NotJackKerouac

Unknown singer records album of songs by unknown songwriters

2006-12-03T19:14:00.002-08:00

Not the best business plan for an album. That's the reason albums shouldn't have business plans.

Slaid Cleaves is an Austin songwriter with solid sales, some regional praise, and one of the best songs ('Broke Down') exported from Texas in last decade. His latest album, entitled Unsung, features covers of lesser known artists. The results, listen for yourself. I think, wow. Provided in italics are Cleaves words about each performer.

"Flowered Dresses" (written by Karen Poston)
"Here's yet another poignant picture of loss and longing from the pen of Karen Poston. In the studio, I kept choking up on the line about 'hugging my knees, holding my breath.' "

"Call It Sleep" (written by Chris Montgomery)
"Chris had a band in Austin with his girlfriend, Karen Poston, called Aunt Beanie's First Prize Beets. Right about the time they were breaking up (both band and couple) he played this for me and a few friends backstage after a poorly attended gig of mine at Jovita's in South Austin. We all knew he had just written his best song."

"Fairest of Them All" (written by Ana Egge)
"I first heard Ana when she was playing open mics and I was doing sound. Still in her teens, she was making a big impression on people all over town. I was intrigued but not quite convinced until I heard this one. It's one of those great songs, cinematic and mysterious, where you find yourself asking -- wait a minute. What just happened there? " (Two things to listen for: a great use of the word 'bitch'; Mary Gauthier singing backup.)

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To prove my point, here's a link to Slaid Cleaves' "Broke Down." If you can't download this, raise a middle finger to iTunes and then seek it out on the Web.

And to think, people are still giving Alanis hell about the misuse of ironic.

2006-11-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

Below are lyrics pulled from The Who's new track, Mirror Door.

Howlin' Wolf and Ol' Link Wray, Dave Van Ronk and Doris Day,

Bobby Darin and Brownie McGee, Elvis, Buddy, and Eddie C.

Music makes me, makes me strong, Strong vibrations make me long,

Long for a place where I belong, You will find me in this song.

Notice anything wrong with the above list of now-dead-and-gone performers? One's still in the buffet line. Doris Day, at 82, is alive and smiling in Carmel, CA. When Pete Townshend was informed of this in a recent issue of Q magazine, he responded, "I was convinced she was dead."

Were you at the Fillmore in January of '69 when Zeppelin did that 13-minute version of 'Dazed and Confused?'

2006-11-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Concert Vault, lying in response to that question just got a hell of a lot easier.

This site catalogs, and streams free of charge, Bill Graham Presents concerts from 1965 to the late '80s (The Band to Big Country) at venues like Fillmore East and Winterland.

Best part: the sound quality is amazing.

He is what he is

2006-10-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Willie Nelson's rumored statement about his recent marijuana bust: "It's a good thing I had a bag of marijuana instead of a bag of spinach. I'd be dead by now."

Bastards of Young

2006-10-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

I don't like MASHUPS.

I thought Danger Mouse's Grey Album - mashing Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles' self-titled album (also known as the White Album) - was interesting.

But next time someone pushes a mashup on me, I'm going to simply push play on an entire album from Alvin and the Chipmunks.

"I Saw" No.-Something & No.-Something Else

2006-10-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

SAT: A rotund Larry Hagman walking alone on the Third Street Promenade. Considering I thought he was dead, he looked great.

SUN: Just out of the water, Brandon Boyd of Incubus riding a beach cruiser on the bike path in Venice. He was in jeans, no shirt, carrying a surf board. To give perspective, Brandon looked better than Larry.

Talkin' revolution

2006-10-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

There's a place off 1-40 in Amarillo called the Big Texan Steak Ranch. They serve a 72-ounce steak and if you can eat it in an hour, it's free. Since 1962, tens of thousands have attempted. Only 8,000 or so have cleaned their plate.

With So Much More, songwriter Brett Dennen has ordered a meal usually reserved for the likes of Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Van Morrison. I'm impressed. Though, it appears he's only managed to get through half of it, just like Ben Harper, John Mayer and David Gray.

You tell me:

"Ain't No Reason"

"I Asked When"

It took talking animals to get to this. I would've preferred one, maybe two, solo records.

2006-10-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

" ... when you first leave a group, you figure I'll go out on my own or get another group. Then five or 10 years pass, and you realize you're damn lucky if you get one really good band in your life." - Paul Westerberg, quoted in the LA Times.

Fans of Antony and the Johnsons should check out ...

2006-10-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

... the music video for Chris Garneau’s 'Relief.'

---

Those asking, who's Antony and the Johnsons? Here's a must-have with Lou Reed, entitled 'Fistful of Love.'

Why isn't anyone writing great protest songs?

2006-10-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Write something, then define what it means. As opposed to, think about what it should mean and then write it.

James McMurtry's heart is in the right place, just not sure this song gets there.

BTW: McMurtry's one of my favorites in this realm, on the heels of Steve Earle. Bob Dylan, in recent years, is one of my biggest disappointments, on the heels on me.

Autumn 2006: Songs, bands I'm digging

2006-10-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Hold Steady, "First Night"

The Postmarks, "Goodbye"

Sparklehorse, "Morning Hollow"

Ben Kweller, "Penny On the Train Track"

Tom Waits, "Bottom of the World"

Raise a Bone

2006-09-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Because we don't know the exact day, and because I can, let's make Sunday her 13th birthday.

Photo courtesy of PlainofMyBrain

Palace Does Portland

2006-09-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

How did I miss the buzz around Old Joy? Fans of Will Oldham should check out the trailer. The movie is opening in theaters across 33 cities starting now.

The hook is the best use of that useless girl from the Sound

2006-08-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Heard ...
Andy Langer's weekly podcast, again, and liked it. Clocking in at just over 5 minutes each week, this large-footed critic (pictured here) nails the need-to-know rock notables.

Saw ...
Cypress Hill's B-Real pull up to the Rainbow on Sunset in a new model Caddy, park in the alley, step out, backed by a cloud of the funny, funny. For those wondering if he's getting enough to eat, the answer is yes.

FYI: Today's headline refers to Langer's opinion of Cobra Starship's Maja Ivarsson and the movie track, ""Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)."

Eight treadmills and a microphone

2006-08-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

This clip is a must-see.

**Thanks to NJK reader Wendy

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-04-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome back for the fourth installment from J.S. Bankston.

—Thursday, March 2: JSB/YSL—

By James Scott Bankston

James had come by my room Wednesday night right after I’d gotten in, but before I took my shower and bath. He had brought a video-camera in order to conduct interviews with me every night, but we were all too tired that night. Nyssa was already asleep. None of us had stayed at the Louvre until closing.

He noticed how my toes were all crumpled inward as if I’d been in an industrial accident, and took his leave, but not before mentioning that he and Nyssa were sleeping in–the Louvre had just kicked their asses. I agreed I was going to do likewise. I wasn’t going to set an alarm–I’d wake up when I felt like it. It was also at this time I started rewriting my travel agenda and schedule, marking out things I didn't think I'd have time to see or that would require a painful amount of walking.

As it was I woke sometime after noon, and went to check on J&N. Nyssa was still buried under the covers and James was barely awake. I arranged for them to meet me at the café on the corner later on. Just as I was walking out the maid, who was young and blonde and goofy and every bit what you would imagine in a French chamber maid, came by and asked if I was part of the “menage” in J&N’s room. I tried to make it clear that no, I wasn’t involved in a “menage” with anyone, and that I had my own room and that the people in this room were still wanting to sleep. She asked if she could come in and make the room up, but James appeared at the door and said he didn’t want maid service today. She then asked if they wanted extra towels, or “serviettes.” James didn’t understand this, but I told the maid yes and handed the towels to James.

Downstairs I went into the sun room of the café and had an omelet with champignons and some excellent coffee. I’d not finished my second cup when J&N appeared outside. I gestured for them to let me finish my coffee, but they started walking down the street, so I had to run after them. We window-shopped at one of the amazing comic book stores in the neighborhood, then stopped in at a Greek deli that J&N would patronize for the duration of their trip.

We went to the neighborhood internet café and I checked Jennifer’s Fred status reports from the last few days. (I’d obviously been too tired to check Wednesday night.) She was keeping him far away from the doggies with kennel cough. He was dribbling urine in the house and keeping her awake at night, which was making her panic, as she was starting her strict training for an “Iron Man” competition. But by the last few e-mails Fred was calming down, sleeping soundly at night, and had gotten over howling for me. He had found a good, warm spot in Jennifer’s back yard, where he could lay in the warm grass all day and sleep, where Jennifer could watch him as she worked at her desk.

I was quite relieved.

J&N and I had decided to take it easy for the day. At first James said we’d venture no further than across our street, but then we thought it might be good to check out St. Chapelle, which is not too far from Notre-Dame. Anyway, it was a fine, sunny day, with crisp air–a good day to stroll around at a leisurely, normal pace.
We looked for a few minutes at the stalls of the booksellers along the Seine. I saw many old prints I would’ve liked to have purchased, but I was afraid they’d get torn up if I carried them around with me all day, so I wound up not buying any.

St. Chapelle is located in a courtyard of the Palais du Justice, so we had to wait about thirty minutes in line at a sally-port to get in. One line was for people who had business with the courts, and the other for tourists. There were heavily-armed military police on the sidewalk, and when some man started yelling something from deep inside the sally-port, the police climbed up onto the barricades to see what was going on.

J&N and I wondered for a second if the screaming man was about to set off a bomb or something. It occurred to me that if a major incident happened and I got a photo of it, I could sell the photo to Getty or Corbis or AP and make enough to pay for my trip. But then other people in the front of the line began laughing at what the man was screaming, and the mood calmed down.

I made it into the Palais du Justice and through the bag screening device well ahead of J&N and got to stand in the hallway and watch policemen and black-robed lawyers mill around amongst the cigarette smoke. It was like a scene out of a Simenon novel.

There was a couple ahead of James and Nyssa in the line. When the couple noticed there was a bag screening ahead of them the man pulled a steak knife out of his backpack and his girlfriend buried it deep inside an obscure pocket. The police found the knife and pulled the couple off to the side, but James and Nyssa were processed and sent on their way before they could see what happened next.

St. Chapelle had been built to house the Crown of Thorns, a relic that is now kept at Notre-Dame and is brought out for Adoration the first Friday of every month and every Friday during Lent. (Sadly, I didn’t get to see it this trip.) The ground floor of St. Chapelle, though, attractive by any standards, had been designed for the use of the common folk, and today houses a gift shop. The upstairs chapel, however, had been reserved for royalty.

The second floor of St. Chapelle seems to hardly have any walls at all–just panels of stained glass. The designs, depicting scenes from the entire Bible, are so involved I hardly knew where to start looking. Between each window is a statue of an Apostle.

I got some good photos while I was in there, but there were some (an elegant Japanese woman in a floor-length black cape, a shot of the altar taken while kneeling on the floor on, appropriately enough, a royal French fleur-de-lis) that didn’t work out so well.

St. Chapelle did not look quite as I’d imagined it–I expected it would be larger, just as I thought Notre-Dame would be taller and less squat than it is. Both were, however, splendid.

This trip to Paris turned into, rather unexpectedly, a series of tests whereby I was to confront my fears. St. Chapelle has something I really don’t like–circular staircases, especially steep, Medieval stone staircases. Steep circular staircases always make me feel as if I’m going to trip and fall and break my neck, and I always have to ascend or descend them very, very slowly.

J&N’s house, while not having a circular staircase, does have a steep staircase with sharply-turning wedge-shaped steps. During the two months I lived with them Fred and I stayed in the Library on the second floor, so every night I had to carry Fred up those stairs, and every morning carry him back down again. The stairs were made even more treacherous by the fact J&N use the wider (read “safer”) outer portion of the treads to store and display things, forcing the person using the stairs to the inner, less safe portion. J&N both admit they trip on the stupid things at least once a year.

But I somehow managed to get down the stairs at St. Chapelle without incident. We left the Palais du Justice by stepping through an elaborate, gilded gate guarded by gendarmes in kepis. We were all feeling good enough we decided to explore some more, so we went over to the Right Bank, prowled through the carnival-like neighborhood of Les Halles (former home to the famous Parisian food market), and found the church of St. Merry in Beaubourg.

The entrance facade of St. Merry was covered in netting–apparently all the stonework is falling off. Inside were two mentally ill homeless men, who were yelling nonsense. One had a towel over his head, worn like a djellaba, with a crown of thorns worn over that. No one tried to run him off for his blasphemy. Outside a street musician was urinating on the church. Where was an Inquisition when it was needed? (James told me later that the reason he wanted to see St. Merry was for all the occult symbols that appear inside and outside of the church, the most famous being a carving of the idol Baphomet over the entrance facade.)

We took pictures of the cartoon-like fittings by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely in the fountain in the Place Igor Stravinsky, then stopped at a parapet overlooking the Place Georges Pompidou to watch a street magician.

The magician, who resembled balding American performer David Cross, was already halfway through his act. He had stuck two little boys in a cardboard box that was taped shut and standing on a flimsy-looking table. He had a group of adult volunteers holding wooden spikes. He then jabbed the spikes into the box while the kids inside howled in pain. The children in the audience, who were sitting on the sloping pavement, were enthralled by this, though one really small boy kept running up in a panic–though the magician worked this distraction into his act rather well.

After running the boys through, the magician pulled out the spikes, then yanked out the boys, set them on their feet, and grabbed them by their necks and bent them forward so they could take their bows. Then he gave each a chocolate bar and sent them on their way. The audience loved it and as J&N and I made our way down to put some coins in the magician’s hat, I commented laughingly, “That just goes to show that language is no barrier. Everyone can appreciate the humor in watching our fellow man in physical pain.”

We passed a well-stocked postcard shop and made our way to “Flunch.” James had spoken at great length about Flunch, saying how it had been one of his favorite places to eat on the cheap during his last visit to Paris. And though the idea of eating fast food in Paris was repugnant to me, I was rather curious what it was like, and anyway, I wanted a souvenir of the mascot, “Flunchy.”

We descended to the basement level, I dodging the gobs of spit and phlegm on the steps. But once we got inside, J&N were heart-sick. Flunch had dropped its fast food approach for a cafeteria set-up. J&N drifted from one food station to another as if in mourning. (They later discovered that the other Flunches in town still served fast food, but that this one by the Pompidou had been turned into "the fancy Flunch.")

I got some paella, custard, cheese, and some other things, but I wasn’t all that hungry in the first place. I found us a table, but the dining room had the fecal odor of a gas station men’s room. I just picked at my food. While James was in the toilet, another dinner, a drunken Brit who could barely keep his eyelids open, started talking to Nyssa. He was just tickled to death that non-native Parisians were coming in to eat at Flunch.

I wanted to go to the Pompidou Centre, and since J&N don’t like modern art, and have already been to the Pompidou once before, we took our leave. After a quick peek in a bookstore, I went to see the reconstruction of sculptor Constantin Brancusi’s studio in front of the museum, then blew a small fortune on postcards at that shop across the street. (They had postcards of many of my favorite classic French movies. What could I do?)

Then I went over to the entrance to the Pompidou’s exterior escalators, which was guarded by security men in black Yves St. Laurent anoraks. (There was none of the clip-on ties or uncomfortable polyester uniforms like we had when I was a sorority house security guard.) I flashed my Museum Pass and was told to enter on the other side of the building.

The lobby of the Pompidou is another one of those great public spaces, like the Louvre’s Pyramid, that is always aswirl with masses of people from all over the world. There’s a great energy there. I made a beeline for the excellent art bookstore, and somehow managed to not buy any of the architecture, cinema, or photography books there.

Back in the lobby I saw a young couple sitting on the floor, making out. Young people make out everywhere in Paris. Of course the city is known as a place for love and romance, but nevertheless I've always found public intimacy strange, even unsettling. Still, I noticed that from where I was standing a large neon arrow was pointing directly down at this couple, so naturally I got a few shots of that, though they were less than perfect.

I took to escalators to the top floor and got some excellent shots of the skyline, though I was rather uncomfortable being six stories off the ground with just a rail and some Plexiglas to protect me from death. There was a special exhibit on that floor, but they were charging extra for that, so I skipped it and went down to the north end of the glassed-in walk-way. I was too lazy to walk back to the escalators, so I took the elevator down one floor, which put me off at an open-air walk-way. This was scary to me. I don’t like being high up, and I especially don’t like being high up in the open air.

One floor was hosting what looked like a private party for art students. The floor displaying the regular collection of modern art was closed until the end of the month, and was now hosting a private Yves St. Laurent party. (It was, after all, the end of “Fashion Week.”) At each escalator landing a pair of rake-thin YSL models stood guard, wearing high heels and black leather outfits with mini-skirts. They looked a cross between Robert Palmer girls and Nazi dominatrices.

There was, however, a long-term “temporary” show on one floor–something called “Big Bang” that “celebrated destruction and creation in 20th century art.” There were eight major divisions to the display (Destruction, Construction/Deconstruction, Archaism, Sex, War, Subversion, Melancholy, and Re-Enchantment), and over forty subdivisions (including Oblivion/Memory, Pathos/Death, Sacrilege, The Sleep of Reason, Mirror/Entropy, Geometric Space, Grotesque, and the Uncanny). It was just the sort of over-intellectualized thing the French excel at and that I so enjoy. Some of the better-known modern “Old Masters” represented included Bacon, Warhol, De Kooning, Pollock, Mondrian, Judd, Klee, Moholy-Nagy, Duchamp, Picasso, Arp, Dali, Braque, Magritte, Starck, Oldenburg, Cornell, and Matisse, but there were works by many other more contemporary artists as well.

In the “Monochrome” room, where everything was, naturally, pure white, I encountered three young people, garishly and colorfully dressed, with dyed Mohawks. I wanted to take their picture, as they made such a contrast to all the whiteness, but I was afraid if I did so without asking they’d get hostile, but if I did ask their permission they’d likely pose in an unnatural way, would interfere with and therefore spoil my process of creation, so I gave up on the idea altogether.

As I strolled around, the soles of my feet were tickled by the thumping of the music at the YSL party a story below. Why wasn't I down there, with the rich, the famous, the beautiful?

The last exhibit in the show was a film installation by Bill Viola called “Five Angels For The Millenium,” and featured projections of five different films (Creation, Ascending, Fire, Departing, and Birth) in a room that was otherwise so dark I didn’t dare to walk more than a few feet into it out of fear of stumbling in to someone.

Back in the lobby I went to the Information Desk to try to find out where the nearest cab stand was. I was waited on by a rather formal middle-aged woman with a moderate level of English language skills. She told me to go out the door, turn right, go up the steps, go right again, and the cabs would be on the corner. I said, “Oh, over by the Flunch?,” and the woman let out a big, healthy laugh of agreement.

I checked out the YSL femme bots again, watched a crowd line up in front of a movie theater (I wish I’d made it to the movies while in Paris), and briefly considered loitering around the Pompidou to see if anyone famous showed up, but the evening was still pretty young and I knew famous people wouldn’t show up until very late.

I hailed a cab. My driver was an older woman with short white hair and a turtleneck who was the spitting image of an Austin rare book dealer I know. While talking with her I said I was from Austin, Texas, but she initially thought I was saying she had an “ancien taxi” (old taxi). I cleared that up and we had a charming talk all the way down the Boulevard St. Germain.

J&N showed up with their video-camera shortly after I got out of the bath. I was wearing boxers and a t-shirt. They brought me a pair of scissors they’d bought at the Muji stationary store at the Forum Les Halles, and I used them to cut out pieces of moleskin to apply to my blistered feet. During the filming James got very red and announced, “Um, you’re flopping out there. I saw your 'Little Soldier’s helmet.'” Nyssa got very embarrassed and buried her head. I got embarrassed as well, and said, “Well, why are you filming me when I’m not completely dressed?,” but James assured me no nudity got on camera.

This is probably a good time for me to put in a few words on French television. I didn’t have that many channels and usually only turned the thing on to keep me company at night before bed. (I listened to the radio in the morning while getting ready and am sad to report that Paris has embraced one of the worst aspects of American culture–insipid morning drive-time radio shows with silly, blabbering hosts.)

There was a hilarious ad for “Deadwood” in French. (Comment dit-on “cocksucker”?) And whoever dubs Sam Waterston into French for “Law and Order” makes him sound like a pissy, snitty, nancy boy. I saw the end of “Some Like It Hot” in English with French subtitles, and part of a German movie with little sound and less dialogue, that seemed to be about a stout woman with an obsessive-compulsive desire to clean her house around the clock. It wasn’t so much that the movie was boring as it was an amazingly accurately depiction of what boredom actually feels like, brought to the screen.

And then there was this comedic talk show with a host who was a cross between David Letterman and Benny Hill. The set was a sort of theater-in-the-round, and all the guests sat around a huge table and commented while the host zeroed in on one guest at a time. The only guest I recognized was Guillaume Depardieu, actor son of Gerard.

But the program had a variety show aspect to it as well, rather like the Latin American hit “Sabado Gigante.” At one point the host went over to talk to his sidekick behind a counter that was slightly less than waist-high. The conversation turned sexual, because two flesh-colored sock puppets that looked suspiciously like penises rose up from behind the counter and in front of the men. The penises began talking. As the names of famous and beautiful French women were invoked, the sock puppets got taller and longer and more rigid until they were several feet long. But when the subject changed they began to shrink and detumesce into themselves.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-03-29T14:19:00.001-08:00

In this third installment, J.S. Bankston spends a $1,000 on books, experiences another bathroom or two and has a life's worth of images, realized.
__________

— Wednesday, March 1: Paris Gets Medieval on my Ass —

By James Scott Bankston

James had planned on getting up early in order to get pictures of sunrise at Notre-Dame. Years ago my friend Rex told me that watching the sunrise over Notre-Dame was one of the most incredible sights he’d experienced. I set my alarm early so I too could see sunrise at Notre-Dame, but by the time I got there the sun was mostly up. I did, however, get a nice shot of the east end of Notre-Dame and the Square du Jean XXIII covered in a light dusting of snow.

As I walked around the back side of the Cathedral I noticed what many old Parisian churches have: a fenced-in yard for the storage and restoration of fallen gargoyles and other stone ornaments. It was here that J&N found me.

J&N didn’t have a cell phone that would work in Paris, and I wouldn’t have a cell phone if my life depended on it, so we arranged several times during the trip to meet in specific locations at set times. If one party didn’t show in 15 or 30 minutes, the other was free to go on to the next site. We didn’t arrange this often during the trip and when we did I was invariably the one who showed up late.

I told J&N that I doubted I’d do any more major shopping during the trip, as I’d found most of what I’d come for the previous day. (These words would soon mock me.)

We arranged to meet between 12 and 12:30 in the Louvre, by the statue of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, then we went our separate ways.

I went into Notre-Dame for Ash Wednesday Mass. I took a good seat halfway up the nave, near a two-story high carved wooden pulpit, and watched the janitors buff the stone floors. The bells for 8am Mass began to ring and I didn’t see that many people taking seats. I moved up a bit. Then I started noticing people filing in up at the altar, and they didn’t look like they were in the choir.

After a bell rang inside the church I got up, walked up the ambulatory on the right, and realized the people going to the altar were regular worshippers. 8am Mass is never a big draw, not even at Notre-Dame on a Holy Day of Obligation; there were maybe fifty people on hand for Mass, and we were all being seated at the altar, in the old wooden choir stalls. I felt like a medieval monk as I took my seat and kneeled on the stone floors to receive the ashes on my forehead.

Mass was presided over by two African priests and I was seated next to a young professional man who, though impeccably dressed, had problem flatulence throughout the service. And oddly, when the time came for us all to shake hands with one another, my fellow worshippers greeted me by saying, "Thank you." The whole service was incredibly moving and made me feel all the more tied to history.

After that, I grabbed an espresso and plain croissant at an Alsatian café across the street, then crossed over to the Right Bank of the Seine in time to watch all the Parisians head off to work. I melded into the crowd and passed the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), where a crew was working on the ice skating rink, then cut past the closed La Samaritaine department store, went into the church of St. Germain L’Auxerrois (the bells of which announced the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572), and took some pretty decent pictures, then cut along the north side of the Louvre along the Rue Rivoli (a street James enjoyed calling "Rue de Ravioli"), before turning in at the Palais Royal, the childhood home of Louis XIV and now the site of chic shops. I’d seen the Palais Royal in movies before–it’s popular for its huge courtyard, filled with clipped trees and surrounded by lengthy colonnades.

From there I went to check out a few "passages," early 19th century breezeways covered with glass-and-iron roofs that were lined with shops and that served as the prototypes for modern shopping malls. Some passages even included restaurants, hotels, and single rooms that were rented out by prostitutes. The passages in some ways became microcosms of the 19th century city, and a study of the passages of Paris became the philosopher Walter Benjamin’s magnum opus.

A security guard searched my bag at the Galerie Colbert, but there wasn’t too much to that place–it was mostly being used for college classrooms. The adjoining Galerie Vivienne was much more interesting. I found a Jean-Paul Gautier shop there, and across the way, stairs to Gautier’s atelier. (I accidentally got in the way of a Gautier employee as he was coming to work.)

Rounding a corner I found a group of art students (Paris is swarming with art students) sitting on the floor under a dome, making sketches. Some were actually doing the bit where they held out their pencils at arm’s length, squinted at them, and marked the length of the objects they were looking at with their thumbnails–I only thought such things happened in old movies.

I exited, crossed the street, went through a mini-passage, and was going to go back through the Palais Royal when a young woman told me that way was blocked for a few hours. I tried another way, and was stopped by a young man, but this time I saw a cluster of cameras and lights in the courtyard–somebody was filming a movie.

I went around the western exterior of the Palais and took pictures of the equipment trucks and craft services people. Finally some guy walked by and said, "Why don’t you get a picture of me? I’m a typical Frenchman."
–What the hell.
–You know movies?
–Yes. Are they filming one here?
–Yes. American movie. You know American movies?
–Yes, very well.
–Well, this is American movie called "The Sopranos." You heard of?
–Indeed I have.
And no, I didn’t see James Gandolfini or anyone famous. I did slip back into the far end of the Palais courtyard and get some nice pictures of people going to work, a woman feeding pigeons, and a little girl on a scooter, but that’s about it.

I passed the Comedie Francaise and a gilded equestrian statue of Joan of Arc that was glinting brilliantly in the morning sun, and headed down the Rue Rivoli to W.H. Smith, a chain bookstore that is the UK equivalent of Barnes & Noble. I’d already had the presence of mind to apply online for a discount card there when I was back in the States.

I passed tacky souvenir stores, as well as the Hotel Meurice, which was the headquarters for German High Command during World War II, and was later part-time home to Salvador Dali, who used to walk through the lobby with his pet ocelot on a leash. But before I got to W.H. Smith I glanced at the windows of Galagnani, the oldest English-language bookstore in Europe, and I got sucked in.

Galignani was on my to-do list, but I had thought it was located closer to the Opera Garnier. I managed to fight the temptation to buy any architectural books, but when I came across the history section, especially the European royalty subsection, I started grabbing. These were either the kind of books I’d never seen in America or had only seen advertised in British magazines, the sort of books I’d design for myself in a perfect world.

Soon a clerk walked over and asked if he could take those books for me. I asked if they did overseas shipping, and when he said they did, my fate was sealed. I wasn’t about to lug a big stack of books on my back around the Louvre all day, but if they’d be willing to ship them ...

I got some more royalty books, then moved over to the entertainment/music/film section. I couldn’t have been in there more than a half-hour, but when I left I had no books on my person, but my bank account was over $1000 lighter.

W.H. Smith was rather a let-down after that. They supposedly had the best selection of English-language magazines in Paris, but I really didn’t see much that I couldn’t get back in Austin.

By this point I was pretty sure I couldn’t get to J&N in time, even if I ran. I strode through the Tuileries Gardens which, since it was still winter, looked rather bleak. I passed a pit full of little trampolines for kids, and an ancient carousel, and thought how delightful it must be to be a child or to have children in Paris. I took pictures of various statues, including one of a naked man in anguish that I dubbed "Credit Card Debt."

Several Gypsy girls approached me asking if I spoke English and carrying handwritten pleas for money, but I found the cure for them was to look straight ahead, and firmly announce, "Non, merci!" (J&N observed that the Parisian Gypsies looked and dressed rather like the grubby, hygenically-challenged Zendik Farm cultists who used to hang out on the Drag in Austin, begging and trying to sell smeared copies of their newsletter.)

The Pyramid of the Louvre was a fascinating place for people-watching. The Japanese tour groups, for instance, were usually headed by a little woman holding a small flag or tiny umbrella over here head like a drum major’s baton, so the group could see where to go.

I wanted to get a week-long Paris museum pass, so the people at the Information Desk directed me down a long hallway. (By some complicated formula J&N had decided that for a Museum Pass to be cost effective for them they would have to see three museums a day. For me, just the trouble saved by getting to bypass lines at the entrances was worth the cost.) But the line to get the Museum Pass was pretty long–there were five or six stations in the ticket office, but since it was noon, only one of them was manned, by a woman who looked like a cross between Coretta Scott King and Nichelle Nichols. Eventually some guy got back from lunch and the line started to move, but I’d been waiting at least 30 minutes by then.

Still, after getting my Pass I was in no great hurry to tackle the Louvre just yet. It was open until 9:45pm that day anyway. So I went to the bathroom and had lunch under the Pyramid–a chicken sandwich and several Cokes. Some school girls on a second level waved at me through a diamond-shaped window, so I waved back.
Starting out with the north or "Richelieu" wing, I looked at 18th and 19th century French sculpture, then headed over to check out the Mesopotamian galleries when I ran into J&N, though I lost them again after I saw the Steele of Hammurabi and the enormous winged Assyrian man-bulls.

This was also about the time I began noticing and taking pictures of how the museum-goers were reacting to certain works of art. In the room with the Assyrian bulls were dozens of art students, sitting cross-legged on the floor, their drawing pads on their laps, looking, well, just like the sculptures of seated Mesopotamian scribes in the next room. I realize now that to adequately explore the subject of museum-goers and their reaction to art I would have had to just set my camera up in one gallery for the better part of a day. Maybe in the future ...

