Flash-Frozen on Easter

            Groupon can get you into all kinds of trouble.

            I was reminded of that this past weekend, when an alert popped up on my phone reminding me I had Groupons about to expire. I checked the app and saw I had a pass for a session of Cryotherapy. I had seen clips and articles about Cryotherapy for a while, and when a Groupon came up for a new business only three or so miles from the house, my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked “Buy.”

            It was time to be flash-frozen.

            Cryotherapy, in this case, is basically a big metal tank with a door and no top. There are other systems out there, some that are a whole room in which you stand, but this place just had the cylinders. That was good for me since it’s a bit more private. You stand inside this cylinder, wearing only mittens, slippers and boxers to protect the sensitive bits. Then, they start pumping nitrogen gas into the chamber, which drops the temperature inside the tank to levels that would give a polar bear pause. You stand in there for a maximum of three minutes. The cold in the tank drops your surface temperature to 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit. This allegedly promotes healing by drawing the blood in, reduces inflammation and releases endorphins to give you energy and make you feel fabulous. That’s what the website said, anyway. Another sign in the building said you can burn hundreds of calories in minutes doing this, but to the attendant’s credit (and I wish I had gotten his name but I didn’t), he told us without being asked that claim was not actually correct.

            Is it just a silly trend or are there real benefits to this? Well, I knew I wouldn’t find out the whole story with just one session, but I figured I could at least sample it and try something new on a Sunday.

            It was a good time to see its effects. The day before, I had been on my feet moving around on cement for about six consecutive hours without much of a break. I had a pain going from my hip to my knee, most likely an angry nerve, and the knees themselves were swollen and sore. If this could help make me feel better, then I’d call the whole thing worth it.

            Turns out it’s a pretty easy thing to set up. Since the sessions only last about three minutes, getting a timeslot was no problem, even on a weekend. First of course, you sign a waiver saying the business is absolved if you die of shock from the cold, basically. You also have to assure them you do not have a myriad of ailments, most of which involve your heart. It makes sense since the whole point of this is to shock your body, so perhaps it’s not the best move for folks with pacemakers.

            Once I had signed away any legal recourse, I was ushered into a changing room. I was provided with a fresh pair of socks and a robe. That along with a pair of undies was all I had on as I went in to the chamber that held the big tank. There were actually two of us there and the attendant explained how it all worked.

            I was first. He told me to stand in the tank, which was small enough you could only really keep your hands at your sides while in there, and closed the door. The height of the platform was set so my neck and head were sticking out. He told me to ditch the robe and hand it over the top of the tank to him. He traded it for the pair of mittens. It was brisk in the tank to start with, but nitrogen gas is very dry so it wasn’t too bad. He told me there was a timeclock over my right shoulder. Then he said there was a temperature gauge to my left, which at the time sat at a balmy -30 degrees Fahrenheit. “But you don’t want to look at that,” he said. Good advice. He then gave me a 10 second countdown and hit the button. The gas started pouring in.

            The blast of cold was intense. Immediately my skin began to tighten up. Every time I exhaled I blew nitrogen gas out of my face. The chill began to hit me, and out of instinct I looked over to the clock on the wall behind my right shoulder to see where I stood with my three-minute countdown: 2:35. Oh boy.

            The attendant was smart, though. He began asking me questions about how I found out about, the place, what did I think when I heard about it and what I was expecting to distract me. I did my best to answer his questions as eloquently as I could, hoping it would pass the time. It did. I was hanging in well as the clock reached 1:30. Then the pins and needles began. He told me that would happen. The moisture in my skin was beginning to freeze a bit and the nerves were registering it. It started with my arms and then hit my legs. It wasn’t painful, but there was a definite tingling feeling. I started moving my heels up and down to keep my legs moving a bit.

            As the clock kept ticking down, the chill became more pronounced. I couldn’t help but take a quick look, and the temperature read -160 degrees. I let out a bit of a gasp. It’s hard to explain, but I could feel the cold in what felt like the half-inch of flesh closest to the surface all over me. I found myself shivering a bit, but a glance over my shoulder again made me realize I was under 20 seconds. I was going to make it. As the clock hit zero, the gas stopped and the attendant immediately handed me the robe. I put it back on in record time, then opened the door to the chamber and stepped out. The cold radiated off of me.

            I also found I had tremendous energy. The attendant told me these were the endorphins and adrenaline being released, and that seems about right. I couldn’t stand still for a while, and even after changing back into my clothes (my skin stayed cold to the touch for an hour or so), I found I was barely able to keep in one spot for more than a few seconds.

            As for my hip and knee pain, both were totally gone. The swelling in my knee was gone and the nerves were calm. The aches I had been feeling in my legs had vanished, and in its place was an urge for activity. I really did feel great.

