Houston – Page 33 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Art Car Parade 2006

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Cynthia and Jay at the Art Car Parade

Early Saturday Cynthia and I headed into town to wander amongst the art cars as they got into position for the parade. This is the best way to see the cars. You can walk up to them and talk with the artist and it’s all before the full heat of the day. Plus you see them at your pace rather than waiting for a few hundred cars to slooooooooooowly drive past you.

I didn’t shoot all that many pics of the parade but the few I did are available HERE

Art Car Ball 2006

Another art car weekend has come and gone.
While I did not participate in all of the weekend activities I did take time to go to the Art Car Ball which is one of the most unusual parties of the year.

It’s a celebration of the artists and their works. This year’s theme was Ole Time Revival. The theme tends to be more of a suggestion than anything else. Some people participate but for the most part people just do what they want. Seeing Tom dressed as a TV minister, complete with TV, was probably my favorite.

The music was not so great this year but I did have the opportunity to catch up with some old friends and the weather was spectacular for being outside with the cars.

Shameless self promotion

2006 Houston Press Music Awards

It’s always nice to be on the ballot.
Please take some time and nominate my band, The Flying Fish Sailors, for the Best Folk Music category!

The nomination form is located at houstonpress.com/musicshowcase/2006/

Google-spike

I’m enjoying this while it’s still novel.

Today’s Helpline Blog item was a Q&A about Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer entitled Trying to eliminate Internet Explorer. Apparently Google News bundled this blog entry with the news release regarding Microsoft’s release of Internet Explorer Beta 7.

This resulted in ginormous spike in the number of page views in less than 20-30 minutes and an explosion of comments that I am slowly but surely reviewing and publishing.

Forgive an old man his dated colloquialism but I have to say one thing….

NEAT!

A man with a nice car don’t need no justification

The Art Car Weekend is coming May 12-14, the highlight of which is the Art Car Parade in May 13. We missed it last year due to our European vacation.

Looks like the annual Art Car Ball music line up has been set and it sure does suck. Don’t get me wrong, the bands unto themselves are ok, but they are more suited for a rockabilly/hotrod show than they are to this event (in my opinion). I say bring back the likes of Mojo Nixon or The Red Elvises.

A few years back they had The Paladins which was pretty cool if you have to do the rockabilly thing.

Ah well, there’s so much more to the event than the music anyway, so it’s fine. At least they have a venue suitable for the Thursday night crush of freakish humanity and cars.

My good friend David Jungen tells me he may be bringing my all time favorite art car, the Stereotype One, down from Austin for the festivities.

Clickity-click me!

Weather permitting, Cynthia and I should be at the parade this year. Not sure about the rest of the events.

Small Stars @ Rudyard’s

Saturday night I broke routine and followed my musical nose to the upstairs of Rudyard’s to catch The Small Stars.

Imagine, if you will, seven caricatures from some cheesy out of the way casino/lounge act in Reno, Nevada and you will begin to understand what The Small Stars are all about.

It’s pure “shtick” and they do it well. In fact, they do it VERY well. You see, they’re not just a bunch of hacks with a comedic idea, they are each skilled musicians and what they accomplish as an ensemble is nothing short of flabbergasting.

Featured in the band is Austin guitar legend Landis Armstrong (aka Richard Steele) from such noteworthy musical projects as McLemore Avenue and The El Orbits.

Cynthia jokingly suggests I have a big ole’ man crush on Landis. I suspect she’s right. He’s a nice guy and an amazing musician and whenever he performs in town I try to make it a point to go see him.

Oh Landis, if only someone could tame him…

The front man for The Small Stars goes by the stage name of Guy Fantasy. His real name is Miles Zuniga and is most famous for the song “The Way” he wrote and performed with the one hit wonder band Fastball in the 90’s. He’s incredibly funny and reminds me is subtle ways of a musical Bill Hicks.

On of the more entertaining characters is Vic Odin, the “manager” of the band who has some GREAT songs he sings and cracks me up when he’s running around the performance venue with his bullhorn.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Click any image to see a larger version

Lucky me!

When I go to the Houston Chronicle site to update The HelpLine Blog and I see that banner pictured above it’s like seeing my name in lights.

I was just browsing through the archives of my column and was amazed to realize I have been writing for the paper for almost 6 years now.

What an amazing experience the whole technology explosion has been for me. From my humble beginnings as a sales dweeb in the computer department at Best Buy over 11 years ago to working in the IT department of a huge software company today.

