Friday Night Videos

I probably became aware of Marcia Ball 30 years ago. While she played regular gigs around Texas and was a popular guest on Austin City Limits going back even further, I never saw her perform live. Until last night. Lisa and I scored tickets to see her at Jazz TX in San Antonio, and I'm happy to report that Ms. Ball gave an outstanding performance. My only regret is that I didn't catch her live 30 years ago--that's a lot of good music I have to play catch up with now. Here's one of her signature tunes, "That's Enough of That Stuff."

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine.

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Reading Playboy for the Articles: April 1972

My wife, Lisa, has acquired a large collection of vintage Playboy magazines. I'm flipping through those issues that catch my attention and offering my thoughts on the non-photographic content that filled its pages. You know, the articles.

Highlights: Man, I don't know how this could ever be a highlight but what immediately jumped out at me--on the inside front cover, no less--was a Smirnoff ad that threw serious shade at classic gin martinis and made the cringe-inducing argument that vodka and peppermint schnapps makes for the only drinkable martini. I mean, I knew the cocktail dark ages began in the 1970s but I had no idea they happened this early, this aggressively and this egregiously. Look, I've made no secret of my belief that vodka only exists for those souls who want to get shitfaced as quickly as possible but don't want to taste themselves doing so. James Bond be damned, a vodka martini isn't a real martini. And for those chumps who look

down their nose at vermouth as something that only ruins otherwise good spirits, I say: vermouth is an aromatized, fortified wine! It is not shelf stable! You have to refrigerate it, dipshit. If you don't, of course it's going to taste like garbage! I mean, my first 1970s issue is not starting off on the right foot, is it?

But of course it gets better. And by better, I mean much, much worse. A few pages later I was struck by this eyesore of an ad:

I mean, sure, all my life I've heard how the 1970s were a fahion trainwreck where poor decisions intersected bad taste on an epic scale. I mean, the first decade of my life was spent living through this decade. But something repeated so reflexively begins to take on an air of cliche, to the point where one is tempted to soften condemnation a bit. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Nope. With a single ad H.I.S. Jeans and Western Shirts confirms everything that's bad about 70s fashion. And just to underscore this isn't a one-off, there are a couple other ads in the issue that underscore unfortunate fashion trends, plus there's an actual article, "Playboy's Spring & Summer Fashion Forecast," that showcases even more egregious fashion faux pases with the indication this is what all the self-respecting lemmings will be wearing the coming season. For the record, at least one male model in the spread looks downright angry at getting stuck wearing a knit wife-beater with embroidered flowers on the front. Not even kidding.

As if to counter the notion that this issue consisted only as a time capsule of regrettable cultural miscues, Playboy turns around and serves up "Seven Poems by Mao Tse-Tung," translated by Nieh Hua-Ling and Paul Engle. I mean, what? The poems aren't romantic affairs by any means, but rather his musings on guerilla warfare and grim ideological determination. For instance:

Chingkang Mountain (Autumn 1928)
Below the mountain, their flags flying
High on the mountain, our bugles blowing:
A thousand circles of the enemy around us:
we still stand unmoved.

Defense is deadly, trench and wall,
the strongest fort is our will.
From Huangyangchieh cannon roar,
crying: the enemy runs away in the night.

I mean, he's no Shel Silverstein but the man certainly knows how to stay on message. It's an insightful glimpse into the man who would have a profound influence on shaping the 20th century.

There's also a Jack Nicholson interview here. He's a star in the aftermath of Easy Rider but not yet become THE Jack Nicholson. Much of the interview is consumed by discussion of taking drugs and various trips Nicholson had experienced, but the following section was interesting, in a "the more things change, the more they stay the same" sense:

Nicholson: In fact, in the first and only film I directed--Drive, He Said--I used a number of my old cronies. And I was more than pleased that I was in a position to do so.

Playboy:Why was Drive, He Said originally rated X by the Motion Picture Association of America?

