The Porno Shower

As most of our Agave friends are aware, Chris and I only had 72 hours to locate a house we loved in Austin when we were house hunting December before last. Seems like a short time, but actually we had no problem finding many houses we loved. Finding one that fit our desires and price range was a different story.

We came to the ATX armed with two spreadsheets, a rental car and a room at the Hotel San Jose. Spreadsheet one was a listing of about 15-18 houses to check out in the area. Because of our bias against new construction - a condition brought on by the shoddy quality of the 'hoods in Omaha - Agave was at the bottom of the list. Ironically, Agave was the first place we stopped thanks to its proximity to the airport. It was also the only place we saw that most closely fit our wants and needs.

The second spreadsheet was the "big list." The big list was five columns divided up thusly: "Must haves," "Like to haves," "Would be nice, but not a dealbreaker," "Not needed/wanted," and "Don't care." The number one position on the "Like to haves" was this: "2 bathrooms with one "attractive" shower (AKA Porno Shower)." Keep in mind that I had to move that from the "Must have" list. I am a big fan of the porno shower.

For those of you unfamiliar with what constitutes the porno shower, allow me to elucidate. You know how sometimes while immersed deep in intellectual study on the internet you accidentally happen upon some pornography? And in your haste to close the window and get back to more intellectual pursuits you inadvertently maximize the window and catch a hot scene involving a shower? Sure, that happens to all of us. Don't worry. But did you notice something about that shower? Unless it was an amateur thing, that shower was spacious and opulent. It probably had two (or more) shower heads and was tiled exquisitely. That is a porno shower. And it was something I desired greatly because I grew up with some pretty lackluster showers. In fact, when Chris and I started dating, I would go over to his apartment to shower while he was at work because the shower in the farmhouse I rented with a friend was foul. I mean, really really gross.

Nonetheless. We ended up here in Agave, obviously. And the house had already framed out the shower, which while not overtly porno-ey, does a fine job of being a very comfortable and occasionally porno-esque shower, depending on the moment. And my love of the porno shower was stoked even more when we celebrated our anniversary at the W Hotel in Dallas, which has very porno showers, I assure you.

The problem is, most modern homes/lofts/townhomes/etc. tend not to have porno showers unless the buyer/builder specifically request it. We've been in some absolutely stunning mid-century moderns and contemporary moderns and usually they fall down on the bathroom amenities. It's amazing that people using a sense of functional design and beauty would be okay with whatever the smallest/cheapest tub at Lowe's happens to be that day and some marginally modern fixtures. Throw a curtain on there and shazam. It boggles the mind. So when I see a modern that has a thoughtfully implemented bathroom, I give props. As such on this recent listing on Modern Austin:

You see that? Two rain-style shower heads and a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Lots of natural light. This, my friends, is a porno shower. And how did they do it? I'm guessing by tearing out a room to make it happen. This is a modern reno of a mid-century in Gaston Park. It's highly unlikely the original bathroom was this size, and judging by the crazy spacious layout I would guess that they either merged a master suite and hallway bathroom or just flat out knocked out a small bedroom. Either way, the effect is great. This is a sanctuary bathroom with room to spare to set up the tripod, were that your wont.

The next time you're wandering fixtures section of the Home Depot, consider the porno shower, won't you? I know I do. Now if you'll pardon me, I have some very serious intellectual study to get back to on the internet.

What a difference a wall makes!

We finally broke down and added some color paint to the walls. Because we didn't want a color that would compete with our art or furniture, we settled on a slightly bluish charcoal. And because the wall in question is a two-story stair wall / sloped ceiling affair, we decided against tackling the project on our own. After seeing their work in our neighbor's house, we hired Women of Paint for the project. They did a terrific job, and it was nice to have them hanging out in the house with us on Wednesday.

Regardless, Marv and I keep getting caught off-guard by the big difference a little change in color made to our space. I'd post a picture, but I'm not confident that I can get the exposure right. Feel free to stop by to see the great work Women of Paint did and bask in the glow of our undeniably excellent taste. Or something like that.

Let's Rawk, Y'all

The bearded maniac in this picture is one Mr. Patrick Hambrecht. He was a fellow nerd in high school and I was in several wonky art-rock bands with him. A key "rock star moment" in my life was being on stage with him playing the crunchy chords to Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh?" while he burst out of a full-body green cardboard tube. Then we bust into a freak-rock version of Ziggy Stardust.



