One Square Mile: Texas (OSMTX) is a documentary television series that portrays Texas culture from the perspective of distinct square miles across the Lone Star state. As a whole, the series is a microcosm of Texas life and a collective portrait of the state.
The series represents the many faces and facets of Texas from the perspective of the individual while spanning the emotional, demographic and physical landscapes. This is a series about shared challenges and aspirations. The square miles include urban, suburban and rural communities and neighborhoods from every corner of the state.
Each episode has a theme by which the series examines the square miles and provides a cohesive thread that allows us to explore, compare and shed light on universal issues. Looking beyond the preconceived notions or stereotypes that typically define the state, OSMTX’s objective viewpoint provides a platform and outlet for discussion of the collective and varied identity of the state and the regions and towns that comprise it….
Our culture must be documented as it is happening, lest it be lost or re-interpreted. This series provides a tangible link between where we have been and where we are going. A template and online platform for the cross-pollination of ideas will bring students and individuals together from the diverse regions across Texas. Students are encouraged to document their own square miles with video, photography, art and written word that is to be shared with the OSMTX community.
A series focusing on selected square miles of Texas as microcosms capturing the character of the state as a whole will air this fall on PBS stations. One of the square miles is “mine,” which engages my interest in the progress of this project because I am so smitten by the ‘hood in which I live. If I were visiting San Antonio on vacation, this is precisely where I would want to stay.
A major bonus is that only today my daughter and son-in-law moved into the downtown square mile of Austin included in the series. The Austin teaser is not up on the website yet, but stay tuned.
And, while posting video about the neighborhood, Erik Bosse‘s short showcasing portions of the parade during the King William Fair makes it appear more polished than in real life:
“I’m just telling everybody. We can look for the North Pole, or we can play ‘Here we go gathering Nuts in May’ with the end part of an ants’ nest. It’s all the same to me.”
Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Eeyore was not much of a party boy, but that has not deterred celebrants in Austin for the past 48 years. Most years, Eeyore’s Birthday Party conflicts with King William Fair, so, despite hearing about it forever, we had never been. This year, however, five Saturdays in April comfortably separated the two on the calendar.
With Austin friends as our guides, we found our way to Pease Park and began wandering around. An “Eeyore of Liberty” with a bubble-blowing honor guard greets attendees. What we found in the way of organized activities was a costume contest, an egg toss and a tiny children’s area containing one appropriately gloomy in the Eeyore tradition burro representing the birthday boy. Freestyle hula-hooping, drumming and pot-smoking comprised the rest of the entertainment, which means the focus is on the people.
The people-watching was great, with costumes resembling the Haight Ashbury look of 1968. But, like us, the vast majority of the party-goers were party-poopers - no costumes and fully clothed - falling into the voyeur category.
Not sure what the Austin undress-code is as defined by law, but it appears looser than San Antonio’s, or more loosely enforced. The topless and near-nude emerged from Hippy Hollow to invade the park. But hey, Eeyore only wore a hat for his birthday.
Austin police must have the same attitude as that adopted by New Orleans police on the episode of Treme last night: “Let Bourbon Street be Bourbon Street.” Regard revelers as only “momentarily underdressed.” Think Austin police also are instructed to ignore any whiff of “eau de maryjane.”
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
What would Eeyore think?
“Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There’s no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and in all the wrong places.”
Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
I say, “Keep Austin Weird” and “Keep San Antonio Lame.” Happy to have celebrated Eeyore’s Birthday this year, but will be more than content to be locked in the middle of the King William Fair next year. It’s one of this city’s “quills” I love.
…And not because you are turning into a pifflicated person. Poles are down.
In addition to providing scholarships and supplemental assistance for area schools, the year-round volunteer labor provided by a multitude of volunteers working to stage the King William Fair, which takes place on Saturday, April 16, benefits projects improving the public spaces in the neighborhood, such as the park at Constance and Painted Lady (Crofton) Streets.
Since this past year’s fair, the King William Association has worked to re-landscape King William Park. While those improvements are obvious, you might not notice the major sidebar project.
What is missing from the picture? The awkward, cumbersome overhead utilities previously framing any view of the historic park.
While the original installation of utility poles in the neighborhood represented a welcome technological advancement - a status symbol testifying to the affluence of the neighborhood - a century-or-so of jerryrigged add-ons marred the view.
The project to convert the overhead utilities to underground has been complex, traversing the terms of three or four presidents and committee chairs and finally involving a funding partnership, forged with the support of Councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros’ office, of the Community Infrastructure and Economic Development Fund of CPS, the City’s Economic and Tourism Department and the King William Association.
To appreciate what is missing, compare today’s views to the “befores.” Don’t think these photos need labeling for you to judge which looks better – 2010 or 2011?
“Some men get new wives when they turn 40,” said Lamar. “All I want is an electric guitar.”
He is a practical man. Probably had weighed out the economics of the situation pretty carefully. Happy I made the cut. Probably was a close call.
Even I could see the equation clearly. Amazing I made the cut.
Fine.
Even though I thought I had married an acoustic man who had wooed me sitting on the front porch in the mountains of Virginia listening to records (did I mention we were old?) of the exotic (hey, I’m not from Texas) Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Willis Alan Ramsey.
My husband kept his electric roots repressed for two decades.
But this is a man who had played the Bonham – not today’s gay Bonham – when it was the USO. Captain Midnight headlined a St. Mary’s Hall dance; that was when the band found out Jeff Richmond only had one harmonica in one key that he played discordantly throughout the evening.
The high point must have been opening for ZZ Top at the Teen Canteen. Neglecting to mention Captain Midnight, Margaret Moser wrote in The Austin Chronicle:
Forget the cute, silly name – the Teen Canteen was the staging ground for San Antonio’s vibrant rock & roll scene, from before the Beatles until the dawn of punk. Owner Sam Kinsey opened the first Teen Canteen in 1960. It moved around to several locations, including a ballroom dance studio, settling at Wonderland (now Crossroads) Mall in 1963. In 1968, the Canteen moved to its last location on Bitters Road across from Northeast Stadium, the place it would occupy until it closed in 1977….
Local bands like the Pipelines, the Outcasts, the Spidels, the Stoics, the Swiss Movement, and the Virgil Foxx Group, plus touring bands of the day such as the Strawberry Alarm Clock (“Incense and Peppermints”) and the Syndicate of Sound (“Little Girl”) played there. More importantly, it was one of the places for Texas psychedelic bands such as Sweet Smoke, Zakary Thaks, Bubble Puppy, Shiva’s Headband, the Moving Sidewalks, and Lord August & the Visions of Lite. ZZ Top played their first gig at the Teen Canteen; others who got their start there include Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Chris “Christopher Cross” Geppart.
Talent, and perhaps a smidgen of nepotism, continued to boost the band’s profile. Band member Galvin Weston, whose royal lineage can be substantiated online, managed to get the band booked on the family’s cruise line. Don’t know why Captain Midnight did not get an offer for a second summer cruise. Surely people our parents’ age were into songs by Cream or Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You?”
Even nepotism must have its limits. Alas, college dispersed the members of Captain Midnight to far corners of the map.
But fast forward past forty.
One electric guitar gets lonely. The first black guitar led to a red guitar. And then a woody-looking guitar. And now a really cool Teye (Guitar men are rolling their eyes in their heads over my superficial descriptions. If Captain, or After, Midnight’s band members want to get the details right, they have to get their own blogs.).
Plus, one does not play the electric guitar alone. Lamar had to seduce our friend Richard Nitschke off the acoustic. And Richard’s first electric guitar seemed to procreate as well (People, ducks, guitars. Does just say no ever work?).
Strangely, it turned out our CPA is an amazing drummer, Karl Yelderman (whose drumsets reproduce like ducks as well), and he brought along bass player Daryl Chadick (with his multiplying bass guitars). Now the band even has a keyboard player, Steve Chase (whose wife must have had his keyboard spayed).
Then there is Claytie. Claytie Bonds has the type of voice capable of singing the national anthem a cappella at a chamber of commerce gathering when she was only nine. She can belt out the blues.
After Midnight Blues Band: Daryl, Richard, Karl, Claytie, Lamar and Steve
You can catch the band this Saturday, April 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Alamo City Pizza and the following Saturday, April 24, at from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. at the King William Fair.
Someone asked me if the band stuff drives me crazy. The answer is no. I love the blues, and, even without nepotism to help, in my unbiased opinion, After Midnight is great.
The blues are great therapy, and, Lord knows, living with me, Lamar needs large doses of that. So I’m standing by my man.
Update Added on September 5: No reunion performance of the members of Captain Midnight is planned for today’s Canteen Fest at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes. The band’s glory days are yet again overshadowed by ZZ Top.
ZZ Top made its first public appearance there. “The scene was that of a drugless rave,” Kinsey said. “We had black lights; we had strobes and overhead projectors. It was fantastic.”
Admission was 25 cents in the ’60s. Imagine “Where the Action Is” and “Hullabaloo” incarnate, albeit amateurish and fresh out of the garage.
Seeing the vintage photo of the Pipelines in the paper made me yearn to see a group photo of Captain Midnight, but, if he ever possessed one, my husband must have destroyed all evidence prior to our marriage.
