part one

my first week here was a bit of a whirlwind adventure. the road trip out was long drives, at a slow and steady 60 mph. alan was a trainhopper kid from mobile al on his way to new orleans for halloween. he hitch-hiked to the farm the night before we left and in the morning, after huevos rancheros with the last home farmed eggs i will eat in awhile, we left for santa barbra to pick up don, our next rideshare. don, 82 (was- that's right 82) was on his way home to phoenix after summering in santa barbra with a girlfriend of his (go don!). his first words once he got settled in the van- " well, i am a devout agnostic". we talked about religions("i believe there was a man named jesus, but i don't believe he rose from the dead"), ancient civilizations, travel, and more. then we piked up kim joseph, a german traveling across the us. once we got to phoenix we stayed at don's place for the night, and in the morning he took us to the pueblo grande archeological site, built around 200ad. in mesa we picked up two more crusty travelers ( ryan and alex) and continued on to the texas  border. 

Babe the big blue van pulled in to austin around 3 in the morning. we dropped the crusties off at the punkhouse and had a delicious natty ice, and navigated towards my friend and bandmate fawn's house.  the next day was coffee that lasted till late into the afternoon, getting alan back to the punkhouse. from that point on it's pretty much been a non stop smorgasbord of cheap tacos and awesome rock and roll. highlights include the bad brains at the mohawk ( which i snuck into), roky erikson at the austin zombie ball, birdlegg- the wildman blues singer/harpist who did, among other gems, hounddog taylors "give me back that wig",and a whole bevvy of local bands, good, bad and fucking terrible.  and there's  delicious mexican food on just about every block. right now, in fact, i'm sitting in a place i almost wish i hadn't found- $1.35 tacos, inhouse made tortillas, a panderia full of all kinds of sweets, free wifi, and open 24 hours. 

babe the big blue van is happily parked on a quiet street near the traintracks, near what i thought was a dried up creek bed- until the flash flood rain which made it once again a pretty little rock bedded stream. blocks away from a library, a cool punky coffee shop/breakfast place, clubs, bars, pizza, guitar stores, etc. 

tonight i meet our pospective bass player and drummer and we attempt a first practice. then it's helios creed for free tonight,later this weekend  cedrick burnside, maybe a vegetarian chili cook-off, and coming up later in the week my favorite local band amplified heat. oh yeah, and david allen coe.

seems like i picked a pretty nice spot to spend the winter.

hope you're all well and happy.