of the time I was in high school, the drinking age was 19. While that effectively removed legal drinkers from high school, obtaining alcohol was still relatively easy. Most retailers and clubs carded, but not with the same tenacity as today. If a 17-year-old guy couldn't pass for 19, there was usually a 15-year-old girl nearby that could. Getting booze was more of a fun challenge than an ordeal.

I can't say I'm entirely opposed to making it more difficult for teens to drink anymore, although it still doesn't seem right to let 18-year-olds join the military if they can't even get a beer. I'm surprised no one has proposed letting underage soldiers drink as an incentive to prop up sagging military recruitment levels. If Bush was able to partake of "youthful indiscretions" while ducking Vietnam, it only seems fair to let the kids who have to fight and die in his war to booze it up.

Caught Up with Millie Jackson

Georgia-bred R&B diva Millie Jackson comes to Austin on Friday, July 15 at Doris Miller Auditorium. In Jackson's case, "R&B" could just as well stand for "raw and bawdy." Although she can be heard spinning tunes afternoons on KKDA-AM in Dallas, Jackson hasn't played Austin in awhile.

Jackson's adultery song-cycle Caught Up (1974) and its follow-up, Still Caught Up (1975) are two of my favorite Southern soul records of the Seventies.

Backed with the rhythm of the Muscle Shoals Swampers, Jackson uses each side of Caught Up to tell the story of a love triangle from both the other woman's and the spurned wife's point of view. The album ends with an amazing remake of Bobby Goldsboro's "Summer (The First Time)."

Still Caught Up starts with the wife's side and ends with the other woman going insane while pleading for her married man on Mac Davis' "I Still Love You (You Still Love Me)." Jackson used to end her concerts by having men in white coats wrap her up in a straight jacket and drag her off the stage as she sang this song.

Her last LP, 2001's Not for Church Folk, was released on her own Weird Wreckuds imprint. Go to Jackson's official site to hear a snippet of the lead single, "Butt-A-Size."

Hoky Smokes, That's My Old Place!

My old duplex at the corner of I-35 and Crestwood was the lead story on KVUE's 6pm newscast yesterday because some moron in a high-speed police chase crashed into it in a pickup that didn't belong to him. The current residents were not home at the time and there were no serious injuries. I can't find any photos on KVUE's website, but I'll post a photo if I can find one.

UPDATE: Click here to access video from KVUE (registration required). The name of the story is "Chase Ends with Truck Hitting House."

Frankly, I'm surprised something like this didn't happen sooner. The duplex itself was a nice, comfortable domicile when I lived there from 1995 through 1998, and I could hold band practice in the living room because no one in the other unit could hear us playing.

However, the duplex's proximity to I-35 (basically right under the exit ramp to Airport Blvd.) meant you saw car accidents on a regular basis. There was a late night high-speed police chase while I lived there in which some guy took out the signpost at the curb, but I'm pretty sure no one put a vehicle into the living room wall until Tuesday.

There was also one successful and at least one foiled break-in while I was there, courtesy of the neighborhood drug addicts. Because all the I-35 service road traffic was headed in one direction with no view of our back porch, would-be burglars could stand there indefinitely while trying to jimmy their way inside.

One night I came home to the sound of someone trying to do just that, so I bellowed "HEY!" in the meanest voice I could muster. Whoever it was ran off before I could get outside and stab him in the eyeball with a dirty steak knife.

I wonder if that would've made the news?

Stories from the House of Ram

Ram Wall Painting
Originally uploaded by H. Michael karshis.

H. Michael Karshis has started a blog called Stories from the House of Ram to gather stories about Ram Ayala and Taco Land. Everyone is encouraged to contribute.

On Sunday, there was a memorial show at Taco Land to close the book on the legendary San Antonio bar. "Now that Ram is passed and gone, there is no more Taco Land," said Robert Tatum, a friend of Ram's, in yesterday's San Antonio Express-News. "It's over. None of us are even thinking twice about continuing to run it."

Money raised at the show will go to help the two surviving employees, bartender Denise "Sunshine" Koger, 41, and doorman Douglas Morgan, 53, who were also shot at the bar early Friday morning. Koger and Morgan are at University Hospital. Both are listed in stable condition.

Centennial Liquor Demolished

I was driving down North Lamar yesterday when I noticed the Centennial Liquor at the corner of Lamar and Brentwood next to the Yellow Rose has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Too bad. Where are these poor kids going to get their sixers now?

Enduro and the Crack Pipes

After wishing Brandon Tucker of Xcella and Coco Candissi reknown a happy birthday over at Billy's last night, I took in an extra-fun show at Beerland. It was Enduro's first show in five years and they flailed tightly like they hadn't missed a beat. The trio's scratchy blues-punk assault just feels right at a joint like Beerland. I hadn't seen the Crack Pipes in awhile and they were also enlivening. Their latest LP, Beauty School is a peach that tastes different with each bite.

You know you're getting older when it takes a reunion show to get your ass out on the town.

More on Ram and Jon Dee Graham

Today's San Antonio Express-News expands on the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Taco Land owner Ram Ayala early Friday morning. Police say they have no leads on the shooter and his accomplice. The story also contains reaction from friends and family. Everyone seems to have a good yarn about Ram involving booze and words you can't print in a family newspaper.

Hopefully the two men responsible for this stupid, senseless murder will read today's paper and start to realize what they've done.

Over on the more positive side of humanity, last night's Saxon Pub benefit for Jon Dee Graham's six-year-old son Willie was a lot of fun. I walked in just as the Skunks (Jon Dee on guitar, Jesse Sublett on bass and Billy Blackmon on drums) were playing "Gimme Some." They also did an immoliating workout on "Sister Ray."

Roky Erickson and his brother Sumner played a short acoustic set that included "You Don't Love Me Yet," "Splash 1" and "Starry Eyes." All great songs, often imbued with very personal connections for lots of us Texas rock fans young and younger. Roky is still pretty tentative by "normal" performance standards, but he's looking better than I've ever seen him in my time in Austin.

