A belated Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who were celebrating on Sunday.
We had a lovely day, but wait…, I’m jumping way ahead of myself already…
I meant to share this New Yorker cartoon last week as “May the 4th be with you” is a big day for Star Wars fans. Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in most of the Star Wars movies, also passed away last week. I didn’t realize that he was 7 feet 3 inches tall at his prime.
Also from last week: Brent published the long awaited “Sometimes Less Lean is Mo’ Lean” article. I say “long awaited” because this was inspired by a Keb’ Mo’ concert that we saw in 2014 for my birthday – the night of the now infamous Velvet Taco stop in a torrential downpour.
https://www.lean.org/LeanPost/Posting.cfm?LeanPostId=1038
I really enjoy the way Brent links process efficiency concepts to the concert experience and encourage you to give this excellent short article a read.
Now on to this week – a very wet one in Austin, starting from my bus ride down on Monday all the way through Saturday. Lots of flash flood warnings were issued as river and lake levels rose – Lake Travis peaked at over 104% full. The basement level of our office experienced some flooding and required a lot of drying machines to avoid mold developing:
While I was navigating through all the rain in Austin, my Mum and Dad were enjoying a trip to St. Anne’s with their church friends. They made a day trip to Liverpool, where it was also wet when this picture of the fifth Beatle was taken:
“How far is Liverpool from their home in Scotland?”, I hear you asking. About a 4 hour drive as you can see on this map of the UK or in much smaller scale on the World satellite view.
My parents enjoyed the architecture on their tour, including the “Liver Birds” atop these buildings:
These were the inspiration for the Seventies sitcom featuring the antics of two Liverpudlian lasses. Guess what they called it? You nailed it – “The Liver Birds”. I didn’t remember it from the name, but after watching a YouTube video, I remember it quite well from my childhood.
The “Ferry Cross the Mersey” (main river in Liverpool where much of the ship building industry was based) was passed up due to the weather.
The rain has certainly been doing wonders for my Dad’s garden. Spring has certainly sprung in Stewarton.
Back in Austin, Diana arrived on the bus on Thursday evening. We enjoyed the standing Friday happy hour show at the Saxon Pub – Diana’s first visit. Denny Freeman and his band played a mixture of blues and rock hits from the 60s and 70s. Here’s their version of the Jagger/Richards song, “Heart of Stone”:
Diana enjoyed the Saxon Pub experience and particularly the folks “dancing like nobody was watching”. This place is full of happy, friendly people looking to enjoy the music. An interesting couple joined us at our table. Bill and Marianne met in a Chinese restaurant in Peurto Vallarta during a thunderstorm. Bill attended UT before riding his Harley across country to San Francisco, where he got a job as a mailman, during the “Summer of Love” in 1967. He had just had ankle replacement surgery – did you know that was an option? We’ve heard of hips and knees, but I hadn’t heard of ankles.
We walked across the street from the Saxon Pub to Chi’lantro for a snack. This is an Asian Fusion, Korean style restaurant with excellent “Kimchi” fries and Korean chicken wings. Not familiar with kimchi? I wasn’t either but it’s kind of a cabbagey concoction. Wiki says: a staple in Korean cuisine, kimchi is a famous traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish, made with a widely varying selection of seasonings including gochugaru (chili powder), scallions, garlic, ginger, and jeotgal (salted seafood).
I was managing the amount of time that we spent at Chi’lantro very diligently. Why was that necessary at 8pm on a Friday night? Well, I had a surprise planned for Diana, and needed to arrive back at the apartment as close to 8:36pm as possible. I know, a pretty precise and strange time for a surprise. Ok, I know the suspense is killing you. I had arranged for Alicia to surprise McD for Mother’s Day and that was the estimated arrival time of her Uber from the airport. I was a tad concerned that Diana would be upset with me for flying Alicia out when she should be studying for finals, but the visit was very well received and some pretend studying did occur.
We added Alicia to the typical weekend morning routine. Workout, followed by Keith’s famous breakfast tacos, then a trip to Trianon coffee (my favourite close to work) for coffee and crossword (Alicia made a genuine attempt to participate). Then we made a run through Trader Joe’s to fill back up the empty fridge and pantry.
