06-08-2006, 08:48 PM
I'll file this under Media, as I'm at Robert E. Howard days in his home town of Cross Plains, Texas. It's hot here.
It's a gathering of REH literati, literally. There is an organization that writes and self-publishes critical essays and examinations of the various REH stories. Basically, a loose-knit group of fanzine publishers. Some of them are very nice. Some of them need to get a life. Mostly the former, fortunately.
I had real Texas barbeque tonight at a roadside stand. No scorpions on the menu, so I went for the triple combo; ribs, brisket, sausage. Greg, Cole, you know how much I like Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ? Well apparently, that appreciation is not mis-placed. Tonight's meal was - let's see - we'll say, adequate. Not a pimple on Dr. HG, though. It had that oak-ey flavor well in hand, but the brisket was surprisingly tough, the rib (1) was uneventful, leaving the sausage to be the highlight. Which, to be fair, it was. I think it was a bratwurst tossed in the smoker for a few hours. Tasty, but it didn't make me jump up and dance or anything.
I had, arguably, the worst morning of my life on the day I left. My flight out of Oakland was at 7:45. At 6:45, the security guard pointed out that my driver's license was expired. I went over to Southwest Airlines help desk, and they cleared me for the flight. Experience told me that there was no way in hell I'd be able to rent a car in Austin Texas with an expired license. So, to the DMV! Ah, but the DMV opens at 9am on Wednesdays! So, back to the house! I went home, kissed my wife and son goodbye again (they were off to pre-school), changed my ho-tel (Texas pronunciation) check in time, changed my car rental check in time, and left the house in plenty of time to get coffee on the way to the DMV. Got the coffee and started driving to the Hayward DMV office. Took the first sip of scalding coffee, burnt my mouth and a quarter of a grande into my shirt and lap.
I confess: I screamed bloody murder. My voice is still recovering.
So, I drove home. Again. Changed clothes. Drove to the DMV. Got there just as they opened the doors. I was in and out, new temp license in hand in 45 minutes. Ok, that part wasn't so bad. Got back to the airport in time to be first on the wait list for a direct flight to Austin. Two stops, but no plane change. This, I now see, was a partial mistake. No plane changes on a Southwest flight means no food for 6 hours. Good lesson to remember. However, instead of getting the 2pm Oakland flight and arriving in Austin at 10pm, I get in at 6pm, rent a car and hit the road about 6:45 expecting to get to Cross Plains in about 2 hours.
Ok, it took 3 hours. Still, I arrived safely. And, you know, it's kinda nice out here. Roasty toasty at an even hundred degrees today, but not humid.
I'm staying in Brownwood, which is 32 miles from Cross Plains. I've now stood on Bob Howard's lawn, in his living room, kitchen, bedroom and on the driveway where his car was parked when he sat within and put a bullet through his head at age 30.
Tomorrow I'll go to Howard Payne University to see their book collection of Howard's original library. Howard's father donated his son's books to the school after Bob's suicide. Then I'll mosey over to the gravesite, also here in Brownwood.
The highlights today were hearing a short talk by the new owners of the Howard properties, Paradox Entertainment and getting a walking tour with a local.
The lowlight was supposed to be one of the highlights. Some guy is working on a documentary about Howard's life. He was on right before dinner. He showed up an hour late, then took a half hour to get set up to screen - on a sheet tacked up on a wall in the Cross Plains Community Center. I think I'll donate a screen. Anyway, he introduces the film by saying 'it's not done, I had trouble with software, my computer had to change in the middle, not everything got transferred that I wanted to have, it's only part of the story and I don't have the rights to any of the images or music". And, to be fair, for all his whiney caveats, it, in fact, sucked right from the get-go and never recovered. He used - and I counted - every single cheesy video transition that has ever been made. Writing, lousy. Camera work, worse, if anything. Sound, crap. Production value, non-existent. Art Direction, what's that? If I still had hair, I would have pulled it out in the first 5 minutes. In his intro, he said it was an hour. It was 70 minutes of crap fanboy movie making! He did have some good interview candidates, but he cut the crap out it, shot it badly, had them disagreeing with each other on non-cogent points and generally making a documentary shitpile.
But I digress. Right after that, I got the bbq. I could have hung out for a screening of "The Whole Wide World", which is a movie about Bob Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his relationship with another local would-be writer, Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger). It's a movie I like, and it would have been fun to watch it with this group. But I couldn't take the screen or the chairs anymore, so I had to bail.
More later, I don't doubt.
It's a gathering of REH literati, literally. There is an organization that writes and self-publishes critical essays and examinations of the various REH stories. Basically, a loose-knit group of fanzine publishers. Some of them are very nice. Some of them need to get a life. Mostly the former, fortunately.
I had real Texas barbeque tonight at a roadside stand. No scorpions on the menu, so I went for the triple combo; ribs, brisket, sausage. Greg, Cole, you know how much I like Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ? Well apparently, that appreciation is not mis-placed. Tonight's meal was - let's see - we'll say, adequate. Not a pimple on Dr. HG, though. It had that oak-ey flavor well in hand, but the brisket was surprisingly tough, the rib (1) was uneventful, leaving the sausage to be the highlight. Which, to be fair, it was. I think it was a bratwurst tossed in the smoker for a few hours. Tasty, but it didn't make me jump up and dance or anything.
I had, arguably, the worst morning of my life on the day I left. My flight out of Oakland was at 7:45. At 6:45, the security guard pointed out that my driver's license was expired. I went over to Southwest Airlines help desk, and they cleared me for the flight. Experience told me that there was no way in hell I'd be able to rent a car in Austin Texas with an expired license. So, to the DMV! Ah, but the DMV opens at 9am on Wednesdays! So, back to the house! I went home, kissed my wife and son goodbye again (they were off to pre-school), changed my ho-tel (Texas pronunciation) check in time, changed my car rental check in time, and left the house in plenty of time to get coffee on the way to the DMV. Got the coffee and started driving to the Hayward DMV office. Took the first sip of scalding coffee, burnt my mouth and a quarter of a grande into my shirt and lap.
I confess: I screamed bloody murder. My voice is still recovering.
So, I drove home. Again. Changed clothes. Drove to the DMV. Got there just as they opened the doors. I was in and out, new temp license in hand in 45 minutes. Ok, that part wasn't so bad. Got back to the airport in time to be first on the wait list for a direct flight to Austin. Two stops, but no plane change. This, I now see, was a partial mistake. No plane changes on a Southwest flight means no food for 6 hours. Good lesson to remember. However, instead of getting the 2pm Oakland flight and arriving in Austin at 10pm, I get in at 6pm, rent a car and hit the road about 6:45 expecting to get to Cross Plains in about 2 hours.
Ok, it took 3 hours. Still, I arrived safely. And, you know, it's kinda nice out here. Roasty toasty at an even hundred degrees today, but not humid.
I'm staying in Brownwood, which is 32 miles from Cross Plains. I've now stood on Bob Howard's lawn, in his living room, kitchen, bedroom and on the driveway where his car was parked when he sat within and put a bullet through his head at age 30.
Tomorrow I'll go to Howard Payne University to see their book collection of Howard's original library. Howard's father donated his son's books to the school after Bob's suicide. Then I'll mosey over to the gravesite, also here in Brownwood.
The highlights today were hearing a short talk by the new owners of the Howard properties, Paradox Entertainment and getting a walking tour with a local.
The lowlight was supposed to be one of the highlights. Some guy is working on a documentary about Howard's life. He was on right before dinner. He showed up an hour late, then took a half hour to get set up to screen - on a sheet tacked up on a wall in the Cross Plains Community Center. I think I'll donate a screen. Anyway, he introduces the film by saying 'it's not done, I had trouble with software, my computer had to change in the middle, not everything got transferred that I wanted to have, it's only part of the story and I don't have the rights to any of the images or music". And, to be fair, for all his whiney caveats, it, in fact, sucked right from the get-go and never recovered. He used - and I counted - every single cheesy video transition that has ever been made. Writing, lousy. Camera work, worse, if anything. Sound, crap. Production value, non-existent. Art Direction, what's that? If I still had hair, I would have pulled it out in the first 5 minutes. In his intro, he said it was an hour. It was 70 minutes of crap fanboy movie making! He did have some good interview candidates, but he cut the crap out it, shot it badly, had them disagreeing with each other on non-cogent points and generally making a documentary shitpile.
But I digress. Right after that, I got the bbq. I could have hung out for a screening of "The Whole Wide World", which is a movie about Bob Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his relationship with another local would-be writer, Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger). It's a movie I like, and it would have been fun to watch it with this group. But I couldn't take the screen or the chairs anymore, so I had to bail.
More later, I don't doubt.
