Here’s a goofy character study amidst three settings because I was incapable of any great thing this week. And because the props here are a guitarist, an artist, and a writer, and there have been friends that have written to me wondering if I was writing about them, I’ll begin by saying the guitarist was modeled after Thorogood’s lead guitarist and everyone else is a figment of my imagination : ) And Michael, don’t think I’ve forgotten about the sharecropper gang.
The guitarist
It was a warm Thursday night just barely inside a Texas October. Evie had gone all out with her makeup, picked just the right clothes. She’d got in her car and followed the MapQuest directions to the stripped-down strip plaza where Bootlegger’s bar was supposedly at. The only colorful thing in the whole plaza was the bright-lit blue canopy on the Blockbuster store at the far right end of it. Everything else was grey or tan. Grey pavement, grey storefronts, tan grass and trees in grey planter islands.
Evie turned into the plaza and looked around for Bootlegger’s, saw a concentration of cars at the far left that led her eyes to the Bootlegger’s sign up on the false front and then down under it to the great, long row of big, blacked-out storefront windows. Hard, the place was, and blank like the eyes of a shark, made her feel like she should park closer to Blockbuster’s protective blue glow.
She landed in a curb spot, got out, and looked toward Bootlegger’s. She took a quick breath and began to walk all apprehensive through the night cut through in spots by the orangey dots of parking lot lights. Far below the glowing haze of them, crickets were making a racket, and hellacious Blues riffs rushed out and around the ground and swirled up into the air every time the Bootlegger’s door opened.
Evie fussed toward the place, tugging to get her clothes to set right on her again after sitting so long in the car. The two bouncers yakking out in front of Bootlegger’s caught site of her about then and watched as she began digging in her purse for her wallet, digging and not finding, missing a step for stepping on a pebble. The bouncers shut up and watched her like TV, amazed by the contradiction between beauty and bumbling.
By the time Evie had got organized and stood before the bouncers offering her ID, they were winking at each other and laughing. Evie frowned, cleared her throat. The bouncers straightened up, said, “Howdy,” to her, took her five dollars and opened the door for her. The Blues met her head-on and the bouncers looked her backside up and down as she walked on through.
The inside was mobbed with folks come to see this hot band. Evie put on an unfazed look, wore it like a wall against the stares, and walked as cool as possible straight back toward the L-shaped bar. It was a great hulking thing, dark like the rest of the place but for the towering shelves of colored booze bottles glowing like stacks of gems from picking up the stage lights to the right. To the left, the pool tables stretched back to the end of the place and the rest of the joint was a sea of cheap, cafeteria-looking tables and chairs.
The music was right loud and people were dancing and hollering and carrying on. The bar was jammed up with folks getting drinks and waiting like vultures for someone to leave their barstool. Evie fixed her sights on a couple of benign-looking good ole boys, bucked up and flashed them a smile, leaned in to them and hollered so she could be heard, “Say, would you boys mind if I squeeze in here just a moment so’s I can get myself a beer?”
The good ole boys couldn’t move fast enough. “Oh, hell no, Missy!” one bellowed while the other one hopped up and offered her his seat.
Evie laughed, hollered, “Oh, no, thank you kindly, sir! Just need a beer.”
“Shor thing, ma’am,” the seat-offerer hollered back. He tipped his hat to her and hopped back up onto his stool.
While Evie waited for her beer, she watched the band. The guitarist/vocalist was way more talented than she’d heard tell. Dude was sitting down, all knees and big-booted feet, playing a Dobro with a bottleneck slide on his little finger. He must have unwound to at least six feet tall, but there all of him was on a regular chair making it look small, going straight to town, tapping pedals, singing about having ramblin’ on his mind. And with his long, brown hair, Lord have mercy!
The bartender hollered at Evie, “Three dollars!”
She jumped, looked around at the impatient bartender, frowned, and set herself to the task of digging around in her purse for her wallet, digging and not finding.
“Here, man,” one of the good ole boys yelled toward the bartender. He pushed three fifty across the bar. “I got it.”
Evie leaned in to the patron saint and hollered, “Why, thank you!”
The good ole boy gave her a nod. She gave him a sincere smile in return and took off to find a place to stand closer to the band.
The guitarist was winding up his ramblin’ with an insane grand finale of chugging and picking and mixing fingering with sliding. The folks dancing had stopped to watch and the people seated had risen to their feet. The guitarist landed the slide on a vibrato at the end of the neck, then slid to the top of the fretboard and squeezed the sound dead. The people paused, stunned, before letting loose with the thrill of it all. And the guitarist, he unplugged the Dobro, said his thank-you’s, and announced a break.