The weather cleared up nicely on Saturday afternoon and I dropped the ladies off on South Congress Avenue for a ramble around the shops and restaurants. I went to try out the Austin Film Society and a documentary called “Carmine Street Guitars”.
Greenwich Village was once the center of New York bohemia and, like many other artsy neighborhoods around the country, has gone through significant gentrification in recent years. But one shop in the heart of the Village had remained resilient to the encroaching gentrification: Carmine Street Guitars. There, custom guitar maker Rick Kelly and his young apprentice, Cindy Hulej, build handcrafted guitars out of reclaimed wood from old hotels, bars, churches, and other local buildings. Nothing looks or sounds quite like a Rick Kelly guitar, which is the reason they are embraced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Lou 
Reed, and Patti Smith. The film captures five days in the life of Carmine Street Guitars, while examining an all-too-quickly vanishing way of life.
I enjoyed the movie but felt it was a bit too contrived and staged for my liking. The visit to the store by Charlie Sexton and the McSorley’s (oldest bar in New York) guitar he plays were worth the price of admission.
This video was playing as we were seated for the movie (Heatwave performing “Too Hot to Handle”). Hilarious seventies funk performance. Stick with it until the part where the guitar and bass player are on the shoulders of the two singers. Hadn’t seen anything like this in years.
We reconvened at the Apartment for dinner and then walked across the bridge to Antone’s for a concert. Roxy Roca was opening for Big Sam’s Funky Nation. Diana chose this as her Mother’s Day eve show over Sis DeVille at the One to One Club. Unfortunately the show was over 21 only and so Alicia practiced her story on the walk over. No real problem getting in – just a couple of questions that she handled well.
We hadn’t heard of Roxy Roca and were going to skip the opening act, but some YouTube research showed a great brass section and music that we thought we’d enjoy. They are an Austin based band and put on a good opening set.
We enjoyed Big Sam’s Funky Nation a few months ago at the Kessler, when they opened for the Rebirth Brass Band. It was great to see them as the main attraction. Happy, fun music very well presented. So much so that we couldn’t drag Alicia out of the show. “Two more songs and we’re leaving!” “No we’re not!”. 
We did finally leave a little after midnight and tried again to make a visit to the Elephant Room for some late night jazz. The band was on a break and the place was crowded, so we made the walk back to the apartment earlier than we might have – probably a good thing.
At around the same time in California, Cat was finishing up a very grueling day of testing for his black belt. He’s trying to look mean and tough in this picture and I can tell he’s exhausted. A very impressive and dedicated effort he’s made to get this far over the last few years. Late breaking update as I’m about to publish – Cat passed the test and received his official black belt!
I chose the Launderette restaurant in East Austin for Mother’s Day brunch, based on a strong recommendation from my friend Issac, who lives nearby. We sat on the front patio and enjoyed the lovely weather – that’s where the picture at the top of this posting was snapped. The restaurant used to be the “Kleen Wash” launderette.
What an amazing meal we enjoyed. My duck confit hash was excellent and Alicia’s turkish egg was an outstanding blend of flavours. I’m looking forward to trying dinner. I included the second picture below just in case you were concerned that we were able to finish the feast in the first.
But wait, there’s more. I had read that the pastry chef was excellent and so we agreed to share a desert. The arugula cake with meringue, rhubarb, and strawberries was both completely unique and delicious. The presentation reminded us of the garden dish at Manresa on our anniversary dinner.
After lunch we explored the riverside park just a couple of blocks from the restaurant. The city of Austin does such a great job maintaining the 10 miles of trails along the riverside. This section had some impressive fields of wild flowers.
We dropped Alicia back at the apartment for some more “studying” and then walked across the 1st Street bridge and down the riverside trail to Rainey Street. This is the historic area that I took Denny on his visit, where small houses have been turned into bars and restaurants. The street was hopping on Sunday afternoon and McD and I chose the back patio at Lucille as a good spot to 
relax for a while. There was a lot of entertaining activity – karaoke in progress, various games with rings and bean bags, puppies entertaining themselves trying to eat the Jasmine plant and then falling fast asleep. We walked up the street and back over the Congress bridge, pausing to take a funny picture at the Little Brother bar.