I needed to go to the bathroom again, and the one I found was a unisex model–which was very discombobulating for an American. To complicate matters I found myself locked in a stall for a bit, until I could manage to undo the lock. I looked at more French sculpture. There was one of a reclining nude who was pausing in reading her book–the cushion upon which she was reclining was sculpted so delicately it looked to be made of actual fabric. Another sculpture depicted a little boy playing with a turtle, his fingers just inches from the turtle’s snapping beak.

On another floor I toured the lavish private suite of Napoleon III and saw the throne of Napoleon I and Louis XVIII’s bed (which looked too small for the morbidly obese king—I've since read the bed was made for Napoleon and later redecorated for Louis XVIII, and that Louis preferred sleeping on an iron cot at the foot of that bed).

In the Dutch, Flemish, and German paintings I saw Van Dyck’s portrait of Charles I of England, and nodded at it as if we were old friends. I saw a self-portrait by Albrecht Durer, the artist I tried to draw like when I was a child, and was overwhelmed by a room of enormous allegorical pictures of Henri IV of France by Peter Paul Rubens. I began zipping through gallery after gallery, until I just happened into a room devoted completely to Rembrandt, and was moved to, if not tears, then at least moist eyes, by a self-portrait of the Master as an old man. For all the Rembrandts in the room, this one seemed to me to have the artist still living inside it.

There were so many sections I had to skip, so many works I just walked by. Doing this made me feel as if I was condemning those works to be thrown into an incinerator, to be henceforth forgotten by history, but I had neither the strength nor the time to see them all. I felt I was being unfaithful, that I was letting History and Culture and Human Civilization down, but while the spirit was willing, the flesh was all too weak.

I went back to the Pyramid and sat watching people and guzzling bottled water for at least an hour. A small family sat down by me and I had to restrain myself from making the provincial comment, "Oh, how cute! You taught your son how to speak French!"

Then I went to the south or "Denon" wing, which as far as familiar masterpieces go, probably has more "bang for your buck" than any other part of the museum. First off was the "Mona Lisa." I was surprised, since the "Mona Lisa" has been reproduced to the point it’s almost banal, but when in the split-second I saw her for the first time I teared up again. It’s odd seeing the genuine article of something that has been reproduced over and over. It was bizarre, for instance, when I met Richard Nixon in 1993, seeing the real-life model for that oft-caricatured face and hearing the rumbling voice that inspired so many comedians and impersonators.

A few months ago a former student of mine wrote about visiting the Louvre, that he had "seen [his] face reflected in the face of the ‘Mona Lisa,’" and I knew I had to do the same thing. And it didn’t take all that long for me to work my way through the crowd to the front of the line. I’d heard it sometimes takes hours to get to the "Mona Lisa." Maybe that's true in the summer, but it wasn't in March.

I saw a Madonna and Child from the Middle Ages. Though the composition was formal, the artist had enough of a grasp of real life to depict the Christ Child suckling on His fingers, just like a normal baby would. And I couldn’t help but wonder where the artist had gotten the robe he used as the model of that of the Virgin Mary–supposedly many portraits of the Madonna show her in robes imported from the Middle East, with Arabic words stitched along the hem announcing, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."

Here were Giottos and Fra Angelicos so close I could breathe on them, Raphaels with colors so fresh they could’ve been painted just weeks ago.

In the Grande Galerie a young Frenchman leaned against his girlfriend and took his shoes off, so he could walk around in his stocking feet. I chuckled at this–they turned, smiled, shrugged, and laughed. We didn’t have to know each other’s language to appreciate that all of us were suffering terribly from unbelievable pain in our feet, legs, and backs from all the walking and standing on marble floors.

There was a group of teenagers with wild hair and clothes that might have been seen as gang members in the US, but they were in the Louvre to look at art.

I started noticing the faces of the people in the paintings and sculptures in the faces of the museum-goers all around me. It was as if they stepped down out of their frames and off their pedestals and put on modern clothes. That classical physiognomy can still be found in Europe.

Two little French boys who couldn’t have been more than ten, were arguing over the relative merits of a St. Sebastian painted by Perugino. I felt an almost paternal sense of pride for them that they were so smart. Not far away was the St. Sebastian by Mantegna I’d admired since first grade.

But I think my favorite painting in the whole Louvre may just have been Guido Reni’s picture of David with the severed head of Goliath. In fact, when I first saw it I let out a laugh. David looks like such a punk, such a typical teenager. He’s leaning against a pillar, his feet crossed at his ankles, and Goliath’s huge sword is
on the ground. And he’s holding Goliath’s head at arm’s length as it rests on another pillar.

David is wrapped in a leopard skin, and is wearing a bright red cap with a huge ostrich plume sticking out of it. And he’s smirking, cocksure, as if killing giants is an everyday activity for him. He looks like any other teenaged boy in the world right now, with a sideways baseball cap and silly clothes, who thinks he’s cooler and smarter than he really is. The spirit of the painting is totally contemporary, though the work is actually 401 years old.

The rooms of large-format French paintings were also a revelation, with the colossal historical painting by Ingres, David, and Gericault. If I learned one thing on this trip, it was that Napoleon had the best public relations people in history. Those David paintings of Napoleon make him look so impressive. And it was amazing to see the famous picture of Napoleon crowning Josephine Empress (the Bonaparte family standing in Notre-Dame not far from where I’d been a few hours before). I studied the picture up close–how in character it was for Talleyrand to be painted with his nose in the air.

I finally saw in person another favorite painting from my childhood, Gericault’s picture of the cuirassier, sweeping his sabre over the back of his mount. As I surveyed "The Death of Sardanapalus" by Delacroix, I noticed for the first time, after years of looking at this picture, that the king is sprawling on a bed with huge elephant heads on the corners. And from there I walked a few feet, out to the hallway, and saw the "Winged Victory;" I’d never before noticed she is standing on a base shaped like a ship.

I took a quick look at the Michelangelo and Canova sculptures on a another floor, but totally skipped the ancient Roman and Etruscan works. Then I went back to the Pyramid and headed into the east or "Sully" wing. It was now late afternoon and I was walking as if I was club-footed. I was in serious agony at this point.
I’d hoped to see the "Venus de Milo," but wanted to reach her by the shortest route possible. Then, if I had any strength left, I was going to tackle French painting from the 14th to 19th centuries on an upper floor.
But serious "museum fatigue" had set in. This is a disease with progressive stages. First you start marking off whole schools, countries, and epochs from your "to see" list. Then you begin ignoring most of the labels, then the works themselves, stopping only to see the things you recognize. (This is when you really feel like an uncivilized boor.) Finally you don’t care what they have in the next gallery–you just want to get out of there and sit down.

I would walk through gallery after gallery, and come within a room of where I needed to go, only to find a locked door. I’d take an elevator that would run between only two floors. I’d walk down a flight of stairs, cross one room, go up another flight of stairs, and find myself no closer to my destination than I’d been five minutes before.

I finally got stuck in a labyrinth, the two floors of the Egyptian collection, which I had earlier, sadly, decided to skip. I saw some interesting things, but dear God–I wanted out. The sarcophagi were calling out for fresh blood, but I was determined that it not be mine. Finally, with great resentment that I was having to backtrack, I worked my way back through the excavated moat of the Medieval Louvre Castle, and stumbled back into the Pyramid. I asked directions to the nearest cab stand, and went halfway down the long hall to the Museum Pass office before I woke up and realized I was going the wrong way. I had long since stopped picking my feet up when I walked–I was just sliding them across the floor now. I took the escalators upstairs, and let out an audible "Thank God" when I got outside. (Nyssa’s mother, Tharelyn, later summed this day up as "Louvre 1, Tourist 0."

I’d been over-heated all day, as I had over-dressed, failing to take into account how much walking I would be doing or how warm Parisian interiors are kept in winter. I stumbled through the sally-port under the Richelieu Wing, and after some more wandering found the cab stand at the Place du Palais Royal. I could’ve kissed that cabbie square on the lips when he drove up–he was driving the most beautiful taxicab in all the world. I eased into the back seat and told him the address of my hotel. In our small talk on the way over, I revealed I was from Texas. He didn’t quite grasp this until I mentioned the word "cowboy." "Ah," he said, suddenly getting it. "Le cinema de John Wayne!" I smiled and said, "Yes. John Wayne. Jimmy Stewart. John Ford. That’s where I’m from."

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-03-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

J.S. Bankston has arrrived.

— Tuesday, February 28: Loving the Alien—

By James Scott Bankston

I had jazz playing on my headset and began to really get excited when I saw the clouds part and noticed the buildings and roads and cars of Paris beneath us. The Pilot announced we’d be deboarding by means of stairs–I looked back at J&N and we exchanged jubilant smiles and “thumbs-up”–we could walk down onto the tarmac like old-time celebs, with the paparazzi snapping our pictures. We landed, then taxied all over Charles De Gaulle for what seemed like thirty minutes. I pointed at a squat, grey hotel nearby and mouthed to James, “Look! It’s the Paris Hilton!,” but he didn’t understand me.

There were no photographers waiting for us when we stepped off the plane. I didn’t even get to kiss the ground like the Pope. Instead, we were led to a commuter bus.

It was cold and rainy out, and snowflakes the size of silver dollars had started falling. For some perverted reason, James hoped we’d have cold, snowy, inclement weather the entire time we were in Paris. He had brought along, just for that purpose, the most hideous jacket I have ever seen–a green Army surplus overcoat he’s taken all over the world for the last fifteen years. It has maybe one button left and every edge on it is frayed. It looks like something a homeless person would wear. He believes if he wears it he’ll scare off Gypsies and panhandlers.

I said, “You do realize, don’t you, that you won’t be able to get into any nice restaurants wearing that coat?,” and he said, “That’s okay.”

We were driven to a terminal, and walked up a wet flight of stairs to the Immigration gate. Between the entrance to the Immigration area to the inspection kiosks was a substantial area roped off with a zig-zag of elastic bands affixed to metal poles–you walked in, turned left, then right, then left, and on and on and on. Normally this configuration was set up to handle large crowds, but since there were so few of us we looked peculiar running through it. Our movements became almost balletic; overhead we must have looked like ping-pong balls released from the ceiling, hitting the floor, bouncing back up to the ceiling, then hitting the floor again, and on and on. Or we may have just looked like an old “Pong” video game. The silly grace and general pointlessness of our movements made everyone in the line laugh, and I called out to a woman behind me, “I wonder if I’m gonna get a food pellet when I get to the end of this maze!”

I was waved through Immigration without getting even so much as a stamp on my passport, then we went to the baggage carousel to get one of J&N’s bags. After that we went off in search of the RER commuter train station so we could get into town. I took the lead on this one, since James seems to have trouble processing the information on signs, TV monitors, and maps. It was exhilarating to hear all those foreign voices, to be surrounded by stylishly-dressed men and women, to see heavily-armed military police everywhere. (This last sight made the most normal location seem like a setting for imminent danger.)

We got to the station. I bought Metro tickets for the week. J&N only bought them for the day. (Actually, since J&N used the Metro so often during the trip, they were the ones who should’ve bought week-long passes. I hardly used the Metro at all.)

We encountered something we were to see many more times: a place with an escalator that went up but only a staircase going down. A small woman stood at the top of the stairs with an enormous bag, looking around frantically for help.

I felt uncharacteristically charitable, and with broken French, asked if she’d like me to lug the thing downstairs for her, then did so, to the great shock of James and Nyssa.

Our train arrived soon afterwards. At the first stop two African men got on board and began talking very loudly in French all the way into Paris. Some guy came out of the back of the train and began playing easy listening classics from the ‘70s on an accordion, then passed the hat, and finding tips skimpy, moved on into the next car.

I was surveying the passing scenery outside my window with great interest–the old factories, the endless walls of graffiti, the faux quaint working-class cottages built next to the rails, the high-rise housing projects with laundry and other crap hanging from each balcony, from which the riots had sprung not six month ago. James pointed out the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur off in the distance–it was a lot larger than I’d pictured it.

Before I knew it we were at the Notre-Dame Metro station, and J&N led me through the maze up to the surface, and there she was just a few hundred yards away–Notre-Dame Cathedral. I don’t remember exactly how I felt, but I do know I was so exhausted that day that I was a lot less excited than I would’ve been otherwise. Mainly I just wanted to get a shower.

We walked through the drizzle to my hotel, the Esmeralda, which is just a few feet away from the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and two blocks from Notre-Dame. J&N went off to their hotel, and we agreed to meet in an hour in front of the cathedral.

I walked into the hotel and identified myself. The desk clerk had me down as reserved for two days–I said that no, I had reserved for seven. He gave me a large skeleton key and told me to go to Room #5, on the stairs.

The room was not off a landing, but was in fact on the stairs–you walked into it directly from the middle of the staircase. I’d heard the locks were tricky in this place, but it took me over five minutes of twisting and rattling to get the key to open the lock. The staircase was filled with the overpowering stench of furniture polish. I knew this shit would get really old really fast.

Figuring to save money, I’d asked for the smallest room they had, with a bathroom down the hall. But I wasn’t ready for what I was getting. My room was tiny and dark, with battered paneling and wallpaper of an over-powering pattern. There was a beaten-up wardrobe whose doors hung open, a tiny sink, a shelf over the low doorway, and window that looked onto a light well cluttered with an unfinished construction project. There was a light over the sink, a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, and a fragile reading lamp on an over-sized bedside table, one side of which intruded into head of the narrow bed. The room was only as long as the tiny bed, and was overall not much bigger than a jail cell. The floor was covered with a threadbare carpet, and a board sunk under my right foot as I leaned forward to put down my bag.

This was not what I wanted. Not at all.

But first things first–I’d not showered in a day and was feeling greasy and nasty. I found a maid and asked where the bathroom was and she said it was one floor up. I gathered all I needed to shower and change, then went upstairs. In one room was a small sink and a toilet that took me awhile to flush.

The shower was located in a room off the maid’s closet. It was midday then, so the maids were busy cleaning–it took some doing for me to get them to leave so I could undress and shower. I set my towels and things on top of a trunk next to bags filled with the maids’s daily shopping.

I knew I couldn’t stay in this place. I was so depressed and upset I wanted to cry or something. (This feeling was no doubt exacerbated by my exhaustion.) The hotel was a dump, and my entire trip would be ruined and all that money wasted if I had to stay any longer. But could I get out of it? I’d told the guy at the desk I was staying for seven nights. Would he hold me to that? He had my credit card number from when I reserved back in the States. Would I be able to find an affordable hotel in this neighborhood? Would I have a bed for the night? I knew of several hotels in the area, sure, but did they have any vacancies?

It was almost time to meet J&N. By the time I got to the church they were nowhere to be seen. I was beside myself. I had to get this hotel thing resolved immediately before I did any sight-seeing. Where the hell were they? Finally I went inside the Cathedral, a place of beauty, history, and architectural significance I’d read about all my life, but I was so upset I didn’t notice any of it, because I was so busy scanning the crowd for J&N. I made a quick circuit of the building, then went back outside, where they finally turned up and I told them the situation.

James suggested I stay at his hotel, the Hotel Abbatial St. Germain, but I’d blown off that idea weeks ago–it cost more than I wanted to pay. I said I’d go off and search for some of the other hotels I knew of in the neighborhood, and we made tentative plans to meet somewhere, and off I flew in a frenzy.

For some reason I couldn’t find the addresses of those other hotels. I saw the Abbatial, and decided to pop in there after all, check their availability, and maybe look at their phone book. I had a confusing conversation with the desk clerk: she could accommodate me, yes, but I might have to switch rooms every day or so, taking a single one day, a double another, but then, no, it sounded like she could put me in one room all seven days and charge me one rate. I went to check out the room–it looked great. The clerk photo-copied my credit card just as J&N walked in, surprised to see me. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be in the same room all week, but I filled out the register, then ran out to go get my stuff from the Esmeralda.

Once there I packed quickly, went downstairs, and told the desk clerk I was going to stay with friends instead, and offered to pay for one night, since I’d already used the room. This seemed to suit the clerk fine–in fact, he acted as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

I ran back to the Abbatial and unpacked again. My room (#15) was on the first (second) floor, at the top of the stairs and right off the elevator. It had a full bath with shower and tub, two large floor-to-ceiling casement windows that looked out onto Rue Des Bernardins and the Boulevard St. Germain, a double bed, and an alcove with a desk, tiny fridge, and ceiling-hung TV. I was paying more than J&N were for their fifth (sixth) floor room with the balcony and the Pantheon view, the hair dryer hose and a side table drawer were broken and the curtains were dangerously close to the radiator, but I didn’t care–at least I was out of the Esmeralda.

That latest crisis passed, I decided to make a fresh start with Paris, and J&N and I ventured forth and made our way back to Notre-Dame.

A sign said Notre-Dame had an English-speaking priest that was hearing Confessions at that time in the Cathedral. I’d not been to Confession or Mass in ages, and the next day was Ash Wednesday. There was no one in line, so I went on in.

In Notre-Dame, as in many older churches in Paris, the confessional is a modern steel-and-glass box set up inside a lofty old side chapel. The confessional is dimly-lit and furnished like a study, though from the outside it looks a bit like a police interrogation room. At Notre-Dame there were horizontal lines of frosted glass set into the regular glass to protect the privacy of the priest and the penitent.

I had never confessed face-to-face before. The priest was a kindly, pale old Frenchman. He didn’t even give me a penance, and part of his absolution was delivered in Latin, which I joked to James “makes it count double.”

Now that I was shriven, we continued our tour. I lit a candle and prayed Fred and I would be safely reunited. (I know this sounds superstitious, but I did this in every one of the churches I visited in Paris the entire week.) I saw a group of teenaged Japanese boys in their private school blazers and gear and commented, “Oh, I didn’t know Hogwarts had a Tokyo branch!” We stopped to photograph a statue of Joan of Arc in another chapel, but the light was too poor for me to adequately capture the amusing image of both the statue and a fire extinguisher standing in a corner.

We crossed back over to the Left Bank. James photographed me sitting on a wet bench in front of Shakespeare and Company, then we went to St. Julien-le-Pauvre, the oldest church in Paris, now run by Byzantine Catholics. St. Julien is a popular venue for small concerts and I picked up flyers for a Chopin program, an evening of Black gospel music, and a tribute to the castrati. But I already know way too much about castrated men as it is–after all, I do have quite a few married friends.

We walked a few more blocks and were about to go into St. Severin church, when I was stopped by an old woman cowering just inside the gates. J&N had already gone into the church without me. The old woman explained in broken English and French that she was from “Bosnie” and asked if I could I spare any money. I gave her a handful of change and started toward the church door, then she shuffled up with a US quarter in her dirty fingers, smiling through broken teeth, saying, “This one no good....Can’t use....Euro....Euro!”

I reached back into my pocket and fished out a few more Euro coins, and she fell to her knees and began thanking me with an effusiveness that I found embarrassing, startling, confusing, and humbling. She began crying, “Bless you! God bless you!,” and kissed my hand repeatedly. Now even with my colossal ego I couldn’t handle being treated like a god on the steps of a church. In my confusion, I put my right hand on her head as if I was a priest and said, “No, not me! Bless you!” She drew her hands together into a praying position and bowed repeatedly and thanked me, and I bowed as well and withdrew into the church, just as J&N came to check on me. James explained the woman was a Gypsy and that they will resort to any tactics to get money off tourist, but he figured I needed to learn the hard way. The old woman was still thanking me and smiling when I left the church a few minutes later.

It was maybe mid-afternoon now, and Nyssa was ready to turn in for the day, so she and James headed back to the hotel. I wandered into the Abbey, a narrow-aisled, cluttered, claustrophobia-inducing English-language bookstore run by a Canadian expatriate and bought a Bruce Chatwin book (appropriately enough), briefly checked out a news stand, then wandered around some more, until I stumbled into a wide north-south street I correctly guessed was the Boulevard St. Michel. A young woman hit me up for a few Euros. (Damn! I really should have been wearing that money belt inside my sweater.) I saw one of those Art Nouveau Metro signs, but was too tired to haul out my camera and take a picture.

I browsed among the sidewalk bins of of the Gibert Jeune bookstore, which occupies several buildings that line both side of the street. It was peculiar looking at book in a setting full of cigar smoke. I went inside the store–more escalators going up, with only staircases going down. I bought a literary magazine about Emile Zola, two coffee table books on Serge Gainsbourg and a fat collection of his complete lyrics, then briefly went across the street to the Gibert Jeune scholarly lit store. I strolled past restaurants, jazz clubs, and tiny cinemas, watched the traffic along the Quai St. Michel, and finally made my long-awaited visit to Shakespeare and Company.

For whatever reason, maybe the fact I was so tired, I was unimpressed. I saw nothing particularly rare or unusual in the store–nothing I couldn’t find in a new or used English-language bookstore in Austin. I tried to climb the ladder-like stairs to the second floor, but the risers were about a foot tall, and my backpack wouldn’t fit through the stairwell, so I said to hell with it, and backed down slowly and headed for the exit.

I found an internet café staffed by an American girl and tried to check my e-mail, but was unable to get to my regular account, so I used another to e-mail Jennifer and ask her to send me Fred status reports there.

I’d not eaten since that breakfast on the plane, so I did an uncharacteristic thing–I backtracked, and went uphill towards the area of the Sorbonne. I stopped at a clean little corner café/tea room/boulangerie, and after studying the outdoor menu, went inside and ordered a croque-monsieur (ham and cheese sandwich) and a bottle of Leffe beer. The proprietor asked me to take a seat, and I shifted the bag off my back and began jotting down notes about the day.

School children were dropping in to get snacks, college students were stopping for coffee on their way home, working people were buying bread. I kept seeing puffs of smoke rolling out from my right and thought it was from an oven–it turned out to be from two laborers who were smoking at the bar and tossing the butts on the floor.

I ate and drank slowly, savoring it all. I wrote in detail about what I’d seen thus far. I finished and paid my bill accurately and without trouble. With negligible French language skills I had ordered my first meal in a French restaurant and not comported myself like a fool.

I walked down the hill to the Boulevard St. Germain, and went into the “8 a Huit,” a small grocery store across from the Abbatial, and bought a couple “Cocas” (as Cokes are called over there) and a big chocolate bar, then went up to my room, showered again (I am the only person I know who actually uses all the towels they give you in a hotel), and made a brief survey of the TV channnels. Around 10pm I listened to bells from the church across the street and the “air raid”-style police sirens as they went off every fifteen minutes or so, and fell quickly to sleep.

My sleep was sound and dreamless, though I woke for some reason at 3am. I broke open a Coca and started on the candy bar, while snapping pictures of the wet streets outside my windows. The day had started with rain and snow, then moved on to sun and warmth, sudden winds and dark clouds, more rain and snow, then more sun, and so on and so on. I’d even bought an umbrella in a souvenir shop, knocking over a display stand in the process, but never got around to using it. Not even Texas has weather that fickle. Now at 3am snow was pushing its way through the rain again.

Was Fred okay? Was he lonely now? Was he convinced I’d left him forever? I had set up pictures of him on my bedside table. I hated myself for taking this trip. I felt so selfish and just wanted to get the damn thing over with now so I could get back to him.

These fears and second thoughts nagged me every night I was in Paris, though they dissipated each morning. I later learned Fred spent our first evening apart frantically pacing around Jennifer’s house, looking for me. Then after Jennifer had gone to bed he howled mournfully most every hour on the hour until sunrise.

Back in Paris I stared at the rainy streets, then put away my camera and snacks, straightened my bedding, and slipped back into dreamless sleep.

All photos by J.S Bankston; except 'Gypsy' photo by James Delaney

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-03-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

Just to recap. J.S. Bankston went against his 'genetic coding' and took his first plane ride from Austin, Texas to Paris, France. This is the first of many stories from that recent trip.

____________

The Two Loves: The Story of a Trip to Paris

by James Scott Bankston

— Monday, February 27-Tuesday, February 28: Getting There—
I come from a long line of people who didn’t travel. We came here from England between the early 18th and early 19th centuries, landed in the American South, headed west, and pretty much stayed put at whatever point we found ourselves in 1900. To live more than a three hour car journey from where you were born just wasn’t done. Such an idea was crazy talk. Travel was an expensive folly reserved for millionaires–not ordinary folk. Whenever the wife of one of my step-brothers used to drag her family to Europe every few summers, my father would ask her in all seriousness, “Why would you want to go over there? We’ve got all the same stuff here in the United States.”

My father lived to be 65, and as best as I can tell, his journeys outside Texas included a few jaunts to Oklahoma and New Orleans, a school trip he chaperoned to Washington, DC, New York City, and some border towns in Canada, and a late-in-life sweep of the Southwestern states. My mother, who will soon be 64, has flown on only two occasions, both round-trip Houston-to-Dallas flights–once to get married, and another time to buy furniture. My Great-Aunt Maurine was an exception: she was once our “poor relation” until her chain-smoking, over-insured husband died–then she became our “rich aunt.” She spent a good deal of the last decades of her life traveling. I think a few of my step-nephews may have gone overseas in the military, but for the most part, we have all stayed put.

So for me to actually consider taking a trip to Europe this year was nothing short of a rebellion against my genetic coding. Still, my friends James and Nyssa made such a persuasive case for going that I couldn’t help myself. I had the money (just barely). Even my dog-loving friend Jennifer agreed to look after my beloved Fred in my absence (and Fred is always the deal-maker or -breaker in anything I do). Before I knew it I had booked myself a hotel and bought American Airlines tickets with the intention of spending a week in Paris.

I devoted the weeks leading up to my departure studying my dozen or so guidebooks, watching a French movie just about every night, examining Paris maps in detail, listening to language CDs and French music and online broadcasts of Paris radio stations, and printing out a five-inch thick stack of Parisian research from the internet.

I got only four hours of sleep the night before I left because I was busy packing and repacking my bag. I was determined to limit myself to one carry-on, so I’d not have to worry with baggage checking and claims. As a result, I went with only the black pants and blue shirt I was wearing, four pairs of boxer shorts, three pairs of Lycra bike shorts for long walks, four t-shirts, one complete pair of long underwear, one black pullover sweater, a grey and black checked cap, a black leather jacket, eight pairs of socks, one pair of Doc Martens, and one pair of slippers, as well as Ziploc bags of toiletries and other items.

I was filled with excitement and dread-- dread mostly for betraying Fred, my only true friend, leaving him alone in a strange place for a week while I lived like a sultan. In truth I never got over feeling bad about this, and went to bed each night in Paris feeling I’d made a horrible, unforgivable mistake, and hoped the trip would just hurry up and get over with. Each morning I’d feel better, but the feelings would return every night when I got back to my hotel.

Nyssa’s mother Tharelyn drove us to the airport. We had to stop first at Jennifer’s to drop off Fred. All the way down there as I scratched Fred’s neck I felt like I was slashing his throat with a knife. He was too happy to know otherwise.

Fred seemed to take an immediate shine to Jen’s Border Collies Zoe and Truman, and waddled happily around the grounds, sniffing and peeing. Jen mentioned the neighbor dogs had recently come down with kennel cough–that gave me a new thing to worry and obsess about. I stepped in dog shit in the yard and held my legs up while Jen’s ex-husband Darren hosed the shit off my shoes. I got ready to leave, and bent down to give Fred kisses, but he didn’t stick around too long–Jen took the leash and he headed off with her without looking back.

In a way that was a relief. I was expecting a big, emotional send-off, with Fred clawing at the windows of Jen’s house–that sort of thing had happened before. But he seemed happy now, like he was going off for a week at doggie summer camp, so I was able to relax a bit and enjoy myself.

We got to the airport quickly and Tharelyn dropped us off and left. I had hoped she’d stick around in case my bag turned out to be too heavy and I needed to give her some of my excess items. But I got through check-in okay–the bag was just the right size.

This was to be my first-ever airline flight. I wasn’t worried so much about flying as I was about getting through Customs and checking in and making it to the right gate at the right time. But as soon as I got to the security line some fat woman handed me a yellow card that announced I’d been randomly chosen for a second, more thorough security check.

I was separated from my bags, shoes, and outerwear and herded into a glass cage, not unlike a veal-calf feeding pen. James and Nyssa, who’d already gone through security, were standing to one side laughing at me, upset only that they couldn’t take pictures of me in my helpless state. I figured this was what people felt like 300 years ago when they had their hands and feet locked in the stocks.

I resented the hell out of those guards searching my luggage, but they were civil and easy-going about it. I joked that my bag was so tightly-packed that if they opened it it would spring open like a jack-in-the-box, and they took me for my word. My pride ruffled, the guards sprang open the glass door and sent me on my way.

Any illusions I had about the glamour of flying were shattered the moment I stepped on our cramped, rattle-trap plane. Even First Class didn’t look all that impressive to me. What with the tight seating, the shaky movements, and the noise, it seemed to me to be nothing more than an over-priced Greyhound bus.

I had made sure to get aisle seats. (I’m short, but need my leg room.) My seat mate was a tall, lumpy guy who didn’t talk, and who spent his time either sleeping or working on a book of those Japanese number puzzles that are so popular these days. When the plane started up my immediate sensation was that some people were pushing up and down on the wing outside–then I saw we were actually moving. I got slightly alarmed for the few seconds it took for us to lift off, and began praying.

In my left trouser pocket was a rosary blessed by the Bishop of Austin. In the money belt hanging around my neck was an Agnus Dei blessed over half a century ago by Pope Pius XII. And in my right inside jacket pocket was an envelope of photos of Fred. I wasn't taking any chances.

I got really fascinated by everything that was going on and wanted to see everything happening outside, but as soon as we got off the ground my seat mate closed the shutter, so I had to watch everything through the windows across the aisle. Strangely enough, after we got to our normal flying altitude, the view outside became instantly rather commonplace. I felt like I was watching a rather dull movie, and indeed, a feeling of watching a movie, for good or ill, stayed with me for the rest of the trip.

But I think the biggest surprise I had about flying for the first time was how shady and unsteady the process is. I had just assumed that after a century they would've figured out how to make airplanes fly smoothly.

