Hittin' the Trail

The warning signs are there. I'm becoming an addict, a Town Lake Trail junkie, and I have the blister on the back of my ankle to prove it. Jamye's jealous. You see, I've been out there without her twice since we went this weekend for the first time. I'm getting good use out of my iPod and its accompanying MarWare armband though, and most importantly I'm back on the trail (pun intended) to losing weight after a couple of months of substance abuse. The substance in question being queso, of course.

Music City U.S.A vs. The Live Music Capital of the World

In January of this year, KUT 90.5 in Austin aired this feature on the differences between the Nashville and Austin music industries. It's a debate viewed through Austin-colored glasses in this piece, but it's interesting nonetheless. Click the links below to listen.
Part One . . . Part Two

Here's the Nashville Chamber of Commerce Press Release regarding the music industry's impact in Nashville.

My two cents: The publishing epicenter of country music is located in Nashville. It is home to the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Austin offers more live music venues per capita than any other U.S. city and is home to the longest-running concert music program on American television, Austin City Limits. While Nashville has a monopoly on country music, Austin strives to be more communal and diverse. It's the buffet to Nashville's steakhouse... which is a bad analogy because I don't like buffets and love steakhouses. You get the picture though.

NoCal Nuptials: Part Two

Jamye and I whiled away the morning around the hotel before heading into nearby Stinson Beach, an idyllic little vacation spot snuggled up against the base of Mount Tamalpais. After stopping in the local market and bookstore, we followed a tiny road down to the crescent-shaped beach where we were surprised at the number of people lounging about on the fog-enshrouded shoreline. While Jamye took a walk down the beach, I opted to stay put and rehearse the e.e. cummings poem Laura had given me to read in her ceremony.

Jamye returned with three tide-smoothed black rocks, and we headed back to the main street where we settled onto two barstools at the Sand Dollar Cafe, a Stinson Beach institution since 1921. The interior of the restaurant resembled the interior hull of a boat, and we sat and made small talk with the bartender while we lunched on fish and chips and fish tacos (yes, even here we can't escape them). As the afternoon began to wane, we headed back up and down the windy road from whence we came, stopping by the Pelican Inn to see everyone making preparations for the ceremony. Jamye snapped this picture of the misty hillsides from the balcony outside Kristen and Stuart's room before we returned to the hotel to get ready.

Two hours later, we were back at the Pelican Inn. The pre-ceremony wedding pictures were in full swing as we stepped into the Inn, and before long, we were all being seated on the front lawn of the property as an eclectic band of musicians filled the air with a collection of English tunes.

Laura looked radiant, and Greg looked cool as a cucumber as my tough-talking, no-nonsense friend stymied tears during the ceremony, which was short, simple and classy. I pulled off my reading towards the end of the ceremony without getting tongue-tied, and moments later the priest from New Jersey(?!?) was introducing Laura and Greg as husband and wife.

As the quaint, yet elaborate reception passed well into the night and a handful of people apart from the wedding party remained, Jamye and I helped set up a bonfire on nearby Muir Beach where we said our goodbyes shortly thereafter. We returned down the path to the Pelican Inn in the cool, wet air.

In the morning, we would leave and come home to Austin where we would spend the late afternoon having dinner and cold Lone Stars at Shady Grove. California had felt more foreign to me on this visit, but the glistening faces at our favorite restaurant looked as welcome as ever.

NoCal Nuptials: Part One

As we sped toward the Golden Gate Bridge on Highway 101, I was reminded why I hadn't left my heart in San Francisco (sorry, you knew it was coming). It had been seven years since I last visited this area of the Golden State and nothing had happened to change my mind that Frisco was an overstuffed, overhyped and overcrowded city with little to offer anybody who made less than six figures. I'm sorry if I'm stepping on somebody's toes here, but the place is a zoo. While it's a marvel of civil engineering and a veritable funhouse of amazing architecture, I couldn't imagine living there. I know, who invited me, right?

As the fog poured through the bay, we zipped across the bridge and into Marin County. My friend Laura was getting married at a little English inn in Muir Beach, and we were staying at a hotel in nearby Mill Valley just one exit north of Sausalito.