When he stepped down off the stage, he was surrounded with folks wanting to touch the hem of his garment knowing they’d be made whole if they did. The guitarist was polite but clearly desiring to go where people weren’t. He signed CDs, hugged babes, shook hands with wannabes, but when he caught sight of Evie, he stopped short. He strew a path through the throng with excuse-me’s and offered his hand to Evie. She smiled and he took her off to the side where it was more peaceful, to talk.
And those who fretted his return did not have long to wait for he soon found that Evie was more bumble than beauty and in his position he could have anything he wanted and what he wanted was more like the Goddess Athena. For her part, Evie figured she just mustn’t have been beautiful enough, that maybe her thirty-five years were beginning to show, and she walked dejected toward the ladies’ room nearly tripping on a taped-down cord.
The Artist
It was a cool, December night in downtown Dallas. Evie had beautified herself impressively, had bought a lovely peach-colored dress that perfectly complimented her skin. And she’d found a lovely pair of heels that perfectly matched the dress. Nevertheless, when she opened the much overdone door to the Mibenda Art Gallery, she saw that everyone, even the men, were more beautiful than she.
The men stood handsomely with arched backs, wavy hair swept back, and fashionable stubble upon their chins. And the women stood knowing themselves through and through, holding their wine glasses delicately in midair, and whispering close and intelligently to acquaintances.
The flooring throughout was light yellowy wood. And the reception desk, ceiling and walls and myriad partitions all were white. Just below the ceiling hung sprinkler pipes, lighting tracks and air ducts, their round and square shapes odd blessings also in white disguise. The square splashes of color on the walls that were Jacques Bagot’s paintings were spaced so far apart that they did little to interrupt the continuity of white.
Despite these significant intimidations, Evie took a quick breath and moved as coolly as she knew how, for it was Jacques Bagot she had come to meet, and hopefully to enamor. She graciously accepted a glass of wine when offered one and donned a considerate and interested face that studied closely each brush stroke of each painting and came away seeming enlightened somehow.
A few beautiful men approached her for her opinions but left after a few words out of her mouth. This caused Evie to doubt the freshness of her breath and she dug in her peach-colored purse, dug and dug until finding, her sugar-free wintergreen Tic Tacs. And just in time, for toward her came Monsieur Bagot, his eyes aglow with the excitement of an exquisite discovery. He took her hand since she knew not to offer it, and he bent forward slightly to kiss it, never taking his burnt umber eyes from hers.
Evie smiled and Monsieur Bagot touched the back of her arm to lead her aside to talk. And talk they did, for just a minute or two, before Monsieur excused himself and evaded her the rest of the evening. For her part, Evie assumed the mints had not done their job, and she left the gallery, mission sadly unaccomplished.
The writer
Evie brushed her teeth for ten minutes and flossed and swished regular Listerine around in her mouth for as long as she could stand it. She applied her make-up to ultimate perfection, dressed bookwormy—even put a pair of +1.00 reading glasses in her bottomless pit of a purse—and drove north to the Frisco Barnes and Noble.
She parked her car and hurried toward the store anticipating breathing that divine coffee-and-print smell and being enticed by those comfy green and brown reading spaces and those rows and rows of colorful hope and escape in the form of books. Although Evie was not particularly literarily inclined, she had always been drawn to the biography section. Since she had no outstanding talents, she all the more relished sniffing the pages of books about those who did have them.
But on this particular crisp January evening, Evie was not here for that, but to meet Jonathan Walken, who had recently become famous for his first novel, “Egoic Bliss.” The book spins off James Hillman’s acorn theory and asserts that although the ego is generally thought to be a hindrance to spiritual enlightenment, it is critical to keeping on track the soul’s overall educational journey toward ultimate perfection via the vehicles of human lifetimes.
Although Evie rarely bought books, and had never actually read one from cover to cover, this book had sounded so intriguing to her that she’d bought it the day after hearing of it and had devoured it entirely. So she had her copy of the book with her and she made her way excitedly to the rows of folding chairs around a podium with posters of the book cover all around. The seats were mostly taken, except for a few in the front and back rows. She chose the back and sat, waiting knowingly, breathlessly for what seemed like forever.
