Nov. 11 – Columbia, MO
Autumn is the only time to hang out in a college town. Brick, ivy and neo-classical masonry have a way of harmonizing with the color of the leaves and sky, and if it's Veteran's Day and the temperature gets into the 70s for no discernible reason, you have a bonus.
"College town" is a misnomer; we'd been to college towns: those that have no apparent function other than as the seat of their institutions (see Cleveland, Mississippi). Columbia, of course, is a university town: the University of Missouri. And just as Mizzou's various disciplines and departments amass into an amalgam of learning, the admixture of students, teachers, professionals and entrepreneurs makes the University Town a community of living.
I knew this about Columbia on Election Day in 2004. I knew I would be driving that day, home from Colorado, and wanted a stop-over point that I knew would be friendly to my side, where I could sit among peers and watch the results roll in. I chose Columbia, but for some reason I didn't find my peers that night. I ended up watching the debacle from the lounge of my truck-stop motel next to Interstate 70—suffice to say, it was the wrong crowd.
Three years and a week later, redemption came. This time I knew where I was going for food, drink and conversation, because William Least Heat-Moon, in River-Horse, writes that the Flat Branch brew pub "is a place of excellent ales and pilseners, with a dictionary and world almanac behind the bar to settle wagers." Be that endorsement as it may, for me it was also a comfortable place with a patio, open until midnight on a Sunday. And as "Will" (with whom our waiter plays softball) also writes, it was probably also "a direct contributor…to my social health" since the dozen-and-a-half people I dragged with me had the majority of a good time, saving me from the ignominy of a poor suggestion.
We closed the city down that night, with no sign of the college crowd (the University Town stays open, crowd or no), but the Eastside Tavern's owner was happy to see us anyway. With his well-reasoned yet liberally disseminated views on how Things Ought To Be Around Here, it was no surprise to read later (in MU's student rag The Maneater) that he's running for city council [proof]. That's one election night outcome I might be happy about.
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Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Decaf, please, it's after six-thirty…
Nov. 9 – Fayetteville, AR
For some reason we had Friday night off, so we did Fayetteville. Anchored by the University of Arkansas, there's a surprisingly robust strip of nightlife in this compact downtown. For a good four blocks along Dickson Street we found every kind of nightclub, bar, music joint and eatery, something to suit every style—as long as you're still in college. The truth is, while we enjoyed having a scene to immerse ourselves in, I kept wondering where it was that the old farts liked to hang out. There's a mellowness lost when Having a Great Time, through the exuberance of youth, becomes an end in itself.
Still, we made a valiant effort to absorb the experience, and I found a wide selection of Different-Looking People to enjoy watching. Fayetteville is situated on some pretty substantial hills, and there's something about being on a slope that makes an urban area seem more vital, with deep layers of architecture brought into one focal plane, as if viewed through a telephoto lens. So while the overall vibe may not have been my cup of tea, it was nice to feel enveloped within a locality rather than feeling always on the edge of it, overlooking some flat plain of humanity as if from on high.
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For some reason we had Friday night off, so we did Fayetteville. Anchored by the University of Arkansas, there's a surprisingly robust strip of nightlife in this compact downtown. For a good four blocks along Dickson Street we found every kind of nightclub, bar, music joint and eatery, something to suit every style—as long as you're still in college. The truth is, while we enjoyed having a scene to immerse ourselves in, I kept wondering where it was that the old farts liked to hang out. There's a mellowness lost when Having a Great Time, through the exuberance of youth, becomes an end in itself.
Still, we made a valiant effort to absorb the experience, and I found a wide selection of Different-Looking People to enjoy watching. Fayetteville is situated on some pretty substantial hills, and there's something about being on a slope that makes an urban area seem more vital, with deep layers of architecture brought into one focal plane, as if viewed through a telephoto lens. So while the overall vibe may not have been my cup of tea, it was nice to feel enveloped within a locality rather than feeling always on the edge of it, overlooking some flat plain of humanity as if from on high.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
It'll do in a pinch
Nov. 8 – Salina, KS
Our first day in Kansas was spent on the fringe of Salina, in a surprisingly vast patch of asphalt retail on the south side of this small city. Although nothing would entice you to leave your room and venture into such wilderness, this was okay because for the first time we were enjoying living in suites. More accurately, these were single rooms with kitchenettes, but still our best appointed lodging so far. There was a pantry across the hall from which I could take groceries back to my room, paying through a slot on the honor system. And with free laundry, it doesn't get much better!
