Hungover With Chuck

Okay, so yeah it’s a week into the month and yes I am finally getting around to doing this. What can I say, my choices were sit at the keyboard and write or go out to the lake and drink for a few days, so here we are a week into October...
After reading Velton's piece Barflies on a Budget it made me think back how many times have I woke up broke and hungover? What's worse is over the course of my drunken evening I had made plans for the next day with god knows how many people to do several things all of which I had non sufficient funds to participate. So I am going to throw everyone a bone that very little people know about. Sundays only during football season Rick O'Sheas opens @ Noon for football. They have been doing this for about five years now during football season, but this is not the miracle. Danny Baran sets up the sweetest hotdog bar. Want a chicagodog, its there. Chili cheese dog? Yup and plenty of combinations in between. This is still not the miracle. Hotdogs are $1. You read that correctly, if you are Cartman that's a hundred pennies of Kyle's money you can roll around in or getcha a dog and watch some football. All that and they have $2.50 domestics on Sundays. You can even live the High Life and go cheaper. The miracle is this. You wake up on a Sunday morning hungover and starving with maybe $20 in your pocket, they've got you covered for your football-watching afternoon. Need a place for you and your friends to watch the game and you don't have money or time for "brunch?" They've got you covered... Food, beer, and football. Rick O'Sheas has the Sunday ticket to boot so those pesky out of region games are there for you. There, I did my good deed for the month, now I must go back out to my cave and ponder the election. Gotta get pretty hammered to vote at all in this one and it will be interesting to see who I voted for once I have sobered up. For more info on Rick O'Sheas check out www.rickosheaspub.com
If you have a place that you go to nurse your hangover I am very interested in hearing about it. Don't leave the house and have a recipe that cures what ails ya? I would love to hear that too. Email me crbecknell@yahoo.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE PIT BARBEQUE
It's Time For Some Good Ol' R&B!

By Velton Hayworth

That's right, ribs and beer, and maybe some rhythm and blues depending on the night. After years as a waitress Sammie Gathings purchased The Pit from the previous owner in 1948. The Pit was family owned and operated until a few years back when Robert Gathings (Sammie's son) decided to get out of the BBQ business and become a landlord. Since that time we have seen many restaurants come and go including BBQ, Mexican food, and a bistro--all different owners, all failed. Robert eventually got tired of being a rent collector and decided to reopen The Pit and start serving all the original family recipes.  Aaaaah, lucky me!  Now my belly is filled with melt-in-your-mouth ribs (voted best ribs by Fort Worth Weekly) on a regular basis.  One thing that is not original is the newly constructed outdoor music stage--generously donated by the Teaugue Lumber Company, and the perfect addition for enjoying the beautiful Texas fall. The music flows five nights a week, including a Tuesday night jam session, and varies from rock to country to blues to R & B and rockabilly. There is never a cover at The Pit, so come on out and grab some ribs and homemade onion rings and chase them with a cold beer on the patio. Don't like beer? You're in luck.  The Pit has a great wine selection; just bring your own cheese plate.  And by the way The Pit is currently looking for bands for October and November. If you are interested call 817.332.7488 between 2 – 5 pm and ask for Brandon.

702 North Henderson Street / Jacksboro Highway / Fort Worth, Texas 76107

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY 30 YEARS IN THE FORT 

By Ken Shimamoto 

Lately, life seems to be full of reminders that “You’ve lived a long time.” It’s been ten years now since doctors and cops started looking like children to me. Next month, it’ll be 30 years since I first came to Fort Worth, to open a record store on Camp Bowie Blvd. (As the cliché goes, “I wasn’t born here, but I got here as fast as I could.”) A lot has changed since then. My first weekend here, I went to the Albertson’s on Camp Bowie to buy a dozen eggs and a frying pan. The cashier told me, “I can sell you the eggs, but not the frying pan.” Since then, they’ve repealed the blue laws here, but you still can’t buy beer or wine at the market until after noon on Sundays. 

The first place I lived in Fort Worth was a red brick apartment complex on Winthrop, in the shadow of Ridglea Bank. Since then, those have been torn down and replaced by public housing. My apartment looked like it had formerly been two apartments; although ridiculously small, it had seven rooms. I had a mattress and a wooden crate I used as a night table. Talk about your “Seven Rooms of Gloom!” I remember walking from there to the Ridglea Theater through freezing rain to see, um, Superman. 

On New Year’s Eve 1978, I was driving to Dallas when an ice storm started, the kind where the water freezes as it hits your windshield and it’s impossible to melt with your windshield defroster. As I crept along I-30 at a snail’s pace with my head out the window trying to see, it occurred to me that a friend and coworker who’d come with me from Dallas to open the store lived nearby. I exited at Merrick Street and made my way to Stuart’s crib, the bottom floor of an old (vintage 1911) house at the corner of Collinwood and Sanguinet (now replaced by condos). I wound up staying there until I left for Austin the following summer, sleeping in the unheated porch in my rated-to-20-below down sleeping bag. Saturday mornings, we used to check to see if any drunks from the Showdown had plowed through the hedges outside. 

When I got back from various misadventures in Austin and Colorado in February 1980, I moved into a duplex on Templeton, off 5th Street near University, just down the street from what’s now Gallery 414. It had gas heaters I was afraid to use, so when it was cold, I’d get in bed wearing every stitch of clothing I owned and shiver myself to sleep. When it got hot, there was no AC and the windows were painted shut. If Dan Lightner hadn’t brought me an electric fan, I’d have died. As it was, I’d sit in front of the fan until I’d sweated out nearly every molecule of moisture from my system, then I’d walk three blocks to 7-Eleven to buy more cigarettes, Gatorade, and beer. 

The two guys who lived on the other side of the duplex were truck drivers and were always offering me stuff they’d stolen. One night I heard the guy who lived in the house on the other side, who’d apparently run afoul of some merciless people, pleading for his life. The next day, he and his family had vanished without a trace. I finally moved out when I came back from a trip to Austin and the toilet started shooting water out of the tank. Because I was too stupid to know how to turn off the water and my landlady said she’d send her son to deal with it “later,” I got in my car and went to spend the night at the Rio Motel on Camp Bowie.  

The next day, I got off work and went back to the apartment. My landlady’s son apparently still hadn’t been there, because water was still shooting out of the toilet and the place was like a swamp. I threw all my worldly possessions in the trunk of my car (I could still do that back then) and headed for another motel, on Las Vegas Trail this time. I wound up moving into an apartment in the 2800 block of the LVT and when I got my license suspended for a DUI, my future ex-wife would come from her parents’ house in Benbrook and pick me up on the way to the store on Camp Bowie where we both worked.  

The guy in the apartment next door used to beat the shit out of his girlfriend. One night I was going downstairs to use the phone and encountered the two of them on the landing, where he was in the process of throwing out all of her clothes. She kept throwing dimes at me and telling me to call the police. 

I remember the day John Lennon was shot: I woke myself up by spilling a glass of water on my head just as the radio kicked on with the story of his murder. On the way out of the complex that morning, we noticed that someone had burned the apartment office during the night. 

We eventually moved into a house on West Gambrell near Seminary Drive. We lived there until the company I was working for (another record chain) moved me to Memphis to open yet another store. Things went south there fast and I got shitcanned after somebody hit the till on my shift and the manager needed someone to blame. We wound up staying at my future ex’s in Benbrook until I enlisted in the Air Force, figuring that our first baby was on the way in six months and we were going to need medical insurance. My future ex moved in with her grandparents, who lived on Southwest Blvd near the Weatherford traffic circle, and I went off to basic training, tech school, and Korea. 

Two of my children were born in the hospital at Carswell, which is now a women’s prison. I got home when our oldest was eleven months old and she walked for the first time a week later. The first night I was “back in the world,” I carried her outside to show her the moon and she said, “Moon.” We wound up living in a little shitbox house off 377, between the Weatherford traffic circle and Benbrook. The people next door raised goats. One day, a balloonist set down in the field of what’s now Leonard 6th Grade Center and all the neighborhood kids got a thrill out of running down there to check it out. 

After Carswell, I was stationed in Abilene and Louisiana for a few years, but when we came back, we wound up living in a house in Benbrook that was built on top of a landfill and had a lot of foundation problems. The neighborhood was notorious for it, in fact.  

When my future ex and I split up, I moved into an apartment near our old house off 377 that I called “Hell.” I’d sit at home when I wasn’t working, drinking whiskey and listening to the couple upstairs having noisy sex. When I used to go running in the neighborhood, I’d find used syringes and burnt spoons on a nearby corner. My ex’s best friend lived in the same complex and had her car bombed once. Eventually the noisy-sex couple moved out and were replaced by a guy who introduced himself to me by saying, “I’m not a child molester.” He used to like singing along with his Whitney Houston records at 3 in the morning. When I’d go up to complain, he’d be extra super double respectful, then as soon as he couldn’t see me (literally two seconds later), I’d hear him muttering, “Fuck you, motherfucker.” Then there was the time the scary Viet vet guy with the crossbow had a face-off with the guy across the way with the shotgun while I was on my way back from the laundry room. Good times. 

I moved from there into what my daughter called the “divorced dad apartments” in Benbrook, also off 377. The landlord was a large animal veterinarian who used to take care of Nolan Ryan’s horses. His office was right next door. One night a hog was giving birth and it sounded like a slaughterhouse. The lady next door was an LPN who was always giving me fruit and hamster cages. The kid who lived with his mom downstairs was always practicing Soundgarden’s “Spoon Man” on the bass. I retaliated by practicing Captain Beefheart solo guitar pieces. In the summertime, there was a snow cone place in the parking lot across the street where I used to take my kids. 

In 1997, my middle daughter found me another duplex in Benbrook, which coincidentally happened to be next door to her then-best friend, and she moved in with me a couple of years after that. We had two cats and a cat box that smelled, my wife now says, “like the Earth’s entire supply of ammonia.” That was the place where, while scribing for the FW Weekly after getting shitcanned from my high-dollar corporate gig at RadioShack, my daughter says I put on 40 pounds “because you spent a year sitting on your ass 25 feet from the refrigerator.”  

While I sold off all my records, books, and musical equipment to pay my child support, I subsisted on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches, hotdogs, tortilla chips and Albertson’s pico de gallo. My children knew I was seeing my wife even before I introduced her to them because suddenly, there was fresh food in my refrigerator. At first, she was known to them as “The Fresh Food Lady.” While I was on the road with Nathan Brown in 2003, she, my daughter, and my daughter’s best friend cleaned and decorated the carport. When I got back, it was the homiest I’d felt in years. 

We moved into our current home in Arlington Heights in the spring of 2004 and were married in 2005. We like our neighborhood a lot and plan to stay here for the rest of our lives. Anytime there have been big changes in my life – when I got out of the service, when I got divorced, when I lost my job – people I grew up with in New York have asked me, “So, when are you coming back?” I tell them, “You must be out of your mind! This is home now.” And it is. I’ve spent more than half of my life here. So there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JAZZ BY THE BOULEVARD 

By Ken Shimamoto 

fortworthjazz.com 

You’ve gotta hand it to the smiling folks at Camp Bowie District, Inc., producers of that annual late-September event, Jazz By the Boulevard. Each year since its inception, the fest has grown in scale and scope, attracting marquee talent -- usually in more of a smoove “jazz” vein than some of us would like, but that’s just crabbing. Having large dollar sponsors like Cadillac, Coors, and, um, Chesapeake Energy can’t hurt. Oh, and by the way – it’s free. The weather this weekend promises to be favorable, too – sunny with highs in the mid-80s. Yeah! 

Friday night’s headliner is Buddy Guy, almost the last of the great Chicago bluesmen, who’s graced stages like Caravan of Dreams’ and Main Street Arts Festival’s in years gone by. He hits at 9:45pm, preceded by flautist Dave Valentin, who’s known for a string of albs on GRP. The act I’m more interested in hearing, though, hits at 6:30pm: tenor saxophonist Mario Cruz, a Fort Worth native just returned from the Big Apple who threatened to blow the roof off Sardines during Johnny Case’s recent 25th anniversary bash there. 

Saturday’s headliner, guitarist Lee Ritenour, is considerably less interesting to this crusty old curmudgeon than the act that precedes him (at 7:45pm): Nawlins expat Adonis Rose’s Fort Worth Jazz Orchestra, with guest artist, trumpeter Randy Brecker (who’s played rock in Dreams and funk in the Brecker Brothers with his late sibling Michael on tenor; I saw him back in ’74 when he was part of guitarist Larry Coryell’s fusion band Eleventh House). You might wanna show up earlier, though, to catch guitar-slinging rancher Tom Reynolds and moonlighting FW Symphony bassist Paul Unger doing their Django-inspahrd thang (12:30pm); the always-entertaining Mondo Drummers (1:30pm); and the aggregation of local “usual suspects” that gigs under the rubric Fifth Avenue Jazz Collective (4:30pm). 

On Sunday, alto saxophonist David Sanborn (whose tone is prolly etched on the synapses of anyone who watched Saturday Night Live and/or Late Night with David Letterman in the ‘80s. (He also hosted the worthwhile Night Music show in the ‘90s.) After the fest shuts down at 8pm, hardcore jazz aficionados can take a couple of hours to grab something to eat (maybe at Sardines?) before meandering over to Lola’s at 6th Street and Foch, where Dave Karnes and his crew will be holding forth, or the Scat Jazz Lounge downtown, where Quamon Fowler (whose quartet plays Jazz By the Boulevard at 3pm) hosts a jam.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CURLY’S CUSTARD 

By Ken Shimamoto 

It’s that time of year again, when triple-digit temperatures (even long after sunset) give way to something a little more tol’able. Kids are back in school, football season’s just starting, and my sweetie ‘n’ I can revive our custom of perambulating around Arlington Heights, enjoying the cool of the evening. 

A favored destination on these jaunts is Curly’s Custard, located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Camp Bowie, Clover Lane, and Crestline. (The street address is 4017 Camp Bowie.) Curly’s has been a neighborhood institution since 2002, in the same way as Blue Bonnet Bakery and Kincaid’s are. Their website hasn’t been updated in a couple of menu/façade changes, but you don’t need to see a menu to know what’s good. 

Curly’s “concretes” are like gelato or other high-end ice cream, without all the business of having someone manipulating it with their hands (the appeal of which I never got). You can get ‘em with fruit, nuts, or candy whipped in (like a Dairy Queen Blizzard on steroids), or in a sundae (my favorite is Death By Chocolate), but generally, a small (“kid’s”) portion is sufficient for we, as my sweetie ‘n’ I aren’t generally big dessert eaters. 

There are a few hot items on the menu as well, the 800-pound gorilla of which is the noble Hebrew National frank (best hot dogs in the world, made from 100% kosher beef). My sweetie likes hers with sauerkraut (the German Dog), while I prefer mine with just yellow mustard and diced onions. I haven’t mustered (heh heh) the courage to try a chili dog yet, because the seating is all on picnic tables and wooden benches, sans utensils, and I’m the kind of hot dog eater who tends to wind up wearing most of the chili. 

(Fondest Curly’s memory: Getting caught in a spring shower after ordering a couple of dogs, which we wound up consuming under the awning at The Look, which formerly had the location now occupied by Winslow’s.) 

The other reason to go to Curly’s is to observe the folks there, from the fresh-faced teens behind the counter to the neighborhood folks, young ‘n’ old, who congregate in the little patch of green in front of the service windows. (There’s a drive thru on the other side, but you’d be missing the best part of the experience.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FWSO PLAYS MAHLER 

By Ken Shimamoto 

www.fwsymphony.org 

Last year’s first installment of its three-year “Mahler Cycle” represented a high-water mark of sorts for Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s Fort Worth Symphony. One symphony muso remarked that the orchestra’s perfomance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was “the best we’ve ever played.” Perhaps that’s part of the reason why, while orchestras around the country are cutting back, the FWSO is actually adding chairs. 

This week, they perform the second installment, starting on Thursday with “The Man Behind the Music,” a multimedia evening presented by Prof. Carol Reynolds featuring selections from Mahler’s vocal works sung by mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzner. The orchestra performs Mahler’s Sixth (“Tragic”) Symphony on Friday, his Seventh Symphony on Saturday, and Second (“Resurrection”) Symphony (with Mentzner, soprano Jessica Rivera, and the Southwestern Seminary Master Chorale under the direction of David Thye) on Sunday. 

Single tickets start at $15 and are available online or by calling 817-665-6100. If you can’t make it to the Bass Hall, WRR 101.1FM will broadcast (and stream) Friday’s performance starting at 7:30pm.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kerry Dean’s El Heladero 

By Ken Shimamoto 

http://www.elheladero.com/ 

Coming off the peak of Darth Vato’s latest ‘n’ best ceedee Oh No, We’re Doing Great!, inspahrd by the biz model if not the music of Radiohead’s In Rainbows, DV frontman Kerry Dean booked a coupla days at Dallas’ Skyline Studios and laid down some song ideas he’d been kicking around for a few years. He’s made the 11 tracks of El Heladero (that’s “the ice cream man” en ingles) downloadable for free online, although physical copies are available for $12, and you’re welcome to donate to Kerry’s next project via Paypal if you dig it. While I’m hardly an early technology adopter and remain highly enamored of The Romance of the Artifact, I do notice that I’m downloading enough music lately that it’s become a commonplace occurrence – an idea whose time has come.  

The story of Darth Vato is really the story of Kerry Dean’s developing the courage to be himself – a rather sweet-natured, whimsical soul – onstage and in the toons he writes, rather than some other, “edgier” character that the audience might find more interesting. The risk and danger inherent in this undertaking was manifested in a solo acoustic show at the Moon a few years back where he wound up horizontal garrruuunnnk onstage (alcohol: the shy guy’s social lubricant…or not). He’s been getting closer with each DV release, though, and finally, with Oh No’s hidden track (a cover of the Standells’ garage grunt classic “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”), a live solo rendering of the Minutemen’s “History Lesson, Part II” at their Lola’s CD release show, and this record, I think he’s there. 

With the exception of a coupla tracks his pal Daniel Hardaway decorated with deft ‘n’ sly trumpet solo wonderment (straight-up mariachi blare on the title track, Louis Armstrong on acid on “Locked and Ready”), Kerry carries the whole show here all by his lonesome. If some of the tracks seem like sketches of songs waiting to be fleshed out, that’s almost the point: he wants you to see the lines in his design. And showing off his chops as a riddim guitarist (dig the instrumental “Todo Un Poco”). Stylistically, these songs don’t differ much from what his band usually lays down, but he’s imagining more believable characters (the street vendor in the title track, the partner in a relationship gone south in “Everything Went Wrong”) and writing more heartfelt confessionals (“Put On Your Red Dress” and the emo surfer’s suicide note “The New Wave,” which just might be the best thing he’s written). While Darth Vato remain the party band of choice for inebriated frat daddies, the big lug up front’s got heart aplenty, and he’s not afraid to show it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kavin.’s Acoustic Church’s Westward 

By Ken Shimamoto 

www.myspace.com/kavinallenson 

Kavin Allenson’s a guitarist from Burleson who hit the boards in 1998 after 25 years of playing, was a semi-finalist in a B.W. Stevenson songwriting contest in 2000, played in an acoustic Pink Floyd tribute band (!) with Glenn Milam from 2001-2004, and released a CD, Texas Tonefreak, in 2006. Since then, he’s pulled tight with estimable Fort Worth axe-slingers like Darrin Kobetich and Bill Pohl (their next three-way collision takes place at Hip Pocket Theatre on September 7th). Back in February, he took part in the RPM Challenge, writing and recording an album in a month. The result is Westward. 

Kavin’s saturated with classic rock influences – the Eat A Peach-era Allman Brothers in particular come to mind, listening to the spacey layers of leisurely, melodic guitars – and the masterwork of Leo Kottke (sometimes very literally; listen to “John’s Rag” and tell me which song off 6 and 12-String Guitar it reminds you of). The opening “Hippolyte” showcases his strengths – rolling fingerpicked patterns on a crystalline-textured acoustic, supporting a lilting slide line that recalls the pedal steel part from Thunderclap Newman’s “Hollywood Dream” (if anyone in the 817 remembers thatun).  

The title track has Kavin singing in a serviceable guitar player’s voice over interlocking guitar parts like Duane ‘n’ Dicky might have played, except for the flanging. (Full disclosure – he gave me a songwriting credit for part of the lyrics.) The Indian-flavored “Climbin’” (with percussion accompaniment from Phil Waite) has the same rhythmic feel as Darrin Kobetich’s “Playing In the Hedges,” but wedded to a lighter harmonic palette. The solo guitar piece “Eulogy: February 5th” is somber and lovely. 

Things start to get really interesting with the next couple of tracks. I’m not even certain how the sounds on “Sunwind” were generated – something to do with a slide, perhaps -- but they create a lysergic sci-fi atmosphere that’s quite striking. “DrumznBass” is a showcase for drummer Waite and bassist Eric Allenson, with Kavin presumably providing the weird electro-F/X. Finally, “Runnin’ Out of Time” is a down ‘n’ dirty blues with a gruff vocal from Kavin that recalls Mark Knopfler, and more carpe diem lyrics. 

All in all, not a bad month’s work from a fella who clearly loves to play and does it well.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gutterth Productions’ Gutterth Compilation One

 
By Ken Shimamoto 

http://www.gutterth.com/ 

How cool is this: A double CD compilation of local bands that you can download free from the label’s website. But wait, it gets even better: The compilation’s a corker, a diverse array of sounds with nary a clunker among its 34 tracks. Hooray! 

Gutterth Productions is the rubric adopted by Michael Briggs and Brent Frishman, two music-loving buds from Carrollton. They promote shows and release albums by bands they dig. So far, they’ve done shows at pretty much every indie-friendly venue in Dallas and Denton. Their next one, Episode XXIV, will be August 14th at Rubber Gloves, featuring New Science Projects, Baptist Generals frontguy Chris Flemmons, RTB2, and Kaleo Kaualoku. Their catalog includes discs by New Science Projects, Daniel Folmer, Malise, Parata, and Sean Kirkpatrick. Their product’s available at Good Records in Dallas, Recycled Books and Strawberry Fields in Denton, and via iTunes and Emusic as well as at shows and via the Gutterth website. 

Compilation One has a heavy Denton art vibe, comparable to the Pyramid Scheme’s Long Con Compilation from a couple of years back – it’s really that consistent. At the same time, it’s such a mixed bag that it’s impossible to categorize, so rather than giving any of the 34 performers (including 817 residents RTB2/Ryan Thomas Becker, The Great Tyrant, and The House Harkonnen) short shrift, here’s an array of three-word observations for your edification and enjoyment (and because it amuses me). The first disc:  

Emil Rapstine – Moody folk balladry.

MOM – Delicate wintery atmospherics.

New Science Projects – Bent Appalachian gospel.

Knee Pad – Crunchy screamo rifferama.

Glen Farris – Depresso somnambulist waltz.

Silk Stocking – Brechtian apocalyptic cabaret.

Daniel Folmer – Sweet melodic pop.

Shiny Around the Edges – Ethereal freak folk.

Fair to Midland – Floats, then pummels.

The Lights of Dragna – Dynamic instrumental rockarama.

Sparlin, Jessels – Gentle rustic whimsy.

RTB2 – Lo-fi experimental Zep-ism.

Sean Kirkpatrick – Hallucinatory dreamscape songster.

The Timeline Post – Sumptuous choral psychedelia.

Shaolin Death Squad – Orchestral operatic prog.

Parata – Slapdash synth glam.

Dust Congress – Soaring Britfolk hymn. 

And the second:  

The Great Tyrant – Grand Guignol menace.

Sarah Renfro – Bluesy folk diva.

The International – Waitsian saloon balladry.

Florene – Spacey motorik jamz.

The Spectacle – Unironic metal thunder.

Tex Winters – Wobbly Rokyesque rant.

The Alexander – Roiling 6/8 passion.

Delmore Pilcrow – Sleepy, loping pastoralism.

Joey Kendall – Religious obsessed poesy.

Miss Celia – Winsome nature gal.

The House Harkonnen – Blistering black metal.

The Heartstring Stranglers – Mutated klezmer swing.

Real Live Tigers – Urban existentialist duo.

Ryan Thomas Becker – Tremulous devotional balladry.

Sunnybrook – Enervated Ambien anthem.

room 101 – Galloping minimalist fury.

Will E Lee – Gangling balladic benediction. 

