Janice Williams Loves Austin

April 29, 2008

Crumbling Down Around Us

Filed under: At home — Janice @ 11:25 pm

I guess there comes a time in every house when it has its “issues.” I don’t know why ours are suddenly all coming at once. Could it be that it senses that it has been six months since I had a job and the unemployment insurance runs out now? It wants that last bit of savings (and/or last bit of credit on the card)?

This weekend Mark ran some things down the sink and turned on the disposal. Buzz, but no grinding, nothing working. It appears to be a goner. Just as well, I thought, there has been a huge leak under that sink for a year now. We can fix both at once.

Then I went out to put some chicken on the gas grill. I lit the fire and it was whipping around because it was very windy Sunday. When I went back after 10 minutes there was still fire, but it just didn’t seem very warm. I put the chicken on it anyway (no sizzle, I noticed) and came back in 15 minutes to raw chicken but still some fire. So am I out of gas? Is it broken? What’s up?

Meanwhile, Mark has heated up some cold lasagna since the chicken is slow in coming. He nukes it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and then notes that it didn’t get hot like it should have.

I bring the chicken in and put it under the broiler in the gas oven. Ten minutes later it is cooking well. I flip them and in another 10 minutes or so that side is nice and browned and “cooked.” I decide Side One needs a do-over so I flip them and stick them under the flame again. But when I come back this time, nothing has changed and there is no sizzling or popping like there had been the last time I opened the oven. I lay down on the kitchen floor and look up at the burner and see the pilot light at the other end, but no row of flames at all. So did they give up the ghost in the recent 10 minutes?

When my family and I moved from Colorado back to Canyon, we bought a new stove for the house. I don’t know how long we lived in the house before the new stove arrived, but I know there was a period of time where we didn’t have a stove at all. Meals were very interesting. We had an electric frying pan that got a lot of use, and we had a little coffee pot that was good for boiling water and eggs in. And we had a toaster oven. Maybe we ate a lot of sandwiches, too, but I do remember my Mom making our few cooking appliances do it all.

I expect we’ll be replacing the disposal first and the stove if we have to. The grill probably just needs gas, I’m hoping. The microwave will the the hard one to replace. Not for me. I’d be at Target tomorrow if it were up to me! But this is a sentimental microwave. I have a husband that will buy a new computer printer or camera because he doesn’t like the way the paper loads or there’s a better model coming out, but he won’t part with his sentimental microwave. This is maybe the original Amana Radar-range. It is truly an antique. Maybe the first microwave invented. Mark got it from his best friend Les, probably when Les moved up to a newer nicer model in the 1980s. I don’t really know how old it is, but I know Mark had it when we met 16 years ago. And, as good as it is, it isn’t like it is perfect. Every few months it has a little fit and you can’t make it shut off except by opening the door (and leaving it open). Even if the time has run out, it continues to run. Probably not a good thing. But we leave the door open for a while and then it miraculously fixes itself. I will give it that, it has a healing power that most appliances don’t have. I can happily live without a microwave, I don’t use it much anyway. So if it isn’t functioning anymore, I will happily let it remain in the kitchen as a sentimental bit of our history. It will make a lovely breadbox, I’m thinking.

April 28, 2008

Slacker

Filed under: At home,Job search — Janice @ 8:42 pm

Yes, that’s me. I am a slacker. I hadn’t really thought of myself that way until I had two reminders on the same day.

Sunday, I heard from my high school classmate Bryan. We’ve been good friends since 8th grade in Mr. Stocker’s science class when we were seated alphabetically for the entire year and got to know one another well. We went on to work together on the school newspaper in high school and were lunch companions at the “table” (that’s what we referred to our group as). Twenty years after high school we found ourselves both in Austin, oddly, and we continue to stay in touch, mostly by email, since he lives way up THERE and I live way down HERE.

Bryan sent an article about our classmate Alexis Hefley. The article, in the Dallas Morning News, tells the amazing and uplifting story of a group Alexis founded that helps children in Uganda called Empower African Children. Alexis has dedicated her life to educating these children and freeing them from the poverty and misery that overwhelms them in Uganda. What an awe-inspiring woman! I’m proud to have known her 30 years ago, although when I think of Alexis I mainly remember her playing on the basketball team. Go read the article and check her charity’s website and find a way to contribute to this wonderful cause.

