On the Street

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The Shape of Jazz Still to Come

Saxophonist Arthur Doyle in action at Trinity University. Photo by Justin Parr.

On Thursday I headed over to Trinity University to see a performance by two improvisatory jazz veterans, saxophonist Arthur Doyle and percussionist Han Bennick. To quickly understand their credentials, know that Bennick played with the legendary Eric Dolphy and Doyle played with the extraterrestrial Sun Ra Group.

The pairing of these two musicians is a first on stage and it came together through the hard work and promotion of local artist Ben Judson, with his organization heavy Denim (Heavydenim.org) and 91.7 KTRU radio. Ben promoted well, for I saw several out-of-towners in attendance, including Austinites Chris Cogburn of Ten Pounds to the Sound and P.G. Moreno of Epistrophy Arts. Both of these groups host various improvised music/free jazz events around the state and seem to have formed some synergy with Judson’s heavy Denim. This bodes well for future shows coming to San Antonio.

The night began with a solo by Arthur Doyle. Doyle slowly walked out wearing black pants and T-shirt and a bright safety-orange baseball hat. He was as thin as a bamboo reed and didn’t seem to be in the best of health. Once he picked up his saxophone and began to play he channeled energy from an exterior force and came alive. His set became a series of alternating moments of playing the sax and a cappella scatting. I use the term scatting loosely because it wasn’t the typical jazz scatting that makes me laugh. This vocalization was closer to a schizophrenic rant. At first it seemed a fantastic put on but then it became a fascinating veil. At that point his saxophone playing and his mumbling storytelling melded together into a unified, mysterious gesture.

Next was a solo set by Han Bennick. Whereas Doyle came across as detached and saturnine, Bennick was ballistic and anarchic. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen someone play the drums with such a contrasting combination of precision and freedom. At times he would kick his feet up on the toms while he played. He was a total showman with the heart of a jokester. I understand that many people associate free jazz with something very serious and solemn, but Bennick was quite the opposite. At one point during his set he stopped everything and asked the audience if there were any questions. P.G. Moreno of Epistrophy Arts shouted out,  “What’s your favorite cheese?” Bennick shouted back, “Fuck that cheese.” He had the audience on the edge between laughter and amazement.

Doyle and Bennick finished the night with a duo. Doyle began onstage by himself, attacking his sax. Bennick began playing off-stage on unseen drums. Then he came forward unexpectedly by throwing his crash symbols onstage. Doyle seemed as surprised as the audience. Bennick then returned to his drumset and continued playing like a crazed character out of a Werner Herzog film. Klaus Kinski comes to mind. Local art blog Emvergeoning.com has a Youtube clip of this moment. The night basically ended when Doyle began walking inquisitively around the stage like a character out of Waiting for Godot. Bennick realized the duo had pretty much ended and wrapped it up. A standing ovation ensued. Confusion reigned.   

— Mark Jones

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The Sunset Scavenger (01/24/2007)

When I finally left Los Angeles, I rode a bus from Silverlake to downtown along Sunset Boulevard, stopping at Amtrak’s historic Union Station. From there, I boarded the Sunset Limited and took a lengthy journey back to Texas that ended at San Antonio’s Sunset Station. That trip, I thought, would be the extent of my “sunset” train experience.

But then filmmaker Bill Daniel came to town in his van, the Sunset Scavenger, to show his much-traveled documentary, Who is Bozo Texino?, a film about hobo graffiti, train-hopping, and the elusive identity of legendary hobo Bozo Texino. (Back around 1997, Daniel used to come to town once a week to show films for his micro-cinema series Funhouse Cinema.)

Who is Bozo Texino? was a 16-year journey for Daniel. He rode the rails across much of the western half of the country with his Super 8 and Bolex cameras, gathering interviews and shooting hours upon hours of footage, all at great risk, but also with great excitement, which comes through in this final version of the documentary. The film was shot in grainy black-and-white, which lends a timeless quality to this fading culture. The music was scored by Texas punk legend Tim Kerr and SST producer Spot. Full of country blues and slide guitars, it evokes a sense of nostalgia. What struck me most were the wild sounds of the trains, which were fortuitously augmented by the real sounds of trains traveling by several feet outside Fl!ght gallery, where the movie screened last Thursday.

