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THE REGULAR JOE
In the Joe Letter from the Editor 2. Letter from the Editor, Joe’s Mailbox 3. More than a Christmas Tree 4. Serving Up Latin Salsa with The Brew 5. Bring Your Kids to Watch the Sawdust Fly 6. Get Your New Year’s Eve Groove On 7. I’ve Got a Lot of Problems with You People! 8.&9. The Trail of Lights is Back! 11. Meet Tom Ramsey 12. How to Be an Adult 12. Professional Photos? 13. Still Hopeful
Dear readers, Thanksgiving has come and gone without a hitch. We spent it my favorite way — someone else shopped and cleaned and cooked and ate the leftovers. All we had to do was show up and be engaging, not hard to do with such great company. The many days off school meant that our kids’ friends came over at all hours to hang out and play Monopoly and sleep over. We loved it. Come Christmas we’ll be the workhorses — we’ll host a drop-in drinks party on Christmas morning and then invite people for dinner. I’ll cook it all
Send us your comments, suggestions, etc. If you’d like to write for us, please email us your idea/query before you write the article. If you are interested in advertising with us, we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. www.regularjoeaustin.com regjoeaustin@gmail.com|554-9905 THE REGULAR JOE 12407 N. Mopac Expy., Ste. 250-388, Austin, TX 78758
Owners of The Regular Joe, Austin, LLC Kit Christie Sally Hanan Editor in Chief Sally Hanan Contributing Photographers Gerry Hanan Peter Burnik John Honning Design & Layout Gerry Hanan Zack Hanan Contributors Cindy Arundel Rose DiGrazia Erin Young Kit Christie Stephanie Willis Sally Hanan Gerry Hanan Jay Kerner
Joe’s Mailbox
14. Joe’s Mug Shots 15. Contest, Joke, Wordsearch
European style and my husband and kids will turn down my offers to plant bread sauce and brussel sprouts on their plates. They’ll spend Christmas Eve cleaning … to pretend we have no clutter anywhere. As long as no one goes upstairs to see what they’ve thrown in the tub, we’ll be safe. One of the enjoyable parts of running a family business is that we get to go out together more often than we normally would. It’s been good to get away from our mouse potato ways, breathe in the fresh air and feel the warmth of this fantastic weather. I’d like to shoot a big thanks to John Honning, event director at the Trail of Lights — he dedicated a lot of his free time to ensuring we got the best images of the trail, and he made himself available even over the holiday weekend. In closing, Gerry, Zack, Kit and I wish you all a very happy Christmas, and don’t forget to set the weighing scales back ten lbs on Christmas Eve. :) Cheers, Sally
I think your last paper was amazing. It’s good to know what’s going on in Austin and to see some neat pictures of our city, and the paper is very entertaining. You have some real funny jokes. —Finnian
My favorite part of your refreshing paper is the photography, especially the cover page. The articles are very enjoyable also. Do you welcome freelance writers for bits of nostalgia? I would like to see some biographies of famous Austin residents. —B.J. Martinmaas We always welcome submissions from Austin-based freelancers.
It’s good to see that someone was promptly helping pets after the Bastrop fires. I’ve heard nothing but good about APA! but the article left me with a couple of questions. First, if the fire started on Sep 4th and Bob was adopted on Sep 5th, there was no time to attempt to match up owner and pet, which seems odd. Was this because the influx overwhelmed the facilities? Also, what exactly does a pet adoption counselor do? Keep up the good work, —Miles AKA! says that the animals available for immediate adoption after the fires were animals that were already the “property” of the evacuated
Bastrop shelter before the emergency started. Pet adoption counselors are responsible for helping potential owners find a shelter pet that fits their lifestyle.They also screen potential pet adopters, introduce pets to potential adopters and observe their interactions during the visit. The cover photo was taken at Elgin Christmas Tree Farm by Gerry Hanan of Hanan Exposures, hananexposures. com. The artwork was done by William Vanderbush, wilvan.com/Wilvan/Art. html
More than a Christmas Tree! By Cindy Arundel
Tucked in between Nature’s Way and Walton’s Lane, the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm’s gates are open and welcoming. There’s nothing more nostalgic than the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree filling up the room, and owners Twyla and Marc Nash have dedicated their business to providing customers with that and more.
