Chester Arthur Burnett, a k a The Howlin' Wolf

This morning on the Rag Blog I was delighted to find this off-hand masterpiece of a memory by Carl R. Hultberg. “When I was sixteen I made a fateful trip to New York City to visit my grandfather, Jazz critic Rudi Blesh,” he begins. “Rudi lived off the Bowery and in the Village he was in his element.” In the account that follows, he slips out of a Bleeker St. jazz club where someone, probably Erroll Garner is playing (“It was 1966, man, what did I need to be listening to jazz for?”), then finds himself bored by the prospect of seeing young James Taylor (“but it wasn’t the Lovin’ Spoonful so I got out of there…”). Ah,youth! If I was lucky enough to be in NYC in 1966 instead of Johnson City, Texas, I’m sure I would’ve made the same choices. James Taylor, not many regrets, but I know I’d feel remorseful about seeing some real jazz. But the great part comes next, when he ends up in Cafe au Go Go and catches the mighty Howlin’ Wolf and band. Front row is Davy Jones, of The Monkees, serenaded by the Mighty Wolf. Good god, man!  Here’s the link, but I have to say congrats to Carl for saying “There really are no words to describe this set for me.” Indeed! Waaaaooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” says it all, and only the Wolf himself can do that right.

Through the Gate in .

 

 

PS, I have written about the Wolf before, including in my first novel, Rock Critic Murders. Be sorry — VERY SORRY! — if you missed the Howlin’ Wolf Birthday Tribute Party I hosted at the Continental Club last June. But be of good cheer, pilgrims, we are doing it again in June 2010, when we celebrate 100 years of the Mighty Wolf.

The Howlin' Wolf Birthday Tribute, June 10, 2009, by Ricardo Acevedo

Because I’ve been out on the Great Plains (and some not so great) on a book project that leaves little time for posting new stuff here but also because I think she’s a great writer and reading her reminds makes me think how much I’d like to go back to New Orleans when I’m finished with my West Texas project, I wanted to put in a big, fat plug for Barb Johnson, who is currently on tour promoting her new book, More of this World or Maybe Another, recently published by Harper Collins, who has done a spiffy job of making the book easy to browse online, and if you’re hungry for more, read her recent interview with popmatters here. If I wasn’t already sold on her writing, I think I would be hooked by her answer to the question, “What is your favorite brain food?”

“For optimum cerebral and creative nourishment, I listen to music. Sometimes I choose a certain kind of music because I feel it is strong enough to wrestle down whatever other music is stuck in my head and driving me crazy. Opera is a good wrestler, but it’s also a pretty badass stalker. You got to be careful how you use it.
I like jazz and the blues—Wig Wearin’ Woman has been stuck in my head now for days—and I like singer-songwriter stuff.
My scientific answer: Curious George, the cartoon, is both brain food and palate cleanser for me. It is also an excellent tool for examining characterization and episodic writing. I love how the names of the characters explain the character, so you never have to ask yourself, Which one is he? The Man with the Yellow Hat, Jumpy the Squirrel, Professor Wiseman (who is a woman—hmm) and Charky, the most irritating dog with the most irritating name ever.”

Now how could you not fall in love with a writer like that? Curious George? Hell, yes! The Man with the Yellow Hat is one of my favorite books. Whenever I lead a writers workshop, I always tell my writers to study film noir for story structure, but also, cartoons and children’s books are hugely instructional. I mean, with those formats, you don’t have any room to dither around. Action is character, character is story, etc.

And “Wig Wearing Woman” speaks for itself. Barb is a writer after my own heart. Maybe she’ll steal yours, too.

Born in the Laplands near Lake Charles, LA, (so called because it’s where the Cajuns & the Texans overlap along the Gulf Coast) Barb Johnson has been a carpenter in New Orleans for more than 20 years. In 2008 she received her MFA from The University of New Orleans. While there, she won a grant from the Astraea Foundation, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and Washington Square’s short story competition. In 2009, she became the fifth recipient of AROHO’s $50,000 Gift of Freedom. More on that here.

Here’s more:

Born in the Laplands near Lake Charles, LA, (so called because it’s where the Cajuns & the Texans overlap along the Gulf Coast) Barb Johnson has been a carpenter in New Orleans for more than 20 years. In 2008 she received her MFA from The University of New Orleans. While there, she won a grant from the Astraea Foundation, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and Washington Square’s short story competition. In 2009, she became the fifth recipient of AROHO’s $50,000 Gift of Freedom.