During the Q&A session that followed the screening, Daniel commented that hobos have always said their lifestyle used to be easier, and after 9/11 riding the rails became even more difficult. Given that, Who is Bozo Texino? most likely stands as the definitive statement on boxcar-graffiti culture. The film will soon be distributed on DVD. Daniel’s website, Billdaniel.net, gives the most up-to-date information.

After the film a group of people headed up South Flores to the old Judson Candy building to watch Potter-Belmar Labs project video images of graffiti onto the side of the building. It was a wonderful, spontaneous moment, and I only wish I had arrived earlier to see more of it.

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Searching for SA's Roots in the River (01/17/2007)

Recently, I got a message that ice-cream king Justin Arecchi wanted to talk.

I went to his new location on Main Street in Monte Vista and found myself listening to something he deeply cared about: downtown and the current state of the River Walk. An hour later it was obvious this is something we all should care about.

Arecchi ran Justin’s Ice Cream Company and other establishments on the River Walk for more than 38 years to great acclaim (President Clinton called his mango ice cream “a national treasure.”) If anyone can speak confidently about the River Walk, Justin is the guy.

The obvious reason Justin wanted to talk about the River Walk is because of the way he was unceremoniously booted from his location when landlord Curtis Gunn decided not to renew his lease and instead did business with Houstonian Tilman Fertitta, CEO of Landry’s Restaurants, Inc. One could easily accuse Justin of sour grapes except that Justin is very much an advocate for the city’s cultural heritage and the River Walk in particular. He has served as president of the King William Neighborhood Association and, more pertinently,  as chairman of the City’s Historic Review Board.

Before 1992 the River Walk had an advocacy group, a city board called the River Walk Commission, which had some control over how the waterway could be developed.  The Historic Design Review Committee took over commission’s duties and the results speak for themselves. The River Walk’s shores are now graced with the Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Café, and Landry’s Seafood (which also holds the contract for the restaurant and bar in the Tower of Americas).

The character of the river has changed and this should be every San Antonian’s concern. If locals don’t want to drive downtown to eat at a chain restaurant when they can do so more easily in a suburb, one has to ask at what point tourists will begin to wonder the same. That’s a frightening thought, economically.

Will Rogers called San Antonio one of America’s four unique cities. I wonder how unique the late Rogers would consider our Hard Rock Café, for example? Luckily, Arecchi has not given up on his commitment to independent, original food, and has turned his attention to historical Monte Vista, just north of downtown, at 2212 N. Main. Though he’s come full circle and is starting over again with Justin’s On Main, Arecchi is able to draw from his long experience on the river. He wants to make his Main Street café a neighborhood hub by diversifying — by still serving their world famous ice cream, but also serving panini sandwiches, beer and wine, and gourmet coffee, and by offering live music at nights, free wifi, and the occasional lecture tour and book reading. His enthusiasm is contagious and I’m excited to watch him make it all happen.

As our conversation shifted from politics to history, Arecchi confirmed an interesting footnote: Best-selling author Alex Haley did in fact come to live above the River Walk to write. In his most famous book, Roots, Haley retraces his personal history. Perhaps our current city leaders could try to find that old apartment above the river and live there for a few months. Who knows? Maybe they’ll find the inspiration to take the city back to its roots. And fast.

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Foreclosures, Werewolves, and Magic Lanterns (01/10/2007)

Though last Tuesday was a day of remembrance for Gerald Ford (and yes it did seem like the remembrance was actually gaining momentum with each passing day), there was work to be done around town. Congressman Al told me there would be a house-foreclosure auction that morning on the courthouse steps. There’s nothing like betting on someone’s misery to add a spring to your gait. I thought it would be an interesting glimpse into how the real world works. Nonetheless, an auction at the courthouse seemed very antiquated to me. I hoped to see people riding in on horses. When we arrived, there were actually two different auctions happening concurrently. On the left side of the steps a police officer was auctioning houses that were delinquent in their city taxes. On the right side of the steps, banks were auctioning houses that were behind in their mortgage. About 60 people were crammed as tight as possible on the right, and at any point between three to six houses were being auctioned at once.

