texas

Whoah Texas. We eased ourselves in to this gigantic state by stopping in Fort Worth (“Dallas’s retarded little brother” to quote a South Texan) for a night. Justin took us to dinner at the legendary Joe T Garcia’s where we gorged ourselves on fajitas and got crosseyed on Everclear margaritas, were treated to more beverages during our visit with Honea at The Moon, and round about midnight we hit up the new art museum where Jake and Justin battled strings in The Vortex, a giant sculptural shell with crazy acoustics.

j-lo's boot collection

On our way to San Marcos the next day, Champ took one for the team at a traffic circle in Waco, where one big truck drove straight into our side door because couldn’t see us through the other big truck that was next to him. Classic. Needless to say, it was his bad, and as a result Champ would get a new muffler and we would beat the shit out of the door enough to be able to open it again.

takes one for the team

We were just tickled to death to see Margaret in her natural habitat in San Marcos. Right away we hit up the river, which springs up right around there and stays a steady 72F degrees all year long. It’s very invigorating and we would visit it many times during our visit. We also went to some local open mics, including the legendary Cheatham street bar, which rattles with the passing train, and where you can go to sympathise with all those cowboys who know what it feels like have the screen door slammed in their faces. Ouch.

after hours at wonder world

catching up over jelly bellies

To celebrate America we floated the river with the whole population of the hill country. The combination of bbq smoke, river weeds, spray on sunscreen and obesity in bikinis made me speechless and slightly nauseous. To take it up a notch we went to Wal Mart and purchased a giant watermelon, key limes, a $2 bottle of white wine and a lilo for Lake Austin. And then finally we met Babe aka Bird aka Ranger who took it upon himself to be our local guide. 4^th of July entailed its (un)usual festivities. (Fireworks should be left to the pros). We wandered from bbq to lake to bbq to lake and back to bbq for a nightcap of some five million odd jalapeno poppers and pina coladas. We slept at Babe’s empty childhood home and the next morning he took us to check out the crick and the speculated site of a Native American camp, with hellof shards of old old glass, some arrowheads if you’re lucky and a rock scorpion sculpture facing dead west. What’s that all about.

can't you just smell em

babe loves his model cars

hm sweet creek

Jake had his first Austin show that night at the house of Natrix Natrix Records hosted by the lovely Rhonda, who made us guacamole and roasted corn and pioneered the after party dance party. Then we finally made it to Austin proper and met up with Sleazer at the bar after about 5 years. Jake and I slept in an empty apartment renegade style with a note on the door that said “Talk to Mike at #4 before opening this door. My friends are sleeping in here. Thanks.” It was a little awkward expecting the new tenant to move in the next morning so we slept behind the closet door.

The next morning we migrated to my old friend Coutney’s house and spent a few lovely days partaking in her life with her fiancée Will and falling in love with their pug babies Gomez and Hermes. With car repairs underway we got to cruise around in a hybrid 50mpg Toyota Prius courtesy of State Farm Insurance and dragged our hot bodies to Barton Springs, the heart and soul of Austin in the summer. Ah!

hermes love

Meanwhile Jake played two more shows at the Spider House and The United States Art Authority. Despite the fact that he had to set up his own p.a. the first night, that the electric guitar suffered technical difficulties and that the staff weren’t informed of his show the second night, j.p. & t.n. still managed to rule. And plus we got to try the frito burrito and ultimate grill cheese on the house.

despite technical difficulties, at least the lighting was beautiful