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  • “Tell me what you brag about and I’ll tell you what you lack” Spanish Proverb

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    So was at a party the other day, and I complimented this girl on her Ramones shirt.  It was a pretty off-handed comment, but the crowd that populated this party was definitely not the type of crowd that listened to The Ramones. She said, “Thank you” and went on her way.

    A little later, my friend and I were kicking back under the awning when that same girl said (un-prompted), “You know, I really do like the Ramones.” My response was a sincere, “Very cool, rock on.”

    She continued, “Well, you know that some people just like the logo, but I’m really into their music.”

    I nodded, and again voiced a positive response, albeit a little less enthusiastically.

    Again, she soldiered on, “I just picked up their first album………….. on vinyl………… at Waterloo Records ………in Austin.” (Yes, she paused for some kind of dramatic effect)

    Rather unwisely I said, “Oh really, gee, yeah, I just can’t get into vinyl – I can’t stand another format change”

    My friend said, “Yeah, they’re not really portable.”

    She continued, almost oblivious, “Yeah, I totally have my dad’s vintage hi-fi. While I was at Waterloo, in Austin, I picked up a bootleg Nirvana, a Queen album, and a Pixies album”.

    Me, “Yep, totally classics”

    At this point, I’m pretty much out.

    The conversation wound down quickly as my friend and I quickly agreed (before any MORE discussion could be had) that vinyl is superior in audio quality.

    The kicker was that this girl was all of about eleven or twelve years old. Is this where hipsters are hatched? I’m trying to remember if her black Wayfarer frames had glass in them.


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  • “Home is just some other place, with a door and a lock, where you keep your stuff.” J Yuenger

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    So those bushes don’t self maintain? The trees need trimming? Who knew?

    There’s some pros and cons to owning a home. (And I loosely use the term “own” since the bank technically owns my house until I finish paying them). People who grew up with parents that enjoyed working in the yard have a good idea what it takes to maintain a full size spread outdoors. My early yard work experiences typically involved desperation (money) and time (summer) so I never really thought that much about it. I do remember my dad finally giving in to having a yard crew come in and paying them to take care of it all. Once you get your own home, ya gotta think about this stuff. Apartment living is pretty easy when you think about it.

    I wrestle with jobbing out my lawn care myself – as I hump it outside clipping bushes that I hate, or trying to coax my lawn back to life. In my neighborhood, lawn/grass care is more or less at the homeowner’s discretion – since we don’t have a HOA.  My neighbors are nice, and we only have one house that has an engine block in the yard, but even they keep the lawn more or less neat.  It’s always interesting watching the reaction of people who drive by while I’m working in the yard.

    But some of the things that some people think about (like how their lawn looks) is second nature. I suppose it might help if had an HOA because then I’d have an idea about what I needed to work on next. “Weeds too high” – time to mow!  My neighbors to either side of me and myself – we’re probably the worst on our half block at keeping our yards neat.  It ends up being a sort of backwards competition – who can let their yards get the worst without looking TRULY horrendous, and mainly who will be the last person to mow.

    I’ve only lost this competition once or twice. My neighbors seem to be less interested than even I am at mowing. When I mow, I think that’s their bat-signal. “Geez, if HE mowed, I guess I’d better mow, because my house looks horrible next to his!”

    Worse, for me, is that doing yard work reminds me of the rest of the house that needs work. The roof. The garage. The back patio. The lawn.

    My dad shingled my old home himself. It was a two story house. Wow. I’m still in awe of that.  He had a full time job too, and worked on a patch at a time. He hated heights (and I do too) so I remember climbing out onto the very top part of the roof and checking it all out.

     


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  • “The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.” Sigmund Freud

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’m calmly sipping a Vieux Carre, or at least a semblance of one (no Benedictine), having been enveloped in a haze of nostalgia.

    My car was pelted by hailstones a few months ago, incurring a few (or many) divots in the process. Normally I wouldn’t worry about it – I’d just let it ride then take a bath when I eventually got rid of the car.  One of the guys at work kept peer pressuring me into doing something about it and I filed a claim with my insurance company. (Gee, can’t imagine why my rates just went up)

    I rolled it into the shop and picked up my rental. My rental (no great shakes, a Chevy Cruze) has XM radio.  I can’t figure out how to plug my mp3 player into the car, so I was stuck. This car had 7 miles on it when I got it so I had to program the radio. I found 80’s at 8 and 90’s at 9.

    Gawd, what a trip back to my early teens.

    My former 80’s nostalgia was firmly based in the things that I missed, or the music I really liked. My haze today was prompted by all the things I remembered.  All the bouncy 80’s pop…..minimal guitars.  It’s a wonder how I ever started playing guitar much less keeping with it for any length of time. Each weirdo, bouncy, drum machine led tunes pinged my brain with memories of a lot of different things.  It was weird associating such a random assortment of songs with my life. Not the ones I jammed to (air guitar), but the ones that played in the background of my post-childhood.

    I don’t have much else to add. Except I really want a ’63 Buick Riviera.


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  • “Some people know how to teach, and some know how to do.” Linda Pierce

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    One of the things that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time was write a little recognition for my high school English teacher – Mrs Garcia.

    In one of the last attempts to make good citizens out of us idiot high schoolers, she prepped the last senior semester by having us write a college-level paper in which we were to compare two things and correctly annotate and structure the paper as you would in a college level class. We were given the task of comparing something British against something American in different time frames. The task seemed daunting, but really it was only scary if you over-thought it.  This was possibly the most important class that I’ve ever had. And of course, didn’t realize it at the time.

    I can’t tell you the actual name of the type of paper that it’s called, but I can sleepwalk through writing papers now. In fact, I didn’t even realize what I was learning at the time. Napping was high on my agenda when she gave us time in class. (Too many late nights at the poolhall).  Writing content really was never my problem, but the organization of the content became key.

    Among the things I learned were that it didn’t really matter what your content was, or even your opinion, as long as you could back it up using other sources.

    My paper? Comparing the Beatles to AC/DC. In my strong headed stubbornness, I chose something that I would at least be interested in concentrating on. Halfway through, I got the feeling that it had been a very, very bad choice. But I was in too deep, so I had to continue.

    Much to my surprise, I got an A on the paper. No topic is too dumb (even for a high schooler) if your sources and organization are right.

    Unfortunately, my blogging has never really seen any benefit from anything I learned then, but I used the skills I learned throughout college and consistently received A’s for my papers. In all classes. Teachers seemed to enjoy reading papers that were well constructed.

    So anyway, much thanks to Mrs Garcia – this is one student who greatly benefited from the lesson she taught.


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  • “The fox condemns the trap, not himself.” William Blake

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    My suspicious have been confirmed.

    A guy was in front of me (speeding) and I kept hearing my radar detector chirping. I could see the lawman parked in a turn lane (as he sometimes does) pointing his radar gun down towards me. The guy ahead of me speeds all the way up to the officer until he sees him, and jams on his brakes. Meanwhile, my radar detector keeps chirping every few seconds.

    He was targeting me. I was pulling a steady 40, so he didn’t have any reason to pull me over (yet), but he’s gonna keep trying.

    ***///***

    Almost labor day.  Yesterday was the Invasion Car Show in Deep Ellum. Another rad assortment of hot rods – I hung around for almost two hours and got some good pics of a few cars that caught my eye.  I won’t bother posting them here, but here’s a link – Invasion 2012.

    ***///***

    Almost Labor Day (part II). Tomorrow I’m going to fry up some crawfish and try my hand at a traditional Remoulade sauce for some po-boys. Sure, traditionally it should be a BBQ day. (In Texas, every weekend is prime BBQ territory.) Facebook is flooding with brisket preparations. Mmmm……brisket. Anyway, wish me luck!


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  • “Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward.” Bill Davidsen

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Since I’ve been pretty busy I haven’t had time to update with a lot of things that have been on my mind so I’ll cheat and tell you about another brush with the law.

    It was about 1993 or so, I was taking my girlfriend and her friend (and her friend’s baby) to Austin.  We were going out 290 (why 290? Well, see, both my ex-girlfriend and her friend were total bitches, so they gave me an approximate destination and I started driving toward it.)  We were speeding rather excessively since I really didn’t know where I was going, and I came over the crest of the hill probably doing 95 miles an hour. (I’m guessing it was a 65 or 70 mph zone). So here I am in my light blue 1991 Acura Integra, speeding like a madman, and immediately I see a cop and he flashes his lights and starts tailing.

    Up until that point, I don’t think I’d ever been pulled over for speeding. I was a pretty safe/sneaky driver.  That and I had a decent Cobra radar detector.

    So, the cop walks up to the car, and says, “Is there a reason you were going so fast?”

    Here’s the part I can’t believe. In my impatience, and frustration at these women I say, “Because I was in a hurry!”

    Peripherally I can see my girlfriend’s eyes getting big, and from the back I can almost hear her friend’s eyes popping out of their sockets.

    “License and Insurance please”

    I hand both to the police officer, he walks away, and it’s dead silent.

    I have a very, very deep sinking feeling that I’m in trouble.

    The officer walks back to the car, hands me my license and says, “You need to slow down and be more careful……..and put that baby in a baby seat too.”

    I stutter, “Yes sir officer”.

    And off he went.

