Gospel Brunch

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Sunday morning finds us again at the El Mercado restaurant on S 1st for the Purgatory Players and their Gospel-ish Brunch show -- a pass the hat fund raiser for the Central Texas Food Bank.

Today there are two regular Purgatory Players -- Scrappy Jud Newcomb and Jon Green  (on drums). Today Rich Brotherton (of Ulla) and David Pulkingham round out the line up. I think John Dee Graham was supposed to show but didn't. In the 2nd hour there's the usual guests -- Barbara Bergin (she's an orthopedic surgeon but likes singing) and Kate Howard who has a funny song "Misfired" about scooters and manages to rhyme cupid with stupid. Rich Brotherton did a very good version of the Iris Dement song "Let the Mystery Be"  (both DanViewTube recordings). Lots of other great tunes that morning.

We (Kate, Cindy and I) arrive early and have good seats for the show. We enjoy some breakfast tacos, quesadillas and break fast margaritas. A breakfast margarita is essentially a slushy margarita with a splash of orange juice. Kate says I should be generous when I tip the staff but 50% on the cheque is a little too generous. My math failed me. The staff, who are always very helpful and efficient, will be grateful.

For the rest of the sunny day we visited Guero's Oak Garden in the afternoon where we caught a bit of "Three Chord Rodeo" who are a very good band. Stopped in to the very busy ABGB but only caught a bit of the act there. There's the usual crowd of dancers and they continue dancing to recorded music between sets -- I recognize Terry Allen's "Amarillo Highway" playing, probably the Robert Earl Keen version.

Ps. it's "a-ma-rill-o" not "a-ma-ree-o". The Spanish pronunciation varies in Texas.

We talk to an interesting couple our age at our table outside. They are visiting from Ithaca NY where it's very cold. They, like us, believe it's better to be here than shovelling snow there. They're here to visit with their daughter and her friend/partner who is studying medicine at UTX. They're all very friendly. The fellow from NY was telling me he used to race motorcycles on ice! Now that sounds like a scary way to have fun. Oddly his wife didn't seem too worried about him doing so. I thought it was a crazy idea.