Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo — let’s all go out and overthrow our white, European oppressors. Wait, that’s me. Reading the Joe R. Lansdale collection, “Four Long Ones,” I was disappointed with the opening paragraphs of one story, it was a really familiar piece of writing, one he used in his series of Hap and Leonard novels. But the writing itself is very vigorous. That’s something I really like. Random images from yesterday include a girl (young female, rather pretty, from a cursory glance) with her hair died brilliant blue and she was reading Portnoy’s Complaint by Phillip Roth. Passing the [federal] courthouse, there was a bicycle messenger sprawled in the shade, snoring. Going down Sixth Street — it’s a pretty scary place in the daylight — a woman was watching me from an upstairs window. I was going to suck in my gut, being bare chested and all, but I realized she had been observing me for some time. Ma Wetzel sent me a postcard from New York City: three naked ladies at a bar. And that’s a normal afternoon. The cat woke me yesterday morning, alerting me to the fact that her food dish was empty. The cat acting as an alarm clock is nothing unusual. But she was rubbing her head on the top of mine, and that was unusual. She normally sits at the end of the bed and plaintively complains. A little later in the morning, I picked up the phone, “Good morning.” “That’s nice, why don’t you answer the phone like that more often? Hey, you still know that girl over at KLRU? Can you see if she can get Joe Ely tickets for Austin City Limits?” In my client list, I know a few staff members, support folks, camera guy, and even an occasional star — as well as a board member or two. But Austin City Limit tickets? Good luck. The only item harder to get than ACL tickets is real record label contract. The unabated Virgo string continues: I was in Planet K, a local smoke shop, to pick an afternoon cigar. I ran into one of their area mangers: another Virgo.