From the rural Gulf Coast to a rough-and-tumble New Orleans neighborhood known as Mid-City, the stories in the collection pulse with an anxious inner life set down in the chaos of the street. Closely linked tales introduce us to teenaged Delia, who experiences first-love jitters atop an oil storage tank where she tries to work up the nerve to kiss a girl. Dooley’s music career takes off when he moves to the city, but some devastating news points to divorce and an impulse buy ends in tragedy. A sensitive alcoholic named Pudge survives his fat-boy childhood with an abusive father and then hides out from his own son, Luis. On the eve of his confirmation, the fatherless Luis drugs his mother’s boyfriend. It is a Mid-City laundromat that serves as home base for this cast of powerfully drawn characters who must all unite to save Luis from a violent end. Funny and haunting by turns, Johnson’s characters are driven by a fragile and irresistible sputtering drive to love and be loved.

“These are stunning stories. Barb Johnson is the kind of writer whose work I dream of finding and rarely do. Yes, precise and gorgeous language. Yes, a wonderful sense of humor, and another of pathos made over into something much more effective-a vision of all these people just doing the best they can and along the way becoming the best kind of stories-the kind that reveal, enlarge and make living seem worth the trouble.” — Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

editorial meeting

day at the beach

when everything matches

perfectly coordinated outfit

rock a bye baby

can’t do a thing with her hair

punkin pie

Fans of Preservation Hall will dig this new EP just released by the Preservation Hall Hot Four. It’s called “St. Peter St. Serenade” and it includes four cool songs and four videos, including an animated video for St James Infirmary. They do a very hip and weird new arrangement of the song and the video, which you can see here, is a riot. If you dig New Orleans, New Orleans jazz or whatever, I mean, if you just cool, you will dig it. I just bought it on iTunes tonight.
Driving into Amarillo through a wall of thunderstorms twice as wide as my windshield and almost as dark as my soul, staring out at the endless plains looking like the waves of some stony ocean on a forbidden planet, I felt about as far away from NOLA as possible, but now that I’ve got these tunes for the next leg of my trip, I feel much better. And yes, he (being me) does still have a bit of time to make his crazy pictures between interviews with attorneys and private eyes and the notorious Fat Cat and an old friend of Stanley the Creeper. Sure. Tomorrow, we find a place that sells scotch whiskey BEFORE we check in at the hotel. Plus, an Apple store, if there’s one between here & there, having left my charger/usb link back in Fort Worth. Have you heard about the giant boxes full of iPhone links and other cell phone deitrus these hotel clerks collect and sell on craigslist? Jesus, you could probably make some money that way. I’m in the wrong racket!
PS: I’ve been focusing on murder ballads, a genre that loosely describes “St. James Infirmary,” in both my club act and in some of my related writing and blogging for the past three or four years. See some of my other posts on the topic here and here.

Gross encounter: Scuba meets giant loogie on National Geographic site.

What’s it going to take to motivate people to change their ways, storm the ramparts, start a revolution or at least write their congressman once every couple of weeks on behalf of the planet we live on?

Maybe we have found the thing that will get people off their collective ass. I know that it moves me, and not in a pleasant way. In fact it disgusts the heck out of me.

I’m talking about sea snot. Giant blobs and loogies and amorphous islands of the stuff. It’s nasty and unhealthy and as much of a sign of illness as the kind that oozes from your sinus cavities. I first learned about it on the Rachel Maddow show and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. Kind of like a bad cold.

The scientific types are referring to it as “marine mucilage” and it consists of decaying matter from dead organisms and it carries nasty bacteria because it’s as sticky and gross as it looks in the videos you can find all over the web.

No surprise that it’s both a symptom of global warming of the oceans and a warning of just how gross, disgusting and lethal things will get if we don’t start getting very active about treating our environment better very, very soon. Like yesterday.

Remember The Blob? This is as stupid as the movie but it’s real and it’s not funny and it doesn’t even star Steve McQueen.

I have this religious thing about birds. When I go out and watch birds in their native habitat, I get this spiritual feeling, like the old Transcendentalists, Thoreau and Emerson used to talk about, how nature is the window on God, if there is one. If you think about it, treating nature like a toilet is shitting on God. Even if you’re an Atheist, you’ve got to agree that that’s not a great idea. If you’re a Satanist, I’m not talking to you anyway. Go play with your Dungeons and Dragons and read some Nietzsche or something.

Every spring I go see the whooping cranes off Rockport. It’s a miracle those creatures have survived everything we have done to the planet, and in particular, what we have inflicted upon this state in particular, where we seem to take pride in taking LAST place when it comes to education and health care and Numero Uno in spewing toxic pollutants into air, land and water. I see the whoopers there and I think, Gee, if they can survive, maybe I can do just about anything. I first had that thought when I was recovering from Stage 4 throat cancer. I still feel that. Maybe we can even save the world we live in.