Mother’s Day celebrations wound down with a visit to the Sky Bar for mimosas by mother and daughter.
I heard this song from Shriekback, an English band most popular in the mid-80s but still playing today, on Radio Paradise and enjoyed the sound.
Shortly after that song, this Morcheeba song came along. I listened to this band quite a bit many years ago and enjoyed this newer song.
The National is often a bit too mopey and down for me, but I enjoyed this one.
And to close out the post, a brand new band to me, Pedro the Lion. NPR was raving about this album in a post and I did enjoy most of it.
This bar is most famous for featuring in one of the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s television shows. Particularly the taco truck that parks out front. I do think that this is a great place to settle in with a good book.
Dos Jefes cigar bar doesn’t look like much from the outside (in typical New Orleans fashion) but features great live music every night of the week. John Fohl, best known as the guitar player in Dr. John’s band for many years, has a standing Monday night gig. We saw him there a few years ago and really enjoyed his set. I enjoyed this riff on James Booker’s “Classified”:
Anne was able to join us for the show and, as is pretty typical, took time to have a long conversation with Fohl. Mr. “Good Lord” Alex was also able to join us about half way through the first set. Here’s another one of the songs from an excellent first night in New Orleans:
Tuesday festivities started at a new restaurant, “Justine”, in the French Quarter – thanks to Anne for “Oganizing” reservations. This is the new venture from Justin Devillier, the chef/owner behind “La Petite Grocery” – a place we’ve loved for several years. Justin appeared on Top Chef season 11 and has won many awards since beginning his career as a line cook in 2004.
Diana and Anne didn’t have much of a rest before heading out for oyster and champagne Happy Hour at Pascal’s Manale. This is always one of the highlights of McD’s trips to New Orleans, as she gets to catch up with her New Orleans girlfriends.
As we were getting ready to head out for the evening, Denny’s neighbor asked for some help pushing his 1956 Thunderbird into the garage, resulting in this entertaining video:
We hadn’t had quite enough music yet, and rode over to the French Quarter again to see Dragon Smoke at One Eyed Jacks – now having rendezvoused with Diana. This band is a kind of New Orleans supergroup that has come together on the Tuesday night of the week between Jazzfest weekends to perform a one of a kind show for the last 19 years. The members are Ivan Neville (Neville Brothers and Dumpstaphunk), Eric Lindell, Stanton Moore (Galactic) and Robert Mercurio (Galactic). I laughed at the sign outside the venue stating “Early Show – Dragon Smoke – Sold Out” which I saw after 11pm still waiting for the band to assemble from their other various gigs and start.
We had an excellent dinner experience at Patois, just down the street from Denny and Anne’s home. I started with a duck mousse pate that was amazing and Diana had some beautifully cooked octopus in a sizzling skillet.
Thursday also began with a pleasant stroll through Audubon park. I always enjoy seeing the moss in the trees that is so typically Southern. This was used to make mattresses and I’m sure was pretty comfortable.
Norma, my CIO for Latin America and based in Guatemala, bought tickets to Jazzfest when the Rolling Stones were originally scheduled to play on Thursday. She kept her plans to visit New Orleans and met us for a delicious Peruvian dinner at Tito’s Ceviche and Pisco. The weather was good and we sat on the patio and enjoyed a good sampling of the menu. The lamb shank and hanger steak with pesto linguine were my favourites.
legend, Johnny Sansone, in the event space of Monkey Hill bar. This was an excellent show in a great small venue. The blue lights at the front of the stage made it challenging for me to get good pictures and video. Things started out very well with Luke Winslow King and Roberto Luti. Luke is a good friend of my old boss, Vince, who had sent me a signed copy of his last album – it was very nice to hear it live.
The excellent evening closed with some Blues royalty. The band including Fohl, Crowne, and Sansone, were joined by Benny Turner, younger brother of Freddie King and bass player for years in the Freddie King band. What a treat and what a character.