Twyla and Marc Nash
Twyla says, “My parents wanted a retirement business to run. The Christmas season and all that it represents helped them to choose a Christmas tree farm as a viable option. They planted their first trees in 1984, the year I graduated.” She laughs. “I thought they were insane.” The farm first opened its doors in 1987 and sold 280 trees. The next year it sold 1,000. Since then it has sold
fluctuating numbers depending on the weather that year; drought tends to seriously deplete the number and quality of available trees. This year the crop has improved over last year’s offerings, and customers should find a tree they love if they come earlier in the cutting season (beginning the day after Thanksgiving). I’m told the 8’ trees and Leyland Cypresses are usually gone by the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and all the remaining trees are in the 6’-8’ range. By the middle of December, about 75 percent of the trees are sold, and if the trip is left until the last minute, only the precut trees are available. Says Marc, “It’s sad when you see kids’ faces peeking over the fence and the trees are gone.” The farm has three varieties of tree to choose from: Virginia Pine, Leyland Cypress and Loblolly Pine. The Virginia Pine is the one most local to the region, while the Leyland is an allergy-free cypress (because it cannot produce pollen). Once you arrive, you register, walk out into one of the available fields of trees with the bow saw the farm provides and start sawing. Someone will then shake and wrap your personally selected tree for the drive home. The farm sells many Fraser Firs — a deluxe Christmas tree if ever there was one. No, you don’t get to chop it down, but the quality is better than one you’ll find in a grocery chain store, and the price is fairly equal. The
The farm’s Christmas cottage
trick to keeping a cut tree thick and green all month is in its regular access to water, and the Nashes keep the precut Fraser Firs wet until bought by storing them in the shade, still bundled, on water-filled tarps. Once the tree is home, Marc suggests displaying it in the corner of a room where there isn’t as much air movement, hot sun or dry air. Marc and Twyla try to use organic methods whenever possible to treat and fertilize their trees, which they find makes them last longer. The trees are trimmed once a year and irrigated when necessary. The Nashes have just bought another 25 acres so that they can leave a field fallow each year and rotate the planting — a welcome help to running a sustainable farm. On top of the delight of driving into the country with excited kids or a
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surprised sweetheart, there’s a hayride and two mazes (for the kids) and animals to see. There’s also a Christmas store, the chief goal of which is to give each family member the joy of choosing his/her own decoration. While the store manager buys locally crafted ornaments as much as possible, there are many imported decorations priced below $3 in order to make shopping fun and affordable for a family. The imports are ordered from organizations that support indigenous groups and fair trade principles. These are not the items you are used to seeing in stores; they are unique and chosen with love. The Nashes have literally poured their hearts into this farm — but they are still beating strong even after the stress and 24/7 work of trying to save the trees and keep the business going through times of drought and economic downturns. All is well this year, but when it comes to hearts, each tree from the Elgin farm means more than something pretty to bring into a home — it represents a Christmas gift of love from a couple that cares deeply about the reason for the season and the love of family. Elgin Christmas Tree Farm is open at 10 a.m. Monday-Saturday and 12 p.m. Sundays. See elginchristmastreefarm.com for more information.
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THE REGULAR JOE
Serving Up Latin Salsa with The Brew The Latin/jazz band talent known as The Brew is heaven sent! Originally from the Rio Grande Valley, the Rodriguez boys that make up most of the band are from a family of 13 kids: “A small family,” says Joe Rodriguez. The brothers have never had a music lesson between them; all the brothers learned to play their instruments of choice by ear, so there is hope for the rest of us wannabes.
on, but their mother is at the ripe old age of 91 and still going, like her sons’ band. The Brew formed in 1978 and played in Houston ‘til 1981, when the band moved to Austin. Their first gig was at a place called Ragtime on 6th, and they’ve slowly evolved from playing jazz fusion with a Latin sound to today’s mix of salsa, jazz, pop and flamenco Spanish guitar — a sound much like a cross between Gypsy Kings, Armik and Carlos Santana.