There are gobs and gobs of sea snot links on the web. Go for it… if you dare… but be sure to write your Congressman and raise holy hell about sea snot, global warming, coal plants, gas guzzlers, the oil companies and everything else.

And while you’re surfing for sea snot, don’t be confused by the many sites devoted to the “snot green sea,” which is something else entirely, an allusion to James Joyce’s line about “the sea, the sea, the snot-green sea.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that line. I copped it myself in my song “(That Bitch) The Sea.” If you go to my Reverbnation page, you can play the song and download it until the sea-green-snot comes out of your ears. (be sure to turn off your pop-up blocker first).

Also, visit WCCA, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association.
National Geographic’s whooping crane page, with video.
National Wildlife Federation, on efforts to establish additional migrating flocks of whooping cranes.
International Crane Foundation, devoted to all species of cranes on the planet.

Last but should actually be first: Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, which is the Whoopers’ mecca between October and April. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for information on boat tours and visiting the refuge to see the birds and other wildlife and nature.

This cottage in the French Place neighborhood has a sidewalk door. I knocked but no one seemed to be home.

All was quiet at the “Flipper Rules” house.

Leaving Hoover’s after my excellent breakfast of catfish etouffee, I spied this Latina waitress walking directly across the street in the rain with a tray on her head. I followed her.

She was headed in the direction of El Chilito, which was two blocks away. The rain wasn’t so heavy anymore, but it was steady. Maybe she just lacked an umbrella.

I pulled over at El Chilito. Their food is very good, by the way. I could see that there was something on the tray but nothing big, so it couldn’t have been a delivery.

Three to-go containers of salsa were on the tray, nothing else. She smiled at me.

Whooping Cranes off Rockport, April 2009.

Sea snot, a k a “marine mucilage,” which is proliferating in the Mediterranean because of our warming planet. Bodies of this stuff sometimes stretch for miles and miles.

A green heron on Barton Creek May 18, 2009. Little green herons were especially active around Lady Bird Lake in May of this year.

I was watching this yellow crown heron on Barton Creek last May when he decided to go into rapid feather drying mode.

Yellow crowned night heron on Barton Creek in May 2009

Gross encounter: diver meets giant loogie on National Geographic site.

Mata Hari The Morning Of Her execution

I was supposed to be somewhere else but my mind started to wander so I wandered off to get some coffee. Really good coffee, as it turned out. A double shot espresso with golden brown crema flecked with tiger tail stripes. Very good, very, very good. You could taste the beans from the ancient valleys of Ethiopia, the cradle of coffee. A pocket full of centuries in every sip. So there were these four girls sitting in the booth across from me and I began to draw. Yes, they wore clothes. Drawing clothes is not one of my specialties.

Girl Thinks About it

Three of the girls were busy talking about something they had found on the internet. They all had their laptops. But girl number four was reading a book, of all things. She was the best looking. I kept trying to draw her. None of these pictures look very much like her.

Three Fish

But in a sense, these are all pictures of her, because I was trying, right? I was looking at her, and drawing her, so she’s in there somewhere. Then the fish intruded. No, it wasn’t raining that hard, but there they were. The first one said: Federico. The second one said: Garcia. The third one said: Lorca. Federico Garcia Lorca.

Mata Hari, Spy

Mata Hari, Spy

Mata Hari, Spy

Mata Hari, Spy

Three Fish

And then SHE shows up. Of all the espresso bars in all the towns in all the world. Mata. Hari. There she is.
I have a thing for Mata Hari. Great story. Her real name was Margaretha Geertruida “Grietje” Zelle. “Mata Hari” means “eye of the sun,” as in sunrise, or whatever you want it to mean. She was a courtesan, a term that has somewhat fallen out of use. Whatta gal. Last spring I rented the Greta Garbo movie, read a play and a novel and a biography of her. I’d love to write a new play about her myself. Maybe I will. This will have to suffice for now. An exotic dancer, a self-made woman who continually reinvented herself, she made Madonna look like a wannabe, an amateur, a piker. She was executed for being a spy October 15, 1917, which will be 92 years ago this week. Coincidentally. Was she really a spy? She was more victim and scapegoat than spy, but she ferried intrigue like George Jones throws off twang. Mostly she was misunderstood. Myth and rumor swirl around her like almost nobody else. People can’t even agree on what she wore to her execution, even though there are photographs. She probably wouldn’t even be famous if not for the Greta Garbo movie, which is mostly made up and a flimsy shadow of the real story.
There are some great pictures of Mata Hari on the Internet. That gal was something else. By the way, she married an abusive jerk in the Dutch army who was posted to the Dutch East Indies, where rumors roiled about her supposed promiscuity and she learned many of her skills in exotica. Just so happens that the Dutch East Indies was one of the very early stops on the migration of the coffee bean from its African birthplace. They got some good coffee there.

