Nov 3, 07 10:34 PM
The Road to Austin.
Gig on South Padre Island last night was weird. We played at this near-empty mega-bar (you could just see it packed with drunken Spring breakers), with some quiet, older vacationers sitting around in plastic lawn chairs. We played on a barge docked in the bay just off the bar, that swayed slightly when one rocked. The stage was fifteen feet high--we towered over our sparse crowd.
We stayed at a hotel on the beach. Our room opened up to a patio overlooking the grassy dunes. There was a midwives' conference at the hotel. Two of them, merry and half-drunk, regaled and questioned us from the balcony above. They invited us to the midwives' karaoke party.
Later, the merry midwives knocked on the door to tell us that the front desk staff were beside themselves, because they saw my name on the reservation and thought I was Chris Daughtry.
We found a Starbucks off I-37 and stopped. One can snob on Starbucks, but I have to say, there's nothing wrong with a place that plays Charles Mingus, across the road from a farm equipment lot in Kingsville, Texas.
