Category: Weekly Updates

I watched a movie about Bill Murray stories on the bus down to Austin on Monday afternoon.  There are a lot of stories about Murray participating in random events with folks and doing kind things.  This is a good documentary and included my favourite story towards the end about Bill Murray driving a taxi in San Francisco so that the owner of the taxi could play his saxophone for him in the back seat.

I dropped my bag in the rental car at the Hyatt and walked to the Continental Club on South Congress (SoCo) to enjoy the free show by the Peterson Brothers.  This was less than a 10 minute walk and so will be easily accessible from the new apartment.

South Congress is a really interesting area of restaurants and different shops.  It’s gentrifying very quickly and sadly will likely lose some of it’s unique character.  I hope it doesn’t become just like everywhere else.

I had read that the Peterson Brothers were the next big band in Austin and about to make it big.  They put on an excellent show that was a gumbo of soul, blues, jazz and funk.  Imagine Weather Report, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Miles Davis and Al Green mixed up in a band and that’s a bit of what they sound like.

The brothers are Glenn Jr (21) on guitar and vocals and Alex (19) on bass.  Alex is a real virtuoso on the bass and reminds me of Jaco Pastorius (of Weather Report fame).  They have opened for many of the big names in blues and jazz and played in several high profile festivals.  I’ll be surprised if they’re playing a free Monday night set at the Continental Club for too much longer.  Here are a couple of videos of their performance of “Don’t You Lie to Me” – the first is the early verse and the second an extended jam with entertaining dance moves towards the end.  I love the fact that the brothers have smiles on their faces while they play and exude huge amounts of positive energy.

I stayed at the Sonesta hotel in Bee Cave which is about a 20 minute drive from SoCo and from the office since the Hyatt and other downtown hotels were very expensive this week.  It’s a nice hotel close to an outdoor mall with good restaurants and a particularly good new breakfast place that I found – Elle’s Cafe.

I visited Elle’s twice – having a beans and greens bowl the first time and an omelet with turkey sausage the second.  Both were delicious with very fresh ingredients and great flavours.  I laughed when the chef brought me the omelet – I was in the middle of doing the crossword and was timing myself on my phone so that when she arrived I paused the timer.  “Were you timing me in the kitchen?”, she asked.

Will spent the weekend in Lake Tahoe, snowboarding at Heavenly.  He had to wait until Monday afternoon to drive home due to all the new snow that fell over the weekend and on Monday morning.  No need for a dance floor on top of the Durango in this weather.

I had a pretty late lunch on Wednesday and tried a new Mexican place on Barton Springs road – El Alma.  Wow – this is my new favourite Mexican place, knocking off the Blue Goose in Dallas.  The relleno stuffed with shrimp and crab was delicious with an excellent sauce.  I look forward to returning after it warms up a little to enjoy the rooftop patio.

On Wednesday night, I tried out a new experience – my go to Austin radio station has a local music showcase at Guero’s taco bar each Wednesday night.  I like the vast majority of the music that Sun radio plays and so thought I would enjoy the event.  Both bands were very good and the setting was great.

I caught the bus back up to Dallas on Thursday afternoon and Diana and I met at the Neighborhood Services restaurant on Lovers Lane for dinner.  We both really enjoy this restaurant and the speakeasy style, understated location.  Do you think Diana got enough fries with her steak frites?  I loved my redfish with gorgonzola grits and the amazing voodoo sauce.

The weekend was nice and relaxing with workouts, coffee and crossword sessions, and time for reading.  We had a nice late lunch at Toulouse in Legacy West on Sunday.  This is the place that Diana and Anne visited for champagne and steak tartare on their visit in October. We started with steak tartare and then we both had great salads.  My whipped goat cheese and beets salad was delicious.

I read the book “At Home with the Armadillo” by Gary P. Nunn this week.  This was an excellent review of the Austin music scene in the 1970s and 80s.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the stories about all the characters involved in developing the Texas music movement.  Nunn played in the bands of both Jerry Jeff Walker and Michael Martin Murphy in the 70s and tells a great story about opening for Elton John at the Palmer auditorium, a building that I drive by every day on my short commute to the office each morning.  Another story I enjoyed was of Nunn seeing a very young Joe Ely play in Lubbock and thinking that he was going to be a big star.  He worked to arrange Ely’s first record contract with MCA.  It’s interesting that we just saw Joe Ely last weekend (in his seventies now) and I’m reading this week about how he got his first recording contract.

