Riviera Paradise: Hauntingly Beautiful

Atlanta somehow managed to mostly ignore Stevie. I had one friend who talked about him, but I only heard a couple of songs, and they didn't do that much for me at the time. Then I moved out to Austin.

The first time I heard "Riviera Paradise" I was driving home from work around midnight. Jay Trachtenberg or one of the other long term icons at KUT or KLRU introduced it by reminiscing that many times at Antone's after a show, when the crowd had mostly gone and only the last few hangers on were around, Stevie would come sit on the edge of the stage with the lights down low and play this. I could see it in my mind's eye, feel the room, smell and taste the air. I was totally there, caught up in the moment with Stevie and his most loyal fans. I have no recollection of the next ten miles of MoPac.

I fell in love with Stevie, hook, line, and sinker.

Years later I finally went to a concert at Antone's. I hung around after Alien Love Child was done just to drink the place in. The techs dimmed the lights and put this song through the sound system. That radio intro came back to mind. I nearly cried. I don't recall leaving or driving home; I just woke up when the alarm went off the next morning, thinking it had to be a dream.

Wish I could have seen Stevie play. Wish I'd known him.

One day.

(This song still sends shivers up my spine.)

[Studio version from In Step]

MoPac Madness (Why T-Rex Should Not Drive)

He looked pretty much like anyone else on the highway, just another guy trying to get to work on time.

The left lane was actually the fast lane today, if not by much. Suddenly he saw a wall of brake lights, from the car in front of him all the way across to the exit lane. He hit his brake, sparing a quick glance in the mirror to be sure the guy following hard on his tail was braking.

"What's wrong with you people?" he screamed inside his head. "Why are you stopping? There's no reason to stop!!!" In his mind he was beating tiny T-Rex fists ineffectively against the steering wheel.

He glanced at his speedometer. Technically they were in a construction zone, though there were clearly no workers, and there was clearly no construction. But this had been true the last five miles. Why had everyone stopped?

"Well, not exactly stopped," he thought. They had just slowed down from 70 to 60. In what was currently a 55 zone. He grinned mockingly at himself in the mirror. "Dude, you need to calm down."

True story. I crack me up.

Traffic is my nemesis. We hates it, my Precioussss, WE HATESSS IT!!!