Keep in mind that this was 1991-92 and the radio was still knee-deep in hair band crap. So every other band at the Papillion LaVista High School Battle of the Bands was covering Winger, Warrant and almost everyone covered Black Crowes' cover of "Hard to Handle."

Neither here nor there. So after high school Pat and I were in college together for a while, then he moved off to New York, married his high school sweetheart Kate and formed a much more freak-rock-ey outfit called Flaming Fire. This is they in their current iteration.

They are a bizzaro brimstone-rock revival that is equal parts keyboards, rhythm section, pentecostal revival and catholic exorcism. I can assure you, that their similarity to the White Stripes ends with the red stage outfits. You can hear them here, although I assure you they are a spectacle to be seen live. The good news is, you can see them live at Club DeVille tonight, Spiderhouse on the 30th and then a special Halloween show at the Creekside Lounge. I HIGHLY recommend the Halloween show, as it will be with Austin's foot-fetish funkmeisters Foot Patrol, who pretty much defy explanation - except to say that they are disarmingly funky if you can get past the lyrical content.

So that's all, go see a NY art rock legend in the making and join me as I reminisce about the lame little songs he and I would come up with. Who knows, they may do a thrash-metal rendition of Hard to Handle for old times sake.

UPDATE: We foolishly didn't even head downtown until about 10:30-ish. In retrospect, this not a smart idea on Halloween. While driving around looking for a place to park the oil pressure in the Jeep started to crater. It wasn't overheating, but it was pretty clear that there was something wrong by the thin wall of smoke rising out from under the hood. And sitting in the stop-and-go (more like stop-and-stop) traffic wasn't helping the situation. So we aborted the trip and made our way back to Agave. We were on the couch by 11:15, the sound of multiple parties reverberating off the buildings. I really felt like I let Chris down, and I let Patrick down. Basically I feel like I'm batting... the opposite of  a thousand. (I use that idiom frequently, but I don't know what the opposite is. I just went to Wikipedia to try and figure it out and I still don't know. I'm "batting less than .200"? That's not good, right?) Anyway, my apologies to all parties involved. 

October Surprised

Before I catch you all up as to why I have been silent all week, I need to make a disclaimer.

Pre-disclaimer: Let's all pretend that Chris and I blog here with such regularity that you would notice a week or two lag in postings. We clear? Good. Thanks.

Disclaimer: I'm not telling you this story to gain sympathy. Naturally, I appreciate it, but it's not necessary. Moreover I am not telling this story as a cry for help or request for assistance. Again, I appreciate it. And if you know anyone who's hiring, I'd appreciate passing my name and number along. But that's not the reason either. Really, I shouldn't be writing this at all. I should be completing my resume and figuring out what the hell I'm going to do. But I need to process what happened, and I'm worn out on telling and re-telling the story. This gives me an opportunity to knock both of those out in one swoop. Thank you for becoming fully disclaimed. And now, on with the tale of horror...

So, as I was saying, why I've been silent all week. Flashback to last Thursday. The morning started as normally as any other, save for the fact that I took the day off because Chris and I would be traveling back to Omaha to attend/photograph the wedding (and attend/DJ the reception of) our friend and my - as of that moment - co-worker. We went to the gym mid morning, had lunch, finalized packing and made for the airport, secure in the knowledge that our cat would be well cared for by Alana (of Atimes4).

The flight wasn't noteworthy on any level. I booked the flight on cheaptickets.com so we had to bounce through Denver. No big deal, really, since the flights were at a reasonable hour, and comfort on this journey was my primary concern. My goal was to fly in Thursday evening, drop by the office in person on Friday morning and make a round of pleasantries then spend the afternoon prepping to DJ the reception, then enjoy the Stout family Halloween party on Friday night. Pretty straight forward. But life is like a box of chocolates, as Turner once famously said in Turner and Hooch. (Or was it Robert Langdon in the Da Vinci Code?) And on Thursday I bit into a big turd-flavored coconut cluster (I don't like coconut, FYI.) Turning my phone on to check my email near the food court at the "A" concourse of Denver International Airport I received a frantic voice mail from my boss saying that she needed to talk to me right away and that it was something that she wanted me to hear from her and not someone else from work.

Now, when you get a message like this, what else are you to assume other than you should have updated your resume recently? Rather than not call back and pretend like everything is cool, as in "if they don't talk to me then they can't fire me," I decided to man up. I called in and heard the news. Put in the simplest way possible: Massive layoff -- Marketing completely eliminated -- Graciously willing to offer me a contract employee gig, maybe, perhaps.