In researching Joe Ely music last week, I came across a project he was involved in called Los Super Seven.  They recorded a song called “Learning the Game”.  I thought it sounded very familiar and ultimately realized that it was originally recorded by Any Trouble on a record I enjoyed in University.  Here are both versions.

Gary Clark Jr has a new album due in March, and based on the advance single it seems he is ready to share his frustration with the current state of affairs in our country:

I’ve been enjoying Gary P. Nunn’s biography this week and here’s his classic song that has been the intro to the Austin City Limits TV show for many years:

And here’s some songs from Michael Martin Murphy that Nunn references in his book that I’ve also enjoyed this week:

Can you believe my baby turned 30 this week?  He does seem to be doing quite well and I’m proud of the man he’s become and all that he’s accomplished in his first 30 years.  Will has always been a car nut – BMWs in particular – solidified when he visited the factory in Germany during his internship.  He treated himself to an early birthday present which you can see here.  I think it looks pretty fierce and here is Will’s update on the engine:

“It has a B58 inline 6 cylinder twin scroll turbo.  Twin scroll is the epic new balancing technology!  Supposed to be the smoothest engine that BMW has ever made.  And 400 hp and 400 torque approximately.”

This week was a heavy one of work and travel for both of us.  Diana dropped me at the Dallas airport very early on Monday and I had plenty of time to make my flight, which arrived early even though it was foggy in Austin.  I enjoyed a breakfast taco at the airport (as promised last week) and then headed to the office.  That’s another one of the cards that McD spoils me with on the table – found it as I was getting something out of my briefcase.  The Cowboys pretended to play football on Monday night and I watched the game at the hotel until I got disgusted and fell asleep before the game was over.  Diana traveled out to St Petersburg, Florida again Tuesday through Thursday for a big client presentation that went well.

Tuesday was my music day this week.  I tried out a Mediterranean food truck on South 1st Street with a combo gyro and falafel (two of my favourites).  I’m going to enjoy trying out and rating all the various food trucks that are generously spread around Austin.  After dinner, I drove around the corner to the Saxon Pub, where Dave Grissom plays a free early show at 6pm most Tuesdays.  I didn’t get there until 7pm and so all seats were taken and the place was packed.  I stayed for a couple of songs (both excellent) and then left.  I wasn’t able to identify the folks who rode their horses to the show – maybe it was the performers?  I will be back in a future week to catch a full show.  Dave Grissom is an excellent guitar player who started in Joe Ely’s band, played in John Mellencamp’s band, and has gone on to become a much in demand session musician (particularly in Nashville).  I suspect that his show covers multiple styles and varieties of music – I’ll let you know when I get there on time in the future.

From the Saxon, I dropped the car at the hotel and wandered over to Antone’s in downtown Austin to see about their free Blues show.  In contrast to the Saxon, this was a very quietly attended show.  I settled in for 20 minutes or so but wasn’t drawn in by the music – too much old school blues and harmonica.  And so it was off to find the next musical opportunity.

Hoping the third venue would be the charm, I walked around the corner to the Elephant Room on Congress Avenue.  This is a basement jazz club that turned out to be very pleasant and a highlight of the evening for me.  The sound was excellent with plenty of comfortable seating.  Sarah Sharp and band were performing – I forgot to note the guitar player’s name but he was outstanding.  I enjoyed Sarah’s voice and here are some quick snippets of the performance:

From the Elephant Room, it was a quick walk across the Congress “bat” bridge back to the hotel and a brief check on the election results.

Sarah was a founding member of another band named the Jitterbug Vampires which performs at the Elephant Room on Wednesday nights.  She is no longer in the band and I didn’t enjoy the singer as much, but the guitar (same guy from Tuesday) and saxophone players were both very good.  I listened to a few songs, and then went upstairs to a restaurant named Swift’s Attic for dinner.

The menu at Swift’s is described as “New American Tapas”.  The food and cocktails were both excellent and I look forward to walking back to this place again soon.  My cocktail was a “Newgroni” – the normal negroni recipe with rhubarb bitters added – and it’s available on tap.  I’m going to have to add some of these bitters to my barrel aging negroni because they really enhance the flavour very nicely.  The scallops were fresh, perfectly cooked and paired with delicious sauces and carrots.

