Gibberish

Friday Night Videos

2012-01-27T08:11:00.002-06:00

You know, there's a lot of new music coming out that I actually like, believe it or not. And by "new" music, I mean anything from the past 5 years or so. It seems that for every slickly-packaged, insubstantial pop tart like Katie Perry, there's another, more soulful singer emerging that is willing to experiment and take music into less-traveled territories. More often than not, they're Brits. What's up with that? Amy Winehouse is the obvious example, simply because she got there first, but sadly, personal problems limited her musical output before her untimely death. Adele is so wildly successful right now that she's become a popular target of Saturday Night Live. Another sound I'm currently taken with is Florence and the Machine, and their 2009 hit, "Dog Days are Over," is simply breathtaking. The video, considered separately, is also a show stopper--if the parlance of the writer-oriented "Turkey City Lexicon" were applied to this clip, it would best be described as a non-stop series of "Eyeball kicks." The visuals are striking, iconic and infectious, teasing and seducing the viewer with their vibrant surreality. Enjoy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Al Jarreau and Sheena Easton.

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The perils of rewrites, or, why Dawson and Mier must go

2012-01-26T22:08:00.000-06:00

For the past week I've worked furiously polishing up my Chicken Ranch book proposal, adorning it with whistles and bells, all in preparation for sending it off--along with the first several chapters--to prospective publishers. It's put up or shut up time for me if I want the book to see the light of day in 2013, which just so happens to be the 40th anniversary of the Chicken Ranch's infamous closure. Marketing opportunities like that don't come around every day.

So in the course of my preparations, I'm also revising and polishing the first three chapters of the book, which will accompany the aforementioned proposal. You see, not only do I write slowly, I also write sloppily. The need for second and drafts, etc., is not merely desirable but necessary. On my return to chapter one, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it didn't suck nearly so badly as I recall it doing when I first wrote it. So, yay! Score one for me. The subsequent revisions took much less time than I'd expected.

Except... something kept nagging at me. I tried ignoring, dismissal, ear plugs, but nothing worked. The nagging continued. A section of the chapter--quite a nice section, which I'd spent a considerable amount of time researching and writing--simply did not fit. I've always been a modest history buff, and find Texas history, in particular, fascinating. So here I am writing about the early years of La Grange, and am faced with two of the most resonant moments in the history of the Republic of Texas, namely, the Dawson massacre and the Mier expedition. Neither are widely known, but the ill-fated Mier expedition is vaguely remembered in popular lore as the "Black Bean Affair." Since many La Grange men were involved with both incidents, and the remains of the dead were subsequently interred at Monument Hill outside of La Grange, it seemed like a no-brainer that this needed extensive coverage in my book.

Well, turns out I was wrong. The complexities of the events are such that you either mention them in passing or devote way too many pages explaining the complexities of each situation. The famed writer's guideline, The Turkey City Lexicon, contains one cautionary trap writers fall into called, charmingly enough, "I've suffered for my art (and now it's your turn)." There comes a time when, no matter how much effort you've put into research, no matter how interesting you find it, that very research must be sacrificed for the greater good of the narrative. It took me a few days to admit it to myself, but now that I've taken the plunge, I feel a lot better. It is the right choice. The nagging has subsided (for the time being, at any rate). Still, I am fond of the material which simply didn't work in context through no fault of its own. So now I share with you a goodly chunk of the stuff I wrote for the Chicken Ranch book which will never appear in said Chicken Ranch book. Who knows? You might even learn something about Texas history along the way. Enjoy.

That nobody took particular notice to a brothel setting up shop in a backwater saloon is hardly a surprise. The decade-long existence of the Republic of Texas was an eventful time for La Grange and Fayette County, and the years of statehood prior to the Civil War were no less so.

Two major events would shape La Grange’s identity in dramatic fashion. In September 1842, following news of San Antonio’s capture by an invading Mexican army, a company of Fayette County men under the command of Captain Nicholas Dawson rode to the aid of a small force of Texans camped near San Antonio on Cibolo Creek. By the time Dawson’s force of 53 men arrived, the fighting had ended. Instead of riding to the rescue, Dawson’s men found themselves face to face with more than 600 Mexican soldiers armed with cannons. Only 18 Texans survived the slaughter, with three escaping capture. The remaining 15 were taken to Mexico as prisoners and eventually released nearly 18 months later. A mere 10 ever made it home to Fayette County.

That December, Texas launched the Somervell expedition in retaliation. After recapturing of Laredo, a force of roughly 300 Texans spoiling for a fight crossed the Rio Grande and continued on to Ciudad Mier. Following a sequence of poor command decisions, the Texans blundered into a waiting Mexican Army unit 10 times their size.

The battle of Mier raged Dec. 25-26, with the Texans inflicting astonishingly heavy casualties against the larger force. In all, approximately 600 Mexican soldiers were killed and 200 wounded compared to 30 Texans killed or wounded, but lack of ammunition, food and water forced the Texans to surrender. The prisoners were marched toward Mexico City, but on February 11, 1843, they effected a massive escape into the mountains. The desert proved too great an obstacle to overcome, and 176 of the prisoners were recaptured. The enraged dictator of Mexico, Antonio López de Santa Anna, ordered all of the escapees executed, but the governor of Coahuila, Francisco Mexía, refused the order, leading to the decimation compromise known as the Black Bean Affair. The prisoners were forced to pick one of 179 beans from a jar. Those who drew white beans were spared; those who drew a black bean--17 in all--were blindfolded and executed March 25, 1843. Of the 15 men from Fayette County who’d joined in the Mier expedition, only William Eastland drew a black bean, and he drew the first one.

The loss of so many men of the Mier and Dawson parties was a bitter pill for Fayette County to swallow, and one not readily forgotten. Compounding the anger was the fact the executed Mier prisoners were interred at Hacienda Salado, in the Mexican state of Potosi, more than 100 miles south of Monterrey. Mexico refused to repatriate the remains, insisting such an act would be a desecration of the consecrated graves. It wasn’t until the U.S.-Mexican War erupted following the annexation of Texas that the opportunity to recover the remains arose.

In 1848, during the period of armistice before the final peace treaty would formally end the hostilities, 11 Texans stationed at Concepción, north of Monterrey, hatched a scheme to ride south to Hacienda Salado to recover the remains of the Mier prisoners executed six years prior. Without official sanction, they crossed enemy lines the morning of May 2 and arrived at Hacienda Salado the next morning after a hard ride. They caught the locals by surprise and forced five Mexicans to dig up the remains. The Texans collected the bones in sacks which they tied to pack horses. As the Texans were departing, they spotted two riders fleeing to nearby Cedral, where 500 Mexican troops were stationed. Alarmed by this, the Texans rode hard through the night, pausing for only a few hours to rest their exhausted horses. They finally reached Concepción with their precious cargo the following afternoon, covering more than 300 miles in a span of 53 hours.

The remains of the decimated Mier prisoners were brought to La Grange in June, and by September the remains of the Dawson company were acquired as well. The two sets of remains were then interred with full military honors in a vault on the bluff overlooking the Colorado River. Over the years the site became known as Monument Hill, one of the most important shrines of Texas history.

I also excised a whole lot of passive verbiage from the chapter as a whole during my second draft rewrite. Passive voice is a failing of mine, I admit. There's more polishing to be done, but we're getting there.

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Friday Night Videos

2012-01-20T11:10:00.000-06:00

Okay, let's complete the Moonlighting-related trifecta. I mentioned Al Jarreau last week, specifically the duet with Sheena Easton of "On the Roof (Roof Garden)" for her early 80s TV special Act 1. It's pretty obscure--the Act 1 songs were never released on any soundtrack, nor were any included as bonus tracks on her regular album releases (save for her duet of "We've Got Tonight" with Kenny Rogers, but that was already a big hit by then). Three things are apparent in this video--1) Easton and Jarreau sound pretty good together, 2) Easton is very short. We're talking elfin, here, and 3) many 80s fashions were unfortunate, at best.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Billy Joel.

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Friday Night Videos

2012-01-13T10:42:00.000-06:00

Last week's video clip from Moonlighting got me thinking about another song from that show. No, not Al Jarreau's theme song (although Al's got some pretty impressive chops. I'm a particular fan of his duet of "On the Roof" with Sheena Easton) but rather Billy Joel's "Big Man on Mulberry Street." This particular song came from Joel's The Bridge album, and while it was never released as a single, the folks at Moonlighting took it and built an entire episode around it, structuring a Broadway-style dance narrative to the music that predated Twyla Tharp's collaboration with Joel by more than a decade. I warmed to Moonlighting late, always viewing it (and rightly so) as a Remington Steele knockoff. But where Moonlighting really shined was in its willingness to push the envelope and turn formula on its head, so much so that Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist both complained publicly they wanted the Remington Steele writing staff to be more creative, like that of Moonlighting, rather than being slaves to formula and writing to the lowest common denominator. Alas, that never happened, and both shows were cancelled in short order. But "Big Man on Mulberry Street" is a great example of the chances Moonlighting was willing to take, even if the sequence does foreshadow the whole Dancing with the Stars trope of the male celebrity essentially standing still as the professional female dancer does all the work.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Bruce Willis.

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Acorn mania!

2012-01-10T13:32:00.000-06:00

There's a big old burr oak outside my office that's dying. It's got a fungal infection and rotting inside, is dropping large limbs and is likely to collapse (on my office!) at some point in the future, so the Texas Forest Service has recommended it be cut down before anyone (namely me) is hurt. It must've overheard those plans, because burr oaks are know to mast on occasion (produce an overwhelming number of acorns) and this tree produced an incredible amount this year, despite, I might add, one of the most severe droughts in Texas history that stressed many trees to the breaking point and drastically reduced the nut crop state wide this year. And burr oak acorns are freakin' huge, I tells ya. They're one of the largest acorns produced by any oak. When they hit the metal roof of my office building, it sounds almost like a gunshot. Here's an average specimen:

Folks who know me know that my interests tend to be somewhat eclectic. And can blossom up quite unexpectedly. As I'm picking up a few of these monster acorns with the vague idea of planting them somewhere, I remember that acorns were a major food source for Native Americans and early settlers. The German settlers in Texas relied heavily on acorns in the early years to ward off starvation. So the idea of cooking with a portion of this huge acorn crop took root. The birds nest-like cup holds onto the nut tightly, even after dropping from the tree, so I placed my collected acorns, one by one, on a cast iron skillet and whacked them with a hammer. I didn't hit too hard so as not to crush the nut. Two moderate whacks was usually enough to crack the cup and underlying shell enough to pry everything apart with a flat head screwdriver, as seen below.

As you can see, the nut meat of a burr acorn is quite attractive once shelled. It is a nice, creamy color with a texture not unlike a chestnut. In fact, peeling the acorn shell and underlying skin from the nut meat is very, very similar to doing the same with a chestnut (only a bit easier, since the skin doesn't willingly come off a chestnut unless it is cooked some). I also shelled an acorn from a live oak in the neighborhood, just for comparison. Look at the size difference--someone would have to shell half a dozen live oak acorns or more to equal a single burr acorn! And from experience, I can say that live oak acorns do not shell any more quickly, despite their smaller size. Also, note the yellower color of the live oak acorn. This is significant.

I shelled about half the acorns I'd collected, and filled a bowl with the nut meats. Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah, but the taste ain't all that. Any kid who'd seen a squirrel chomping on an acorn and tried it himself knows that acorns are bitter. That's the tannins in them, the same thing that gives red wine its mouthfeel and what originally was used to tan leather. High amounts of tannins can be toxic to humans. What to do? Well, not all acorns are created equal. In North America, there are two general classifications of the various oak tree species: Red oaks and White oaks. Red oak types (which include actual red oaks) tend to have pointed tips on their leaves and produce acorns that take two years to mature and drop. That's a lot of time for tannins to develop. White oak types (which include actual white oaks) tend to have rounded tips on their leaves and produce acorns that mature and drop in a single growing season. Hence, white oak types have less tannin content, and it is my understanding that some species even have acorns that are sweet and edible right off the tree. The burr is a white oak type, with low tannin levels. That yellow in the live oak acorn? That means it's got a lot more tannins, and is a lot more bitter. Yay for serendipity! Also, I have to point out (since I've not seen it elsewhere) that shelled acorns will oxidize fairly quickly. Within an hour of shelling, the pieces of nut meat were browning along the edges and exposed surfaces. It's not particularly pretty, but it seems harmless enough.

Even so, the burr acorns were still too bitter to use without a bit of processing. The tannins need to be leached out of the nuts. I crushed the nuts into chunks, then used an inexpensive electric coffee grinder to chop them up into a very coarse meal. Native Americans, at this point, would scoop out a hole in clean sand near a water source and place the meal in there and pour water over it until the tannins had been leached away. Contemporary folk often put the meal in a nylon mesh bag and soak in boiling water repeatedly until the tannins leach out. Since water can only hold so much tannin before saturated, repeated soakings are necessary. I read in several places online that if the acorns are transferred from boiling water to room temperature and then heated to a boil, the remaining tannins are actually locked in. Therefore, it's necessary to have two pots of water heating constantly. As this struck me as labor intensive, I opted for a less labor-intensive cold water leaching method--I bagged the meal and submerged it in the reservoir tank of the downstairs toilet. I know, it doesn't sound appealing. But the reservoir is clean, and to make doubly sure, I bleached it out thoroughly. I left the meal in for several days, and the continual flow of water from flushing and filling did the job nicely. I was actually able to track the progress of the leaching by watching the clarity of the water improve as the tannin levels declined. Before long I had unbitter acorn meal. I spread the meal out on a cookie sheet and placed in the oven, setting it to bake at around 120 degrees with the door open for drying. Every 10 minutes or so I'd stir the meal. After an hour or so the meal was dry enough for my purposes.

Note that acorns are fairly high in fat, so the nut meats and meal need to be stored in cool conditions, or frozen for long-term storage, otherwise they could go rancid. Yuck! Fortunately, I wasn't waiting that long. All of the meal and oxidized during the leaching process, so the resulting meal was a uniform brown. I took the coarse meal, chunks and all (visible in the lower right of the photo above) and ground it to a fine meal using the electric coffee grinder. The resulting acorn meal (center bowl, above) has a nice color and a texture a bit finer than regular corn meal. It is more clumpy, though. I decided to try a very simple recipe first, and came across the following from this site.

Apache acorn cakes
1 cup acorn meal, ground fine
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup honey
pinch of salt

Mix the ingredients with enough warm water to make a moist, not
sticky dough. Divide into 12 balls. Let rest, covered, for 10 minutes or so. With slightly moist hands, pat the balls down into thick tortilla-shaped breads. Bake on an ungreased cast iron griddle

The dough is very coarse, even though I used whole grain corn flour instead of corn meal. I figured out right away that "tortilla-like" was a non-starter. They simply wouldn't hold together when pressed that thin. I finally settled for a thicker, cookie-like form, and this worked fine. They cooked quite easily. The honey made them nicely sweet, but not cloying. The texture was similar to a heavy cornbread, and the acorns gave a nutty taste. The Wife wasn't terribly impressed, and the Bug wouldn't touch any, but Monkey Girl and Fairy Girl though the "acorn cookies" delicious and devoured most of them topped with melted butter.

Buoyed by my modest success with the acorn cakes, I decided to try my hand at actual acorn bread. Since acorn flour is "heavy" and lacks gluten, it won't rise on its own and needs to be combined with other ingredients (namely, traditional wheat flours or similar). I looked around and found an impressive array of acorn bread recipes online, but eventually went with one from this site since it seemed the simplest and most straightforward.

Acorn Bread
6 tbl. cornmeal
1/2 cup cold water
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp. salt
1 tbl. butter
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup mashed potatoes
2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cup finely ground leached acorn meal

Mix cornmeal with cold water, add boiling water and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add salt and butter and cool to lukewarm. Soften yeast in lukewarm water. Add remaining ingredients to corn mixture, along with yeast. Knead to a stiff dough. Dough will be sticky. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk. Punch down, shape into two loaves, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. Bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes.

I made a few minor substitutions for this recipe. For corn meal I used whole grain corn flour. I used whole grain wheat flour. Instead of cooked mashed potatoes, I used a quarter cup of instant flakes. I also used Red Star baking yeast, since I've had good results with their various strains of brewer's yeast. Everything went well until I formed the dough into a ball and set aside atop the stove (the warmest place in the house) to rise. After several hours (and much yeasty smell) the dough had risen only about 20 percent, if that. Hardly the "doubled in bulk" the recipe called for. I left it alone for a while longer, but no change was obvious. I punched it down--the texture was almost frothy, and it smelled wonderful--and divided it into two loaves. I then set these aside to rise. After a couple of hours, the dough had barely changed, rising maybe 10 percent. Frustrated, I went ahead and baked them, deciding they weren't going to rise any more so I may as well take my chances.

Keep in mind, I'm not a baker. I know what to do with a stuck fermentation with six gallons of ale, but not with bread that refuses to rise even though I can smell the yeast doing its work. The dough was most likely too heavy. In the future, when I try this again, I'll tweak the recipe some, adding a bit more sugar, reducing the acorn flour to wheat flour ratio and including a bit of baking soda. It was also suggested that I substitute milk for some of the water. In any event, the resulting loaves of acorn bread came out of the over looking pretty pathetic:

The loaves are heavy and dark, almost rye-like. The flavor, however, is warm and nutty. There's a richness to the bread that is unusual, vaguely familiar. A cut piece warmed with a bit of butter spread on it tastes quite good. The Wife actually liked the bread, and wants me to try again. Last night The Wife made beef stew, and I broke up some pieces of the acorn bread and mixed them in. The flavors complemented each other very well, and I now understand why there are as many recipes for acorn stew online as there are for acorn bread.

Ultimately, my acorn experiment can only be considered a qualified success. The flavor of the acorn meal is good. The family tolerated my experiments and generally approved of the results. I've got a few cups of acorn meal in the freezer for some day in the future when I attempt bread again, and there's a bag of unshelled acorns waiting to be leached and ground as well. My burr oak source of acorns is about to go away, though, so I'll need to seek out more of this species if I want to try my hand at other acorn recipes in the future. Although the numbers vary by species, in general acorns are pretty nutritious and I read that acorns of the blue oak, a species native to California, produce an oil that compares moderately well with olive oil. I'll probably dabble with recipes here and there over the years, and if I ever get some property out in the country, I'm more likely than not to plant some burr oaks out there. You never know when the craving might strike.

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Friday Night Videos

2012-01-06T20:55:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a really fun open house at Schlitterbahn, where they were showing off their new treehouse resort area and having a fund raiser to promote continued tourism and open river initiatives in New Braunfels. During our visit, the DJ played the Rascals' "Good Lovin'" which is a song I love. But rather than go with the obvious selection, I present to you Bruce Willis' version of "Good Lovin'" from the supremely awesome "Atomic Shakespeare" episode of Moonlighting from back in the day.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Grateful Dead.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-12-30T18:45:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are at the end of 2011. The year has been challenging and frustrating, but also rewarding. I turned 42 and dove into writing the Chicken Ranch book head first. So naturally, life made sure the water was shallow. Ah. well, I will get by. Seems to me like the Grateful Dead's only Top 42 hit, "Touch of Grey", effectively sums up these past 12 months.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Roy Orbison.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-12-23T08:48:00.006-06:00

Even with his most "happy" songs, Roy Orbison has a powerful strain of melancholy running through his music. It is inherent in the man's soul, I believe. So when Orbison took a stab at his own original Christmas song, it's no surprise that he didn't take the standard "isn't the world pretty and wonderful" approach so many others have. Here is the man himself, singing a stripped-down version of "Pretty Paper" on the Johnny Cash Show.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Stan Freberg.

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Chicken Ranch Report no. 14

2011-12-21T23:38:00.000-06:00

Riddle me this: When is two weeks off not two weeks off? When I'm home with the family. Seriously, distractions and stresses abound--only a fraction of which are generated by the kiddos, mind you--but it's still enough to make productive writing a challenge. I knew this going in, and it will only get tougher as Christmas and New Years approach. Still, I am making steady progress and have reasonable hope that this current chapter will indeed be completed by the 31st, thus putting me back on schedule. Yay!

The current chapter, which I haven't spoken of much, is essentially a biography of Edna Milton, better known as Miss Edna. The last owner of the Chicken Ranch, her story is a bittersweet one at best. She never aspired to prostitution or wanted to become a madam--and in all honesty, who would? She wanted what any teenage girl in the 1940s would want: the handsome husband, a brood of children, a cozy little house with a white picket fence. Suffice to say, she didn't get any of that dream, yet she still lived an amazing life.

The most challenging part of writing this chapter hasn't been the actual writing (unlike the previous chapters) but instead sifting through the reams of interview pages I have from Miss Edna and piecing together a chronological narrative. She's one of those people who breaks off on tangents more often than not, talking about whatever pops up in her memory at the moment. This means that, say, her reminisces about living in Fort Worth are broken up by several hours worth of memories of the Chicken Ranch, family trees, pets she's had, and her thoughts on Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Sorting through all that is time consuming, and exhausting. Rewarding, yes, but no less a challenge. On the bright side, I'm rewarded with the account of how Miss Edna first came to the Chicken Ranch, which to my knowledge, has never been published or recounted in any form or fashion:

Suspicious of the Chicken Ranch, Miss Edna instead headed to Austin, where legendary Texas madam Hattie Valdes operated several houses catering to horny University of Texas students and Texas legislators in equal measure.

“She didn’t have any openings at that moment, but she asked me if I knew about La Grange,” Miss Edna said. “The lady in Austin was telling me about it, then she called down there and they said somebody’s going to be gone a week. I said, ‘Well, at least I’ll go down there and see what it’s about. I may not even want to stay.’ But you can tolerate almost anything for a week.

“It was pleasant driving up to that old thing, seeing the trees and everything, you know?” she said. “After having looked at the city for a few years, that white house in the distance, among those green trees, it looked real pleasant. I didn’t know how it’d be like inside, you know, but I went from there.”

There's more where that came from--a lot more, but it's getting late, so I'll wait until tomorrow to write up that part of the story. Now, it's off to bed for me!

Now Playing: Christopher Franke Babylon 5: Messages from Earth
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Friday Night Videos

2011-12-16T08:53:00.001-06:00

It's too bad Stan Freberg's heyday came long before MTV and music videos, because his particular brand of insane genius lends itself particularly well to visual mayhem. Take, for example, "Nuttin' for Christmas," which Joe Crow pointed out to me. It's an excellent 2009 animated adaptation of Freberg's definitive version of the song, with just enough subversiveness to turn sappy holiday sentiment on its ear. Enjoy!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Stevie Wonder.

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Power women!

2011-12-15T09:45:00.000-06:00

Lord help me, I've been sucked into a meme. When someone posted on George Takei's Facebook wall an updated image with Star Trek Voyager's Captain Janeway of all people, I lost it. This will put me on many folks' black list, but I've always found Janeway one of the milquetoast captains in the Star Trek universe (outdone only by Enterprise's Archer). So I couldn't help but double down with Ivanova. Click to get the bigger version.

My initial reaction was to go with Aeryn Sun, being the Farscape fan that I am. But how could I argue with Ivanova's quote?

Ultimately, though, one thing remains clear. Be they fans of Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Buffy or Farscape, everyone is united in their utter contempt for Twilight and dumb-ass sparkly vampires.

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Chicken Ranch report no. 13

2011-12-14T14:15:00.000-06:00

I did it. I got on a roll last night and knocked out the rest of the current chapter, a full two days ahead of my self-imposed Dec. 15 deadline. Which gives me 17 days to complete the new current chapter before the end of 2011, which means I'll have a quarter of the Chicken Ranch book in the can. Not shabby, considering the huge amount of time I've invested in research. The downside is that I went to bed close to 1 a.m., and the Bug, who'd been sick over the weekend, developed a fever and pretty much ended any chance of my getting any sleep at all (turns out he'd developed a secondary ear infection. A quick trip to the doctor and he's all fixed up with an antibiotic prescription and feeling much better). So I'm groggy, achy and punchy today, and not a whole lot of fun to be around.

Still, that can't take the joy out of getting another chapter finished. And last night's writing session covered two fairly high-profile Chicken Ranch stories, adding a considerable amount of detail to one and thoroughly debunking the other. It also contained one of the best quotes thus far, one that I'm very happy exists:

"There’s more hockypoo about that place than anything else."

Seriously, how many other writers get to use "hockeypoo" in their book with a straight face? Okay, I'll admit I cracked a grin while writing it, but still. That quote aside, here's a sample of last night's output, quite possibly the single most well-known aspect of the Chicken Ranch:

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Miss Jessie hit upon a solution almost as old as the oldest profession, itself: Barter. Area farmers didn’t have money, but they did have livestock, and the brothel began accepting stock in trade. Before long, the going exchange rate became jokingly known as the “poultry standard,” that is, one chicken, one screw. Needless to say, Miss Jessie’s girls were up to their eyeballs in chickens in no time.

Printing out the draft of the chapter for my files, it suddenly strikes me that I've already written quite a bit. Curiosity got the better of me, and I compared my page count to that of Jan Hutson's Chicken Ranch book from 1980. Now, there's not a 1:1 correlation between manuscript pages and a published book, but I'll wager my wordcount at this early stage isn't that far off her's in its entirety. And I know for certain I have more facts in mine--at least, facts that can be attributed and verified.

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Chicken Ranch report no. 13

2011-12-13T14:42:00.000-06:00

Train keeps a rollin'. I keep waiting for the wheels to fall off, but thus it is full steam ahead. After the ordeal of the previous chapter, this one's surprised my by its amiable nature. I've gotten to the point where, even with just a limited window to write, I'm able to accomplish a few hundred words. Good words, too. The kind that don't make me retch when I re-read them the next day.

I'm thinking this is because I've finally gotten into the meat of my own research. I'm no longer merely recasting mythology that everyone from Saul Friedman to Jan Hutson to Al Reinert to Larry King has written about. I'm bringing new and original history to the table, stories and incidents that have never seen publication. That's a pretty nifty feeling. Also, in the case of oft-repeated stories such as the World War I anecdote below, I've been able to connect a few dots and give it a more thorough historical context.

One of the first opportunities to ingratiate herself with the community came with America’s entry into World War I. As plenty of young Fayette County men headed overseas with the legendary doughboys of the American Expeditionary Force, Miss Jessie had her handful of girls write encouraging letters to the lads, sometimes even sending along care packages filled with home-baked cookies.

That show of compassion went over well in La Grange. Unfortunately, the War Department wasn’t nearly as impressed. Concerned with the debilitating impact venereal disease could have on the troops, the U.S. government launched a full-on war against prostitution. Following the advice of Teddy Roosevelt, Secretary of War Newton Baker spoke softly and carried a very big stick: any Texas city that wanted an army post (or wanted to keep one they already had) must shutter their vice districts, period.

