Austin at Last

I went to sleep last night to the nasal strains of Willie Nelson. Why? To get in the mood. I'm at the airport now boarding a plane to Austin Texas. I've been to Dallas, I've been to Ft. Worth, I've been to Houston, I've slept under the stars in Amarillo and stood in the center of Shamrock Texas, but the only place I ever really wanted to go in Texas is Austin. It's on "my list". So here I go, two-stepping my way into Texas.

My interest in Austin started through finding Willie's music somewhere in the '90's. I was listening to Willie, Lyle Lovett, k.d. Lang, Nanci Griffith and that opened up country music and the aura of Austin Texas to me.

In the 1970's the country outlaw movement started with Willie and Wayland Jennings in Austin and changed country music forever. Austin is the alternative Texas. It's the place where creative types and rebels go to live. For a town smaller than Rochester, NY it's amazing to think of the volume of musicians that have propelled themselves onto the national scene from there. Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Shawn Colvin, Christopher Cross, Charlie Sexton, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, The Butthole Surfers, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Asleep at The Wheel, Dale Watson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jr. Brown, Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, etc.

The city is one of America's music mecca's. 6th St. and South Congress Avenue are street names I've heard in numerous songs and I look forward to patronizing their fine establishments. Austin calls itself the "Live Music Capital of The World" and I intend to find out why. My trip however has a particular focus. I want "real Texas". Love it or hate it, it's one of those legendary places known the world over. The place is full of music, culture and characters. I'm after country, old school Texas, honky tonks and I want pedal steel, Lone Star beer and BBQ.

Snow in Dallas derails our flight to Austin so we re-arrange our plans and fly to Houston. Molly and I drive from Houston to Austin. Half way through the 165 miles the landscape gets hilly and beautiful. The rolling hills are populated with scattered scrub oaks and ornately gated ranches with cows and long horns filling out the vistas. The long horn cattle are a sight to see.Their horns must be 5 feet from tip to tip. You'd think they would put each other's eyes out!

Closer to Austin we go through the Piney Woods, populated with pines, prickly pear cactus and palmetto. I enjoyed the drive, it gave us a sense of context instead of just dropping into Austin like cultural paratroopers.

After we check into our hotel we dine at The Shady Grove and have some chicken fried chicken and a margarita. Ahhhhh. Later we go up to 6th Street to see the Dropkick Murphys at Stubbs. The Dropkicks are a Boston Irish punk band but what the hell. I'll start my honky tonk tour tomorrow. When we walk up to the entrance we find the show is sold out! Lucky for us though the band is playing in Stubbs backyard so we can hear the band just fine. We stay for a few songs. It turns out a lot of music venues are outdoors in back patios or in big fenced in outdoor venues. Austin weather allows outdoor living, dining and rocking out. After a few songs we wander up historic 6th Street. It's amazing.

There are clubs, cafes, restaurants and tattoo parlors in every façade for a seven block stretch and EVERY place has a live band. Wow. And every band is different. Don't think about trying to classify Austin music. It's a global music scene. You'll find jazz, blues, country, rock, alternative, hip hop. Very cool. We duck into a reggae bar called Flamingo Cantina. I order a couple Red Stripe's and we move to the chank a chank beat with the rest of the crowd before this morning's 3:00 AM wakeup call catches up with us. Spent, we catch a cab back to the hotel and crash hard for the night.

Molly's off to work the next day (Saturday). I meet two friends. We meet them at their house in the University district where we eat fallen pecans off the lawn. We tour their house and the neighborhoods of Austin. The city neighborhoods are gentrifying. One story bungalows are being fixed up or are being replaced by beautiful craftsman style houses or more ambitious modern designs. It's sad for them to see old Austin changing and going away but exciting for me to see so many cool houses being built.

With our stomach's rumbling we head to a South Austin restaurant called Curras Grill "The Mother of All Mex". We sit on the front deck and soak up the sun taking in our vitamin D. I strongly recommend the COCHINITA PIBIL. The menu says it's "The foremost traditional dish of Yucatan. Pork leg marinated & then cooked in a banana leaf. Served with rice, black beans & plantains. The way the marinated pork and beans taste against the plantains is heaven and the way the sun felt to Bostonian' s escaping winter was nirvana.

