Southwest Plans to Buy AirTran

Massive airline news today as Dallas-based Southwest Airlines announced its intention to buy AirTran Airways for $3.4 billion in cash and assumed debt.

Assuming the regulatory gods approve the merger, this will give Southwest a big "in" at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Washington's National Airport. It will significantly expand the airline's presence at New York LaGuardia and Boston Logan. The acquisition will also make Southwest an international airline, with service to Mexico and the Caribbean.

One logistical hurdle of the merger is AirTran's fleet of 86 Boeing 717s. Southwest's operational efficiency has long been based on flying nothing but Boeing 737s, but you can't just '86' 86 717s, so we may get to see 717s decked out in Southwest's livery in the short-term.

We know AirTran will stop serving Dallas/Fort Worth International once the merger is finalized since the end of the Wright Amendment restrictions at Dallas Love Field were partially predicated on Southwest not flying out of DFW. Additionally, smaller airports served by AirTran but close to another airport already served by Southwest may not be able to sustain service. To name a few, I would not be confident about airports in Flint, Mich., Pensacola, Fla. and Newport News/Williamsburg, Va. being served by the combined airline in the long term. Here's a telling phrase from the merger website:

We are interested in serving the great majority, if not all, of AirTran's current markets.

Perhaps most importantly to passengers, how will Southwest/AirTran reconcile the bag fee issue? The first two bags fly free on Southwest, while AirTran charges $20 for the first bag and $25 for the second. Again, from the merger website:

Upon full integration, it is our intent to have a consistent product offering. It is our intent that the bag fees would not be part of that product.

Likewise, the combined airline plans to adhere to Southwest's policy of having only one class, no assigned seating and no change fees. Overall, I'd say this merger is a net positive - even more so if we get an Austin-Atlanta run to break Delta's stranglehold on that route.

Fave Five Food Deals - 9/22/10

The vernal equinox equals big savings in this week's list of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Utah peaches, .57/lb. at Newflower (through 9/29/10)

2. Bartlett pears, gala apples, black plums or vine ripe tomatoes, .88/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 9/29/10)

3. Yellow nectarines, red or black plums, broccoli crowns or baby carrots, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 9/29/10)

4. Romaine lettuce or spinach, 2 for $1 at Sun Harvest (through 9/29/10)

5. Boneless skinless chicken thighs or chicken sausage, $1.77/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 9/29/10)

Also, if you buy 12 double rolls of Quilted Northern Soft & Strong Bath Tissue at H-E-B before Sept. 28, you can get 12 double rolls of H-E-B Twice as Soft Bath Tissue with an in-store coupon for absolutely nothing.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Pixies Drummer Talks to Me

Although I'm not attending the Pixies' two-night Doolittle extravaganza over at the Austin Music Hall, I did interview drummer/magician David Lovering for the Chron a couple weeks back.

It was 9pm here in Austin and noon two days later (or something ridiculous like that) in Brisbane, Queensland when we spoke. I wound up having to edit the transcript considerably, but most of what I cut out was covered in the three near-simultaneous interviews conducted with the other three Pixies.

The only time I've ever seen the Pixies was when they played the ACL Music Festival back in 2005. That was a mob scene, so my pal Kevin Fullerton and I watched most of the show from behind the fenced-off backstage area, enjoying Lovering's monitor mix much more than the muddy sound up front.

Dude, You Have No Qur'an: The Remix

Jacob Isom, the bespectacled, rat-tailed skateboarder who stopped a Qur'an burning in Amarillo by swiping the book and saying, "Dude, you have no Qur'an!" has been Auto-Tuned. I think the result has almost as much staying power as that "Teach Me How to Dougie" song, but see for yourself below.



According to an interview with Gawker, the 23-year-old Isom's goal was to parlay his moment of glory into an appearance in High Times. Mission accomplished, sir.

Fave Five Food Deals - 9/15/10

This week's list of Austin's top five grocery deals is all that and a (free) bag of chips.

1. Asparagus, $1.77/lb. at Newflower (through 9/22/10)

2. Yellow onions, 5 lbs. for $1 at Sun Harvest (through 9/22/10)

3. Red, green and black seedless grapes, .67/lb. at Newflower (through 9/22/10)

4. Wild caught Mahi Mahi filets, $3.97/lb. at Newflower (through 9/22/10)

5. Italian white bread, $1.99 ea. at Central Market (through 9/21/10)

Also, if you buy an 8.75-9 oz. bag of Lay's baked potato chips at H-E-B this week, you can get a free bag of H-E-B baked potato chips with an in-store coupon.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Live Dallas Tornado Coverage

Yesterday's 6pm newscast on WFAA in Dallas was enlivened by real-time coverage of a tornado touching down to the west of downtown.



The Tropical Storm Hermine-spawned twister followed a somewhat similar path to the famous April 1957 tornado, striking first in West Dallas before crossing the Trinity River and tearing through industrial properties around the intersection of Irving Blvd. and W. Mockingbird Ln. KDAF has some pretty amazing tower-cam footage of this damage as it happened.



The tornado was headed in the direction of Love Field when it lifted just after taking a weak swipe at the area around the Stemmons/Carpenter Fwy. split. Fortunately, there were no reports of serious injuries.

Fave Five Food Deals - 9/8/10

Direct from the wholesome wad of grocery circulars I just pulled out of the mailbox, here is this week's belated and soggy edition of Austin's top grocery bargains.

1. Cantaloupes, 3 for $1 at Newflower (through 9/15/10)

2. Yellow peaches, nectarines or plums, .49/lb. at Sprouts (through 9/15/10)

3. California Bartlett pears, .77/lb. at H-E-B (through 9/14/10)

4. Organic broccoli or cauliflower, .98/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 9/15/10)

5. Texas Russet potatoes, 10 lb. bag, $1.97 at H-E-B (through 9/14/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

New Drugs for Sale This Friday

Start Labor Day weekend off right with a heady dose of the New Drugs at the Beauty Bar. We'll be rolling the Huey Lewis canon in between the bombastic Queen tribute band Magnifico! and the Descendants of Erdrick, who play music from video game classics of yore. I haven't seen the former in ages and I'm excited to see the latter live for the first time.

Fave Five Food Deals - 9/1/10

If you're going to be grilling and/or drinking beer for the final holiday weekend of the summer, this week's fave five Austin grocery deals will help you do both a little more cheaply.

1. Corn on the cob, 6 for $1 at Sun Harvest and Newflower (through 9/8/10)

2. Yellow nectarines, peaches, pluots, red and black plums, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 9/8/10)

3. Organic red and green grapes, $1.50/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 9/8/10)

4. Boneless skinless chicken breasts or 85% lean ground beef, $1.88/lb. at Newflower (through 9/8/10)

5. J.W. Dundee Craft Beer 12-Pack Sampler, $10 at Sprouts (through 9/8/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

KTRU Leaving the Airwaves

The University of Houston Board of Regents voted 4-3 last week to purchase the transmitter and license of Rice University's KTRU 91.7 FM, effectively ending the station's 43-year run as a college radio trailblazer. KTRU will now become KUHC, a 24-hour classical music station, which frees up KUHF, UH's other radio station, to be a 24-hour NPR affiliate. KTRU will live on as an online streaming station, but that's a far cry from broadcasting with a 50,000-watt transmitter.

