austin rocks!

The events of yesterday were almost as interesting as the day before.

Shanon danced on the bar  at coyote ugly. And that alone was worth the price of admission. (actually, there was no cover charge…that’s the point)

The coyote ugly girls here in Austin were all pretty nice and they take their job pretty seriously. But regardless of the amount of practice and rehearsal they put into their craft, that didn’t stop our own, psycho shanon, from hopping on the bar and shaking her stuff. And what shanon may lack in skills, she makes up for in enthusiasm. I love me some shanon. She even let some dude take a body shot off of her!

 

Speaking of girls doing things that are out of character… we were walking down 6^th street yesterday, which is what you do when you’re in Austin, and I decided that it would be a good idea to get a ride from a total stranger… please don’t try this at home!!! Im a professional. Anyway, the 4 of us, j-si, shanon, Andrew and myself, were turned down by multiple people and we finally ran across a young lady by the name of Allison. She was headed down 6^th street in her mini cooper and I walked up to her car while Andrew was filming and we asked her for a ride. understandably, she was a little startled, but she agreed. So, the 4 of us were about to hop in her mini. In fact, shanon did. I did. J-si did. But Andrew hollered “stranger danger.” And he was serious. Really Andrew? Theres 4 of us. 3 of us are guys. And you’re afraid to hop in the car with this 5 ft 115 pound girl . what is she gonna do? knock us out with her yoga mats in her back seat?

So we left Andrew on the sidewalk, and we went to do a bit with her. we later found out that the girl, Allison, was a singer and we took her, (or she took us), to a restaurat down the street. This is where I was able to convince the manager to turn their music off and let our girl sing. She did and it was awesome.

 

Ok, the trip is wrapping up. Austin is awesome. If you live there… man, you have a great town. If you’re planning on visiting there, you’re gonna have a great time.

 

2 quick notes: a lot of people are emailing to see when steve and I will be at the bucket over the holidays. Go to the website and look for the calandar. There are dates marked for the few of you that may want to plan a trip to playa del Carmen, mexico when we are going to be there. (thank you for that by the way!)

the website is bigalandredneckstevesbeerbucket.com.

 

also, if you ever want to email me, heres an address that I check regularly.

Bigalmack19@gmail.com. I think we are getting “show email addresses” soon. I will keep you posted on that.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Big al

 

 

another day, another near fatal stabbing by a 70 yr old white man!

The first evening/night in Austin was a memorable one to say the least. It included

A near butt kicking, an heartbreaking insult, interaction with the parent of a death row inmate, a kiss from a stranger, and a show that ive never seen before.

 

We are in Austin for a huge radio convention and we decided instead of flying, we would get in the car and drive. Hoping that the journey would provide some material for the show. IT DID!

 

First the near butt kicking. On the way down, we stopped to eat at this place called buzzard billy’s restaurant. While we were sitting in the restaurant, I do the “can I get a bite of that” bit. This is basically where I walk up to total strangers and ask if I can get a bite of something off of their plate. I approached a lady and she let me steal one of her alligator tails. Success! I’ll get back to this lady.

 

My next idea was to sit with this elderly white couple and sing “lets get it on” to the woman. When I approached this table, the reaction was waay different from the previous lady. This time before my butt could even hit the bench of the booth, she hollered out NOOOOO! NOOOOOO! GET AWAY FROM MY TABLE. It caught me so off guard that I didn’t know what to say. I extended my hand for a hand shake and introduced myself but she wasn’t having it. Then the 70 year old husband got into the act. He stood up to “protect his woman.” He hollered out “leave my table”… I stared at the two of them for a second as he put his had on his dinner knife at the table. I never really have given much thought as to how I would die but I never thought it would be by a stabbing with a dinner knife at buzzard billy’s… I returned to my table.

 

A few minutes later, I interviewed a waiter at the restaurant. He sat on my lap. (don’t ask.) anyway, we introduced ourselves. Kidd was not with us but our waiter was under the impression that Andrew, our video guy, was kidd. We all got a kick out of that. And then after we found out that chad, the waiter was gay and happily married, I asked the question: of all the guys at the table, to rate us from best to worst looking. Jc, myself, and Andrew, who he thought was kidd. Well, I guess coming in third isn’t so bad, huh? I mean if it were the Olympics, I would have won the bronze…

 

That was about the time the alligator tail lady called me back over to her table. It turned out that she was the mother of a lady that was convicted of murdering her 2 kids 12 years ago outside of dallas. The convicted woman’s name is Darlee Routier. This was a huge story way back when and the mother is confident that after dna testings, her daughter will be cleared of all charges.