Finally, Mr. Walken appeared, tall and trim in a hip, suit jacket, no tie. He looked to be in his late forties, had longish salt and pepper hair, a very pleasing face, and trendy glasses perched on his nose. He held himself classily and walked calmly to the podium and organized his notes. He paused for a moment, then smiled as he scanned his audience. When his eyes met with the beauteous Evie, they seemed to vibrate and he lost his composure. He cleared his throat, paused again, and then began his talk, slowly at first, making a concerted effort not to look at Evie.
After the talk there was an opportunity to ask questions, and by the time Evie thought of something smart-sounding to ask, Mr. Walken had closed the session and was inviting all those who’d like him to sign their copies of his book to come forward. Evie jumped up and got in line, and when it was her turn, when Mr. Walken looked up at her, his eyes softened. He asked for her name and after some seconds, he reluctantly drew his eyes from her to her opened book and he scrawled, “Pretty Evie, coffee after?” and signed his name all wild underneath. She smiled a yes.
After everyone had dispersed, Mr. Walken walked lively over to Evie and said, “Well, Beautiful, we can’t have coffee here—too many potential interruptions. So name your favorite place!”
Evie smiled, but her brain seemed to slow, to be unable to access information, and she could only say, “Ah…”
Mr. Walken tried again and then again, and just as he was about to excuse himself, Evie blurted out, “Dunkin’ Donuts! No Frosted Java! No—” She went silent again.
“Does this happen often?” Mr. Walken asked, half joking.
Evie looked at her feet. “All the time,” she said in a little voice.
“Why do you suppose that is?” Walken asked.
“I’m not altogether sure,” Evie said, still looking down.
“Why did you come here?” Walken asked her.
“To meet you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re somebody.”
Walken laughed. “And what are you? Chopped liver?”
Evie looked up at him, studied his eyes. “Yes!” she said, “The best chopped liver!” And she laughed and laughed until tears rolled down her face and her sides ached.
Walken laughed along with her, then he hugged her. “Good,” he said, smiling. “You understand.”
Fini
PHOTO CREDIT:
The Goddess Athena statue from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Athena_type_Velletri.jpg
The above mess was spun off the Sunday Scribblings prompt “#165 – covert.” Click here for more on prompt #165 from other Sunday Scribblings participants.
The Essence of a Thing 
Okay, first things first: this ain’t no soft-shoe I’m doin’ here. You’ve telegraphed the notion that you were just barely “rippling” with this piece, but for the life of me, I can’t see why your timidity about the writing, unless you’re more referencing some anguish you felt in the writing process itself.
I was cruising along and yes, I did note that this did not have the fulsome incandescence of the last piece, but it very quickly began charming me right into its sweet hands. I mean “charming” and “sweet” with the meaning those words were meant to impart, before that got dulled by overuse, or dulled by use as ways to let folks down easy. “Is she hot?” “No, but she’s so sweet.” This is precisely what I do NOT mean. I mean sweet like honeysuckle nectar and charming like, like, like an exquisite afternoon at a cafe, perfect weather, under the awning outside.
I felt this very fetching vulnerability in Evie, this something growing inside her, this wanting to reach beyond, and the courage that comes with willingness to sally forth. A mind you would want to know in ten to twenty years (or maybe just by next week), because that something within was coming out. The best chopped liver indeed.
I don’t know if you were going back and capturing you at a very different time in your life. I don’t think so; I think there’s always been a steel in you, from adolescence on. But, whatever the case, you found and brought a blithe spirit to us, with all things ending in just the way we’ve come to love in Ms Austen’s “romances.”
There’s the silly humor of breath mints and misinterpretations, but I was charmed by this goofiness.
My other fantasy is that the narrator is Evie herself, looking back on whence she came.
You know what a sap I am, so this may not count for much, but I loved the ending: it just may be one of your best. Peace, hermanita.
I don’t know what I could possibly say after paschal’s eloquence! I too loved the ending and I think I now have a thing for the writer. Glad you are here.
PASCHAL
Thank you, Paschal, that was a sweet and charming take—and I mean those words exactly like you put them in your wonderful way—and very helpful to me.
I was just disappointed with this, which is mainly why I made such a fuss over at your place. I was downright angry that my own mission for these vignettes or scenarios failed, and failed because I’m lazy. I knew this piece could be better, knew I could make it better, but I’d been thinking about the damned thing so bloody long that I just wanted to send it off and I refused to do the work it would take to make it better. So much could be hacked from this and the remainder rearranged to be tight. This is Swiss cheese here. And that’s OK. And it better be OK if I refuse to do more!
