THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

Bamboo Ben is in San Antonio today. That's him to the right, in this 2004 photo by Lee Unkrich. "Who is Bamboo Ben?" you may ask. Well, I'll tell you: Bamboo Ben is the foremost tiki bar designer and builder working today. He's the grandson of Eli Hedley, who earned the moniker "the Original Beachcomber" and did design work for many of the great, original tiki bars and restaurants back in the 1940s and 1950s. Bmaboo Ben has built and/or designed dozens upon dozens of tiki bars over the past 20-plus years, including Strong Water, Mamahune Kauai, Bamboo Club, Zombie Village, TikiCat, Frankie's Tiki Room, Pacific Seas, Kona Club, Forbidden Island, Jan & Dean's Tiki Lounge, plus many, many lush home tiki bars all over the country, ranging from Pixar directors in California to Austin's own Moai Ice House.

And he's in San Antonio. Today, September 12, talking about a tiki bar build.

This is a big freakin' deal, to us the technical term. Tiki culture by an large avoided Texas during tiki's heyday, mainly because 1) Texas' historically restrictive liquor laws and 2) lack of basements curtailed the home bar culture. Even so, over the years Houston and Dallas have played host to outposts from Don the Beachcomber, Trader Vic and Stephen Crane. Austin had Steak Island. Even Corpus Christi had the Lahala House. Of Texas' major cities, only San Antonio--ironically, the one with the biggest tourism industry--has had no full-blown tiki experience. Oh, sure, San Antonio has had a few places that flirt with tiki cocktails (Hot Joy is the current fave) but nothing that fit the traditional, escapist exotica mold.

Exactly where Ben may work his magic with lauhala matting is not confirmed (and really, he's not under contract yet that I know of) but it's easy to make an educated guess. Last November, Ben Olivo reported in the San Antonio Heron that the old Witte Building, located at the end of the River Walk on 135 E. Commerce St., was in line for a major makeover that would include a full-blown tiki bar at river level (photo by Ben Olivo):

The group behind this project is Chris Hill, who owns the popular Esquire Tavern a short distance away. Houston Eaves is attached to manage the tiki bar. These are well-established movers and shakers in the San Antonio hospitality scene, and they have money behind the project. This isn't a fly-by-night, on-the-cheap attempt to cash in on tiki's current popularity. From what I've seen, they've done their research and are doing everything right. Hiring Bamboo Ben (or at least having serious discussions with him) is yet another sign they're determined to avoid any missteps with this project. In February, Olivo reported that the project had received approval for 11 gas-powered tiki torches. Wow! That's some serious infrastructure along the lines of what Disney has at the Polynesian Village, or the Mai Kai in Fort Lauderdale. That's not cheap, or fast, or easy. It's flashy and eye-catching, and will literally stand out as something unlike anything else that currently exists on the River Walk.

I, for one, cannot wait to see this open. Heck, I can't wait to find out what it'll be called. One thing's for sure, though: Inertia counts for a lot. This project is a lot farther along than any other abortive tiki efforts in recent years have gotten. Pitfalls remain, but knock wood, I think this thing is really happening.

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Chicken Ranch Central

The Chicken Ranch does San Antonio!

Hey, San Antonio! I haven't had a public signing in the Alamo City since August, and I know some folks have asked when I'm heading back down that way. Well, tomorrow's your lucky day! I'll be signing copies of Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch at Barnes & Noble La Cantera 2-4 p.m. Thursday, March 16. This is the swanky Barnes & Noble in the La Cantera shopping center off Loop 1604, just west of Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

I remember the first time I ever visited this location was for a Rick Riordan signing for one of the Percy Jackson books. Talk about a madhouse! There must've been a thousand kids (and their parents) wrapped around the building for the autographing. It was really an impressive circus the staff handled quite well. Now, in all humility, I don't expect that large of a turnout for my little book, but if you're in the neighborhood please stop in and chat for a while. I always love to share Chicken Ranch stories!

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

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Chicken Ranch Central

Mandatory Fun

I became a "Weird Al" Yankovic fan in junior high--pretty much the same as every other Weird Al fan. "Eat It" had just come out, and the very concept of a song parody was novel to us--much less his scene-by-scene remake of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video. Classmates--and I'm talking the cool kids, not just the geeky types like me--were transcribing the lyrics from the radio and passing them around in class. Follow that up with "I Lost on Jeopardy" and I was hooked. I tracked down his debut album and did a killer record mime to "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" that even won me a trophy in speech and drama competition. Then came Dare to be Stupid and Polka Party and Even Worse. When I got to college I hit that stage where I thought I'd outgrown him, but then Yankovic unleashed "Smells Like Nirvana" I just about injured myself laughing so hard.