 

After we arrived in Austin it was time to hit the street and we did. We had dinner at “bess”, the restaurant owned by Sandra bullock. It was great and we started our walk back. We ran across a girl that was parking her car and I decided to do another bit. “whats in your trunk?” I would give her $20 dollars if she let me rummage thru the trunk of her car. She did and dang the luck, it was a rental car… nothing in the trunk. So I changed the bit to can I go thru your purse. She played along and even this was kinda boring. One item in her purse was some type of lip gloss. She said it was nasty tasting and I challenged that. Still searching for something that will be entertaining for radio or video. Yes, tape and cameras were rolling the whole time during this ordeal which is why im trying to be entertaining. We wanted something for the radio. That’s when I suggested that she put on the nasty lip gloss and give me a 5 second lip kiss so I could determine the taste of the lip gloss.  Again, she played along. This girl was the radio stunt guy’s dream. We kissed, I made stupid noises while we kissed, and tadaa, we had a bit.

 

We asked where she was going and we decided to go with her to the “air guitar” show at the RITZ. After getting there, we found out it wasn’t air guitar, it was air sex. Ive never seen anything like this before. People, one at a time, on stage simulating air “googling.”

(if you know what I mean.) 

3 dates/ 3 days

I had 3 dates over the weekend and im trying my best to remember things about them. The first of the three was the one that I messed up with the worst. She came out with not only me, but the entire morning show. She seemed like a very nice girl that was kinda crazy as well as a lot of fun. The plan was to meet up at primos and then we would hook up from there. Well, I also had to meet up with a person that was interested in leasing a house from me. She was there and she was sitting with the “doctor” that I had been out with a few times before. I sat with the two of them and I also pulled another table up as to make room for the morning show. They were on the way. And so was my date. Well, my date did show up and to say things were awkward for me would maybe be am understatement. But to my date’s credit, she didn’t seem to be bothered at all. BUT, I will say that later on in the night, things did take a nasty turn. The first incident was when a guy that we’re sitting with, (lets call him adam), that apparently likes the doctor, sits down and makes small talk with her. no problem.. its not like shes my girlfriend and besides, I have a date. But when I got up to go to the bathroom, this adam dude that is also a regular at the bar, spouts off the “N-word” in reference to me. The doctor lady has an immediate problem with this. They get into a bit of an argument. J-si, hears them and he pops up, (and bows up), trying to see why this dude is talking so rudely to the doctor lady. I get back from the bathroom not knowing anything has happened. the adam dude leaves the table. Shortly after, we get in the limo and we go to another spot.
Whew! We get there and we know people that are already there. So, im moving around, saying hi to people and socializing and my assumption is my date is fitting in and doing great. Oops! An hour later, maybe midnight, my date was gone. She didn’t say bye. She just left. And I called her and she just said she felt ignored and she was right. I hadn’t spent much time with her. I apologized and we did talk more the next day.

The second one was much more calm. It was Saturday afternoon and we met for a little lunch. She said on the way to meet up at the restaurant, she fell in a big puddle of water.
I think at this point, most people would take that as a sign of things to come but she didn’t. she invited me to hang with her and her friends that night but I had prior obligations.

The third date started out as an invitation to go to the Eagles concert. Im really not much of a fan of getting all dressed up on a Sunday. Its my day for the patio and football. So instead of going to the concert, she gave her tickets away and she came to hang out with us. When she arrived, she came and sat with the group of us. Maybe 10 people or so. This can be rough but she managed to fit in pretty well. And not only did she manage to fit in, at the end of the evening, she paid the whole tab! It was like $150 and she just paid it and didn’t let anyone of the other guys or girls chip in. the guys just kinda stared at each other in amazement!