On the northside of the bridge, the hills folded out as the highway curved and tilted slightly upward. I had never been here, and as we churned forward in our rented Pontiac Vibe, I began to wonder why. This was the California I fell in love with in my youth, and it seemed miles and miles away from the teaming masses we had left behind only minutes earlier.

Our hotel was an unassuming little three-story building situated on the westside of the 101 and on a little inlet north of the bay. It shared what little parking it had with a nearby bank building. After we found a spot and piled into our equally unassuming little room, we set up shop for our 48-hour visit. From the sliding glass doors that led into a mulch bed (how odd) we could peer across the inlet at the hills separating us from the Pacific Ocean, and since we had a few hours to relax before we headed out to the rehearsal dinner that evening and little sleep the night before, we both kicked off our shoes and stretched out on our bed for what would inevitably become a two-hour nap.

We awoke to that post-nap afternoon haze and trudged around our little room aimlessly before getting cleaned up and dressed for the rehearsal dinner in nearby Sausalito.

It was a fine little establishment that neighbored a dock packed full of sailboats. The food was excellent, and we easily wiled away the next few hours reconnecting with the bride and groom and chatting with a table full of Laura and Greg's family and friends. Kristen and Stuart, Laura's friends from Malibu that we had the pleasure of meeting a year before, were a welcome sight in a sea of unfamiliar faces, and after the festivities ended, we lingered over a drink with them at the bar before heading back to the hotel and quickly going to sleep.

The wedding was set for the following afternoon, and my next post is set for the same.

The Anticlimactic 4th of July Story

There we were on the top floor of Opal Divine's Freehouse. We had secured a spot by the rail in hopes of seeing the city's fireworks show which was set to start at 9:30 in nearby Zilker Park. As thunderstorms rolled through town less than thirty minutes before the scheduled start time, we watched people scramble to and fro across Sixth Street. From our dry, comfortable, upstairs perch, we laughed at our good fortune regarding our decision not to go to the park to watch the show.

Then, the fireworks started, and we were laughing for another reason.

Situated directly southwest of our location, the Austin City Lofts building rises some 14 stories above the pavement, and this lone structure just happened to be in the direct eye line between us and the fireworks show. Naturally, it completely obstructed our view of said fireworks.

The following photo shows the building from the northwest as opposed to our vantage point from the northeast, but you get the picture.

We could hear the echoing booms and see the colors reflecting off the dense cloud cover, but that was it. Never in our wildest dreams would the city's big fireworks spectacular (which was over in less than 20 minutes) be concealed by one building, and since such a thing was even possible, I'm not sure that we missed much.

Nevertheless, the joke was on us.

The 4th of July was effectively over, but we still enjoyed our pints (only 2 apiece, moms and dads), cracked pepper fries with dill ranch, and divine quesadilla and managed to laugh about our tiny tragedy all the way home.

Ye Olde Muni

Today, I have a funny story about Austin's Fourth of July fireworks display, but first, dear reader, I feel compelled to tell the story of my experience at "Old Muni", Austin's oldest municipal golf course and formally known as Lions Municipal Golf Course. A selection of hats in the clubhouse are emblazoned simply with "Muny", and this is the course's preferred nomenclature amongst the locals.

It's the kind of track I like to play alone so I can take in the surroundings and linger over certain aspects of the course and clubhouse without having to worry about holding up a playing partner. Measuring only 6001 yards from the tips, it's also the kind of course at which many players would look down their noses, and many more would consider too short in this world of 460cc drivers and Pro V1's. To be sure, its defenses are decidedly old school. The tight, twisting fairways are bound on either side by wide trees, and the small greens dare you to go long.

The place still has some caché with the area's best players though. Texas' oldest Amateur championship, The Firecracker Open, was held there this weekend, so the course was in great shape. The rough was up, the fairways were manicured, and the greens were speedier than I would have imagined.

The guy who maintains this website has a great hole-by-hole breakdown of the course with pictures, and I wish I had read his advice about everything breaking toward the river. Several putts outside of 15 feet left me scratching my head.

