Like I said...

I am now in Austin, up to my waist in the culture(consumer and otherwise)that I was otherwise denied in "don't got it. don't need it" Iowa.

I realized that I'm a bit of an "accidental tourist" in my own country, where a psychic peace can be achieved as long as I am close to a Chipotle and a Best Buy. These aren't things were suppose to NEED but I can no longer deny this basic truth about myself.

When I was in Iowa, my friend Shawn used to make a lot of "Corn" comments, when I drove through Iowa in late summer a few years ago I made the comment,"If I see another goddamn ear of corn I'm gonna shoot myself." This was before we reached the "Cornhusker State" of Nebraska.

But for the first few months of my exile, I didn't see much corn, even when it sprouted it didn't look that much different from the soybeans that were also a popular crop.

Then the corn explosion! My uncle and I would drive past the same cornfield and visibly notice the growth from the day before.

As the peak time approached, my uncle got more excited, he had always told me that if you get it at peak freshness, you could eat it off the stalk, it was so sweet. His friend Jim had some corn rows on his land that always produced far more than any of us could ever imagine eating.

When it hit the peak, we certainly tried: Corn on the cob;boiled or broiled,corn fritters, corn bread and creamed. I couldn't stop eating it was so F-'n good; I could have eaten it raw off the cob, but I love butter and salt too much.

The key, as I was told, was it's off-the-stalk freshness, since the sugars start to turn starch after it's picked. That's why corn gets chewy and......
ENOUGH! GIVE ME MORE CORN!

As I shucked countless ears of corn, I devised an efficient method that I referred to as the "Iowa Handjob."
One more useless corn fact: If anyone had ever had to deal with fresh corn, the biggest pain in the ass is getting rid of the corn "Silk". Each strand of that is connected to an individual kernel, acting as a kind of feed tube as the ear grows. It was strange to see the kernels whose silk strands didn't make it as far as the outside of the ear of corn to turn brown with the rest, they'd be white and emaciated
while their neighbors would be bursting with corn goodness.

My girlfriend, Johanna, drove up to take me to Texas, and she got a feel for what Shenandoah was like instead of just hearing me talk about it.
Her take of the fresh-off-the-rind Pork:"It's like I've never had pork chops before."
On the fertility of Iowa:"I've never seen so many kinds of green!"

So now I'm in Austin, "Live Music Capitol of the World." and it really is. There are always shows every where and it's really getting me excited to start playing music again.

It has afforded me the productivity I went to Iowa to achieve, I'm writing like a demon, relative to my normal productivity. In the two weeks I've been here, I've written more than I did in two months in Iowa.

If I get the chance this weekend, I'll write some posts for next week that I'm calling "Warts Week" as in, warts and all. They will all be posts that don't cast me in the most positive light,that are still hopefully entertaining to read and taking my dedication to honesty to new levels.

One last thing about Austin: The handstamp that I got from Stubb's the day after I arrived echoed a common local sentiment:"Don't Move Here".

Too Late.