Nicholson: Because it had frontal nudity and it had someone who was fucking have an orgasm. The orgasm is audible, not visible. The person says, "I'm coming." I'm convinced the rating system is 100 percent corrupt. The censors say they're protecting the family unit in America when, in fact, the reality of the censorship is if you suck a tit, you're an X, but if you cut it off with a sword, you're a GP [PG today].

Other thoughts:

Great googaly moogaly, what the hell is this gonzo monstrosity!?

The 70s were absolutely, certifiably nuts but every so often it stumbled upon something so brilliantly ahead of its time that one really has to wonder why we don't all have flying cars like the Jetsons. The bubble house is one of those things. Officially marketed as a Pneudome, a 500 square foot inflatable dome house made of polyvinyl and marked by a Los Angeles design group known as Chrysalis absolutely screams to be one of the centerpieces of a Burning Man bodypaint orgy. Preferrably one with lots of Jack Nicholson's drugs available. I can only assume from the fact that I have never, ever seen this before--despite the fact this thing looks like it is straight out of a 1970s science fiction movie--that the Pneudomes were not a tremendous success on the sales front. I have to wonder what the airflow in one of these was like, and all the furniture inside is presumably non-inflatable. The article earnestly insists that four people--two swinging couples, from the looks of it, as there are no separate bedrooms--can easily carry, inflate and pack up the globular pop-up with minimal effort. I have my doubts. AndI can't help but imagine the whole thing smelling like the inside of a beach ball. But damn, talk about being 50 years ahead of its time, I can just imagine Elon Musk ordering up a thousand of these wannabe Mars habitats for his Tesla factory town outside of Bastrop. The mind boggles.

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Reading Playboy for the articles: October 1962

My wife, Lisa, has acquired a large collection of vintage Playboy magazines. I'm flipping through those issues that catch my attention and offering my thoughts on the non-photographic content that filled its pages. You know, the articles.

Highlights: For me, the standout of this issue is the interview of troubled, troublesome, brilliant and insecure Peter Sellers. Dr. Strangelove and The Pink Panther were still two years in the future. He'd completed 16 films in the previous five years and had garnered considerable attention for his role of Clare Quilty in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. Enjoying hindsight afforded by the intervening six decades, I found this exchange particularly striking:

Sellers: I'm not a star, because I have no personality of my own.

Playboy: Hasn't success enabled you to find your personality?

Sellers: Success hasn'e enabled me to find out anything about myself. I just know I can do certian things. If you go too deep into yourself, if you analyze yourself too closely, it's no good for the job. You can either act or you can't. If you analyze your own emotions all the time, and every doorknob you handle, you know, you're up the spout.

Playboy: But supposing you were asked to play a character called Peter Sellers, how would you play him?

Sellers: What I would do, I'd go to see all my friends. I go to see my acquaintances, and ask them how they see me, ask for their impressions of Peter Sellers. And then I would sift these characterization. That's all I can do, because I am quite unaware of what I am.

Oddly, the interviewer is not credited. Was this standard practice for Playboy back in the day? Curious.

Other thoughts: The cover on this one had torn off but I initially thought it was an incorrect match. What I considered the biggest selling points of the issue--Peter Sellers, Arthur C. Clark, Shel Silverstein--weren't mentioned on the cover, but folks like Nat Hentoff, Ken W. Purdy and Gerald Kersh (who I've never heard of) were. Shows how much times, and perspectives, change.

There's a an excerpt from Percival by Chertien de Troyes, "Gawain and the Lady of the Pavilion," presented as a ribald classic, so we know our 1962 readers were well-read when it came to their Arthurian lore. And there's the 1963 Playboy Jazz Poll, which indicates the importance jazz still played in entertainment despite the ascendance of rock and roll. Sadly, the poll itself is torn out, which I suppose means the original owner was passionate enough about music to make his (or her) opinions known to the editors.

Finally, the tikiphile in me squeed! when I saw this panel of the long-running Playboy comic, "Little Annie Fanny." She. Has. A. Moai. Life goals.

