Music – Page 25 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – January 13, 2019

It was back down to Austin on the Monday afternoon bus for the work week.

I suggested Sway Thai on South 1st street for dinner on Tuesday night with a couple of colleagues. I’d read good reviews and driven by what looked like a cool, upscale Thai place. Our meals were very hit or miss – nothing horrible, just not anything we’ll be going back for.

Wednesday night brought a much better experience. I met Diana’s step son, John, at Geraldine’s in the Hotel Van Zandt. John was in Austin on business at the Convention Center and had a work dinner. I got there early and enjoyed a yummy snack of bourbon glazed cauliflower before John joined me. Geraldine’s has a nice music stage and great sound. We were treated to a quite unexpected performance by Ray Prim. He has a very pleasant, soulful voice and was joined by a string quartet – a unique sound for sure. Here’s one of his songs from that evening:

I rode the bus back to Dallas on Thursday night and stayed at the hotel where the bus drops off by Love Field airport so that I could catch an early flight out to San Jose for a family meeting on Friday. Diana was working downtown and so was able to meet me at the hotel.

The view of the snow on the Sierras on my flight out reminded me of the Boz Scaggs song “Sierra” that I enjoy so much:

After an exhausting afternoon meeting, I flew back to Dallas, arriving home a little after midnight.

On Saturday we watched the Cowboys lose to the Los Angeles Rams and exit the playoffs. I was really hoping they would win and go on to play the New Orleans Saints. The good news is that they played well and kept the game close until the end.

All of my boys were at the airport on Sunday, heading in quite different directions, and snapped this selfie.

Here’s a couple more songs from Ray Prim’s albums:

Week in Review – January 6, 2019

Happy 2019 to my thousands of followers!

We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday night to welcome in the New Year with great friends, food, and music. After some delicious Denny snacks – crab dip and braised short ribs in a new modern version of a pressure cooker – Denny and I saw the trombone player, composer, and band leader, Rick Trolsen, at the Dos Jefes cigar bar and music club. This is a very small place but always seems to provide excellent music.

New Year’s Eve in the French Quarter was predicted to be a bit of a zoo with all the college football fans in for the Sugar Bowl game on New Year’s Day, so we opted for a Bywater/Marigny ramble rather than our traditional afternoon French Quarter Ramble (FQR).

We started at Saint Germaine (a new bistro) with excellent goose fat fries and chicken liver pate. From there the ramble proceeded to Mimi’s, which had a great tapas menu but a kitchen that wasn’t quite ready to cook. Not to worry – a short walk took us to the gorgeous St Roch market.

St Roch was originally opened as a market in 1875 and was updated several years ago to one of the more elegant food halls that I’ve come across. The ladies enjoyed some fresh oysters.

We passed this entertaining house on the walk, complete with fake snow – not quite in keeping with the pleasant 60 degree temperatures.

The afternoon finished at the Tin Roof bar atop the Pontchartrain hotel on the way back home to get ready for dinner. This is the hotel where Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” and the rooftop bar provides a great view of downtown New Orleans. The hotel was having a Veuve Clicquot champagne event that the ladies enjoyed.

New Year’s Eve dinner was at Chais Delachaise with Denny, Anne, Thom, Libby, Alex, and Laura. This was a great pick by Denny that provided us with a relaxed and comfortable spot to enjoy an unhurried meal with friends. I started with a French Old Fashioned that I loved – what makes it “French”? – I’m not sure the menu just said a little “je ne sais quoi”. The mushroom bruschetta were yummy and so was the meat and cheese platter. Then I enjoyed my lamb burger, accompanied by a very nice Burgundy that Thom helped to select.

After dinner everyone headed back to Denny and Anne’s home to ring in 2019 – we don’t look too tired for a bunch of old fogeys do we? Ok, you don’t need to answer that now that I look at the pictures again.

New Years Day was a sleepy one for Denny and me, mostly spent on the couch with a book, a fire, and college football bowl games. Diana, Anne and Laura were more adventurous, making their annual visit to Pascal’s Manale for happy hour oysters. They were kind enough to bring dinner home for the sleepy boys.

We were honoured to be invited to celebrate Jack and Mason’s 16th birthday with them at Commanders Palace on Wednesday. Denny always says that they better get good jobs to support their fine dining tastes.

The soups at Commanders are always amazing. We sampled turtle, lobster bisque, gumbo and at least one other. I loved the stuffed quail dish that I tried for the first time and of course the piece de resistance was the bread pudding souffle with whiskey cream sauce.

After a pleasant afternoon nap, Denny convinced us to make a trip to the Circle Bar to see the Iguanas. I’d seen this group that was very popular in the 1980s on my last trip and was looking forward to a reprise. They did a great job of entertaining the crowd in the tiny living room of the Circle Bar – a bit of a smaller crowd than they played to at jazzfest back in their more popular days. The music is like a combination of Los Lobos and the Buena Vista Social Club – very unique and different. Alex, Thom and Gary joined us for the show and then a stop at Domenica pizza on the drive home. Diana was a real trooper to hang in there with all the boys for so long – it probably felt like she was dealing with her five younger brothers again.

Sadly, our time in New Orleans came to an end on Thursday. We wrapped up the visit with a perfect French brasserie meal at Couvant in the Eliza Jane hotel (a gorgeous new hotel with a great patio). This is one of several new French restaurants in New Orleans (a pleasant trend) and another excellent Denny recommendation. We shared chicken liver mousse, steak tartare, and mussels a la Normande, all accompanied with some very AAnice French wines available by the glass.

