Back on the horse, this time for real

OK, I'm back onto this blog- hopefully I'll be able to live blog the city council meetings if I can pick up a signal around city hall (fingers crossed Pizza Foundation's signal reaches my seat at the table).
Anyway, after a fair amount of time to process an extremely disappointing and, moreover, altogether LAME breakup of the relationship I was in with my former girlfriend, it's time to put the pen back to paper and write about things that matter. One thought about long-term relationships gone bad- love makes people stupid- this time it was me. I would be angry about some things, but the bottom line is I know that the girl has created a place for herself where she just wouldn't know any better. So I resolve not to be angry, and to forgive. No forgetting, of course, otherwise I might repeat my mistakes! That hurts, but I will live. And live I will.

It's been below freezing here in Marfa for well over 60 hours until the last 2 hours. Padre's has been closed since Monday at midnight and it's now Friday at 4. I've been trying to unfreeze the pipes here today and it's finally about 35 outside. Water still freezes in the wind out of the direct sunlight, so it may be a lost cause. We'll open tomorrow even if I have to bring in gallon jugs of fresh water from Alpine and 5 gallon buckets for toilet flushing from the one working spigot outside. The cool thing is we have not only a Scrabble tournament at 2 PM here at Padre's, but also a rock band from Australia called bug Girl at night. Super Bowl on Sunday- I was to be tending bar, but gave it up so another employee since I thought I would be in Houston. The weather and the fact I have been slightly sick (after being really sick last week) kept me from traveling back home for my Dad's 70th b-day, which was yesterday.

Otherwise, this Tuesday we have Grupo Fantasma here at Padre's- hopefully will be well-attended, as those guys play to big houses elsewhere. This is Marfa in feb, though, so it's a crapshoot...
Tuesday night we have council and on the agenda is a council vote to potentially disband the inter-local agreeement between Alpine and Marfa, who jointly own the public utility that is Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corp. Too many problems and issues to go into here in one writing with that company and the nature of its ownership and operations, but I would venture to guess that some actgion will be taken, as Alpine has already resolved to dissolve.

Lastly, business here has been slow enough this year that I am morphing back into club manager/cook/bartender from last year's stint as merely manager. I definitely won't be traveling as much this year and, thus far, I have found renewed energy to kick things up a notch here myself, as I realized, once again, that I am pretty much the only person capable of making things overall better at this business. That's always true of the owner, unless you have a really, really unique manager (like Keith Coit at Satellite Lounge- who taught me how to do the same). My old boss Butch Gregory always said never to build a business around one person's identity, but I look at the independent club business (and restaurant business as well) and all the great ones center around the person truly in charge. Continental Club= Steve Wertheimer; Antone's= Clifford and Susan Antone; Black Cat Lounge= Paul Sessums; Local Charm= Rory Miggins; Continental Club Houston= Pete Gordon; Stubb's= Charles Attal; Mucky Duck= Rusty and Theresa; Ninfa's on Navigation= the Laurenzo family; too many others to list...
That's this year's game plan- focus on what I have and how to make it better, more of what it is and less of what it isn't.
That and I'm focusing as well on The City of Marfa and Presidio County. Life can be better here for all; I'm going to do my best to try to make that happen.

Happy New Year, folks!
David