That's "Hogan's Hole" pictured at the top of this post. I don't know if the story about Hogan's "Where's the fairway?" comment upon seeing the hole is equal parts truth and equal parts Texas tall tale, but I do know that I made a heck of a double bogey on it after an attempted 3-iron draw found the trees down the right side and my chip out found the rough on the left side. Otherwise, I acquitted myself fairly admirably on the 78-year-old layout. After starting the round with a bogey and two doubles, I went on to shoot an 87, and I celebrated the palindromic feat with a trip through the Long John Silver's drive-in for lunch.

Tonight, I continue to go over today's round in my mind (as I'm prone to do), but the thing that keeps popping up instead of the individual shots is the unassuming little course with a big history.

Oh yeah, there was a story about fireworks wasn't there? I guess I'll save that for "tomorrow."

The Parent Trip: Part Four

Sunday morning in San Antonio found us checked out of the hotel and back at Mi Tierra for brunch. After that, we drove down the street to La Villita, a little arts and craft center near the Hemisfair Park before we made our way down the Mission Trail, a 10 mile stretch of back roads that connect four 18th century Spanish missions and comprise a National Historic Park on the southside of San Antonio. I only took pictures at the first one, Mission Concepcion. The other three were equally impressive in their own ways, but this is the one that grabbed me.

Take a gander at Concepcion below:

I was genuinely shocked when I first laid eyes on this structure. I believe I halfway expected a 300-year-old pile of rocks that sort of resembled an old church.

There's Mom craning her neck to take in Concepcion's Spanish Colonial architecture.

I think this is Mom's favorite picture... probably because she can envision those early Franciscans trudging down this arched, candlelit corridor with heads bowed.

Next on the trail were the Missions San Jose, San Juan and Espada. You can read about them all here. The sun was already beating down on us, and even though it was a dry heat... ahem... we took in these last three through the tinted windows of Dad's air-conditioned truck before heading back north to home and hearth.

The few days that my parents stayed after our return to Austin seemed like a uneventful denouement to the climax that was the historic treasures of San Antonio. I'm glad my parents were game companions, because we'll never be able to see the old San Antone through new eyes again. It won't stop us from going back though.

The Parent Trip: Part Three

From the Alamo, we crossed the street to Pat O'Brien's for a quick snack and a cold drink. I had misgivings about stepping into this transplanted New Orleans staple, but I was craving a hurricane. It was good, but Ralph and Kacoo's was better. I didn't have trouble walking after this one. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta. We were in San Antonio after all.

We met back up later to go to the 35th Annual Texas Folklife Festival at the Hemisfair Park, which, incidentally, was the site of the 1968 World's Fair. I won't bore you with the details of our multicultural experience as you can look at the website yourself, but here are a couple of highlights from the Festival:

The kid drummer at the New Orleans/Cajun pavilion:



The bagpipe players exiting the arts and crafts area:



After leaving the festival, we took a trolley to Mi Tierra. Even at 9:00 it was still an hour wait so we resolved to come back for breakfast and caught the return trolley to the Riverwalk and had dinner at Casa Rio. A bushel of chips and queso, plates full of tortillas, and a carafe of Sangria later, we returned to our respective rooms to go to bed.

We had a couple more stops planned for Sunday. I'll share those tomorrow.

As for today's postscript, here is one of our last glimpses of the Alamo from the trolley on Saturday night:

It's super, man.

In deference to my favorite critic, Roger Ebert, Superman Returns is a thrilling film on an epic scale full of iconic moments.

The film takes up the story of our hero after the events of the first Superman sequel. He's been gone for five years in search of the remnants of his Krypton home, and he returns to Earth to find that many things have changed in his absence. For starters, Lois Lane has a child and a fiance and Lex Luthor is out of prison and plotting another insidious scheme.

While this film doesn't have quite the pop grandeur of Richard Donner's 1978 touchstone, Superman Returns director Bryan Singer pays homage to that film's legacy by casting a virtual unknown in the lead role and staging scenes that recall both Christopher Reeve's seminal performance and the character's DC Comics origins. Where Singer surpasses the original is with outright spectacle and an understated and unrequited love story on par with a Merchant-Ivory film.