Alicia picked us up at the airport and we were back home by 10:30pm. Friday was pretty much a full work day again for both of us after some good time off for the holidays. We were back to our normal routine on Saturday and Sunday with morning workouts and crossword and coffee sessions. I enjoyed the Cowboys playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday night very much albeit way more stressful than it needed to be. We’ll find out after the Eagles game tonight if the Cowboys play the New Orleans Saints or the Los Angeles Rams next week. Either one will be very much an uphill battle.

I mentioned earlier in the post that the Iguanas reminded me of a cross between Los Lobos and the Buena Vista Social club. Here’s a sampling of both – can you imagine what the combination might sound like?

Well, add something like this…

To something like this…

And maybe you get something like this…

Best of 2018 Lists

Top 10 Restaurants, 5 Best Destinations, Best 20 books of 2018, Top Places to Live in America.

Over the last few years, a lot of communication seems to come in the form of ranked lists. This year I decided, if you can’t beat them, why not join in?

The last couple of hours have been spent scrolling back through all the blog posts of 2018 in search of my favourite concerts, books, and records of the year (while keeping one eye on the Colts versus Texans playoff game – not going well for the Texans so far). Wow, we covered a lot of ground and saw some great performances last year! From tiny jazz clubs to arena shows to classical performances at Lincoln Center – a wide variety of venues and genres to choose from.

Best Concerts of 2018

Curtis Stigers (Birdland, NY) Diana and I talked about this list and spent no time at all debating our top pick for concert of the year. We both loved the Curtis Stigers concert that we saw at Birdland prior to Denny and Anne arriving in New York for Denny’s 50th birthday trip. This was more surprising given that neither of us had heard the name Stigers prior to the concert. I bought the tickets purely on the basis of the write up on the Birdland website. Within the first 10 seconds of Curtis’ opening song, “I’ll be Home” by Randy Newman, I was sold. The arrangements, variety of songs, and quality of performance were all top notch. We were both completely aligned on staying for the late set and were very pleasantly surprised to find it was mostly completely different music, ending the way it started with “I’ll be Home”.

2. Band of Heathens (Kessler Theater, Oak Cliff) Why is this band not famous? They have amazing talent, a great sound, look great (according to McD), and put on excellent performances. We first saw them on Austin, again purely based on a magazine write up, as they performed a closing show for the venue “Momo’s” where they formed as a band. We left amazed at our fortune of lucking into the show. Since then, we must have seen them 10 or more times at various venues in Texas and Louisiana. Their Thanksgiving week concert at the Kessler was a special highlight – they performed their cover of the Ray Charles album, “A Message From the People”, in entirety and book-ended it with some of their most popular songs. Both Diana and I can very easily get their version of “Abraham, Martin and John” stuck in our brains on hearing the fist line, “Has Anybody Here Seen My Old Friend Abraham?”.

3. Nils Lofgren (Kessler Theater, Oak Cliff) Can you tell that the Kessler puts on one amazing show after another? Best venue ever! I’ve loved Nils since high school and his Live album from the Glasgow Apollo (signed copy obtained after this show, when he told me that tour was his favourite of his career). The show was particularly special as Lofgren showed what a consummate performer he is. His guitars had been stolen the night before, and you would never have known by the quality of the performance with borrowed gear, and his willingness to stay after the show to greet all of his fans.

4. Joshua Redman (Blue Note, New York) This is the best jazz performance that I’ve seen so far (granted, it’s only been a few years that I’ve been attending jazz shows). Diana and I saw Joshua as a special guest in the tiny Village Vanguard and were amazed at his saxophone mastery (that’s the night that he shared some of D’s champagne). This show was a complete master class on the saxophone with a beautifully varied repertoire that showed off his amazing versatility and musicality.

5. New York Philharmonic (Lincoln Center, New York) The precision of the performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 was ridiculous. I’ve heard a few orchestras but never one so completely synchronized and rehearsed but still entirely musical and flowing. This is one of a few classical pieces that I could sing form start to finish (my Mum had a record that was played quite a bit, one of her favourites from her time teaching in France and living with Aunt Louise).

Excellent shows that didn’t make the top 5 include The Eagles and Chris Stapleton at ATT Stadium, Elton John’s farewell tour at American Airlines Center, James Hunter Six at the Kessler, Mark Broussard at the Kessler, Marcia Ball and Shelley King at the Kessler, Doyle Bramhall with guest Lukas Nelson at Antone’s (my first great Austin show), Marcia Ball, Shelley King, and Carolyn Wonderland’s Christmas Show at Poor David’s Pub, Nick Lowe and Los Straightjackets at the Kessler (with the amazing performance of “Peace, Love, and Understanding”), Jethro Tull’s 50th anniversary show at the Beacon in NY, the Bacon Brothers at the Kessler, Los Miguels in a private concert in the courtyard of El Taminamba in San Miguel de Allende, Big Sam’s Funky Nation at the Kessler (with dancing by Diana on stage), John Fohl and Johhny Sansone at Chickie Wah Wah in New Orleans (amazing performance of “Do or Die”), Devon Allman and Duane Betts at the Kessler (half the audience in tears during “Blue Sky”), Kenny Baron’s excellent piano at the Jazz Standard in NY, John Oates soulful blues show at the Kessler, Soullive and Robert Randolph at the Blue Note in NY, and finally Rayo Bros at the Gasa Gasa in New Orleans during jazzfest.