Mata Hari The Morning Of Her execution

“I wouldn’t mind being hit with a taser if there was some money in it,” says redneck cop. “I’d taser my own grandma for $100.”

Settlement in tasering of great grandmother has county official considering redecorating his chambers.

Reaction over a Travis County court’s agreement to award $40,000 to Kathryn Winkfein, a 72-year-old, 4 foot, 11 inch great grandmother who was tasered by a deputy constable during a traffic stop, a county judge is pushing for even more extensive of electronic stun guns. “If people won’t behave, we have to do something,” said Judge Cort Dawson of Williamson County yesterday. “If we aren’t allowed to enforce our own ideas of justice in the courtroom or even during traffic stops, we need to send these people a jolt that they’ll remember.”

The incident in which Kathryn Winkfein was tasered by Deputy Constable Christopher Bieze occurred on Texas 71 in western Travis County May 11. Winkfein, who was allegedly driving 60 mph in a 45-mph construction zone, was tasered by Bieze after she told him she wouldn’t sign the citation. A video linked to a story on the confrontation sent a huge spike the Austin Statesman’s website, which has been primarily visited in the past by web surfers who accidently typed “states” instead of “slate.com.”

Bieze was not disciplined for his actions because, said his supervisor, “He didn’t do anything wrong.” Precinct 3 Constable Richard McCain (see photo inset of redneck cop) called it a sad day for the county. “I think it’s a miscarriage of justice,” he said.

Constable Richard McCain

Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, however, voiced his disapproval of Bieze’s actions in a statement soon after the diminutive great grandmother was shocked and jailed for resisting arrest.

Winkfein originally asked for $165,000 but agreed to settle for $40,000. Taking the case to trial would have cost the county considerably more money.

McCain, more bitter than ever, said the settlement sets a bad precedent and that the tiny but feisty woman is being congratulated for her “bad behavior.”

“So anyone can write a letter to the county commissioners, and they’re going to start forking over our tax dollars?” said McCain.

Up in Williamson County, where law enforcement and justice officials have always taken a more aggressive stance toward anarchy and frivolous lawsuits, County Judge Cort Dawson urged county and city law enforcement officers to take a zero tolerance approach to shoplifters, jaywalkers, traffic violators and people rudely talking on cell phones in bank and post office lines. “Zap ‘em,” said Dawson. “Zap ‘em hard,” he said. “Once they’re down on the ground, jerking and urinating in their pants, they’ll regret they talked back to an officer of the law.”

Dawson further issued the county’s stamp of approval for schoolteachers, day car supervisors and parents to begin using the electronic stun guns on toddlers, misbehaving pets and the elderly.

“I think it sends a message,” said Dawson. “Let them sue. Once I get them in my courtroom, I’ll give ‘em a dose they’ll never forget.”

Probably the biggest down side to the whole affair has been the humiliation endured by Bieze over his weight problem. Hundreds of people who watched the video of the taser incident complained that at numerous places in the video, the scene was obscured by the deputy constable’s huge gut. As the 72-year-old great grandmother cowers on the ground, crying and screaming for mercy, Bieze’s humungous abdomen extends over most of the frame like a dark blimp.

“He either needs to go on a diet or we need to go to a new wide-screen format,” said an unnamed county employee.

Why not get grandma one for Christmas? Next time she brings out that nasty old fruitcake, give her a big jolt of electric love.

.

Nine Dragons hits stores everywhere October 13.

Fans of novelist Michael Connelly will have noticed by now that with each new novel featuring Lt. Harry Bosch, his veteran LAPD homicide detective, the pace is quicker, the plotting is tighter, the knuckles whiter. Not that any of these aspects were ever lacking before. Since his 1992 debut with The Black Echo, which won that year’s Edgar (a fact I well know since I was on the panel of judges that awarded it), Connelly increases his credibility each time out as a writer who knows LA, LA cops, noir, and all the inherent genre traditions that implies. This would be a simple matter if his first book had been a lame one, but it wasn’t (see above). Now, over a dozen novels later, the suspense and speed of his narratives has almost become too much to bear, going beyond the “can’t put it down” syndrome to the “where the hell can he go next?” question.

In Nine Dragons, which comes out on October 12, the question eventually even finds voice with Bosch himself. Believe it or not.

