Books, spam and cover songs.
For just once in my life, I got a piece of spam that I liked. A new summertime novel is now available. This is happy news. My e-mail address was obviously harvested from an exchange of mail I had with that author. Perfect escape reading. Make sure you ask for it by name, as it would seem some people have hard time identifying books in bookstores. N.B.: I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s pretty easy to suggest, starting with \\Florida Roadkill\\, and extrapolating from the way each novel has been incrementally better, more exciting and stranger, this next one’s bound to be a winner.
My day-to-day life sometimes feels like one of those novels, or like I’m a character in such a novel, someplace stuck in some kind of unreal world.
One minute, I’m finding a form of happiness wrapped in a plain white bread hot dog bun, covered with cheap American mustard, sipping on a big gulp, and the next minute, I’m discussing opera, and why the third opera in The Ring Cycle is arguably the best one.
Wednesday night’s big fun was supposed to be a couple of friends’ band, opening for Dale Watson & the Lone Stars. Dale didn’t show. Just as well, my buddies put on an excellent first set. What kind of music? Well, sort of that typical Austin rock-country “thang,” but it was particularly tasteful. I transcribed about a half dozen lines from various original songs, then they swung into a cover of “Little Red Corvette.” Dobro, mandolin, an Aquarius girl working a standup bass a full foot taller than her, it was a full-western-dress version of that old song.
I know, it’s been done by another Austin band, the Derailers, and their version of Raspberry Beret, but seeing something like that live, in beer joint/barbecue place, on hot summer night, when it was raining while the sun was shining, sometimes, it just doesn’t get any better than that.