1. Statutory Rape - Is anything hotter right now that statutory rape? Hank Moody was just convicted of statutory rape on Californication. Bill on Big Love faced the same charge before meeting his fate and now this week on Shameless Frank was essentially raped by a minor. In real life LT just got 6 years probation for sleeping with a 16 year old. And let's not forget the king of all statutory rape Roman Polanski. I'm telling you, statutory rape is white hot right now. 2. Jason Isbell - I finally was able to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live this past weekend at Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio. It was my first chance to catch him live since he left the Drive-By Truckers. Having now seen both Isbell and DBT since the split, I have to say that I think DBT miss Jason more than he misses them. DBT is still a great band and continues to produce terrific albums but they lost a key piece when Jason left. An outsiders perspective is that Patterson writes songs from his brain. Cooley writes from that old rock 'n roll staple the crotch. Jason's music seems to come from his hearth and soul though. He writes beautiful songs about life in the south, family and soul felt love songs.
The 400 Unit is an extremely tight band and Isbell has developed great chemistry with guitarist Browan Lollar. They traded licks and lead duties like partners of 20 years. The band ran through all of Isbell's best with the DBTs even kicking the show off with "Never Gonna Change" and mixing in the Jimi Hendrix classic "Stone Free" in the middle of the song. They didn't have a particularly long set because this was the third of three shows for them that day. Isbell and the band had played two shows at SXSW earlier in the day before heading over to play a nightcap in San Antonio. Even with the shortened show they hit on every song I was hoping for except for "Brand New Kind of Actress." They did a cover The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" with Lollar on vocals that rivaled the original. By the end of the show Isbell's throat was obviously trashed. He was having to use a throat spray between songs to keep going. Afterwards the guys stuck around to have drinks and mingle with fans. Great performers and terrific guys all around. I'm hoping Cactus Music can set up an in store performance when they come to Houston for Summerfest in June. You can bet the mortgage I'll be there.
3. Alamo Heights - Man these are my kind of people. They're old, grumpy as hell and have absolutely no patience for anyone. While I was in San Antonio last week, I found myself in this area on several occasions. On one occasion we stopped in Central Market to get a birthday cake for my son. In a normal supermarket situation people will say "excuse me" or something like that when they try to get by you, not these fossils. These old coots will just mow right through you and if they happen to take out one of your toes, well then that's your problem. Damned is the checker who doesn't get someone to the register for a carry out quick enough. Granny in her animal print shawl and heavy jewelry is about to drop some not so nice knowledge on your ass.The middle aged residents are just as mean but fuck them. They haven't earned their right to let shit fly. I needed to take a different exit out of the parking lot so I decided to go down a one way because it was the only way for me to get where I needed. Just as I was turning out the one way a woman in her chromed out Escalade wanted to turn in and had to back up literally four feet for me to turn. Well holy shit! You would have thought she had to push her car out of the way. She threw it into reverse hammered the accelerator and jammed it back into drive. As I was driving past she rolled down her window to scream at me and call me a moron. Now I can't argue with someone calling me a moron because much of the time that's a good assessment. However, I happened to be in the car with my mother in law and kids and I've tried to shield my offspring from my moronic tendencies. My first instinct was to roll down my window and tell the bitch to go die in a grease fire (a favorite picked up from legendary red ass Stump). But since I didn't want to lose it in front of the kids and mother in law I let is slide.
4. Burnout Pete - I made a new friend at Sam's Burger Joint waiting for the Jason Isbell show to start. We never exchanged names but I've come to call him Burnout Pete. We talked for at least an hour about bands past and present. He's one of those guys who goes to five shows a week and since he lives in the hill country, he hits shows in Austin, San Antonio and Gruene. A conversation with Burnout Pete is kind of like what you'd expect talking to Tommy Chong is like. During our time together he called me "man" no less than 300 times. He still pumped about a Robin Trower show he'd recently been to and said Trower's show was as good now as it was when he saw him in '73. His wife was the spitting image of a blond hippie Angelica Huston. I tried to turn him on to using IConcerCal for keeping up with shows through iTunes but as soon as I said something I realized he probably had a vinyl music library and not a digital one. I hope I run in to Pete again sometime. That guy was cool and fun to talk to plus we still have some unresolved disagreements about The Band.5. Kid Prophets - I've got nothing for number 5 so I'm going to leave you with my favorite quote by my 6 year old daughter from our trip to San Antonio. On our way to Kiddie Park which is as terrible as it sounds, read below, my kid drops this nugget on us "I'm gonna die on the horizon."