That evening (Saturday) we meet friends again at the Hotel San Jose on South Congress Ave before we go honky tonking at the Broken Spoke.

Walking into the San Jose I think we've just been transported to LA. There's a beautiful courtyard with tables and seating evenly camped out. Smartly dressed sophisticated types talk and laugh while sipping wine. The aqua light streaming up from an in-ground pool reflects on the bamboo "walls" and pergolas that enclose the space giving us a cozy setting under outdoor heat lamps. This is the first time I experience the ying yang of Austin. The kind of ying yang that's perfect for me. I can have Chateauneuf de Pape or a Lone Star beer, a cappuccino or cowboy coffee, the ballet or the rodeo. It's a potpourri of culture. Speaking of which...off to the Broken Spoke!

If you died and went to heaven this is the honky tonk you'd find there. From the outside the Broken Spoke is a squat barn sitting back from a dusty dirt parking lot underneath a beautiful 60 foot tall old growth oak. It has an "old timey" front porch that's broken down and inviting. The building is basically a 100 foot square "chicken shed". There's a front room filled with neon signs, tables and booth seating, a pool table and one side of the bar. Behind the front room there is a huge dance floor. Probably 35" x 60'. The stage is at the far end opposite the back side of the bar. On either side of the dance floor are matching seating areas 20' wide by 60' long filled with gingham covered tables and populated by real cowboys, sexy cowgirls, old timers and hipsters. The building opened in 1964 and I don't think it's been touched since. The ceiling peaks about 1 foot above the singer's head and slopes down so it's only about 2 inches above most heads in the seating areas. The ceiling itself is insulation between the studs held up by chicken wire and in other areas it's falling down, water stained 1 foot square ceiling tile. The floors are wood, plywood and linoleum in the front room. The band tonight is Dale Watson. Dale plays straight ahead old school country. The band is made up of Dale on electric guitar and vocal, a bass player, a pedal steel player, a fiddler and a drummer.

There's about 500 people in here and we are all having the time of our lives. I'm drinking Lone Star, I'm drinking Shiner Bock, I'm drinking Bohemian, I'm drinking whatever local beer I can find. In between I'm learning the Texas Two Step and showing those cowboys how to! Molly is embarrassed. lol!! Dale is singing his own originals but he also rips into Bob Wills western swing, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash songs. Not to let my feet, ears and parched palette have all the fun I order a famous Broken Spoke Chicken Fried Steak to get my stomach into the action. What's a chicken fried steak? It's a steak, breaded like fried chicken and deep fried...then it's covered in a creamy gravy. Hello heart attack...hey, that sounds like a country song! :)

While we're waiting for our chicken fried steak we sneak into a room called "The Tourist Trap". It's packed with pictures of people who've played at the 'Spoke; Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, Dale Watson, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Ernest Tubbs, Roy Acuff, Hank Thompson, Tex Ritter, Ray Price, Kitty Wells, Grandpa Jones and George Strait. Along with other assorted memorabilia it's truly a museum of Texas country music. Very cool, very historic. For me I feel like I'm visiting the CBGB's of Austin. As we tuck into our chicken fried steaks the girls take turns dancing with real Texas cowboys. I feel as if I've been transported back in time about 40 years. More actually. I feel like I'm in a Back to the Future movie and I'm in an old Texas dance hall in 1940 or 1920.

Walking back to the car through the dusty parking lot the hanging, swinging and cracked Broken Spoke sign winks good night to us. I tip my hat to this living legend and it's incredible hospitality.

Sunday AM we breakfast at Las Manitas on Congress St. The façade is a non descript store front but we walk in to find a packed interior. With no seating available up front we are sheparded through the bustling kitchen to the back patio. My head swivels like Linda Blair as we traverse the kitchen. Tortillas are being slapped in the grill, tamales are being prepared, eggs, beans, rice are cracked, beaten and stirred. Dishwashers keep pans in rotation and waiters flow though the pick-up lines like Mexican Hat Dancers.