Sure, maybe the running time is a little long, but since almost 20 years have passed since the last Superman adventure (the abysmal Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) and over 25 years have passed since Superman II, the last respectable portrayal of the Man of Steel on screen, this is forgivable.

Jamye and I went to the 10 o'clock screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema last night. We arrived at 9:00 to the following scene which I snapped a murky picture of with Jamye's phone.

They had four screenings from 10:00 to 10:15. They were all sold out. Luckily, I ordered our tickets three weeks ago for the privilege of standing in line and viewing the movie with comic book geeks of every shape and size, and judging by the audience reactions, most of them left the theater late last night just as satisfied as this recovering comic book geek.

As a postscript to the evening's events, here's a bit of hilarity that was shown before the film's trailers.

The Parent Trip: Part Two

If you can cast your mind back to the post from over a week ago (and I can cast my mind back to an event that occurred over two weeks ago), you (and I) may recall that there was the matter of a weekend trip to San Antonio with my parents.

We took off in the big white truck Friday afternoon, June 9th, Two Thousand and Six, A.D. from South Austin, and by 8:30 p.m. we were pulling into the parking lot across the street from the Westin Riverwalk in Old San Antone. A short time after checking in, we set out to find some food. After wandering around aimlessly for what seemed like hours, we eventually settled at a table along the Riverwalk at a place called Rita's on the River. My cold beer was welcome and the boilerplate Tex Mex fare was a godsend. All in all it wasn't half bad.

As an aside, my first impression of San Antonio's Riverwalk at night was that of an elaborate Disney World ride. Think Pirates of the Caribbean but with women pushing strollers instead of slinging pints and rebuffing the advances of scurvy pirates. The amount of alcohol being consumed was roughly equivalent, however.

Saturday morning found us at Zuni Grill for a Texas-sized breakfast, and from there, we left the riverwalk area...

...and headed over to the Alamo by way of a souvenir shop to buy some big straw hats for the lady folk. After taking the prequisite touristy-type pictures of Mom and Dad out front...

...we passed through the historic facade of the old mission. The following words, "Be silent, friend. Here, heroes died to blaze a trail for other men." set the tone for the somber history of the structure and its surroundings, long since converted to lush, visitor-friendly courtyards. State flags representing the home states and countries of the nearly 200 men who gave their lives in defense of the fortified mission lined the interior walls of the shrine. Plaques on the back wall listed the names and origins of the defenders of the Alamo who had held out for thirteen days against Santa Anna's Mexican army in the 1836. Outside, the remaining original structure, the Long Barrack, had been converted into a museum devoted to Texas history.

I took Jamye's picture in her new straw hat near the northeast corner of the shrine. Notice the Texas flag fluttering in the immediate background and an American flag far-off in the distance.

On the shrine's southside, I had Jamye take my picture at the fountain commemorating the four commanders at the Alamo. Naturally, I chose the Tennessee native.

Despite the encroachements on the site's solemnity by snow cone vendors in the front courtyards and the Ripley's Believe It or Not across the street, the whole experience remained moving and inspirational, and it has left a lasting impression on me.

More on San Antonio tomorrow. Seriously.

Announcing www.jonathanoneal.com

For now, it's an online portfolio. It might be something else later, but for now, it's an online portfolio. It might be something else later, but for now.... um, you can check it out here.

Come back to Austin soon...

...Kathleen Edwards. We weren't living here yet when you played KGSR's 15th Anniversary Party in December.

Click her pic to go to iTunes, but you can download 11 .mp3 tracks from her first two albums on the Music page of her site. Right click on the song titles and "Save Target" on the PC and Ctrl-Click on the songs for the Mac. "Back to Me" and "In State" are the real keepers.

I would hang out with me...

...in deference to Loopty Lou. Click the random iTunes party shuffle playlist to see why.

Man, I have good taste.

The Parent Trip: Part One

So, my parents arrived in Austin on Tuesday, June 6. They left this past Thursday. In the interim, we ate our weight in chips, salsa, queso, tortillas, beans and rice between here and San Antonio and generally acted like unabashed tourists for the duration of their stay.