I'll have my work cut out for me when it comes to revisions, of course. I find all matter of historical minutiae fascinating, much of which cause other people's eyes to glaze over. Ensuring the book is a lively, engaging read is an ongoing concern for me (yet you are thinking "It's a book about a brothel? How could it not be fascinating?" Trust me, anything can be boring if the writing is bad enough. This is my personal nightmare).

I'm also starting to give serious thought to cross-promotion opportunities, journal and magazine articles and the like. Serious work on that is going to have to wait until the new year, once I have a few more chapters in the bag. But anyone with any brilliant ideas, feel free to send 'em along!

Now Playing: Roy Orbison In Dreams
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 12

2011-12-11T13:56:00.000-06:00

So we've come to suspect that H1N1 has infiltrated the homefront. In a lemons-into-lemonade kind of way, this has been good for my writing. With everyone else lying around lethargic, there's nowhere we're going or the like. So, other than the lack of sleep from staying up late with vomiting children, I've been able to put my waking hours to good, writerly use.

As I write my way deeper into the book, I'm coming across a surprising number of serendipitous realizations. Nothing earthshaking, mind you, nothing that makes me shout, "AH-HA! This proves Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone!" Even so, they're significant to me. For instance, several disparate facts lying around--most of which are well-known to people who've written or read up on the Chicken Ranch before--but as I'm writing they click together with a few other bits and pieces I've unearthed all the way, and suddenly, blam!, it's like staring cross-eyed at a colorful, pixellated poster for hours on end before it suddenly resolves itself into a 3-D image of a possum eating a watermelon or somesuch. Only in my case, a timeline magically appears where none existed before, complete with dates, records and motivations, effectively bridging a gap where before only innuendo and hearsay held sway. That's cool.

These random discoveries have also helped me deal with an over-abundance of information. Believe it or not, the history of the Chicken Ranch is a feast-or-famine affair, with certain eras utterly devoid of meaningful information, whereas other eras the cup runneth over. This is particularly true in the case of tangential stories and events, those that aren't necessarily about the Chicken Ranch per se, but the people and events around it that provide a much-needed context, allowing the reader to understand why and how things unfolded as they did. Too many tangents overwhelms the main narrative, but what to do when one particular tangent is pretty darn significant? Enough so that folks may well ask why I skipped over it? Well, in the course of double-checking some dates, I came across a previously-unknown newspaper archive online that included articles on that particular event. More importantly for my immediate needs, it was kind enough to inform me that Jim Flournoy--the man who'd later become Fayette County Sheriff and a major figure later on in my book--was deeply involved in the event, something I'd not come across before. Armed with this new knowledge, I'm moving this particular tangent later in the book, so as to flesh out Sheriff Flournoy's early career more effectively. Pretty cool how this works out, eh? Here's a sample of the latest:

Cooperation, mostly, seemed to be the key in forming a lasting alliance between the brothel and the sheriff’s office. Law enforcement everywhere maintained useful networks of informants who’d pass along information overheard from the underworld. In La Grange, this boiled down to the fact that petty criminals tended to brag about their exploits to whatever pretty whore they happened to be bedding. Miss Jessie made sure to pass any such confessions along.

And yes, I am still on track to finish this chapter by the 15th, which will give me an even-money shot at wrapping up the next chapter by New Year's Eve. Momentum, as they say, is a wonderful thing.

Now Playing: Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-12-09T19:20:00.000-06:00

"Superstition." Probably Stevie Wonder's greatest song. There is a hard edged, funky genius about it that cannot be denied.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Traveling Wilburys.

Now Playing: Lenny Kravitz Are You Gonna Go My Way
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 11

2011-12-08T23:58:00.000-06:00

Just a very short update for you tonight. Rest assured, I had another good night of writing (what's up with that?) and the words are flowing as spice must (Dune reference, for non-skiffy types). But I had to share this one sentence, which I've desperately wanted to write since the idea for this book first took root in my fevered brain:

Neither version is accurate, but the first tale is unique in its almost complete disconnect from reality.

Yes, I do demolish the wrongheaded, misguided and just downright bad writings of a writer who hath trod this ground before me. I confess to enjoying it a bit too much.

Now Playing: Marvin Gaye Anthology
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 10

2011-12-07T22:49:00.000-06:00

Another good night of writing. I'm sort of in a state of disbelief. I've hit something of a sticking point, so that's as good a place to hang it up for the night as any, but I can clearly see what lies on the other side. This is good. At this rate (knock wood) I may actually hit my goal of finishing this chapter by the middle of next week. And I'm about to jump head long into my own primary research, which should be loads of fun (just the raw quotes from the interviews I'll be using in this chapter take up 20 pages, so I've no shortage of material).

While the Chicken Ranch is fondly remembered for the most part, and by most accounts offered the women there some measure of safety and security, the vast majority of prostitutes in Texas had neither. It was a hard life, and often the ending was tragic. Here's a sample of tonight's work:

Although the system offered a degree of protection, a woman’s value only amounted to her ability to bring in money. One Austin police officer took note of a well-known prostitute, Georgetown Ella, who’d fallen deathly ill. With their mother unable to work, Ella’s four children faced the likelihood of starvation, and the brothel’s owner, Charley Cooney, was not the type of man to show compassion to any of them. Society in general was not apt to show much compassion, either.

On a brighter note, I picked up two pieces of Chicken Ranch memorabilia off Ebay this week. Neither item was ever actually produced by or sold at the real Chicken Ranch. One was a money clip, which are pretty common, but this showed up at a cheap price and I couldn't resist. The other, a wine glass, features a Chicken Ranch logo. I've never seen such a glass before, so it's an intriguing find. I figure this was either sold as a souvenir at the failed Dallas restaurant or marketed in La Grange in the mid-80s, during the very brief time when they attempted to commercialize the defunct brothel. Either way, they're nice additions to my collection.

Now Playing: Monks of the Benedictine Abbey el Calcat A Treasury of Gregorian Chants
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 9

2011-12-06T14:53:00.000-06:00

I'm jinxing myself by writing this, I know, but I had a productive writing session last night. After flailing with yet another awkward transition, I caught some traction and had some nice momentum going by the time I called it quits. I just saw an online posting I made back in July where I commented that I hoped the book would be finished by the end of this year. Alas, that's not going to happen--not by a long shot. I'm even behind schedule on my revised timeline, due to a spectacularly unproductive November. Evenings such as I experienced last night give me hope, however. If I can manage that same degree of production the rest of the week, it is entirely reasonable for me to finish the current chapter by the 15th. That would leave me a little over two weeks to get another chapter finished before the end of the year, which would mean a third of the book in the can. That'd be enough to polish up and send off to publishers for consideration.

The big drawback with that plan is the fact that I have two weeks of holidays coming up. That time off from work is tempting to think of as writing time, but my family's also off. I've learned from experience that family time and travel is a mighty powerful black hole that sucks up free time like you wouldn't believe. But still, it's nice to have goals.

Here's some of what I wrought last night. Obviously, I'm not restricting myself to the narrow history of the Chicken Ranch itself. There's a significant of historical context that's going into the book as well.

The ideas that sanctioned prostitution prevented rape and the spread of venereal disease were perhaps the most persistent arguments used by those in favor of a regulated sex trade, and ones that were commonly invoked to defend the Chicken Ranch as late as 1973. These "regulationists" were often police and medical practitioners, those who interacted and dealt with prostitution on an ongoing basis. From their perspective, the world's oldest profession had persisted and even thrived despite centuries of eradication efforts by countless cultures. The prohibition approach had undeniably failed. If prostitution could not be eliminated, then perhaps it could be contained and segregated so as to not corrupt polite society.

It also doesn't help my daily progress when I come across items in my notes and research materials that absolutely needs to go in a previous chapter. That means going back before I forget, inserting the stray material, rewriting the surrounding copy to fit, revising citations...

Now Playing: Various artists Doctor Demento Show 11/29/1997
Chicken Ranch Central

And this is what you get for shopping local

2011-12-02T22:07:00.000-06:00

The Wife and I have made a conscious effort to shop local this year, avoiding big chains when possible and in general trying to make our spending impact the area economy in as positive way as possible. When it comes to photography, this means we've been making the trip into San Antonio to give our business to the Camera Exchange. Normally, our experience is good.

Today was not a good experience.

The Wife, who is a Certified Professional Photographer with PPA and the owner of Lisa On Location photography drove down there today, braving Friday traffic as well as rain-slick roads because she needed some professional advice on a purchase she needed to make. The sales associate who assisted her--and I use that word very loosely--not only soured a sure sale, but pretty much guaranteed we'll be taking our business elsewhere from now on. He was condescending. He refused to actually listen to what she was saying, instead deciding she didn't know what she was talking about. In short, he assumed she was a ditzy "Mom-With-Camera" photographer wanna-be and treated her with vaguely disinterested contempt. The Wife was so infuriated she called me from the parking lot to vent.

She never gets this kind of crappy treatment from Adorama or B&H. Those online photography superstores based in New York have much better prices than the Camera Exchange as well, but we've tried to eat that price difference to support the local guys. And this is the thanks we get. Folks wondering why local businesses are failing need look no further--just once case of terrible customer service can negate years of good will in just a few moment. Let that be a lesson to everyone.

Now Playing: Original Cast Recording The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-12-02T10:42:00.000-06:00

After a rough, stressful week I think we'll go with The Traveling Wilburys today to make everything better. Remember, handle with care.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Aerosmith.

Now Playing: various artists Celtic Moods
Chicken Ranch Central

Emilia Blaschke (1922-2011)

2011-11-30T13:12:00.000-06:00

My paternal grandmother, "Grandma Melio," died early Tuesday. I'm not as emotional as I should be about it, 1) because I've only had occasional contact with her over the past 25 years, and 2) she's battled dementia and failing health over the past few years, to the point where passing is merciful for her.

Emelia Blaschke, 89, of Nordheim, passed away Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011. She was born April 7, 1922 in DeWitt County to the late John and Martha Skloss Gaida. She was a member of Holy Cross Catholic Church.

She is survived by her sons Joe Blaschke of Spring, TX, James Blaschke of Houston, TX and Nolan Blaschke of Columbus, TX, sister Adelene Decker, seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

She is preceded in death by her parents, husband Joseph Blaschke and brother E.G. Gaida.

A rosary will be 7:00 pm Wed. Nov. 30, 2011 at Finch Funeral Chapel. Funeral Mass will be 10:00 am Thurday Dec. 1, 2011 at Holy Cross Catholic Church. Intement will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery.

Pallbearers will be Frankie Seifert, Flavis Kozielski, Gervis Blaschke, Gary Rangnow, Glenn Mueller, Keith Blaschke, Jayme Blaschke, John Blaschke and Christopher Blaschke.

Memorial may be given to Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery Fund or Masses.

Arrangements by Finch Funeral Chapel-Yorktown 361-564-2277

I hadn't seen much of her for the past 2-plus decades because of a feud my father has perpetuated with that part of our family. Because of a wrong they did to him, my father cut off all contact with his mother, father and brothers as well as their respective families (a wrong I suspect, viewed through the wisdom of years, may actually be the other way around). He refused to attend his own father's funeral when Grandpa Joe died a few years back. He won't be attending his mother's funeral. He won't bury the hatchet because he'd rather nurse this hard lump of bitterness within him and play the victim, even though his siblings and parents have tried over and over again to make amends.

You know what? I'm sick of his petty, self-centered childish behavior. My five-year-old son has a better-defined sense of right and wrong than my 71-year-old father. I cannot count the times I have received messages from former students of his, telling me what a great person he was. In the interest of civility, I have bitten my tongue. No more. Nolan Blaschke is a prideful, arrogant, self-centered petty dictator who is a racist and misogynist, pretty much your all-around misanthrope. He has alienated almost all of his close family and friends over the years, and has abandoned my mother. That last part isn't hyperbole, and I will not pretend any longer. I will not make excuses for him any longer. I've been to far too many funerals and functions in recent years where I've had to make excuses for his absence or behavior, and that stops now.

If anyone asks me where my father is tomorrow, I will reply that he "Is at home, wallowing in self-pity. He is a vile, reprehensible human being, and we'd all be better off if it were him we were burying today instead of his mother."

If he doesn't want me telling everyone that, then he'd better man up, get his head on right and start acting like he has a soul, instead of just a shriveled, spite-filled cinder.

Now Playing: Berlin Philharmonic Wagner: The Ring Without Words
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 8

2011-11-27T23:25:00.000-06:00

FINALLY! I am finally done with the current chapter, one that has taken well more than twice as long to write as I'd planned. One that has put me significantly behind schedule. One that was ornery and difficult to write, fighting me every step of the way. To add insult to injury, it is very much a "first draft" chapter, one in need of significant rewriting before it is fit for human eyes. You'd think that after taking up so much time, it could at least come out polished and ready for the printers, but nooooooo.

In any event, I'm very happy to put this one behind me. I had to rely on existing sources and other people's research heavily here, as opposed to my own, and it's awkward when something that's been accepted as fact by many, mean people for so long ends up being debunked by me. Or, if not debunked, at least seriously questioned. Especially when there's no clear alternative to the current assumptions, which are clearly and demonstrably flawed. Here's some of the words I close out the chapter with. Tomorrow, on to the 20th century, and my own primary research!

Prostitution may have established itself in La Grange in the days of the Republic, but the frontier was a dusty memory, as was the “anything goes” attitude that accompanied it. La Grange had grown into a modern town of more than 2,000 residents, with electric and water utilities, an opera house, four schools, three banks and five churches. With the progressive era of a new century dawning, there seemed little chance that the status quo the brothels had enjoyed for so long could continue.

Now Playing: Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Chicken Ranch Central

My new German toy

2011-11-23T00:20:00.000-06:00

At this moment, I am feeling pretty mediocre. There's been some sort of virus working its way through my family, and I started feeling it Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning just driving the kids to school caused me to break out in a cold sweat, so I wisely headed back home and climbed into bed. By late afternoon I'd started feeling moderately better, and ventured forth, to discover the nice UPS man had left me a present:

For those of you scratching your head and going "What the heck is that?" I'll tell you. It's an Astronomik CLS clip filter from Germany. It's an ingenious little device. Because of the way Canon APS-C cameras are made (those that have a "cropped" imaging sensor which is about 3/4 the size of a 35mm film frame) there is a small open space in between the mirror/shutter assembly and the rear of the attached camera lens. The German engineers at Astronomik realized they could design a filter that could "clip in" to this unused space for astronomy purposes (sorry Nikon users--your camera design doesn't allow for internal clip filters).

The CLS filter I got is a light pollution filter. Because there are so many street lights in my neighborhood, not to mention the sky glow from New Braunfels, San Antonio and Austin, astrophotos of more than a brief exposure end up having an ugly, brown fog to them. Yuck. But the CLS filter is coated in such a way that the sodium and mercury vapor light produced by most street lamps and city lights are almost completely blocked. This means longer exposures are possible without the ill effects of light pollution!

My first attempt at astrophotography using the CLS clip filter and my Canon 7D is above, the Orion constellation. I set the camera up on a tripod and shot 20 10-second exposures at 800 and 1600 ISO (I couldn't go for longer exposures because I hadn't set my telescope up, and the camera had no way to track the movement of the start across the sky). I stacked these individual images using Deep Sky Stacker, a nifty freeware program. The result isn't anything near award-winning, but it does show all the relevant stars without the washed-out effect of light pollution. And the Orion nebula is easily visible. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this in the future.

Now Playing: Stan Getz The Complete Roost Recordings
Chicken Ranch Central

My beef with Peter Lik

2011-11-21T11:44:00.000-06:00

In a remarkably short period of time, I have become a huge fan of Australian photographer Peter Lik. I first became aware of him back in the spring, when he was featured in the June issue of Professional Photographer magazine, which The Wife gets as an active member of Professional Photographers of America. His dramatic colors and sweeping panoramas inspired me greatly, and made me think of a color-centric Ansel Adams. When we set out on our family vacation road trip out west, I was determined to shoot some landscapes that, if not Lik-worthy, were at the very least "pretty good." Although I mostly shoot as an assistant to The Wife with weddings and portraits, I've had a keen interest in landscape/nature photography for as long as I can remember. Far longer than I've had any competent knowledge of camera operation, certainly.

Sadly, the road trip did not turn out as I'd hoped. They never do. I made a few attempts, but they all fell short of the goal. Take the famous "Horseshoe Bend" south of Page, Arizona. A late start and a crush of other photographers (not to mention a sheer drop-off and cranky kids) made this a real challenge. Harsh shadows marred the lower portion of the scene. I used some Photoshop processing to pull out colors from the river, but the end result is merely a "nice try"--a far cry from the gallery-worthy shot I was hoping for.

Our visit to Monument Valley was a bust as well. A huge sandstorm blew up, obscuring the great mesas and buttes and pretty much made driving miserable. The Wife was sorely disappointed, because while she's not normally a landscape photographer, she had wanted to shoot the iconic north approach to Monument Valley herself. The one shot I got that I was pleased with (and I didn't know it at the time--the awesomeness only became apparent later on when I processed the image) came from my infrared camera. This infrared scene of Monument Valley in the middle of a sandstorm is the single best shot I got on the entire road trip, and one that I do feel is gallery-worthy. Could Lik do better? Probably, but then again, he doesn't shoot infrared, so score one for me.

After our vacation, I discovered Lik's photography television series on the Weather Channel, From the Edge with Peter Lik. I only managed to see about five of the 13 episodes before the season ended, but I found them engrossing. Granted, Lik has some financial and equipment advantages because of who he is, but it was amazing to see his adventurer's spirit at work. He really is a larger-than-life personality, sort of photography's version of the Crocodile Hunter, as some have derisively labeled him. There's actually quite a bit of derision directed his way, I've learned. Some of it is motivated by jealousy, no doubt, because haters gonna hate. But other criticism is deserved. While Lik is undeniably a skilled photographer, his greater skill may well be self-promotion. That can get old very fast, but from what I see, there is a divide between Peter Lik the photographer and Peter Lik the businessman. The photographer would be fun to hang out with. The businessman, probably not so much. The businessman also goes around claiming that the photographer uses no post-processing or Photoshop on his gallery images, which is a patently untrue. The idea that all of the dramatic colors are captured entirely in-camera has become a marketing mythology perpetrated by Lik himself--in interviews from only a few years back he had no qualms about claiming to use Photoshop to manipulate the colors in his images (the whole video is entertaining, but check out the 1:30 mark:

While an unfortunate pile of marketing hooey, that doesn't diminish the photography any in my mind. Lik still has to actually get out there and get the shot before any Photoshop magic can be done. And nature doesn't always cooperate. So I still greatly admire his eye for composition and photographer's instinct for finding that perfect shot that's just waiting to be captured. Which brings me to the beef I have with Peter Lik.

Recently, his company has launched a snazzy new website. There is much amazing photography on display--"Tree of the Universe" in particular is exactly the type of photograph my inner astrophotographer wants to capture. Amazing stuff. On neat perk for people registering with the site, though, is a digital download copy of Lik's Spirit of America book, which is out of print with used copies going for something north of $50 a pop. I've wanted this for a while, so jumped at the change to download it. Naturally, the first thing I wanted to see was what he came up with for Texas. Texas, as anyone who lives here knows, has a bunch of wildly differing climates and terrains. The possibilities are endless--Enchanted Rock, Padre Island National Seashore, the Guadalupe Mountains, Palo Duro Canyon, the Big Thicket... So imagine my reaction when I saw this:

Now, it's not a bad photo. The Chisos Mountains in the background have a nice red glow of sunset about them. But honestly, could Lik gotten a more uninspired shot if he'd tried? I've seen the agave-in-the-foreground composition more times than I can count, and other than the colors of the Chisos, this isn't even a particularly inventive composition. Out of the length and breadth of the Lone Star State, this is the best he could do? Even limiting himself to Big Bend, I'm thinking Santa Elena Canyon, Grapevine Hills, Lost Mine Peak, Ernst Tenaja, the Mariscal mine... but no. A random agave is what he found the most inspiring and representative of Texas? Is it so wrong for be so disappointed? Other state with much less diversity got several images in the book. I can't help but suspect Lik was already in New Mexico and just decided to jaunt down into Texas to check one state off his list. Maybe he was nearing the end of his years-long project to photograph all 50 state, and what would merely be a rejected outtake at the beginning was "good enough" by the end. I dunno.

I'm still inspired by Lik, and he's a big reason why I'm planning a trip out to Big Bend in early 2012 for photography. But if he ever wants to come back to Texas and get some shots that are more worthy of our state, I'll be happy to serve as a guide. In Central Texas alone I can think of an endless number of sites, from the Canyon Lake Gorge to Enchanted Rock to Hamilton Pool to Honey Creek to the Bracken bat cave... yeah. We can set you up, Peter. Just say the word.

Now Playing: Oni Wytars Ensemble From Byzantium to Andalusia
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-11-18T10:25:00.000-06:00

When Aerosmith released the massive Pandora's Box career retrospective in 1991, they made a new video for "Sweet Emotion" to promote the occasion. It got heavy airplay on MTV, back when MTV still played music videos. This video was a revelation to me, not because of Areosmith's ironic humor that frames the video (although that's fun) but rather, I'd never heard the extended album version of "Sweet Emotion" before. I'd only heard the single version on their Greatest Hits album, which also happened to be the only version they ever played on the radio. I actually thought it was a re-recording until someone pointed out to me that I maybe ought to, you know, listen to Toys in the Attic. In any event, the album version of Sweet Emotion is probably my all-time favorite Aerosmith song, not counting odd album tracks like "Hangman Jury" and "Seasons of Wither."

As a side note, I once had a boss who looked just like Joe Perry. The resemblance was uncanny. Except my boss was a woman, and not a very good boss at that. You'll be happy to know I don't hold that against Joe Perry.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Spinal Tap.

Now Playing: Clannad An Diolaim
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 7

2011-11-17T22:26:00.000-06:00

As I prepare to hie myself off to bed, plagued all of the day by a lingering headache (likely brought on by the sleep disruption caused by Bug's 3 a.m. fever and vomiting--a nasty episode that vanished as quickly as it came) I feel compelled to share with you good readers this latest strip from the geeky web comic XKCD. The point is well-made. In researching the Chicken Ranch, I've come across a number of oft-reported "facts" that, near as I can tell, were cut from whole cloth by one over-imaginative individual or another. Once a so-called fact is picked up by one publication, it's often cited by another and they all end up referencing each other with little thought given to the fact that this particular house is built upon a foundation of sand. It's an interesting companion to my musings on plagiarism yesterday.

Tonight's writing sample is a good one. A juicy one. I have to confess, I love the irony of this section and took no small amount of glee in writing this up. I could've gone on quite a bit more, but the book is about prostitution in La Grange, after all. Waco's going to have to be content with a walk-on role, even if it was a thousand times more tawdry than the Chicken Ranch ever dreamed of being!

Along the south banks of the Brazos River near Waco’s famed suspension bridge, a red-light district alternately known as “The Reservation” or “Two Street” existed for more than 40 years, as Waco blazed a trail by becoming the first city in Texas to legalize prostitution. Brothels had business permits and were taxed while prostitutes were licensed and--much as the women of the Chicken Ranch would do decades later--submitted to regular, mandatory medical examinations. Although the Reservation was ostensibly supported by the political establishment as a means of keeping vice segregated from more respectable parts of the city, the vast amounts of revenue generated by taxes and licensing fees levied upon commercial sex held far more sway over public policy than moral concerns.

Hoping to get the current chapter put to bed by this weekend. Wish me luck!

Now Playing: Stan Getz The Complete Roost Recordings
Chicken Ranch Central

The perils of plagiarism

2011-11-16T21:46:00.000-06:00

You may or may not have heard of the recent plagiarism scandal centering around Quentin Rowan. It's been written about extensively, like here, here and here. In a nutshell, this guy, writing under the pen name of Q.R. Markham, published a spy novel to initial acclaim. Bully for him, right? Well yeah, except that it soon came out that the book was almost entirely cobbled together from lines and paragraphs lifted verbatim from other spy novels, with only the names changed. Seriously. Rowan stole from the James Bond books written by John Gardner as well as the works of Robert Ludlum, Charles McCarry and others. The book in question, Assassin of Secrets, was getting some good reviews before folks started putting together that it was other authors who were more deserving of credit. The publisher, Little, Brown & Co., subsequently pulled the book and it's now likely to become a collector's item.

Beyond the obvious stigma of stealing someone else's work and presenting it as your own, I have to wonder about Rowan's sanity. When college students plagiarize a term paper downloaded from the internet, that's cutting corners to save time and effort. In Rowan's case, however, harvesting so many random lines and paragraphs from so many different books and authors, then stringing them together in such a way to construct a coherent plot... that strikes me as an insane amount of work and research. Far easier and straightforward to just, you know, make up the stuff on your own.

Being a journalist by training, plagiarism's always been an issue high on my personal radar. Back in college, not a year would go by without some writer for the student paper, The Battalion, running afoul of plagiarism charges. They were invariably working for the sports desk, believe it or not. Each time, it was a columnist that got in trouble. Two were fired outright for copying a syndicated sports column and presenting as their own. The third, who happened to be working for me the one summer I served as sports editor, also used unattributed material in his column. To his credit, he did attribute the original source earlier in the column, but not when he referenced more points the original author made. In my meeting with the managing editor on the matter, we judged that it was a mistake rather than intent to deceive. So we only suspended him for two weeks. Plagiarism's serious stuff, folks.

Which brings us to today. Plagiarism has been weighing heavily on my mind long before Mr. Rowan's creative novel writing came to light. In writing this book on the Chicken Ranch, I'm putting together a non-fiction work that is not unlike journalism. I'm using many sources that came before me, and striving to properly attribute everything via endnotes. In some cases, however, the historical sources run pretty thin. Some facts and stories about the brothel can be found in a mere single source--the myriad publications that came after all cite that one source. This in and of itself is troubling for a journalist conditioned to always use multiple sources in order to verify facts, but in my case I have no choice but to go with what I can find.

My biggest challenge with this is that in many cases, these sources often presented the relevant facts in the clearest, most logical and straightforward way. Were I given this information, I'd likely write something very similar. But as I'm using them as a source, I dare not repeat those words verbatim outside of a direct quote (which I want to avoid whenever possible, as I have primary source interviews I plan on directly quoting very heavily). I'm constantly worried about reading a particularly good bit and having it worm its way into my subconscious, only to sneakily reappear later, masquerading as my own original thought. This has led to some awkward writing situations. Take last night for instance. Months ago, I'd found a section in a book that I knew would make an absolutely perfect point at this certain point in the chapter I'm currently working on. So I wrote the material down in a paragraph, added the citation, and wrote toward it. Last night I reached said paragraph, and my heart sank as I read over it again. It was perfect. Too perfect. What I'd written up to that point dovetailed nicely with the cited material. Despite the fact that the paragraphs flowed together beautifully, I steeled myself for an extensive rewrite. No matter how perfect the words were, I would not plagiarize. But folks, I'm telling you the rewrite was agony. Those words on the page were the perfect fit, and anything I came up with as an alternative read like nothing more than a convoluted work-around. After an hour or so of this, I pulled out the original source book in frustration, hoping to maybe find some little nuggets of inspiration in the text surrounding the material I was referencing.

