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Happy Pi Day. Go eat a pie!

Happy Pie Day, ya’ll.

pipi
An honest to Archimedes Pi pie.

Yessiree, this is the day you should go out and get you a big ol’ pie and share it with someone you love. Or you might share it with someone you lust for, or hell, just eat the whole thing yourself!

Actually, pies are just a manifestation of what is really “Pi Day.” It being March 14 (3.14) which is the number closely related to the arithmetic constant pi, or the symbol π. Now I’m sure you might have encountered pi at some time or other. That is, if you ever had geometry in high school or college, or you are a mathematician. Other than seeing pi on ridiculous, made-up holidays such as this, I can’t recall seeing the symbol, especially if it was used in its real setting as a ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The common mathematical approximation being 3.14149 which rolls on out to either something akin to infinity or just to a point in which you are tired of another number popping up so you just want to blow it off.

So π has really as much to do with pie as a frank does to being frank or even being a man named Frank. And please, no images of frank pie, a.k.a. Weenie Frank Pie.

MS2 Joshua Derode from Minneapolis, Min., prepares pecan pies for the big Thanksgiving dinner aboard the carrier USS George Washington. U.S. Navy photo by PHAN Rex Nelson.
MS2 Joshua Derode from Minneapolis, Minn., prepares pecan pies for the big Thanksgiving dinner aboard the carrier USS George Washington. U.S. Navy photo by PHAN Rex Nelson.

I’m not much of a pie-eater. A few times a year I might divulge into a slice of something handy and inviting, or vice versa. I like cake better, as a rule, and a candy bar even better but those too are seldom tasted by these lips. I am not much of a sweet-eater of any kind these days, and even when I was, I still didn’t touch much candy, cake or pie. Well, maybe certain types of pie.

My favorite is pecan pie. I think in some parts of the world it is pronounced PEE-can pie. Where I am from it’s Pee-CON pie. Six of one slice, half a dozen of the other. Since I was a big sweet eater when I was a kid, I don’t know why I wasn’t a fan of pecan pie. Goldarn it is sweet, why it’s as rich as six feet up a bull’s a**, as some firemen I worked with would say. I can’t say they knew all that much about a bull’s anatomy. Several of the guys I knew were real cowboys and I remember them talking about jumping up and down on top of a calf to get its heart started after a bovine cardiac arrest.  Well, maybe it has something to do with breeding cattle. Either way, if one might make it up that far inside that orifice, I would just have to say “Good luck, mate!”

l can’t remember for sure if my Mom made pecan pie. I’m sure she did and I bet it was good. It’s just been so long since I remember. A few pecan pies I remember in more recent years. I do recall this female friend in college making one from scratch. I mean she went out in the yard and picked pecans and made them into a pie. Even if it wasn’t the best I’d ever eaten, I certainly had to give the girl a big ol’ Alpha for effort.

The best pecan pie ever was at this popular Galveston restaurant called Gaido’s. This across-from-the-seawall seafood place has been there for years. Texas Monthly  has, for probably the past 30 years, rated it one-star for “extremely good restaurant” with prices averaging $31-50.  It may be one-star but that is one hell of a star as far as I’m concerned. It’s been a year or two since I have been to Galveston. I can’t remember if Gaido’s still has a motel beside it. I stayed there one weekend along some fellow newspaper people for a convention. One of those nights we all ate with one of the tightest bosses I had ever known footing an “eat what you want” bill. Boy howdy did I eat what I wanted, and then more. I was afraid to eat any desert for fears I might explode! But my boss’ daughter, who was my best advertising rep ever, talked me into “just a little piece of pie.”

Lord almighty that was the richest, best pecan pie or any kind of pie I ever had. A bunch of us went to a room and we watched “Barnaby Jones” reruns as we sat there like mummies, wrapped tight in big sweet pie crusts. I don’t know how much we all spent on Alka-Seltzer that night.

 

 

 

 

 

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It ain’t too weird to buy a chili burger in Austin

Methinking, kindasorta like methinks though not, about hamburgers. My thinking zeros into chili burgers in particular. Why chili burgers in particular? Well, I got to searching this Web thing, you see? I finally locked onto Austin. Doesn’t everyone? That’s certainly what Austin folks think. Keep Austin Weird. Come on, The weirdest thing about Austin is Leslie Cochran and now she he is dead.

That isn’t to say Austin lacks its charms. That big, beautiful pink granite structure that just puts the rest of the city scape to shame is primarily among those charms. That is, more so when the Legislature isn’t in session. But my thinking of Austin prompted me to see if the Texas Chili Parlor was still alive and kicking. Apparently, it still is.

