Supperman Stories

Cool video featuring Austin’s own Eddie Wilson…

Bill Narum and Hank Alrich, taken Feb. of '08

Here is a picture of two heroes of my Armadillo MemNoir, Bill Narum and Hank Alrich, taken Feb. of ‘08.

There will be a Tribute Supper at Threadgill’s old number one on North Lamar, toasting Bill and his influence on our lives, Saturday, 28, November 2009, beginning at 6 P.M.

Bill’s friend, Doug LaRue of Glaze Studio, will show a video interview he shot of Bill hanging décor in the remodeled Threadgill’s on Lamar, in March of ‘08.  We will swap our favorite personal stories of Bill. Bill brought Doug into my life, as he did so many other of my most talented friends.

The Upstairs Store behind Threadgill’s was created by Bill over the past 25 years. It will be opened for a tour after the tribute.

Proceeds from Saturday’s supper will fund a memorial fund. Please bring pictures and stories to swap. Tell anyone who might want to attend or contribute. This is very short notice, but hey, who’d of thought…

Eddie Wilson

Hallelujah, and raise high your glass for a toast to my new hero,  John Hardee,  the neighbor who called to report that Muy was safe and sound,  less than two blocks away, if you follow the backyards and creek bed. Dolly and Lady Bug are thrilled, and we are all going to make the most out of our experience.  Hats off to a wonderful service called, “FIND TODO” and to all the friends from our various dog parks who busted the chops in the 29 hour search.  John said that Muy knocked on his door about dark and asked if he could have a bite of supper and crash for the night.  Thanks especially to Melanie Bounds who spread the word through the neighborhood about the importance of Senior Guapo to the sanity of yours truly, Edwin, the Old Gringo.

Thanks also to all those who sent encouragement.
EOG

Pups loving to spoon

Senior Muy Guapo,  only three days past his 5 month birthday party,  proved he’s no ordinary pup. Yesterday he escaped the Vet Clinic where he was scheduled to undergo population control surgery. Luckily the search party is as dedicated to his return to his family’s Wild Street mansion as he too, seemed to be at the time of his daring daylight flight under a fence and into the neighborhood W and N of the clinic on North Lamar.  The neighborhood is full of good citizens who seem to be the kind of Americans who side with an underdog.  At nine pounds and standing only six inches at the shoulder, Muy is very much an underdog in the traditional sense of the word.

Muy’s mentor, Senior Edwin, the Old Gringo in charge of the Wild Street back yard where Muy has been undergoing Gladiator Middle School with Ms. Dolly and Lady Bug, has offered a reward reported to be “substantial.  “I’m hoping Muy’s returned by someone desperately trying to gain weight,” is the only statement issued thus far from the search party base-camp, though rumors of room, board, clerkships and world travel have been floating around.

Wednesday evening’s Sitting,  Singing,  and Supper session was inspirational.  Music of perhaps the finest ever heard in the English speaking, American Country tradition rang joyously from the acoustically perfect walls of Kenneth Threadgill’s old place. Friends and musicians galore squeezed Old Gringo’s tube of Puppy Love Sick blues until the musical pallet was covered with hues that would have done justice to the Hallelujah Chorus.

Earl Poole Ball continues to draw musicians of all ilk from both sides of the river seeking the opportunity to partake.  This is a chance to jam with the greatest practitioners of the tradition of musical gumbo that includes solid country,  rock and roll with the balls left on, gospel and blues.  It is like having Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, the Birds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Jerry Lee Lewis all dancing around the campfire, eyes closed and heads thrown back savoring harmonies that don’t just fall off the truck.  What we get on Wednesdays takes years of practice and talent rubbed together until polished to perfection…despite them just meeting as they step on the stage.

And the food is what Beulah said was the most important thing!

After all- We build strength in our shoes so we bear up to the blues and we pack tight our jeans at The Great House of Greens.