Connelly is a master at many of the things that draw us back to the deep well that is the noir novel. He gets the unique mood and weirdness of Los Angeles people, weather, traffic and the circus life, and he expertly uses music to not only establish mood, but inner dialogues. In Nine Dragons, Bosch listens to Ron Carter song on his iPod and observes that the veteran jazz bassist always seems to be driving the groove and pushing the tempo ahead, no wonder Carter mostly worked as a bandleader; he’s the kind of guy who has to run the show, even when he was working with Miles Davis. This isn’t just a comparison between the personalities of a jazz musician and a cop, but an omen of trouble ahead. Big trouble.
This novel starts with Bosch impatiently waiting for a new case. He is rewarded with a call to South LA, where an Asian liquor store owner has been murdered. History intersects, because Bosch met the victime during the LA riots and, as usual, LA’s psychic history is also Bosch’s psychic history. At first it looks like a routine robbery, but of course it isn’t. The victim was paying off a Chinese triad. Bosch picks up leads and clues where others see nothing and the case acquires momentum, though not, at first, enough for Bosch. Then he gets a cell phone video from his daughter, Maddie, now living in Hong Kong with Eleanor Wish, the estranged ex. Maddie has been kidnapped.
Within hours, Bosch is on a plane to Hong Kong, an outraged American cop with a mission. Meanwhile, the prime suspect in the murder, an Asian gang member who was captured on video collecting the weekly payoff from the victim, may have to be released from custody if certain elements of the case don’t come together, leaving things literally up in the air.
Arriving in Hong Kong and assisted only by Eleanor and her new lover, a Chinese man named Sun Yee, Bosch hits the place like a volley of Cruise missiles. The first site of impact is a bizarre bazaar of a hotel where he believes Maddie may be held captive. Bodies pile up quickly and the assault goes badly. The collateral damage isn’t just limited to the locals, either, and it should be no surprise to learn that the case quickly acquires numerous new twists.
Now, at this point, I’ll back off in the interest of spoiling the rest of the plot for you, but it’s worth mentioning that Nine Dragons does seem to belong to that category of cowboyish novels, where the righteous lone wolf hero is so inflamed with his mission that he lets nothing stand in his way. He’s so ferocious in his exalted rage that he can even invade a foreign — and in this case, very foreign — land and triumph against not only powerful and deadly foes, but a culture that’s almost extraterrestrial to the average American reader.
But, you say, Connelly is such a superb writer, the calories expended in suspending our disbelief will quickly burn off. The ride will be worth it, and the superabundance of procedural details and authenticity he brings to every book will still be enough to make you feel like you yourself could pass the exam at the LAPD academy, if you cared to go into that line of work. I mean, Connelly has so much cred with the boys in blue that he does book signings at the Los Angeles Police Academy.
Once I finished this book, however, I had another take on it. This is more than Connelly having Bosch dressed up in John Wayne drag, circa The Searchers. It’s much more. It doesn’t take a genius to see this as a post-9/11 allegory. Think about it, and not just because, if you slur the word just right, Bosch sounds a little like Bush. A tough American, outraged by an attack on his beloved, invades another country, vows to let nothing stand in his way. Things don’t go well. Lots of collateral damage. And in the end, the situation turns out to be quite a bit different than he had believed. Reacting quickly and unleashing Old Testament style vengeance has unforeseen consequences. Were the villains killed in these attacks nice guys? No. But they weren’t necessarily the right enemy to go after, and in the end, the carnage he inflicts is so extensive and horrible it may in fact be beyond salvation. The worst thing of all is that he realizes that he was, in many ways, the instigator of most of it.
So, it’s time for introspection and a wise, more measured way of doing things in the future, which is kind of where we’re at now, in the age of Obama. I hope it lasts a long time. And I surely mean that for the future of Michael Connelly novels as well. Just don’t slow them down too much.

Playing the noir jazz blues at the Texas Book Festival.