Someone with a clipboard would start speaking aloud, and an auction would begin.  Two competing companies sold books detailing the upcoming foreclosures. Because of that, numbers were being yelled that corresponded with the different guidebooks. As soon as one auction would get going, another one would pop up somewhere else. Legally, the auction had to take place on the actual courthouse steps. Sometimes, it seemed like the bank wanted to buy the house for themselves so they would slink off to a remote part of the opposite steps and start quietly reading their clipboard, hoping no one else would catch on to what they were doing. As one of those moments began again, we too slipped away, not sure what we learned that day.

First Friday was less crowded than normal, probably due to the Spurs game against Dallas. Given the smaller crowd, I was able to spot some semi-familiar faces. At one point I remember talking to the Fl!ght Gallery crew about a possible werewolf sighting the night before. I wasn’t the one who reported it, nor really believed it, but according to them there might be a werewolf (from the Greek lukanthropos, “wolf man”) at the Alamo Quarry Golf Club lake. From there the conversation downshifted to the legacy of Cheech and Chong comedy routines, did Whitley Strieber lie, and most importantly, how does one say the plural of Big Foot? Big Foots or Big Feet?  

Through visiting artist Luke Savisky, who had returned for one final performance at Three Walls Gallery, I was put on the guest list at the Magic Lantern Castle, a museum on Austin Highway that is the world’s authority on, that’s right, magic lanterns. Magic lanterns, I learned, were the dominant form of projecting images before the invention of motion-picture projectors. The museum, or castle, is so specific in its focus, at first I thought it was a put-on, in the same way Los Angeles’s Museum of Jurassic Technology is a wonderful jest. But the curator and owner Jack Judson is an enduring force of nature and his museum might be the most interesting one in town. `For a profile of Mr. Judson and his museum, see “The oldest picture show,” March 1-7, 2006.`

As I was sitting, waiting for Mr. Judson to begin his presentation, I realized this building used to be Shakey’s Pizza back in the early ’80s, and I was sitting in what was the old game room where Shakey used to show Buck Rogers serials. Those films had an H.G. Wells retro-futuristic vibe that seemed similar to the aesthetics and exotica of the magic lanterns . And so I felt old but young, back at Shakey’s pizza, back in town again after a long journey, moving forward, yet now intrigued by a past I didn’t know existed, and my own past I thought I had forgotten. Later, as Mr. Judson busted out his theremin, I went outside and got on my bike and made the slow way home. I felt like I was moving forward, I think.

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San Antonio Legends (Once and Future)

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The Black Bean Death Lottery (12/06/2006)

Historically, Texans have been known to be larger than life. And Texas history, similarly, has been just as super-sized. I believe that’s fairly accepted. Of course one can say that’s it’s all just a myth. But a myth doesn’t necessarily mean a falsehood; it just means that it is a shared belief, even if the myth is not exactly true. If anything, paradoxically, a falsehood only makes the myth larger and adds to its strength. It creates its own asymmetrical reality. So where the hell am I going with this?

Follow me, literally. I was riding north on Austin Highway for some exercise. Texas history wasn’t exactly the first thing on my mind. Austin Highway seemed like a different route to take so I headed out on a whim. But since we’re talking about history, Austin Highway these days seems anything but historic. Sure, its good to see Bun ’n’ Barrel BBQ still going fairly strong. But the American Graffiti drag-racing days are mainly a thing of the past. My memories of Austin Highway are from the 1980s when I would see prostitutes walking around by the small motels right next to Terrell Hills! That always amused me — that the two could somehow exist right next to each other.

I passed the cemetery on the left and came across a Texas historical marker by chance. And this is what set my mind in motion. The marker was for something called the “Dawson Massacre.” I read it, and then back home read more about it online. To summarize: On September 11, 1842 (that’s right, 9-11!), San Antonio was invaded by a French mercenary leading an army of Mexican soldiers. They kidnapped almost all of the local judges and basically sacked the city. A group of Texans responded. Over by the Rittiman flea market the Battle of Salado Creek occurred. At the same time, some other Texans came into town to join the fight and were massacred, i.e., the Dawson Massacre.

