Texas Food & Music – My Addictions | 4.6.11

Forgive me father, it has been 2 months since my last confessional blog…

So we had our grand opening of the Happy2You vintage shop this past weekend in Wimberley, Texas.  It was an amazing day that poured over deep into the night. The most perfect weather in the mid-80s, our beautiful friends and Wimberley neighbors who all felt like they were the millionth customers, all bought some swag and listened to us pick and grin on the porch.  For the grand finale, my hillbilly brood [consisting of hubby and bassist lunchmeat, 9-year-old son/fiddle-meister Thomas, and 4-yr old daughter Julia Odessa] and I closed with our favorite misogynistic Hee Haw skit:

You took off your pegleg, your wig and your glass eye
And you should have seen the look on my face
I wanted to kiss and hug you my darlin’
But you were just scattered all over the place

Chorus:
Where, oh where are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over and I thought I found true love
You met another and, Pffft, you were gone

(The entire Old Town Square chimed-in for this part as well.)

The Happy2You shop started with a bang.  The last echoes murmured across the monster wall of Johnny-Peavey-Walker speakers…“shave and a haircut (from Thomas’s fiddle), two bits!”….”Happy 2 You!”.

But where the evening ended up was very bizarre and cosmic. (Minus the Ouija board and Twister mat…nope, it was way more of a Truth or Dare crowd.)  Under the hill country stars gazed a cast of outlaws and misfits combined with brief cameos of rabid turkeys, creepy neighbors and a one-off in a purple dress that insulted each and every one of us before she was escorted away unaware of her special place in our hearts. I soon realized once the out-of-tune guitar got passed around a few times, that this was one of those days and nights that will be talked about for-evah.

Let’s rap about the main circle of old and newly found friends for awhile.  Every one of us had found each other over the years not through coincidence, not through facebook or six degrees of separation – but because we were all survivors or products, if you will, of the trail of beautiful disasters that the generation of Austin musicians and artists before us had left behind. Yes indeed, the blueblood daughters, sons, ex-wives, and siblings of Austin’s hey-day somehow all found each other on this night…forming a group of vignettes which would have made a great short film.  We simultaneously laughed, cried from laughter, yelled, cursed and just plain behaved badly,  as our DNA would predict.  It was a tough room, and no one was spared as each performed endearing, yet some sarcastic renditions of songs that may or may not have written or covered by our musical families.  But out of respect, we all mumbled and slurred the choruses in harmony, barely making it through one complete song without cracking up laughing. The family dirt rose once or twice, but our well-guarded back-of-the-bus family secrets were then tucked safely away like those of the mafia.

“I knew it was you Fredo…You broke my heart”

The mayhem went on for what seemed like hours – and was ultimately the therapy that we all needed for being “one of us”. It dawned on me that this symbolic day and night gave each and every one of us the confidence and thematic platform to sing our own songs at the end of the night – with equal and absurd passion, heartache and raw beauty shining through our latent musical genes.

Last weekend, Calvin Russell also passed away.  A local musical icon that struggled with addiction, burden and full-on heartache much of his life.  Calvin turned to and was often saved by music in his darkest hours – in addition to being an Austin legend, he found HUGE success in Europe rockin’ the French clubs for 3 hours straight and going home with sometimes 15 grand a night.  BUT Dude, this guy was born into this world with no chance in hell…and when I read the description of his beginnings “he was one of four children, the only one that did not die in infancy”, it just about took me down.  The majority of his life he spent in and out of jail and his inability to conform apparently comforted him – maybe it was the only constant in his life.  When asked about his checkered past, he stated that prison in Huntsville was way tougher than Mexican prison.  It blows me away that he knew life at the very bottom but made no apologies for his past nor his inclination to be bad or fall back on his dysfunctional roots.

His website bio begins…“Calvin Russell was born a few minutes after a full solar eclipse, on the dark side of the planet, as it slipped from the grasp of the shadow of the moon.”

So another beautiful disaster, who started out with no chance in hell and ended up meaning the world to so many, has left the planet. RIP Calvin, you were a survivor and a stoic…give em’ hell in the next life.

I will leave you with this, it doesn’t matter what load of shit starts off in your lap as a babe…what matters is that at least one other person can share your pain and relate to your song. And seriously, can one’s song be worth-a-shit if his/her life isn’t a mess at one time or another?  Less interesting staff writers may be able to turn a phrase on command, but my songwriting heroes have always been lunatics.

Rejection loves company.

Peace, Love and…Happy2You!

Author: admin
Published: April 6, 2011
Filed Under: Blog

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