Wow! 2018 might be the best year of live music I’ve experienced in my 54 years on this planet.

Best Books of 2018

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova. I loved this book and have recommended it to several people. I hadn’t read “Still Alice” prior to this and that probably enhanced my enjoyment as I understand her books may be a bit formulaic. The empathy in Genova’s writing about a musician losing the ability to play is extraordinary.

2. The Reminders by Val Emmich. This was a very close second choice. I had never heard of the author when I visited Interabang books in Dallas and received such a high recommendation for this book. It ended up completely sucking me in to the extent that I didn’t do a number of planned activities in order to finish the book in one sitting. Such a creative story about memory and relationships.

3. The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. “A Gentleman in Moscow” was one of my favourite books of 2017 and I was delighted to discover this previous novel by Towles when I accompanied Diana on her work trip to St Petersburg. Such an excellent job of capturing New York society in the 1920s. I anxiously await his next novel.

4. The Soloist by Steve Lopez. This was a very good movie (I don’t like to see movies before reading books) and an even better book. The understanding of mental illness and homelessness that Lopez communicates is stunning. The backdrop of unrewarded musical ability (at a virtuoso level) is heartbreaking in the extreme.

5. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. This is the most relevant book on my list for today’s society. The unnecessary and embedded hatred portrayed in the book seems to become more and more part of our political system and society on a daily basis. While somewhat egregiously depicted, the characters ring true as examples of the bigoted and inflexible positions taken by so many these days.

Other books I enjoyed this year include Calypso by David Sedaris (an excellent Christmas read), Less by Andrew Sean Greer (a great recommendation by Interabang books), Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (surprisingly enjoyable and creative), The Sportswriter by Richard Ford (excellent writing and led me to Independence Day that I’m currently loving), Famous Father Girl by Jamie Bernstein (great anecdotes on the musical master), A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (classic Irving and a bit of a long slog), A Visit from the Goon Squad, Manhattan Beach, and Emerald City, a trio of books by Jennifer Egan (a very rewarding discovery this year), Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (in a year when vintage typewriters seemed to appear everywhere).

Best Records of 2018

Several of my top records of 2018 were actually released in 2017 and not noticed by me until 2018. I’m going to claim a 9 month wiggle area for inclusion in the current year – it’s my list and I’ll do what I wanna.

John Prine – The Tree of Forgiveness. Prine’s first album in many years is not his finest but still the best of the year for me. Sublime songwriting coupled with an aged voice that communicates all the passion and hurt in his songs.

2. Teskey Brothers – Harvest Hill Moon. I heard a song from this album on the radio in Austin and listened to the rest of it as soon as I could. I remember telling Diana how amazed I was that a sound like this (sounds like deep Muscle Shoals from the 70s) came out of Australia. I listen to this at least once a week – especially when able to enjoy the home office system.

3. Charlie Hunter – Baboon Strength. Hunter was discovered when he played the excellent Townsend speakeasy bar and music venue on Congress Avenue in Austin. He plays a hybrid bass and lead guitar and has a very unique style. I love the sound of this record – “Fine Corinthian Leather” is a standout for me.

4. Jason Isbell – Nashville Sound. Isbell was my favourite performance at the Telluride Blues festival a few years ago by a long way. This album has several stand out songs and “If we were Vampires” is the most poignant song that I heard this year. I’m making it a goal to see an Isbell performance in 2019.

5. Marc Broussard – Easy to Love. “Don’t be afraid to call Me” is reason enough to love this album. After you hear it live, you can’t forget it for a while. Broussard is certainly one of my favourite live performers and I look forward to seeing him again at the Kessler in February.

6. Anderson East – Encore. I had to add a 6th choice to this category. I like every song on this one and still rue not attending the two shows of East’s that we had tickets for this year – work got in the way both times (it doesn’t happen very often and it impacted the same artist twice). The song “Cabinet Door” is certainly the saddest one I heard this year – but one I couldn’t stop listening to.

I hope you enjoyed this recap of some 2018 highlights. Are any of my top picks aligned with yours? I’m always looking for new recommendations on musical artists and authors.

Week in Review – December 30, 2018

The week of Christmas was very busy in Pacifica, CA with lots of cooking, organizing, and family visits.

The fun kicked off on Christmas Eve with the traditional feast of the seven fishes. Never heard of this celebration? I hadn’t either until spending the holiday with the Campagnas. Apparently it’s not well known in Italy either, but is an American tradition popular among Italian Catholics.

Here’s what Eataly’s website has to say about it:

“Every year in the U.S., many people celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Although it is unclear when the dinner became so popular, this celebration is considered one of the most Italian traditions. Typically, the family gathers around a feast of seven different seafood dishes or one or two different types of fish prepared in seven different ways.

The ancient tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic custom of abstinence from meat and dairy products on the eve of certain holidays, including Christmas. The number seven is rooted back in ancient times and it can be connected to multiple Catholic symbols: in fact, the seven seems repeated more than 700 times in the Bible. Also, according to the Roman Catholic Church, seven are the sacraments, the days of the Creation, as well as the deadly sins. Hence seven courses!”

