Ants on the Melon
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So it’s been a while since I have posted anything, but I have been out of town and have been really busy, so here’s an update.

I flew to Virginia on the 26th of May to attend my cousins wedding. It was good to see my family, many of whom I have not seen in several years. The wedding was held at The Stony Point School, which is really very nice and has an interesting history.

Dad and I went fishing on Friday evening, which was a lot of fun. I didn’t catch anything, but I wasn’t really trying. Later that weekend we watched Napoleon Dynamite, which I had been telling them about for a long time. I really love that movie.

I left Virginia on Monday evening and headed down to Atlanta for a few days of contract work and hanging out with Brian. I love those trips because I actually get to be 100% productive, non-stop 10-12 hours a day, and it feels great. I wish I could figure out a way for my regular work to be that interesting. It’s also great hanging out with Brian. Tuesday night we started talking finance and before either of us knew it 4 hours had passed and it was 1:00am, that was a lot of fun.

I made it back to San Antonio in time to see the dance that Alana choreographed for me. The dance was to The Hot Club of Cowtown’s version of “Deed I Do”, and it was really awesome.

I also got my mom a new computer while I was in Virginia, but I will talk more about that in another post.

For the first time ever I actually agree with Donald Trump. He thinks that the proposals for the replacmentment World Trade Center are all lame, and that they should rebuild them exactly as they were, except one story taller. This is what I have thought all along, I hope it gets some consideration.

I drove up to Austin tonight to see The Gourds perform a free show at Scholz Garten. After a long day of training at work, I was pretty tired and I was not sure that I wanted to drive up there, but I am sure glad I did. Of the 5 times I have seen The Gourds so far, this was probably the best show yet, and they didn’t even play any of my favorite songs. There were lots of people dancing (to Gourds music?) and the crowd was completely into the show, which, I realized tonight, is a key ingredient for a great Gourds show. As soon as they started playing tonight I remembered why they are my favorite band. The songs are almost always upbeat, the type that your foot starts tapping to and you can’t make it stop. They played a lot of electric stuff tonight, which normally I don’t like but tonight it was perfect for the setting. (“electric” Gourds to me is when Kev plays the electric guitar ) They jammed on several songs, and hopefully the show will make its way on Casa Huevos Negros.

Around 10:30 I was following 2 pickup trucks down I-35 back to San Antonio when I popped over a hill and saw that traffic was completely stopped ahead in all 3 lanes. The trucks in front of me quickly shot over to the right shoulder, and, sensing what they were about to do, I followed behind them. We drove along the shoulder for about a quarter of a mile until we could see that an 18 wheeler was blocking all traffic, and the cops had arrived on the scene. At that point the truck in front of me turned right into the huge ditch/field that separates the interstate from the access road. Once again I followed behind him, which turned out to be an excellent move because I was back on the interstate in about a mile. It was a strange feeling to be on a completely empty interstate while there are 3 full lanes of traffic going in the opposite direction, but that’s ok because I made it home from Austin in a little over an hour.

I drove up to Dripping Springs, Texas this afternoon to see Hot Club of Cowtown play at the Legends of Texas Swing Music Festival.

I arrived about 5 minutes before Hot Club’s first set was scheduled to start. There were two stages set up at the festival, so I went over to stage 2 and sat my chair down in an empty spot up front before the show on stage 1 finished. They played their first set from 5:15 to 6:00, and it was amazing, as expected. After the first Hot Club set Asleep at the Wheel performed on stage 1 from 6:00 to 7:15. They are pretty entertaining, but I saw them a couple months ago at the San Antonio Rodeo, and it wasn’t much different this time. The second Hot Club set was scheduled to start at 7:15 and last for 30 minutes. When they went on stage they asked Johnny Gimble to play with them, so he did. We lucked out because the performer that was supposed to go on after them on stage 1 was not ready in time, so instead of playing for 30 minutes Hot Club played with Johnny Gimble for an hour. I was able to record all of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby on my camera. (That file is 101 MB, and is about 5 and a half minutes of video, just so you know. ) I also took some pictures of Elana, Whit and Jake on stage. Overall this was a terrific show and I was sad to learn that they will not be playing together for much longer.