I first discovered KTRU as an impressionable 12-year-old listening to the S&M Show on Friday night. In 1980, KTRU was the only station in Houston where you were likely to hear anything to the left of "Whip It" on a regular basis. The first time my own music was played on the radio was on KTRU. Having worked as a DJ at UT Austin's student-run KTSB/KVRX in its cable radio infancy, I can authoritatively state that many of us considered KTRU's programming a benchmark to measure ourselves against.

Rice University's leadership shamefully engineered this $9.5 million deal in secret and made sure it went down in the dead of August to avoid the firestorm they knew would ensue if word got out while students were in town. Even so, a hastily assembled group called "Save KTRU" has formed in response.

Although the sale of KTRU to UH is still subject to FCC approval, it's unlikely the feds or anyone else can or will do anything to stop it. According to today's Houston Press, KUHF/KUHC is scheduled to take over KTRU's programming on Monday.

To some, the hue and cry over Rice's off-loading of KTRU may just seem like a bunch of music snobs whining about a station that played weird noise that most people don't listen to. But as someone whose student radio experience helped foster my career path as much as any class, I know there's way more at stake here. Former KTRU DJ Ray Shea sums it up as well as anyone:

KTRU was the driving force that would eventually propel me through six years and two college degrees. My best lifelong friends are all people I met at KTRU. And together we learned about music, about business, about media and promotions and organization and scheduling and budgeting. We learned how to deal with people, how to compromise and reach consensus. Sometimes we didn't learn as well as we should have, but goddammit, we learned.

And somewhere in all that craziness, all those late nights drinking beer and listening to records and arguing about music, we accidentally participated in a movement. A movement that would permanently change the face of the music industry forever.

Rice is short-sightedly gutting a learning laboratory that helped generations of students channel their passion for music and radio into viable skills for business and life. At $9.5 million, they're selling out cheap.

Fave Five Food Deals - 8/25/10

Temperatures aren't the only thing that's hot this week. Check out Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Strawberries (1 lb.), blueberries (4.4 oz.), blackberries (5.6 oz.) or raspberries (6 oz.), $1.25 ea. at Newflower (through 9/1/10)

2. Fresh Hatch peppers, $1.29 at Central Market (through 8/31/10)*

3. Yellow peaches, .48/lb. at Sprouts (through 9/1/10)

4. Organic Romaine hearts, 3 ct. package, $2 at Sun Harvest (through 9/1/10)

5. Green Bell peppers, 4 for $1 at Sprouts (through 9/1/10)

*You can also get roasted Hatch peppers for $2.79/lb. and just about any other Hatch-accented food item at Central Market.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

The Big 6-M

Alex hit the 6-month mark today. He celebrated this morning by tipping the pediatric scales at 20 pounds, 6 ounces. That was followed by a series of shots, which quelled the celebration somewhat.

The boy has started supplementing his heroic breastmilk intake with mushed-up solid foods such as brown rice cereal, bananas and avocados. I don't think he dug the latter too much, but he hasn't quite figured out how to refuse the spoon yet. I'm sure that will come soon enough.

As a dad, the best thing about this age is that he's starting to reciprocate my goofing with him by making funny noises and wet raspberries you'd swear were the work of an 18-month-old. Sometimes he'll even get right up in my face and go, "AAAGGH!" with a wide, two-toothed smile. Even when I'm dead-tired at 6 a.m., you just can't beat that.

Fave Five Food Deals - 8/18/10

This week's best Austin grocery deals include several dangerously low prices on produce. If you dare to brave the crowds today, you can really make a killing with Double-Ad Wednesday in full effect at all three of this week's featured stores.

1. Gala apples, .37/lb. at Newflower (through 8/25/10)

2. Yellow peaches, Bartlett pears and cantaloupes, .48/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 8/25/10)

3. Green or red leaf lettuce, .48/ea. at Sun Harvest (through 8/25/10)

4. 1 lb. baby carrots, .77/ea. at Sprouts (through 8/25/10)

5. Red bell peppers and Hass avocados, .77/ea. at Sprouts (through 8/25/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Credits Roll for Dobie Theatre

It's the end of the line for the Dobie Theatre. The 4-screen cinema across the street from UT will close Sunday.

The Dobie was never a particularly great place to see a movie. Parking was a hassle, the screens were small and the auditorium seating configurations were weird. Despite all that, the Dobie's adventurous programming during its 80s/90s heyday made it an integral part of Austin's film scene. In many ways, longtime Dobie owner/manager Scott Dinger set the stage for the Alamo Drafthouse's ascendancy.

The first movie I ever saw at the Dobie was a midnight screening of Liquid Sky 23 years ago this month. I saw a lot of midnight movies at Dobie between 1987 and 1989 because it was an easy stumble from my dorm room. Alcohol definitely enlivened repeated viewings of low-budget, Troma-style gore vehicles like Blood Diner, Street Trash and Surf Nazis Must Die. Then there was the 3-D porn movie with the late John Holmes literally coming right at you.

I remember going to see Slacker there in 1990 when it was just a weird local indie film. The girl I went with thought the movie was pointless, but for me, Slacker epitomized why disregarding potential career opportunities to stay in Austin after graduation might not be such a bad idea.

The last movie I remember seeing at the Dobie was the Ramones doc End of the Century in 2005. After Landmark Theaters took over the Dobie in 1999, they gradually began shifting toward more typical art-house fare that could just as easily be seen at other cinemas around town. Landmark announced it was abandoning the Dobie earlier this year. The chain sought a new operator to take over, but like many formerly thriving UT-area businesses, the Dobie has become functionally obsolete.

When I came to UT, you could see movies at the Dobie, the Varsity and at several on-campus locations curated by the Texas Union Film Program. What a difference a quarter-century makes (adjusts dentures).

The Texas Troubles

This summer is the 150th anniversary of the "Texas Troubles," a forgotten spate of pre-Civil War racial hysteria started by a fire of disputed origin that destroyed the Dallas business district. The most likely cause of the fire was high temperatures combined with highly combustible phosphorus matches. However, other fires in Denton and Pilot Point fueled the notion that a coordinated slave revolt was underway.

Without any proof of the latter, the editor of the burned-out Dallas Herald called for vigilante justice to be carried out against suspect slaves and white abolitionists. This ultimately led to the public lynching of three slaves near Dealey Plaza. All told, at least 30 and as many as 100 blacks and whites alike died at the hands of vigilantes across North and East Texas. Some credit the Texas Troubles as a major-but-largely-unexamined factor in the South's swing toward succession.

Dallas-based writer Julia Barton has an very interesting story about the Troubles and their aftermath in this month's Texas Observer.

Stuff I Been Writing About

I did a bit of music scribing in this week's Chron, reviewing the latest releases from local pop bands Masonic and Household Names. I also wrote a preview blurb for the 7th Annual North vs. South Music Festival, which is taking place down at the Hole in the Wall as I write (sigh).

I'm still writing event picks for the local Austin and Dallas pages of go2.com, too. So check it out if you're into the whole mobile web brevity thing.