The second day, we got to see the town. I'd been through Salina once before and remember it as small, out of date, somewhat dilapidated. This time, it was bigger, busier, more alive. I don't know what changed other than perception, but there were lights, traffic, activity downtown. I thought perhaps we'd mistakenly landed in Canada, for there were people walking, of all things. (That might have to do with strategic placement of parking lots, actually.) The Stiefel Theatre was somewhat cramped inside, better decorated than the Waco Hippodrome but not much roomier. Outside, its marquee had genuine incandescent flashing lights; it gave me a bit of a headache, but at least it was authentic. It was a little like looking at those black-and-white photographs inside delicatessens, showing you how much more happening your downtown used to be. This one still looked similar to the photographs; I wonder what Salina knows that Abilene doesn't?
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Our first day in Kansas was spent on the fringe of Salina, in a surprisingly vast patch of asphalt retail on the south side of this small city. Although nothing would entice you to leave your room and venture into such wilderness, this was okay because for the first time we were enjoying living in suites. More accurately, these were single rooms with kitchenettes, but still our best appointed lodging so far. There was a pantry across the hall from which I could take groceries back to my room, paying through a slot on the honor system. And with free laundry, it doesn't get much better!
The second day, we got to see the town. I'd been through Salina once before and remember it as small, out of date, somewhat dilapidated. This time, it was bigger, busier, more alive. I don't know what changed other than perception, but there were lights, traffic, activity downtown. I thought perhaps we'd mistakenly landed in Canada, for there were people walking, of all things. (That might have to do with strategic placement of parking lots, actually.) The Stiefel Theatre was somewhat cramped inside, better decorated than the Waco Hippodrome but not much roomier. Outside, its marquee had genuine incandescent flashing lights; it gave me a bit of a headache, but at least it was authentic. It was a little like looking at those black-and-white photographs inside delicatessens, showing you how much more happening your downtown used to be. This one still looked similar to the photographs; I wonder what Salina knows that Abilene doesn't?
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Friday, November 16, 2007
Closed
Nov. 6 – Abilene, TX
Some cities are boring because they're unremarkable. Abilene was remarkable for being boring. The city is square buildings on square blocks formed by streets with square names like Walnut, Pine and Hickory. The civic center auditorium looked like an overturned shoe. We'd been told the hotel lounge would be closed for renovations, but not to worry, since there was a new place open nearby that was the only game in town. Well, it was, and it turned out to have closed after lunchtime. Just as well, perhaps, since it looked more like an insurance agent's office than a cool hangout. But that was the end of the line; there was nowhere else to eat, nowhere to drink, nowhere to hear music in downtown Abilene after sunset. So we ordered pizza, I found some beers that I had left over from New Orleans, and we played our own music. The only instrument I could find for myself was my empty beer bottle, which worked as well as any.
In reaching Abilene we had completed our survey of Texas, both geographically and culturally. En route from McAllen we'd crossed that odd mixture of desert and coastal wetland that is South Texas. We had traversed the fabled Hill Country, gold dusted from the early November. We breezed through San Antonio, which tantalized us with intrigue. We saw Fredericksburg, Texas' answer to a quaint New England resort town, a good place for antiquing and a light lunch with your tea (though we forwent it at our lunch stop in favor of some place called Brady). We landed in the so-called Big Country, where Abilene lies far enough from the major population centers to register as a cipher, though not so remote as to engender an identity of its own, as in the Panhandle.
We had seen trendy Austin, sultry Harlingen, motley El Paso, and ambrosial Orange; the inimitable Waco and the epiphanous Palo Duro Canyon; Lubbock rising and oh, Amarillo. We had touched the five points of the Lone Star State, by its very expansiveness both arresting and compelling, like a dramatic pause.
