And Now What Happens Next...

I hit this blog so infrequently these days that I'm a bit ashamed. I do love to write, and here's my personal outlet, but as most of you know, I'm writing a book, and after a few concentrated hours doing that, well, I don't want to write anything.

However two weeks ago, I surprised myself by finishing the first draft. What that means, for those of you who don't have the exquisite joy of making the world's largest jigsaw puzzle out of the world's tiniest pieces (which is an apt way to describe the finding and stringing together all these facts) is that, to employ yet another metaphor, I've built the house, know where all the rooms went and built them there, the floors and ceilings are done, but now I need to do some decoration and landscaping so someone will want to live there. Ideally, this book will be both filled with facts and as readable as a novel. I have models for this but I'm loath to name them because I'm sure that I'll fall far short of them. But you will enjoy it.

It was an odd experience. There was a point when everything I was doing changed and I got a lot more into each chapter, and more entertainingly, than I had before. One of the things I have to do now is to go back to the beginning and start working with that mindset, as well as attending to this list of omissions and elisions: can you believe I neglected to mention Wanda Jackson? Neither can I. Please, nobody tell her; I'll make it good in the rewrite.

It also took nearly a year, a year of waking up, eating breakfast, drinking coffee while reading the news and the Well, and then attacking the stack of books, CD booklets, charts, and miscellanea, sometimes consulting three of them so I could write four words. I'd write for between 60 and 90 minutes most days, checking yesterday's work as a way of getting ready for today's, hoping that the opening I'd given myself to hint at the next bit of the narrative was sufficient to keep it going. At night, I'd read books related to the work, some excellent (Elijah Wald's Dylan Goes Electric!), some dull, and at least one, an authorized biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, disgraceful. Once a week, if I could, I'd take a day off and take care of errands, swabbing the decks, changing the oil, or just plain doing nothing. The only other interruption to the routine was having to do a couple of Fresh Air pieces, both writing and recording them. The recording day would be a day off, since it was usually around noon and on the UT campus. But most of the rest of the time I was writing.

And, as such a routine usually does, it brought me to the end of the first bit of the labor. But I'm not quite ready to get to the second part because my brain's filled up with what went before. So tomorrow morning I'm going to get into my car and start driving. My goal is Clovis, New Mexico, best known as the headquarters of Nor-Va-Jak Studios, Norman Petty's recording operation, where a generation of Panhandle stars -- Buddy Holly most notably -- recorded. The next morning I'll drive a few more hours and be in Santa Fe, staying until I've checked out the Saturday morning farmers' market, and then turning around and arriving back here in Austin on Sunday. I will do nothing music-related, and try to wipe my brain clear so that when I look at what I've accomplished so far next Tuesday morning, I'll be able to get to work with the concentration and energy I've had over the last year. After that, I hope, I'll hand it in and pray that the publisher likes it. I think they will. You will, too.

* * *

Meanwhile, I seem to have lived through my second summer in the new Austin without killing anyone, although there were times I was sorely tempted, and times I was the one in danger: people who drive those behemoth truck/car monsters don't seem much interested in other drivers, and had I been T-boned by the Volvo SUV going 40 mph in the supermarket parking lot the other day, I wouldn't be typing this. Or I wouldn't be driving to Santa Fe because I wouldn't have a car. 

The worst fatalities of the summer here were all plants: that happy picture of green sprouts emerging from the potting soil on my deck didn't last long. More rain came and one day -- really: it all happened on one day -- they all wilted, turned brown, and died. The basil and oregano followed shortly thereafter. That relentless heat isn't so good for plants, nor is the huge amount of rain we experienced anything their DNA is programmed to respond to. I'll try again, although with the chiles or not I can't say, when I get back. The forecast is for cooler temperatures. 

But if the plant life suffered, the animal life did not. Most spectacularly, a very large toad began to guard my back door at night, positioning himself under the light so that handy snacks came his way without his having to exert much effort. 

The Guardian

It's hard to assess scale on a picture like this, but he's about the size of a softball. He enlists a couple of underlings in his dinner party, too: there's a very small gecko who hangs around and doubtless knocks bugs off the wall, and a fast brown anole who does likewise. When I find a tree roach in the house, I go all curling and start sweeping it towards one of the doors. The back door critters get the ones that I throw out from there, although I have no idea if toads eat tree roaches. 

Out the front door are more critters: another brown anole lives by the front door, sort of under the jamb, and I was shocked, surprised, and very happy to welcome a new critter I'd never seen before living on the tree out there: an arboreal Texas Spiny Lizard, a full foot long. 

Photo from Wikipedia. My guy won't stand sill long enough to photograph.

It's pretty wonderful knowing that these -- and, no doubt, other -- critters are out there in the yard, and I purposely didn't have the back yard mowed this summer, because I know that the low ground cover gives habitat not only to these lizards, but to a wide variety of insects that serve as food for them and the birds who visit the yard. Since what I do is sit at this desk and look out at them, it's ensuring myself the free entertainment that comes with the house. And something new I've noticed has been that every now and again a bright green feather falls from the sky. I've been told there are flocks of monk parrots in Austin but that they tend to be so high in the trees one rarely sees them. I'd like to have one of those rare moments because besides liking lizards, I'm a big psittacophile, and sort of like being dive-bombed by the parrot mobs in Barcelona. Those aren't as shy as these here are: they're very visible, and very in your face. 

* * *

In other news, I went to get my blood pressure medications renewed last week and was asked to submit to another blood test because my lipids were "high." I was actually glad to get in to see the doctor because she was leaving on vacation on Monday for a week, so she wasn't around when the chirpy receptionist called me on Monday and said I'd been "diagnosed with diabetes," that I'd have to make lifestyle and diet changes and I should "look up diabetes diet on the Internet." This, I suppose, is how medicine is done in the U.S., and a major reason why I'd rather be elsewhere for medical emergencies: my doctors in Berlin and Montpellier would be livid at such casual, off-hand treatment of a patient. 

So I got yet another pill to take twice daily, and I gather I should cut back on my carbohydrates, but I have so little data to go on that I have no idea if I'm pre-diabetic (as are many people my age) or in full-blown diabetes, where bread is death and so is pasta. I suspect the former, and I intend to get some straight facts and figures before I do anything too radical. And yes, I'd love to exercise, which really wasn't an issue in Europe, since one had to walk places to get things, and, in France, when I realized I'd reached the end of my working day, I'd often just go out and start walking around town. I also had two mile-long hikes per week when I went to the market, and walked to the supermarket every day. You take your life in your hands here, though, where there are no sidewalks and the automotive giants careen down small roads in defiance of the speed limit. Also, years ago, I was warned never to exercise when the temperature was over 91º F (just over 32º C) because it could cause heart damage. I suppose when it cools down a bit I'll drive myself over to the Greenbelt or other appropriate area and find a walking circuit I can take, but the absurdity of driving myself to and from exercise isn't lost on me. But I do like walking: going over the same walk day after day keeps your powers of observation sharp, and so it's good for my business. Among other things. 