Of course that was temporary. Extreme cold isn’t going to cure you immediately, but for about an hour or so after that session I felt absolutely no pain, stiffness or soreness like I had before I arrived.

            So is it a cure-all? No. But it does give a burst of energy and temporary relief aches and pains. And it’s a bit of a rush. I can see myself getting flash frozen in the future. Heck in the middle of the Texas summertime, it will seem like even more of a treat. Just make sure to wear your undies. 

Something Educational, Then Something Alcoholic...Because Texas

               Texas is its own thing. Of this there can be no doubt. Texas flags are every bit as prevalent as the stars and stripes. Schoolkids here take a specific Texas history class to go with American history, for instance. With that in mind, the Bullock Texas State History Museum beckons to those interested in the state’s past, sitting just off the University of Texas campus. This past weekend, I decided to check it out.

                The main attraction there is also the one I found most interesting. It’s the recovered shipwreck from the ill-fated expedition of the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle (try fitting that on a business card), La Belle. The ship sank off the coast of Texas when they were looking for the mouth of the Mississippi River. They had missed it due to an inaccurate map, which had the mouth of the Mississippi in Texas rather than Louisiana. That mapmaker’s descendants went on emigrate to America and go on to design Apple Maps (I may have made that last part up).

                Anyway, the wreck has been recovered and it being carefully reconstructed in the Bullock museum. It’s a pretty amazing sight, mostly because it’s simply not very big. The entire ship made it from France to Texas with 35 people on board and tons of supplies but was only 52 feet long. That’s not a lot of elbow room. These were some tough Frenchmen (a sentence I don’t write often).

                The rest of the museum is divided up by exhibits that take you through the different eras, including the revolution and secession from Mexico, the Civil War and the toll it took on the state, up through Reconstruction, the Dust Bowl, the Civil Rights era and even Houston’s enormous contribution to the space program.

                Other exhibits show artifacts and information regarding oil drilling, ranching and cotton farming, each having a lot to do with how Texans made their living over the years. There’s even a section on movies, and of course music. An ACL theatre shows films tracing the legacy of the Austin City Limits program which the town shows justifiable pride.

                So in short, the Bullock Museum is worth a visit. We got through the whole thing in about two hours, so it’s not an enormous time investment. It’s spacious and well-planned too. In the Texas history part, one section flows into another, so you can move from one era to another smoothly. You almost don’t realize just how much ground you are covering. There is also an additional exhibit hall for special visiting displays, so every few months there’s something different.

DEEP EDDY

                Austin is also a drinking town. Since I moved here I’ve said Austin is like a lot of other places, except you can do almost anything while drinking and you can bring your dog. The Deep Eddy Distillery, a 20-minute drive outside of town,

                Not long ago Deep Eddy debuted a new, peach-flavored Vodka. Peach is among my favorite flavors, so I was enthusiastic about trying it. On a Sunday we went out to the distillery, where you can get a sampler flight or drink a cocktail made from the various flavors. I can tell you the Arnold Palmer made with Deep Eddy Peach is very tasty, as is another cocktail made with soda and grenadine.

                The distillery was as crowded as I’d ever seen it. The seating area (tall tables, a few couches, a gift shop) was packed, and there were a lot of people out on the lawn area (picnic tables, Adirondack chairs, etc). There was cornhole to be played as well, and a group of younger vodka fans were already well into the revelry by the time we arrived. Fans might be an understatement. Let’s just put it out there: These people were totally in the bag.

                I knew the end for some of them were near when their attempts at playing cornhole degenerated into a game of dodgeball with bean bags. It ended when one of the women bent down to pick up a bag…and just kept on going. The first thing to hit the ground was her face. Her friends helped her to her feet between gales of laughter and got her back inside, where she sat on a stool and ate some ice and brushed the grass clippings off her shirt.

                They left soon after for a tour bus parked outside, but not before helping themselves to a few souvenirs from the gift shop via their large purses.

                So the final conclusion was this: Deep Eddy Peach tastes good, but like any other hard liquor there’s a potential for public embarrassment and thievery.

                Sounds like a good party to me. 

Finally...

                Today it finally happened. And what a day for it. Since writing about wanting to run a 5K as a goal I had been trying and trying, plodding around a gravel walking/jogging track which rings a shopping center in South Austin. I dodged puddles, bikes and dogs and ran in the Austin summer heat. Still, the 5K distance proved elusive. Shin splints got me for a while, then a pulled calf muscle sidelined me.         