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Some cities are boring because they're unremarkable. Abilene was remarkable for being boring. The city is square buildings on square blocks formed by streets with square names like Walnut, Pine and Hickory. The civic center auditorium looked like an overturned shoe. We'd been told the hotel lounge would be closed for renovations, but not to worry, since there was a new place open nearby that was the only game in town. Well, it was, and it turned out to have closed after lunchtime. Just as well, perhaps, since it looked more like an insurance agent's office than a cool hangout. But that was the end of the line; there was nowhere else to eat, nowhere to drink, nowhere to hear music in downtown Abilene after sunset. So we ordered pizza, I found some beers that I had left over from New Orleans, and we played our own music. The only instrument I could find for myself was my empty beer bottle, which worked as well as any.
In reaching Abilene we had completed our survey of Texas, both geographically and culturally. En route from McAllen we'd crossed that odd mixture of desert and coastal wetland that is South Texas. We had traversed the fabled Hill Country, gold dusted from the early November. We breezed through San Antonio, which tantalized us with intrigue. We saw Fredericksburg, Texas' answer to a quaint New England resort town, a good place for antiquing and a light lunch with your tea (though we forwent it at our lunch stop in favor of some place called Brady). We landed in the so-called Big Country, where Abilene lies far enough from the major population centers to register as a cipher, though not so remote as to engender an identity of its own, as in the Panhandle.
We had seen trendy Austin, sultry Harlingen, motley El Paso, and ambrosial Orange; the inimitable Waco and the epiphanous Palo Duro Canyon; Lubbock rising and oh, Amarillo. We had touched the five points of the Lone Star State, by its very expansiveness both arresting and compelling, like a dramatic pause.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Meanwhile, not far away…
Nov. 5 – McAllen, TX
McAllen is only about 35 miles from Harlingen, where we'd played just two nights prior, and from all I saw of both cities, it's essentially the same. There we were in the La Quinta Inn beside Highway 83. There was the Denny's right next door, and the IHOP a few doors down across the freeway. There was the same muggy weather, and the same municipal auditorium from a generation ago that still houses touring companies.
The difference, I suppose, was that McAllen was a little nicer, a little more comfortable, a little more convenient. There were no throngs of people at the McAllen hotel, and no bugs that I saw. The Denny's was even closer to the hotel, in fact less than ten feet away, plus it had a bar inside (I didn't go). And while there was the IHOP, there were also a handful of other choices for lunch, so it didn't have to be a half-mile walk. The muggy weather was tempered in the evening by a soothing breeze, and the auditorium was neat and quirky instead of simply old and tired; what's more, I'm told a new arts facility is planned for the town.
There was grass in McAllen, and trees. Even the freeway overpasses seemed newer. And most striking of all, my ears were unassaulted by the complaints of the Iridescent Squawking Bird. Maybe he'd stayed behind in Harlingen. Or maybe he had followed, and in so doing found nothing further to complain about.
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Postscript:
The city of Pharr is right next to McAllen, which allows for some fun with puns. For example, Q: "Are we in McAllen yet?" A: "No; it's not Pharr."
Q: "Which side of McAllen do you live on?" A: "The Pharr side."
I saw a sign from the freeway for a bridge to Mexico. I wonder if across the border there's a sign for "A bridge to Pharr"?
And of course, who among us has never fallen into a burning Ring of Pharr?
Okay, I think I've gone to Pharr.
McAllen is only about 35 miles from Harlingen, where we'd played just two nights prior, and from all I saw of both cities, it's essentially the same. There we were in the La Quinta Inn beside Highway 83. There was the Denny's right next door, and the IHOP a few doors down across the freeway. There was the same muggy weather, and the same municipal auditorium from a generation ago that still houses touring companies.
The difference, I suppose, was that McAllen was a little nicer, a little more comfortable, a little more convenient. There were no throngs of people at the McAllen hotel, and no bugs that I saw. The Denny's was even closer to the hotel, in fact less than ten feet away, plus it had a bar inside (I didn't go). And while there was the IHOP, there were also a handful of other choices for lunch, so it didn't have to be a half-mile walk. The muggy weather was tempered in the evening by a soothing breeze, and the auditorium was neat and quirky instead of simply old and tired; what's more, I'm told a new arts facility is planned for the town.
There was grass in McAllen, and trees. Even the freeway overpasses seemed newer. And most striking of all, my ears were unassaulted by the complaints of the Iridescent Squawking Bird. Maybe he'd stayed behind in Harlingen. Or maybe he had followed, and in so doing found nothing further to complain about.
