I suppose that's the first shock of the tournament... Spain 0-0 Cape Verde from what I saw (again not much) it was Spain trying to score thru a brick wall / parked bus!!

Yesterday it was 29 Celsius and today it will get to 28 Celsius
Just a little bit too warm for me

Get the lads over to help schlep it! Then have a secret listening party right after that!

(side note, TOTALLY not missing that dude at all... )

I love my mom and my mom loves me. When I left for college in 1986, she started to volunteer down at the local community radio station, KNON. It wasn't long and she had a radio show, The Texas Folk Music Review. This is a photo of her back around 1988-1990 or thereabouts:



When I came back from college, she asked if I'd want to help answer phones on her show and be on the air a bit as a co-host. I was totally down with that. Now, she was Ranger Rita on the air and she told me I needed a radio name. Well, I was way more metal than country then, so I decided to be a dude always trying to get Rita to play stuff that rocked a good deal harder than the folk music she was spinning. A cockroach would do something like that. She agreed. "What's the name of this cockroach?"

"Steve." I said, "Steve the Cockroach." We laughed and it stuck. It later became Steve T. Cockroach and, when pressed, the schtick was to say the T was for "the". Good times. This is me proving my cockroach bona fides, around 1989:



Thing was, though, I really liked the Texas Outlaw stuff we were spinning on that show. I had no problem demanding that she play some heavy metal and then she would put on "Heavy Metal" by Guy Clark, a song about running a Caterpillar D10. A roach can respect gear like that. We had a great time, but I eventually had to get a job and couldn't be on a Monday morning radio show on the regular, so I left that world a while. I came back a few years later when she started The Magic Time Warp Show and that had a Wednesday evening slot. That's the 50s rock and roll show that I do today. Yep, I inherited it when she couldn't make it into the studio like she could. That was around 2019, and she was 75 that year.

I was thinking about those memories and that got me to remember a pair of songs my mom turned me on to when I was in my late teens and I love 'em. First one is the folksy one, Guy Clark singing "LA Freeway", a song about getting a new start by leaving behind the old start.



Then there's Rusty Wier and his "Don't It Make You Wanna Dance", all about dancin' and havin' a good time and what-not, I tell you what!



When I was in college, I got to interview these guys and see 'em performing live around Austin. I worked at The Daily Texan as an entertainment writer. Everyone else wanted to do the rock beats and Country was wide open. I was kinda glad for that, since I actually *liked* these guys. I'd see the show and come up at the end and tell 'em I was Ranger Rita's kid and they'd light up and thank me for having a mom that played their records and got the word out. I felt honored to have a mom like that, I truly did. Even today, people from those days will turn up and ask if I'm Rita's boy and then say something nice about her after I let them know she's still kickin' around and doing all right, considering she's 82 and all.

Back in those days in the 80s, there was another young kid trying to find his way and we all thought his music was great and if he kept his nose clean and his manager honest, he'd make it all right. That young kid was Robert Earl Keen, and he was damn glad that Ranger Rita played his records before anybody else would. He was fun to hang out with after a show down at the UT Austin Student Union bar. I got this album from him as a gift and then I had him sign in "Promo copy ONLY" because them promo copies is worth more! We had a good laugh at that, like I would ever trade away such a thing as the gift of music.

Rober Earl Keen - "The Front Porch Song"



KNON still does its DJ meetings at the Sons of Herman Hall and lots of benefits there. Every time I go there, I remember ol' Robert Earl Keen and him givin the Presbyterians something to talk about on their way to Luby's.

Yes, thesse songs lift me up. They sure do. They did when I first heard them, and they still do, decades later. Evergreens, these songs, resilient as a windswept live oak.

3 Days of on and off rain.

I'm not complaining though as we desperately needed the rain! Things were getting DRY!