* * *

I'm still ambivalent about having made this return to the U.S., and now that the media's ginned up the Presidential horserace again, even more so. There's a part of me that doesn't want to know that people like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz and the like exist, let alone have people who follow them and believe what they believe. The plutocrats in the extractive industries are trying to buy the election (and may well succeed thanks to low-information voters and the general depressed intellectual level of the electorate), and what damage they aren't doing is being done by Our Digital Overlords and the so-called "sharing economy," which looks like serfdom to me. A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a review of a gallery show of political posters, and this was one of the featured images:

This is dated 1935, and, although it doesn't mention some of the of the issues of our moment (I think the 5-day week woman is meant to be black, so she sort of counts), like police militarization, women's heath care, and minorities being stripped of their voting rights, it's breathtaking to see how many of these issues have been nearly eroded away (right to organize, collective bargaining) or are under assault (Social Security) or whose abolition is seriously being discussed (child labor, higher wages, which at the moment means raising the minimum). 80 years, and the battles won and then the victory snatched away. 

Fortunately, the discussion of democratic socialism has entered the picture, and the media ignoring Bernie Sanders to the extent it does is helping that discussion spread. I don't expect to see it instituted in this country in my lifetime, or, really, ever, but if you'd like to get informed so you can contribute to the conversation I recommend the late Tony Judt's Ill Fares The Land, which my friend Nikki was handing out like candy at Halloween a couple of years ago, and which shows the positives and negatives of the American and European approaches. I realize that most Americans aren't interested in how they do things elsewhere, or else we'd have had functioning health care before I turned ten, but there are a few, and a lot of them read this blog. 

So happy Labor Day, even if the idiocracy is trying to tell us this is yet another military holiday or it should be abolished in favor of a holiday on 9/11 -- or even though the rest of the world celebrates it on May 1. Stay strong, I'll try to do the same, and maybe we'll have tiny victories to celebrate in the near future. 

Our Digital Overlords Speak

For some time, I've been promising a second half of the post I did about my ambivalence about returning to the U.S., and this isn't it. But the other day, I read a statement that seems bland enough on  its surface, but horrifies me and has unsettled me ever since I read it. It goes, I think, deep into what bothers me about returning to this country and points to a mind-set that is all too prevalent and deeply dangerous. And, of course, immensely popular in certain circles.

The May 18 issue of the New Yorker has a story by Tad Friend called "Tomorrow's Advance Man," a profile of Marc Andreessen, the man who essentially invented the web browser and is now a partner in a16z, a venture capital company that provides money to tech startups. Andreessen is odd-looking, with an almost perfectly egg-shaped head that doesn't show up in the Wikipedia image below because I think he has to be facing the camera for it to register. The New Yorker's picture is arresting, and so is the article, although having so little connection to what it's about I found it rocky enough reading that it took me three nights to plow through it.

Marc Andreessen: Satan or Savior? (Or just deluded guy?)

The quote that got me going is this, which Friend quoted from Andreessen's Twitter feed. "Posit a world in which all material needs are provided free, by robots and material synthesizers...Imagine six, or 10, billion people doing nothing but arts and sciences, culture and exploration and learning. What a world that would be."

You betcha. And I will fight to my last dying breath to see that it never happens.

My blood ran cold as I read that over and over. Does he really believe this? Yes, I believe he does. So do lots of other people, mostly people, like him, who are phenomenally wealthy and have made that wealth in the tech boom. It enables them to trample people in the name of making money to achieve this literally incredible world, because in the end, it's for your own good, helping to bring about your liberation via technology. Just work with for us a while. You'll see. It'll be great.

What this statement elides, of course, is the raw material you're working with. Increasingly, funds for education are drying up across the United States. The privatization of elementary and secondary education is, if not complete, rapidly becoming the default. In what public education still exists, things that I took for granted as a kid -- art and music classes, school band, athletics -- are, if they're even available at all, only available if parents can pay for them. What a discovery that was: my initial exposure to the wider world of music, besides what I heard in church and on the increasingly infequent times my mother played Chopin on the piano, was at school. I learned to play an instrument (badly) and then went on to play it (badly) in the school band, which was a very empowering and educational experience that has stayed with me through the 50 years since I graduated from high school. And athletics! The bane of my existence, but for a different sort of kid, a chance to show off another kind of talent, an excellence that could, under the right circumstances, lead to a professional career (as could music, of course). You mean to tell me that a potential NBA star might be lost because his parents couldn't afford to pay for him to be on his high school basketball team? (I've already had middle-school kids come by my house selling stuff to pay for their school band).

This non-education (you can read elsewhere about the horrors of the Texas school systems and some of the idiocy they pass off as history classes) produces, not to mince words, stupid people. Stupid people who consume and do nothing else are a danger to our republic, and that's who you'd get under Andreessen's dream society. They won't know how to do arts (and do we need more, instead of better, artists of all kinds? Doesn't the current boring state of pop music show us that we don't?), and they'll never be able to produce the kind of critical thinking necessary for science (leaving aside the matter of being taught junk science like climate change denial and creationism), let alone have access to educational institutions where vital science is being done. Culture? More cable TV and reality shows?  Exploration? Isn't that the same as science, or is it just inventing more apps? As for learning, that's just not possible when you don't know how to do it, and as long as ignorance keeps the status quo, it's not going to change.

I see this way of thinking every year at SXSWi, and I see the people who think it, so this profile wasn't quite the opening of a box of horrors that it might have been. But thinking that more apps are advancing human society is a deeply flawed idea. Okay: Facebook. That was something that really did change things. The reason we know Mark Zuckerberg's name is that he made something that a lot of people tried and failed to do. Google releases a Facebook-killer every couple of years: remember Orkut? Anyone figured out Google + yet -- and still use it? Wasn't there one between them that was just so insanely complicated that people abandoned it immediately? Remember Friendster and all those other ideas that cratered? So respect where respect is due. So now Uber and Lyft. Apps that make their owners money by hiring serfs to do the heavy lifting, perform the actual service. I've used each (once), and probably will again when I need to get to the Austin airport, because one of the many things Austin doesn't have and never did or will is workable public transportation. What if some Zuckerbergian kid comes along, analyzes the differences between Uber and Lyft and figures out a way to enhance the experience (say by working out the problem of insurance and finding a way to pay drivers better and perhaps incentivize them -- hey, I'm just making this up) and come up with another app, call it Ryyd, that takes off in a Facebookian way with the public? Uber and Lyft are, in short order, dust. That's the danger -- or, if you'd rather, risk -- of software.

Friend's article is full of these companies, established, emergent, and dead, which a16z has worked with or avoided investing in. A surprising amount of them, however, depend on underpaid grunt labor working without any health insurance or unemployment benefits and the like. When Friend pointed this out to Andreessen, he said "Maybe there's an alternate way of living, a free-form life where you press the button and get work when you want to." Except for having the button malfunction a lot, Marc, that's the way most of my circle are living now. A lot of them had jobs or occupations that the Digital Overlords destroyed: newspaper reporters or magazine journalists, musicians, record company executives, teachers, taxi drivers... But nobody's working on the button, because if they can invent the app, they can get rich quick, and that's what matters, right? Not the destruction of others' lives. That's called "disruption," and if you don't look at the faces of the people getting evicted, if you ignore that their kids are starving, it's way cool, right?

I'm also pretty sure it's too late to turn this around, at least in this country. With unfettered, well-funded, powerful forces in charge of our government, an utterly broken educational system teaching to the test, high culture no longer extant or solely about money, popular culture being made either by algorithms or people who can afford to work for nothing, print dead, our great cities dormitories for oligarchs, and endless war, the United States is a pretty horrifying place to behold.

Me, just before the ship I'd been on sank, I stepped onto a lifeboat labelled book contract, and I hope to use that to do more books and other things related to my writings until I can figure out a next move, which will likely be more writing, definitely not in Texas, and probably not in the U.S. That's a ways off, though, so I put one foot in front of the other and, like I say, live like the alcoholics, a day at a time, except I can have a beer in the evening. I'll avoid Austin as much as I can, having no particular reason to engage with it, and hope I wake up tomorrow as healthy as I was this morning. It beats pushing that button, hoping for a treat.

Backyard Report

Okay, now I've done it. I've taken another step towards, um, suburbanity. A guy named Joe just deposited this on a concrete slab obviously designed to hold such a thing, just off of my deck in the back yard.

I know it's a good one, because I spent hours researching them on the Internet, particularly at an annoying site called Amazing Ribs.com. Everyone I trust in the world of grilling (as opposed to barbequing, a science I leave to ascended masters) says it's a great site. I say it's annoying because it takes a long time to navigate and after a couple of pages it starts hatching popups urging you to join their Pitmasters' Club, and they follow you around the site: "You've viewed 14 pages. Join the Pitmasters' Club!" Hey, buddy, I haven't even bought a grill yet. They're also annoying because their reviews sound positive even when they're not, a critical disease other sites (like the one I went to before buying the digital camera that just snapped these photos) seem to have. I read through the latest list of best grills and was all set to buy a specific one, but the Lowe's near my house didn't have one in stock, so they told me to go to one of their stores that did have one. It was late enough in the afternoon that I knew I'd be stuck in traffic forever if I went so I put it off for the next day, then went back and read the review again and realized that they may have given it an award, but between the lines were saying it was a cheap piece of shit that would have to have parts replaced in a year or so. So I got an entry-level Weber.

And yes, we'll have no theological debate about gas vs. charcoal here. I know charcoal can (key word) make the food taste better. I also know about fire dangers and disposing of ash, particularly the latter, after living in a coal-oven-heated apartment in Berlin. So gas it was.

Feeeed Meeee!

This grill has a feature I'm not sure I need: there's a round bit of the grate that comes out and can be filled with any number of goodies, including this griddle, which comes with it (and undoubtedly needs seasoning before use, although Weber claims not), and optional things like a wok (mmmm, wok hai!), a pizza stone (but it's kind of small and I could probably just lay a pizza stone on there and get it hotter than my oven gets, meaning excellent pizza), a Korean barbeque (no idea how this works), a poultry roaster (ditto), and of course an ebelskyver (ditto twice, although I think it's some kind of Swedish pancakes).

As the Germans would say, "Mit System!"

I haven't so much as turned it on yet, but I think I know what I'm going to cook first, and that needs an accessory Weber doesn't sell.

"The Secret Is..."

Some years ago, I was in Hawaii doing a story on Hawaiian music for a travel magazine and had to go out to a rather remote part of Oahu to interview the amazing Tau Moe, a steel guitarist who, with his wife Rose (one of the greatest Hawaiian singers ever), and, eventually, their family, was on tour for decades, all over the world. (He once performed for Hitler -- well, he could hardly say no -- and I asked him what that was like. "I was scared," he said with typical economy.) My friend Margaret, who was living in Honolulu with her tattoo artist husband and editing a million of those throwaway tourist magazines that litter hotel lobbies there, told me that if I went out that way I should stop for lunch at this burger joint. "It's the best hamburger you ever had," she said. I personally felt that I hadn't come to Hawaii to eat hamburgers, but once I got out there there wasn't much choice, so I did. And above the counter where you placed your order was a sign that said "The Secret is Vermouth." And, after tasting the burger, I knew I had to learn the application of that secret.

All was made clear, coincidentally enough, when I got back to Texas, and the food section of the daily paper had an interview with Mr. Weber, of Weber Grills, where they said they'd heard he was famous for his hamburgers and he gave the recipe which included...vermouth! Oh, and a couple of other things. But I've experimented with it enough that I think I've got it down as well as the place in Hawaii and tonight, perhaps, we'll find out if I have. I'll still have to buy some more stuff at the supermarket, but we'll see. And such a first meal is, when you consider the source, very appropriate.

Wish me luck.

* * *

Last year, a friend in New Mexico sent me a bunch of seeds. Some were for Sandia chiles, big, green, hot-but-not-insane chiles that can be used for rellenos, enchilada sauce, or salsas that I just love, and some were for their local jalapenos, which she claims aren't nearly as wimpy as the ones here in Texas (although a tip to buy at Mexican markets resulted in some with a bit more firepower). Anyway, I planted them and...nothing. Then someone sent me a webpage that said under no circumstances to plant them in peat pots, which is what I'd done, so I just gave up. 

This year, I had an inspiration, a voice within telling me to get off to a gardening store and score some MiracleGro Organic potting soil, which is what the anti-peat-pot site recommended, so I did, and threw some of my dwindling supply of Sandia seeds into two of them, using the other two to transplant some basil I picked up at the store. Well, as you can see, there are results. 

Modern agriculture: the triumph!

Those two pots on the left are just bursting with Sandia sprouts, and although the rains we've had have left the basil plants next to them a little ratty, I think they'll gain height and more foliage in the weeks to come and turn out all right. The other two plants are more basil plants, which I got for my birthday in November and seem only interested in having sex at this point (well, it's understandable: they were indoors all winter) and a bunch of oregano, which is just going nuts, and which I had a bit of in a spaghetti sauce of roasted cherry tomatoes, garlic, capers, pine nuts and black olives last night, which made me realize that it does, indeed, have its uses. I believe I have a chimichurri sauce recipe which uses it, too. 

Let's look at those Sandias again! The small pots are the future homes of the jalapenos, I hope.

Which is good, because this new machine opens a whole world I've been absent from for the past 20 years. There are some good reasons why grilling is illegal in Europe (can't do it on your balcony because of the neighbors and because of fire danger), and some bad ones (oppressive food-odor laws, which only get enforced on foreigners, and grilling illegal in parks despite low or no fire risk, but, rather, because in Germany it's a way of making Turks feel unwelcome), but the fact is, you can't do it and I didn't. Now I have to learn all over again, but with a much finer instrument than the funky little bullet-shaped smoker I could never get to work right or (even worse) the occasional hibachi. 

Now I have lots of stuff to learn: I have some remarkable Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, and, of course, American recipes to try out, and I'll be learning about marinades and sauces and salsas. Not, I emphasize, barbeque. There are too many places around here where I can just roll up and pay for that, and I will. But first, Mr. Weber's burgers. Tomorrow, the world!

California Eatin'

I took off a long weekend from book-writing last Thursday to fly to San Francisco to attend a party celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Well, the online community I've been a member of since early 2001, making me something of a n00b. The party wasn't four days long, but I wanted to see some old friends while I was out there, and, well, eat a bunch of stuff I can't get here in Austin.

The event stirred up a bunch of feelings and ideas about community that feed directly into my post last year about my ambivalence about returning to America, and I'll address them sooner or later, because I keep seeing things that disturb me in this country besides the headlines about rogue cops and Republicans. But first, let's eat.

* * *

I started out the trip in a bad mood. The booking I'd made on Virgin America was apparently for the 1st, and I'm quite sure that's not what I'd paid for, since I knew I had to teach a class that evening. It only cost me $350 to rectify this "mistake," which I couldn't prove I hadn't made, bringing the cost of the flight almost up to the cost of a flight to London, since I opted for one of the legroom rows, not wishing to repeat my little adventure with pulmonary embolism. Once on board, the flight attendants failed to tell me that food was free, and in order to catch the 8am flight, I'd skipped all breakfast, which caught up to me later. 

On landing, it was easy enough to catch BART almost to the front door of my hotel, although BART, for some reason, has ticket vending machines that won't take a bill larger than $10. Although I'd notified the hotel of an early arrival, the front desk snarled at me when I tried to register, even hinting that they might be oversold. Not a promising beginning, but I checked my bag and walked down Market Street to the Ferry Building, about which I'd read a great deal since it had been turned into a "farmer's market." The quotes indicate that there are only a few farm-to-market stands (offering, true, some very nice looking stuff), but that most of the space is filled with lifestyle accessories more or less oriented towards food, and some restaurants. Starving and disoriented by not having had any coffee yet, I searched for something light I could eat and for some coffee: I had a 2pm lunch scheduled, and it was already after 11am. Acme Bread sold me a delicious sourdough cheese spiral and practically next door was Blue Bottle Coffee, where I purchased a café au lait. I'd heard great things about the coffee (including how expensive it was), and found it just adequate. After colliding with a woman staring into her phone and losing a bit of it, I made it out onto the deck, where the only seat I could find blocked the view of the East Bay with some kind of dredging equipment. Still: a nice place to sip the coffee which hadn't flown out of the cup and work on the pastry -- my teeth still aren't up to most bread, dammit, because Acme is easily the finest bread in San Francisco. 

After walking back to the hotel and being reminded that check-in was 3pm, but that my room was indeed ready, although I was very early, snarl snarl, I checked into the room and headed to the lunch appointment, for which I was slightly late. It was worth it because it was at the legendary Zuni Café, a San Francisco landmark most famous for its roast chicken (one-hour prep time) and hamburger, but also featuring other nice comestables. Trouble was, I wasn't too hungry, as the poorly-chewed pastry was taking up a lot of room. There were nine or ten of us, all Well people except for a friend of one guy who happened to be in town from...Austin. One of our party ordered oysters and champagne, half of which I availed myself of (I do like oysters, but I was still too zonked to want alcohol), and I ordered a salad (arugula and hazelnuts, if memory serves) and a soup (black bean soup, but not like I'd expected). Conversation, as it is on the Well every day and as it is when we meet face-to-face, was lively and wide-ranging. Eventually, we paid the bill and dispersed until the party at Rickshaw Stop that evening. The party was largely a blur for me: the crowd was large enough that I missed a couple of people I knew, I neglected to eat any of the snacks, and two beers just about laid me on my ass, although I did spend several hours sipping them. I did have a good time, though, and crawled back to my hotel at 10:30 to sleep the sleep of the dead. 

I felt much better when I awoke the next day, and then less better when I managed to buy two muffins, a coffee, and a bottle of orange juice for $22 at a nearby trendy supermarket. Lunch would be with my former next-door neighbor, Susie, in what I was hoping would become a tradition: dim sum in the Chinatown of Clement Street. My friend George, who moved to the Bay Area from Austin just as I moved from France to Austin, had recommended a place called Good Luck Dim Sum, and I wished we'd had some. Some good luck, that is: we had the dim sum, and most of it was awful: thick, gummy wrappers around all-but-tasteless fillings. One, which was spinach and minced shrimp, was wonderful, and George later said that none of what we'd had was anything he'd tried. Bad luck. But a fun time catching up and walking the blocks of Chinese Clement. 

Dinner would be solo, and I was thinking of walking down to the Ferry Building to see what the Slanted Door was like, since I've been cooking out of owner Charles Phan's Vietnamese Home Cooking book since returning to Austin and have liked what I've made. But it was Friday night, and I was afraid of going all the way down there and getting turned away, so when someone brought up the fact that Tadich Grill wasn't far away, I became awash in nostalgia for the many tons of sand dabs I'd put away there in the '70s, and headed out there. Tadich was also perfect because, in the food-obsessed society that San Francisco has become, it's way déclassé even though it's superb. Everyone's been there, the menu never changes, isn't it just a tourist trap? Well, no. And when I got there, I decided on crab louie, which is essentially crab, chopped lettuce, and louie dressing, which is sort of like 1000 Island dressing. Crab was in season, sand dabs could wait for next time. I was also kind of full from lunch. Perfecto. Got a seat immediately, waiter was excellent, food was great, there was a hunk of bread served with it that was classically San Francisco sourdough sour, and I was a happy guy. Tomorrow I'd rent a car and the second half of the adventure would happen. 

* * *

A snapshot of Berkeley. Note: it's colder than it looks.

Saturday morning, I checked out of the hotel, only getting snarled at twice, and walked a few blocks to Turk Street to pick up my reserved car. This sent me through the heart of the Tenderloin, a neighborhood calculated to depress the sunniest individual. That old joke says that they picked up America, tilted it to the west, and all the fruits and nuts slid over to California. The Tenderloin is chapter two of that joke: and then they all got old. A lot of the people in the streets were victims of Ronald Reagan's decision to empty out mental hospitals while he was governor. They were shuttled into derelict hotels, and now they still live there, drinking, doing drugs, or just high on their own craziness. 

So in my new Dodge Charger, a car that operates without a key (ain't technology grand?), I headed to Berkeley, to the cottage behind the house of Amy, a Well person who'd offered it for the weekend. It was my first crossing of the new Bay Bridge, which looks suspiciously like the bridge in Milau, north of where I lived in France. Berkeley hadn't changed much, but I wasn't going to spend much time there, since most of the weekend would be spent with George and his girfriend Robin, with a couple of specific goals in mind. The first was to find some salt-cured anchovies. I've been buying them from Amazon for $13.99 plus $10 shipping, and it was the shipping I was planning to avoid. But there was a snag: it was Easter weekend, and apparently there's something traditional that Bay Area Italians make that involves salt-cured anchovies, because Robin called around and called around and finally located a can or two at Genova Deli in north Oakland's Temescal district. This place is legendary, and I'd never been there in all the years I lived in California, plus they make authentic deli sandwiches on fresh sourdough rolls. It was totally satisfying, I have to say. Plus, anchovies. Okay, the cans were $21.95, so I saved two bucks. But I'm set for a year: keep 'em in the fridge in a plastic bag and dig the fish out of the can when you need them and you'll have a new taste sensation; these are not your neighborhood pizzeria's anchovies, not by a long shot. 