                Then even finding right time to run was challenging. Running around that unlit track in the dark wasn’t practical or safe since so much of it wove through thick trees and had no lighting. My hours at work plus the commute home kept me out after dark for the winter months, so I had to think of something else. I decided to sacrifice sleep and began running around my neighborhood. My alarm went off at 5:15 am on running days. Thankfully my girlfriend and dog made the 2-3 morning-per-week decision not to kill me for doing this (mostly due to drowsiness on their part more than, you know, not wanting to kill me). The streets here are lit at night, so in the wee hours I was able to see as I went about hauling my 215-pound ass around while the sane people slept.

                I was getting close. A week earlier I had made 2.8 miles, less than a half mile from the goal of what translated into metric as five kilometers (I use a Fitbit pedometer app on my phone strapped to my arm to measure the distance). I felt I could get the whole thing in a week or so, and this morning I wanted to equal that 2.8 again before moving up.

                As I plodded (let me say again that I am much more likely to be mistaken for Sid Bream than Usain Bolt), I found myself feeling pretty good. The temperature was in the low 40s, which works for me as I don’t overheat and the briskness of the air keep me moving on the principle of “the sooner I get the distance in, the sooner I can freakin’ stop, go inside and take a hot shower.” So when I hit two miles, I felt tired, I was breathing heavily, but I was also confident I could get that last .8 in.

                Then one thing happened that hadn’t happened at all in all my mornings, afternoons or nights of jogging leading up to this. I was heading up the sidewalk on Westgate, the only semi-busy street on my route (the rest is done on nearly deserted neighborhood streets between 5:15 and around 6 am), when a series of early-morning commuters came the other way up the road. Now the sidewalks on Westgate are in pretty good shape. Note that I wrote “pretty good” and not “perfect.” That’s because there are some uneven areas. Normally that’s not a problem as the streetlights illuminate them effectively, but when a car comes the opposite way the bright headlights cast pitch black shadows over the ground. Naturally, just then, I didn’t see a driveway seam that was raised a bit and I clipped it with the front of my foot. The Wednesday commuter was then treated to the site of a white-jacketed jogger going tumbling to the concrete, which I’m sure drew a drowsy laugh since I’m sure that would have been my reaction had it been me behind the wheel.

                But I picked myself up, made sure my phone and pedometer app were fine and set off again.

                I approached my goal of 2.8 miles, and I was hurting. I was gasping, but something was telling me to just keep going. I had made it this far, just keep on going. So I did. I put my head down, I stopped looking at my arm and focused on the podcast. The next time I looked it read 3.05. I had run three miles at a time for the first time in my life. At that point, it was easy to motivate myself to continue, and despite breathing so hard I was literally grunting every exhale, I pounded out the final steps until it read 3.2, more than five kilometers. I had reached my goal.

                I returned to the house and sat on the porch, the cool air dropping my body temperature slowly as I looked down on the screen of my phone. 3.21 miles. I thought of my girlfriend and how proud she would be of me. She has been amazingly supportive, as have my cardio-American friends who gave me running tips and my best friend who had bought me a gift certificate for real running shoes when I first talked about doing this. With a support system like that I knew I had to finish the job, and I had.

                Later, I mentioned to my girlfriend how I wanted to get that 5K in before the two-year anniversary of being hit by a car, the accident that set me off toward this goal as a way to exorcise the memory of it. For months every time I closed my eyes I saw that car’s headlights coming at me. Running this distance helped exorcise a lot of that through exercise. She said my timing was better than I thought. The accident happened exactly two years ago today. Perhaps that’s why my body pushed a little harder. Could be.

                Whatever reason, today was the day I felt I had completed my recovery, both mentally and physically. Two years after one of my worst days, I had one of my better ones. Take that, oblivious driver! 

Here is the original post I wrote on running back in March:

http://mostlycombobulated.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html

The New Amy Winehouse Doc: Drugs, Celebrity, Downward Spirals

I recently saw the new documentary about Amy Winehouse, entitled “Amy.” It is from the same team that did “Senna,” another gripping doc about Formula 1 champion Ayrton Senna, killed during a race in 1994. It's directed by Asif Kapadia. His team seems to excel in tragic figures, people who are cut short in their prime. The key difference is while Senna was an abrupt, shocking accident few saw coming, Amy’s demise was a slow, obvious downward spiral that surprised only the oblivious or the blindly optimistic.

            The documentary is also an interesting portrait of celebrity. It had elements of the classic rise to sudden fame, the paparazzi feeding-frenzy, the exploitation of reality TV and the internet age of immediate reaction all converging on this woman from North London who wanted to be a jazz singer.

            Let’s start with one point made apparent to me early in the documentary: Amy Winehouse’s parents (as portrayed by the documentarians) are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Neither seems very intelligent and they both seem like half-assed parents. Amy talks of misbehaving as a girl to no consequences whatsoever, which bothered her. She wanted to know her parents cared enough to stop her, cared enough to put in rules and enforce them and she didn’t seem to get much of that. The rest of her life seemed to be about pushing those boundaries of behavior and waiting for a slap on the wrist that never came.

