Change is good, right?
Hard day:
At the at the office.
Have it your way?
Is it a footnote or an appendix?
Back on topic:
If change is good, then riddle me this, or maybe, perhaps, just possibly, I’m wrong. I stopped in the old New Threadgill’s, after working across the street all weekend. The Austin Lounge Lizards are playing, this Wednesday, and looks like the Gourds are next weekend. Be a good show, but alas, I will be in El Paso &c.
Warm winds blowing
Heating blue sky
And a road that goes forever
From “Texas”
Written and Recorded by Chris Rea
Album: “Road To Hell” – 1989
But don’t get distracted, that’s not the point. Think about this: I used to live on the “chicken caesar salad” and later, I switched to the “black and blue” salad. The Black and Blue used to be a culinary feast, cost $6.95, free rolls and tea. Good stuff, blackened pepper steak – really just strips of tough and lean skirt steak beaten, covered in black pepper, then blackened a second time. Tough and nasty skirt steak. Tasty, too.
I wandered in with my red-headed Capricorn friend, and it was a little weird. Been some time since I hit the old haunts. I still recall the tale, I bought a copy of New Riders of the Purple Sage’s “Panama Red” off iTunes, and at that time, the only copy available as a single was a live recording, at the old Armadillo, the spiritual father to both alt-country and Threadgill’s, according to my notes, recorded live Friday, June 13, 1975. Timing is about right.
I’m used to my dives being, well, divey. Scuzzy, maybe a little rough around the corners, dingy, dirty, some grunge is welcome. As is axle grease. The price, I suppose it’s been creeping up and I just didn’t notice, but when I examined the menu Sunday night, the Black and Blue was $9.95, basically ten bucks, and that’s just too much. I was tired, hungry, I ordered anyway. What I got was a delightful surprise. Rich, green (some kind of lettuce thing), bleu cheese crumbled across the top, in copious quantities, and the steak was more like a tiny tenderloin, thinly sliced, excellent presentation, the outside was covered with requisite ground pepper, but the meat itself was tender and medium to medium rare. Warm, pink: juicy.
Quite tasty, quite filling, and probably, reasonably so, nutritious.
Question, or to confuse the metaphor, riddle me this, lone ranger, is this progress?
