Janice Williams Loves Austin

April 28, 2009

Little Topics

Filed under: At home, Austin, Family, Music — Janice @ 12:48 pm

I don’t have the time to write a BIG topic (not that I have one in mind either) so I’ll just make a few comments.

First, we had Rhett Miller at Unplugged at the Grove last week. I am not familiar with his solo music at all and only know the name of the Old ’97s, his band, but not their stuff. But he was one of those artists that I instantly liked from listening to him. I will get his new CD and see if I become a fan. I am already a fan of the person. I must say he was THE NICEST musician I have ever met (although Mark Andes, the bass player for Heart and others, is very close).  Rhett came by himself to play solo. He was immediately nice to those of us that were there to set up the show, but when I told him that when he came back (after a trip to his hotel) he could just tell the parking guys he had a spot saved and they would let him park close, he went over to introduce himself to the parking guy and thank him for saving a spot. After the show as people would come up for autographs, he introduced himself to each and every one (though they certainly knew who he was). He tipped the watiress nicely for bringing him some food to take back to his hotel with him. It is hard to quantify nice, I’m discovering here, but he was completely unaffected by fame, had no demands, and was not fake in any way. I know fake, believe me, I can do fake, but he was nice. Oh… and he did a couple of quick songs for soundcheck and some of his fans were down front, eager for the show, and one made a request. He didn’t put them off, he did the song right then and there. Nice.

My friend Jerry  is a disc jockey in Dallas at the ABC Radio Networks where I used to work. He wrote yesterday to say he reads the blog, but cares as much about Austin music as he does about “Dancing with the Stars,” which certainly makes it clear to me! He says he does, however, like the “schmaltz” and he conveniently linked the word schmaltz to the definition, which is chicken fat OR overly sentimental music, art, or writing. I like the schmaltz (not the chicken fat kind) best, too, and will try to include some soon for Jerry and for me.

This rain has been so lovely. I worked in the yard over the weekend and feel like the rain is my reward. I got the grass and plants ready for it and here it comes.

And my friend Jenni amuses me so. At my surprise birthday party, I mentioned the Celebrity Death Beeper. It is a site that catalogs celebrity deaths and notifies you, by email, when a celebrity dies. Apparently Jenni’s family is much like ours.  We share news like this and are interested when someone of note passes away. She said that in her family they have a long history of saying something like, “Do you remember John Smith, he was on that TV show/had that song/was in that movie…?” and when the other person says, Sure, they remember, they respond, “Well, he died.”  So in their family, starting a sentence with “Remember ____ ____?” is the immediate indication that someone has died and has become a joke. Soon after our party, I got a text from Jenni with “Remember Dan Seals?”  Saturday I was out shopping, in JoAnn Fabrics and I got the text “Remember Bea Arthur?”  Jenni has become my texting Celebrity Death Beeper and she is a lot faster than the site is.

All my new jobs have given me no time for writing here and no time for genealogy and I miss it. It isn’t something  you can just spend 30 minutes here and there with, it takes some concentration to get into it and research. I hope I can find that time again, soon, but I am feeling the “pressure” of the upcoming Cunningham reunion in August. Just over 3 months to go to “get ready.” I never quite know what I mean by “get ready” because it doesn’t matter. I can go and partake whether I’m ready or not. It’s always fun, it’s always interesting, the food is fabulous, and I love the extended family that I see there. But…. I have visions of books, information, scrapbooks, and pictures to share with everyone.

Okay, enough, I’m already behind on this day, but I appreciate the comments and emails and your checking to see if I have written.

April 19, 2009

This Week

Filed under: At home, Family — Janice @ 8:20 pm

One of my old college friends found me on Facebook last week so we have done a lot of reminiscing among our little college radio bunch. He posted a long blog about where he has been the last 30 years since we had all lost touch with him completely. I reciprocated and wrote where I had been for the last 30 years. That is an interesting exercise. Mine focused mostly on jobs because that is such an important part of our lives, but I may need to write another one about the amazing people that brought me to where I am today. I am thinking about reposting that blog here since not everyone is on Facebook, but this is a much more public forum so I need to think about it.

Meanwhile, writing it made me think about my wedding, 16 years ago this week. There are so many horrible anniversaries at this time of year, too.  The Branch Dividian assault ended up on this day 16 years ago, just as we were getting ready for our wedding, so that was the biggest news on the days just preceding it. We were at Target buying stuff we needed for the honeymoon trip when I found Mark in the TV section, glued to the pictures on CNN of the flames.

Two years later, the Murrah Building was bombed in Oklahoma City on the same date in ratilation for the Branch Davidian assault (or that was at least one theory). That was a truly horrible day. And it was frightening as the police were watching I-35 and thought the perpetrators might have come toward Dallas and no one knew who had done this or why.