Our Friday at Jazzfest was upon us. This is the 50th anniversary of this wonderful institution and we were hoping for good weather and a great day. As you can see, the skies started off a bit overcast and threatening rain.
From Congo we made the walk through to the Gentilly stage for Shamarr Allen. What an amazingly small cornet he uses, but still gets a great sound. McD was annoyed when Shamarr started her favourite “Weekend Dance” song only to be shut down by the festival police as he reached the end of his time slot – nobody goes over time at Jazzfest.
Next was a quick jaunt back to the Fais Do Do stage (Anne’s favourite) where a lot of local Cajun style music is featured. Cedric Watson was a classic example of this style. I was entertained by his punk rock, Joan Jett looking, washboard player.
Getting tired of walking and too hot in the sun yet? Me too, so we stopped into the paddock area for a breather and some shade.
Diana faught her way up front to get a better view and got this picture from the screen looking out on the extensive Jazzfest crowd. Can you see us back there on the left side?
Our New Orleans vacation started to wind down on Saturday. We had a midday flight but managed to work in one final meal with Denny and Anne before heading to the airport. Echo’s Pizza offers a very nice brunch – Diana and I shared the Echo’s Breakfast – avocado toast, eggs, bacon, and potatoes (delicious). The heavens opened just as we were leaving and so Denny and Anne very kindly dropped us at the airport. Those two are the best hosts you could ever hope for and have been to us for so many years – very special!
rocker still touring strong in his mid 70s – and grew up in Essex. He joined Procul Harem (best known for “A Whiter Shade of Pale”) in the late 60s and played on their 5 first albums. Trower then formed a power trio and is best known for his 1974 album “Bridge of Sighs”. I remember Andy Bull had that album on heavy repeat in one of our University flats. Here is a portion of the title song from that album from the Moody theater:
I read two good books this week. The first, Washington Black” by Esi Edugyan is quite the crazy saga. The story begins on the Faith Plantation in Barbados in the 1830s, where sugar cane is grown and harvested. Edugyan is brutally honest in her portrayal of the physical and emotional brutality of slavery. We meet George Washington Black, a six year old child born into slavery. Wash’s family is unknown to him and his desperation to “belong to” another human being is palpable. Serendipitously, Wash is chosen by the younger brother of the plantation owner, to serve as his scientific assistant. Under the watchful eye of Christopher “Titch” WIlde, the boy learns some reading and math skills, but especially hones his ability to draw natural objects. This first section of the novel is well written and credible but, after the two prepare for a trip aloft in a hot-air balloon, the novel begins to unravel quickly and become much less believable.
I enjoyed my second book, “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah, more than the first. I read this book over the course of the weekend and struggled to put it down. The novel revolves around the family of Ernt Allbright, a veteran returning from Vietnam and suffering from what we now know as PTSD. He moves his family to the wilds of Alaska to start their lives anew. Initially it’s a welcome change, but as winter approaches, and Ernt’s mental state deteriorates, his wife and daughter find themselves in an increasingly precarious position. Leni and Cora are the heart of what is as much a mother-daughter love story as it is a pressure cooker of the pain of living with PTSD. Together they reckon not only with the elements, but with some bad decisions, born from the stubborn faith that Ernt will somehow recover and become the loving person he was before the war.
Grissom happy hour residency. You’ll remember me raving last week about the film we saw about the Saxon Pub at the Dallas International Film Festival. One of the more entertaining characters is Chris who works the sound board and absolutely loves his job. He does an amazing job on the sound. Here is on Tuesday night working the sound and also the lights (using some special tool comprised of a rod with a tennis ball on top).
having been cooped up in meetings all week and then on the bus trip down. We had an early dinner at 2nd bar and kitchen – some of our usual favourites: smoked salmon rilletes and avocado fundido. After dinner we walked up Congress Avenue to the Listening Room at the back of The Townsend. This is an amazing room with perfect acoustics that only seats about 60 people.
