Evening activities

Gee, what do most of us do in the evenings, or at night. According to recent research most Americans spend a lot of time in front of the TV, about 28 hours a week, that's roughly 4 hours a day. Wow! Some days I might spend that much time in front of the TV, but usually I am around 1.5 to 2 hours and there are those days when I miss it completely. One of my good friends and a neighbor watches TV in his garage everyday, rain or shine. He comes home from work and turns it on about 5:30 and enjoys himself until he rolls into bed about 10:30 or so. While watching TV he drinks about 5 to 10 beers a day, he only drinks MGD, and has about 10 cigarettes. That is probably not the best way to live a long, healthy life. But I love him and he is a good friend, just hope he makes it past 55.

My evenings are locked up at work. I am a personal trainer so I have to train people when they are free to exercise with me. It's hard to train people when they are at work during the day. So I spend 4 evenings a week at work until about 9:30pm. When I return home I then enjoy watching Fox TV, usually King of the Hill or the 70s Show, something that is light and puts me to sleep. Everyday I miss those most popular TV shows that run around 7 or 8pm in the evening. My local Fox station shows The Simpsons, Seinfeld, King of the Hill, and The 70s show every night from 10pm so I can catch these if I want.

Austin is special though. One can enjoy the TV time until 10 o'clock or so and then go out for the evening. Typically most of the music doesn't really start until 11pm or later. Most live music venues close up between 2 and 3am, so the last band will play around 1am. It's funny to visit Sixth Street or Red River in the evening before 11pm and see just how empty it is. Then about 11 o'clock the streets start to fill. For friend's bands or someone special, I'll be there from 11pm and that doesn't bother me at all. The cover charges for Austin are still dirt cheap, usually between 5 and 8 dollars. On Friday last week I saw the ArcAngels at Antone's and it was $7, that's all That was an incredibly quality show. For those of you who don't remember them from the 90s it was an incredible line-up. Double Trouble was the bass and drums. The lead guitar was Doyle Bramhall Jr. and Charlie Sexton sang and helped out. This was one incredible band but they broke up from drug problems. Occasionally they play a show or 2 in Austin just to keep us happy. Everytime it's amazing. Check them out if you get the chance.

That's very interesting in Austin. Typically the musicians get along with each other quite well and understand that they have to pull together to make this happen. So it's kind of like the NFL, they switch bands often. We are lucky in this city to have so many qualified musicians to entertain us all the time. I remember the old days with my mother dragging me to the local Holiday Inn to watch a local band suffer before 5 or 10 people while they played cover songs just to eke out a living. Do you remember Billy Joel's old song "Play me a song the Piano Man." It was like that. There is little of that in Austin, just good music everywhere.