It was an early (4:30 am) start on Monday to catch the 6:00 am bus back to Austin. After some shenanigans with Lyft giving me a driver 27 minutes away to fulfill my request for a 4:50 am pickup, I made it just in time for the bus and enjoyed a smooth journey (mostly sleeping). Santiago, my Lyft driver, did entertain me with stories of his time on the Bolivian national soccer team and his attempt to get his PGA card – quite the sportsman and a very interesting conversationalist.
My main accomplishment for the remainder of Monday was getting D’s car inspection completed, so that she could register the car. I did struggle on this as the insurance document wasn’t in the glove box (that I could see). Turns out it was in the owner’s manual in a secret shelf on top of the glove box that tall people would never see.
Another early start alarm awoke me on Tuesday so that I could make my 7:00 am Physical Therapy appointment. PT is really working well – I was completely pain free when I left and have had very manageable pain most of the week. I get a few funny looks as I drop to the office carpet and perform the exercises that bring me almost instant pain relief.
Here’s a short riddle that was on the board at PT:
x+8 = 12
x-5=11
x is the same in both equations. What is x?
Need a hint? Read down to just before the music section.
On the way home, I stopped into the Saxon Pub for the weekly David 
Grissom happy hour residency. You’ll remember me raving last week about the film we saw about the Saxon Pub at the Dallas International Film Festival. One of the more entertaining characters is Chris who works the sound board and absolutely loves his job. He does an amazing job on the sound. Here is on Tuesday night working the sound and also the lights (using some special tool comprised of a rod with a tennis ball on top).
As I was entering the Saxon, I saw a character walk by and thought to myself that the crowd was getting a bit rougher and dirtier. Turns out that was Chris Maresh, the bass player for David Grissom. I felt guilty about my initial assessment as it became obvious that Maresh is a world class, virtuoso bass player – reminding me a lot of Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report fame.
He began his professional music career in Austin in 1984 after receiving a degree in Applied Double Bass Performance with an emphasis in Jazz Performance from the University of Texas. Over the ensuing 35 years, Chris has performed on an amazing 250 albums. His big break came when he played with guitar legend Eric Johnson for 10 years. His side project, Alien Love Child, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental for the song “Rain” in 2002.
Can you hear the perfect interplay between bass and guitar. That’s exactly the thing that brought out my “Happy Music Face” at the Saxon.
Chris has also released two solo albums of original jazz material. I’ve only listened to one so far and the musicianship is very good.
Grissom’s drummer, Bryan Austin, was equally impressive with some strong jazz capabilities as well. His online profile is very sparse – all I was able to find is that he played with Santana at some point.
My favourite song of the show was “A Good Day for the Blues”, a song that Grissom wrote in the mid-nineties when in a band called Storyville with Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon from the Arc Angels (and originally Stevie Ray Vaughan).
It’s a rare treat to have music of this quality available for the cost of a tip on my short commute from work to the Catherine.
Severe thunderstorms had been forecast for Wednesday afternoon or evening since early on Monday. Predictions of 2 inch diameter hail caught our attention as the storm was scheduled to hit both Dallas and Austin. A lot of folks made plans to drive home early to avoid the storm that was initially scheduled for around 4pm on Wednesday. Storm arrival time was pushed back throughout the day and it ultimately arrived when we were both asleep. Diana slept through it in Dallas but I was awoken by the loud thunder just before 2am. It doesn’t seem like there was any major hail damage.
Diana decided to leave Penelope safely in the garage at home and take an Uber to her first meeting in downtown Dallas. We were chatting on the phone as she waited for the car to arrive and I was talking about the interesting driver that I had on Monday. Then this was the view of the boot of the Uber as she went to stow her luggage:
Apparently the driver likes to play the trombone and makes occasional trips to New Orleans to play in a church and at various places on Bourbon Street. Diana’s bus arrived later on Thursday evening. I could tell she was ready to be in Austin as I got the countdown clock texts on her arrival time: 34 mins, 22 mins, 15 mins, 10 mins.
Diana had warned me that she was ready to go out on Friday evening, 
having been cooped up in meetings all week and then on the bus trip down. We had an early dinner at 2nd bar and kitchen – some of our usual favourites: smoked salmon rilletes and avocado fundido. After dinner we walked up Congress Avenue to the Listening Room at the back of The Townsend. This is an amazing room with perfect acoustics that only seats about 60 people.
We saw John Nielson perform with opener Michael Davids.
Michael Davids had a couple of tables full of friends with him. True to form, Diana discovered that they all worked for a cyber security firm with a couple of the folks employed as ethical hackers. I swear she can find out more about people in a few minutes than I do in years. He attempted to get the crowd to engage in a singalong with Jackson Browne and Elton John songs with reasonably tepid results, but mostly played his own original songs.