Fave Five Food Deals - 8/11/10

The seedless watermelon price cuts go deeper in this week's edition of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Mini seedless watermelons, .88/ea. at Sun Harvest (through 8/18/10)

2. Pork loin roast, $1.88/lb. at Newflower (through 8/18/10)

3. Bartlett pears, .49/lb. at Newflower (through 8/18/10)

4. Blueberries, .99/pint at Sprouts (through 8/18/10)

5. Stonyfield Farms organic fat-free yogurt, .50/ea. at Whole Foods Market (through 8/18/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Walking On a Thin Line

Here's some handheld video of the New Drugs trying to bring on Vietnam flashbacks with our rendition of Huey's "Walking On a Thin Line" last Saturday at Antone's.



Guitarist J.D. Fanning goes kinda nuts at the end. He later told me he'd accidentally been possessed with the spirit of Paul Leary circa PCPPEP.

Many thanks to the Diamond Smugglers for letting us start the show.

Prop. 8 Ruled Unconstitutional

Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, as excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
-Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker

The Proposition 8 battle is far from over, of course. Nevertheless, Walker's full ruling is worth reading for the manner in which it systematically and logically lays waste to every argument against same-sex marriage made by Proposition 8's proponents.

Whole Foods Takes Aim at Newflower

Big grocery news yesterday with Whole Foods Market announcing its Austin area expansion plans. We already knew about WFM's delayed Domain store to replace their cramped Gateway location, but the new locations at Hill Country Galleria and William Cannon and MoPac will give Newflower's nearby stores some serious competition.

This is particularly true for the Hill County Galleria store, which will be right across the highway from Newflower. Although Newflower's sale prices are hard to beat, price point isn't necessarily the driving force for hill-dwelling Escalade moms.

Between Newflower, Sprouts, Natural Grocers and Sun Harvest (but still no sign of Trader Joe's), you could argue that Austin's budget natural grocer sector is starting to get overbuilt. Of all these stores, I think Newflower may be in for the toughest ride. The Colorado-based chain already had to shutter a Dallas store earlier this year.

It's worth noting that Newflower is an offshoot of Sunflower Farmer's Markets, which was started by Mike Gililland, the co-founder of Wild Oats. Whole Foods acquired Wild Oats in a contentious 2007 transaction that garnered plenty of attention from federal antitrust regulators. There is no love whatsoever between Gilliland and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. When Whole Foods opened a store in Wild Oats' Boulder, Colo. backyard, Mackey famously sent Gilliland a copy of the board game Risk with a note reading, "forewarned is forearmed."

Fave Five Food Deals - 8/4/10

Now that your electric bill is about to spike thanks to triple-digit heat, it's time to start saving with the week's best Austin grocery deals.

1. Yellow peaches, .49 at Sprouts (through 8/11/10)*

2. Natural boneless, skinless chicken breasts, $1.88 at Newflower (through 8/11/10)

3. Texas seedless watermelons, $1.99/ea. at Newflower (through 8/11/10)

4. Sweet white corn, 5 for $1 at Sun Harvest (through 8/11/10)

5. Mr. Bubble bubble bath, .67 at H-E-B (through 8/10/10)**

*Central Market, which typically stocks superlative produce, also has yellow peaches on sale this week for .99/lb.

**Price with in-store coupon, and no, despite the fact that this is "Fave Five Food Deals," we do not recommend ingesting Mr. Bubble.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

The Bass Line from "The Brady Bunch" End Theme as Rendered by Some Guy in Shorts

Back off, Barney Miller! From Listener Kliph Nesteroff at WFMU's Beware of the Blog, get ready to experience "The Bass Line from The Brady Bunch End Theme as Rendered by Some Guy in Shorts."



The "Guy in Shorts" is actually named Jason Long, and the awesome bass line from The Brady Bunch End Theme was originally performed by the great session bassist Carol Kaye, who also played on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep - Mountain High," Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" and a bajillion other hit records produced in L.A. during the 60s.

Hot August Shite

Nationally renowned and exquisitely sequined Neil Diamond tribute band the Diamond Smugglers play their only Austin show of the year this Saturday night at Antone's. If you've never witnessed the Smugglers' turn "Longfellow Serenade" into "Long Duck Dong Serenade" - not to mention their versions of wholly inappropriate songs like Nirvana's "Rape Me" delivered in the Diamond brogue - well, now is the time.

As an added bonus, my Huey Lewis and the News cover band the New Drugs fills the spiral slicer slot on this bill.

Continental Trailways

One of my fondest childhood memories was riding on a Continental Trailways bus with my mom from Dallas to Victoria via Houston to visit my maternal grandparents. In the early 70s, Continental Trailways Golden Eagle buses still had on-board hostesses who would bring you soft drinks and light snacks. Bayou City History blogger J.R. Gonzales has unearthed a November 1968 Houston Chronicle profile of one such hostess accompanied by plenty of hairspray-infused photos. Although the photos are in black and white, I totally remember the fabric patterns on those seat cushions.

The hostesses disappeared from the buses sometime in the mid-70s, but we continued to ride. Once we moved to Houston and I got a little older, my parents even let me ride the bus to Victoria by myself. I'm pretty sure we won't be letting Alex ride the bus alone until he's 35.

Fave Five Food Deals - 7/28/10

This week's edition of Austin's best grocery deals boasts some of the lowest prices we've seen in months on chicken breasts and tomatoes. While we haven't yet checked out the quality of tomatoes at El Rancho Supermercado, we're pretty sure you won't find a better price without a time machine set for 1972.

1. Boneless skinless chicken breasts, $1.47/lb.* at Fiesta (through 8/3/10)

2. Broccoli crowns, .77/lb. at H-E-B (through 8/3/10)

3. Strawberries, .99/lb. at Sprouts (through 8/4/10)

4. Tomatoes, 4 lbs. for $1 at El Rancho Supermercado (through 8/3/10)

5. Bulk pinto beans, 4 lbs. for $1 at Fiesta (through 8/3/10)

Bonus buy: Peruvian Mahi Mahi filets, $2.99/lb. at Sprouts (through 8/4/10)

*Limit two with $10 or more additional purchase

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Disco Demolition Night!

I meant to post this on July 12, which was the 31st anniversary of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

By 1979, disco had become a musical trend pushed too far. Hell, even Ethel Merman had a disco album out by then. A nation of disaffected - and, it must be said, overwhelmingly white - rock and rollers took up the rallying cry, "DISCO SUCKS!" You saw it on T-shirts and bumper stickers everywhere. While much of the knee-jerk disdain for disco can legitimately be ascribed to barely latent racism and homophobia, the velvet-rope exclusivity famously epitomized by Studio 54 was fairly deserving of a massive backlash.

Disco Demolition Night was conceived by Chicago DJ Steve Dahl of album-rock station WLUP-FM (a.k.a., "Loop 98") as a promotion to get more fans to come cheer for the then-moribund Chicago White Sox as they took on the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader. Everyone who brought a disco record to Comiskey Park would gain admission to Comiskey Park for just 98 cents. Between games, the records would be collected and ceremoniously blown up at midfield between games.

What could possibly go wrong with that? Watch this ESPN clip and find out...

Fave Five Food Deals - 7/21/10

This week's money-saving missive features the best Austin grocery deals of the year (so far) on corn, peaches and nectarines.