The smell makes my stomach rumble with anticipation. The back patio is a cobbled together room with plank walls and a corrugated plastic green and white ceiling. Black netting hangs under it. I imagine it's to further dampen the heat from the sun in the warm months? Wisteria vines climb up a lone pole to cover parts of the roof. The patio is about 20 x 40 feet filled with picnic tables all cocked at different angles from the uneven floor. We get coffee's and order Spicy Huevos a la Mejicana. Quickly we have plates with two eggs scrambled with fresh tomatoes, onions, ranchero sauce, chile serrano, refried beans & two tortillas in front of us. Awesome.

After breakfast Molly's off to work again but I'm off to Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon for Chicken Shit Bingo. Guess who's the house band? Dale Watson and his Lone Stars. The same band that played the Broken Spoke last night.

Ginny's is a small saloon that gets packed like sardines as the day progresses. Walking in the front door the bar is about 20 feet wide and 45 feet long. Immediately to your right is a table set up with crock pots full of hot dogs and chili. Buns and shredded cheese are available so patrons can make their own complimentary chili dogs. I had one straight away.

To the left is a 3x5 foot chicken cage that completely covers the pool table under it. The floor of the chicken cage is marked off with a grid. Each square of the grid is numbered. It costs $2.00 to bet on a square. Three times during the day the chicken gets put in the cage we all watch to see where the chicken shits. If it shits on your number you win up to $200.00 bucks! Down the left side of the room is the bar, beer only, and straight back in the right hand corner is the where the band has set up. We've inadvertently joined the honky tonk circuit.

I recognize a lot of people from the Broken Spoke last night. We make new friends and listen to Dale and his Lone Stars work the room. It feels like a gathering of family. There's no cover charge. Every time the band takes a break they pass a hat to get offerings for their daily bread. This is the church of the Little Longhorn Saloon. The crowd gets large enough to spill out the back into the parking lot. There's a speaker out back with the bikers, lawn chairs and groups of gathered friends stacking pyramids of cold Lone Star six packs. We stay in this Lone Star state of mind for hours. Can you give me a "Hell yeah"? Can you give me a "Heeya"? Gawt Damn that was fun. (Gotta say gawt, I was instructed that you can't take the Lord's name in vain)

Where do you go from Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon? How about Uncle Billy's for Brew and Que. Uncle Billy's is a micro brew and BBQ joint. It's new and modern/yuppy but VERY good with quality beer and Q. We ordered every meat they had and split it family style. We had BBQ turkey, chicken and pork (whole and pulled) and spicy Eldin sausages. I ordered the beer sampler set. I was partial to the Organic Amber. We sat outside again under warming heaters enjoying the early evening.

After dinner, on a tip from someone at Ginny's Longhorn Saloon I'm off to The Continental tonight (Sunday) to see Hey Bale. Once again the place is packed. Austin IS the live music capital of the world. And once again it's not just 21-25 year old kids out bar hopping. This is a diverse crowd of cowboys and hipsters, men and women, from 21 to 90 yrs old enjoying the band and of course dancing. Half the room is full of two steppers with wide smiles and sweat beaded foreheads. I see a lot of familiar faces from the "honky tonk circuit" I've been traveling in. Hey Bale is another country band. They are a five piece. Electric guitar, drums, acoustic guitar, stand up bass and keyboard. The guitar player rocks. His fingers run over that guitar like thunder AND lightning. We last until midnight. Even the tequila can't keep me awake.

Monday we ride herd around Austin in our car. We pop into Allen's Boots and Uncommon Objects on South Congress St. I find a great old Album my Papa used to play on the HiFi called Songs of the West recorded by the Norman Luboff Choir. God I remember listening to that and looking at the picture on the album cover. It pictured two cowboys watching over a herd of cattle in a quintessentially western landscape. What a fantasy for a kid. My heart jumped when I saw that. What a blast from the past. I paid $10.00 bucks for it and I don’t even have a turntable anymore!

That album may have been my first introduction to cowboy music (Western music). I remember the first time I really got turned onto Country music was at "The Fiddlers Picnic" in Upstate New York. I never forgot that. I remember a big stage with bands playing but even better was the jam sessions people were having in the fields next to their parked cars. They were more intimate and as a kid I could get closer to them. Anyway I digress. We head west of Austin next and find ourselves at Mozart's Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin.