A few blocks from the Capitol on Lavaca Street is a favorite of pols and state workers and whomever else want a touch of Texas when it was. Yes, I’m talking about that era, the 70s, man. Hey, man, catch a buzz on Gwad-a-loopy and get a chili burger. I can’t remember the first time I went to Texas Chili Parlor. It was sometime in the late 70s, when the Armadillo World Headquarters was becoming past tense. I don’t know whether I was just hungry for a chili burger or a bowl of chili. I suppose I could have ordered both. That certainly wasn’t my first chili burger.

I don’t remember my first. I do remember a particularly good burger at the little place on Hwy. 96 in Kirbyville, Texas. That was in high school when I would visit the little town for football or girls or, most likely, girls. I can’t recall the place’s name. It’s not there, at least in the sense it was there in the early 70s. Maybe it’s a tanning salon/eight-liner joint now. Who the hell knows.

My work as a reporter took me to the Texas Capitol — in the state capital of Austin — every now and then. This was at the turn of the century. Sounds really freakin’ old doesn’t it? I’m talking about the 21st century. I met an old flame there once while on break from some mindless committee hearing who happened to be working in the Big Building while going for her Ph.D. at “The University.” We met and walked over to the chili parlor. Boy had she changed, in every way but appearance. She still looked young and quite nice, with the exception of her pants suit. The brown one. I could still see her in those plaid shorts and white polo the day she was feeding me grapes as we were sitting in an East Texas cow pasture waiting for Bugs Henderson to play, or was it Ray Wylie Hubbard? Upon seeing each other all these years I was kind of stunned to see that she looked as if hadn’t aged a bit, and told her. I could see that she didn’t want to remark on my looks.

“God, you look old as the Visigoths of the Reconquista.” Or else, she could lie. She might lie under certain conditions but she was always very frank about things and people who weren’t born with her cute little face.

Well, 500-plus words now and I’ve not even gotten close to what I wanted to write about. Yes, definitely, if you crave a chili burger, or even chili, when you find yourself in downtown Austin head over to Texas Chili Parlor and remember back when you could eat chili, sip a cold Lone Star and hear you some Waylon and Willie.

At least Willie is still around. Have a great, EFD, weekend!

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Sir Elton and I might have bad timing to see each other

If it wasn’t for the minor annoyance of possibly having knee surgery on Wednesday, well, I probably wouldn’t go anyway to the Elton John concert that’s happening just a few miles down the interstate from me. I mean few, like three or four miles maybe.

There are still tickets left, according to Ford Park, one of the most financially-troubled venues in Texas over the past 15 or so years. And it would be a nice gesture to help out old Elton, well, he is only about to turn 67 in a couple of week. It would be even a better move to help out Jefferson County and its prime real estate entertainment complex. Still, I just can’t see myself paying $99 or $69 tickets. If I had a date — what a riotous thought — I would have to sit in one seat and my date in the other. I would probably take the $99 seat. Which explains why a date for me is such a flight of fancy.

Sir Elton is a musical hero of mine though. I can remember listening to “Rocket Man” on KEEL-AM in Shreveport or WLS in Chicago. The latter station we would hear every now and then in Navy boot camp at Great Lakes, Ill., which is right on Lake Michigan though I never saw it from boot camp. But that jingle they would play “Chi-ca-go weathe-r!” Kind of like “Buy Mennen!” or as George from “Seinfeld” put it “Co-stanza!”  Now, 40 years later that damn radio station jingle is still in my head. No matter that the AM station probably has gone through about 10 format changes since then.”

the moon
I hope my legs won’t break, walking on the Moon. Or Enchanted Rock. Copyright 2004. Eight Feet Deep

 

After high school and in the Navy and on into college did I come to learn both old and new — relatively speaking — works of some of the great rockers like Elton. It was at the house of my friend, the incredible late Betti, red-headed hell-raiser she was, where I first heard what was to me the most improbable Elton tune “Texan Love Song” from his 1973 album Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player.

“So it’s Ki yi yippie yi yi
You long hairs are sure gonna die
Our American home was clean till you came
And kids still respected the president’s name … “

Call it what it was, satire. Betti’s friend Russell sang it and played it well on the guitar.

Sir Elton’s opus as far as I am and many others are concerned is the 1973 double-album — yes vinyl — Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It had a bevy, or flock perhaps, of great songs. Sir Elton was on fire back in the day.