Which is a long way of saying it's inexplicable that I hadn't actually seen him in concert until last night in San Antonio's Majestic Theatre. We gave Bug tickets for his birthday back in the spring, as my son--an aspiring class clown--professes that Weird Al is his hero. He's 9 years old, which is pretty much a great age to get hooked on parody. Having been a fan for decades, I thought I knew what to expect. Boy, was I wrong. Weird Al is wildly entertaining in person. His videos and television and movie appearances are amusing, but don't convey his showmanship and sense of timing. The Wife, who likes some of his parodies but is hardly a fan, laughed nearly continuously from start to finish in spite of herself. A friend visiting from Australia (who had only passing familiarity with him) went along as we had an extra ticket, and afterward admitted she hadn't expected to enjoy herself but was, in the end, blown away.

I'm not going into a exhaustive set list here, but there are some highlights I have to share. Yankovic started the concert over in the adjacent Empire Theatre, singing "Tacky" to an empty house. As we watched on the big screen, Weird Al proceeded to dance his way outside and romp down the street in an approximation of his "Tacky" video, getting hilarious double-takes and shouts of excitement from unsuspecting folks he passed on the street. Then he entered the Majestic and romped down the center aisle, and the packed house went nuts. He went into one of his patented polka medleys, "NOW That's What I Call Polka!" and while these are a silly staple on his albums, it reached an unexpected level of hilarity with the original artists' videos playing on the screen behind him.

The point where it really and truly dawned on me how special this show was came during his performance of "Wanna B Ur Lovr." This isn't one of my favorites. Yes, I can see the amusing nature of the tone-deaf would-be Cassanova lines, but otherwise it does nothing for me. I normally skip over it when I'm listening to his Poodle Hat album. But live... holy cow! He wears a suit decked out in flames with a fedora, and proceeds to grind and slink his way into the audience with such narcissistic machismo that I actually started crying I was laughing so hard. Seriously, it was one of the higher points in a show filled with many high points.

I want to point out here something that is normally overlooked by people--including myself--discussing Weird Al, and that is his attention to musicianship. His band has been together for decades, and they're tight. I mean, really tight. They were a well-oiled machine, and the ease with which they slipped between musical genres doesn't come through on studio albums, but was obvious live. It's not just a funny band, it's a good band, period. Nowhere is this more evident than during the acoustic set in the middle of the show, itself a parody of the old VH1 "Unplugged" series. They even open with Eric Clapton's infamous slow, bluesy version of "Layla," only Weird Al substitutes the lyrics to "Eat It." It shouldn't have worked, but it does. They continue with unpluggified versions of "I Lost on Jeopardy" and "Like a Surgeon" and it's kind of amazing how they make all these parody songs work even though they no longer sound musically at all like the songs they originally parodied. And then there's the legendary "Yoda" chant, a tiny, simplified fraction of which can be experienced here. Again, that doesn't do it justice. Even though the chant is composed in large part by fragments and snippets of other songs, choruses and onomatopoeia, the complexity and harmony and dissonance and unison delivery was a thing to behold--even if it was baffling and incomprehensible. I'm sure there are Weird Al superfans out there who've memorized it all, but the original composition and arrangement of such a Frankenstein's monster of an a capella piece takes a certain kind of insane genius I don't think the world has seen before outside of Frank Zappa. And I don't think Zappa himself ever pulled off something quite like this.

The new songs stood up well to the classics. The video clips he ran between costume changes were funny and kept the show moving at a nice clip. Afterwards I realized there was almost none of the normal on-stage chit-chat you usually get with live concerts, but then again Weird Al's been doing this a long time. His show was tightly choreographed and had very little flab. He was there to entertain, and in that he succeeded.

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Chicken Ranch Central

San Antonio in 2013!

San Antonio in 2013! San Antonio in 2013!



I am, quite honestly, shocked at this. I was absolutely convinced that Dallas would be the host city, or possibly Fort Worth, considering the fact that the ConDFW and Fencon folks have both made no secret about their desire to host a Worldcon. The fact that those are two well-run conventions with workers already in place, as opposed to San Antonio, which doesn't even host an annual local con, seemed to stack the deck. But wow. LoneStarCon 2 was my first Worldcon, and in my unbiased opinion, there's not a better city around to host a shindig of this type. Now to get my pre-supporting membership...

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