Taking a First Pitch Strike

This was supposed to be a summer of the Old 97s. Julie and I were thinking about seeing them in Capistrano or Austin, but the constraints of work put those thoughts to the side.

What was possible? A trip to Lubbock to see them play at the Blue Light, Concert in the Park at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, and after a Saturday Rangers game in Arlington.

Funny thing about the timing of the concert after the Rangers game: when we bought them, we had already committed to taking our nephew and niece to a game the following Monday. Then, about three weeks prior, Jamey Newberg announced that Newberg Report night was going to be on the Sunday in between.

So, the summer of the Old 97s became the weekend of the Rangers. While we are both baseball fans, this wasn’t great news. It is hot. Unbearably hot. Nothing discomforts my wife more than Texas heat. Add to that, Julie and I have a running track record of no Ranger game we attend ending in less than three hours.

I read stats that the average game lasted about two and a half hours in the 70s. By 2008, it was two hours fifty minutes. In 2009, two hours fifty-two minutes. Games Julie and I attend last an average of two days.

Seriously. The last game we attended was May 27. The Rangers had a 7 – 6 lead after two innings. That lead lasted until one out into the ninth inning when Alex Gordon hit one about 590 feet off of Neftali Feliz. FIVE INNINGS LATER, Dave Bush gave up 3 home runs in the top of the 14th. Game time 4 hours, 36 minutes. And yes, we stayed for the fireworks show.

We were hoping beyond hope that we would get a quick game to start our Rangers trilogy. This was especially wished because the temperature at first pitch was 100 degrees. Our dreams were crushed by Matt Harrison’s 21 pitch top of the first followed by Carlos Villanueva’s 34 pitch bottom of the first. One inning down after 30 minutes.

At the end of the first, I looked around and wondered about the Rangers “Red” weekend. We were supposed to wear red, but nobody in our section got the message. The couple to my left wasn’t wearing red. The five people to me right weren’t wearing red. Admittedly, one was Julie because she was wearing an Old 97s shirt. But 13 of the 16 people in the row in front of us weren’t wearing red. Nor were 8 of the 14 in front of them. The row in front of them? 13 people, none wearing red.

You can’t blame them, really. The Rangers were wearing white with blue caps. No red there either.

In the third inning, Josh Hamilton hit a triple. This qualified everyone in the stadium for a free month at freescore.com. This is Transunion’s foray into competing with the catchy freecreditscore.com jingles? Attendees at baseball games?

Chris Davis arrives with his annual tease to Texas fans with an RBI single. I don’t want to sound harsh, but it is getting tiring seeing Crush lead the minors in homeruns followed by threatening the all time major league strikeout record.

I want Crush to succeed. I root for anyone from Texas. And as of last night, I think the Rangers had three guys from Texas, that went to school in Texas, that play for Texas.
Crush (born in Longview, played at Navarro Junior College)
David Murphy (born in Houston, played at Baylor)
Omar Quintanilla (born in El Paso, played at University of Texas)

In the middle of the fifth inning the fan camera catches a woman who does not want to be on the video board. She flips off the camera.

In the top of the sixth inning, something I have never witnessed. The first four Toronto batters complete a cycle, going for a homerun, double, triple, and single in 14 Harrison pitches. One inning later, with two outs and a man on first, Harrison is pulled at 101 pitches. As Ron Washington approaches the mound, the man behind me says “About time, Mr. Washington. About time, Mr. Washington.” This after Harrison got the first two outs of the inning on swinging strikes.

This man and his female companion were a special kind of annoying. This is because he would say, “Alright, hit it here,” every time a right handed batter came to the plate. Saying this a couple times each at bat, I easily heard this around 40 to 50 times. Add to that, she did not have her phone on silent. I was alerted to every text message she got, which she then read out loud to him. Best moment? Her asking how to spell “incognito” and him getting it wrong.

In the bottom of the 7th, Toronto brings in Jason Frasor. Julie says, “We’ve seen him pitch before.”
It is pretty cool when your wife recognizes major league relief pitchers.