So that was that. The trip took a sudden dour turn. We soldiered on through the trip, but there was an added undercurrent of shock that lay beneath every activity. I pushed it as far down as I could to DJ the reception, because nobody wants a mopey wedding DJ. Nobody wants a manic one either, so I think I played it pretty middle-of-the-road. Lots of 80's hits, or as the kids getting married and their friends would call them - OLDIES. Feh. When you're 22, Wham's "Wake me up before you go-go" is an oldie. But was it ever a goodie? That's a question for another time.

So I've spent this first week or so of my new reality updating my resume, occasionally panicking a little, putting out feelers, and cleaning up the monumental mess that was left by management cutting off the marketing department completely.

If only I'd read this completely stupid article from the Wall Street Journal.

My next step is to weigh the immense hassles of going into business for myself as a freelance copywriter/content generator (incorporating, complicated taxes, complete lack of health insurance, not having ANY clients at first and going back to the "feast or famine" cash flow mentality of when I did outside sales) and the immense perks of going into business for myself (continuing to work from my wonderful home - which is what this blog is about in the first place, being my own boss, setting my own hours, etc.). Since the economy is in the toilet, and I know this to be true because that was the reason given for my layoff via a wonderfully warm and personal conference call from the CEO, I am somewhat compelled to let someone else deal with health insurance, federal tax and the like. So I will likely/possibly/maybe be seeking full-time employment that almost certainly assures I will have to work outside the home, dress up, and have to alter my comfortable schedule of occasionally spending working mornings in my underwear. Unless I become a full time prostitute. (The thought had crossed my mind, but I'm such a specific fetish there might not be a market for me.)

Maybe the real reason is because I'm just so darned lazy, as FedEx CEO Fred Smith seems to think. Hey Fred, thanks for the heads up. I'll be using UPS and DHL from here on out until your fat ass is serving me french fries. Either way, it's not like the tax money I've paid that was used for the bailout er... rescue package is being used to stimulate the economy anyway. Thanks Chase Bank. But a question: Is it worth acquiring smaller banks when you're personally contributing to the collapse of the dollar? Just wondering. It's a moot point really, since the world is ending, apparently. Maybe I should just save my effort and get together my bindle bag now.

Oh well, at least the Jeep is still running well. (Foreshadowing!)

UPDATE: The Jeep broke down. Sorta. It wouldn't turn over on Sunday. Thanks to the wonderful Dennis (of Peggy and Dennis), who removed the starter for me and loaned me his tools to reattach it. According to AutoZone, the starter was fine. The battery was fine. I reattached everything assuming it would have to be towed away to be fixed. Alas, it turned over and has been tentatively running ever since. So maybe the starter just wanted to go on vacation? I don't know. But whatever.

Enough pity party. I'm not going out with a whimper. What's that they say about raging against the dying of the light? THAT'S what I'm gonna do.

Anybody out there looking for some freelance copy writing/content generation? All I ask is that you not use my poorly-proofread blather on the blog influence your decision.

Thanks.

But we almost always make the list!

This morning I got forwarded a link from Chris showing how Austin (a perennial top 10) made the Forbes.com cut for the number 1 best "bang for your buck" real estate market. And we, thankfully, live in ground zero of said bang, as things continue to grow East.

Awesomeness, right? Right.

I've just gotten so used to friends, loved ones and all the people I almost never communicate with over Facebook sending me links of Austin making another list. Be it "recession proof," "best housing market," or "hardest drinking cities in the nation," we're usually on there.

So you can imagine my umbrage when I found this Business Week article on the Best Cities for Riding Out the Recession and... we're NOT ON IT! (Lubbock is, as is Lincoln, NE, so go fig.)

I was shocked that there was a list - any list -  talking about a good place to be during the forthcoming financial end-times and Austin didn't make the cut. Shocking.

Oh well. We can't win them all. And we do seem to win most of them.

In scarier news, I ran across this story on my google news alerts. We fly out of Austin-Bergstrom tomorrow. Great. I do hope Samuel L. Jackson is on that flight.




That's all for now.

Apropos of Nothing... sort of

This really doesn't fully belong on here, but about 2:15 in there is some sage wisdom. Plus it's good for a chuckle.



Enjoy.

Okay...

Just a quick post. This weather is @$(%ing beautiful. How nice to have all of the windows opened up, bringing fresh air and birdsongs into the house.