Joe, a fantastic drummer, says that sometimes those choices happened by chance. At Christmas they would open up their gifts and one of his brothers might get a guitar and say he didn’t want a guitar, so one of the other brothers would pick it up and try his hand at it. Their father was a drummer in the American Legion, but Joe jokes about never wanting to be in a school marching band because he didn’t want to play with the nerd tin soldiers. Their beloved father has since passed
And boy is their music hot, like their saxophone player, Jesse … but I digress. The Brew consist of 3 of the Rodriguez brothers — Michael (leader, writer, classical and electric guitar), Joe (harmonica, percussion, congas, etc.), Mark (bassist and writer) — and also Brad Evilsizer (drums), Jesse Jimenez (sax) and Juan Diaz (vocals). A great thing about the band is you never know when you’ll see a surprise musician on stage playing an additional instrument to add to the already
By Rose Di Grazia
excellent sound. The band members have an air of coolness about them. The night I went, Michael was strumming his guitar at the speed of lightning with his eyes closed and hair pulled back in a neat ponytail; Joe sat in the back with a trendy hat on, beating the bongos; Dylan played by his side with a cool black patch over his eye, like Patch on “Days of our Lives”; and Mark sat off to the side playing bass. Z-Tejas on a Thursday evening is the perfect place to slow dance cheek-to-cheek, and this is the band to do it to. They are addicting. The first night I saw them I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when they played an old Al Green song called “Let’s Stay Together.” This has always been one of my favorite songs, and it needed no words that evening. The second night I heard them, they began with a jazzy rendition of the Beatles song “And I Love Her!” It is hard to sit still with such great music. Next they did a Latin version of the old song “Dust in the Wind!” You can close your eyes and almost feel the music flowing through your veins. Suddenly you are transported to a tropical island far away, sipping a margarita. The band plays at Abuelos, the Oasis, Elephant Room and Z-Tejas. The music never gets stale and they always play something new or a new rendition of an old song. You›ll be amazed
at how fast and flawlessly they all play. They will blow you away every time. You must see them to believe me! If you want to be whisked away to a Latin country and dance your butt off, this is the band to see. The band is currently working on their fifth CD, which you can expect to see in local stores soon. For more information about this out-of-thisworld band, visit brewmusic.com.
THE REGULAR JOE
Bring Your Kids to Watch the Sawdust Fly!
As told to Erin Young by Georgean, co-owner of Rootin’ Ridge Toymakers It was 1975 and we were in the middle of a recession, much like it is today. My husband, Paul, worked in carpentry construction, and I was a data processor for the state. It was Christmas time with little funds, so we decided to make homemade gifts for our friends out of wood. We made toys and games, even some sculptures. They were so well received that we thought, Let’s try this. At first we only considered finding a store that would like to carry our products. At the time, we had no
intentions of opening our own shop; but in our search, we found there was a small strip center off Anderson with tiny spaces, and we were asked if we could create toys while people watched on-site. We quit our jobs and started making wooden toys. And that was just where life took us. It was, and still is, a small space at only 440 square feet, even after our expansion. There’s a walkway with a small glassed-in area where we work that contains the dust ... at least, most of it. The children enjoy watching what’s going on. It’s always fun, especially at this time of year, because the kids get such
a kick out of watching the toys being made. With tall ceilings stacked full, we have some kids that walk in and their little mouths drop open and they just stand there and stare. Then there are others that will burst through the door and start playing. We encourage play. We love wood and we like to see happy children, so our philosophy was/is to make toys as safe as possible and as durable as possible. The children’s safety is the foremost focus, so everything is made of wood and toxic free paints — perfect for little ones and preschoolers. Taking things one day at a time, it’s just us. When you come into our shop you’ll find either Paul or me. We have customers who have been with us from the very beginning. Many will just stop by and visit for a while, and that’s always fun too. There are some whose parents bought toys for them here, and today they are bringing in their own children. We hope to see yet another generation filling our shop. We live on a piece of land we have worked and managed over the years with the goal of encouraging plant and animal diversity. With over 152
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species of native birds frequenting our small refuge, we’ve established our property as a bird sanctuary. After two decades of work and research, we also have the pleasure of being the only Chimney Swift observatory in the world. Thanks to the Travis Audubon Society, it will now be protected in perpetuity as the Travis Audubon Chaetura Canyon Bird Sanctuary; everyone that has ever purchased a toy from Rootin’ Ridge is a part of that sanctuary. Paul and I live a simple life. With so many toys and games now that basically play by themselves, sometimes it seems children are forgetting how to use their imaginations, because they simply have to watch and not participate in play. Our shop is basically a step back to a simpler time and anyone is welcome to come to experience that — to come and play. We make things we like to play with and only hope that others will enjoy them too. A little part of us goes away with each piece. Rootin’ Ridge Toymakers is located in the 26 Doors Shopping Center on 38th St. Read more at rootinridge.com.