            This is not to say this was all their fault. Amy’s talent (which is undeniable) proceeds to enable and sponsor a barrage of bad decisions, starting with men. Amy was a partier from the beginning, but a series of boyfriends (and particularly one that keeps coming in and out of her life like a bad penny) are more than happy to jump off the cliff of common sense with her and dive straight into debauchery.

            She also seemed unable (and more likely unwilling) to put the brakes on her own career in a constructive way. A point is made in the movie that a jazz singer doesn’t like being in front of 50,000 people. They prefer the smoky nightclub setting, a more intimate stage. Amy’s management wanted her to be the biggest pop star in the world, and being in arenas and on festival stages made her uncomfortable and agitated. Yet little is done by her or anyone else to redirect her career. There are many instances of artists pushing back, but Amy never does. If she had, they certainly would have gone along with it. Many times it is mentioned no one ever said no to her. But Amy herself never seemed to say no to what she claimed she did not want to do.

            In fact there are a few times Amy mentions she would rather not be famous. Here is the problem with that, though. Like her career trajectory, her actions do not fall in line with those words. At one point she goes to rehab (way too late), goes through the motions and then goes on a bender immediately upon going back to London. Then she stumbles out of her flat into the waiting clutches of the cameras. To say she is a victim here is a stretch. Amy stumbling out of her flat drugged out, boozed up and completely a mess was not an isolated incident, it was a regular occurrence. This was not a hostage situation. No one held a gun to Amy’s head and told her to stagger into the street. She did it and did it frequently. If she did not want to be famous, she had more than enough money to vanish to a country where no one had ever heard of her…but she didn’t. She stayed in London, the one place where she was the biggest star she could possibly have been. She kept using and drinking, and she kept rolling out in public that way. She intentionally fed that machine and I am convinced a large part of her enjoyed playing her part in that psycho drama.

            The one time she does leave, she heads to an alcohol-laden island retreat with a few friends and her father, Mitch, who seems to have decided a career change to reality TV star was in order for him at this time and has a film crew in tow. There is nothing about it that looks like a woman making a real attempt to get her life together.

            In the end, that is the key. She did not want to get better. The most telling moment of the documentary comes at a time when she should have been at her peak. She receives the Record of the Year Grammy and one of the presenters was Tony Bennett, her hero. The look of anticipation on her (at the time clean) face was the most moving part of the entire film. That moment should have been the trigger. She was clean, she was successful, she was alert, she was surrounded by her friends and family. It should have shown her that was the correct path. It lasted maybe a few minutes. In the end, she didn't want to be clean. She didn’t want to be healthy. She was doomed.

            I was not a fan of Amy Winehouse before seeing the documentary. I was ambivalent about her music and disliked her as a person before she died. Nothing I saw in this documentary changed my feelings. But the documentary is definitely worth seeing.

She was a flawed women looking for attention. She had it as a singer, but her own bad decisions and her childlike desire to see how far she could go before being told “no” drove her over the edge into becoming a substance-abusing media clown. Most people out-grow that phase and figure out how to live. Amy did not. We are left with two albums and a lot of “what-ifs.”  While the people around her did her few favors, I’m left with the thought that you simply can’t help someone who does not want to help themselves.

Winning the Windy City

                The excitement was palpable as landed in Chicago. This was a trip I’d been looking forward to since my birthday in January. I had torn open some wrapping paper and found a ticket scrapbook (which was great since I collect ticket stubs), but the present went from cool to amazing when I noticed there was already something in one of the plastic sleeves. It was a replica of a ticket letting me know I would be in attendance for the Chicago Cubs opening day game of 2015.

                 Arrangements were made for us to arrive early Saturday morning in Chicago, the day before the game, and fly home Tuesday, giving us both room to attend a rainout date in case we encountered bad weather (always a possibility in Chicago) and to get some quality time in with my favorite city. There is something about Chicago that gives me a lot of positive energy. It just seems to have a rhythm and pace that fits me perfectly. The early arrival gave us just about the entire Saturday to work with, and we went about making the most of every minute of it.

                This is about how we won Chicago for a day.         

                We flew into Midway airport and took the Orange line train downtown. The train was clean and quiet, and even had free in-car entertainment when a Korean man stepped on at one of the stops wearing headphones and proceeded to sing and dance the rest of the way to what seemed to be a pretty catchy Korean tune. I couldn’t even hear the music and I was humming along by the time he got off.  He wasn’t looking for attention or money. In fact I can’t even say for sure he was aware he was on a train with other people. But we were off to a good start.

