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The news is a commercial-free comedy channel is on local radio: Is the joke on us?

It isn’t the OJ trial. It isn’t even the local case of Calvin Walker, the electrician who allegedly bilked the Beaumont school district out of several million dollars. But one would think that when the programming of one area radio station for the past month consists of nothing but comedy — not even commercials — isn’t that worth a story?

This little blurb on a site called radio-info.com explains all that I have heard about “Comedy 103.3” in Beaumont, Texas. Radio mega-owner Clear Channel Radio apparently owns the FM translator in question. Just what a translator does is explained here, which makes it for the tech challenged such as me, clear as mud. In its most basic sense, a TV or FM translator allows broadcast signals into places that cannot receive the primary signal of a radio or TV station.

In older days, I might just walk next door to the building that houses five or maybe six Clear Channel stations, walk in the door and just ask those who work there what in the hell is up? Maybe I’ll go ask tomorrow. But judging the multi-stations these days — which probably has one person announcing — you are likely to get a pat on the head and a kick in the ass out of the facility.

What drips in irony is that one of only a few TV stations in the area that does local news sits next door to the building housing all of the Clear Channel stations. Of course, the Clear Channel group also has a “news-talk” station in its facility. KLVI 560 AM also does local news, though not a hell of a lot. Going local for news where I live isn’t as sure a bet as it once was.

In the meantime, I am pretty happy with the comedy I’ve heard lately on this newly configured frequency. Some of it gets played over and over, of course. But there are some pretty hilarious bits — some even raunchy and very un-PC these days — for one to hear. The bits played might range from Jerry Clower’s deep-country tales to Cheech and Chong’s hilarious “song” “Earache My Eye.”

I have no idea how far geograhically this comedy channel, 103.3 on the FM dial, reaches. I listed to it for a good 30 miles or more when I was driving on Texas 105 last week coming back from Dallas. Since they never talk on the station — too good to be true, I know — my crystal ball sees a short lifespan for this funny bidness.

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Is it “farewell” or just “later” for the Waffle House T-bone?

Goodbye T-bone.

One who knows me might think I was bidding final farewell to some ol’ high school buddy or one of any number of colorful characters I have come to know and/or befriend over the years. But no, I’m talking about steak. Or maybe not.

No, I am definitely talking about T-bone steak but my adieu might be a bit premature.

I speak of the madness of the Waffle House and its 2012 T-Bone Farewell Tour. The late-night choice of weary travelers and local drunks everywhere announced in January that their vaunted 10-ounce T-bone steak will be going away after a year-long farewell.

 “It has been a good run, this may be the final year for the Waffle House T-bone,” says Pat Warner, Waffle House vice president of marketing. “Say goodbye to an old friend and order one today, while you still can.”

But maybe you still can after you do your adioses.

 “We want to hear our customers’ reactions,” says Warner. “It may be that we will have multiple farewell tours; like a classic rock band.”

Ah, clever. Always leave yourself an out.

 “The T-bone steak debuted on the Waffle House menu in the early 1960s when a “Grill Man” at the first Waffle House restaurant in Avondale Estates, Ga., ran out of steak one night and replaced them with T-bone steaks he bought at a local grocery store. They have been on the menu ever since. It became a customer favorite, and now Waffle House is the world’s leading server of USDA Choice T-bone steaks,” according to a company news release.

The Wafflers are encouraging their customers to relive their favorite 10-ounce T-bone memories on Facebook, to which my first would be “Urrrrrrrrp!,” as in belch. I had a steak and egg last night at Waffle House. This was because it is right across the I-10 underpass from where I am staying. I stopped and looked at a young possum up close on the way back. It was playing possum then bared its teeth at me. Possum aside, I am trying to do some protein dieting but like everything else in my life, it seems to have jumped off the rails. I didn’t have a T-bone though.

I do have some T-bone memories at Waffle House though. Those times usually involved carousing or its aftermath.

Last night I watched the cook work his magic with the grill and the little pans. It takes no little amount of skill and coordination to turn out the meals when the place gets busy after the bars close. The waitress conveys the customer’s order to the cook in a language only the two of them know. “Two down, two up, medium well, grits on a stick.” No, I just made the grits on a stick up. But they ought to do that. Grits on a stick would be ten kinds of entertaining.

We all know that most chain restaurants and fast food places generally suck. Maybe it’s the good times I’ve had at Waffle Houses over the years — singing with Mexican sailors at 1 a.m. or pulling in for a cup of coffee at mid-afternoon to keep my friend, a waitress, Chris, company during slow periods. These are memories of 30 years or more of good times. But through it all most of the Waffle House folks have been and are salt of the earth that keep food consistently tasty over the years.

So if the ‘House is playing coy with its T-bone, so be it. They’ve been selling it for a dollar an ounce over the past few  years. That’s substantially less than what you pay in the supermarket and it’s cooked the way you want it. Goodbye T-bone? No, maybe just “Later.”

 

 

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New bike lanes on Calder Avenue. Beaumont finally enters the 19th century

Out cruising on my bicycle today along the Calder Avenue bike lane in Beaumont brings to mind that this Upper Texas Gulf Coast city has finally reached the 19th century. Yes, I said 19th century.