I had not heard of John Nielson when doing research for McD’s night out, but listened to some of his songs and thought he had a great voice and good songs. His performance was true to expectations with a number of memorable original songs. He appears to make some of his living from having his songs used in TV shows. Here’s one of his performances:
We were walking back home down Congress Street when I heard a good cover of “Have you ever seen the rain?” by CCR coming from the Shiner Saloon. I had never been in this particular establishment and found it very pleasant – good music and a very nice upstairs patio with various games. We enjoyed watching these kids playing a very large Jenga game.
Saturday began with workouts downstairs and then Diana put me on notice that she was planning to spend a few hours out by the pool. It was a perfect day and so I decided to go for a walk along the river trail. Here’s a sequential series of pictures looking back on the Catherine that I took on the walk:
The trail is very well maintained with lots of shade. I came across this sculpture titled “Bikes Forever” that contains 1254 bicycle frames.
Now I was starting to get a bit hot and tired and so stopped for an iced coffee at Alfred’s above the Austin rowing club. There was a very long line of people below waiting to rent canoes.
On Saturday night we walked over to the Violet Crown cinema (thanks to Shu for pointing it out to us) to see “Amazing Grace”, a documentary of the live recording of a gospel album by Aretha Franklin.
We really enjoyed the cinema – great food and drinks and a very nice feel. “What about the movie?”, I hear you asking. Well…I enjoyed it a lot and Diana enjoyed the first 15 minutes as well. Then she got a wee bit sleepy. The power and control that Franklin had at the height of her powers in 1972 is amazing.
Easter Sunday morning started with workouts and then Diana joined me for a walk along the river trail – this time on the South side. Much of the trail on this side is an elevated boardwalk style path that is very well done. The views back into downtown are quite impressive.
After a nice long walk, we stopped into Bennu for coffee and crosswords on the patio. Great location but the cacophony of bird squawking was almost unbearable.
We cleaned up and then walked across to Le Politique for Easter Sunday brunch. I really enjoyed my “Beef Cheek Presse” with a sunny side up egg, chickpeas and avocado. The beef cheek had a very rich and delicious flavour. We picked up a loaf at the patisserie next door to enjoy for dinner with some of the cheeses left over from Denny’s visit.
I think we did a good job of taking advantage of what Austin has to offer this week – music, outdoors, and food.
I enjoyed “The River” by Peter Heller this week. The main protagonists are Wynn and Jack, who have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But, the next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? The story quickly pivots from a wilderness vacation adventure log to a harsh survival tale with several twists and turns.
You can tell Heller has spent significant time in the outdoors from his descriptions of nature. Here’s a passage that I particularly enjoyed describing animals fleeing the impending forest fire:
“The moose trotted to the open margin of the left riverbank and clattered over the broken shale on stiff legs and entered the water without pause, and she stretched her neck and let the water sweep her without concern and set a ferry angle and swam across. The calf mimicked the mother. They were only yards ahead of them. The next was a bull moose, and then a black bear with two cubs. The cubs hesitated at water’s edge, they seemed frightened, and the mama bear snorted and waded out of the river and got behind them and drove them forward. They swam. The littler one lost ground in the current and Wynn thought he would get swept away, but the mother got below him and bumped and shouldered and goaded him across.”
Riddle hint: Think of a wall clock
Still don’t get the riddle? The answer is at the end of the music section.
Here’s the orginal version of “Good Day for the Blues” by Storyville that I heard David Grissom perform on Tuesday evening. I think this is certainly one of his most popular and accessible compositions:
I really enjoy the sound of this song by a band that I heard for the first time this week and can’t remember where. The National Reserve have good vocals and a great guitar sound with nice production. They’re based in Brooklyn and have been playing a regular Friday night bar gig there for almost a decade before releasing their first album. Here’s how they describe themselves on their website, “Founded and fronted by singer-guitarist Sean Walsh, The National Reserve mine an archetypal musical seam, marrying gutbucket R&B, Laurel Canyon lyricism, New Orleans funk workouts, late night soul, and bluesy, boozy rock ‘n’ roll to create their own timeless brand of American music. ”
Samantha Rise is another artist just releasing her debut material. She claims to play “High Country Soul”. Again I like her vocals and the excellent guitar accompaniment on this song:
Let’s close out this week with some classic Bob Dylan as heard on the “Billions” TV show this week – I really do enjoy the musical choices for this show:
Mott the Hoople’s Greatest Hits has been one of my favourite albums for more than 35 years now. I also enjoy the Ian Hunter (lead singer for Mott) solo albums and have one in my collection that I bought on holiday in France with my Mum and Dad (it’s aging very well). The band reformed recently for a few shows. Here they are in Boston performing “Saturday Gigs” and “All the Young Dudes” (a song written by David Bowie and gifted to the band as they were trying to get started).
Riddle Answer: 4 am (I hear you groaning).
Should I make a riddle a regular feature in the blog?