I was surprised to read that yesterday (I think it was yesterday) was the anniversary of Columbine 10 years ago. I thought we had already moved to Austin when that happened, but I guess not. One of my high school classmates lives in Littleton. As soon as that news was broadcast that day I called her. She answered the phone with “My kids are okay.” I felt such a huge wave of relief. I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to know what to say if they weren’t okay. She had two boys in high school, but they attended a different high school, but were, obviously, still very affected because they knew many kids at that high school, too.

And we also just had the anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech two years ago. That had a huge affect on me. Working at the radio station, I was also on the air “virtually” in other places through voice-tracking. I could record the talking between songs and before commercials in Austin and the computer would send it over the network to the computers somewhere else and put it over the right song or in the right place so no one could tell I wasn’t there live. (You are listening to voice-trackers every day on the radio whether you know it or not.)  I was on the air on a classic country station in Roanoake, Virginia.  Blacksburg, the home of Virginia Tech, was just a few miles away. Our station broadcasted VA Tech football and baseball and I had to keep up with all the news on that campus to talk about on the air. When you voice-track for another city, you develop a distinct feeling of almost living there. So I had been closely watching this area for a year or so when the tragedy happened. I saw emails from the program director before I even knew what was going on and then I was absolutely stunned to see what was happening. Obviously, it made it very hard to be on the air that night in Roanoke.

So this week in April is full of sad, tragic, historic moments. Happily, our wedding wasn’t one of those. Nothing sad or tragic, only happy and hopeful.

Shady Grove Kick-off

Filed under: Austin, Music — Janice @ 2:38 am

We had our first show of the season at Unplugged at the Grove on Thursday night and it was a great show–despite the imminent threat of rain and the sound police.

James McMurtry

I will never make my living as a music photographer, as this attests, but it is a picture.  James McMurtry on the left (in the dark), Ronnie Johnson up here close and well lit playing bass and singing harmonies, and Daren Hess back there in the dark on the drums. Ronnie had just driven in from his new home in Marfa and literally walked in the venue, unzipped the case on his bass and the show began.  Daren brought his wife and two young sons to the show. They were with him last year, too, but the boys have grown. They are really good kids…each had their big paperback Harry Potter books with them and they read early in the evening before the show began and then were quiet and well-behaved through it all.
There had been some light drippy sprinkles early on and about a half hour into the show it really began to rain just after James McMurtry launched into my favorite McMurtry song, “Choctaw Bingo.” Umbrellas went up as the rain started falling and the band played on. The crowd got on their feet and danced and sang, all of us fearing that this might be the last song of the night if the rain continued. But even as the song continued for the full 9 minutes, the rain let up! It stopped, the crowd cheered, the umbrellas went down, and the music continued.

My friend Jennifer, who runs the sound on these show, had only just learned that James McMurtry is the son of legendary novelist Larry McMurtry.  I think that would make Larry McMurtry very proud. I’m sure he is proud of the lyrics his son writes. He seems to put into four verses what his dad required at least a dozen pages for.  Like in the song Levelland (which I love because it is so reminiscent of my growing up not too far from there):

Mama used to roll her hair
Back before the central air
We’d sit outside and watch the stars at night
She’d tell me to make a wish
I’d wish we both could fly
Don’t think she’s seen the sky
Since we got the satellite dish 

That’s a lyric that says a LOT.
The sound police were more of a threat Thursday night than the rain. Earlier in the week that had been stories in the Statesman about Freddie’s Place having complaints about their outdoor music and deciding to quit having outdoor live music. The city has begun enforcing a 70 db noise level on restaurants. The Shady Grove HAS a permit to allow up to 85 db (which is still pretty hard to maintain), but apparently the new city ordinance has cancelled that permit and now declared 70 db to be the limit.

Before the show, we were using the db meter around the venue. Mind you, this is before any music began. This is without the jukebox even playing on the patio. The only sounds were the cars on Barton Springs and the people on the patio milling and talking.  The db level at that point was remaining above 80 db. Obviously, we started the show at a big disadvantage. We did keep the sound much lower than it had been last year for McMurtry’s amazing July show. In some ways, lower sound has its advantages, for sure, but with live music, you need to be enveloped in it, and I missed that feeling on Thursday. No sound police (or any police) showed up, thank goodness, and we had a wonderful show.

Last year I wrote about the vultures that continue to swoop around the band and radio station tables asking if they can sit or if that chair is free. They were back again this year, but mostly the seats were full of people who belonged there so it wasn’t too big of a deal. The weirdest of the bunch, a guy that tried to become my best friend last year, was back. Last year I had to say, You can sit there, but DON’T talk to me. I wanted to add, I don’t want to be your friend. He is still weird. I can’t tell if he is just drunk or high or just totally weird and creepy. But this time I had my friends Denise and Jessica to share my table and that made it more fun and easier. Next week we should have a great show with Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s. I’m not familiar with him at all, but his fans are avid and I expect it will be a good crowd.  Get there early and don’t ask me for a seat!