Afterwards I drove up to Waterloo Records in Austin and picked up Hot Club’s Ghost Train and Two Tons of Steel’s Transparent, both of which seem really good.

Back in 1982 my dad purchased then-small Burkeville Body Shop in Burkeville, Virginia. A couple years after he was in business he had some t-shirts made with a small logo and a slogan. He would give these out to customers, friends, employees, family members, or anyone else who asked for one. I haven’t seen one of these shirts in probably 10 years.

Yesterday my dad called me and told me to go eBay, type in “burkeville” in the search box and then click on the first result. Well, I did this, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Apparently one of these shirts made its way out to California, and some guy there is selling it on eBay! Go see the VINTAGE BURKEVILLE BODY SHOP SUPER SOFT T SHIRT.

This is so crazy! Only a couple hundred of these shirts were ever made, and they were distributed in a town with a population of less than 500!

There ya have it, you can by anything on eBay.

I returned to San Antonio today after spending the last 5 days in New Orleans. A few months ago Mandi called me and said that she was planning to give Tate tickets to Jazz Fest for Valentine’s day, and she wanted to know if we would be interested in meeting up with them there. I am always looking for an excuse to go to New Orleans, so when Mandi told me they were going to be there for Jazz Fest, I bought the tickets right on the spot. Tate had no idea that we were coming, so while he was grabbing their luggage, Mandi called me where I was waiting in the rental car across the street from the airport. She told him that their hotel shuttle would be there in 5 minutes, but instead we picked them up!

We spent a lot of time hanging out and eating at restaurants throughout the city, it was a lot of fun. Mandi booked a suite a the Prytania Park Hotel, which turned out to be really nice. Chad let us stay with him on Thursday night, and we stayed at Prytania Park with Tate and Mandi on Friday and Saturday nights.

James joined Tate and me on Friday for JazzFest while the girls shopped on Magazine street. I had some great Jambalaya for lunch that day, and then I discovered fried plantain, that stuff is great! Later that night we had dinner at Figaro’s Pizzeria, a nice little Italian restaurant that I used to eat at every Sunday when I lived in New Orleans.

Ken flew in on Saturday from Oklahoma for his first visit to the Big Easy. After picking him up from the airport we all caught the Dave Matthews Band show at Jazz Fest. It had been raining that morning, so the venue was a little messy, but not bad enough to deter the DMB fans. After the shows we drove back down Carrollton avenue and met up with Chad for dinner. It was really great having that many friends from all over the place at dinner, it’s not too often that stuff like that happens.

Chris had been telling me about this band Mofro, and I was excited to see that they were playing at The Maple Leaf, a bar close to where I used to live. Tate, Ken and I showed up at 11:00, when Mofro was supposed to go on, we paid our $20 covers (a bit expensive, but i really wanted to see this band), and go inside. There was a band play who obviously wasn’t Mofro, but I figured they would be finishing up soon so we just stood there and tried to ignore the idiot fratboys who were dancing like idiots in front of us. The band finally finished up, and I said something to Tate about Mofro when the fratboy in front of us turns around and informs me that they aren’t going to be going on stage until 1:00am. This was a serious bummer, as we were all dead tired and probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place. So, after paying $20 to see 5 minutes of drunken college idiots dance to some local band, we decided to ditch the effort and call it a night. BOOOO…

The weather on Sunday was much better, but the bad news was that we had to take Tate and Mandi to the airport after lunch. It really sucks when good times have to end, but so it goes…. After dropping them off at the airport, Ken, Alana and I rode over the Maple Street P.J.’s Coffee to get a snack and check email. Once we were sure that the Internet was still moving along, we got back in the car and headed to our third day of Jazz Fest. We met up with Justin and Traber at the Trey Anastasio show, which was really good. I tried to get some more of that tasty fried plantain, but the lines were too long, sigh. We made a couple stops at the Blues and Gospel tents before finally calling it quits.