Adamo and family as well as Andy and Jude (Clorinda’s neighbours) joined us for the feast, with Adamo doing much of the cooking. The meal was a big success despite not having exactly the fish selection that the matriarch had expected (no cod). Leftover massive crab claws provided excellent ingredients for omelets the rest of our visit.

New sleeping bags from Auntie D and Auntie Keith for Tahoe

Christmas Day started with a visit to Amy and Adamo’s home to observe the chaos of the kids opening presents. Amy made a delicious brunch (as usual whipping it up casually amid the chaos) and Andy and Jude joined again.

We were able to exchange a few gifts with Alicia before the madness became unmanageable and we had to beat a retreat. I enjoyed this gift label and always get a chuckle out of her referring to herself as an “Angel”:

Back at Clorinda’s home, it was time to start the preparation for Christmas dinner. Diana had purchased both rack of lamb and honey ham for dinner and we set about preparing those together. The matriarch didn’t like what we did with the lamb but enjoyed how it tasted at the end, so we’ll let that go (kind of). It was a gorgeous day in Pacifica as evidenced by this picture of the view from the prep kitchen.

Marco, his family, and Alicia were our guests for dinner and everyone enjoyed the meal very much. Diana’s Aunt Sarah passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 104 and the family had arranged a memorial service for December 26th, when most of the family would be in town. The after dinner activity was helping Marco finalize the order of service pamphlets and getting Olivia and Alicia ready with their parts of the service (a reading and flute performance).

I had to work on the morning of the 26th and so didn’t attend the service. The videos I’ve seen of both Marco’s eulogy and the reading/performance by Olivia/Alicia were both beautiful. Boxing Day was another gorgeous day and I worked outside on the deck with this view before heading down to the beach coffee shop for lunch.

Travel home on Thursday was relatively smooth – our flight was 2 hours late, but American let us know before we headed to the airport. We arrived home around 10:30pm and enjoyed the quiet of our house.

We used a coupon at the Tommy Bahama restaurant in Legacy West on Friday night and had a very good meal. This is not a restaurant we would have thought of trying without our $50 off card and we were both very impressed with the food, service and ambiance. These ahi tuna tacos were an excellent appetizer. Then I had Thai curry scallops and shrimp and Diana had a rib-eye steak and shrimp – all very fresh and well cooked. We’ll be back for sure.

After dinner we exchanged the Christmas gifts for each other that we had transported to California and back unopened. That’s an indication of how little downtime McD had during the visit.

Saturday was a quiet day at home catching up on things before heading to New Orleans to ring in the New Year with good friends. We did get workouts in on both days in anticipation of all the good food ahead in New Orleans. I’m at the airport as I finish this up and just watched the Cowboys eke out a win over the New York Giants – a game that didn’t mean anything for playoff spots, but one that both teams played hard to win. A 10-6 record is much better than my prediction of 7-9 for the Cowboys this year and a playoff berth quite a surprise. There’s a good chance that they will play the #1 seeded New Orleans Saints if they win against Seattle next week.

I read two of my “suggested Christmas gift” books this week – the first was “Calypso” by David Sedaris. It’s been 20 years or more since I last read one of his books and it was such a welcome treat to revisit this witty, funny, sometimes disturbing, and often sarcastic author. His descriptions of the antics of his family are insightful, humourous, and heartbreaking – often all at the same time. Not a book for the easily offended or shocked, but one that I enjoyed very much.

The second book was “French Exit” by Patrick DeWitt. Apparently a “French Exit” is when guests sneak out of a party without saying goodbye – have you ever heard that term? I know I haven’t – is it supposed to imply the French are lacking in manners? Weird. The book is quite strange also – an upper East Side New York socialite and her son flee to Paris when their money and social status are lost. Their cat which may embody her deceased husband also makes the trip. The exploits in Paris with a gaggle of entertaining characters are intended to be a farce and certainly come off that way. It reads like a cross between a witty Noel Coward play and a quirky Wes Anderson movie. I’m not a big fan of either (can never understand why Denny thinks the Anderson movies are so hilarious), but did enjoy the book overall as a light and entertaining read – just what’s needed during the holidays.

I’ve been working my way through Quincy Jones recordings after watching the biography a few weeks ago. Here’s one of his early big band recording sessions that I enjoy – “Walkin'”, with a classic walking bass line at the core of the recording.

And here’s a beautiful song from the Band of Heathens that reminded me of their excellent concert a few weeks back:

Week in Review – December 9, 2018

Apologies for the late posting this week. I offer a couple of weak excuses – (1) Diana and I were wandering around downtown Austin on Sunday afternoon when I would typically write this and (2) WordPress, the blogging software that I use to write these posts, upgraded to a new “Gutenberg” editor that I couldn’t fathom at all. After an hour of research on my flight to New York, I have now reinstalled the old “Classic” editor and am back in business. Why can’t things that work perfectly well be left alone? Here goes with the post:

The film “Bill Evans, Time Remembered” occupied a good chunk of my bus ride to Austin on Monday morning. I’ve listened to a bit of Bill Evans music but didn’t know much about him or his contributions to jazz music prior to the movie. Evans played a major role in the creation of “Kind of Blue” – the classic Miles Davis recording, and one of my top 5 recordings of all time. This was their first experiment with “modal” music, where long passages are played on a single scale. Critics credit Evans with bringing a new elegance and refinement to Davis’ music. It turns out he lived a very tortured life and finally succumbed to his addictions. I’ve been listening to the albums “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” and “Explorations” this week and enjoying both very much – they feature some impressive bass playing.