On Thursday night I tried something completely new to me, an author night at a bookstore.  Joseph Fink, author of “Alice Isn’t Dead”, was interviewed at Book People on Lamar Street in West Austin.  I had been planning a trip to Waterloo records and Book People after work and when I visited the website found this event.  Both stores are great examples of independent and wonderfully curated places that rarely exist anymore.  Book People reminds me of Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff but at a much larger scale and without the cocktails and wine (they do have coffee) – the staff are very knowledgeable and have many blurbs and recommendations throughout the shop.

I wasn’t at all familiar with Fink’s work – apparently he is pretty well known by virtue of a podcast series that he does that parallels his books.  I enjoyed the interview that Deb Olin Unferth hosted – she has published several novels and teaches writing at the University of Texas.  Her questions were insightful and often quite funny.  One of my favourite stories from Fink centered on his parents – his Mum and Dad met in the dining hall on their first night of college freshman year and had been together ever since. Both were teachers and they didn’t have a large circle of friends and so their lives became very intertwined.  His Dad died 7 years ago and he talked about how much his Mum has changed as she became a singular person rather than part of a couple.  It didn’t hurt that he mentioned Jason Isbell’s “If We Were Vampires” song in the story – one of my favourite songs of the last few years.

After the interview, Fink read a passage from the book and took questions.  An interesting and different evening activity – apparently Book People hosts more than 300 of these a year – so lots more opportunities for me to listen to authors talk about their work.

I was able to go standby on an earlier flight on Friday and got home before 4 pm.  We had a quiet night when Diana got home from her hair appointment and fell asleep early.

Saturday started with workouts and then a late lunch at  Zaytinya (this is a Turkish word meaning “olive oil”) at the Star in Frisco.  It’s a mezze restaurant specializing in small plates like a Greek tapas place.   We had tried Zaytinya once before and enjoyed the small plates and cocktails very much.  This visit was equally positive – I had an ultimate G&T (Hendrick’s gin, Fever Tree Indian tonic water, lemon, lime, juniper berries) that took the bar tender some work to assemble, Baba Ghannouge (great presentation with pomegranate seeds), and a falafel wrap.  Diana tried the lamb chops – delicious once the bartender supervised them being cooked properly and not overdone.

After lunch we went boot shopping at Nordstroms.  I drove around for a while before finding a parking spot and was amazed at how busy the mall was – I thought malls were going out of business.  Diana found several pairs of boots that she thinks will see her through the winter.  I’m not sure I was very helpful with my selections.

On Sunday we made the drive down to Oak Cliff for brunch at Boulevardier.  You might remember me raving about a brunch we had there about a month ago.  I opted for the smoky mushroom toast and Diana had the omelette.  The first mushroom toast was delicious with a perfectly cooked poached egg.  The second toast featured a hard boiled egg trying to masquerade as a poached egg – very disappointing for a restaurant of such repute.  Even worse was the attitude when I brought it to the attention of the staff.  They did pay for our entire meal – I would have much preferred they just apologized appropriately and brought me another toast.

We made it from Boulevardier over to the Twilite Lounge in Deep Ellum just in time to see the end of the New Orleans Saints game – they beat up on the Cincinnati Bengals 51-14.  The Twilite is an “official Saints watching destination” and has a jukebox with lots of great New Orleans music.  One of Tim’s favourites, Bonerama, was playing today – it’s a band with 4 trombones that cover rock ‘n roll songs and Tim really doesn’t enjoy them.

Now we’re home with a fire going and getting ready for the Cowboys  vs. Eagles match up that starts at 7:20 pm.

This Bob Seger song popped up on a Spotify channel this week.  Neither McD nor I had heard it before but we both like it a lot:

Here’s one I heard on “Discover Weekly” from Spotify by Peter Green – the best blues guitarist I’ve heard:

And finally, a beautifully nuanced version of “Can’t Find my Way Home”, the classic Blind Faith song.  This is by Nathan East who was the bass guitar player in Eric Clapton’s band for years, with Clapton as a guest:

Here’s an interesting song from the band Air – I enjoy their music and haven’t listened to it in several years.  They are a duo from Versailles, France with a somewhat electronic sound.  This album, “Moon Safari”, was their debut.  I imagine this is what Booker T Jones would sound like if he was born in Paris in the 1990s.

The last few hours of “Offline October” are upon me now.  These weeks of pre-retirement have been very pleasant and now it’s time to start back to work.  I have an early start tomorrow to catch the first flight down to Austin for the week.