It was then that I realized that I'd already rewritten the source material, incorporating some of my own original research as well! I'd spent the previous hour trying to paraphrase and recast what were already my own words. It was maddening. Frustrating. I said words that would make sailors cover their ears. But hey, the words on the page are mine. And the citations and reference are in proper order as well. I may yet drop the ball and botch things royally, but if I do, it won't be due to lack of effort.

Now Playing: John Coltrane The Very Best of John Coltrane
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-11-11T10:45:00.000-06:00

Today, according to the Gregorian calendar, is 11/11/11. There is only one band appropriate for such a singular, august date. "These go to 11."

Now that the mood is properly set, behold the magnificence of "Big Bottoms":

The edgy education of "Bitch School":

Or their resplendent opus, unmatched in the annals of annalized rock opera, "Stonehenge":

Remember folks, Spinal Tap is strong stuff, so use only in moderation!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... John Cougar Mellencamp.

Now Playing: The Hollies Greatest Hits
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 6

2011-11-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

Had a fun evening at Wurstfest tonight, with a dinner of wurst and sauerkraut washed down by some good Dortmunder. You know why I like living in New Braunfels so much, despite all the B.S. from the city council? This is why. Lots of Germanic pride on display tonight, along with polka. Lots of polka. And yodeling. Good stuff.

None of which is directly relevant to tonight's writing on the Chicken Ranch book, but I suppose it put me in a good enough mood to tackle one pressing issue head-on. Namely, how do I deal with oft-repeated "fact" that I strongly suspect, but cannot prove, was wholly invented by a previous author? How does an author, writing a history, handle an important time period in which which no good contemporary sources or after-the-fact accounts exist? I tread carefully, but firmly. How can I do otherwise?

If the widowed Mrs. Swine is a fiction, then she is a convenient one. Prostitution certainly flourished in 19th century La Grange, as it did throughout Texas and the Old West. Somebody had to be first, it stands to reason, and if nothing else, the homely, crude widow dressed in black makes for a good story.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: For being the world's most famous brothel, the Chicken Ranch has had a mind-boggling amount not written about it. My list of 19th century sources is vanishingly short. Still, I persevere. It's what I do.

Now Playing: Dire Straits On the Night
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 5

2011-11-06T21:57:00.000-06:00

This past week has been tough on the writing front. Not much progress simply because too many other things have gobbled up my free minutes like Pac-Man munching so many glowing dots. Some of these time sinks have been good, such as photographing weddings and the like with The Wife, or doing reading homework with my youngest. Others have been bad, like the upstairs toilet overflowing overnight and completely flooding the garage. Throw in some much-needed fun, like Halloween and back yard astronomy, and my week was gone, just like that. Fortunately, I was able to grab some quality time at the keyboard this evening. Yay! Here's a sample of what I got down:

The saloon was in a prime location to take advantage of the abundance of thirsty, road-weary travelers, and as a matter of course offered several rooms to rent. It is here Mrs. Swine took up residence with her girls, and the saloon operated continuously as a brothel for at least the next 50 years.

The good news is that I'm back on track. The bad news is that I'm already behind my self-imposed schedule. I need to double-time it this week if I'm going to finish the current chapter and the next before the end of the month. And I suspect Thanksgiving won't let me have a whole lot of free time for writing...

Now Playing: Count Basie The Atomic Mr. Basie
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The moon in my sights

2011-11-04T21:45:00.000-05:00

With the weather cooling off, the astronomy bug has bitten me again, as it tends to do every year at this time. Driving hone this past week I've been treated to some exceptionally clear skies, so I decided to take out my telescope and play around a bit. I had it out last week, but most of that time was spent struggling with collimation--which is the technical term for making sure all the mirrors line up in my Newtonian reflector telescope. If they don't, then distortion degrades the image of whatever you happen to be looking at. So I used a compass to get a passably accurate polar alignment, then monkeyed with the mirror settings for half an hour before I finally was satisfied that the scope was as collimated as good as I was going to get it. Collimation is a very basic task for owners of Newtonian telescopes, but man, I struggle with it.

With collimation more or less achieved and a pretty half-moon beckoning in the sky above, I was inspired to break out my Canon 7D and see how it handled for astrophotography. The 7D has live view, which my XTi does not, which should make accurate focusing much easier--at least in theory. The moon is an easy target, so I gave it a shot. There are two way to take astrophotos through a telescope--using the scope itself as the lens, which is called "prime photography," or using an eyepiece between the telescope and camera for increased magnification, which is called "eyepiece projection photography." Of the two, eyepiece projection is the more challenging, but I tend to do it most often because I like to mix my astrophotography with visual observing. With prime focus, although the image is brighter and sharper, the rear mirror must be moved inside the telescope tube which renders it unsuitable for visual observing. Plus, it would have to be re-collimated, and you know where I stand on that.

The image above shows the southeast of the moon. In the center of the image, the overlapping craters are, from lower left to upper right, are Janssen, Fabricus and Metius. Just to the right of them is a shallow, diagonal gash that is the Rheita Valley. Pretty cool, huh? I shot this image, and the one below, using a 12mm GSO Plössl eyepiece. The image at the top of the page of the entire moon was taken using a 20mm Plössl for a lower magnification and a wider field of view.

The image above shows the moon from the lunar equator southward. The smooth, grayis areas are the Sea of Fertility (right) and the Sea of Nectar (left). The Sea of Tranquility joins them at the top of the image, with the Apollo 11 landing site in the upper left-hand corner. The prominent crater with the central peak on the western edge of the Sea of Nectar is Theophilus. Notice the loss of sharp definition in the lower left of the image--I'll back to that shortly.

With the 12mm Plössl images turning out so nicely, I thought I'd push my telescope's capabilities to the max, and traded the 12mm for a 4mm Plössl, which is the highest magnification eyepiece I own. Turns out the 4mm is a bust for astrophotography--I could not bring it to focus with my camera. There simply wasn't enough inward focus on the telescope's focuser, and the image stayed blurry. So I tried my next highest magnification eyepiece, a 6mm Plössl. This one did work, as evidenced by the image above. The crater Theophilus and the Sea of Nectar are visible upper right hand corner. The view was certainly much closer, but it was also much dimmer. Not only that, but turbulence in the atmosphere was more obvious, distorting and degrading the view. Despite my best efforts at focusing precisely, the rather soft image above is the clearest I could manage. For practical purporses, 9mm is probably the highest magnification eyepiece I can use under normal sky conditions for astrophotography.

In case you were wondering, the image above shows how the eyepieces connect with the camera in the telescope adapter. Different eyepieces are swapped out for narrower or wider fields of view. What suprised me the most was the poor imaging results I got from my wider eyepieces, such as the 20mm Plössl. The full view of the moon at the top of this post was taken with the 20mm, as was the image below. Notice the halation and distortion that becomes more apparent the farther away from the center you get. I'm really not sure what this is--I'd have thought a lower-power eyepiece would minimize distortion, but the opposite appears to be the case. Because the higher magnification eyepieces restrict the field of view to a very narrow portion of the telescope's mirror reflection, I suspect the distortion is the result of either the natural "coma" distortion inherent in the Newtonian mirrored telescope design, or errors from poor collimation. I'm not at all confident my collimation is good, but that's an awful lot of distortion. The same goes for coma. I'll be asking people more knowledgeable than myself in the future to try and figure this one out.

As I was wrapping up my photo session, three middle school kids who'd been walking up and down the block all evening stopped and asked "can you see the moon through that?" I removed the camera and re-balanced the mount, then invited them to look. There were gasps of of amazement and much marveling all around. Then I showed them Jupiter and its four Galilean satellites. One exclaimed "I like science now," which gave me a chuckle. They thanked me then headed home, and as they were walking away, I heard one say, "No wonder Monkey Girl is so smart!" Monkey Girl being my eldest daughter. That made me smile--two compliments for the price of one.

I'm going to try and set up my telescope in the front yard more often during these mild autumn evenings. Even though light pollution keeps me from viewing any deep space object--galaxies and nebulas and clusters--the moon and planets are still gorgeous and more than impressive for a bit of astronomical outreach among the neighbors. I just wish I could figure out how to control that fuzzy distortion in my images...

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Friday Night Videos

2011-11-04T09:02:00.001-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street movement over the past couple of months has brought a particular John Cougar Mellencamp piece to mind: "The Authority Song." It strikes me as an anthem custom-made for the folks out on the street protesting rampant corporate greed, and the video, too, plays into the "little guy vs. the machine" archetype. What really jumped out at me, though, is how much that kid in the video resembles a young Mark Wahlberg. I haven't been able to find any references online to Wahlberg's participation in the video, but as Wahlberg was born in 1971 and "Authority Song" was released in 1983, the age would be about right. In any event, the resemblance is uncanny.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Cranberries.

Now Playing: Derek & the Dominoes The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition
Chicken Ranch Central

Can the Ban and Iowa call centers

2011-11-02T15:19:00.001-05:00

Last night I got a phone call on a pressing local issue. A woman on the phone was urging me to vote in favor of the ban on disposable containers on the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers within the New Braunfels city limits. Otherwise, she informed me, we'd be facing an environmental catastrophe.

I asked her if she'd seen the river management plan for the Comal and Guadalupe from the River Systems Institute at Texas State University? She said, "I don't have that in front of me." I informed her that it didn't exist, because for all the New Braunfels City Council's fear mongering about litter and the environment, not a single one of them have approached the state's premiere aquatic resources management institute to solicit any advice or guidance whatsoever. An institute that is a mere 20 miles up I-35, that actually re-stocked the various endangered species in the Comal River after the springs in Landa Park ran dry in the 1950s, wiping out that entire ecosystem.

Why haven't they done so? Because the majority of the current City Council doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment or endangered species or litter. They want a private waterfront for their cronies with million-dollar McMansions along the Comal, and hate the idea that the Comal is a navigable waterway, and therefore regulated by the state. If they can't close the river, then by golly they'll regulate it to death, so that the public stays away because it's too much hassle to do otherwise. Banning disposable containers accomplishes that feat, because people need to drink something during a two-hour float to stay hydrated. What are the logistical complications of taking non-disposable drink containers and dispensers along? And I'm not even talking about alcohol. It's absurd. The same factors were at work a few years ago when the Council, led by Ken Valentine, tried to restrict the size of coolers to a tiny, unworkable maximum size to achieve the same results. The measure failed and the public backlash led to Valentine's recall. It seems some factions never learn.

So, anyway, my phone caller was taken a bit off guard by my statement, so I started to lecture her. I told her the history of this sorry state of affairs, how the City Council forced through the ordinance over vocal public opposition, refusing to put it up for a public vote. How the city attorney's office said the ordinance was likely unconstitutional. How it took a petition drive to get it on the November ballot. How the weasel publisher of the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung publishes 100 percent pro-ban articles and letters that don't even try to be objective. How councilwoman Kathleen Krueger has earned the title of "Drama Queen for Life" with her hysterics in front of the media, going so far as to cancel her participation in a public debate on the issue yesterday because she "feared for her safety." Just to put this into perspective, her husband, Robert Krueger, risked his personal safety on a daily basis as Ambassador to Burundi. U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford was recently recalled to Washington because of threats to his personal safety. Yet Kathleen Krueger had the audacity to cast herself in the same light as these advocates of human rights over her support of a city ordinance that is wildly unpopular with her constituents? Shameful.

So I'm laying this out for my caller, and she finally breaks in, saying, "Hey, I don't know anything about this stuff. I'm in Iowa, and they're just paying me to read from a script." So there you have it. The Can the Ban opposition have tireless local volunteers working the streets, hosting fund raisers and essentially running themselves ragged to get this ill-conceived ordinance voted down, while the pro-ban City Council hires out-of-state phone banks to do their dirty work for them. Hmm.

I voted early last week against the ban. I certainly hope everyone else does as well. And if the City Council really has any concern about the long-term viability of our rivers, I invite them to give RSI Executive Directory Andy Sansom a call at (512) 245-9200. He'll be happy to work with New Braunfels to develop a pragmatic, sustainable, long-term plan for the continued use and preservation of our rivers. After all, the RSI's Vision Statement reads:

Rivers are a major part of Earth's circulatory system, supplying nutrients to support the oceans' biological productivity, plus other important natural and cultural functions. But rivers are also used for consumptive uses and waste disposal in ways that reduce their essential flows and otherwise hinder their crucial functions. Recreation and tourism are increasingly important uses of rivers. These are essential human activities that can be instrumental in helping people understand and support proper river stewardship.

The Research Center for River Recreation and Tourism will encourage and facilitate research from all relevant disciplines and will foster a holistic perspective on river systems. The Center will particularly focus on developing and disseminating an understanding of the processes and methods by which recreation and tourism can lead to better stewardship.

Sounds like a win-win for everyone involved. That is, of course, assuming one side is more concerned with the greater public good, as opposed to establishing a private waterfront for the well-heeled in New Braunfels.

Now Playing: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers The Last DJ
Chicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-10-28T09:33:00.004-05:00

Happy Halloween, folks! Today's musical selection is pretty obvious. I think I know a grand total of two songs by the Cranberries, and one of them happens to be "Zombie". How can I not go with that, seeing how the zombie apocalypse is well nigh upon us?

Previously on Friday Night Videos... BR549.

Now Playing: Louis Armstrong All-Time Greatest Hits
Chicken Ranch Central

Dance with the dead

2011-10-27T16:13:00.000-05:00

How's this for a fun Halloween/Chicken Ranch tie-in: Tomorrow night, Oct. 28, The Wife and I will be kicking up our heels at the Institute of Texan Cultures' Dance With the Dead Halloween Masquerade. It looks to be quite the fun shindig! But how, you may ask, does this tie-in with the Chicken Ranch? Well, the costume theme of the night is figures from Texas history. Dead Texans, if you will. And during the evening, there will be vignettes acted out highlighting certain figures and events of Texas history. I was contacted to serve a consultant of sorts for a planned presentation on the Chicken Ranch. Think they came to the right person? They were admittedly surprised when I informed them that Edna Milton is indeed still alive, but the fact that Marvin Zindler and Sheriff Jim Flournoy have passed on means the whole Chicken Ranch affair remains within the scope of the evening's festivities. And I might have provided them with a bit of information here and there to improve the historical accuracy of the presentation as well.

So, yes, I will be there in an official capacity as author of an eventually forthcoming book on the Chicken Ranch, answering any and all questions the curious may have about that infamous institution. And yes, The Wife and I will be in costume, dressed as famous, deceased Texans. She's going as Anna Nicole Smith, and I'll be J. Howard Marshall. It'll be a hoot and a half, I'm telling you--see y'all there!

Now Playing: London Philharmonic Orchestra Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd
Chicken Ranch Central

As the conference turns, pt. 7

2011-10-26T09:02:00.001-05:00

A lot has happened since my last comment on this topic, where I wrapped up by wondering if Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds would resurrect his grand Pac-16 conference realignment plan from 18 months ago, or move heaven and Earth to hang onto his new Longhorn Network. Turns out the correct answer is the former. But first, a quick recap on the goings-on of the past two months:

Texas A&M announces application to Southeastern Conference
SEC conditionally accepts A&M as 13th member
Baylor threatens to sue A&M, SEC and anyone who points out that Baylor athletics has ridden the coattails of their athletic and academic superiors for 20 years in the Big 12 without doing anything with the opportunities they'd been handed on a silver platter
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State approach Pac-12 for membership
Pac-12 says "Not without Texas"
Texas (ie Dodds) says "Not without the LHN"
Pac-12 says "We're happy with 12 members"
Oklahoma says "$#&%@!"
SEC formally accepts A&M
Big 12 (minus 2, minus 1) invites TCU
TCU says "WHOO HOO!"
Big East says "$#&%@!"
Dodds says "We will never, ever, ever, ever, ever play A&M again. Ever."
A&M says "We'll play you whenever you want. Not Baylor, though."
Baylor says "We will never, ever, ever, ever, ever play A&M again. Ever. But we still might sue you for not playing us."
Missouri looks longingly to the rust belt mecca known as the Big 10 (ie the B1G) and asks maybe, possibly, if the B1G may have reconsidered its position on expansion?
The B1G replies that it still doesn't want Mizzou, but Nebraska is working out nicely
Texas Tech covers A&M team buses, inside and out, with stink bait.
A&M says "Not Tech, either."
Mizzou asks SEC for membership, all the while casting longing glances toward the B1G
SEC slowly, reluctantly, kinda, sorta says, "Yeah, okay Mizzou, you can join. But keep it quiet, because even though you were part of the Confederacy, nobody for a moment thinks you're southern or eastern, and you certainly aren't a Florida State or Virginia Tech."
Mizzou says "whoo hoo" while casting longing glances toward the B1G
Big 12 (minus 2, minus 1) says "$#&%@!"
Big 12 invites West Virginia
West Virginia says "WHOO HOO! LET'S RIOT AN' BURN STUFF IN THE STREETS!"
Big East says "$#&%@!"

That pretty much sums it up. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of the realignment tilt-a-whirl and pretty much ready for it to wind down for a while. What I do find of particular interest is the fact that Texas' (ie Dodds') two biggest objections to the SEC are no longer valid. The first, that the SEC is too geographically sprawling for a team from the state of Texas to join, was always questionable at best, considering Iowa State is a member of the Big 12 and Dodds was gung-ho to create the Pac-16 just 18 months ago with trips to Pullman, Washington and Corvalis, Oregon on the itinerary. But now, with the addition of West Virginia (and this nifty graphic from Mizzou2SEC, we see that "Geographic integrity" means pretty much whatever the folks over at 40 Acres say it means:

But as anyone who has followed this particular story knows, the real kicker is academics. The SEC's academics are abysmal, sniffed Texas, a school which longed to rub shoulders with academic elites on the West Coast. Which is all well and good, except this realignment is about athletic competition not academic competition. With A&M, and now Mizzou joining the SEC, that league has four member who are part of the prestigious Association of American Universities, whereas the Big 12 now has three. And if you compare the two conferences using an average of their academic rankings, the SEC beats the Big 12 handily. And that's before West Virginia is considered. West Virginia? That school is certainly not known as an academic powerhouse. In fact, it's like the anti-powerhouse. Consider that Texas Tech is the lowest-ranking school from either the current Big 12 or the SEC on U.S. News & World Report's most recent ranking of national universities, coming in at no. 160. West Virginia lowers the bar at 164. For comparison's sake, Mississippi State, the lowest-ranking SEC school, checks in at 157. Vanderbilt, the top school in the SEC, is ranked at no. 17, followed by Texas, the top school in the Big 12, at no. 45. A&M and Florida are tied at 58. It's pretty clear that Dodds is very, very angry about A&M leaving for the SEC. That A&M didn't fall in line with what was in the best interest of Texas (ie Dodds), and instead did what was in the best interest of A&M. Dodds has maintained that he only is doing what is "in the best interest of Texas" when controversy over the LHN flared up, but when someone else does the same thing for their own institution, suddenly they're "throwing away tradition" and acting selfishly. Dodds, for maybe the first time in his life, did not get his way and is pitching a fit. Sadly, this means the long and storied rivalry between A&M and Texas will go on hiatus in all sports starting next season. That's sad, because most alumni I know on either side want the games to continue. On the upside, Dodds is getting closer to retirement every day (the man's 72, after all). I'll wager that the Lone Star Showdown resumes before 2020, and everyone can go home happy. As the conference turns, pt. 1 As the conference turns, pt. 2 As the conference turns, pt. 3 As the conference turns, pt. 4 As the conference turns, pt. 5 As the conference turns, pt. 6Now Playing: Prince The Hits/The B SidesChicken Ranch Central

Friday Night Videos

2011-10-21T09:12:00.001-05:00

If you've never heard BR549 before, their sound is retro-country, sort of western swing meets rockabilly by way of hillbilly. They never hit it big on the country scene, but they did get to play an episode of Austin City Limits and produced gems such as "Me and Opie Down By the Duck Pond", the Andy Griffith Show episode that never existed, but you really, really wished did.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Foster the People.

Now Playing: Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out
Chicken Ranch Central

Chicken Ranch report no. 4

2011-10-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

Monday saw no writing from me, I'm sorry to say. The frenetic pace of the weekend finally caught up with me, and I crashed early. Sleep was much-needed and welcomed. Today has been much more productive for me.

Sadly, I discovered today that my dream telescope, the Meade LXD75 SN10-AT has been discontinued. I came this close to purchasing it after saving up quite a bit of money several years ago. Unfortunately, when I tried to place my order, I learned that it'd been backordered. Uh-oh. I'd seen this movie before. I tried to pay in advance anyway, knowing that if I waited, something would happen to deplete that stash of cash I'd worked so hard to save up. No dice, I couldn't pre-order. Sure enough, one of the kids needed unexpected dental work within a few weeks, and the money was all but gone by the time I got the notice a month later that they were ready to fill my order. Because the universe likes to jack me around that way. Someday I will get a high-end scope, but I'll end up paying significantly more than I would have for the SN10-AT, which makes me sad.

That has nothing to do with writing about the Chicken Ranch, however. Tonight's writing was filled with its own unique challenges. When writing about the earliest days of the brothel, there's a dearth of evidence available. No primary sources. No newspaper accounts. Essentially, there's nothing beyond oral tradition and oral traditions can be pretty screwy. So I'm writing up one version of the origins of the Chicken Ranch, the most widely-repeated version, and it's killing me. Because I've traced this story back to a single source, and I am convinced the author was shoveling 100 percent, grade-A B.S. That kind of stuff drives me insane, but then again, that's why I'm torturing myself with the writing of this book, to set the record straight and lay out the truth and the lies to the best of my limited ability. But enough of my inane drivel, here's a sample of tonight's work:

The very first madam to run a brothel in La Grange arrived in 1844 on La Bahia Road from New Orleans, that infamous Sodom-On-The-Mississippi, with a covey of three "soiled doves" in tow. Of their lives in New Orleans, or whether they made any detours along the way, nothing is known. It strains credibility to suggest that these women set out from New Orleans with the actual intent to settle in La Grange, a tiny frontier town barely known to anyone east of Nacogdoches, if even that. It is far more likely that their intended destination was San Antonio or possibly even the new capital of Austin. In any event, circumstances caused them to stop in La Grange, and in La Grange is where they stayed.

Yeppers, it does indeed appear that we're finally getting into some of the good stuff. I find history and background and worldbuilding fascinating (I am a Tolkien fan, after all) but I know good and well what folks will buy this book for!

Now Playing: Miles Davis Birth of the Cool
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Chicken Ranch progress report no. 3

2011-10-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

What an astonishingly exhausting weekend. I had a wedding to shoot on Friday--a solo gig, rather than my usual role of backing up The Wife. And that meant much of Saturday was taken up with editing photos--that, and watching the Aggies whoop up on Baylor! We followed that up with another wedding today, one in which The Wife and I did the normal double-team operation. Add in there Monkey Girl's band performance at the halftime of Canyon's football game against Clemens (Canyon won!) and various other locations and events to shuttle the kids to and from... is it any wonder that I'm exhausted?

Considering that jam-packed schedule, it'd be expected that I didn't get any writing done this weekend. Heck, I certainly wouldn't expect me to get any done, that's for sure. But miracle of miracles, I did. Not a lot, granted, but several hundred words' worth that gets pretty much the last of the purely infodump material out of the way. And by "purely infodump" I mean stuff I've had to glean from books and elsewhere, as opposed to the first-hand, primary source background I've gathered on my own. Let me share with you the first direct quote to appear in the book:

"Most of the population was German or Czech," said Oliver Kitzman, a former District Attorney who served Fayette County. "If you look around the country, you’ll see when the Czechs came over they settled in the blackland prairies, and the Germans settled in the hills, the more rolling places. I don't know why that is, but it's true. They were a frugal, hard-working people."

Nothing Earth-shaking, I'll grant you that. But those Czechs and Germans are a big reason why the Chicken Ranch became the enduring institution that it did. And Kitzman has a lot of interesting things to say later on. Stay tuned.

Now Playing: Miles Davis Sketches of Spain
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Chicken Ranch progress report no. 2

2011-10-13T00:00:00.001-05:00

I had a good evening of writing tonight, which is actually a bit of a surprise. Yesterday was a struggle, and today, after getting a flu shot, I was feeling very lethargic and sleepy, with an uncomfortableness that almost became a generalized body ache. I've never reacted to a flu shot before, so I don't know if it was the stress of the day or lack of sleep or what, but it was hammering me good. As the evening wore on, the "ugh" feeling dissipated and I felt up to some writing.

Nothing I've written thus far had altered my thinking that chapter 1 is the most difficult for me to write. There's not a whole heck of a lot of information available on the Chicken Ranch during the 19th century, for starters. Since my narrative is generally chronological, I feel I have to include the history of the county and settlement of La Grange, since that all ties in and gives context to the Chicken Ranch and why it survived so long. The downside is that there's comparatively little sex in there, which (let's face it) is the big draw for any book on the Chicken Ranch.

In her 1980 book on the Chicken Ranch, Jan Hutson touches on the history of Fayette County as well, but I have significant issues with her dismissive and frankly racist comments about the Native American tribes in the area, comments which are flatly contradicted by near-contemporary accounts I've come across. "Tonks had most of the bad characteristics of their brethren tribes and a noticeable lack of the good ones. They were chronic beggars by inclination with an innate belief in public ownership of mobile property, preferably on four legs." It gets worse from there. While I'm not devoting a tremendous amount of chapter 1 to the Native American tribes in Fayette County, I do hope I can present (to the best of my knowledge) a more accurate picture. Without the effort coming across drier than sawdust:

Near the end of Spanish colonial rule through the Mexican revolution, the important La Bahia Road cut through the area, crossing the Colorado near the present site of La Grange. The Spanish never settled the region, though, and it wasn’t until 1822 that European settlers--members of Austin’s “Old Three Hundred”--arrived in significant numbers.

Almost from the start there were clashes between the whites and the natives. The first recorded battle occurred in 1823 on Skull Creek, when a hastily assembled troop of 22 settlers destroyed a Karankawa camp harassing whites along the river. The Karankawas, a tribe more commonly associated with the Texas Coastal Bend, were generally reviled by settlers and rival tribes alike for their reputed cannibalism. At the end of the fight, 23 Karankawas lay dead, without the loss of a single settler.

I'm somewhat conflicted right now by terminology in this section. In my sources, "whites" and "Indians" are used almost exclusively. "Native American" sounds entirely too modern and jarring for the most part, and "settlers" and "Europeans" become tedious after a dozen or so uses. Fortunately, it's a small section only a few pages long, and after that I shouldn't have to worry about that particular word-choice issue again. I imagine I'll sort it out eventually--that's what second drafts are for!