So-called “segregated cycle facilities” such as the “California Cycleway” were among the first structures strictly for bicycles in 19th century U.S. Construction began on the nine-mile bike tollway in 1899 that linked Pasadena and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the elevated wooden toll road along the Arroyo Seco never made a profit and was closed a decade after opening. The wood was sold for lumber and the right of way eventually became a part of the Pasadena Freeway.

Whether Beaumont ever had any dedicated bicycle lanes in bygone days I can’t say. I just know that on the Bicycling.com list of the top 50 most bicycle-friendly cities in the U.S., Beaumont, Texas, is not listed. For that matter, the only Texas city making the list is No. 11 Austin. That doesn’t surprise me one-half an iota.

For some reason I can’t find a “least bicycle-friendly list.” Surely there must be one with so many articles claiming this city or that is on said listing. Now I am not a bike expert. I rode a Western Flyer when I was a kid. Then I rode a bike belonging to my friend, Bruce, when I lived with him about six months in the inner Dallas suburb of University Park. I presently have another bicycle that I got from Bruce when I last visited Dallas and I now ride it for exercise.

With that preface out of the way, I can built a hypothesis for what a bicycle-unfriendly city might be. To wit: a city with dedicated lanes for bicycles and small motorized vehicles in which larger vehicles freely invade and strike cyclists without the courtesy or duty to stop and render aid. This is a model I have developed upon witnessing — well, hearing at least — this very spectacle about 35 years ago in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Biking on Beaumont's Calder Avenue can now be done in a dedicated lane. Let's just hope Bubba knows what those lanes are for. EFD photo.

Our U.S. Navy warship was on a port visit to Jakarta. We were offered a bus ride to the grounds of the U.S. Embassy where there was supposed to be some kind of party or other goings-on. That was never really too clear. The bus we were herded upon was very crowded with sailors from our’s and another U.S. ship. I was sitting in an aisle seat while others were standing in the aisle. The street had several lanes for larger traffic such as the bus and two smaller lanes for scooters and bicycles. The bus driver had no comprehension of English whatsoever and apparently had no idea where we were going. The driver quickly changed into a lane for whatever reason. In that lane was a man driving a moped. I heard a loud thump when the driver moved to the other lane, followed quickly by a loud moan by those fellow sailors standing in the aisle and others seated in the other side of the bus. Several guys who could see watched the moped driver “go tumbling” off his motor scooter while the bus driver continued obliviously, or perhaps not obliviously.***

I have no idea whether biking of any kind is safer these days in Jakarta. I do know that at the time our bus witnessed extremely bicycle unfriendliness, thanks to the driver, if not vehicular manslaughter.

The bike lanes in Beaumont were thrown in with some other street improvements including paved sidewalks and better curbing along with “aesthetic lighting.” The bulk of the work though is mostly invisible to the “nekkid eye,” as folks around these parts like to say. Under about three miles of the street leading from downtown to the upper-scale West End are 10-foot by 10-foot box culverts. These are for diverting water from the Middle Hillebrandt Bayou watershed to the Neches River bordering downtown Beaumont to help alleviate some of the flooding that takes place when we get heavy rains such as from hurricanes. FEMA paid about $31.5 million for “mitigation” costs. The total project bill is at least $65 million. And, from what I can see, the ponding after heavy rains does not seem as bad in the areas the drainage project targeted.

Beaumont is not nearly as bike-unfriendly as we experienced in Indonesia, even without the dedicated bike lane along Calder Avenue. The main problem — in addition to other streets which have crap for maintenance and those byways without shoulders — is that it is a city unaccustomed to bicycles. Every other automobile is a double-wide, Ford crew-cab, pick-em-up truck, some with tires as big as my bicycle, and the drivers believe that they pay for their pickups what some spend to purchase a small house it therefore gives them the right to park however the hell they want to and take up as much of the gol-danged road as they like. Most of these myopic motorists spend their lives driving up and down the freeway to Port Arthur or other locales in which their refineries or construction jobs are found. In other words, they aren’t used to sharing the road with little-bitty bicycles and are not particularly inclined to do as much.

I am not whining about it as I hear many other cyclists do, some of whom are just as short-sighted as those Bubbas who force the bike riders into the ditch or chunk their empty Lone Star can at them. I have met the enemy and he (and she) fights up and down both sides. I know what the problem is and I just intend to stay away from both monster trucks and helmeted cyclists wearing fanny packs.

It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s just plain ol’ survival.

***EFD’s note: If you’ve heard this story before you, obviously, can’t stop me. That happens sometimes. Suck it up.

 

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Death of Rollover Pass somewhat an exaggeration?

It seemed like a done deal. One day I would wake up and take a drive on Interstate-10 from Beaumont to Winnie, then head south on State Hwy. 124 to High Island, and finally take Texas 87 onto the Bolivar Peninsula where I would find … nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. You see, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) has planned to fill in the popular man-made cut between the Gulf of Mexico and East Galveston Bay called “Rollover Pass.” Money had been appropriated from the stingy Texas Legislature and Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner, said it was a done deal.