Without getting into all the details of what happened next (including something called the “Black Bean Death Lottery” — I swear to you, I’m not making this up, and no, it’s not the name of a Heavy Metal band) I want to ponder the context of all this. San Antonio was captured by Mexico six years after Texas defeated Mexico at the battle of San Jacinto! One would think this would be something significant, right? I don’t remember that in Junior High.

And that’s what perplexes me — Texas, with it’s wonderful love of itself and all its stories, has pretty much abandoned this piece of its past. Sure, you could say it was a massacre, but the Alamo was a massacre too and that doesn’t stop thousands of tourists coming here every year to check it out. So why is that? All I can guess is that the Alamo falls into a better narrative arc; it’s the end of the second act. All seems lost. Third act: the come-from-behind victory at San Jacinto. All is well. End of story. Next 10 years, Texas was a nation! Cool, right!? I suppose no one wants to dwell on the less than glamorous aspects of those 10 years of nationhood as Mexico undermined Texas’s legitimacy. And, Santa Anna kept sticking around, like the Saddam Hussein of his era. It just doesn’t fit into a good story. There’s no myth there. It’s just the randomness of life.

So, I’m not going to expect any tourists will want to come to town to explore this seedy part of the past.  They should; there are some pretty bizarre stories; but they won’t. Just in case they do, though, and they need a place to stay, I know there are some motels on Austin Highway that would be happy to take their money, even if it is by the hour.

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Before the Battle (11/14/2006)

Recently an old friend named Brett came through town on his way to Houston where he was to give a talk at one of the museums on something concerning contemporary art. I’ve forgotten the exact nature of his speech but I did later remember something entirely beside the point about Brett, which is that he had an early brush with infamy as a child actor in the movie The World According to Garp. Brett was the kid at the infirmary who gets his weener caught in his zipper. A very memorable scene. That was Brett, or at least that’s the story…

Through Brett, I met his friend Matthew Drutt, the new director of Artpace. That night I listened as they discussed the international art scene. In the process, I learned a little bit about a lot of things, including the work of one of the current Artpace residents, Allison Smith. In New York, Allison orchestrated an open-source art event at the forgotten Governor’s Island, wherein she combined Arts & Crafts with Civil War historical recreation. My mechanic is a historical recreation actor, and I was curious how a contemporary artist would approach historical recreation. I asked Matthew if he could arrange an informal interview, and a few days later on a brilliantly blue Friday afternoon, I was riding my bike down to Artpace to do just that.

At that moment my bike was recently out of the shop, and through the vagaries of vintage bicycle repair, I now had a different gear for my single-speed cruiser. A new gear is not something I sought out, but that was the new reality and going uphill was now a bit more of a challenge.

I rode south on McCullough and made use of the bike lane. It’s not a route I would normally take, in part because my bike friends would laugh at me, and also because it can be unsafe at night with the lack of lights, but during the day it was a good choice. The steady downhill gave me a great opportunity to test the new gear. At Euclid I turned east towards Flores, and at Flores I headed south so I could approach Artpace from the rear and avoid the schizophrenic intersection at Main and San Pedro by the downtown library.

While on Flores, just south of M.K. Davis, I came across some construction for a new vegetarian restaurant, which looked intriguing, though still at least another month away.

At Artpace, Allison greeted me and showed me around her Texas-size studio. Allison comes from a deep Crafts tradition; at the same time she is inspired by Craft movements of the past that are atypical and convey personal expression, especially of politics and resistance. This nexus most likely will be the heart of her upcoming show, a show that I could tell that Allison has been working extremely hard to prepare for. There were handmade weapons on tables, tapestries on walls, silk-screened dresses, and most ominously, a large wood carved rocking horse that she said she will be riding into the gallery to begin the show. I would be foolish to try to explain too much. Allison’s work will speak for itself on Thursday night, November 16, at Artpace. A dialogue will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the reception will open from 7:30-8:30pm. I’ll see you there.