The flight was uneventful. I had a Coke, read the papers, studied my travel notes (I’d brought an inch-thick file of my most vital Paris print-outs), and looked with vague interest at the skyline of Tulsa as we passed over it. But I got very excited when the Pilot announced we were getting ready to land in Chicago.

James, in the seat behind me, intoned, “Bring your seats to the upright and locked position–we are preparing to make our final descent into madness.” I responded, “I’m way ahead of ya there, buddy!”

I was as giddy as a child when I finally could make out cars and trucks on the Chicago highways and see the skyline far off to the east. I thought of that old cop show, “Crime Story,” the opening credits of which included vintage 1950s/1960s footage of planes landing at O’Hare. When we landed safely I felt one more burden lifted: I’d survived the first of my four flights. James, I soon learned, was both surprised and disappointed I'd not had a major freak-out or panic attack during the flight.

I got off the plane and felt the sharp cold biting through the corridor that connected the plane to the terminal. When I walked into the terminal I was greeted by the serious, stony faces of men who looked a lot like police detectives. Who had tipped them off? Then I passed the line of people waiting on friends and family and the chauffeurs holding up signs bearing the names of the people they were to drive. For some reason, I felt rather important walking by this bunch.

J&N apparently waited for everyone else to get off before they got their things out of the overhead compartments, as they didn’t get into the terminal until several minutes after I did. When they spotted me and walked up I had a speech ready: “Welcome to Chicago, the home of Ferris Bueller, Jake and Elwood Blues, Al Capone, John Wayne Gacy, and Henry Darger! My kinda town!”

We walked a hell of a long way to the gate for the Paris flight. Naturally, I took note that while the Austin merely has barbeque and sandwich joints in its airport, O’Hare has a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. I was also tickled to have the chance to buy the “Chicago Tribune” and “Chicago Sun-Times”–the names in the obituaries had such a robust ethnic quality to them. Even the local news seemed interesting, which is never the case in any of the places I’ve ever lived ...

I noticed the travelers gathering around our gate were much better dressed than average Americans. This was definitely the Paris flight. When we boarded we were told the flight wasn’t even close to being full, so that after we attained our regular altitude we’d be free to get up and sprawl over two or three seats if we wished–a plus for anyone who wanted to sleep.

I was rather shocked by the angle and speed and force with which we took off–I was tempted to yell out, “Ramming speed!” It was already night by now, and North Chicago was a gorgeous golden netting of lights beneath us. As I stared with my mouth open, not expecting to be bothered for the next few minutes, someone annoyingly tapped first the top of my head and then my left arm. I was disoriented and looked all around, then James stuck his face around the side of my seat. This so startled and annoyed me I poked my finger out at him to caution him not to surprise me like that, and accidently poked him in the eye. And I’m damned if I know now what it was he wanted to tell me in the first place.

I moved up a few rows and took over two seats. I knew I wasn’t going to try to lay out over three seats. If I could sleep at all, it’d have to be in a seated position. I worked on my print-outs until they turned down the lights and began their programming, which started out with some CBS clips.

Somewhere over Canada I had to rid myself of some carry-on baggage, so to speak. I went into a tiny lavatory that was just as wide and half as long as the bathroom of an efficiency apartment I had in 1992. As I sat there I noticed a huge wall mirror to my left at shoulder level, and realized there are several bodily functions that cause one to make a face so silly and embarrassing one should never see it.

I tried to sleep during the first movie, but the monitors were too bright and the plane was making too damn much noise. (On both of our trans-Atlantic flights we had monitors hanging from the ceiling, not the more modern kind on the backs of each chair.) I tried to listen to music on the in-flight channels–oldies, classical, jazz–then noticed the programming repeated every 90 minutes or so. Clearly they counted on everyone getting to sleep.

One row up in a three-seat section was a French woman with a baby and a rambunctious three-year-old girl that a horse tranquilizer apparently could not take down. (It’s been long-established that everyone in the world has to just suck it up for the wants, needs, entitlements, and peccadilloes of young parents. Nobody else really matters.)

But it wasn’t the child making noise that scared off my last chance at sleep–it was the mother’s strong perfume, which was spread around by all the scurrying and bustling she was doing. (The BBC World Service recently did a report saying a study had found young mothers are not in fact ditzy airheads, but are actually at the peak of mental alertness and intelligence. As much as I respect the BBC, I call bullshit on that finding.)

We were somewhere over the North Sea and I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in two days, so I settled back and watched the Dennis Quaid/Topher Grace workplace comedy “In Good Company,” the language of which had apparently been censored by my Presbyterian Great-Grandmother.

I raised the shutter. Was I seeing icebergs? The tops of clouds? There was just a hint of light out there. This was the only way to start the day. I am by no means a morning person, but if you have to start the day in the morning, then by God do it flying into the sun!

Later on I got a weird feeling and raised the shutter again. We were over Ireland. I felt very peaceful and comfortable knowing that, for some reason, possibly because so many of my friends are Irish. I left the shutter up.

The stewardesses began stirring the passengers and rolling out the breakfast carts. I ate my breakfast with relish and excitement as I watched the clouds glow. The French mother woke her kids and tried to pick up the debris they’d spread all over the plane for the last eight-and-a- half hours. The Pilot announced we’d soon be in Paris, and the mother began singing to her kids a charming little children’s song about going to Paris. Even I, sleep-deprived that I was, found this charming.

No. 20: Name that company

2006-03-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

Hint: This company photo was taken in 1976.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-02-26T21:07:00.000-08:00

One final post from J.S. Bankston before he boards for Paris.

___________________

--Sunday--2/26--
I leave for Paris tomorrow afternoon. Twenty-four hours from now I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic, ideally sawing logs. I am still packing, but wanted to dash a few thousand words off before I left.

I went with traveling companions James and Nyssa to get some last-minute items, including my second and third set of comfort insoles (the first one was a bust), and two extra pair of what I call my "purty black panties," black lycra shorts which James said should minimize chafing while I walk all over Paris. I wore a pair for the first time last week, and I don't believe I've ever had on a piece of clothing more uncomfortable and constricting in my life. I am a boxer-short man all the way. But if it helps me walk better....

We almost had a major trip snafu Friday. J&N have a very cluttered house (think "Grey Gardens"), but they try to set aside important items like passports, stick them in ziploc bags, and thumb-tack them onto their walls, seven or eight feet off the floor (think "Everything is Illuminated"). Well, Friday James discovered Nyssa’s passport was missing. There was no way in hell they could get a replacement by Monday. She rushed home from work in the middle of the day and they tore the house apart before finally finding the passport. It seems when they got back from their last trip last May (from the South of France), Nyssa just tossed her still-packed suitcase into a secret cubbyhole and never thought of it again, and that’s where the passport was.

Nyssa said had she not been able to go that James should still have gone. We all have discounted, non-transferable tickets, so there was no use forfeiting all that money for nothing on both tickets. James said that had it just been me and him going, he would’ve tossed his agenda and followed me around for a week, until I finally beat him to death in an attempt to finally get a little privacy.

J&N say I'll probably be alone about 50% of the time, though I expect it will be more than that, since our agendas, budgets, and traveling strategies differ so much.

J&N always like to sit in the very last row of a plane, even though the seats don't recline. James explained he did this because he goes to the bathroom once an hour on flights and doesn't like to have to step over people. But that doesn't explain the last row thing.

I know when we go to movies they always like to sit in the very last row and stick plugs in their ears against the supposed noise. but I'm uncomfortable back there. I like to go to the movies alone and sit in the third row or maybe the second, dead center, because my eyes and ears are bad, and I enjoy not having people in front of me--it makes me feel like I'm in a private screening room.

I think I hurt James's feelings a bit when I said I was less interested in sitting with him than I was in being comfortable on that long flight, so I arranged to get in the row ahead of him on the aisle, in a reclining seat.

James asked me if I was going to join the "Mile-High Club" during my first flight. I said since I’m not taking a date to Paris that would probably just have to involve a wank in the loo.

J&N got their plane and hotel deal together as part of a package. He kept warning me that every week I put off buying a ticket it would get more expensive, but as it turned out I got my tickets for about the same price as he paid. But I didn't want to pay what his hotel was charging me for a single. James suggested we talk one of our friends into coming over and sharing the room with me, but I didn't like that idea. I decided to find my own hotel.

J&N plan to stay in their hotel a lot. But I'm not paying tons of money to sit in a fucking room and stare at the walls--I want to see Paris! I just need a room to sleep , shave, shower, shit, and store my stuff in. That's it. I'd like to stay in a fancy hotel, but I really don't need to. This is one area where I am willing to cut costs.

I researched this matter for weeks and worked myself into a frenzy. I haven't been so indecisive since I was apartment hunting two years ago. J&N are staying in the Latin Quarter. It would be more convenient if I stayed near them, and there are lots of cool things in that are. But then I started pricing other hotels in other areas....

I narrowed it down to three hotels in the Latin Quarter--The Esmeralda, the Marignan, and the Hotel du Commerce--all of which were just a few blocks from J&N at the Hotel Abbatial St. Germain. I was also looking at a hostel, the "Young & Happy," about 15 minutes south of J&N. I figured that since I am neither young nor happy a week in that place would generate tons of stories. Plus, I want to meet people--Parisians, young travelers from all over the world.

James and I are both huge germaphobes, but our conditions manifest themselves in different ways. He hates spending money, but has stayed in enough bad hostels that he refuses to do it again, regardless of the savings they provide.

I had suggested we rent an apartment. The total for three of us would've been cheaper than it would've been at hotels. James said they normally do that if they stay more than a week, but that he'd already reserved their hotel rooms.

What was throwing me was reading the online reviews of these hotels and hostels from former guests. (This also slowed me up when I was apartment-hunting.) James said if a hotel got a bad review, it was no doubt written by a complaining sore-head. He was more likely to believe a bad review of a hostel, and added that if a positive hostel review contained no specific details, it was probably a puff piece written by the staff.

My first choice, though, was the Hotel Esmeralda, which was built in 1640. Some guests think it a filthy dump, while others regard it as romantic, like an artist's garret. It's about five minutes from the front door of Notre-Dame (some people use the chimes as their wake-up call), and a block from Shakespeare &Co. Chet Baker stayed there, as did Terrence Stamp and Sophia Loren, and Serge Gainsbourg nailed Jane Birkin there, so that's plenty hipster cred for me.

The problem is that "The Guardian" profiled this place some time back, so now it's gotten popular, and all the websites and guidebooks warned that you needed to book a room three to five months in advance. I didn't have that kind of time, but I was hoping the fact I was traveling in the off-season would help me, along with the fact the riots in Paris have been scaring off tourists.

So I finally decided to call. I haven't been so nervous about making a phone call since that disastrous time I asked that girl out to senior prom, 24 years ago. (This was only my second overseas call.) I tried the number, only to be told I couldn't bill it to my number. I needed a calling card, which I don't have. Eventually the operator connected me, and I forgot my lines: "Bon jour, monsieur. Parlez-vous Anglais?"

But I conveyed to the desk clerk that I wanted their cheapest single room (about $41 a night, with a sink in the room and the bathroom down the hall, but no view) for seven nights. He told me to fax him the request and my credit card number for security. I did that later in the day, and had the guy leave me a message on my answering machine as confirmation. (I think they have internet access in the lobby for guests, but the hotel doesn't have an e-mail address.)
I just hope I don’t freeze my ass off. The weather report for the next week forecasts colder weather than I’ve ever had to deal with down here in the tropics.

I've written down all the hours for all the sites and shops I want to visit, using the most up-to-date guidebooks. (I have about a dozen.)

But as I've been saying, it sounds like J&N and I aren't going to spend a lot of time together. One problem is that they apparently have an aversion to French food, based mainly on one bad experience in Paris a few years ago that didn't taste very good. James also refuses to eat any beef in Europe, out of fear of contracting Mad Cow Disease.

James regaled me with horror stories about rude waiters, and being forced to sit in the tourist sections of restaurants and order off the shitty, over-priced tourist menus. "You've never been intimidated until you've dealt with a French waiter." When I heard this I laughed and said, "First, the French have never pitted their national will against that of Bankston, and second, that's a moot point anyway, since the French and I are gonna get along great. Apart from their hairy-arm-pitted women and their aversion to bathing, I think the French and I are quite simpatico."

And if I don't eat out in the restaurants of Paris I see no reason to bother going. James says, "We just prefer to save our money for museum entrance fees. You know--cultural things." To which I replied in horror, "French food IS French culture! You can't know France without knowing the food!" So I will probably be eating alone.

Also, Nyssa apparently likes to sleep ten hours a night. James sleeps eight, retiring an hour after her and getting up an hour before. (Now at home I like to sleep as much as I can, often more than ten hours, but then again, I have no reason to be awake.) So I guess for her to get up at 7am, she'll have to retire at 9pm, which pretty much kills the idea of going anywhere at night. (I think she's willing to make an exception for the late hours on Wednesday at the Louvre.) and James says that the longer a trip goes on, the more tired they get and the later they sleep.

Generally, James gets up early and goes to the corner grocery store and buys food, they eat in their hotel and make sandwiches for lunch (or for lunch they'll either get paninis from a street vendor or eat at a fast-food place like McDonald's of the French chain "Flunch"). They go see one main site in the morning, then go back to the hotel at noon, go out to see a site in the afternoon, then go back to the hotel, and really don't do much in the evening other than look at what they acquired that day, and make plans for the next day.

This will not work for me. I plan to sleep no more than six hours a night, get up early and watch the sun rise over Paris, maybe take in a Mass at some cool old church. For the week I intend to make myself a regular at my neighborhood cafe, and have my coffee and crossaint, and read the paper and chat as best I can. I will probably get out and start shopping and sight-seeing a lot earlier than J&N--if nothing else, the churches open a lot earlier than the museums--and will likely meet them at the first big attraction of the day.

He does want to still go to the Buddha Bar for his birthday, but it sounds like the absinthe pub crawl is off. He wants to buy a bottle and drink it in his room. I said that pretty much kills any chance of my getting an article out of the absinthe quest, because drinking in the hotel room is boring to me.

So most of the nightlife end of this trip will also be done by me alone. I may or may not go to the Opera, but I will probably hit a few jazz or chanson clubs. There are at least three movie theatres in my neighborhood that specialize in showing old classic films, one of which used to be managed by Francois Truffaut, and another located just a block from my hotel. And there is to be a performance on Friday at St. Eustache Church of Mozart’s "Requiem." That’s be a great way to celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday.

Transportation seems to be another problem. J&N like to walk everywhere, saying that if you take taxis or the Metro you often miss the shops and sites and photo ops you encounter when on foot. I said that is a good point, but if it comes down to it and I have to choose between walking and possibly seeing cool, obscure things and missing key sites, and taking cabs or the metro, missing the obscure things, and seeing the major ones, I'll go with the latter.

James wailed, "But every time you step into a cab it costs you $20!" I shrugged, "I'm used to that. Every time I get into a cab here it costs me $20, and that only takes me to fucking downtown Austin. At least a cab in Paris would take me to some place cool!"

God, I hope we don't fucking kill each other over there. James says that he and Nyssa have a rule, a blanket amnesty policy that extends from the Austin Airport on the way out to the Austin Airport on the way in. They know there will be set-backs, problems, tempers losts, ugly words, and so forth, but whatever happens in Europe stays in Europe. I said that sounds like an excellent policy, since I'm already so prone to be an asshole anyway.

I voiced my concerns to James one day as we ran errands. He said he was mostly pulling my chain, that he often vows that he'll spend his vacations taking it easy, but he never follows through. He also said his mother-in-law got onto him, telling him to stop playing up my fears and worries (like telling me there's a 100% chance I'll get diarrhea from the stress of traveling). But I don't know what to believe. I still think I'll be going it alone much of the time.

I had never been to a travel agent before this trip. I was waited on by a delightfully opinionated British woman in her 30s (much too old for me), and we had a great conversation about performance art, and some of the stranger artists around today, like Damien Hirst. She talked about going to a museum and seeing a piece of art (I think it involved feces flung against the wall) that caused her "to fall to the goddamn floor," though I am unsure if this was because she was laughing, or horrified, or made ill, or what. Her "mates" had to pick her up and help her outside.

My only quibble with her was that I stated firmly and categorically I did not want to pay more than 50 or 60 Euros a night for a hotel room, and would gladly take a hostel or a hotel with the bathroom down the hall, if that's what it took, yet she still kept mentioning places that were pricier. I said I wanted to save my money for shopping and the French food.

Afterwards, I told James that although she had been to Paris before and I hadn't, I got the distinct impression I knew more about Paris, it's layout, hotel, restaurants, etc., than she did. "But after all," I added, "I have no job. All I've been doing for weeks is reading Parisian guidebooks and studying maps."

She recommended pain au chocolat, a sort of chocolate-filled croissant, saying, "It's perfect for elevensies." James and I were giggling about this outside: "Elevensies?! I only thought hobbits ate elevensies!"

Anyway, I took the plunge and bought my plane tickets. I've never been on a plane before, and apparently this is such a long trip it'll earn me all kinds of frequent-flier miles.

James said he's found it fascinating to watch me prepare for the trip. He prepares for a trip hardly at all, his wife and mother-in-law prepare somewhat more, but he's never seen anyone prepare on the scale that I have. He says I seem to be researching not only the places I want to see, but all places, so I can know what I don't need to see on this trip. I said I just want to get it right, and leave a lot of room for spontaneity, but that I didn't want to be like the school-marmish, kill-joy travel guru Rick Steves (who someone on a message board once brilliantly said is so dull and white bread he makes Ned Flanders seem like Scott Wieland). Steves is the kind of guy who has a rigorous schedule, yet advises travelers to "Set aside a couple hours every day in your schedule for spontaneous fun."

If my plane is shot down out of the sky by the "tare-ists," think of me now and then and send a few bucks to a Basset Hound rescue organization.

Bonsoir.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-02-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

This is not fiction. J.S. Bankston is headed to Paris.

----------------

Contes d'un Grand Homme de l'Interieur
The other day I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by my dog Fred, who was standing over me, staring anxiously down, cheeks puffing in and out, preparing to vomit. I tried to sit up and at least get out of the way, but his toenails were stuck in my T-shirt, and every time I tried to sit up I was pulled back down.

Finally I extricated myself, and lowered him down to the floor. He was in a delicated state for the rest of that day.

He was genuinely sick that day, but for the last few weeks he's been acting oddly. He's been brooding. He's been annoyed. He knows that something's up.

At the end of this month, I, who seldom leave my apartment if I can help it, who even puts off checking his mailbox most days, am stepping outside, getting into an airplane for the first time in my 42 years, and am spending a week in Paris, from February 28th to March 7th. See, I'm not a hermit and a recluse after all--not really. I just have to have a really good reason to go anywhere.

My friend James recently sold one of his domain names for a tidy amount, so he wants to celebrate his birthday in the City of Lights. I am about to run out of the savings I've been living off of for the past year, and I would hate to think that I spent all that money only within a half-mile of my front door. If I have to go back to being broke and working more dead-end, spirit-crushing jobs that have nothing to do with my writing skills, then by God I at least want to have some memories of the Good Times. So a trip to Paris seems the thing to do.

But I took a great deal of convincing. My mom, for instance, will shit a Miada if she ever learns about this trip, so I've somehow got to keep it a secret from her. A friend told me that taking this trip was a bad idea, at least until I get a few job-related business trips out of the way first. But everyone else I know has encouraged me to go.

A few of my former students went to study abroad last August, and one is still over there. He's based out of Barcelona, but he's also been to Madrid, Rome, Venice, Amsterdam, and Paris. His e-mailed accounts of his travels really whetted my appetite.

And then of course there's my former Citysearch copyeditor, Seth Sherwood, who's a big shot travel writer for the Washington Post and New York Times now. He's based out of Paris and I envy the shit out of his lifestyle.

James and his wife Nyssa go to Europe every summer for about a month. Her parents usually rent a house or an apartment over there. They did the south of France last year, Venice the year before that, and Paris in 2003. When J&N arrived at the airport, her parents, Howard and Tharelyn, who had arrived a week before to set the house up and establish a beach-head, greeted them by saying, "Bankston would love it here. We'd never be able to drag him away." I do not doubt it.

(Now James is trying to talk me into going with them to Rome in May. They've already bought their tickets, and the rental apartment, located by Santa Maria Maggiore, reportedly has a terrace. I said if I did go to Rome--I don't know how in hell I could afford to do that too--I would stay with them about a week, at least long enough to attend a Wednesday Papal audience, then take off on my own across Europe, at very least hit Paris, see my Dutch friend Tobias in Amsterdam, then fly out of London. But I'm not holding my breath that I can do that. And I guess Venice, Vienna, and Berlin will have to wait for another time.)

Of course my chief worry is Fred. He's 14 and we've spent less than 14 nights apart in the 10 years we've lived together. We are deeply, co-dependently attached to one another. He has a fit when I'm away for more than eight hours at a stretch. He began pissing the rugs in annoyance in 2004 when I had a part-time job.

I have tortured myself imagining how Fred will take my being away for a week, afraid he'll forget me, or feel so depressed he'll give up his will to live. But everyone has assured me it'll be okay, that he'll handle it well. I was going to leave Fred with my vet friend Tree, but she's not always home. Fortunately my friend Jennifer works from home, and has two Border Collies she keeps inside and walks and plays with frequently, and she's willing to take care of Fred. I am sure he'll enjoy getting to play with some other dogs for a change--I just hope all goes well during the week.

Of course the reunion on the night of the 7th should be something to behold. It'll be like the slow-motion ending of a "Lassie" movie.

Yes, I am 42 years of age and have never been in an airplane. Many people assume that this is because I'm afraid to fly, but actually, it's because I've never had the opportunity. When you're a kid you travel where your parents go, and my parents weren't big on traveling and my mom was afraid of flying. And after I left home I never had enough money to go anywhere.

I am not so much worried about the fact I'm a citizen of the most hated nation on earth, a nation that's too worried about being politically correct and not offending anybody that it won't do searches of suspicious-looking people at airports. Nor am I worried I will be hurtling thousands of miles above the ground in a highly-flammable tin can. No, the things I'm sweating over are the long-ass flight, in tight seats, and getting to the right place in the airport at the right time. I'm very worried about dealing with baggage carousels and losing my luggage. I plan to take one carry-on on the way over, though I expect I'll have to buy another bag over there for my purchases.

So on Monday, February 27, I'll drop off Fred, leave Austin at 1:41pm, arrive at O'Hare at 4:16, leave there at 6:05, and arrive at Charles DeGaulle on Tuesday the 28th at 9:20am. I'll probably take the Metro into Paris, find my hotel or hostel, shower, then go out to greet the city. I'll leave Paris on Monday, March 7th at 2:25pm, arrive at O'Hare at 4:50, and will ideally get through Customs in time to catch my 6:32pm flight which lands in Austin at 9:20pm, soon after which I will re-united with Fred.

We will have exactly seven days. J&N did most of the touristy things the last time they were in Paris, but they want to take it easier this time, even though there are places they want to revisit. James is saving his money for over-priced drinks at the Buddha Bar and other hip joints. He also wants to seek out some absinthe. I might write an article about the latter and try to shop it around.

James says his big thing to see in Europe is churches, and they usually devote the rest of their time to historical museums and art museums at a 50/50 split. James says I would dig the catacombs tour, but strangely enough, I would rather check out the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysees. James is not a big cemetery-goer, but I intend to go see the ones in Montmartre (Truffaut's there, along with Nijinsky and Careme) and Montparnasse (Baudelaire, Sartre, Beckett, Cioran, Cortazar, Duras, de Maupassant, Henri Langlois, and Serge Gainsbourg are there), then Pere-Lachaise if there's time (to see Balzac, Proust, Oscar Wilde, and the Lizard King).

James has no interest in the Pantheon, even though that's right by where we're staying, but I'll have to go in and pay my respects to Zola, Hugo, and Dumas pere. (Okay, I just got off the phone with James and he's willing to see Pere-Lachaise. He was a little surprised I have an agenda for the cemeteries. He just thought I'd walk in and look around, whereas I actually want to look specific people up, maybe put flowers on their graves, and so forth.)

Okay, here is my Paris travel agenda:
--Tuesday--February 28th--
Arrive, go through Customs, take the Metro into town, check into my hotel, shower, then hit Notre-Dame, St. Chappelle (noted for its walls of stained glass), Shakespeare & Company bookstore, St. Julien-le-Pauvre, maybe the Pantheon, and a few other sites in the Latin Quarter, then get to bed fairly early. (We're going to be based in the Latin Quarter, but in separate hotels.) There's a concert commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of Michael Haydn, brother of Franz Joseph, at Notre-Dame at 8:30pm, but I don't know if we'll make it.

--Wednesday--March 1st--
Get up early, go to the Ash Wednesday Mass at Notre-Dame, then spend the day at the Louvre, since it's open until 9:45pm on Wednesdays.

--Thursday--March 2nd--
We are unlikely to get to all the things on today's agenda, but I have so much wiggle room during the other days I should be able to see all these things sooner or later. We'll go to St. Sulpice Church and (more importantly for me) the religious antique stores nearby, the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal, walk past the Graceland of France, the graffiti-covered home of Serge Gainsbourg, then go to Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides and maybe the War Museum there, the Eiffel Tower, the Musee de Homme at the Palais de Chaillot, and maybe the Balzac house museum (where I should be offered a job as a tour guide because of my resemblance to the great author).

--Friday--March 3rd--
I expect we'll start at the Musee d'Orsay to see the Impressionists, then go to the Arc d'Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees, maybe tour La Madeleine Church and the old Garnier Opera (where the Phantom hangs out), stroll through the Place Vendome, then cut through Beauberg and the Marais neighborhoods, before winding up at the Canal St. Martin. We'll probably have dinner up there.

--Saturday--March 4th--
We'll hit Eglise St. Augustin, stroll around Montmartre, tour Sacre Coeur Church, the Montmartre Cemetery, check out the Erik Satie apartment museum (one room--reportedly the smallest museum on earth, so that shouldn't take long to see), and rue Caulaincourt (where a lot of the action in "The 400 Blows" takes place), then maybe take in the Art and Crafts Museum, which has lots of models and gadgets showing how things work. Since J&N don't like modern art, I may spend the afternoon alone, checking out the Musee Picasso and the Pompidou Centre.

--Sunday--March 5th--
I'll try to find a church with a really great musical program for the morning. After that I want to go to Montparnasse Cemetery. James wants me to go to the Catacombs. Then we'll go to the grand Mosque for some mint tea in the garden. I may also go for a sauna and massage there, since the "hammam" is open to men that day. And anyway, after all that damn walking I will certainly be sore, so I can think of no better cure than to let a Middle Easterner in a pair of Joe Namath slingshot briefs have his way with me for three or four hours.

--Monday--March 6th--
J&N are not big cemetery people, but are willing to go with me to Pere-Lachaise. After that I may hit the Jardin Des Plantes, the zoo, and the Natural History Museum. This should be my big mop-up day, where I'll try to catch up on anything I missed. I have a feeling I'll be getting a lot of taxis this day. At night we're going on one of those cruises of the Seine, which are admittedly touristy, but also beautiful.

And of course there's the nightlife. James wants to celebrate his birthday at the Buddha Bar. I'd like to hit some jazz and/or chanson clubs. Our first night in town is the last night for a Robert Wilson production of "Madame Butterfly" at the Bastille Opera, and "Rigoletto" is playing there most of the rest of the week. There's several restaurants I want to try, including one of the famous literary cafes--most likely the Deux Magots--and such country French eateries as Chez Denise and Chez Robert et Louise.

I'd also like to go to a movie, ideally at the legendary Cinematheque Francaise, although it's recently moved from its old home in the Pallais de Chaillot to a Frank Gehry building over in the east part of town. And my old Citysearch copywriter, Seth Sherwood will be busy writing (just coming back from the Middle East and on his way to the US), but he promises we'll have a big night out.

And let's not forget the shopping. We all want to go by the Muji stationery store, as well as the trippy Deyrolle taxidermy shop.

I've never been to a Virgin Megastore, so I want to go to the one on the Champs-Elysees, and I'd like to check out one of the huge old department stores (La Samaritaine is closed indefinitely for repairs), and the old "passages" that Walter Benjamin found so fascinating, that were the forerunners to today's malls. And of course there are the bookstores: Shakespeare and Company, Le Hune, Gibert Jeune, the Red Wheelbarrow, 7L (Karl Lagerfeld's place), and the WH Smith by the Louvre.

(In the next installment, I settle on a hotel, planning, technique, and scheduling problems emerge, and delightful discoveries are made.)

No. 19: Name that celebrity

2006-02-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

submitted by tj1972

"I Saw" No. 114

2006-01-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

The following took place at Rick's (home of the Tuesday half-price burgers) at 6:42pm.

A petite woman, face draped by a hoodie, walks into the open-style, small tavern, alone, wearing sneakers, jeans, and a snug, hip-length white shirt. She heads straight back to the restroom as three female bartenders gather and whisper. Hoodie woman then types into a Sidekick as she stops before going into the restroom. Minutes later, she comes out, head down, and leaves.

Half the bar thought the staff was talking about some person who just came in to use the restroom without asking. The other half knows it was Paris Hilton.

Three covers I heard and thought, "I like that"

2006-01-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

"Thunder Road" (Bruce Springsteen) - Tortoise and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy off The Brave and The Bold (always loved the line 'You ain't a beauty/But, hey, you're alright/Oh, and that's alright with me')

"The Best of All Possible Worlds" (Kris Kristofferson) - Eddie Spaghetti off The Sauce

"Ride Me Down Easy" (Billy Joe Shaver) - Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis off Compadre

__________

**Bonus Non-Cover

"Waco Moon" - Todd Snider

This song appears on same album as "Ride Me Down Easy." Billy Joe Shaver's longtime guitarist, Eddy, was also his son. Eddy overdosed on New Year's Eve 2000. This song's about him, the overdose, and it ends with a few poignant lines from Shaver's "I'm Just An Old Lump Of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be A Diamond Someday)."

My two cents ...

2006-01-26T22:06:00.000-08:00

James Frey wrote great fiction.

It didn't sell.

Years passed.

Someone offered to buy it as truth.