                We changed trains in the Loop, which involved hauling our suitcases up and down narrow metal stairs and through turnstiles. This wasn’t easy, so we decided to reward ourselves with breakfast at Ann Sather, a restaurant just across from our Wrigleyville hotel featuring tasty omelets, scrambles and most importantly delicious, gooey, hot cinnamon rolls the size of your face.

                With a severe sugar rush firmly taking hold, we waved down a cab and told him to head for the river just off Michigan Avenue. Back at the airport I killed time waiting for our bags by calling one of the companies that does river architecture tours. I asked if we needed to make reservations or buy our tickets over the phone and was told “Oh there’s no need. We really don’t get busy until it gets hot out, so you can come on down.” Perfect. The weather was sunny and cool, excellent jacket weather that lined up well with cruising the river looking at Chicago’s gorgeous skyline. So we headed to the dock and were promptly told the noon tour was sold out. Well, crap, so much for not needing reservations. They were selling tickets for a later tour, though, so I bought a pair and we found ourselves with a few hours to kill.

                One thing we had not done yet on any of our trips to the city was go up to the observation level at the Willis Tower. That sounded like a good idea on a sunny day, so we hopped in a cab (I love how easy it is to find a cab in Chicago) and headed for the Tower and its glass-bottom walkway. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones who had this idea. The line was around the flippin’ block. Literally. It went out the door that led to the elevators, snaked to the sidewalk, continued around a corner and as far as I know stopped just across the Iowa border. So far our plans weren’t working out like we’d hoped. It was time to improvise again. Our cab driver was on his game though, and recommended we go to the Hancock building instead, then head up to the 95^th floor to the lounge. The observation deck is one floor higher and costs $18 per person. The lounge doesn’t cost anything, is only one floor lower, and sells booze. Sold.

                Sipping cocktails and looking out the windows at the skyline only made me more eager to take the architecture tour. The mix of modernist and art deco buildings stretched out before us in the sun, so we relaxed and watched the lounge host scramble. Now that man is a problem-solver. It seemed everyone in the place slipped a bill in his hand as they walked in, sending him scurrying around the place to find a window-side table. We were happy with our slightly-elevated spot, which allowed us to look over everyone and still see out, but so I was able to see the action. My favorite move of this was to see him sit people at a table across the aisle from the window tables and make sure they got a round immediately. Then when any table-siders made a move for the door, they were barely out of their seats before the table was cleaned and prepped before ushering the party from “window standby” to their spot by the glass. One table being used as a “window waiting room” must have seen ten different parties in an hour. I was getting worn out watching the guy.

The view from the Hancock

                The time passed quickly and we were soon back in a cab heading to Michigan Avenue to catch our boat tour. This particular company does two different tours, one that goes out on Lake Michigan and cruises up and down the coast and another that focuses on the river. Ours was the more river-centric version, so with some Chicago blues music playing over the speakers we and about 200 others set off. The tour guide was on the microphone soon explaining the history of the buildings as we rolled by. He was engaging, entertaining, funny and seemed to have tremendous knowledge. I can’t say enough about how much we enjoyed this tour. The views were amazing and it was intriguing to see the different eras represented in what loomed above us, first in the older buildings that featured the river, then the buildings from the 70s and 80s that turned their backs to the river, before the water views became popular again in the 90s and 2000s. Plus, the sheer size of Merchandise Mart still astounds.  At one point it was the largest building in the world in terms of square footage. It’s a classic bit of art deco that I never thought looked very good, but I heard a new perspective on it. “It’s just so…precise,” was the description that really hit home. Then I realized what Merchandise Mart truly represented – a triumph of OCD-level precision architecture. It made me look at it differently and appreciate it a bit more.

Best skyline in the world 

Chicago's architecture is fascinating and beautiful on a sunny spring day

The enormous Merchandise Mart

                Once the tour was over we headed back up to Michigan Avenue to the Tribune Building. This place has an interesting feature: chunks of  other famous buildings are incorporated into it. For instance, walking around the building you will see bricks that have bits of the Roman Colosseum, the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China and others cemented in. It’s fascinating, and I’m sure some of them were even taken with permission. Maybe.

                The next stop was a store that just caught our eye strolling the Mile. It was Dylan’s Candy Bar, a two-story candy shop that seems to have every kind of hard candy and chocolate known to man or woman. They even have old-school ones I didn’t know they still made, and the place is laid out with a spiral ramp up to the second floor, bright colors and a happy vibe that makes you feel like you wandered into Willy Wonka’s place. We tried a few exotic chocolate bars there for dessert later. But first, we had pizza to eat.

                Lou Malnati’s was our choice. Sure, Giordano’s and Gino’s get more publicity but we both really liked Lou Malnati’s pizza. They also had a spinach-cheese stuffed bread as an appetizer that we both loved. The pizza was hot, thick, stuffed with toppings and delicious, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t care that much for pizza. We finished off our carb-fest with a chocolate chip cookie cooked in a pizza pan (similar to the BJ’s Brewhouse pizzookie) that was mouth-watering. We were stuffed solid, but very happy.

