Vacation/Sickness Blogging Part 2

Sunday morning, before leaving that horrible place, Houston served me one final indignity with a twenty-minute futile hunt for a cup of coffee in the middle of downtown. It wasn’t that places were closed, it’s that one cannot buy food or drink from empty parking lots. Finally able to secure a free cup from the now-serving hotel cafe, I could save my family from a lot of bitterness as we checked out and moved on to Galveston. I was expecting more of a tourist hell than it was, but I also elected to stay out of the shops. Instead, while the folks shopped, we walked around. For the first time, I saw the monstrous size of a Carnival cruise ship. While I’m not sure it’s quite the size of Kathy Lee’s ego, the ship is similar to its spokeswoman at least insofar as I don’t want to be around either one. I marveled at the size of the pelicans and watched a kid pull a snake out of the ocean while walking the pier, which was a lot of fun. We were surprised not to find a hurricane museum there, however. There is one dedicated to the trains, which I can see in plenty of places. There’s even a museum on an old oil platform, where you can pay $8 to find out what made the water so murky. Nothing, though, on the reason why the place is a tourist trap and not the metropolis it was meant to be. It is also strange that, aside from a street named after him, Galveston doesn’t make a bigger deal out of Jack Johnson having come from there. In his time, he was the biggest thing to even come to boxing, and that there’s nearly no mention of it in town is weird, if not intentional.

We briefly said goodbye to Texas as we went through Port Arthur and into southern Louisiana. It had been years since I’d been to the Sportsman’s Paradise, long before the hurricanes ravaged the area. It was sad to see the stagnant devastation there, especially since it’s so far out of the public’s consciousness now that little will be done in the future for them. After some gator sightings we walked on a beach with a sign that specifically indicated “No swimming. Bacterial hazard,” though this clearly did not stop a multitude of locals from frolicking away, and went to find some dinner, which proved more difficult to find than expected. Finally we made it, starving, to Lake Charles and this little crawfish place that reminded me exactly why I love Louisiana so much. I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I can’t find anything about it online, so I’m out of luck. Anyway, the place was separated into by-the-pound boiled crawfish side and the fried stuff/stuff with roux side, which was where we went. Erik and I both had the crawfish etouffee, which was the absolute best I’ve ever had, light in color and perfectly spiced. It was a fantastic eating experience, one that I could return to if only I had written the name of the damn place down. From here was the long road back to Austin. It was late, but I was glad to learn that Don Williams is the single greatest performer in country music history. I had no idea, but this is what I was told.

A long night turned to a weary morning as we pressed on to San Antonio to see the missions around the city. This was the first real historical stuff we’d seen but impatience had developed in the ranks and we were hurried along more than I’d have liked. Still, it’s very cool that the sites are in town and the churches are still active, but it is kind of weird to have a Whataburger across the street from a seventeenth century mission. I don’t regret not stopping for the Alamo, but I do wish I could see the plaque commemorating where Ozzy peed. Speaking of this Whataburger, it was a really hot day when we were out there. We were thirsty and, without the dehydration and family time, I’d never have made this decision, I got a milkshake from a burger place I tend to like, for what it’s worth. I don’t drink a lot of milk, but my stomach started hurting…badly…about thirty minutes later as we left San Antonio and ventured into the hill country. It just started to become searing as we rolled into Fredricksburg for a nice big heavy German meal. I had a couple of beers and a rouladen, which was pretty good and covered in brown gravy. Not surprisingly, all this food and drink didn’t help my stomach much. I didn’t think I was going to die until we got outside the LBJ ranch. Stabbing pains came in waves as we got back to Georgetown, just in time to drive back to Austin for the Dale Watson show. He was in his natural habitat, the Continental Club, and no amount of pain would make me miss that. Milk was trying to kill me, but I’m stronger than milk and would not let it spoil the icing on my cake. He was great, as always, and the club is significantly more crowded than when I see him, so it was a great time. In the end, it was a good two thousand mile trip over four days and there were no huge blowup, so it was a total success.

Unfortunately, when I awoke from my six hour nap upon returning to Denton, I had been stricken with a fever that came in waves along with the slowly diminishing pains in my sides over the next five days. Finally, yesterday, there was no fever, no delirium, no pain. I have no idea what happened to me. Either it was milk or it was the Germans, and both have good reason to want me down.

