Friday winds up and winds down

Took a half-day off sick Friday. I wasn't playing hookey, I've been having bad physical symptoms of stress there, including those old reliable tension headaches that go with the earache. breathing troubles and low-grade fever. A couple of hours asleep with my head on an ice pack, followed by half of a happy pill and a couple of drinks helped for awhile.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe where one of my top favorite bands anywhere was doing a radio remote with KLBJ, Del Castillo. Unfortunately they didn't perform, but they played a couple of their new recordings on the radio and chatted on the air. I will be really surprised if "Talkin' To Ya" doesn't become a huge hit! This song has got it all.

A small handful of the faithful turned up for support, and I got to talk to everyone in the band so that was very cool. I also had to awkwardly tell them that I would be at the Saturday show because it was scheduled opposite Eric Johnson. This was bound to happen! My two biggest favorites are scheduled to play at the same time. grrrrr. Lots of love and best wishes to Del Castillo as they head out on another national tour.

From the Hard Rock, we went to the Alamo Drafthouse, where Mondotees was having a blowout sale! $5 per shirt, and it comes with a beer! I wish I had the guts to wear the "Pussy Wagon" shirt, but I don't... so I ended up with a blank shirt. I tend to prefer the thrifts for my funky tees anyway.

Then it was to Central Market for dinner (it is so frickin hot now we didn't even want to sit outside where the band was playing! this is getting bad).

This is one of our favorite trees of all, the big live oak in Central Park, behind Central Market.

From there we walked over to the Hyde Park Theatre to see Buttercup, which was a much longer walk than we thought it would be. Also on the bill were Billy Harvey and live art by Robert Tatum.


Do go to that Billy Harvey website!!! I wouldn't try it without a broadband connection though. I've never seen anything like it!


Throughout both shows, it was hard to stop watching Robert Tatum flesh out his weird squirrel. I was really bonded with that squirrel by the time we left. Buttercup was really good, kind of an edgy melodic pop sound, not sure who to compare them to. The Hyde Park Theatre is definitely not designed for live music if it's going to produce a crowd. I see the band plays at Momo's, that would be better, and Ruta Maya would be ideal for them.

We left during the break only because we were both feeling the effects of drowsy prescriptions and OTC remedies mixed with a couple of drinks, a really hot day, and a rough week so we made the hike back to the car and called it a night.
- Music - - Austin -

Catblogging, two cats, too cozy

The photographer just told us to act like we like each other!
- Carnival of the Cats - Cats - Catblogging -

Small talk and free cake

I am still in Hell at work on "the-project-that-must-not-be-named", so I hope that settles down to normal craziness from white-knuckled frenzy in the next week or so.

For my birthday we went to Waterloo Records at 5 for Eric Johnson's CD signing. Eric and Chris (Maresh) were really very friendly to me. Eric gave me a compliment on my haircut (that was really nice of him to notice!), we talked about my birthday, his new beard, Gunsmoke's Matt Dillon, The Greencards (I gave him their CD for his belated birthday) and my friend's pics of him that I hope she has ready to show him by this Saturday's show. Completely forgot to tell him how much I like Bloom or that I heard him on NPR and KUT. Oh well... my train of thought jumps the tracks again. I'm sure that one of the other couple hundred people in line mentioned Bloom to him... the reason we were there. Duh.

Later we went to Macaroni Grill and got almost too stuffed to walk on pasta, bread, wine, and chocolate cake. Saying I felt like a pig would be insulting to the pig. I did NOT get on the scale this morning and am still wearing the fat clothes. The dinner menu tonight will be boiled cabbage with water to drink.
- Music - - Austin -

Another one for me

Another birthday! Mine.

According to Wikipedia (click the title bar for more) here are some significant events that happened on August 24:

good things
1456 - Printing of Gutenberg Bible is completed, marking the beginning of mass-production of books
1853 - Potato chips first prepared.
1891 - Thomas Edison patents the movie camera

not so good things
79 - Mt Vesuvius erupts
1672 - St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
1960 - World record cold temperature is set in Vostok, Antarctica, of -88 C (-127 F)
1968 - France explodes its first hydrogen bomb
1992 - Hurricane Andrew hits Florida
1995 - Windows 95 becomes available

share a birthday with
1817 - Tolstoy
1960 - Cal Ripken Jr.
1965 - Marlee Matlin
1973 - David Chappelle
1988 - Rupert Grint (better known as the movie Ron Weasley)

Mundi on Saturday

Austin in August! Hot as blazes and no relief in sight. I love it when the weather people try to make you feel better by saying "a little cooler today, ONLY 97, at least it's not in the triple digits". Well, this week all the digits are out. The five-day forecast barely has room to squeeze in all those numbers. We have been staying in more than usual.


Did go to Central Market to see Mundi, a really good band who play very olde style music, some from many centuries ago, some new pieces with old flavor. They have a harmonium player! They are also the only band I've seen using hedge clippers and a flowerpot for instruments. The fiddler (or maybe he's a violinist? When is it one or the other?) said he was playing a Baroque violin, which prompts all the old jokes from us, like "well why doesn't he get it fixed?".

The juvenile level humor fits right in at Central market, and at this show more than I've seen at others. There must have been hundreds of children there!! And everyone dancing! That's pretty great. When children still want to dance a jig, there's hope for mankind.My favorite quote of the night: "Most of our songs are about trees or flowers. This one's about flowers." I love it.
- Music - - Austin -

Bon Voyage HST

Hunter S. Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon yesterday, Aug. 20, 6 months after his suicide. In addition to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Lyle Lovett played at the ceremony. I didn't know he had an HST connection! hmm. Well, good music choices anyway, and Warren Zevon would have played if that were possible.

