Work occupied most of my bus ride down to Austin on Monday morning. An AIG colleague, Vinod, joined my new company and I arranged a welcome aboard dinner with him on Monday night. He’s vegetarian and likes Thai food, so I suggested Thai Fresh, a restaurant that came recommended that’s located in a neighborhood close to the office and the Carpenter hotel. Vinod was early to the restaurant and texted me to let me know he was outside. I asked him if the place looked okay. His reply made me chuckle – “It does not look 
good”. Thai Fresh is a bit of a hole in the wall kind of place and is located in a residential neighborhood – not what Vinod is used to in the Dallas area but quite typical of Austin, and part of the charm of the city. He enjoyed dinner a lot and we may have another convert to the excellent off the beaten path Austin restaurant scene. Another plus is that I walked to the restaurant and back – a 2.5 mile round trip that gave us some good exercise early in the week.
I was able to sneak out of work early on Tuesday evening to catch the happy hour show at the Saxon Pub. I’ve been trying to catch David Grissom’s regular Tuesday night performance since I started working in Austin, but something always gets in the way. Here’s an excerpt from Grissom’s online bio that indicates what an amazing guitar player and musician he is:
David Grissom has toured and recorded with John Mellencamp, Joe Ely, Storyville,The Allman Brothers Band, The Dixie Chicks, Chris Isaak, Robben Ford, The FabulousThunderbirds, Ringo Starr, Buddy Guy, Bob Schneider and John Mayall among many others. His songs have been recorded by Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack, John Mayall, Shannon Curfman and Storyvilleto name just a few. Over the years, he has been featured in Guitar Player, Guitar World, Musician, and Vintage Guitar magazines several times.
David moved to Austin in 1983 and quickly became a stalwart on the vibrant local scene. Playing first with Lucinda Williams, he then joined Texas legend Joe Ely’s band in 1985, touring and recording nonstop until 1991, when he joined John Mellencamp’s band. David made three records with John and toured extensively from 1991 through 1993. After, Mellencamp, David went back to Austin to form Storyville, the band that included the Double Trouble rhythm section and powerhouse vocalist Malford Milligan. Storyville released two CD’s for Atlantic Recordswhich were well received at various rock radio stations. Since 2000, David has divided his time between recording sessions, including the last three Buddy Guy CD’s, among scores of other releases, touring with the Dixie Chicks, Bob Schneider and also playing hundreds of his own gigs, while still finding time to produce his CD’s and two releases for Ryan Beaver.
Here’s a video from the Saxon pub show of a typical Grissom jam. I love his hybrid picking style – a combination of strumming with a plectrum and finger picking with the remaining three fingers:
Here’s a bit of “Take me back to Texas”, a Grissom song that starts with a line about the “wind in Amarillo”:
And finally, here’s a melancholy song he performed about a lost friend:
I’ll include some more Grissom music later at the end of this post.
After the concert, I met another colleague, Jeff, for dinner at Shady Grove on Barton Springs road close to the hotel. This is another classic Austin restaurant that’s been around for over 20 years with an amazing patio. Jeff told me a story about watching a kid who got his head stuck in one of the wagon wheels surrounding the patio, while eating there with his family. Apparently it ultimately took a visit from the EMTs to free the head from the wheel. I really enjoyed my green chili chicken a lot and the ambiance was great – amazing to be sitting outside eating at 8pm in February.
After dinner, Jeff mentioned a coffee and so we drove over to Bennu, the 24 hour coffee shop. We were both amazed to find the place packed with kids, all studying hard. We found a spot to relax and enjoy our coffees on the patio.
I made it back to the hotel in time to meet up with Damon to collaborate on a note to our CEO about a technical outage that had caused some disruption earlier in the day – great fun!
On Wednesday, I had dinner with a potential new partner company at the Carpenter hotel restaurant. I was pleased to find blood sausage on the menu as an appetizer. It wasn’t quite the same as the Stornaway black pudding that my Mum gets for my breakfasts when I visit Scotland, but very tasty nonetheless.
I was awake early on Thursday morning and so went for a walk down Barton Springs to Bennu for coffee around 6am. I snapped the picture of the mural at the top of this post on the walk. This was a pleasant 2 mile round trip to get me going for the day. After the walk, I made a visit to Taco Deli for breakfast tacos – I’m 
trying to ration myself to once a week now. Jeff and Greg joined me and we all enjoyed the breakfast snacks. I should mention that breakfast tacos from Taco Deli were served before and after a Town Hall at the office on Tuesday morning where I delivered a presentation on an exciting new business opportunity that we’re presenting. I did enjoy a migas taco after my presentation.
On Friday morning, I visited Dr. Sabzali, our regular family doctor, for a checkup – a good report all around. She made me smile as she was gushing about her son’s college opportunities. Apparently the kid achieved a perfect score on both his SAT and ACT tests (a very rare accomplishment), is on the national merit and presidential scholar lists, and currently has offers from UT, USC, and UCLA related to bio-medical engineering and pre-med degrees. We think very highly of Dr. Sabzali and she has clearly raised a very smart and driven son.
