The Gobblers Knob

 Jo’s Coffee on South Congress. Great view, better coffee.

I decided to turn this past week’s trip to Austin for a convention into a bit of “me time.”  I am one of those typical Dallasites that secretly wishes he were an Austinite (don’t deny it, you are too).  After reading a post from the CMT blog a couple of weeks ago, I really set out to plan my 36 hours in The Capital City with the appropriate amount of fun.  I stole a couple of things off of the blogger’s list, and the other items I have wanted to do, or have done in the past.  Instead of getting extremely wordy, as I am one to do often times, I will merely be kinda wordy by providing you, my dear, dirty reader with a bullet by bullet recap of my trip:

• After getting my rental car, headed over to III Forks for a luncheon.  Not bad, not as amazing as I had hoped.  Perhaps I had built it up in my mind how good it was supposed to be.

• Headed over to Dominican Joe for some coffee and to catch up on work that I had missed over the course of the morning.  Having a tie on, I was conspicuous by my presence.  Hippies, homeless, and students (maybe some of them were all 3) acted cooler-than-thou as I plugged in my Ipod. I clicked over to the latest from Jackson Taylor Band and got to work.

• After leaving the coffee shop, I headed a couple of blocks south on South Congress Street to check in at The Austin Motel.  It’s a cool, retro, restored motel that sits in the best spot in the city.  It’s easy access to downtown is nice, but the fact that it’s placed across the street from the best music club and the best ice cream in town as well as next door to the best roadside coffee house you’ll ever find, makes this lodging choice an ideal one for this goober.  The wifi connection wasn’t the strongest, and the room wasn’t the biggest (I went cheap, there are bigger options than what I chose), but the motel offered a comfy room, both in decor and feel.  Knowing that I would simply be able to walk back and forth not only to the concert that night, but to grab coffee the next morning was a pretty cool feeling for this wannabe Austinite.

• After a pre-dinner scoop of Spicy Chocolate from Amy’s, I made my way to The Texas Chili Parlor for dinner with my buds from The 9513.  Brothers Brady and Brody joined me for some of the meatiest chili my intestines have ever attempted to digest.  The Mad Dog Margarita wasn’t as good as the waiter described it, and he described it by asking me if I liked or disliked Robitussin, so you figure out what I thought about the taste.  I had a great time with Brady and Brody as we bagged on Kenny Chesney, bloggers that suck (which I may or may not be one), American Idol Style Country, and frat boys that think Robert Earl Keen and Jason Michael Carroll are one and the same. At one point, Walt Wilkins came in and sat down to eat.  Well, I say it was Wilkins, my dinner-mates felt that he had too round of a face and posessed that other familiar Austin trait of looking a tad homeless. At the end of the night the guys bought dinner (which made me wish I had gotten a second margarita, regardless of the taste) and I set out to blow past my wife’s 1030pm bed-time prediction.

• After leaving dinner, I parked my rental at the motel and walked across the street triumphantly to see Jon Dee Graham at the Continental.  With a 6 month old at home, I was as shocked as anyone that I was still awake.  Finding a good spot near the stage at the reasonably attended gig, I settled in just in time for Graham’s first song.  After cranking out some of the local crowd’s favorites, including “Faithless,” “Tie a Knot,” and what ended up being my personal fave, the rocking “Something Wonderful,” I was satisfied that I had defied all rules of nature by being up so “late”.  Time to head on back across the street.

• Wake up, grab some coffee at Jo’s, check out of the motel, head to convention.

• While at the airport, I ran into none other than fiddle-carrying, Austin native Carrie Rodriguez.  One half of a hit-making duo with Chip Taylor (the guy that wrote “Wild Thing”).  We spoke for just a moment, and I noticed that her speaking voice isn’t nearly as twangy as her remarkable singing voice.  So to recap, Dinner: Walt Wilkins sighting (unconfirmed), Airport: Carrie Rodriguez sighting (confirmed).

All in all, great trip.  Very “Austin.”  However, I got to come home to something that Austin doesn’t have even on its most uber-cool night, my wife and baby boy (aaawww).