April 14, 2009

My Newer Job

Filed under: Job search, Writing — Janice @ 1:12 am

One reason I have been so bad about posting lately is that I am learning a new job. I haven’t talked much in my blog about any of my jobs, so I’ll tell you about this one.

In 2002 I began doing medical transcription for a psychologist here in town, Dr. Stern. It turned into a wonderful part-time job (that I would have loved if it could have been full-time). Actually, to be fair, he did offer me a full-time job at one point, but it would have been as office manager with lots of dealings with insurance companies and people and I knew I would HATE that part of the job so I declined. I worked in their office up by the Central Market and Heart Hospital and loved the doctors and the office manager he hired, Judith, and life was good. While I was doing that job I was also working at the radio station and then the radio station offered me the full-time job that I couldn’t refuse because it was perfect.

I had to quit working for Dr. Stern, but we all remained friends and I still had lunch with Judith from time to time and kept in touch. When my job ended again, I called them to see if they needed any help. Things had changed and now the office was WAY up north in Round Rock. I helped catch them up on some transcription and made the long drive to their office a few times. They decided then that they wanted me back as the transcriptionist and let the other person who had been doing it, part-time, go. And now they had the fabulous capability of letting me do their typing from home.

Immediately I was in business, doing their typing from home. They email me an audio file and I type it for them and return it by email. It has worked out wonderfully for a year, but is still only part-time, a few hours a week.

I have told many people that I wanted to do more medical transcription and more than one has been nice enough to recommend me to someone they knew that had a need or even had a transcription service. I pursued them all, but none became anything more than being on a waiting list. I knew I was limited because I have not fully trained as a transcriptionist and there is a lot more to it than just fast typing. I have not studied medical terminology, though I’m pretty good at figuring out a lot of terms–IF the doctor says them pretty clearly.

Last month, my aunt in Oklahoma mentioned that her neighbor did medical transcription. As always, I said, “See if she needs any help.” This time I got very lucky and my aunt’s neighbor has a BIG transcription business. She has over 40 employees and who knows how many client doctors, clinics, and hospitals. I’m sure the reason she gave me an opportunity was because of my aunt’s work ethic! And Aunt Louie is a stickler (as we all are in our family) for correct spelling, punctuation, and accuracy. She hired me for a part-time shift to be done from home.

So far, I am still in training. I may have made $30 dollars last week, but I figure that is $30 I’m making instead of having to invest in a $1200 course at UT that would take a year and you would only have the HOPE of being hired after that. I’m making money while training.

Tonight I worked a solid three hours so I probably made tonight as much as I made all of last week. I am just learning one doctor’s business and style right now, but will soon move into some other clients and I will do anything that they dictate at the end of the day.

If I’m not writing, a lot of it is because I have already spent 12 hours today (and many days) at this computer with one job or the other (and yes, email and Facebook too). I have never been one of those people that doesn’t like the computer after their workday, but these days I am just bleary eyed and muddle headed. I hope it all comes together soon and is as “easy” and second nature as the reports I do for Dr. Stern’s office. I won’t say they are all “fun,” but I do look forward to doing his reports and am interested in the patients he cares for.

Writing is something I love to have done, but don’t always like to DO, but I do hope to keep in the swing of things.

April 11, 2009

Brruuuuuuuucccceeee

Filed under: Food, Music — Janice @ 5:26 pm

Yes, I am overdue for an update. Bruce loomed large and then still holds a glow that is hard to describe so I’ve avoided it.

But before we get to Bruce, let’s go back to the Special K Cookies in case you didn’t read the comments. Mackie (my sister) said that the sugar and Karo are to be cooked FIRST and THEN the peanut butter is added. That’s one of those questions I’ve had about that recipe for years. My recipe card has a bracket around the sugar and Karo and sort of the peanut butter and says “Cook just til bubbly” so I thought it was including the peanut butter. So while Mackie was here last weekend, we made some and did it “right” and they were MUCH better. They really held together better and were glossier and prettier, so do that.  Mackie wanted me to cook the sugar and Karo longer than I did because she thought the sugar should all be dissolved and clear, but I did just “cook til bubbly” and that was plenty. Yum. Since I have that HUGE box of Special K, I think I’ll make another batch tonight. I wouldn’t want the Special K to get stale because that does NOT make a good batch of cookies. Been there, done that, ate them all anyway.

So let’s catch up on the night of Brrruuuuuccceeee Springsteen, shall we?

I may have avoided it because when I review a concert I really like to analyze it a little bit and tell you the songs they performed and whether they were different or better than their other shows I’ve seen and on and on. At Bruce Springsteen’s concert in Austin last Sunday night, I felt like a poser! I didn’t know if I belonged there at all.

I claim to be a fan of Bruce Springsteen and I do like him, BUT… in the 40 years or so that he performed, the first album I had of his was probably Born in the USA in about 1985. I’m not even sure I bought it, I may have taken it at the radio station. By that time I had played several other hits of his on the radio like Hungry Heart and I’m On Fire. I liked Born in the USA and I went to see that concert in September of 1985 at the Cottonbowl in Dallas with my friends Jamey and Judy and Jamey’s friend Nunie who all flew into Dallas. I had only lived there a month at the most, so it was quite an adventure to get them at the airport and then get us all to and from east downtown in one piece. That was a great show. I don’t remember a thing except Bruce pulling a girl up on stage to dance with him like he did with Courtney Cox in the Dancing in the Dark video. And he was “this big” (I am holding my finger and thumb inches apart) from one end of the stadium to the other.

After I had that CD I think I eventually went back and got the Born to Run CD and Darkness on the Edge of Town, but never really absorbed them.

So now I call myself a fan and I go to his show last weekend with Mark and Jamey and Nunie. Judy had to be home for work and the kids. Jamey came from Amarillo and Nunie came from El Paso. Mark had ALSO been at the Cottonbowl concert, but that was 7 years before we met.

I had Jamey briefing me on the songs he played. He pointed out the new songs from the new Working on a Dream CD that I haven’t purchased yet. He also would make note when a song hadn’t been done in concert for many years and informed me how Bruce was taking requests on this tour and that was why people were waving large pieces of paper with song names on them. He did Johnny Rocket 99 or something like that that he hasn’t done in ages (maybe never?) in concert.

So songs are rolling by and I’m recognizing some from the radio but I didn’t know their names. He did do “Because the Night” which is a Patti Smith song that he wrote, so I knew that from her and had always known that piece of trivia. He also did “Prove it All Night” from somewhere along the way that I certainly knew how to sing along with the chorus. And “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.” They played “Jungleland” and Mark said, “You know this one, right?” and I didn’t from the title, but I did when that one line of “hook” came along— down in Jungleland.
Two hours (YES, he’s still going at TWO hours) he does Born To Run. The place just erupts and goes wild and we are on our feet singing along about tramps like us and death traps and suicide raps and I’m thinking “Yes! I know this one! I know the lyrics! The concert has really begun now!” and they finished and Bruce and the band took their bows and left the stage. Two hours and I only truly knew ONE song.

Okay, I thought. The encore will be songs I know. It has to be. I mean, I didn’t expect him to do six songs from Born in the USA, but I was also thinking about Rosalita, an old one I knew I knew. But the encore, almost an hour of encore, had Glory Days and that may have been all I knew there.

All that said, I loved the concert! The songs were fabulous, the musicianship was amazing, I see and experience concerts a whole different way than I did before I was married to a musician and in the music concert production business. There were complaints in the paper about the loudness of the show, but our seats were high… very high….as high as you can go in the Frank Erwin Arena… and it was excellent there. I liked the subtleness of the light show and the variety, too. And the limited use of any videos or visual effects. And the CLEAN stage with no monitors. And I loved how Bruce put the microphone in front of a little maybe 10-year-old girl and another small boy on the song about Waiting on a Sunny Day and they knew every lyric!! I was relieved he wasn’t putting a mic in front of me. I would have been embarassed for the both of us.

Oh, and I loved Bruce’s agility. This man is going to be 60 in September and he danced and performed and WORKED for 3 solid hours. And he bent over backwards on his knees and put his head back on the stage…. and then stood up! How in the world? And, of course, the famous slide on his knees like he did on the Superbowl halftime. He was singing and went back by the drums and poured water on his pants and then went to the front of the stage, singing, and THREW himself down that stage and slid for 80 feet  (well, it seemed like that). Incredible athleticism. If you took a picture of him from 1985 and put it next to him in 2009, only the face has changed. Okay, maybe a few more pounds, but not much. I wonder how much Advil he needs after a show like that? Can’t be much because he was playing the next day and the next, too.
Now I swear I’m going to go back to the Bruce Springsteen catalogue and study up. After the show I was thinking that surely I knew more than the three or four songs I recognized. I came home and looked up a list on last.fm (a great resource!) and saw at least a dozen songs that I knew from playing them on the radio that he didn’t sing. Not that I would have wanted him to do I’m On Fire or Secret Garden or Philadelphia. Some songs don’t do so well in concert.

More about the visit with Jamey and Nunie another time. There are pictures to accompany that story!

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