I have lots of things that I think about writing, but then something comes along that I need to write about NOW. Like Club 21. It burned to the ground this morning after what appears to have been a wreck between two cars that plowed into the club and caught it on fire and the drivers fled the scene.

If you aren’t familiar with Club 21, it is an old dance hall on Highway 21 in the remote area of the world between San Marcos and Bastrop. The way to get there from Austin is to go south to the exit for FM 2001 (I think) and head east on that narrow 2 lane country road until it winds up at Highway 21. Then a right and down the road to Uhland to find the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas.

I can’t really remember the first time I went there, but it was somewhere back in my radio days. I was in awe of the place because it has that air of stepping back in time. Not in a Disneyland, mock-up, kind of way, but in the honest, oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-that-woman-has-a-beehive-hairdo kind of way. With a cozy long well-lit bar up front, the dance hall behind is big and spacious and often HOT with big fans stirring up the air the tiniest bit. Off to the right, inside, was a small little bowling alley. You kind of had to know someone or know how to get there to get to see the old lanes of the bowling alley, but they were there and they were cool. Seems like I heard that someone bought them and moved them, so maybe they weren’t lost in the fire, I don’t know.

I only went to Club 21 a few times for shows. Barbara and William were the owners and William was a frequent caller to my show and I enjoyed going down and visiting with them a little bit. He was always full of stories and she was always rolling her eyes in a sweet way like maybe he talked a little too much. They even came to see me at a remote I did down there at a trailer park one time. Good people.

Last I heard, they still owned the building, but weren’t running the business anymore. I would suppose this would be even more of a hit to them to lose the building if they didn’t have insurance. I don’t know. I hope they weren’t hurt financially by this fire.

I was last down there to see the Lucky Tomblin Band play. I don’t even know when that was, but it was fun. It might have been last year in the holiday season because I took the sound girl, Jennifer, some homemade fudge and I usually only make fudge around Christmastime.

They had great hamburgers at Club 21. The kind cooked right on the grill. Good tater tots, too.

One of my good friends even had her wedding at Club 21 a few years back. It was a truly HOT day in October and that place was like a blast furnace. But it was fun and a beautiful, different wedding, and they had a Dia de los Muertos altar up that was absolutely beautiful. I’m sure I have pictures of it somewhere. It was one of the prettiest altars I’ve ever seen, with marigolds all across it and antique frames and photographs of her father and many other relatives they would have liked to have in attendance at their nuptials.

You felt like you were a million miles from home and the world and the 21st century at Club 21, which, in a way, was part of the reason I didn’t go there too often. Just like this tragic wreck happened just after closing time, I was always leery of the people speeding along Club 21 and the other farm-to-market roads I had to drive on to get there and back. Though it was about as close as San Marcos, I didn’t have the security of wide lanes and everyone traveling in the same direction.

I hope William and Barbara are okay. I know the building is gone. There’s no resurrecting something like this, so I’m glad I was there and experienced it and enjoyed it. I hope I don’t miss the opportunities to go to other places that I may miss one day if they are gone.

Sorry this one is sort of stream-of-consciousness. I will try to give more thought to the one about the Rangers that I swear I will write before the first pitch of the World Series.

I have more faith in people than Mark does.

We were delighted to see a full lobby at the Paramount Theater last night for Guy Clark’s show. I bought tickets last week and they were on the third row, which worried me that no one knew he was in town. But the word was out and the place was packed. Mark looked around the crowd and said, “I hope these people don’t talk during the show.” Me, always Pollyanna, said that of course they wouldn’t. At the Paramount Theater for a Guy Clark show? These people understood the decorum required and were there to hang on Guy’s every brilliant lyric and, even better, the stories between the songs.

How wrong I can be. (Mark will probably print this and file it as a record of an admission of my fallibility.)

Our seats were absolutely wonderful. I think the front row seats might have head your neck cocked just a little too high, but our seats had us about even with Guy’s knees and close enough to hear him talk even when his microphone was switched off. I met a lovely man sitting next to me that was considering seeing Guy tonight in Dallas and tomorrow in Oklahoma because his week’s work would be taking him on the same path as Guy’s tour.

But the man that came in and sat to his right had had a few too many before he even got to the show. Right away he was “talking back” to the stage with requests and “That’s right” and a few too many yee-haws and even some whistling to accompany the music. Joy. I have no problem with people being exhuberant and I know sometimes you can’t hold yourself back from a hoot and a holler and I’m for that, but this guy apparently yearned for a one-on-one conversation with Guy and was doing his best to initiate it. The woman in front of him turned around and hushed him and he gave a slurred “Oh, am I bothering you?” Fortunately for all concerned, his beer ran out in about the third song and he went to the lobby for another. I believe he may have forgotten where he was or why he was there. He never returned. Relief.

The two “lunkheads in khaki that had to be from Texas A&M” (Mark’s words) behind us were another story. They, too, were Guy fans and wanted to prove it to us by singing/talking along with the lyrics and humming. Or maybe they tried to prove it by being so nonchalant about being at a Guy Clark show they don’t even need to pay attention. Instead, we’ll just carry on a conversation while Guy sings “Madalena” since that isn’t one of his most popular songs anyway.  Early on I turned around and hushed them and realized Mark was turning around and hushing them at the same time.  If what followed was “hushed,” I don’t want to ever be in front of these two guys again.