If there is anyone out there who isn’t aware, Texas legend Rusty Weir has been battling cancer for many months now.  There have been a few benefit concerts already and more are planned.  The great thing about these benefits is that many of the top notch bands and musicians that have been influenced by Mr.Weir are rushing to fill their calendars with bookings for the various benefits to help the man that has helped them so much.  This weekend provides a very cool chance to have a blast and to help assist the cause.  Cindy from the Fine Line hipped me to the benefit going on Sunday at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas (scroll down a bit to the picture of Rusty).  Tons of great bands (including Gobbler Knob faves The Bois D’Arcs), plus a Chili Cook-off!!!  I love being able to show off my ever-evolving spicy mixture of velvety red nectar and now I may be able to do it for a great cause.  Man, I love philanthropy!!!

OK, this isn’t going to be a long, pseudo-intellectual breakdown of whatever band I happen to like or today’s real contributions to the current boring, stale musical landscape.  Today, I wanna discuss….wait for it…..condiments!!!  Whether you are chomping at your favorite fast-food joint during your lunch break, or acting like you are listening to your spouse as you are really watching the game or hot girl directly behind your spouse at a nice sit-down kinda place, the various sauces, salsas, dressings and drizzles are what makes the meal (unless it’s just a great steak-curses on those that put crap on a choice cut of USDA).  Below are what I have deemed the elite of the ranks of restaurant condiments:

5.  Long John Silver’s - Malted Vinegar:  This gets high marks thanks to the way it transforms a plain-Jane food item (fries, fried fish fillet, etc..) into a new, bittersweet, morsel that almost hurts (when given a severe dousing) but doesn’t cuz it’s so right it can’t be wrong.  This tangy wine might have been higher if regular, non-LJS brands of it weren’t readily available at your local grocery store.

4.  Whataburger - Fancy Ketchup:  This shares the general traits, both for and against, that the LJS Vinegar possesses. The velvety paste can transport a french fry into another dimension and make folks like me who typically do not imbibe in the tomatoey residual, wonder why they have chosen such a monastic, minimalistic route for their fine-fried starchy friends.  On the flip-side, you can find ketchup pretty much anywhere, providing a suitable substitute if in fact, the drive-thru operator forgets to shove a few packets into your hastily prepared bag.

3. Papa Johns Pizza - Garlic Butter Sauce:  Ok, no one said this list would be healthy or wouldn’t clog a ton of arteries.  The feature that places this greasy elixir into the top 3 is…decadence.  When you are eating a Papa J’s pie, it is literally making your heart work harder than it has since the last time you ate one (or last time you chose to eat an entire stick of butter by itself for fun). If you are going to go through that type of cardio-trauma anyways, this sauce gives you the knock-out punch that you are clearly trying to administer to yourself.  Also, I love a condiment that combines two of my great culinary loves without actually containing a significant amount of either item it claims to combine (garlic and butter).

2.  Chick-Fil-A - Honey Mustard: When you walk to the counter at Chick-Fil-A with your tray of nuggets and Sweet Tea, you had better already have the real Honey Mustard on there.  The “Honey Dijon” that you can get with all the other weak, under-age packets of paste is not only fat-free, but unworthy to reside on this distinguished list.  The real-deal, thick-as-glue Honey Mustard has the potency of alcohol, as evidenced by the fact that you can only get it from the cashier from behind the counter, ya know, like a fifth of Jack.  “I’ll have a #1 with cheese, sweet-tea and the 80 proof…for here, I’m driving”

1.  Arby’s - Arby’s Sauce:  When a condiment can’t be named by simply listing the ingredients, or telling what its supposed to taste like, it creates its own line on the restaurants managers order list.  Smokey.  Sweet.  Barbecuey (new word alert!).  Tart.  Tasting a mound of mediocre roast beef slathered in this witch’s brew of intrigue makes me want to run home and combine the seldom used contents of all the old, expired bottles of sauce, paste, powder and seasoning in order to hopefully concoct an enigmatic sauce that can only be named “Kelly’s Sauce.”  You can have your various Halls & Walks of Fame, your Emmy’s & Oscar’s, your Barbara Walter’s Most Exciting People List (they never are, but that’s a different story).  Have them all, I want to have my own sauce!!! 

