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The song of the open road and other stuff

Current:

  • El Paso, Texas


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  • Elvis: What's up ahead for the coming year...

    • And you think 1998 was strange, just wait and see what's up for King this year. Elvis in 1999....
  • Austin: an experiential guide

    • It was T. S. Eliot who might have measured his life by the coffee spoon, but here in Austin, I tend to use a different measure... so you can see the finest this town has to offer..
  • 1999, the year ahead

    • You thought last year was weird? Just wait....
  • Down at the Sky-Vue Drive-In
    A short foray into a true Texas classic, the ultimate yodeler--
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  • Fishing for Love

    • A special guide to bait and lures, by the signs.... ever wonder what sign work best best with a certain type of bait? Here's the definitive guide....
  • Elvis: What's up ahead for the coming year...

    • And you think 1997 was strange, just wait and see what's up for King this year. Elvis in 1998....
  • Alaska: the great unknown

    • There were no fish at the Arctic Circle. I came. I saw. I was very cold. And it was what THEY called "spring time." Sure.
  • Texas Gulf Coast: What's up ahead for the coming year...
    • And you think 1996 was strange, just wait and see what's up for 1997....
  • EL PASO, TEXAS: Adventures in the Texas Outback

    • I had dinner Saturday night at a sushi bar. Things are not what they seem in El Paso, Texas . . .

  • ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO: A Deep Dive in the Desert

    • The trip to Albuquerque began at a pet shop in Austin. It was a dark and foreboding place with floor-to-ceiling aquariums and a dank atmosphere. It was the sort of place where the bride of the slime monster might reach out from one of the tanks with a scaly green tentacle and pull an unsuspecting long-haired astrologer, like me, into an alage-filled oblivion . . .
  • LONDON, ENGLAND: A Quid for Your Thoughts
    • I never did find a decent cup of coffee, but I have long since resigned myself to suffering in London . . .
  • EL PASO, TX: A Yeoman in El Paso

    • I recently bought a pocket-sized version of the Wife of Bath by Chaucer. Actually, it was the text from the Nevill Coghill translation. Somehow, as I crisscross Texas, I figured that one of the original pilgrimage pieces would be an appropriate addition to my baggage of laptop, palmtop, and all the other high-tech gear. Something needs to balance it out . . .
  • MIDLAND, TX: The Story of Delicate

    • So there we were, three women and myself, after working at a Psychic Fair in Midland, Texas, and we stopped at a Seven Eleven. This, by the way, is definitely not a product endorsement of any kind. It just happened to a be a conveniently located store. All I wanted was some Artesia Water, naturally carbonated, or maybe, if nothing else, some Perrier. In Midland? No such luck . . .
  • GRUENE, TX: Home of Texas' Oldest Dance Hall

    • Maybe it's just one of those periodic things, a series of random events which conspire to make everything look like the guys with the conspiracy theories are right. Friday, it was a late lunch with a client, forcing everything off schedule and out of the nice, normal design. Saturday night, last night, in Gruene, it was the dinner . . .

  • El Paso, TX: On fire

    • When it comes to coffeehouses, perhaps it's the heritage of higher education in Austin that makes my adopted hometown such a winner. The history of Austin itself could probably be written in coffee beans. I'll wager that a careful perusal of the photographic archives of the founding of the Republic of Texas would show that an ancestral Quackenbush coffee shop was around before the Alamo -- trust me Bubba, I know my Texas history . . .
  • Abalean, Abeline, Abilene

    • In a rather dark comedy-like turn of events, I escaped getting my butt kicked in a convenience store in Rising Star. What a name for town for an Astrologer to live in -- Rising Star. It's only a hundred miles or so from Abilene, so it must be a suburb . . .

  • Buried in West Texas
    I had to go to a funeral today. It wasn't the same as running up to Abilene for a fair. Though I had argued with friends about the directions, the road was the same. My way is better -- go to Brady and hang a left (maybe it's a right) -- that's all. We tried the other route this morning. Being a passenger, I discovered that 183 is about 40 miles shorter than the 71. Which doesn't make sense. I mean, 183-71=112, so it ought to be longer . . .

  • "Hello Kramer."

    • It was late. The Austin fair was just geting cranked up, and wham! I had one of those nightmare sequences. I had just returned from the bathroom, just like in "Pulp Fiction," and I was adding fliers to the outside table. You know, the advertising. I turned around and a couple of ladies are approaching the table. Tall, stately, elegant, a bit roguish -- Sunday morning in South Austin anything goes. One of the women looks at me and says, "Hello Kramer . . . "
  • How to pick up coeds

    • "Geology 303?" Yes. Geology 303. Or 306, or maybe it was Chemistry, and I'm not talking about the kind of chemistry between two people, although, that's what this line leads to . . .
  • A Werewolf Texan in London
    • The British have never learned to make a decent cup of coffee, even their cappuccino is either too weak, or it just tastes like water with a little bit of mud thrown in it. Just to add body, you see. Just like the water from their great river Thames, which should by all rights, be pronounced in a much different fashion. Let's face it: the Brits can't do coffee or English right. . .

  • Potrero, CA: Real Surfing

    • So this is the weekend update from out here, and let me tell you, things are defintely strange out here. It's a different tempo for life. I drove the rent car down the hill Saturday morning to see about a paper and some gas . . .
  • Elvis, Shakespeare and Astrology

    • The original announcement. In all its gory glory.