So I had already been reflecting on my life and wondering about my long-lasting impact after reading about the thousands of lives she has touched. Then tonight I turn on 60 Minutes. They did a nice long profile and interview with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Did you see it? A very interesting man and one that you might enjoy having a conversation with. I am watching it just because it is on and it is interesting and I have always had a fascination with the Supreme Court. Then they began talking about Scalia’s new book Making Your Case. They show the cover and I see the name of another high school classmate, Bryan Garner. I already knew Bryan had gone on to great things. He has taught at Oxford and while he was in law school he wrote a dictionary of legal terms that immediately became the ultimate on all things legal. Go see what he has written through the years. Bryan was the drum major while we were in high school and very active in band and such. Like Alexis, he wasn’t in my immediate circle of friends, but in a high school with just 225 seniors, we all knew one another pretty well. A very nice guy, there was no doubt he would go on to succeed in life, but who knew he’d be hobnobbing, writing, and arguing with Supreme Court Justices in just 30 years? Amazing.

I’ve spent five years at a job that I really did feel was a calling for me. Even if it was fleeting, I felt that I touched lives and if I made somebody enjoy their day a little bit more, then I was doing a service. More than losing the “celebrity” I have had, I miss that little bit of contact. My high school had a great bunch of kids that have grown up to do interesting and amazing things, though some with more spotlight than others. Some have had the spotlight you don’t want. At least one was a murderer, I know. I think it is interesting to hear about two of these classmates on the same day. I admire them both for their accomplishments and I was just teasing about me being a slacker. Slackers don’t have mortgages, car payments, and insurance premiums. I can only HOPE to be a slacker one day!

Nelo, Ruby Jane, Francis

Filed under: Music — Janice @ 12:40 am

I had an interesting Saturday night out seeing some different music. I love seeing new artists and especially love it when I like them! And I really like Nelo. But let’s start at the beginning.

Mark was asked to be the drummer for the young fiddle player Ruby Jane. I had met her last year at Hill’s Cafe and have been kept abreast of her incredible musical talents by her biggest fan (and my blog reader) Richard Long. I saw her on stage a while back with Asleep at the Wheel, too, and she has been appearing with them in the musical “Ride With Bob.” I thought this would be a good opportunity to get out and see her with a full band and see Mark, too. So I rode downtown with him last night for the show.

Backstage Mark and I had the opportunity to meet the songwriter Bill Carter. He’s one of those silent, yet incredible, people of Austin that, along with his wife Ruth Ellsworth, have done so much to make Austin what it is. They wrote or co-wrote Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Crossfire,” the Fabulous Thunderbird’s “Tuff Enough,” and John Mayall’s “Jacksboro Highway.” And they hang out with Johnny Depp, how cool is that? We got to meet him backstage and he raved about Ruby Jane and what a natural songwriter she is. Very high praise from a writer of his caliber. He was mainly there to see his nephew Ryan Carter play in the band Francis.

Francis was first up on the stage.  I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t get Francis and won’t be rushing out to get their CD. I’m not knocking them, it just wasn’t my thing. They have had success in Seattle and New York and are making Austin their home now, I guess, and I’m sure they will find a following. Not melodic enough for me.

Little 13-year-old Ruby Jane was up next with Erik Hokkanen on electric guitar, Willie Pipkin on acoustic, Glenn Fukunaga on bass, Mark Hays on drums, and Ruby playing guitar and fiddle.  I love Austin. I have seen every one of these musicians perform before, but this was the first time I had seen them together. I’ve seen Ruby with Asleep at the Wheel, Willie with the South Austin Jug Band, Greg Izore, Little Elmore Reed, and probably more, Glenn with Ruthie Foster last week (but he also plays with Teri Hendrix and the Dixie Chicks), Erik with his own band, Heybale, and Elana James, and Mark with every band he’s been with for the last 16 years.

