Cloudwrangler

CLOUDWRANGLER is:
Jeff Rider – blogs
Jeff Rider – movie reviews and Special Events
Jeff Rider – contest supervisor
Jeff Rider – backup vocals and guitar on “To hell with the bullshit, show me your monkey”

Cloudwrangler would like to thank:
God, for making me 30 years old. Austin, Texas, for being my home and keeping me sane. Texas Tech University, an unlikely place to receive a creative writing degree, until you start to think Larry McMurtry. Lubbock, which was a great place to find out who I REALLY was, a good place to hide out and receive that all important hero’s training for life’s great adventure. Dallas Texas, for being my place of birth and not much else. My friends in the 7th grade who first started calling me Jefe, and for everyone who has kept it up since. Blogger and logjamming for keeping the ‘wrangler up and running. (Way to go, guys!)
Kenny Luna’s Ivory Cat Tavern, where I bartend and pretend to be the manager from time to time, for providing the cashflow (Play Piano Man again, dude!).

For booking and fan info, contact me at jefe@cloudwrangler.com
Say Hi to me at AIM JefehubJeff

or,

how my friends and I toured the state for four free hamburgers.

So, as I write this, we’re sitting int the Hard Rock Cafe in Houston, and it’s the second Hard Rock we’ve been in today. We got out of bed this morning at 7:30, drove to Dallas, and we’re hitting San Antonio next, and then Austin on the way home. Why, you must be asking, why oh why on Earth are we doing this?

In a nutshell, it’s because Colby’s middle name is Angus.

The Hard Rock Cafe is intorducing it’s new Ultimate Angus Burger, named in honor of Angus Young of AC/DC. As a promotional event, they are offering free burgers to anyone who shows up on Angus young’s birthday named Angus. So, we jumped in the car, idiotic adventures being,or course, our specialty.

More to come…………

or,

My Parents went to SXSW, and all I got was 20 2-minute bursts of inspriation.

Kevin would tell you, “We’re a week out, so….” and he’d be correct.

You’re all invited to 20X2 and if you don’t show up ….. well, I’ve been breaking things lately, so ya never know.

If you do show up I gaurantee you 40 minutes of the most creative, entertaining, mind-blowing art you’re likely to see. Plus, in between will be me, Kevin and Mike. So I’m just sayin’……

Plus, whilst everyone is in town, walking down the street, seeing me heading off to some event or other and thinking to themselves, “Well, you’re a handsome devil, what’s your name?” My name’s Jeff, and I’m headed for this, this, this wherever the heck it is this year, this, just for the chicks, and probably this, but not this, though these days neither is anyone else. See ya soon!

or,

How reality TV and unemployment are causing me to slowly lose my mind.

Ok, here’s the thing. The blog has been neglected for quite some time for a reason, and not my usual laziness as a writer. Lately, I honestly have felt that the only things I have to say are not worth writing, and not worth reading or listening to, because they are all extensions of the same gripe.

My job sucks.

How tiresome is that? Of course it sucks, all jobs suck, that’s why they call them that. The pronunciation is different but it has never been lost on me that the name of the most legendary of Biblical sufferers short of Jesus H. Christ himself, and the activity we all engage in to ensure our continued way of life share the same spelling. If jobs were 100% fun all the time, you would have to pay cover, and you sure as hell wouldn’t get medical benefits. So this is where you, as a reader, want to tell my whiny ass to shut the fuck up because your job sucks too.

Or worse, you are one of those unfortunates lately in the George W. war-time economy that has lost their jobs. While there are signs that the worm may be turning there, there are undoubtedly some of you who want to scream at me, “Hey you little shit, at least you have a job!”

And here in lies the first part of the rub, my friends. I both do, and don’t, have a job. Weird, huh?

The bar has been closed for remodeling for a while. 5 months and change as a matter of fact. I am getting paid a meager manager’s salary, equivalent to about 35 hours a weeks pay with no tips, and it is just barely enough to cover rent, bills, truck payments, insurance, etc. Considering the company has no money coming in, and the salary allows me to keep my full coverage health insurance, this is a godsend. I have had work to do related to reopening the bar, work related to the business nature of the bar, accounting and orginization, much work to do in planning the re-opening of the bar. I just have no idea when that will be. No answer that has been given to me has turned out to be true. I was told Thanksgiving, then New Year’s, then Super Bowl. These have all come and gone, and I have yet to see even a chance that it will be soon. There is still a MOUNTAIN of work to be done on the building.