In the top of the ninth, Adam Lind hits a foul ball to the second deck. Some genius throws the ball back on the field. It lands between the Toronto third base coach and Rangers third baseman Chris Davis. Mr. Incognito chuckles and says “That is hilarious.” I don’t get people. Five feet either way and someone might have a concussion.

Finally, not knowing a game already over two hours and forty-five minutes old could be slowed down, Mark Lowe walks a batter and allows a single in 16 pitches. I tell Julie that his warm up music is Copperhead Road by Steve Earle, a song that tells how the man in the story had family that killed a government agent and ends with a death threat to the D.E.A.

At 10:05, three hours after first pitch, Ed Napoli is in the middle of working a leadoff walk. When Michael Young hits his game winning single, which Incognito calls a walk off homer???, the game is 3 hours and 8 minutes old.

The Old 97s went on at 10:26 and played until 11:32. The last two shows were heavy on The Grand Theatre Vol. One and Two. Standouts include Every Night is Friday Night, Champaign, Illinois, I’m a Trainwreck, and Manhattan. I prefer both albums to Blame it on Gravity, which did little but assure that I would hear Dance with Me at every live show.

We got home well after midnight. I swear it was still 95 degrees.

Jeden Fanta, Jeden Sprite

The other day, my co-worker sent me this link. http://www.vbs.tv/watch/from-poland-with-love
The video follows a couple as they move through Poland, learning about current Polish culture.
After watching it, I don’t know how I made it through Poland without drinking alcohol.

That was in 1995.

McVey and I hadn’t even intended to go to Poland. While we were in Amsterdam, we met this girl who had been teaching English in the former Eastern Europe. She told us we had to go.
In one of our morning conversations, we decided to check out of the hostel and catch a train to Warsaw. This was a great decision. Other than the fact that we got stuck on the German border and had to wait for a later train, it was an awesome experience.

(Side note, Frankfurt-am-Oder is where we saw Waterworld. Dennis Hopper dubbed into German was cold blooded.)

All four nights in Warsaw, we stayed in a convent for less than a dollar a night. You were only supposed to stay a maximum of three nights, but for some reason, they let us do it. I have a theory that they liked McVey.
When we arrived, our train was one of the earlier ones to roll into town. We walked to the convent to see if we could book that night’s visit. The hostel portion was closed. This was not unusual. Most hostels generally kick you out in the morning and don’t let you back until late afternoon.
I encouraged McVey to call out for someone. Maybe at the very least, they would hold our bags for us. I told him to use his Polish language skills to talk them into it. He pointed out that he spoke very, very little Polish.
I then pointed out that he had taken several years of Latin in college. Surely, the sisters in Warsaw knew the liturgy in Latin and would appreciate someone using the language to communicate. McVey jokingly looked to the large wooden door blocking our way to the hostel, raised his hand in oration, and said “O magna porta!”
This was one of those tilt your head and stare moments.
“We had to translate text where the narrator talked about the great door.”

He walked up to the door to a small cross affixed to the wall. I kid you not that McVey pulled on the cross and a doorbell rang.
No one answered, but McVey found a recess above the entryway where he could hide our bags.

I remember walking to some waterway and taking a nap on the bank. When I woke up, there were two men drinking from a bottle nearby. How great was that?
The people of Warsaw were comfortable drinking. They also had no problem smoking. One time, we were waiting at an intersection to cross a street. There was a woman pushing a toddler in a stroller. The child was at exactly the level of car exhaust blowing directly into his face.
“That’s good,” said McVey. “Makes lungs strong.”

We stayed in a loft over a common dining area that had an opening facing the church. We woke up every day at dawn to the sound of their prayers / chants in the church.
The first night, someone made a mistake. There was a young woman in our room with us. I remember her on the bottom bunk bed with her blanket wrapped around her with her eyes closed. She had to be thinking it was a bad dream. She bolted our room first thing in the morning.

One night, there were four Russians in the room with us. They kept talking in whispers and looking at us. Then you would hear them say “Amerikanski” and they would burst out laughing.