We were walking back home down Congress Street when I heard a good cover of “Have you ever seen the rain?” by CCR coming from the Shiner Saloon. I had never been in this particular establishment and found it very pleasant – good music and a very nice upstairs patio with various games. We enjoyed watching these kids playing a very large Jenga game.
Easter Sunday morning started with workouts and then Diana joined me for a walk along the river trail – this time on the South side. Much of the trail on this side is an elevated boardwalk style path that is very well done. The views back into downtown are quite impressive.
Mott the Hoople’s Greatest Hits has been one of my favourite albums for more than 35 years now. I also enjoy the Ian Hunter (lead singer for Mott) solo albums and have one in my collection that I bought on holiday in France with my Mum and Dad (it’s aging very well). The band reformed recently for a few shows. Here they are in Boston performing “Saturday Gigs” and “All the Young Dudes” (a song written by David Bowie and gifted to the band as they were trying to get started).
James is the son of Larry McMurtry, the famous Western author (best known for Lonesome Dove), and his songs feel more like short stories than songs – so much colour and detail. His 12 string guitar playing was also very impressive. Here’s a clip of “Choctaw Bingo”:
Poor Diana had to leave on the bus back to Dallas on Wednesday morning – leaving the two of us unsupervised. She’s had poor luck on the bus trips lately and that continued as a truck dumped an entire load of lumber a few trucks in front of the bus. This caused Diana to be late for her client meeting in Dallas but at least she had a good story and accompanying picture.
Denny’s visit finished up with a very pleasant and relaxing lunch on the patio at Shady Grove. Denny bought himself a Continental Club t shirt that he’s sporting in this picture – he must have enjoyed that venue. Such a great visit but too short – looking forward to a return visit with Anne included.
Perry’s in Grapevine and Diana and Penelope picked me up there. We (Penelope was left outside glaring at a Jaguar parked in front of her) enjoyed some of their excellent steak tartare and then headed home. I complained about how spread out everything is in Dallas and McKinney after the compact, walkable area around the Catherine.
The documentary director, Jeff Sandman, and his team were on hand for a Question and Answer session after the film. This was an unexpected treat and it was obvious how much Jeff cares for the venue. A very nice experience and well worth the trouble we took to drive in extended thunder storms to get to the theater.
After the usual Sunday morning routine, we watched Tiger Woods pull off the amazing feat of winning his 5th Masters tournament. After that relaxation, I fixed Penelope’s windshield wipers and did some light weeding and trimming around the pool. Everything is in full bloom with all the rain and warmer weather. Our maple in front of the house seems particularly happy:
quiet time to finish up a book that I’ve been reading for several weeks. “The Unwinding of the Miracle” by Julie-Yip Williams is not a positive, uplifting book by any stretch. I won’t bring everyone down with a lengthy review, but it tells the story of Williams childhood in Vietnam, with cataracts that render her mostly blind, the family’s escape on a barely seaworthy boat, ultimate arrival in America, surgery to restore most of her sight, her graduation from Harvard Law and then, in her early forties, a 4 year battle with colon cancer. The book is very well written and brutally honest about all the challenges. The Epilogue by her husband is heart-breakingly hard to read. Let’s pick things back up now with some new music discoveries.
Thursday was another quiet evening – I spent my first evening on the bedroom balcony, enjoying the great weather and reading, while Diana finished up work calls.
The evening began with a pleasant walk over the 1st Street bridge to Le Politique. When we found this place last week, the gentleman next to me at the bar was raving about the Texas quail dish he was having. I opted to give it a try and was very happy with it – stuffed with a mushroom mix and perfectly cooked. We appreciated the way the food was described as it was served – a very detailed and enthusiastic run down on everything on the plate and how the sauces were made. The best presentation that I’ve seen yet.
After dinner, we attempted to execute Shu’s recommendation at the Elephant Room – it was too busy with a line waiting for seats to free up. No worries, Antone’s was just around the corner and we caught the end of Shamarr Allen’s opening set and some of Flow Tribe before walking back home. Shamarr’s “Weekend Dance” song was particularly entertaining as he picked random crowd members to show him their “weekend dances”.