It sold.

James Frey wrote great fiction.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2006-01-25T18:03:00.000-08:00

J.S. Bankston returns from San Antonio with a post.

_________

Nyssa, James's wife, was given two paid days off as a Christmas present from her bosses, so she decided she'd spend December 28th going to San Antonio with me and James.

On the way south down I-35, they wanted to look at and price steel shipping containers, but were unable to find any. These are the big boxcar-like structures used to store things that are shipped on freighters and such-like. J&N want to buy one to put out on their ranch to handle their storage overflow. If that proves successful, they may encourage such storage-challenged friends as me to put storage containers out there too.

Our first stop in SA was the McNay Art Institute, which is housed in the 1920s Spanish-style mansion of the late socialite Marion Koogler McNay. The structure has always been one of my model dream houses. It looks like something a silent movie star would've built. Arranged around a huge courtyard, it has all sorts of cool spaces, a tower, galleries and balconies, tilework, and so forth. It was designed by Atlee and Robert Ayres, architects I mentioned in a recent blog.

We went through a few galleries containing Mrs. McNay's Monets, Renoirs, Van Goghs, etc. (what the hell happened to those Picasso collages that used to be there?), then went into the special exhibition halls to see what we'd specifically come for: a traveling show of Pre-Raphaelite art—paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, engravings, jewelry, furniture, and much more, even a copy of William Morris's “Kelmscott” edition of “The Canterbury Tales.” Everything there was exquisite. Twenty years ago I decided if I ever got rich I'd collect Pre-Raphaelite art, but I never got rich, and the market blew wide open. I hear Andrew Lloyd-Webber has the world's foremost collection of Pre-Raphaelite art now.

I never thought of the McNay as a large museum, but it took us two hours to get through the regular collections and special exhibits, by which time we were very hungry. We went to Earl Abel's, the legendary 72-year-old eatery that I recently learned is soon to be bulldozed to make way for a fucking condo tower. My family and I used to eat there when I was a child, after visits to the zoo, the Witte Museum, or Playland amusement park. I rediscovered the place in adulthood, and since I have a neurotic level of nostalgia for the past that, as I've said before, would put Charles Foster Kane to shame, I was gutted by the news the restaurant was closing.

I will admit that the place is Hell's Waiting Room to some extent, due to the advanced age of most of the patrons, but the food is delicious, the portions are large, the service is excellent, and the building is one of the finest examples of “Googie” architecture in Texas (though the interior is now more 1960s than 1950s).

We waited about 45 minutes in the crowded foyer, chatting with other customers. I knew the place was closing soon, but these others told me December 31st is the last day. We had great people-watching that hour, including a mob of old ladies from a “red hat club.”

Although I wasn't in the mood for fried chicken, I knew the restaurant was famous for its chicken. When Colonel Harland Sanders first started up KFC, he went around to established restaurants around the country and convinced the owners, Earl Abel among them, to sell chicken made to his recipe. Later Earl came up with his own recipe.

I ordered two breasts, and damned if that was not the best chicken I ever ate, lacking all the bitter sections or gristle or other crap that usually gets in the way when one eats chicken. J&N were so hungry they wanted an appetizer, and decided to share a slice of chocolate icebox pie before they got their main course. The waitress thought this a bit odd, and I admitted, “Well, the part of the country I'm from we have dessert after we eat, so I'll probably get pie later.” then turning to James I said, “Now I realize I'm not a big believer in delaying gratification, but there are limits.” James responded to this by feigning masturbation under the table.

But sadly, the chicken and taters and dinner salad filled me up so much I had no room for dessert. James said his happiest memory of Earl Abel's (I'd taken him there before) would be the time he ate his dessert first. I took a bunch of pictures, tipped the waitress 33% for old time's sake, thanked the cashier for all the good times, and left heartfelt encomiums in the guest book they had set up for the restaurant's final weeks.

From there we went to the SA Central Library, where we caught the last hour of the daily book sale. This is a staple of the visits J&N and I make to SA, but one of the strange attractions of the sale, apart from the books, are two of the volunteers who work there, an old married couple who argue bitterly with one another in front of the customers and patrons. After that circus I wandered the building, taking photos and re-taking others that I took last spring and that the fuck-wits at the camera store accidentally erased.

The library is one of the most amazing contemporary structures I've ever been in, and the handling of light, color, space, and volume is such that no one entering the building can fail to be infused with joy. From there we headed downtown, intent on seeing the traveling exhibition, “St. Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes,” at the Convention Center. What none of realized, though, was that the nearby Alamodome was hosting a major basketball game between some colleges from Michigan and Nebraska. I have never before seen and am unlikely to ever see again so many white-bread, honkey mother-fuckers in downtown San Antonio, all dressed in either red or blue, like the Crips and Bloods of the Heartland, whooping, cheering, making team-related noises, and heading east in endless clottings.

Traffic was a bitch, but we actually found a parking place pretty quickly. J&N and I got a little caught up in the atmosphere, and I led them in a few verses of “It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!”

The exhibition was fascinating, with artifacts from Roman times, charts, maps, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, documents, well-preserved vestments, dazzling chalices and other liturgical materials, the first map ever drawn of Australia, a full-scale replica of the tomb of St. Peter, located in a mock-up of the Vatican catacombs, and another mock-up of the Sistine Chapel as it looked when Michaelangelo was painting it, complete with scaffolds and tarps.

But oddly enough, I was most interested in the items from the last 200 years. There was newsreel footage of my favorite Pope, Pius XII. One of the things about Pius I like is that during his reign a lot of post-cards and photos were produced with composite images of him superimposed alongside St. Peter's, but at least twice as tall as the dome. These photos make him look like a Papal Godzilla getting ready to stomp Vatican City into pieces.

They had the tiny slippers of John XXIII (Odd, since he looked like such a stout guy). There was a gold hammer used in the past to tap on the bed-ridden Pope's skull to ascertain if he was dead or alive, and then to crush his Papal ring if it was the former. There was an elaborate prie-dieux of inlaid wood that had belonged to Leo XIII, that I immediately recognized from an antique post-card I have of Leo's bedroom.

This show was put together in John Paul II's lifetime, and included many items pertaining to him. I was struck by how small his vestments were—he also seemed like such a large man—especially in his earlier years. The last exhibit you'd see before you left was a cast of his hand in bronze, which visitors were encouraged to touch and examine. Again, his hand was quite small.

I was struck most by a glass-and-tin Communion set that had been made by prisoners in a World War II prisoner of war camp, and by the bent pastoral cross John Paul always carried in public, especially on his foreign trips. It was, as James pointed out, much more powerful an item than the other gaudy, bejewelled things in the show, by virtue of its simplicity, if nothing else.

After this I went to prowl the gift shop and buy a show catalogue. They had a fairly predictable selection of merchandise: posters, coffee mugs, books by John Paul II, rosaries, crucifixes, and holy cards, and a stack of lavishly-illustrated Bibles---Protestant Bibles, that lacked the seven books that are part of every Catholic Bible. We took only about 90 minutes to see the Papal exhibition, so we had plenty of time to kill. The hoop fans were still mobbing the streets; we fought through them trying to get to St. Joseph's Church—we were going to photograph the statues and stained glass, but the door was locked. Nyssa suggested the Alamo.

We walked the block over to Alamo Plaza, and I took them through the Menger Hotel, since they'd heard me talk about it a lot, but had never been in there. They picked up a major “Shining”/ “Overlook Hotel” vibe there, and said they could easily imagine a younger version of me riding a Big Wheel through the empty hallways.

After that we went back out into the Plaza. Night had fallen, and several Hispanic families were playing football in front of the Alamo under the watchful eyes of a State Trooper. (There's a lesson to be drawn from that image, but I'm too lazy to think what it could be.) We walked down several downtown streets, and took more pictures. Nyssa suggested we go look at the Riverwalk, but James didn't want to, though we did get some great shot of the Riverwalk Christmas lights from a street-level bridge.

We had dinner at Schillo's German deli, but I was unable to finish. For most of this year I've only been eating one meal a day, even though that's not reduced my weight any. We went back to the car, and stopped by Half-Price Books, where at last-call I was approached by a chummy Japanese gentleman who complained that when he goes shopping at a bookstore he loses all track of time—he looks up and finds the sun has gone down and they're closing up, but that when he shops with his wife time drags one and on and on.

We went back to Earl Abel's on our way out of town. We didn't go inside—we just took pictures of the neon-lit exterior. Once I got home I was less than impressed with the night shots I'd gotten. The only decent ones I took were those I'd used a timer on. James just showed me how to do that today, and I'm still getting the hang of it. The other night photos looked fuzzy.

I pondered running across the street to get some full-length shots with my tripod. James said if I didn't do it tonight I'd never get another chance. So I went across, and while I was snapping away, a car slowed down as it made a right turn, and the people inside waved and cheered at me for getting a permanent chronicle of the old landmark before it's torn down.

James and Nyssa and I had just driven into the Austin city limits when we passed a self-storage place, marked by a tall electronic sign with red lights that sent ads, messages, and slogans in a crawl from right to left. I shouted, “What the hell was that?! That self-storage place just flashed a message that said, 'Live the Dream!' What the hell does that mean?” James and Nyssa began howling and crying and James managed to spit out, “Yeah, live the dream. Get divorced by your wife, and have to move into some shitty apartment and put all your stuff in a tiny storage facility that costs three times what it's worth a month!” Nyssa, fortunately, recovered quickly enough to get one more look at the sign before it passed out of view: “Uh, guys? Apparently, the 'Live the Dream' is just something wishing luck to UT in the Rose Bowl.”

[Earl Abel's is closing its doors forever at 1am on March 15th. I'm debating whether I should go down there for that.]

**Lead photo by James Delaney; additional photos by J.S. Bankston

GUEST POST: "I Saw"

2006-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

This was sent in by Anonymous (aka ILovedMary-KateAndAshleyBeforeAnyOfYou).
________

I was at a small bar attached to a trendy restaurant near downtown Houston on Friday night. It was around midnight and the after-dinner crowd had thinned, leaving only a dozen or so people in the bar. I ordered a Chimay and while waiting for my drink noticed a joyously elfin man posing for pictures with various camera phone-toting patrons. A tallish blonde leaned on the bar near him and a tall guy with long dark hair hovered nearby. My beer arrived and I asked the bartender who the apparent celeb was and was delighted to learn that it was Lars Ulrich, legendary drummer/leader of Metallica. I chatted with my companions and casually watched Lars as he generously talked to his fans and enjoyed the company of his friends. Quite amazingly, whenever he posed for a picture, he assumed a rock-and-roll posture, complete with contorted face, tongue out and appropriate hand gestures -- the consummate entertainer.

Not content to gawk, I decided that I wanted a bit of interaction with Mr. Ulrich. Not being one to particularly value autographs or photos, I decided to go for a shared chuckle. Armed with my Windows Mobile SmartPhone, I quickly Googled Lars and was able to pull up a picture of the heavy metal icon backstage somewhere, standing nude with some other rockers. I figured a good way to get some face time would be to show him the photo. When the blonde went to the restroom, I moved in.

I opened with, "Hey, is this you standing nekked backstage?"
"Let me see that," he responded, followed with, "That's a riot. Where'd you get that?"
"Just found it on my phone; pretty funny, eh?" I countered.
"You know who that guy is next to me, right?" he queried.
"It's too small on here, I can't really tell," I lied, even if it was an 8"x10" portrait, I doubt my heavy metal knowledge would have revealed much.
"It's the singer for Iron Maiden. That guy's a trip," he answered.
"Ha, pretty cool. You guys are crazy," I replied.

We shared a bit more small talk until I saw the blonde approaching. We shook hands and bid each other goodnight.

Before leaving the bar, I learned who the blonde was. Turns out, it was Connie Nielsen, the only female cast-member of The Gladiator.

I wasn't able to find a naked picture of her on my phone, though.

No. 18: Name that celebrity

2006-01-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

submitted by tj1972

Jingle this

2006-01-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Lenny Kravitz recorded a song (ad) for Absolut. Jack White recorded a song (ad) for Coke.

Rather than hear my words on this, here are their words.

Lenny Kravitz on the Absolut ad:
" [I was] inspired by the brand's core values of clarity, simplicity and perfection. There's nothing more simple, clear or perfect than the essence of true love ... Once I felt that, the track just came." - press release

Jack White on the Coke ad:
"I've written a song and I wrote it really quickly. It's an interesting commercial that's been made. I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange. [But] to be asked to write something particular along one theme of love in a worldwide form that I'm not really used to appealed to me." - NME.com

___________

"Breathe" (Absolut ad) - Lenny Kravitz

Rare, Rare Find: Jon Dee Graham

2006-01-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

I am going to try to follow my own advice on this one.

Sounds Like: Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen

The Story: After a stint with Austin punk band the Skunks, Jon Dee Graham joined brothers Javier and Alejandro Escovedo in the early roots-rock band, the True Believers. Got a major label contract. Had some success. Released a Jim Dickinson-produced album. Fought and broke-up. This was the mid-80s.

He stuck around L.A. Played with folks like John Doe and even had a song ("One Moment to Another") recorded by Patty Smyth that went gold.

In the mid-90s, burnt out, he came to Austin and quietly got to work as a carpenter ... until Kelly Willis lured him back as her guitarist.

Skip ahead to now. He's released four critically acclaimed solo albums including his latest, The Great Battle. And if you live in Austin, you might even be tired of hearing his name. You're lucky if you are.

_______

The True Believers are said to reunite and hit the road with Los Lobos - just like they did in 1986. For years, Graham and Alejandro Escovedo were not on speaking terms. I interviewed Escovedo during that time at his home in South Austin. After a couple of hours of talking and as he was walking me out, the topic of No Depression magazine's recognition of him as the "Artist of the Decade" came up. He said, funny story about that. When Graham heard about Escovedo's honor, his response was: 'Thank God the decade's almost over.' Escovedo half-laughed as he told me.

When my interview published, Escovedo reprinted it on his website. It was a long, rambling, 2,000-plus word piece. It needed editing. The part Escovedo choose to cut: the final paragraph where I retold his Graham/No Depression story.

_______

Enjoy.

"Something To Look Forward To" off The Great Battle
"Majesty of Love" off The Great Battle

No. 17: Name that celebrity

2006-01-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

submitted by tj1972

Writing about Coldplay is like dancing about architecture

2006-01-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Most interviews with musicians don't serve a purpose.

Give me two simple things: sounds like [insert known reference point] and any story behind a song. Then step back, and let me listen. I have a similar philosophy for my bartenders.

What I can't stand? Musicians who say 'our music is hard to describe. It really doesn't sound like anything.'

Give me any song, 10 minutes, and I'll chart a 'six degrees of separation' that doesn't lead back to Kevin Bacon.

The second unbearable? Musicians who don't give a straight answer to a sincere question.

Here's a story. Coldplay plays Austin City Limits. Prior to performing, they hold a press conference for what appears to be young, eager-to-learn reporters. Not professionals.

One scribe asks - 'Where'd you get the name Coldplay?' A band member responds, sincerely, 'We stole it.' And then, a not-so-sincere Chris Martin chimes in, 'Yeah, we saw a band walking down the street with the name and [insert condescending comment].'

Next question. And thus, the kid's left with a what-the-fuck? expression.

The clip below includes this scene along with one of Martin saying, at the end of an official interview, something about Austin City Limits, like KCRW, shares the band's ideals and so they are happy to come and [insert sincere sounding comment].

Early Dylan was one of the worst criminals of this.

Click on exclusive 1o-minute video here.

__________

**True origin of the name, found on Coldplay's site:

"Chris, Jonny, Wil & Guy were called "Starfish" originally and their friends were called "Coldplay". When they didn’t want the name anymore, "Starfish" asked if they could use it instead. The original Coldplay took the name from a book of collected poems and can still be found on Amazon today."

_________________

Check out CHW's post for all the good things about Chris Martin's appearance on Austin City Limits that I failed to mention.

5 thoughts in more than 5 days

2006-01-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

Here's what has been going on in my head.

I don't give a fuck how it is labeled or categorized. James Frey is an original voice with something interesting to say.
I would love to know how much Dylan makes for licensing his name to Lucky Brand for those shirts.
Biggest movie disappointment so far this year: Matchpoint. It's like Woody Allen took a screenwriting class and was given the following assignment: "Ok, Woody, you really do this neurotic, NY-thing great ... but you have to be more versatile as a writer. I want you to try to write a version of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Try not to rely so heavily on intelligent, witty dialogue. Make sure you have obvious, grand themes like 'I'd rather be lucky than good.' Don't force your audience to have to think so much. Oh, and make the title an obvious connection from beginning until end."
"I Saw" No. 111: Caught Dyan Cannon walking up a steep street to Sunset Blvd. She was with what appeared to be her grandson, walking two small dogs before heading to the Lakers game. Impression? Sex with a 69-year-old doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore.
"I Saw" No. 112 & No. 113: Santa Anita racetrack. The Club House. A very tan Merv Griffin, looking like a 'parade float' version of himself, with his extended family, watching his highly favored horse, Stevie Wonderboy, take second. Two tables down, looking muppet-like even in person, Michael Dukakis with his immediate family.
Favorite artists of 2006: Pernice Brothers (beautiful pop), Okkervil River (dark alt-country), Kathleen Edwards (enjoying sex and booze as much as Lucinda, and I'm grateful for that), Hustle & Flow Soundtrack (guilty pleasure) and Bobby Bare Jr./Drive-By Truckers (dirty, off-key rock-country).

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-12-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in posting ... J.S. Bankston brings us up-to-date on his November.

___________

Saturday 11/12
I had a gristly steak at the IHOP. To kill time I'd brought a stack of papers to prowl through, containing notes, sketches, etc., from the past few years. There were a lot of references to all the hundreds of fruitless job leads I've pursued since 2001, one of the most amusing being for a dance instructor. The ad claimed, "No dance experience necessary." I e-mailed them that I couldn't dance, but that I did know the difference between Rudolf Nureyev, Bob Fosse, and Denny Terrio. They did not grant me an interview. I later learned the place was probably a front for a male escort service.

Several people, including, amazingly enough, my mom, have suggested I write a book about my troubles and travails in looking for work in the post-dot-com economy, but I've assured them it would be unpleasant to write, unpleasant to read, and would impart no Great Lessons or Morals.

Sunday 11/13 – Monday 11/14
Sleep. Restaurants. TV.

Tuesday 11/15
I lunched with James and his buddy, Vern. The entire time they talked computer geek stuff, and afterwards I confessed to James that I felt I knew what an expatriated American must feel like in a foreign country: I didn't understand a goddamn word they said.

We stopped by a news stand for papers and magazines (skipping the store's naughty adult section), and the clerk recognized me from my last visit, when I'd come in to get a refund. (The guy'd charged me $35.00 for a $3.50 magazine.) On the way out I sarcastically said to James, "At last, I've achieved my lifelong dream of being recognized at my neighborhood wank mag shop."

When I got home I went over the newspapers in my customer manner—on the toilet prior to my shower, and got a gut shot from the San Antonio Express-News--Earl Abel's, a restaurant/diner that has been a San Antonio staple since 1933, is going to close. The owner sold the property to a fucking developer and it may be torn down as soon as January and replaced by a high-rise condominium.

Earl Abel's stays open late, mostly caters to the elderly crowd, has huge portions, keeps the same employees for decades, and probably had its last major renovation in 1969—some of the dining rooms are decorated in faux Mediterranean bachelor pad swank, and would not look out of place in an episode of "Mannix." Other parts of it still look very 1950s, and the neon outside is just great.

When I was but a lad my folks would take me to the zoo or the Witte Museum or the funky Playland amusement park and then afterwards we'd go to Earl Abel's. And now that I have grown to a man's estate, as the saying goes, I usually try to stop in whenever I come through SA. It looks like a requiem pilgrimage, if you could call it that, is in order.

God, why do people keep fucking up all the cool, worthwhile stuff in this world?

Wednesday 11/16
At lunch at the China Cafe, James was telling me about a recent call with his cousin, Tree. Tree's teenaged daughter, Chloe, is spending this year living with her dad in Utah. Many of James's friends regard Chloe as a surrogate niece and are very protective of her. We would need very little provocation to beat any mouth-breathing teenaged boy that hurt her into an irreversible coma.

--We don't hear from Chloe much anymore. Tree says she has a boyfriend now—a senior. She's a freshman and her boyfriend's a senior.
--Well, that can't be good.
--Well, you know, a four year difference is nothing among adults, but in high school it's a very big difference. But Tree said this guy's already gotten suspended for a week from school ... for fluffing.
--[Looking up from my beef, chicken, and shrimp in garlic sauce]--Um, does that mean something different in Utah than it does here? Because if not Chloe's got a bigger problem than the fact her boyfriend's much older than she is.
--Yeah, I asked Tree that, and she wasn't sure. I asked if he was specifically busted for fluffing, and then she thought about it and decided that no, maybe the word was "schluffing," as in "schluffing off school or something. But I don’t think she knew what the word "fluffing" means anyway.

We got a good deal accomplished today. We hit a Wal-Mart, where I got some hoodies and warm-ups and other wintery stuff (a front blew in last night), some extra bedding and pillows (I like to sleep like a Pasha with at least eight pillows on my bed, so that anywhere I roll I wind up on something padded), and at long last, my collapsible stool. And after years of notorious service I bought a replacement for what is probably my most important regular article of clothing—my bathrobe.

In the parking lot James made me howl by quoting a Dead Milkmen line: "I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens. /They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to God."

I also freaked out James several times during the course of the afternoon by reading his mind and finishing his sentences for him. At home, I brought in all my plants in anticipation of a freeze, and counted all my CDs.

Thursday 11/17
My mom now thinks I may be suffering from an enlarged heart, Myasthenia Gravis, emphysema, and I don't know what all else. I seem to get a new major disease or ailment with each call she makes or e-mail she sends. At this rate I should be dead by the end of next week.
Oh yes—she also thinks I weigh 300 pounds, which isn't even remotely close to the truth.

As for the Myasthenia Gravis, well, I had e-mailed her some recent digital photos I'd taken of myself with a really bad case of bed-head, and she decided that my eyes looked abnormally bugged out, and according to her, bugged out eyes are a warning sign of Myasthenia Gravis.

Nothing much happened today. I went to three stores in the neighborhood in an unsuccessful attempt to find a Thursday New York Times, and retired early.

Friday 11/18
I'd like to see the new Harry Potter film, but I want to finish the 730+ page book upon which it is based first. I've not read many books that long before.

Fred and I have both been restive today. He kept waking up all night and morning, wanting either water or walks, and has been panting heavily. I've been torn between tidying up, reading, napping, and getting out somewhere, but I just seem to be going to the bathroom a lot.

Saturday 11/19
Slept. Walked Fred. Read. Tried and failed to sleep more. Tidied house, bought groceries, and ate Chinese.

No. 16: Name that celebrity

2005-12-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

submitted by tj1972

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-12-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

J.S. Bankston looks at the week and life including marriage: "Compromise is a dirty word to me—it means neither person gets his way."
__________

Saturday – 11/5
Today was the day for the Austin Collector's Show. I'd been looking forward to this for awhile, and was intent on buying lots of old postcards.

You may remember how several months ago I went to our local National Guard base to research an article, and was driven by a cabbie who looked quite a bit like Saddam Hussein, which made for a lot of fun at the base gate. Well, this man lives a few buildings down from me in my complex and has often driven me all over town. He even saw me walking to the grocery store one day and offered me a lift for free.

Well, I'd not seen him for awhile. I didn't call specifically for him, but he was the one who showed up. I barely recognized him. He looked ashen and tired and barely spoke above a whisper. It turns out he's been getting treatment for colon cancer. He explained more about his condition during the trip, but unfortunately I couldn't hear anything else that he said, because he had the windows down and the wind drowned his voice out. I've felt really bad about this news and hope everything turns out all right. He's been a real gentleman with me.

I reached the exhibition hall early, and wound up standing in line with a bunch of paunchy guys aged between 20 and 60. Many had mullets. One wore a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, greasy hair--and an ankle-length hooded black cloak.

I had planned to spend the whole day at the show, but it turns out there was only one postcard dealer there. The rest of the vendors sold sports memorabilia, over-priced old toys in dodgy condition, comic books (I guess that's where Gandalf was headed), Beanie Babies, and a bunch of other stuff I didn't want.

One guy had a small collection of old architectural magazines from the 20s and 30s. Normally I'd have been on something like that like stink on shit, but he wanted $20 or so for each, and they weren't in that great a shape.

There was also an autograph dealer that had some stuff that interested me, including some autographed photos of Bill Shatner and a canceled check signed by Jack Lord, but I was there for postcards and postcards only.

The postcard dealer was an older man from San Antonio with whom I'd had profitable dealings in the past. Since the crowd did not consist by and large of postcard collectors, I pretty much had the table to myself, and I stayed there for two or three hours and amassed quite a few cards. It took the guy 15 or 20 minutes just to figure out the price of it all. I spent way more money than I should have, and was in sticker shock for quite awhile after I left, and that's even after he knocked off $100 from my total (his idea, not mine) because I'm such a good and regular customer of his.

I like talking with this man, because he's lived in SA for decades, and likes to reminisce about the way SA was when I was a kid, vacationing there in the 60s and 70s, when it was a hopping town. We discussed the O'Neil Ford estate sale. He said he had thought about going to it, but he'd been elbowed and trampled at so many sales in the past he decided to skip it. He said the biggest estate sale he ever attended was that for Atlee B. Ayres, my favorite SA architect, who dominated the San Antonio of the first half of the 20th century the same way Ford dominated the second half. The old dealer said, "Those people had everything. They'd been everywhere. I'd never seen so many belongings and artifacts in one place. They must've gone all over the world."
_______

(I once worked in a children's bookstore and took a check from a woman named Mrs. Robert Ayres and I asked if she was any kin to Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres, and she got very excited and was amazed anyone still knew the names. The men were, in fact, the great-grandfather and grandfather of her husband, and she encouraged me to go to the UT Architectural Archive and look at the firm's drawings. I never got around to doing that, but about two years later a definitive book on Atlee Ayres's work was released.)

The Collector's show was in James and Nyssa's neighborhood, where I lived a couple months last year after the fire, and which is mostly populated with working-class Hispanics, blacks, Orientals, and Middle Easterners, which means lots of Mom and Pop groceries, every kind of automotive-related business under the sun, and lots of really cool ethnic restaurants that Whitey don't know about.

(During my time there I really dug patronizing tacquerias where you actually had to order in Spanish because no one on the premises knew English. There was also a halal market I prowled once. The owner kept giving me the fish-eye, as if he thought I was a shop-lifter, until I spotted a stack of brochures on various aspects of Islam, and asked, with genuine interest, if they were free. He said they were, I grabbed one of each, and he lightened up considerably.)

Anyway, I made a beeline for a Vietnamese/Chinese place I'd wanted to try out. Although it was 12:30, there was only one other party in the restaurant: a man and a woman, both in their 30s, both fat. He wore shorts and a t-shirt, while she had on a wife-beater, ugly turquoise-colored tattoos all the way down her bare arms, and a droopy black Goth-style dress that ran down from the middle of her ponderous belly to her ankles. She was, in fact, shaped like a giant bell.

The owner/hostess/waitress seated me by the window. The fat couple was seated in the center of the room. Maybe they wanted me and the owner to hear them talk, maybe the fact they were almost alone made them think they were at home, but for some reason, these two carried on their entire dinner conversation, when not stuffing their faces and gnawing, speaking at full volume, as if they were seated at opposite sides of the street and not three feet apart.

He was a displaced New Orleanean. She was his know-it-all friend. She lectured how his benefits would soon be ending and that he needed to go find a job. She held forth on all the things she likes about Austin—all the same banal shit everybody else always mentions when they extol the "quality of life" here—things which I either never cared about in the first, or eventually grew indifferent of.

She bitched about what a loser her ex-boyfriend and all his friends were, but said she might take him back if he ever grows up. She boasted about what a mature, take-charge person she was. And then she went into an embarrassing level of detail about her sex life, bellowing, "As far as looks go, I'm mostly still attracted to women—the way they're shaped, their skin, their overall looks, but the thing is, I really like to be penetrated. I like having that cock in me, and that's not something a woman can give. I'm basically just an old dyke who likes cock."

I don't like loud people to begin with, but this was really too much. I put down my fork and gave them a "Do you fucking mind?" look, but they didn't even see me—they were too engrossed in their spare ribs.

One of my problems with that is I suffer from a sort of reverse racism, I guess you'd call it, in that I get really offended when Americans are rude in front of foreigners, be they visitors, temporary residents, or naturalized citizens. Most of the foreigners I've dealt with in this country have been so polite that it just pisses me the fuck off when my fellow Americans break out their rudeness and crudeness for all to see. It reflects badly on us. And yes, I realize that people from other countries are rude too, but you know what I mean.

Sunday – 11/6
The Austin area Friends of Russian and Ukrainian Adoption had its Adoption Fair today. I've wanted to go to that event for three years running, but keep missing it for one reason or the other. A few years ago I was reading about adoption pretty much non-stop, but I think maybe my interest is waning.

Dorothy Parker said something to the effect that she didn't like writing, but she did like having written. I like the idea of having children, but I don't know how much I'd enjoy the reality of having them around all the time. Pets are really all the company I want or need most of the time, and I fear that kids would get on my nerves.

It also seems that when a person has kids it becomes the central fact of his life. When, for example, someone brings his kids to an adult party, then suddenly it becomes a kid's party that just happens to have some adults in attendance.

I like kids in small doses—as long as they are quiet, clean, attractive, and intelligent. Noisy, dirty, ugly, stupid kids need not apply. If I had kids I have no idea what I would do with them. I am not the kind of person who'd go outside and play catch with a kid—I'm just not that active. Museums, bookstores, libraries, zoos, movies, shopping—that's about the best I can do.

I also fear I might be too selfish to have kids. I know if a kid of mine got involved in something that didn't interest me, like soccer, for instance, I'd either make lots of excuses in order to skip the games, or bitch and moan about how much it all bores and annoys me. I'm childish that way.