The week started with Monday Movie Matinee, and this week I saw “The Old Man and the Gun” with Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek and a wonderful Tom Waits.

This is reported to be Redford’s last movie with him moving into official retirement.  He’s 82 years old and still had the same twinkle in his eye as he had when delivering some of the entertaining dialog in “The Sting”, so many years ago.  His chemistry with Spacek is excellent and, although he has a small role, Tom Waits had the few of us in the theater laughing out loud.  I recommend this movie if you’re in the mood for some light hearted entertainment.

Some AIG friends invited us to join them for dinner on Thursday night.  The only challenge was that they were staying over in Fort Worth and it was pouring down.  McD and I persevered, driving through the downpour from downtown Dallas and McKinney to rendezvous at the Marriott close to the Texas Motor Speedway.  We had a very entertaining evening catching up with Tim and Joe.  I decided to redeem some hotel points to spend the night and avoid the long drive home – made for a slightly shorter drive for Diana in the morning and allowed me to have breakfast with the boys.

After workout, coffee and crossword on Saturday morning, we drove by Patty and Brent’s to check on the moving truck progress.  Things were moving along quickly with an extra long truck almost fully packed.  They leave early Monday for the long drive to Corning, New York.

On Saturday afternoon we were finally able to see “A Star is Born” – a movie we’d been looking forward to for a while.  Both of us enjoyed it very much.

The movie features a lot of original music, performed by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.  Both are excellent, with Cooper adopting Sam Elliott’s deep, scratchy voice and Gaga giving an unbelievably natural performance for her first full movie.  I enjoyed Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real as the backing band.  They have played with Neil Young for the last few years, and apparently Cooper saw one of those shows and decided to recruit them for his movie.  Nelson also co-wrote many of the songs with Cooper and Jason Isbell.

For our last dinner before the move, Patty selected Jaspers.  This restaurant is close to the old EDS headquarters in Plano, and has been the site of many and varied work dinners over the years.  It was fun to reminisce about those with Patty – although she has a better memory than I do for many of them.    We started with the always addictive maytag blue cheese chips – never any left over.  Then I had scallops and shrimp with jambalaya risotto – also delicious.  The restaurant is much less busy now than it was in the EDS heyday, due to all the new places at Legacy West, but the food is just how I remembered it.

My first book this week was “Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult.  The title is from a Martin Luther King quote, “If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way”.

The story begins as Ruth Jefferson, a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience, begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

I enjoyed the way Picoult alternates narrators with each chapter – jumping from Ruth, to Kennedy to Turk (the white supremacist father).  This 2016 book seemed very appropriate this week, as hatred and intolerance filled the news.  Picoult does a skillful job of presenting all three narrators without judgement and with helpful insight into the background and basis of their beliefs.  I did find the ending a bit trite and unbelievable but won’t spoil it for anyone who is interested and hasn’t read this book yet.

My second book was “Baby, You’re Gonna be Mine” by Kevin Wilson.  This is a short story collection that was highly recommended recently by Anne Patchett (one of my favourite authors) and her staff at Parnassus books in Nashville.

The stories in this collection are certainly wildly varied and entertaining.  “Wildfire Johnny” is the story of a man who discovers a magic razor that allows him to travel back in time. “Scroll Through the Weapons” is about a couple taking care of their underfed and almost feral nieces and nephews. “Signal to the Faithful” follows a boy as he takes a tense road trip with his priest. And “Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine,” the title story, is about a narcissistic rock star who moves back home during a rough patch.

I enjoyed the collection and the creativity in each of the stories but wouldn’t rate this book as highly as the Parnassus bookstore staff.  I think I’m discovering that I’m not as huge a fan of the short story format as many of the reviewers that I follow.  I do, however, still count “Walking Wounded” by William McIlvanney, a Scottish based short story collection, as one of my all time favourites.

On the music front, a new album from John Hiatt, “The Eclipse Sessions”, was released last week and is excellent from start to finish.  Hiatt has been making music for over 40 years at an amazingly high quality.  His song writing is as pithy and entertaining as ever.  Here’s “Over the Hill”, a perfect blend of J. J. Cale style laid back guitar and Mark Knopfler guitar tone.

From the released long ago, but new to me this week bag, here’s some excellent Booker T and the MGs:

Apologies in advance if the blog posts over the next few weeks get a bit less interesting and timely as I get acquainted with my new job.