For a band that hasn't played together regularly since the Reagan administration, the Standing Waves delivered an amazingly cohesive set. The Delinquents (Lester Bangs' backing band during his Austin stint) were also fun to watch. I was either too young, or not yet born in Roky's case, to see these groups the first time around, so it was good to see them now for an equally good cause.

Jon Dee Graham's son has a rare condition called Legg-Perthes, which causes the head of the femur to lose blood and die. Although Graham had health insurance, his provider declared Chapter 11. Now Willie has a pre-existing condition and no one else will cover it. You can find out more and donate to Willie's health fund via PayPal here.

America isn't the worst country in the world, but until we do something about the robber-barons denying us affordable health care, there's no way in hell we'll ever be the best.

Taco Land Owner "Ram" Killed

In the midst of the Spurs' victory, we have some very sad news out of San Antonio today. Taco Land owner Ramiro Ayala, 72, better known as "Ram," was fatally shot at the legendary bar early this morning. He died at Brooke Army Medical Center at 2:25am.

An unidentified 40-year-old woman and 54-year-old man were also shot and were listed in critical condition at San Antonio's University Hospital. Initial reports are sketchy, but police believe two suspects exchanged words with the victims and at least one of them began shooting. The suspects apparently took the money from the bar's cash register and fled in an unidentified vehicle.

Ram opened Taco Land in 1965 at 103 W. Grayson, selling food to workers from nearby bottling plants. The old Pearl Brewery was right around the corner. He converted Taco Land into a bar in 1969. The bar became a celebrated punk rock venue in the Eighties, immortalized in the Dead Milkmen's 1987 song, "Tacoland."

I only played at Taco Land a few times, but two of those times included memorable Ram encounters. The first was in 1993 at a Noodle gig with Gut and Boxcar Satan. I'd broken up with my girlfriend of two years earlier that day and was lucky to have even completed the 78-mile trek to San Antonio on account of a rapidly dying car battery. I couldn't wait to get inside the bar and pop a cold Pearl to calm my nerves before the show. Unfortunately, I'd left my driver's license in Austin and my youthful appearance made it difficult to even get into Taco Land, let alone drink.

"If I catch you drinking," Ram warned, "I'll have your motherfuckin' ass thrown in jail!"

Needless to say, I was one sober 24-year-old that night.

About a year or so later, Noodle was back at Taco Land and I had my I.D. firmly in hand this time. We were right in the middle of a particularly sweaty set and I was bowled over in some ridiculous spastic contortion with my eyes closed. Then I felt something ice cold press against my forehead. I looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see Ram trying to hand me a Pearl for my efforts. I remember thinking that was about as close to winning a Grammy as I'll ever get.

photo by Mark Greenberg, www.nightrocker.com

R.I.P., Ram.

Goodbye, TEX, and Good Luck

"Welcome to TEX, the Telephone Enrollment eXchange for the University of Texas at Austin."

Anyone who attended UT in the early Nineties will recall that utterance by Senior Vice President William Livingston from the semesterly ritual of registering for classes by phone. Compared to "running" for classes at the Erwin Center's adds-and-drops circus, TEX was a godsend. It didn't necessarily make getting the right class any easier, but at least you could salve your frustration with a cool Mickey's Bigmouth in the comfort of your own domicile.

UT began online registration in 1997, slowly but surely eroding the number of students using TEX. Today, almost 99 percent of students register online. After 15 years of service, UT will disconnect TEX forever on July 15 at 5pm.

If you need to hear Livingston say, "Goodbye and good luck" one more time, call (512) 475-9950.

Primary Voters Can't Get Kinky

Kat's question about how to get Kinky Friedman on the 2006 ballot for governor reveals a heinously anti-democratic catch-22 in Texas' election code. Kinky needs 45,000 signatures to get on the November 2006 ballot. He will have up to two months to collect these signatures following the March 2006 Republican and Democratic primaries. However, none of those signatures can be from people who vote in the primaries.

In other words, you can sign the petition for Kinky or you can vote in a party primary, but you can't do both.

So what do you do if you want to break the two-party stranglehold and send Perry packing? Perhaps informal swapping of Kinky signatures for Strayhorn primary votes is the answer. If this is illegal, it's a law I'd be proud to thumb my nose at.

If you would like to "save yourself" to sign Kinky's ballot petition by not voting in the primaries, the Friedman campaign has a abstinence-style purity pledge you can sign.

Grandma and the Rickster

Unless both Rick Perry and Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn get caught in bed with the proverbial dead girl or live boy, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the Governor's Mansion is occupied by someone other than a Republican come January 2007.

That said, I'm looking forward to an extra nasty run-up to the 2006 Republican Primary. Perry may have the hard right thumpers and their money, but One Tough Grandma isn't going down without a fight. Bush is wise to steer clear of the whole mess by refusing to endorse either one of them.

Perry's reign has been ineffectual at best and downright hateful at worst. His callous insinuation that gay veterans who want to marry should leave Texas is a telling window into his soul. Lacking Bush's cracker barrel charm offensive, Perry finds it difficult to command respect even within his own party. He's a lightweight who subsists on the political leavings of others.

Some left-leaning folks I've talked to don't like Strayhorn because she's a showboating blowhard whose politics are only a few insignificant degrees from Perry's. That may be true, but I still think she'd make a better governor because her experience (State Comptroller, Railroad Commissioner, Mayor of Austin) entails having a grasp of how government actually works. Strayhorn has also demonstrated a nominal interest in improving public education in Texas, while Perry's overriding goal in school finance reform has always been property tax relief for the wealthy. Most importantly, I kind of like the way Strayhorn says "Hawgwash!"

Trading Strayhorn for Perry would be a shallow victory, but it could work as the opening shot in a long-term repudiation of the status quo. In order to make sure it's not just the lunatic fringe of party faithful choosing the next governor of Texas, it's not a bad idea to consider voting in the 2006 Republican Primary even if you're not one. Assuming he makes the ballot, you can still vote for Kinky in the general election. Why the hell not?