I've always wanted to carry on the family bloodline, to be able to tell my kids about their famous ancestors and the roles they played in history. If I adopted I wouldn't be able to do that—the line would end with me and I would definitely feel a sense of failure.

The only reason I've thought about adoption is I have never come remotely close to marrying. The examples of marriage I've seen in my generation and in the generation after mine really don't make me very envious. In most of the situations the wives always wear the pants and have the final say, and I'd be goddamned if I'd sit still for that. I'm not cut out to be hen-pecked. Compromise is a dirty word to me—it means neither person gets his way.

Frankly, most couples, married or otherwise, don't seem very happy. Even if they don't say so, they seem to give off a vibe that says, "I made a huge mistake getting married." And thanks to my mom, I am hyper-sensitive to any behavior that seems to me like nagging.

As for Russian adoption, well, apparently single men are at the bottom of the parent desirability totem pole, right under gay and lesbian couples. People just assume if you're a single man you want the kid for sexual purposes, and you're pretty much guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Also, when you are at the bottom of the list agencies and officials assume you're so desperate you'll take any kid they throw at you—a two-headed crack baby, whatever--which is definitely not the case with me.

Russian adoption is the most expensive way to go—I think it now runs around $30,000 to $35,000 per kid, though you can sometimes get a deal if you adopt siblings—but it is also a single man's best option for adopting Causcasian children. But you don't run much of a chance of the kid's family showing up in America and wanting him back. (There is a growing trend toward something called "open adoption" in the US, where adopted kids grow up having contact with their birth families. Sex columnist Dan Savage went that route when he and his boyfriend adopted a child. His book about the experience, "The Kid," while entertaining, champions open adoption, yet it convinced me that I would absolutely under no circumstances ever want to do it that way. I would be too threatened.)

Of course I would want to write a book about the whole Russian adoption experience. (Janis Cooke Newman's "The Russian Word for Snow" is an excellent and beautifully-written example of that sort of thing.)

So, hell, I don't know. I think I sound like I'm trying to talk myself out of this. I have difficulty imagining any major changes in my lifestyle, but at the same time, who the hell have I been buying all these kid's books for over the years? Who's going to inherit all the millions I've made blogging?

Some say the way a person treats his pets is a good indication as to what kind of parent he'd make. Well, if Fred is the standard, then that means I would spoil my kids rotten, allow them to do pretty much anything, worry about them constantly, and regard them as an extension of myself. It would also mean, disturbingly enough, that my kids would wake me at 4am to go crap in the yard.

The thing is, I've rarely been able to support myself, and I would not want to have kids unless I could raise them very, very comfortably, and yes, spoil them. (I would probably also need to be able to afford a house and a housekeeper as well, since I neither drive nor cook, and anyway, Bankstons traditionally do not do day-care.)

More on this much later...I have a feeling.

Monday – 11/7
Started my local history column, but got bored with it 1/3 of the way through and went back to bed.

Tuesday – 11/8
Finished my column, but not before running out for chew strips for Fred and dinner at a Carrabba's Italian restaurant. The meal was so-so. The waitress was obnoxious in her zeal to try to sell me pricier dishes after I'd already placed my order. She also made like she was gonna sit down to take my order, but I gave her a look that conveyed I'd snatch her bald-headed if she tried.

But the most significant thing about the meal was the almost complete absence of light anywhere in the dining room. There weren't even little candles on the table. It was all I could do to read the menu. I felt like I was dining in a fucking aquarium.

Wednesday – 11/9
Sleep. IHOP. TV.

Thursday – 11/10
A guy killed his girlfriend in the Austin area today, bussed it to San Antonio, and killed the security guard at the bus station there--the same one I patronized in August—before finally being caught by the cops.

Friday – 11/11
My mother finally has said something that makes sense to me: she thinks the reason I've been so sleepy and sluggish lately is that I'm not getting enough oxygen, due to my fluid-filled lungs. It seems plausible. God knows breathing has gotten more problematic of late, and I seem to have less and less staying power. I have a great deal of trouble staying awake much of the time now.

I don't like reggae, I'm strictly roots

2005-12-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

That's Sinead O'Connor talking about her latest album, Throw Down Your Arms.

The record includes covers of Peter Tosh, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Burning Spear, Bob Marley and others. It was produced by legends Lowell 'Sly' Dunbar & Robert 'Robbie' Shakespeare and recorded in Kingston, Jamaica.

There's a Jack London quote that I was reminded of on The Last Hideout that captures the essence of Sinead O'Connor. It ends: "... The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

She does that, and so I'll always listen.

________

Sinead O'Connor on the title track, "Throw Down Your Arms":
"It's the only anti-war song that I think that I ever heard, that is not entirely, completely fucking corny for start. But most anti-war songs are actually quite aggressive when you listen to them. The essence of them can be quite aggressive. Whereas Burning Spear will be like, 'why don't you come in here and I'll show something that will make you feel differently about it.'"

_________

The album includes a three-part video of the recording sessions with O'Connor giving the whys of each song she chose.

Here's part 1.

Recommended downloads from the album:

"Downpressor Man" (Peter Tosh)
"Throw Down Your Arms" (Burning Spear)
"Curly Locks" (Lee Perry)

_________

"Roots reggae is an inherently spiritual type of reggae music, the lyrics of which are predominantly in praise of Jah Ras Tafari Makonnen ... lyrical themes include poverty and resistance to the oppression of government. The creative pinnacle of roots reggae is arguably in the late 1970s ... "

Mail's here

2005-12-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

MAY: Eliza Gilkyson, Shawn Colvin

SEPTEMBER: Michael Fracasso, Matt the Electrician, Nathan Hamilton

NOVEMBER: Tosca

APRIL: Glover Gill

Rare, Rare Find: Kacy Crowley

2005-12-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

"Bob Dylan with tits ... " - record industry executive

__________

These are the words Kacy Crowley chooses to quote on the homepage of her site. My guess, it's half tongue-in-cheek.

Crowley came to Austin in the '90s. Landed a deal with Atlantic and put out the better-than-Liz Phair release, Anchorless. She got a lot of hype and sold few records outside of Texas. Crowley recorded a second album for Atlantic under the helm of underrated producer Fred Mahr (Luna, Lou Reed). It never got released. Today, she puts out albums on indie labels and does the I-35 tour circuit between Austin and Dallas.

Me, well I've always thought of Crowley as Paul Westerberg with a prettier voice ... and tits.

Here's the evidence:

"Rebellious" Anchorless (Austin, 1997)
This song charts Crowley's life and damn if you don't believe her when she sings, "We do life until we are sore."

"Kind of Perfect" Moodswings (Austin, 2004)
I heard when Austin's most popular songwriter Bob Schneider got married (post-Sandra Bullock), he asked Crowley to sing this song at his wedding. I can see why.

Limited Pressing: Available 2006

2005-12-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

If only the sun shined more in the U.K.

2005-12-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a excerpt from a recent issue of Q music magazine:

Sinead O'Connor says, "I'm surprised Bono can still talk, his mouth is so full with American politician cock."
Bono: Hmmmm... I can take the custard pies. Believe me, it's hard to do this job if you don't like the taste of custard. Yes, I know that some people get angry with who I'm dealing with. But, I'm determined that poverty in Africa can't be a left-wing issue. Some of the American politicians have very different points of views than mine. But that's the whole point: to convince people like that that saving the next generations of Africans is a worthwhile cause. Not a charitable cause, a just cause. A mouth full of cock is a tough charge, but I can't say I've never felt that myself.

__________

Here's a excerpt from a recent edition of the Los Angeles Times :

"The opportunity is there," Kobe Bryant said. "Guys just have to attack and do it within the confines of the offense."

__________

Add up all the quotes in the Times in 2005, and I'd bet Kobe tops the list of Most Quoted Local Personalities.

I'll leave you to form an opinion. I have mine.

Shawn Colvin poses nude

2005-11-29T16:35:00.000-08:00

I knew a guy once. Came into a bar I worked. Always full of ideas. This was one: "Playboy should do their take on Parade's annual salary issue. Just sub the clothed head shots with nude body shots. Damn, tell me that thing wouldn't sell."

Not sure this is what he had in mind. But, it's getting closer.

Musicians ranging from the ballsy, sexy Kacy Crowley to the better-clothed-and-heard Lounge Lizards got naked for a calendar - all to help with medical costs for songwriter Jon Dee Graham's son. Read more about it here.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-11-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

In this installment, J.S. Bankston faces Capote, Patton, his 42nd birthday and a building that 'looks like a penis that's been in cold water awhile.'

________

Thursday 10/27
I made the long hike to the multiplex to see "Elizabethtown," but since getting to said theater is such a pain in the ass I usually try to make the trip worthwhile by catching at least two movies. So I saw something called "Kids in America," a low-budget picture that stayed in town only one week.

Feh. Not much to it. Truly forgetable. Normally I research the hell out of any movie before I see it, and when I don't I pay the price for my sloth. Still, I probably got more out of this one than I did from "Mean Girls." All I remember about that was the black spot on Lindsay Lohan's lip.

As for "Elizabethtown," I wound up talking about this a week later with Triple J. We both agreed the music-fueled road trip in the last act was the best thing about the film. Triple J hated it otherwise. I did think the film captured the sprawling messiness of Southern family life, though. It seemed another installment in the recent trend of homages to the "weird-for-weirdness's-sake" films of the 1970s. Robert Altman and Hal Ashby were masters of this kind of thing, and these films usually had lots of quirky songs integrated into them. Wes Anderson is the leader of this school now.

Friday 10/28
I finally got to see "Capote," and dug the hell out of it. Some critics said it made Capote look like a monster in that he was shown doing less than his utmost to help killers Smith and Hickock in order that they'd be executed and he'd have a great ending for his book. Yawn. The creation of a great work of art trumps any number of lapses in morality.

At the end of the film, they put up some text describing Capote's later life, saying that with the publication of "In Cold Blood" Capote became the most famous writer in America. That damn near gave me a stiffy.

I left the theater and headed home, but the night air was being desecrated by some shrill caterwauling of the "all-flash-and-no-ability" sort popularized by Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, and "American Idol"--what I call "secretary music." It took me awhile to figure out where this noise was coming from—apparently the Baptist mega-church across the street was having a fundamentalist born-again Christian carnival, and although I knew I would gather many blog-worthy sights if I ventured across that street, O my brothers and sisters, I did not dare to do so.

Saturday 10/29 – Tuesday 11/1
I spent most of these days sleeping fairly constantly, night and day, though I did venture out briefly on the 1st for lunch with James and an unsuccessful hunt for a new printer.

I told him about an estate sale running in San Antonio from Wednesday through Saturday. He said he had a paying gig to do at home Wednesday, but might consider going later in the week.

The estate sale was at the former home of O'Neil Ford, probably the most famous Texas architect of the 20th century, who designed the Tower of the Americas and Trinity University in SA. Though Ford died in 1982, I gather his widow died fairly recently. According to reports, the Fords traveled the world, collected all sorts of things, and never threw anything away. They lived in a Spanish-style house near the San Jose Mission, and apparently had enough room that they could store all their stuff without ever having to really sort through it.

I was hoping to look at the antiques, but I mostly wanted a crack at the library, but I also knew from past dealings with book dealers, that if I didn't get to the sale bright and early on the first day, the dealers would grab all the good stuff.

Wednesday 11/2
My 42nd birthday. I woke in the wee hours of the morning and considered taking a bus to SA so I could go to that sale myself, but I knew if I bought books on the scale I wanted to I'd have to leave the estate in a cab, then box the books up and find a UPS store and mail the books to my home in Austin—I couldn't lug those books around SA all day or get them onto the bus. I finally just gave up on the idea and went back to bed, so depressed I could barely move.

I got up about 8pm, walked Fred, ordered some Chinese food, and watched my favorite movie, "Patton," which I try to see every year on my birthday.

My birthday used to be my big event of the year and the last holiday I still celebrated, but the last couple years it's gone downhill. I've traditionally gotten my politician buddy Matt to organize the thing. We'd start the night in a restaurant, then go to an Irish pub named Fado downtown for drinks. Fado was always the main event of the evening.

Matt always wants to have the dinner at some place cheap so as to accommodate my poorer friends, while I always want to eat at some place nice, my argument being that more people come to the pub than to the restaurant anyway, and it's also a special occasion, worthy of nicer foods.

Three things can be said about Matt: 1) He is the life of the party, 2) he's very good at influencing people, and 3) though he's unmarried and in his early 30s, he acts like he's 75. I joke that he likes to go to bed after "Matlock." He likes to play like he's a big swinger, but he hates staying up past 10pm, even on the weekend, and he's even been known to avoid certain friends, even friends visiting from out of town, that he thinks might keep him up late.

My last two birthdays have been poorly-attended and on both occasions we stayed long at the restaurant, Matt started acting tired around 10pm and decided he didn't want to go to the pub, then everybody else followed suit and pussed out. And it turned out that both times there were people waiting for me who had gone straight to the pub, and got pissed off at me I never showed. I explained to them that I was riding with these other people who didn't want to go, but the damage had been done.

So this year I decided not to even mess with it.

Anyway, after my movie I had to start getting ready for bed, as I had an early appointment the next day. I almost never use an alarm clock these days because I'm out of work and really never need to be anywhere at any specific time, so when I do set an alarm it throws me into a panic—I'm afraid I won't get to sleep in the narrow time allotted and will be tired all the next day. This has gotten so bad that pretty much any time I have to set an alarm I have to take a pill to calm me down enough to sleep.

Thursday 11/3
My early appointment was an 11:45am lunch with Triple J Himself, Incognato, and a variety of other Citysearch Austin veterans, most of whom I'd not seen in four years. From the reports I was the only person from that office that hasn't leapt from success to success since 2001. No one really seemed to have changed much---maybe I was fatter and less formally-dressed and I wasn't spitting obscenities into a computer right at that moment, but other than that we fell into our old patterns.

It was quite a jolly time, and about the only fun I had on my birthday week. The only downside was that it was over too quickly. (I still do not envy Triple J all the work-related meetings he has to go to. I'd rather have my nails ripped off one by one than go to another one of those.)

After lunch I cabbed it over to 6th and Lamar and had a little apres-birthday spending spree at Waterloo Video and Book People.

My cabbie was a Middle Easterner, and most Middle Easterners I've dealt with have been polite to the point of courtliness, but this guy had clearly been over here long enough to absorb the American frat boy, "Girls Gone Wild," sexist pig mentality. He kept commenting on the girls walking by on the sidewalk, "Hey, did you see the ass on that one? The one walking the dog? What was she doing homeless? I tell you, a girl with an ass like that—there's no reason for her to be homeless. With that kind of ass she should have no trouble finding a man to keep her. Any woman with a great ass, a great body, she can find a man to keep her, to put her up someplace, she doesn't have to worry about anything—not work, not anything—she always has a place." I guess he felt all attractive women exist only to serve as mistresses, laying around their swanky rent-free apartments all day, waiting for their rich sugar daddies to come home and fuck them.

Before I went to bed I talked to James. His wife, Nyssa, was home sick with a cold and he was afraid he'd get it, but he still wanted to try and go to that estate sale the next day. By this point, I figured I'd missed the best of the sale, but I said I'd see where things stood in the morning.

I hope Triple J and company had enough free time to explore the city and see all the new buildings that have gone up, such as the Whole Foods flagship store and the tallest building in town—the Frost Bank Building.

There's been a lot of discussion over what the top of the building looks like—I think it resembles an oil well drilling bit. My problem with the structure, though, is that for all its ornamental base and old-fashioned structural set-backs of the sort you see on skyscrapers from the 1930s, the tower itself is out of proportion—it should be at least 50% to 75% taller. As it is, it looks like a penis that's been in cold water awhile.

Friday 11/4
I woke really early, in the wee hours of the morning in fact. By the time I got ahold of James, I was ready to go back to bed. And he sounded like he was getting sick. He was willing to go still, but warned me I would indeed get Nyssa's cold if I was in close quarters with him in his little truck. So I decided it would be best for all concerned to say to hell with it and go back to bed.

Chris Whitley (1960-2005)

2005-11-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

When someone dies, the best words are always said by the ones closest. Here are a few about Chris Whitley.

Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged. Robert Johnson at the crossroads. Iggy Pop onstage. Chris Whitley was.

"Indian Summer" (off Dirt Floor)

"Radar" featuring Dave Matthews (off Rocket House)

"Big Sky Country/Gasket" (off Live At Martyrs)

No. 15: Name that celebrity

2005-11-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

"A band whose idea of inspiration was crashing into a snowbank and coming out with a six-pack."

2005-11-21T16:40:00.000-08:00

The title of this entry is a quote from longtime Village Voice critic Robert Christgau about The Replacements.

Here are the CliffNotes.

The Replacements (Bob Stinson - guitar, Tommy Stinson - bass, Chris Mars - drums, Paul Westerberg - everything else) formed in 1979 in Minneapolis. The road to first success was quick. Westerberg walked into a local record store called Oarfolkjokeopus and handed the man behind the counter a tape. That man liked it. And, more importantly, that man was Peter Jesperson who started Twin/Tone Records and released the early Replacements albums.

Open bar. Major label. Open bar. Saturday Night Live appearance. Goodnight, 1991.

_________

Satisfied '75 was kind enough to send me this rare footage from their SNL appearance.

The band had been drinking. If you listen close, you'll hear Westerberg pull back from the mic, say 'fuck' on live television, and then stumble back to the lyrics of "Bastards of Young."

(Check out the B&W, one-camera-shot-of-a-home-stereo video for "Bastards of Young." This is one of three things: Simple. Brilliant. Simply Brilliant.)

Along the way, guitarist Bob Stinson got fired from the band for abuse and then died, years later, of an overdose.

One music critic compared Bob's departure from the band like "someone being kicked out of Disneyland for being too nice."

Stinson was replaced by local guitarist, Slim Dunlap.

Westerberg got it. Too late, but got it. In 1993, he said this to a local paper.

"I think during the course of the band it was easy for us to find scapegoats and point fingers at the record company or other bands or the fans, and that's all crap. You could list a hundred reasons, but the bottom line is we didn't go for it hard enough."

In '93, three of the four members released solo albums. Westerberg was an obvious. But, Mars and Dunlap also stepped to the songwriter/frontman role. Those albums are good. This was what this post was originally suppose to be about. But, it isn't.

The best post-Replacements album, also recorded in 1993, is Bash & Pop's Friday Night Is Killing Me. Funny thing, it is more of a solo album than any of the others. Tommy Stinson sings and plays guitar. He wrote all but one song - and that one, he co-wrote.

________

Slim Dunlap was once described as not good enough to play guitar like Keith Richards and not good enough to write like Paul Westerberg BUT ...

Chris Mars is talented. I loved those albums at first, even tenth listen. When I look at those titles now -- "Ego Maniac," "Whining Horse" and "Bullshit Detector" -- all I hear is let-it-go bitterness toward Westerberg.

Paul Westerberg. Fuck -- was, is and will always be one of the best songwriters. But, like a 5'6" wannabe-basketball forward once said to me, "that's wasted talented."

Moral of the story. Tommy Stinson was 13 when The Replacements formed. He followed, others led. He wasn't the most talented. He never got too big for his britches. But yet, when the dust settled, he's the one standing and I'm the one still listening.

Here are three tracks from Bash & Pop's album. I recommend picking up the remaining seven.

_________

Side note: At their height, The Replacements played Keith Richards' birthday party. In contrast, David Bonderman, who runs an investment company in Fort Worth, shelled out millions (newspapers reported anywhere from $6.75 million to more than $10 million) to have the Rolling Stones play his 60th birthday party in 2002. Wonder what The Replacements got?

Rare, Rare Finds: The American Fuse, The Old Joe Clarks, "Scrappy" Jud Newcomb

2005-11-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another installment of rare, rare finds--artists and songs you might only know if you were in that city at that time.

The American Fuse - (Dallas, 1997)
"Redline"
"Psycho Killer" *Talking Heads cover
If Motley Crue's "Red Hot" fucked Iggy Pop's "Blood on Your Cool" just after last call in the back of a Dallas country bar, this would be the sound you'd hear.

The Old Joe Clarks - (San Francisco, 1997)
"Breaking Ground"
"New John Henry"
2:20am. Heading toward Upper Haight. 1995 or so. Stopped at a light. Look over. In the next car --a ragged Caprice Classic-type-- is OJC's Mike Coykendall. And he's singing, loud, with drunk-like swagger, griping the wheel, to a song off Richard Buckner's "Bloomed."

I first bought these songs in the only-offered cassette form after a show before 15 or so of us. If life is fair, I imagine Buckner, driving late at night in his pickup, singing along to "Breaking Ground."

"Scrappy" Jud Newcomb - (Austin, 2003)
"Empty Bottles"
"Maybe I Caught a Glimpse"
This is THE guitar player-for-hire in Austin. Fans of the Richards in Jagger-Richards should love this.

"Penises Rule!!" by Ron Jeremy

2005-11-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

As if it wasn't enough just to put adults to bed, Paul McCartney is now going after their kids. He's published a children's book, entitled "High in the Clouds," about a squirrel named Wirral (after the Beatle bore's hometown) who's forced to go on after the death of his mother as a result of a tree cut down by nature haters.

McCartney now joins a long list of what-the-hell? celeb/children story authors like Katie Couric, Madonna, LeAnn Rimes, NFL Barber brothers, Ed Koch and Will Smith. Here's a few other titles that leave me scratching my head.

____________

John A. Gotti - "The Children of Shaolin Forest"
The Times quoted his lawyer, upon requesting bail for his client, saying that Gotti "now prefers writing children's books to extortion and racketeering.''

Elizabeth Taylor - "Nibbles and Me"
What the fuck is it with squirrels? This then-teenage actress wrote a memoir about her adventures with a pet squirrel.

Ricky Gervais - "Flanimals"
BBC's "The Office" star created a made-up world inhabited by The Plamglotis and Munty Flumple. This is the same guy who said, when being introduced to Paris Hilton, "Oh, sorry Paris, I didn't recognize you without a cock in your mouth."

Bob Dylan - "Man Gave Names to All the Animals"
Many of us would love to forget Dylan's Christian-rock period in the late '70s that produced the album, Slow Train a Comin'. Many of us except Dylan that is. In 1999, he fanned the flames with this book built around the same-named song off that all-about-God recording. Here's an excerpt courtesy of Amazon: "'[Man] saw an animal leavin' a muddy trail./ Real dirty face and a curly tail./ He wasn't too small and he wasn't too big./ 'Ah, think I'll call it a pig.' "

____________

I love parts of Dylan's Slow Train a Comin'. But like most albums or songs that are forced to fit into a theme, the entirety falls short. (Elton John's grade-school adjustment of "Candle in the Wind" for Lady Di's funeral is an obvious example of this.)

U2 is the world's greatest Christian rock band and that's in large part because it's a thread throughout their albums and not a noose forced around their necks.

My guess is that Dylan built his ode to the Mighty One around the song, "Gotta Serve Somebody." It opens the record and is regarded among his best. But seven songs in, still on the 'sing the praises of' train, Dylan hits an all-time low with "Man Gave Names to All the Animals." See if you agree.

"Gotta Serve Somebody"

"Man Gave Names to All the Animals"

An "I Saw" odd pairing

2005-11-18T08:11:00.001-08:00

A still-damn-sexy Elizabeth Shue chatting it up with the never-really-ever-sexy contestant from Hell's Kitchen on the patio at Beechwood in Marina Del Rey.

Singing about celebrities is like ...

2005-11-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

In a recent comment, Bankston linked me to the term 'star-fucker.' Which got me thinking.

Here's a ranked list of songs about (and titled to) celebrities.

10. "Michael Stipe" - P (featuring Gibby Haynes, Bill Carter, Sal Jenco and Johnny Depp)
9. "Andy Warhol" - David Bowie
8. "MLK" - U2
7. "Lenny Bruce" - Bob Dylan
6. "What Would Willie Do" - Bruce Robison

5. "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night" - Billy Bragg
4. **"Wyonna's Big Brown Beaver" - Primus
3. "Hey Jack Kerouac" - 10,000 Maniacs
2. "Edie (Ciao Baby)" - The Cult
1. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" - Bauhaus

__________

There's a great quote about music writing. It goes something like 'writing about music is like dancing about architecture.'

Still, I always look forward to the year-end polls. I've never been one to say, 'It's been a bad year for music.' Somewhere, someone is wrapping a good story in a sweet melody. And each year, my trusted 'have you heard?'s - eMusic, Aquarium Drunkard, Ramble On, Harp, Q, emails/comments/mixed CDs from friends, etc. - increase.

But if my only source was this Amazon list, I'd be fucking bummed the way this year turned out.

__________

**The word is still out on this song and its connection to Winona Ryder. Here's what Primus' Les Claypool said on the topic: "That song was never supposed to be what it became. It was gonna be this goofy little song on the record with some banjo and some upright bass, and it just kind of evolved into the lead track. I met Winona Ryder. She had heard from a friend of ours that I'd possibly written a song about her. She's actually really cool. She wasn't pissed really; I think she was just more confused. She wanted to know why we might write a song about her and I told her, 'It has nothing to do with you.' It was really cool. I got to meet a movie star."

"I Saw" Update

2005-11-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a story.

There is a place down the block from my house. I go there to eat, in large part, because no one else is there.

It's around the corner from a famous gym. And in May, they set up a sushi bar. Things started to get busy. Yet, I remained loyal, and just got there earlier in the week.

Tonight was like the old days. Almost.

I was taking in the last paragraphs of a profile of Steve Buscemi in the latest New Yorker.

(Buscemi got hit by a bus as a kid. Cracked his skull. Years later and as a result of this accident, the city funded $6,000 worth of Lee Strasberg Theatre training. Grabbed attention as a standup/performance artist in the East Village. Took a day job as a probationer with Little Italy's Engine Company 55. Married. Landed the role of Mr. Pink. Got fame. Had son. Moved to a brownstone in Brooklyn. Drives a Volkswagen stationwagon.)

Over my left shoulder, ordering a 'large coke' and something for a fit, female 80-lb'er was Tom 'Tiny' Lister Jr. How quickly I went from reading about Buscemi to feeling like Buscemi at the corner of the Trees Lounge bar.

I couldn't tell if Tiny's eye was fucked up. Always thought it was. Impression: damn big, seemingly damn nice. That bellowing voice sounds even "I'm-taller-than-you" in person.

_________

Anyway, I can already hear it now from Anonymous aka Mr. It'sAColdColdWorldAndI'mNotHandingOutBlankets, but it has been an odd couple of weeks for sightings. Here's who I saw in just the last two weeks:

Martin Bashir dining with another male journalist-type at Ocean and Vine in Santa Monica.
Trey Anastasio, with two friends, coming out of Tower on Sunset with CDs in hand.
Bret Michaels, middle of the day, getting into a silver Mercedes a block from the Whisky A Go Go as others waited with audio equipment.
Anthony Kiedis sitting with friends at the Coffee Bean on Sunset, facing the doorway, watching women walk in and out.
Few days later, same Coffee Bean, Angelyne pulling up in a pink Corvette with the CA license plate, ANGELYNE.

"I get the willies when I see closed doors."

2005-11-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

The title is the opening line of Joseph Heller's novel, Something Happened.

"If you understand the first line ... you understand the whole novel. Not that the rest of the novel is redundant, but that the first line is the original kiss between true lovers. The whole affair contained in the original kiss, the novel an elegant playing out of the implications contained in the first line."

I stole that idea or rather was influenced by it, for "First lines, best lines."

___________

The best writing (and, unfortunately, the worst) usually begins with "I."

But, I've been thinking. A lot lately. So, bear with this "I." It was this post and Bankston's latest that put me over the edge.

My single, greatest influence wrote these words about Kerouac.

"Kerouac is your grandfather, caught in a wine-laden moment, Tokayed, railman's cap thrown back, slouching on the fender of a brown Dodge convertible, its top ripped, six inches long and held together with grey masking tape ... So, the irony on irony. The writer who wrote the best and most about memory died forgotten. A quirk, a historical accident, who knows, and more importantly, who cares, and Kerouac was rescued from the remainder table, pulled back on to the shelves, and thus you have a precious gift, your grandfather back telling stories of the road, and World War II, and madness, and beautiful exotic women in San Francisco and Mexico City. Your grandfather, caught in time, stripped of all the repetition and bigotry, telling only one simple story, elegant in its simplicity, of how it was to be and hope and die in mid-century America ... Such the sweet power of fiction."

After a dinner, still at the table, I asked this greatest influence, who he would rather be. The billy-of-any-ball character in life who inspires a novel (Neal Cassady's Dean Moriarty in "On The Road") or the one (Jack Kerouac) who writes about it.

He reacted as if I'd asked him what's better, living or dying?

"The writer, of course."

___________

Life's greatest influences are the ones we know intimately. The ones we see laughing during an episode of Saved By the Bell before pulling out a yellow legal pad to work in a quote by little-known, but great Canadian writer Morley Callaghan (the writer/boxer who knocked out Hemingway in the famous match where Fitzgerald was distracted, did not ring the bell, let the round go until Hemingway was on his back).

So with that, I leave you with more words about Kerouac from my single, greatest influence.

"I'm still not sure why a young woman or man would want to be like a man so sorrowful, so misunderstood, and so dead, but if you must, be kind, be gentle, write much and read more. Or take [Allen] Ginsberg's advice and 'Be kind to yourself, Harry, it is only one and perishable of many on the planet.'"

And, of course, I agree.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-11-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's not often that a man fits so snug amongst his influences. This week, J.S. Bankston looks at the men (and even some women) he holds in high regard.

----------------------

Twenty years ago, in the fall of 1985, my college room-mate and I got bored and decided to greatly augment the posters and pictures I had decorating our dorm room. In no time we had the walls, doors, dresser drawers, and ceiling covered with photos, newspaper and magazine clippings, posters, photocopies, postcards, and other sorts of visual art.

My parents yanked me out of college for all of the following year, but I came back in 1987 and put up even more pictures. This collection endured in one form or other until 1992, when I moved into an apartment and most of the materials went into my files, and my décor changed.