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Friday Night Videos

When I first heard "Conga" by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, my instantaeous first thought was "One hit wonder." That it would be a hit I had no doubt. It was infectious. But the whole song was an audio gimmick. Mind you, I had no idea of Miami Sound Machine's history and success on Spanish-language charts. But even if I'd known, how could I view this song as anything other than an outlier? Well, Ms. Estefan certainly had the last laugh on me, racking up a bunch of hits with her backing group before fully going solo to even greater English-language success.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.

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Friday Night Videos

So it's almost two weeks ago now that I saw Herb Alpert and Lani Hall in concert. Last week I shared Halpert's cover of "Puttin' on the Ritz" but this week I'm going for the more low-hangning fruit with "Mas Que Nada" from Sergio Mendez and Brasil '66, which Lani Hall was lead singer with. It's a pretty cool video, and progressive for the time.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Herb Alpert.

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A Moment of Tiki: Next-Level Float Lights

No fooling! I am back after a long break to play catch-up on all the Moment of Tiki episodes I've published in the interim. Episode 66 marks the four-year anniversary of A Moment of Tiki! This month I'm coming at you with "next-level fish float lights." What's next-level you may ask? Hint: I swiped the idea from an old Oceanic Arts catalog...

Slipping back in time a little bit brings us to the previous month's installment: Episode 65, Grow Your Own Sugarcane. Believe it or not, this is insanely easy to do. If you live in the sunbelt, you can grow sugarcane in-ground. If you live in colder climes, you can grow it in a pot. What plant is more tiki than sugarcane? Not many, that's for sure!

Finally, Episode 64 was a big one for me. In "How to Make a Shell Light," I take on one of the most iconic items of tiki decor to be found in all the classic tiki bars of yesteryear. The shell light is certainly time-consuming to create, but technically it's not that difficult and I think you'll agree the results are spectacular!

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Friday Night Videos

I saw Herb Alpert perform in concert earlier this week. I wasn't sure what to expect since he's nearly 90, but I was utterly blown away. He engaged with the audience so easily that the crowd of 1,700 felt more like 17. It was crazy intimate and if Alpert has lost a step with age, I couldn't tell. His performance was top-notch. Seriously, this was one of the best live shows I've ever attended. He performed a cover of "Puttin' on the Ritz," which was cool in and of itself, but this trippy video played on the screens surrounding the stage. Naturally, I had to share.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Cardigans and Tom Jones .

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Chicken Ranch anniversary: Aunt Jessie (1885-1952)

On this date in 1952, Fay Stewart, otherwise known as Jessie Williams or simply "Aunt Jessie," passed away at the age of 67 in San Antonio, just a couple of months after selling the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange to Edna Milton. Her sister-in-law, Eddie Ledda Moody, traveled from McLennan County to oversee Aunt Jessie’s burial in Sunset Memorial Park.

Fay Stewart’s parents came from Georgia (or possibly Nashville), moving to Waco well before she was born. The family lived for years on Franklin Street. In my book, I reported that the family struggled after Stewart’s father died unexpectedly in 1886. A local history buff in Waco has done some excellent research on that, and it seems the death of Stewart's father is the result of a census error in 1890. In fact, he outlived his wife who passed away in the 1890s before remarrying around the turn of the century. Information is sketchy after that, but circumstantial evidence would indicate Fay and her new stepmother did not get along well. By 1910, Fay’d moved to Austin and assumed the alias of Jessie Williams, as was customary for women in the sex trade intent on protecting their families’ reputations. All of this biographical information is updated in the 50th anniversary edition of my book, available now.

Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse is available from both Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. It's also available as an ebook in the following formats: Kindle, Nook, Google Play, iBooks and Kobo.

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Committing fiction

My fiction output has been close to zero in recent years, for a variety of reasons writers will likely be familiar with, but I won't bore you with here. Suffice to say this week has been different. I've been writing. Fiction. Last night I completed the story. Yay, me.