We hit the usual suspects here (Shady Grove, Z Tejas, Kerbey Lane, Shady Grove, again, Curra's and Opal Divine's), and I got to try the food at Lucy's Boatyard for the first time. Crawfish Eggrolls for the table. Cajun Redfish for me. Texas Pecan Chicken for Jamye. Grilled Texas Gulf Shrimp for Dad. Grilled Salmon for Mom. Rolls with sweet butter for insurance against ordering dessert in any form. Good stuff. I'll be back. I'll also go back to County Line when I've got a hankerin' for some barbecue.

Did I mention the Catfish Beignets with jalepeno tartar sauce appetizer at Z Tejas? They deserve more than one line of praise here, but we must press on. We've got a lot to cover, dear reader.

On Thursday, June 8th, Jamye got us tickets to tour the UT Tower. While there was no mention of the 1966 tragedy that most associate with the tower by our guides on the twilight tour, we were given a wealth of history associated with the campus landmark. Rising 300 feet above the Austin landscape, the tower's observation deck provided an impressive vantage point to view the city, the campus, and the hill country and sunset to the west. Of course, we forgot the camera, so our friends and family who haven't experienced it will just have to imagine what it was like until we can take them up there.

Other interesting footnotes from their stay in Austin include our first visits to the flagship Whole Foods Market (which one should either always or never enter on an empty stomach... I'm not sure which), and the award-winning independent bookstore, Book People, a bookstore that reminded me of Davis Kidd before it, well, for lack of a better term, sucked.

Of course, no trip to Austin would be complete without seeing the Congress Avenue bats, and we weren't about to let my folks head back to Tennessee without having the quintessential Austin tourist experience. We saved that for Wednesday night, and I think they were suitably amazed despite Dad's rumored misgivings. Whatever your take on bats, the almost primordial idea of nocturnal critters exiting their dens en masse to feast on smaller critters is, also for lack of a better term, pretty cool.

Tomorrow, I'll recap the highlight of my parents' visit: our weekend trip south to San Antonio, and this time, we have pictures.

DEADWOOD UPDATE!

According to SaveDeadwood.net, the Hollywood Reporter has announced that David Milch and HBO have come to an agreement to broadcast a pair of two-hour movies (in lieu of a full fourth season) that will wrap up the show's lingering storylines.

I guess this is good news, but I'm disappointed nonetheless. The pace of the show over a 12 episode season was part of its charm, if you can call a series about a lawless mining camp in the late 19th century charming.

It sounds like Milch is happy, and since I trust his creative decisions, I guess I can be happy too. I hope none of the actors have already shaved their mustaches.

R.I.P.?

Well, this is a fine how do you do.

The third season of my favorite HBO show, which begins next Sunday (June 11) may well be its last. Even as media writers from all over the country crawl out of the woodwork to unite in a veritable chorus of praise for the show and a campaign launches to save it, the prospects look bleak.

Everyone involved in the production appears to be resigned to the worst, which is a shame, especially considering that David Milch, the series creator, has gone on record as saying that he had planned a four-year arc for the show. Now, with all of the third season episodes in the can, I imagine the final episode will lack a ring of finality.

I feel like Al Swearengen, Deadwood's main heavy, when he meets his new competition in town: the rival saloon owner, Cy Tolliver. "You people must've trained with the heathens, come upon us unawares."

This Must Be the Place

Jo's Coffee has the reputation of serving the finest coffee in Austin. Now, I'm no connoisseur of good java, but I was intrigued by the claims. The last two mornings I've spent having a cup of said coffee at this glorified stand on South Congress, and I'll admit, it's good stuff. The case below the walkup window containing baked goods ranging from kolaches to muffins looks like good stuff too, but I'm trying to change my eating habits after weeks of neglect. This is no small order in this land of queso.

For me, the real allure of Jo's is the clientele. From hippie slackers to corporate types, many people seem to make this place a daily morning stop. Several patrons seem to be on a first-name basis with each other and Moms with babies in strollers and songwriter types with bandana-sporting mutts have filtered in and out with equal regularity during the short time I've been there. Whatever the stereotype, the most popular sighting is the laptop user, and I'm happy to announce that Mac users outnumbered PC users 5 to 2 at one point this morning. This is also no small order in this land of Dell.