But when this display was at its most layered and complex drunk or high buddies from my dorm would come knocking late at night and plop themselves on my floor, find an image to study, and lay there for hours sometimes, immersing themselves in another world. The images on the ceiling were especially chosen for their interesting, trippy qualities , and they were not all hung in one direction---you'd have to twist your neck and move around to see each individual picture the “right way.”

Many of the pictures, though, were of my heroes and role models. A friend, after examining the portrait gallery, once observed, “There is no true 'Bankston.' You're just bits and pieces of all your heroes.”

Perhaps that was true once. I don't know if it's true now. At any rate, here's some, but by no means all, of the people in my cool book---

Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin– These men made careers out of not giving a shit, and being cool doing it.

I think it's interesting that though he was a big star, Lee Marvin regarded his time in the Marines in World War II as the chief experience of his life. He is in fact buried in Arlington, under a government-issue tombstone that lists him only as “LEE MARVIN – PFC --US MARINE CORPS.”

A decade ago I knew a fellow named Ralph Hall, who used to work in Hollywood as a sound and music editor. I asked him who the best and worst people were that he’d worked with, and he singled out Mitchum for his highest praise.

Mr. Hall worked with Mitchum on “Farewell, My Lovely.” According to the Mitchum biography, “Baby, I Don’t Care,” the actor did not get on well with that film’s director, Dick Richards. One evening they were filming near the Pacific Coast Highway and Richards became such a pain in the ass Mitchum grabbed him and dragged him out to the PCH, saying, “Well, let’s see if you can at least direct traffic!”

Frank Sinatra– “The Voice.” The man whose singing always puts me in a calm, dreamy place, no matter what my mood. And as the saying goes, “It’s Frank’s world. The rest of us just live in it.”

In that eventful fall of 1985 I actually got to see FS perform in Houston at the Summit sports arena (later known as Compaq Center, and still later, sadly, as the Reverend Joel Osteen’s Lakewood mega-church). I went with a friend’s suite-mate, a short, squat little guy with a fringe of whiskers and a penchant for wearing funny hats. He looked like someone who’d be fond of Dungeons and Dragons and the band Marillion, but he was nevertheless one of the few people I’ve ever met upon whom I would without reservation hang the title of artistic genius, in that he was able to fart the bass line of the Beatles song “Taxman.”

The night of the concert, we were waiting at one of the entrances to the Summit, and I saw that most of the crowd consisted of middle-aged and old people, but I also noticed a New Wave kid of about 18 or 19, dressed in parachute pants, skinny tie, under-sized hat– now that I think about it he was dressed pretty much the way singer Pete Doherty does today, except that his hair was a little more Robert Smith. I figured this kid had just been dragged along by his grandmother and was only there to humor her.

My buddy and I had eaten an excellent dinner, and had stopped by the Dunhill store in Houston’s Galleria Mall, so we could have some nice cigars to smoke during the concert. (You could actually smoke inside back then.)

Sinatra was great–even his stage patter made me laugh out loud. He was 69 years old then (funny how that no longer seems ancient to me), and though his voice was no longer as perfect as it had been during his artistic zenith during his Capitol Records years (1954-1962), he used its weaknesses to successfully convey the feelings of world-weariness and loss prevalent in many of his songs.

But during one of Frank’s swinging, up-tempo tunes, my buddy and I were puffing away, digging it, on top of the world, when I happened to glance over my right shoulder and notice a row or two back and maybe forty feet away, the New Waver and his grandmother, grooving away in their seats, laughing and smiling, having the time of their lives.

Jorge Luis Borges– My favorite writer. A bookish mama's boy who described himself as a reader first and a writer second, he was obsessed with libraries, time, encyclopedias, labyrinths, legends, scholarly research, sleep, dreams, and the differences between reality and illusion.

Borges taught at UT Austin briefly in the early 60s, and every time I pass his UT office or his apartment building (which director Richard Linklater later called home), I make a slight bow in honor of his spirit.

When I was taking Spanish in college I would practice by copying out Borges poems and stories in the original Spanish, writing on graph paper, the way he did. I would then skip three lines, and attempt an English translation on the second line, and copy a more exact translation from one of my English editions on the third, and then compare the two translations. I should mention I took a year of Spanish in junior high and two years each in high school and college, but still can barely speak or read it. My high school Spanish teacher told my mother “He speaks Spanish like an old Chinese woman.”

Because my folks kept cutting me off financially whenever I did badly in school it took me 12 years to get my BA. When my dad became fatally ill he gave me enough money to finally finish. I completed my last ever undergraduate paper, written on Borges and in Spanish, for my Spanish IV class, in a hospital waiting room an hour before my dad died.

Now most of the people reading this are probably music fans. Imagine, then, what it would be like to have no one with whom you could carry on discussions about music. Well, that's what it's like for me in many of my areas of interest. I have, for example, had maybe four intelligent conversations about architecture in my entire life, and I have been fascinated with that subject for years.

So also with Borges. Naturally, then, about a decade ago, when I was in exile in culturally barren Bryan/College Station, I went into ecstatics when I learned a Borges conference had been scheduled for the week of my birthday.

This was the highlight of my year. I took off work, wore a coat and tie to both nights of the conference, met the visiting professors, including one who had been a Borges protege in Buenos Aires (I made a point of shaking his hand, in order to pick up the good mojo by osmosis), and asked lots of questions. One of the strangest things was that because I knew and loved Borges stuff so well, during every presentation I mentally anticipated each speaker's words by about 30 seconds. I knew exactly what they were about to say and our minds were in perfect harmony.

I arrived early for the second night's session. The room filled up quickly—it turns out students in lower level Spanish courses were getting extra credit for attending. Borges experts from all over the world gathered at the tables at the head of the room and began huddling together and talking. A couple looked up and pointed at me. Surely I was imagining things.

But after about ten minutes of this the MC of the conference, the head of the A&M Spanish Department, came over and leaned toward me. He spoke English with a very thick accent.

--Yes, Professor ________ is one of the lecturers tonight and he needs an English translation of a Borges poem...Como se dice?... “Poem of the Gifts?” Would you have an English translation of this?

--(Taken aback and flattered) Yes, it's probably my favorite poem of his, but I don't have it with me.

--Could you possibly get it before the conference starts?

--Well, I came here on a bicycle. I don't know if I could get there and back fast enough.

--That's okay. I'll find someone to drive you.

--I have three different English translations. Which should I bring?

--All of them if you can, thanks.

All the students were now looking at me, wondering what was going on. Soon a graduate student approached and announced that she was to be my driver. I got up from my seat and as we walked out the students started murmuring, “Who is that guy?”

My driver and I headed outside and to the parking lot.

--So, Mr. Bankston, what university are you from?

--I'm not with a university.

--Well, what paper are you delivering tonight?

--I'm not delivering a paper. I'm a clerk in a used bookstore here in town. I'm just a fan of Borges.

Then as now my apartment was in no condition for me to allow visitors. I ran in, found the books, and we zipped back to campus. The conference had already started. My driver took the books to the professor who needed them. He examined them, frowned, then set them aside. I found out afterwards that he needed a translation not of “The Poem of the Gifts,” but of “The Other Gift.” The professor who'd approached me had bungled the titles.

I was invited to a party for the Spanish faculty, grad students, and guest speakers, where Argentine food and wine were to be served and gaucho songs sung, but it was at a house on the other side of town. I couldn't bike that far in the dark in a jacket and tie, and I was too ashamed of my station to ask anyone for a ride.

Mark Twain– Road trip accounts have been a cornerstone of American literature at least from the time of Captain John Smith, and Twain certainly made his contributions in that area.

I remember working as a tour guide at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in the early '80's, sitting in the Museum's stone-lined rotunda, giving out with great nasal cackles while reading Twain's “Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses.”

Twain was an enormous influence on my style and voice. I've always loved how he cloaked arch and sarcastic observations in purple Victorian prose.

Jack London– Another great writer/adventurer. And he did it all in 40 years. When I think that I’m 42 and have accomplished comparatively nothing it makes me want to bury my head in the sand.

I’ve always been drawn to London’s credo (though I clearly don’t live it): “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Huey Long– The T. Harry Williams biography of Long is one of the best biographies of anyone I’ve ever read. It painted Long as not only a ruthless wielder of power, but also as someone who had great comic skills, and who did not let status and importance change his behavior and nature. He once almost caused an international incident by receiving a German ambassador while wearing pajamas, and earned a black eye in a night club mens room for pissing on the man ahead of him in line at a urinal. My kinda guy.

Norman Mailer-- Mailer is the only writer of the post-war Jewish-American renaissance I've ever been able to get into, and I confess I've only read his non-fiction. His mind fascinates me, even when I don't agree with him.

Still, about 20 years ago he was asked in an interview in “Esquire” magazine about the nature of manhood, about what it means to be a man. He responded every man fears that he is not man enough, but that to be a man is to do just a little bit better than everyone expects of you. I found this comforting on one level, but disappointing on another, since people have always had such high expectations of me.

Jack Kerouac–Kerouac has influenced me on some levels I've barely begun to understand. He's even influenced me theologically. My favorite book of his is “Lonesome Traveler.” While I like “On the Road,” the type in my copy is so small it took me several tries before I could get all the way through it. (I had the same problem with “The Catcher in the Rye,” until someone loaned me a large-type edition.)

Johnny Cash– Cash contained multitudes. He was a combination of an Old Testament patriarch and an American Founding Father, and was both Saturday sinner and Sunday saint. He was as comfortable in the company of Richard Nixon and Billy Graham as he was with Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. The contradictions of the American character resolved themselves in him, and I’ll always regret I never got to see him perform live.

Frank Lloyd Wright–When I was a kid I wanted to be an architect, and Wright was, after all, the most colorful one to ever come down the pike. I was reading Wright's books about the same time the other kids my age were reading, “Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret,” and his rather lyrical writing style and peculiar notions of capitalization warped and influenced me for years. I've long been fond of two quotations of his:
“Early in life, I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”

“Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.”

Wright's spending often got him in major trouble, and he never lived within his means. Once a sheriff came by Wright's Chicago studio to collect a long-neglected debt. While Wright's son John entertained the sheriff by showing him some drawings, Wright ran out the back way with a stack of Japanese prints.

As luck would have it, a major collector of Japanese prints was in town that day, so Wright sold the prints to the collector, went back home, paid the sheriff, then went with his son on a major spending spree, buying furniture, art works, and a couple grand pianos, topping off the day with a meal in an expensive restaurant, after which he was back living on his credit again. John wrote that for some reason his father seemed to thrive on the danger of living beyond his means, and I can definitely sympathize with that.

William S. Burroughs– The Beat I most identify with. Burroughs was always the sage, the elder the others always consulted. He had the darkest, most pessimistic vision of the world of all that bunch. And I can certainly understand what it must have been like for him to have spent an entire year staring at the toe of his shoe. (No, I've never been a junkie, but I have been that bored---many, many times.)

I've gone looking for Uncle Bill's ghost several times. I hunted down his former home in Algiers, Louisiana the first time I went to New Orleans. And I've tried to locate his old marijuana plantation in New Waverly, Texas, which is halfway between Willis, where I went to high school, and Huntsville, where I went to college. Burroughs's son was born in a hospital in Conroe that my architect/contractor grandfather worked on, and I've seen Burroughs “cut-ups” that included newspaper clippings from Point Blank, Texas, the hamlet where my father was born.

John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen– They set the bar for American masculinity at a level that’s impossible to reach, yet it's fun to try.

For me the coolest scene in “Bullitt” is not the car chase, but when McQueen goes grocery shopping: He just lopes over to the frozen food case, sticks in both arms, and comes back with two stacks of TV dinners; it’s clear he doesn’t care which kind they are.

And Newman gave us the amoral role model Hud Bannon: “You don't look out for yourself, the only helping hand you'll ever get is when they lower the box.”

Yukio Mishima– A deeply complicated man, both a sensitive artist and near-cartoonish, self-promoting he-man. His very public act of seppuku was something, like Hemingway's own suicide eight years earlier, he had been rehearsing in his life and art for years.

Henry Miller– For years Henry Miller was known only for the sexual content of his books, but that’s the element I’ve always cared least about. I’ve always loved his digressions and philosophical ruminations, as well as his Whitmanesque appetite for life. Read the interviews he gave when he was an old man–he was definitely centered, a modern sage. (“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”)

Most people are introduced to Miller through “Tropic of Cancer,” but the first one I bought was “The Books in My Life.” I thought it was fascinating to find a writer who was willing to go beyond merely listing his favorite books and actually talking at length about them. But what cinched the sale was the essay, “Reading in the Toilet.”

Years ago a friend of mine took a date to see “Henry and June,” the first-ever NC-17 film, about the romance of Miller and Anais Nin. My friend was in the same boat as me and Miller–he was a downwardly mobile, out-of-shape writer–but the movie made Miller into a sex symbol, and it consequently got my friend laid that night.

Hunter S. Thompson– My liberator.

My friend Mark (the Bob Sacamano to my Cosmo Kramer) always claimed, “I never pushed you over the edge. I could tell you were already at least half-nuts when I met you. I just alerted you to the presence of the edge and you jumped off on your own.”

One of the ways Mark helped in this was in turning me on to Thompson. I was at Mark's house one night, and needed to spend some quality time in the bathroom and wanted something to read. Mark suggested “The Great Shark Hunt,” the first volume of Thompson's collected articles. And from then on I was hooked.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was to me what “The Catcher in the Rye” is to most young people. Thompson offered a different path, a way of living life that had nothing to do with suburbia, 9-to-5, Little League, and all that other soul-sucking, rule-obeying, middle-class American bullshit.

Thompson was also, after you stripped away his theatrical persona, a damned good reporter and a keen barometer of the nation's ebbs and flows. He was a gateway drug as well, as true devotees of his work invariably seek out the works of his literary outlaw brethren--Henry Miller, Burroughs, Kerouac, Bukowski, et. al.

Early on I came to understand the Thompsonian notion of “bad craziness.” One night in my first year of college, Mark and I had gotten dressed up, with the intention of going out on the town in Houston. But Mark had been invited to a party at the home of his friend, Larry Brantley, who still was in high school. We agreed we'd not stay long—just drop by, have a drink, then leave.

Larry was going through his own Hunter Thompson fixation at the time, and greeted us at his front door wearing a Hawaiian shirt, fishing hat, sunglasses, shorts, and canvas shoes, carrying a martini glass and a cigarette in a holder, while affecting an incomprehensible slur.

Most of the guests looked to be high school freshmen and sophomores. One kid tried to engage Mark in conversation, announcing that he needed to get a new “such-and-such” wheel for his skateboard. Mark replied, “Well, I need a lover that won't drive me crazy.” I guffawed at that, but the kid was completely lost.

We went into the back yard to find the ice chests with the beer. Larry had neglected to tell us he was having a pool party. Mark and I were very much over-dressed. About a dozen kids were cavorting in and around the above-ground pool. We tried to ignore them, and took a couple seats off to the side.

But naturally, some of these punks decided they'd impress the girls by making these two older, out-of-shape guys look foolish. Before we realized it, these kids jumped on us, and tried to pull us away from our beers and dunk us in the pool.

Now neither Mark nor I wanted to spend the night driving around Houston in wet, squishy clothes. And we also didn't want to have to go back to our homes and change again. I wore contact lenses at that time, and I wasn't supposed to get them in water. And furthermore, I can't swim. So we fought it.

Mark is about the size of a linebacker, and he was twisting around to the left and right, like an amusement park octopus ride, slinging kids off his arms. I had several guys holding onto me from the front and back and I couldn't push them off.

But my forearms were free.

I got rid of the guy in front by stubbing out my cigarette on his forehead. He ran off screaming. But if the guy who had me from behind now realized that I fought dirty, it didn't deter him. He was locked on good and tight.

I moved forward to the edge of the patio and found a steel chair (not aluminum, not cast iron---steel). I picked it up, raised it over my head, and holding it behind me, began beating this guy in the head with it until he let go.

Needless to say, Mark and I left the party soon afterwards. Larry, FYI, went on to minor fame on children's TV as the voice of “Wishbone,” a dog with an interest in great literature.

Spalding Gray– Last year’s literary suicide. Gray, for good or ill, showed me what could be done with autobiographical material, although, yes, I realize how problematic that style can be when not properly handled.

Teddy Roosevelt– Another renaissance man with a colorful life. I was obsessed with him when I was in intermediate school, to a degree everyone found tiresome.

Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and Diana Rigg (“Mrs. Emma Peel”)– Mix these women together and you’d have my idea of the perfect woman.

Diana Rigg in a black leather cat suit? Meow!

And if there’s a sweeter, more perfect romantic comedy than Audrey Hepburn’s “Roman Holiday,” I’d like to see it.

James Garner, Lorne Greene, Jack Lord, William Shatner, Patrick McNee, Patrick McGoohan– Jim Rockford, Ben Cartwright, Steve McGarrett, Captain James T. Kirk, John Steed, and John Drake/Number Six respectively. Gods of the little talking box.

John Huston– Huston was fond of quoting his friend, Gene Fowler’s line, “Money is for throwing off the back of trains.” He had life pretty well figured out. For years he lived in a manor house in Ireland, where he kept his friends, his guests, his mistresses, his wine cellar, and his art collection. A mile away, on the far side of his property, on the other side of a stream, in a small cottage, he kept his wife and children.

Winston Churchill– Another renaissance man. A great player who impatiently awaited his hour on the stage.

Jack Nicholson– A comedian once did a bit where he talked about exclusive night clubs. You want to be one of the cool people that gets in that club, so you beg and bribe and if you’re lucky, the bouncer will let you past the velvet rope and inside. But once there you learn there’s an even more exclusive VIP Room within the club, filled with even cooler people. You get in there and find that inside that is another VIP Room, and so on and so on. And at the very center of these rooms is a VIP Room where Jack Nicholson sits by himself.

Indeed.

Look at it this way—at any given hour of the day or night, who is more likely to be having the best time, you or Jack?

And though “As Good As It Gets” was a popular hit with audiences, it was a cult hit with my friends, because in it Nicholson nails my personality and characteristics in so many particulars, even down to my supposed habit of clearing my throat obnoxiously when I answer the phone. I watch this movie when I want to laugh at myself.

Tom Waits (another hero of mine) appeared in the movie “Ironweed” with Nicholson, and he marveled at how well-rounded a guy Jack was. He said Jack was just as comfortable and at ease squatting in a train yard, eating out of a can, as he was attending high society dog shows. That to me is the definition of savoir-faire, and I am constantly working to attain that high state of development.

Willie Nelson– The Bodhisattva of the Pedernales. His movie, “Songwriter,” made me want to move to Austin and go into show business. Never mind what a train wreck that dream turned out being.

Ernest Hemingway– Okay, so maybe I’m no fan of blood sports, but I do admire Papa. And he’s another one of those people who have set an impossibly high bar, so that many of the writers since his time have classified themselves as failures for not living lives as adventurous as his.

I have never consciously tried to write like Hemingway, but his extensive thoughts on the writing process have influenced me enormously. He regarded writing, as I do, as a mystical, magical, and near-religious process that is more than the sum of its parts.

William Faulkner– Faulkner is one of those writers who is so great he makes us lesser writers into whimpering, scared little balls of goo. Sometimes his insights and observations, and his way of expressing same, have blown out the back of my skull with their brilliant power, and made me wonder if I should dare to submit my work to anything more important than a “Reader’s Digest” humor column.

Mick Jagger– Mick’s pretty much done everything he’s wanted all his life, and has lived the sort of life most people only dream of. And he’s got a head on his shoulders too–I knew what he was doing in 1990 when he “married” Jerry Hall in a Hindu ceremony in Bali. When Jerry tried to divorce him years later Mick’s lawyers insisted the marriage wasn’t valid in the first place...because neither bride nor groom was Hindu.

David Bowie– Another genius at re-invention, Bowie also has an interesting mind. He gives great interviews and unlike many celebs, talks about books a great deal. But whereas Sting reads big books and then writes songs about them so he can show off how smart he is, Bowie seems to read more because he has a wide-ranging fascination with the world.

And no one alive looks as cool in a suit as Bowie does.

Elvis Presley– Of course there’s his musical legacy, but as an overweight Southern man with mother issues, and a fondness for over-spending, staying up all night and sleeping all day, eating junk food, and gobbling prescription pills, I find Elvis the man a great standard-bearer.

Fred Bankston– This one has pared down life to Zen-like essentials, even for a dog. He has taught me that there is no problem that can't be solved by either sleep or yodeling.

No. 17: Name that celebrity

2005-11-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

submitted by tj1972

Where have all the liner notes gone?

2005-10-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

I miss those days. Unfolding the notes. Finding who played on what. And learning why this recording would or should be relevant.

I'm making a prediction.

Artists will soon start offering audio liner notes. iTunes will pave the way and brand them PodNotes. They will appear as the last downloadable track and be free with purchase of the album.

_________

Richard Buckner, a morose, Yoakam-like twanger who pours unexpected words together, put out his two best albums, Devotion+Doubt and Since, back-to-back in the late '90s. These recordings share at least two common threads. Both were released on MCA and both were produced by JD Foster (Marc Ribot, Richmond Fontaine, Dwight Yoakam).

I just came across a promotional CD that was recorded around the time of Since. It contains a Buckner interview with KCRW and could easily serve as the album's liner notes (soon-to-be-called PodNotes).

It is 16 minutes long, and a must for anyone who's had the pleasure of listening to Since all the way through.

Richard Buckner Interview with KCRW

Some highlights from that interview:

At 32, Buckner took up smoking for this album for the effect it would have on his voice.
"Lucky Buzz" ends with the line "As Congress falls/With Ego's down/I cannot keep/This buzz around." Said Ego's is a live music venue hidden in an underground parking structure in Austin, TX.
The title of the song "10-Day Room" on Since is a reference to Buckner's stay at the phallic-signed Austin Motel during the recording sessions for Devotion+Doubt.
Songstress Syd Straw faintly harmonizes on "Faithful Shooter."

________

Downloads from Since:

"10-Day Room"

"Lucky Buzz"

"Faithful Shooter"

"Hand at The Hem"

________

A favorite, oh-so-typical Buckner lyric from Since:

"Did you mean/What it meant" - "Hand at The Hem"

No. 16: Name that celebrity

2005-10-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

submitted by tj1972

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-10-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am betting more than a few of us can relate to J.S. Bankston's latest installment.

-------

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Balding)
Tharelyn, mother-in-law of my friend James, mother of my friend Nyssa, and wife of a physician, examined my scalp a few weeks ago and came to the same conclusion I had several days before–that I am losing hair from the front of my scalp at a rapid and noticeable rate. She attributed this to all the different depression meds I’ve taken the last few years, and suggested I get on a Minoxidil regime quickly.

The Minoxidil they peddle at my corner supermarket is fairly pricey for a non-prescription item, must be applied daily without fail, has about 80% negative side effects to the 20% positive ones, and, alas, is only for the crown of the skull, not the front hairline. I mean, if I was getting a bald patch in back it’d probably just be easier to become a Franciscan monk, right?

I purchased a set of brushes and began brushing my locks 100 times a night like the old wives tale says to do, in order to stimulate my scalp. And I took close-ups of my hair line in the bathroom mirror and e-mailed the pictures to my mom late one night.

The following morning she left me a phone message where she briefly agreed that I was losing my hair, before launching into some long, boring, Edith Bunker-like account of the suicide of her former neighbor, a farmer named Clyde Froebel. All the time I was listening to the message I was screaming, “Never mind Clyde Froebel! Tell me about my hair!”

I called her back. She explained that Clyde’s wife had died a few years ago and that everyone in his farming community of Millheim (about 90 minutes northwest of Houston) was unsure how he’d handle the loss. But he seemed to be okay, even happy, and had even bought a new tractor, thinking that would make him more attractive to the ladies.

Sadly, the new John Deere did not turn out to be the pussy wagon Clyde had hoped it would be, and Clyde eventually divided his time between his home and an assisted living facility, before finally killing himself at the former.

Now I didn’t really know Clyde Froebel. I couldn’t have picked him out of a police line-up, and if I ever exchanged more than two sentences with him, I’m not aware of it. All I really remember about him was that he used to brag that his three sons were the best-hung young men in the county, and that they’d taken after their daddy. This claim struck me as especially strange and disturbing, since when he made it, nineteen years ago, his youngest son, Bradley, was about eight.

My mom asked me about my breathing problems. I explained my chest was still making squeaky noises, that the sounds had kept me awake one night, and that on another night I had entertained myself by pummeling my chest with my fists, making my fluid-filled lungs sound like a calliope. My mother, who is a great reader of medical books and a vicarious hypochondriac, made the cheery pronouncement that she thought I might be getting emphysema.

After she nagged me to go back in search of more dead-end, subsistence level, $10-an-hour jobs in fields that did not involve writing, I told her I wasn’t listening, and steered the conversation back to the topic of my hair.

–Maybe you’re losing your hair because of all those years you wore it long.

–Oh, please. That’s ridiculous even by your standards.

–Well, after your father died and I was on that Paxil it made my hair come out in clumps.

–See, that’s what James’s mother-in-law said. She thinks it’s the depression meds.

–What I don’t understand is how you can be so upset about this and not worried about the rest of your appearance, about the fact you’re so fat.

–Well, maybe because I feel I can do something about my hair, but the weight is beyond my control, unless I get lipo or a gastric bypass.

–You can’t afford that.

–Don’t tell me what I can and cannot afford or I’ll go out and get it just to spite you.

–Well, there’s always diet and exercise.

–Well, that ain’t gonna happen either.

–Have you been to the doctor yet?

–No, I still need to pick a new one.

–Well, I wouldn’t even tell them about the depression if I were you. Whenever you say the word “depression” they just concentrate on that and don’t give enough attention to your other conditions.

–True enough.

–Anyway, I don’t think you’re a manic-depressive after all. I know that some days when you want to [emphasis mine] you go out and go to the movies or take pictures or go on other outings you don’t tell me about.

–While on other days I can’t bring myself to even leave the house and check my mailbox.

–That’s right.

–So how is that not a textbook definition of manic-depression, mania and depression?

–I don’t think you’re manic-depressive. You’re just moody, or have a bad attitude, or mean, like your grandfather was!

God, one of these days my mother and I are so gonna wind up living in a ramshackle Victorian mansion behind an abandoned motel. She’s gonna keep up her nagging, and I’ll take up taxidermy, cross-dressing, and serial-killing ...

My buddy Matt got this hair-loss obsession started. Thanks to his busy City Hall job I only see him about three times a year now, and he pointed out the hair loss a few weeks back when he took me through the Katrina shelter downtown.

Normally my meetings with Matt are as structured as a Japanese tea ceremony: 1) He points out how my appearance has changed since we last met, 2) he spends 75% of the time talking on his cell, 3) he tells me “but seriously now” that I need to look for a dead-end, subsistence level, $10-an-hour job, 4) he talks about the stressful things that have been going on in his job, and 5) we go our merry ways.

Now I could probably handle baldness if I looked magnificent that way, like Yul Brynner, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, or even Stanley Tucci. But I always look down on young bald men. And I’m not talking about the naturally hirsute posers who think that if they shave their heads and get barbed wire tattoos on their biceps chicks will think they’re Vin Diesel.

To me a young balding man is a failure in that he is someone who has not succeeded in exercising super-human and godlike powers to stop the workings of Nature. You might argue it’s not the poor guy’s fault, but only if you’re not used to trumping Nature.

The last few years I’ve had several reunions with guys I knew in college, people I’d not seen in 10, 15, and even 20 years, and some of them have aged very badly. One guy had balded so badly he looked like the famous unwrapped mummy of Rameses II. And it’s pleased me a great deal that they’ve all been shocked that I either, a) have not changed at all, or b) look younger than I did in the old days.

But this is a family thing. My maternal grandfather was 61 when I was born, and in my christening picture his hair is almost completely black, and he still has a lot of hell-raising in his eyes. And he looked to be no more than 70 when he was in his late 80s.

The two things that make me look younger than my actual age (I’ll be 42 on El Dia de los Muertos) are my unwrinkled, pasty-white skin and my abundant hair.

For those still on Bankston hairstyle watch my look is currently something between Jean Cocteau (see B&W photo) and Kim Jong Il (see color photo). If I was to start losing my hair I might start...looking my age! And the loss of youthful beauty was one of the things that drove Yukio Mishima to run a sword through his innards.

The chief problem with this pre-midlife crisis is not aging per se as it is the idea of me getting closer and closer to the grave with nothing accomplished. Oh, sure, people always take me aside and tell me I’ve done this and that, but what others regard as my accomplishments aren’t important to me.

I regard the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example, as ultimately tragic and depressing. Yes, George Bailey has influenced everyone in his tiny-ass, podunk town, and they all bail him out financially at the end of the picture, but he’s still stuck in that town, doing that job he hates, and he hasn’t become a great engineer or seen the world, the way he’s wanted to all his life.

“Because life gets shorter.” I saw that somewhere recently–maybe on a men’s room wall. But it’s that notion that is at the heart of my crisis. With every hair that falls from my head I am further and further from flying my jet onto that aircraft carrier with the big “Mission Accomplished!” banner.

____________

In other news, this last week I butted heads with the new Security State. Taking a cue from Triple J’s photo feature, I started my own project, trying to document Mr. Bankston’s Neighborhood on camera. I went on a shopping and movie-going excursion, walking about as far as one could conceivably call “walking distance.”

I wound up at a nearby multiplex, and once inside, snapped a shot of the lobby. A cop working security ran up and said that was a serious no-no, verboten, not allowed. I shrugged and zipped my camera into my bag, but now the manager appeared, and said that I couldn’t even bring the thing onto the premises. I’d either have to take it out to my [non-existent] car, or he would lock it up in his office.

I considered making a fuss, even losing my temper. I thought about sarcastically asking if they thought I was an al-Qaeda bomb-thrower.

But I finally just said I wanted a claim ticket. He took out a business card and wrote my info on the back and handed it to me. I said I planned to see two movies and so would probably be one of the last patrons leaving. Would there be anyone who could actually get into the office that late, or would there only be a bunch of teenaged ushers on hand?