I am not merely feeling stress, I am WASHED in it. Lately, it is starting to show in ways that are frightening me. (This is where this seems to turn into a totally different rant all together, but it’s not, so bear with me.)

As many of you may know, or will soon find out if you are coming to town for SXSW, MTV’s the Real World is currently filming it’s newest season here in Austin. When this was first new in town, my friends and I thought it would prove to be a hoot, though I had some reservations. This is because I loathe reality television. I watched the very first season of The Real World, more than a decade ago, and I enjoyed it. It was, at the time. original, and I was curious to see if so many people from such different walks of life would be able to learn from each other, to grow and become friends, to bond. I saw in that first reality television show the possibility for some of the same things Kevin and I years later now strive for with 20X2, the honest attempt to connect with other people and share new ideas.

Apparently, everyone else was hoping they would hit each other. The Real World degenerated into a manufactured soap opera that helped spawn a multitude of other shows in which we no longer strive to reach our better selves but rubber neck the lowest common denominator in humanity like a car wreck. We long to vote each other off, get somebody fired, form alliances, screw each other, hit each other, hurt each other, feel better than those around us in a desperate effort to convince ourselves that we are better than they are. After the very first episode of Survivor aired, I never watched reality television ever again, and I am proud of it.

It makes you stupid. It makes you petty. It makes you mean. It makes you less than what you are, and keeps you from achieving all that you are capable of. I firmly believe that.

So what does this have to do with my crappy job unhinging my delicate mental balance? I’ll tell ya.

As a gag, one of my friends said to me in jest that she would bet me 50 bucks that I couldn’t get one of the Real World female cast members into bed. Since most of my friends have day jobs, and I work on 6th street in Austin, it was naturally assumed that I would most likely have a great deal more contact with these kids than anyone else we knew would. Also, there is the continuing myth that bartenders can get any girl they like to jump into carnal embrace with them, and as I have said before, that sounds great darlin’ but it just ain’t so.

I quickly pointed out that this would be more difficult than she thought because the bar has been closed for God knows how long and seems likely to remain that way for God knows how much longer. Any one of us had as much chance to interact with the Real Worlder’s as I did. This spawned an interesting game (I also suspect all of my friends and I have a mild gambling problem but that’s another story).

Thus was the Real World game created. Sighting a Real World cast member or members is worth one point, interaction worth two, physical contact worth 5, entrance into the House itself worth 25, and any points that end up in an on-air episode are doubled. All sightings must have a verifiable witness, and be recorded on YOUR REAL WORLD GAME PIECE (about the size of a business card carried in the wallet or purse.)

So far I have 4 points. For three of these sightings I had witnesses. For one, I had only my cell phones tiny digital camera. I was downtown ducking into my bar for a bit to look something up on my computer a few weeks ago, around 10 o’clock on a Thursday night, college night on 6th street, and regretting yet again that the bar was not open and I was missing out on good tip money. I look up, and here comes the entire Real World cast, with a full MTV tech crew in front of them, and a HUGE entourage of hangers on following them. There must have been about 60 college kids in their wake, I am not kidding. My thought at the time was, “Jesus, they’re not even famous yet.” My next was, “Crap, I don’t have anyone here to witness this, I am gonna miss my chance to score a point in the game.” Thinking quickly, I whipped out the phone and snapped a picture, making sure to get the lighting crew in so it was obvious what was going on. As I was doing so, a little girl about 21 or 22, dolled up for 6th street the way the college girls do (which in the past year or so more often has me thinking “No way I’d let my daughter out wearing that” than “Man I’d like to get a piece of that,” as sure a sign that I am getting old as any). She looks right at me and says, in a very snotty way, “Jesus, get a life.” My response was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

“I’m not the one following them all over town you stupid bitch!”

I was furious, and spitting obscenities at a complete stranger. I have had a very bad temper for most of my life, born of years of being the smallest and the weakest and constantly being bullied when younger. I outgrew the smallest part, but never quite lost the chip on my shoulder, not until well into my college career. I used to snap a lot. I got beat up pretty badly a couple of times in college for spouting my mouth off. It took me years to learn to put that temper away, to let things slide off me. Until recently, I was sure I had it whipped.