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Chicken Ranch progress report no. 1

2011-10-10T23:40:00.001-05:00

After all this time, it's hard to believe that I'm actually in writing mode, as opposed to research, interview or transcription mode. But yeah, I'm knee-deep in chapter one, making genuine progress on the whole book front. So for all of you people out there (you know who you are) who have asked me time and again over the past couple of years "When's the book coming out?" and I've made some vague comment that generally translates into "Eventually," here's to dashing your suspicions that I've been faking the whole thing.

Honestly, when I undertook this project, I figured it would be a lark. Six months of work at the most. Little did I know it would grow, Blob-like, and consume my entire life. But hey, I've never been one for doing things by half-measures. I cannot express what a huge relief it is to finally, finally, finally be putting words on the page. Here's a little sample of tonight's work for your reading pleasure.

What set the Chicken Ranch apart was its venerable history. By 1973, it was the last man standing, the lone holdout against changing times that had shuttered pretty much all of its one-time contemporaries.

From the earliest days of the Republic, long before vast oilfields covered the landscape and “black gold” made the state rich, the Texas economy depended on three industries: cattle, cotton and timber. A casual observer of the time could not be blamed, though, for thinking of prostitution as a fourth major cash crop.

In case you're wondering, those words were helped along by Pumpkin Ale from Buffalo Bill's Brewery. I highly recommend it--of the various pumpkin ales I've tried over the years, this one strikes the right balance between the pumpkin and hoppy malt flavors of the beer. Not that it has anything directly to do with the Chicken Ranch, but I felt like sharing.

Now Playing: Edward Shearmur and the London Metropolitan Orchestra Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
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Friday Night Videos

2011-10-07T08:58:00.000-05:00

Meet my new favorite song of recent vintage, Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks". It's brilliant for all sorts of reasons. First, it's got a bouncy, infectious groove that that conveys a happy, nostalgic vibe. Except that the lyrics are diametrically opposed to that same vibe. They're seriously dark, akin to laying the lyrics to Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun" over the music from the B-52's "Love Shack." Yeah, that is seriously messed up, but I love the dissonance. The video isn't much to write home about, but I have to admit the home movie approach does tend to reenforce the happy nostalgic quality of the song, especially if the listener just hums along, not paying much attention to the lyrics.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Greg Kihn Band.

Now Playing: Billy Joel The Nylon Curtain
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Friday Night Videos

2011-09-30T09:51:00.000-05:00

I've always loved "The Breakup Song" by the Greg Kihn Band. Probably because they don't write 'em like that anymore.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine.

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Frankenstein's moon

2011-09-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

One of the cool things about my day job is that sometimes it intersects with my genre leanings in a big way. Take Frankenstein's Moon as a case in point. This is how I spent much of last week, distilling a full-blown Sky & Telescope article down to a media-release-sized writeup, balancing readability with accuracy. Not always an easy task, especially when there's a lot of research and technical nuance involved. Practice helps, though. In the past, we've worked on similar projects connecting Edvard Munch's painting The Scream with Krakatoa, settled a date conflict regarding Caesar's invasion of Britain, offered a convincing new date for the ancient battle of Marathon and solved Walt Whitman's meteor mystery, among many others. Fun stuff, that!

The current Frankenstein piece seems to be capturing popular attention as well. Already it has resulted in a nice articles in The Guardian, which as been reprinted in quite a few British newspapers. Another article written by Jim Forsythe at WOAI in San Antonio has been picked up by Reuters and shown up all over the world, including MSNBC. So yeah, we've got lots of Frankenstein to enjoy here at the end of September.

One cool bit of conflation didn't make it into the media release, but is touched upon in the full article. Allow me to slip into Jess Nevins mode for a moment (although Jess would likely scoff that this is common knowledge) to explain. During the original "ghost story" challenge mentioned below, Mary Shelley is the only participant to actually finish a written piece begun at that time. Lord Byron began one, but soon lost interest and abandoned it. John Polidori, however, took up that fragment some time later and was inspired to write The Vampyre, published in 1819. The story was an immediate success, in part, no doubt, because the publisher credited it as written by Lord Byron (Polidori and Byron fought for some years to get the attribution corrected in subsequent printings). The Vampyre was the first fiction to cast the legendary bloodsuckers as an aristocratic menace in the narrative, and spawned a popular trend of 19th century vampire fiction which culminated with Bram Stoker's enduring Dracula in 1897. Which means the two most famous horror icons of 20th century pop culture--Dracula and Frankenstein's monster--can both trace their lineage back to that 1816 gathering at Villa Diodoti overlooking Lake Geneva.

Frankenstein’s moon: Astronomers vindicate account of masterwork

Victor Frankenstein’s infamous monster led a brief, tragic existence, blazing a trail of death and destruction that prompted mobs of angry villagers to take up torches and pitchforks against him on the silver screen. Never once during his rampage, however, did the monster question the honesty of his ultimate creator, author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

That bit of horror was left to the scholars.

Now, a team of astronomers from Texas State University-San Marcos has applied its unique brand of celestial sleuthing to a long-simmering controversy surrounding the events that inspired Shelley to write her legendary novel Frankenstein. Their results shed new light on the question of whether or not Shelley’s account of the episode is merely a romantic fiction.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (played by Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (played by Gavin Gordon) listen as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (played by Elsa Lanchester) tells her tale of horror. [Bride of Frankenstein]
Texas State physics faculty members Donald Olson and Russell Doescher, English professor Marilynn S. Olson and Honors Program students Ava G. Pope and Kelly D. Schnarr publish their findings in the November 2011 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine, on newsstands now.

“Shelley gave a very detailed account of that summer in the introduction to an early edition of Frankenstein, but was she telling the truth?” Olson said. “Was she honest when she told her story of that summer and how she came up with the idea, and the sequence of events?”

A Dark and Stormy Night

The story begins, literally, in June 1816 at Villa Diodati overlooking Switzerland’s Lake Geneva. Here, on a dark and stormy night, Shelley—merely 18 at the time—attended a gathering with her future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, her stepsister Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron and John Polidori. To pass the time, the group read a volume of ghost stories aloud, at which point Byron posed a challenge in which each member of the group would attempt to write such a tale.

Villa Diodati sits on a steep slope overlooking Lake Geneva. Relatively clear views prevail to the west, but the view of the eastern sky is partially blocked by the hill. A rainbow greeted the Texas State researchers upon their arrival at Lake Geneva. [Photo by Russell Doescher]
“The chronology that’s in most books says Byron suggested they come up with ghost stories on June 16, and by June 17 she’s writing a scary story,” Olson said. “But Shelley has a very definite memory of several days passing where she couldn’t come up with an idea. If this chronology is correct, then she embellished and maybe fabricated her account of how it all happened.

“There’s another, different version of the chronology in which Byron makes his suggestion on June 16, and Shelley didn’t come up with her idea until June 22, which gives a gap of five or six days for conceiving a story,” he said. “But our calculations show that can’t be right, because there wouldn’t be any moonlight on the night that she says the moon was shining.”

Moonlight is the key. In Shelley’s account, she was unable to come up with a suitable idea until another late-night conversation--a philosophical discussion of the nature of life--that continued past the witching hour (midnight). When she finally went to bed, she experienced a terrifying waking dream in which a man attempted to bring life to a cadaverous figure via the engines of science. Shelley awoke from the horrific vision to find moonlight streaming in through her window, and by the next day was hard at work on her story.

Doubting Shelley

Although the original gathering and ghost story challenge issued by Byron is well-documented, academic scholars and researchers have questioned the accuracy of Mary Shelley’s version of events to the extent of labeling them outright fabrications. The traditionally accepted date for the ghost story challenge is June 16, based on an entry from Polidori’s diary, which indicates the entire party had gathered at Villa Diodati that night. In Polidori’s entry for June 17, however, he reports “The ghost-stories are begun by all but me.”

Russell Doescher and Ava Pope take measurements in the garden of Villa Diodati. [Photo by Marilynn Olson]
Critics have used those diary entries to argue Shelley didn’t agonize over her story for days before beginning it, but rather started within a span of hours. Others have suggested Shelley fabricated a romanticized version for the preface of the 1831 edition of Frankenstein solely to sell more books. Key, however, is the fact that none of Polidori’s entries make reference to Byron’s ghost story proposal.

“There is no explicit mention of a date for the ghost story suggestion in any of the primary sources–the letters, the documents, the diaries, things like that,” Olson said. “Nobody knows that date, despite the assumption that it happened on the 16th.”

Frankenstein’s moon

Surviving letters and journals establish that Byron and Polidori arrived at Villa Diodati on June 10, narrowing the possible dates for the evening of Byron’s ghost story proposition to a June 10-16 window. To further refine the dates, Shelley’s reference of moonlight on the night of her inspirational dream provided an astronomical clue for the Texas State researchers. To determine which nights in June 1816 bright moonlight could’ve shone through Shelley’s window after midnight, the team of Texas State researchers traveled in Aug. 2010 to Switzerland, where Villa Diodati still stands above Lake Geneva.

Ava Pope, Kelly Schnarr and Donald Olson on the steep slope just below Villa Diodati. [Photo by Roger Sinnott]
The research team made extensive topographic measurements of the terrain and Villa Diodati, then combed through weather records from June of 1816. The Texas State researchers then calculated that a bright, gibbous moon would have cleared the hillside to shine into Shelley’s bedroom window just before 2 a.m. on June 16. This calculated time is in agreement with Shelley’s witching hour reference. Furthermore, a Polidori diary entry backs up Shelley’s claim of a late-night philosophical “conversation about principles” of life taking place June 15.

Had there been no moonlight visible that night, the astronomical analysis would indicate fabrication on her part. Instead, evidence supports Byron’s ghost story suggestion taking place June 10-13 and Shelley’s waking dream occurring between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on June 16, 1816.

“Mary Shelley wrote about moonlight shining through her window, and for 15 years I wondered if we could recreate that night,” Olson said. “We did recreate it. We see no reason to doubt her account, based on what we see in the primary sources and using the astronomical clue.”

For additional information, visit the Sky & Telescope web gallery at www.skyandtelescope.com/Frankenstein.

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42: Life, the universe and birthdays

2011-09-16T12:42:00.000-05:00

So, the birthday thing. I don't always do so good with them. There's lots more gray in my hair, my driver's license says I'm not allowed to drive without my glasses, and I've got a rickety gut seemingly held together with duct tape and bailing wire. All those bones I broke decades ago have started reminding me about those misadventures and generally all the parts that make up the whole aren't quite like a well-oiled machine anymore. I don't suppose I should complain much, though, as my blood pressure's good and my blood chemistry is excellent for a guy my age and weight.

Still, I'm not down with that "aging gracefully" thing. How else to describe my culinary dance with the infamous Ghost Chili last year? When you wake up and realize there are more miles behind the cart than remain in front, and the ambition of youth has given way to the lowered expectations of middle age, it ain't so easy to maintain a chipper outlook. Be that as it may, this is one birthday that isn't going to throw me into a funk. Being the science fictional geek that I am, I embrace the 42nd anniversary of my appearance upon the Earth, and celebrate the fact that our world has yet to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial bypass. Since my accumulation of years is now equivalent to the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything I will henceforth stride boldly into the coming year with the all the enthusiastic mayhem I can muster in good conscience. After all, 42 is the last cool-numbered birthday worthy of celebrating (with the obvious exception of 69, of course, but the breakdown of the ol' chassis leaves significant doubt as to whether I'll be able to acquit myself properly as befits such an august number).

Finish that damn Chicken Ranch book (okay, although this list is purposefully presented in No Particular Order, this particular elephant in the proverbial room is too big to pretend it isn't no. 1. Many, many other entries on this list depend wholly or in part in getting Dumbo to fly).
Stop dwelling so much about what other people think of me. Stop censoring and limiting and restricting and misrepresenting myself in some misguided attempt to earn their approval. This does not mean I intent to turn myself into a loudmouth oaf with delusions of assholery (beyond what certain parties may already ascribe to me, that is).
Finish my in-progress short story "A Life Less Illustrated."
Be a better father and husband.
Be a better role model for my children (and no, that's not necessarily the same as no. 4, although I agree there is overlap).
Return to work on my half-finished fantasy novel, Wetsilver.
Fill out my Farscape collection with the missing episodes from season 3 I don't have.
Watch the entire run of Farscape, in order, from the pilot episode through Peacekeeper Wars (see no. 7).
Finish converting the garage into a home photography studio.
Lose 25 pounds.
Watch Deep Throat with The Wife (see no. 2).
Finish my in-progress short story "The Shoals of Cibola."
Stop yelling so much/Keep my temper under control (probably should be two entries, but they kinda go hand in hand).
Get back to that radio script I'm supposed to be writing with Mark Finn.
Learn to scuba.
Spend a long weekend in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, photographing landscapes and wildlife.
Find a publisher for Voices of Wonder, my second collected volume of genre-themed interviews.
Read Don Quixote.
Enroll in photography courses at Texas State (I pulled a 4.0 in the photography courses I took two years back, and now circumstances may allow me to take the next round).
Pull a 4.0 for the semester (see no 19).
Put together that Apollo-Soyuz model kit I bought 20 years ago.
Surprise The Wife with a Canon EF 24-70 2.8 L lens (if you see the price, you'll know why it'd be a surprise).
Read those Hunger Games books.
Finish that Green Arrow musical thing.
Buy a new car.
Publish (or rather, find a publisher for) my short story collection.
Photograph a Division I-A football game from the sidelines.
Get back to that short story I'm supposed to be writing with Chris Nakashima-Brown.
Spend the better part of a week in New Orleans with The Wife (okay, this is a cheat, since we're already booked to go to Imaging USA).
Return to, and finish, Memory, my online serial storytelling experiment.
Visit Cape Canaveral. And the Everglades while I'm at it.
If that buffoon Rick Perry wins the GOP presidential nomination, make my first-ever political contribution to any and all candidates capable of keeping that lunatic out of the White House.
Spend a long weekend in Big Bend National Park, photographing landscapes and wildlife.
Buy my dream telescope, the Meade LXD75 SN-10AT (f/4) Schmidt-Newtonian.
Begin writing Sailing Venus, my long-delayed YA novel. My kids aren't getting any younger.
Re-unite The Kinks (hey, a guy can dream).
Write that "Airships and Apes" challenge story put forth by Joe Lansdale.
See the Blue Man Group live.
Rewrite "Where the Rubber Meets the Road."
More skyrockets in flight.
Get a Canon FD 500mm f/8 reflex lens and convert it to EF mount with an Optix V5+ focus confirmation chip with "Trap Focus" feature.
Re-read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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42: Don't Panic!

2011-09-16T10:42:00.000-05:00

Today I am 42. I have not been known for aging gracefully, but I am embracing this year's birthday because it is the last cool number I'm likely to encounter for quite some time. Understanding the profound significance 42 holds for geekdom, behold my birthday cake The Wife made:

It is okay to be jealous. Also, The Wife bowled me over with an early birthday present a week or so back. Behold my new Canon 7D:

Again, it's okay to be jealous. That gift, although mightily impressive, isn't entirely altruistic on her part. Since she had my Canon XTi converted to full-time infrared as an anniversary gift, we've been short enough cameras for both of us to shoot independently with emergency backup bodies. This camera fills that need, and indeed got quite a heavy workout last Saturday shooting a wedding at Chapel Dulcinea.

So yeah, I've got my towel, and am feeling like a hoopy frood. Don't panic!

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42: Friday Night Videos

2011-09-16T08:42:00.001-05:00

This being a profound and solemn occasion and all, for the observance of my 42nd trip around the star we call the sun, I sought to come up with a song to feature on Friday Night Videos that was worthy of such an august event. Alas, I failed miserably. But not to fear! During the wedding The Wife and I photographed last week, a song played that was so jaw-dropping in its inspired genius that I was left gobsmacked. Yes, you read that right: gobsmacked! I did a little research (as the journalist in me is wont to do) and discovered the musical masterpiece was performed by none other than Mark Jonathan Davis, the singer/songwriter who gave us "Star Wars Cantina" more than a decade ago now. Now performing as Richard Cheese with his band Lounge Against the Machine, he specializes in jazz and big band versions of well-known top 40 and rock hits. Which is all fine and dandy, but it does nothing to prepare you for the reality of a bossa nova "Baby Got Back". Consider this my gift to you.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Violent Femmes.

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42: A momentous occasion

2011-09-16T00:42:00.013-05:00

42: The ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. Which is a roundabout way of saying today is my birthday. Grab your towels and don't panic. It's going to be an interesting ride.

Now Playing: The Kinks Everybody's in Show-Biz
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First infrared wedding!

2011-09-10T20:53:00.001-05:00

The Wife, owner and principal photographer of Lisa on Location, had an afternoon wedding today at Chapel Dulcinea, a lovely venue just outside of Buda. The whole place has a great magical realism vibe going for it, with bronze statues of Don Quixote and his love, Dulcinea, along with whimsical names for the buildings on the property, such as Wizard's Tower and the like. Which, you know, is like Pixie Sticks to my imagination, and I was ever so happy to play along. I finally, finally, finally got to use my infrared camera in a real live wedding shoot!

I'm jazzed with the results. The otherworldly lighting of infrared took great advantage of the landscaping--even though the drought had taken a huge toll on the area--the fantastic white foliage practically glowed around Jonathon and Stephanie! I know I've said it before, but the effect is otherworldly, striking and fantastically stylish. I'm just happy the bride and groom trusted me enough to play along for a few minutes after The Wife had finished the main shots. It was very hot out there, and I know the air conditioned reception hall was calling their names!

Needless to say, I can't wait for those weddings Lisa On Location has booked through October and November. There are some great venues there that I know will be eye-popping in infrared.

Now Playing: Love and Rockets Sorted!
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Friday Night Videos

2011-09-09T11:07:00.000-05:00

I've made no secret that "Nightmares" is one of my favorite Violent Femmes songs. Possibly this is because I love the ultra low-budget video, which was in heavy rotation on MTV back when the single was released. 3 seems to be regarded as one of their lesser albums, but there's some strong stuff on there and as I've said, I enjoy the angsty cool of "Nightmares" to no end.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... "Werd Al" Yankovic.

Now Playing: Violent Femmes Hallowed Ground
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Bottling mead during Labor Day conflagration

2011-09-06T19:06:00.000-05:00

So in between checking Facebook and various other news sites around the interwebs for updates on the 35,000-acre Bastrop wildfire on Labor Day, I decided it was high time for me to bottle some mead. For those of you keeping score at home, you'll remember that back in July I racked a 6-gallon batch of mead into 4 gallons of fig melomel and 3 gallons of prickly pear melomel. The airlocks on each fermentation vessel continued bubbling at a slow rate through the first week of August, and once all signs of fermenting ceased, I let them sit another few weeks 1) for good measure and 2) because I just didn't get around to bottling. This is what I ended up with:

I'm not entirely sure where I went wrong, but I sterilized far too few bottles for the amount of mead I had. Halfway through bottling the fig melomel I realized my error, sterilized another nine bottles, and still ended up three bottles short. I guess I expected the fruit to cut into the final volume more than it did. In any event, I finished the evening with 17 bottles of beautiful golden fig melomel, 14 bottles of beautiful crimson prickly pear melomel (three of which were merely washed and cleaned rather than sterilized, so they're in the fridge for early drinking) and a single bottle of mongrel, roughly half and half fig/prickly from leftovers from both batches. Having learned from my apfel wein experiment that I tend to enjoy carbonated fruit wines more than still, I opted to try my hand at my first bottle-conditioned meads to make with the bubbly. I added one teaspoon of granulated sugar to prime the bottles (dosage if you're a wine snob) which should effect a nice carbonation in the finished product.

As for the taste, it's too early to tell with the fig. I only had a small taste, and it seemed clean with not a lot of the harsh fusel alcohols that have marred my previous efforts. Beyond that, I'll have to wait and let it age a bit so it can mature. There was not a lot of fruit in the scent or flavor, but it was nice and dry with a good tannin body. The prickly pear, on the other hand, was quite mature and drinkable. There was a bit of harshness right away, but as the mead breathed for a few minutes this went away quickly. The prickly pear was very dry as well, and had a definite fruity profile, almost plum-like character. The tannins, which I'd been afraid of with my earlier effort at prickly pear mead several years ago, really help with the body of the melomel. If I had to characterize it, I'd say it tasted very much like a dry white merlot. That sounds strange, I know, but it had a similar color, flavor and mouthfeel. There's still that honey flavor underneath it all, but it's quite subtle, certainly not thick and syrupy like so many people expect with mead. This may turn out to be my best effort yet.

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Texas aflame

2011-09-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

The Wife is from Bastrop, so the last few days have been quite stressful for us. The entire state, it seems, is on fire, with power lines, broken glass, cigarettes and open grills sparking all manner of wildfires whipped up dangerously by the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. That storm may have flooded the southeast, but it sent absolutely no rain to tinder-dry Texas. Instead, it sent dry, 30 mph winds. Very, very bad winds.

Sunday brought word of a fire in my hometown of Columbus, which we'd visited just the day before. Then word of the Bastrop fire came out. Bastrop, home of the "Lost Pines" forest, turned into a huge blaze very quickly with the parched pines going up like Roman candles. Most of Bastrop State Park is gone, as is the Texas Parks & Wildlife headquarters there. Tahitian Village, a sprawling subdivision where The Wife had many, many friends growing up, is close to a total loss. Not an hour has gone by without word of another friend's childhood home being destroyed. My mother-in-law evacuated her home near Camp Swift on Sunday. Thankfully, the fires haven't reached it as of yet. As long as the winds don't push the fires west, we may be spared the devastating loss so many others have suffered. Latest reports peg losses at nearly 500 homes. That kind of devastation is close to incomprehensible.

The Texas Forest Service has an update page here, and WunderMap shows a pretty good visual footprint of the various fires and their smoke cover, while the Texas Forest Service map has information about containment and other details if you click on the individual fire. KXAN has a list of donation sites and other things people can do to assist with this crisis.Stay safe, people.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-09-02T10:26:00.000-05:00

Because middle school and elementary school have substantially different start times, this year I find myself driving Monkey Girl in the mornings (since middle school is on my way to work) while The Wife takes Fairy Girl and Bug to elementary. The one-on-one time with Monkey Girl is interesting. Sometimes we discuss news stories we hear on NPR. Sometimes we discuss daily events in our lives. Sometimes she just tunes me out and reads. But today we had a genuine bonding experience. I played her "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Smells Like Nirvana" and she found it absolutely hilarious. Not Kure Kure Takora hilarious, mind you, but then again, what is?

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Eddie Money.

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As the conference turns, pt. 6

2011-09-02T09:19:00.000-05:00

I was not going to do this today, honest. But the sniping back and forth between Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds and Texas A&M Athletic Director "Dollar" Bill Byrne has kicked it up to 11 over the Longhorn Network, so I'd be remiss in my historical chronicling were I to not offer comment. And the he-said-she-said back-and-forth is amazing for two grown men of their stature. First up is Dodds, who is telling everyone who will listen that it's not Texas' fault that ESPN dumptrucks have delivered $300 million to 40 Acres, and that the Aggies could've been part of that gravy train had they not not rejected Dodds' generous overtures.

"I called (Byrne) and asked if he wanted to visit about it. We did visit about a statewide network," Dodds said. "I told him I didn't know if we had the (program) inventory necessary to do a 24/7 network.

"The next time I heard about it (from Byrne) was a year and a half ago. And we said we had enough inventory to do it, and we moved ahead on our own. And that was before we knew what the money was going to be."

For his part, Byrne responded with a terse blog statement taking issue with the context of Dodds' assertions.

"Three or four years ago we talked about doing a joint flagship channel," Byrne wrote. "I liked the idea, but our fans should know me better than to think I would pass on a $150 million deal for Texas A&M. That never happened."

The basic facts don't appear to be in dispute, but it's pretty clear not all the facts have been brought forth. The word circulating in Aggie circles currently is that Dodds invited Byrne to invest in the venture, 50/50 (back when Dodds expected to foot the bill for the startup, rather than piggyback on ESPN) but only offered a 60/40 or 70/30 revenue split, along the lines of the revenue disbursement from the Permanent University Fund. Byrne subsequently declined. There may or may not be fact backing up that characterization, but parsing Dodds' statement "I didn't think we had the inventory to do a 24/7 network" could lead one to interpret his view of any A&M involvement as secondary, filler material--akin to Sham-Wow infomercials at 3 a.m.--and therefore less deserving of a full share. In the past, A&M would probably have accepted this as the cost of doing business. I could see Wally Groff accepting the deal, viewing even a modest new revenue stream and improving A&M's position overall even if it improved Texas an order of magnitude more. But Byrne's been all about national benchmarks and equal positioning and market share. He's not one to accept once slice of pie if the guy sitting across the table is getting three. I'm still a little annoyed by a persistent mis-characterization perpetuated by ESPN, though:

When six Big 12 programs -- Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado -- negotiated with the Pac-10 last year, Texas walked away from the negotiation at the 11th hour because Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott wanted all the schools in the new conference to pool their media rights. In other words, Texas walked away to preserve the Longhorn Network.

Those six Big 12 teams weren't negotiating with the Pac 10. Dodds himself negotiated offers from the Pac 10 behind closed doors and presented the plan to blow up the Big 12 as fait accompli. The invitations were on the table. When A&M balked, and instead started talking with the Southeastern Conference, this caught Dodds and the Pac 10 by surprise and the delay allowed Baylor an opportunity to martial its political supporters. The Pac 10 did not want Baylor, but Colorado panicked, seeing itself as the odd team out if Baylor muscled its way into the party, and promptly accepted the Pac 10 offer. Texas, seeing A&M as the cockroach messing up a perfect plan by opening the door for Baylor, instead used the LHN as an excuse to back out on the deal with the Pac 10. As Dodds himself has stressed many times, nobody expected the LHN to bring in as much money as it did. He was willing to scrap the idea for the LHN to join the Pac 10 if the idea for an eastern division with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State could be pulled off. When that proved impossible, the LHN was a convenient excuse to "save" the Big 12 (which Dodds was all but burying a few days before). With Dodds being as shrewd a negotiator as he is, there is zero chance negotiations reached the point of invitations being extended without him taking the future of the LHN into consideration. But the money is only a secondary consideration--as others have pointed out, Texas has always had more money than everyone else and always will. It's the other issue that tilt the playing field, such as defying the Big 12 by contracting with ESPN to broadcast a league game (resulting in some conflict of interest bullying on ESPN's part toward conference schools such as Tech, Baylor and Kansas State).