Score! 

So what to do next? There are huge stretches of the Bay Area I haven't seen, including Vallejo, where George and Robin live (not that it's all that worth seeing from all accounts), and north of there are some wonderful wetlands and the town of Napa, which I don't remember visiting, probably due to my extreme wine allergy when I lived out there. (Check your allergies every seven years, folks: sometimes they go away. But that's another story). 

Napa has turned into a gahongous foodie/yuppie destination, in part because of the decision to build a covered market on the formerly bad side of the river, the Oxbow district. There's not much in the Oxbow market per se, just more food-as-lifestyle accessories, non-essentials like a rainbow worth of flavored olive oils, a place selling about 15,000 kinds of bitters, some restaurants, and a fancy butcher shop with dry-cured steaks (something I'm going to try some day). Next door, though, is a building with a baker and another high-end butcher called Fatted Calf that makes its own charcuterie, and we mooched around there for a while. I longed to spend a couple hundred dollars and take a bunch of stuff home with me, but that was impractical from a number of viewpoints, and I note that the website says they also have an outlet in San Francisco, so I might sneak some back sometime. After Oxbow, we went to the other side of the river, where I became gradually horrified by the spectacle while simultaneously becoming thirstier and thirstier from the wonderful sample of prosciutto the guy at Fatted Calf had handed us. Eventually we landed at a gelateria which had Italian sodas, and George got a lemon soda and Robin and I had chinotto, which I'd always wanted to try. A very distinctly adult soft drink, bitter but with a fruit note in the taste, you can find it in Italian delis and probably high-end groceries. 

It was growing dark, and time to head back to Berkeley, although on our way out of town we took time to look at the reconstruction underway from a recent earthquake. There was a great sunset, which I couldn't stop on the freeway to photograph, and after hitting the cottage to drop off my anchovies, we decided to go to an Indian restaurant George had heard about and I'd seen for many, many year, Ajanta. This place is a Berkeley institution, and, like Tadich, it's not as full as it should be, and for the very same reasons. What I liked about it was that it listed not only the ingredients, but also the region where the dish originated. I had chicken mulligatawny, a descriptor I'd only seen referring to the Raj soup, but this was a well-developed curry. The prices here were reasonable, the service impeccable, and yeah, I know, everyone's already been there. You should still go. 

(George's photos of our jaunt are here, by the way.)

The next day I met my friend Elissa, who lives in San Jose, for lunch in Oakland Chinatown, almost certainly the best Chinatown in the Bay Area: not as touristy as the one near North Beach in San Francisco, bigger than Clement Street, it's clearly serving a Chinese-Vietnamese population, as well as other minorities. George had handed me a menu for a place called Spices!3, but I wasn't sure it was a good idea for lunch, more for a group for dinner. Some of the items on the menu also put me off: what's "stinky tofu"? Do I really want to order "Gangsta" Casserole "Murder Style"? On purpose? We decided to wander and see if anything else presented itself, and it did: Classic Guilin Rice Noodles. As you can see from the website, there are two chili sauces that can be mixed in with the noodles, which are very much like rice-based spaghetti. You get them with various meats, mix everything together, and then, towards the end of the meal, mix in a white, milky liquid that comes with the order, or else eat it on the side. I couldn't figure this stuff out, since it seemed to have no discernable taste, but the drier of the two hot sauces wasn't insanely hot and had other stuff -- nuts, maybe? -- in it that really set off the meat-noodle combo. Guilin province is apparently on the border of Szechuan province, and their noodles are apparently legendary. Based on one experience, I'd say so. After that, we stopped briefly at an Afro-Caribbean shop I'd seen while we were looking for parking, far more Afro than Caribbean, but the did have authentic Jamaican curry powder, so now I can try to make beef patties at home. 

That evening, I'd promised to buy dinner for George and Robin at Tommaso's, a restaurant with which I have a long-standing love affair -- and they with me: I helped save the restaurant from closing during the darkest part of their history (to be fair, Francis Ford Coppola, a man I despise, was also instrumental in this) by reviewing it in a magazine. For many years, the review was framed just inside the door, but there have been hundreds since. I was anticipating the food, and possibly a reunion with one or another member of the Crotti family, but...it was Easter. Tommaso's was closed. Ah, well, I had other fond memories: Henry Chung's original Hunan restaurant, another place that magazine had discovered and that became a favorite, with lines out the door. Closed. So, it appeared, were other, tertiary choices. We wound up at the Michaelangelo Cafe, which was perfectly nice (not to mention open), but not what I was dreaming of. It was the stuff I'd found inadequate in San Francisco when I moved there 45 years ago, a New York boy not happy with the far more delicate, northern Italian take on southern Italian food. I now understand it, and I know the ingredients were fresh and tasty here, but it wasn't what I'd hoped for. 

All in all, I had a nice trip, and might well head back there, particularly if summer in Austin makes me crazy: it's never warm in the summer in San Francisco, after all. And I will get to Tommaso's, dammit. 

Texas Dance Halls, Part Two

The last bitter, rainy, windy day passed. The sun came out more frequently. This would probably be a problem later on, but for the moment it looked good. What better way to celebrate than with the second half of Steve Dean's dance hall tour, this time of the eastern end of the trip?

This part of Texas is one I haven't spent much time in, although I have been to Schulenberg in the company of the present Count Studeman von der Schulenberg (better known to his friends as Fred) and would often break the journey back home from Louisiana at the now-vanished Bon Ton in La Grange for their superlative fried chicken.

This was also the part of Texas that Steve has documented in his only (so far) book, Historic Dance Halls of East Central Texas, available in Austin at your favorite independent book store (or that link). Just reading that book made me want to jump in the car and head out there, but I was more than happy to be a passenger with a bunch of other people, like last time, and just ride along.

As we did last time, we headed out from the Midway Food Park, where Steve books the entertainment, and headed east out of Austin. We had a full van this time, 13 of us, all history buffs or Texana fans, apparently, although the couple next to me were dance fans and seemed to have a project of dancing in as many Texas dance halls and honky-tonks as they could, and at the outset were already plotting to see if they'd be home in time to see the Bellamy Brothers in the evening. Our driver was Erik McCowan, who's still working on his documentary about dance halls, which should be a doozie once it's finished. Steve usefully defined the difference as being "A dance hall you go to to dance with your wife, but a honky-tonk you go to to dance with someone else's wife," as concise and useful a definition as I've heard. During the day, as we went from one dance hall to another, he'd also point out legendary honky-tonks, most of which were no longer operating, but emanated history and good-natured sleaze.