Saturday was very wet and dark – Austin recorded 5 inches of rain over the weekend – and so we stayed indoors with morning workouts and lots of quality reading time. We did take a few minutes to decorate the guest bedroom ahead of Denny’s visit.
Apartment decorating was rounded out by hanging (with some really nifty new hanging hardware) the beautiful snuggling penguins painting that Patty and Brent had made for us. We think it looks great in this location where we have a good view from the sofa.
My arrival at the Catherine on Monday night was greeted by six packages that needed hauling up to the apartment. Thank goodness for the hotel valet style trolley that they make available. This time most of the boxes were of my own doing – cushions, a painting, and a lampshade to finish out my interior decorating. I think they all look quite nice.
Patty, Brent and Diana all arrived in Austin on Thursday for a long weekend. They share our love for good and interesting food, and we ate well all weekend long.
Saturday started with workouts and some of my special breakfast tacos, which seemed to be well received. We enjoyed looking down on the “National Taco Championship” in the parking lot of the Austin American Statesman. This not only included a taco championship, but also Mexican wrestling and a chihuahua beauty parade. You can almost spot the wrestlers with their masks in the picture.
I drove over to downtown to pick up the shoppers who had spent quite a bit of money on jewelry and ceramic bats. We had a small naming contest for the blue ceramic bat that now nests in our desk area. After some initial rejections, Brent came up with a winner. “He’s into the blues, so he must be Bats Domino”. Perfect! And another example of that amazing piece of human anatomy that is Brent’s brain.
Dinner was at Juliet Italian, which fortunately is almost a mile walk from the Catherine. We all loved our food and had lots of leftovers to carry home. The cioppino was a particular highlight and I loved my mushroom fettuccine. A night at Juliet wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Carpenter next door to play a record. This time, Al Green was Patty’s choice.
After the long walk back (at least a mile and a half), we enjoyed a low key dinner and a movie. Then we ventured across the street to see if we could see the bats flying for the first time. There is a colony of over 500,000 bats that nest under the Congress Street bridge and are quite the tourist attraction. No bats flew on Saturday night due to the cold, blustery weather and so we weren’t sure we’d see any on Sunday either. The sun had almost set by the time the first few bats ventured out and then many more of them took flight. It’s tough to capture them in a photo due to the flight speed but you can see some little smudges (if you zoom way in) in the picture where they are moving.
Baby Penguin (BP) was my company in Austin Monday through Thursday while McD toiled away in Dallas. I found a new coffee shop reasonably close to the office, Trianon Coffee, and guess what? They serve TacoDeli breakfast tacos – perfect! I’ll have a Jess Special please. What’s that you ask? A delicious mix of eggs, cheese, avocado and some peppers.
have dinner with my boss and me. Our new colleague Damon joined as well. We started with a drink at the apartment Sky Bar and then walked across the 1st Street bridge to III Forks for a delicious steak dinner. Thanks Ron! What a great time we had reminiscing on work experiences, folks we worked with, and just generally catching up. We finished up at the apartment with some music and banter.
My favourite sunrise this week was Wednesday morning and yes, I was awake in time to see it after all the fun with the boys the night before. Pretty impressive I think.
We met Jens and Glenda for dinner on Saturday night at a restaurant that was new to us – Mexican Bar Co. at Willowbend mall. The food and company were excellent. We spent over 3 hours catching up on all that had happened in our lives in the 4 or 5 months since Jens’ 60th birthday party. I enjoyed a perfect chile relleno and elote (Mexican style corn on the cob with aioli). I had the leftovers just before finishing up this post.
listening to music. A couple of light rain showers, while the sun was out and the sky clear blue, interrupted us for a few minutes at a time. I went inside to take a shower before dinner and heard the tornado sirens going off – time to get out, put on some clothes and check the TV weather update. We believe the siren was warning us of heavy hail approaching. Heavy indeed:
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Weight of a Piano” by Chris Cander this week. Cander lives in Houston and has been a writer in residence for Writers in the Schools there. She also stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community.