That's not exactly the first draft, though. And it's not the final draft, either. The premise first came to me maybe 15 years ago, give or take. I wrote the first draft then, but I had no ending. I forced an ending, which was wholly unsatisfactory. I knew it, the select few who'd read the story knew it, but no obvious solution existed. So I moved on and the story sat. And sat. And sat.

Unexpectedly, unlooked-for, an ending popped into my head. Why do these things happen? I have no idea. I realized that certain constraints I'd placed on myself with one of the main characters served no purporse and hindered the story. So I dropped those constraints. The story suddenly worked. The ending fulfilled the promise of everything leading up to it. That's not to say the writing process went smoothly--it took a full week to force out a couple thousand words. My writing speed continues to slow as I age. This is a story that mixes genres (that I rarely write in, no less) and has no obvious market, so I've got that going for me. But as a story, it is close to being the best version of itself it can possibly be. Another pass to clean up some messy spots and add some retrofitting and it'll be done. Will this lead to regular writing output from me again? No telling. I thought the same last year when I mamaged a couple of novel chapeters around this time but the radio silence since then proves nothing is guaranteed.

Here's a taste of the new prose a few pages before the finale:

The doorknob rattled. Eyes wide, J.T. grabbed it with both hands, bracing his shoulder against the door frame.

The door shook. Boyd screamed. The knob twisted in J.T.'s grip but he would not let it go. Porcelain shattered, followed by what disturbingly sounded like a flock of geese being sucked into a jet engine. The angry knob twisted harder, peeling skin from J.T.'s palms, but he refused to relent. The entire house shuddered, struck by a menace so cold J.T.'s tongue froze to the roof of his mouth.

And then... silence.

J.T. blinked bits of hoarfrost from his eyelids. Frost covered his arms, the door, the walls. Warily, he released his grip on the doorknob. Nothing happened.

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Friday Night Videos

Up until 24 hours ago I had no idea this existed. The Cardigans? Tom Jones? Performing together in this fever dream cover of the Taking Heads' "Burning Down the House"? I find it weirdly unsettling... but, I must confess, I am also fascinated by it. It's as if watching it amounts to participating in an involuntary cult initiation. You have been warned.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Smoke.

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Friday Night Videos

Scott Cupp introduced me to The Smoke, a somewhat obscure British Invasion band from York (they only had one album and a handful of singles), during a road trip to Aggiecon back in 2010. It's a fun band with a catchy sound that deserves wider recognition than it receives. Here they are on a live television appearance performing "She Put the Hurt on Me." Enjoy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Patty Loveless.

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Success Made to Last

Okay, I've got a bit of egg on my face here. No excuses, this is embarrassing: I did a podcast interview with the Success Made to Last podcast for their "Author's Corner" feature to discuss the new edition of Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch. We did the interview quite a while ago--last fall, if I'm being honest. They did a great job with the questions and editing and getting it published online... and I completely forgot about it with all the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

My bad.

I've remembered it many times since then, but always when I was driving someplace or falling asleep at night, pretty much any time where it wasn't convenient for me to share. Well, it's only taken me three months to get around to sharing. I hope you give it a listen--it was a fun interview and we discuss some topics my previous podcast interviews haven't touched on.

Listen to "Success Made to Last Author's Corner with Jayme Blaschke, Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch" on Spreaker.

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Friday Night Videos

Patty Loveless was absolutely dominant in the 80s and 90s, but has pretty much vainished these days. This woman sang at George Jones' funeral and everything she sang turned into a hit until country radio decided to move on. Which is a shame, because she could switch between traditional country and crossover stuff without blinking an eye. Case in point: "I Try to Think About Elvis." I mean, really, she makes it look so easy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Chicks.

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Friday Night Videos

For some reason this song's been stuck in my head all week. Here are the Chicks with "Not Ready to Make Nice."

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Billy Joel.

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Friday Night Videos

Billy Joel has released his first new song in more than a decade with "Turn the Lights Back On." I like it a lot. Now, as an unapologetic Billy Joel fan who's seen him live twice, I'm not particularly objective here. It's not the best thing he's ever recorded, but it's a thoughtful, well-crafted piece with an elegiac theme that is as self-aware as "Famous Last Words," which closed out the last album he released more than 30 years ago now. Musically (if not themeatically) the new song would feel right at home on his later albums, "Stormfront," "The Bridge" or "River of Dreams." It really does sound like classic late-period Joel, in more ways than one. I was particularly struck by how his voice hasn't audibly aged like some other singers I dearly love who are getting up there in years. That is remarkable. I just hope this leads to a new album, because it's been too long.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Kitty Wells.

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Chicken Ranch anniversary: Happy birthday Aunt Jessie!

On this date in 1885, Fay Stewart was born in Waco. She would've been 139 years old today. Stewart would later adopt the alias of Jessie Williams and operate a small brothel in Austin's Guy Town district before moving to La Grange in 1913. In 1915, she bought 11 acres of land outside of city limits and opened what would eventually become known as the Chicken Ranch. Known locally as Aunt Jessie, she ran the brothel until selling it to Edna Milton in 1961.

Fay Stewart’s parents came from Georgia or possibly Nashville, moving to Waco well before she was born. The family lived for years on Franklin Street. While it is entirely possible that Stewart learned the ropes of prostitution in Waco's infamous Two Street vice district, there’s scant evidence she was successful enough to own her own brothel there.

Curiously enough, despite the fact Aunt Jessie spent nearly three decades in La Grange and was as well-known a civic benefactor as anyone in Fayette County, I have found no photographs of her. Zero. Nada. Which is strange, since I know photos of her exist somewhere. So in lieu of Aunt Jessie's photo, we'll have to settle from the 1958 edition of the La Grange phone book. Think that cover art is coincidental? Or was someone with the Yellow Pages making a not-so-subtle joke? In any event, here's to Aunt Jessie, the woman who turned a number of shoddy prostitution operations into the brothel remembered today as the Chicken Ranch.

Buy Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch to learn more about Aunt Jessie and the brothel that became the infamous Chicken Ranch!

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Friday Night Videos

I've shared before that while growing up I listened to both kinds of music (that's be country and western) and of late I've been revisiting some of those sounds. One singer I've rediscovered is Kitty Wells, who blazed a trail for Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and pretty much every woman who sang a country note since. One of her biggest hits was "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," recorded in response to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life." THe lyrics are pretty blunt and unapologetic for the time and are no less relevant today.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Sugarland.

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Dick Fagan & the Hi-Scores

I've intended to write this blog post for more than a year now but have put it off simply because it's awkward. Awkward to present in a way that doesn't imply meaning that isn't there, awkward to present in a way that preserves others' privacy. And this is more personal sharing than I normally engage in, so that's a factor as well. So please understand I share this because I think it is interesting (though perhaps not particularly meaningful) and others may find it interesting as well.

I'm adopted. That's not something I walk around shouting to the world but it's nothing I've ever hidden, either. I don't remember ever not knowing so in that light I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that I'm as well-adjusted as any other Gen-Xer to *gestures broadly to the dumpster fire that is the world today* this. When I was in college I jumped through a bunch of hoops and met my birthmother. One never knows what to expect with these things, but things went well and we had a friendly, cordial relationship until her death last year. I did not seek out my birthfather at that time because I'd learned he'd died more than a decade prior, so what was the point? A little over a year ago, quite by accident, I happened to encounter a paternal half-sibling online, which lead to my learning a great deal more about my birthfather than I'd known before. That baby-faced guy above? That's Dick Fagan, my birthfather. He died from a heart attack in 1978, when I was 7 years old. He had three other children. He lived in the Houston area most of his life. Others have claimed a striking resemblence between his facial features and mine. Personally, I don't see it.

