Barkin' The Blues

The city of Stevie Ray Vaughn. Congress Avenue looking north across the river and over to the capitol, where this morning the Killer D's were welcomed home by cheering fans and perchance some scowling Republicans.

The heat is abating. For heaven's sake, how does this happen!? It's half way thru May already! The high today was but two degrees from 100. What happened to the spring? Didn't we just have an ice storm?

The day is over. The sun has dropped behind the trees on the hill. The band is playing. Roots rock. R&B. In the city of SRV. Outside. Under a darkening sky. The band is playing. To the people. To their dogs. There are many dogs. It is Friday night. Barkin' the Blues.

The stars come out. There is iced coffee, iced tea, cold Orangina to drink. And beer -- there is beer. Overhead, the stars begin to twinkle, one shining thru the branches of a young Live Oak, another thru the sprouting flower of a 20 foot yucca bloom.

Night descends. The air gets cool. The band heats up: the bass, the drummer, one sax, two saxes, and a guitar-playing, tall-haired man at the microphone. Nick Curran and the Nitelifes. Their stage is pink crushed granite and white limestone blocks. Their audience of a few dozen is spread around: on stools and in chairs under the wooden shade shelter, on chairs of their own bringing spread in the motel parking lot, and on other chairs next to the sidewalk next to the curb next to Congress Avenue.

Cars honk. Pedestrians walk by. The blues fill the air. Feet tap. Heads nod. The saxaphones stand in the sidewalk for room. Neon lights glow and turn: El Sol y La Luna, Austin Motel, Amy's Ice Cream/SoCo across the street.

Barkin' The Blues at Jo's Hot Coffee.

Dang! I love South Austin.

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Barkin' the Blues. 16 May 2003. Sponsored by Animal Trustees of Austin and Jo's Hot Coffee.

10:44:26 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

But Tell Us What You Really Think

Reading this (linked by [Naked Tears] who found it somewhere in [Write Only Media]), all I can say is Yikes! (emph. added):

Saddam was a tyrant, butcher, and serial aggressor. He jerked around the U.N. Security Council for 12 years, and the council did nothing about it. Even if all his biological and chemical weapons were destroyed years ago, his refusal to prove it -- as he had pledged to do -- by turning over records and personnel defied any hope of enforcing nonproliferation rules for gross offenders. Something had to be done, and Bush did it.

But don't tell us this was a triumph in the war on terror, Mr. President. Don't tell us the defeat of a secular dictator has turned the tide against a gang of religious fanatics. And don't talk about patience. You inserted a battle that could have waited into a war that couldn't, precisely because you lacked[~]or thought we lacked[~]patience for the slow, diffuse, half-invisible struggle against the people who hit us on Sept. 11. You wanted a quick, clear victory, and you got it. But don't flatter yourself. You haven't changed the world in 19 months. You've only changed the subject.

4:30:25 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []