My new office is located off of Research Boulevard in North Austin adjacent to the Riata Ranch “community”. This morning driving in I was in the left turn lane behind an ambling doe.
Upon arrival to my parking lot I saw another doe and a baby fawn crossing the lot.
“Humans! They’re not supposed to be here this early!”.
I’ll try to remember to put my camera in the car so that I can get a photo.
When I left Texas for wealth, fame, fortune, and desolation in the Silicon Valley in June 2000, I was in the habit of listening to A Prarie Home Companion. On the first show after my move I heard The Derailers sing a song called “California Angel”.
It seemed appropriate to me, at that time, that somehow APHC and The Hand of Fate knew that I had moved and they needed to welcome me to California with a bittersweet song about those whose lives are cleft twain by the need to be in either the Golden State or The Lone Star state while raw emotional ties lie severed behind in the other.
While the lyrics don’t map exactly to my situation at the time, here they are:
California Angel, I dream of you each night,
I’m back here in Texas, but you’re still on my mind
We were in the Golden State, when we held each other tight,
California Angel, I dream of you each night
Well since we met I can’t forget the sweet taste of your lips
Every time I think of you, my heart just goes a-flip
The wine they make up north there, never make me feel this way
I only hope to hold you in my arms again someday
Repeat Chorus
Well you shook me like an earthquake when I looked into your eyes
Kissed again a thousand times, then said our goodbyes
The words I whispered in your ears on the night we met were true
Memory of our sweet love just breaks my heart in two.
Repeat Chorus
Somehow hearing someone sing about Texas, while I was in that “other” former Mexican possession helped me feel not so far away from the familiar.
I have long had an affinity for Austin’s own KGSR and it was on this station that I had first ever heard of The Derailers. KGSR was an important tool in evolving my musical awareness from the “alternative” scene that was waning in those days ( and that now seems so utterly ridiculous: how can we still be doing the Nine Inch Nails thing 15 years later, I’m looking at you 101X? ) to the more artistic, a bit more country, a bit more rock, a bit more folk blend that I like more these days.
It was on a warm summer evening in my early days as a freshman at the University that I heard “Tear Stained Eye” by Son Volt, it was on their frequency that I first heard the dirty, grinding, jangly guitars of Lucinda Williams’ masterpiece “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”, it was there that I heard Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Conversation with the Devil”, for me Austin is KGSR and Magnolia Café and a cold sweating beer on a muggy night at Shady Grove.
This in mind, upon my return I quickly re-calibrated my radio presets to put 107.1 in slot number 1 as I re-entered town. It was on this station that I heard Dave Alvin’s song “Here in California”. Below is a quote of what I remember from the first listen:
…
A time for questions we can’t answer
Though we ask them just the same
Here in California fruit hangs heavy on the vines
There’s no gold I thought I’d warn you
And the hills turn brown in the summertime
I didn’t catch all the lyrics, but when I came to read them, I learned that this song was, in fact, penned by Kate Wolf, a folk singer in that strange folk axis that joined Austin, Texas and the Bay Area in the late seventies. And now here I was, another person in that strange Austin / Bay axis.
Yet I had a mentor in being a person of this axis: a professor. The professor was my MIS 333K professor, Rick Byars. Byars’ class, in a word, is a bitch. Regrettably the MIS program has no weed-out class to abuse the other majors with early on [1]. Instead the class that will tell you if you might have a chance in IT is MIS333K (thus it’s a weed-out of people who have already been weeded-out of other disciplines: IT people are clearly masochists). In this class you’re expected to put all that business programming knowledge you gained in your previous classes into effect. The crowning gem in that 6 weeks before the final you’re given a project specification which you, and 4-5 other students are expected to deliver. It’s an introduction to all-night coding, picking up slack from other slackers teammates, and trying to get something delivered.
The last class of the curriculum is Rick’s story of his life. An MIS degree gives you some really difficult talents and opportunities. When you’re that much in demand on graduation (or at least at the zenith of the ‘new economy’) and the work is not ending, and you’re competent, you can easily get caught in the pursuit of thin things. Rick knew of this tendency and danger and tried to warn us of it. Like most advice though, you don’t see its truth or relevance to your own life until after you have made those same damnable errors.
It was thinking of Rick’s speech, and that all the alums who came back talked about how important it was, that replayed frequently in my mind these last several months as I thought about leaving the Bay. Rick had been a folk musician in Austin (performing on the Drag with musicians (and later “Night Court” judge Harry Anderson) ), and then headed to the Bay. I’m not sure of all the details, geography, or chronology, but I know he taught computer programming at a community college system somewhere in Northern California and I know he spent time as a white water rafting guide.
And then he came back to Austin to teach and become one of the MIS degree program’s most venerable institutions. This lecture about choosing a good life, not just the comfortable life full of stuff, is surely one of the reasons why. He would play guitar a bit, sing a bit, show us his record ( these old vinyl things that make music when you run a needle on them ) and we’d laugh a bit.
He also would spit out a 5 bar blues every year about what a bitch the 333K class was, it’s always a good laugh.
I always thought it was a good circuit and a good story. His was a good stretch of a life spread across a number of years. I was amazed and, because of my respect for the man, a bit thankful to see that I, too, had completed a similar odyssey to the West Coast, had good adventures, had good experiences, before heading back to the Capital City.
And so I too was back, listening to those words and thinking about how the Californian hills do turn brown (although I’d call it more gold) in the summer time. I decided I’d like to know more about this sweet and observant songwriter, Kate Wolf. I learned that she had fallen victim to leukemia, tragically cutting short tender lyrics before their time As I looked to find out about her recordings and catalog, I came across this image in Google[2].