Ruby Jane is an amazing talent and has a great future ahead of her. She knows how to lead a band and her musicianship was stellar. I’m looking forward to seeing how good she becomes when she calms down just a little bit on stage and is a little less frantic and a little more relaxed. Her singing is not her strong suit and I wonder if she should become the female Bob Wills and be the dynamic band leader and fiddle player, but let someone else interpret her songs? She pointed out a few of the songs she had written in the set and she really does have a way with a tune and chords and lyrics. Anyone that thinks to rhyme “bathtub” with “math club” is all right by me. I didn’t get the full gist of what that song was about, but I liked that couplet.  I worry about teenage prodigies. I hope she doesn’t burn herself out before she gets to 15.

The headliner of the night was Nelo with their CD release. I had read that their name rhymes with “hello,” but that is kind of ambiguous. Think about how you say hello when you answer the phone when you are in a great, amiable mood, “Heeeel-lo” and then how you answer when you are surprised to be getting a call, “Hello-o?” Or even when it is used in a sentence, “So I said, ‘Hello’ and shook his hand.” Hello doesn’t have standard pronunciation. I believe that they should say their name rhymes with “Jell-O” which seems more standardized, though copyrighted.

Anyway, I LOVED Nelo and want to be a fan now.  I wish I were a great music reviewer and could draw some parallels between their music and others so you’d have an idea of what they sound like. But the only thing I can think of is Hootie and the Blowfish and I doubt that a 20-year-old reference is the most relevant. They are very “pop” and I can understand the words and sing along. Their music makes me happy. I like the music, but I really liked the band live even more. The lead singer, Reid Umstaddt, is very handsome and charming and easy-going.  Matt Ragland appeared to be the band leader and spokesperson on the stage and is probably the songwriter, for the most part. I liked him and his style, too. They performed the music straight ahead without a lot of pyrotechnics or stage antics (of course, it was a small stage!). They have a horn in the band, too, and that made them sound different and interesting. So, Nelo! Go check them out.

April 26, 2008

Saving the Environment with My Sack

Filed under: At home — Janice @ 6:16 pm

I have been a proponent of taking your own sacks to the grocery store and reusing them for years. But it hasn’t been easy. When they first started selling the cloth sacks for grocery store use, I got one in Dallas (like 20 years ago) and before you could even give it to the sacker they would already have your 15 little grocery items sacked up into a minimum of 8 plastic sacks.

Eventually, I gave up, but continued to at least recycle the plastic sacks or use them to sack up kitty litter.

Now there seems to be a whole new push on bringing your own sacks to the store. With Earth Day this week, Whole Foods is going to quit having plastic sacks completely and they are urging you to bring your own sack.

Today I remembered, again, to take my sack to the grocery. But it is so frustrating when I do. I wish the managers would train the sackers what to do when someone brings their own sack. Sackers are good at what they do. After all the jokes that have been made about sackers putting cans on top of the bread or burying the eggs in the bottom of a sack, I don’t know that I have ever had those things done. But they just don’t know what to do with a cloth sack.

Today the sacker boy asked if I wanted paper or plastic. I said plastic would be fine for the “wet” things (celery and chicken), but he could use my cloth sack for the dry heavy things (and I added “the cans”). He’s sacking in a fury over there and I see my cloth sack go into the cart pretty quickly and then lots and lots of plastic. When I get out to the car I see how the cloth sack filled up so fast… It had box of Kleenex (which I hadn’t even put in my cart so I don’t know who got home today without Kleenex they meant to buy–but it was on my receipt so I did pay for it) and a package of napkins along with a bottle of shampoo and maybe four cans of cat food. It was maybe 3/4 full and very light. Meanwhile, another plastic sack had ONE can of cat food and one plastic bottle of salad dressing. And another had some packets of cat food and two tubes (in boxes) of toothpaste. Those two sacks could have easily fit in the big cloth, underfilled, heavy-duty sack.

That’s another complaint. When I’m putting my things out on the conveyor belt (and I’m old enough to remember when clerks did that for you and you didn’t have to work so much to get your groceries), I group them.  Vegetables and fruits, cans, shampoo, toothpaste, and soap. My intention is that when it comes out the OTHER side, after being checked, the sacker will somehow manage to put all those bathroom products into the same sack so when I get home, THAT sack can go to the bathroom, the sack with the vegetables can go into the refrigerator, and the sack of rice and pasta can sit on the kitchen table until I get around to it. Today I separate and I get home and have to fish out cat food from among lotions and hair products and onions are sacked along with jars.