Here's where it gets interesting: he was a musician all his life, although he never had any great success. His biggest claim to fame is recording six songs for three singles with Sarg Records out of Luling, Texas, in 1958. This is the same record lable that gave Willie Nelson his start. Most of his recordings have been reissued on various compilations through Bear Family Records, including a pricey Sarg Records boxed set. He performed at the time alternately as Dick Fagan and the Scores and Dick Fagan and the Hi-Scores. Here's the Bear Family Records bio on him:

DICK FAGAN was another singer from Houston to join Sarg in 1956. Fagan's debut recording for the label was a nondescript country outing, but by the next year he was experimenting with rock 'n' roll. He cut the Eddie Cochran-esque lament "I Got A Ticket" twice for Sarg: the previously unissued demo version (probably dating from 1957) is less frantic but better recorded than the released version, which was cut at Don Robey's studio sometime in 1958. Both are heard here. The equally rocking "I Gotta Learn" also dates from the Robey session.

On all of these songs, Fagan is accompanied by a white vocal group known as the Scores. Their identities, as well as the names of Fagan's backing musicians, remain unknown, save for lead guitarist Dickie Blevins. Blevins would go on to extensively record under his own name and as Dick Allen; Fagan would only record once more, for Dan Mechura's Nu-Star label in Houston, before his death in 1978.

Fagan's early recordings leaned heavily into rockabilly, but as he got older his sound gravitated more to mainstream country and western. By the 1970s he was playing regular gigs in the Houston area as Dick Fagan and the Country Pros, with his brother, guitarist Ron Fagan, in the band. It's unclear if he ever made additional studio recordings--I've not been able to find any information on the Nu-Star lable mentioned by Bear Family. I know live recordings exist and these give the impression of a tight, experienced group performing mostly popular covers during various gigs. It's all interesting as a piece of Texas music history. The fact that I have a connection to it--tenuous though it may be--is just a bonus. In an idealized world I'd be a huge rockabilly fan and this would explain much about my musical tastes. Alas, although I respect rockabilly as a genre I'm largely indifferent to it. For anyone curious about Dick Fagan's early flirtations with musical stardom, the available singles are linked below for your listening pleasure.

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Friday Night Videos

So we've got a massive Arctic front barreling down on Texas expected to push temperatures down into the teens by Sunday, so I'll be spending this evening and Saturday covering banana and citrus plants and hauling other frost-sensitive tropicals into the garage and other places of warmth so they're not killed by the unnatural cold. Needless to say, I'm not terribly thrilled by all this because I intensely dislike the cold. So this week's installment of Friday Night Videos has me dreaming of warmer climes and sunny weather with Sugar Land's "All I Want To Do." Man, summer cannot get here fast enough!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Styx.

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A Moment of Tiki: Nathanael Ross Smith

Happy 2024! In the first episode of A MOMENT OF TIKI for the new year, Jayme sits down with Nathanael Ross Smith, an artist probably best known for his illustration work done for the tiki bar Pagan Idol in San Francisco. During our conversation, Nathanael discusses his love for Universal monsters, film noir, tiki culture, the mid century design aesthetic, bad Roger Corman movies and touring as a professional bassist for the folk rock group The Oh Hellos. Nathanael mentioned he'd designed a custom mai tai glass for a home tiki bar and I said I would share it during the episode. Well, that didn't happen, but the glass design may be viewed above for those who are curious. The episode itself may be watched at the link below:

I also realize now that I've been lax in sharing recent episodes here, so let me catch up real quick. In episode 62, I carved a tiki based on the logo/mascot from the late 1950s television series "Hawaiian Eye":

In episode 61, I acquired a replica whaling harpoon from an estate sale and took viewers on a step-by-step restoration of the piece:

In episode 60, I construct way too many tiki light covers for a soon-to-be open new tiki bar in downtown New Braunfels:

And finally, in episode 59, I show how I power carved two Tiki Bobs--one an outdoor sculpture and the other an indoor side table. These were a lot of fun to put together and I hope you find them equally entertaining:

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Friday Night Videos

Styx had largely faded from the radio by the time I got into pop/rock music, but there's no denying they put together a greatest hits collection of catchy tunes. "Too Much Time on My Hands" is a prime example of that. And the video that accompanies it is a convincing argument that Spinal Tap was based (at least visually) a great deal on Styx. Change my mind.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Kinks.

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