From: http://www.katewolf.com/video/california.htm
It’s a picture for a video of Kate Wolf singing in NorCal.
The friend in the lower-right picture is none other than teacher, mentor, traveler of the same cycle, Rick Byars.
The season of closing cycles.
There is yet gold in California: the friends I made there and the experiences I had are the gold that make a life rich, and the sunny spun gold that cascades from my sweet Lauren’s head is all the proof that I need that aurium exists there yet.
Just letting everyone know that I survived the first week. I’m into the second week.
I must say that with the great numbr of classes offered by yogayoga it’s pretty easy to take a class when something comes up. Late meeting? Go to a later class at a different location. Early meeting? Early afternoon class.
I think that you lose a bit of having a relationship with the teacher aspect, but you also lose the “oh damn, I’m going to be 5 minutes late, guess I’ll skip today” excuse.
Wow,
Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora: When the Rain Begins to Fall
The badness is absolutely insurmountable.
Note the excellent use of stage dancing as a martial art.
Come to think of it: Kevin Federline, Kung Fu, KF == KF. Coincidence? I think not.
I hate torture. It so quickly mutilates us from human to barbarian.
What hath the Bush administration wrought?
Is it just me or is Posh looking a bit like Von himself here….
Mmmhmmm…
The first rule of Buzz Aldrin fight club is: you do not talk about Buzz Aldrin fight club.
Why I love living in Austin
Yesterday, after I got home from yoga, I ran into my girlfriend at my house ( of all places! ) and she remarked that she had been cooped up all day and wanted to get out and do some walking. So, we cooked up some leftovers and then headed into town.
The question was: where to go that didn’t involve spending money ( things are a bit constrained post move, movers’ expenses, auto moving expenses, double rent, setting things up, ad nauseum ) and that didn’t involve eating things as we are both trying to shape-up post Bay Area lifestyle (deserts, gelato, pecan pie a la mode, ad nauseum, literally).
We settled on a walk around The University. Due to some strain she had inflicted on her knee, my girl was not up for climbing lots of stairs, so we wound up trying to take an easy, wandering route. We walked up 21st street, through Painter Hall, along the College of Business, around the back, along the east side of the Tower near Welch Hall, and then up the Eastern stairs to the Texas Union.
Preparing to leave the union, I wanted to show Lauren the Texas Student Union’s Cactus Club. As we neared the door we heard a really great female vocalist singing.
We walked a bit closer to The Cactus’ heavy door and the gentleman manning the door urged us in to catch the last few songs of Idgy Vaughn’s set. Ms. Vaughn, tiny, petite, thin, with a shock of red hair was singing in a voice that consumed the air of the club and playing gently lilting chords out of a single coil pickup Fender. We caught her final two numbers: “Good Enough” and “Redbone Hound”.
This serendipitous peripatetic led us to hear her beat out a sad, sad song about trying to be good enough for someone who’s angry, or, maybe someone who’d been angry all along, as the lyrics say. It was touching without cliché and very, very beautifully sung. After such a melancholy number, “Redbone Hound” was a real spirits-raising, crowd-pleaser, and several of the audience knew just where to sing along.
The narratrix describes that after having failed so many times trying to find a good guy to call her own, she’s opting instead for a “Redbone Hound”. She waxes that they, at least, will be able to sing along together:
arrrOOOOOOOOOOO
arrrOOOOOOOOOOO
and be howlin at the mmOOOoooooOOooooonnnn
It was such a laugh, such a joy, so funny, we were laughing the whole time.
We were a bit sad to see that we’d missed most of the set, but she seems to have a weekly gig at Beck’s on Congress, we’ll be catching the show next week on the 28th, if not the show tonight.
Nowhere is this more readily seen than when learning a language, in this case Ruby.
def something
puts "Say Something"
yield("\t[", "]\n")
end
something { |startchar, endchar| puts startchar + "Reggae, Reggae" + endchar} something { |startchar, endchar| puts startchar + "Rasta, Rasta" + endchar}
Produces…
Say Something
[Reggae, Reggae]
Say Something
[Rasta, Rasta]
Stay irie, my bretheren.
Yesterday I went to YogaYoga.
If you look back through my historical posts you’ll realize that for quite a while I was a regular attendee of an Iyengar class in Mountain View. At the time I wasn’t working as well as I am now, I wasn’t learning as much as I am now, and I certainly wasn’t in an excellent relationship.
To this end, it was easy to appear twice weekly at yoga and go to the gym thrice a week.
But as those aforementioned aspects improved, my energy / time for attending yoga simply seems to have dried up. To wit, I’m in pretty poor shape.
Having moved out of the Bay and having some time available, I decided to get back into yoga. It was a good activity that had many, many benefits. So, yesterday was my first day and I took a class in Kundalini yoga.
It was definitely different from the Iyengar-style class I was taking in Mountain View, but I can’t say that my muscles aren’t sore today.
I’m also doing an early-in, early-out work shift since I moved. So, I leave work around 4:15, head to the studio, do my class, hang out and dodge traffic, and then head home.
I’m a bit loath to type this because I dread the “Oh crap, I blew it” confession I would have to make, but I’ve committed to 40 days of daily yoga. Whew. I’m hoping to uncoil my bound up hamstrings and get some strength in my back.
I’m a bit daunted by the idea of doing something physical for 40 days in a row. What if i want to lay around and eat donuts? I guess this decision means that I have to choose between a comforter and a bear claw and uttitha parsvakonasasna. It’s sorta sad and embarassing that I’m intimidated by the idea of sweating for 70 minutes a day.
So, the first step has been, uh, stepped. Today I’m taking a Hatha Style class. Hatha is more physical and stretchy. I’ll be pancake batter tonight.