After the show we drove over to Covington to have dinner with the Taurman’s. It had been a really long time since I had seen my third family, and there was no way I could go all the way to New Orleans and not make a trip over there. As usual they had this amazing dinner for us, including my favorite artichokes. When we finished eating dinner we all went out to the famed back porch and talked for a while, consuming pound cake and coffee like it was going out of style. It was really great seeing them, and there is no way that I can go another year and a half without making another trip out there.

Earlier in the day we decided with Ken to get a double room at the Prytania Park Hotel for Sunday night. So after leaving the Taurman’s we made it back across the lake to the hotel by about 10:30. Ken had never seen the French Quarter, so I took him down there for the standard tour: Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, Cafe du Monde, etc. And that was pretty much the end of the trip. Alana and I woke up extremely early today to catch our flight back to Texas, and I should have gone to sleep hours ago.

I can’t wait for Jazz Fest 2006.

The last two shows of Cornyation were performed tonight, and once again it was a lot of fun. Alana’s family came to see the first show last night, and they had an extra ticket so Todd came along and sat with them. Dave and his friend Kay came to see the second show tonight, which was probably the best show. Dave was wearing his kilt, of course. Even more strange was that he wasn’t the only person there wearing a kilt, but then again, it is Cornyation.

Since Alana was performing in the act with Johnny and Jesse, they invited me to be a part of their group. The theme of the group’s skit was “Labor’s Love Lost”, which involved Willy Wonka and his Umpa Lumpas battling Walmart. My role was to help move the large prop centerpiece onto and off the stage, and to help with whatever else was needed backstage. I had a blast working with everyone in the group, they were all a lot of fun. Between the first and second shows our group was told to stay in our dressing room. We were not sure what was going on, but we all went back and waited. Before long a large group of people appeared and presented our group with this year’s Spirit Award, and a huge trophy. Apparently the Spirit Award is chosen by the winner of the award from the previous year, and it goes to the group that is having the most fun and who puts on the best show. It was an honor to be a part of the group and to see everyone do so well. Johnny and Jesse deserved to win, they put together a great act.

Cornyation is held at the Empire Theater in downtown San Antonio. The Empire Theater shares a common underground dressing area with The Majestic Theater, which is around the corner on Houston Street. The walls of this underground area are filled with paintings of the different acts that have performed at the Majestic and Empire theaters. The paintings are signed by the actors and actresses who performed in the shows, and some are really impressive. I took some pictures of these walls so that everyone else could see what is down there. Some of the works of art are really creative, and my favorite has to be the one for Seussical the Musical. Notice how the cat’s hat is actually painted around a duct that is coming out of the wall, it really catches your eye when you walk by it.

I got home around 11:30 tonight and decided to restring my new mandolin. I’ve become a big fan of Elixir strings, both for my guitars and mandolins, so I bought a pack with my new mandolin last week. I’ve been playing along to Garcia and Grisman this evening, their music is so sweet.

So Alana and I flew to Maryland on Friday with her parents to attend a wedding of their friend. We are actually staying in Bethesda Maryland, so when we arrived at the hotel on Friday around 5 pm I opened up the laptop and sent an email to my friend Dave who lives somewhere around here. Dave and I had not seen each other in almost 2 years, and the last time we talked was over a year ago, so I thought it would be great to get together and catch up. Well, around 8:30 my phone rang, and the screen told me that it was Dave’s number before I answered the phone. So when I answered I said “Hey Dave! What are you up to tonight?” He sounded a little confused, and said “uhm.. not much, what are you doing?” So I asked him if he wanted to get together and have coffee or something. He asked where I was and I told him and he said that I was literally 2 blocks from his apartment at the time. So he came over to where I was and we were talking about how it was great to get together. I said something like “I’m glad you got the email” and that is when Dave said “what email?” As it turns out, when he called me earlier he was calling to ask me about a problem with his father’s website that I host, Dave had no idea that I was even in town! He never got the email that I sent him, he just happened to call when I was 2 blocks from his apartment, so weird.