Work featured a lot of interesting new things that I haven’t been exposed to before, and a couple of new folks that joined to work on a project with me for a few months. We had a working lunch at the original Chuy’s on Tuesday – really good and different Mexican food. There are a number of “original” restaurant locations on my commute route from the hotel to the office. Restaurants that have gone on to have many locations across Texas over the years.

On Tuesday evening, my new colleagues met me for a short dose of live jazz at the Elephant Room followed by dinner at the Second Bar and Kitchen. I narrowly avoided being knocked over by a gaggle of young folks dressed up as Christmas trees and jogging down the street – they were not looking where they were going at all. Greg commented that the singer at the Elephant Room looked like she would be “difficult to have a conversation with”. I think she was just immersing herself in the jazz singer character for her songs. Here’s her rendition of “Blue, Blue Christmas”:

I had a vegetarian dinner at Second Bar – beet salad and crispy brussel sprouts and then called it an early night.

The radio station 100.1, “Best Radio under the Sun”, is my new accompaniment on the drive to work. On route to TacoDeli for breakfast on Wednesday, I heard this song from the band Dawes. It really caught my attention as a good song but more so because of how much the singing sounds like Ray Davies of the Kinks.

A delicious Frontera Fundido Portobello taco with the crossword and it was time to start work. A consultant that I’m working with suggested a kebab for lunch and some quick research showed that the Kebabalicious food truck on 2nd Street downtown was our best option. Turned out to be a great find and one that I look forward to visiting again soon. It’s been a long time (probably 1985 in Edinburgh) since I had a kebab on the street.

Diana arrived for her first of I hope many visits on Wednesday evening. We walked over to Swift’s Attic for dinner and McD had just as positive a first impression as I did. She loved the scallops and we also shared the brussel sprouts, squid fries and a new addition to the rotation, hamachi crudo. After dinner, we peeked into the Elephant Room but they were between music sets. We wandered on to The Townsend and again McD enjoyed it as much as I had on my first visit with Gonzalo. Austin is doing a good job of impressing Diana so far.

Sun radio 100.1 came through again on my Thursday morning commute with the Teskey brothers from Melbourne, Australia. Another band that I hadn’t heard of with a great sound. Kind of a mix of Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and the guitar playing of early Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green – all things I like a lot. I’ll share a couple of their songs in the “K’s new music” section at the bottom of this post.

On Thursday night we planned to attend a tribute show to Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” album at a great local music venue, the Saxon Pub. Before the show we tried Bartala for what are advertised as Catalan tapas with quite mixed results. The service, drinks and several of the tapas were good. However, the ceviche was really disappointing with very tough and rubbery octopus. So bad that it drove me to write my first Yelp review to warn folks away from this dish. I hope this was just some bad product because the place had some good potential and is nicely located close to two good music venues. After dinner, we were both too tired to wait for the music to start – the previous band was finishing and then we would have had to wait on their equipment being hauled out and the new groups’ set up.

For Friday lunch, I took a few coworkers to lunch at Mandola’s Italian. This was their recommendation and it turned out to be an excellent Italian restaurant and grocery/bakery. I had some left over scampi and augmented that with a fresh cannoli to take to Diana for lunch at the hotel, where she had been camped out working all morning. The conversation over lunch was very enlightening as I heard about one gentleman who had gone to Stanford on a volleyball scholarship and another who had been a minor league catcher for the Dodgers. I enjoyed getting to know some of the folks at work better.

On Friday night we let Diana out of the hotel for dinner at Wink – a restaurant recommended by another coworker who seems to know his food and wine. Wink is tucked away in a very quiet location and not easy to find from the street and has both a restaurant side and a wine bar side. We were nervous on arriving to find about 30 University of Texas fraternity looking folks all dressed up in tuxedos and fancy dresses for dinner before a winter dance. They turned out to be very polite and well behaved – must have been the nerdy fraternity.

The food and wine were very good. The fois gras appetizer being a particularly yummy and decadent stand out. I enjoyed grouper with lattkes and dill sauce while Diana had a venison dish with a little langiappe. A piece of a rubber band had crept into her dish. This was handled very nicely by the staff who brought us a quartet of desserts and extra red wine on the house. Everyone had a good chuckle as the kitchen was just through a small window from our table. A couple of the desserts were amazing and we left completed sated.

Saturday afternoon had been set aside to go apartment hunting and this was much more efficient than anticipated as I really liked the first place we toured and, on stopping at the second place, realized I shouldn’t waste any more time on places that I wasn’t going to like nearly as much as the first. We drove down Barton Springs road and had to stop at this airstream food truck to take a picture for Patty (the cupcake queen). Then I showed McD the new office and we drove on to the local mall for her to pick up some things she needed for her Christmas party outfit. The mall was a complete zoo and so I dropped Diana, picked up a couple of Space Cowboy tacos (my favourite lunch taco at TacoDeli) and returned to pick her up.

The company Christmas party was a very well done affair at the Hotel Van Zandt in downtown Austin. It started with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on a balcony overlooking these amazing trumpet bell chandeliers. Then dinner, accompanied by a 1920s style jazz band.

I enjoyed introducing Diana to the new folks from work. She had been grilling me on folks she would meet and we were able to check them all off except one who didn’t attend. I think she found our CEO the most entertaining of the bunch. Additional entertainment included a photo booth and caricature artist and we took advantage of both.