Here’s the deal: I have X amount of patience and when that’s up, the gig’s up. So I like it when inspiration takes hold and a writing idea flows like a loud-gurgling stream. Well, who wouldn’t, eh?! Some of the stories that were like that for me were The Sunshine Vignettes, A bay girl’s blues, When I hear that whistle blowin’, and The same wind.
Also, one of my irritations was deciding on what book to have my man Jonathan Walken write. I just settled last night ‘cause it was the only think holding me up. I’ve changed it now, aligned it to my intention for what the ending means to me. See what you think, k?
For your reference, here’s the old one: But on this particular crisp January evening, Evie was not here for that, but to meet Jonathan Walken, who had recently become famous for his first novel, “Stay All Night.” It was a clever, subtle intertwining of two separate stories—unbeknownst to the reader until a good way through—one story of a man and his dogged search for a woman that could hold his interest past infatuation, and the other of a woman searching for a man who could be loyal of heart over head, and both arriving at the conclusion that there was no such thing, until they met one another, and in doing so, met their match.
And of course there’s me and the anguish of me in there, there always is in everything, and that’s all I’m sayin’ : )
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DEE
Yeah, Paschal’s mostly an impossible act to follow. If he weren’t such a sweetheart, his talent would be hard for the envious to take. Fortunately, he came with a software add-on that soothes savage beasts ; ) That being written, I’m all the more in awe of your gutsiness and very appreciative of, and smiling over, your thoughts in general. The feeling’s mutual : )
Alicat – You may have not forgotten, but I may have! Boy, those guitarists sure are picky about their women. You may not have written a word of this about me, but it sure feels like you wrote just it FOR me! Man, the hot dry tans and greys of October, the blues spilling out of dive bar doorways, the howdy’s and the smell of cigarettes and beer had me wisked straight back to Dallas, sweetheart! That was sweet! You may be shy on plot mojo this week but I’ll read your descriptions and characterizations all day long! Sweet clumsy Evie. I can just hear that lil’ ole twang and her fumbling simplicity. Jest lookin fer someone who’s someone!
You sure you don’t play the guitar yourself? You sure talk your way around the fretboard pretty well. Thorogood would rather “Drink Alone” than chat with Ms. Evie?! Shame on him. She weren’t too far off searching in that arena. Now the arteeest? Jest fergit that boy. Not to mention the French Connection…. You sure that was Dallas? I’da thunk they’d run that ole boy outa town!
The writer? There you have it Evie. He don’t care if you cain’t spell latte. : )
MICHAEL O
LOL! What a fun comment! I see it doesn’t bother you to get up on stage after our Harvard genius! I guess great chops in one realm spills over, confidence-wise, into other realms ; ) Wish that’d happened with my mojo this week. Well, you know I’ve been spending most of my time skipping meals and going straight to the rich desserts of description. I’m still waiting for some variable, some coupla wild-hair odds to change my course to a full course writing meal. Until then I’m glad you’re willing to make do with what’s served here ; )
No, I don’t play guitar ‘cause I only have one brain and I think you need two or three to play guitar…like pipe organists, like my dad was, you need a brain for the pedal keyboard, one for the stops/combination buttons and one or two more depending on how many manuals there are. Too many things going on simultaneously for me. I’m like Evie that way. But I’ve hung out with some guitarists in my day, listened to every word, watched every move, and man have I wished I had more than one brain! At least I know you’re right about that being a fine arena to search within!
Your second paragraph let me know I wasn’t clear in my “preamble” so I changed it. So this was more “about” Mr. Bad-to-the-Bone’s lead guitarist, written just “for” you, of course ; )
But, now, Michael, I agree about not giving Monsieur another thought, but you know that’s the beauty of Dallas: culture on a pinhead. The Dallas Museum of Art, the Meyerson Symphony Center, Francois Lucet—just a few cubes of ice in the straight whiskey, just a few beads on an ice cold beer, depending on the cowboy :-D Whooo-hooooo!
‘amazed by the contradiction between beauty and bumbling.’ just brilliant. Ok, I absolutely loved it. Evie was such a desperate, yet sympathetic little character. Perhaps what I loved the most is how she is beautiful, yet unaware of it. I LOVED the ending, the chopped liver, the coffe after? Of course, the writer wins! We are the best, lol. The Artist & guitarist just sounded obnoxious, but the writer, he was real, he knew what to do :-) Great read & thx you for your comments on my blog. I’m glad I contributed to a shift in opinion on your part, although I love how literary your blog is. have you thought about doing an Ebook of all your stories?