Someday I’m going to live near a quaint little grocery that has just the things I need and I’ll just walk over and get the foods I need for dinner. Ha, I guess that will happen when I live in downtown Manhattan or Europe, it just doesn’t work that way in the world of suburbs and supermarkets. And I don’t know how those people walk home with a gallon of milk and 30 rolls of toilet paper anyway.

Wednesday Music

Filed under: At home,Music — Janice @ 12:49 am

I didn’t write yesterday about Adam Hood and the Scott Wiggins Band at Hill’s Wednesday night. I didn’t write since we were too busy celebrating the anniversary. It was a good show. I didn’t get to hear much of the SWB, they were loud, though! I could hear that. But I love Adam Hood and he put on a great show. No matter where I was or who I was talking to or how much attention I was paying, I would get an audio-glimpse (is there a word for an audio-glimpse?) and think, “Oh, I like that song!!” I wish I could have sat down in a room of maybe 40 and heard this show. It was pretty packed and everyone was enjoying it. Adam truly has a sound that no one else in our kind of Texas country has— maybe since he isn’t from Texas. He does remind me of Delbert McClinton and that is a very good thing, in my book.

The hail tonight was exciting, wasn’t it? I was out and about when I started hearing the pings bouncing off the car. I couldn’t see it in the headlights, but there was no doubt it was hailing. I dashed home and was out of it for a while and then it started again as I got near the house. At our house, my car stays in the driveway even when Mark’s is in the garage, but he was out of town tonight, so mine got a place in the protected garage. I’m five payments away from owning this car and I don’t want it to be beat up before I do!

April 24, 2008

Stuffed

Filed under: Food — Janice @ 10:16 pm

I’m glad I added that category “Food” to my subjects, because that is all I can think of now. We celebrated our 15th anniversary at the Brazilian steakhouse Estancia Churrascaria tonight. I am absolutely stuffed. Mark had been there with his co-workers for a Christmas dinner (it is a great place for a bunch of men to bond) and he wanted to take me there. It really was different from what I expected. They had an excellent salad bar with unusual items like balls of mozzarella and strips of pepper in olive oil, asparagus, and pickled onions, along with the usual greens and tomatoes. But, of course, the reason you go there if for the meat. You just sit back and gauchos bring spears of delicious meats and slice you off a piece or give you a filet wrapped in bacon. I ate chicken, pork, sausage, prime rib, filet, and I don’t know what all. Fabulous flavors. There are side dishes, too, which would have made a meal:  Fried polenta, mashed potatoes, fried bananas (it tasted like banana pudding), and cheesy rolls. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more. Then we had the molten chocolate cake and ice cream. We certainly know how to live and how to celebrate 15 wonderful years!

Thanks for all the well wishes in the comments and in e-mails. We appreciate them all.

April 23, 2008

Roses

Filed under: At home,Family — Janice @ 11:56 pm

I just came home to roses for my anniversary. Mark has a long history of starting the celebration early — and I don’t object! Tomorrow at noon will be 15 years we’ve been married. Make that 12:15 p.m. I remember our priest, Father David Edmund, telling us that HIS part of our service would take 12 minutes. Anything else we added would make the service longer, but his was only 12 minutes. We were fine with that! We did have our friend Donny Ray Ford sing before we came in. I haven’t seen him in a long time and I think we should call him tomorrow and see how he is. I remember him happening to call on my birthday on March 15. He didn’t know it was my birthday, but he called and said, “Hey, I’ve written the song for your wedding!” Uh, we didn’t know that Donny was going to sing at our wedding. But apparently, he knew he would, so he did. He wrote a beautiful song called, “He Answered My Prayer” and I’m pretty sure it has only been performed in public one time. I can’t even say I witnessed it since I wasn’t in the church yet for that part. His friend Tom played guitar with him. I’ll have to find out Tom’s last name again. Funny how things you “know” at the time disappear.