He assured me he would himself be around until 2am, so I reluctantly handed my camera over to him. I really, really don’t like parting with that thing, especially since, after my computer, it’s the single most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased. (That’s not that hard to believe–I mean, I’ve never bought a car or a house or anything like that.)

Fortunately, I got my baby back without a scratch.

I can only assume they took the camera to prevent me from making unauthorized copies of movies, or at least snapshot captures of various scenes for posting on the Internet. A multiplex movie theatre would make a poor target for a terrorist bomb, unless of course it was the site of a Rob Schneider film festival.

I worked from 1998 to 2000 as a librarian at a private school. One of my former students, who’s now in college, is an aspiring white boy rapper, and he’s spending this semester in Spain. He recently took a side trip to Venice and e-mailed me, ...“I even rode a fairy around the Grand Cannal, relaxed on a gondala ride, sought out and found Marco Polo's house (and went inside), and (after much searching) found the world's very first ghetto, which originated the word "ghetto". How many rappers can say the same?”
(I’m sure that not a few of you readers have ridden a fairy around Venice a time or two ... )

I make an extraordinary amount of copies. I give the lie to the notion that the Computer Age will create the paperless office. Not only do I use my printer and scanner a great deal, I also use the copy machine at the UPS Store across the street frequently.

If you have a private mailbox there or sign up for a copier code, they’ll give you a pass key that’ll grant you 24-hour access. So I’ll go in there in the middle of the night with a radio and a stack of UT library books and other materials and copy for four or five hours at a clip, until the paper or toner runs out or the sun starts coming up.

The only problem with this is I don’t like standing in one spot on a hard concrete floor for that long. It hurts my back. So this week James and I have been hitting all the sporting goods stores in search of a collapsible stool.

Of course, the fact that we’re “stool hunting” has obligated us to let fly with our most scatological and sophomoric jokes, and caused me to retell the humiliating and graphic story of when a doctor demanded stool samples when testing me for colon cancer. After I finally wound down my talking and caught my breath, I noticed what was playing on the car stereo and pointed it out to James: Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” Honest to God.

I think I’m coming down with something. I went to a late dinner with James and Nyssa at Kerbey Lane Café (where I almost attacked Manuel a few weeks ago). One family there was letting their kid run wild. He’d shriek at the top of his lungs, then charge across the room and throw himself against the windows. Now and again his dad would try to calm him down by picking him up and holding him upside down, but it did no good.

By the time I got home I had developed a rumbly, chunky cough, but still couldn’t clear my chest. I spent most of the day today in bed, having some strange dream that my Basset Hound Fred was starring in “Billy Elliott.”

__________

Anyway, I’ll close on a high note. The other day my mom sent me this from a “Houston Chronicle” health column:

Q: I am having trouble adjusting my medicine for hypothyroidism.... I have gained weight and I can't lose. What I am losing is my hair and often my temper. I am very irritable. What do you suggest?

A: Hair loss, moodiness, depression, weight gain, constipation, fatigue, dry skin, elevated cholesterol, memory problems, and cold sensitivity can be symptoms of an underactive thyroid. It can be hard to get the dose of thyroid hormone just right ... ”

Well, I’ve been on thyroid meds a few years now. Maybe they just need to adjust the dosage and I’ll be hairy and happy again.

I’m looking for a new doctor in my neighborhood. Apparently there are several dozen with offices at the hospital two blocks east of me. One is named “Dr. John F. Bangston,” with a “g,” but I think I’ll skip him, as there’s too much of a potential there for a “Who’s on first” type of confusion.

___________

Next week: Satisfied ‘75 gets Bankston thinking about his own list of cool people.

Rare, Rare, Finds: Damon Bramblett, Gary Floyd

2005-10-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

The title comes from a Nick Drake lyric ... "Time has told me/You're a rare, rare find."

I remember the exact moment I heard those words. I was at the counter of Mojo's coffeehouse. Austin. A weekday, sometime around 10am. I ordered a cup of coffee. For here.

The guy behind the counter was a no-name-ever-given, familiar face. I asked who I was hearing. He told me, Nick Drake, and the song, Time Has Told Me. I spent the next hour or so next to someone who was probably reading Sartre and across from someone who was probably sketching someone reading Sartre, listening to Five Leaves Left all the way through.

When it ended, I left. And then I learned, and bought, and learned, told and bought more. But I also found that many others already knew this story that ended in suicide.

Over the years, I have gone through the same with Alejandro Escovedo, Phil Ochs, Richard Buckner, Reverend Horton Heat, Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, Roky Erickson, Fishbone, Fastball, The Glands, Doug Sahm, etc., etc., etc.

But along the way, there have been the few that you would only know if you were in that place, at that time. Maybe there are good reasons they never made it even as big as the just-listed acts above. Though, the songs below would argue differently.

This is the first in an ongoing installment of Rare, Rare Finds. Recordings that didn't seem to make it out.

Damon Bramblett - Self-Titled (Namesake Records)
"Heaven Bound"
"Nobody Wants to Go to the Moon Anymore"
He sounds like a thin Johnny Cash. Kelly Willis and Sara Hickman have covered his songs. His close friends are Bruce and Charlie Robison. He dated Amy Farris (Dave Alvin's fav fiddler). The Damnations appeared on his self-titled album. Weeks following Townes Van Zandt's death, a memorial/tribute was held for Townes at the intimate Cactus Cafe in Austin. Joe Ely, Kelly Willis, and more played. The crowd begged only Bramblett for one more ... until he did.

Gary Floyd - World of Trouble (Glitterhouse)
"Absence "
"Tough"
Gary Floyd got his start in Austin with the punk band, The Dicks. I found him years later in the Bay Area fronting the rock quintet, Sister Double Happiness. The sexy, female drummer/bassist for Sister Double Happiness later became the sexy, female drummer/bassist for Imperial Teen. Post-SDH, Floyd released a country-blues album called, World of Trouble. The album was released on Glitterhouse, the same label that picked up Richard Buckner's debut after it was dropped by DejaDisc. Fans of I-got-a-girl-she-lives-on-the -hill-she-won't-do-it-but-her-sister-will-era ZZ Top should warm up to "Tough."

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And, in case you haven't heard it:

"Time Has Told Me" - Nick Drake

Depp and Stipe perform six degrees of separation

2005-10-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul hits stores Tuesday.

It is what you think it is: Each song from the heralded 40-year-old album is re-recorded by today's artists including Low, The Donnas and Mindy Smith. Listen to L.A. Times writer Richard Cromelin's piece (see audio side bar) on the album, along with sound clips.

For those who don't know, the only time I prefer to listen to The Beatles is during a deep, Jameson's induced sleep, one where I am as close to unconscious as humanly possible and my chances of memory are slim. That said, this recording caught my attention.

The album was produced by Jim Sampas, who helmed the sw-e-e-e-et-at-times tribute, Kerouac -- kicks joy darkness. Here are two recordings from that album.

"Madroad D riving ... " - Johnny Depp & Come
"My Gang" - Michael Stipe

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Around 1993, a band formed in Texas called P. They recorded one now-hard-to-come-by album for Capitol. Flea and Sex Pistol/Indie 103.1 DJ Steve Jones made guest appearances. The band's first and only single was entitled, "Michael Stipe."

Their first show (and one of only a few ever) was the 1993 Austin Music Awards. Here's how they got the gig: The 'they' was Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes, veteran guitarist Bill Carter, drummer Sal Jenco and Keith Richards-inspired actor, Johnny Depp. (At the time, Depp was in Texas filming, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.)

Here are two tracks from that album. One shows why Capitol took them seriously, the other shows why few others did.

"Michael Stipe" **Gibby Haynes meets iconic Depp in Texas. Forms a band with him. Gibby then bases P's first single on meeting R.E.M. frontman at a Hollywood Hills party. Gotta love Gibby.
"Dancing Queen"

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Random fact: Depp played slide guitar on "Fade In-Out" off Oasis' '97 release, Be Here Now. The album's cover is devoted to reference points from Depp's life and career.

"Fade In-Out" - Oasis w/Johnny Depp

Tonight the bottle didn't let him down

2005-10-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

We should all be practicing our backwards A-B-Cs. Well, that and dancing.

This cowboy certainly has been.

It's Like a Steven Wright Wet Dream

2005-10-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

HS boy #1: Okay, who's Pavlov?
HS boy #2: I don't know, it doesn't ring a bell.
--N train
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So That's Who Sparks Wrote Their Song About
Girl #1: All old people talk about is food.
Girl #2: Well, all we talk about is sex.
--71st & 3rd

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New York's Funniest: Unsung Heroes
Two cop cars are after someone, heading downtown on Fourth Avenue, sirens going. One cop brakes abruptly and throws it into reverse and makes a backward left turn onto 86th Street, where a civilian is sitting in his car, waiting for the light to change. The cop car smashes into the front of the civilian's car, and the cop announces on his megaphone: Wake up, dildo!
--Bay Ridge

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It's Like It's Supposed to Have Some Meaning
Man #1: Do you live in New York?
Man #2: No.
Man #1: Go ahead. Take my spot. I see that statue every fucking day.
--Cruise ship, Hudson River

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**These can be found on Overheard in New York. Brilliant idea, sometimes brilliant results.

Charles Manson – Little guy, yes ...

2005-10-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Love that line.

I want to thank Satisfied '75 for 'tending bar' in my absence - telling great stories, attracting a colorful crowd, and saving a barstool at the end for Bankston.

Check out all the great music on Satisfied 75's site including recent posts on Spoon, Bob Dylan and Richard Buckner.

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Also be grateful I wasn't here to relay, in a comment, an I-know-to-be-true Richard Simmons story that included Hollywood in the early-90s, a private-show-only Chippendales dancer, Simmons' recorded voice on an answering machine, and the famous gym short enthusiast's need to be 'showered' with attention.

And, in case there was ANY question, I was told the story, not directly a part of it.

Audioscrobbler

2005-10-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned this on my own blog in the past, but wanted to take this opportunity to again pimp the Audioscrobbler site. Here is what I said in September:

"I read about Audioscrobbler a few months ago, but didn't jump on board until last week. For those of you not familiar, Audioscrobbler is a free service that links to your preferred computer listening device (iTunes,WinAmp, etc). Every time you listen to a song it catalogs it and after awhile begins to list other members with similar tastes, etc. I'm really digging on this...check it out HERE...Here is my Audioscrobbler info -- add me to your profile if you sign up."

So that was about a month ago that I began using the service. The thing I love about it is that you can go back and see what tunes/artists/genres you are listening to the most (on your computer anyway.) I am curious to see what becomes of this site in the next few years. It could be a real goldmine for labels to get a feel for what the public is really listening to, not just purchasing. One to keep your eye on for sure.

Forget The Good, Let's Hear The Bad & Ugly

2005-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm Satisfied '75. I will be your host while TripleJ is away.

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So who would you not like to meet? In many cases the opposite side of the coin is often far more interesting -- and revealing. Here are a few people I would not want to be locked in a room with for an extended period of time. Let’s hear some of yours.

Michael Jackson – Freeeeaaak show. Close your eyes. Imagine being trapped in said room with Michael when eventually your body must sleep…only to awaken to Jacko sitting Indian-style inches from you while replacing his false nose? Also, is he a Eunuch? Terrifying.
Charles Manson – Little guy, yes. But from most accounts I have read, those who have interviewed, or had close proximity to him, have described his presence as pure Evil incarnate. Scared poor Dennis Wilson out of his own home at the height of the Beach Boys fame. Helter Skelter, indeed.
Jeffrey Dahmer – Creep out, dude. Top shelf homo-erotic cannibalism. There is just no place for these types....this guy was as sick as a rabid dog. If memory serves me, he was killed in prison shortly after arriving by a fellow inmate.
Regis & Kathy Lee (Gifford) – This original television duo could drive any man bat-shit within a single day. Kelly Ripa in Gifford’s stead would be a slight improvement. Slight being the key word here.

Man, I Love Me A Wild Horse

2005-10-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm Satisfied '75. I will be your host while TripleJ is away.

America 2005. Interesting time to be alive. But are there as many "interesting" people inhabiting this world as there were, say, 50 years ago? A lot of the folks that grabbed my attention by the collar have passed on. So my question is: who reels you in? Who is out there mixing it up...making shit happen? Let's hear from the peanut gallery -- boards are open, comment away. Here are a some folks I would have liked to have known had I had the opportunity.

Neal Cassady - The template for Kerouac's Dean Moriarity in "On The Road" and Cody in “Visions of Cody.” Ginsberg has alluded that Cassady is "N.C." is his epic poem Howl. This guy was a real animal...a wild card...goofball. Cassady is the key link between the '50s beats and the '60s hippie counter-culture. After falling in with writer Ken Kesey, Neal was introduced to Jerry Garcia who later described him as “a tool of the cosmos.” Heavy, no?
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - A personal hero of mine. Seriously. Thompson created a journalistic genre while playing by no one's rules but the ones he made up. To be a "success" and heed no doctrine but your own is no little feat. Hunter did both, and beautifully. I was saddened to hear the news of his death, but it made complete sense after reading his note. Everything was on his own terms, even his exit from this plane of existence. Thompson's final book, Kingdom of Fear (2003), painted a portrait of the grim reality that would take hold after Bush's re-election. Perhaps for him, it was time to check out.
William S. Burroughs - I have read Naked Lunch twice. Once in high school and once this past summer on vacation. At 17 the narcotic-pedophile-dopesick-ramblings made little sense. At 30 it still didn't make a damn bit of sense. BUT, his more coherent works (see Junky) and assorted essays are both entertaining and enlightening. Again, an outlaw living a subversve existance on his own terms. He killed his wife...got away clean, too. Innarestin' character, as Neil Young would say.
Ernest Hemingway - Saved the best for last. Papa Hemingway is the essence of cool. Having read not only his novels, but several biographies and historicals tales of the man, I can say he was the True Renaissance Man. He did it all and with style, finesse and character. I have, admittingly, co-opted numerous Hemingway traits/expressions/etc. over the years...for better or worse. From my interest in Cuba, numerous beards, and a love of booze to name but a few.

While I'm away ...

2005-10-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Satisfied '75 is gonna play. His taste in music and more is impeccable.

In the meantime, sample his site.

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-10-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

This week, J.S. Bankston keeps "it short, to a dream, a few jokes, and a few horror stories."

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Marching to Tijuana
I had a dream where I was standing on a long flight of marble stairs that extended down to a street crowded with thousands of people. Way down below me on a landing a group of soul, blues, black gospel, and R&B musicians, headed by Irma Thomas (who was treated like the queen of the event), were about to perform a benefit concert for the people of New Orleans.

I looked behind me, and saw Pope Benedict and an army of Vatican dignitaries standing at the top of the stairs. The Pope was a practical joker, and he got down on his hands and knees and pulled a massive black cable loose, cutting off the main source of power to the concert. Then he leaped over a wall and got down in a ditch and pulled another cable.

When he came back he said, "I want to show you someone who has been very dear to me since my childhood," and from behind his back he pulled a large sock monkey. I genuflected to it (the sock monkey, not the Pope), then we discussed how they don’t make sock monkeys as large as they used to. Then he offered me a job at the Vatican and went off down the stairs at the head of a big procession.

I wasn't expecting this. I rushed forth and began clearing the crowds away, saying, "Make way for his Holiness." I was wearing some sort of fancy ecclesiastical robes. Bishops and cardinals were coming up behind me and whispering into my ear what a great opportunity this was. But I wasn't so sure. If I took this job what would happen to Fred? What would happen to my plans of writing and seeing the world? I'd never get to do any of the stuff I've always wanted to do, but then again I realized, I haven't been able to do those things in my current situation either.

I followed the Pope down to the bottom of the stairs. The performers had moved elsewhere. The stairs turned right and led to an underground lobby with an elevator with golden, mirrored doors. The Pope and his closest advisors went in, the doors closed, and the cab went down. I’d have to catch the elevator the next go-round. But as the doors closed, I saw I was wearing elaborate Papal robes, and a blue doo-rag on my head, though I quickly snatched off the latter.

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Friday I went to lunch with James and his tiresome friend Manuel. Suffice it to say Manuel managed to press all my buttons in a relatively short amount of time, and was appallingly rude, insulting, and obnoxious. He doesn't know how close he came to getting either my drink or the back of my hand in his face.

I also was considering telling him, "If you can't say anything that's not rude and offensive, then why don't you sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up?" I was pondering how to word it to achieve maximum effect and whether to say it loud enough so just the tables next to us could hear, or amplify it for the benefit of the entire restaurant. As it was, I behaved myself out of respect for James. James later said that I had behaved with great civility, but he could see by my eyes that I was seconds away from blowing up and going psycho on Manuel.

After that, James and I headed downtown, and on our way passed Jaime’s Spanish Village. This is an old school Mexican restaurant, across the street from Stubb’s, the famous concert venue and barbeque joint.

I used to go to Jaime’s when I worked downtown, as they have excellent queso. It’s one of the oldest restaurants in town. I’ve even got old Duncan Hines travel guides from the ‘40s and ‘50s where it’s listed. (Before Duncan Hines was known as a brand-name for a cake mix company, it was the personal name of a food critic who toured the US incognito, searching for the best restaurants for travelers in every state.)

Anyway, I gave a loud yelp when we drove past Jaime’s and I saw a big banner under the front windows: “Jaime’s is a breast-feeding-friendly restaurant!” Ugh. I’m sorry, but I consider breast-feeding in public to be vulgar. I know all the earth mothers and hippie chicks will be on my ass about this and say, “But breast-feeding is natural.” Yes, it is. So is urinating and masturbating, but you don’t see me doing those things in public, do you? (Not lately anyway.)

I had a nightmarish vision of me narrating the opening scene of “A Clockwork Orange:” “There was me, that is Bankston, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Jaime’s Spanish Village Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. Jaime’s milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or chili con queso, which is what we were eating. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.”

Saturday I ate alone at an Outback Steakhouse. The food was tasty, the waiter was attentive without being fawning or obtrusive. The problem was the music. They had it up so fucking loud I felt like I was eating in a car stereo store.

I tried to read the paper before my appetizer arrived, but couldn't hear myself think. I couldn't hear most of what my waiter was saying either, so I just played along and tried to anticipate where he was going in the conversation. (Since I'm hard of hearing in one ear anyway, this is sort of old hat to me.) I eventually got a headache, skipped dessert, went home, and had to nap for several hours, and although as of this writing it's been almost nine hours since I left the restaurant, my right ear still hurts a little.

I realize restaurants that cater to a younger crowd crank up the music to create an exciting atmosphere, and that some places like Starbucks deliberately make their stores only comfortable enough so that patrons will pay their money, consume their food and drink, and leave quickly and not burrow in, but jeez!

Oh yes, I almost forgot this-- By the time I paid my check I was so overcome with the noise I'd forgotten about something that happened shortly after I arrived. And I've noticed this same thing happening at other restaurants, and I'm not too happy about it: When my waiter came to take my order he sat down across from me in the booth. I arched my eyebrow (Orson Welles, John Belushi, and The Rock combined are nothing compared to me in the eyebrow-arching department), furrowed my brow, and gave him a look that said, "I beg your fucking pardon! I don't recall giving you permission to sit with me."

I actually saw something on TV where someone was holding forth that if a waiter or waitress actually physically touches a customer, that tends to result in the tip going up quite a bit because it personalizes the relationship between waiter and customer. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't a part of that study, as I'd have blown the curve. I'd be horrified if a waiter or waitress touched me. (Sorry folks--I cannot abide the term "server.")

"I can abide formality or intimacy, but I detest informality." Evelyn Waugh said that, and I'm usually in agreement with him, and though, yes, I'm notorious for walking my dog in my bathrobe, I've got to admit I neither care for informality nor intimacy. My friend Tim said that I "have one of the finest socio-political minds of the 19th century," and I'll have to agree with him--I'm very old-fashioned about some things, especially how people should behave.

I don't like work settings, for instance, where they refer to me by my first name, as if I were a child, and even more so, I hate it when a stranger, after being told my name is James Bankston, will automatically become so presumptuous as to call me "Jim."

(No, my first name's not "Baby"--it's "J.S."---"Mr. Bankston," if you're nasty.)

Now I'm on pleasant terms with most of the folks at my corner grocery store (except that one clerk who didn't appreciate the joke I made the day Michael Jackson was acquitted), but I'm not planning any time soon on inviting those people over for a beer. Nor do I intend on asking the delivery guys from the Chinese restaurant across the street to come in and watch "Danger Man" with me.

And anyway, when I'm well enough acquainted with a waiter that he's willing to hand me his keys and let me go borrow some of his CDs out of his car, then I'll be willing to let him sit with me at my table, but not before.

Now Thursday I went to lunch with James and three friends of his who work for some hellish software company, and we quickly fell into stories about bosses who have humiliated us and treated us like ignorant children.

I told them about when I worked for Half-Price Books in Bryan/College Station, the backwards-ass home of Texas A&M University. My manager was a real walking stool sample: he had severe psychological issues, he sexually harassed some of the female staffers, he abused the dog I gave him, he had temper tantrums in the stock room where he'd kick merchandise around, and he'd have cursing fits on the floor in front of customers. (It is with no small amount of pride that I add I authored an 11-page memo that helped get him fired.)

Anyway, like most bad managers, this guy had no faith in his staff, he didn't think they knew how to do their jobs, and he had a fit whenever anyone exercised individual initiative without first getting his okay.

As a used bookstore, we generated a lot of excess books we couldn't sell, and we had several charities who'd come get some of our left-overs.

One day I came to work, sauntering into the stockroom through the back door. The manager and several of my co-workers were there.

One co-worker asked, "Bankston, what did you do on your day off?"

I said, "Oh, I arranged for us to do a donation to Tempura House."

The manager flipped out: "Goddammit! Who told you could do that?! Who gave you permission to set up a donation on your own?! ... Anyway, what the fuck's Tempura House?"

I explained, "It's a shelter for lightly-battered women."

And naturally, everybody got the joke but the manager.

But my fellow diners had their own war stories. Apparently, though they are well-paid, their company is owned and run by a tantrum-throwing maniac. This guy figures that since he successfully got the company off the ground and has been making money, then every move he's made so far must be flawless and beyond question, so he plans to keep on doing what he's been doing.

He's fond of screaming fits, cussing people out in person and over the phone. One of the guys at my table, Jim, (yes, our group of five included two Jameses and one Jim) was actually physically struck by this prick before. Why he didn't sue this guy and take over the company is beyond me.

Once the Number Two guy at the company showed the boss figures that proved that if a middle-man was put between this boss and the salesmen, sales and productivity went up, but if the boss interacted directly with the salesmen, the figures went down. The Number Two then said, "So, would you rather be rich or would you rather be right?" And the boss then went into a tirade, screaming, "Well, goddammit, I've been running this company one way and I'm gonna keep running it this way, and if any of those mother-fuckers have a problem with it then they can fucking go work someplace else!"

This company micro-manages its employees to an annoying degree, and treats them like children. Each salesman is expected to make a daily quota of calls, and the company keeps a log of when a salesman calls and how much downtime there is between calls. One salesman was actually summoned in to be interrogated and chewed out by a supervisor:

"It says here you made one call at 9:50am and didn't make another until 10:10am."

"Oh yeah?"

"Well, that's twenty minutes. Do you mind telling me what you were doing all that time?"

"Well, actually I had to go to the bathroom."

"You were in the bathroom for TWENTY MINUTES! Do you have a medical condition?"

And so on.

Robert Mitchum once described working in Hollywood as "like being nibbled to death by ducks." I know the feeling. I’ve been in that situation before. There's no way in hell I could put up with that sort of work environment more than a few minutes.

Anyway, Jim summed it all up beautifully: "When I quit this job I'm gonna go down to Tijuana and suck cocks for six months...until I can get my self-respect back."

And the winner is ...

2005-10-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

... before we get to that I need to give due thanks to jjones. He did what I've been reminded of over the past few months. The thoughts of one individual are never going to be greater than what's accomplished as a result of that thought, by many. Here's a nod back at you, sir.

I am not going to explain why I picked this tagline. As X's John Doe said Saturday night on a panel with novelist Rick Moody, and as always, I paraphrase "Don't over tell the story. Give enough, but leave enough to interpretation."

With that, Satisfied '75 gets the nod. Congrats. A t-shirt is in the making.

And thanks to everyone for contributing. It is truly appreciated.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness ...

2005-10-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg's first public reading of the poem, "Howl," at the Six Gallery in San Francisco.

Ginsberg wrote the poem-that-defined-a-time in 1954 in an apartment at 1010 Montgomery in SF. I know this because in the mid-90s, I spent 12 weeks sleeping on seemingly piss-soaked sheets at the Golden Eagle Hotel across the street.

I moved to San Francisco because of The Beats ... Kerouac, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Cassady, and Ginsberg, specifically his poem, "Howl." That power of some one thing to literally move a person still gives me pause and wonderment. And as many of you threw out taglines, I kept being reminded of this.

In 1994, Rhino released "Allen Ginsberg: Holy Soul Jelly Roll; Poems And Songs 1949-1993." The title of the box-set came from a rare bootleg years earlier that paired Ginsberg and Dylan. I've never sought out the bootleg, in large part, because as one critic said, it could "make the very hardest of the hard-core Dylan fan cry uncle."

But, I do own the box-set recordings of Ginsberg's poems. A highlight is his '56 reading of "Howl" after being introduced by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The reading clocks in at just over 30 minutes - making Bankston look like the king of the haiku.

Enjoy.

"Howl"

Drunken angel

2005-10-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Followers would cling to you
Hang around just to meet you
Some threw roses at your feet
And watch you pass out on the street
Drunken Angel

Those words are from Lucinda Williams' song, "Drunken Angel" and they're about Blaze Foley.

In 1989, the big-voiced, little-known guitarist was shot and killed by his son's friend. In the years following, many artists including John Prine, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Lyle Lovett recorded his songs.

At the time of his death, Foley was in the studio recording a country album. Seven years later, that album, appropriately entitled "Wanted More Dead Than Alive," is set to be released next week.

Hall-of-fame critic Michael Corcoran tells you all of this along with the rest of the tale. He even supplies song clips.

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"Drunken Angel" - Lucinda Williams

Putting the 'ass' in the classics. Celebs, music, media, opinions and more.

2005-10-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

I have a contest and it includes a prize for the winner.

Thanks to some help from jjones (and feedback from many of you), NJK is undergoing its third redesign.

Above is where we stand. But, I need your help with a tagline that captures the site/blog in one or two succinct, memorable sentences.

Anonymous, otherwise known as ILoveJacksonBrowneSoMuch ... ThatMyBrotherHasAHaircutJustLikeHim, suggested a contest to name the tagline. He even took it a step further and submitted the first entry.

NotJackKerouac - Bankston's Blog

The Prize: a FREE NJK t-shirt with the new logo and tagline.

Please submit all entries through the 'post a comment' tool. A winner will be named in the near future. Thanks in advance for your help.

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**Banners by jjones

Tales From a Great Indoorsman

2005-10-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

J.S. Bankston submits his latest installment as we find Fred safe and sound following Hurricane Rita. You'll have to settle in for this one, but when you do you'll find a great read.

Wake Me Up When September Ends
I spent the week of the 19th like everyone else in Texas, waiting for the Hurricane Rita bitch-slap. After all the bad news in September I had planned one of my San Antonio day trips, but postponed it out of fear of being caught in a major rainstorm and being crammed into a bus full of evacuees on the return trip.

As I told some of you, Monday the 19th I got an e-mail from my mom and I called her to find out more. She was freaking out about Rita and planning to evacuate with her husband. She lives in Richmond, Texas, southwest of Houston, 100 miles from Galveston and 50 miles from the coast.

Her youngest stepson was unable to find a hotel or motel room in San Antonio or Austin, but did find one in Arlington, near Dallas. Her husband was measuring the windows in preparation for boarding them up. She and I fell into the dark gallows humor we often engage when we’re not at each other’s throats, and I assured her all would be well.

Tuesday the 20th I couldn’t reach her by phone and assumed she’d left already.

Wednesday the 21st I got another e-mail from her and called her. She was still in Richmond, running around like a chicken with her head cut off, packing valuables, and taking interior and exterior "before" photos of the house for insurance purposes. She was also dithering about where to evacuate to. She was afraid the hurricane or tornados and floods would follow her to Arlington, and so was considering staying with in-laws in Del Rio, out in West Texas. But Del Rio, she feared, could also be hit by the hurricane ...

When I called Thursday they were just then getting around to boarding up the windows. Traffic on major highways and chicken-shit country roads was by this point so bad that my mom and her husband were stuck. They had to ride it out now. She was feeling a bit cockier at this point, enough to bait me into a minor argument.

Early the morning of Friday the 23rd I called again. She thought they might lose their roof, back fence, and several windows. They were unable to cover a lunette window way up in the top of their entry hall, and she feared if that broke they’d lose everything in the living room. They planned to hunker down in a bathroom with no windows, on a single bed mattress on the floor.

That Wednesday I ran around with my buddy, James, getting lunch and buying books. That night he saw footage on the local news of the empty shelves and panicky shoppers at the Wal-Mart near his house. I had considered a grocery run for the next day, but James called me late Wednesday night and suggested we make a run then, when the stockers come out and refill the shelves in grocery stores.

At 1am we went to a 24-hour Super Wal-Mart north of where I live. For that time of night and for suburbia, it was pretty crowded. There was a sense of panic in the air, minor, but still palpable. Stockers said that earlier in the evening people had been grabbing bottled water off the pallets before they could get them out on the shelves.

News reports said that locals were buying survival items as if Austin was going to take a direct hit. I admit I got a little caught up in the vibe and started buying as if I’d never be allowed into a grocery store again. I spent $177 and my cart was so heavy-laden it was actually groaning.

I had to go shopping again the next day. I got my dog Fred’s arthritis pills, had a late, gas-inducing lunch, then went to the grocery store, got my own meds, and tried unsuccessfully to find a flashlight.

The panic vibe was even evident at this neighborhood grocery store. Eschewing the $5 "romantically-unfulfilled-woman-reading-her-Sandra-Brown-novel-in-the-tub" aromatic candles, I stocked up on the 89 cent votives in the ethnic food aisle. I went by my apartment office to get a package and they seemed to be of the opinion that we’d get nothing but a little rain and that to prepare for anything worse was just silly.