We stayed at a more conventional hostel in Wielieska where we had the misfortune of meeting the dumbest dumb American ever. He was from Michigan. When we met him at the dining table, he was complaining about getting a ticket on the tram because there were no signs saying he had to buy a ticket before he boarded.
We compared notes later, and at the table, we had a Let’s Go: Europe, a Rough Guide, and a Lonely Planet that all had information saying how important it was to buy your tickets in advance.
The next day, we were in the city square and ran into him. He had just learned a Polish curse word and wanted to share it with us. It was so embarrassing. We already knew about the word because of the girl we met in Amsterdam. This word is as bad as or worse than MF is here. And he kept trying to say it. His pronunciation was horrible, but he was still offending people left and right.
The next night, we were at the dinner table and he said Birkenau was not worth visiting. He said, “It has nothing but a bunch of buildings.”
This guy from Australia named Anthony couldn’t contain himself. He says, “How can you say that? It is such a visceral experience. Just rows and rows of buildings, each one stacked three high with planks for bunk beds, full of innocent people waiting for death…” Anthony looked at him for a split second and, realizing the futility, trailed off, “Oh, forget it.”
When my applesauce disappeared from the refrigerator earlier, Anthony said it happened to him, too. “Someone pinched me margarina.”

Anthony told a story one night about how small the world was. He said that a couple of months before, he was in England and was talking to a guy in London. The guy asked Anthony where he was from. Anthony said Canberra.
The guy tells Anthony, “I’ve only met one other person from Canberra, a girl named _____. She was a school teacher.”

It was Anthony’s sister. Anthony was roughly following her route from when she visited Europe two years before.

It is disappointing to think that no matter how small the world becomes, I am more likely to bump into Michigan than Anthony.

Just Don't Ask Them Why

In a 24 hour period beginning Saturday night, Julie and I went from hearing the last twangs of Willie Nelson’s birthday concert in Bee Caves, spending the night in downtown Austin, then returning to our home in Fort Worth and watching streaming video from the Al Jazeera web site announcing Bin Laden’s death. Somewhere in there, Julie worked four or five hours by remote access.

So the answer to the questions, “What were you doing when you heard about 9/11” and “What were you doing when you heard about Bin Laden” are checking phone messages at a doggie day spa and writing down the set list from a Willie Nelson concert.

When I was working in Dallas, one of the first things you did was check messages to see if any dog owners had made inquiries since close of business the day before. Because the radio station had mentioned a plane hitting one of the towers in New York, I turned on the tv normally reserved for showing a VHS about our kennel facilities. At the time, I had seen Willie Nelson perform twice. Both times were in Austin.

In the ten years hence, I had only seen Willie twice before last weekend. I don’t think the set list has changed all that much. I remember one show in Grand Prairie where he sang a lot of newer stuff, including some IRS tune, Stardust and Goodnight, Irene. And there was a song swap in Austin with Merle. That show was recorded. I know because one of the cameras was on a track directly behind our row of seats. I’ve always meant to find that, because that night, they said it was the first time they had performed Pancho and Lefty live together.

Other than that, I don’t think anyone that has seen Willie will be surprised by this list:
Whiskey River (Johnny Bush)
Still is Still Moving to Me
Beer for My Horses
Shoeshine Man (Tom T. Hall)
Good Hearted Woman
Funny How Time Slips Away (Billy Walker)
Crazy
Nightlife Ain’t no Good Life
Down Yonder (solo by Bobbie)
Me and Paul (with Paul actually on the snare drum)
If You’ve Got the Money (I've Got the Time) (Lefty Frizzell)
Georgia (Hoagy Carmichael)
City of New Orleans (Steve Goodman)
To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before
Help Me Make it Through the Night (Kris Kristofferson)
(solo)
Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson)
Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys (Ed Bruce)
Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground
On the Road Again
Always on My Mind (James/Christopher/Thompson)
Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By) (Carter Family)
Nobody's Fault but Mine (Blind Willie Johnson)
Superman
You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore
Phases and Stages (Walkin’)
Bloody Mary Morning
I Gotta Get Drunk
Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank)
Hey, Good Lookin’ (Hank)
Move it on Over (Hank)
I Saw the Light (Hank)

31 songs. 30 performed by Willie. On 14 of these, he has songwriting credit. Two others, Whiskey River and Funny How Time Slips Away, he has made his own. You might make an argument for Mammas, but I think that is Waylon’s song. Georgia may have been a number one hit for Willie, but that song belongs to Ray Charles. And Always on My Mind had been done before, but I will always remember Elvis recording it after the breakup from Priscilla.