So there! All in all, it’d be hard to imagine a better way to expand your musical horizons on the cheap.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GETTING AROUND IN THE NEW FORT WORTH 

By Ken Shimamoto 

Lately, it seems as though I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time visiting places that aren’t going to exist soon (Kincaid’s, J&J’s Hideaway). It’s gotten to where I’m even dreaming about long-gone pieces of Fort Worth that I remember. But, as we’re constantly reminded, change is inevitable, and since my wife and I are committed to spending the rest of our lives here, it behooves us to find a way to roll with all of that. 

I suppose to a lot of folks, we seem like odd ducks. She rides her bike to work and on most errands that don’t require lugging big heavy objects. It took her five years to get her car’s odometer over 20,000 miles. When I got a job six blocks from our home, I gave my daughter my car. At the time, she was living near TCU but traversing the 817 from Arlington (where her niece lives) to TCC Southwest (where she was a student) to Cityview (where her husband works) to Benbrook (where her mom lives) to Las Vegas Trail (where her big sister lives). If I have to rehearse or play a show across town, I’ll catch a ride, but otherwise, I’ll hoof it most places. 

Since the price of gas hit $3.50 a gallon, however, more and more acquaintances have expressed the idea that maybe decreasing their reliance on petroleum might not be such a crazy idea after all. Even in the car culture that is North Texas, where everything is spread out and folks assume out of hand that they’ll need to get in the car to go obtain all their life’s essentials, consumers are now faced with the tough task of differentiating between need and want – and realizing that they can’t continue living in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. 

There at least seem to be more bicyclists in the Fort now than in years past – and one hears that when the east-west bridges to downtown are redone, they’ll include bike lanes, which would have been sci-fi just a couple of years ago. If more folks are truly going to be biking to work, we’ll hopefully see an attitude adjustment on the part of motorists who share the road with ‘em. My wife is a big advocate of helmet wearing (and bike lights), with good reason: practically everyone we know that rides a bike on the road in Fort Worth has been hit by a car at one time or another. “They don’t expect you to be there,” as one regular rider remarked, “so they just don’t see you.” 

More to the point, it’s time for the Fort to pony up and provide its residents with public transportation worthy of the name. God bless the T and all who ride on her, but while it’s true that most Fort Worth residents may live within, say, a half-mile walk of a bus route, it requires a lot of planning and time-budgeting if you’re going to use the bus as your primary mode of transport. When my daughter was living on University Drive and commuting to a job on South Hulen, she used to spend six hours a day on the bus to work a four-hour shift – and there were plenty of occasions when the bus ran late or didn’t show up at her stop at all. 

The planned light rail will do a good job of connecting cultural, entertainment, and tourist destinations, but the coverage zone excludes large chunks of the city, i.e., all the primarily residential areas. It’s a conundrum: the T is reluctant to run more buses or add more routes because they might not be used, while many potential bus riders who can’t afford to be tardy remain hesitant to rely on a mode of transportation that’s inconvenient at best and unreliable at worst. But given the state of the economy and the fact that, face it, folks – cheap gas ain’t coming back – the current spurt of growth in this, the nation’s 19th largest city, seems like a moment of opportunity for mass transit providers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GALLERY 414 

www.gallery414.org 

By Ken Shimamoto 

When I moved back to Fort Worth in the spring of 1980 after the debacle of debacles in Aspen, Colorado -- an extremely misguided attempt to start a rock band that deteriorated into a four month binge on alcohol, controlled substances, and tetracycline, and resulted in my being escorted to the airport by the local sheriff’s deputies and asked never to return – I moved into a duplex in the 300 block of Templeton, off University and 5th Street. The guys on the other side of the wall were truck drivers who liked to steal stuff and would always offer me some, which I invariably but graciously declined. One night I heard the neighbor on the other side loudly pleading for his life from some hardcore invidivuals he’d run afoul of. The next day, he and his family had evaporated without a trace. I was afraid to use the gas heaters, so when it was 40 degrees at night in March, I’d get into bed with every stitch of clothing I had on and shiver. There was no AC and the windows were painted shut, so when it got ungodly hot in May, I’d sit motionless in front of the rotating fan that Dan Lightner (bless him) brought me until I had just enough moisture left in my body to sustain me for the walk to 7 Eleven to buy more beer, Gatorade, and cigarettes. 

In 2003, I was surprised when Jesse Sierra Hernandez invited me to his art show and the location turned out to be Gallery 414, a little house at 414 Templeton, just down the street from my old duplex (which still stands). It seemed a quaint location, with eccentric hours (noon to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and by appointment), but it turned out to be a very congenial, well-lit space, with a back room that was suitable for the larger pieces Jesse likes to do. That was the show where I was blown away by the religious imagery of his pieces they hung in that back room, and especially by Cortez the Killer, which combined Conquistador and modern military imagery to make a powerful statement about the coming war with Iraq. (Sadly, that piece has since been lost.) Jesse also chose Gallery 414 as the site of his show Schlankin’ It in 2006, which was the first time I saw him actually depict himself in his work. 

Turns out the space has been in existence since September 1995, when arts patrons Bob and Razz Fiesler bought the space with the idea of creating a venue for diverse artists of varying experiences, both established and new to the local art community. The list of artists who have exhibited or curated shows there reads like a “Who’s Who” of the Cowtown art community. Starting in late April, the gallery played host to A True Story, a group exhibition by 22 students from across the Metromess involved in the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s Teen Artist Project. The last weekend in May, Gallery 414 was the site of an auction of works by 25 local artists to help Paschal High School’s Vagabond Players raise money to travel to this year’s Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they’ve been invited to perform. While the gallery is currently closed for the summer, they’ll reopen September 13 with Chris Valle’s Paintings from the Altered Series.

THE KING OF CHEAP DOES FORT WORTH SUMMER 

By Ken Shimamoto 

I’ll admit it: I’m cheap. Maybe not to the extent that my late ex-father-in-law, of whom it was once said, “He’d drive across town to save a nickel,” was, but these, after all, are different times. It wasn’t three bucks a gallon for gas back then. In my case, that’s hardly relevant: when I scored my current straight, which is six blocks from mi casa, I gave my daughter (who needed it more) my car and started hoofing it most places. Within three months after doing this, BTW, I had shed 20 pounds I put on at my previous soul-destroying (and sedentary) employment. Who needs to drop big bucks on a spa membership? Just walk. Or ride a bike, like my sweetie does. But I digress. 

When I was really scuffling and frugality was a necessity, not a choice, I learned that you can have as much fun on the cheap as you can if you drop a bunch of coin – in some cases, maybe more so. And Fort Worth is a great place to do so. Here in, ahem, the 19th largest city in America, you can have a world-class cultural experience, enjoy a renewing sanctuary, or be entertained for a mere fraction of the cost of a tank of gas. 

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (3200 Darnell), f’rinstance, holds an astonishing 3,000 works by modern masters from Picasso to Pollock to Warhol in its permanent collection, on display in Tadao Ando’s strikingly designed structure which is as much of a modern art masterwork as the artifacts housed within. Admission is regularly $10 ($4 for students and seniors), but you can visit the museum for free on any Wednesday and the first Sunday each month. Museum hours are 10am-5pm Tuesday through Saturday and 11am to 5pm Sunday. There’s a full schedule of movies, readings, and other activities as well, along with Café Modern, rated one of America’s best restaurants by Gourmet magazine, with a lunch/brunch menu that’s mostly under $15 an entrée. 

The Kimball Art Museum (3333 Camp Bowie Blvd) is a world-class museum that’s hosted exhibitions that traveled nowhere else in the United States. The small (350 works) permanent collection focuses on quality, not quantity, and includes antiquities from Egypt, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as European masters, omitting 20th century and American works because of the proximity of the Modern Art and Amon Carter museums. Again, architect Louis I. Kahn’s setting for the art is stunning, particularly the reflecting pools outside (adjacent to a lush green space that invites loungers and Frisbee players when it’s not too God-awful hot). Best of all, it’s always free to view the permanent collection, and special exhibitions are half-price all day Tuesday and from 5-8pm on Friday. Museum hours are 10am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday (except Friday, when the museum stays open till 8pm) and noon-5pm Sunday. 

The Amon Carter Museum (3501 Camp Bowie Blvd) has a lot more to offer than the Western art of Remington and Russell that its founder, the newspaperman and philantropist whose name it carries, used to like to collect. In fact, it holds one of the world’s finest collections of American art, including 20th century modernists and photographers. Admission to see the permanent collection is always free, and the museum’s open late (10am-8pm) on Thursdays. The rest of the week (Tuesday-Saturday) it’s open 10am-5pm, except Sunday, when it opens at noon. 

Regrettably, it’s not longer possible for kids to enjoy the works of the Bard of Avon (and sliding down the adjacent slope on pieces of corrugated cardboard) at Shakespeare in the Park (a favored summer activity when my kids were small), but our other favorite hangout, the Fort Worth Botanic Garden (3220 Botanic Garden Blvd), remains a shady refuge and haven from summer’s heat. Texas’ oldest botanic garden, it’s open every day from 8am to dusk, and admission is always free. For a special experience, the Japanese Garden is open from 9am-7pm daily, with adult admission $3 (weekday) or $3.50 (holidays and weekends), $2 for kids, .50 off for seniors, and children under 4 free. The Garden also plays host to the Fort Worth Symphony’s Concerts in the Garden with fireworks climaxing every performance, Fridays and Saturdays through July 5th. Tickets are $15 in advance or $18 at the gate, with $5 parking at nearby Farrington Field.  

For the more audacious outdoor types, the Fort Worth Nature Center (Jacksboro Highway, four miles west of I-820) offers 3600 acres of wilderness including forests, prairies, and wetlands, including 20 miles of hiking trails. (If you know my kids, ask them about the time I got us lost there around closing time. It was a hoot.) Summer hours are 8am-7pm Monday-Friday and 7am-7pm Saturday-Sunday. Admission is $4 adult, $3 senior, and $2 kids, with free admission for children under 3. 