1. California sweet corn, 10 for $1 at Newflower (through 7/28/10)

2. Peaches or nectarines, .49/lb. at Sprouts (through 7/28/10)

3. Northwest blueberries (6 oz.) or cantaloupes, .88 at Sun Harvest (through 7/28/10)

4. Texas green beans, .97/lb. at H-E-B (through 7/27/10)

5. Lola Savannah Coffee (Breakfast Blend or Vanilla Cinnamon Pecan), $5.99/lb. at Central Market (through 7/27/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Talk Bossy to Me

There are a lot of things to question about the emerging hagiography of the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, but I think Matt Taibbi's obit raises a good point by using Steinbrenner's demise as an opportunity to question why Americans have such a soft spot in their hearts for egomaniacal aristocrats:

In no other country do people genuinely love their bosses the way Americans do. They'll go home after 12 hard hours of capricious superiors peeing in their faces, and the very first thing they'll do is call up some talk radio show and denounce the graduated income tax that gives them a break at their bosses' expense.

And once you've been trickled down upon by "wealth creators" for 12 hours, you probably wouldn't dare question the fact that because Steinbrenner had the good fortune to die in 2010, his heirs will pay no federal estate taxes on his estimated $1.1 billion estate, resulting in a potential tax savings of almost $500 million.

Alex: The First 5 Months (A Slideshow)

Alex is hitting the big 5-month mark on Monday. Like all parents, Kate and I can't believe how fast time flies. After successfully transitioning the boy to the crib a couple of weeks back, we wistfully folded up the trusty sidecar co-sleeper this weekend. Even though we're all sleeping better now, I miss having Alex right there next to us. And I absolutely don't want to forget anything about what he was like as a newborn.

Accordingly, I decided to compile a whole mess of Alex photos into a slideshow-style retrospective. I'm posting it here so all the people who've asked me for photos when I haven't had any on my person can have a look-see. The music is "Cool Strut" by Bernie Hayes from The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 2: 1968-1971. I like to think Alex would appreciate the funky soundtrack.

Fave Five Food Deals - 7/14/10

Even if you're not a cherry person, you'd be foolish not to test drive a few specimens from this year's extra-sweet Northwest cherry harvest. This week's edition of Austin's best grocery deals offers a nicely priced opportunity to do just that.

1. Northwest red cherries, $1.77/lb. @ Sun Harvest (through 7/21/10)

2. 6 oz. Northwest blueberries, .88 @ Newflower (through 7/21/10)

3. Sweet yellow corn on the cob, 5 for $1 at Fiesta (through 7/20/10)

4. Asparagus, $1.77/lb. @ Sun Harvest (through 7/21/10)

5. Strawberries, $1.47/lb. @ H-E-B (through 7/20/10)

Also, if you're the type whose idea of lunch consist of wolfing down a Lean Cuisine in the shadow of the EEOC poster hanging in your dreary workplace break room, H-E-B has a Full Meal Deal this week that's sure to zazz things up. Buy four Stouffer's Lean Cuisine entrees and get a box of Dreyer's Fruit Bars, a 4-pack of Juicy Juice Sparkling Juice, a pound of bananas and a 4-pack of Yoplait Fiber One Yogurt for free with in-store coupons.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Tales from the Parkside

I've had some really good meals at Parkside over the years, but having learned of chef/owner Shawn Cirkiel and his parents' attempt to strong-arm The Best Wurst out of their longtime spot at the corner of Sixth and San Jacinto, I'm done with them (at least for now).

The Best Wurst has been on the disputed corner since 1993. By all accounts, they had a good working relationship with Dan McKlusky's, the restaurant that occupied 301 E. Sixth St. prior to Parkside's arrival in 2007.

Now Parkside is building a balcony that will overlook Sixth St. A sidewalk cafe is planned next. Perhaps not so coincidentally, when The Best Wurst's operating permit came up for renewal earlier this year, Cirkiel asked the city to deny it. The mobile bratwurst cart is currently operating on a week-to-week permit until the issue is resolved. From The Best Wurst's press release:

Among the several allegations, Parkside asserts that Best Wurst creates a public safety hazard and has violated their license agreement with the City of Austin. They also assert Best Wurst blocks vehicular traffic and "impedes the flow of pedestrian traffic" and renders the sidewalk "impassable." "All these allegations are total nonsense," states (Best Wurst owner Jon) Notarthomas. "We have an outstanding record with the City as well as the health department." Amongst other claims, the Cirkiels state The Best Wurst blocks the view of the "Sixth Street experience" for its customers, promotes a "bad boy" image, and sells products that compete with the Parkside's French seafood menu.

I didn't want to post about this until Cirkiel had a chance to publicly respond. Thus far, his comments to the Statesman and on the Best Wurst's Facebook page have come across as more than a little disingenuous.

"Why is it wrong for me to not want my front window blocked with people eating, making a mess, and causing trouble?" Cirkiel asks in one post.

Dude, you run a restaurant and you're upset about people eating in front of it? If anything, you should be thanking The Best Wurst's customers for blocking your diners' picture-window view of "Sixth Street Experience" standards such as drunken revelers vomiting up their Jell-O shots. And I don't think anyone sober enough to stumble through Parkside's doors is going to mistake $30 Chilean sea bass for a $4.50 brat.

Perhaps Parkside thought no one would care if they tried to force a venerable local business off "their" public sidewalk. I think they're going to find out that Austin can be a hard place to do business in if you do something that is popularly perceived to be malevolent. Running a restaurant in the middle of a recession is hard enough without dealing with an image problem like this.

Accordingly, my unsolicited PR advice to Cirkiel would be to try and work something out with The Best Wurst. Figure out what you really need from Best Wurst and engineer a mutually beneficial compromise that allows both businesses to coexist. Bury the hatchet publicly and with good humor.

Until then, there are plenty of other nice restaurants in town.

Fave Five Food Deals - 7/7/10

Some insanely low prices on summer fruitstuffs lead the way in this week's round-up of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Yellow peaches and nectarines, .47/lb. at Newflower (through 7/14/10)

2. Cantaloupes, .49/ea. at Sprouts (through 7/14/10)

3. Organic grape tomatoes, $1.50/pint at Sun Harvest (through 7/14/10)

4. Bing cherries, $1.77/lb. at Newflower (through 7/14/10)

5. Saltwater taffy, $1.99/lb. at Newflower (through 7/14/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

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.

Hats Off to "Louie"

I've never been a particularly fervent follower of Louis C.K., but after his bumbling portrayal of Leslie Knoupe's law enforcement love interest on Parks and Recreation, I made it a point to check out Louie, his new FX sitcom that premiered Tuesday.

While Louie borrows pages from Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm in that the endearingly cynical comedian is portraying "himself," neither Jerry Seinfeld nor Larry David ever held themselves out to be this awkward and hopeless. C.K. portrays a beaten down, sad sack of a man. Mirroring C.K.'s real-life status, "Louie" is divorced at 42 with shared custody of two daughters. TV Louie has few ideas and even fewer options for reinventing his life as a single man. He's acutely aware of his shortcomings and he doesn't have the energy to pretend otherwise. The ill-fated date he goes on in the pilot episode is both cringe-inducing and instantly recognizable to any male who doesn't fit the suit when it comes to conventional dating techniques.

In our next episode, Louie reconnects through Facebook with a formative middle school crush who once commanded him to "whip it out" between cigarette drags and shots of Peppermint Schnapps. While better-adjusted adults would've left such events behind long ago as harmless anecdotes, it's clear that Louie is still hanging on to the humiliation of not having complied with the troubled young deb's command as a defining life event.

