‘Goodbye, San Antonio…’
There should be no mistaking that I was not San Antonio’s biggest fan. Besides being able to smoke in bars, the city had not much for a friendless Southern Californian to enjoy. Experiencing the closest to a quarter life crisis as anyone gets, I quit my job, told my landlord I was leaving and began packing my bags for the capital city of Texas: Austin
San Antonio wasn’t all beans and no pork, though. It had some good things about it. It looks good in a rear view mirror.
Now, many months ago somebody rear-ended me on my way to SXSW. I was in a hurry so when I surveyed the damage, it just looked like minimal aesthetic scarring. I never wash my car so a few scratches didn’t bother me. The overgrown hipster (he was definitely mid-30s still pretending to not have a job but he definitely had one, and probably a much better job than me) was very apologetic and I just went, “Nah, dude. Don’t worry about it. It looks fine.”
Here’s a life lesson I learned the hard way: Always get insurance information.
The next day when I opened my trunk I realized I couldn’t get it closed again. This was a problem because the leprechauns I was smuggling into Austin for SXSW were quickly figuring out how to untie their ropes. It took me half an hour to MacGyver a way to keep the thing shut. The overgrown hipster, who definitely had car insurance and probably could have spotted me the $50 bucks my untrained eye estimated fixing a trunk would cost, got away with it.
Fast forward to present day when I’m moving and the leprechaun trade has dried up. I need my trunk again.
I don’t want to drive an hour to and from San Antonio to shuttle my books and socks to my new apartment.
So I roll into the body shop and try to get a quote.
I tell the lady, “I really don’t want to open my trunk unless you can guarantee you can fix it today.”
“Oh, boy,” she says, “You say someone rear ended you? Yeah, don’t open your trunk.”
My heart sank to my bowels and I let out the quietest fart of desperation.
“How long would it take?”
“At least 24 hours, maybe more.”
“How much would it cost?”
“Well, depending on your deductible your insurance should cover it. It usually runs $500-700 to fix.”
I don’t like cursing at people who are just doing their jobs and I’ve been to this place before. They’re honest and they fix easy things to fix for free. They’ve taken a few looks at me before and fixed a lot of stuff for me for free so I knew she wasn’t pulling a fast one on me. I assure you, dear skimmer, I cussed the whole entire world out in my mind.
I ended up driving back and forth from San Antonio to Austin about eight times before all of my shit was moved and I shed a whole bunch more. Ebay netted me a nice chunk of change. I gave my beloved papasan to my pregnant neighbor who loved it, because pregnant people apparently like to be lazy in the last month of their pregnancy. I was their weird neighbor who listened to loud music and smoked cigarettes, but they were the only people who acknowledged my existence and seemed to appreciate it. I’ll miss them.
Now I’m in Austin. Had 10 days of glorious unemployment and bearded-ness. It’s been my fourth move in 2 years, but I’m not good at math so don’t take my word for it.
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Andrew Hilbert is a recently displaced Southern Californian living in San Antonio, TX. He will be sharing the adventures he encounters in his new habitat via his column Real Gone (to be published monthly on the second Monday of each month here on intraffik.com) He still wears his Dodgers hat and argues passionately against Spurs fans. He is one of three founders of art/poetry magazine Beggars & Cheeseburgers. One day he will own a llama or three.
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photo by Superstock.com
REAL GONE: PEOPLE GET MARRIED
Last week one of my best friends got married and he asked me to speak. He asked me a few weeks before the wedding and I, having had a few whiskeys in me and having played a few terrible rounds of pinball, didn’t hesitate. I wrote a draft of what I was going to say but knew I wasn’t going to revise it at all or look at it more than once.
I had bullet points memorized. The time we went tagging and his brother almost died. Our intricate drawings of alien-reptillian genitalia (I only say “our” to communalize my embarrassment). My bullet points were reserved for stories like that. I didn’t plan to be up there for longer than a pre-Revolver Beatles’ song. The bride’s speaker went first. He was a very articulate gay man.