                Loaded with bread, cheese and sugar, we were left with energy to burn as night fell. We had been to Second City in the past, and their show on this night was sold out, so we looked for an alternative. We decided to head to the Laugh Factory on the northside, a short ride from the hotel. They had a late-night showcase, so we got to see eight different comics do a few minutes each. I would say seven of the eight were outstanding. It shows just what kind of talent there is in Chicago that on a showcase night there were that many hits with only one miss. The room was loud and enthusiastic, and by the end our faces were aching from the smiles.

                After all that, we went back to our room and collapsed. It was an amazing day, and we still had the main point of the trip to come: Going to Wrigley Field on Opening Day. But we ended day one with confidence we’d taken full advantage of the great city of Chicago. 

Breaking Up With the NFL: It’s Not Me, It’s You

                It’s something that’s been brewing for a while now. It’s been gnawing at my conscience, like a little scratch at the back of my skull. The camel’s back was beginning to sag, and finally this past week the straw finally came along to break it.                

                Actually, it’s not just the camel’s back. The NFL is broken. It has become a cesspool of laughably misplaced priorities, an organization enabling some of the worst behaviors in society. It manufactures controversies to distract us from what we really should be outraged about and uses its monetary influence over its partners to dodge any responsibility for its actions. And I’m done. The league’s arrogance and actions have led this lifelong NFL fan to conclude I simply cannot justify giving my money and my attention to it anymore.

I should be one of your biggest fans, and for most of my life, I was.  White male, 40 (yes, a bit old for the absolute perfect demo but not far off), spends money on movies, alcohol, junk food now and then, maybe even a car if the chips fall right. I’m the kind of guy you want, but you lost me. Not because the product is bad (although there are some rules regarding receptions and reviews that are getting ridiculous), but because my conscience won’t let me be a fan anymore. I used to get up every NFL Sunday looking forward to the games. I sang the praises of Sunday Ticket and then later Redzone. I had gear of my favorite team. No more, though.

                NFL, we’re going to have to go our separate ways. It’s not me, it’s you.

                It was the Tom Brady suspension that put me over the edge. It was not because I was a Patriots fan who felt my hero was being scapegoated. It was not because I was a fan of another team who was appalled the suspension wasn’t longer. In fact, I don’t think anything involving the deflated football “controversy” matters in the least. Since the teams use their own set of footballs, and the set one quarterback uses has zero effect on the ones the opposing quarterback uses, what the hell does it matter if one wants to throw a ball more inflated than another? This should not even be a rule.

                But never mind all that. It's superfluous. The Tom Brady suspension (which will probably be reversed before the season starts) put me over the edge because of the message it sent and how it related to other issues the NFL has dealt with recently.

                Tom Brady got four games. Ray Rice originally got two. You might remember Ray. He punched his girlfriend unconscious in a hotel elevator. Two games.

                Now some NFL enablers come out and say he ended up thrown out of the NFL altogether. But that only happened when TMZ (of all organizations) got the tape and posted it on its website. So the NFL made the change and did the right thing only after it was blatantly caught trying to sweep it under the rug, so in my book the NFL does not deserve a single iota of credit for that. If the league had its way, Rice would have missed a couple of weeks and been back on the field.

                Think about that for a second: A man punched his wife and knocked her out cold, and the NFL’s idea of punishment for that was a two-week suspension. They claimed they had not seen the video, which is laughable.  The NFL security team is a pretty high powered organization with retirees from high up in other law enforcement. The Security Director is Jim Miller, who used to be the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. Are we really pretending the NFL’s resources (which would include access to the most popular league on earth as a bargaining chip) could not get hold of a videotape when the Miley and Kylie-chasing buffoons at TMZ could?

                It’s also amazing how the NFL “reporters” did not have this story. They dutifully reported lies the NFL, and specifically Roger Goodell, told about what the league knew and saw, the Ravens’ press conference, and what happened behind closed doors with Rice and his wife. These “reporters” are people like Peter King and Jay Glazer, masquerading as journalists when in truth they are the NFL and Goodell’s PR firm. They spew out “news” like which backup tight end is out with a pulled hamstring but can’t be bothered to investigate a story about a man beating his wife and the league trying to minimize its impact on his playing time to preserve itself. When actual journalists got on the case from the New York Times, they ripped the NFL’s story to shreds in mere days. Where were “journalists” such as King and Glazer then? They were exposed as the carnival barkers they really are.