The main difference between what we'd see today, as opposed to what we saw last time, was that Czech-Tex was added to the mix. The Hill Country is pretty solidly populated with the descendants of German immigrants, and although when the immigration boom happened, there was only a subtle difference between German and Czech (go look up the Sudetenland, if you want), there being no Czechoslovakia at the time, these settlers, mostly from Moravia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were different in that they were solidly Catholic (the Germans were Protestant and Catholic, depending on whether they were from the north or the south), and their foodways were subtly different.

Our first stop was Kovar, a fly-speck so small that nobody has ever included it in a census, a Czech-Moravian settlement with an active SPJST (Slavonic Benevolent Society of the State of Texas) chapter at one time. There's still not much in the way of Kovar, but the SPJST Hall, is still there, and in pretty good shape. When we arrived, it was preparing for someone's Golden Anniversary party, and truth to tell, it wasn't much.

It doesn't even have the SPJST seal on it, but at least it's still in use.

Our next stop was an early lunch in Smithville, which connoisseurs of barbeque will realize meant a stop at Zimmerhansel's. This relatively unsung barbeque joint is one of the best in the state, and if it were in Austin, would give healthy competition to Franklin's for crowds. But the servers are quick and efficient, and if you order right, you can get a very memorable meal.

The good stuff is hiding under those onions

Unfortunately, I ordered wrong. Or part-wrong. The sides were utterly undistinguished, including the beans, but the brisket (I asked for half fatty and half lean) was astounding. The sausage, much raved-about in the online reviews, was the coarse-ground, underseasoned type found in a lot of barbeque joints in this area, and was only mildly improved by dipping it in the vinegary sauce. What was good, although I was afraid my teeth wouldn't be able to handle it, was the pork ribs, which a fellow-diner shared with me and was the cliched falling-off-the-bone excellent. So next time -- and there will be a next time -- I'll order small quantities of meat (mixed brisket, ribs) with one side. I've known about this place forever, thanks to my pal George Carver, but never made it out; Smithville never seemed that attractive to me. Silly me.

Erik exits, happy.

Where the action is: Zimmerhanzel's' pit, powered by post oak.

Next stop was Plum, Texas, pop. 95, host of the annual Plum Sausage Festival in June. Steve swears by Plum's sausage, but it's only available at the festival. Hmmm.

Plum in full bloom.

It sure didn't hurt that the recent rains have encouraged a fine bloom of seasonal wildflowers, which will continue (barring a freeze, which in a state loaded with climate deniers, Nature might yet impose just to show them), and this display was very patriotic, consisting of bluebonnets, some little white flower, and bright red Indian paintbrush. I also spooked a cluster of small frogs while taking this shot; they were hanging out in a culvert with water in it and leaping into darkness when they sensed my presence.

Plum's hall, again, wasn't very spectacular, but the surroundings were so nice I wasn't about to complain. Unlike the rest of the halls on this tour, the original settlers here came from Tennessee, and so were presumably Anglo Protestants, but the place soon was full of Moravians, who built the hall next to Sts. Peter and Paul church.

From here, we went to LaGrange, whose large fairground just out of town sits on a magnificent bluff above the Colorado River, totally invisible from any fairground attractions. It also has the spanking new Texas Czech Heritage Center, an archive of historical papers and photos which is expanding to a museum village just behind it with various buildings of interest to Texas Czech history in the process of restoration. The Pavillion is used in several events on the grounds, although as a relatively recent hall (1927) I didn't find it too interesting.

It is, however, big.

After leaving LaGrange, it was down another back road to another break, this time at the Rohan Meadery in Nechanitz. I'm not a big fan of mead, and after one small taste of what promised to be one of their varieties not infused with sweet fruit syrup (although a pure honey mead was, inexplicably, not available), I noted a nose of decay and a bunch of cloudy flavors and walked out to await the rest of the party on the porch. There was a huge white dog who'd greeted us, some guinea fowl making noise off by an outbuilding, and a bunch of chickens, some with elaborate leg feathers. There was a much smaller one who was chased away from the water dish by a very aggressive black chicken, and after a while I managed to coax it onto my lap.

What I saw.

What I imagine the chicken saw. 

And, refreshed by their mead-tasting, my fellow voyagers filed out and we were on our way to Cat Spring, where the Landwirtschaftliche Verein (Agricultural Society) erected a round (actually octagonal) dance hall in the 19th century. Thanks to an unusual community cohesiveness, this society is still in existence, with over 200 members, and was setting up for an event when we showed up. It's been dramatically renovated without harming the exterior, and you can dance in air-conditioned splendor when they have music.

The Germans, being German, had rules, though:

Translated from the Deutsch-Tex: The wearing of hats, spurs, smoking and chewing are forbidden in this hall. 

Cat Spring was an important German community, the first German settlement a lot of immigrants encountered after getting off the boat at Indianola or Galveston and heading towards the Hill Country, so it prospered by selling them supplies and provisions.

The history (click to enlarge, of course)

Germans just seem to naturally form associations, and so down the road apiece we pulled into Millheim, where the local Harmonie Verein built a hall in 1874, and built a new one in 1938.

The two chairs in the picture had just held two voluble and entertaining gentlemen who filled us in on the history and were eager to invite us to the Father's Day bash, where two tons of meat (including mutton) are cooked in an odd concrete trench and served to members and visitors.

The trench, minus glowing coals, brisket, pork, and mutton.

The history

Among the things the two guys yakked about with us was how pathetic the folks down the road at Peters were, especially after we told them that was our next stop. Oh, Peters could hardly draw flies at their Mother's Day barbecue! Those poor people! Well, we'd see about that, but I'd already begun considering coming back to Millheim for Father's Day, and Erik and I made a tentative plan at the end of the day.

Peters turned out to be another octagonal hall, surrounded by large trees -- and the stumps of others, since a violent wind-storm in 2001 severed a bunch of large boughs, one of which went through the roof --  and it dated from the end of the 19th century, built by a Schussverein, or shooting club, like the one in Grapetown we'd seen on the Hill Country tour. The Verein no longer exists, but the association now administers the hall, which is popular for Mexican 15th birthday celebrations and weddings. And that Mother's Day barbecue.

The local paper was supposed to be there to meet us, but instead they asked the folks from the Verein to do the honors, and at one point we all sat on the lip of the stage and grinned for a photo. The things people will do for the media!

Schneider Hall, though, our next stop, was a raging success story, mostly due to Amber Burris, a descendent of the four Schneider brothers on whose land it sits. In 2009, her younger sister Adrienne decided she wanted a deluxe wedding reception and they started clearing out the old hall, which had not only been a venue for dances, but also a meeting place for the local Farmers League. In 1941, it was shut down and used to store cotton, and then hay, so the girls had their work cut out for them. But after the wedding, Amber went into high gear, engaging social media, the site's proximity to Houston, and a clever feeling for marketing Texana into a publicity campaign that assures that the place is booked up nearly every week into the beginning of the summer and starting up again in the fall. Current pride of place goes to the new building containing the bathrooms, which are the equal of some I've seen in fine restaurants.