Potentially as thorny was the plan to televise high school games and show high school highlights on the Longhorn Network. Televising games would give Texas an almost prohibitive recruiting advantage. The NCAA has scuttled those plans for this season, but if history is any guide, the NCAA must tread carefully when restricting television freedom. The organization already lost a Supreme Court case over its control of television rights in 1984. Plus, the highlights offer a similar recruiting advantage, and the NCAA has agreed for the time being to allow the Longhorn Network to show highlights. "The NCAA is taking a wait and see attitude on the highlights," Byrne wrote in his letter to fans. "I disagree with their stance -- as do many of my colleagues across the country. We anticipate that ESPN will continue to push the envelope with the Longhorn Network, regardless of Texas A&M's conference affiliation."

"Continue to push the envelope" is the key phrase. Texas and ESPN will keep pushing--a steady drumbeat, if you will--and eventually wear down the opposition bit by bit. Eventually, some Big 12 team will give in and let its game be broadcast (I'm looking at you, Iowa State) and once that levee is breached, more will follow. Eventually, I'd expect all Texas home games to be carried exclusively on the LHN. Comparisons to Notre Dame's deal with NBC are inaccurate, because NBC is a free broadcast network, included on every basic cable package. The LHN is a premium cable offering (currently with very few carriers, true) in which subscription fees go directly to Austin with ESPN taking its cut. So no, not an apt comparison at all.

If the swirling rumors that Texas is resurrecting the Pac 16 conference plan now that Utah State has filled the opening reserved for A&M (and that Baylor coveted) are true, it will be interesting to see what happens with the LHN. Will Dodds hold onto it with a death grip? Or will he compromise with the Pac, and partner with Tech and the Oklahoma schools to turn it into some sort of regional network? Whatever shakes out, it will be interesting to watch.

As the conference turns, pt. 1
As the conference turns, pt. 2
As the conference turns, pt. 3
As the conference turns, pt. 4
As the conference turns, pt. 5

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As the conference turns, pt. 5

2011-09-01T10:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, stop. Just please stop. Folks like Gerry Fraley who purport to "tell A&M what it's in for in the SEC" and then proceed to start talking about Bear Bryant. Just stop.

Texas A&M does not need anyone to tell us about Bear Bryant. The Junction Boys were all Aggies. They shouted "Gig 'Em" not "Roll Tide." Their blood bleeds maroon, not crimson. Coach Bryant won more national titles than the gross national product of Venezuela, but he only coached one Heisman Trophy-winning player in John David Crow. Who, curiously enough, did not play a down at Alabama. When A&M's over-taxed PR staff worried to Bryant that Crow didn't lead the nation (or league) in yardage, or touchdowns, or any of the other flashy statistics that tend to make or break a Heisman candidate, Bryant growled "Well, he sure as hell leads the nation in defenders run over!" And Crow won the Heisman. And don't tell us about Gene Stallings, either. He's a Junction Boy (see above). He coached at A&M first. He invented the legendary "Texas Special" pass play:

Stallings led A&M to the SWC title in 1967 and beat Bryant and the Tide in the Cotton Bowl (you know the picture of the aftermath--that's not Coach Bryant hand-picking his successor after retirement). Stallings was fired just a few years later because, let's face it, it was tough to win at A&M in those days with sub-standard facilities and the legacy of an all-male, all-military culture to overcome. But Aggies far and wide celebrated when Bebes coached the Tide to the national title in 1992, in fact, we were so proud of him that we made him a regent, where he's one of the biggest advocates of an A&M move to the Southeastern Conference.

And then there's Auburn. Texas A&M owns a 2-0 lifetime record against the Tigers. Which doesn't mean boo as far as history and culture and expectations go, but it gives me an opportunity to bring up this:

And don't tell us about Arkansas. They wear those damn stupid pig hats and scream "WHOOOOOO! Pig sooey!" all the time like they just found out their cousin said "Yes" to their marriage proposal. SWC, remember? I assure you, Aggies have forgotten more about Arkansas than the SEC will ever know. F'rinstance, in Stallings' first home game against Arkansas as head coach at A&M, the 12th Man was so loud that the Piggies couldn't hear their audibles and got beat. This is back when A&M had a student body of around 18,000 or so, remember. It was such a mismatch that Stallings felt guilty about having such rabid fan support and at the next yell practice asked the students not to be so loud. True story. And none of you SECers who are lecturing Aggies about Arkansas know it, either.

And then there's LSU. They still owe us money. I am of the firm opinion that a $300,000 payment directly from LSU to Texas A&M should be a condition or our accepting a bid to join the Southeastern Conference. The whole LSU/A&M thing is too convoluted for me to rewrite, so instead I'll post my little TexAgs essay from last year:

New Army is scratching its head over the fervor of playing LSU in the Cotton Bowl. This is understandable, because New Army wasn't even born when Harvey Williams switched his commitment on signing day, or John Roper split his forehead open with a killer hit against Tiger QB Tommy Hodson, or Larry Horton ran the opening kickoff back to open the R.C. Slocum era with a bang. LSU was, for all intents and purposes, our version of OU in a heated interstate, cross-conference rivalry. We played them in the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair. We played them in Galveston, Houston and San Antonio. We first played them in 1899 and kicked the snot out of 'em, 52-0.

Because College Station was small and rural, we had trouble filling Kyle back in the day. From 1921-1975 we played them 30 times, and only one of those games was in College Station. We essentially sold them our home games to boost our athletic department revenues. Playing LSU in Baton Rouge or neutral sites resulted in the Tigers getting the upper hand on us in the series, but even so, the overall record was remarkably competitive, all things considered.

In the 70s things had changed. Bellard had A&M playing big time football, Kyle had expanded and Aggie football was a big draw. We beat 'em back-to-back in '74-'75 in Baton Rouge, and wanted to revert to a regular home-and-home series. LSU refused, and broke off the series.

Fast forward to 1982. Jackie Sherill came in, had little success in the early days, so one of the many things he did to shore up support among Old Ags was revive the LSU series. LSU wanted to improve its Texas recruiting, so they agreed to a home-and-home series. They were quite happy with it from '86-'88, the heyday of the Mike Archer years when they won three in a row, and the contract was extended. But starting with Larry Horton's kickoff in '89, things spiraled downward quickly for the kitties. From '91-'95 A&M reeled off five straight victories, hard-fought contests in Baton Rouge but veritable blowouts in College Station. Leeland McElroy's 200+ yard game in '95 was particularly glorious. LSU was getting their heads handed to them in SEC play as well, and decided no amount of Texas recruiting was worth an annual loss to A&M. So they announced the series would end in '95.

Here's where it gets wonky. Under the terms of the contract, if either team cancels the series there is a $400,00 buyout clause, which can be waived if the departing school secures an "equivalent" substitute opponent. LSU told Wally Groff they had a suitable substitute--Northeast Louisiana University, which had just made the transition to I-A football in 1994 [Note: I've since heard some indications that the "replacement" school was actually Nevada-Reno, which had just moved up to Division I-A in 1992. Either way, LSU offered a weak opponent as a replacement]. Wally said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Like Hell! You owe us $400K!" LSU said "Good luck collecting" and that was that.

Keep in mind, also, that LSU's baseball team knocked the '89 A&M team out of the playoffs. That Aggie team went 58-7, was ranked no. 1 almost the entire season, and may have been the most dominant team in the history of college baseball. The rivalry with LSU was intense across the board.

LSU fans today will tell you there never was a buyout fee (which is false) or--and this is the most popular revisionist history--that because the SEC expanded to 12 teams, they had to eliminate the non-conference A&M game to make the scheduling work. Which is fine and dandy, except that the SEC expanded in football in 1992 with the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina, meaning LSU continued our series four years into the expanded SEC era.

Around 2000-01 our AD, Wally Groff was asked in his online Q&A if we could re-start the LSU series, after Saban (again, IIRC) commented in the media that he'd like to play A&M. Wally responded that he'd never schedule them again, since they couldn't be trusted to live up to their contracts, and that buyout penalties were obviously worthless since LSU was an extension of the state of Louisiana, and therefore a federal Texas vs. Louisiana civil suit to reclaim the unpaid $400K was impractical.

If you go to the LSU sports message boards, you'll see Tiger fans excited by the addition of the Aggies to the SEC, because now they'll "Finally have a rival!" Seriously. LSU is like the Texas Tech of the SEC, desperate for anyone to get worked up about playing them. A&M and LSU have played each other more times than they have pretty much any other non-conference opponent, and more than some current conference rivals. But who leads the series, you may ask? Why, LSU leads the series, 27-20-3. That's a very interesting series record. We've played 50 times, only 12 games of which were played in College Station. That means A&M home games account for just 24 percent of the series overall. Then consider that LSU has hosted 32 home games, which makes up 65 percent of the series. Holy crap! They have that big of a home field advantage over us, and still only manage to lead the overall series by seven games? Damn, that's got to be embarrassing!

So, yeah. We may not know all the best places to eat in Starkville or have a clue as to where or what Vanderbilt is, but we pretty much know what we're getting into. I don't know an Aggie who doesn't break into cold sweats whenever he hears "Rocky Top" on account of that horrible, horrible Cotton Bowl a few years back. But you know what? We're gonna be okay in the long run. Gig 'em!

TEXAS A&M TO SEEK AFFILIATION WITH ANOTHER ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

NEWS RELEASE - August 31, 2011

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M University today officially notified the Big 12 Conference that the institution will submit an application to join another athletic conference. Should this application be accepted, Texas A&M will end its membership in the Big 12 Conference effective June 30, 2012.

"After much thought and consideration, and pursuant to the action of the (Texas A&M University System) Board of Regents authorizing me to take action related to Texas A&M University's athletic conference alignment, I have determined it is in the best interest of Texas A&M to make application to join another athletic conference," President R. Bowen Loftin wrote to Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe in the letter dated August 31, 2011.

"We appreciate the Big 12's willingness to engage in a dialogue to end our relationship through a mutually agreeable settlement," Loftin added. "We, too, desire that this process be as amicable and prompt as possible and result in a resolution of all outstanding issues, including mutual waivers by Texas A&M and the conference on behalf of all the remaining members."

Texas A&M has participated in intercollegiate athletics as a member of the Big 12 since the conference's founding 16 years ago. Last season, the Aggies claimed nine Big 12 championships and four national team titles, both of which were school-bests. Since joining the Big 12 prior to the 1996-97 athletic season, Texas A&M has won 55 conference championships, including 32 in the last five years.

Texas A&M finished eighth in the prestigious Director's Cup all-sport rankings a year ago, tallying its most points ever and leading all Big 12 schools. In the inaugural Capital One Cup, which rates teams' final rankings, the Aggies were the top-ranking university from the Big 12. The Aggie women finished second with five top-10 finishes, while the Aggie men finished tied for third with five top-10 finishes.

"As I have indicated throughout this process, we are seeking to generate greater visibility nationwide for Texas A&M and our championship-caliber student-athletes, as well as secure the necessary and stable financial resources to support our athletic and academic programs," Loftin said. "This is a 100-year decision that we have addressed carefully and methodically. Texas A&M is an extraordinary institution, and we look forward to what the future may hold for Aggies worldwide."

While Loftin did not specify an application timeline in his letter to the Big 12, he previously indicated that he does not intend to prolong the application process for an extended period of time.

Texas A&M at a glance
Located in College Station, Texas.
Home to more than 49,000 students, ranking as the sixth-largest university in the country, with more than 360,000 former students worldwide.
Holds membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities, one of only 63 institutions with this distinction.
Has an endowment valued at more than $5 billion, which ranks fourth among U.S. public universities and 10th overall.
Conducts research valued at more than $630 million annually, placing it among the top 20 universities nationally and third behind only MIT and the University of California at Berkeley for universities without medical schools.
Recognized as Home of the 12th Man, where students stand during football games to show support for the team – and for fellow Aggies – a personification of the Aggie Spirit.
Corps of Cadets is recognized among the nation's largest uniformed student bodies at more than 2,000 strong. Texas A&M commissions more officers than any other institution outside of the nation's service academies.
Named second in the nation by The Wall Street Journal among all universities, public and private, in a survey of top U.S. corporations, non-profits and government agencies, based on graduates that recruiters prefer to hire.

As the conference turns, pt. 1
As the conference turns, pt. 2
As the conference turns, pt. 3
As the conference turns, pt. 4

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As the conference turns, pt. 4

2011-08-30T11:56:00.001-05:00

Ah, what a difference a week makes. Much of what I'd planned to write is now obsolete, overtaken by reality and fast-moving negotiations. The New York Times reported this morning that Texas A&M has already sent an official notice of withdrawal to the Big 12. Brent Zwerneman, a reporter who is a passing acquaintance, is reporting that A&M denies doing any such thing. And the back-and-forth continues, with rumor and gossip standing in for news and fact. This will continue until Texas A&M finally does depart the ~~SWC~~ Big 12 and joins up with the Southeastern Conference. And don't be fooled--the Aggies are gone. All that's left is to dot the Is and cross the Ts. On Monday, the Big 12 seemed to accept the inevitable, sending A&M a letter outlining the process for withdrawal without provoking any lawsuits from the league. The Big 12 letter came in response to A&M President R. Bowen Loftin's letter to the Big 12 of Aug. 25 stating that A&M intended to explore its options regarding conference affiliation (which itself followed the A&M regents' vote on Aug. 14 to give Loftin the power to change conference affiliation):

"If Texas A&M withdraws from the Conference, we want to do so in a way that complies with the Bylaws and is supportive of your efforts to seek a new member of the Conference," Loftin wrote in the letter. "We would appreciate your conferring with the other member institutions and outlining for us the process to be followed by Texas A&M should it withdraw from the Conference."

So why is this happening? There are lots of reasons, as I've outlined in previous entries. But it all boils down to the Longhorn Network, of more specifically, Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds' insistence on seeing how far he can push the other league members to increase the Longhorns' many-fold revenue streams. Even Oklahoma, which has put up with a great deal of burnt orange rah-rah to keep the Big 12 together, is starting to chafe.

Several sources confirmed the A&M situation has developed some serious strains in the OU-Texas marriage. OU, like those who still want to make the Big 12 work, is reportedly fed up with Texas seeing how far it can push the others around with tactics like the Longhorn Network.

"Texas seems to be losing friends in more places than the Big 12 over all this," said a source with deep roots in college football. "Having a network is fine. But it's just the inference that they are trying to play by a somewhat different set of rules than anyone else that creates problems."

When the LHN first became a burning concern last spring, when Dodds used it as an excuse to back out of the proposed Pac-16 deal he'd brokered, all indications are that the scope of such a network were soft-pedaled to the other Big 12 schools. Low-ball estimates of revenue were floated. The Big 12 members agreed that Texas would be allowed one non-conference football game each year, with the remainder of its programming filled with original programming, rebroadcasts of "classic" games and non-revenue sports. Texas agreed to this. Then came the announcement of Dodds' heart-stopping $300,000,000 with ESPN. Suddenly, the game had changed, and Texas started circumventing the rules it had agreed to operate the LHN under. To fill all that airtime and give ESPN a return on that investment, they would broadcast Texas high school football--a move that everyone, except, apparently Texas and ESPN, sees as an unfair recruiting advantage. When the Big 12 athletic directors announced a ban on high school football games on the LHN (a move that was subsequently reaffirmed by the NCAA), Texas (being a "good member" of the Big 12) almost immediately circumvented that ruling by announcing it would show high school highlights. Do we see a pattern developing?

Despite the prohibition on more than one live football game--and no conference games--being broadcast on the LHN, Texas and ESPN announced they would be airing a second game (a conference game no less) right away. It soon came out that they were using strong-arm tactics against league opponents to get their way. Texas Tech was the first to go public, revealing that ESPN had threatened to not carry several of their games during the regular season if they wouldn't play ball with the LHN, so to speak. To their credit, the Red Raiders said "Go to hell." Baylor, Kansas State and Oklahoma State eventually came forward with similar horror stories. To say there is a significant conflict of interest at work here with ESPN is a huge understatement.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. It's not the LHN itself that is the problem, it is the way Dodds is using it as a cudgel to bludgeon the rest of the league into submission. Dodds is fond of saying he's only doing what's best for Texas, and that anyone else would do the same. Well, that's not entirely true. Michigan and Ohio State have pretty big national profiles, but they haven't started their own networks--they are happy participants in the Big 10 Network, which makes a ton of money for all league teams. Southern Cal, likewise, could likely support a lucrative national network, but has thrown its support behind a Pac 12 Network which all can benefit from--something Texas refused to agree to last year, if you'll recall. Texas does do what's best for Texas, but given the choice, will always select the course of action that puts other conference members at the greatest disadvantage. And then dares the other schools to say something about it.

Texas will always get its way. If not right away, then eventually. If complaints go up about overreach, Dodds will back down a little, but rest assured Texas will still be positioned better than before. And they will continue to push. The pressure will be steady until, lo and behold, they're back at their original goal. It's the proverbial camel's nose in the tent. Is there any doubt that ESPN and the LHN will come back to the issue of broadcasting high school athletics over and over again until they get their way? Does anyone really believe the LHN will be satisfied with a single non-conference football game, that they won't keep pushing until they get at least simulcast rights to all of their home games? If not all of their games, period?

For all my hesitation about joining the SEC, A&M is doing the right thing. Texas treats the Big 12 with contempt, behaving as if it is its own personal fiefdom. When A&M departs, expect to see a lot of noise out of 40 Acres about cancelling the traditional Thanksgiving Day football game, and all matchups in all other sports. Don't be fooled--this isn't about punishing A&M (well, it is a little) but rather a threat leveled against Oklahoma. Apart from A&M, the only school in the Big 12 with the clout to stand up to Texas is OU. And OU has let it be known that they've had informal talks with the SEC, and are growing increasingly annoyed with Dodds' heavy-handed tactics. But the Sooners are not following A&M out the door yet for one reason and one reason only: Recruiting. For the Sooners, recruiting in the state of Texas is their lifeblood, and were the annual Red River Rivalry at the State Fair come to an abrupt end, their athletics programs could fall into a swoon they may never recover from. Don't think for a moment Dodds hasn't hinted this. Oklahoma is well aware of what happened to Arkansas once the SWC schools in Texas refused to play them anymore--Texas recruiting dried up and the Razorbacks struggled for more than a decade to become relevant again. This fear is real for Oklahoma, whereas Texas A&M is unencumbered by similar concerns.

If Oklahoma stays (and it will) then the Big 12 will have to expand, as the television contract is void if league membership drops below 10 schools. SMU and the University of Houston are often mentioned as potential replacements--if the Big 12 is desperate. Adding marginal athletic programs with tiny fan bases and non-existent television followings doesn't improve the Big 12 one iota. Likewise, TCU would be a fool to join the dying Big 12 when it can waltz into its new Big East conference and clean up with a BCS bid every year. Other schools mentioned by Dodds (and rest assured, Texas is calling the shots on any future expansion of the Big 12, with the other schools possibly being informed as a courtesy) include Arkansas, BYU, Air Force and Notre Dame. Firstly, Arkansas will not leave the SEC. They're one of the schools lobbying hardest to get A&M to jump ship, after all. Air Force brings national name recognition but nothing else. BYU makes the most sense, has the most to gain, being currently independent without an automatic BCS bid, and they also bring a decent fan base along with a decent national profile. If I were a betting man, I'd expect BYU to be a Big 12 member within a year.

But it's the repeated Notre Dame references that pique my interest, despite the fact that the Irish kind of shot down the idea of joining the Big 12, although not in a terribly forceful way. Two weeks ago, I floated the idea online that Dodds may well have presented an enticing package to Notre Dame: In exchange for joining the Big 12, you get to keep your deal with NBC to televise all your home games. Additionally, you may start your own network to generate even more money. The Big 12 will get your league road games for television contract purposes, which you will have a share of. And you will get guaranteed revenue from bowl appearances, plus better access to Texas recruiting. Guess how long it took for me to be shouted down? Yeah, about that long. But little snippets of information coming out seem to indicate that's pretty darn close to what Notre Dame has been offered to consider joining the Big 12. It is a tremendous amount of money, even by Notre Dame standards. That's $300 million for an Irish network alone, if not more, plus they'd keep their NBC revenues. Think about what that means: Texas is willing to throw the rest of the league out in the cold to ensure special treatment for it's new best friend. Texas is not threatened by Notre Dame in the slightest, 1) because Notre Dame divvies up athletics revenue in such a way that the school's general revenue fund gets the lion's share, which means that no matter how much money the Irish make, their athletics budget will remain only a fraction of Texas'; and 2) Irish football has foundered for the past 15 years, with no indication of turning it around any time soon. Notre Dame, for its part, might be attracted to join a conference as protection against the looming super-conference upheaval, and the truckloads of money Texas is offering is enough to make them at least consider the dysfunctional Big 12 as opposed to their more natural playmates in the Big 10.

But this might not be about the Big 12 at all. Dodds has said in the past that if the Big 12 breaks up, Texas will be just fine--they'll simply join up with Notre Dame and set up their own invitation-only super conference. If that is indeed what Dodds is angling for, then any Big 12 invitation to Notre Dame may well be a bit of mind games, tossing about unimaginable amounts of money in order to establish a more powerful negotiation position for the future. Either way, it is sheer insanity, and Notre Dame would be well advised to stay as far away from Austin as possible, lest they become addicted to the burnt orange teat like Oklahoma.

But either way, Texas A&M is gone. The popular buzz has the Aggies departing within a week, so they might play a full SEC slate in 2012. I don't see that happening, for logistical purposes. Juggling schedules and other practical matters would be possible, but quite difficult. And then there's the matter of a 14th team for a balanced SEC schedule. There hasn't been one identified yet, despite much speculation centering around Virginia Tech and Florida State. To me, it seems much more reasonable that A&M doesn't begin SEC play until 2013: By playing an extra year in the Big 12, A&M reduces the burden of its exit fees; gives the Big 12 an extra year to land a replacement team; and gives the SEC another year to identify and invite a 14th school to that league. When I've pointed this out online, I've been quickly shouted down. I don't know what will ultimately happen, but I do know that by this time next year, college football will be a very different-looking place.

As the conference turns, pt. 1
As the conference turns, pt. 2
As the conference turns, pt. 3

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Armadillocon 33 post-mortem

2011-08-28T21:37:00.000-05:00

I am home from Armadillocon 33. At this particular point in time, it is (I kid you not) 111 degrees Fahrenheit outside. And the air conditioning is non-functional in my car. Driving to and from the con in the early morning and late evening hours was not unpleasant, but the trip home in the blistering mid-afternoon was staggering. Do not try this at home.

Friday saw me involved with the writers' workshop most of the day. There were the usual mix of stories ranging from "almost there" to "needs a lot of work" but all in all it was a stimulating experience as always. Once the workshop wrapped up, I regretfully departed the convention and headed down the road to San Marcos, where I met up with my family to attend the annual LBJ Picnic at Texas State University. Once that wrapped up, I collected Monkey Girl and returned to Armadillocon, arriving just as the opening ceremonies let out.

This was Monkey Girl's first convention as an active participant. She's been to conventions in the past, but only fresh out of diapers and not in any way really engaging with the whole convention experience. This time was different. She's a voracious reader and was eager to explore gaming, the dealers room, art show, panels... the whole nine yards. Before departing, The Wife and I had a serious talk with her, warning her about socially maladjusted congoers of the male persuasion who were likely to hit on her, as she presents as much more mature than the 12-year-old that she is. This caution was met with eye-rolling from her, but was driven home very effectively by the nice lady in the con suite, who, in the process of refilling the Frito bowl, casually asked where Monkey Girl worked. The context of the question made it clear she assumed Monkey Girl to be either an upper-classman in high school or perhaps a college feshman. Monkey Girl was a bit rattled by this (which was a good thing, as she started taking me a little more seriously after that). Saturday saw her dress in her steampunk outfit, with high-heeled black boots, a black bustier and other accoutrements that conspired to make her look a lot older. Quite a few writer friends (*cough* Scott Johnson *cough*) did the classic Looney Tunes eye-bulge routine upon learning that she wasn't at least 16 as they'd assumed. It was great amusement for me, and even Monkey Girl started enjoying their obvious discomfort, twisted child that she is.

My panels this year proved to be quite engaging and dynamic. "Imagining a World Without Fossil Fuels" featured Guest of Honor Paolo Bacigalupi, Matt Cardin, David Chang, Katy Stauber and Matthew Bey (who had the greatest panel entrance ever when he biked in--then proceeded to lock up his bike to protect it from the audience). I co-hosted the Charity Auction with Mark Finn, which raised at least $400 for literacy projects, and I even managed to slip in a few good one-liners amid Finn's polished carnival barker shtick. Probably the highlight of the con for me was the panel "A Look Back at the Space Shuttle Program," during which I shared the spotlight with genuine, actual NASA science folks. The panel included Stauber, John Gibbons, Al Jackson, Bob Mahoney and Bill Frank. The lot of us shared a bunch of great stories about various facets of the space shuttle program, and I got to use the story June Scobee told during a years-ago tour of the old Wet-F tank, about how astronauts and trainers would hide a rubber shark somewhere in the mock-up, rigged to spring out once a panel was opened underwater. Once the shark disappeared, but was soon replaced by a rubber alligator. I expected to be drawn and quartered for my observation that the shuttle was a case of magnificent engineering of a lousy design, but the NASA guys generally agreed with me, and went on to outline and clarify the convoluted and irrational process which resulted in the shuttle attaining the form we're all familiar with. Afterwards, I got to hang out with Jackson and Frank and listen as they swapped war stories about the allocation of office space at JSC, Werner von Braun, Apollo 8, problematic shuttle missions and Space X. For a wanna-be astronaut like myself, it was heaven, and I actually got to cut short a phone call from The Wife by saying "Gotta go--I'm talking with rocket scientists!"

The only downer was my interaction with one particular guest, or rather lack thereof. This guest dismissed me pretty thoroughly at a previous Armadillocon some years ago, and although they seem to get along famously with the same folks I do, they tend to go out of their way to not acknowledge me. I'd almost convinced myself this was the paranoia of my fragile ego at work, but I found myself actively ignored all weekend, without so much as a token pleasantry directed my way. Ah well, I suppose I just rub some people the wrong way. Fortunately, the insanely talented Rocky Kelly isn't one of them, and we spent a ridiculous amount of time discussing the guilty pleasure of Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior. He encouraged me to get to work on my long-threatened Hannibal Barca story, so if that comes to fruition, you know who to blame. I also somehow managed to miss Emma Bull the entire weekend, so my copy of War for the Oaks remains unsigned, although I did have a nice conversation with Elizabeth Moon, who subsequently gave Monkey Girl about 50 pounds of dark green yarn to learn knitting with. I'm still not exactly sure how that happened, either.

I also owe Lawrence Person a good smack upside the head for planting the seeds of a truly bignuts story in my mind that refuses to let me be, and accepted a short story challenge that Joe Lansdale threw down during Saturday night's gorilla panel. For the record, Bill Crider, Scott Cupp, Mark Finn, Chris Brown, Rick Klaw and James Reasoner accepted the challenge as well, and are expected to have their respective stories finished in time for Armadillocon 34.