                There has been a rash of incidents involving NFL players being violent toward women and children. Adrian Peterson beat his child until he had bleeding welts. Other wife and girlfriend-beaters served token suspensions and were re-signed to big contracts. After all this, they decide some ridiculous “kind of deflated” football controversy is TWICE as bad (four games) as brutally assaulting your fiancée. Twice as bad.

                Remember that next time you go to buy a pink jersey for your wife or daughter.

                Despite all this, the NFL had record viewership for the Super Bowl this year. I know. They seem unstoppable. It seems as if nothing can touch them. It seems they can go on ignoring these issues and blowing up phony controversies to distract us and the TV networks desperate to hold on to their good favor will continue to act as their mouthpiece while faking objectivity. But at one point baseball seems unassailable as the top sport in the country. Horse racing and boxing used to round out the top three. Things change. The NFL might keep on this path of arrogance and one day people will become fed up with the league’s minimization of domestic violence as an issue. Maybe people will wake up to the fact the NFL is creating a larger and larger group of former players with severe health issues and brain injuries while at the same time doing everything it can to stiff those former players on post-career benefits. Maybe someday people will realize going to NFL games in person is a rotten experience, full of price-gouging antics, unpleasant and sometimes violent drunks in the stands reveling in the league’s beer culture and slowly find other things to do. Maybe someday people will just get tired of being treated like walking wallets with no brains.

                Trends move faster than ever now. TV shows on cable are hot for a few years and then fade out faster than ever (at one point in just the last ten years alone “Trading Spaces,” “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “The Osbournes” were considered cultural phenomenons that are now history). When people decide to move on, they move on faster than ever. The NFL seems invincible now, but horse racing thought so too at one time. 

                Tom Brady was suspended for four games for “conduct detrimental to the integrity of the league.” There is another reason it makes no sense. You can’t be detrimental to the integrity of a league that clearly has no integrity.

                NFL, we’re done. It’s not me, it’s you.

Let's Eat...And Eat Again...Okay Now Let's Eat One More Time

    Hyperbole comes with the territory in Texas. There is a lot of space down here, so towns work hard to set themselves apart. It seems each has its own thing for which it’s “famous.” Fredericksburg has antique shops, hill country towns are dotted with wineries, while Lockhart has a different distinction. It is recognized as the BBQ capitol of Texas.

                This is not disputed by too many people seriously. While Austin has some amazing BBQ joints such as Franklin’s and Salt Lick, Lockhart’s small size compared to the accolades sent the way of its three primary BBQ providers (Smitty’s, Black’s and Kreuz) make it a destination for anyone who loves brisket, ribs, sausage and other smoked tasties. The only real question was which of those three titans of the smoke is truly the best.

                Clearly, this needed closer investigation.

                A recent Saturday provided perfect weather. It was warm, but not hot, with a few scattered clouds in the sky. So a small group of us decided to roll down the road a bit (Lockhart is a half hour from south Austin) with the idea of trying two places. We picked out Smitty’s and Black’s. We figured we’d grab some food at Smitty’s first, then walk across the quaint town square to Black’s, try their food and head back to Austin with the intention of getting to Kreuz another day.

                We arrived at Smitty’s and immediately saw the line extending out of the building. That was a good sign. It moved fairly quickly though, which was not a surprise. All three places had similar setups: You get in a line, order your meat by the pound and an employee chops what you wanted right behind the counter and serves it up on a sheet of paper. Only Black’s used the same line to get your sides. The others had a whole separate line for sides and drinks and kept the main line “meat only.” My kind of people.

                So as the line progressed we moved closer and closer to the pit.  Smitty’s had their fire next to the pit and a chimney system that funneled air over the burning wood, sucked it into the pit and then up the chimney. What surprised me was that the fire was right next to the line. Literally right next to it. There was no rail or any of those pesky safety measures, you just waited in line right next to the open blaze. I like that everyone’s attitude there seemed to be, “Don’t want to get burned? Don’t walk into the fire, dumbass.” Again, my kind of people.

I was in line waiting to walk past the fire pit when I took this pic.

A nice sampling of Smitty's menu

                The restaurant itself is as informal as its line. The tables consist of long communal wooden rectangular tables with benches on either side. You share with whoever else is there. Decorations are sparse at best, with mostly bare walls. Smitty’s is nothing if not utilitarian. It’s a joint to get good BBQ, then to sit down and eat it. That’s it. They are also expanding, so the lack of ambiance isn’t hurting business. From what I could see the place will more than double in size once it’s done.

                We grabbed some brisket , pork ribs and sausage. I mentioned the meat is served on paper. There are no plates at Smitty’s. There are also no forks and no sauce. The food stands on its own. You can grab a plastic spoon from a tray by the napkins (there are plenty of those) but that’s as far as it goes. You can use the bread they give you to make a sandwich, or just get primal and eat with your hands.  We tried some of both.

