Rob the Fiddler

So the Boys Named Sue were hired to play a wedding in Marfa, Tx.
Marfa is a LONG ways away so it was easily the longest road trip we have taken. Its difficult enough just to get the band to play outside of 635. The trip down was pretty brutal. We were supposed to leave Dubs at 10am, but with all the delays and whatnot…we left Dallas around 1:45. Typical.
Snakebite couldn’t make the trip, so we had the help of “Party Cove Sue” to help us out.

Dirty!

Dub has a new GPS in his car so I got to mess with that. We spent the first hour debating if it was a better idea to follow the directions or just take 20 most of the way. Come Abilene, we opted to follow the computer…which was probably the fastest. For the next 300 miles of hwy 67, we probably saw 20 cars total. Go technology.

The first highlight of the trip was when we hit the Comanche springs restaurant in Fort Stockton. Its main attraction is the Big Chef Sitting Bull burger. It serves 4 to 6 people and is FREE if you eat it (with fries) in an hour.

Dub had to give it a try. Mostly because he had a cousin (Kegman) who had made an excellent run at it a year or so before. Our waitress seriously tried to talk him out of it. Dub insisted. John even got some footage of them making the burger in the kitchen. When it came out…DANG..check this out

Here is the burger against a 1/4 lb burger!!!!

Party Cove just looks ill.

He had a go at it..but didn’t finish it. Luckily the motel had a mini fridge so we could keep it around and take bites over the weekend. (Yuck)

We pulled into Marfa around 11:30pm. After unloading the truck, it was closing time for the bar, but most of the wedding party was still loitering in the Thunderbird parking lot. I retired early, while the rest of the band went with the remaining wedding party to try and see the marfa lights.

We started the next day with pizza from Pizza Foundation.

It was some EXCELLENT pizza. I highly recommend it.

I walked around town a bit after, but I cant say that Marfa did much for me. The town is kinda like a Texas version of Aspen…but without 98% of the high dollar amenities. I looked at the pictures on the real estate office…most places were 150k to start (for shacks.)
Tons of art galleries…but the restaurants were modest. ( A good thing) Food was certainly good, but homey. Lots of people walking around with cell phones and yet, no Starbucks. The only retail coffee was at the gas station. Its a unique place. Maybe the best way to describe it is a place for rich Dallasites to go, but where they seem to be happy NOT bringing all that Dallas crap with them. (Just the cell phones and laptops…gotta tell everybody where you are at right?)

The weather and view is breathtaking. I hope to go back so I can see Big Bend.

The Wedding reception was a blast. We got fed the most amazing food. Quail (deboned!), Lobster, Pork and beef tenderloin (OH GOD!!! IT WAS AMAZING) and a most stellar Gumbo. The groom’s family are in the food biz…so that was an important part of the party…and spared no expense.

I was fascinated by all the candles.

the venue was pretty nice. Apparently Sonic Youth played there a year ago. We where told this many times. Yo La Tango was going to be there in a month. Did I mention that the town was filled with hipsters?

We dreaded Sunday’s drive back to Dallas. Amazingly, we got out of town by noon. We had quick stop at Alpine for food and a picture op at Jackassic Park.

Im in Tulsa now for a quick little roadtrip. I had hoped to take a few of these while I had the break.

This weekend is the Claremore Bluegrass and Chili festival. I’ve heard of this a few times over the years. This year the headliners are Tony Rice, Russell Moore and IIIrd time out, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver as well as Dan Tyminski (the singing voice of George Clooney in “Brother Where Art Thou”).

Unfortunately, Tony Rice…the guy I wanted to see the most, had to cancel due to Hurricane Gustav. (?? I’m not sure why…but whatever). His backup band, Mountain Heart, is usually a headliner anyway so they just played a longer set. The sound was excellent.

I didn’t find much jamming last night…but it was a Thursday. Bluegrass festivals in Texas/OK are much
different than the ones I’m used to in California. Out in California, the shows start Friday night and continue on until Sunday finishing with a gospel set and a few more winding down acts in the afternoon while folks procrastinate between packing up or having a few last beers.

Out here, the shows start on Thursday and are done Saturday night. I guess folks need to get back to church.
Bluegrass festivals are largely alcohol free as opposed to the “Texas Music” festivals like Larry Joes. Note that even the beer soaked festivals don’t have shows on Sundays. The two groups don’t seem to mix much.

Tonight should be pretty good. I hope to find a little more jamming…I’m kinda selective about thegroups I play bluegrass with. I like them to be better than me.

Tulsa is kinda neat. Its definitely an oil town. There are two refineries smack dab in the city center. Doesn’t seem to make gas any cheaper.

There are tons of neat motels on route 66 that herald a day when all you needed was a 15 foot blue whale in front of your motel to get customers to stop and stay. Thats WAAAY better than free wi-fi. Lots of neat old signs.

Downtown has a ton of older buildings. Very Art Deco.

I drove around a bit. There are plenty of independent coffee shops and art stores.

I read about one part called the Brookside district. Its supposed to be hip and trendy. Coming from Dallas that reads “New Urbanism“…blech. In reality, it looked like an older neighborhood like Lower Greenville in the 1980’s. Hope it stays like that and doesn’t end up like 2008 Lower Greenville.

There are a lot of pottery shops too. Guess with all these artists, the coffee shop I’m at got a deal on custom coffee cups.

I had hoped to drop by the Mercury Lounge too to say hello. The Sues had a gig booked there a year ago that was cancelled by the booking agent. Unfortunately, it was one of those situations where the disgruntled booking agent cancelled the acts and didnt tell the club. We are still on the website as a featured band…but have never played there.  The least I could do is step foot in it for a minute or two.

Came across Wu-mart.  Its like Walmart, only they dont pretend everything is made from China.

Actually, many stores here carry the “Great Value” brand. Im kinda confused if they are a competitor or what?

Its been fun eating here. I hope I didn’t end up with any food issues. I generally stuck to places that outwardly looked pretty clean. I only ate from a street vendor once, and the food was in a boiling broth. It was duck blood on a stick, so it couldn’t of been that bad.

Some of the more notable dishes I had were found in an area North of center by the Drum and Bell tower. This was one of the more interesting parts of town. I did not see any tour groups which was a start.

Probably the best wings I ever ate were found here on Gulou Dongdajie (1 km SW of Andingmen station where Nan Luoguxiang drops out). The menu had them billed as chicken “Swings”. I was just going to look at the menu but was swiftly sat at a seat. The swings were grilled on skewers as were the shrimps and mushrooms wrapped in tofu noodles. A good snack at 28 RMB.

Another cheap and tasty surprise was a Shaanxi restaurant on Dianmen Dongdajie (55-2) where Beiheyan Dajie intersects it. (1km NE of JingShan park). CHEAP eats. Jia Mo is the first thing on the menu. Its what they called a hamburger, but its a thick unleavened bread bun (like nan guess), crispy and filled with shredded pork. 7 RMB. A big bowl of homemade noodles was 12 RMB. Total bill under 3 bucks for a meal that lasted me till breakfast. Shaanxi is the breadbasket of China and most everything is wheat based. Noodles and breads. Many items were vegetarian too.

The last day of work, we were taken to another hotpot. This one was very good. The service was amazing. Again, I got to try duck blood and esophagus. This is easier to eat than it sounds. We also had noodles made fresh right at our table. It was a fairly athletic display.

The spiciest thing I ever ate was at this place north of the 3^rd ring just off of Andingenmen. Im not really sure where it was. It was not HOT hot, more of a continuous simmer really. The kicker was the fennel. You know that bowl of fennel seeds you chew on when you leave an Indian restaurant? There is that crunchy stuck in your teeth texure. This dish had it.

Fennel, Red pepper and sesame. On a bed of Cilantro for good measure. Very crunchy texture.

In addition to that dish I ordered what I thought was minced pork and green beans. This was my safe dish. Nope, these were not green beans…but peppers. Again, it was not like stupid hot, but the spice content was a little over the top.