All that aside, it was a wonderful show. I could go into the many times I have seen Guy play, but I have never seen him play a full show like this. A concert from start to finish that was Guy Clark. He had Verlon Thompson with him, who I love, and Shawn Camp, who I have liked for a while, but don’t know much about, as his accompaniment, but it was mostly Guy. He did Texas 1947 and Desperadoes Waiting for a Train and Stuff That Works. No, he didn’t do Let Him Roll or Texas Cookin’, but if we had him do everything we love, we would have been there all night.

My time is short, but I wanted to get some of it down before I left for work. I may take a CD with me (Keepers is my recommendation if you’ve never had a Guy Clark recording before) to relive it a little bit. Guy had the Southern colonel look with his flowing gray hair and now a new mustache and tuft of hair on his chin like I’ve never seen on him before, but he also had the familiar blue chambray shirt with the diamond shaped pearl snaps and the black vest and jeans and boots. Mark and I wondered how many duplicates of this “uniform” must he own? He’s been wearing the same outfit for 30+ years now. He used a cane and was visibly in pain as he came out on stage and plopped into the rolling office chair to play. He even hobbled off and back on in “this silly game we play with yall” before the encore. But his face has not changed and his spirit and beauty and music are definitely intact.

Remember when I started this blog and I would write about all the music I went to see and all the adventures I had? Yes, those days have sort of disappeared behind me as I barely have the energy to make it through a workday and pick up Sonic take-out on the way home. But I did go to a day of ACLFest, so I think I should report on it, right? And I will try to keep the snarky comments about how it was better in 2002 to a minimum.

I really didn’t know I was going to ACL until the last minute and wasn’t 100% sure until about 10 a.m. Friday morning. We had out-of-towners in at work from our branch offices and the schedules kept referring to ACLFest on the weekend and “doors open” at ACLFest on Friday, but I wasn’t really clear as to whether that meant I would be going. Turns out I was. As a group, we all walked from our offices over to Zilker Park that morning, arriving about noon.

It was an absolutely stunningly beautiful day. Truly. This is the kind of weather you almost hope DOESN’T happen on ACL weekend (or any big event that brings out-of-towners to Austin) because they’ll just start having that yearning to come back and stay. Give them a dust storm, a mud bowl, or a 112-degree day and they’ll learn to stay in Peoria or Richmond or Norman. But this year they got perfect.

Arriving at ACL and the excitement of the big gates and the cool motifs they come up with year is invigorating. You anticipate wide open fields of beautiful grass, lounging in front of a stage, possibly with a cool drink and a nice snack in your hand and enjoying music from your favorite bands. Granted, I wasn’t really familiar with a lot of the names on the list, but I was looking forward to hearing the Black Keys. They have been a favorite of mine this year.

Our group moved over to the Honda stage to hear The Givers first. I’d never heard of them, but the kids I work with all knew of them. They were a boy/girl group singing simple pop sounds. Likeable. I took my leave of the group to go see Asleep at the Wheel on the bigger stage. This was their 9th year at the festival and I believe they are always at noon on Friday (okay, not that first year when there wasn’t a Friday, but ever since). I had some sad flashbacks of introducing them on those stages and that made me miss radio and that glamour just a little. It also made me miss Mike Mercer, the Wheel’s tour manager who was always so good about directing me to the right place at the right time and giving me the right information I needed to know to introduce (yes, someone always told me to include that part like “Bismeaux Recording artist . . . Asleep at the Wheel!” Mike passed away about 3 years ago and so I took a minute to remember him Friday. I also texted the wife of the bass player to let her know I was there. She was in California visiting family.

I am no photographer, but I did take a few pictures of the festivities for this blog:

That’s Ray Benson, Dave Miller on bass, and Jason Roberts on fiddle.

One thing I’ve never seen at a concert is a person signing the song to the audience. Of course Austin has a very large deaf population because of the Texas School for the Deaf, but I haven’t ever seen this before. I don’t know that the signers were necessarily there for deaf festival goers, because as far as I could tell, there weren’t any there. But I assume the signers have learned at the school or teach at the school and were practicing their craft. And it was a very entertaining craft! I really enjoyed watching to see if I could determine what signs went with what lyric. But they didn’t just sign the lyric, I noted. They also signed when the band was playing, playing air guitar or piano, drums, bass, steel, fiddle. It was really interesting. The most entertaining of the signers (I saw three switching off) had a smile on her face and made facial expressions and body movements to match the song and danced along. It was exhausting!

