The day got started slowly. Billy went to buy Einstein bagels and then to play pickle ball while Elaine, Suzette, and I ate lox and bagels with onion and cream cheese and cucumber slices. When Billy returned he joined us and gave me my birthday card and present, which was a large Manila envelope of original artwork for greeting cards Audrey had made for Hallmark cards. Audrey trained as an artist and married Ben Johnson Jr. and they live in St. Louis. Audrey is about fifteen years older than me. I loved the card art, each of which is a little gem. Here are some pictures. Audrey has an acerbic sense of humor that sees both the good and bad in everything at the same time which is probably why she was so successful in creating what we call humorous greeting cards.
After we looked at the greeting cards Billy and I called Audrey and had a nice telephone conversation, but discovered that she was afflicted with progressive cancer and Hart’s disease and Rusty was in even worse shape, afflicted with low lung function and pneumonia. Audrey said she had turned her studio into a bedroom because she could no longer climb the stairs, which means she no longer can see or hello her husband. They have home health care. Audrey said, “Rusty is not doing well” in a way that sounded particularly ominous. As always she was the happiest sounding person I ever met, even on the verge of death. I love her very much, perhaps because she loved our mother very much.
One of the reasons she loved Mother she said was when she was young, mother had bought her a lovely bathing suit. Audrey’s mother was my father’s older sister and raised in the staid Texas conservative tradition and did not consider it appropriate to wear a revealing bathing suit. But Mother had grown up and been a model in New York, exposed to the most progressive social circles including such luminaries as Christopher Morley and Buckminster Fuller, and the Algonquin Round Table and dated international Jewish Playboys, so she was aware of fashion. Audrey must expressed an artistic free spirit and Mother and Audrey must have shared a special bond in Fort Worth, Texas in the 40’s and early 50’s. So mother must have helped transmit some of her fashion knowledge to Audrey and bought her clothes that Audrey’s mother, Lillian would not.
It was wonderful talking to Audrey as always, even in such sad circumstances. We then tried to called her older sister, Anne, but could not reach her.
At noon Elaine went to swim and Billy drove us to Central Market to pick up an order of wine. He had ordered 6 bottles each of Champ de Reves Anderson Valley Pinot Noir and Lucienne 2016 Smith Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Hills that we’re ready to pick up. I saw a bottle of Aix Cotes de Provence rose that I bought and Billy bought a lime and cilantro for his beans.
We returned at 1:40 and Elaine arrived a few minutes later and we drove to Nate’s on Midway in Addison to eat lunch and watch the Women’s World Cup semifinal match between The Netherlands and Sweden. I love Nate’s it is a wonderful combination of a neighborhood bar and a good seafood restaurant. As soon as we got them to change the channel to the soccer match and sat down in a small alcove of tables and chairs beside the huge u shaped bar a lady came by a deposited three Miller High Lites compliments of the local distributor.
Suzette and I immediately ordered a dozen fresh oysters on the half shell. We all ordered Negra Modelos and Billy and Elaine examined the menu. Billy settled on a dozen fried oysters with French fries and a Elaine ordered seafood gumbo. The gumbo was a dark roux gumbo that I would call black roux. Elaine shared it. It was delicious and served with a bowl of rice, so quite filling. The oysters were so plump and fresh, we consumed the first dozen quickly and ordered another dozen.
across the street from Billy and Elaine’s favorite Italian grocery store Jimmie’s on Fitzhugh between
the Central Expressway and Fair Park, where the festival was being held.
The restaurant was of a rather sleek industrial minimalist design, which is popular now. We sat at a high long table, that could also be described as a counter, on metal bar stools. Here are some pictures.
The restaurant is owned by a Laotian chef and the menu is all updated and tweaked Traditional Laos dishes. Our waitress guided us through the menu, although we didn’t need much assistance because we ordered almost every item on the menu. We ordered four of the five noodle bowls and almost every side dish that presented the restaurant and Laos’ wide array of ingredients and cooking and prep techniques I assume .we started with Shrimp and vermicelli filled fried egg rolls that were exactly like the kind served in Vietnamese restaurants except for the small shallow metal bowl of a style of nam prik hot sauce flavored with vinegar and fish sauce I had never encountered before that I liked very much.