Sunday began with workouts and then a late brunch at Swift’s Attic. A very enjoyable meal again – I enjoyed a different take on shrimp ‘n grits. Then it was time to find somewhere to watch the Cowboys and Eagles game – a key decider in which team will make it to the playoffs. We started at the Driskill bar and saw the beginning of the game there. The TVs were small and dark and so we walked around downtown for a while. I picked up some useful information on vinyl record stores in Austin during a quick stop into Antone’s record store beside the music club.

We settled on Eddie V’s seafood house as a good place to watch the football and it turned out to be a good choice as we enjoyed old school style bar service to accompany D’s rose cocktail and some tasty steak tartare. The game remained neck and neck until the Cowboys finally won as we sat in the airport club waiting to board the flight back to Dallas.

I enjoyed some statistics on my listening this year that Spotify shared this week:

Week in Review – December 2, 2018

It was back down to Austin again early on Monday morning. I found a new podcast, “My Favorite Album” with Jeremy Dylan, that made a good portion of the trip pass quickly. Dylan interviews folks from all walks of life about their most treasured albums. I started with Brian Koppelman, creator of the TV show “Billions”. I’ve commmented a few times to Diana about how impressed I am with the music selections on this show and enjoyed Koppelman talking about how they were selected and why. See the bottom of this posting for several examples. The next episode was the drummer from Australian band Augie March talking about Dire Straits first album (also one of my favourites). I really enjoyed his thoughts on Pick Withers nuanced drumming on this album and his views on Mark Knopfler’s guitar work. The first half of my bus ride finished up with Amanda Shires (wife of Jason Isbell) talking about Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate”. Amanda had quite different views about Cohen’s music than Jeremy (the interviewer) which made for an interesting listen. She’s clearly spent a lot of time thinking about Cohen’s songs.

The other highlight of my bus trip was receiving this picture of Will’s new car by the Golden Gate bridge on Sunday afternoon. I think he did an amazingly professional job.

Monday night brought a classic Austin music experience my way. The band “Sis DeVille” was playing at the “One to One” music club.

We’ve enjoyed Carolyn, Shelley, and Floramay at the Kessler and Poor David’s Pub and I had never seen them all together in this incarnation.

This was much more of a rock ‘n roll band than the folkier versions of Shelley and Floramay in particular. I had dinner at a Korean barbecue place next to the music venue and was pleased to have Carolyn and Floramay at the table next to me. They left around 7:30pm and so I expected an on time 8pm start and wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a couple of videos to give you a flavour of the evening. The ladies clearly enjoyed playing together very much.

I was entertained to see Marcia Ball sitting in the audience as the show finished up and told her how much I was looking forward to seeing her, Carolyn, and Shelley at Poor David’s Pub later in December for their Christmas show.

The “revealer” clue from the New York Times crossword on Tuesday gave me a chuckle. “Parting words” from Fried Egg, Candidate, Computer Program, and Editorial -“Gotta Run”.

The boss decided to have an impromptu Christmas dinner on Wednesday. Most folks won’t see him again until after the holiday and so I made a reservation for us at Swift’s Attic. This is the tapas restaurant that I enjoyed so much a few weeks ago and it was great to go with a group and get to enjoy so many more dishes. All the food was wonderful and we had a very enjoyable celebration.

After dinner we enjoyed a trombone fest at the Elephant Room downstairs. Two separate groups of five trombones performed. A rare treat.

After all of those trombones, a couple of us went for a quick wander down Sixth Street to find some other kinds of music.

To round out the trombone section this week, here’s an amazing video of 28 tromobonists collaborating remotely with each other to play Bohemian Rhapsody:

I caught the bus back to Dallas on Thursday and the evening brought the much anticipated football matchup of the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints. What a great game from the Cowboys! Most fans were very nervous that the 10-1 Saints would establish a big lead quickly, but the Cowboys defense played an excellent game. The Saints couldn’t get anything going offensively at all. The final score Cowboys 13 Saints 10, bringing the winning streak to 4 games in a row.

Saturday was a lovely 72 degree day, and so we had an early dinner on the patio of Rick’s Chophouse in downtown McKinney. This was probably the last al fresco dining day of the year, before winter sets in.

Sunday was a relaxing day at home catching up on things after a morning workout followed by coffee and crossword.

I didn’t know much about any of these artists until listening to the podcasts that I started this post discussing. A good week for new music finds. An appropriate song in here for Finn from Garrett T. Capps.

Week in Review – November 18, 2018

The experimental Vonlane bus service to Austin early Monday worked out well. I enjoyed avoiding security and all the other airport hassles. It was nice to be able to spread out and relax for the 3 hour trip. I’ve booked my next few trips on the bus. Thanks to Diana for getting up so early to drive me to the bus.

The Uber driver who shuttled me from the bus drop-off point to work provided several useful tips – suggested a great local radio station, told me about a music club that sounded appealing, and an unannounced show at that venue by a group named “Sis DeVille”, comprised of Carolyn Wonderland, Shelley King, Floramay Holiday and several others – these are several of our favourite performers that we’ve seen at the Kessler and Poor David’s Pub and I bought a ticket later in the week.

Hill Country Sunrise from the Sonesta Breakfast Area

The hotel this week was the Sonesta Bee Caves which is located about a 20 minute drive from the office and next to the Hill Country Galleria outdoor mall. It took some time to get back and forward to the office but the view from the 6th floor restaurant was very good. It’s a Tapas Bar at night and has an amazing wrap around deck – nice when the weather is warmer than it was this week. I enjoyed the sunrise views in the morning with an early breakfast. This hotel also featured music art in the rooms:

Our friend Gonzalo was scheduled to interview at my office on Wednesday and came in on Tuesday night to be ready for the morning. We enjoyed an excellent dinner at the Second Kitchen and Bar – the truffle grits with G’s short ribs were amazing. I started with smoked salmon rillettes (way better than I anticipated) and then had a delicious beet salad with big chunks of brie – right up my alley.

After dinner we tried a new place that I had read about – The Townsend. This is a speakeasy style bar up front and a small music venue in back. One of the owners is an acoustic engineer and this showed up big time in the quality of the sound systems in the bar and the concert space – amazing sound! The concert in back by Charlie Hunter was sold out and so we enjoyed the music in the bar and then snuck into the music venue for the last few songs.

Charlie Hunter is a pretty unique performer – he plays an eight string guitar with 2 bass strings and 6 lead guitar strings. He maintains the bass guitar rhythm and plays lead guitar at the same time. Hunter’s music is mostly classified as jazz but has a lot of rock, blues and other genres mixed together. This performance was with a trio of singer, guitar/bass, and percussion. Here’s a short video followed by a recent review of the show that describes it much better than I could.

“Lucy Woodward almost stole the show. And she might well have done so, wholly and completely, if her two bandmates had not demonstrated the same touch for nuance she did throughout the two sets. In turns insouciant and sultry, saucy and winsome, the woman was the aural/visual picture of well-practiced discipline wherein the notes she belted out on a Nina Simone song were as finely-phrased as those she breathed so softy on one from Teresa Brewer circa 1959, “Music! Music! Music! (Put Another Nickel In)”.

If the guitarist/frontman had not so obviously relished her participation, he might not have so keenly complemented Woodward’s performance by savoring the moments his fingers ran up and down his own instrument. But plucking those ringing harmonics, bending some bittersweet notes and dropping the low-register bombs were subtleties similar to the singer’s, but also to those that appeared in the percussion work of Keita Ogawa”

I highly recommend The Townsend if you’re ever in Austin and looking for a great bar and small music venue. There was a book about Austin music in the bar that had articles on both Alejandro Escovedo (lives in an apartment above the check in desk at the Belmont hotel) and Marcia Ball (see post last week about her amazing concert at the Kessler).

On Wednesday I took Gonzalo to lunch at the nearby TacoDeli which has a very nice woodsy location near a Zilker Park trail-head. I tried the chile relleno taco special and loved it. It was nice to catch up with G on Tuesday night and Wednesday – we spent a lot of time working on tough issues together at my previous job and I’m hoping that we’ll get an opportunity to work together again.

In the afternoon we had a town hall at work for all the Information Technology employees where I was introduced. I enjoyed the view of my boss with a long horn cow in the background from where I was sitting.

Thursday was the Thanksgiving Potluck at the office – I had meetings all the way through the lunch hour and wasn’t able to participate but it looked like folks were having a great time.

I had dinner at the Hill Country Galleria mall – empanadas and salad at the Buenos Aires Grill Argentinian restaurant and then a drink at a Texas themed place that had a good guitarist/singer and the football game showing.

Friday was back on the bus to Dallas. I was interested to see a Basset hound joining our group and claiming to be a “service dog” to be allowed on the bus. HGTV was annoyingly playing on the TVs on the bus – this is the home buying/improvement channel that I had to block at the house because McD was playing it incessantly. Thankfully it hasn’t been on in a long time now.

Diana picked me up from the bus and took me to a lovely dinner at the Neighborhood Services restaurant on Lovers Lane. I loved my haddock and Diana her lobster dish.

This place has such good food and such a relaxed ambiance – we need to go more often.

After dinner D had arranged a recognition event for her team at the hockey game at American Airlines arena. I was starting to get tired and grumpy by this point. It was funny to see the Mary Kay cosmetics company suite next to D’s company suite.

The weekend was pretty quiet with workouts, coffees and crosswords- nice to settle back into our normal routine for a few days.

I finally finished a new book this week – “Half Blood Blues” by Esi Edugyan. This was a very enjoyable book about jazz musicians, the second world war, and race relations. Here’s the Amazon review:

“Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. And he was black.

Berlin, 1952. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. When they are invited to attend the film’s premier, Sid’s role in Falk’s fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.

From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk’s incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.”

It was nice to spend some time reading again this week after the busyness of the new job.

Here’s some more music from Charlie Hunter – he has many interesting albums to sample. And a great track I stumbled upon from Jimmy Smith on the Hammond organ.

Week in Review – November 11, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Week in Review – Nov 4, 2018

This was a big work week for both of us – I started my new job and Diana had her big project in downtown Dallas to spin off a new company go live on Thursday – what we’ve been calling “D Day”. The project went much better than anyone had expected with the CEOs of both companies saying nice words to the team. Diana did a great job of keeping everyone organized and motivated to make this happen so smoothly.

Monday got off to a bit of a slow start for me – had to wait on a replacement plane coming from a hanger and then circled Austin a bit because of fog at the airport. I was happy to see some good breakfast taco options at the airport – I’ll take advantage of those next week.