Louie trades in the kind of humor that is likely to inflame partisanship. It is most definitely a male-centric show replete with graphic riffs on why it would be okay to have sex with animals if (and only if) the animals were capable of consenting. At the same time, a sticky poker table discourse on gay sex is allowed to evolve into an unexpectedly poignant sidebar about what it feels like for a gay teenager to be called "faggot." Even if Louie doesn't end its 22-minute treatises with standard gift-wrapped repentance, the show deserves plenty of credit for its contradictory-yet-astute contemplation of the modern male condition.

Fave Five Food Deals - 6/30/10

It's been a pretty slow month around here in terms of posts, but we're keeping the lights on with another round of Austin's finest grocery deals.

1. Texas peaches, .88/lb. at Central Market (through 7/6/10)

2. Texas corn on the cob, 6 for $1 at H-E-B (through 7/6/10)

3. Avocados, 3 for .88 at El Rancho Supermercado (through 7/6/10)

3. Blueberries, .98/pint at Sprouts (through 7/7/10)

4. Pork sausage, $1.97/lb. at Newflower (through 7/7/10)

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Fave Five Food Deals - 6/23/10

Get ready to save some scratch. It's time once again for another exciting episode of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Red or green seedless grapes, .69/lb. at Sprouts (through 6/30/10)

2. Strawberries, .88/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 6/30/10)

3. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs $1.88/lb. at Newflower (through 6/30/10)

4. Sweet yellow corn on the cob, 5 for $1 at Fiesta (through 6/29/10)

5. Organic yellow peaches, .98/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 6/30/10)

El Cheapo Bonus Tip: Planning a 4th of July party on a collegiate budget? Be sure to stock up on Lone Star this week at H-E-B for just 14.47 a case (through 6/29/10).

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

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.

Fave Five Food Deals - 6/16/10

There's plenty of produce to be had in this week's spread of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Mini seedless watermelons, $1 at Sun Harvest (through 6/23/10)

2. Peaches, .69/lb. at Fiesta (through 6/22/10)

3. Broccoli crowns or green beans, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 6/23/10)

4. Strawberries, nectarines or peaches, .88/lb. at Newflower (through 6/23/10)

5. H-E-B Premium Orange Juice, $2 at H-E-B (through 6/22/10)

Oh, and if you want to buy dad a sixer of something a bit more upmarket than Lone Star, all varieties of Full Sail are on sale at Newflower for $5.99 this week.

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

Fave Five Food Deals - 6/9/10

Summer fruits lead the way in this week's edition of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. Peaches, .77/lb/ at H-E-B (through 6/15/10)

2. Red raspberries, 6 oz. package, .97 at Newflower (through 6/16/10)

3. Blue Lake green beans, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 6/16/10)

4. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, $1/lb. at El Rancho Supermercado* (through 6/15/10)

5. Blue Bell Ice Cream (all rims), $2.99 at Fiesta** (through 6/15/10)

*Limit 10 lbs. with minimum $10 purchase
**Limit 2 with minimum $10 purchase

Austin supermarket links (directs to weekly ads where available):
El Rancho Supermercado
Fiesta
H-E-B
Natural Grocers
Newflower Farmers Market
Randall's
Sprouts Farmers Market
Sun Harvest
Wheatsville Food Co-Op
Whole Foods Market

In-N-Out is Headed for Texas

Late last month, D Magazine’s food blogger Nancy Nichols broke the news that beloved Southern California fast food institution In-N-Out Burger is moving into the Dallas/Fort Worth market with a new location in Garland’s Firewheel Town Center. After years of informal titterings about a Lone Star expansion, this will be In-N-Out’s first location in Texas.

On May 26, Nancy Luna of The Orange County Register got confirmation of the burger chain’s Texas invasion. “Yes, we are working on a few locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth market and Garland is one of them,” In-N-Out planning and development VP Carl Van Fleet told Luna. “While we are very enthusiastic about the opportunities there, our Dallas area plans are still in the early stages.”

Because Garland is a 1,400-mile drive from In-N-Out’s Baldwin Park, Calif. commissary, the company plans to construct a new one in Texas. “It is far enough away that we will have to open a new one there as we remain committed to making our own hamburger patties and maintaining the same operating philosophies and standards that have been in place for 62 years,” Van Fleet said.

While Dallas/Fort Worth is the only Texas market In-N-Out has officially targeted thus far, I doubt they would build a whole new commissary here without having bigger plans for Texas down the line. With D/FW as a beachhead, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see In-N-Out move into the California expat-rich suburbs of Austin in the next few years.

For My Skoal Brothers

Given my fealty for public health, I really shouldn't be posting a smokeless tobacco commercial. But for this awesome spot starring legendary UT/Houston Oilers running back Earl Campbell, I'm going to have to make an exception.



Maybe the Oilers never managed to beat the Steelers in the AFC Championship, but Earl's endorsement of Skoal has it all over Terry Bradshaw's commercial for Red Man.

Fave Five Food Deals - 6/2/10

Due to some out-of-town business to help keep the lights on, we were unable to post this week's best grocery deals just after midnight as we normally do.

Rest assured that this late edition of "Fave Five Food Deals" is an anomaly. With that mea culpa under the bridge, on with the deals.

1. Broccoli crowns, .77/lb. at H-E-B (through 6/8/10)

2. Organic Romaine lettuce, .77/ea. at Sun Harvest (through 6/9/10)

3. Strawberries, $2/lb. at Central Market (through 6/8/10)

4. Yellow corn, 5 for $1 at Fiesta (through 6/8/10)

5. Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice, 89 oz., $2.99 at Randall's (through 6/8/10)*

*Sale price with Remarkable Card

Also, in case anyone is wondering, Beetsolonely and "Fave Five Food Deals" are in no way, shape or form associated with the California-based male encounter group Dave Dive Dudefeels, LLC.

Mexico Has Moved Juárez

According to Fox News, Mexico has moved Juárez and its 2.4 million inhabitants from just across the Rio Grande from El Paso to a remote spot about 50 miles west of Nuevo Laredo near the Coahuila/Nuevo Leon border. They also moved the city name's accent mark from "a" to "e" so we wouldn't have to think about it so early in the alphabet. I feel safer already.

Fave Five Food Deals - 5/26/10

Despite being a bit tied up at the ol' day job this week, delivering Austin's five best grocery deals remains an essential function for this here blog.

1. Blue Bell Ice Cream (half gallon/all rims), $2.99 at Fiesta* (through 6/1/10)

2. Pork sirloin chops (family pack), .77 at Fiesta* (through 6/1/10)

3. Texas-grown bi-color corn on the cob, 8 for $2 at Whole Foods Market (through 6/2/10)

4. Peaches, .67/lb. at H-E-B (through 6/1/10)

5. Freshly squeezed lemonade (half gallon), $1.99 at Central Market (through 6/1/10)

*Limit 2 with $10 or more additional purchase.

Fave Five Food Deals - 5/19/10

Welcome back to another exciting edition of Fave Five Food Deals. Let's get ready to save some money at Austin area grocery stores, shall we?