The reason I knew I had it whipped was because I am so good at my job. I spend all my time dealing with drunk people at work. They aren’t violent, I don’t work in a biker bar or anything. But take all the annoying people you have to deal with in your job every day, and then imagine they were all loaded on top of that. Now, deal with them all at once, instead of one at a time, and, make sure that the only way you get paid is if all of them think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. You lose all chips of all shoulders real quick, or you starve to death real quick. I am not kidding or bragging when I tell you that I am one of the best bartenders you will ever even see. I am a student of the game, I watch other bartenders, good and bad, pick up their tricks, teach tricks to others I work with, learn all that I can. I read customers like open pages in your favorite book. Behind the bar, I’m not just smooth. I soar.

And I never lose my temper.

I’ve lost it four times in the last month, and in scary ways. Yelling at the girl in the street was the mildest. A few weeks before that, I lost it with Kevin, my best friend in the world, and I broke things in front of other friends. Over an argument about football. A few days before that, I lost in with my boss. We screamed at each other for almost an hour. When I got home, I smashed a glass mug into a mirror in my bathroom without realizing I was doing it until I heard the crashing in my ears. This week, when I broke my computer monitor by knocking it off my desk, I didn’t just throw it away. I swung it by the cord like a mace, slamming it first into my storage shed in the back yard, then against the drive way in my front yard, screaming my head off the entire time. My neighbors have little kids, toddlers, they must think I am a lunatic. Maybe they’re right.

So, as far as blogging is concerned, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut. I think, looking back on the length of this post and realizing that it seems only a few moments and has actually been more than an hour, that maybe keeping quiet was a bad idea. Please don’t be afraid of me, I won’t hurt you. I just need my job back. I need something to be good at again, even if it is as trivial as bartending. I need another chance to soar.

or,

Hey, I was Five and it was My Birthday, so Shut Up.

I used to think “Resolve” meant to find the answer to something, again. Like figuring out that 2+2 really did =4. Or looking at all the clues over again to find out that Kristen did, in fact, shoot J.R.

“Elementary, my dear Watson, you see, the Murderer of the Rue Morgue is…”

“Yes, yes, yes Holmes, it’s a bloody big monkey, someone else solved it first, and then you re-solved it already, 4 times! You’re not even in that blasted story! Quit showing off, you wanker.”

So, here are some things I would like to have “Re-Solved” for 2005:

1) Why are there 8 in a bag of hot dog buns, but 12 in a pack of hot dogs?

2) Why did my water bill go up by a factor of 10 during April of 2004?

3) Who shot Abraham Lincoln?

5) What happened to mystery number 4?

6) Where were all of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction?

7) What is the square root of 99?

8) Where’s the Beef?

Answers: 1) So you’ll buy 3 bags of buns and two packs of hot dogs. 2) Our toilet was apparently leaking. 3) John Wilkes Boothe, the fucker. 5) I skipped it. 6) If they were up Dubya’s ass, he’d know! 7) 9.9498743710661995473447982100121. 8) Wendy’s, of course.

or,

The mysterious and untimely death of my Cell Phone.

When I got my first cell phone, in 1999, for the first month every time I flipped it open to answer it I said, “Mulder,” instead of hello. A friend swore that after a while no one would ever call me ever, ever again.

Thankfully he was wrong. My cell is now the only phone number I have, has been for three years or so now. As of yesterday, I am on my 4th cell phone in 5 years. They wear out,they get outdated, I want one with new funky gadgets, whatever. I’ve never had one that inexplicably quit working however. This last one, which had been my favorite of the three, quit working out of nowhere. The repair guy at Sprint was honestly fascinated, he swore he’d never seen a phone malfunction quite the way mine was malfunctioning. The long and short of it is, I lost all 150 or so numbers in my electronic phone book.

So I sent out an email to everyone in my email address book, asking them to send me their numbers, if they still desired that I have them, or not if they didn’t.

None of my friends have the ability to be brief, except of course, the aforementioned ever stoic Mr. Mike Stephens, who sent my his full name, his address, and his telephone number, and if I had never met him in my life, without any attached comment whatsoever. Everyone else had something to say, something to add, and they almost all made me laugh. Some were almost as brief as Mike, replying only with,

“Rider,”

followed by the number. Most were thankful that I sent them the heads up, and I got many responses like,

“of course I need to be in your phone!!!!”

Most of those were from women, ‘cuz we know the ladies love Jefe. Speaking of which, I got one in Spanish,

“Ola El Jefe:

me es XXX-XX-XXXX

y ari es XXX-XX-XXXX

hasta luego,

miguel”

I didn’t know Micheal spoke Spanish, probably he’s just showing off. Others were clearly only looking out for themselves,

“What cell plan are you on? (blank) and I are now both on Cingular… just

wondering if you were too, then we’d

have free mobile-to-mobile minutes…”

Greedy bastards. Most left snide attempts at humor,

“you never call anyway” or

“Don’t pass it around or anything.”

And a few shared sympathy and similar experiences, like,

“I feel your pain.I went through the tragic death of my cell phone through a

messy boating accident a few months ago.”

and my personal favorite extreme phone death story,

“i know what you’re going through. my cell phone was rudely ripped from my

pants pocket last month by the centripetal force of a ride at the state

fair. went whizzing out of my pocket and almost plugged an old guy in the

face. instead, it smashed into a concrete block and dissolved to bits.”

And although I think this person might be seriously upset with me (and I most likely deserve it),

“not sure if you’re ever going to speak to me again but here, knock yourself out”‘

I’m pretty sure these people were just joking,

“And, uh, oh yeah…go to hell or whatever.” and,

“Go to hell, cocksucker motherfucker!

:)”

So, If I used to have your number and you think I still should, If I never had your number and you want me to (Hello, Ladies) or if you would like to sell me something, comment or email it to me. Or just cuss me out, whatever seems best.

or,

Pass the yams, Ma’am.

Thanksgiving. Holiday. Trip to Wimberley. Blah blah. Thankful for stuff. Family. Friends. Blessings. Blah blah.

Turkey. Dressing. Ate too much. Blah blah. Mashed Potatoes. Gravy. Yams. Baked Apples. Blah blah. Triotophan. Naps. Football. Blah blah.

Oh, and Kevin and Ryan’s Dad held hands with Ray Wylie Hubbard.

All in all, a great day.

or,

The lunatics are STILL running the asylum.

Someone recently asked me how I was dealing with the fact that the Blue stuffed shirt lost to an Idiot in the Election, again. My response?

By a hybrid car, move to Canada, and learn to speak Arabic. Why? ‘Cause we’re all gonna die.

This is the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt that I was voting not on the issues, not for the leader of a party whose platform seemed to lean more my way than that of the other guy, not against someone I felt was out of touch, but honestly out of self defense. I was, and am, seriously frightened.

On election night, I sat and watched Pat Buchannon talk about the three “G’s” of voting in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Apparently, they are God, Guns, and Gays. When Tim Russert asked him, “Well those are two positive issues and one negative one, right?”, Buchanon had the same look on his face coyotes must have when they realize they are going to have to chew off one of their own legs to escape a trap. His response, after a pained pause, was “That depends on your point of view.” You could actually see his lips twitching, like his mind was screaming at him to say, “Yes Tim, but the first two G’s are the solution to the third one.” Who ever thought putting that fascist bigot on television was a good idea needs to drown in a urine flavored sea of ratings-profit death when he gets to hell. The two liberal leaning panel members looked ready to rip him apart and eat him alive. During the discussion of the “youth vote” (who didn’t turn out in any greater niumbers than they did 4 years ago, about 17% of the total votes cast again this time around, thanks kids), Buchannon went so far as to say that 18 year old kids who only “started reading the newspaper a year or so ago” shouldn’t be able to cast votes that carried the same weight as everyone else.

Fuck you, jack ass, I’ve been reading the paper since I was seven.

But that is exactly the problem. The nation isn’t polarized Red and Blue. We aren’t evenly split down the middle, pulling as far away from each other as we can, rooting like sports fans at a neutral-site Bowl Game. I see now that Mike was right, in that long raging argument on the back porch that we had. We’re all so smack dab right in the middle, just riding that soft wave of comfortable numbness that requires little or no thinking beyond which channel to watch. The public is just basically stupid. The close nature of the elections indicates exactly what this post title says about us. The truth is, neither side managed to find an honest leader, anyone with gravitas,anyone with honest charisma, anyone with real solutions or bold big ideas, to lead the unwashed masses. They ran the best stuffed shirts they could find. And, cheesburger in hand, ketchup dribbling down the front of our overalls, we picked the easy choice and went back to our reality TV. I swear to God I heard someone say that their kids wanted to watch the election results to, “see who got voted off.” Really.