Have you ever had one of those weekends?  One of those weekends where you are sure that everyone else is jealous of you because it is painfully obvious to them that you are enjoying the kind of weekend that few, if any, married fathers with an infant child ever really get to revel in?  I had one of those my friends, and I fear that I might never again feel the shine or taste the nectar that I was so fortunate to bathe myself in this past Saturday and Sunday.  It’s easy to always give the generic answer of “oh, I had a good weekend” when someone asks.  Maybe you saw a great movie or the kiddo won his/her soccer game.  But to have the transcendent weekend of dreams that I had, it requires many, if not all, of your great loves revealing themselves to you in constant and unexpected ways.  After installing Tivo on Friday night (which I thought would be the high-point), I was ready for the late night feeding in a way that I hadn’t been before, TV-wise.  My Saturday began with me waking to the faint, slight groans of my 3 month old at 4 freakin’ 45 am!!  He slept through the night, which meant so did his Momma and Daddy!  I got up then and helped Tivo realize his full potential as I watched “Best Week Ever” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  After that, the woman and I got ready and hit our fave breakfast place early as to avoid the rush of the yuppie brunch-brigade.  After getting home, the wife went to the store, while me and the runt hung at home.  So far, so normal, I know, but it gets better.  After watching the days English Soccer matches (I like it, sue me), my wife got home from running around and decided to catch a nap with the baby, who was ready for yet another nap.  It was at this juncture that I recognized an opening to really grab the weekend by the throat and make it work for me.  While my family relished its mid-day slumber, I ran to the convenience store in our neighborhood and bought a sixer of brews and a fat cigar. I sprinted home and mixed a mean margarita, clipped my Romeo y Julieta, grabbed a magazine and headed out to the porch where the 80 degree sun was keeping a safe and picturesque distance from the spot where I placed my drink to await the next sip.  Perfect weather, strong drink, stronger stogie and a sleeping baby had my afternoon looking the way I never thought it ever would again.  After finishing off the smoke, drink, and periodical, I found my baby and his momma wide awake.  After playing with my son a bit, I browsed a bit on-line, and lo and behold, Cindy from the Fine Line informed me that the one and only Gurf Morlix was playing for free down at Bill’s Records and Tapes. If you aren’t familiar with Morlix, you should be and probably are anyways.  Aside from being a fantastic singer-songwriter, he has been the producer for tons of artists from Steve Earle to Darrell Lee Rush to Lucinda Williams, he was even Williams’ band-leader for a while.  For him to do a free gig and for me to hear “Madeline’s Bones,” which he opened with, was a chance that I couldn’t pass up, as I was realizing that this day was quickly becoming a day of opportunity and carpe diem kind of stuff (thanks babe, you’re the best).  After getting home I figured I’d hang for a bit, smell the chili as it simmered before the big baseball play-off game (I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan, like the English Soccer, don’t ask). To make a long story long, my brother-in-law called, asked if I wanted to hit the bike trails with him before the game (I did), and he would show me a few pointers, seeing as I am a new mountain biker (term used loosely).  Beautiful weather still intact, we hit the trails and I hit the ground…hard…multiple times.  You may wonder how that adds to this magnificent weekend, but think about it.  Scars are cool.  The Outdoors are cool.  I experienced both.  After I somehow managed to crawl, unassisted, up the stairs, I grabbed a shower and then a bowl of my womans chili, clicked on the game and watched a Red Sox victory.  Perfect!  To add to that, Sunday was a junior version of Saturday:  the Cowboys won, I downed some beer, ate some left over chili (still really good), had a big nap (was up a bunch with the kiddo), and watched the Sox charge into the Series.  I may never again see the combination of quality time with family, cold drink, hot chili, live music, outdoor fun, fine smokes, sore bones, and all of my teams winning while basking in the glow of the summer/fall climate change.  It’s fine if I don’t, the quality time with my little boy will make for many more perfect weekends I’m sure.

Sorry knobblers, I have been out of town and I am currently in Houston for a conference (where I had a great BBQ sandwich last night).  I’ll have new postings starting Wednesday night or Thursday.  Mo Robson has made it to the second round of Shiner Rising Star, Steve Earle’s new CD is out this week, and I’ll have video and pics from a private party here at the conference where Hayes Carll, Walt Wilkins and Brandon Rhyder will be pickin’ and grinnin’.  In the meantime check in here and here, I’ll leave you with some listening music…..