Catchy Name Needed

There was an article once, about a political campaign event. This was in 1984. I think the article was in The Austin Chronicle, but I'm not sure about that, it was too long ago. (I might even have a copy of it somewhere, but I haven't looked for it.) The tone of the article was slightly mocking. It wasn't a very exciting event, that's for sure. Among other things it says that there was music. "Five people dance, " it said. You may have guessed by now that I was there. I was one of the five people who danced. I remember reading the article and saying, "Look, y'all, that's us!" and everybody else looked and laughed and agreed that, yeah, it definitely was. We were the only ones who danced.

In 1984 I was out of school and working at the libraries at UT. I would have been 23-going-on-24. Most of my friends were a little younger than me, some in grad school and some undergrads who were just dawdling - it wasn't at all uncommon to take 5 or even 6 years to finish your undergrad degree, if you had parents who would cooperate with that. If you've been reading here in past Decembers, you've seen me talk about going to concerts a lot - this was the period of my life when that most of that happened. I had a little group of friends I hung around with and we did a lot of going to concerts and going to clubs and eating out, the usual stuff for single people in their twenties. (And, if you're wondering about the five people dancing thing, we tended to dance as a group. We were mixed sexes and nobody was a couple. There wasn't always five of us, but when we went where there was dancing, we just all got up and danced without worrying about pairing off.) (I don't think that's unusual nowadays but thirty-odd years ago it still was.)

And we worked on Gary Hart's campaign in 1984. We didn't work on it very hard, mind you - we had jobs and school and all that. We weren't real campaign workers who were there all the time. Some of my friends may have been more involved, but I only remember doing two things - one of which was going to this event, which was at one of the big hotels down on Riverside Drive, and was on a weekend (at least I think it was a weekend) when Gary Hart was actually in Austin. He didn't come to the reception that I talked about above. I don't think we saw him talk or anything, either, because I think I would remember that, if it happened. But we did see him - we were on one walkway in the hotel and he was down below us. We waved and he waved back. That was it.

The other thing was that we gave out flyers or something on the day of the primary. I didn't enjoy that - I'm not good at talking to strangers, generally, much less accosting them with political stuff. Between that, and the way that Hart imploded later on (that happened in 1988, but I had to look it up because I had forgotten), I've never worked on a campaign again. I'm kind of a political junkie - I follow politics closely, and I donate money to various campaigns, but I've never quite been able to bring myself to volunteer again. These days I'm embarrassed to admit that, but it's true. Part of it is a deep-seated conviction that you can't trust individual politicians that came largely from having hitched my wagon to the Gary Hart train long ago.

(I don't know if I'll go see The Front Runner, the movie about Gary Hart. The reviews aren't that great, and I doubt that Rob would be thrilled to go. But it was because of the existence of the movie that it occurred to me to talk about this.)

Well, before I get around to talking about concerts, let me tell you what happened to me in 1985, in a nutshell. I got one full-time job, replacing the two part-time ones. It still didn't pay very well, but better than I was making before. It was back in the Serials department, where I had worked before, and... I hated it. Once the new wore off, I could barely stand to go to work. I also bought a car, a used Datsun - I forget what year model it was - 82 or 83, I think. I had been in Austin all these years with no car, and having that freedom of movement was weird. And then I moved out of the co-op. I found a girl who wanted a roommate, and I moved into an apartment for the first time. (That didn't really work out so well, either. The roommate and I didn't particularly get along.)

The part of my life that did go well was my social life. I wasn't dating anybody, but I hung out with a couple of my old co-op friends, and a couple of their friends, and as you may have deduced if you've been paying attention, we did a lot of concert-going. We also went to clubs - especially we went to one gay bar on 4th Street. It was sort of fashionable for straight people to go there, at the time, but really the reason we kept going was that one of my friends was in the process of deciding to come out of the closet - which he finally did at the end of the year, to nobody's surprise. I suppose that was also related to why we went to see Frankie Goes to Hollywood (which was an education all by itself. I thought I was all grown-up and sophisticated, but... oh my). But we did plenty of other stuff, too. We went to Esther's Follies - which is apparently still going strong. We went to see small acts - we were very partial to a guy named Dino Lee, and saw him several times at different places. (Oh, look, here he is on MTV in '86, and it looks like he's still around, too.) We went to see Timbuk 3 - that's the "Future's So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades" guys - on campus, I think it was at the Cactus Cafe, which was a really small venue. I think that was just before they had the one big hit song, which is this one:

(We also saw Katrina and the Waves - another one-hit wonder act, at least in the States. I gather they were around for longer in the UK.)