He introduced himself, “Hi. I am so-and-so and I’ve known so-and-so since we were in elementary school. I am a writer so I wrote my speech down.” Then he pulled out his 32 page speech with footnotes. I immediately ordered four drinks and took off my shoes (my toes are long enough to hold bottlenecks comfortably).
Two hours later it was my turn to speak and I did the normal hello and what’s my name and all that jazz. I skipped the part about alien dicks that controlled the one world government. I didn’t skip our brush with death.
There were scattered laughs. I looked at my feet a lot.
I retold the time I met my friend’s wife for the first time and mentioned that she had a political bumper sticker on her car. I didn’t mention the political party because it was a wedding and even though I had never been to a wedding in my adult life, I had seen enough movies to know that they are breeding ground for familial political hatred. I mentioned I lived in Texas some time during my two and half minutes.
After I threw the microphone in the pool some guy came up to me and said, “So what was with all that political shit you said? You seemed really radical. Can I ask you what political party you are?”
About half a second of my speech was dedicated to being ambiguous about politics.
“Me? Radical? I recall not saying it to avoid exactly this situation.”
“You said you were from Texas and you made a big deal about not saying what the bumper sticker said.”
He was getting really close to me and his breath smelled like what most human breath smells like. Nothing really special. Thought I’d clear that up.
I turned the tables on him.
“What about you? What are you?” I asked.
“I’m an anti-war Democrat.”
“Well, I consider myself a pretty liberal guy, nice to meet you,” and I walked out.
I think I avoided what would have been a fight with an aggressive pacifist at my best friend’s wedding.
Sometimes it’s best to just tell people what a bumper sticker you saw three years ago said. It said OBAMA-BIDEN 2008.
It was very important to this man.
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Andrew Hilbert is a recently displaced Southern Californian living in San Antonio, TX. He will be sharing the adventures he encounters in his new habitat via his column Real Gone (to be published monthly on the second Monday of each month here on intraffik.com) He still wears his Dodgers hat and argues passionately against Spurs fans. He is one of three founders of art/poetry magazine Beggars & Cheeseburgers. One day he will own a llama or three.
REAL GONE: MED MUSIC
The doctor’s appointment hung over me for over a month. I had always struggled with highs and lows but since the first time I visited a psychologist my senior year in high school, I had a distrust of these witch doctors who could cure the mind.
When I was 17 or 18, when my parents were finally fed up with my frequent mood swings, I visited a psychologist. She was a broad-shouldered fifty-something with hairstyle that was too old for her age. She reminded me of my kindergarten teacher, who had an involuntary eye tick, minus the pleasantness of a kindergarten teacher. My first kiss was in kindergarten. A short-haired girl named Crystal pushed me into a concrete cylinder and gave me a kiss on the forehead. I never believed in cooties and if I did, I subconsciously sought them after that moment.
The psychologist’s greeting to me was no bullshit. “I want to prescribe you some mood medicine from the outset so that as we work through your problems, your highs and lows are more evenly metered.”
She had not even heard a word from me before she wanted to make me some kind of zombie.
I smirked, said, “Fuck that, fuck you, see you later,” and walked out.
My mom was still in the parking lot as I left. I don’t know if my parents were obligated to pay for that session but if I found out that they did, I’m sure I’d be thrown into a major guilt-ridden episode. I couldn’t cope with guilt and it still is something I struggle with. I still feel guilty when I think about the time I was in second grade and my mom gave my brother and me money to buy each other “Candy grams” for some holiday so that we wouldn’t be left out of the delivery process when everyone was getting these deliveries during school hours, so that all the other kids could see how popular some of us were. My brother was left out because I just bought one for myself and he bought one for me. They were bunny shaped lollipops, so I’m sure the holiday was Easter.
To deal with this anger over the psychologist prescribing me something before even attempting to get to know me, I did what any angsty teenager with a band would do. I wrote a song called, “Gotta Pill,” even though I never got said pill. My thoughts toward medicating became almost Scientologist. I was against the whole industry even as I self-medicated with alcohol and marijuana throughout college and later, a flirtation with college Christian fundamentalism (didn’t last long, thank “god.”)
But after moving to Texas a year and a few months and being completely stripped away of my social circle, and never being so great in social situations and meeting new people, I knew something had to change. I picked up smoking out of the sheer boredom of not knowing anybody and when I smoked at bars occasionally people would come up to me and ask for a cigarette or a light. It was a means of human contact and I was grateful for as little as I got.
I made the appointment during my lowest of lows in Texas, when I couldn’t even get out of bed before noon. I’d wake up at 7am. Sure, but I’d stare at the ceiling dreading whatever was ahead of me that day. Something really needed to change.
I was greeted by a stale waiting room decorated with Christian sayings; doctors followed in their Messiah’s footsteps by healing the Cardiomyopathic, the Depressed, and the Fibromyalgic (see Luke 12:50). The receptionist hid behind textured glass; I couldn’t see her at first as nothing more than a dark blob behind it. I didn’t know if she could see me and I felt rude knocking on it. It was obviously designed to say, “We’ll get to you when we see you, asshole. Take a seat and read some Highlights magazines.”
I filled out paperwork and waited.
Forty minutes later, a nurse with a Longhorns scarf came to the waiting room and called my name. She was pleasant and told me to not hold my book when she weighed me. “We don’t want any extra weight!” she smiled and I thought about emptying my pockets because I knew my cellphone, my over-keyed key ring, and my wallet stuffed with receipts weighed much more than my book but I kept quiet assuming she expected this weight in somebody’s pockets.
When the doc showed up in my room, he had a haircut that looked like he moonlighted as a synth player in some German band from the 80s. It was brushed to the side and hung too long on his face for somebody his age, let alone a doc. He also had a Dr. Strangelove smile every time he asked me questions. He was nice enough and didn’t push Jesus on me. He must let his nurses decorate his waiting room.
I laid out my concerns about mood regulating medicine. I don’t want to be a zombie. I have a bad memory as it is, I don’t need it any worse. I have a negative, self-deprecating sense of humor that I don’t want to lose in the name of happiness. I told him that I like to feel the whole spectrum of things because I feel that’s a part of living. He prescribed me something to try out. “One pill at bedtime every day,” he said.
So here I wait patiently for bedtime and the morning’s “new” me.
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Andrew Hilbert is a recently displaced Southern Californian living in San Antonio, TX. He will be sharing the adventures he encounters in his new habitat via his column Real Gone (to be published monthly on the second Monday of each month here on intraffik.com) He still wears his Dodgers hat and argues passionately against Spurs fans. He is one of three founders of art/poetry magazine Beggars & Cheeseburgers. One day he will own a llama or three.
FROM SISSY POSER SMOKER TO FULL BLOWN SMOKER’S HACK
San Antonio has one good thing going for it. It’s legal to smoke indoors at bars. The rule, so I’ve heard, is that if your establishment makes more money on booze than it does on food, smoking is allowed. Restaurants that employ scantily clad women as servers for lonely middle-aged men make more money on booze than they do food so those places are fun to hang out in.
When I was a kid, many in my family smoked. My uncles smoked, my great uncles smoked, my grandpa smoked. It was something I was always around. Smell and memory are closely linked and I’ve always loved the smell of smoke because it reminds me of being a snot nosed doofus.
Smoking in San Antonio is very common. In fact, everywhere I’ve been in Texas is pretty okay with smoking. In California, it was just something people did while they drank at bars to look cool. In California when I tried to bum cigarettes off of people that were smoking, they’d never have cigarettes because they had bummed them themselves. I was what I like to call a sissy poser smoker; too afraid to commit to anything.
I tell you, though, for a city whose only cultural improvement is being allowed to smoke indoors, you can’t help but be terminally bored at all times. And this leads to smoking.
When I moved out of my uncle’s house into a really cheap apartment, I’d just turn on my radio real loud and smoke cigarettes all day on my balcony. My neighbors, at first, smiled and nodded at me. Then they looked at me suspiciously like I had something mental going on.
There isn’t much to look at in San Antonio. You see the Alamo once, you’ve seen it too many times and every time someone from California visits you and they know you’re a history major they think they’re doing you a favor by going to some place historical to hear you bloviate. It’s fun when people see you as an authority in something. (more…)
AT THE TAVERN’S RESTAVRANT INTERVIEW & LIVE SET RE-BROADCAST THURSDAY AT 1PM
THURSDAY AT 1PM (PST) LISTEN TO THE RE-BROADCAST OF INTRAFFIKRADIO.COM’S ‘AT THE TAVERN’ WITH AMANDA JONES AND SIRIA C. THAT INCLUDED A SPECIAL LIVE PERFORMANCE EDITION W/ THE BAND RESTAVRANT.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN (or go to www.intraffikradio.com and click on the big red link that says Click Here to Listen)
The Texas native boys of Restavrant were on this past Sunday’s Texas themed show with the girls of “At the Tavern“.
You can catch them playing Crazy Girls in Hollywood on Thursday 12/9 and at Villain’s Tavern on Friday 12/10 where they will also be premiering their video for their song “Lionman”
They performed live sets of their following songs:
“Yeah, I Carve Cheetahs”
“Bev D.”
“Step Down”
“Wild Witch”
“Joe D.”
“Yes, I Guess”
“Light of My Life”
“I See It Now”
They also brought in some of their favorite music that they currently listen to as well as music by artists that they name-check as influences.
Here is what was played:
Gene Autry – “Deep in the Heart of Texas”
Restavrant – “Lionman” (Go to Villain’s Tavern on Friday 11/10 for the premiere of this song’s video”
Ben Nichols – “Delia’s Gone” (Johnny Cash Cover)
Ray Wylie Hubbard – “Screw You, We’re From Texas”
Bob Log-“String Around a Stick”
Johnny Cash – “Ballad of the Teenage Queen”
R.L. Burnside – “Poor Black Mama”
Chuck Ragan – “Wreck of Old ‘97”
Fred McDowell – “Shake ‘Em on Down”
Waylon Jennings – “Bob Wills is Still the King”
Sianspheric – “Radiodiffusion”
Restavrant – “You Da Kind”
Restavrant – “Delia”
Eleven Hundred Springs – “Drive Fast, Drink Beer”
The Clientele – “I Want You (More Than Ever)”
George Jones – “Good Hearted Woman”
Mickey Gilley – “The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time”
Al B. Sure – “Night and Day”
During this re-broadcast you’ll learn how the band formed, where they first met, their recording process (both in the beginning and now) as well as song-writing process, what they’ll do when they make it big, their plans to hit Paris, France and possibly Germany in the Spring, and about the new (soon to be) “phenomenon” known as Skype-gliding.
If you listen in beginning at 12:30 pm, you’ll also hear a bonus half-hour of pre-show music (some of it “Texas” themed) that includes:
Chet Atkins – “Galloping on the Guitar”
Alan Jackson – “Dallas”
Tanya Tucker – “Texas (When I Die)”
Eddy Arnold – “Texakana Baby”
Red Simpson – “Dream on Texas Ladies”
Muddy Waters – “I Can’t Be Satisfied”
Here are some photos of Restavrant in our intraffikradio studio (click on images to enlarge):
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“You’ll get one Skype from me, at 4:33” –T.Murrah (inventor of Skype-gliding)
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“I was using an electric razor as a percussion instrument” –J.State
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RESTAVRANT ON ‘AT THE TAVERN’ TODAY AT 11:30 AM (PST)
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TODAY LISTEN TO INTRAFFIKRADIO.COM’S ‘AT THE TAVERN’ WITH AMANDA JONES AND SIRIA C. FOR A SPECIAL LIVE PERFORMANCE EDITION W/ THE BAND RESTAVRANT.
Much like the rest of L.A. we’ve had a crush on the live performances and music the two talented members (J. State and T. Murrah) of this band put on. A hot and sweaty Little Radio Summer Camp event over 3 years ago first put these guys on our radar and since that time much of L.A. has been won over as well.
The Texas native boys of Restavrant will be on a Texas themed show with the girls of “At the Tavern” performing some of their songs live over the air for you.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN (or go to www.intraffikradio.com and click on the big red link that says Click Here to Listen)