Of the other 14, two are by Kristofferson and four are by Hank Williams. Needless to say, those four bring down the curtain. I once told my dad after a show that Willie has the unique ability to make 3000 drunk people sing I Saw the Light. He received a similar response with Amazing Grace at another show in Austin.

Like any of the old timers with too many hits to keep track of, you are sure to miss a few. I have only heard Seven Spanish Angels live once, and would have lost money if you had told me that I wasn’t going to hear Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. No Pancho and Lefty. No Stardust. And I’ve heard him sing Luckenbach after Waylon died, so I can’t complain. The old man still puts on a good show.

The venue and crowd helped. By that I mean that the Backyard has a great feel and wonderful sound. Being outdoors, we were worried when we saw the Austin forecast of 95 degrees. But towards the hill country, it probably never got above 90. And as the sin went down, it was below 80 with a wonderful persistent breeze. The sightlines have the occasional obstruction of a tree in front of you, but that should be expected. What the Backyard gets wrong is a crazy parking facility that has no lines, no markers identifying where you parked your car, and no lane definition so that exiting resembled a slow, non impact demolition derby.

And what was the deal with the seated general admission? I have no problem with the idea of a seated area being first come first serve, but the set up was unrealistic. When we showed up, it was still daylight, and the show had not started yet. There is no satisfactory way that we should see that the row of seats behind ours is full of people with their knees already pressed against the back of the fold out chairs, and the chairs themselves pressed right up against the row of chairs in front of them. Julie pointed out, thumbs up for being green and low impact, thumbs down on being non-ADA compliant.

The only reason this system worked is because of people just removing chairs and moving them out of the way.

You probably expect that any show in Austin is going to have their share of pot smokers. Just as you expect any Willie show to be well represented by the NORML crowd.
But a Willie show in Austin is something special. You don’t see the 20 somethings sharing their stash with their parents much, but in Austin? Sure!
It was beautiful, really. I imagine the parents were sticking with their California Sensimilla while the kids were more devotees of OG Kush.
And what it made it all the more meaningful were the four kids between six and nine years old behind us getting their first contact high. I can’t imagine the Goldfish boxes in that minivan were empty when they got home. But when you think that they have lived their entire lives with the United States at war, maybe they were heading down the protest path anyway.

They probably will never hear much about Pol Pot or Mao Zedong, but they will know people that hated Bin Laden. They will know what a big deal it was and hopefully, it will be just a subject covered in history class. And if yesterday’s actions made their world safer, maybe they’ll be taking their kids to Willie’s 100th birthday celebration.

How Much Can You Take

A few weeks ago, Julie and I were taking tree limbs to the city drop off point. We had the windows rolled down as the stereo played a mix of stuff on our iTunes. Every now and then a song pops up that is obviously from Julie’s playlist. Some of these, I listen to for awhile. Songs like “Paint Me a Birmingham” will last a few lines, but some get an immediate push of the “fast forward” button.

As we pulled up to the check-in station, our truck was approached by a city worker who was obviously very comfortable working outside. His hands were rough and he looked cool despite the perspiration soaking his work shirt. As the stereo moved to a selection by Christina Aguilera / Britney Spears / Aqua Force, I turned it down. I told her, “I cannot look this man in the eyes if that is coming out of the speakers.” To do so would be a metaphoric limp handshake.

With that in mind, Julie turned the tables on me during the trip back. On the return trip, we were driving on the freeway, minus our tree limbs. We had the sound up pretty high since the windows were down. Exiting onto the access road, we pulled up to a family sedan. She lowered the volume so as not to disturb them. I understand that she didn’t want to come off the same way that lowriders, highriders, or angry teens do. However, at the time, we were listening to Romantica. I don’t think Ben Kyle has anything in common with Trick Daddy, and I challenge anyone to find anything intimidating about Control Alt-Country Delete.