Alamo Rolling Roadshow 2005 Tour

This summer, the Alamo Drafthouse takes its creatively unorthodox approach to motion picture exhibition on a 12-date tour of classic movie shooting locations throughout the Western U.S.

The 2005 Rolling Roadshow Tour kicks off Friday, August 19 with a showing of The Last Picture Show in Archer City, Texas. Director Peter Bogdanovich is scheduled to attend. Not only will you have the rare opportunity to see The Last Picture Show in what’s left of the Royal Theater (which burned in 1965), you can visit author/screenwriter Larry McMurtry’s Booked Up stores, four world-renowned rare book emporiums which are scheduled to close at year’s end.

The rest of the tour itinerary is no less impressive:

August 21
It Came From Outer Space 3D
Roswell, New Mexico

August 23
Once Upon a Time in the West
Monument Valley, Arizona

August 24
Planet of the Apes
Lake Powell, Utah

August 26
Repo Man
Los Angeles, California

August 27
Sideways
Los Olvios, California

August 28
North By Northwest
Bakersfield, California*
*Bakersfield stood in for the Midwest in the infamous Cary Grant crop-dusting scene

August 30
Bullitt
San Francisco, California

September 1
The Goonies
Astoria, Oregon

September 3
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming (!)

September 5
Cat Ballou
Buckskin Joe’s, Colorado

September 7
Hud
Claude, Texas

If it wasn’t so far away, I’d really love to see Close Encounters at Devil’s Tower. They’re even having a mashed potato sculpture contest before the film!

Tornadoes: Run or Hide?

Big news in the world of tornado survival instructions. A study in last week's American Journal of Epidemiology found that people who decided to flee from the massive May 3, 1999 tornado that devastated the Oklahoma City area had better survival odds than those who stayed put.

Traditionally, you were never supposed to try and outrun a tornado in a car. Twisters don't have to follow roads and a car is no match for a tornado if you make the wrong turn. Mobile homes are well-established as easy prey for tornadoes, but for some people in the path of the F5 storm that hit Oklahoma, anything short of being below ground wasn't enough to ensure survival. Fortunately, F5's are rare beasts in the tornado spectrum.

It definitely makes sense in any case to get out if you're in a mobile home, but you'd probably still be better off in a closet or bathroom than in a car unless you're dealing with an especially destructive tornado. Real-time forecasting of how damaging a tornado will be from moment to moment is a young science, and it's hard to imagine an orderly "tornado evacuation" without more warning time.

I'd feel really stupid getting in a car wreck while trying to flee a tornado that doesn't even rustle the leaves on my porch. Especially if I'm not wearing pants.

More Wacky Cable Woes

I met up with my parents for a pre-Father's Day repast in La Grange Saturday. We had a fine old time, but they were somewhat disturbed by the foul language and angry rhetoric in the last post about my ongoing telecommunications problems. Perhaps I was a bit too colorful in expressing my exasperation. It's usually not a wonderful idea to use words that would get you booted out of Dairy Queen when yer moms is reading.

In case you don't know my parents, I wasn't raised that way. I learned all the bad words I know from cable TV. In fact, everything that's wrong with me is Time Warner's fault.

My latest plan is to call Time Warner Monday morning and tell them no one indicated my TiVo box would not work on a digital phone line. Therefore, I want to cancel the digital phone while retaining cable and Internet at the same package price I was initially quoted. Then I'm going to call Grande and try to get my old phone back as a standalone product.

While it will cost a bit more than keeping everything bundled with one company, the difference is negligible and it's the most economical work-around I can think of that gives me Time Warner's superior cable signal and an analog land line to run TiVo (not to mention use as my primary phone). If that doesn't work, I can take TiVo to a friend's house, do the initial setup on their phone, construct a home wireless network and run TiVo via broadband. Or I can just start paying $10-12/month for Time Warner's DVR, which I've heard is sorely lacking compared to TiVo.

I'll let you know how things turn out with Time Warner and Grande, and I'll do my right darnedest not to use to swear words when doing that unless I absolutely have to.

Friday Night Meltdown

My cable conundrum has degenerated into a bona fide clusterfuck. Switching back to Time Warner resolved the shitty TV signal issue I was having with Grande, but because their digital phone system is voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP), I can no longer connect to TiVo to download program information. This renders my TiVo box (and the $300 lifetime service contract) worthless.

I've wasted the entire evening figuring this out and I'm about ready to start filling jelly jars with gasoline. The sanity spring is just about to pop loose and unleash a torrent of gut-rage. This is just the sort of thing that sends me right over the goddamn edge. It's a miracle I haven't actually destroyed anything. Yet.

Graham Central Station

A week ago today, the Austin area finally got its own Graham Central Station mega-club. Located in an unsightly big box just off I-35 in Pflugerville, GCS's "six clubs for the price of one" concept is based on the mall food court school of commerce. You have the "Denim & Diamonds" country beer barn, a biker-themed classic rock bar called "Choppers," the "Alley Cats" karaoke club, an unabashed Top 40 danceteria called "Z," the Coyote Ugly-styled "Wild Cats" with tank-topped honeys dancing on the bar, and an imaginatively-monikered live music room called "The Live Room."

Several years ago, attorneys representing Graham Central Station showed up at my neighborhood association meeting to try and explain why the club would make a great tenant at ailing Northcross Mall. I love the nightlife at least as much as Alicia Bridges, but having North Korea nuke Northcross would've been better for my neighborhood than having Graham Central Station there. Their business model necessitates an extra high volume of alcohol, and their primary target market appears to be guys with just enough beer money to become a genuine public nuisance. Perhaps that sounds elitist, but who wants a bunch of drunken buffoons careening through their quiet residential streets at two in the morning?