I will put some pictures of our wedding in here eventually, I hope. My friend Charles Horner, who has already emailed to wish us happy anniversary, was our photographer, and his wife, Kathy, was my wedding planner. They did everything that kept it all functioning so well that day. Our best man was Les Howard, Mark’s best friend (and he has emailed congratulations this week, too) and my sister, Mackie, was my maid of honor. That was it, no other attendants. I guess the only other true participant was Daddy, because he walked me down the aisle and (reluctantly) gave me away. No, I say reluctantly, he wasn’t reluctant at all. He liked Mark a lot by the time the wedding rolled around.
I guess the other members of the wedding party were Brandt and Connor, my nephews. They are in college now, but they were just little bitty boys, dressed alike in plaid shirts and cute little shorts. The chapel had a bell in the steeple. I asked the priest if we could ring that bell when we were pronounced man and wife. He had no problem with that, so that was the boys’ job. I will never forget walking back up the aisle and out the front door and seeing a boy sitting up high on each arm of my brother-in-law and pulling that rope as hard as they could. I’m glad they could be a part of the wedding.

I do have one picture of some of the wedding party, so I’ll put this in until I scan more. This is my family, including my Mamma Williams.

Wedding

We have video of this picture being made with Charles saying, “Connor, why don’t you take your hands out of your pockets?” Meanwhile, Brandt was clearly proud that he could follow directions and made it a point that we could see that his hands weren’t in his pockets. But Connor, forever the rebel, wasn’t going to follow Brandt’s lead or Charles’ suggestion and his hands stayed firmly in his pockets. Can you believe he’s about to finish his first year at Baylor? And Blondie there is edging up on 21 years old?

We wanted bluebonnets in our wedding, but florists couldn’t do that at that time (I think now they’ve made a studier bluebonnet) so we had tulips and iris and lots of pretty spring flowers. It was a very simple wedding in the most beautiful church in the world. Every one that was there comments on how perfect it was for me and Mark and how full of love.

Mark and I were “engaged” within a week of meeting one another. That’s another whole story. But as soon as we knew we were going to get married, Mark said he had the church for us to get married in. I thought that was ridiculous! What did a guy know about that? (obviously, I didn’t know him well yet) Mark took me to see this beautiful little white church set in the country by a meadow and by a windmill and by a cemetery. It also happened to be smack dab IN Dallas, Texas. That was the weirdest thing. You turn off of a street of million-dollar homes and suddenly you go back 100 years and Dallas is a distant memory. Mark’s mother and her husband, Les, had been married in this church five years before. Trouble was, since it was so incredibly charming, they required that you be a member there for six months before you could be married there. But the church was founded by Mark’s stepfather’s family more than 100 years ago and with a history like that, they let us have a special exception.
We got married at noon because we wanted to prevent the nervousness of waiting all day long for a night wedding. I’m so glad we had a noontime wedding. It was rainy and windy that morning and the church was creaking in the winds (you can hear them on the videotape). But the afternoon was beautiful and we left the short reception and headed out on our first trip as man and wife.

We had that first meal as a couple at McDonald’s because we were starved at this point. The second meal was at the Stagecoach Inn in Salado, so that was a little more on the line of honeymoon food. I’ve told the story on my radio show about stopping at Cefcik Hall near Temple on our wedding day, too. Mark had played there in the past and wanted me to see it. It is an amazing historic dance hall with the dance hall upstairs and the bar and the domino tables downstairs.

I could go on and on about the best wedding day in the world, but I’m going to go enjoy the roses and the eve of the anniversary. Maybe some more pictures tomorrow.

Passing Thoughts

Filed under: Music,Radio stuff — Janice @ 2:16 am

I did a lot of updates on the calendars tonight. Enjoy. My eyes are crossing now after seeing all the names and venues. It is incredible how much music we have to choose from every night. I was looking at Wednesday night (I guess that is “tonight” at this point) and you could about five major players in Texas Country music in one night. There’s a dozen or more playing, but you could actually route your night to see full shows from at least five, I figure. And some for free. Amazing.