No recap of Armadillocon 33 would be complete without a recap of Monkey Girl's party-hopping experience on Saturday night. Actually, there wasn't much party-hopping on her part. Our first stop was the Space Squid party, where a projector was set up showing episodes of "Kure Kure Takora (Gimme Gimme Octopus)" on the back wall. It is, in a word, bizarre. This Japanese kids' show from the 70s features balloon-like costumes evocative of Sid and Marty Kroft creations on acid, or Yo Gabba Gabba gone horribly wrong. See for yourself:

Monkey Girl quickly became obsessed, laughing so hard she was effectively incapacitated. When I finally dragged her away to visit other parties, she kept pestering me to go back and watch the "Balloon Octopus" some more. All it took to send her into spasms of laughter was to flail my arms awkwardly--I started doing this as a party trick to amuse other con-goers, triggering my daughter's gut-busting Pavlovian response. Finally, I relented and took her back, admonishing her that she was not to leave the Space Squid party under any circumstances. For their part, the Space Squid folks found this utterly hilarious, that someone would banish their child to one of their bashes celebrating all things tacky about science fiction. What can I say? We live in a crazy, crazy world.

Can't wait until next year. We've got all of those Lansdale challenge gorilla stories to look forward to, don'tcha know.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-08-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

Wind machine? Check. Random welder throwing off sparks? Check. Hot model, wet for no reason? Check. It's must be Eddie Money's "Walk on Water" video.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Gin Blossoms.

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Armadillocon ho!

2011-08-25T22:09:00.000-05:00

Armadillocon starts tomorrow, and I'll be right there in the mix of things. Friday I'm participating as once of the ~~sadistic torturers~~ instructors in the long-running writer's workshop, which is always stimulating and entertaining. I'm also co-hosting the Charity Auction with Mark Finn, which promises no end to the shenanigans. The rest of my weekend schedule is as follows:

Saturday
Imagining a World without Fossil Fuels
11 AM-Noon
P. Bacigalupi, M. Bey, J. Blaschke*, M. Cardin, D. Chang, K. Stauber
Discussing the implications of this all-too-plausible scenario.

Charity Auction
2-3 PM
J. Blaschke*, Mark Finn*
Come buy stuff to help raise money for the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas.

What is the Next Big Literary Movement in Texas SF/F?
7-8 PM
L. Antonelli, J. Blaschke, R. Eudaly, K. Stauber, D. Webb*, L. Thomas
In the 80s and 90s, Texas writers were intimately involved with the cyberpunk movement. Is there a current movement that's about to sweep up the new crop of Lone Star authors?

A Look Back at the Space Shuttle Program
8-9 PM
J. Blaschke, B. Frank*, J. Gibbons, A. Jackson, B. Mahoney, K. Stauber
Now that the last mission is over, let's discuss the successes of the shuttle and what it meant to the space program and the USA.

Sunday
Signing
Noon-1 PM
M. Bey, J. Blaschke, A. Downum, F. Duarte, S. Johnson, J. Vanderhooft

Finding Your Voice as a Storyteller
1-2 PM
N. Barrett, J. Blaschke*, S. Brust, A. Downum, W. Spencer, S. White
The most fun writers to read are those with distinctive narrative voices. How does a writer develop one?

Stop by and say howdy if you get a chance!

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Stupid River Tricks

2011-08-23T11:53:00.001-05:00

If the New Braunfels city council is meeting, rest assured they're going to pass some damn fool stupid ordinance regarding the Comal River in the face of massive popular opposition. It'd be funny if it weren't so predictable. One might think they'd learned their lesson five years ago, when council member Ken Valentine led a block in voting to severely restrict the size and types of coolers allowed on the river. Ostensibly, this was to curb rowdy, drunken behavior on the river, but in fact was a thinly veiled move to make floating the Comal so onerous and hassle-filled that people simply stop doing so. There are many owners of riverfront property who hate that the Comal is a public water way, and would like nothing more than to make it their own private water front. The council passed that cooler ban in 2007, and shortly therafter, Ken Valentine was successfully recalled and the ban overturned.

That whole scenario is playing out once again, as the New Braunfels city council--again, in the face of widespread and popular community opposition--passed an ordinance banning "disposable containers" on the river. Ostensibly (there's that word again), it's supposed to control alcohol consumption on the river, but in reality it's a blanket ban on any drink container, making no differentiation among alcohol, water or soft drink containers. Heck, even a child's juice box is illegal now. It's even been pointed out repeatedly that this ordinance conflicts with an existing state law, but a promised lawsuit by river outfitters and community members wasn't enough to dissuade our runaway council. Naturally, the local paper sides with the good ol' boys and leads the cheering section:

New Braunfels City Council did the right thing Monday night with the passage of a disposable container ban.

And they did it despite incredible pressure, which is difficult to ignore in this still-small town. They faced picketers, threats of lawsuits and recall elections and still did the right thing.

Is there a problem with unruly crowds on the Comal River this year and litter? Yes, but there are several facts that tell me our council never actually wanted to address that problem in a constructive way:

Opponents of the ordinance requested that the city council put it on a November ballot and allow the citizens of New Braunfels to decide. The council refused.
The council members were inundated with letters, emails and testimony against the ordinance as written. As with the previous cooler ban, council members listened politely then voted for the ordinance anyway. This leads me to believe collusion is at work, that the council members decided well in advance what they would vote regardless of public sentiments. In 2007, a committee had been set up to examine the river issues. That committee's recommendations were never presented during the council meetings, and the committee chair disavowed the ensuing ordinance, insisting it flew in the face of their recommendations. Because said recommendations did not support the council's agenda, the report was suppressed. I see the same back room dealing going on once again.
Of the large, unruly crowds, the council members never once in any of the published reports I saw, acknowledge that the severe drought was a direct cause of the problems. The Guadalupe River flow is less than 60 cubic feet per second, and for adequate tubing conditions, river flows need to be more than 200 cfs. The Guadalupe is historically the preferred destination of young adults and a more boisterous crowd, but with river flows so low, forcing tubers to walk significant distances in the dry river, most are opting for the Comal this year. A wet winter and spring would alleviate those conditions, and the crowd problems on the Comal would go away.
A big justification for the ban on disposable containers was based on the "urine theory." Some area divers, purported to be long-time residents, claim to have noticed a new type of algae in the river in recent years. Their claim is that urine from tubers coming into contact with aluminum beer cans tossed into the river is responsible for this new growth. There is, I'm sad to say, absolutely nothing substantive to back this up. It's anecdotal, nothing more.
Volunteer cleanup efforts of the river were effectively ignored.

Now, how is this ordinance going to fail in every spectacular way possible? Well, it will be overturned in court because it attempts to supersede an existing state law, which municipalities can't do:

A 1993 state law prohibits cities from banning disposable containers. It was intended ... to keep recycling and sanitary disposable laws consistent from town to town.

Of course, defending that ordinance in court will cost New Braunfels hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. How's that for fiscally conservative stewardship of our tax dollars? There will likely be recall elections as well. Mayor Gale Pospisil didn't win her election a year ago by a very large margin. I voted for her, I'm sorry to say. It wouldn't surprise me if her tenure is a very short one, since she seems to be the ringleader in this disaster. And this ban only applies to "disposable" containers. I would not be surprised if we see an influx of kegs, pitchers and other outrageous containers hitting the river to circumvent the wrong-headed ordinance. At which point the council will once again push through an equally divisive ordinance designed to plug the holes in the preceding ill-conceived effort, resulting in more lawsuits. But what upsets me the most is the seizing of an event--in this case, the severe drought--to drive a private agenda. This disposable container ban does not address the problem, it is merely a knee-jerk reaction that is full of sound and fury but ultimately doing nothing to preserve river quality. Does the New Braunfels city council really want to make a difference and preserve the Comal River as an environmentally protected, family-friendly recreation venue? Here are my suggestions:

Go to the legislature. Only the state can regulate alcohol on public waterways, as New Braunfels found out in 2000, when yet another wrongheaded city ordinance was struck down in court. So get the state on your side. Lobby State Senator Jeff Wentworth and Rep. Doug Miller on this between now and 2013 when the lege reconvenes. The Comal River is only 2.5 miles long, and wholly contained within the New Braunfels city limits. A suitably narrow law (or constitutional amendment) restricting alcohol consumption on that limited stretch is not such a high mountain to climb when you consider constitutional amendments granting permission to specific counties to abolish the position of constable regularly appear on the ballot. This approach would require dedication, communication and commitment by our city council. Which, I suppose, is the reason why it has never been tried (As a side note, I never drink alcohol on the river. There's not a quicker way to get dehydrated on a blisteringly hot day, and I've no desire to drown).
If they really care about the river, get with the Texas River Systems Institute up the road in San Marcos to develop a long-term use and management plan for the Comal. Is there really new algae created by the unholy union of urine and aluminum taking over the river? These folks can tell you, and give you evidence to back it up. But issues with the Comal are not limited to too many rowdy tubers in 2011. There is credible evidence that Texas is in the opening decades of a 70-year mega-drought, and if New Braunfels has any vision at all, it needs to prepare for the consequences. Comal Springs, as large as they are, ran dry in 1956--a fact that very few New Braunfels residents seem aware of. String together a couple more years like 2011--which has seen Stage 1 and Stage 2 water use restrictions almost the duration of the year locally, with some West Texas towns running out of water entirely--and we'd be facing a major crisis where "disposable containers" on the river would be the least of our worries.

Instead of a knee-jerk patchwork of ineffective city ordinances driven by momentary crises, New Braunfels needs to get serious and develop a long-term river management plan that is backed by credible science and takes into account the pertinent economic, recreational and environmental issues involved. Unfortunately, that approach is probably far too reasonable and visionary for our current city council, which will likely busy itself in the coming year crafting an ordinance banning floatation devices weighing less than 538 pounds. Sounds crazy? Yeah, but I wouldn't put it past them.

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LoneStarCon 3 wins 2013 Worldcon bid for San Antonio

2011-08-20T13:12:00.001-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RENO, Nev. – The World Science Fiction Convention will return to Texas for the first time since 1997 after voting results announced Aug. 20 at Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, awarded the right to host the international conference to the Texas in 2013 bid.

LoneStarCon 3-–the 71st World Science Fiction Convention-–will be held Aug. 29-Sept. 2, 2013, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. The Mariott Rivercenter and Mariott Riverwalk will serve as the host hotels.

The guests of honor list for LoneStarCon 3 includes Ellen Datlow, James Gunn, Norman Spinrad, Darrel K. Sweet and Willie Siros, with Paul Cornell serving as toastmaster and featuring special guests Leslie Fish and Joe R. Lansdale.

Founded in 1939, the World Science Fiction Convention is one of the largest international gatherings of authors, artists, editors, publishers and fans of science fiction and fantasy entertainment. The annual Hugo Awards, the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, are voted on by Worldcon membership and presented during the convention.

LoneStarCon 3 is sponsored by ALAMO, Inc., (Alamo Literary Arts Maintenance Organization), a 501(c)3 organization. Membership for LoneStarCon 3 may be purchased at www.LoneStarCon3.org. In addition to individual memberships, LoneStarCon 3 will also offer a family rate. For more information about LoneStarCon 3, memberships or hotel information, visit www.LoneStarCon3.org.

About the Guests of Honor

Paul Cornell is a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, television and comics, and is the only person to have been a Hugo Award nominee for all three media. He’s written Action Comics for DC Comics and Doctor Who for the BBC. His novels are Something More and British Summertime. His forthcoming novel, an urban fantasy, will be published by Tor in 2012.

Ellen Datlow has edited science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction for three decades. She served as fiction editor of Omni magazine and SCI Fiction, and has edited many anthologies for adults, young adults and children. She has won multiple Locus, Hugo, Stoker, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. She was the recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.”

Leslie Fish is one of the best-known authors of filk songs including “Banned from Argo,” a comic song parodying Star Trek which has spawned more than 80 variants since first performed.

James Gunn is a science fiction author, editor, scholar and anthologist. His most significant writings include fiction from the 1960s and 70s and his scholarly Road to Science Fiction collections. Gunn is a founding director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction. He won a Hugo Award for non-fiction in 1983 and was honored in 2007 as a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than 30 books and is known to his fans as Champion Joe, Mojo Storyteller. His is known for his horror stories, the Hap and Leonard mystery/thriller series and the theatrical film Bubba Ho-Tep. Lansdale’s many awards include 16 Bram Stoker Aawards, the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention, a British Fantasy Award and the American Mystery Award.

Willie Siros was instrumental in starting the long-running Austin science fiction convention, Armadillocon, serving as chair of the first three editions. Siros also contributed to the founding of the Fandom Association of Central Texas, the original LoneStarCon (the 1985 North American Science Fiction Convention) and Adventures In Crime & Space Books. He is a former para-librarian at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center where he developed its speculative fiction collection.

Norman Spinrad is the author of more than 20 novels, including Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, Child of Fortune, Pictures at 11, Greenhouse Summer and The Druid King. He has also published approximately 60 short stories collected in a dozen volumes. Spinrad has written teleplays, including the classic Star Trek episode “The Doomsday Machine.” He is a long time literary critic, occasional film critic and songwriter, and perpetual political analyst.

Darrell K. Sweet is an artist most famous for providing the cover art for the fantasy epic saga The Wheel of Time. He is also the illustrator for the well-known Xanth series by Piers Anthony, the Saga of Recluce series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and the Runelords series by David Farland. He is also the original cover artist for Stephen R. Donaldson’s series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-08-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

It is curious, but I never really got into the Gin Blossoms. I find this strange now that I think about it, because I generally like the songs of theirs I've heard and their lyric, guitar-driven tunes are of a style that I tend to gravitate toward. I'm not sure why I've never bought any of their albums or pursued them any further. "Hey Jealousy" was my first exposure to their music, and still holds up well today. And the video's simple, but effectively trippy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Jermaine Stewart

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As the conference turns, pt. 3

2011-08-19T09:34:00.000-05:00

Over the years of the Big 12's existence, despite much on-field success, tensions never subsided behind the scenes. Nebraska continued to chafe at Texas' perceived dominance in the league's front offices. Say what you will of Deloss Dodds, but he is a shrewd businessman and very adept at convincing others that their best interests lie with whatever course of action benefits Texas the most. When Tom Osborne returned to Nebraska as athletic director, those tensions ratcheted up--in Osborne's view, the Cornhuskers play second fiddle to nobody. In the spring of 2010, things were about to come to a head, prompted by the Big 10's announcement in January that they would consider expansion.

Enter Missouri. Yes, Missouri, a school with a strong basketball tradition and erratic football history. Mizzou had long harbored a dream of joining the Big 10 and playing the likes of Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin on an annual basis. For reasons I confess I'm still not terribly clear on, Mizzou began agitating for a Big 10 bid in early 2010. On message boards, at least, Missouri fans were quite belligerent about their desires, insisting they had more in common with the Big 10, and that the rival league had wanted to add them for years. Then, unexpectedly, similar rumblings emerged from Nebraska. To his credit, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe pretty promptly demanded that Nebraska and Missouri clarify their intentions or face league sanctions. Nebraska immediately said, "We've got a Big 10 offer. We're outta here." To Dan Beebe's everlasting discredit, he was wholly unprepared for Nebraska calling his bluff. Meanwhile, Mizzou stared slack-jawed at Nebraska's abrupt realignment move, and humiliated by the fact that the Big 10 stopped returning calls.

Over in Austin, Deloss Dodds was anything but flat-footed. In June, it came out that his Big 10 fetish had resurfaced in a big way, in a series of emails between Ohio State President Gordon Gee and Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delany. The messages referenced a conversation between Gee and Texas President William Powers, who purportedly said Texas would welcome a Big 10 bid, but had a "Tech problem." Texas and Texas A&M are both members of the academically-prestigious American Association of Universities, whereas Texas Tech is not. AAU membership would be a requirement for admission to the Big 10 conference, and Texas, remembering the political firestorm 20 years before that landed Tech and Baylor spots in the Big 12, was mindful that it wouldn't be able to strike out on its own.

With a jump to the Big 10 facing complications, Dodds turned to the other league he'd flirted with 20 years before: the Pac 10. The academically respected conference was a decent consolation prize, but wasn't quite as stringent in its admission requirements. As far as I can tell, Dodds pretty much on his own negotiated a bold deal: The Pac 10 would expand to 16 teams, taking Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Colorado as well as Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The league would then split into two divisions, with Arizona and Arizona State joining the Big 12 refugees in the southern division. It was a bold plan, except judging from the way it played out in the media, Dodds hadn't bothered to discuss it with any of the five other Big 12 schools he planned to bring along. Maybe that was a holdover from SWC negotiations two decades before, where he was forced to find homes for other schools. Maybe it was a poorly-timed assumption brought on by all the league office battles with Nebraska where the southern division schools lined up behind Texas. In any event, the announcement that a move to the Pac 10 was a done deal caught most other schools by surprise. Instead of accepting the offer on the table, Texas A&M said "Wait a minute. We didn't want to go to the Pac 20 years ago, why should we want to go now?"

Texas A&M started talking to the SEC. Suddenly, Dodds' plans were in jeopardy. A&M had a large fan base and television following that the Pac wanted. Without A&M, there would only be a Pac 15, and unbalanced divisions make for difficult scheduling. Plus there weren't any other obvious teams of A&M's caliber available to fill that slot--BYU might fit the bill with its large Mormon fan base, but the school refused to play on Sundays, a non-starter for the Pac. The SEC, sensing opportunity, opened up communication with Oklahoma about perhaps joining the SEC along with A&M. The enormous travel challenges of Texas and Oklahoma schools playing schools along the west coast was a big negative, as was the western time zone and perceived liberal, elitist attitudes of the Pac 10 schools. Baylor, panicked at the prospect of being relegated to Conference USA like the University of Houston, started mobilizing its political connections to force Texas to take the Bears along to the Pac 16. The Pac 10, for its part, wanted nothing to do with small, religious Baylor. Colorado, which had harbored dreams of joining the Pac 10 for decades but never viewed them as practical, suddenly saw itself as the odd man out if Baylor did somehow manage to strong-arm Texas. In a burst of self-preservation, the Colorado Buffaloes snatched the open Pac 10 bid and announced they were leaving the Big 12.

The Texas plan was in tatters. Baylor was trying to muscle its way into the party, Missouri--which had started the whole thing--was crying in the corner because no conference was showing any interest at all, and Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State faced the prospect of begging the Mountain West Conference for membership. Talk abounded of congressional hearings in Washington, D.C., about realignment. And the Aggies were still hell-bent on joining the SEC for more money. The entire plan was about to collapse and Deloss Dodds needed an out.

Several years earlier, the subject of a Big 12 cable network was broached, and Dodds was among the voices arguing for the league not to act, but instead take a "wait and see" attitude. Shortly thereafter, Texas representatives approached Texas A&M about starting a joint cable network, called "The Flagship Network" or alternately "The Lone Star Network." Talks never went very far--depending on which side you talk to, it was the other that lost interest and walked away. in the meantime, conference-owned networks proved to be lucrative endeavours. The Big 10 launched a version, resulting in millions in extra income for their member schools. The Pac 10 was in the early stages of launching something similar, as was the SEC. The Big 12 was still taking a "wait and see" attitude. Ever since the joint network with A&M had fallen through, Texas had brought up the prospects of doing its own network from time to time, but abruptly it became a major issue for the Longhorns. With Pac 10 offers on the table, Dodds asked the Pac if the Longhorn Network would be allowed to exist independently of the nascent Pac 16 network, and carry league games. The Pac 10 responded (rightly) of course not. At that point, Dodds announced that Texas would be staying in the Big 12 and work to make the league viable over the long term. And just like that, A&M--still negotiating with the SEC--became the only threat to the viability of the Big 12.

At the time, I viewed Dodds' move as self-serving and transparent. I wanted Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin and Athletic Director Bill Byrne to turn the tables on Texas by saying, "Yes, we will continue our membership in the Big 12 if you give us assurances that you will abandon your plans for the Longhorn Network and instead work to establish a Big 12 network that will benefit all member schools." I doubt Texas would've agreed to those terms, but we'll never know. In the end, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe guaranteed A&M and extra $20 million to stay in the league. It appeared to be the best deal for A&M at the time, despite the sentiment of many students and alumni favoring a move to the SEC. Personally, I favored none of the options, having reservations about the Pac 10, Big 10 and SEC. My preference was to continue the Big 12, but without Nebraska and Colorado, the league was mortally wounded. Without expansion--which everyone involved with the conference insisted wasn't on the agenda--I gave the Big 12 a five-year lifespan at best. Texas, I was convinced, would get the Longhorn Network (LHN) up and running, then bolt for either the Big 10 or Pac 12, banking on their value as a marquee team to convince the destination conference to "grandfather in" the LHN. Failing that, they could go independent and maximize their cash flow that way.

In any event, it appears I was too optimistic on the lifespan of the Big 12 by about four years.

As the conference turns, pt. 1
As the conference turns, pt. 2

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As the conference turns, pt. 2

2011-08-17T09:40:00.001-05:00

After Arkansas left the SWC, it became a dead league walking. With three teams of national prominence and large fan bases in Texas, Arkansas and Texas A&M, the growing problems of the league could be overlooked and glossed over. But with only the two big state schools remaining, the fact that TCU, Rice, Baylor and SMU were small private schools with small alumni bases and almost no television presence was magnified. The fact that the University of Houston played most of its games in a mostly-empty Astrodome despite a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback in Andre Ware and the excitement of the record-setting run-and-shoot offense didn't help. A&M and Texas were subsidizing the rest of the league's athletic budgets with large and loyal fan bases. SWC commissioner Fred Jacoby, after insisting Arkansas would never leave, began mentioning schools like Louisville, Tulsa or Tulane as potential additions to the league. To try and keep the league viable, A&M made overtures to LSU, which quickly said "Thanks, but no thanks." Likewise, Texas inquired if Oklahoma would consider joining the SWC. Here, things get interesting. Oklahoma was unhappy with revenue sharing in the Big 8 at the time, and felt that too many of the weak sisters--Kansas State, Iowa State, etc.--were padding their athletic budgets with disproportionate shares of money from Oklahoma's television appearances. A "keep what you kill" arrangement similar to what had been put in place in the SWC--in that home schools kept larger portions of home gate revenue, television appearance fees and bowl payouts--appealed to the Sooners' athletic director and president. And they said so. Publicly. Make note of this, because it becomes important. For maybe a week in 1994, it suddenly looked like Oklahoma was thinking about leaving the Big 8 to join the ailing SWC.

Except, that's not what happened, at all. Oklahoma wanted more favorable revenue distribution, but they weren't about to hitch their star to the foundering SWC. A&M and Texas were already looking for a way out. Texas looked westward, wanting to join the academically prestigious Pac 10 and all the member schools there that were part of the American Association of Universities. They also flirted with the Big 10 as well. Sound familiar? Texas A&M, for its part, looked eastward, wanting to follow Arkansas to the SEC and play LSU, Alabama and the rest in that football mad circuit. Texas objected to the SEC because of low academic standards. A&M objected to the Big 10 and Pac 10 because of distance and culture. All of these issue would come into play once again in 2010-2011. In the end, joining the Big 8 was something of a compromise between the two, the only way they'd both be able to get out of the SWC.

Once word got out in Austin that the two flagship institutions were bailing on the SWC, political forces lined up against them. Governor Ann Richards, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock and powerful State Senator David Sibley were all Baylor alums, and Texas Tech had State Senate President Pro Tempore John Montford and Speaker of the House Pete Laney in its corner. The message was clear--take Texas Tech and Baylor along with you, or don't go at all. If A&M would give up its aspirations of playing in the SEC, legislative opposition to A&M's long-delayed Reed Arena would magically vanish. And thus, the Big 12 came into being.

By all rights, it should've been the perfect athletic conference. The southern division made up of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor were close to the original lineup of the Southwest Conference from 1914. Many of the regional rivalries stayed in place, and the schools were rewarded with a whopping $100 million, five-year deal (a huge contract for the time). It should've been one big happy family, but it wasn't. Almost immediately, Texas and Nebraska started butting heads. Nebraska viewed the Big 12 as an expansion of the old Big 8, while the new Texas schools viewed the league as an entirely new entity--at worst, it was a merger. Nebraska wanted the Big 12 offices to stay in Kansas City, where the Big 8 had been headquartered. The Texas schools wanted them in Dallas, where the SWC had been headquartered. The Texas schools, led by Texas AD Deloss Dodds and supported by the Oklahoma schools, won out. Nebraska supported one candidate for first Big 12 commissioner (whose name escapes me) whereas the Texas schools supported Steve Hatchell, a former administrator from the University of Colorado who'd joined the SWC front office just prior to the league's dissolution. Again, Texas won out. When the league split into two divisions, north and south, Nebraska protested that its annual rivalry game with Oklahoma would end. Nebraska lost that fight, too. The Big 8's more equitable revenue sharing was abandoned in favor of an unbalanced, SWC-style financial arrangement. The bitterest fight came when Texas moved to impose SWC academic standards limiting the participation of partial qualifiers into the Big 12 rule book. Nebraska, which had built a decades-long championship streak on the muscle of unlimited partial qualifiers in the academically lax Big 8 fought the new standards tooth and nail. And lost again. I believe it is no coincidence that Nebraska's on-field dominance waned quickly from that point on, and head football coach Tom Osborne retired shortly thereafter to enter politics.

The final indignity came in the very first Big 12 championship game, where a John Mackovic-coached Texas team stunned the heavily favored Nebraska Cornhuskers for the first league title. At this point, I have to wonder if this was all clever strategy by Oklahoma to undercut Nebraska by using Texas as a proxy. Certainly, Oklahoma's interests paralleled Texas' in most cases, and the Sooners benefited indirectly from the Longhorns' off-field victories over the Cornhuskers. In any event, the Texas-Nebraska antagonist relationship was cemented, with Texas AD Deloss Dodds outmaneuvering his counterparts at every turn. The rot from within had taken hold, and it would be only a matter of time before it made it to the surface.

As the conference turns, pt. 1

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As the conference turns, pt. 1

2011-08-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

One year ago, I pegged the Big 12 athletic conference's life at five years, tops. Turns out I was being way too optimistic. With Texas A&M's whirlwind courtship of the Southeastern Conference these past couple of weeks, it's obvious that when things fall apart, they fall apart quickly.