1. Strawberries, $1.27/lb. at H-E-B (through 5/25/10)

2. Wild-caught Mahi Mahi filets, $3.88/lb. at Newflower (through 5/26/10)

3. Mexican avocados, 7 for $1 at El Rancho Supermercado (through 5/25/10)

4. Argentinean Packham pears, .99/lb. at Central Market (through 5/25/10)

5. Russet potatoes, 10 lb. bag, $1.77 at H-E-B (through 5/25/10)

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't note that H-E-B has an in-store coupon this week that gets you a free quart of Creamy Creations Ice Cream if you buy specially designated blister packs of Energizer Max batteries. I'm not sure how we're supposed to make the intellectual leap from batteries to ice cream unless some sort of deviant sexual practice is involved.

El Rancho Opens in Austin

The first Austin location of Dallas-based El Rancho Supermercado opened at the corner of 183 and Ohlen a few weeks back. I’ve been meaning to go over there since it’s now the closest market to our house and the first one within easy walking distance since Albertson’s shut down in 2006. I finally made it over for a quick look-see yesterday.

The first thing you see when you walk into El Rancho is a giant wedding cake with a water feature. They have a full-service panaderia with a colorful assortment of pan dulce, polvorones, bollilos and the like. I didn’t buy anything, but I’ll be interested to taste how they stack up against Panaderia Chuy in the same shopping center. El Rancho sells inexpensive homemade tortillas and whole roasted chickens for $6.99, but the latter would have to be pretty amazing to lure me away from El Pollo Regio across the street. A neighborhood pollo throwdown is imminent.

El Rancho’s produce appears middling, but they’re selling four pounds of Roma tomatoes for $1 this week. They had some good deals on marinated fajita meat and you could get four cans of La Sierra charro beans for just $3. They also have an extensive array of Mexican-made salsas and more Goya product than I knew existed.

Overall, El Rancho reminds me of a smaller, more Mexican version of Fiesta. Unlike Fiesta, I wouldn’t characterize El Rancho as a true full-service supermarket. You can buy sundry items there, but the selection is poor and the prices aren’t competitive. Even so, Fiesta is definitely taking notice of El Rancho’s presence. We’ve started receiving Fiesta’s circulars in the mail along with a coupon for $10 off a $35 purchase.

Stay Away from Canon Printers

Just two months out of warranty and our Consumer Reports-recommended Canon Pixma MX700 printer has gone shithouse with a terminal error code no one at tech support understands because I (gasp) replaced the ink cartridges.

So now I have a year-old dead printer and a bunch of overpriced, brand new ink I can't use. I don't know how much it would cost to have it repaired, but if it's any more than a quarter of what it would cost me to buy a new printer, I'll be getting out the ax and giving this defective piece of crap the Office Space treatment.

If you or your friends are in the market for a new printer, stay the hell away from these!

Fave Five Food Deals - 5/12/10

From our family to yours, here's another round of Austin's best grocery deals (cue syrupy "Fave Five Food Deals" jingle sung to the tune of that horrible John William Interiors spot).

1. Organic Beef Blowout at Sprouts - their language, not mine - 40% all organic beef cuts at Sprouts (through 5/19/10)

2. Natural* boneless skinless chicken breasts, $1.88/lb. at Newflower (through 5/19/10)

3. 2 lb. bag of Michigan Ida Red apples, .99 at H-E-B (through 5/18/10)

4. Green beans, Bell peppers (red, yellow or orange) and zucchini squash, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 5/19/10)

5. Seven varieties of apples, broccoli crowns, baby peeled carrots and grape tomatoes**, .99/lb at Sun Harvest (through 5/19/10)

If you're willing to splurge a little, Whole Foods has a good deal this week on Texas-grown organic green beans for $1.99/lb. That would've made the Fave Five most any other week, but not this one.

*No enhancers or chemicals added.
**Grape tomatoes are sold by the pint, but close enough.

The 1970 Lubbock Tornado

Today is the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Lubbock tornado. I was born in Lubbock in 1968, but our family moved to Dallas a few months before this storm.

In addition to killing some 28 people, the Lubbock tornado was notorious for slamming into the 20-story Great Plains Life Building and causing a permanent 12-inch deformation in its steel frame. Three of four elevator support rails were bent and approximately 60 percent of the windows were blown out.

While many predicted the building would collapse in the days after the storm, civil engineers from Texas Tech said it could be repaired and didn't need to be torn down. A series of out-of-town owners let the building sit vacant for years, attracting pigeons and occasionally shedding bricks onto downtown streets. The building was auctioned off to Amarillo investors Rufus and Kenneth Gaut in 1974 for the princely sum of $115,000 in back taxes.

The building reopened to tenants a year later and the now-renamed Metro Life tower still stands today as the tallest building in Lubbock.

For a dated-but-interesting look at Lubbock's emergency response to the 1970 tornado, check out Twister!, a 26-minute educational film that was produced by the federal Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (FEMA's precursor). You can view it online at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image's ever-growing video library.

1970 photo from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Mother's Day at the Capitol

Kate, Alex and I celebrated Mother's Day yesterday with an altogether pleasant afternoon jaunt downtown.

At two and a half months, Alex's demonstrative repertoire has progressed well beyond crying and sleeping. We're having lots of fun responding to his proto-babble as though he was a Sunday talk show pundit. He still doesn't like car rides all that much, but Kate's friend Jen loaned us a terrycloth cover for the car seat, which seemed to make him more comfortable on the ride down Mopac.

We - well, Kate and I - ate at Little City and traipsed around the Capitol grounds. It was Alex's first excursion to the Capitol and he showed his displeasure for Texas politics by filling a diaper, forcing his mother and I to expose his bits in the shadow of the Pink Dome.

This is Only a Test

When I was growing up, long before I understood the threat of nuclear holocaust, I was profoundly disturbed any time a broadcaster in my area conducted a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

Having a mellow afternoon of Al Brodax-era Popeye cartoons callously interrupted by that godawful attention signal was pure nightmare fodder to my young mind. Even though the Emergency Broadcast System was replaced in 1997 by the Emergency Alert System - which has its own equally annoying attention signal - I still occasionally have nuclear war dreams in which EBS figures prominently.

When I was a college radio DJ at UT, I always hoped I'd one day get to conduct an EBS test myself as a symbolic triumph over childhood fear. Sadly, KTSB was only "broadcasting" on cable radio back then, so we didn't commit the time, training and expenses to do EBS tests. By the time the station took to the airwaves as KVRX, I'd long since graduated.

Occasionally, you'd hear a local EBS activation for a tornado warning or something like that, but the system was never activated for a national emergency. Except once. Sort of.

At 9:33 a.m. EST on Saturday, February 20, 1971, the EBS was accidentally activated because of an erroneous message from the National Warning Facility at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. Interestingly, very few stations did what they were supposed to do if it had been an actual emergency. Many stations didn't get the activation messages and the vast majority of those that did ignored it. A contemporary Austin American-Statesman story about the goof reported that KVET didn't do an EBS activation because it occurred at approximately the same time as a regular weekly test of the system. Although the National Warning Facility sent a cancellation message at 9:59 a.m., that message didn't use the proper authentication code. A cancellation message with the correct code didn't go out until 10:13 a.m.

I've read several print accounts of this false alarm, but I've always wondered what it would've sounded like if I'd been listening to one of the stations that actually announced the false EBS activation back in 1971. Fortunately, an astute radiohead named Jim Cassell has preserved a recording of WOWO's broadcast out of Fort Wayne, Ind. from that morning. You can hear it - with the attention signal presumably (and mercifully) edited out - right here.