Salutions to a man for whom "Rest in Peace" does not seem to be the appropriate farewell.

Unlikely Sunday sign

Here's one for Godless Mom, Jeen Lilly, Jazz, and all the other folks out there who have found that their paths are not necessarily down the main highway, or maybe not even down a paved road.

Not all who wander are lost.

A Page for Plant

August 20th is Robert Plant's birthday. (August is such a big month for birthdays!!) I have to reminisce on Led Zeppelin for a few minutes here. Every year I get more like Old Blevins (Lounge Lizards character), and this blog post is my version of boring you from a barstool with stories of the great things that happened in the 60s and 70s. They say if you remember the 60s you weren't there, but just because you were high doesn't mean you don't remember something like it was yesterday. The memories just happened to form with a few special effects attached, that's all.

Try to imagine this: when I first saw Led Zeppelin, I was at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival, July 5. The band Spirit had just played, and Spirit were one of my top favorite bands. Oddly enough, Mark Andes of Spirit lives here in Austin and when I mentioned it to him, he remembered the show too... anyway, Led Zeppelin played right after Spirit (right at twilight/sundown), and I had NEVER HEARD OF THIS BAND! (I think their first album had just been released) It's hard to describe the stunning effect the amazing awesome power of this band had over me. It was a transforming experience, nearly as bad as hearing the Beatles and Stones for the first time in 1964 when all you'd been listening to was stuff like the Louvin Brothers and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

The following year, April 9, 1970 at Curtis Hixon in Tampa I saw them again. This is my best instamatic pic from the show. Yessss.... I was that close. Security was looser in those days, at least sometimes, maybe when they weren't expecting trouble. Anyway, as soon as the show started everyone left their seats and rushed to the stage. Immediately between the band and the audience was a row of police holding up a makeshift barrier made of nightsticks, which were shoved into our guts but we didn't care! I was 17 years old, and I dearly hope that there is even just the smallest glint of lust there in Plant's eyes. Page also provided fodder for the perfect fantasies of fairly innocent young girls and boys. Page was really more my type anyway... scrawny and mysterious with pretty eyes.

Our whole crowd loved Led Zeppelin (including my very hip 50 year old mother), especially one young friend named WG who was being treated for leukemia. He got so sick from the chemo that he'd say that it was as bad as the disease. He lived every day like it was his last. Then he started giving away his things, very personalized hand-picked endowments to friends. He was going to go to Woodstock for a big bash of a time, but it fell through for some reason and went to the West Palm Beach 1969 Festival instead. That was a huge bash capped off by the Rolling Stones (one month before Altamont). Then he ended his life voluntarily at the age of 19. In his will he requested that his friends celebrate his life by dancing to Led Zeppelin at his gravesite. And it was so.
Tags:- Music - Led Zeppelin - Plant -

Still hope for Peanut Butter

My employer has got me working like poor Jelly, the hamster in Garden State who ran himself to death on his wheel. I hope to make it through the next week without some kind of ugly collapse.

Breeeeaaathe deep........ (the gathering gloom).....

Cat office supplies for Friday

Doesn't everyone have one of these special Office Depot cat-pads to go beside the mouse-pad? Henry is just being innovative, and you are sure to get a nudge with that wink.
- Carnival of the Cats -

Another one for Eric Johnson

Happy 51st Birthday to another local legend, Eric Johnson! A native Austinite and a phenomenal musician! Check him out on a recent NPR Weekend Edition, audio and video goodness.
- Music - - Austin -

Music Legends to Honor and Celebrate

Happy 66th Birthday to local legend Billy Joe Shaver

So sorry to hear that we lost Vassar Clements, the Father of Hillbilly Jazz at the age of 77.

Relatively Recently Read Books

I moved my list of recent books over from my nutshell page. This blog is a better spot for it:

"The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown
—I really enjoyed reading this book although I think the reading level is somewhere on the child level. Seemingly written with the big screen in mind, the reader can figure out the puzzles waaaay before the characters, leaving you wanting to yell at them, "HEY!! I figured it out!! Why can't you?". A real page turner though, and it stirred some interest in the subject matter. I am wondering how the upcoming movie will provide surprises for all the people who've read it? Will they change the ending?

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail" by Lincoln, Baigent, Leigh
—This is a fascinating book! There are three authors, and some of them jump to conclusions more than I want them to do, but I loved reading about the Knights Templar and the Grail romances. I've read somewhere that Pierre Plantard created the Priory of Sion as a hoax, and that makes all this much more fascinating. I want MORE!!!

"Meeting the Other Crowd, the Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland" by Lenihan & Green
—I loved this book. It's real fairy stories told by real people who more or less believe them. I look at the stories with the skepticism I try to apply to everything. I mean, who really knows what's going on?

"Rosslyn: Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail" by Wallace-Murphy & Hopkins
—Not really much on the Holy Grail as the title suggests, but some interesting things about cathedrals and ancient religion. Still interested in this topic, but putting it on hold for some Pottermania!!


re-read "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".
re-read "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
—Very interesting ending... no spoilers from me.

Attempted to read "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
Got as far as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Half-Price Books is getting this nice brand-new book because I've had no luck selling it on craigslist. It's a well-loved book, just not by me. I will go and see the movie just for the Weta stuff.

Currently reading:
"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham