So why do I have to go to Austin to get that?

(Before you answer, I will stipulate that Denton’s NX35 does solid work — and has Steve Albini coming next year as its keynote speaker. But it’s not necessarily what I’m talking about. And don’t say, “We do have that! It’s in Richardson at Wildflower Festival.” Unless you’re trying to make me laugh, in which case, thank you.)

SANTANA She’s Not There MONSTERS OF FOLK Whole Lotta Losin’ INGRID MICHAELSON Maybe UB40 Kingston Town PINBACK Fortress TELEGRAPH CANYON Shake Your Fist VAN MORRISON It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue LANGHORNE SLIM Say Yes THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT Does This Mean You’re Moving On? ELVIS COSTELLO Clowntime Is Over LITTLE BLACK DRESS Robin RHETT MILLER I Need To Know Where I Stand IMOGEN HEAP Swoon MANU DIBANGO Soul Makossa HAPPY BULLETS The Vice and Virtue Ministry

I had to cut and paste the playlist from their site because I could not have identified a single one of those songs. That’s a good thing. But I do have one minor complaint. I’m a fan of Gini Mascorro’s. I think she’s got a great voice. But it’s not a morning voice. Mascorro sounds like cigarettes and fine scotch to me, not orange juice and bagels. I want to hear her maybe around 10 o’clock in the evening. Maybe it’s just me.

The highlight of the lunch, though, was when a brisk breeze swirled through the courtyard at One Arts, toppling two large shade umbrellas. One fell on empty tables. The other, which was shading our table, fell onto a two-top across the aisle from us, smashing a glass full of red wine, and threatening the lives of the two gentlemen there seated. They surely would have been decapitated if not for the quick thinking of my good friend Jaap, who lunged backward in his chair and, with his baton hand, managed to steady the sickle-like umbrella before it could do further damage. Bravo!

(Did I mention that I was over-served?)

Comments are open. Contest ends at noon on November 12.

The year was 1995. Or maybe it was 1996. I’m not sure as all the diaries from that period of my life were tagged into evidence a long time ago. Whatever the year, AC/DC was touring behind its new-at-the-time album Ballbreaker. I was not touring behind any album, but instead working as an usher/security guard (depending on the event and the makeup of the rest of the staff) at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, where I went to college.

During that period, I was slugged in the back of the head by a 13-year-old girl (at a George Strait concert); I was borderline sexually assaulted by a woman of a certain age looking for passage to the floor area (same George Strait show); and saw various Sesame Street on Ice characters smoking on the loading dock while still costumed. It was a fun time.

That said, whenever I think back to my days on the Erwin Center payroll the story that immediately springs to mind is when I saw a pimp calling in an order of working girls for AC/DC as though he was getting a to-go order from Pizza Hut.

For that concert, I was given my best assignment yet: working security, stationed by the steps leading directly to the stage. Most of the time, when I pulled security duty, I was stuck sitting in a chair in the bowels of the arena, protecting a hallway no one ever used — “just in case,” I suppose. The only person I would ever see is my supervisor, making sure I wasn’t reading on the job. Being an usher was worse; concerts meant trying to hear people above the din of whatever was going on, and then leading them to their seats in the dark. At basketball games, you had to stand with your back to the floor and watch the crowd. Once, I was given the task of making sure people didn’t smoke or drink outside alcohol — at a Pink Floyd laser light spectacular. They might as well have asked me to remove all of the oxygen from the air.

But for AC/DC, I was finally where the action was. And it was an easy gig: if someone was going to invade the stage from my station, they would first have to make it past a phalanx of other real security guards and, like, a million other stage hands and various other people. All I really had to do was make sure no one was standing in the way when the band got on and off the stage. I was a bigger threat to that going awry than anyone else. But I managed okay, trading some friendly hand slaps with the Young brothers (Angus and Malcolm), singer Brian Johnson and … the other guys before they took the stage. Since the most famous person I had met while on the job was WFAA sports reporter George Riba, that was a pretty big deal.

During the show itself, I mostly just sat there, occasionally clearing a path for whatever groupies that were allowed entry through the side gates to head back to the dressing rooms. After they finally finished the set and the encore, my night was pretty much done. I was just milling about, fairly wide-eyed, checking out the scene, waiting for my supervisor to say I could go home.