"Christmas" in October

File Under: Austin Happenings

Okay, this is huge.

This Saturday, Wayne Coyne (frontman of the Flaming Lips) is bringing his 7-years-in-the-making film, Christmas on Mars, to the Alamo Drafthouse .



If you're a fan of independent film, bizarre cinema, or lush freak-out pop music, then you should attempt to check out one of the three showings. I couldn't wait, so I got tix to the early show. I've been positively giddy about this since first hearing about Wayne building the sets in his Oklahoma City backyard.

Here's a trailer:



So come out if you can, because after the 'Lips are done taking the film around to festivals and special showings, you'll probably only be able to see it on DVD and in expurgated clips at future Flaming Lips concerts.

Also, Austinite Bradley Beesely co-directed the film, which is pretty fabulous. And I believe we ran into him one day in passing because he's friends with next-door-neighbor Dan and we crossed paths going to lunch. How friggin' awesome is that?

Oh, and if you've never seen the Flaming Lips in concert and have an opportunity to do so - DO IT. They are spec-frigging-tacular live.

On an unrelated note: there's a new "gross old cookbooks" post up at docmarvy.com. FYI
That's all.

The Importance of Keeping Things Interesting

It's been a while since posting, sorry about that. Things in the neighborhood have been moving right along. The Home Owners Association is getting rolling, making the 'hood Google group go apeshit 10 ways to Sunday about garbage can placement. So that's great. The moral of the story is don't make Alana mad. We need her to watch the cat while we're out of town.

Meanwhile, I ran across this fascinating post about "challenging" housing on Pink Tentacle.

Some visionary homebuilders in Tokyo (via New York) believe that housing should be a perpetual challenge to keep the inhabitants young a vital. Uneven floors, crazy colors and irregularly shaped curtainless windows all make for this revolutionary housing (which does look pretty cool). Strangely, all three of those things describe the houses here in Agave. Well, maybe not the uneven floors... although...

This video will explain more, if you speak fluent Japanese:

The True Test of the House

I'm not good at living alone. Like most enterprises I involve myself with, everything starts out okay, but eventually I devolve, as you can see below.



Chris has been out of town on business since Tuesday and doesn't get back until tomorrow. So I have been cloistered in the house, save for trips to the gym and to get food. My only live in-person interaction with other living human beings (AKA not phone calls or IMs) in the last three days have been the following:
1) Cashier guy at Zen. I said maybe five words to him.
2) Drive Thru guy at Whataburger. No words exchanged.
3) Drive Thru guy at Wienerschnitzel. No words exchanged in English.
4) The guy at the desk at the gym. I said "Thanks" after his obligatory "Have a great workout."

That's about it.

I almost had a chance to talk to the UPS guy, but he was back in his truck by the time I got to the door. Back in Omaha I knew the UPS guy and the FedEx guy, even the Pizza guy and he came less often than the other two. I didn't know their names, but there was the friendly nod of recognition and the occasional "hot enough/cold enough out there for you?" Cordial. The UPS guy for East Austin mustv'e been molested on too many occasions, because he never lingers. Drop the box and run.

I should note here that I do not normally eat garbage. But I see no point in cooking for just me, and it gives me a very rare opportunity to pig out with impunity. A hollow pursuit that I will be paying for at the gym for many months to come.

So anyway, because I've had too many conference calls/video conferences at odd hours of the day, I haven't been able to work from the coffee shop, as I would love to do. So this has been the ultimate test of the house as biosphere/officesphere. Except for maybe the one or two daily treks outside the house for food or to work off the horrible food I've been eating, I've been sequestered. So far, I've worked from my office, Chris' office, the bedroom, the kitchen and the living room. (And two out of three bathrooms, but did you really want to know that?)

I can say that while the house has been a resounding success for being the intersection of living and working, I'm starting to suffer the space madness. So no matter what, I'm going to overcome my crushing agoraphobia and general mistrust/dislike of human beings and go interact with strangers today at some point. I'm not sure how, but it will happen. Even if it's just to utter the simple phrase "Tall, Half-caf, Skim Mocha, Sugar-free syrup, no whip." Which is a coffee drink I'm trying to dub "The Marv," as like me it's a vaguely chocolatey yet strangely unsatisfying quasi-caffiene-based beverage. Really, I should just say "Could you turn this water slightly brownish and charge me $5 for it?" As that would be more accurate.

The point of this post? To put up a picture of my head in a cereal bowl, of course. Enjoy.