Along the way I have gotten to do cool things and meet amazing people.

When I was the operations manager at Neosoft many moons ago was when I first encountered technology columnist Dwight Silverman. Dwight was the original HelpLine columnist for the Houston Chronicle.

Technology Bytes was still in it’s infancy and Dwight was an early adopter of residential ISDN. I had many opportunities to sit on the phone and go over the configuration of his Pipeline 25 whenever his Internet connection would drop. Over a short time we developed a rapport and he even wrote a very nice article about the radio show for the Chronicle which gave us a much needed push in listenership back in those formative years.

I moved on from Neosoft in 1999 but did not lose touch with Dwight. He guest hosted on the show every now and then and in 2000 he informed me that he was getting promoted at the newspaper and would be giving up the HelpLine column.

The story on how I came to take over the column varies depending on whether you talk to me or talk to Dwight.

My recollection is that Dwight didn’t even offer me the opportunity to apply for the position. When I suggested the idea to him I seem to recall him dismissing it rather out of hand, citing my lack of journalism credentials. In my mind I pushed the issue and was granted the opportunity to write a test column to be reviewed by his editor and they would consider my application. It was none-too-encouraging, but my desire to be a media-whore was strong.

I took the time to find the original e-mail exchange. This is the response I sent to Dwight when he announced his moving on to other things at the Chronicle:

To: Dwight Silverman
From: JLee
Subject: Re: The times, they are a’changin’ (was Re: Tech Bytes)
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Eudora-Signature:

Wow….big changes!

Maybe I should apply as your replacement…

At 09:26 PM 08/21/2000 -0500, you wrote:

Jay –

You may be interested in this note I’m sending out to my sources…

Effective Monday, Aug. 28, I will no longer be covering business technology for the Houston Chronicle. Instead, I am taking on the job of Web Development Editor for HoustonChronicle.com, the newspaper’s Web site….*snip*

And this was his reply:

To: “Dwight Silverman”
From: JLee
Subject: Re: The times, they are a’changin’ (was Re: Tech Bytes)
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Eudora-Signature:

Ha! Maybe you should! Got a journalism degree?

At any rate, I applied and Dwight ended up helping me quite a bit with my first efforts at writing the column. In the end the position was offered to me and I accepted.

Things have evolved over the years. The HelpLine column is now an almost daily blog and remains a weekly feature in the business section of the paper on Tuesdays. It used to be Wednesdays, same as the radio show which made Wednesday Jay Lee Day for awhile, or so I dubbed it when Andrea declared that nothing important or entertaining happened on Wednesdays.

Now Dwight is a regular on the program and we’re going stronger than ever as the show approaches it’s 11th anniversary in June.

I just love being a geek and getting to do what I do.

So very tired…

Last night was the final fund-raising episode of Technology Bytes for this pledge drive. We did very well. Three shows during the run and we exceeded our overall goal for the drive. Last night was not looking like it was going to be a success until the very end. Our goal was $2280 and I just rounded it up to $2300 and pushed for that. About 1 hour and 15 minutes into our two hour slot we were hovering around $400/$500. Needless to say, I was sweating it. We kept pushing and pushing and in the final minutes of the show we went up over $2400. Whew!

After nearly 11 years on the air with this program I am still amazed at the support we get, even if our listeners like to make us stress till the last minute.

Speaking of support for the show, one of the best comments from a listener/subscriber was “Appreciates Jay’s subtle gay humor” which came after we were razzing Smiley who was our off air coordinator for the fundraiser. He’s an unabashedly flaming individual. The subscriber who made the comment was quick to point out that he is also gay.

For some reason members of the gay and lesbian community seem to like Technology Bytes. We get on air mentions from the Gay and Lesbian Voices program on occasion and even Ray Hill, Houston’s most famous gay man, never hesitates to drop a kind word about what we do. Perhaps there is a solidarity between our two social groups due to our shared ostrisization. I like to think that, in our own way, we are activists for a good cause and that is the reason for the good will from such a diverse group.

In other Technology Bytes news, GroovehouseÂ has joined the crew to answer phones and screen calls to be on the air.Â So far, so good. He’s been in the control booth with PhliktidÂ for the last two shows. We’ll see how he holds up after we banish him to the phone room of isolation…

Next week we get back to our normal routine. It’s always good to get the support but I like just doing a normal two hour show withouth the added pressure of fundraising.