I see what the change in the Walken novel (a frightening thought, if that were his cousin Christopher’s book) affords you as psychological underpinning, but I have to say that I prefer the original paragraph. I struggled a bit with this, part of me wanting to assert that Evie would not be drawn to the Hillmanesque Egoic Bliss, but then it does indeed speak to her journey: a yearning, learning ego that strives on, despite – for the time being – a gap between her what she yearns for and her ability to articulate that yearning.
I suspect that you thought the original was too simple, too much Capra, but for me the flow-through is smoother with the original paragraph. It feels like more authorial grasping in the upgraded version.
I guess what I’m ultimately saying is that I might have read Stay All Night, but there’s little chance I would have cracked open Egoic Bliss to even smell the pages. A little too procrustean and Celestine for my tastes.
Thanks for posting the original paragraph back for me to mull over. You the bomb.
GT’s lead guitarist? You mean ole Jim Suhler?! I used to watch that cat at the Greenville Bar and Grill!! Jim Suhler and Monkey Beat. Great guitar player, and really down to earth guy. Texas style! So you were gunning FOR me after all? Thorogood has a bar in Deleware. A highschool mate who taught me the blues use to gig there in the 80’s with his band the Juke Rocker’s. GT used to sit in with them. Ahh, those universal tendrils keep making the connections, A-cat!
NANA
Glad you enjoyed it : ) Yeah, Evie’s one who’s aware that her face is an asset and she takes advantage of it, dolls it up, but because she is such a desperate, lost little soul, she’s only worked out in her mind the part about using is as a lure for the big fish; she hasn’t worked out what to do with big fish once she catches them or why she really wants to catch them in the first place! She’s a mess, a fine lookin’ mess. LOL!
Your way on your blog does speak something to me. The way it comes across is that it’s a celebration of you, and you are interesting. And it’s not so much that you do more interesting things than others, it’s what you’ve learned from what you do and how you present what you think and feel about it. So here we are back at writing style, your writing style.
Ah, no re: Ebook, but when I get to where I wanna be, then maybe : )
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PASCHAL
Thank you, brother pascual. I got the green light on the first version after reading what you wrote here, then I re-read the piece, liked it alright but chased down one dead end (more on the enlightenment track) and one boulevard (making the writer be bumbling and having it turn Evie off and so she sees), and finally I decided to leave it all alone. The main reason for pursuing this at all was to see if I could use it for ESC, but I see now that I’d lost perspective, that this really doesn’t suit the assignment well. So far I’ve got straight 96’s and I don’t wanna dent my groove! You were right about me and Capra, for sure. If I hadn’t gotten a lot from your second comment I’d apologize for taking your time, and anyways, I knows you got plen’y of it this summatime : )
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MICHAEL O
That’s the man, my man. He’s an only child like me. I identified with the way he was. One of my favorite places to see him play was at the Lakewood Bar & Grill in East Dallas ‘cause there was one great long bar that stretched lengthwise down the place, from the front on back to the bathrooms practically, and Jim would hop up on it real smooth and cool and walk the length of it playing like nobody’s business. Everyone loved it, waited for it—it was tradition. Another favorite was the Hole in the Wall on Harry Hines—small place with humongous personality busting out all over. J&J Blues Bar in Fort Worth, Sons of Hermann Hall in Dallas, both loaded with atmosphere, both awesome places to hear JSMB play.
I first ever saw them play in January of 2002 at the place I wrote about, Bootlegger’s in Richardson (no longer in business I guess), and there’s a fun story that goes with it. I went to see him on recommendation of a coworker and I got all dolled up like Evie did. At one point I went into the ladies’ room while the band was in the middle of a set, and there was a pretty, blonde chick in there with a bunch of friends and she was goin’ on about her new haircut. She was still goin’ on about it when I was washing my hands, mindin’ my own business, and she sucked me into the conversation. And somehow during talk of hair, she made it clear to me that she was Jim’s girlfriend. Alrighty then! Maybe I wouldn’t have minded snagging me a guitar god, maybe I would, but after that, what can I say? She was a good girl. They were married by Billy Gibbons and divorced by Kinky Friedman. LOL!
Good times, music man. Thanks for opening this back up and gettin’ circulation back into those tendrils. You had me worried for a split-second : )
Wow! You’re bringing a whole rush of memories back. I left there in 97. Sounds like you were there just after me. I lived just off of Skillman on Goliad. I was around the corner from Schooners, which had the best blues jam going. I never got on stage with Jim but I saw him there. Along with Mike Morgan from M M and the Crawl, Hash Brown. The late Sweet Sam Myers used to be a regular there. I have video of me jammin with Sam. That bar was legendary. I got a schooling there! Them boys were hard core. My neighbor used to tend bar at the Lakewood. The Ackermans’ used to play there.