I can’t claim to be that smart and driven, but I did score a personal best time on the USA Today crossword on Wednesday during a coffee break- 5 mins and 36 seconds. Things were back to normal on Thursday – over 11 minutes.
We attended a unique event on Friday night. Our friend, Steve Boston, had arranged to propose to his girlfriend, Grace, in front of 50 friends at Fleming’s steak house. There was a large poster set up in the bar area where they would arrive with Yes/No check boxes.
They were clearly a very happy couple and enjoyed having all their friends there with them. Somebody made some entertaining masks.
Not an approach to a proposal that I would ever have considered, but typical of Steve.
After the celebration, we walked across the street to the Capital Grille for dinner in their lovely bar area. Diana got an excellent rack of lamb that we enjoyed again on Saturday for dinner. I love the painting of Tom Landry, legendary Cowboys coach, that hangs in the bar.
Saturday was a very lazy day around the house and Sunday began as normal with workout, followed by coffee and a crossword in downtown McKinney. We stopped at the hardware store to pick up some outside wood screws and then I repaired the fence (a couple of boards had popped loose beside one of the front gates). This was a bit of a process in the rain, as I passed an extension cord through the dog door in my office so that I could use the drill to push in the screws. I was glad to be able to check this long standing task off my list on the pantry whiteboard.
I convinced Diana to go to the cinema with me on Sunday afternoon. “Joni Mitchell – a 75th birthday celebration” was playing (one of only two showings in theaters).
This was an amazing musical performance. The band was comprised mostly of jazz musicians with Jon Cowherd (piano) and Brian Blade (drums) as co-musical directors. I have a recent album by both Cowherd and Blade form a french jazz label that I really enjoy and to find them leading the band was a nice treat. Seal’s performance of “Both Sides Now” was an outstanding highlight of the show. Chaka khan did a couple of songs and I was surprised by her faithful interpretations. Diana Krall’s control of 
both vocal and piano dynamics was amazing on her two contributions. Lastly, Los Lobos with La Marisoul on vocals was another outstanding performance. I highly recommend this show (available now on DVD) to anyone who enjoys the music of Joni Mitchell – the musicianship is superb. Joni herself looked very frail (she suffered a brain aneurysm a few years ago and has not spoken or appeared in public for a while). Kris Kristofferson (now 82 years old) also looked a bit confused in his performance with Brandi Carlisle – apparently he has some memory issues due to Lyme disease.
One of our favourite musicians, Delbert McClinton, received a Marquee Star in front of the Austin Paramount theatre on Friday. This is only the third star given to a musician, with previous honorees including Lyle Lovett and Jerry Jeff Walker (see my post a couple of week ago where I talked about Jerry Jeff’s biography). Lyle Lovett wrote, “If we could all sing like we wanted to, we’d all sing like Delbert.” McClinton also received the Nobelity Projects “Feed the Peace” award at the Four Seasons on Saturday for his support of many great charitable causes.
I discovered a new Youtube series, “Earworm”, this week and enjoyed the episode that explains the unique key changes and challenges of playing John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”. This is a very interesting series and I look forward to checking out some more episodes.
I read “What Belongs to You” by Garth Greenwell this week. I can’t remember where I picked up the recommendation for this book but it was named a best book of the year by over fifty publications in nine countries, including the New Yorker, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Guardian.
I don’t consider myself overly prudish, but some of the descriptions in this book were a bit much for me. That being said, the characters, Bulgarian setting, and writing style are all very good.
I also very much enjoyed the short story “What Can You Do With a General” by Emma Cline that was published in the New Yorker magazine this week. The dialogue and descriptions of family interactions are perfectly done. I read that Cline received a $2 million 3 book advance in 2016 around her first novel, “The Girls”. I’ll have to put that book on my future reading list.
I enjoyed part of the movie “Irma La Douce” this week. Starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine and released in 1963, this is a silly and entertaining film. One of the scenes includes part of one of my favourite classical pieces, Rimsky Korsakov’s Scherzerade. I’ve included this in the music section below.
I love the lyrical quality of the opening violin lines in this version of Rimsky Korsakov’s Scherzerade:
As promised, here’s something more from David Grissom – his live version of the Allman’s classic “Jessica”. He was planning to record this with a five piece horn section in Milan this weekend (part of a story he told at the Saxon Pub).
One of our favourites from Delbert (and beautifully covered by Marcia Ball in concert also):
I heard this song playing in Bennu on Thursday morning, and was surprised to find that it was a Beastie Boys recording – not what one typically hear’s from them. It’s a tribute to the late organ virtuoso Richard Arnold “Groove” Holmes – best known for his 1965 recording of “Misty”.