View Larger Map
Postscript:
The city of Pharr is right next to McAllen, which allows for some fun with puns. For example, Q: "Are we in McAllen yet?" A: "No; it's not Pharr."
Q: "Which side of McAllen do you live on?" A: "The Pharr side."
I saw a sign from the freeway for a bridge to Mexico. I wonder if across the border there's a sign for "A bridge to Pharr"?
And of course, who among us has never fallen into a burning Ring of Pharr?
Okay, I think I've gone to Pharr.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
My body lies over the ocean
Nov. 4 – Corpus Christi, TX
Corpus Christi is nice for a seaside town, perhaps because it's also a city in its own right and not just an excuse to build incongruously tall buildings along the sand. There is a pirate ship there, an aircraft carrier, and a majestic bridge across the harbor. And despite the lack of nearby trees and shade (or probably because of it), there was an infestation of bats inside the Selena Auditorium, which anchors, if you will, the harbor district. One of them we found sleeping, clung to the white concrete block wall of the stairwell; we named him Oscar.
When work was through, all I wanted was a quick bite to eat. I went to what looked like the more casual of the two hotel restaurants, the Republic of Texas Bar and Grill. Casual it was not. The first thing I was obliged to choose was my water: sparkling, spring or tap. Anything but sea, please, just get on with it. The menu was littered with expensive-sounding "A" words like aioli, asiago and ahi. After Harlingen, I just wanted to sit comfortably in my room, browse the working internet and watch television. It was the swankiest hotel to date, so this should have been easy enough. Unfortunately, I was in a four-star steak restaurant with prices in the dozens of dollars, and my TV show started in forty-five minutes: this was not going to go well. I ordered an appetizer and a side dish, and after twenty minutes with only bread, beer and a carefully selected glass of tap water, asked for the food to be brought to my room.
I went there and switched on the tube, whose speakers erupted into paroxysms of static every time something white came on the screen. All the while I was assaulted with text messages received in triplicate regarding the time and location of an informal birthday celebration for one of our company. I'm always up for a couple of rounds at the hotel bar, so I joined the party, which had largely broken up soon after it started. I learned then that there was a balcony in my room, from which I would later hear a cacophony of birds blathering away in the middle of the night (apparently the Iridescent Squawking Bird was just the opening act). At least they drowned out the street sweeper, which from the look of the town was run every twenty minutes daily.
It really was a very fine place to stay, with beds like clouds and staff who would put your food anywhere you asked them to. The breeze came in off the ocean at night, and the internet did work. But after a day of Polish help desks, overcrowded greasy spoons, and the Unfortunate Sidewalk Incident, I was in culture shock from too much refinement too soon. Perhaps as an unconscious display of my appreciation, I woke up the next morning, promptly overflowed the toilet, and checked out. We drove away from the most morbidly-named American city since Horseheads, and steered south toward exactly where we'd come from, the Rio Grande Valley.
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Corpus Christi is nice for a seaside town, perhaps because it's also a city in its own right and not just an excuse to build incongruously tall buildings along the sand. There is a pirate ship there, an aircraft carrier, and a majestic bridge across the harbor. And despite the lack of nearby trees and shade (or probably because of it), there was an infestation of bats inside the Selena Auditorium, which anchors, if you will, the harbor district. One of them we found sleeping, clung to the white concrete block wall of the stairwell; we named him Oscar.
When work was through, all I wanted was a quick bite to eat. I went to what looked like the more casual of the two hotel restaurants, the Republic of Texas Bar and Grill. Casual it was not. The first thing I was obliged to choose was my water: sparkling, spring or tap. Anything but sea, please, just get on with it. The menu was littered with expensive-sounding "A" words like aioli, asiago and ahi. After Harlingen, I just wanted to sit comfortably in my room, browse the working internet and watch television. It was the swankiest hotel to date, so this should have been easy enough. Unfortunately, I was in a four-star steak restaurant with prices in the dozens of dollars, and my TV show started in forty-five minutes: this was not going to go well. I ordered an appetizer and a side dish, and after twenty minutes with only bread, beer and a carefully selected glass of tap water, asked for the food to be brought to my room.I went there and switched on the tube, whose speakers erupted into paroxysms of static every time something white came on the screen. All the while I was assaulted with text messages received in triplicate regarding the time and location of an informal birthday celebration for one of our company. I'm always up for a couple of rounds at the hotel bar, so I joined the party, which had largely broken up soon after it started. I learned then that there was a balcony in my room, from which I would later hear a cacophony of birds blathering away in the middle of the night (apparently the Iridescent Squawking Bird was just the opening act). At least they drowned out the street sweeper, which from the look of the town was run every twenty minutes daily.