We also went to bigger acts - the big ones and the medium-sized ones, too, like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Howard Jones. We went to U2, which I found rather a disappointment, because I loved U2 but it was exactly like the Live at Red Rocks concert, I thought, which I had seen on MTV. There wasn't anything wrong with the concert, it just... didn't grab me like I thought it would. My Music Advent choice was U2, probably their most famous live moment, from LiveAid, which was in the summer of '85:

(I watched parts of LiveAid live, when it was originally on, but I don't think I actually saw that bit.)

I've been poking around trying to figure out when these various concerts were, and for U2 I came up with February 85. I mostly remember Bono waving a damn flag around, 30 years later, but I'm pretty sure they did sing "Bad" along with the other stuff that you'd expect. I had the EP - I think it's "Wide Awake in America" - that had the live version of "Bad" on it.

My other favorite band was R.E.M., and we saw them, too - I came up with August for a date on that one. I can't say I remember exactly what they played - I always have trouble with that part - but I remember that I loved it. I mostly have an impression of it in my head - standing on the floor of the Austin Coliseum and bouncing up and down because there wasn't enough room to really dance. (The song my brain wants to set it to didn't come out til the next year. That song will be in the next entry, because I picked it for '86. However, somewhere online I found a reference to "Fall On Me" having been played that night for the first time in public - here - and it's on the same album, so who knows? It's doubtful they played it, but possible.)

I also loved Tom Petty, and yes, we saw him too, with Lone Justice opening - I think that one was probably in July. I mention seeing Katrina and the Waves, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood (my research there says June). I mentioned a few days ago seeing New Order and thinking it was boring, and I think that one was in the fall, although I haven't attempted to check my memory there. My impressions of the time of year things were often seem to have been more accurate than my memories of what year was which, though. (I remembered Fleetwood Mac being at Halloween and Echo and the Bunnymen being around the time school started, for example. But I don't always have anything like that to tie things to.)

If you're wondering how I afforded all of this on a Library Assistant's pay, well, I really couldn't. By the end of the year I was pretty badly in debt, between credit cards and the car payment. I actually sold most of my vinyl albums that fall, among other cost-saving measures. (It wasn't as much of a wrench as you'd think - CDs were starting to come along by then, and I figured vinyl albums were going to go the way of the cassette and the 8-track tape. I sold them at Half-Price books and got quite a bit of money.)

"Poison Arrow" is one of several songs that I've posted less for the song itself (although it's a good song!) and more because it evokes an era in my mind. These early-MTV-era songs especially seem to do that.

I got interested in the #musicadvent thing a little late. If you don't already know, you're supposed to start with 1989 and pick a song a day, one for every year up to the present. This is where being middle-aged catches up with you a bit, though - by 1989 I was married and working and not paying that much attention to music, although I always kept up to some extent.

Since I don't want to go back and post my (not exactly ground-breaking) picks on twitter, I'll do it here. For 1989, I'll go with the #1 song that year, because I liked it then and I still love it now, and that was Madonna's "Like a Prayer" - see, not exactly ground-breaking. I was never a gigantic Madonna fan, and in fact I was one of many people that mocked her roundly early on. But along about "Like a Virgin" I kind of went, okay, maybe she's not just another dance-music girl. I just looked on iTunes and I have some 7 Madonna songs, mostly the big hits. I thought I had bought The Immaculate Collection at some point but maybe not. (Or maybe yes, and it was on CD and never got onto the computer. Who knows at this point.)

Looking at 1990, no particular songs stand out, but I notice that it's the year Stevie Ray Vaughn died. I was living in Austin in the first half of the 80s when he was still there. Unfortunately, I only saw him perform once, and I was so wasted I barely even remember it. I was about three feet away from him at one point, though, so that is my brush (sort of) with fame there. Anyway, it made me very sad when he died. Helicopters are dangerous, kids.