I’m not going to name any names, but I almost left one show off the list (in the future days not today’s list) because of some ill will toward the guy. I wonder if musicians every wonder what kind of impression they’ve left with me. I’m sure this guy thinks we are good friends and he actually had a pretty good demo CD once, as I recall. He never has done much with his career, but I won’t ever recommend him for a booking because of what I saw at Hill’s one night. Just the most minor thing, but he was on the porch, the backstage area, talking to me and being friendly and he reached down into the ice chest and got a beer. But those weren’t his beers, it was the beer provided for the band as part of their contract. I didn’t say anything, but I filed that away. Stealing is stealing.

I took a quick count of artists in the upcoming days until the end of the month and I know at least 25 of those artists. Not “friends”–they don’t call me to go to lunch–but I did go to the wedding of one and the 40th birthday party of another. I have opinions of them all. Some are so creative and inspiring I want to be around them more, others I want to shake some sense into them because of the bad choices I’ve seen them make. But all are so interesting. It has been a real thrill over these last few years to hear of someone, maybe like a CD I get from them, then meet them and see their careers develop. Just as I have remained in awe that I’ve actually met and talked to Willie Nelson, Ray Benson, Joe Ely, Jerry Jeff Walker, Marcia Ball, and others from my earliest radio days, I am in awe of these that I’m seeing from the other end of things, I’m seeing them just starting out and can’t wait to see where their path goes.

April 22, 2008

Courtney Patton

Filed under: Music,Radio stuff — Janice @ 8:33 pm

I did go see some great music yesterday . . . just too tired to put it down.

My friend Courtney, who lost her job just after I did (same place), wanted me to come see her friend Courtney Patton at Momo’s. [Be sure and click her link--- I love that she has Harlan Pepper and Hubert as her photo! I just watched that movie again this week.] It was one of those great early (7 pm) shows. Just Courtney and a guitar player, Tyler Chandler, on stage. I really admired Courtney’s confidence and absolute comfort on stage. She happily greeted old friends as they came in the door and played on. She’s got a great, strong voice and terrific control. She wrote most of the songs she sang, too, and has an ability to put words and music together well. I haven’t heard all of the CD yet, but it is a very good first CD (produced by Mike McClure). She really has that “Texas country” sound, which is hard for a female artist to manage. No coyness or timidity, just straight boldness without being strident. Liked it! Thumbs up. I hope she gets herself a tight little band together. She and Tyler don’t play together often, it appeared, and I think she would have been better without him yesterday.

The only drag was the people talking in front of us. Why do people do that? And I might have understood if these were a half dozen galoots that were just in here to talk and drink and didn’t care that there was a band on stage, but these were college friends of Courtney’s! You’d think her friends, of all people, would have had the courtesy to shut up and listen.

The music didn’t end for me there. I did go on over to the east side to hear Little Elmore Reed at TC’s Lounge. Always the coolest experience. Eve Monsees was the guest guitar slinger for the evening and she’s something to see. She’s so young and innocent looking, so it is funny to see her singing these hardcore blues songs with gritty lyrics, but she does it without hesitation. And she plays guitar like no woman I’ve ever seen.

+++++

And another great radio show has been forced, face first, into the dust and commanded to bite it. My friend Leslie T Travis  has lost her Sunday night show “The Texas Roadhouse” on KILT in Houston. She played the Texas artists and was able to expose so many of them with the 5 hours she had weekly. Now the show is moving to Saturday nights, will only be 2 hours long, will be programmed by someone other than the disc jockey that does it (which isn’t Leslie) and probably will be pre-recorded, I would say. Sad. Surprisingly (or maybe not), this is not the same corporate chain that we blame most of radio’s problems on. Leslie will still be working at the station, which might be the worst part of all! At least I got the heave-ho and don’t have put up with the nonsense anymore. Keep an eye on her blog for Texas music news and especially Houston gigs and I’m sure you will hear more from Leslie T soon.

A Day of Rest

Filed under: Uncategorized — Janice @ 3:23 am

And sometimes, despite promising to write every day . . . one needs a day of rest.

But I did see some good music tonight that deserves a good write-up, not a quick fix, so maybe two entries tomorrow.

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