Although announcer Bob Sievers is very professional and careful not to unduly alarm the public, hearing this would've scared the oatmeal out of me. Needless to say, this would've been a much bigger deal had it occurred in the middle of a weekday instead of on Saturday morning. And the worst part of it is that the last record you would've heard before the missiles struck was "Doesn't Somebody Want to be Wanted" by the Partridge Family.

Fave Five Food Deals - 5/5/10

On the fifth day of the fifth month, we give you Austin's five best grocery deals.

1. Whole seedless watermelons, .99/ea. at Newflower (through 5/12/10)

2. All natural* pork sirloin roasts and chops or chicken tenders, 1.97/lb. at Sprouts (through 5/12/10)

3. Red, orange or yellow tomatoes on the vine, $1.99/lb. at Central Market (through 5/11/10)

4. Corn on the cob, 5 for $1 at Sprouts (through 5/12/10)

5. Blue Bell Ice Cream, half gallon, $3.99 ea. at Sun Harvest (5/12/10)

*Pork is tested for antibiotics and hormone-free; chicken has no hormones, enhancers or solutions added.

Continental to Become United

With today's announcement that Continental Airlines and United Airlines plan to merge into the world's largest airline in a $3 billion stock-swap deal, the once-golden Continental brand will become history and Houston will lose its hometown airline.

I'm surprised Continental wants to become United. While none of the U.S. legacy carriers have a particularly good reputation, Continental's is the best of a lousy lot. On the other hand, United is a more established quantity in Asia and the Pacific.

Continental/United will likely close its Cleveland hub because it will be redundant so close to United's hub at Chicago O'Hare. Although United's hub at Washington Dulles is cumbersome and not far from Continental's hub at Newark, I imagine it will remain a hub in some form. United just started a new flight from Dulles to Bahrain last month and service to Accra, Ghana begins in June.

As for Houston, the former Continental will shed front-office jobs and the city will lose prestige of being home base for an airline, but Continental/United's hub at Intercontinental will continue to thrive. One area where the combined airline will continue to be weak is the Southeastern U.S. since United shut down its Miami hub in 2004.

So why is Continental/United moving its headquarters from the Sunbelt? Maybe the Windy City's $35 million tax incentive financing package to get United to move into the 110-story What You Talkin' 'Bout Willis Tower has something to do with it. Houston may be better off in the long run for not having decimated its tax base by trying to match such a generous exercise in corporate welfare.

And by the way, the new logo sucks contrails.

Poteet Strawberry Ice Cream is Here!

Big news in the world of store-bought ice cream. I finally spied and captured a quart-size carton of H-E-B Creamy Creations Poteet Strawberry Ice Cream at the H-E-B on Braker Ln. at 183 earlier this evening.

This is the first time I've seen it this season. My only regret is that my two and one-half month-old son cannot partake yet.

Just $2.78 and I'm well on my way to quashing the oncoming Monday trainwreck blues with home-grown strawberry bliss. Better get yours now before I eat it all.

Lala Shutting Down May 31

Great gripes! Less than one week after I finally got around to posting a Lala playlist, Lala has announced they’re shutting down on May 31.

Apple bought Lala for $80 million back in Decmeber. Current users of the 4-year-old online music service will have their balances converted to credit for the iTunes store, which is sort of like having your In-N-Out Double Double morph into a half-eaten Big Mac.

Lala’s clean interface was the closest legal thing to having a record store listening booth at your fingertips. I’m a big fan of streaming before purchasing. Lala let you stream a full album once for free, then charged you about 10 cents per song if you wanted unlimited online listening rights. I’m sure that model gives the music industry pause because it keeps people from buying new releases on speculation.

Gil Scott-Heron’s latest is a perfect example. It’s a good album, worthy of acclaim and definitely worth hearing, but if I ever listen to it again, it probably won’t be for several years. There’s nothing wrong with such albums, but I don’t need them taking up disk space or cloud space, let alone physical space in my increasingly cramped home.

When Apple purchased Lala, some speculated the Cupertino brass were going to build their own subscription music service. If such a service worked anything like iTunes, though, I'm one Mac user who would go out of my way to avoid it.

Fave Five Food Deals - 4/28/10

Some folks celebrate May Day. Others celebrate Cinco de Mayo. But a good deal on corn is something we can all rally around.

To that end, here are this week's best Austin area grocery deals.

1. White corn, 6 ears for $1 at Newflower (through May 5)

2. Green beans, .98/lb. at Sun Harvest (through May 5)

3. Sanderson Farms whole chickens, .88/lb. at H-E-B (through May 4)

4. Hass avocados, 3 for $1 at Sprouts (through May 5)

5. Small Texas grapefruit, 10 for $1 at H-E-B (through May 4)

With the start of corn season, ears are on sale all over town. Sun Harvest is selling it for 25 cents an ear and Randall's is selling four ears for 88 cents, but as usual, you have to have a Remarkable card and that price is only good May 1-2.

Also, if Jamie Oliver hasn't completely soured you on enjoying frozen pizza and nacho cheese-flavored Doritos, check out H-E-B's "Texas Showdown" promo this weekend. To promote their store brands, H-E-B is giving them away. Buy specified sizes of DiGiorno Pizza and get an in-store coupon for a free H-E-B Classic Selections Pizza. Or buy specified sizes of Doritos and get an in-store coupon for a free bag of H-E-B flavored tortilla chips.

But remember, kids, frozen pizza and Doritos are "sometimes" foods.

Over the Edge

Last September, Vice published an excellent oral history of Over the Edge, the awesome 1979 suburban teen rebellion film that launched Matt Dillon’s career.

Like many recovering teens my age, I stumbled onto Over the Edge via repeated airings on cable. It was quite a heady rush to see junior high school-aged kids portraying junior high school-aged kids setting police cars on fire while I myself was a junior high school-aged kid.

I don’t think it’s hyperbole for Harry Northrup, the actor who portrayed the much-reviled Sgt. Doberman, to hold Over the Edge in the same esteem as Rebel Without a Cause. Anyone who grew up on reruns will have a hard time watching the latter without likening Jim Backus’ portrayal of James Dean’s dad to Thurston Howell III, or worse, Mr. Magoo.


Although I wasn't much of an adolescent troublemaker, kids who looked and sounded like the kids in Over the Edge were ubiquitous when I was growing up. Maybe you'd go over to their houses when their parents weren't home to blast album-oriented rock music, take a few furtive belts from the liquor cabinet or pass a handgun around the room.

Looking back, I think most of these failed afterschool special auditions arose from boredom rather than delinquency. While Over the Edge took that notion to an exploitative extreme, no other movie does a better job of capturing the overall aesthetic of the late 70s/early 80s suburban latchkey kid generation.

Incidentally, I did a phone interview with Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson about 10 years ago and brought up the opening sequence of Over the Edge in which Cheap Trick's version of Terry Reid's "Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace" sets the film's desolate, sneering tone. I was surprised when Petersson said he'd never seen it.

The Springing Sounds of Beetsolonely

I just spent entirely too much time crafting the first - and hopefully not the last - Lala playlist for this here blog. I plan to toss up a new one every quarter or so, but we'll see about that.