I'm pretty sure at least one person at our association meeting said the club would be better off if they chose a more northern location and that's exactly what they would up doing. It was a smart move in more ways than one. By opening in Pflugerville, Graham Central Station will duck Austin's new smoking ordinance when it goes into effect in September. Nevertheless, I doubt we'll see the denizens of Room 710 and Beerland fleeing up I-35 to drink Coors Light and listen to Big and Rich.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Click here to view some disposable camera photos from my recent West Coast soujourn and relive the magic one more time.

Mississippi Senators AWOL on Lynching Apology

Although Mississippi led the nation in the number of Jim Crow-era lynchings (Texas came in third), neither one of its senators was on hand to cosponsor a Senate resolution apologizing for not doing anything to stop the lynchings.

Sen. Thad Coleman says he couldn't sign on because he had to make an official trip to the Paris Air Show. Thurmond-lovin' Sen. Trent Lott had no comment on the matter.

While the lynching apology is primarily a PR move that does nothing to right past wrongs, the Mississippi senators' conspicuous absence speaks volumes about how far they'll sink to court the support of dead-end racist scumbags. Our own Sen. John Cornyn keeps Texas from looking much better by being another one of the senators that didn't cosponsor the resolution.

Although the House passed anti-lynching legislation three times in the first half of the 20th century, Southern senators derailed it for decades via filibusters. Because this week's apology was passed by voice vote rather than roll call, senators didn't have to go on record as opposing the resolution. As it is, guys like Lott can use their inaction to get out the racist vote while maintaining a thin veneer of plausible denial.

Given the GOP's spirited defense of its diversity in the face of Howard Dean's recent attacks, I was quite surprised to learn all of the senators currently on record as not cosponsoring the lynching apology are white Republicans.

Border Wars

While we were busy watching Michael beat it, Mexican federal troops assumed control over Nuevo Laredo Monday, replacing the local police force in an effort to curtail the spiral of drug trafficking-related violence that has plagued the city of 500,000 on the Texas-Tamaulipas border. Alejandro Dominguez, Nuevo Laredo's newly-appointed police chief, was assasinated last Wednesday after only six hours on the job. Troops will interrogate all 700 local officers, many of whom are suspected of being in the pocket of warring drug lords.

An estimated 600 people have been killed in trafficking-related violence this year, most in border cities. As a result, many affluent Mexicans at risk for extortion have sought refuge in Laredo while American tourists have stayed away in droves. It's going to be increasingly difficult for the U.S. to pretend that a river and some barbed-wire will keep Mexico's turmoil "over there." For a fuller perspective, take a look at NPQ editor Nathan Gardel's timely Huffington Post piece about the "Colombianization" of Mexico.

Spurred to Apathy

Unless you consider arena football a major league sport, the San Antonio Spurs are the closest major league sports franchise to Austin. There's a championship series on national TV happening 78 miles down the road and the Spurs appear to be heading for another NBA title. I couldn't care less.

Being from Texas, I'd rather have San Antonio beat Detroit, but I can't make myself get into it like I would if the Houston Rockets or the Dallas Mavericks were playing. It makes sense for Houston to be my favorite team since I grew up there, but even though the Mavericks didn't exist when I lived in Dallas, I still like them better than the Spurs.

Actually, the Spurs were the Dallas Chaparrals back then, but no one cared. They wound up having to play some of their home games in Lubbock because attendance in Dallas was so bad. I didn't even know the Chaps existed as a kid. It was mostly Cowboys with a small side of Rangers. Even the old Dallas Tornado NASL soccer team got more play.

Although the Spurs were the Rockets' closest rival, I never particularly disliked them. Hell, you had to like Billy "Whopper" Paultz. I've always liked San Antonio as a city, too. I like the team's lack of celebrity and the fact they don't come from a major media market. I just can't work up a lather for the Spurs. Is there something wrong with me?

In-N-Out Update

True to their customer-friendly nature, I received this prompt e-mail reply from In-N-Out Burger regarding the possibility of expanding into Texas:

"Although we are unable to confirm a site in Texas at this time, we plan on expanding as far as we can, and particularly into areas in which our customers have expressed interest. As such, we are happy to let our Real Estate Department know that you are anxious to have an In-N-Out Burger® location in Texas!"

That, of course, is a public relations answer, but no company in its right mind is going to officially reveal expansion plan specifics prior to closing the deal. After all, I could be a spy for Whataburger for all they know.

Incidentally, Whataburger will have to get its act together if In-N-Out comes to town. In terms of quality, the Corpus Christi-based chain's product fares well against existing fast food outlets in Texas, but consistency varies wildly from store to store. Some Whataburgers run like a well-oiled machine, while others sputter about like an old lawn mower. I've never been to a middling In-N-Out Burger.

Based on their feedback, I'm going to predict we'll see an In-N-Out Burger somewhere in Texas before the next presidential election. Even if that doesn't pan out, California burger fans will be happy to know that Fatburger has announced plans to build in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston.

Last Day by the Bay

My last full day in the Bay Area was a languid, boozy affair that left me as sated as one can hope to be upon returning to the workaday world after two weeks.

On Friday, I met up with Mr. Positive and his young lady friend Angie for a late breakfast at Mama Royal's Cafe in Oakland. Angie wanted to shoot some video for a experimental noise performance she was doing that evening, so we drove up into the heavily wooded hills overlooking the city. Mr. P. got bare-arsed save for an old wig covering his region. Then he ran around like some sort of demented Bigfoot while I watched for innocent bystanders and tried my damndest not to burst out laughing. Sadly, I was unable to see how the resulting video was incorporated into Angie's show.

Instead, I caught up with my host couple Heather and Mike after they got home from work and we went to a tapas bar. Mike said it was a quintessentially Californian dining experience bcause they were taking Continental cuisine and fusing it with super-fresh native ingredients. We polished off a bottle of wine and ate mussels, antipasti, duck and French fries. Then we had strawberry hibiscus sorbet with brown sugar shortbread for dessert. It was decadent and awesome.