                The pork ribs were delicious. The meat was moist and flavorful, the rub working well with the fat. On the other hand, the brisket (despite having a decent amount of fat it in) was actually rather dry.  It just didn’t pop like what I’ve had from Franklin or Salt Lick in the past. The sausage tasted good, but the texture left a bit to be desired. It crumbled in the mouth a bit.

                Keep in mind, we are grading on a curve here. Any of these things would be the absolute best ribs, brisket or sausage in either of the large towns in which I’ve previously lived (Indianapolis and Louisville). But in Texas, well, you play in a faster league.

                We knew we had another place to hit, so we gathered up our leftovers (which consisted of rolling it up in two paper bags) and chucking it in the trunk.

                It was a few blocks over to Black’s. The walk involved going through the sleepy town square, which is dominated by its rather spectacular courthouse, which screams out about the area’s Bavarian-heritage population.

See what I mean?

                Once again, the line went outside the building, and this was mid-afternoon. I can’t imagine what a dinner-time rush looks like at Black’s. The inside is welcoming and comfortable. There are more booths and tables designed for one party, giving it more of a restaurant feel than Smitty’s church social atmosphere. The walls are filled with pictures of local football teams, Black family photos and of course signed photos from the celebrities who have eaten there. Just about every place in Central Texas seems to have been visited by Matthew MacConaughey, Mack Brown and Willie Nelson.

That rib made the day worth it all by itself

Classic BBQ Joint

                We loaded up on brisket and ribs again, but Black’s has another special cut that Smitty’s didn’t: Beef ribs that weigh 2-3 pounds each.  This Flintstone-esque rib was quite easily the best thing we ate that day.  Black’s was the only place to give us a plate (Styrofoam) and forks (all plastic of course), but all we needed to do was stick that plastic fork into that beef rib and the meat fell away from the bone. It was tender, flavorful and absolutely heavenly. Black’s uses some coffee in its rub, but the beef rib had the least flavor added and the slow-cooked meat’s savory flavor was featured perfectly by Black’s cooking methods. It was perfect.

                The brisket was also juicier, the rub complimenting those juices nicely. It was the best brisket of the day. The banana pudding was also the tastiest side we had on the trip. Overall, Black’s was head and shoulders above what we had at Smitty’s. We pondered that for a bit as we sat at our table, taking deep breaths and doing what we could to fight off the meat comas that were setting in after downing a combination of 2-3 pounds of brisket, a couple pounds of pork ribs, a yard of sausage and something that looked like it came from a woolly mammoth. We all agreed we had our fill. We were stuffed. Couldn’t eat another bite.  

                Thankfully we had to walk back to the car at Smitty’s, which gave us a combination of fresh air and time to let the food settle and for us to make the only decision we could.

                We had to go to one more place.

                We figured since we were here, we would by Kreuz and get a small amount of food, just to complete the triangle.

The Big Barn

Where the magic happens

Maybe not so much brisket this time

                Kreuz is close to the highway and in a much larger and newer  building than the others.  Also, we noted it is directly across the street from a graveyard, which is handy since we thought there was a decent chance we would die if we ate any more food. This way the staff could just roll us across the road and kick us in an open hole without disrupting the dinner rush too much.

                Kreuz is enormous. They use the same system as Smitty’s  for the most part. The building looks like a giant barn, and inside the walls are lined with classic 4H pictures of people showing cows, sheep and pigs at fairs. The size of the place combined with having tables for four and six rather than all long, communal tables made this my favorite dining area of the three.

                The food was excellent as well. Despite being stuffed to the gills, Kreuz had sausage I felt was the tops of the trip. Not dry but also not greasy, it held it’s structural integrity well and didn’t crumble as soon as you cut it. The casing was thick and had a satisfying snap when bitten into or cut. I loved it. The brisket more than measured up and approached Black’s quality, although the rub didn’t quite get it to the top of the list.

                By the end of our time in Kreuz we were looking for a set of cots to lay down and take a nap, alas there were none to be found. We packed up what leftovers we had in another paper wrap and it went into the (now very pleasant-smelling) trunk with the others. We got back in the car and headed north to Austin, content it would be a long, long time before any of us would be hungry for BBQ again, no matter how good.

                Until we had the leftovers the next day, of course.

                Here’s the final Lockhart scoreboard:

                Best Brisket: Black’s

                Best Pork Rib: Smitty’s

                Best Sausage: Kreuz

                Best Thing in the History of Anything: Black’s Beef Rib

                So it’s a slight edge to Black’s, but really it is impossible to go wrong in Lockhart. Sometimes a slogan on a “Welcome To…” sign rings true. This is the case in Lockhart, the BBQ Capitol of Texas.