In the meantime, crank up the widget to your right and find out what happens when Black Randy & the Metrosquad, Bobby Patterson, Funkadelic, Fastway, Titus Andronicus and Tom Rush get shoehorned into the same elevator.

Drunk Girls

Check out Spike Jonze' ridiculous video for the new-ish LCD Soundsystem single, "Drunk Girls." It's no groundbreaker, but you will be entertained. LCD's new album, This is Happening, arrives May 17, but you can stream it now.

They Shuttered My Fuddruckers!

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a gaggle of men in ties just standing around in front of the Fuddruckers on Anderson Ln. Between their demographically incongruous clothing and the fact that lunch hour had long since passed, their presence struck me as vaguely suspicious.

Turns out my suspicions were well-placed, for that location of Fuddruckers shut down for good at the close of business yesterday after the Tavistock Group agreed to purchase the flagging chain from Magic Brands for $40 million. The 6607 N. IH 35 location also closed.

Not that I really care, since Fuddruckers lost me as a customer with their jingoistic “Freedom Fries” gambit back in 2003.

Fave Five Food Deals - 4/21/10

Straight from the headlines of your weekly supermarket mailers, here's another edition of Austin's best grocery buys.

1. 5 lb. bag of Russet potatoes, $1 at H-E-B (through 4/27/10)

2. 1 lb. of red seedless grapes, $1 at H-E-B (through 4/27/10)

3. Boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, $1.99/lb. at Sprouts (through 4/28/10)

4. Green leaf, red leaf or Romaine lettuce, .88/ea. at Sprouts (through 4/28/10)

5. Anjou pears, .98/lb. at H-E-B (through 4/27/10)

I Had a Wet Dream About the Girls from '90210'

Several months back, my drumming buddy Lance Farley digitized and posted some grotesque 1994 video footage of our old band, Noodle. So here we are, 16 years ago, playing our "hit" single, "I Had a Wet Dream About the Girls from 90210."


This aired live over Austin's cable TV airwaves on CapZeyeZ, Dave Prewitt's venerable public access show. Lance is on drums, Mark Fagan is playing bass, Jonathan Toubin is on guitar and I'm singing without a shirt on.

Was I acting out a wee bit? Perhaps, but looking back, there were issues I worked through in Noodle that otherwise would've taken years to tackle on a therapist's couch.

My only regret about this song is that we fell just short of having the opportunity to perform it in the presence of one of the actual girls from Beverly Hills, 90210. In July of 1994, we were offered a last-minute gig opening for Sincola at Antone's. Jennie Garth, who played Kelly Taylor, was in town filming a tawdry made-for-TV movie called Without Consent and she just so happened to turn up at that show.

Would we have had the gall to play this song with Garth in the audience? Sadly, we'll never know - we were already playing in El Paso that night.

Fave Five Food Deals - 4/14/10

If you're a fan of cheap beer and Brenham's best-loved export, this week's edition of Austin's best grocery deals is sure to warm the functioning part of your heart.

1. Blue Bell Ice Cream (all rims), $2.99* at Fiesta (through 4/20/10)

2. 12 packs (cans) of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Bud Ice, Natural Light or Miller High Life, $6/ea. at Fiesta (through 4/20/10)

3. Red seedless grapes or broccoli crowns, .88/lb. at Newflower (through 4/21/10)

4. Roma tomatoes, green beans or broccoli crowns, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 4/21/10)

5. Extra large peeled and deveined raw shrimp, $4.97/lb. at Newflower (through 4/21/10)

*Limit two with $10 additional purchase, which you can easily cover with a couple of $6 12-packs.

Texas Stadium Imploded

Texas Stadium was returned to dust this morning in a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese-sponsored implosion for the ages. I didn't bother to watch it live on TV, but here's some pretty good footage of the implosion - and nothing but - that was shot from a nearby building.



I like the way the roof span in the left half of the frame just sort of hangs there for a few seconds before crashing down.

Houston's Variety Fair Closing

Variety Fair 5 & 10 has been selling this and that in Houston’s Rice Village since 1948. Growing up in the nearby bedroom enclaves of West University and Bellaire, I purchased a healthy chunk of my Topps football card collection from Variety Fair during the late 70s and early 80s. It seemed like founder Ben Klinger was always there working the mechanical cash register, which was old-fashioned even in 1978.

After 61 years, Variety Fair will close up shop in June. So if you happen to be near Houston anytime soon, make a pilgrimage to see one of the last authentic five-and-dime stores in America.

Video on Variety Fair closing from Houston Chronicle:

Fave Five Food Deals - 4/7/10

The berry wars heat up in this week's installment of Austin's best grocery deals.

1. 1 lb. strawberries or 5.6 oz. blackberries, .69 at Newflower (through 4/14/10)

2. Asparagus, .98/lb. at Sun Harvest (through 4/14/10)

3. Romaine, green leaf or red leaf lettuce, .77/ea. at Sprouts (through 4/14/10)

4. Red and green seedless grapes, .88/lb. at Sprouts (through 4/14/10)

5. Green beans, $1.48/lb. at H-E-B (through 4/13/10)

If you're heading to Sun Harvest at Anderson and Rockwood anytime soon, you'll notice they're now in the beginning stages of a renovation. Here's hoping this results in wider aisles and a more appetizing meat counter. Between the new Sprouts on Great Hills Trail and the forthcoming Walmart mothership at Northcross, Sun Harvest definitely needs to up their game.

Remembering Ron Turk

I found out last week that my old friend Ron Turk has passed away. The initial shock of this unexpected shard of news gradually gave way to sadness, longing and – most of all – profound appreciation for Ron’s friendship over the years.

Ron and I met 25 years ago in sophomore biology class at Bellaire High School. Even back then, Ron was a great conversationalist, which may explain why my biology grade went from A to C as we got to know each other better. I'm pretty sure he was the only person in class who thought it was hilarious when I stood up from my desk one day and turned out the classroom lights because I mistakenly thought I heard the teacher ask me to.

Ron was both smart and wise. While I was immersed in the obnoxious words and deeds of generalized adolescent rebellion and blanket disdain for convention, Ron was able to see beyond all that. He sought out the good in people and didn't allow himself to be constrained by social boundaries.

Our friendship continued when we both landed in Austin to attend UT. We had a couple of auditorium-sized undergraduate classes together and I admired the way Ron would get to know the professors. I was always too shy to do that. A few years later, Ron had the ear of the UT System Board of Regents when he led an effort to get UT to divest its tobacco holdings. He understood the incremental nature of social change and knew studied pragmatism would take his causes much further than a thousand holier-than-thou rants.

Many times over the course of our college years, Ron listened patiently to my inebriated, self-depreciating discourse on being perennially lovelorn. Deep down, I bet Ron knew the culprits of my condition were emotional immaturity coupled with abject fear of rejection, but he never blew me off with a blunt summation like that. On the contrary, his counsel was always offered with a great deal of both wit and affection. When you were talking with Ron, you were talking. The things he said stuck with you.

Even though we'd only been in touch sporadically in the post-graduate years, I always thought in the back of my mind that Ron and I would reconnect over beers one day and pick back up right where we left off. Days after hearing the news, I still can't fully believe I won't see him again, but I will always treasure memories of the times we had together. He is truly a friend for the ages.