Suzette’s fermented bowl with taro root
The lovely pork balls
The kitchen
Trying to teach Billy to use chopsticks
The Laotian sausages
Next came our noodle bowls, each an exquisitely presented tableau of color and ingredients. My
bowl, named sukiyaki contained cellophane noodles cooked to order laid on a sauce with small chunks of beef and garnished on top with a piece of savoy cabbage leaf, a small slice of beef in sauce, a raw quail egg and one half of a fish ball. Quite lovely. I mixed the quail egg with the sauce in the bottom to sauce the entire small pile of noodles and scooped up the remaining beef and sauce with a spoon. The other three bowls were equally interesting. I tasted Suzette’s bowl of noodles served in a broth of fermented black soy beans that tasted very different from my noodle dish.
After we finished our noodle bowls Elaine said, “Let’s order some sticky rice.” So we did. I was really sticky to the point of being semi-rigid and served on a piece of food service paper and banana leave in a woven bamboo covered jar.
The waitress recommended ordering an eggplant and tomato sauce to eat with the sticky rice , which we did and enjoyed very much the slightly bitter Fish sauce flavor of the eggplant . I also added some vinegar and crushed roasted garlic to my pile of sticky rice.
Finely about 7:30 we finished the last of the sticky rice and peas paid the bill and drove to the concert venue at the Dos Equis Pavillon at Fair Park. The concert was produced by Live Nation which sits at the pinnacle of concert production companies in America. Everything was streamlined to the max, so that it was easy to get through security and the ticket takers were all electrified, so all you had to do
was swipe your tickets on your phone.
Then inside we were confronted by an array of beer and beverage stands customized to deliver a neat package of prepared food or large 20 or 24 oz. cans of beer. I bought a large can of Shiner Bock beer for $15.00. We then went to our reserved seats, which were right in front of the stage beside the fenced off light and sound boards and filming area. The venue and arrangements were perfect including a Live Nation employee assigned to our area who assisted with seating. The row
designations were confusing and there were folks sitting our seats, but the Live Nation lady stepped up and showed the folks to their assigned seats. Removing all hassles seems to be the Live Nation mantra. A practical illustration of how technology and proper management has eliminated one of the most chaotic social events of the 60’s and 70’s to just another amazingly well organized multinational company. I tried my hand at concert production in the 60’s and 70’s and can attest to its chaotic nature. The success of Live Nation has been built on the integration of all the disparate elements of concert production that existed into a vertically and horizontally integrated conglomerate, starting with ticket sales and advertising all the way through food and beverage, booking acts and tours and owning or controlling venues.
It runs a lot more smoothly when you control all aspects of an operation. Think of Apple meeting all
of our disparate ways of communicating and sharing information and apply it to live entertainment.
For example, I felt a little more secure when Billy was forced to take a can of mace he was carrying in his backpack back to the car, when it was searched by security at the gate.
When we got seated Nathanial Ratcliff and the night sweats were playing on the stage about 200 yards away from us. We were in the second seated area at stage center in $100 seats but in the rest of
the area between the seats and the stage was an open “standing area”with thousands of standing,
jumping, dancing people. Behind us was an elevated grassy amphitheater lawn area were thousands more sat. I guess it was a 20,,000 to 40,000 person capacity venue and the gate for the event was $2,000,000 to $3,000,000, and there were no visible incidents to alter the positive vibe.
Willy Nelson came on the stage at 9:45, just as the advertised schedule said he would and played continuously until 11:00. He was just as real and powerful a performer at 86 as he was 49 years ago when I first saw him in Austin when he moved back to Texas from Nashville in the summer of 1970. He was the only one who sang and played the guitar on stage with his five piece band.
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| Willie’s hand |
Our view of the stage
The weather was perfect, temp in the high 80’s with a cooling breeze.
This was one of the best birthdays ever.
Bon Appetit
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