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THE REGULAR JOE
Get Your New Year’s Eve Groove On
By Kit Christie Publisher Which type of New Year’s Eve will you be celebrating this year? Maybe one of the following: As a kid. You get to stay up way past bedtime, even if it’s, like, a Wednesday. But that’s not the best part. For about five minutes after the stroke of midnight, you get to make as much noise in the house as you want! So you’d better make it good. Pots, pans, your brother’s head. You know the drill. Now finish your sparkling grape juice. Mom and Dad look like they want some “them” time. Ew.... With teenage friends. This is a rite of passage, especially for girls. Those five minutes of noisemaking get bumped up to all night, with parents chaperoning downstairs and sleeping bags that don’t get used ‘til sunrise. In my hometown, the local AM radio station counted down the top 100 songs every year. My friends and I had to have a written list, and since we couldn’t just Google one (um, no PCs then), we took shifts writing the songs down. Every few minutes, one of us would run from the bedroom, reporting from the clock radio. “Number 16 - Ballroom Blitz! Sweet.” No, the group was called Sweet. We didn’t say sweet unless there was too much sugar in the Kool-Aid. Which rarely happened. With young adult friends. This is when you get into the whole idea of
dressing up and spending big bucks on an event package of some sort; because, you know, you’ve arrived and should really ring in the New Year in style. Even if the temperature’s below freezing, you want to show off that sparkly strapless number. So what if you’re adjusting it all night because you’re so cold your boobs have shrunk. Pizazz demands effort! And it is fun to attend these bashes with friends. Full buffet, champagne, live band. Dancing shoeless at the end of the night to The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” and trying not to fall down. Popping balloons like caffeinated grape stompers because a little childhood noise factor makes the evening feel just right. With strangers. This often happens when you’re new in town. In 1985, my husband and I moved to Chicago and decided to spend New Year’s Eve at Mother’s nightclub. You may remember Mother’s from the film “About Last Night.” The place was packed. The only thing I remember about that night was being squished against hundreds of Rob Lowe and Demi Moore lookalikes and being “dance-bounced.” This is when you’re repeatedly hoisted into the air by a massive moving throng singing loudly to Billy Idol’s “Mony Mony,” while replacing the lyrics “ride your pony” with catchier expletives. At the turn of a millennium. Airplanes are gonna fall from the sky! Okay, they didn’t. Moving on.
With married friends. The era of “Should we go out or get together at somebody’s place?” begins. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a night out, other years I like a laid-back gathering. You know — crockpots full of queso and cocktail wieners, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” in the background, watching the kids snort sparkling cider out their noses, laughing at a picture from the Awkward Family Photos board game. Oh, and if you have friends that live outside the city limits, explosions in the backyard! Yeah, baby! New Year’s Eve in Austin. Ah, Austin. A great place to ring in the New Year. Whether attending a major event or just checking out the action downtown, our musical and artistic
Graphics by Katya Triling
community is on full display. Some of this year’s happenings: Austin’s New Year (ANY) is a free event on Auditorium Shores with art, films, live music and fireworks at midnight. Indie rock band Mobley performs at 8 p.m. There’s the W Austin Nye Coast-toCoast Celebration, and Willie Nelson & Friends performing next door at ACL Live. You Regular Joes can alternatively get your groove on with The Family Stone New Year’s Eve Concert at ZACH’s Topfer Theatre. So have a great time this year, no matter how you’re ringing it in. Be good to one another. If you drink, get a ride. And to all our Regular Joes — come on back in January! We like hanging out with you on these pages.
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I’ve Got a Lot of Problems with You People! By Katherine Willis
Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus? “Seinfeld” loyalists know that this is the time of year for the annual holiday of Festivus. Since the episode first aired the week before Christmas of 1997, there have been steady, growing numbers gathering to celebrate the holiday for the rest of us. In the episode, Frank Costanza explained Festivus’s genesis to Kramer. When his son, George, was young, Frank got into a tug-of-war with a man in a department store over a doll. After the struggle Frank said, “I realized there had to be a better way,” and Festivus was born. There are three traditions to the holiday, none of which are sacred: 1. The Festivus Pole Requires no decoration. Frank found tinsel distracting. The pole is aluminum, tall, silver, hollow, long and skinny. 2. The Airing of Grievances At the Festivus dinner, you gather your family members around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the last year. 3. Feats of Strength The head of the family tests his strength against another friend or family member. The great honor is given out to a different person each year. Festivus is not over until the head of the family is pinned. The actual inventor of Festivus is
Dan O’Keefe, whose son Daniel, a writer on “Seinfeld,” used his family’s tradition in the episode. The original O’Keefe Festivus in Chappaqua, New York, was constantly in flux, and Daniel admits that it was entirely more peculiar than on the show. His father was stunned to hear that the holiday was catching on.