I had seen a few posters in the music stores for Bowling for Soup. In fact, they were the only American band that I ever saw a poster for.  They were getting good promotions for their new album.  The music stores catagorize pop music a little differently here. First by country (China, Japan, Korea, other, US+Uk) then for each of those it goes bands, songstressess and finally male singers. 

Turns out that Bowling for Soup had a show on Sat.  I was not sure if I could rock-star my way into it as there was a considerable language barrier, but that whole crowd are best friends with Elijah. I had set out for the day early on…so it turned out there was a ticket arranged for me at will call, but I didnt hear about it until I got home. Nuts.

Still, the best part was seeing a two story high poster of Bowling for Soup. As I walked around the building I was eyed eagerly as a potential member. I could see a lot of puzzled looked as they where discussing if I could be one of the members.

The weekend had some of the best walking.  If your ever in Beijing and are looking for some off the beaten path adventures…this is what I did.

First I went to the zoo to see the Pandas. Its a big zoo, but you can cover what you want quickly. 

Go to the subway and take line two to Guloudajie.  This is the station just north of HouHai and the Bell and Drum Tower.  YOu can walk past all the Hutongs till you get to the tower. Its a steep stair climb.  From there, go due east on Gulou Dong Dajie.  (the names are easier than you thing.) It went on for what seemed a mile and a half of endless stores. Much more interesting as in kitchy. Some live music venues. Tons of places to eat and about 20 music stores.

When you hit Andingenmen, go north to the gate (subway). Again, its a much more interesting stretch of road. Tons of smells, tastes, sights.

Sunday I hit the Dazhalan area. This was even better. I had planned to see the Tongrentang. Its a herbal drugstore that has been in the same address for 300 years.  It was several stories and had all the deer heads, $100000 Ginsing roots and jars of whatever that you would expect to see. They had an exchange center and several payment windows too. They were not too keen on the pictures though.

This is the street where you will find your cheapest jade or jade-like materials. Dirt cheap. Is it jade…dunno. Prices were all over the place, but there was a gift for every budget.

The most exciting part was when I headed due west into the Hutongs. Its a whole different world. You have to just pick an alley and get lost. Tiny alleys with small stalls are dotted with random businesses, bakers, snack vendors, internet cafes and people just doing whatever they do. Its not uncommon to be going down a dark alley and peer into a door that houses a modern pharmacy. Plenty of toilets too. It was just neat!

Tonight I went to the Yaxiu market.  It this point im not probibly going to buy anything. Im not too impressed by the clothing and the watches are not all that good. There are a few more locals at this market it seems, but for the most part its all same stuff.  One lady started her pitch for a watch (Rolex) at 550 Yuan.  Her “no scratch” test on the face with a plastic tool was unimpressive. Still, it was actually a better place than the silk market.  I was interested in a green laser
that was REALLY powerful.  Ill bet its probibly illegal in the states. Seemed kinda dangerous.

When I got to the center, a lady approached me with a secret stash of something. “Socks?”

Hmmm. Five feet later another lady came up to me with the same product. “Socks!!! Good ones! Cheap”.

Again, it was getting late so I ran up to the food court to get some grub before closing time. More Korean stone pot. Its like thats the hamburger of the east. This pepper beef thing looked pretty good, but it was hard to tell what it really was since the display was plastic. The vendor insisted that it was very good…then he looked at the display in a very surprised manner. There was some yelling in the back and forth until a fake plastic egg (sunny side up) was tossed to the front and slapped on the display.  That clenched the deal!

All the beef out here has been processed a strange way though. Its all very tender, but Jeffery says its been treated a bit with baking soda to soften it up. I dont suppose it could hurt me to eat it a few times…but Ill start to avoid beef. Actually, you dont see a lot of beef around here. At least the ribeyes, sirloins, roasts and prime stuff. Organ meats, tendons and this processed skirt is plentiful. Im sure its all availible…just higher end.

Oh…and I saw that dish I ordered before. It was pig liver, not beef liver. Upon leaving the store I was attacked by more ladies selling socks.