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A PAPERBACK COVER FOR TODAY
A MOVIE TEASER POSTER FOR TODAY
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TEXAS TRAILS: ROCKERS
The next day I spent some time at Lake Austin, above, created by a dam on the Colorado River which runs through the city.
That evening Hilmar took me to the tiniest bar in Texas. The window in the picture above is the extent of it. At one point while we were there, when I pulled out my wallet, a waitress said, “Oh, a rattlesnake-skin wallet — can I touch it?” I said, “Ma’am, you can rub it all over yourself if you want to.” She took it from me and rubbed it slowly over both her breasts. I found this charming.
We then headed to a joint called Lustre Pearl, where we’d heard some good bands would be playing. We’d heard right. I have no idea what bands they were, but they were excellent. Lustre Pearl is like an ancient Louisiana roadhouse, with an outdoor music area. It’s motto is “Ici Tout Est Bon”, spelled out in neon above. Hilmar and I managed to score a couple of rocking chairs on the front porch, where the music was still loud, even though we couldn’t see the stage.
Hilmar’s daughter Jordan appeared at the place later on — that’s her below in one of the rocking chairs next to her dad:
And again with a friend of hers:
As the night progressed and the bands got better, we drifted out back to stand in front of the stage:
It was all very cool.
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PURE CINEMA
AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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ETERNITY IS IN LOVE
. . . with the productions of time.
TEXAS TRAILS: RIBS, MOULES AND COUNTRY SWING
We picked up our SXSW badges in Austin on Monday, then had dinner at Lambert’s, the legendary Austin barbecue joint. The baby back ribs I had were magical, perfect — crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside.
I drove with Hilmar to San Antonio the next day, where he had some business, and we lunched at La Frite, a Belgian restaurant (above) which serves excellent moules frites. That night we wandered through downtown Austin to see what was going on as SXSW geared up. There was a lot going on.
We ended up in the bar at the fabled Driskill Hotel (above), which dates from 1886 and which, being near to the state house, has seen its share of Texas political wheeling and dealing. Lyndon Johnson awaited the election returns there in his first unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat. He had stolen a lot of votes in that election but his opponent had stolen more. Johnson was in shock.
There was a good country swing band playing at the Driskill bar:
A splendid preview of the week to come . . .
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A SILENT MOVIE STILL FOR TODAY
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A HOWARD BROWN FOR TODAY
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TEXAS TRAILS: WILD STRAWBERRIES
After a good night’s sleep in The Rock House — we slept right through a massive thunderstorm — Hilmar and I drove down to El Pescador to load up the caterer’s serving dishes and various other party equipment. While there, Hilmar and his daughter’s friend Lauren reenacted a scene from Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Texas-style (above).
Heading back to Seguin, Hilmar left a note on the message board at the ranch gate about some keys left by a party guest.
In Seguin we lounged by the pool in the vast backyard of Hilmar’s house there. Then we drove the caterer’s equipment back to La Fogata in San Antonio.
We had planned to try another restaurant in San Antonio for dinner but the smells from La Fogata’s kitchen and the lure of its excellent Margaritas kept us where we were, and we had a fine dinner on one of the cheerfully lit patios of the rambling Mexican eatery.
The next day we’d be heading up to Hilmar’s house in Austin and picking up our badges for SXSW.
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TEXAS TRAILS: FIESTA EN EL RANCHO
On my second day in Texas, Hilmar hosted a party at his ranch. Above, the catered food arrives from La Fogata, a great Mexican restaurant in San Antonio.
We hauled it over to El Pescador, a fish camp on a ranch pond, where the feasting would occur, then headed up to a hillside overlooking the ranch, where the drinking would commence.
A friend of Hilmar’s had already delivered vast quantities of beer, wine and spirits to the spot.
Pretty soon people, lots of people, started to arrive — then the fiesta began in earnest as Hilmar’s daughter Jordan and ten of her friends descended on the scene like a dole of doves, an exaltation of Bluebonnet girls.
Hilmar’s son Blake arrived with a portable clay-launcher and a couple of guns, for sporting purposes — a 12-gauge shotgun to fire at the clays and a 22-caliber lever-action rifle for target practice. I fired both of these weapons, the first guns larger than a BB rifle I had ever fired in my life.
I was shocked to discover how much fun it was. I couldn’t hit a clay with the shotgun to save my life, but I managed to put a couple of rounds into a distant tree trunk with the rifle — which resembled a lighter version of a 19th-Century lever-action Winchester. The thud of the bullets into the tree trunk was deeply satisfying and more than a little thrilling.
We drove down the hill for the dinner, then, after most people headed home, moved to The Rock House, the original ranch house, for more beers and conversation hearthside with Jordan and her friend Lauren. They were both visiting from Brooklyn, where they currently live.
There was a huge mounted buffalo head above the fireplace. It was taken from a bull which had wandered into a lake during a storm on the ranch of a friend of Hilmar’s, gotten stuck in the mud there and drowned. Hilmar asked his friend if he could send someone down to the lake the next day with a chainsaw to retrieve the bull’s head. This was done and Hilmar had it mounted.
His friend was slightly dismayed by the taxidermy job, which made the fearsome beast look almost kindly. It looked pretty scary to me. The eyes might seem doe-like to some — to me they looked merely bovine, which is to say stupid, and the horns looked purely lethal. Stupid and lethal is a terrifying combination.
AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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YOUNG BARBARA
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TEXAS TRAILS: THE RANCH WELL
Hilmar’s family made a lot of money a couple of generations back from oil. Ironically it was from investments in oil fields north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Hilmar’s grandfather used some of his profits to buy a cattle ranch near his hometown of Seguin.
In a further irony, oil was recently discovered on the ranch, which the current price of oil and modern technology make it profitable to extract. What you see in the video is the first well drilled — it’s pumping up some high-grade crude in abundance, and there may be other accessible deposits connected to the same geological substructure on the ranch.
Every motion of the pump produces another ducat for Hilmar, which explains his cheerful demeanor here, and his satisfaction at the texture of the viscous black gold his land is yielding up. The crude oil has a pungent but faintly satisfying odor.