I’ve known Connelly since 1991. We met in LA before The Black Echo came out. At the time, I was writing my series of Martin Fender novels, and he was still a reporter on the crime beat at the LA Times. A couple of years ago, he and I did a joint appearance at the Texas Book Festival, where we were both promoting our latest products (I forgot which novel he was on, but as I am less prolific, book-wise, I know that mine was my last one, Never the Same Again: A Rock n’ Roll Gothic). Since music plays a significant role in his writing and since music has played a significant, to say the least, role in mine, I played a set of murder ballads and original tunes on my upright bass, punctuated by breaks during which he and I interviewed each other on music, life, noir, writing and other things. It was a pretty cool gig. Sure beats working.

falling in love again, sketch

falling in love again

The name is “falling in love again.” Maybe the rain had something to do with it. I started the sketch not long after breakfast at Hoover’s Home Cooking, catfish etouffee on biscuits, which was a great way to start the day.

catfish etouffe on biscuits at Hoover's Home Cooking

Hoover’s is definitely one of the best restaurants in Austin. It’s food that’s good for the soul, not just soul food and southern style cuisine taken to a new level. When I was recovering from cancer and chemo, Hoover Alexander’s cooking helped bring me back to life by making me want to eat again. It’s not that I didn’t have the will to do so, but it was physically, mechanically very difficult. If you’ve ever had extensive surgery on your mouth and throat and neck, followed by intensive radiation therapy and six months of chemo, you’ll know what I mean. Anyway, Hoover is one of my favorite people.
After that, I did my research at the Center for American History for the Lubbock book and also dug up some great new clips on some terrible people — thugs, pimps, dope dealers, killers, etc. Great stuff. While waiting for the stack of old Texas Monthly magazines I had requested, I drew this sketch and decided I liked it. The first one wasn’t any good. After finishing up at the history center, I came back home to Lois and Dashiell and enjoyed the rain. Dinner at the Shuck Shack. Oysters Diablo are good there. The bartender poured a pretty good drink, too. First we went to Justine’s, the new French place on East Fifth (way east, 4710 to be exact), but the wait was at least two hours. Too long, but the place looks pretty happening. While watching a very strange World War II film, Arch of Triumph, which stars Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, I did the coloring on this piece. Lewis Milestone directed it and it’s adapted from a story by Erich Maria Remarque, the same team that did “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
I didn’t realize until just now that there was a remake of “Arch of Triumph” as well as “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Ernest Borgnine is in it. When we lived in LA, Lois was driving down Ventura Blvd. one day and saw Ernest filling up his Rolls Royce at a self serve gas station.
Borgnine is a hell of an actor.

Ernest Borgnine, from McHale's Navy to Marty to From Here to Eternity

When we were in Paris, we spent some time at the Arc de Triomphe. It really is an amazing thing, not to be taken for granted. The bas relief on the sides are very moving. We were there for about an hour, but I could’ve stayed longer. I wanted to know all about each panel, not just the thumbnail story presented there, but all the cultural and historic nuances, the art history, the technical side, everything. Some of the panels made me want to cry.
Next day we went to Musee Picasso. I did cry there. I laughed a lot, too. Guess what, Steve Martin was there. He had an entourage with him and he wore a funny little mustache. Not sure if it was fake or real. It was so perfect you’d think that Picasso was winking at you from somewhere.

Your faithful blogger at Musee Picasso in Paris. France.

Speaking of that feeling, on my last trip to the downtown library, I was relieved to see myself over in the jazz CD section. You see, the last time I was there, I wasn’t there. What I mean is, they had taken down my “READ” poster from last year and put up the new guy. Sarah Bird was still in the same old place, but I was nowhere. No, I didn’t complain to anyone. But then I went back, and there I was, with a window view and everything, right above the jazz rack. That’s cool.

Elvis Costello, far right (and far skinnier than today)jams with the Skunks at Rauls.

This is a continuation of the Backstage History page I began a while back. I’ve already written about playing at Raul’s and it was covered in the 2000 Austin Chronicle story about the Skunks, which you can read on that page.

The Skunks always had the philosophy that if it’s rock n’ roll, it’s not brain surgery. We usually worked up new songs in the van or during sound check. Show the other guys the riff, give it a shot, bang it out that night at the gig. This usually worked fine. Really.

Before starting the Skunks in 1978, Eddie Munoz and I played one gig at an outdoor festival near San Antonio with a band after only an hour’s rehearsal. We played a weird collection of covers, including “My Boyfriend’s Back,” a couple of Beatles songs, something by the Young Rascals, and other eclectic stuff like that. The singer had just gotten out of rehab, probably by escaping. He was on thorazine. It sounded kind of like the New York Dolls crossed with the MC5.

By the time we started the Skunks, Eddie and I knew dozens of covers between us. We were fearless. Friends came to gigs to jam with us. Often touring bands stopped at our gigs and joined us. Elvis Costello came up to play “Mystery Dance” and then never left. He played on cover tunes, he played on our originals. We did “Pushin’ Too Hard,” by the Seeds, several covers from the Who in their early days, including “My Generation,” lots of Stones and Chuck Berry. … Wait, wait, there’s more. We covered the Kinks and I’ve always had a half dozen Lou Reed or Velvet Underground covers to pull out (in those days it was “Sister Ray,” “Waiting for My Man,” “Heroin” and “White Light/White Heat.”). The Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction” was a great song for us, and we loved Mose Allison — “I’m Not Talkin’” and “Young Man Blues.” We also knew a Twyla Gang song or two, plus some Dr. Feelgood, Bo Diddley and of course, Willie Dixon.