 “Patterson took one of the last remaining steps required by the Legislature to close Rollover this week by posting his declaration in the Texas Register that the pass causes increased erosion and needs to be closed,” a GLO press release from December 2011 declared.

But deal it is, maybe just not a done deal.

Rollover has been a popular, free fishing spot for anglers who otherwise might not find a Texas Gulf fishing place. The less-moneyed and the wheelchair bound fit into those categories. It was built for recreation and it has given back plenty. But studies say the artificial channel has caused severe beach erosion. All one has had to do over the years is walk around to the west of the pass to see some significant desedimentation. The last time I had a really close look at the erosion was about 15 years ago and that was before three hurricanes and probably a tropical storm or two came calling.

The state land office, headed by retired Marine fighter pilot Lt. Col. Jerry Patterson, is charged with caring for Texas beaches and GLO plans to build a 1,000-foot pier for anglers after filling in Rollover. Patterson is also a considerable Texas pol, having served in the Legislature and who plans to run for lieutenant governor in 2014.

A February editorial in our local daily newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise, said it was time to piss on the fire and call in the dogs at Rollover. Well, they didn’t put it exactly that way.

But the property is owned by the local community association, as well as the rod and gun club, which includes conservationists among its number, whose members say: “Hold on for one cotton-pickin’ minute!” The club says it has plans to help enhance the spot and, basically, says Patterson can take his pier and stick it up his leather neck.

Bolivar of years past was pretty much the egalitarian Upper Texas coastal spot even up to the time much of Crystal Beach and other sections of the peninsula were flattened in 2008 by Hurricane Ike. One can only look at the rebuilding going on and surmise that the “Phoenix” version of Bolivar — raised from the ashes — will be much pricier. The beach itself changed in tenor over the years after Galveston Island, across the bay, outlawed alcohol on its beaches. Thus, Crystal Beach became the “party.”

The spot adjacent to Rollover has been home to bars and bait houses in past years. At watering holes there, and at the Ship’s Wheel, one could always find the colorful characters who searched for their lives and who seemed to get caught in the sea drift. It really has nothing to do with good nor ill. It’s just another hue of beaches.

Other worries such as the pass causing changes in the bay’s salinity levels exist on top of the erosion problem, the latter which is fought all up and down the beaches along the now washed out Hwy. 87, from McFaddin Beach to High Island.

Scientifically, I couldn’t say what would be the best answer to the question: Should the GLO should go ahead, fill in Rollover Pass and build the pier? I feel like the growing Houston-area population and money could very well turn Bolivar into a continuation of Galveston, which can be accessed by a very charming and energizing ferry ride. That’s not to say Galveston is not without its charms. I love the town. But it isn’t Bolivar of yesteryear.

The GLO and other entities across our country are fighting beach erosion. It doesn’t just happen on the Upper Texas Coast. It seems like where there is a will to save Rollover Pass, then a way to mitigate its problems must be found and that doesn’t include just pouring money down a hole. Almost $6 million was allocated to close the pass and build the pier. Estimates to thwart the effects of Rollover are for as much as $1 million yearly, according to some figures. Of course, the pier will need upkeep. It will have to be built tough to survive future storms and might not at that.

So as Houston Chronicle outdoors writer Shannon Tompkins says in his piece I have linked, there is a “pass impasse.” Call it what you want, it is more than just about fishing.

 

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Much drama, yet it’s just another Friday storm

Dark clouds are gathering outside from the west. It really doesn’t matter from where the clouds are gathering if they happen to be gathering  somewhere inside. Holy moly! There’s a thunderstorm in the living room, Gladys! Whoops, your big ol’ pile of blue hair just went up into a cloud of smoke from that lightning strike.

Obviously it is better when the clouds stay in their place. So they come like angry neighbors ready to do battle over that fence your great-grandpa put up in ’08. That’s 1908.

It is 5:21 p.m. Central Standard Time and it looks like Dark-30 outside. I’ve been watching the Channel 11 KHOU-TV animated weather radar online and I can see a cluster of storms, one of which has just that teeniest-tiny area of violet inside, which can indicate a severe T-storm. This particular bunch is just a hair west of Beaumont. Right where I am at Ground Zero. Don’t you hate that term? The wind is whipping — whipping good — blowing rain and tree limbs to and fro. I am watching Channel 6 KFDM-TV in Beaumont on the tube, with the mute on I might add. It is nice to know I sit in a motel room only two buildings away the banality of the 5 o’clock show, which goes on with nary a hitch.

The real storm hasn’t arrived yet, according to the Houston radar which I just quickly flipped on for a look. Traffic looks kind of thick on the I-10 service road at 11th Street. I am glad I have nowhere to go.

Maybe this seems a bit dramatic, or perhaps I am making it a bit so. But it is just a spring storm in Southeast Texas on a Friday afternoon. Unless the storm, which the radar says is still just to the west of us, blows the roof off the place or some place else, all shall be just as it should be.

I really like, love even, the rain, the thunder, the lightning is even cool to watch. Especially since the drought is a non-hazardous storm welcome. Anything is cool as long as we can watch and don’t have to worry about seeking shelter.

Well, I think the storm is finally here. Happy weekend.