Heather took both Mike and I to the Oakland airport this morning because Mike had to go to L.A. Mike and I had a farewell coffee before having to queue up for our flights. I got home around 8:30pm tonight and everything was pretty much how I left it, except for my Swedish ivy plant, which is now dead.

I wanted to go see the Dicks tonight at Room 710, but I'm just too beat. I need to start weaning myself from the two-hour time difference in order to avoid a full-body breakdown on Monday morning.

Extra Action Three Day Stubble

I saw a great show last night at the Eagle Tavern, a gay biker bar cum rock club at 12th and Harrison in San Francisco. Former Peenbeets drummer Mr. Positive (a.k.a. Brown Whornet vocalist Stin-G-B) told me he was playing with pioneering nerd-rock dadaists Three Day Stubble. Stubble doesn't play all that often, so this was a treat.

TDS started 25 years ago in Houston, but they wound up shifting their base of operations to San Francisco in the early Nineties for reasons that become obvious once you see them. Vocalist Donald the Nut was once a contestant on The Gong Show and he has wooed crowds from Edinburgh to Tokyo with his electrocuted hair and screaming polyester. He's even been known to lie down on stage and release a fount of pee straight up into the air.

Unbeknownst to me, Donald is in Japan right now. Imagine my surprise when my former bandmate bounded up on stage in full Donald regalia. Mr. P's spirited interpretation of the Stubble catalog was right on, and I'm sure there were people in the audience who didn't even realize something was amiss (at least not more than it already would be at a Stubble show). I love being tricked in the name of entertainment.

I was also fortunate to see the Extra Action Marching Band. They're an 40-piece marching band that would fit right in under the Friday night lights of Texas if not for the Gibby Haynes-style bullhorn antics of the pep marshal and the g-string clad drill team furiously shaking their sweaty forms on top of the bar mere inches from my befuddled yet not-altogether-unhappy face. They put on a big scrum of fun, highly-sexualized abandon that affirms the joy of existing. Seeing them in a club was perfect, but I'd be interested to see what they do at the Hollywood Bowl on June 26 when they open for David Byrne.

Also playing were the Dead Hensons, a very enjoyable troupe of seven or eight multi-instrumentalists playing old Sesame Street and Muppet Show songs. I've always been a sucker for the music of the late Joe Raposo, so this was right up my alley. They did a bunch of the great counting songs, but not the psychedelic "Jazz Numbers" animation (the one with the race cars) sung by Grace Slick, which is my favorite. That's all the more reason to come back out here and see them again.

The Sun Comes Out in Berkeley

The weather situation improved dramatically early Thursday afternoon with all the cloud cover burning off in under two hours. I'm finally getting some mild, sunny California in preparation for hot, sticky Texas.

I spent a couple of hours walking around the UC Berkeley campus, admiring the handiwork of master architect John Galen Howard, who also helped develop San Francisco's Civic Center complex after the 1906 earthquake and fire. Howard's famous Greek Theater was locked down, but at least I got to take in the spectacular view corridor from the UC bell tower, which goes straight out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Like many big state campuses (UT included), the newer buildings try to compensate for the harshly functional blunders of the Sixties and Seventies. Too often, though, this amounts to nothing more than putting a Spanish tile roof on a turd.

Unlike the Drag in Austin, Telegraph Avenue still has record stores. The Berkeley branches of Amoeba Music and Rasputin Music are a block away from each other and both seemed to be garnering plenty of foot traffic. I bought a used vinyl copy of Hubert Laws and Earl Klugh's soundtrack for the forgotten 1980 cable favorite, How to Beat the High Cost of Living. I enjoy listening to that brand of shopping mall jazz fusion when I cook. It makes me feel more successful than I really am.

Rainy San Francisco

After turning in the rent car, taking the shuttle bus to the Oakland airport, taking another shuttle bus to the BART station and taking a train underneath the bay, I was standing in the rain in front of San Francisco's grand City Hall. As my buddy Jonathan remarked several years ago, this is what a city hall is supposed to look like. The building commands more magisterial legitimacy than most state capitols. I wish I could've been there when they were marrying gay and lesbian couples.

Market Street was festooned with rainbow flags in preparation for the Pride Parade. One of the local TV stations actually broadcasts the parade live. Imagine what would happen if a Texas station did that on a Saturday morning.

I walked all the way up Haight to the San Francisco branch of Amoeba Music. Their prices on new releases aren't great, but their stock is huge and it's easily one of the best record stores in the country. I hear the one in Hollywood is even bigger. I found a late Sixties Elektra compilation for six bucks that had cuts from both the Stooges and Carly Simon.

I had coffee at a place that only had soy milk for cream. I don't like to get all Texan on anyone, but that just ain't right. Then some guy wanted the barista to shut the window so he could watch passers-by without getting his laptop wet. The barista wouldn't do it because it would've cut off the airflow to the back of the shop. Just when I was about to offer to trade spaces with the guy, he muttered something about workers not caring about customers and stormed off. What a dildo. I bet his coffee was something unnecessarily complicated, too.

Civic Center to Amoeba and back is a good hike, but I needed it after doing the old In-N-Out thing for breakfast. I took BART back to Berkeley and met up with Heather and Mike for burritos. I'm not the biggest fan of Cal-Mex, but they definitely do burritos right out here. They're huge, cheap and fresh.

Today I'm going to walk around Berkeley. I've stayed here several times, but I've always spent most of my time across the bay. Anne Bancroft's untimely passing got me to thinking about The Graduate, so maybe I'll stroll around the UC campus and hum some Simon and Garfunkel.

In-N-Out Coming to Texas?

On my way to turn in the Mustang (sniff) at Oakland's airport yesterday, I spied a brand new In-N-Out Burger as I was exiting the Nimitz Freeway. It was only 10:30am, but of course I had to stop. In-N-Out serves nothing but burgers and fries. Their burgers are made from fresh ground chuck, their buns aren't infected with preservatives, and their lettuce, tomatoes and fries are cut in the store. Some folks are weirded out by the company's religious leanings (you'll find chapter and verse numbers in small print on the paper cups and burger wrappers), but they walk the walk by giving their employees decent wages and benefits. Even Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, gives In-N-Out a thumbs-up.