While I was watching the Wheel, I noticed Chris Rhoades, the bass player of Two Tons of Steel, behind me in the crowd. I went back to see how he was doing. His band had played earlier in the day. He said he believed it was the first time they had ever said “Good Morning Austin!” at a gig. While visiting with him, I realized Chris Dodds, the band’s drummer was also there. He had grown a beard and had on shades and I didn’t recognize him. He was once on my show as the representative of Two Tons so I feel like I know him better than the others in the band and he has always been a favorite. So here is my obligatory blog picture of me with famous people:

After a great show by Asleep at the Wheel, I moseyed on around the festival grounds, still enjoying the beautiful weather. My co-worker Scott had found me at the Wheel so we traveled together, got something to drink, and heard the music of Those Darlin’s on the stage by the rock. All the stages had come a long way from their appearance the last time I was at ACLFest. They were really impressive.

We spent some time in the “gospel tent.” They don’t call it that at ACL and it isn’t all gospel, but they have a gospel tent at JazzFest in New Orleans and I equate it with that. And we were seeing a gospel group perform. They were very uplifting, but the most pleasant part was sitting on the grass in the shade for a bit. The sun was heating things up.

We wandered out to the art booths, but didn’t really go see what they had for sale. But the folks that put up the afghans on those blue things down on South Lamar and on concrete barriers on Cesar Chavez apparently had been at work again.

I can’t tell you how much I love this artwork! I want these people to come make a public installation of crocheted art around my house!

We finally caught up with the rest of our group and all had some lunch at the picnic tables. The Austin foods are really nice to sample. I wish I could have those cheap(er) samples more often! I had a great chicken in a cone thing (that sounds a lot better than my description there).

The band Miike Snow was playing next so we all headed toward that stage and were met with a wall of people. Wow. Things had certainly changed from a few hours earlier when you could lounge around, get up right by the stage, feel like you were out and about and free. This was A CROWD. No, A CROWD. I’d write that in bigger font if this program let me. It doesn’t.

As I told Mark, I like Miike Snow in a I’ll-never-listen-to-this-album-a-second-time-but-it’s-good kind of way. Unlike most of the bands at ACL, I know they are from Denmark or Norway or something and I know Miike Snow is a band, not a person. That may be the extent of my knowledge. No, I know they have a song called “Animal.” I liked their album enough at work that I set it aside for a time. So I was kind of looking forward to seeing them, but then it was not a performance that impressed me. They all wore weird light blue half masks on their faces (for what purpose? mystery I suppose) and it all sounded the same.

My co-worker Janica and I decided we would beat the crowd (haha) over to the stage with the Black Keys. I really do like the music these two guys put out and it amazes me that that much music can be made on just guitar and drums (and vocals). We didn’t work our way into the crowd, we didn’t need to be on the front row. We just got past the section designated for people with lawn chairs and found a nice grassy place to sit. Then, more and more people began to come make their way into our space to hear this band. People kept stepping around us and then were literally stepping OVER us (not just over outstretched legs,  mind you, stepping over our legs while we are sitting there cross-legged). Uncomfortable and sure someone was going to step on us, we stood up. The crowd was getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

Pipes of pot were being smoked on all sides of us, too. Janica was unhappy because she had planned on going to her church that evening for an event and now she felt like she needed to go home and shower and change before she could be around church members. We are now crowded, on our feet, breathing in second-hand smoke of all kinds and waiting for the band. They hit the stage right on time at 4 p.m. and the crowd went crazy. They were great, I enjoyed them. I heard exactly 9 minute worth of really good music when I decided my claustrophobia was getting the best of me. I was looking at all sides to figure out how one could possibly even get OUT of this crowd. No picture can show you the mass of people assembled, but I did take this picture looking toward the stage.

Notice how clearly we could see the performers on the stage. Right. In that bright sun, I could barely see them, so I was mostly watching them on the video screens. The sound was excellent though. Now you see how many people were in front of us. When we settled in, we were at the back of the crowd, but as people gathered in, now there were just as many behind us as in front.

As I was figuring out how to either make my getaway or get a Xanax out of my bag, a guy came along, trying to get out, too. I told Janica I was following him and she got on my backdraft and we followed. It was slow going, though, as we eventually joined a stream of people moving out, but there was also a stream of people moving in. Where they thought they were going, I have no idea. There was no a place to stand behind us anymore as the crowd continued to push into our spots and all open spots. It took over 15 minutes just to get out of the worst of the crowd. Not all of it, by any means, but out of it enough that we could move sideways instead of only toward the back. We made our way toward the nearest exit sign, which, of course, was on the opposite end of the park from the one we came in through hours earlier.

We walked and walked, circling back around behind the Black Keys stage and continued to hear the show as clearly as could be and I got to hear the hit Tighten Up that I like so much. We walked back to our building. How can a walk that seemed so easy and fun suddenly be so long and all uphill and take forever? Thank goodness some boys were selling water and Gatorade. They could have charged $10 and I would have happily paid at that point.

We went back to the office and got water and cooled off and sat out on the balcony that overlooks Zilker and marveled at the crowd we could see, thankful we were not in it anymore.

I enjoyed the day, it was nice of our company to spring for tickets for us, but it did make me remember the things I had filed away in my head in 2002, 2003, and 2004 when I was there broadcasting from the event and I can contentedly say I don’t want to go back again. It is worth it to pay the cover charge or ticket price at a club or venue to see the artists I really want to see and I’ll have a greater feeling of having seen them than I did from standing among 50,000 people.