Come see me when you’re hungry

-eddie

Eddie here sending you a verbal invitation for Wednesday nights with Earl Poole Ball & myself…

set your speakers and press play (>) above

'Switchblades were scary to deal'

Schools in Texas were segregated when I was growing up. There were separate schools for whites, blacks, and Mexicans. In 1954, Allen Junior High in Austin burned down and the Mexican students had to go to school somewhere, so the white kids at University Junior High started classes an hour early and left school at lunch. As we marched out under watchful eyes, the kids from Allen marched in. Thus was created the greatest place in the world to conduct walk up retail trade for contraband, even though there was never enough time to dicker. “You like it?” “How much for it?” Yes or no, we had to keep moving. Coaches lurked around every corner. I couldn’t charge a markup so I never made a dime but I got to handle a lot of really fine merchandise. Cigarette lighters with naked women moved fast. So did loaded dice and marked cards with dirty pictures. Switchblades were scary to deal, but I enjoyed the cheap thrill of being into east side shit that the west side kids weren’t hip to yet.

I was in love with two girls named Chip and Dale. They were short and tall, brunette and blond, glamorous and sexy and sweet and attentive in the eyes of this twelve-year old. I was a regular Saturday customer at Liberal Outlet on Sixth Street where they worked. They would take switchblade knives, throwing knives, and brass knuckles out of their locked cases and let me handle them. If I seemed interested, they would go talk to their Lebanese boss and come back with a slightly better price. They also mimed hit songs of the day on a teen music show called “Now Dig This” hosted by Cactus Pryor that aired on KTBC, the only TV station in town.

Each week a panel of junior high and high school students would debate the merits of songs that Chip and Dale would lip-synch to. Each song would be declared a hit or a miss, indicated by whether a bell or a gong was struck. I hadn’t actually seen the show on television because it aired on Saturdays, which coincided with my weekly bus ride downtown to Sixth Street. But, by the time I finished prowling Scarborough’s basement, Woolworth’s, and White’s Pharmacy, the girls would be at work in Liberal Outlet to enhance my browsing.

One Saturday they approached me simultaneously before I could find an excuse to bother them. Chip, the tall one, looked down at me, smiled, reached out and twirled my Sal Mineo spit curl around her finger. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. “You’re cute,” Dale told me. I tried to stay cool but in fact I was trying hard not to pee in my pants. They said they were responsible for getting the panelists booked for “Now Dig This” and they were in need of help getting a good looking group together for the show in two weeks. Of course I lied and told them I watched the show all the time. They asked if I knew some hip kids to invite to the show. Boy, did I ever. I named the five cutest girls I could think of, all way out of my class, from schools around town. What an opportunity to make up my own dream team. Chip and Dale giggled and allowed that they appreciated my maneuver but I was going to have to share the spotlight with at least one other boy. I quickly named a big, dumb tackle named Sidney whom I was pretty sure would make me look sharp. I started wondering if there was any way to get laid without having a car.

Richard 'Cactus' Pryor

Cactus had been bald when I’d seen him on television. In the restroom at the Channel 7 studios, as I took one last nervous pee before the show, he suddenly appeared wearing a toupee. He preened into the mirror, running a wet comb through his glossy new hair, and glanced over his shoulder to say to me, “Nice ducktails, kid. Let’s go play ‘Now Dig This!’”

My music education came from listening to the radio in my little house back by the alley. It was a red GE model that I bought with earnings from working at a fireworks stand two years before. I’d tune in KVET 1300 AM to hear to Dr. Hepcat, the cool talking Black disc jockey who also authored of the definitive book of hip lingo, “The Jives of Dr. Hepcat,” and I’d tune in KTAE 1260-AM in beautiful downtown Taylor in the farm country east of Austin, to listen to another black deejay, Tony Von (“The only color TV on the radio!”) I didn’t know what other kids listened to. I didn’t talk radio or music at school, just contraband and girls. But I knew there was good music and there was bad music.