We are definitely not on the honky tonk circuit anymore. This is a beautiful stone, brick and timber building on the water. The Colorado river has been damned and turned into Lake Austin. We have a cappuccino and while away some time watching other patrons work. Everyone has a laptop in here. My partner in crime, Will, talks to the counter girl about our adventures yesterday at Ginny's and Chicken Shit Bingo. She looks at him like he has two heads! I laugh out loud. We're not in honky tonk land anymore. We're sitting in a greenhouse room looking at the back side of a damn. The lake is bounded by wooded hills, lakeside homes and docks. Out in front of Mozart's is the Oyster Bay Marina. This looks like the place to be in warm weather. Right now it's very tranquil.

Loaded with a shot of caffeine I think "Go West Old Man". Humming "Happy Trails" to myself we giddy-up out of Austin's West Lake neighborhood and beyond to Lake Travis. The goal is to get into the hill country and out the other side. The drive is beautiful and fun. The road becomes like a rollercoaster and I feel the weight and loss of gravity through the ups and downs and fast curves. It looks a bit like California with the houses tucked in and perched on the hills but with a completely different landscape of trees and grasses. At times with the sandy soil and scrub trees it feels like Cape Cod to us too.

The west of Austin with the lakes and hills are the "high rent district". The houses are big and beautiful. Austin, besides being the "Live Music Capital" is also the capital of Texas, home to the University of Texas and a high tech center so there's some money floating around here. I take and unscheduled turn to follow a sign to Hippie Hollow and we end up on a high hill at a beautiful location sporting an artful watering hole called Oasis on Lake Travis. The Oasis is the spawn of a restless and creative mind.

The building is an interesting stone "castle" filled with sculpture and features cascading decks out the front that all face west 400 feet above lake Travis and offer the best sunset in Texas. On a good night I'm sure there's upwards of a thousand margarita sippers perched up there enjoying the day's end. Hipppy Hollow turned out to be a park. Empty the day we turned up but an internet search showed it to be an internationally famous clothing optional nudist park. In Texas? Who knew?

Our last evening in Austin and the girls are done with cowboy cooking and greasy spoons. We convene at a place on 2nd St called Cru. It's a wine bar. We try a variety of wines and share some stone fired pizzas. I have one last trick up my sleeve however. Molly's exhausted from a long day but up for a night cap.

We cab it to a place called the Mean Eyed Cat. It's a Johnny Cash themed nightspot created in an old chain saw store. In fact it was the location of a few scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2. The place is a great example of funky Austin. The painted exterior is worn and sun faded into a fine shabby chic patina. The inside is designer shabby chic too with Johnny Cash paraphernalia and images everywhere. The juke box blasts honky tonk and rock music always circulating back to a Cash song. I ask about the name Mean Eyed Cat. It turns out it's the name of a Johnny Cash song. In need of a soundtrack behind our ice cold Dos Equis I put a dollar into the juke.

The bar is full of talkative friendly types. Young professionals, tattooed biker types and college boys. The long haired bandana'd bartender is chatty as well. The bar fills the center of the main room like a square hole in a donut. To the left of the bar is a front parlor with a crew shooting pool and if you walk around the bar and out the back door you find yourself in the outdoor patio lit with festival lights and filled with tables, chairs and picnic tables. A serving table has ample portions of taco fixings and tamales for the taking. Overseeing the entire affair is a beautiful old growth oak. Truth be told we went to the bar to see if we could find a Johnny Cash souvenir for our son. We did, a Mean Eyed Cat T-shirt.

The stars at night - are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky - is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom - is like perfume
Deep in the heart of Texas.
Reminds me of - the one I love
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The cowboys cry - ki-yip-pie-yi
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The rabbits rush - around the brush
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The coyotes wail - along the trail
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The doggies bawl - and bawl and bawl
Deep in the heart of Texas.

Austin rocks and it rolls
Deep in the heart of Texas.

Once wasn't enough for me. I'll be back.

Originally posted 3/18/08