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Rough Ride, in Film and Real Life (10/25/2006)

Some weeks, not everything comes together. By that I mean an effort is made, an expectation is raised, a result, however, is not always met. Coincidentally, my bike is still in need of repair and the clouds have been rather cloudy as of late so these two concepts seem to be working in parallel and dovetail nicely, sadly.

But to rewind. Early in the week I perused the website for the San Antonio Film Commission and saw that a film crew from LA is in town shooting a boxing movie. Sounded interesting enough. The filmmaker, Jimmy Nickerson, is a first-time director, which either means it’s actually his first time to make a movie, or his real first film didn’t make a big enough splash so there’s no point in referring to it. There’s no shame in this: P.T Anderson’s first film wasn’t Boogie Nights, nor was Linklater’s first film actually Slacker but the impression that it was remains.

I read that Nickerson was a career stuntman in Hollywood for more than three decades, and Imdb.com listed more than 30 huge action movies that featured his stunt services, including the first Rocky film. I emailed the production office to schedule an interview, hopefully during lunch break because lunch generally has a pleasant vibe on a film set — that is, of course, if the catering is good.

After a few days I received an email to come by the set. A producer/writer seemed to be hinting that I might interview him instead but the director was the more interesting story. I called them and left a message to finalize the meeting, get directions, and that sort of thing. I never heard back. Welcome to LA.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it because that day I was thrown not a curve ball but more like a change of speed. A friend had just come back to town and the next day was his birthday. His ex-girlfriend was planning a surprise party for him that night. The weird thing was that he was already told that a group of us were going to take him to dinner that night, so the real surprise would be that we actually wouldn’t be going out to eat but instead stay in and be entertained by a belly dancer. This sounds euphemistic but I believe it was legit.

My role was to distract him during the day for six hours and then deliver him at home at exactly 7:15. Six hours! Not to mention how to time such a precise landing. My mind wandered over possibilities. Lunch. A movie. Feigning car trouble. My planning never got further than that. I was going to have to wing it.

I called him on the day in question at 1 p.m. and was a little surprised when his ex-girlfriend answered his cell phone. I was completely shocked when I found out my friend was in the hospital under heavy narcotics having just suffered an attack of gall stones and pancreatitis. On his birthday. He was waiting for his pancreas to improve so the surgeons could remove his gall bladder.

I spent the part of the next few days hanging out with him at the hospital. On the last day, I went by the Starbucks at the hospital to get a café Americano. That was going to be my small satisfaction, possibly for the week. When the rookie behind the counter began to mangle my drink I tried to keep my composure.

For this small moment, my expectation would be met.

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On the Street (10/18/2006)

Normally, to bike downtown I take a rather complicated route — south on Devine through Olmos Park, left at Alamo Stadium, bomb the hill towards the Zoo, ride across a faux-bois bridge into Brackenridge park, go south on a bumpy bike lane behind the Lions Club, continue on to Avenue B, take a left at Grayson, take a right on Alamo street, and from there it’s smooth sailing until Alamo dead-ends. When I asked my friend Brian how he rides downtown, he responded, “I just take Broadway.” That kind of took the piss out of my Byzantine process. I didn’t think it should be that easy. So, I tried.

It was. The best part of this route is the end, the 100 block of Broadway: The gateway into downtown. Except that it really isn’t. The 100 block is like a small version of Time Square circa 1970. This is the block with the huge antique store, Paris Hatters, the Texas T pub, a loan office, and some empty storefronts. With the exception of Twin Sisters cafe, new blood doesn’t seem to last long here.

I hadn’t been on the curb for more than 30 seconds taking notes when a guy in a cowboy hat emerged from Paris Hatters and asked if I was with “those other guys.” Evidently a lot of people on bikes have been coming to this block and taking notes.

I walked across the street to see the jewel of the block, the historic Atlee Ayres building at 118 Broadway. I expected to find a few private investigators in the lobby directory. Instead I saw Build San Antonio Green, Suite 223. It had to be a CIA front. I took the elevator up to see more.

Build San Antonio Green is a nonprofit organization that accredits “green” building. They have a large showroom to showcase materials such as Compressed Earth Blocks and cork flooring. The website, Buildsagreen.org, is a great resource for someone looking to remodel a fixer-upper.

As I learned about the water-saving properties of an Australian two-speed flush toilet, I glanced out the window. I hoped to see a parade of bicyclists looking around taking notes, or better, the guy with the cowboy hat from the David Lynch movie staring at me ominously. Instead, I just saw an old neighborhood and wondered what would survive — Build San Antonio Green or the old ’hood. Hopefully, both.

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Marching Alone (10/08/2006)

On Wednesday I read an article that Jeff Spicoli (aka Sean Penn) would be involved with an “end the Iraq War” protest on Thursday in NYC. I later learned that the protest, organized by the group World Can’t Wait, was going to be held all across the country. San Antonio would be one of the locations, with or without Hollywood actors, 5 p.m. Thursday at HemisFair. I had to see how Say-Town would represent itself.

Driving a car to an anti-Iraq-War protest seemed grossly inappropriate, like showing up drunk to a MADD demonstration, so after studying for my anatomy test, I grabbed my bike and headed downtown. Clearly, a bike was the only way to get there; unfortunately, my bike was having problems. I did what I could to quickly fix it so I could still go, but it still made a horrible sound, like a cross between my Canon 814 Super8 camera, and an MRI machine.

I arrived at HemisFair at 5:15 p.m. in time to hear the chant: “If the people are united we’ll never be … DEFEATED.” I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stifle a small laugh. After a few back and forths, someone got on the bullhorn and the word DIVIDED was substituted and the rhyme was complete.

There were about 60 people. A few women from Code Pink. I did a quick crowd survey. First, anyone I recognize? No, but that’s expected; I just moved back to town. Most of the people held signs while standing on the curb looking out at traffic on Alamo Street. A few buses would drove by and honked in support. Occasionally a guy would drive by and make the two-finger peace sign. Then an obnoxious lady drove by and made the less-friendly middle-finger sign.

I hung in the back and tried to get a feel for the whole event. There were a good number of people with cameras and pens and paper. Reporters, I assumed. I suppose I should have been doing the same but I was too busy convincing myself that I was a columnist and not a reporter. But by hanging out in the back I’m afraid I came across less like a stoic hipster and more like an undercover cop.

So why didn’t more people show up? It can’t be that the majority of society still supports the Iraq War. Opinion polls strongly suggest otherwise. I can only guess that people are so predisposed against any form of street protest that they stay away out of fear of … something.

It is odd that a majority of society is against the war but also against any form of active protest. This is a bizarre parallel trend. In the 1960s there was a thing called THE DRAFT that really galvanized people into protesting that war. Noam Chomsky took a lot of heat for being in support of the draft, but he’s right fundamentally in that if this is our country’s war then the country should fight it collectively. I’m not saying I’d want to go, but I think he’s right. And if people don’t want to go, then that fact will be felt soon enough. And it was. The current administration is well aware of this point, not the least of which because they all avoided the draft, but also because they know that there will never be any popular support for a draft, and therefore, a war. So what does that really say about our country?

As I rode my bike home, that thought kept bouncing around in my head. And though my bike was almost on its deathbed, it was still easier to fix than the problems in Iraq.

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On the Street (10/04/2006)

About 8:15 on Friday night I headed downtown on my bike to the Alamo. The Downtown Highlife Bicycle Club was having its monthly ride. For those unfamiliar with the event, it begins at 9 p.m. on the last Friday of the month at the Alamo.

When I arrived I found a small, diverse group of white people on bikes — a few students, some bike collectors, a landscaper, a teacher, and a bike mechanic, ranging in age from 20 to 62. We were a lucky baker’s dozen and after some catching up and introductions be-tween new acquaintances, we headed off.

Our destination was Woodlawn Lake but our route took us first north toward San Antonio College. We snuck through the SAC parking lot and then cruised west through San Pedro Park. I hadn’t been to the park for a long time so it was good to see the successful restoration.

After briefly riding north on Flores, we doglegged around Ashby to Blanco and took a short break at the corner of Ashby and Blanco — the previous location of Mr. Taco, back when they had pay televisions at every booth.