I had a regular gig at the Windedale Tavern on Greenville. Josh Allen used to play there as well. I gigged at Poor David’s pub. A couple places in Deep Ellum I can’t remember. I saw a ton of shows at GBG. Usually after some mesquite chicken nachos and frozen margaritas at the Blue Goose. God I miss that joint! I can still smell the flour tortillas baking on those funky rotiserie ovens. Damn, I gotta go back there now! I’m salivating!
You know, I didn’t know that Jim had that gig with Thorogood until sometime last year. I had some serious brain fog then, so it didn’t register when I first read it here. I knew I knew something about his lead guitarist when you wrote it but I had to Google it. Then I was having and “oh yeah” moment! Thanks for opening the flood gates Alicat. Good times, indeed! : )
MICHAEL O
Hey, hey, what do you know?! I was there before and after you, from beginning of 88 to mid 06! It ain’t just a small world, it’s f-ing microscopic! I first lived on Audelia and Walnut, not far from the Skillman/LBJ “Bermuda triangle” then I moved to Plano in 98.
Never been to Schooners but I sure do know Mike Morgan and the Crawl! Got a coupla CDs of his that I had him autograph. And Hash Brown! What a blast from the past. I would never have thought of that dude if I hadn’t seen it in print after you typed it! Wasn’t he that tall, sort of geeky dude with funky hair, and didn’t he used to play the guitar all in a wad with it all hiked up practically to his armpit? Hosted blues jams at Hole in the Wall?
Didn’t ever hear of Sweet Sam Myers but I think you should let all your current fans have a look at that video, like put it on your site! :-D Sounds like I missed a lot during your time there, ‘cause I didn’t see The Ackermans, didn’t ever go to the Winedale Tavern, but now I sure do wish I had. And blasphemy of all blasphemies, didn’t ever go to Poor David’s either (that I remember, anyway!), but of course I hit the GBG.
And you dog! Bringing up the Blue Goose and that Tex-Mex food of the gods. I loved that place. So many awesome restaurants on Greenville! Geezus, I miss the food in Texas, period. And the Granada, back to music. Oh, Lord help me, but I loved that place toward the end of my time in Dallas. Saw Andy Timmons and also Monte Montgomery play there as many times as I could. It may not have operating as a concert venue when you were there, though. I forgot about that. Oh, but man, surely you hit the Dallas Guitar Show, right?
And Blue Cat Blues, did you ever go there? Deep Ellum. I guess it’s closed now. I used to like that place. And I saw Kenny Wayne Shepherd at Trees, also Deep Ellum. I could go on and on. Anyway, I think it’d be cool if you wrote about some of your Dallas gigs and adventures on your site, make ‘em into stories, flashes of fiction. So many of your descriptions in your comments to me are really killer. Well, you did say one of these days you’d write
something for SS… ;-)
And the beat goes on! Club Dada with Little Sister, Ten Hands, Brave Combo, Soul Hat. I’ve been to a few revivals at Trees with Reverend Horton Heat. Blue Cat Blues, been there. Saw an incredible Buddy Guy show at the Bomb Factory. Kenny Wayne, Chris Duarte at GBG. Yes yes on the Guitar Show.
The Granada was defunct when I arrived and was open as a bar/movie house when I left. Which was cool in it’s own right. Beer and pizza at pub tables while watching some off-beat flicks. And what was that hamburger joint near there? Snuffers?
Lowest Greenville we had the Dallas Tortilla Factory. Great enchiladas with an iced bucket of Corona’s for next to nothing. Nick’s Diner, the Arcadia Theater.
Whoooooweeee! Yes indeedy!
MICHAEL O
Even though I still don’t know if I had Hash Brown pegged or not, I was thinking of letting you have the last word here, but you know females… I was thinking of it ‘cause if we didn’t end this reminiscing soon, we’d have comments that stretched all the way down this internet page and jumping wireless off it, from tower to tower and down into the ground coursing through one of anywhere from 24 to 864 fibers in a series of cables over the underground and aerial miles, all the way from the Northeast down to Texas. And if it were a movie we’d pop out of some splice case in some manhole, maybe on the corner of Mockingbird and Greenville and do that Ave from top to bottom all over again, then spread out from there, like there were only Saturdays and no Mondays : )