I guess the people like to get shot at, after all. What terrifies me is that Mike might be right about something else from our little back porch debate (and again, I apologize to the neighbors for all the screaming). We’re all in big fuckin’ trouble. We just greenlighted the damn redneck son of a bitch to shoot at whoever the fuck he wants for the next few years in an effort to keep gas under a buck-fifty a gallon. We just gave him the chance to put somebody on the Supreme Court that could overturn Roe. Get out your coat hangers, ladies. We just put a guy who believes his God is the only Right God back in the highest office in the land, and without stopping to realize that he most likely can’t even spell Qur’an, much less that he’s read any of it. All Presidents are flawed (all people, for that matter) but this guy, I mean, WOW. I’m really scared.

or,

One man’s spare change is another man’s bread and butter. And whiskey.

“Gimme any state, I’ll give ya thah capital.”

The words were gravely, and spilled from a mouth missing several of it’s dirty yellow teeth. It floated on a cloud of bad whiskey so strong it might have stung my eyes, had I not already averted my gaze in defensive prepration. I kept my own eyes on the street ahead, and away from his.

“Come on, man…any state.”

I looked. His eyes were glassy, and held lunacy and delight, with no malice. He wasn’t desperate, he wanted me to play with him. His look reminded me forcibly of our dog, tail wagging and expectant.

“Alabama,” I said.

“Montgomery, man. Easy one. Gimme anotha.”

Swear to God, I thought it was Birmingham. I suck at this game.

“Maryland.” I know this one.

“Annapolis.” So did he. His eyes weren’t the only thing dancing now. He’d been shifting around since this game began, almost doing a little jig. Now, one of his feet began to lift ryhtmically off the ground, then back down again. He was having the time of his life.

“North Dakota.”

“Bismark, boy, I got’em all.”

My hand had already dug out all the change in my pocket, and I reached for my wallet as well. I see so many homelss people, get pestered and lied to and conned regularly, and always go away feeling a little greasy. I wish I could help all of them, but I simply can not. I don’t care if they’re spending the money on liqour or drugs. It’s not as if these people are a warm meal and a shower away from getting it together. Most of them are at least as crazy as the Capital Man, a lot of the rest are outright liars. It was just something about this man, wearing his tattered red sweatshirt and torn pants, without a shred of hopelessness. His skin was dirty, his face rippled with scars, yet it was a smiling face. His smile broadened and changed when I handed him my small bit of money, my entry fee into his little game. It was grateful, a bit sad, large and winning. He repeated “Thank You, suh, thank you,” as he shuffled on down the street, asking his question again, looking for new players. Most ignored him as I had tried to do, and I stood and watched as he crossed the street, moving on, thinking to myself that they were all missing out. They all had the chance to be touched and make a very real friend, as I had just done. I watched his shuffle, still alomst dancing, still smiling until he was almost obscured by the 6th Street crowd.

“MINNESOTA!” I yelled suddenly, surprising myself, tears rising.

His skinny arm thrust upward forward, the last parting wave of a hero off to war.

“SAINT PAUL, BABY! SAINT PAUL!”

or,

My anal retentive maternal upbringing strikes again.

So it’s the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and I got here before the gates were even open. I woke up wide awake as a kid on Christmas morning, 9 a.m. sharp. I haven’t even done that on Christmas in a decade, maybe more. I made a couple of stops before heading downtown (where lights will be shinin’) and grabbed the special shuttle to take me over to Zilker Park. It had the same feeling of happiness for me that I get when I go on vacations and wander off by myself, as I have done in San Francisco and London. It was a wonderful feeling to experience that here in my adopted hometown. Waiting in line at the gate, I ran into a dear freind, also on her own for a while. More dear friends are coming. Great music is coming. A wonderful adventure, a relaxing weekend, a lifetime memory is about to occur, and the one thing I am happiest about?

The first 1000 people here get a free misting pocket fan. Mom, you were right, it’s good to be early.

Rock and Roll beckons…………