Oh, yeah, and the Yardbirds… but nope, no Led Zeppelin, no “Freebird.” We were capable of slamming out “Gloria,” “Route 66,” “Dirty Water,” “Shotgun” and even “Louie, Louie” with our heads held high, our amps turned up to eleven, but we never considered ourselves a “cover” band because we didn’t play the Top 40. We were playing the real shit, we thought. It was rock n’ roll.

Costello knew them all, of course. even came back up for our second set and played a bunch of hard core country songs, including “The Night the Bottle Let Me Down” and “Honky Tonkin’”. I wasn’t too keen on country music at the time and was anxious for him to get off, so I kept turning up the volume on my bass amp and using the fuzz box. Finally he got the message. I hate to sound ungrateful, because the fact that Elvis Costello jammed with us got us a lot of publicity and respect. More people came to our gigs to check us out. I just felt I had heard enough country music when I was growing up in Johnson City, Texas. Typically, the people who loved George Jones and Merle Haggard hated black people and wanted to kick my ass because I had long hair and wore mod clothes.

Lois Richwine and Debbie Harry, backstage 1978

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I met Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie when they were in town before their first gig here. I had a feeling the band might drop in at Mother Earth, which was really the only rock club in town at the time, except for Raul’s, which may have been having conjunto that night. The introduction was easy because I was carrying a pet skunk, which a fan had left with me for the weekend (Actually, the fan never came back for little Flowers, who had been de-scented but was still rather smelly at best and was not terribly cuddly most of the time and was definitely NOT house broken, as the fan said). Debbie and Chris came up to me and Flowers and petted flowers and received a gig flyer and an invitation to be on our guest list at Raul’s that night.

So the band came to see us at Raul’s. By mid-set, we had Clem Burke on drums and Frank Infante on guitar. We also may have had Jimmy Destri playing the keyboards left by the opening band, but I don’t remember for sure. No Deborah Harry, sorry to say, but they were all really nice people. We had lots of beers with them afterward. Besides being one of the greatest drummers of all time, Clem is a world class gentleman. Years later, our paths crossed often, when I was living in LA. He and Frankie jammed with the band I was in, which happened to include Kathy Valentine, his paramour at the time.

My then-girlfriend/now-wife, Lois Richwine, had been a major Blondie fan since forever. Years earlier, living in NYC, she used to go see the Ramones, Television and the Stilettos (the pre-Blondie band with Chris Stein) at CBGB. So it was only fair that she got the snapshot with Debbie Harry and her souvenir Skunks T-shirt.

One of the craziest nights at Raul’s was when Patti Smith came to jam with us. This was in 1979 and she was in town to play her first Austin concert the following night. I had been a fan of hers ever since her first single, produced by ex-Velvet Underground John Cale (“Piss Factory” and “My Generation”, if I remember correctly), followed by her debut LP, Horses, also produced by Cale. Cale was a real hero of mine (Later we got to open for him at the Armadillo). I had read a story in CREEM magazine about her jamming with a local band in Detroit, I think it was, so I knew it was possible. I showed up at her poetry reading at the university that afternoon and introduced myself and gave her a flyer for the gig. She said, “The Skunks, huh? I have a poem called ‘Skunk Dog’” I said, “I know, I like your poetry a lot.” Which was more or less true.” I said, “Why don’t come down and play with us?” She said, “I can only play in the key of E, you know.” I said OK, having read that, too, in CREEM. Actually, she couldn’t play a lick. She just strummed and wanked and made noise with the guitar.

So we spread the word that Patti Smith was coming to Raul’s to jam with the Skunks. She showed up. The place was packed tight. You could barely move in there and the temperature was about 120 degrees. She came up during the first set and we jammed. Eddie and Billy and I started this jungle thing and she chimed in with the noise and started chanting, “Have no fear! Have no fear! Tell God the Skunks are here!” There was more to it than that, but I forget. I had a cassette of it for a long time, but finally it disappeared.

The crowd went nuts. We finished out set after she left, playing “My Generation” toward the end and during the chorus, she’d grab the microphone and sing along.

It was a pretty cool night, except I found out that just because Patti Smith jammed with us, it didn’t mean she wanted to be pals. I tried to strike up a conversation but got nowhere. She was wearing this shortbrim hat and at one point, after she had irritated me, I patted the crown a bit and said, “Nice lid, Patti,” and she scowled and walked off.

We played the last set without her. By then everybody was so happy and loaded they didn’t give a shit.

The following year, Lois and I went to NYC, trying to get bookings for the band. Nobody would talk to us. One night we ran into John Cale at the Mudd Club. He recognized me from when the Skunks opened for him at the Dillo. We caught the band at their San Antonio show, too, and became pals with some of them. I gave him a demo cassette. Guess what? He liked it! He said to call his manager, Jane Friedman. We went to see her and five minutes after we walked into her office, she had booked a half dozen shows, starting with a Friday and Saturday at CBGB. She didn’t even listen to the tape or the record.

By then we were friends with the late George Scott III. George, formerly of James Chance and the Contortions, played bass for Cale and Lydia Lunch’s band, 8-Eyed Spy (a really great band!) and stayed in his apartment whenever we were in NYC. It was just around the corner from CBGB and after our second night there, we got drunk and left all our equipment in the van. The door locks didn’t work (hell, the thing barely ran). Jon Dee’s only guitar got stolen, Billy’s snare got stolen and I lost two Fender basses, my amp head and Lois’ little black Fender Music Master guitar. The one Patti Smith ripped the strings from. Boy, we were hung over that day. Hung over all the way back to Texas!
We opened for the Clash and Joe Ely at the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1979. Now that was a hell of a night. Ely was in his “Live Shots” era and the Clash were white hot. After the Dillo gig we had a gig at the Continental Club, which was right around the corner. A lot of the crowd from the concert came down to the Continental so we had a full house. Ely and Topper Headon and Mick Jones joined us onstage. I looked around and said, “Well, what do you wanna play?” Nobody said anything, nobody had any ideas. So I got to sing, which was fine with me. “You Keep A Knockin’”, “Route 66,” and a few others. We also did Ely’s “Fingernails.” I didn’t know any Clash songs and nobody suggested it anyway.
Big Dave, the door man, came up to the stage with Ely’s fancy cowboy hat. Seems like it was more like a mariachi hat or something, I remember it was decorated somehow and really, really big. In any event, I had always detested cowboy hats, going back to my time growing up in Rednecksville, Texas, and I always believed that cowboy hats were OK if you were riding a horse, roping cows and pigs. But not if you were supposed to be playing rock n roll. So when Big Dave tried to hand up Joe’s hat, I shook my head and said, “No way, no hats on my stage.” Big Dave was flustered. This was a big dude, one of the old Austin Opera House employees, if I remember correctly, a guy who looked like one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, cosmic cowboy all the way. He didn’t understand. His face got red. How could I forbid Joe Ely his hat? I could, I said, because it was my band, my stage. No cowboy hats allowed.
I explained to Dave later on and he understood.

Maybe this will help explain a little better. The Continental had recently been taken over by a partnership of guys from the old scene, Wayne Nagel, Roger One Knite Collins, Robin, Summer Dog, and another guy or two. They were all longhaired and bearded guys. The kind of guys you saw mixing with the Willie Nelson entourage. They were great guys, generous, hearty, funny, and they liked to party all night long. And then some.
Roger, whom I had met back in the days of the One Knite Saloon, was the most colorful of the bunch. (The One Knite, by the way, was more or less a biker bar located in the same building now occupied by Stubbs Barbecue on Red River; a small, dark, dank, dusty, smoky joint with a ton of weird junk attached to the ceiling and a coffin lid door and man, it was one of Austin’s greatest joints of all time.) Roger was a gambler for real and a kind of gunslinger-type personality. Long hair, beard, cowboy boots, gruff voice and a serious prankster. He never went anywhere without his cowboy hat. Nowhere. He wore it everywhere and he never took it off. It wasn’t just part of his image, it was his statement to the world.
But after seeing the Skunks that night, blasting our industrial strength rock n’ roll, flexing our muscles with the Clash and Joe Ely, Roger underwent a change.
Roger hung up his cowboy hat after that night. He even cut his hair.

PS. 10.3.09. The info on the jam with Costello has been added to this fan site. These things are pretty weird, one of the odd little gems of unknown value on the internet. I’ve seen sites devoted to Mick Taylor, cataloging all of his gigs, including many of those from the period when we had the Carla Olson Band featuring Mick on guitar. (I used to tell people that Mick was the only guitarist to quit the Rolling Stones and live to tell about it… until it got old and it didn’t seem funny anymore). More on those fan sites later.

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Top Texas attorney Dick DeGuerin lectures at UT with Texas Ranger Maurice Cook

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