Bottom 5
2. On Court Stupidity - I'm getting the power rankings out so late this week the happenings in the NCAA basketball tournament are a bit out dated but the stupid fouls and plays in the Butler/Pitt and Texas/Arizona games are the things of legend. When Pitt was on the line to what seemed like steal victory from Butler I was writing a tweet that the boneheads on Pitt weren't above doing something stupid like fouling Butler right back. And before I could even hit send, they did it. Why would you even care about that rebound? There wasn't enough time to make any reasonable shot so at worst you were headed to overtime. Then my Longhorns decided they didn't want to be left out of the dumbass conversation. With 12 seconds left, the ball and a 2 point lead Jordan Hamilton called a timeout. The only option Arizona had at that point was to foul Hamilton but he let them off the hook and called a timeout. Hamilton is a good ball handler, a premier scorer and a 78% free throw shooter. Now it seems like he may have been coached to call a timeout and if so then the onus falls on Rick Barnes for blowing that game. 
3. Big Love - I said my piece about the Big Love finale in a blog post earlier this week but they still make the bottom 5 for what was a very disappointing finale. So many great characters and story lines created through the years were thrown away with a thud. I've tried to rationalize the way the series ended over the past few days and I still can't find an excuse that makes it the correct ending. Sad way to close an excellent show.4. Third World Cities - One of the best things about living in Texas is that we can visit third world cities without having to actually go to a third world country. Like I've already said, We visited family in San Antonio this past week and it's always a culture shock when we go. Everyone appears to be 10-15 years older than their actual age. Even if you don't take in the arts and museums of Houston, there's a level of sophistication and culture that is absent in San Antonio. If your kid happens to get sick while you're there like mine did, you're better off visiting a witch doctor or just taking them out back and giving them the old lame horse treatment than going to a clinic. They claim to have degrees but judging from their analysis and advice I'd rather trust my kid's health to a can of Dr. Pepper than these fruit cakes.
Even though I said I would never go to Kiddie Park again I found myself there on Thursday and they've found a way to up the horribleness by adding road construction to the equation to go along with the crack houses and throngs of pedders. If you didn't read my last review of this place let me reset what this is. Kiddie Park is a San Antonio "institution." Which means it's really old and run down. On our way there my kid asked me if we were close and I told her when she could smell hepatitis and tetanus then she'd know we were close. The only I allowed myself to touch while I was there were the antibacterial dispenser. I'm assuming my 2 year old isn't long for this world since I caught him licking the glass of one of the tchotchke dispensers. It cost ~$11 per kid to go and my 2 year old refused to ride anything so I actually paid them to give him a disease and nothing else. Luckily, the older kid will be too old to ride anything there the next time we come to town so hopefully my days in Hell are done.
5. Longhorn Fans - I went over the dumb time out by Jordan Hamilton at the end of the Arizona game but that's probably not the reason my fellow Longhorn fans gave for the loss. You probably heard about the short 5 second count. It was a short count and the way the ref responded to questions about it makes me hope he's never allowed to ref another NCAA game. And you've probably heard about the uncalled foul after J. Brown's missed final shot. I can't say there wasn't a foul. However, these aren't the reasons the Longhorns lost. All of these "judgement" calls would have been moot if that timeout isn't called and Hamilton doesn't miss both free throws. Or how about the Longhorns put together two good halves of basketball instead of digging themselves such a deep hole they were forced to play mistake free in the second half. Longhorn fans need to let the phantom and missed calls go. Even if the ref came out today and admitted his mistakes, they aren't putting anymore time back on the clock. The Horns are going to have another top 5-10 team again next season and maybe this time they won't implode down the stretch.
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