Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 16 October 2005

I was always confined to the downstairs bedrooms when my parents held a dinner party. We lived in a split-level house with two beds downstairs and two beds upstairs and the main floor in between. The 1970's were dark years for residential architecture. I do not need to mention that we had shag carpeting, but I will. Being "confined" downstairs meant that the adults were not to be bothered, but it wasn't exactly one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. My older siblings would play board games with me and we had television. M and D's room had an RCA XL 100 or something. Whatever it was, it was state of the art and it got not three but four channels with crystal clear reception (we had "cable" which meant we picked up the PBS affiliate in Dallas; we must have been rich). If it was a fall dinner party, I would climb into my parents' king-size bed with the orange and brown bedspread from the Autumn Harvest collection at Sears and watch college football. 

Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 09 October 2005

My father regularly noted three defining characteristics of any man: attitude, ability and effort. Every success and failure could be traced to a combination of these attributes and, in most cases; failure came despite the presence of two out of three. In the classroom my shortcomings were almost always tied to effort. On the playing fields, ability. Oh well.

Dad didn't exactly run our house like Vince Lombardi (Mom would argue he didn't "run" our house at all, but that is another matter) so ATTITUDE, ABILITY, EFFORT was not posted above the front door to be slapped on the way to school the way the Notre Dame players tap the "Play like a Champion today" sign or the Clemson guys rub Howard's Rock. No, the whole saying degenerated into bad comedy usually. For starters, Dad could never remember the third attribute and would usually hinder himself by insisting "I know it begins with an 'A'..." This resulted in improv scenes where Dad would start, "You know there are three things that determine success in life. Attitude, ability and...uhm...hmmmm..."

Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 02 October 2005

Fall allegedly started ten days ago. I didn't buy that chronology, not when it was a refreshing 100 outside. One week later it was 108. One-hundred and freakin' eight. I did what any rationale human would do. I boarded a plane north. And found where my favorite season was hiding.

Fall started Saturday at Barry O's in Omaha, Nebraska. It started precisely when one of the managers wheeled out a propane grill from the back room and put it on the patio so he could make free brats during halftime of the 11:00 starts. My buddies and I blew it; we had already ordered a pizza from down the street. Barry O's, if you have not guessed, does not have a kitchen. Unless you consider peanuts to be a member of all four of the food groups, you would be severely undernourished if you had to live at Barry O's, which is, indeed, what a couple of the patrons probably do. Barry O's serves as the headquarters, among other things, of the Omaha Goats rugby team; boasts a great collection of vintage Guinness signs and there is a Golden Tee machine in the corner. Most importantly, it uses the power of satellite to great advantage, showing a different college football game on five of its six televisions. The sixth had the Yankees/Red Sox game. We chose Barry O's - we being the collective of displaced Texans on a wedding weekend - for just this diversity. The bar next door proclaimed "IOWA vs. ILLINOIS, 11:00" on big signs, as if that was something to be proud of. That just wasn't going to cut it; we needed all the majors going at once and couldn't afford to be subject to unruly Hawkeye partisans. Barry O's saved us.

Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 25 September 2005

Everybody needs a signature party. Our friends the J's offer a great one: breakfast before the Austin City Limits music festival. One of many things that make our city great, ACL Fest throws out line-ups like Steve Earle, John Prine, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett all on the same bill. One stage over, the Allman Brothers and Black Crowes compete for your attention. That's just Friday, brother. Saturday's line-up is pretty darn formidable, as well and it starts at the only party I go to each year where pancakes, bacon and sausage casserole are served with Shiner Bock and margaritas (who the hell drinks coffee anyway when the crisp fall air registers 92 at 10:30 in the morning on the way to another triple-digit afternoon; this is one of the things that definitely does not make our city great).

Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 18 September 2005

I may or may not own www.jonestopten.com. It depends on whether or not you accept Bourbon as currency. I've never worried about it; my friend R.G. at Quicksilver Internet owns the domain name lock, stock and gigabyte. He makes sure the registration never lapses and in return he annually receives one bottle of top shelf whiskey, Knob Creek, to be precise. We don't need a contract. We both hail from the school that says you can't drink a man's whiskey and then steal his Internet site. Or something like that. It helps considerably that we are both Methodists, but the more important shared religion is college football, especially the Southern kind. R.G. is a Floridian raised by a certain code that says to be kind to children and dogs, respect your elders and don't cheat at golf. He's a U Florida guy - old school SEC. Several years ago I had a lot to say about his homeland, and mine.

Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 11 September 2005

Juan knew something we didn't. He brought the Lone Star for some higher purpose. Lone Star proclaims itself the "National Beer of Texas." Although I am hard-pressed to think of any Texans I know who drink it. It's not good. Not in the way, say, horse urine is not good, but perhaps in the way Budweiser past the born on date is not good. The last time I was a regular Lone Star drinker was in college - big surprise - on Tuesday nights when Eric's Billiards on Airport had free pool from 7 to 10. Eric's gave you three different choices when it came to dollar beer: Busch, Pearl Light and Lone Star. I probably do not need to note that all came in a can. Lone Star beats the hell out of Busch. Eric's always had sports on silently while the jukebox played Dwight Yoakam's "Please, Please Baby" at least a dozen times a night. I liked Dwight Yoakam. This was when he was young and cutting edge and dating Sharon Stone. She must have never seen him without his hat.

So Lone Star fueled a lot of eight-ball at Eric's. It also boasted one of the great ad campaigns ever. "No Place but Texas" was the tag line. My high school car, a 1972 safety-vest orange and white Chevrolet Carry-All (back before they called them Suburbans and sold them for 40 large), had a Lone Star bumper sticker: "Longnecks and the Iceman, no place but Texas," a relic from when George Gervin was filling it up for the San Antonio Spurs, back, of course, before they were the World Champion San Antonio Spurs and still took themselves with a certain lack of seriousness that allowed Lone Star to become a major corporate sponsor. Billy Paultz? Lone Star guy. Tim Duncan? Not so much.

Written by Adam Jones
Tuesday, 06 September 2005

Distractions abound. Do you know how difficult it is to be irreverent when you wake up every day and feel guilty to have running water and electricity? To stay on point, think of what those folks have meant to college football. Marshall Faulk, Brett Favre, Deion Sanders, the Mannings...hundreds of others. The mind reels creating "what would have beens" without the gulf coast contribution to the south's greatest game. Tulane may play lousy football, but count me among those who hope like hell to see them play again. Very soon. You, too, Southern Miss and LSU and a dozen more small colleges none of us have heard of but who strap on the pads just the same every Saturday.

Written by Adam Jones
Monday, 05 January 2005

Children are running madly around a sparkler fountain in the driveway down the street. I pause to watch. This will be my last memory of 2004. I take in the laughter, the smoke, the whirling motion of kids up way past their bedtimes. Then I unplug the lights on the upstairs porch (it even has a rocking chair on it, I don't spend near enough time up here...). Once again, for the third year in a row, I will not make it to midnight. Our tradition has evolved (devolved?) from revelry to classic movies and homemade chili. This year's offering, A River Runs Through It, didn't even come to its conclusion; we finished it two nights later. I take one last look at the clock.

Written by Adam Jones
Friday, 17 December 2004

"Yes dear" proves very valuable to those with spouses. Shorthand for "I'm willing to concede the point if I will be allowed to finish my coffee in peace," the prudent use of "yes dear" continues to prevent arguments great and small in the married world. This morning, I successfully avoided the assertion that, by tradition and necessity, all children must be photographed with Santa on an annual basis from infancy until they simply cease believing that the pudgy and hirsute actor at Barton Creek Mall is actually the same remarkable athlete who, pushing an easy three bills, shimmies down the chimney and deposits the latest offerings from the American amusement and entertainment complex.

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