_____________

There were two notes on my apartment door that sent me into a lather. One said maintenance men would be barging into my apartment in a day or two, spending 45 minutes installing some "money-saving" water heater meter. (I’d gladly pay them to just pass me by. This spring I came home one night to find two of those assholes inside my apartment, trying to replace my water heater, after having broken one of my patio screens and knocked over several columns of books. I flipped out, spitting obscenities until they finally left.)

The other note was from the complex’s business manager. He said he was preparing their annual budget and would have to walk through everyone’s apartment between Monday the 26th and Wednesday the 28th. The idea of this further intrusion gave me fits.

I learned that we in Austin could at least lose our electricity because of the hurricane. Ugh, no computer, no TV, no air conditioning. Kill me now! How is it modern technology can put a jackass with a cell phone every ten feet all over this God-forsaken planet, and yet still cannot keep the electricity running during storms?

The night before Rita hit I noticed the sky had the jaundiced color that always precedes hurricanes and tornados. Fred went off and spent most of the night sawing logs in my walk-in closet, which is pretty much his sanctum sanctorum, while I surfed the Internet and watched Anderson Cooper, et. al. dealing with stinging rain and flying debris.

As the night progressed it seemed more and more likely my mom’s place had avoided serious weather. Then a reporter in Galveston started talking about a block with two historic houses and a store going up in flames, and I freaked out. (God, please let it not be any of the really cool old houses!) When they finally gave the address of the fire I downloaded a Galveston map to make sure we weren’t losing one of the major old houses of Galveston. I was particularly worried about the Bishop’s Palace, which, fortunately, turned out to be several blocks away from the site of the fire.

The Bishop’s Palace was a stone mansion from the Victorian era that had for a time been the official residence of the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Galveston. It actually survived the infamous 1900 Hurricane and Flood, but when, earlier in the week, some talking heads were predicted Rita would be worse than the 1900 storm, I began to fear for the Palace.

You see, I am an architecture fanatic, and for almost 30 years I have tried unsuccessfully to take a tour of the Bishop’s Palace, and it has become a symbol of all the very ordinary goals that fate has prevented me from achieving for one stupid reason or another. Once as a kid I went with a church group for a day at the beach in Galveston. We arrived earlier than we’d planned and stopped at the Palace, thinking of taking a tour. But after 15 or 20 minutes of walking around the exterior the other kids got impatient and insisted that we leave--just 10 minutes before the house was about to open for tours. I was enraged and refused to participate in the activities at the beach. I just stayed fully-dressed under an umbrella, pissed off for the rest of the day.

I took other trips to Galveston in the years following. During some of them I had other plans in mind, like going to the beach or attending Mardi Gras, but there were trips where touring the Palace was the top of my to-do list, and I still wasn’t able to go there. I even had a dream once where I had moved to Galveston, to an apartment building across the street from the Palace, where I would see the Palace from my windows every day and night. And when the time came in the dream for me to finally visit the Palace, I walked up the front steps, reached out for the knob of the front door, and woke up, screaming, "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!"

Nine years ago my mother remarried and one of the first weekend trips she and her husband took was to Galveston. She called me later to tell me all about it: "Oh, we went on a tour of the Bishop’s Palace. You would’ve loved it. Have you ever been there?"

The morning Rita hit I finally went to bed around 8am, surprised Austin hadn’t even gotten any rain. When I woke up later in the day there was a message on my machine from my mother: "The sun is shining, the wind is blowing slightly, we sustained no damage, and you didn’t inherit anything."

Well, moving right along, apparently the Austin City Limits music festival went off without a hitch. When I saw the line-up announced a few months ago I noticed the names of several bands I like. (My musical tastes tend to be more, um, Anglophilic than seem to be common amongst the notjackkerouac readership.) But there’s no way in hell I’d go to an event like that outdoors, at least not in Austin. I wouldn’t go see a resurrected Ludwig van Beethoven conduct his Ninth Symphony if it was gonna happen outdoors.

And anyway, I much prefer the technical precision and production qualities of studio albums to live performances and even live albums. At concerts I’m always listening for elements that aren’t there, wanting to add things–a piano here, a string section there. Of course some of that may also have to do with the fact I seldom get out anywhere and tend to listen to music only in the privacy of my living room.

Well, since the last time I wrote a major blog America’s hygienically-challenged First Couple of White Trash has a Crown Prince–yes, the shoe-phobic Britney "Brandine" Spears and her layabout husband, Kevin "Cletus" Federline, have had their first semi-legitimate child.

After a great deal of confusion it was announced the lad would be named "Sean Preston Spears Federline."

Federline had reportedly wanted to name the kid "Vegas," after his favorite city. (Dear God–Swift, Thackeray, and Waugh on their best days couldn’t have made up shit like that!) Other names under consideration were "Preston Michael Spears Federline" ("PMS"–Smart one, that, Brit!), or "London Preston Spears Federline."

The "Michael" was almost certainly in honor of Michael Jackson, as Federline’s eldest son was named "Kaleb Michael Jackson Federline." That name tells us two things about ol’ Cletus, actually: 1) He’s one of those idiots who thinks misspelling a child’s name makes him "unique," rather than a poster kid for illiteracy, and 2) he believes, as many celebs do, that it’s 1983, that the last 22 years haven’t happened, and that Michael Jackson is still the biggest and most talented entertainer in the world, as opposed to a freakish, delusional pedophile who’s not had an original idea in almost a quarter century.

And "London"? Presumably that would’ve been in keeping with that extremely vulgar celebrity trend of naming a child after his place of conception, a custom pioneered by sarong-wearing soccer player David Beckham, and his ex-Spice Girl wife, Victoria. I keep waiting for a celebrity child to be christened "Range Rover" or "‘57 Chevy."

Ah, but it could’ve been much, much worse. Had the little bastard been a girl Britney wanted to name her "Addison Shye." "Shye"? God, that makes my teeth hurt. What the hell is wrong with people of breeding age these days? Is there no one left with any taste? People tend to give their kids names that may seem cute when the kid is a baby, but will be ridiculous when he’s 20, 50, or 90 and in a nursing home.

But this topic has been thoroughly dealt with at this site, "Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing":

(FYI, your gentle host, Triple J, once told me he wanted to name his firstborn son "Dylan Kerouac Reed." I responded I wanted to do like George Foreman, but instead of having ten kids all named "George," I’d name ‘em all "Fred," after my beloved Basset Hound.)

My two official invasions of privacy finally passed. I got a knock at the door the other day from some snapper-head from Austin Energy, who gave a little speech about installing this water heater thing, saying he needed access to my laundry room/pantry and water heater off my balcony. I sat down and went back to writing. It took a grand total of SIX of those assholes to come a-knocking and nail a fucking box on my wall under my breaker box. Fortunately, they only took 15-20 minutes instead of the promised 45.

After I got that out of the way I had to worry about the apartment staff doing their official walk-through. They said it was to take place between the 26th and 28th. I basically cleared my schedule for the 26th and postponed researching my column until I could get these fuckers out of my way. I wasn't gonna let them come in and prowl and knock more shit over while I was out.

I went to bed that day at 7am, and tossed around until 11, unable to sleep because I knew those fuckers would probably wake me. They finally showed--three maintenance men, led by the head guy, a smirking redneck named "Junior." (Is there a law in Texas that all apartment maintenance crews must employ a guy named "Junior"?) They checked the balcony, under the sinks, etc., and were done in about three minutes. They were as unobtrusive as they could be while still in principle being obtrusive.

Tuesday--September 27th
I had to make up for lost time. I got up early and called Pease Elementary School. It's been open since 1876, and seemed as good a subject as any for my local history column. I called and asked if I could come by and do some interior shots. I was told the Principal would have to okay that and I was given her voice mail. I waited two hours and when the Principal didn't call back I called a cab to take me down there. I got the same Algerian driver who had taken me to the bus station in the wee hours a few weeks ago, when I went to San Antonio.

Once inside the school I went to the office, met the Principal ("Oh yes, Mr. Bankston, I was meaning to call you ... "), took my fucking pictures in a few minutes and was gone. I did about an hour of research on my next three columns at the Austin History Center, then went over to the Old Land Office Building (another future subject) and took some shots there. I had my heart set on lunch at Mike's Pub, a greasy burger joint near my old Citysearch offices, but it was closed for the day because the owner/cook was out sick. I settled for a lackluster po-boy at a pseudo-Cajun place on 6th.

I took another cab back to my neck of the woods, getting dumped off at Borders. I HAD to get the new "Family Guy" DVD, "Stewie Griffin: The Inside Story," which was released that day. I got some other DVDs and some magazines and a book, then called a cab. I went to check out, but halfway through the process a second clerk took over from the first. Not too surprisingly, she rang up some of my purchases twice, which resulted in a huge total. I pointed out that that seemed a little much and she started going through the laborious process of crediting the double-charged items to me. I had to call the cab company a second time.

It was hot as hell outside. Now normally I would just walk from Borders to my apartment, but not in that heat. When the cab finally arrived, it was the height of 5pm traffic. My fare was only $5. I know most cabbies hate short trips since they are usually not worth the money, but I was so grateful for the ride I tipped my cabbie $10.

I was so sweaty and weak my hands were quivering. I took Fred out, had a shower, and went to bed. I woke in the wee hours of the morning, tossed off a short 1500 column (short by my standards--my columns are normally 4000 to 5000 words), then went back to bed.

Wednesday the 28th
I don't remember what I did this day other than sleep and watch the hilarious "Family Guy" movie.

Thursday the 29th
I almost never watch or read the local news, wherever I live. All it usually consists of is City Council goings-on, road construction reports, and area sports scores. So I was completely surprised when I walked out of the house Thursday morning with Fred and found a cold front had blown in during the night. It was a beautiful day, all cloudy and overcast like I like it, and so cool I almost cried with joy.

For the last seven or eight months I 've not been able to so much as walk to my mailbox without becoming drenched in sweat. I really should move to the British isles or somewhere where the weather is more suitable to my tastes.

I took my friend James to lunch and then we went to his house to watch the "Family Guy" movie.

I have mentioned James before in these blogs. I stayed with him and his wife Nyssa for a month-and-a-half after the fire at my old apartment last year. They are the only friends I have that live in Far North Austin, and so, the only ones I see with any regularity. She works for the State and he works at home, so we often go to lunch and he drives me around and watches me piss my inheritance away on books, DVDs, and electronics.

By the time he dropped me back off at my house it was around 5:30pm and I was already ready to go back to bed. You see, last winter, one of my doctors put me on a mood stabilizer. It didn’t work worth a damn, and I took myself off it. Then a few months ago my other doctor put me back on it. Since I don’t have insurance and those pills are very expensive and since they also, as I said, don’t work, I took myself off them again a few weeks ago.

But where I fucked up was that I ran out while on the maximum dosage. I should’ve gradually worked my way back down to the minimum instead. And so for weeks I have been sleepy to a ridiculous degree, unable to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time.

Friday–September 30th
I woke up this day with a little bit of energy for a change and decided to embark on a program of spring cleaning, either six months late or six months early, depending on how you view life.

The chill that was in the air yesterday was, sad to say, almost gone , and I got so busy working on the living room that I soon broke into a sweat, which is a bad thing. I hate to sweat, and I always get mad when I do, but there you are.

I took James to lunch at a Chinese place in South Austin, then we looked at magazines at BookPeople. (BookPeople is the largest independent bookstore in Texas, but I have yet to find a bookstore in this town that has a magazine section that is large enough to suit me. I normally hit about five major bookstores/news stands each month, and I still can’t find everything I’m looking for.)

I had a Barnes & Noble coupon that was about to expire and I didn’t want to waste it on a little $20 book or CD–I needed a big ticket item. The Barnes & Noble by my house has a small music and movie section, and I was having trouble finding a boxed set that suited me. Most of the contenders ("Miami Vice," "Star Trek," "Seinfeld") I knew would be handsomely discounted at other stores at Christmas. I saw a cart of boxed sets off to the side and asked a clerk about them. He said they were all poor sellers that were getting sent back to the warehouse. But on them I saw a Criterion Collection DVD boxed set (my gold standard) of four Akira Kurosawa samurai films-- "Seven Samurai," "The Hidden Fortress," "Yojimbo," and "Sanjuro"– for $99. After my discount I got it for only $68. Good deal, eh?

Saturday--October 1st
My mom e-mailed and said that what with supplies, plyboard for her windows, and the replacement of a pane of glass that got broken while the windows were being boarded-up, she and her husband spent about a thousand bucks on Hurricane Rita, even though it didn't hit their house.

9:45pm
Just up from a nap. Am trying to get my printer working, but it seems the damn drum is out now. Well, I do work this printer to death. I just wish it'd hold together longer. I was upset when I learned a printer has a finite number of potential jobs.

Fred woke me, needing to go outside. Before I obliged him I tried to stand on my head, to force the fluid out of my lungs so I could breathe better, but I was unable to get into the position. Then I tried hanging my head and part of my torso over the edge of the bed, but that just brought a rush of blood to my head and made me woozy.

I gave up smoking in 2002 after 20 years of cigars, cigarettes, and pipes. Of course, in the last few years of that period, yuppie assholes and pretentious frat boys had made me look like I was following a fashion by cigar smoking instead of pioneering one. (Believe me, taking up cigars as a habit while I was in college was expensive, especially when I'd go through a box of 50 in two weeks.)

But two weeks of flu followed by an X-ray scare, followed by two weeks of pneumonia, and an other week of coming down off the medication was all it took for me to quit. It was really pretty easy. The hard part was learning what to do with the nervous, fidgety energy and how to disassociate certain occasions from the rituals of smoking.

The downside of all this is my illness left a residue of fluid in my lungs for three or four months which my lungs were too weak to dislodge. Every night when I lay down in bed I'd have a coughing fit, until one night I coughed so violently I coughed up a mouthful of the phlegm that had been the culprit.

Then I got another case of pneumonia last winter, a week after starting a dead-end, part-time library job I didn't want. Every day of my illness my mother would call to bleat and bray and whine and nag and cry, saying if I didn't get back to work they'd fire me. I said it was winter--it was normal to have pneumonia. They wouldn't fire me for getting a normal illness--not that I gave a shit one way or the other.

Well, I didn't get a chance to recover from my pneumonia in peace and quiet and went back to that stupid job, which I was to quit in a few months anyway. But ever since December 2004 I have had more fluid stuck in my lungs, and anytime I sit quietly with the TV off, from deep within my chest I can hear a sound like mewing kittens, squeaking leather, or a whistling tea kettle. It's maddening.

Today was the day most churches in town did their annual Blessing of the Animals, in honor of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on the 4th, but most of them had their services at 9am or 9:30, which was too early for me to get someone to drive me and Fred around. And I've had bad experiences trying to get cabbies to take dogs aboard.

I continued with my house cleaning, working on part of the living room and bedroom. The latter showed improvement almost immediately, but it's hard to tell right now that I've accomplished anything in the living room. I've filled up four large garbage bags and still have a long way to go.

Around 2pm I decided to break for lunch. I checked my mail and picked up a package at the office--a biography of Eric Gill I'd won off Ebay that took three tries and several months before it made it here from England.

Then I headed down the street to a section that has six restaurants in a row, three of which share one parking lot. I was going to the barbeque place. I don't much like it--it's noisy, the counter guys yell motivational team cheers as if they’re football players, they play the shitty kind of country music (Toby Keith, Brooks and Dunn, as opposed, say, to Rodney Crowell and Dwight Yoakam; if you don’t know why one is preferable to the other, Triple J will gladly give you a seminar), and the clientele is mostly yuppie salesmen. But it is the closest barbeque restaurant to my home.

As I approached I wondered why so many people seemed to be walking around on the side of the road. I'm about the only person that walks anywhere up in the far reaches of suburban northwest Austin. It wasn't until I reached the back turn-in to the parking lot that I saw what was going on--there was a classic car show being held there.

This was not the kind of scene of which I wanted to be a part. I could think of few things less suited to my tastes than this unless you could perhaps scare together a convention of screaming babies selling cell phones and wearing patchouli oil.

The dining room was full up, so that meant I had to sit under the awning outside amongst the flies and hot breezes, and as Dame Fortune had it, the one free table was right next to the barbeque pit itself, in case I wasn't already warm enough. But I did have an excellent view of the sordid spectacle going on in the lot.

It was nothing less than the apotheosis of the Hank Hill/Dale Earnhardt/Kevin Federline redneck culture, the same culture into which I was born, of which I have always been deeply ashamed, and from which I have tried unsuccessfully to escape for my entire life. It's a society where the women grow larger than the men, though the men have the bigger breasts. It's where a formal occasion means you wear long pants with your flip-flops instead of shorts. It's where "Auto Trader" and "Bassmaster," rather than "Dwell" and "Utne Reader," are the periodicals of choice. How this culture produced William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Truman Capote is beyond me.

Understand, I am a proud and loyal Southerner--I just hate the white trash side of it.

I ate precisely, using a separate spoon for each of the side dishes and the dessert, then packed away my leftovers and decided to explore. I knew that if I forced myself into an alien world I'd probably find something to write about.

I should mention here that I have never in my life owned a car, I don't have a driver's license, and I am a lousy driver. Just about every time I've gotten behind the wheel a minor accident has resulted.

Of course I played with toy cars as a child, but I was always appalled on the playground when other boys would pretend to operate invisible cars or motorcyles. They would make skidding, screeching, and revving "VRRN, VRRN, VRRN" noises. I always found that silly and embarrassing and beneath me. I could never bring myself to making noises while playing with cars or other toy vehicles.

I also promised myself I would never learn the mechanics of the automobile. I was worried, because it seemed that most people who drove seemed to have some sort of knowledge about how their cars operated, and it seemed axiomatic that if you possessed this knowledge you'd sooner or later find yourself doing shade tree mechanic work, getting your hands dirty and your clothes oily, and that was definitely not for me. (I should note in passing that some of my grandparents were blue collar workers, so I don't know from whence my "nasty-nice" elitism sprung, but sprung it did and early on too, and it stuck.)

As I got older I became afraid of the act of driving. When I was a pre-adolescent I was pressed into service by my father, helping him to clear some brush on our property. These exercises instilled in me a solid hatred of the value of hard physical labor.

On one of these occasions my father's Jeep was for some reason parked on top of some felled branches and he wanted me to move the Jeep to get them. One of my step-brothers (the amusingly-named "Buck Bankston"--I always thought that made him sound like the hero of a cheap action novel) came over and tried to show me how to drive a stick.

As it was, I stepped on the reverse instead of the gas, and went hurtling backwards into a yaupon thicket at high speed, knocking away a pole that held up part of the roof of one of our tool sheds. As soon as Buck got over to me and turned the Jeep off, I ran into the woods to hide, and vowed I'd not take any more informal driving lessons with my family. I would wait until Driver's Ed.

I was, therefore, the only person in my Driver's Ed class, years later, who didn't already have extensive experience behind the wheel. All the other kids had practiced and some already had hardship permits. I just wasn't that interested.

And Driver's Ed was such a snore-fest. I'd have to come to school really early in the morning when I was barely awake, and ride around for an hour with three other students and the instructor. I'd get fifteen minutes behind the wheel, usually driving into the rising sun, and then I was expected to "observe" the positive and negative aspects of the other kids's techniques for the other 45 minutes. The observation aspect bored the shit out of me. I never could see anything, I got nothing out of it, and it was a total waste of time. And for the last quarter-century my mom has bitched at me that I'd be a driver today had I only paid attention during Driver's Ed observation.

I seem to recall that Driver's Ed took an entire semester, and at some point a trailer was brought onto school grounds, a trailer that had a projector at one end, a screen at the other, and two rows of automobile mock-ups in between. We students were shown films of various driving conditions and were supposed to operate our mock-up cars accordingly. Each mock-up was wired so the instructor could assess and rate what we were doing, and as I recall our rating appeared on a panel on our dashboard or something. This trailer, by the way, was called the "simulator," but naturally, we called it the "stimulator."

I remember two films especially. In one we were faced with three potential hazards at one time: a car had crossed the solid line and was veering into my lane, a child had run into the street after her ball, and a dog had also run into the street. The basso profundo voice of the film's narrator (as the Voice of My Conscience or the Voice of God-as-Safety-Monitor) announced, "Potential hazard! What will you do?" Well, I knew what response they wanted. I also knew how I really would respond. I certainly wasn't gonna have a head-on with another car and kill myself. And I sure as hell wouldn't kill a dog. But kids are a dime-a-dozen ...

In the "Winter Driving" film I was taken through a lovely New England village at Christmas-time. Everything was all snowy and Norman Rockwell. A woman crossed in the middle of the street, carrying an armload of Christmas presents. As she ran, she dropped a few packages. She turned and ran back to get them.
"Potential hazard. That woman is standing in the middle of traffic."

I floored it.

I took Driver's Ed three times. Finally, the instructor was so tired he just gave my parents the certificate and said, "I can't do any more for him. When you think he's ready, give him this for his insurance."

Many years later I ran into my Driver’s Ed teacher at my father’s funeral, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him I still didn’t drive.

Eventually, in my freshman year of college I went to take the test at the Department of Public Safety. I drove there in my mother's SUV (or whatever they called those vehicles then), and she sat beside me. At that time my mother gave a lot of private music lessons after school (both of my parents were public school band directors), and since my mother was often out after dark, my gun nut dad bought her a handgun and bolted a holster for it on the inside panel of the driver's side door well.

When we pulled up at the DPS, I pointed to the pistol and said, "What are we gonna do about this? I can't very well drive around with a State Trooper next to me with this hand cannon on display!" She took the gun and wrapped it in a quilt in the back seat, warning me not to brake suddenly during the test. The entire time the trooper was in the car I had to cover the holster with my left leg.

Amazingly, I passed the test my first try, but I never had cause to use my license except to cash checks or buy beer. When it finally expired I didn't notice it for several months, so little did I use it.

Once, when I was making several thousand dollars a week writing term papers for rich frat boys and sorority girls and I had just stopped bothering to count how much money was coming in, a friend said, "Dude, you could buy a car with that, or at least make a down-payment on one!" I said, "Why the fuck would I want to do that? Think of all the books and CDs I can buy instead."

On several occasions my grandfather would get into a beer joint deal and buy some rusty piece-of-shit clunker for a few hundred bucks and offer it to me. And I would always politely thank him but decline, because they were all in such poor condition it would've taken a fortune just to get them up to State inspection standards, much less to where they were drive-able.

The last such car he bought off some old boy who fifteen years later went crazy paranoid, decided the Mexican Mafia was after him, and got into a stand-off with the cops at his home, killing one cop before they finally wasted him.

My grandfather owned a fairly new truck at the time of his death. As soon as I inherited it, I told my mom to put it on the market. The money from that sale financed my move back to Austin, after four years of exile in backwards-ass Bryan/College Station.

But I digress.

Back to the car show ...

After bussing my tray I went out to the parking lot, glanced at some futuristic bubble car from Italy, then made my way to a display of fire engines. One was from the turn-of-the-century and seemed designed to be driven by midgets. It had been well-restored, except whoever had done the job had made the same mistake that's often done in architectural restoration these days--he used an inferior grade of modern, porous wood, instead of the top flight sort of wood they'd have used back in the old days. The Austin FD had one of their current engines there too, and I looked that over.

Then I saw a muscle car with a Rebel flag painted on the roof and a sign, "For $15 have your picture taken with the General Lee and Daisy Duke." I had to chuckle. How many "General Lees" did they have at car shows all over the country today? For that matter, how many ZZ Top "Eliminator" cars were out there?

And as for "Daisy Duke"? Well, there was a little bit of dishonest advertising there too. Catherine Bach was not there. Jessica Simpson sure as fuck wasn't there. Who was there was a squinty-eyed brunette in a pair of "Daisy Dukes," and she looked like she was just there to supplement her night job at one of the local titty bars. Anyway, this exhibit was very popular with the law enforcement officers present.

Things kinda went downhill from there. The only cars I even looked at were those made before 1960, and some of those resembled the ones my grandparents had driven me around in when I was a kid.

All the cars were on display with their hoods open, and people were examining the stuff under the hood, looking at scrapbooks dealing with the restoration and specifications. The owners in some cases turned on their cars to show how the engines sounded. They all just sounded like plain old cars to me. Some of the people in the crowd even took pictures of the engines and gears and stuff under the hoods, which completely baffled me. I felt totally out of touch and at a loss to understand what the appeal was of all of this.

I think I made a series of serious faux pas--I just went up and looked inside at the upholstery (sadly--always brand new and cheap and unattractive). I got the distinct impression that in doing that I was putting myself in danger of having my male ID card revoked. I'd not been in such an awkward situation vis-a-vis my masculinity since I was living in the dorm in college and somebody asked, "Do you have the such-and-such issue of 'Playboy' in your room?, " and I responded, "Oh, is that the one with the first part of Norman Mailer's 'Ancient Evenings'?"

We met at the minibar?*!?#@???

2005-10-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Overlooked yet again. Looks like towering elitist, the New Yorker was a bit short-sighted in picking its finalists.

Sorry, no NJK winners. Stand tall, there will be others.

If Bowie is the 'thin, white duke,' is Steve Earle the 'heavy, angry duke?'

2005-10-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Last week or so, Seldom_Seen left Alaska and headed to the heat, Chuy's and the Austin City Limits Festival. If you've read his comments on this site, you know he is a man of opinion and passion, especially when it comes to music. Take this thought on seeing some of the younger, newer bands: "A lot of the 'new' stuff sounds like a bad version of the Sex Pistols - without the intelligence, the true rebellion, and even (hard to believe) the melody and talent."

Here are observations taken straight from his notebook. Enjoy.
________

Notes

Steve Earle: Opens with "Revolution Starts Now" = no surprise. Less surprising: before taking stage, recording of "Revolution Will Not Be Televised" blares from speakers. If Bowie is the '"thin, white duke,'is Steve Earle the 'heavy, angry duke?'
Robert Earl Keen: Same old, same old. During intro to "Dreadful Selfish Crime," guitarist was toying with Dead's "China Cat Sunflower." Gee, guess what he closed with???
Martin Sexton: Awesome performance, just him and his guitar. What a voice. Of course, all the kids are on their cell phones. Typical Austin music scene: everyone yakking away.
Bruce Robison: Now, fact: Bruce rules. "What Would Willie Do?" and "Angry All the Time." Then "Tennessee Jed" (Grateful Dead) but Widespread on SBC Stage and Jet on Cingular = hard to hear Bruce. And in Austin, that's just not right. At one point, Bruce remarks, "Wow ... silence. What happened? Let's hurry!"
Oasis: Um, whatever. Aren't we cool? This is why I was never into the shit you hear on the radio (after, say, 1982 or so).
Maneja Beto: Fun, good, happy. Everyone's having a great time.
Rachel Yamagata: Sarah McLachlan redux? With a bit of an edge. Poorly mixed ... lots of rumble noise.
Jason Mraz: Safe. Why do I think of Andy Roddick every time I see this kid? Isn't there a middle path ... one between the painfully loud crap and this schmaltz? Talent, to be sure, particularly vocally. His arrangements (granted, this is my first exposure) are impeccable. But are such vocal skills simply the providence of birth? If so, has he honed his writing skills to accompany such God-given talent?
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men. The definition of rock 'n' roll guitar. Toying with "My Favorite Things" calling Coltrane to mind. Elements of blues, jazz, R-and-B ... And just goes to show that professional doesn't mean dead. You don't have to lose your edge just because you're professional.

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Monday Recap
Austin yesterday hit 108 degrees Farenheit (a mere 107 at Camp Mabry). That's a record for the date, and also the hottest day of 2005 thus far.

Whew.

The bottom line is this: it's just too much. Too hot. Too dusty. Too loud. Too big. Too much going on. In the future, I'll pick a long weekend with good shows around town and do that. This arrangement just made it too hard to enjoy the music. It was too hot to sit for an hour; it was spread out so you couldn't find a spot and camp; and it was too loud so you had to sit out in the open, middle area to be able to hear -- so that eliminated a real "live experience." And it's a shame because if they did the fest in the spring (or maybe a month later than now ... say, in October) it'd be killer. That said: I did fill out the post-fest e-mail questionnaire in hopes of winning free tickets for next year. And I was mostly positive except for the heat (which they can't control), the fact they don't let single-day ticketholders go out and come back in, and especially the too-loud sound.

FRIDAY
Asleep at the Wheel: Same as it ever was
Steve Earle & the Dukes: Good; sound issues
Robert Earl Keen: Same as it ever was
John Prine: Always a classic
Lyle Lovett: Solid; drowned out by Crowes

SATURDAY
Martin Sexton: Great performance
Bruce Robison: Solid
Oasis (briefly): Whatever

SUNDAY
Maneja Beto: Fun
Rachel Yamagata: Sarah McLachlan only louder
Brave Combo: BIG fun
Jason Mraz: Talented and smooth
Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men: True rock 'n' roll
Wilco: Good show; what's the gig?
Tortoise (brief): Loud New Age?!

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Seldom_Seen is dead-on with his comments of due-praise for Bruce Robison. Bruce is the silent, tall figure in what is becoming the first family of Austin music. Bruce is married to angelic singer Kelly Willis and his brother Charlie, a songwriter and performer, is married to Dixie Chick Emily.

It must be a decade ago, Bruce wrote a great song entitled "Angry All the Time." Kelly made it a favorite around Austin. And a couple of years back, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill turned it into a country hit.

Bruce has also been on the other side of luck with the song, "Travelin' Soldier." The Dixie Chicks topped the Billboard chart for a week with "Travelin' Soldier." The next week - following Natalie's comments against the war, the song shot down the charts (and never recovered).

Here's Bruce and wife Kelly singing their song at Gruene Hall.

"Angry All the Time"

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Other recommended ACL coverage

CHW on Ramble On (** some amazing photos)
Tara Hall on LiveDaily

No. 15: Name that celebrity

2005-09-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hint: This person fronts an up-and-coming metal band.

Insert caption

2005-09-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Submitted by Bankston