It really was a very fine place to stay, with beds like clouds and staff who would put your food anywhere you asked them to. The breeze came in off the ocean at night, and the internet did work. But after a day of Polish help desks, overcrowded greasy spoons, and the Unfortunate Sidewalk Incident, I was in culture shock from too much refinement too soon. Perhaps as an unconscious display of my appreciation, I woke up the next morning, promptly overflowed the toilet, and checked out. We drove away from the most morbidly-named American city since Horseheads, and steered south toward exactly where we'd come from, the Rio Grande Valley.View Larger Map
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Some days on the road are like this one.
Nov. 4 – Harlingen, TX
From Austin, we arrived at our hotel in Harlingen at a quarter past three, about on schedule after a lunch stop in Bishop (where I first encountered the Iridescent Squawking Bird of southern Texas). Unfortunately, the staff had not been apprised of our arrival and keys were not yet made for our eleven rooms. That left us waiting about thirty minutes, which is valuable time lost for unpacking, napping, eating dinner and, more often than not, rearranging room assignments because they are double-booked or have not enough beds. I tried to connect to the wireless network, but it wouldn't have me. After half an hour on the phone with the help desk in Poland, I had gotten nowhere and it was time to leave for the venue. After work I tried again, and despite another half hour with Poland and an adapter from the front desk, I finally had to make the technological regression to television.
We'd been thrilled to find there was a Denny's immediately next to the hotel. Often, if there is any late night dining in the neighborhood, it's a considerable walk away across windswept suburban plains, so being able to have dinner before bed was a bonus. But breakfast would be another matter.
Our hotel was overrun by some kind of church outing group, and I think also a wedding party. At three in the morning a handful of people were causing some kind of ruckus, probably taking advantage of the hour gained back from daylight savings. (Why Harlingen needs to be saving daylight I don't know; the sidewalks are plenty bright already.) I'm sure it was one of these people who threw up on the sidewalk outside my room. Twice. Despite waking up to this sight, I had an appetite for breakfast. Yay, Denny's!
Nope. It was Sunday morning, and the neighborhood was even further overrun by Mexican shopping excursions celebrating the Day of the Dead, and some other crowd of folks wearing quasi-military uniforms, not to mention the AARP. All these various groups beat me to the punch and there was a forty-minute wait at Denny's by 10:00. That wouldn't do, since we were loading the bus at 10:45 to leave at 11:15 for Corpus Christi. I looked in the hotel lobby for the continental breakfast. If it had ever been there, it didn't look like anything I wanted any part of. Never mind; there was an IHOP three doors down, although since the first door was a Wal-Mart, the distance was about half a mile. Well, that was even worse: the crowd at Denny's probably comprised the overflow from IHOP. I guess McDonald's it is. And so it was. I ate a McMuffin. A bird squawked.
I made the walk back toward the hotel along the glaring pavement, overdressed for the sub-tropical humidity but thinking ahead to the bus air conditioning. I was accompanied by a carpet of fire ants and a din of Iridescent Squawking Birds, wishing I'd had more time at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Austin. Goodbye, Harlingen.
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From Austin, we arrived at our hotel in Harlingen at a quarter past three, about on schedule after a lunch stop in Bishop (where I first encountered the Iridescent Squawking Bird of southern Texas). Unfortunately, the staff had not been apprised of our arrival and keys were not yet made for our eleven rooms. That left us waiting about thirty minutes, which is valuable time lost for unpacking, napping, eating dinner and, more often than not, rearranging room assignments because they are double-booked or have not enough beds. I tried to connect to the wireless network, but it wouldn't have me. After half an hour on the phone with the help desk in Poland, I had gotten nowhere and it was time to leave for the venue. After work I tried again, and despite another half hour with Poland and an adapter from the front desk, I finally had to make the technological regression to television.
