August 18, 2025
A Fantastic Sunday
August 16, 2025
Flaco and Me
There really is no Flaco and Me, but I thought it would sound good.
In the day, in the college town where I colleged, there was a bar called The Club. As I remember it, not as it was, it was on a corner, where the sidewalk ended and the dirt started. It was an old man bar -- dark wood, dry oak floors, two pool tables whose overhead scoring abacus (what else would you call it?) hung with dust. Around the rest of the room were booths, and a back alcove held a perpetual poker game that you could only get in on by invitation.
The Club served minors.
I really only went there a few times, because I didn't want to get busted, but the best times were on weekends. Not sure how, but a guy I knew from class invited me out for a beer one Saturday. As I recall he was from the Central Valley and was studying city planning. Wore a light blue pearl button shirt, which spoke volumes about where he stood, and what his roots were, despite what he was learning at college. He was intellectually provocative, shall we say.
Anyhoo, he hipped me to what I was missing that day as he bought tokens from the bartender and plugged them in the jukebox. That was the day I learned about Flaco Jimenez and the sound of accordion. Damn. In 1983 accordion was considered desperately uncool, but here was this tremendous music spitting at my notion of what it was. That was a great day.
After I moved away the next year, I went up to school a few times on a weekend and sat at the bar with the old guys. They put their dentures on the bar, drank short mixed drinks and watched baseball. I didn't want to interrupt, so I don't think I got to listen to Flaco again in the space where I became acquainted with him, but I never forgot the name.
A few years later, I was living over an Irish bar. I'd briefly played ukulele and sang harmonies in a band that played a combination of pop originals, 70's Americana covers and Texas border conjunto covers. My bandmates brought up Flaco's name again. Shortly after I was tossed out of said band (long story), Flaco came to town. Not only that, he was set to play at the cultural center that was next door to the building I lived in. Faaaantastic! The venue didn't have a backstage, so when Flaco needed to warm up he went into the walkway behind the building and did so. My apartment was on the first floor, so I quietly jimmied my window up a few inches and had a private concert.
It was divine. Thank you, Flaco. The concert inside an hour or so later couldn't have been as good as these few moments I had you to myself.
August 11, 2025
Sweet Magnolias. Those Bitches!
We're watching whatever season this is of Sweet Magnolias. I have enjoyed this show even though it's a sweetly terrible throwback. We decided to return to it after a long absence. For some reason I care about these characters, but...
Those bitches!! Your best friend puts on a surprise Halloween wedding for herself and her man. You two get so bent out of shape that the day after your best friend's wedding, when she's up in the clouds with happiness and returns to her home, you sit on her porch, laying in wait, and then drag her for two pages of dialogue about how you two didn't get to participate in the planning of the wedding.
Well, characters on a show based on a book that could have been better, you probably participated in and were happy about the first wedding to that guy Bill, who they killed off at the end of this episode so that we can all come together in sadness. I will not be sorry to see Will Wheaton's (correction: Chris Klein's) squinty face struggling through the terrible dialogue he's given.
Mrguy says he smells another death. This show loves a death.
My prediction: Dana Sue's hot husband whatsisface is next. He tripped while helping Coach Cal move into his new wife's house. Bet he has ALS, which is just the kid of lingering disease they give a man on these shows.
Can I still label this "television"? I'm too old to know. "Content"?
Whatever