Two-lane blacktop
April 24, 2008 at 1:07 am | Everything else | 4 Comments
Things look different on two wheels then they do from inside a car.
In Galveston, I could smell the jasmine blooming every time I drove past the state campground, and could feel the sea spray on my face as we cruised along the beach. I have been to Galveston dozens of times but rest assured I have never, ever driven my car on the seawall. Not the street named Seawall. The actual wall.
Sandblast was great fun. The weather was nice (though a little cloudy) and the rally games were some of the funniest and most entertainingly suicidal I have ever seen. The only bummer was Friday night, when my moto jacket was stolen off the front rack of my bike while it was parked with 20 other scooters in front of the fittingly-named Poop Deck. My scooter keys were in the pocket. Nothing else was stolen, but it wouldn’t be a scooter rally without something going wrong for Brittanie.
The newly revived Texas United River Rally is the weekend of my birthday. Be there or be square.
Christopher and I have been on an extended vacation this month home. Camping, scooting every day, epic purchases and even more epic schemes. I might have to quit my job in order to accomplish all the living we have planned this summer. He’s leaving again Sunday, and knowing we’ll have to spend the next month apart makes the adventures of tomorrow, today, right now, feel extra-super urgent. You want proof? Us deciding at the spur of the moment this past weekend to drive the BMW to Dallas and back in a 24-hour period. Five hundred miles, round trip.
I have gone the distance between Dallas and Houston many times on my drives to and from Oklahoma, but I have never seen dogs fighting on the highway service road, or a raptor actually catching it’s prey, and while I usually just whiz by the forest this time I was able to look around, look closely, without a layer of glass between me and the world, without a radio humming in my ears and a windshield blocking the slight dip in the air temperature as one drives through the natural shade.
It’s kind of silly the fraternity you are automatically inducted into when you buy a motorcycle and take it on the highway. Every passing cyclist gives you a nod or a wave. You are a rebel, a shunner of comfort, a vagabond. It’s absurd but I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a kick out of it.
On the way home, at a tree-covered rest stop just north of Huntsville, we met another cyclist named James, a Brit who is riding the perimeter states of the USA for charity. He is keeping a blog, which you should read.
We were only in Dallas long enough to have dinner and drinks at the recently unsealed tomb of Trader Vics. I didn’t take many pictures of the drive, because with the wind whipping you at 80+ MPH it’s not very easy to hold a camera steadily. I did take pictures of the restaurant though.
Towards the end of our ride Sunday, 30 minutes outside Dallas, the sun was setting on us. C looked down at the pavement to his right, and then patted me on the thigh so he could point to our shadow, two bodies on a motorcycle, my arms wrapped around him.
Gilda and Me
April 14, 2008 at 10:23 pm | Photo Album, Two Wheels | 7 Comments
Photo by Robert Fox, thanks for such a great shot!
This pic was taken right before I lost in the slow races. More to come soon. Sandblast is over. Sandblast forever!
Skull and bones
April 6, 2008 at 10:03 pm | Everything else, Photo Album | 1 Comment
Photo by Grind Slut
The Rule household has been hashing and camping with friends in the woods of Southeast Texas all weekend. We are currently recovering from fresh thorny-vine lacerations, sunburns and a two-week-old case of poison ivy.
What have you been up to?
Four bands, two shows, one night
April 1, 2008 at 11:10 pm | Entertainment, Photo Album | No Comments
Not much to say about Saturday night except it was so awesome I didn’t go to sleep until 5 a.m.
I was miraculously able to be in two places at once. Not exactly all at once, though. And I wasn’t the only one. Long-haired dude standing next to me at The Orange Show assuaged my fears by telling me that although the show at Rudyards was supposed to start at 9 p.m., the sound guy doesn’t even get to work until 10 p.m. Thanks long-haired dude, you were right.
I’ve never been to The Orange Show before. It’s a pretty awesome place, a very intimate venue, but damn hard to find. Cool thing about the show: at least 25% of the crowd was Cambodian. After they played I chatted up two of the guys from Dengue Fever, inviting them to Rudyards (they couldn’t make it but I got a nice phone call the next day).
At Rudz, Houston band The Born Liars blew my mind by playing some awesome garage rock wholly inconsistent with their Average-Joe images.
Friends of Formika® The Ugly Beats played loud and hard and set the tone for what was to follow. Not only that but all five of them were super nice and fun to dance with when The Fleshtones (also Friends of Formika®) finally hit the stage. EXCELLENT TRANSACTION WOULD DO BUSINESS WITH AGAIN11!!! Please come back to Houston soon, guys (and girl).