This all began, really, back in 1995 when the old SWC went belly-up. That particular death sentence was put in motion several years earlier when Frank Broyles, the athletic director at Arkansas who ran off several coaches--including Ken Hatfield--because of incessant meddling, decided the Razorbacks would profit immensely by joining the SEC and forming a 12-team super conference with a lucrative championship game. Up until that point, such and animal had never existed at the DI-A level of college football. Yes, the NCAA had a rule provision allowing 12-member leagues to split into divisions and hold and extra championship game, but it was originally written for lower-level competition. Trouble is, the NCAA never actually wrote that intention into the rule. The SEC seized the opportunity and soon became the best football conference in the land. Arkansas crashed and burned. Several things worked against Arkansas in the move: Firstly, Broyles refused to admit that more money was the reason behind the conference switch, instead making the duplicitous claim that the Razorbacks needed "better competition" after winning back-to-back SWC titles. You can imagine the embarrassment when the entire SWC--even post-death penalty SMU--pounded the Piggies in their final two seasons of competition before joining the SEC. Secondly, Arkansas had no existing rivals in the SEC, and suffered through an awkward, new-kid-at-school phase where they didn't know anyone and were picked on mercilessly. Third--and this is the biggest issue--Arkansas stocked its football roster with Texas players via its century-long association with the SWC. With A&M, Baylor, Texas and the rest refusing to schedule them after their departure from the SWC, that recruiting dried up quickly. Arkansas made more money in the SEC than it could in the SWC, yes, but the other setbacks took the Razorbacks a decade to overcome to the point where they're only now, 20 years later, consistently competitive in their new league.

Many people point to Arkansas' experience in the SEC as a cautionary tale for A&M as it looks to jump ship. The fact that A&M has lost two games against Arkansas and one to LSU, both SEC powerhouses, in recent years adds to the perception that a move to the SEC is a bad one for the Aggies. The Arkansas experience isn't necessarily relevant for A&M though. Firstly, the A&M recruiting base in Texas won't evaporate as it did for Arkansas, because the Aggies will always play at least half of their games in College Station--a short drive for mamma and daddy to come see junior play. Some argue it will actually help A&M, that in-state blue chippers who want to play against such legendary SEC teams as Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia will now have an in-state option. Others argue it will open up Texas recruiting to those same SEC programs and hurt all the Texas schools. That's debatable. I see it as a wash, more or less. A second reason the A&M move wouldn't be like Arkansas' is that A&M already has long-standing relationships with several of the schools they'd be playing. Familiarity with Arkansas exists from the SWC days and the recent renewal of that series at the neutral site of JerryWorld up in DFW. LSU is a long-standing rivalry that stirs the passions on both sides. LSU's abrupt cancellation of a long-term contract in the early 90s after A&M had won five games in a row (coupled with a similar break in the series under similar circumstances back in the 70s) merely adds fuel to the fire. And anyone who knows anything about college football knows A&M's ties to Alabama via Paul "Bear" Bryant and Gene Stallings. Finally, A&M isn't pretending the reasons for this potential move are for anything other than what they are: A chance for more money, more stability, and a chance to get out from under the oppressive thumb of the Texas Longhorns--or, more specifically, Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds.

Will the Aggies dominate SEC play and rack up a bunch of national championships right away? Not likely. That's not what this is about. There's a huge shakeup coming in college athletics, and for once, A&M wants to make its own destiny for good or ill, rather than tag along on someone else's coattails.

Next: The birth and untimely death of the Big 12.

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Aggies to SECede: As done as a deal can be

2011-08-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

Wow, that happened fast. If there was any doubt left that the Texas A&M Board of Regents would vote to move Texas A&M athletics from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference during their hastily-scheduled conference call on Monday, this email that popped up in my in-box this morning from the Association of Former Students pretty much laid them to rest. If the university is mobilizing a political phone campaign to counteract protests by Baylor, Tech and anyone else who doesn't want this to happen (University of Houston, aka Cougar High alumni are probably the only people in the state in A&M's corner this time) then you know they're going to the mat on this one. Here's the letter:

August 13, 2011

Howdy, Ags!

Today, as always, Texas A&M University is fortunate to have a University president at our helm who firmly places the best interests of Texas A&M as the top priority in any decisions he makes. In our discussions with Dr. R. Bowen Loftin '71, we often ask him how The Association of Former Students and the Aggie Network can help him and help Texas A&M.

As you may be aware, reports have circulated that Texas A&M is contemplating a change in athletic conferences. This has generated much speculation across the Aggie Network and among alumni of schools that could be impacted by our possible change of conferences. It is our understanding that some of these alumni have begun to exert influence on their elected officials to take interceding action.

While these individuals are certainly entitled to voice their opinions to their elected officials, so too are Aggies. The decision on Texas A&M's conference alignment - or any decision impacting our University's future - is one that should be made by our University leaders. If Aggies, too, will engage their elected officials and ask them to consider Texas A&M's need to do what is right and best for our school and our future, our President and other University leaders can focus solely on the best interests of Texas A&M today and tomorrow.

Opportunities abound for Texas A&M, and our University leaders need the latitude to explore and pursue avenues that will be to our benefit. We should be free to chart our own course without the influence of those who may not have our best interest at heart. If you agree, I hope you will reach out to your elected State of Texas officials and respectfully encourage them to let Texas A&M guide Texas A&M's future.

The Association of Former Students is committed to promoting the interests and welfare of Texas A&M. Earlier this week we shared a video of a recent panel discussion on the future of higher education. Throughout the discussion our panelists expressed the importance of allowing the leadership at Texas A&M to make decisions without outside influence. We believe that to be true in all circumstances.

Thank you for your support of Texas A&M. We ask that you join The Association and our friends at the 12th Man Foundation in supporting Texas A&M President Dr. R. Bowen Loftin ’71 as he determines what is best for our great University.

Respectfully,

Porter S. Garner III '79
President and CEO

Jorge A. Bermudez '73
2011 Chair of the Board
The Association of Former Students

Now Playing: The Kinks Come Dancing
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Friday Night Videos

2011-08-12T21:37:00.002-05:00

Way back when it came out in the late 80s, Jermaine Stewart's We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off made me laugh. It struck me at the time as supremely silly. And you know what? The intervening decades haven't changed my mind one bit. Although I will admit that Wimberley Valley Winery makes some pretty good cherry wine.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Androp.

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Friday Night Videos

2011-08-05T08:11:00.020-05:00

I do believe I've found the Japanese equivalent of OK Go in Androp. Not necessarily musically speaking (I've no clue what the song is about, and the style of play is different) but rather in their clever approach to video production. Androp used 250 computer-controlled Canon 60D cameras with shoe-mount strobes to illuminate their video for "Bright Siren." All I can say is, "Way to go, guys!"

And if that's not enough for you, they've also produced a nifty "Making-of video" that's online as well. Fascinating stuff!

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Cole Porter.

Now Playing: Miles Davis The Birth of the Cool
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Friday Night Videos

2011-07-29T09:41:00.000-05:00

Five consecutive days of 100-plus degree weather, prevented from being an entire month of 100-plus degree weather by a couple of 99-degree anomalies. The hottest June in Texas in recorded history. A crippling drought that may be the opening salvo in a 70-year mega-drought. I think I can safely say that It's Too Darn Hot.

I've been in a Cole Porter mood lately, but there's no performance video available online of Ella Fitzgerald singing this classic tune (which I insist is the best version of the song). The clip above is from the 2002 production of "Kiss Me Kate" in London's West End. Purists among you (I'm looking at you, Crider) will probably protest that the Ann Miller version is better, and while I allow that she gives a memorable performance with choreography that uses her legs to great effect, the fact that they censored the song by removing the telling references to the "Kinsey Report" is inexcusable in my book. Here's the Miller version so you can hear for yourself:

Previously on Friday Night Videos... "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Now Playing: The Kinks Lola vs. the Powerman and the Moneygoround
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An imperfect analogy

2011-07-28T09:39:00.001-05:00

So I'm seeing folks (and friends) online mocking the current battle over raising the federal debt limit. The general gist of the complaints fall along the lines of "Good! Don't raise it. It's time the government starts living within its means." Which is all fine and dandy (I've been a deficit hawk since I first earned the right to vote when I turned 18, have supported a balanced budget amendment, opposed Medicare Part D and came *this close* to voting for H. Ross Perot in '92) but is a naive, simplistic and even reckless view in this situation. Dismissing for a moment how an otherwise routine congressional action has been inexplicably politicized by this congress (the debt limit was raised dozens of times during the Reagan and both Bush administrations as a matter of course) let me try and illustrate, in very basic and grossly generalized terms, what a failure to raise the debt ceiling limit would mean.

Sam, our friendly uncle, lives in a nice house with a mortgage. He's making car payments and, unfortunately, has maxed out his credit cards through some irresponsible impulse buying over the years. Because he's kept up with his payments for the past 235 years, he's benefiting from some sweet interest rates--Sam pays only 5 percent, whereas a bunch of his neighbors are paying 10 percent. Some folks, like Zorba a few blocks over, have really botched their finances, bouncing checks all over the place, and now have to pay 40 percent interest if they can even find a bank willing to talk with them. Ouch!

Sam's got a pretty good income, but he was crunching the numbers one day and realized that he owes more than he's bringing in. In fact, by the 20th of every month, he's tapped out with most of those bills due on the 30th. He's known about the problem for years, but generally tried to ignore it with the vague idea that he'd win the lottery or discover a cache of pirate gold buried in the back yard. But those haven't happened, and the problem's too big to deal with anymore. Fortunately, Sam's on really good terms with his banker, who's already offered him a revolving line of credit at 5 percent interest that'll last the next two years. A good deal, right? Sam can use that time to prioritize his finances, cut up his credit cards and start living within his budget. His debt won't be gone in two years, but he's due a raise once the economy picks up and he can cash in some stocks options--the important thing is, his payments will be manageable and he'll be living within his means.

Except... Sam's got relatives telling him his plan is the coward's way out. Sam will never, ever live within his means if he accepts the Devil's deal offered by his banker for that line of credit. The only way Sam can break the nasty budget cycle is to live on his income. No more credit. If there's not enough money to pay his debts, tell his creditors "tough shit." Sam's been their best customer for 235 years, right? There is no way they'd risk offending Sam. They want to keep his business.

So Sam turns down the loan, vowing to only pay what he has on hand. The 20th arrives and he fills up his 15 mpg SUV because he's got his daily commute and fuel efficient cars are for wimps (as is taking the train to work, or biking). He's adopted a diet of baloney sandwiches and Top Ramen, dropped HBO and canceled his gym membership ($200 penalty!) and lawn service, so his budget is stretching out a little farther than before. He's nervous about all the foreclosures he keeps hearing about, so he pays the mortgage first. He's got enough left to pay 60 percent of the remaining bills. Damn! He forgot about the utilities! Okay, he decides to pay his highest-balance credit cards in full, while putting off the car payment and utilities until the first of the month. There's a penalty for that, but he can catch up at the first of the month when his paycheck comes in.

Next month, there's not as much money left on the 20th because of those penalties. He can't afford more penalties, so Sam pays the car and utility payments in full, and half on his other bills (he still pays his mortgage first--Sam ain't no fool).

The first of the month, Sam gets a bunch of notices in the mail that his interest rates on all his credit cards have gone up to 10 percent since he is now a credit risk. His minimum payments have doubled. Sam spends all day on the phone arguing with his various lenders. Because of Sam's sterling credit history and being a loyal customer, one card generously lowers his interest rate to 9.5 percent. Then he gets a notice that his mortgage interest rate has increased to 10 percent as well! WTF? Sam's furious! He calls his mortgage banker arguing that he's paid on time, every time, but it doesn't matter. Their records show that he's not met his other credit obligations, which means he's a greater risk, reflecting the higher rate he now has to pay.

Sam's frantic. His paycheck is gone by the 12th of the month. Ramen is now a luxury. And he's got 50 kids to look out for! Idiot Texas fell out of a tree and knocked a tooth out--the dental bill's astronomical, but there's no way to pay it. Sam tries to find a car pool to work, but everyone claims to be full up. The first of the month, there's not enough money to pay the utilities. Sam looks into public assistance, but he earns too much to qualify. Sam finds the irony grating. The lights go off on the 15th. Water is shut off on the 25th. Sam's relatives are now calling him an idiot and moron for not paying his bills and ruining his sterling credit rating.

Grudgingly, embarrassed and humiliated, Sam goes back to his banker (who mysteriously hasn't been returning Sam's calls). When Sam finally gets in to see him, Sam's upset to learn that his promised two-year line of credit at 5 percent is now down to one year at 25 percent! The banker's apologetic, but points out this is essentially an unsecured loan and Sam's not exactly shown the best fiscal discipline in recent months. Feeling he has no choice, Sam accepts the loan and heads home, hoping to win the lottery or discover a cache of pirate gold on the way. He passes Zorba's house on the way home. Zorba, kind, understanding soul that he is, points and laughs.

I'm sure some armchair economist out there will poke all sorts of holes in my analogy (I already said it was imperfect, okay) and others will invoke the politics involved. Fine. Go ahead. But the long and short of the whole mess is that refusing to pay our debts will have negative consequences. Just how big these negative consequences will be can be debated until the cows come home, but the inescapable fact is that they will be negative. Our country can't afford that.

Now Playing: The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out
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Captain America

2011-07-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

I've been a fan of Captain America for as long as I can remember. Steve Rogers is far and away my favorite Marvel hero, probably my second-favorite comic hero overall, behind only Green Arrow. So this summer--already featuring a big-screen adaptation of perhaps my third favorite comic character, Green Lantern (a decent but by no means great film)--has me rolling in clover. That is, if Captain America: The First Avenger turned out to be a decent flick. As enjoyable as Green Lantern was, even the most die-hard fans came away with a feeling of disappointment about the sloppy narrative and missed opportunities in that one. Suffering the same indignities with Captain America would be too much to bear.

Thankfully, Captain America is pretty much everything it should be. It is a very different movie than what Hollywood normally puts out in this era. Not necessarily a throwback to 1940s feel-good propaganda flicks, but one that evokes that era. There's no post-modern cynicism here--this is probably the most earnest film I've seen in years, but it never devolves into schmaltz. The whole "Captain America's USO tour" is note perfect, and I--yes, uber-cynic that I am--teared up a little at the gosh-wow of an era when all American were united and we were never so unambiguously on the side of the angels. Director Joe Johnston, whose career output has featured films of erratic quality, turns out to have the perfect touch for this sort of film. He helmed the excellent period adventure Rocketeer, after all (wouldn't a comic team-up featuring Cliff Secord and Steve Rogers be the bee's knees?) and the woefully underrated October Sky. His work for George Lucas on the first three Star Wars films (Lucas, let him direct that Boba Fett feature now!) and Raiders of the Lost Ark serves him well here. There are multiple visual and verbal references to Raiders in Captain America, enough to make a case for this film to exist in the same universe as the good Dr. Jones. There's even a blink-and-you-miss-it moment when Rogers uses the famous shield as a windscreen for his motorcycle, a hilarious, and very deliberate reference to the wretched 1970s Captain America TV movies.

The plot unfolds at a deliberate pace, taking its time to tell the story, but is thankfully never boring. The camera lingers. The action sequences are well-orchestrated and very easy to follow. Let me repeat that: There's no hyper-active quick-cutting in this film, so the audience can always tell what's going on. I can only hope other directors out there are taking notes. The attention to detail is extremely impressive, epitomized to me by the extensive use of the triangular shield originally designed by Jack Kirby in the comics, which quickly morphed into the more-familiar round shield when a competing comic threatened to sue. In the film, Cap's triangular shield is damaged during his first encounter with the Red Skull, necessitating the adoption of the prototype vibranium disc. Very nice.

What's not to like? A few things. This isn't a perfect movie, and the flaws are concentrated at the end. First of all, the decision to make Cap's entire World War II career the focus of the movie ties the filmmakers' hands. The finale of Cap's ongoing battles with the Red Skull--preventing the destruction of New York by sacrificing himself over the Arctic--is something of an anti-climax. Let me explain: In movies, preventing massive destruction is much less dramatic in a visual medium than causing massive destruction. Think Star Wars. The Death Star going BOOM is much more euphoric than the reverse. Add to it the fact that Steve Rogers intentionally crashes the Red Skull's long-range bomber for no really good reason (he had control of the plane, the Red Skull had turned on Autopilot earlier but there was no indication the thing was going to automatically bomb the U.S., and besides, the "Buzz Bombs" needed pilots to direct them and Cap had already dispatched them. Finally, Rogers was offered assistance by the U.S. forces on the ground but dismissed this because "There's no time." No time for what?) and you get the feeling events happened only because the scriptwriter needed to get Cap frozen in the Arctic, not because made any sense. Which is a pity, because most of the rest of the plot had clear and logical underpinnings (even if some of them were of the rubbery "comic book logic" type). The other big letdown I had came when Steve Rogers woke up in 2011, broke out of his recovery room and met Nick Fury in downtown Manhattan. After all the style and finesse of the previous two hours, this sequence felt rushed and tacked on. Monkey Girl, who had no familiarity with the character prior to seeing the film, didn't know what was going on--Nick Fury's comment that Cap had been "sleeping for 70 years" baffled her until I clarified that he'd been frozen in the Arctic, at which point she connected the dots between the super-soldier serum and suspended animation. But Rogers, who'd suddenly become Rip Van Winkle, came off as nonplussed about being displaced in time. I didn't want him to break down crying, or scream "NOOOOOO!" or somesuch silliness, but the whole present-day setting had an air of indifference about it that I found jarring. Far better to save that for the opening of The Avengers in my opinion, than to shoe-horn it into a movie where it doesn't really fit.

When we saw Green Lantern, there was a little boy behind us that bought into the movie completely, which increased my enjoyment of the film significantly. For Captain America there were two little boys in attendance with their fathers that made me smile. One wore a plastic Captain America mask and shield, while the other wore a full-body Captain America costume, complete with wings on the mask. There were a couple of bloody scenes that I think might have been too much for a child that age, but overall I couldn't help think that Captain America is a great movie for a father to share with a child. There's not a better role model anywhere than Steve Rogers, who does what's right because it's right--even when it's difficult--who stands up to bullies and is loyal to his friends. America is greatest when we live up to our ideals and do what's right, as opposed to the idea that anything we do is automatically justified merely by the fact that we are America. There's a big difference there, and Captain America symbolized everything that's good and pure about this country. I expect I'll watch this many, many more times in the future. Cynic that I am.

Now Playing: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook vol. 1
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Friday Night Videos

2011-07-22T19:37:00.001-05:00

This is the genius of "Weird" Al Yankovic. It's like he has been spying on me for the past decade, and stealing all my best rants. The Snopes urban legend debunking? Yeah, that's me. I'm so merciless with people who forward that kind of crap without taking 10 seconds to check if it's legit or not (hint, a scathing "reply all" with links debunking the B.S. works great) that happily a bunch of people now go out of their way to not email me. Which makes me very happy indeed. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this is, without a doubt, my favorite Weird Al song of all time. Yeah, ranking higher than even "White & Nerdy" and "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung." And doggone it, the wordplay and animation in the video is inspired as well. Enjoy, and remember, "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me" is not just a catchy song, it's a call to action.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Nick Gilder.

Now Playing: Miles Davis Birth of the Cool
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A Midsummer Night's Dream

2011-07-19T12:30:00.000-05:00

Last fall, the show-biz bug bit Fairy Girl. She was cast as the Princess from "The Princess in the Pea" in a Fractured Fairytales-style mishmash production at her school. After getting herself so nervous she almost threw up before the show (she had thrown up and missed her previous opportunity to debut on stage a year earlier) she calmed down enough to deliver her lines perfectly, and showed that not only does she have impressive delivery and animation for a 10-year-old who'd never acted before, she also had pretty darn good comic timing. This summer, she got into a summer theatre camp at Circle Arts Theatre, where they'll be staging a trimmed-down version of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown this Friday. She's begun clamoring for us to take her to auditions in the area--television, movies, theatrical, it makes no difference. When she was only 3 years old or so, on a lark we submitted her photo to the folks casting for the John Lee Hancock Alamo movie, and actually got a call back. We had a scheduling conflict The Wife and I have begun some tentative searches of Austin and San Antonio talent agencies online, cautiously separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

All of which is how it came to pass that Fairy Girl found out that I did some acting in my misspent youth. My junior and senior years of high school I participated in One Act Play, once I finally built up enough nerve to walk away from Columbus High School's painfully dysfunctional football program. Of my brief theatrical career, a single VHS tape remains as evidence. Fairy Girl wanted to watch.

The quality of the 24-year-old tape left a lot to be desired. The audio track was poor to begin with, but the image has color shifted over the years and lots of distortion crept in as well. That's to be expected, since the tape hadn't played for at least 15 years. And damn, but I was skinny back then! I've never been svelt, but 60 pounds accumulated over the course of two decades make a big difference. All in all, it's hard to watch, but Fairy Girl sat through it like a trooper.

The play was a truncated version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a wildly uneven production, but what we lacked in polish we made up for in enthusiasm. I played Lysander one of the four star-crossed lovers who suffer from an accidental application of love potion. The other roles my fading memory can recall included David Herrera as Demetrius, Danette (Glueck) Cantu as Helena, Jill Whitcomb as Hermia, Chris Novosad as Oberon, Carrie Speck as Puck, Matt Theut as Egeus, Don Koslosky as Theseus and Camille Hunt as Hippolyta. Watching the lot of perform on stage more than two decades ago, it was sobering to realized that Matt and David--both younger than I--are no longer with us. A feeble memorial to their lives, I suppose, but we were all having fun and that has to count for something.

I tried out for Midsummer Night's Dream on a whim, mainly to get out of the drudgery of cleaning the athletic field house every day (my punishment for walking off the football team a month or so before--long story for another time). I showed up for the reading oblivious to the source material and was thoroughly clueless about the importance of the Lysander role until I started highlighting my lines and realized I was in pretty much every freakin' scene (there's no Bottom or Titania in this version--the one-act plays were limited to 35 minutes or thereabouts). That got my attention real quick, I assure you. Taking on such a role was challenging for me, since my previous stage experience was limited to the Sheriff in a third-grade production of Cowboy on the Moon and one of the playing cards trying to paint white roses red in our first-grade presentation of Alice in Wonderland. Complicating matters was the fact that Whitcomb, who played my ostensible love interest, Hermia, viewed me with the contempt most civilized folk reserve for gum accidentally trodden upon. She was a fine actress, but off stage there was nothing I could say or do around her that wasn't met with a sneer or eye roll from her. I can only assume I was considered too uncouth and lowbrow for her taste--the fact that her sister, Jo Helen (who also displayed no great affection toward me), presented as a class assignment the following year a argument that people should "only buy clothes from Nieman Marcus instead of Wal Mart so they don't feel poor and dirty" goes a long way toward affirming my suspicions.

At the district competition, my first stage performance in front of an audience made up of people who weren't mine or my friends' parents, I was probably on the verge of barfing just like Fairy Girl. I don't remember much about the lead-up to the play, other than the fact that Sealy put on a production of Everyman that impressed the heck out of me. I do remember what happened after the curtain fell, however. I'd given it my all on stage, figuring this might well be the only time I ever play Lysander, so I might as well make it memorable. Whitcomb snarled at me afterwards, accusing me of ruining the play. A significant portion of the cast lined up behind her for their turn at denigrating me as well. "You blew it," said McDonald Ruffino, our lighting tech. "You over-acted way too much." Once all the other schools had wrapped up their shows, everyone filled the auditorium to receive individual awards and find out which play would advance to regional competition. I don't know if our teacher/director Charlotte Tilotta was aware of the backstage drama going on--if she was, she didn't let on. All I know is that I wanted to curl up and disappear. My humiliation grew as they went through the Honorable Mentions, then the All-Star Cast. Lots of actors and actresses from Columbus as well as other schools were raking in the awards, but we wouldn't advance because I'd ruined it for everyone. Then they announced overall best actor, and it took me a minute to realize they were mispronouncing my name. I'd like to say that I went from abject misery to elation in the space of a heartbeat, but in truth I was too much in shock to really feel much of anything. Later on, Ruffino was the only person to apologize for jumping on me earlier. That was a classy gesture on his part, but then again, he and his family have always been classy people.

At regional, we advanced again. I was named best actor again. The wheels came off during the state semifinals, though. My timing was off, my delivery was off. I wasn't feeling it, as the cliche goes. I can't presume to speak for others in the cast, but it felt like the entire rhythm of the show was out of sync. In the end, our production was named Alternate to State, and our great run ended. I was named to the All-Star Cast. Everyone was disappointed, but proud of what we'd accomplished. The next year, we undertook an ambitious production of MacBeth, sticking with the Shakespeare theme. David Hererra got the showcase role of MacBeth, Danette Glueck was Lady MacBeth, Glen Harper was MacDuff and Bobby Horecka was Malcolm. I played three roles--Banquo, the drunken porter and one other which I no longer remember. The production was spectacular (for a pre-Glee era 3A high school effort). Tilotta spent probably the entire budget on elaborate costume rentals. There were sound and lighting effects. The finale, when a dying MacBeth descends into unambiguous madness, was enhanced with MacBeth's enemies--both living and dead--returning to deliver key, portentious lines from earlier in the play. It was breathtaking (relatively speaking). At district competition, after we finished, actors from rival schools lined up to congratulate us and say they were in competition for second place. Were we overconfident? Maybe, but with good reason. It all came crashing down when the sole judge, a drama prof from Sam Houston State, castigated us for not being just like the Orson Welles' version of MacBeth, because that was the only good version. We did not advance. Tilotta, in a fit of emotion, packed up all the costumes and shipped them off the next morning. We never had a public performance of the play. Our family and friends never got to see what we'd spent three months perfecting. We didn't even have a video copy of a dress rehearsal, because Principal Simmons (who delighted in meddling and exerting his power where he had no business) forbade Tilotta to video any rehearsals because "It would make the students self-conscious and they wouldn't be any good." All these years later, it still makes me sad. A lot of students worked hard to make that play the best it could be. They deserved better.

My own acting skills were enough to earn me try-out invitations for theatrical scholarships at a few universities in state. Those same skills were not enough to actually win me any scholarships. I learned quickly in the one acting class I took in college that there are talented people out there that I'm not worthy to do line readings with, much less act. But my stage experience did lead me to a deep appreciation of Shakespeare on both stage and screen (Ian McKellen's version of Richard III is inspired) and the hard work real actors do to make it seem so effortless.

So Fairy Girl has my whole-hearted backing. As long as acting is an interest to her, we'll gladly shuttle her to local theatre programs. If her interest holds, then by golly we'll consider shuttling her to the occasional TV commercial audition in San Antonio, or indy film casting call in Austin. And when it comes time for her to go to college, I know some folks in the Texas State Department of Theatre and Dance, so she'll get a fair shot to impress the folks there with her talents. What she does with those opportunities is up to her.

Now Playing: The Cars Greatest Hits
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Friday Night Videos

2011-07-15T09:24:00.000-05:00

Before seeing this video, I was never quite sure if it was a woman or a man singing "Hot Child In the City". And you know what? I'm still not sure. Enjoy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... David Bowie.

Now Playing: Duke Ellington Ken Burns Jazz
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Now bring us some figgy liquor...