We'd been thrilled to find there was a Denny's immediately next to the hotel. Often, if there is any late night dining in the neighborhood, it's a considerable walk away across windswept suburban plains, so being able to have dinner before bed was a bonus. But breakfast would be another matter.
Our hotel was overrun by some kind of church outing group, and I think also a wedding party. At three in the morning a handful of people were causing some kind of ruckus, probably taking advantage of the hour gained back from daylight savings. (Why Harlingen needs to be saving daylight I don't know; the sidewalks are plenty bright already.) I'm sure it was one of these people who threw up on the sidewalk outside my room. Twice. Despite waking up to this sight, I had an appetite for breakfast. Yay, Denny's!
Nope. It was Sunday morning, and the neighborhood was even further overrun by Mexican shopping excursions celebrating the Day of the Dead, and some other crowd of folks wearing quasi-military uniforms, not to mention the AARP. All these various groups beat me to the punch and there was a forty-minute wait at Denny's by 10:00. That wouldn't do, since we were loading the bus at 10:45 to leave at 11:15 for Corpus Christi. I looked in the hotel lobby for the continental breakfast. If it had ever been there, it didn't look like anything I wanted any part of. Never mind; there was an IHOP three doors down, although since the first door was a Wal-Mart, the distance was about half a mile. Well, that was even worse: the crowd at Denny's probably comprised the overflow from IHOP. I guess McDonald's it is. And so it was. I ate a McMuffin. A bird squawked.
I made the walk back toward the hotel along the glaring pavement, overdressed for the sub-tropical humidity but thinking ahead to the bus air conditioning. I was accompanied by a carpet of fire ants and a din of Iridescent Squawking Birds, wishing I'd had more time at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Austin. Goodbye, Harlingen.
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It's Hip To Be Wac(k)o
Nov. 2 – Austin, TX
Austin was a happy accident. The hotel in Waco canceled our reservation, and with no other rooms available in town, our lodging was moved to the capital city. After work we made the hundred-mile drive, arriving in Austin by midnight and leaving a couple of hours to experience the scene there.
Our day, of course, had been spent in Waco (anagram for "a cow": coincidence?) and we had known in advance that it would be, yes, a little wacko. The Waco Hippodrome was far smaller than any venue we'd yet played—how they ever managed to fit equestrian sports in there I'll never know. We had prepared a version of the show with no moving pieces, and played it against the black rear wall of the theatre. Instruments, equipment and even some costumes were set up in the back alley, which you could step to almost directly from the stage. Wardrobe, offices, even our beloved coffee were located in the building next door.
Still, it was fun to perform there. It was the kind of house that made us feel we were playing the local Saturday night opry rather than some slick Broadway thing. (You could almost smell the horse shit in the air; maybe that's why it's called the Hippodrome.) Or perhaps we were an old Vaudeville act: in the close quarters of our dressing room I could easily imagine that crowd of 1920s chorus girls scurrying to dress for the next number. But maybe that's just an image that comes more readily to some of us than to others.
At any rate, in Austin that night we checked out Sixth Street, which stakes a credible claim as the live music capital of the world. Austin's a hip city, at least as hip as the opry or Vaudeville, and displays a greater number of young, hip people than we'd yet seen outside of captivity. There was only time to check out one place, so we chose an Irish pub with a blues quartet (talk about hip) where coeds and thirty-something singles alike were tearing up the dance floor (naturally with a lot of swinging of hips). It was a cool place to be, and that was refreshing.
Austinites have a slogan: "Keep Austin Weird." I hope that just being a great place to hang out in what's otherwise known as Texas is not what they have in mind as being weird. But if it is, I'll take it anyway. It ain't the Waco Hippodrome, but it's still pretty damn hip.
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Austin was a happy accident. The hotel in Waco canceled our reservation, and with no other rooms available in town, our lodging was moved to the capital city. After work we made the hundred-mile drive, arriving in Austin by midnight and leaving a couple of hours to experience the scene there.
Our day, of course, had been spent in Waco (anagram for "a cow": coincidence?) and we had known in advance that it would be, yes, a little wacko. The Waco Hippodrome was far smaller than any venue we'd yet played—how they ever managed to fit equestrian sports in there I'll never know. We had prepared a version of the show with no moving pieces, and played it against the black rear wall of the theatre. Instruments, equipment and even some costumes were set up in the back alley, which you could step to almost directly from the stage. Wardrobe, offices, even our beloved coffee were located in the building next door.