After raising the eyebrows of a few kids waiting for the bus, we began a straight shot west on Cincinnati. Cincinnati begins inauspiciously at Blanco and it has the faded glamour of a forgotten boulevard most likely done in by the construction of I-10.

A few blocks later we rode triumphantly underneath the Josephine Tobin arch welcoming us to Woodlawn Lake. At night the lake really is a sight to behold. Curving around the west end of the lake I spotted a building that used to be the Peacock Military Academy. At the turn of the century, the previous century, this was the historic West End, and I remember reading about the famous filmmaker King Vidor, who went to school at Peacock. As a side note, Vidor has the longest career of any filmmaker, having shot his first one-reeler in 1913 about the great Galveston flood. He made his last film in 1980 right before his death. That’s longevity.

We biked back east on Woodlawn and then south on Flores into downtown. As we neared Travis Street a discussion began about what bar to hit. Travis 151 doesn’t have good bike parking — funny but true. The Esquire, someone informed me, just closed for remodeling. Everyone but me had heard this story and when I asked why the facelift, the chorus was something about remodeling to be more family-friendly. Jeez. The Esquire was probably the last place in town where you could still be approached by a guy with a trench coat full of watches for sale. And I mean that in a good way.

We settled on La Tuna and headed south on St. Mary’s, riding next to a group of classic cars wandering downtown, looking for a ZZ Top music video to hang out in it seemed. They would rev their engines and burn rubber and then drive for a block and stop at a red light. The fact that we pretty much stayed with them all the way until Southtown must have created an existential crisis for them. South of Durango they floored it and took off for good — and us, we kept on riding.

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On the Street (9/24/06)

Looking for an honest mechanic can be like spelunking — a dark and lonely business. Luckily for me I was given a good recommendation and I took my injured Honda Accord station wagon over to Mac Auto on 3810 Eisenhower, which is just down the road from an old flea market that used to sell fake IDs, bad sunglasses, shurikens, and other ninja paraphernalia back in the ’80s.

As I approached the office to talk to owner Ralph Murillo, I saw a tall guy wearing a really large cowboy hat go in before me. I sat in the office and waited my turn while Ralph talked shop with the cowboy.

As I listened in on their conversation it became apparent they weren’t discussing the pros and cons of flushing a radiator. The cowboy was discussing some sort of gig he just had at a ranch where he was paid to, from what I gathered, impersonate John Wayne. I had to second-guess myself for a moment to make sure I was hearing this right because they were so casual about something that seemed hard to understand. Ralph knew all too well the people being discussed. There was some mutual sighing and rolling of the eyes as certain names were mentioned as well as a discussion of the difference between being inspired by a performer and outright stealing material.

At this point I began to look around the office. Like many auto shops there were spare parts fastened to pegboard walls and other accoutrements of the shop, but what caught my eye were a variety of posters for some group called The South Texas Gunfighters. The posters featured old black-and-white photos of banditos in front of a saloon.

Back to John Wayne. As I listened to the Duke and Ralph swap stories, it became apparent they were two actors discussing the inner workings of a trade. Though I just walked in to get a thermostat replaced, I was really getting a glimpse into a sub-culture unknown to me — historical-recreation entertainment.
After John Wayne left I talked to Ralph to learn more. Ralph, or “Sancho Garcia” as he’s known outside the shop, is the leader of the banditos I saw on the poster. Ralph and his group get hired out for a variety of events — the Poteet Strawberry festival, the Peanut festival in Floresville, parties at dude ranches, as well as benefits for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The performances are almost always different. Most recently, he and the boys hitchhiked onto tourist buses on the way to dude ranches and gave conventioneers from Iowa (or whereever) a taste of the Old West in the form of a surprise highway-robbery performance. All in good fun, of course, though I can imagine some tourists not catching on at first, and reaching for their wallet to buy off these windblown marauders, thereby making the joke all the more funny.

As we talked, the other mechanic Jeff (or “Dusty” as his alter ego is known) entered and told me that my car was ready. As I drove home I thought back to all the bad run-ins I’ve had with mechanics and I would say Ralph is probably the most honest mechanic I know. Whereas as some mechanics rob their customers for real, Ralph reserves his hijackings for the weekends when he’s “Sancho Garcia.”