Deceptively funky: Schneider Hall

Amber admitted to being a garage-sale addict, and two corners of the hall bear her out with a wonderfully improvised lighting system:

Mason jars, Ball jars, and tea lights: this whole array may have cost two dollars.

Our last stop was Schulenburg, where Steve had assisted in the renovation, opening, and managing of Sengelmann Hall, a two-story dancehall that's attempting to be a tourist magnet in a town whose motto, last time I was there, was "Halfway to Everywhere!" Presumably someone snapped to the hidden meaning of this phrase, because it's changed. I was looking forward to getting there, not only to see how it had changed since my last visit, but because their annual Sausage Fest was underway. We cleverly managed to miss it, though, and it was even hard to snap a photo of the hall because the sun was making a blazing exit from the sky.

Kinda hard to miss. 

A bunch of vintage tractors (and one vintage car) were parked across the street, but the cookers had long packed up, won their prizes, and hauled their sausage home. Something of a street party was happening in the block the sun was zapping, but I didn't bother to go check it out because, like a number of our other passengers, I was bone-tired by now: one of the problems with Steve's enthusiasm is to assume it on the part of everyone, and since this turned into a 12-hour tour, it was too long by several hours. Also, having Erik making his film stretched out our time at places where there were people to meet us, because he wanted to interview them. I stayed around for some of these interviews because I found them interesting (as I assume the film will be) but not everyone else did. And I believe the couple headed to the Bellamy Brothers must have missed the first set.

* * *

Although the Hill Country tour was more scenic (East Texas is pretty flat), both tours had me thinking similar thoughts, but talking to the folks at Millheim and Peters really put one issue in stark relief. These places were largely built by communities, and sectors of those communities who identified themselves by reference to national origin, activity, or occupation. Since travel between towns was done by horse, and 20 miles was an average day's horse ride, that's where towns were, but starting in the 1920s, the car shortened those distances (although the state of Texas took a while improving the roads). Nonetheless, the community feeling remained, often bolstered by a statewide association of associations (the SPJST being the most obvious) or simply common interest (now it was easier for the singing groups to visit and compete with each other). 

World War II put the German communities through a lot of stress, although their loyalty to America was hard to question, and indeed Texans rarely equated a German-American neighbor with Hitler, even if he did speak Deutsch-Tex. But when men came back from the war, they'd seen a lot of the outside world, even if they hadn't shipped overseas, and mass media began to break down the kind of solidarity these people had felt for each other. The next generations saw this solidarity erode even further, especially as the young people left for good-paying jobs in the oil fields and the cities -- far better-paying than a family farm could offer. Even those who stayed saw no reason to engage with their forebears' culture, and the current generation seems to have no interest in it at all. This may well change as they grow older, but as they grow older, so will the majority of the current members of the Vereins who maintain these halls. The men we talked to at Millheim and Peters admitted it was hard to interest the younger generation in paying the nominal fee to belong, and at Millheim, they said that the only time younger folk showed up was when the night crew for the barbeque (they start the fire about 10pm for an 11am start to the food), and when the cooking was over, they disappeared. (Another thing to note is outside interference: the health authorities raided the sausage-making at Plum one year, although there had been no complaints and certainly no illness or deaths from eating sausage made in the traditional way, and the association had to comply with the rules). 

Community is one of America's vanishing resources, at least partially because it's in the interest of the forces attempting to take control of the country to keep its people atomized and stupid, by cutting back education, putting them at each others' throats on political and racial issues, and numbing them with cretinous entertainment, particularly on television. So far they're doing a magnificent job, but I can't help but feel that by entering into the world that the activities generated by the structures we visited yesterday represent, a key towards a contemporary definition of healthy community -- even temporary community -- people might see an alternative. To me, this alternative is vital, essential for putting American society back on track before the oligarchs and plutocrats have it totally at their mercy. That's why getting married at one of these places is a more optimistic thing to me than just the cliche of two people setting off on the journey of life, blah blah blah. The people who attend the reception get a glimpse of what community can do. A drop in the bucket, perhaps, but with enough buckets, you can start putting out a fire. 

SXSW 2015: In Which I Become a Cineaste

Many apologies for the silence here. At first I was daunted by the torrent of hate mail my last post occasioned from people I probably don't know -- many of them signed in under phony names or as the ever-popular Anonymous. Many, as well, either didn't read what I wrote or had a distorted understanding of it. Nonetheless, I intend a second part to it: I actually got distracted somewhere along the way while writing it and never included a couple of points I was going to make. 

But that won't happen today. The other reason I haven't posted of late is that almost every day I've been working at my book, which is tiring, detailed work that saps my desire to write any more after I'm finished. I'm making great progress and should have the first draft finished soon. After a short break, I will then do the hardest work: making it cohere and making sure nothing important is left out. Then, I hope on time, which is September, I'll hand it in and hope the publisher likes it. 

I haven't worked on the book in over a week, and I'm quite anxious to get back to work, but the reason I haven't written any more on it is that, as happens every year, SXSW has raised its head and I've had to deal with it and the visitors I only see once a year and the hell that downtown Austin turns into. But I think some of what I saw and did will be of interest, so since weather has cancelled the softball game, I'll stay home and write this post. I may not be back with part two of the On Returning piece for a few weeks or longer, but it's always a good idea to let people know you're alive. And since I am, in fact, alive, here we go. 

* * *

At first it was just a dull rumble on the horizon. Then a couple of 35-year-old bros from Vanderbilt University demolished a long-standing business, a piñata company on the East Side, with its stock still intact in the building, while the proprietors weren't there. The reason was to get the family off the property so the bros could rent it to a SXSW party, and after they'd not only demolished the property, but compared the ex-tenants to cockroaches, the community was in an uproar. I'd sure hate to be these guys (I'd like to think my mama raised me better, for one thing), but they made the dull rumble turn into a roar. (Latest update on the situation by Tony Cantú, who's been doing an exemplary job, is here). 

SXSWi is the big draw now, the Film and Music modules its satellites, but I found little to interest me in the panels, which, as usual, were divided up between Buy My Product, Buy My Book, Stuff You Don't Understand, You're Too Old, and Next Big Thing. Last year's Next Big Thing this year is near the mothball stage: I saw not one person wearing Google Glasses. This year's Next Big Thing is apparently Bitcoin, although I remain as sceptical about that as I can be. Of course, what do I know: they introduced Twitter at SXSWi some years back and I thought that was dumb, too. (I actually still do to some extent, although I've become @HistorianOfRock in view of the day when I'll start promoting my books). 

I figured that instead of going to one of the few journalism panels to get condescended to, I'd just skip them (they seemed to be about writing shorter to get noticed, Reddit, and I swear I saw one called "Advertising is Dead: Content IS Advertising" that chilled me) and head to the trade show, which was less exciting than ever before, filled with solutions to problems that don't exist and gadgets I don't seem to remember anyone needing: talking vegetables, anyone? (This was over in the Japanese area, where there were stuffed animals to get infants used to using devices and an app so you could add graffiti and animated animals to your videos). NASA had a nice exhibit about the Mars mission, and someone else had a semi trailer filled with a demonstration of the Internet of Things. Since I'd just read a story about the first refrigerator's e-mail system being hijacked to send spam, I think this is a wait-and-see situation. As well as a don't expect to see much yet one. 