So I'm ordering my Double Double Combo when I notice some In-N-Out logo stickers by the counter. I love their logo design, so I ask if they're free and the manager hands me several. I tell him I'll hand them out in Texas and he says In-N-Out will be coming to Texas soon.

If this is true, it's great news for the Texas fast food scene. In-N-Out is a private, family-owned business that historically hasn't taken expansion lightly. To date, they've only gone as far east as Phoenix. Moving into Texas would probably involve construction of a new commissary to ensure freshness. They would definitely give Whataburger a run for their money.

I've sent an informal e-mail to corporate headquarters in Irvine to see if I can get any further confirmation of this delicious assertion. You'll know what I know when I know it.

Crescent City to Berkeley

Highway 101 coming out of Crescent City quickly became spectacular again Tuesday morning as my car got dwarfed by a forest of impossibly tall redwoods. I didn't make great time with all those hairpin turns on a two-lane road, but who cares?

I arrived in Eureka around 10:30am. While the outskirts of town appeared heavily industrialized, the old city center was abuzz with a farmer's market and a Joni Mitchell-like busker. Finding sparkling mineral water was no problem here. Good hydroponic equipment would've been easy to find, too, as Humboldt County is probably the foremost marijuana growing region in these United States. All of the local media outlets documented the hometown indignation with Monday's Supreme Court decision.

I really hadn't realized the degree to which California north of San Francisco had been colonized by so many progressive/peacenik/hippie types. Even smaller towns like Garberville seemed to have organic foods, tribal drum stores and left of the dial radio options. Oddly enough, the restaurant I had lunch in was incongruously showing Fox News.

Instead of taking 101 straight into San Francisco and crossing the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, I simply had to stop in Calistoga to see the California Old Faithful Geyser. It wasn't quite like Yellowstone, but it's not like Yellowstone's on the way to anyplace, either. After about 15 minutes of sitting through mini-eruptions the guy next to me compared to premature ejaculations, Old Faithful did its thing, shooting steaming water 40-50 feet in the air for two or three minutes. That may sound simple, but I got my seven bucks' worth from it. I don't know if I can say the same for the guy next to me, let alone his wife.

Calistoga is right in the middle of Wine Country, but it was after 5 and all the wineries had closed. Even if they were open, I wouldn't have known which ones to choose (they go on for miles) and I wouldn't have been able to handle driving on those curvy, two-lane roads very well. Frankly, I wasn't doing that great sober.

The last part of the drive was the hardest. I hit the Bay Area right around rush hour and drove through some of the most visually unappealing parts of East Bay before finally arriving in Berkeley around 7pm. My hosts Heather and Mike have a very comfortable upstairs duplex with a big kitchen overlooking downtown Berkeley. They thoughtfully handed me a glass of wine and I began to unwind from the 350-mile trek. After another glass or two (?), I was ready for bed.

The Other Crescent City

It took me about an hour to get from Eugene to the junction with U.S. 101 at Florence. I was listening to talk radio dissect the Supreme Court’s medical marijuana ruling, which is a big deal in both Oregon and California. I don’t think pot should be illegal even for people just doing it for fun (let alone for medical reasons), but federalism isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world once you’ve witnessed the Southern heritage set’s version of “state’s rahts.”

Judging from the paucity of it, you might think sparkling water was also illegal in certain parts of rural Oregon. I walked into two grocery stores in Reedsport and neither had a bottle between them. When I asked the checkout girl for Perrier, she looked at me like I was speaking Terrorist.

The biggest town on the Southern Oregon coast is Coos Bay. I believe it’s pronounced “cous” as opposed to “cooze.” I tried to eat at the local tribal casino buffet, but they’d already closed for lunch. After strolling around the center of town for a bit, I headed down to Bandon, a picturesque fishing village that bills itself as “Bandon-By-the-Sea” in deference to Carmel.

Despite the tourist trappings, Bandon was my favorite coastal town. I had a plate of fish and chips at the dock. The fries were lousy, but the fish was fresh Pacific cod. As I dined, I eavesdropped on a local contractor who was telling another diner that Bandon was blowing up like Carmel and would likely be just as exclusive in another decade or so. That’s what happens when Gregory “Gonzo Gates” Harrison has a place down the road in Gold Beach.

More importantly, the contractor revealed an alleged cure for seasickness he learned from a retired sailor. What you’re supposed to do is swish some seawater around in your mouth, then spit it out into the wind so the spray hits you in the face. The idea is that the smell is what makes you sick, and once you make the sea “part of you,” it can’t make you sick anymore. Has anyone ever heard of and/or tried this?

After eating, I walked out to the beach next to the Coquille River jetties. The ocean was both serene and menacing. There’s nothing quite like an empty beach on the Pacific to make you feel small and insignificant. It’s a long way to Japan.

The rest of 101 in Oregon featured a mind-blowing series of hills and curves overlooking the water. Bandon to Brookings is easily one of the most beautiful stretches of road on the planet. Everyone should see it.

Expecting to have my fruit confiscated at the California border (no, that’s not a euphemism), I gobbled down an apple and banana. Unlike every other time I’ve entered the Golden State by car, the inspection stations were shuttered. If some mutant fruit fly destroys California’s agriculture this summer, you’ll know who to blame.

Crescent City is about 20 miles into California and I decided to stop there for the night. The city is only 29 feet above sea level and prone to flooding from post-earthquake tsunamis. In fact, a series of tsunami waves triggered by the 1964 Alaska earthquake killed 11 people here. Otherwise, it’s a nice seaside town that makes a good staging point for jaunts into the redwood forests.