Back especially in the 70s was I very fortunate to have seen quite a few rock concerts. Some were very popular groups at the time: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grand Funk Railroad, ZZ Top, Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac (the latter three times within a year and a half in North America and New Zealand), and the perennial favorite the Rolling Stones. Other individuals and groups, super or not, I had what I feel was the misfortune to have not seen: Any group with Eric Clapton, the Beatles, Warren Zevon, the Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and Led Zeppelin among them.

Ford Park hosted another favorite, not so super group, a few weeks ago: Foreigner. They have played across the U.S. staging local competitions for high school choir groups to join the band on stage to help with the chorus of “I Want To Know What Love Is.” A local school choir was chosen, the contest hosted by an area TV station. This was a stroke of genius, at least in theory, especially when performing with those high school vocal groups with a soul-gospel orientation, such as some of those from my area. It’s a lovely song that was great when it was released. I do remember hearing it ad nauseum on Christmas Day 1984 while driving all the way across Texas from the most eastern county to the most western.

I can’t remember what the prices were for Foreigner but I know it was more than I would pay for these days.

Honestly, I don’t know what it would take for me to attend a rock or country, stadium-sytle, concert these days. The second-coming of Elvis, Jimi, Janis, George and John, perhaps? Maybe if I were a young person today I wouldn’t mind paying such prices, but there is a time when such events are like what climbing up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial or walking up Enchanted Rock would be for me today with my torn lateral and medial meniscus. Ah yes, it comes back to that.

Yes it does. I want to get the damned thing fixed and in a hurry. The surgery won’t help me walk up Enchanted Rock today — the picture I took in 2004 always reminds me of the Police song “Walking on the Moon” — but at least, maybe, I won’t hurt so much when I walk down the street and hear yet an old tune come floating out of my memory.

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Welcome to Southeast Texas — Our bananas are armed, by God!

Note from Blogger man: Periodically, I feel I should let people know I have this bad habit of editing this blog once it has been published. And published. And published. Sorry, I am used to editing on paper and it’s just too much damned trouble to hook up the printer!

Hey Mr. Tally Man tally me — uh, an AK-47?

It is always entertaining when something locally that is not a disaster makes international news. Whether that something could have caused a disaster, maybe that is a different matter.

Police here in Beaumont, Texas, said on Feb. 8 “multiple concerned citizens reported that a man standing near the intersection of Highway 105 at the Eastex Freeway Service Road was armed with a rifle.”  Officers arrived just after 10 that morning to find an 18-year-old man “dressed in a banana costume and had an AK-47 rifle slung across his back.  The rifle had a drum magazine attached with at least a 50-round capacity. “

The young man was advertising for the grand opening of a local gun store called Golden Triangle Tactical. One must admit, that the spectacle certainly got the public’s attention from here in Texas to all the way across the pond. “Damned Pommies!” as my old Aussie friends used to say.

Whether the advertising stunt was dramatic irony on behalf of the shop owner, and most probably the Banana Boy, one cannot be certain. You see, the owner of the gun shop had been stopped by officers inside the local Parkdale Mall back in December while carrying what was reported by the media as an “assault rifle” on his back. Derek Poe, the shop owner, told police he was carrying the weapon to his store, which was then located inside the mall. The mall management had stated that guns were prohibited although no signs were posted, that is until after this incident made the news. Poe, decided to find a better location in which to run his shop.

Texas has no laws prohibiting openly packing so-called “long guns,” a fact that many gun advocates have wanted to make known through gatherings and marches with like-minded gun-toting Texans. Some are advocating openly carrying handguns in the state. The list of supporters include Sen. Wendy Davis, who won the Texas Democratic Primary on Tuesday. Davis will face Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott in November.

Beaumont police cited Banana Boy for violating a city ordinance that prohibits soliciting in and alongside roadways.  Poe was cited for disorderly conduct by police for taking a gun to his shop in the mall, so noted by “The Gun Report” on The New York Times website. The initial instance, Poe’s plight, has led to some marches around our area of folks both young and old slinging guns around their shoulders. This resulted in neighboring Port Arthur’s police chief to warn such protesters to stay away. The warning was given during the city’s Mardi Gras celebration last week. Whatever one chooses to make of it, two young women were caught up in a carjacking spree while stopped at a Port Arthur red light on their way to the Mardi Gras festivities Saturday evening.