When the “Now Dig This!” panel was asked to listen and judge “Blueberry Hill” by the Andrews Sisters, I was appalled. I didn’t even appreciate the effort Chip and Dale put into their mime. “Blueberry Hill” was a Fats Domino song, and I made an issue out of it. “Why weren’t they singing to Fats?” I asked. Cactus butted in to pipe up that the girls probably wouldn’t be very convincing miming to Fats Domino. Though I knew the Andrews Sisters version had been a hit for weeks because I’d heard it played on the radio, I couldn’t back down. I voted that their version would be a miss.

Each successive panelist voted the record was a sure hit. The remainder of the show was a blur. The girls left with Sidney to the Paramount for a movie. I left alone and went to the Ritz to see Lash LaRue. I never again shopped at Liberal Outlet. I was too embarrassed to face the girls. I suffered my first public humiliation on television. It would not be the last.

The “Live Music Capital of the World” began with live music venues such as the Vulcan Gas Co. and the Armadillo World Headquarters. Learn why their influences are such a part of Austin’s culture today.

Season 3 | Episode 306 | 8:57
Embedded from DowntownAustinTV.org

Threadgills Episode II. Eddie talks with Commander Cody from Eddie Wilson on Vimeo.

August 7 and 8, 1970 was the opening weekend of the Armadillo World Headquarters.  That’ll be 40 years ago all too soon and I’m still several years behind on my promise to publish my version of what happened to cause it, sustain it and kill it.  I’ve renewed my vow to finish it, or to at least let it go, hopefully by my birthday in the fall.  Austin is at a crossroad and maybe there’s something to learn from searching our past to discover what ingredients were important to the great well-spring of joy our city is known for around the world.  It’s been a tough task for many reasons, mainly because I’m having more fun now than I had then and it’s hard to postpone today’s fun and write about struggles and stupid mistakes I made in yesteryear.  My personal tale is best described by a word I made up: MemNoir.  I easily described the scars I wear from it.  I had to shut my eyes, lean back and relax forlong spells in order to remember the fun. Now, at last I’m about done.  Here is the prologue.

Armadillo World Headdquarters Then

Threadgills Armadillo World Headquarters Today

ARMADILLO WORLD HEADQUARTERS,
AUSTIN, TEXAS

I swore for years I’d never write the Armadillo book.  For a lot of very good reasons, I didn’t think it could be done, not in one book and certainly not by me.  There are too many points of view, differences of opinion and memory, too much information and too much of everything to cram into too few pages for one single person to pull it off.  That was certainly the case with the running of the old joint itself.  Well, it turns out none of that matters.  What does matter is that so many people have asked over the years, I’ve decided to give it a go.  If this causes someone to write another book to contradict me or to help fill in the blanks, glory hallelujah.

AWHQ Plaque sits in parking lot on S. 1st & Barton Springs

Once upon a time in the pretty little city of Austin, Texas, I was one among a bunch of folks who thought we could alter the way a community functions and how it treats its citizens.  We thought we could prevail through the simple application of right over wrong accompanied by large doses of caring.  We were silly beyond belief.  And we were charmed.  Beulah, my mother, raised me by often delivering a very short sermon about being able to do anything I set my mind to.  Looking back, this adventure was exactly what she’d been preaching about.  I was a community leader by acclamation in a community of people that may not have been very organized, but found unity in being threatened and paranoid, angry and stubborn, disgusted and fed up and scared.  Conflicted?  You betcha.

Early in the life of our armadillo playhouse, we felt the rush of joyful and energetic optimism that comes from realizing along with a bunch of struggling coworkers that the giant tug-of-war is beginning to shift in your favor.  Voices begin to speak in unison.  New power rushes from your fingers through your shoulders then down your back into your legs and suddenly we’ve got the bastards on the run.  It is for all those people who tugged on the Armadillo’s end of  the rope that I’m writing this book.  We were a trade school and an army.  We shared a kinship with the doomed defenders of the Alamo.  We spent incredible amounts of energy shoring up our fortress and we desperately sent out for help.  We didn’t know each other all that well but we served together hoping that our efforts would contribute toward a future in which we could be proud.  We were split into several camps that disagreed about the proper course of action but share the common belief that the show must go on.