I stayed at a place called the Penny Saver Inn. The room smelled funky until I aired it out, but the king size bed was better than Motel 6 in Albany. I paid $45 because they had an indoor pool and hot tub, but by the time I got done watching the season premiere of Six Feet Under on HBO, it was too late to go swimming.

I plan to drive through some redwoods today and maybe do a quick detour on the Pacific Coast Highway through Mendocino. I have to see what Doug Sahm was talking about for myself. I might make the Bay Area (350 miles away) or I might not.

A quick technical note: cell phone reception is spotty on the ocean side of the Coast Range, so if you’ve had trouble getting in touch with me, that is why. I'm not ducking you. Honest.

Portland to Eugene via Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls is about 30 miles east of Portland on I-84 in the Columbia River Gorge. Despite being overrun with tourists, the 600-foot waterfall is unequivocally amazing. It’s the kind of natural wonder that makes you feel good to be alive.

Although it was raining when I arrived, one glimpse from the base of the falls was all it took to convince me to make the one-mile hike to the top. The trail is paved but somewhat steep with lots of tight switchbacks. It took me about 20 minutes to make the climb through towering pines and lush overgrowth. After getting to the top, I spent a few minutes surveying the splendor before heading back down. As I descended, the sun briefly managed to break through the cloud cover, casting rays of rainy light through the trees and upon the Columbia River. It was a sight to cherish.

From there, I drove to Hood River and did a quick spin around the town before concluding it was too touristy and expensive to stay there. I drove south on state highway 35 toward Government Camp and started going through high mountain passes still barren from the winter snows. The clouds hovered just over the trees below as the sun slowly receded.

I should’ve stopped driving at nightfall because those twisting two-lane roads aren’t exactly user-friendly in the dark. However, this long loop had left me only 25 miles away from Portland and I wanted to make some progress down the coast, so I pressed forward toward I-5. I was hoping to make it as far as Eugene, but at 11pm, I gave into my better judgment and exited at Albany.

Normally I’m a cheapskate when it comes to motels. I scrutinize those coupon books you get at tourist information centers and I’ll go to several different places before settling on a room. This time, however, I just stopped at Motel 6 because it was the first budget-oriented lodging I passed. The room was clean, but the bed was uncomfortable and I couldn’t get the dataport to work.

If you ask me, Motel 6 gets away with a lot because it’s known as a “cheap” chain. In fact, their prices nowadays aren’t that great and you can probably get better amenities at an Econo Lodge or Super 8. Tonight I’ll be more discriminating.

At the moment, I’m in downtown Eugene at a retail/food complex on 5th Avenue next to the railroad tracks. It was the first place I could find with wi-fi. No one is here, but maybe it’ll start filling up as the lunch hour approaches.

The tentative plan is to abandon I-5 and head over the Coast Range to Florence, where I’ll hook up with the 101 and continue southward. I’ll probably stay somewhere in Southern Oregon or far Northern California tonight. I was shooting to make the Bay Area by tomorrow, but it’s looking like Wednesday from here.

By the way, there’s no sales tax in Oregon and you can’t pump your own gas. The latter makes gas cost a bit more, but it’s almost worth it to hand your credit card to some guy and say, “Fill ‘er up.” I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that before.

It sure was fun to see Noah and Trish in Portland. I hadn’t seen them both since their wedding outside of Austin in 2001. Hopefully it won’t be that long before I see them again.

I Really Like Portland

I can't seem to get my ass up and out of Portland. It's just too relaxing and I might wind up moving here if I don't watch myself. The city's vibe is friendly (much more so than Seattle), there's lots of cool things to look at and you couldn't ask for better vistas. These are all summary judgments, of course, but it's been awhile since I fell this hard for an American city.

On Saturday, Trish and Noah took me for a leisurely stroll down Alberta Street. We started off with a hearty breakfast and about five cups of drip coffee for me at Helser's. Then we window shopped our way through vintage shops and record stores. Trish bought a $1 copy of Aretha Franklin's Sparkle, an overlooked 1976 soundtrack album produced by Curtis Mayfield.

My hosts sated me like a king with a mixed grill of fish and sausage and a bottle of red wine for dinner. Then we tried to watch the Jerry Seinfeld documentary, Comedian, but the rented DVD was all gunked up and we missed several scenes. Or that might have just been my brain checking out on me after all the wine, tuna and an alarmingly phallic chocolate-covered frozen banana. Somehow, I successfully resisted the urge to take an obscene snapshot with it.

I slept like a log in the attic guest room and woke up early to the sound of gentle rain on the roof. The chill in the air was mitigated by the knowledge that it's probably 90 degrees with 100% humidity back home. We decided to hit Hawthorne Street, yet another enclave of eccentric commerce, this one slightly more gentrified than Alberta. Then we went to Powell's City of Books, the world's largest bookstore. The main Powell's is an entire city block and they have several other specialty bookstores nearby. I could easily spend a whole day there.

The plan right now is to head east out of town toward Multnomah Falls and Hood River before turning back in a southwestwardly direction toward the coast. I may get on I-5 to make some time, or I may wind up just staying somewhere near Hood River for the night. It's supposed to get down into the 30s in the mountains tonight, though, so I'm not entirely set on that idea. We'll just see how far I get, and when the body says stop, I'll stop.

Trader Joe's Rocks My Food World

With Central Market and Whole Foods going head-to-head, Austin has proved to be a pretty decent city for supermarkets. We don't have a Trader Joe's, though, and we are definitely poorer for that.

Trader Joe's is a California-based "natural" food store that doesn't charge elitist prices. They started out as a convenience store in 1958 and now operate about 200 locations in the West, Midwest and East. Their in-house brand line is huge and doesn't cost much more than we're used to paying for Hill Country Fare at H-E-B.

The Sun Harvest/Henry's Marketplace/Wild Oats family tries to do the mid-sized natural food thing, but their produce is often dog-eared, their prices aren't great and their selection isn't that impressive, either. If I were Trader Joe's, I'd think about taking over and improving Sun Harvest to gain a foothold in Texas and give Whole Foods a fight.