And then, all of a sudden, there was the band. Angus had changed out of his trademark schoolboy uniform and was wearing what appeared to be child-sized jeans; his brother is small, but he is impossibly tiny. He was also soaking wet, either from a post-show shower or onstage sweat. I kept my distance to be on the safe side. I officially met everyone and made awkward small talk. I should say it was awkward even for me, so much so that I immediately mind-wiped any and all trace of it, lest I break my neck cringing.

During one of the many pregnant pauses in the “conversation,” a terribly dressed man with a pencil beard and a slicked-back ponytail came over. He was covered in gold and rayon. I had seen him around earlier and had taken him for a pimp, as he looked like every pimp I had ever seen (in movies, of course, as I was from a small town and had seen little to nothing of the world at large). Turns out, hayseed me was right. And he didn’t care who knew. If pressed, I would say he seemed proud of the fact. He had a short conversation with the road manager and then produced a comically over-sized cell phone, which seemed even big for the time.

“Yeah, okay, yeah, what girls’re there? Okay. What? Yeah. I’m with them now. Uh-huh. Right. Right. Yeah, I’m gonna need three brunettes, a redhead and — two, right? Sure? Okay, yeah, and two blonds. Yeah, that’s what they want. Alright. Yeah, bring ‘em right over. Okay. Peace.”

The band looked at me and kind of laughed and shrugged in a boys-will-be-boys way. Fortunately, before I had a chance to even attempt to make some comment on the situation, my supervisor showed up and sent me home.

And now that’s what I think of whenever I hear AC/DC.

The fundraising goal for the night was $50,000. Steve Martin joked that Central Dallas Ministries could claim to have raised more money this year than in any year in its history, had it not been for paying his appearance fee. Anyway, the show was peppered with nice bits of comedy between the songs, which were themselves great fun. Martin is a master entertainer, and he makes it look effortless. But anyone who’s read his memoir of his early days can attest to the fact that he’s a perfect example of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule.

One bone to pick with WFAA’s Gary Cogill, who introduced Martin at the start of the show. In running down a portion of his filmography, you mention the execrable Three Amigos, but not what’s probably his best movie, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles?

One nice benefit of having the nation’s major critics in town for the PAC opening is that Dallas opera music director Graeme Jenkins and his orchestra are finally getting the due they deserve after toiling for years in the sound-eating Music Hall. From Waleson’s review:

The most exciting musical experience came from the orchestra, expertly led by Mr. Jenkins. It filled the hall with a rich, full-bodied sound, whipped up the furious opening storm and projected melting, pianissimo tenderness in “Già nella notte.” The glittering antiphonal trumpets that heralded the arrival of the Venetian ambassador in Act III rang out brilliantly, and the plaintive woodwind opening passages of Act IV breathed out into the hall with warmth, definition and character.

Several bigger, more significant American companies are going to envy the Dallas Opera its new home.

On Otello:

At times, especially in Act I, the performance of the orchestra and chorus was insecure and shaky. Jitters on this momentous opening might have been a factor. Also, the set that dominates this production, an intriguing, starkly modern staging by the British director Tim Albery that is filled with militaristic imagery, may have made it harder for the performers to follow the conductor and hear the orchestra.

One very minor note. I won’t see the new production until Saturday, but already I’m wondering: What is it with the Dallas Opera and 19th Century uniforms? They used the same motif in MacBeth, where it was even more outlandish. Did the costuming department get a discount from a  retro-clothing supplier? Maybe the same people who dress Civil War reenacters?

Glass’ music generally leaves me cold. In fact, I find if I listen to it too intently the repetition can get maddening. But to have it played live in accompaniment to the 1931 film Dracula, as it was last night at the Winspear Opera House, was tremendous fun. Together the music and the movie (which only a generous critic would call “good”) were more than the sum of their parts. Glass explained during a post-performance Q&A that it was the film’s star, Bela Lugosi–or more precisely the tragic arc of Lugosi’s life–that drew him to want to write a new score for it.

It was my first time inside the performance hall at the Winspear, and it lived up to the hype. My wife only had one small complaint. The air vents beneath our seats were pumping cold air out with such enthusiasm that her legs felt like icicles by the end of the show. She was looking to let the management know afterward, and I had to argue with her to convince her not to force some poor usher to touch her cold ankles.