Sunrise Again

Today was one of those annoyingly hard days. So I’m externalizing, compartmentalizing. I spent a lot of time peering into windows and glimpses of other people’s lives and guessing what their evening was like.

It’s fun to wave and smile at people sitting and talking to each other on their balconies. It’s wonderful, you know. I realized how simple little things like smiling and waving really do make you feel more human. And although I know it’s superficial and maybe even synthetic, it’s just cool that total strangers can /wave in RL too!

I had to go to the permit office again and waited two hours to see someone only to find out that I needed to go to another building entirely. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t say that two hours was a complete waste. There were these two men sitting next to me and they had this enormous chat the entire time and of course, with my stalker genes, I was intrigued. (Mark was sitting on the other side of the two so I didn’t get to ask him for a picture of his sneakers)

One of the men was the client and the other was probably the contractor he hired. From the looks of the plans and paper work he had, he’s planning on building a Filipino Asian Mart in South Austin. He started out by explaining why he wanted to name it Filipino and Asian because of the diversity of the market food that would be available beyond the specific country specifics.

Apparently, his wife is Filipino because I heard him say, “You think that marrying an Asian woman is nice because they’re supposed to be so gentle and nice but she’s Filipino and has that Spanish blood in her.” The other guy then made a joke about the guy being funny and how it shouldn’t be allowed to drink this early in the morning.

This lead into a conversation about how the contractor guy was sober for two years now and that he was actually in the middle of a divorce. He said that him finally getting sober made him realize that his relationship was too silent. He said they were still good friend though and that he sees his son every day and is thankful for the clean separation. I remember he turned to the guy and said, “yeah, I waited to years after I got sober to make sure I was thinking level headed. But life’s too short and we weren’t happy.”

I thought the whole conversation was surreal. The client went on to talk about what he’d do if this venture is successful. He said he’s actually a song writer and performer and has some hits in Europe apparently. I could tell that this was his real passion in life but obviously he realistically couldn’t pursue with the family to think about etc. He talked about how expensive it was to produce a CD etc and promote it.

Apparently he knew a lot of famous people like Michael Stipe from REM who he asked to join his band a long time ago. Stipe declined at the time because he was too shy, go figure. They remained acquaintances though and that’s how this guy got some songs in Europe and hung out with REM when they headlined Austin City Music Festival. He mentioned that he had a studio at his house where he can jam out from time to time with local musicians.

I actually think I found the guy on youtube because he mentioned he had jammed out with this famous guitarist named Tolo. He said that you could see all these youtube videos of Tolo jamming with all these famous people and then in with the mix is a video of the guy playing in this man’s living room. So I used my google skills and found a guitarist named Tolo Martin and sure enough, I found a video of him playing guitars with this guy on his living room couch.

So to Mr. Craig Franklin, here’s to your Asian Mart and musical career... it was nice stalking you.