The final two pages of the book are a piece of piano music named “Die Riese” (The Trip). I just tried out the first few bars and it’s a pleasant piece that builds in speed and intensity. The piece is in B major with 5 sharps – not my favourite as I typically play pieces with 3 or less flats and sharps.
I just finished up “Infinite Tuesday” by Michael Nesmith. There’s a special prize for the first of you to tell me what he’s most famous for. No takers? Ok, I’ll tell you – he was one of the Monkees, and was dubbed the brainy Monkee. The title is based on this cartoon (I love it):
The next band was local to Austin, Tomar and the FCs, with a retro funky soul sound that we both enjoyed very much. These guys popped up all over town this week – even playing the Yeti showcase next to our apartment on Wednesday afternoon.
We checked out the outside pool area before leaving to walk home and snapped this picture of our apartment behind the fireplace. We have a great view of the Van Zandt hotel from our living room.
One of our very favourite bands, the Band of Heathens, followed Hood and Warner around 9am. They sounded better than ever with the full band crammed into a corner of the restaurant – a great sound job by Sun Radio. Here they are doing their version of “Heaven Help Us All” from the recent release, “A Message from the People” (originally released by Ray Charles):
What an amazing way to start the day!
I escaped work a bit early and we continued our SXSW sampling by walking down to Guero’s on South Congress. JM Stevens, the musician we chatted with last Saturday, was playing with his full band. We enjoyed the show and another taco. It’s very nice to be able to walk to so many lively destinations. This event was actually called “SXSF – South by Soup Fest” as it raised money for various Austin charities. This is Stevens’ song “Fire in the Wind” – it’s the one with the video filmed in Iceland.
Saturday began with a workout and then crossword and coffee – nice to get back into that routine. We’ve been sampling all the independent local coffee shops and this time chose Irie Bean Coffee on South Lamar which had a nice rear patio.
We had a Saturday dinner reservation at Juliet Italian and walked down (almost a mile) to House Wine next door before eating. Guess what? Yes, another music showcase underway. We enjoyed a band called “Sedona Skies” and were educated about an organization named “Women Crushing Music”. WCM helps aspiring female singer songwriters get ahead in the music business.
Sunday also started with a workout followed by coffee and a crossword. This time we chose Merit coffee on South Lamar which also has a nice patio – albeit a bit noisier on the street. To continue the reprise of Saturday, we made another trip to Target to get the second chair. This time it was in and out of the car without too much trouble – all about knowing the right technique.
Will sent me this picture (a classic Will stance) with some street art in Oakland, where he was trying bikram yoga for the first time – this is where you do a subset of yoga moves in a very hot room – no thanks!
Lamb Vindaloo was the perfect dinner on a freezing cold evening. I also got some art together for the apartment – a picture of the Continental Club and a canvas of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s classic guitar that he played to fame in Austin. I tease McD that the guitar picture is the same size as her.
I was able to enjoy a late lunch at El Alma, my new favourite Mexican restaurant. The fresh ingredients, flavorful sauces and unique ambiance make this a superior place – and it’s close to both the apartment and work.
Diana hosted my boss at “Wine down Wednesday” at the Catherine sky bar and then we walked across to Peche for another delicious dinner.
On Saturday evening, Diana wandered across the parking lot to get some of the excellent ceviche that the Hyatt offers. She texted me that there was a good musician playing and so I walked over and joined her at the bar. The musician, JM Stevens, was very good indeed. He joined us at the bar after his set and we had a great chat for about an hour. Here’s his latest video for a new song. The video was recorded by a cinematographer based in Iceland at an abandoned air strip and JM’s part was added via Skype.
instruments in his studio and particularly a vintage Hammond B3 and a 1930s era double high Leslie speaker. I liked his description of the B3 sounding like some “fog rolling into a recording’s landscape”. I’ll include a link to this album in the music section at the end of this post. JM recommended Cosmic coffee as a new venue that treated local musicians well and so we put it on our list for Sunday.
Sunday began with workouts, followed by a delicious brunch at El Alma. Diana’s crab Benedict with chipotle hollandaise sauce and corn cake base was amazing.