Still, it was fun to perform there. It was the kind of house that made us feel we were playing the local Saturday night opry rather than some slick Broadway thing. (You could almost smell the horse shit in the air; maybe that's why it's called the Hippodrome.) Or perhaps we were an old Vaudeville act: in the close quarters of our dressing room I could easily imagine that crowd of 1920s chorus girls scurrying to dress for the next number. But maybe that's just an image that comes more readily to some of us than to others.
At any rate, in Austin that night we checked out Sixth Street, which stakes a credible claim as the live music capital of the world. Austin's a hip city, at least as hip as the opry or Vaudeville, and displays a greater number of young, hip people than we'd yet seen outside of captivity. There was only time to check out one place, so we chose an Irish pub with a blues quartet (talk about hip) where coeds and thirty-something singles alike were tearing up the dance floor (naturally with a lot of swinging of hips). It was a cool place to be, and that was refreshing.
Austinites have a slogan: "Keep Austin Weird." I hope that just being a great place to hang out in what's otherwise known as Texas is not what they have in mind as being weird. But if it is, I'll take it anyway. It ain't the Waco Hippodrome, but it's still pretty damn hip.
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Monday, November 5, 2007
The cuisine of the Sabine women
Nov. 1 – Orange, TX
We found Orange to be a warm, welcoming town. It's clean and tidy; the lawns are manicured and the fences in good repair (which is only fitting for a town that got its start as a lumbering center). Not many buildings seem to be vacant, and those that are are having prompt attention paid to them. Our hotel welcomed us with bags of peanuts, bottles of water, and cookies. We were greeted at our venue with a home-cooked dinner of tossed salad, gumbo, oriental cole slaw (!), fruit salad and garlic bread. The audience was about as receptive as any so far. Even the weather was accommodating: sunny and warm, in the 80s. It was a good evening in Orange, TX.
Orange has a couple of claims to fame: it survived Hurricane Rita in 2005, and it is home to the highest exit number in North America. That's Exit 880 on Interstate 10 by the Sabine River at the Louisiana state line. It's been almost three weeks since I passed by Exit 0 on the same highway, way over on the New Mexico border, on my way to El Paso. The east and west borders of Texas are closer to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than they are to each other, and comparing the bayous and gumbo of Orange to the chaparral and mariachis of El Paso, I'm not the least surprised.
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We found Orange to be a warm, welcoming town. It's clean and tidy; the lawns are manicured and the fences in good repair (which is only fitting for a town that got its start as a lumbering center). Not many buildings seem to be vacant, and those that are are having prompt attention paid to them. Our hotel welcomed us with bags of peanuts, bottles of water, and cookies. We were greeted at our venue with a home-cooked dinner of tossed salad, gumbo, oriental cole slaw (!), fruit salad and garlic bread. The audience was about as receptive as any so far. Even the weather was accommodating: sunny and warm, in the 80s. It was a good evening in Orange, TX.
Orange has a couple of claims to fame: it survived Hurricane Rita in 2005, and it is home to the highest exit number in North America. That's Exit 880 on Interstate 10 by the Sabine River at the Louisiana state line. It's been almost three weeks since I passed by Exit 0 on the same highway, way over on the New Mexico border, on my way to El Paso. The east and west borders of Texas are closer to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than they are to each other, and comparing the bayous and gumbo of Orange to the chaparral and mariachis of El Paso, I'm not the least surprised.
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Delta Seven Sharp Eleven
Oct. 31 – New Orleans, LA
My first impression of the Crescent City was that it's like the Bronx, only French. It's a remarkable city, thick and gritty and massive, the first place we'd been that felt truly urban. The architecture is solid, ornamental, cosmopolitan, and dingy. And yes, there is that lingering smell in the French Quarter of a never-ending "morning after". Most structures in the city (other than the buildings themselves, for some reason) are elevated, and in a region where dozens of miles of freeway are built hovering above swamp, bayou and open lake, the tangle of flyovers that web the sky in the downtown area seems like just another day's work for the highway engineers.