In other news, I'm home, and it has started to rain as I type this. It'll be the second time since we've been here, and it's almost startling.

Remembering the Alamo... and Shoal Creek

Jamye had already been with her parents the week before to see the Da Vinci Code at the South Lamar location, but I finally got to experience the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema late Saturday night.

Our visit was a packed showing of the third installment in the X-Men series, and we had to attend the 10:10 screening because when we arrived ten minutes early for the 7:35 show, we discovered there were only two seats available on opposite sides of the auditorium. They graciously let us exchange the tickets we purchased online for tickets to the later show for which we vowed to return early.

Suddenly, we had some free time on our hands. En route to The Tavern a little further north on Lamar, I made a last second decision to whip into the Shoal Creek Saloon a couple blocks south of our intended destination. In past visits to Austin I had noted the place mainly because of the gigantic New Orleans Saints helmet which graced its front awning. This time, I was intrigued by the sign touting catfish AND color T.V.


The catfish and hushpuppy snack we ordered hit the spot. I was also happy to discover that the televisions were, in fact, in color, but my favorite feature of this place besides the back deck which overlooked what I can only assume was the... um... Shoal Creek was that our beers were brought to the table in koozies. Next time we're looking for a place to land on a hot summer night in Austin, you can bet I'll remember that.

I wish I could say that the movie later that night was just as memorable, but it was lackluster. It had more action set pieces than you could shake a stick at, but it didn't have the heart of the previous movies. It was style over substance, which was a shame, because in more able hands, there was substance to spare. In fact, it made our order of cheese sticks at the beginning of the movie seem prescient.

Migas and Me

After I dropped Jamye off for her first day of work...


... I had to go see a man about a horse in San Marcos, TX.

Except substitute cordless phone for horse and Best Buy employee for man. The San Marcos part is true though.

San Marcos is the home of the Bobcats of Texas State University, so it wasn't quite the sleepy little town I had envisioned. I know, the Best Buy should have been my first clue.

Having arrived in town a good thirty minutes before said Best Buy was to open, I decided to go rustle me up some breakfast. I landed at the Allniter Diner on the main drag leading through downtown.

I scanned the menu and quickly settled on the Migas, but there was some verbose history of the building in the menu which I assumed I would be able to find online when I got home so I just scanned it and went about reading my newspaper. Alas, I haven't found much online, and all I remember was the name A.B. Rogers (it was his building) and the year 1906. Apparently he was an undertaker, and he sold coffins and furniture out of the building where I was drinking my coffee. I did find this, but that seemed to open up a whole new can of worms (the San Marcos Springs/Aquarena Center). Neat history there. I'll have to remember to look into it more thoroughly later.

That's Right, We're Now in Texas

I left Nashville on Saturday afternoon, May 13th to drive to Corsicana, Texas and stay with our friends, Fred and Rebecca. On Monday, Fred and I drove into Austin to pick up the keys to our new place and unload a carload full of stuff. On Tuesday, we left for the 2006 TRGA Classic golf tournament at the Pearl River Resort in Choctaw, Mississippi. Fifteen guys (4 Texans and 11 Tennesseans) took part in this year's tournament. I pulled out a second place finish, which would have been sweeter if I hadn't been leading going into the final round on Saturday.

Jamye left Nashville on Tuesday, trailed by her parents, to drive to Austin and greet the movers who were set to arrive on Thursday morning. Jamye and I were finally reunited in Austin at The Shady Grove on Sunday night. Her parents left Monday morning to drive home to Kentucky.

So, here we are in Austin, and that's us in front of the terra cotta(-ish) garage doors of our rental house and Jamye's purple Sunfire. My maroon Pathfinder doesn't clash with the doors as much, so it'll stay in the driveway for awhile, but I guess the more compelling reason why I'm in the driveway is the nine million boxes that remain unpacked in garage.

And just for nostalgia's sake, here's one last look at our old living room in Nashville...
and the view from our old deck.