Just a friendly suggestion from a concerned shopper.

Big T in Little S

I-5 to Portland was a short, easy hop of about 170 miles. I stopped at the Mount St. Helen's Visitor's Center just off the highway, which is further away from the volcano than it sounds. You could at least see the thing, though.

I wasn't looking forward to hitting Portland at rush hour, but I did fine until I missed my exit and went over the Willamette River against my will. After spending almost half an hour to get back to where I was supposed to be, I found Noah and Trish's house. Noah is my old high school buddy and Trish is his former Austinite wife. Noah and I used to romp together and play in a psychedelic punk band that covered "White Rabbit."

These days, Noah's playing bass for an instrumental surf trio called Big T. The talented Eric Lovre from the Dharma Bums plays guitar. They had a gig in Salem, which is about 45 miles south of Portland. Oregon's capital city is a quiet place after dark, but a statewide chain of brewpub/eatery/theatre/hotel-type places called McMenamin's has a place in Salem called Boon's Treasury that books live music. It's a genteel sort of place with exposed brick walls covered in bric-a-brac from antique malls.

Boon's Treasury normally books quiet, acoustic music you can dine to, but surf rock is not meant to be played quietly. When the Big T started paying electric homage to Dick Dale, the bar staff asked them to turn down and Eric steadfastly refused to do so. Needless to say, this created a bit of tension, but the running battle of wills made for good rock drama.

Today I think we're going to hit Powell's City of Books and maybe check out the Portland's famed Rose Festival, which I didn't even know was happening. I normally try to avoid big events like that unless someone's paying me to be there, but it might not be half-bad in a vacation state of mind. So long as no one vomits on my shoes, I think I can handle a street festival.

Sayonara Seattle

After one last night of carousing with Kevin and some of his seafaring friends at a Fremont area pub, I left Seattle for Portland. Kevin graciously took me to pick up my rental car, but we got all turned around because I didn't realize I actually had to go inside the Seattle-Tacoma Airport to retrieve it. The maze of corkscrew-shaped ramps leading into the airport only added to the confusion.

Instead of a boring Pontiac Grand Am, the car rental folks set me up with a brand new 2004 Ford Mustang. It's the kind of car I'd never consider buying, but it's a fine piece of machinery to travel in. I've actually had total strangers come up to me and say, "Hey, man. Nice car." That never happens with a Honda Civic. The retro styling of the dashboard and steering wheel reminds me of the 1966 'Stang my parents used to drive. Although I'm not a particularly aggressive driver, Northwest traffic moves at a sluggish pace relative to Texas, so it's nice to be in a car that has some get-up-and-go. I'm looking forward to getting out on the open road so's I can find out what the engine is capable of.

Two Men and a Chinese Garden

The weather situation in Vancouver yesterday was much better. Blue skies, mild temps and no rain. Kevin and I lunched on a park bench overlooking the marina and took a quick tour of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. It’s the first Ming Dynasty scholar’s garden constructed outside of China. You have to take the tour to get an idea of what everything in the garden means. After all, those Ming-era designers didn’t have time to throw shit up all willy-nilly.

We left Vancouver right at rush hour, but despite not having any freeways in the center of town, traffic moved quite briskly along Granville Avenue and out toward the suburbs. I expected another long wait getting back into the U.S., but the border crossing only took about five minutes. The only thing that threw me is when the border guard asked Kevin and I how we knew each other. I almost said, “What is being implied here, sir?” before thinking better of the idea. No one goes home happy when you smart off to a border guard.

Today has been sort of lazy. I finished a blurb for the Chron and had lunch with my cousin. After one last night in Seattle, I’m renting a car and heading for Portland.

Horton Hears A "Wuh?"

Our eating plans went horribly awry last night. Between the hotel hot tub and the fascinating world of Canadian TV, we didn’t set out for dinner until 9:30. I’d purchased an umbrella earlier in the day, but naturally I left it in the room, only to have a fairly steady rain (not mist) come down on us. The first two places we went turned us away because they were closing.

We wound up at a place called Cactus Club Café or something where they were running a special on bellinis. I had a salmon burger and Kevin had spicy shrimp linguini. We also had double margaritas that didn’t seem to have any booze in them. We were way too old to be in such a place and both of us groused about the gaggle of college students sitting next to us. If you ask me, they were too goddamn noisy. The sexy, college-aged waitresses in black boots and minidresses were just fine, though. In fact, you could say they were the establishment’s saving grace. Vancouver is simply bursting with gorgeous, healthy women.

After sleeping soundly, we decided to go to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. For those of you south of the Mason-Dixon line, Tim Horton’s is sort of like the Canadian McDonald’s. Toronto Maple Leafs hockey legend Tim Horton started the successful chain in 1964, only to die in a tragic car wreck ten years later. Wendy’s bought them out several years ago, but their donuts, coffee, soups and sandwiches menu hasn’t been infected with Big Bacon Classics yet.

Another thing Tim Horton’s hasn’t been infected with is the ability to purchase your food with a credit card. Kevin tried to slide his Visa through and that didn’t work. Then he tried his debit card and that didn’t work. Then I tried my American Express and that didn’t work. Our American currency was no good there and we only had about four loonies between us. Just when I thought we were going to have to walk out of Tim Horton’s in shame, a very nice thirtysomething woman put $6.02 CDN on the counter and said, “My treat.” We tried briefly to refuse before thanking her graciously. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such a poignant mixture of gratitude and utter doltishness in my life. We Texans pride ourselves on friendliness, but the unassuming, efficient Canadians seem to have us trumped when it comes to helping the clueless.

After our meal, Kevin had to use the washroom (as the Canadians call them). You can’t just walk into a business and bust pee in Vancouver without buying something, so Kevin walked up to the same Tim Horton’s cashier who’d taken our order earlier to ask for entry into the men’s room. Kevin thought she was saying, “My machine,” when in fact she was saying, “I’ll buzz you in.” They were very sorry to see us leave.