We walked through the Quarter, past Jackson Square to a cafe near the river. There I ate gumbo, and a man played the keyboard and sang, sounding like a cross between Satchmo and Bob Dylan, with the occasional one-handed trumpet solo thrown in. At the riverbank, we watched an upstream tow of barges being steered around the bend and under the Crescent City Connection bridges. Dinner was by the fire fountain in the courtyard (really the combined backyards of an entire city block) at the famous Pat O'Brien's, home of the Hurricane drink. I had everything else Cajun: jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, red beans and rice. It was Halloween and we had the night off, so we took in Bourbon Street (along with some of the other things that go with it). After dodging the costumed revelers in the street, trying not to spill our legally carried open containers (hooray for street beer!), we finally ended at a jazz club to see what the deal really is with New Orleans music.
The bandleader, a trumpeter, was a round, bald, goateed man with brusque eyebrows, who resembled nothing so much as an inflatable boxing doll. On the bass was a diminutive, withered old cat who probably could have slept inside his fiddle, and looked ancient enough to have invented it. The drummer sat stock still and bolt upright most of the time, his paunch preventing him from collapsing forward. He twitched his right stick around distractedly, hitting his traps at odd angles and seemingly at random, and yet somehow sounding remarkably tasty. On piano was a slightly intense-looking slender fellow whom they called "the Professor", and who occasionally seemed unsure how he'd come to be sitting at this instrument. And the sax player was a clean-cut chap who looked as if he could be from the Marsalis clan; when he blew his clarinet the wind flowed with such dexterity I thought it must be greased. This hodgepodge of characters somehow imagined all of the same notes and took turns playing them, with a result so concordant you couldn't imagine it had come from this drawer of mismatched socks.
We walked back toward the hotel, grabbed a late-night bite to eat, endured the aroma a little longer, and then I took of my beads and went to bed. In the morning, we were headed back to Texas.
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My first impression of the Crescent City was that it's like the Bronx, only French. It's a remarkable city, thick and gritty and massive, the first place we'd been that felt truly urban. The architecture is solid, ornamental, cosmopolitan, and dingy. And yes, there is that lingering smell in the French Quarter of a never-ending "morning after". Most structures in the city (other than the buildings themselves, for some reason) are elevated, and in a region where dozens of miles of freeway are built hovering above swamp, bayou and open lake, the tangle of flyovers that web the sky in the downtown area seems like just another day's work for the highway engineers.
We walked through the Quarter, past Jackson Square to a cafe near the river. There I ate gumbo, and a man played the keyboard and sang, sounding like a cross between Satchmo and Bob Dylan, with the occasional one-handed trumpet solo thrown in. At the riverbank, we watched an upstream tow of barges being steered around the bend and under the Crescent City Connection bridges. Dinner was by the fire fountain in the courtyard (really the combined backyards of an entire city block) at the famous Pat O'Brien's, home of the Hurricane drink. I had everything else Cajun: jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, red beans and rice. It was Halloween and we had the night off, so we took in Bourbon Street (along with some of the other things that go with it). After dodging the costumed revelers in the street, trying not to spill our legally carried open containers (hooray for street beer!), we finally ended at a jazz club to see what the deal really is with New Orleans music.
The bandleader, a trumpeter, was a round, bald, goateed man with brusque eyebrows, who resembled nothing so much as an inflatable boxing doll. On the bass was a diminutive, withered old cat who probably could have slept inside his fiddle, and looked ancient enough to have invented it. The drummer sat stock still and bolt upright most of the time, his paunch preventing him from collapsing forward. He twitched his right stick around distractedly, hitting his traps at odd angles and seemingly at random, and yet somehow sounding remarkably tasty. On piano was a slightly intense-looking slender fellow whom they called "the Professor", and who occasionally seemed unsure how he'd come to be sitting at this instrument. And the sax player was a clean-cut chap who looked as if he could be from the Marsalis clan; when he blew his clarinet the wind flowed with such dexterity I thought it must be greased. This hodgepodge of characters somehow imagined all of the same notes and took turns playing them, with a result so concordant you couldn't imagine it had come from this drawer of mismatched socks.
We walked back toward the hotel, grabbed a late-night bite to eat, endured the aroma a little longer, and then I took of my beads and went to bed. In the morning, we were headed back to Texas.
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