And perhaps since the genesis of the holiday was ever changing, it continues to do so, with people infusing their own quirks into the celebration. I’ve read about a party where people write their grievances on pieces of paper and stuff them into a silver-painted cardboard pole. It is then broken open piñata-style at the end of the evening, when the grievances are read aloud. Others, to discourage the overzealous, have implemented thumb wrestling as one of the feats of strength. Ben and Jerry’s have created a Festivus ice cream, and a Festivus red wine is available online. We’ve adopted an obligatory game of washers to our celebration, Austin style.
How did an actress and mother of three become the unofficial spokesperson of a fictitious Seinfeld holiday? It all started in the winter of 2004. With the holidays quickly approaching, I just wasn’t feeling the energy that required optimism, merriment and mailing cards lauding the same sentiment. Instead, I put together a quick Web page: kwillis.com/festivus.html, with the history of Frank Costanza’s generated holiday, a Feats of Strength Challenge card, an Airing of Grievances worksheet, some Festivus cards with greetings taken from the episode and memorable moments from the show about nothing, which include: —You’re a disappointment! Happy Festivus! —To the _______ family. I have a lot of problems with you people. Happy Festivus!
—Serenity Now! Insanity Later! Happy Festivus! —Gather around the Festivus Pole and … yada, yada, yada. —To celebrate the holiday season, a donation has been made in your name
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to The Human Fund, “Money for People.” A quickly formatted email to my nears and dears, a click of the send button, and I could cross off the obligation to mail cards from my list of endless holiday tasks. Then a strange snowball of events happened. My sister in New York City happened to post the link to my site on a message board. I received an email from The New York Times writer Allen Salkin, who saw the site and asked to interview me for a piece. After the story was published, I was doing interviews with NPR, CNN, and countless nationwide talk radio shows and print publications that ran with the story. Within a few months I was in a documentary about Festivus and a book by the same writer. What I took away from the experience is that people long for simplicity and the excuse for a little silliness during this crazy time of year. So if you are having your own Festivus party, spend $10 at Home Depot on an aluminum pole, gather friends and coworkers around and invite me so I can watch the fun! Recommended reading: “Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us” by Allen Salkin “The Real Festivus” by Daniel O’Keefe
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THE REGULAR JOE
Way back in 1965, before most of us were born … there was a yearly festival in Austin called Yulefest. It was a small affair made up of a few lights and candles and a nativity scene. Two years after that a massive Christmas tree was added, and the minor but memorable yearly festivities continued on until 1991, when things shifted. The director decided he wanted to make the festival bigger, so he added more displays and he changed
Photo by John Honning
its name to the Trail of Lights. Chuck Watson, the lighting director, claims the most longevity on the job. He was hired by the city in the late ‘90s as a designer for the trail, and he made many of the foam sculptures you can still see today. The tools he had back then were still fairly primitive compared to the design-and-printin-3D programs you can create now — at one point he cut a tennis racquet
in half and tied a nichrome wire onto it so he could have more control while sculpting. Most years he just held the wire with an alligator clip at each end and warmed it (or knives) up on a hot plate. Ingenious. (Admire his Ice King while you’re there this year.) Chuck recalls his old sculpting room — a butchery on Barton Springs Road that had a very creepy atmosphere; he could never bring himself to stay there for any length of time unless there was some disco playing to ward off the shivers. The trail eventually moved its premises to a huge hanger out at the old airport after that, which was where Chuck got to design and build the tunnels and more of the cutouts. He hasn’t said if he was allowed to bring his disco music with him, but if you start to hum “Born to Be Alive” while you’re looking at the polar bears, you’ll know…. Joe Peters, the lighting director, came on board in 2002 when the city needed to spruce up the displays and make much-needed repairs. He took care of the pre-production work and the installation requirements. In that role, things can always go beyond
The Trail of
one’s control. He remembers one year in particular when it was pouring rain and the diehards still showed up. The golf carts were stuck in the sand it was so torrential, and GFIs were not required back then … but luckily the lights stayed on and didn’t blow up the park. In 2009 the city decided to reduce the trail to almost nothing, citing the expense, the economy, etc. What it didn’t realize was how much support the trail had garnered over the years, and
Some lucky kids will have their pics taken on this dude.
THE REGULAR JOE
Lights is Back!
John Honning, Chuck Watson & Joe Peters
how much nostalgia was attached to it. The closure effectively turned the city into “bad guys.” The tree went up by Barton Springs Pool that year with a few lighted displays, but in 2010-11 the only thing to show off was the huge Zilker Park tree, bejeweled against the night sky. Residents understood the decision, though, because it costs approximately one million to host
the merriments. A Dallas company promised to make it happen in 2011 but that quickly fizzled out, and then … this year Paul Carrozza of RunTex saved the holiday. The RunTex Carrozza Foundation, an organization that encourages kids to stay fit and healthy, teamed up with Forefront Austin and Austin Parks & Recreation to figure out how to bring the Trail of Lights back to the people of Austin. They put together a production team of the best people who had worked for the city’s Trail of Lights, along with Austin Energy. Major sponsors started to sign up. A set park usage fee was agreed upon. The dates (December 16th-23rd) were finalized. Soon it was a definite thing. It was finally happening. With the city now uninvolved, the new team got to work figuring out how to keep everything that used to be on the trail but run it on a shoestring budget. Fewer workers took up the workload, which was substantial. (Just one tree can take a man up to two weeks to wrap.) One of the first decisions was to invest in LED lighting, which lights
up the first tunnel you walk through on the trail and some other displays. Throughout the park, lights now twinkle instead of staying on full power, cutting power usage considerably. Performers are donating their time. H.E.B. has an army of volunteers. The Dell nonprofit tent will rotate 23 different nonprofits over the eight nights. Shuttle busses are charging adults only $2, their cost price, and kids under 5
Wrapping the trees with lights
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Photo by John Honning
travel free. John, Chuck and Joe are not just focused on bringing this back, they’ve added theme nights and more food vendors (around 24 food trailers); John is inviting the public to become carolers for a night so we can beat the Korean world record of 12,000 carolers in one setting. A Dell tent will have green screens in each corner to make photos with Santa more exciting. There will be nightly entertainment on the 20’ x 30’ refurbished stage — kids’ acts from 7-9 p.m. and local acts from 9-10 p.m. — that include dancers, singers and musicians. Terra Toys will be donating thousands of toys for Santa to hand out. H.E.B. is giving away over 2,000 books. Thirty sponsors (chiefly H.E.B., Samsung, Seton, Dell and Vista Equity — send some extra love their way) will donate money, time and volunteers to make the Trail of Lights the only nonprofit event that brings the whole community of Austin together. As John Honning, event director, says, “This used to be the city’s gift to Austin, and now it’s our sponsors’ gift. No one is going to make a fortune off this. We all just really want to bring this back.”
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THE REGULAR JOE
Meet Tom Ramsey As told to The Regular Joe
I come from a large family. My mother raised five kids as a single mom, and her door was always open to people who needed help. She’d often give her last dollar and yes, she got burned a few times, but that never stopped her. I attribute what I do today to her, while I credit my grandparents for my work ethic and for being my cheerleaders. I’ve always worked. I was nine when I started washing dishes in a hotel. I had to stand on a stockpot so I could reach the sink. I worked there for the next few years, and because Mom needed the help, I quit in 7th grade so I could work full time. When I was 14 I convinced the owner of a pool hall to add a pinball and foosball arcade and we went 50/50 on the proceeds, but eventually the cops caught on. I moved to California, fathered a child at 15, got married and took on a laundromat job which paid in more than money — if clothes were left unclaimed after 24 hours, I got them; and a busboy job, where the Greek restaurant owner taught me how to cook. I later became a cook there. By then I had three children and needed more income. I met a catering truck operator and took a job as a driver, which taught me the catering business I’m in now. After a few years I started buying my own trucks, which I did well with until I sold the business in 1985 to go into the private payphone business. I put all my savings into it and it lasted two years ... thanks to the invention of cell phones. I started over, worked for a while at a taqueria … and the 1989 earthquake hit and it all collapsed, so I went back into catering and bought a night club. I had started going back to church, and on one particular Sunday I was in my seat in the back with my eyes closed, asking myself why I even bothered to come, when I felt a burst of air in front of my face. When I
opened my eyes I saw a flurry of lights or something; it’s hard to explain, but when I closed my eyes again, I felt something peaceful go right through me and I knew it was real and it was for me. I called the pastor and we talked about letting God be God and stopping trying to make everything happen myself. I surrendered. By ’96 I was divorced and ready for a change. I sold the nightclub and paid off some debts; I wanted to come home to Texas and be near my family. When I first arrived in Austin in 1996,
Tom Ramsey
I had $1,500 in my pocket. I worked as a limo driver, then in a taqueria on Pond Springs, and then I went back to driving the limo as an airport shuttle for a hotel. Two years later I ordered a catering truck from my old company and started to grow my Snappy Snacks business. I had learned a lot from my Cali pastor about being a giver of love, a generous giver and a wholehearted follower of Jesus. I’d also learned to
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expect nothing in return, which was a helpful lesson, because what was ahead of me was unsupported in the beginning. Tom Ramsey is an inspirational role model and mentor. I’ve been a senior leader over thousands in the military, and I’m still learning new things from him every day about networking, negotiating, integrity, and giving — he is frequently making miracles happen for a lot of people. —Michael Ashford, CSM (R) We had trucks serving food down in Fort Hood, and we started to help the soldiers that were coming back wounded and/or disabled. In 2006 I started our Fort Hood Celebration of Love Holiday Food Basket Program, when we give families all the ingredients necessary to throw a great Christmas dinner. Also, thanks to Toys for Tots, Sam’s Club, the Army Community Service and the Marines, we get to give away 300 bicycles and enough toys for 1,800 families. We also run a weekly food pantry here in Pflugerville. We run an incubator business program that helps entrepreneurs to start their own food truck businesses. We lease the vehicles to them, train them and get them on the road, and we give ongoing help. Today we have 60 independent truck owners. The sooner you get plugged into actively following your passion/idea, do it. Don’t stop until you do it. It’s easy to find lots of reasons not to do something, but no idea is a bad idea. Do it because you want to. Start a business, mentor kids, go back to school, be a parent support specialist. Be the story you were made to tell. Believe in you. I quit school in 7th grade and was a welfare child, but today I have five children and 11 grandchildren who are givers and not takers. That’s my reward. We are all born to give and to serve each other. That’s what love is all about.
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THE REGULAR JOE
How to Be an Adult
Professional Photos?
—Never let people tell you that to be a grown-up you have to stop dancing. You were born to fly. —Being an adult does not mean that you have to do fifty things at once. Just because a parent was like that does not mean you have to be. —Know who you are — being comfortable in your skin means that you know your strengths and weaknesses, and you know how to manage both. —If you have always felt that you were born to be on a stage then you probably were. —Never give up on your dreams because someone thought you should have a sensible, boring, depressing job. Do what makes you feel alive. —Try everything you think you might enjoy. Try some things you might fail at. Try things you might be brilliant at. You might, at this moment, be sitting eating a gourmet meal you prepared, or be surrounded by your framed art, or be teaching a class of five-yearolds. —Consider what others have to say. Never stop listening to input. You don’t know it all. You never will, and that’s a good thing. —See the beauty in others. Everyone has amazing, unique qualities; and when those qualities join up with qualities in others, and in you, beauti-
If you’ve been thinking about all it takes to become a photographer, here are a few pointers to help you move forward on your journey. First, figure out what you want to shoot. What makes you happy once you’ve shot it and look at the results? What makes you feel alive while you’re shooting? That’s the niche you should work in once you go pro. It’s never a bad decision to practice, practice, practice with the equipment you have before you go spending a large amount of money on anything (and photography can cost a small fortune if you get all the accessories). Go out with your iPhone or the small camera you have and get used to what lighting looks like in a photo. Try different shots with your zoom. Stand at different angles to the sun. Go to some local workshops ( Precision puts on some great ones), and learn from online classes produced by people/companies like Creative Live, Photoshop TV, studiolighting.net, the Strobist and photo.net. Once you’re ready to invest more, base your next camera purchase on its FPS and zoom. The FPS speed is important because it tells you how many frames per second your camera will catch. Nature shots can be slow or fast depending on the types of natural ob-
By Sally Hanan The Saintly Wife
ful things can happen. —Laugh freely — at yourself, at life’s obstacles, with others. Laughing makes everything better.
Graphics by Antonino Bilobrovska
—Learn how to quit anger. It’s unproductive, pushes others away, and makes you miserable and ashamed. Choose other ways to make yourself feel safe — ways that honor others rather than shred them. —Enjoy the season you are in. Chances will come; friends will move; sometimes you will have more money, sometimes less. You can find goodness in everything. —You were made awesome, so be awesome.
By Gerry Hanan Photographer
jects you like, and while sunsets and snails are a slow-moving type of shot, hummingbirds are most definitely not. For fast-action photography, like catching a soccer player in the moment, you’ll need an FPS of 6-8.