I made it to the office by 11 am and started the whole on-boarding process – filling out forms, new laptop, phone, meeting oodles of people and trying to remember their names. The office is very modern and comfortable and everybody was very pleasant and welcoming.

Our hotel was just across the river from downtown Austin and I was happy to see turntable and guitar art above the bed. You can see how high the river is from all the recent torrential rain. My boss and I walked to downtown and had a delicious Italian meal at Red Ash – my welcome aboard dinner.

Tuesday was a long day at the office, learning a lot about the business and what needs to be done with Information Technology. We had a quick dinner at the hotel bar and called it a day.

Diana had snuck a card for every day of my first week into my suitcase – my parents just told me how spoiled I am – I know. The Halloween card made me laugh out loud – Pumpkin Penguin.

Each of the groups of hotel employees had created a pumpkin for a competition. Here are my two favourites:

On Halloween night I was able to catch my first concert. Doyle Bramhall II was playing at Antone’s. Doyle has been a favourite for many years – I saw him with the Arc Angels in San Antonio more than 20 years ago and have seen him a few times in Eric Clapton’s band. He is an amazing guitar player and songwriter. I visited Antone’s from San Antonio in their previous location but hadn’t been to the downtown, 5th street location.

Dinner before the concert was at Elizabeth St, a French Vietnamese restaurant that I had noticed while visiting the Seventh Flag coffee shop.

I’ve been very pleased with the number of independent coffee shops in Austin – a nice change from the plethora of Starbucks in the Dallas area. You can see the airstream trailer in the background of the Seventh Flag picture – this is one of many food truck areas throughout the city – another nice feature that I’ll have to start exploring.

Back to Elizabeth St – amazing poached shrimp spring rolls and sauce selection followed by a delicious Banh Mi with chicken liver mousse, pork pate and roasted pork. The house made baguette was very good as well.

And now back to the concert. CC Adcock opened the show with his excellent band from Lafayette. Antone’s was running a costume contest and the majority of the crowd were dressed up. I had seen CC Adcock once before in New Orleans and remembered him as a talented guitar player and songwriter. He put on a great show for over an hour and really got the crowd warmed up. Here’s one of his songs:

Doyle Bramhall delivered an amazing set for close to 2 hours. A highlight for me was when he brought Lukas Nelson (Willie’s son and a big part of “The Star is Born” movie) out to play on a couple of songs. They did an excellent cover of Dylan’s “Going, going, gone”. Here’s the guitar solo form that and then a verse:

It was a little after 1 am when I made it back to the hotel – tired but very happy with the Austin music scene and with Antone’s music club.

Thursday was a reasonable day at the office. I was able to get out at a decent time, look at an apartment (very small) and then go for a walk along the river trail and find the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue.

On Friday morning I tried another one of the local coffee shops – this one is close to my hotel and open 24 hours a day -very good coffee and food and lots of seating. I made it back to Dallas around 4pm and met Diana close to her office downtown for a drink and a snack before we headed over to Oak Cliff for dinner and a concert.

Dinner was at Nova (our new favourite pre-concert dinner spot) and then Marcia Ball at the Kessler.

We’ve seen Marcia a number of times in Dallas and New Orleans and she never disappoints with her one of a kind honky-tonk, barrelhouse piano and a mix of upbeat and melancholy songs. Shelley King opened the show, reminding us of the memorable Poor David’s show we saw where Shelley, Marcia and Carolyn Wonderland all performed together. Here’s a funny song from Shelley:

Marcia had been inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame on Thursday night. Austin City Limits is the long running PBS music show that is revered by its audience and musicians alike. I obviously need to get on some mailing lists so that I don’t miss important Austin events like this going forward.

She delivered an excellent set. My favourite was her outstanding cover of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” – such a foreshadowing of Katrina.

As usual, the band was excellent. Here’s a song that showcases Mike Schermer, the guitar player in Marcia’s band for many years.

And finally, here’s a song about Mardi Gras that I enjoyed that includes Shelley King:

I made it home to my own bed for the first time in the week around midnight.

We saw the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” on Saturday afternoon. This was very well done, starting and finishing with the famous Live Aid performance by Queen. I remember watching it at the home of my Gearhart boss, the Sunday before my first day of work following University. My take away from the movie was how happy Freddie Mercury was when performing, and how tortured he was when trying to deal with everyday life – very sad story.

The movie ends with a reenactment of the full 20 minute Live Aid set, and I thought a better ending would have included the final song that Freddie and Brain May perform later in the event – “Is This the World we Created”. What an amazing thing Bob Geldoff did in 1985.

Our typical Sunday started with a workout, then coffee and a crossword – theme “Maniacs” – key clues: “Pork Lo Mein”, “Spanish Main”, “Flowing Mane”, and some city in the state of “Maine” that I don’t remember now. Get it? Different spellings of “Main” comprise “Maniacs”. Right now, I’m watching the New Orleans Saints destroy the Los Angeles Rams (the only undefeated team left at 8-0). 35-17 at the half. I’m officially picking the Saints for the Super Bowl this year.

We probably don’t need any more music this week, but here’s a song that Antone’s was playing before the show. They play a great mix of early 60s soul/R&B music. This is by Eddie Kendricks and I love the sound:

And since I haven’t had a chance to do any real reading this week, we’ll replace the book update with a song from Mighty Mike Schermer (Marcia Ball’s guitarist):

Week in Review – October 28, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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