SXSWi had some sideshows, and one was a series of panels at the Driskill Hotel about food. (The actual module was entitled Food and Experiential Dining. Yawn.) Most of the panels were about tech and food, and the dreaded Nathan Myrhvold was invoked, as well as social media et. al., but there was a nice session about food and heritage in which late-generation ethnic-heritage people (Jewish, Mexican, Palestinian) talked about keeping their ancestors' cuisines alive and relevant today. More like this and fewer about making money and this could be a viable draw. 

This year, I swore not to go see any live music. Skimming the list, I found only two acts I recognized out of the 3.8 million listed (figure approximate). One was the Gang of Four, which was actually the Gang of One Plus Three Employees, and the other the Zombies, who I was never crazy about but are apparently in fine fettle. Negotiating the din and drunken crowds held no appeal whatever, but I hit on an ingenious solution: movies. Here was a chance to see living and dead musicians, situations whose importance I already knew but could always learn more about, and maybe even something left-field that I knew nothing about. So at 3:15 on Friday the 13th, I settled into a seat at the Alamo Lamar and saw Julien Temple's latest film, The Ecstacy of Wilko Johnson. 

Photo: Katy Woods

I'd seen Temple's remarkable documentary on Wilko's band, Dr. Feelgood, Oil City Confidential, and was much taken with Wilko's candor about his role in destroying it. He seemed a very complex character, and I was shocked, shortly after I'd seen the film, to learn that he had fatal pancreatic cancer and only a short while to live. Temple, a brave man, got his permission to film him dying and interview him along the way. It's a harrowing film if you don't know how things turned out, and harrowing if you do. I won't spoil things: go see this if you can. You'll never forget it.

I felt great: I'd figured out a way to participate in SXSW without heading into the Gate of Hell that was downtown! Of course, once Music fired up, that would change, but meanwhile I'd turned into a moviegoer. Well, I'd done that earlier: several months ago, I bought a screen and hooked it up to my CD player (which was also a DVD/BluRay player) and amplifier and started a subscription to Netflix to catch up on the 50 or so years of movies I've missed. 

Monday, with a great deal of ambivalence, I went to my next screening, again a world premiere. The film is somewhat legendary: Leon Russell hired the late Les Blank to do a film on him and then suppressed the result for nearly 40 years. Les was a friend of mine when I lived in California, and I loved his movies. In fact, I bought the Criterion box of his documentaries shortly after I bought my screen, and am working my way through it with great pleasure, since there are several I've never seen. So on the one hand there was that. On the other hand, I've always detested Leon Russell's shallow, superficial music and by viewing this film, inexplicably titled A Poem is a Naked Person, I'd be putting up with 2 ½ hours of it. 

Don't trust that smile. Not that he smiles much in the film.

Someone relented after Les's death, so here we were, gathered in the Topfer Theater at Zach (which is what Zachary Scott Theater is now called), the Great Man (or what's left of him) in attendance along with various other VIPs including Les' son, Maureen Gosling, Les' long-time assistant, and no doubt others I didn't recognize. It's easy to see why one might not want to be exposed in the way this film exposes Russell: he appears offstage in it very infrequently, and much of the film is spent with his entourage, with Austin artist Jim Franklin painting the bottom of his swimming pool, and gazing at audiences at the shows while the incessant din of the band hammers on. Unusually for Blank, there is no food in this film, unless you count the scene where a snake, someone's pet, eats a baby chicken. In every one of his other films, Les features the preparation and consumption of food. Like music, he seems to say, this gets people together in one place to share an experience and in so doing binds them in that experience. Since Russell is part of the early '70s' "we create, you consume" music culture, a food scene would be out of place, perhaps. I can't recommend the film, but that's me. If you think you might like it, go see it. 

I was dubious about my next film, Love & Mercy, a biopic about Brian Wilson starring...John Cusack? Only a friend's urgent recommendation -- and the fact that the screening happened when I had nothing better to do -- got me back to the Alamo. 

Yes, John Cusack. No, he doesn't look like Brian.

Man, is this not what you're expecting, and man is it good. What it is, basically, is the story of Brian Wilson meeting his second wife, Melinda, and her struggle to get him from under the heel of Eugene Landy, the psychiatric charlatan who was supposedly treating his depression and creative block. It's also the story of how he got that way, necessitating the services of Paul Dano as young Brian growing away from his brothers (and his cousin, Mike Love) as he has them record first Pet Sounds and then Smile. Neither Dano nor Cusack looks much like Brian, but boy, do they inhabit him. The same could be said of Paul Giamatti as Landy, Jake Abel as Love, and Bill Camp as the Wilson's abusive and envious father Murry: this film has some bad bad guys, adept at causing extreme psychological damage. All of the music is authentic: ever wonder what all those isolated track cuts on the Pet Sounds and Smile box sets were good for? I have no idea what Melinda Wilson is like, but Elizabeth Banks does a great job with her role, too. This is set for general release in June, so mark your calendars. 

The last film I saw was one I really wanted to see: Danny Says, a documentary portrait of the inimitable Danny Fields. Who? you say. A behind the scenes guy in New York who's been there seemingly forever and who's always in the right place: I remember him taking the stairs two at a time to come up to our office at Crawdaddy! in 1967 to see what we were doing and, after wishing us well and leaving Paul Williams noted that even at Hit Parader (Danny's current employer at the time) there were the kind of people we were trying to reach. Of course, Danny probably also wanted to see how cute Paul was or wasn't. 

Credit: Danny Fields Archive. Danny's the one in the t-shirt. Duh.

The 28-year-old director, Brendan Toller, makes it look easy, and it's true that once you start Danny talking it's hard to get him to stop, but there's a lot of craft here that's pretty much invisible but makes the film work. Amazing archive footage is interspersed with contemporary interviews, and the whole arc, from law school (who knew?) through managing (and letting go of) the Ramones, is here. If names like the Stooges, the MC5, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground and Nico, and the Ramones pop up in your pantheon, you need to see this. 

I managed to miss a documentary on Tower Records' rise and fall, one on British punkers the Damned, another on Mavis Staples, and one on local gospel phenoms the Jones Family, not to mention Joe Nick Patoski's Doug Sahm film, Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove, an early cut of which I saw a month or so ago and which I intend to catch at a San Antonio screening next month, but I'm pretty happy with this year's activity. I got far more out of it than the rather anemic Music panels I went to this year (although there were three scheduled for the same slot one day and the one I went to was a major disappointment), but I did manage to end SXSWeek feeling I'd made maximum positive use of my badge. 

And as for all those films I missed? I told you: I have Netflix now. I can catch up on not only some of this year's when they get pressed onto disc (I don't do streaming), but on some of the ones from years past.