The zoom you use also depends on your subject matter: A fixed lens of 50/100 mm will mean that you have to move in and out to get the effects you want. A zoom lens of 24-70 works well for the wide shots while a 70-200 lens will get you close-ups. The F stop tells you how wide the lens opens — the wider it opens, the more light you can add to the shot. Once you’re ready to spend the big bucks, it will cost about $5,000 to get your basic set. I recommend a 5D Mark II, a 24-70 and a 50mm f/1.8 lens, an extra battery, 2x32 gig memory cards, a tripod, and a $150 light with a softbox (cheaper than a good flash). Good luck!
THE REGULAR JOE
Still Hopeful
ultimately asked for a picture. Maybe it’s a stretch to try and turn this into some kind of metaphor for the idea of hope, but that’s where my mind went. Presidents will come and go. Political parties will ebb and flow. Some will leave their marks on time, while others will fade into obscurity; but as long as there are kids and bikes and parents running behind with one hand on the seat, I’ll continue to keep a sense of optimism. We may wobble a bit from time to time, but we’re moving forward under our own power, the wind in our hair and smiles on our faces as we pedal like he*l toward an uncertain future.
By Jay Kerner Founder of The Regular Joe
I’m writing this piece a week before Election Day and I’m thinking about hope. No, not hope as in the political buzzword. I’m sick to death of that hope. In fact, the entire political cycle has once again left me feeling a distinct loss of hope. Let’s face it, party politics are always about the lesser of two evils. Some of us are blind party followers. That probably made some sense years ago, when the positions were more clearly defined and the dissemination of information more primitive, but these days it’s not about what any candidate claims to stand for; it’s ultimately about what his financial backers buy and pay for, no matter the rhetoric and slogans. People are always looking for signs to portend the future. This will be my tenth time voting for president. I’ve filled in the box for candidates that didn’t stand a chance. I’ve supported candidates that won but didn’t live up to their promises. I’ve voted for a guy that won, but then somehow didn’t. The only constant through it all, no matter how it turned out, is that both sides told me that the ills which continued to plague the nation were the other side’s fault. You see, there’s them and there’s us. We’re good, they’re evil. We’re all right, they’re all wrong. You’re either with us or agin’ us. Pick a side. It’s always angels against devils, with both groups claiming the former while mostly deserving the latter. So I’ll do what I normally do and vote for the one that scares me the least. There isn’t much hope involved. Call me a cynical bas*ard if you will, but don’t think for a minute that I’m without hope. I just focus my hope on things a
lot closer to home. I guess I’m hopeful that whoever wins the election won’t screw things up so badly that me and mine won’t be able to cope with, adapt to or survive it, no matter what happens. People are always looking for signs to portend the future. The wooly worm’s band means one thing and the groundhog’s shadow another. I saw a sign the other day that helped replenish my hope supply some. I was delivering copies of the last issue to a local business and noticed what I assumed was a dad and a couple of young kids on bikes in the parking lot. The daughter was doing a good job on two wheels and the boy was on training wheels. When I came out a few minutes later, the training wheels were off, and Dad was running behind holding the seat. I was there when the steadying hand was released and the wobbly maiden voyage kept going. The look on the young rider’s face was pure radiance as he hollered back triumphantly, “I’m doing it! I’m doing it!” He lasted maybe a hundred feet before the delicate mix of balance and inertia spilled him to the pavement. Dad went running, but the boy was up
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Photo by Peter Bernik
and dusting himself off for another go before he got to him. I hesitated to intrude on such a tender moment for this family, but I
I buy all my guns from a guy called T-Rex — he’s a small arms dealer.
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Can we cool off for a bit?
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THE REGULAR JOE
Joe’s Mug Shots
Tell all your friends you saw them in the Joe!
Win a Gift Card!
Figure out the answers to all eight questions and email them to us at regjoeaustin@gmail.com. We’ll draw three entries with all the correct answers to win a $25 gift cert to Chedd’s, the maker of the most luscious grilled cheese sandwiches in Austin. 1. Who will help you transform and empower your life? 2. Where can kids eat free on Thursdays? 3. Who can remove your popcorn ceilings? 4. Whose work comes with a solid warranty? 5. Where can you buy big kid s’mores? 6. Who will show you the top 45 points of interest in Austin? 7. Which shop is the only one that can print up to 12 colors? 8. Whose logo is a horse’s head?
The Eulogy
THE REGULAR JOE
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As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a paupers’ cemetery in the Kentucky backcountry. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical male, I didn’t stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family or friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man. And as I played “Amazing Grace,” the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen nothin’ like that before, and I’ve been puttin’ in septic tanks for twenty years.”
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