    Now, I’m not sure exactly what happened. The picture on my license is the same as it was below (priestly) and I had totally forgotten about it.

    My girlfriend was flabbergasted. That’s the only word I can use. They’re both like, “How the hell did you get away with that??”

    I showed them the license and they were appropriately astonished and amused.

    I think I’ve only got one more good “get out of jail” story. I’ll save that one until next time.


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  • “There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.” ~ Marlon Brando

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    In a follow up, the officer of the law definitely has his eye on me. I’ve passed by him twice now – he’s been hiding next to the volleyball court again. And he’s staring me down when I pass by.

    ******//////******

    In another follow up, I didn’t really think much of the robbing/mugging at the time, I survived, and let it pass.  About six or seven years later, I realized how much it freaked me out. I went to a drive through ATM over off San Felipe and as I was getting my card back, something flashed out of the corner of my eye. It was totally something peripheral, but I flung my wallet to the floor (or so I thought) and then sped away. My heart was racing, I was freaking out.

    A week or so later, I got my wallet back in the mail. I guess in my panic, I threw it out the window! Of course, there wasn’t any cash in it (hence the need to go to the ATM) but I did get my license back. Which was nice. And also probably the cause of getting it mailed back to begin with.


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  • “That is the behavior people take under the pressure of survival, … This is misconstrued as looting, as thievery.” Benigno Aguirre

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    One of the things that I don’t think I’ve ever written (or blogged) or committed to paper is getting mugged….or robbed….when I was a teen. Pretty much I wonder each time I think about it, was I really mugged? I mean, I know I was robbed, but was I mugged AND robbed? Or just robbed?

    The literal definitions:

    Mugged: to assault or menace, especially with the intention of robbery.

    Robbed: to take something from (someone) by unlawful force or threat of violence; steal from.

    I remember seeing my father after he was mugged. It was the mid 90’s and if I remember correctly a dude on PCP tried to steal his girlfriend’s purse. That dude beat the HELL out of my dad. His face was all bruised up. My father apparently punched the guy in the nuts repeatedly – which had no effect (PCP) but that is what I would call a mugging.

    My story was different.


    It was 1989 or 1990? It was about 5pm – full daylight.  Wing Stop was a bank. Little Caesars was at the end of the strip, where the liquor store is now. I parked in spot A (when it was a spot to park), the ATM is at point B. The timing was pretty crazy.  I took out twenty or forty bucks out of the ATM. Right as I’m heading back to my car, out of the corner of my eye, a car pulls up to spot C and some dudes get out. One of them drops something that kind of goes “clank”. I’m naive and don’t think anything about it.

    As I’m reaching to put my wallet in my back pocket (left pocket), I feel something at the back of my head.  My first thought is “Uh, what?” as I (slow motion) look to my left, there’s  a guy immediately next to me with his arm behind my head – and he says, “Give it up.”  With the hand not holding a gun, he motions for my wallet and my keys. Let me tell you, what they say about adrenaline, etc, I dropped my wallet into my lap. I froze. You tend to do that when you’ve got a gun to your head.

    He took my keys, and my wallet. Then he and his lookout sauntered back past the ATM (past a completely oblivious guy taking money out) and drove off.

    So, I was pretty freaked out. Um, so was my date. Oooops. It was going to be pretty much our first date. Don’t ask me why I didn’t go get cash before the date. I am an idiot.

    We got out of the car (since it obviously wasn’t going anywhere when those dudes took my keys).  The guy who finished getting his money as the robbers drove away, turned. I said, “We just got robbed!” He looked surprised, and not knowing what to do just hightailed it out of there. So, we went to Little Caesars and called the police.

    The police were nice, took my statement (I think. I don’t actually remember now). He dropped us off right down the street at Barney’s Billiards (one of my old haunts).  The bartender offered me a shot of whiskey to calm my nerves. I didn’t take it.

    Nobody was around my house, so I called my friend Brian.  We decided since we had nothing else to do, we were going to go find something to eat.
    Welllll, he needed cash. So. Uh. We went back to the ATM.

     

    ……

     

    Okay, so my car is sitting there, (locked) and he gets his cash and we go eat.  I think we went to BIBAS (One’s a Meal) – back when it was on Memorial.  A few hours later my dad and I picked up the car with the spare key.  I have to retell my idiot story several times.  Everyone at my Toy Store job thought I was nuts (and we had to change all the locks). The police came to the Toy Store a few days later to ID the alleged/possible gunman.

    Looking at a lineup of pics, I couldn’t ID the guy to save my life, but they said afterwards that they know who the driver of the car was (who didn’t happen to be the guy who actually robbed me).  And that was pretty much the end of it. Never heard anything ever again.

     


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