While the Fort’s always been a great place to hear live music on the cheap, we can think of no more congenial set/setting than the patio at Central Market, which hosts “Thursday Night Live” presented by the FW Weekly Thursdays and “Burgers and Bock” Saturdays and Sundays from March to October. Bands play from 6-9pm, admission is free, you can buy a beer, wine or margarita for less than you’d pay in lots of live music spots, and the Market chefs are cooking a better-than-just-OK burger on Friday-Saturday nights. (Full disclosure: Yeah, I work there, in the bulk department. If you come there, please monitor your kids and keep them from sticking their bare hands in my bins, OK? And weigh and price your snacks before you graze. Thanks!) 

Finally, if you don’t feel like going anywhere, you can do what my sweetie ‘n’ I do lotsa weekends, which is fall by Half Price Books (5417 South Hulen St or 6912 Ridgmar Meadow Rd) to cop an inexpensive used book, rekkid, CD, DVD, or VHS tape and while away the hours back at la casa. (I’m currently reading the complete works of Anthony Bourdain on the cheap thanks to HPB.) Ain’t life in Fort Worth grand? 

Web resources: 

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: www.themodern.org

Kimball Art Museum: www.kimballart.org

Amon Carter Museum: www.cartermuseum.org

Fort Worth Botanic Garden: www.fwbg.org

Fort Worth Nature Center: www.fwnaturecenter.org

Central Market Events: www.centralmarket.com/cm/cmEvents-FW.jsp

Half Price Books: www.halfpricebooks.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“ANGELS IN AMERICA” AT FORT WORTH OPERA 

fwopera.org

morelifetexas.com

fwcac.com 

By Ken Shimamoto 

Fort Worth’s very own opera company – one of the 14 oldest in the United States -- was started over coffee one morning in 1946 by three “ladies who lunch,” two of whom ...... Click Here To Read More

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FREDFEST 

www.fredstexascafe.com 

By Ken Shimamoto 

An annual spring event here in the Fort – like Gallery Night, Main Street Arts Festival, Mayfest, and hailstorms – Fredfest has gone through some changes ..... Click Here To Read More

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TEXAS BALLET THEATER  

texasballettheater.org 

By Ken Shimamoto 

When I was a snotnose, I used to roll my eyes white upward every time my sister wanted to watch the ballet on TV. The stuff just didn’t move me. Then ..... Click Here To Read More

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE CHAT ROOM 

www.myspace.com/thechatroompub 

By Ken Shimamoto 

I loved the Wreck Room. It was my living room, three miles away from home. My sweetie ‘n’ I had our wedding reception there. I played shows with Stoogeaphilia there ..... Click Here To Read More

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FORT WORTH BURRITO PROJECT BENEFIT AT FRED’S 

www.myspace.com/fortworthburritoproject 

By Ken Shimamoto 

A number of years ago, when my children were still small, we were walking downtown when we a homeless man approached and asked me for money. ..... Click Here To Read More
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PAST WITH A FORT WORTH JAZZ INSITUTION 

By Ken Shimamoto 

Approaching the 25th anniversary of his long-running gig at Sardines Ristorante Italiano, where he’s performed six nights a week since 1983, the prolific jazz pianist ..... Click Here To Read More

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made In America DVD 

http://www.synergeticpress.com/video.html 

By Ken Shimamoto 

When I met Mike Watt at SXSW a few years back and told him I was from Fort Worth, he immediately exclaimed “Caravan of Dreams!” I had to tell the ex-Minuteman .....Click Here To Read More

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wes Race’s Cryptic Whalin’! 

www.thecoolgroove.com/wesrace.html

By Ken Shimamoto 

A few years back, when I briefly played second guitar for Lady Pearl’s B.T.A. Band, subbing for a muso who was also a schoolteacher and so used to like to miss the ..... Click Here To Read More

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IF THEY BUILD IT, YOU WILL COME

www.fwcats.com

By Ken Shimamoto

I love the American myth of baseball. I love it much more, in fact, than I love watching any games, which are .....Click Here To Read More

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME 

By Ken Shimamoto 

You and me, we'll start something up. A bar, maybe. Two Irish kids from Brooklyn, how could we not have a bar? Green beer for St. Paddy's Day, free hot dogs for Monday Night Football. Think about it. Old fashioned jukebox sitting in the corner… Click Here To Read More
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ALL THE FORT’S A STAGE 

By Ken Shimamoto 

Caught Jubilee Theatre’s production of Romulus Linney’s A Lesson Before Dying last weekend – first time I’d been out to the tradition-rich downtown theater this season. There were a lot of..... Click Here To Read More

The Great Tyrant’s “Candy Canes”/”Walking Through the Walls” 

myspace.com/thegreattyrant 

By Ken Shimamoto 

We saw tears trickle down his cheeks and fall on the keys, which, though wet, were now struck in a strongly dissonant chord. At the same time he opened his mouth Click Here To Read More
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE STATE OF JAZZ IN THE FORT 

By Ken Shimamoto
 
These days, the opportunities to hear live jazz in Fort Worth are more plentiful than they’ve been in quite a few seasons. Back in the ‘80s, world-class jazzers like Cowtown native.......Click Here To Read More

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------