1991... hmm, I was thinking this might be where I talk about Pearl Jam, but maybe it's where I talk about R.E.M. instead. 1991 seems to be when "Losing My Religion" was released, which I think was their first big commercial hit - at least that's how I remember it - and it's another song that I still really love, even though it's been massively overplayed. Once again, I was in Austin in the early 80s and so I picked up on R.E.M. pretty early, although I remember that when "Murmur" was the big thing that I didn't really see what all the fuss was about, although I did like "Radio Free Europe" from the beginning. I think by the 2nd album they had pretty much reeled me in, though. (Wikipedia says that Murmur only sold 200,000 copies but it was getting all kinds of hype, and living in a place like Austin, you picked up on things kind of ahead of the curve!) I did see them live once, I think along about 1984 or so, and they were great.

I say I kept up with music in this period, but actually I know very little about the pop music of the 90s. Looking at the top 100, I don't remember at least half of these songs at all.

I'm looking at 1992 and nothing has grabbed me yet, so, maybe I'll stop where I am. Late addition for 1992, after looking at other people's picks:
("Would?" Again, not exactly an avant-garde pick, but a song that seemed pretty groundbreaking at the time, AND has held up really well.)



holidailies.org

Since I'm still editing, here's "Losing My Religion", too:

I took the medical terminology test on skin and made a 100. Yay, me.

Col and I spent most of the day trying out Lord of the Rings Online - aka LOTRO. There has been a bit of drama about this: Col has been playing for a couple of weeks here and there, and he was apparently rather perplexed when I said something to the effect of, "But I've always wanted to play that! How could you start without me?" Considering how long we've been friends and how much time we spend talking, we sometimes manage not to know each other very well. He seems to have completely overlooked my Tolkien-geek side. (Although I hear that nonelvis  was aware of it!)( More drama & dithering )

(I should probably get back to the studying, shouldn't I?)



(In case anybody is wondering what the hell that icon is, it's Cleolinda's Secret Life of Dolls, which is the closest thing to a Tolkien icon I seem to have at the moment.) (I swear I used to have one that said "Still Not King." I probably deleted it because I wasn't using it much, but I would like to have it back, darnit.)

We just got back from dinner at Trudy's (North). The sheer volume of orange t-shirts in that place was overwhelming. But the fact that I had a couple of margaritas may have affected my judgment and/or sensitivity to the color orange somewhat.

The Longhorns seem to have won the game this afternoon - against Arkansas, this was, for those who don't automatically know these things. It was 17-3 pretty early on and I lost interest. Incidentally, I believe I checked when I first booked this trip to Austin months and months ago, to verify that it was not in fact a football weekend. Another thing in my life that Ike fucked up. (This was supposed to be the bye weekend, so the game from two weeks ago was pushed back to today.) However, aside from an awful lot of southbound traffic on 183 earlier and the aforementioned preponderance of orange garments, it really didn't cause us a lot of trouble, so oh well.


The quilt show was very nice. I went around with Anjea and her mom, which was sort of a hoot. Her mom is very opinionated, that was the hoot part. (She was, for example, aghast at a quilted grasshopper with only 4 legs. The conversation went something to the effect of: "But it's not accurate!" "It's artistic license, Mom." "I don't care!")** I did take some pictures but I don't know where the card reader I bought in Celina is, so I don't know when you'll see those. The Best of Show quilt, in particular, was really stunning.


Both of our bosses were heard from today, apparently for completely unrelated reasons. Mine wants me to do some stuff involving sending a couple of e-mails. Rob's wants him to come back to work on Tuesday, which was a bit of a surprise. We figured all along he was likely to get called back earlier than I was, but we still didn't expect it to be quite that soon somehow. (Although that will be 2-1/2 weeks since the storm, actually. Time flies.)

Which means I really need to make some hotel reservations for someplace for the next couple of days, in case we have no power at home still (or worse). Typically, I have been avoiding this. I may continue to avoid it until tomorrow morning, or not, I don't know. I know that I don't want to arrive in the Houston area tomorrow afternoon and have to wander around looking for a hotel. I am going on the assumption that hotel rooms are not as hard to find as they were a week or so ago, since a lot of people have gotten their power back and - presumably - gone home.


** I don't get the impression that Anjea will mind this bit of levity at her family's expense. I hope I'm right about that! (She can retaliate with funny stories about me and my sister, if she cares to, having been witness to a bit of my family's craziness as well.)