Everything you need to know about The Fleshtones you can learn here. Not content to play on Rudyard’s tiny stage, the guys took the show into the crowd for almost every song, creating more much energy in that club than I’ve felt since I was 16 years old and going to shows at Music D’s. The show was so loud my ears were ringing into Sunday night (I forgot my earplugs). Afterwards we all (Ugly Beats and Fleshtones included) went back to Formika’s house for cocktails and comraderie, which explains my extra-late bedtime.
Oh look, here are pictures of Formika (on the bass drum) and one of the back of my head dancing on stage with Peter.
Crescent, croissant
8:20 am | Shorts | 2 Comments
I forgot to tell you about the docent at the museum who insists on pronouncing her title as “doh-sahnt.”
Really? Really!?
March 31, 2008 at 9:39 pm | Girly | 1 Comment
Ugh. Currently editing two-year-old blog posts that make me sound like a vapid, attention-hungry idiot.
But don’t worry, I’m not deleting any of them.
Yet.
Oh noes!
March 27, 2008 at 3:18 pm | Entertainment | No Comments
I just found out Neil Hamburger is performing Saturday night as well! I would hate this city if I didn’t love it so much.
Happy Easter Monday
March 24, 2008 at 10:59 pm | Watching | 2 Comments
Dilemma
5:17 pm | Listening | No Comments
For a month I have been anxiously awaiting the March 29 performance of Asian-beat psych-pop band Dengue Fever.
Yesterday I found out that The Fleshtones are playing the same night, along with friends of my friend Miss Formika. If I could be in two places at once, I would, but as of now it looks like I might be forced to choose.
To make matters worse, I have developed bruises on the tops of my feet from dancing/being danced on during Tuesday night’s show.
There were never any good ol’ days
March 19, 2008 at 11:27 pm | El Perro, Entertainment, Photo Album | 2 Comments
Gogol Bordello restored my faith in rock-n-roll last night. Best show of the year, so far, but Dengue Fever is next weekend so we shall see.
Before the show I was walking Gus* as the sun was setting when we crossed paths with a small gray creature moving slowly along the sidewalk. On a couple of evenings Gus and I have come across a huge possum chillaxin’ near the dumpster in the alley across the street. By huge I mean bigger than Gus, who weighs 25 pounds. I think someone feeds it — there is a hole under the fence through which it always scurries and in the mornings I see paper plates with what looks like cat food lovingly placed in the escape path.
But last night the possum we saw was quite small, probably juvenile, and slow to climb the bush where it sought refuge from my canine. Gus was straining at his leash and I was curious to get as close to the joey as possible, but the kiddo remained calm and cool, not quite playing dead but not ignoring us either. I damned myself for not having my camera and briefly considered running inside for it but was afraid the dude would be gone by then. It was cute! I wanted to snuggle it, but the thought of it’s tiny possum paws scratching out my eyeballs made me keep my distance. That and the fact Gus was FREAKING OUT. Anyway, I think it’s pretty cool that I live about one minute from downtown off one of the busiest streets in Houston and I have wildlife literally in my front yard.
Here comes the sad part of the story: this morning as we were walking before work Gus and I came across a stray cat near the same dumpster where we see the big possum. Cat looked dirty and skinny from afar, typical for a stray, but it was lazing in a patch of sunlight and seemed undisturbed until it noticed us and Gus noticed it. Then it raised it’s head and I could see what looked like a long, thick string of either snot or pus hanging from it’s face. One of it’s eyes was swollen closed. And instead of darting away it got up real slow and then I saw that it’s tail was almost nearly hairless and as thin around as my pinkie. It didn’t even have the energy to run away, only to hiss a weak warning at us.
The whole sight was so simultaneously saddening and disgusting that I felt physically ill. I’m am not much of a cat lover, but jeez, even a raging bastard could understand why I had a hard time choking back tears as I walked back to our door. Poor, poor baby. I wonder now if the cat food was actually for the cat, not the fat possum, and if so then someone is severely neglecting that cat, even if it’s just someone who’s feeding a stray.
I couldn’t be party to that neglect, so as soon as I got to work I called the HSPCA. I’m not entirely sure I’ve done my good deed for the day though. If the cat gets rescued and rehabilitated then I’ll think I have, but even if it’s humanely put out of it’s misery I will feel better for having called. Uhg, even the small amount of recollection it takes to type this has my throat tightening and my heart hurting for that poor little baby.
*Speaking of Gus, this month my sweet little clown is turning six years old.