Some may say that the Port Arthur Police Chief Mark Blanton has flawed reasoning for warning those who openly carry long guns. Blanton is concerned such displays of long guns might hinder people from reporting others toting around rifles or shotguns for reasons instead of exerting their Second Amendment rights. Other law officers worry that the public seeing others carrying long guns may disturb those who carry concealed handguns, and who do not know if the gun-carrying person is a nice fellow or mass murderer. Thus, there might be more shootouts at the O-K Corral, so to speak. All of such may seem reactionary police reasoning. But, now wait a minute.

Any crime reporting in Port Arthur would be anecdotal on my part. It sure seems a lot takes place listening to or reading local media. This especially since the town has hit the rocks economically over the past years, despite a boom in construction at local refineries and petrochemical plants. It seems like crime is rampant in Port Arthur. And most is so-called “Black on Black” crime. That is not unusual in the U.S., nor in Port Arthur. Unfortunately this isn’t rare since the town has an African-American population of 40 percent and 36 percent white, followed by Hispanics, Asians and other ethnicities.

The point is, those folks who drive the main highways through “the PA,” will likely see black people. And I just wonder what these gun advocates, mostly white, would feel seeing wave after wave of assault-rifle toting young black kids? Oh well, “we’ll just even out things,” some of the white gun-carrying folks might say. It doesn’t matter though. The point is, a bunch of gunfire in the streets is hardly a positive Chamber of Commerce-Convention and Visitor’s Bureau welcome.

Those who know me know that I am pro gun — to the point I like shooting them and I believe they have a place in our personal safety and culture. The encouragement of violence, by comparison, not so much. I like the fact we can carry long guns in our vehicles and handguns as well. I’ve often thought that perhaps openly carrying handguns would be safer than concealed carry. I am not so sure now. I do not like the vision of masses carrying long guns in our streets unless they are military folks or cops who are marching during a Veterans Day parade. And what will the (paying) neighbors say? A bunch of heavily armed people openly carrying weapons might be exciting for some silly Eurotrash who think they’ve landed into a Wild West show. But me? I prefer living in the not-so-wild, uh, West.

And, I think fruit wearing assault rifles around their shoulders and marching down the highways are just damned silly!

 

 

 

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And when all else fails, talk turns to Texas

Seems Texas is in the political news today. Nothing new. It shouldn’t be. I mean why should it, given this is the second largest state in population and the second largest in area? It’s two (smack) two (smack) two number two states in one.

Sr. Comadreja, a.k.a Sen. Ted Cruz, the Canadian-Cuban who represents the two-for-two state in the upper house was visiting here in Beaumont yesterday at the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum. The symbolism is not lost because the museum is only a short-short away from the gusher that started the modern petroleum industry. So, Cruz represents the “new” Tea Party face of the Republican party, but doesn’t want to shy away from that good ol’ awl money. Dana Bash of CNN was interviewing Cruz at the Boomtown, asking him about all kinds of insignificant matters. Such as Ted Nugent campaigning for Greg Abbott, Texas attorney general and candidate for the Republican nomination for governor.

Nugent said some things which are really not very meaningful when it comes to anything. Unless, perhaps you interpret ol patriotic, draft-dodging Teddy’s words as racist. But the media, mostly the cable news networks, have to pounce on these things. He called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and some other things which weren’t nice. When Abbott was questioned about the aging rock singer’s remarks, the GOP goober-natorial candidate for governor ran away from the media with both hands over his ears, screaming: “Nonononononon!!” All of that is pretty difficult since Abbott’s weird encounter, some years back, when a tree fell on him as he was jogging. I mean that is what insurance companies mean when they say: ” … act of God … ” That didn’t stop lawyer Abbott for suing the pants and just about everything else off the people “responsible.” Yes indeed, what a good Republican-stop-lawsuit-abuse fellow. As a matter of fact, Abbott continued to sue folks upon taking oath as Texas AG, especially suing the U.S. of A.

Perhaps for good measure, or Good Hair, Wolf Blitzer had old Good Hair himself on his program this afternoon. Gov. Rick Perry was hemmin’ and hawin’ about, whom else? Ted Nugent.

 “He shouldn’t have said that about the president, said Perry. “But we should be focused on what’s really important here.”

Whatever that might be.

 “Ted has said some pretty outrageous things … ” I do have a problem with somebody calling the president a mongrel.”

“That was a ‘subhuman mongrel!’ ” Wolf reiterated.

Yeah, well. A few free minutes of watching the “news” after an exhausting day all shot to hell by the “subhuman” elite of Texas politics.