Vacation/Sickness Blogging, Pt.1

Sorry for my long absence from the blog, the result of nearly a week of post-vacation horror of sickness from which I’ve finally emerged. I’d wanted to write about the family trip right after I got back. Circumstances dictated that I could not think, so now it’s a week later and I’m going to do it anyway. The sickness comes later in the trip, and I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Friday and Saturday are about Anna Mae Wong and the city of Houston, truly diametric opposites in all forms of being.

I’d set myself up for a lot of stress for the weekend but was a little surprised to find everything still amiable after my first full day with the folks. On our way south, we stopped in West, the little Czech town halfway between Dallas and Austin that sells kolache and klobasnek 24/7 to basically a line around the counter year round. Mom fell in love with Texas-themed cowboy hats and “Don’t mess with Texas” t-shirts while Dad fell in love with sausage and cheese baked into bread. While we got the food, we skipped the trinkets, but I was told in no uncertain terms that we’d be back on the way up for sure. I couldn’t wait.

Austin’s always a fun town to hang around in, so we had a good time driving around while Mom ooh-ed the capital area and the skyline and Dad complained about the general size and population of the place. We stopped at some cafe and had bison burgers with blue cheese. While we were unable to convince Mom of the quality taste, lean content, and environmental responsibility of eating bison, we all enjoyed our meals. The entertainment for the evening sounded good to me, but could have been dicey. We had two DVDs of old experimental films, though just how they were experimental varied greatly. It does take some patience in mixed company to watch a bunch of silent films, but it worked out well. Some early Edison films are always fun and there was a great, if drastically overlong, film about turning dogs into sausage and back again. It’s always kind of funny watching old films with animals. Since there was no regulation and seemingly less-than-adequate training, you’d see a lot of guys getting bit and knocked around, though the animals sometimes get beat up pretty good, too, so I guess it’s not all that funny. Still, this film was like a SNL sketch circa 1990, where they’d have a good idea and tell the joke over again for fifteen minutes instead of once. The main attraction was The Toll of the Sea, a 1922 film starring the beautiful Anna May Wong in what is acknowledged to be the first true Technicolor film. While the story is basically Madam Butterfly, and not a great version at that, it is always welcome to see Wong and it was very interesting to see realistic color instead of hand tinting in a silent film.

The next morning was spent driving to Houston, the worst kind of prison of a town I’ve ever been in. With no zoning laws, everything is a mass of industrial swill. The only major city I’d less like to live is Phoenix, but we’re splitting hairs here. Getting to the hotel was an easy challenge, but one that cause a lot of friction, given that we thought that Dad’s new GPS toy was silly and unnecessary. After getting there the old fashioned way, looking at street names, we checked in. It was a decent place (read: no hypos lodged into the walls like my last hotel stay), where Mom stayed in the humidity near the pool while the remaining three went to Enron Park to see the Astros play the Phillies in my first ever National League game and only my fourth ever ballpark. Minute Maid is an appropriate name for the field at this point. It looks like it was designed by Denny’s Corp, with it’s pastel hues, over-gimmicked between inning “games,“ corporate logos at every turn, and that stupid train. While the look of the place made me sick, I really enjoyed the game. I don’t get out to see the Rangers as often as I’d like, I’ve been only twice this year, but I love going out there. The fans, at least the ones who stay until the end of the game, really care about their team, but the crowd overall is as listless as you can get. In Houston, the place was full, which I’ve never seen in Arlington, and the crowd cheered even when the announcers hadn’t told them to. This part of Texas will always be Cowboys Land, and no other team will ever matter, so what can I expect. Still, it was a revelation at a ballpark to see fans rooting for their team and getting into what turned out to be a phenomenal finish in the game.

After the game, we walked back to the hotel through an absolutely barren downtown, proving again how lame Houston is. I’m sure there are parts where people go, but they weren’t downtown. To cap the night, I watched Knocked Up, which was on HBO. “You know that old saying, ‘Don’t drink and drive’? Well, don’t drink and bone!”

Tomorrow, alligators and poison….

New Comic-Based Links

As with at least two of my co-bloggers, I have long been disgusted at the un-funny nature of modern comics. Here are two related links I find hilarious.

If you've never seen Marmaduke Explained, check it out. Writing with two basic premises in mind--a) Marmaduke is an asshole and b) Marmaduke is a shitty cartoon, Joe Mathlete explains each day's edition.

Second is The Nietzsche Family Circus which randomly matches up a Family Circus cartoon with a Nietzsche quote. Just hit refresh for more. It's quite entertaining.