(Incidentally, the icon has no particular relevance to anything. It just amuses my slightly foggy brain right now.)

We were supposed to be in Ardmore tonight (further south and thus closer to home) but we had an unexpected stop in Wichita this afternoon and decided that was going to be over-ambitious. The unexpected stop was that the "Maint Req'd" light came on in the car. Consulting the owner's manual revealed that this seemed to only mean that it was time to get the oil changed, but I could tell it was going to bother Rob as long as it was on, so we went and got the oil changed in Wichita. It only took an hour or so AND they had free wi-fi and I actually pulled out the laptop and changed our hotel reservation while we were waiting. It was kind of a pain but hey, it worked.

I am too tired to write much more. We may be later than I thought getting there so I doubt that I am going to make the quilt show tomorrow. anjea , I am planning on calling you tomorrow but call me if I flake out and forget! (Anybody else interested in meeting up? ms_hooligan ?) I have persuaded Rob that to try to get back to Galveston on Sunday would be insane given that we have to have someplace to stay in case the apartment is unlivable - which it probably is - and given that there is still a strict after-6pm curfew. So we will probably be able to stay a bit longer on Sunday than I was thinking. At least I think so!

It's December 2nd, and I'm already a day behind on Holidailies. I did expect this, actually, since I've been out of town - I guess I could have been really dedicated and posted from the computer in the hotel last night, in the little "business center" they have, but it didn't occur to me at the time. The couple of margaritas I had at El Arroyo withanjea  and my sister might have had something to do with that. In fact, this is the first time in days I haven't had margaritas with dinner. Thursday it was at Yaga's with co-worker's, Friday someplace called "Baby Acapulco" or something like that, and El Arroyo last night. I might have withdrawal!

Friday it was sunny here, and when I got to Austin it was cloudy. It stayed cloudy most of the weekend and finally cleared up today - but guess what? it was cloudy in Houston, and in fact started raining on me while I was hiking across the Economy Lot to the car, and continued raining most of the way home. I don't know what that pattern means, but it definitely felt like a pattern. Although come to think of it, maybe I should refrain from looking for patterns in cases where it's meaningless, considering that I had to listen to my sister natter on for half the weekend about The Secret and how everything she's wished for since she read it has come true. (It took her a long time to tell me that it was The Secret she was talking about; first she just said that she's been reading "a lot of self-help books" - which might possibly indicate that she knows deep down that The Secret is total bullshit. Or at least that she knew I would think so!)

We came in through the cloud bank when we landed this afternoon, and all of the sudden there was water on our right - I thought for a minute maybe it was Lake Conroe, but it seemed like there was too much of it - and I was right about that. I realized after a minute that it was the edge of Galveston Bay - meaning we were going north instead of south. I guess we swung around to stay under that cloud bank, or something. It was kind of interesting, because we turned west and followed the Ship Channel for a several minutes - I even saw the San Jacinto Monument, which is when I became sure I was right about where we were!


(Apropos of nothing: why is KFC using "Sweet Home Alabama" in their commercials? I mean, they're not Alabama Fried Chicken!)


I will write more about Austin later - I am watching that "Tin Man" thing on Sci-Fi and I am distracted. (I'm not necessarily saying it's good - I haven't quite made my mind up about that part yet - but it's interesting enough that I am paying attention, anyway!)


 

It rained on us off and on most of the way up to Austin on Saturday, starting the very minute we got in the car. (If we hadn't left exactly at 9:00 like we said we were going to, we would have gotten very wet. It's very unusual for us to be right on time like that, so we were lucky.) There wasn't any visible flooding in Austin, but all of the electronic traffic signs around town said,

FLOODING POSSIBLE
THRU SUNDAY
IF WATER ON ROAD
TURN AROUND
DON'T DROWN

The Brazos river was visibly very muddy, even on Monday, but the Colorado wasn't at all - we figured maybe it was because the Brazos was coming straight down from where all the rain was, while the water in the Colorado had been through a couple of lakes and over Mansfield Dam and so forth, in between. (Or it could just have been a difference in the soil upstream, I suppose - that east Texas red mud.) Anyway, both of them were really high, you could tell that very easily.

And gee, it's raining again now. So much for rockets' red glare for the 4th, unless this stops.


(More on the trip to Austin later, if I can get around to it!)