Houston – Page 22 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Art Car Ball 2006

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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/

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

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.

Schmoozing

Hangin’ with celebrities…

Tonight I raced to hang out with THE amazing duo of Dekan and Carrie Ringwald…

…oh, and some guy named Uchena and his wife, Joyce.

The end of an era

Kaveh Kanes is closed.

This is a sadness.

Technology Bytes has hosted our monthly geek gathering there since March of 2002. It was the scene of our 10th anniversary party featuring Drop Trio. It was the only place downtown to grab a good cup of coffee and have some relaxing wi-fi. The space was just COOL!

GAH!!!!

There’s a rumor that two long term employees may re-open it. One can only hope.

In the meantime we need an alternate location for the January geek gathering.
Maybe Cafe Artiste.

Metroblogging

I was invited (via Katie) to participate in the Houston arm of the Metroblogging project.

What is Metroblogging?

With almost 40 active sites, Metroblogging is the largest and fastest growing network of city-specific blogs on the Web. From San Francisco to Bangkok, from Karachi to Toronto, Metblogs are a hyper-local look at what’s going on in the city. Our hand-picked core of regional bloggers give each site a new perspective on daily life; less calendar listings, more friendly advice. With Metblogs, you can read about life and times in your neighborhood, your favorite places to visit, places where you’ve never been, or get a feel for them all with the daily “best of” blog on the hub at metroblogging.com.

This from Wikipedia:

Metroblogging is an online local media project founded and owned by Sean Bonner and Jason DeFillippo. Started in Los Angeles in November 2003, the project currently includes 33 city-specific blogs around the world making it the largest location based network. Contributors include Xeni Jardin and Wil Wheaton (Los Angeles), Johannes Grenzfurthner (Vienna), and Joi Ito (Tokyo).

The Metroblogging network was recently voted into Forbes Magazine’s Best of the Web and has been quoted in and written about by various media – such as USA Today and Tagesschau. Parts of Metroblogging are also in Technorati’s “Popular blogs” list (the Top 100), which is measured by link popularity among the blogosphere.

Basically, Katie is my editor. I have not yet been granted an account on the site so I send my Houston specific posts to her for inclusion at Houston Metblogs. With all of my other projects/responsibilities I can’t dedicate too much time to it but it’s nice to be invited.

There are some good writers there and based on my log files the site gets a fair amount of traffic so it’s only going to add awareness to my other projects, plus it’s a chance to extend my writing even further.

Perhaps as time allows I will be able to contribute more to the project.