2011-07-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

For those of you following along at home, back in May I started a 6 gallon batch of honey mead. I used slow-fermenting Red Star Cotes des Blanc yeast, which is said to be good at preserving fruity characteristics. Since I've learned that fermenting with wine yeasts at high temperatures (70 degrees plus) creates fusel alcohols (perfectly safe to consume, but they impart a harsh medicinal flavor to the mead) I set the fermenting mead in a water bath, added ice nightly and wrapped the 6-gallon vessel with wet towels so that evaporation would keep the temperatures lower than room temperature. While I'm several weeks tardy in racking that mead, I sampled some today and have to say that my water bath efforts appear to have paid off. The mead, as-is, has a faint tinge of sweetness, definite honey flavor and almost no "rocket fuel" harshness. All those years of fermenting high-temperature ales kinda undercut me on the learning curve here, but I'm finally catching up.

So, what to do with six gallons of mead? I'm not one to be content with a simple show mead, you know. A fruity melomel is in order. Be warned: What follows is a tale of woe. Last weekend, The Wife asked me to clean out the deep freeze. Way down deep I found several bags of frozen plums from last year, two big bags of figs and about 15 pounds worth of skinned prickly pear fruit. I was very proud of those prickly pear. I'd hunted for them all summer, keeping an eye on various cactus patches around and swooping in when they ripened to that gorgeous deep black-purple. Then I skinned them. The juice, an intense magenta-maroon, is gorgeous but stains everything. The tiny, hair-like thorns invariably prick me (despite leather work gloves) and are a hassle to remove. So you can imagine my despair yesterday, a full week after I cleaned out the freezer of other, unwanted foodstuffs, that The Wife asks what I had in the leaking bag sitting on the other side of the freezer. Yeah. I'd set a 10-pound bag of prickly pear aside and completely forgotten about it. It was completely ruined. All that effort, literally down the drain. I could've cried.

The good news is that I found 4 pounds of frozen and skinned prickly pear that I hadn't thoughtlessly left out of the freezer for a week. I put these in a covered pot and let thaw overnight, then mashed with a potato masher to release more of the juice. I took the 7 pounds of frozen figs, sliced them up, then did the same in a separate pot. Some homebrewers only use fresh, unfrozen fruit, but not me. I always freeze it. One reason is that I rarely have enough fresh fruit at any one time to start a batch of homemade fermentables, but the biggest reason is that freezing ruptures cell walls like nobody's business, and the fruit pulp sheds juice so very, very easily. Take a look at these figs. By morning they were swimming in a thick, golden syrup, even more than you see here:

I have to say, the figs smelled wonderful. They should pair with the honey mead very, very with with complementary flavors. The 4 pounds of prickly pear was more challenging, but egads, what gorgeous color that juice produces:

Prickly pear isn't an entirely cooperative fruit. You have to cook it before fermenting, otherwise it will foam up and create an unholy mess. But if you bring it to a boil, the fruit pectin will set and you've got prickly pear jelly. So I simmered the fruit for 45 minutes, keeping careful track of the temperature, stirring often and never letting it come to a boil. Cooking released more juices, and once it cooled, I strained the whole mess through a nylon mesh brewing bag. When all was said and done, I had approximately 3 quarts of prickly pear juice--a far cry from what I'd planned for before ruining those other 10 pounds of fruit, but enough to work with at least. So, here are the recipes for my latest experiments:

Fig Melomel (4 gallons)
7 lbs. sliced figs
2 tsp. yeast energizer
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
2 tsp. pectic enzyme
3/4 tsp. grape tannin
fill with honey mead

Prickly Pear Melomel (3 gallons)
3 quarts prickly pear juice (4 lbs. skinned prickly pear fruit)
1.5 tsp. yeast energizer
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1.5 tsp. pectic enzyme
1.2 tsp. grape tannin
fill with honey mead

If you can do math, you'll see that's a grand total of 7 gallons of melomel now racked up in various containers. The volume of the figs and prickly pear more than made up for what I lost to the dregs during racking. The residual Cotes des Blanc yeast suspended in the mead has woken up in both batches, and is generating steady amounts of CO2 as it consumes the fruit sugars from the figs and prickly pears. It's not an aggressive fermentation, but relaxed and steady, just what I want. A slow fermentation will preserve more of the fruit flavors in the long run. If I can get them to ferment out dry, or at least semi-dry, then I may well have some real winners once I bottle them up.

Now Playing: Peter Gabriel Secret World Live
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Friday Night Videos

2011-07-08T09:34:00.000-05:00

Someone asked last week if David Bowie's feature film, "The Man Who Fell to Earth," made any kind of sense at all. The correct answer, of course, is "Not much." You've got to hand it to Bowie for his consistency--despite a career that spans four decades with countless hits and a tremendous influence on popular culture, he has resisted the impulse to make sense at pretty much every turn. Case in point, the video for "Day In Day Out" off his Never Let Me Down album. It kinda sorta has a coherent narrative if you squint hard when listening to the lyrics, but the video tosses that all out the window. Good angels! Bad angels! Roller skates! Conveyor belts! Bad hair! Yes, this one has it all.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Dan Baird.

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Monkeyshine (1997-2011)

2011-07-06T21:15:00.000-05:00

If you've owned a dog long enough, there is a certain dread that comes with the certainty of knowing that if you take the old girl in to the vet, she is never coming home. Back in 2004 I had to go through this with Sigfreid Sebastian Bach, which was a horrible experience, but one softened somewhat by the knowledge of what was coming and that his medications gave him an extra four (mostly comfortable) months. Monkeyshine didn't have that luxury. Last Thursday I noticed she had a little bit of bloat to her belly. By Saturday she was eating only sparingly, and by Monday she was very swollen in the gut and barely moving. Beagles aren't prone to twisted stomachs, and the slow onset was ominous. Tuesday I took her in to the vet, already knowing the final diagnosis--only the details were in question. Congestive heart failure. Internal bleeding. Pancreatic cancer. She was 14 years old, and any one of those conditions was enough to kill her on its own. I buried her in Bastrop today, alongside Sigfreid and two of the family's cats.

This is my favorite photo of me with my dogs, back in younger days of all of us. Sigfreid's the one on the left, Monkeyshine's the one on the right. She was never quite as beloved as Sigfreid. She was the first joint pet The Wife and I got after we were married, a pound rescue that almost didn't happen. We were notified when she arrived, a hyper, 6-month-old puppy, and she took to us immediately. But the pound had a 48-hour waiting period in case the owners stepped forward, so we couldn't take here then. A less diligent animal shelter employee wasn't so strict with the rules, though, and came close to adopting her out later that same day before the boss intervened and pointed out she was already promised to us.

Once we got her home, it didn't take us long to figure out why her previous owners never claimed her. She was an escape artist. Every home we've owned, no matter how much I've dog-proofed the yard, she's gotten out. She could jump higher than any beagle I've ever seen. She even taught herself how to climb 6' chain-link fences. I kid you not. Back when we were trying to sell the Temple house and not living there full-time, an idiot realtor left the gate open and she disappeared for two weeks. We gave up, never expecting to see her again, but then got a call that she'd been found--miles away, across two large highways, including I-35. I've heard that God looks out for the innocent and fools, and that's probably why she ended up with us.

She wasn't a dumb dog by any means, but she didn't have the sense the Good Lord gave the goose. When I'd take Sigfreid to the park to let him run, he'd make big, looping circles, checking in every so often to make sure I hadn't left or that it wasn't time to go. Not so with Monkeyshine. The instant she was off the leash, she was running full-tilt and I'd be lucky to catch up with her three counties over. Sigfreid, the big lug, always thought this was some great new game and couldn't understand why I was so put-out afterwards. She also had issues with housebreaking. She didn't want to be broken. She finally grasped the idea that we did not want her to do her business inside, so for several days--maybe as long as a week--we thought she'd finally learned proper potty behavior. About that time we noticed her sneaking off behind the living room furniture. "Hey," she probably would've said had she been able to talk, "out of sight, out of mind." She was a full-time outside dog after that.

She settled down quite a bit after we lost Sigfreid. She got too fat to jump or climb fences. She played well with Precious and served as a pretty good role model until Precious was stolen from us a year ago 4th of July. Polkadots proved a little too frisky for her--for all his smarts, he's still a nipper--and they would squabble more than Monkeyshine did with any of our other dogs, but give them a few minutes and they'd be playing chase again.

She wasn't the best dog, but she was a sweetheart. Even as miserable and pained as she was, she never so much as whimpered. She even wagged her tail for The Wife before I took her to the vet. She deserved a better ending than what she got, and I pray I never again have to take another pet to that last trip to the vet.

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The 2011 Griswold Family Vacation pt. 8

2011-07-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Fifteen years ago, The Wife and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision in Phoenix to turn east instead of south, so as to pass through the UFO mecca of Roswell, New Mexico, on our way home from our honeymoon. It was an opportunity to take in some silly kitsch while avoiding endless monotonous miles of travel on I-10. It turned out to be one of our best random choices ever, not because of Roswell, but because of this:

Driving through the flat desert way back when, we spotted something on the horizon. Something pretty big. "What the heck is that?" As we got closer, we saw more appear, and eventually it dawned on me--we had stumbled upon the Very Large Array. Talk about happy accidents! At the time, we didn't know if it was open to the public, and hadn't planned for the visit, but we drove past in awe, marveling at the enormous dishes. This year, we did plan ahead, and turned off the highway to the small, unstaffed visitor center.

Having just driven past the ominous and harrowing Wallow Fire, with the massive smoke cloud still blotting out much of the western sky, the VLA was a welcome respite. There is a self-guided walking tour that leads you through the observatory's grounds, and the complex is mighty impressive (not to mention isolated).

One misconception we had dispelled right away is the idea that the dishes are permanently mounted on the railroad tracks. Not true. There are rail cars that move the dishes, true, but when in place for observations, the dishes are disengaged from the rail cars and mounted semi-permanently on concrete pylons. The railroad tracks, I have to say, appear to stretch out forever. In the movie Contact, the filmmakers digitally copied the dishes to make the numbers look more impressive. After standing there and looking the place over, we could understand why--the distances are so vast that even the enormous dishes appear tiny so far away.

Interestingly enough, I saw more pronghorn antelope this day than I've seen the rest of my life combined. In that, the pronghorns and Lubbock dust devils from day 1 share something in common. We saw several herds of pronghorn along the side of highway 60 approaching the VLA, and this one was content to trot along in the shadows of the dishes, stopping every so often to graze or watch the silly tourists take its picture. We saw many more pronghorn herds after we left, and after nightfall even saw a gemsbok oryx grazing beside the road (sadly, no photos of that one).

Amazingly enough, the kids didn't fight or squabble or cause one of the multi-million-dollar dishes to collapse in a pile of ruined scrap metal. They were duly impressed, although the wonder of it all did gradually fade to be replaced with a desire to go. Personally, I could've spent hours and hours there, shooting from all different vantage points. We saw the dishes change direction twice, which is a spooky and amazing scene to watch when those massive machines pivot in unison. They're remarkably silent when they do it as well. The Bug even found something to keep himself entertained--he captured a wild tumbleweed, and named it "Signal" in honor of the VLA. He's since tamed it and plays with it on occasion, although he warns me not to pet it if he's not around, because "Signal may bite."

After that much scientific spectacle, we needed something to cleanse the palate, so to speak. After pulling into Roswell close to midnight and crashing at the hotel, we got up the next morning and hit the UFO Museum, which is very straight-faced and serious, followed up by the Alien Zone/Area 51 Museum, which is infinitely less reputable and a hundred times cheesier than its counterpart a couple blocks down the street. Having partaken in our daily allotment of cornball rubber aliens, we headed for home. I'm happy to report that the final leg of our trip was uneventful, except grass fires every two miles the final hour we spent in New Mexico, and a blowout on I-10 just south of Comfort at 11 p.m. that I had the rare honor of changing in the dark with cars and trucks whizzing past at 70 miles per hour. So, where should we go for vacation next year?

A full gallery of road trip photos can be found here.
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 1
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 2
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 3
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 4
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 5
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 6
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 7

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Friday Night Videos

2011-07-01T07:58:00.000-05:00

With all the weeping and wailing and beating of breasts over the "Oxford comma" that's been going on lately (they should just shoot the darn thing and put it out of our collective misery, if you ask me), how could I not feature the incomparable Dan Baird on today's installment of Friday Night Videos? Who is Dan Baird you ask? Surely you jest! Dan Baird was the driving force behind the southern rock group Georgia Satellites, best known for their catchy hit single "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." Personally, I recommend their second album, In the Land of Salvation and Sin, which shows maturity as songwriters far beyond that of their debut album. But Dan Baird released a solo album in 1992, and the first single bowled me over with its goofy charm, witty lyrics and obsession with proper punctuation. I Love You, Period:

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Apollocon in the rear view mirror

2011-06-27T22:49:00.000-05:00

Apollocon has come and gone once again, and I find myself with a cup that runneth over of enthusiasm and inspiration. This is a good thing, and the primary reason I find myself attending conventions these days. Writing is a solo endeavour, and the inherent isolation of the discipline can be wearying. New Braunfels, although being in the general proximity of San Antonio and Austin, is apart enough that I do not have regular writerly contact with other folk (other than online) and breaking this isolation, I have found, is essential to replenish the wellspring of creativity. This is partly in response to the stimulating flow of ideas that abounds, but mostly, I suspect, from my deep shame that everyone else appears far more productive than I.

After having missed last year's edition due to conflicting obligations, it was good to reconnect with the Houston crowd, which differs in subtle ways from the Armadillocon and Aggiecon folks (although there is some natural overlap). For dinner, I tagged along with John DeNardo, Stina Leicht and Lawrence Person to the Cajun Town Cafe for some pretty darn good eats. Food, as everyone knows, is an integral part of the full con-going experience.

I admit to some trepidation in the early going. There were a variety of SNAFUs with scheduling, such that until Thursday night prior to the convention, I was not included on any programming. Fortunately, their crack team of pencillers-in got to work and before long I had a full slate of scheduling on which to hold forth. My contributions to Friday's Cthulhu panel were modest, since I've read only a few Lovecraft stories, but I did manage to enlighten the audience on the existence of Shoggoth On The Roof, which alone is worth the price of admission. Running hard all day, plus my general lack of sleep from the week before, caught up with me and I ended up calling it a night relatively early in the evening. Having only one real room party going on made the decision easier.

Saturday got off to a sluggish start. My energy levels were low and overall I simply felt run down. I gave it the old college try during my three panels, but if I'm being honest, the audience is fortunate there were so many other knowledgeable folks up there on the dias with me, otherwise the discussion would've spiraled downward very quickly.

Once evening rolled around, however, my fatigue seemed to evaporate. I attribute that to the great people around me. I had a fun dinner with Ann VanderMeer, Rocky Kelly and Gabrielle Faust as well as the dinner crew from the night before. Ann and I had some entertaining conversations, but surprisingly never once did The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities come up, despite the fact HarperCollins releases it in just a couple of weeks. I've not had the chance to hang out with Gabrielle at a convention before, but she was great fun. And Rocky is always an upbeat and entertaining fellow to have around--I can't imagine a better convention guest.

Somewhere along the line I found a few minutes to talk with Chris Nakashima-Brown about his planned revamp of the No Fear of the Future group blog, and caught up a little with Martha Wells, Bill Crider, Rhonda Eudaly, Alexis Glynn Latner and others, although the fleeting moments went by far too quickly.

That buoyant energy carried over to Sunday, even though there were many excellent room parties Saturday night, and I found excellent conversations at each of them. Interestingly enough, my last panel of the con, Fire off! The Science Fiction/Fantasy Canon, proved to be the most entertaining and engaging of the weekend. With Alexis, Lawrence and Larry Friesen (Bill Crider had to leave early and missed it) we had a grand time pulling up a wide range of yesterday's classic authors and stories to give a sweeping list of worthwhile reading for someone looking to be well-grounded in SF and fantasy literature. Dante's Inferno was one early example, and we touched on a good number of 19th century writers before we even got to Verne and Wells. My contributions included Cilfford Simak, Leigh Brackett, James Tiptree Jr., Peter Beagle, Jack Vance and A.E. van Vogt. Others brought up Stapledon, Blish, Ballard, Dick, Zelazny, Burroughs, Kuttner, Le Guin, Norton and Lafferty, plus all the giants one would expect us to touch on. Interestingly, we often recommended reading works that weren't their best-known or most successful simply because some of those more famous works hadn't aged well. We were all struck silent for a moment when we realized that a significant amount of Greg Egan's work is now more than 20 years old, thus qualifying for "classic" status.

There didn't seem to be quite so many regional writers this year as in the past, but this was more than made up for by the steampunk contingent, a literary-cum-fashion movement that shows no sign of abating any time soon. And that's fine with me, as I find the retro-futuristic style endlessly entertaining. I also learned that, yes indeed, all the other writers and artists participating are far, far more productive than I, and I need to get my lazy butt in gear and stop wasting so much of my limited writing time typing out blog posts about conventions I've attended.

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Off to Apollocon!

2011-06-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

I'm packed up, and in a few minutes will be heading out on the three-hour drive to Houston for Apollocon. It's a measure of my dedication to this convention that I will be making the journey sans air conditioning in my vehicle. In an exercise of bad timing, that gets fixed next month. But in the "be thankful for small favors" category, my windows--which had also stopped working--are now fixed. Rest assured, I plan on showering before hitting the con.

For those of you heading to the con and interested in catching me at one of my scheduled panels, here's my schedule:

Friday
- 9 p.m. Cthulhu 101: Miskatonic University - Linda Donahue, Lawrence Person, Jennifer Ramon, A. Lee Martinez (M), Jayme Blaschke
Saturday
- 10 a.m. Reboot, Reuse, Recycle: Derly Ramirez, Gabrielle Faust, A. Lee Martinez (M), Jayme Blaschke
- 1 p.m. Writing is a Muscle--It Needs Exercise Too: Linda Donahue, Michael Bracken, Rhonda Eudaly, Jayme Blaschke
- 3 p.m. Reading to Do List: Kathy Thornton (M), Larry Friesen, Marianne Dyson, Cathey Osborne, Jayme Blaschke
Sunday
- 11 a.m. A Room of One's Own: Michael Bracken (M), CJ Mills, Rhonda Eudaly, Jayme Blaschke
- 1 p.m. Fire off! The Science Fiction/Fantasy Canon: Alexis Glynn Latner, Bill Crider (M), Larry Friesen, Lawrence Person, Jayme Blaschke

A full schedule and panel descriptions may be found at the Apollocon website. See you there!

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Friday Night Videos

2011-06-24T10:51:00.000-05:00

I've never been a huge fan of 10,000 Maniacs, although I readily acknowledge Natalie Merchant's talent. Their acoustic version of "Because the Night", with its full orchestration, is sublime. It shows how powerful a rock sound can be without electric guitars and the like. Good stuff.

And for those purists out there who scoff because 10,000 Maniacs aren't Patti Smith, here's the original:

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Pat Benatar.

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The 2011 Griswold Family Vacation pt. 7

2011-06-23T16:47:00.001-05:00

When last we saw our family of intrepid vacationers, London Bridge was receding rapidly in the distance, with the grand vistas of Arizona beckoning. You gotta watch out for beckoning vistas. They'll get you every time.

Having lost a good bit of time due to our detour through Joshua tree country, we reluctantly scrapped plans to travel an isolated loop of Route 66 and instead contented ourselves with a brief stop in Seligman, the town that partly served as inspiration for Radiator Springs in the Pixar film Cars. After some ice cream and corny jokes from Juan Delgadillo's Famous Snow Cap Drive-In, we were on our way again, hoping to check-in to our hotel in Flagstaff with enough daylight to spare to make a side trip down to Sedona. As we approached Flagstaff, though, an ominous sign appeared in the skies.

Coconino National Forest was burning. We could see the smoke billowing through the mountains from a hundred miles away. Spotter planes were flying around constantly. That image above? That's taken from the parking lot of our hotel in Flagstaff. The fire was roughly south of us, but we couldn't find out how big it was, how dangerous, or whether the road to Sedona was closed or not. We decided to chance it anyway, and headed out to Sedona.

I have to say, nothing prepared me for the following 45 minutes. The fire turned out to be some distance west, so our route was clear. And spectacular. I've never driven so many switchbacks in my life, and the forest, mixed with mountains, desert and spectacular stone formations was unbelievably gorgeous. We were racing the daylight to reach Sedona, so there was little opportunity for photography. I got the above infrared image when we pulled over so The Wife could take a few landscapes, but I have to admit that infrared doesn't do the area justice. We arrived in time for a magnificent sunset, then had dinner at Burger King and headed back to Flagstaff... in the dark. Not as much fun going up those switchbacks in blackout conditions, I assure you. One thing The Wife and I agreed on is that we really, really like the Flagstaff area, and need to head back to Sedona some day to spend a week or so exploring and shooting the unbelievable scenery. The hippy-dip, New Agey stuff they've got there, not so much.

The next day we were off again, with a jam-packed itinerary that included "Standing on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona" and a detour through Holbrook for our Route 66 fix. We drove through Holbrook gawking at all the fiberglass and plaster dinosaurs at the rock shops. Before we got that far, however, we stopped at a dinky little tourist trap known as Meteor Crater.

The kids quite enjoyed Meteor Crater. It's sheer size impressed them. They liked running through the junk shop, desperately begging us to buy them every piece of over-priced memorabilia they saw (some of which, I have to admit, was pretty cool for over-priced memorabilia). But the big hit with all of them was the computer "Impact simulator" they found in the museum. Essentially, you select the size of space rock you want to hit the Earth with, then select how fast it's traveling, and what angle it hits. They all worked hard to figure out what it took to destroy our planet. Then repeated this destruction many, many times. Ah, science!

Flaming destruction of the Earth paled in comparison to the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, however. There's supposed to be one of these restored in Wharton, as well, but as I haven't been to Wharton in more than 20 years, this one was quite cool. Parking all the vintage cars along the teepee rooms was a nice touch.

Little did we know that more Route 66 goodness awaited us inside Petrified Forest National Park. After our disastrous experience at the Grand Canyon, and the kids' restlessness during our foray to Sedona, The Wife and I seriously considered skipping the Petrified Forest all together. But we'd skipped it for time constraints on our honeymoon and always regretted that. Plus, the kids insisted they wanted to see it. If we skipped it again, the rest of the day would be one long, tedious push to Roswell, New Mexico, with nothing to break it up. So we said "What the heck?" and made for the Petrified Forest.

Now one thing you don't realize before you go in is that the Petrified Forest also encompasses a good portion of the Painted Desert, which butts right up to I-40 but because of a fluke of the landscape, isn't visible at all from the highway. And the Painted Desert is breathtaking at any time of the day. Sadly, early afternoon with a bright sun blazing down through a cloudless sky is the absolute worst time to try and photograph it. Had we the time to set up for a sunset or sunrise shoot, you would be singing our praises as landscape photographers to rival Ansel Adams. As it is, you just have to take our word for it. But then, right before we crossed over the Interstate, we came upon a relatively new addition to the park: a 1932 Studebaker sedan commemorating the section of Route 66 that once ran through the park. Serendipity is fun, you know?

It didn't take long for the trip through the National Part to revert to form. Being midday, lighting conditions were awful for any landscape photography, although a few closeup shots of petrified wood produced pretty results when clouds passed overhead, such as the shot above. But as soon as the kids realized that the Petrified Forest didn't consist of upright stone trees, they turned surly. They complained when we took a side road to drive through a section of multicolored badlands. The trip through the Jasper Forest and Crystal Forests generated louder and more aggressive rebellion. Things came to a head when we stopped at Newspaper Rock to view the petroglyphs. Monkey Girl and Fairy Girl began to squabble over a mounted set of industrial strength viewing binoculars along the observation railing. Squabbling loudly. Which escalated to screaming and pushing, even after they were warned. Oh, yes, they were warned. Do you have any idea how far shrill girl screams carry across the open desert? Every tourist within 50 miles turned to stare at us then, wondering who could be such awful parents to raise such wretched children. They were banished to the car, in a very arbitrary and unfair way (as they put it) by their parents. Where their argument escalated, if you can believe it, to the point where two Park Rangers stopped their vehicle in the parking lot, got out, and discussed amongst themselves whether they ought to intervene or not. We fled the park, trailing humiliation and shame, stopping only at the southern visitors center long enough to A) use the restrooms and 2) have our kids tell us how terrible we were as parents because we wouldn't buy them any souvenirs. At that point The Wife and I began planning our 2012 vacation without children.

As we drove south along U.S. 180, a particular thundercloud in the distance was showing uncommon persistence. I found this curious, as we'd seen only fleeting cumulus clouds throughout our trip. The weather remained bone-rattlingly dry, yet this cloud actually appeared to be growing. Remember the "That's no moon, it's a space station" moment from Star Wars? We had one of those once we realized it wasn't a rain cloud, but rather a smoke cloud. Remember the day before (scroll up to that first picture in this blog post if you have to) when we couldn't find out any information about the fire in the Coconino National Forest? That's because all the news broadcasts were focused on the Wallow Fire in the Apache National Forest, a monster blaze even back on June 3 which is still going strong even as I type this three weeks later, which has since grown to become the largest forest fire in Arizona history. And we were driving straight into it.

Panic doesn't set in. Rather, there's a growing unease as we check the map and our route. We should be fine. We turn east on U.S. 60 in Springerville. That's 20 miles north of the blaze and takes us into New Mexico. The fire hasn't spread into New Mexico yet. We're good. No problems. Hey, let's pull over and take some shots of this oddball antler tree just to show how relaxed and unworried we really are. Let's double-check that map and make sure that fire's 20 miles to the south. Did you hear they've evacuated the town of Alpine? The roads turning off to the south suddenly start sporting barricades. Rest areas are closed. As we drive through Springerville, there's an eerie calm. Only emergency vehicles are on the streets, with a few long-haul tractor-trailer rigs passing us in the opposite direction. We watch as the smoke cloud overhead blots out the sun. The fire's 20 miles to the south, we repeat. Yeah. We're good.

And then we descend into hell, or at least an apocalyptic wasteland. Ash falls like snow. Everything smells of smoke. And it gets darker. And darker. Outside, it's black as night, only worse. Instead of stars, an angry red glow appears over the ridge to the south. That can't be the fire, can it? Did it jump into New Mexico? Then the glow spreads, first behind us, then to the north. Eventually, we're completely encircles, a glowing ring of fire just behind the next ridge in every direction. It's the sun, we decide. Yeah, that's the ticket. The smoke is diffracting the sunlight to make it look like we're trapped in the middle of a ring of fire. Spooky.

We drive under that cloud for two hours. I now know how the citizens of Minas Tirith felt when Sauron's fell cloud billowed out from Mordor. But as we'd surmised, the evil red glow was a trick of the light, nothing more than nature's smoke and mirrors. We reached the other side of the smoke cloud to find blue sky waiting for us, civilization still intact, Dante's inferno left safely behind. Still, after that experience, Clark W. Griswold can kiss my ass.

A full gallery of road trip photos can be found here.
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 1
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 2
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 3
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 4
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 5
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 6
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 8

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