Alana wanted to try out for MTV’s The Real World, so we took the Metro downtown and found Lulu’s Mardi Gras Club, where MTV was holding auditions. I dropped her off at 10, and then I started walking around downtown Washington D.C. I found Pennsylvania Avenue and started walking down that. Pretty soon I noticed that I was walking along a nice big mansion, with a pretty yard. Then it occured to me that I was looking at the White House. Next door to the White House is The Department of the Treasury. A few weeks ago I read a story on Yahoo news about a duck with secret service protection, and before I knew it I was looking at the famous Duck!

After seeing the duck I started walking towards the capital. Just as I reached the FTC building, a parade started up right in front of me. It’s been a long time since I have heard a marching band, but I really love hearing that type of music. The Eastern High School marching band was amazing, and I followed them down the street for 4 or 5 sets of music. I followed several other bands down the street too, but none of them had a name as good as the Bowie State University’s Symphony of Soul.

After watching the marching bands for about an hour I decided to head back towards Alana. We had lunch at a restaurant named “Le Bar”, and the crabcake salad was great. When we left the restaurant we met up with Alana’s parents at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where Alana wanted to see the Gem exhibit. Afterwards we walked to the National Museum of American History. Initially I was not excited about going to the History museum because, well, after 4 years of history in college, I have very little interest in history. But I was surprised to find out that the Americian History Musuem has a lot of exhibits on inventors and technology, it was pretty cool! I spent most of my time there at the Lighting a Revolution exhibit, which was all about Edison and the gang, very coool stuff!

I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to bed. Good night!

So at some point on my way home from work today I decided I wanted to buy a new mandolin. A few months ago I had been over to Guitar Tex and played a Kentucky mandolin like the one that my grandfather has. I really liked the action on this mandolin, and told the guys there that I would probably be back for it at some point. So today I quickly ran by and bought it, it was only $195, which is not bad for a pretty decent mandolin.

Chris Blumentritt was in town tonight and a bunch of us got together at Rebar to hang out with him. I miss having Chris around, nobody else really seems to be into good music since he left. I stayed around till about 11:15 until I had to come home to pack for our trip to Maryland tomorrow.

We are flying out at 10:00 tomorrow to go to Maryland for the weekend to see some of Alana’s friends get married. Todd helped me find a sports jacket today at Goodwill that I can wear to the wedding, otherwise I would have been in big trouble.

This evening Dave and I drove up to the One World Theatre in Austin to see the California Guitar Trio. We were late leaving the office, so Chuck gave us some super secret directions to the venue that helped take some time off the trip. Dave Roth is one funny guy. He had me laughing so hard on the way to the concert that I could barely breath. His stories about rednecks, Excel based house plans, and limosine schoolbuses are insane, ask him about them some time. We arrived at the theater around 7:15, about 15 minutes after the show started, and found our seats next to Avie where we sat down for the remainder of the show.

I had pretty high expectations for the Trio, as I have heard some of their stuff before. I was blown away, these guys are on an entirely different level than any musicans I have ever seen before. One of the most amazing things I have seen in a while was their performance of Bach’s Prelude using something called a “circulation technique.” Using this technique each musician plays every third note and together it sounds as if a single person were performing the song. Amazing stuff that you have to see to get an idea for just how impressive it is. They ended the night with a great version of Bohemian Rhapsody and blisteringly fast version of the Dick Dale’s Miserlou, popularly known as the Pulp Fiction theme song.

Afterwards Avie and I drove back to Camp Young Judea where Alana is teaching and dancing this weekend. It’s a really nice place, and they have a very nice open wireless network so I am happy. I hope to get some work done this weekend, and maybe catch up on some reading that I have been trying to do.