It reminded me of a car ride in San Antonio many years ago. After attending some festival that involved eating different types of sausage and Scotch eggs, my party was caught in traffic. Sitting in the passenger seat was my friend Jeff. His girlfriend was driving. I was sitting in the back with Jeff’s friend Ray. Though I was not driving, I was the only person in the car who hadn’t been drinking.

This full sized car pulls up next to us, and the driver is clearly checking out Jeff’s girlfriend. He cranks his stereo which is playing some M.C. A.D.E ultra-bass remix. We have to raise our voices to hear each other. The subwoofer kicks in, and every bass kick shakes our tiny car. Jeff leans out of his window. “You want to bump with us? We’re listening to Elton John, ---hole!”

The guy says something back to Jeff who reaches for the center console. “Turn this mother______ up!” As a result, whenever I hear “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” I imagine it at 140 decibels with nothing but tinny treble coming from factory Kenwoods. At some point, Jeff is banging his head to the downbeat, fist pumping in 4 4 time.

I wonder if I could have done that to “National Side.”

Grazing in the Grass

As a frequent watcher of sports, I hear the words unbelievable and miracle a lot. This is despite the fact that because the event is being viewed, recorded, and rebroadcast multiple times, I do, in fact, believe an even has occurred. And, while a team performance or individual moment might be outstanding, I don’t put it on par with paintings of the Madonna weeping.

A word that I am not having much problem with is “surreal.” I am not a huge fan of surrealism, as Dali and the like never evoked anything in me. However, if the word only means that it has a dream like quality, how can I judge that? I don’t know what other people dream. I don’t remember my own dreams most of the time.

I remember one day in high school, Dave telling me that he and Gruve were at a lacrosse practice. He said that in the field next to him, there were a bunch of men from India. They were playing cricket. They were smoking cigarettes. And they were cranking Hank Williams, Jr. as loud as it could go. Dave told me it was surreal. I always assumed the surreal part was that guys from India like listening to Bocephus.

We are less than a fortnight since the World Cup of Cricket. I don’t think that got a lot of play here. However, my wife and I were on the continent and only received one or two channels in English. BBC or Skynews or Euronews or CNN International touch on sports, occasionally. By sports, I mean soccer or Grand Prix auto racing. The entire time we were in Europe, the only mention of anything related to the United States was when an international runner announced he was injured and would not run in the London or Boston marathon. However, even soccer was pushed from the headlines because of the World Cup.

On the day of the finals, Julie and I were outside of Zurich. We were sitting on a deck at a pub that, as is common, couldn’t accept a U.S. credit card. If you don’t have a chip in your card, it has to be swiped. A lot of places don’t like paying extra for that machine, especially if they don’t pander to American tourists.

I was drinking a Coca Cola. Julie had a Carlsberg. The motorcycle enthusiasts beside us were smoking cigarettes. The Asian family on the other side of us was laughing and throwing watermelon rinds into the otherwise pristine river running beside us. The world cup was showing on a television inside, and despite the fact that no one spoke English, we kept hearing cries of “That’s good!” from the Indian patrons during their time at bat. It qualified as surreal. You know why?

My glass had seven or eight cubes of ice in it. That is truly dream like. This is the first time I have been Europe and not only been given ice without request, it was not just a singular die sized piece of ice. Plus, the bottle of Coke was frosty cold. It was a refreshing moment.

Also refreshing was the basketball game I watched as we settled in for the night in Paris. During the trip, there was a betting house that showed sports and let you wager on them. I told Julie that after a week of no sports, I would gladly watch a Minnesota Timberwolves game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. This was better.

It turns out that San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker owns partial interest in a French league team, ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne. ASVEL Basket was playing Le Mans. Because my wife is from San Antonio, we took a rooting interest in Parker’s team. At one point, ASVEL had three Americans on the court, USC’s Davon Jefferson, Clemson’s Cliff Hammonds, and Florida’s Matt Walsh. Walsh, incidentally, could not be stopped. He can shoot the ball.

But most of my time was spent watching former Dallas Maverick Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Does anyone remember that the Mavericks D-League team played in Fort Worth? Pops was on that team. Why didn’t I go see the Fort Worth Flyers play? Why wasn’t I a season ticket holder? Does anyone realize that Pops played professional basketball in Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston?

Now that is what I call “surreal.”