Wow, I just realized that all three dates started at the same place! You would think that there are no other restaurants in town.

boy, the bar is sloooooow! i knew the months of september and october would be slow but wow!
i guess this is what they call the calm before the storm. daily sales are about half, (if that), of what they were just one month ago. and from what i hear, this is pretty normal.
for those of you that may be new here, me and a buddy of mine, redneck steve, just bought a bar in playa del carmen, mexico. it has been open for about 4 months now and its going about like a new business should. slow but steady. we have been fortunate so far this season to have dodged the hurricanes. (knock on wood). we want to do a little bit of work on the place and i guess now is the time to do it because it is sooo slow. its kind of cool to think about the fact that we own a business thats in a whole other country. its definitely a dream come true and something that i have talked about doing for a long time. so, now we are. to check out pics from the last time we visited the bar, go to bigalandredneckstevesbeerbucket.com

ive been talking to my son payton just about everyday this week and he wants a car. i mentioned to him that i would get him a car if his grades were good and thats when the questions started. what kind of car? what year? what color? hey, im just glad that hes motivated. im sure he will do well. he’s not playing football this year to focus on his books more and i think thats awesome.

Ive really done a great job trying to keep busy this week. Trying to keep my mind off of “the break-up” and all that stuff. So this week I have been meeting new friends from match.com among other places and its been interesting. Hey, at least im busy right? Last night was no exception. I met a girl while I was talking to a few friends and this girl was a little different. First of all she was freakin beautiful.. second of all, she was black! Dude, she looked just like jada pinkett-smith.

I didn’t talk to her for very long but we’re supposed to get together again soon.

im off to start the weekend!
have a great one everybody.

thursday blog

Went to small bar and met yet another chick from match tonite. This one was actually kind of cute and she had the most unusual job. She currently works for an oil and gas company but She worked on an oil rig for like a year. The Date went well and I ended up calling her mom and thanking her for sending her daughter to meet me. I know that sounded weird but what had happened was she was discussing whether or not she should come meet me and her mom said “go ahead, what have you got to lose?” And she’s hot! While I was there, I Ran into a buddy, he sat with us. My date left after an hour and I ended up having dinner at a hibachi restaurant with the guy I ran into and his date where we ran into yet another couple, Ryan and Lindsay. We had a conversation and they called a girlfriend of theirs and hooked me up with her. I called the friend up, talked with her for a while and may meet up with her tonight. Strange but true.

Funny how things happen.

 

Im showing my house today to a perspective buyer. There must be an art to doing this that I am just not privy to. Is there a certain order im supposed to show the house in? certain things im supposed to say and/or not say? Im open for any help you guys can offer. And I have a realtor if I do decide to list the house… im just trying it on my own for a little bit to see how it goes.

 

Headed to the chiropractor. My back is still kicking my butt!

 

Talk to you guys later.

 

tuesday/wednesday blog

TUESDAY:
I met 3 girls yesterday! Who would have thought it…ok, when I say “met”, in this cyber world that we live in, it doesn’t mean that I met them face to face. In fact, I only met one of the three face to face. I met one in a restaurant. She was sitting at the bar at a restaurant all alone and we started to chat. Shes middle eastern and she also owns her own a business. She was very easy to talk to and I think she told me she was in her early 30’s. so we had lunch, chatted for a little while and that was that. The other two girls that I met were actually online meetings. Hey, I know. I know. Im just happy to be able to say I met a few new friends. One girl was a serious texter. Which made me think to myself “if she texts me this much when she’s happy, damn, shes gonna blow my phone all the way up if she ever gets mad at me.” I mean before I could answer one text message, she was firing off another one. She even admitted that she was a serial texter. But even with her “over-texting” I could tell there was a great sense of humor in there somewhere.
The third girl was the one I was most impressed with. The best thing about her is she has no idea that im on the radio. Shes new to town which is also a HUGE plus! Shes only been here less than 3 months and we must have exchanged 30 emails back and forth inside of 2 hours. We went so far as to set up a “meet and greet” for this Saturday. And she said that she doesn’t know much about town so I will play tour guide which is something that I really love doing.

With these three new meetings, the “HOD” or “hang out date” that I have scheduled for tonite seems somewhat inconsequential. The hang out date is a date that isn’t really a date. Its just when you arrange a time that you and a friend can hang out at a place where you would likely hang out anyway, but you hopefully, will hang out together a bit and chat. Its a lot less pressure. Usually a lot more people will be there and it’s a group setting. This one is kinda different because it’s a girl that I saw over the weekend that I already know but I have never been out with.

So who knows? None of these may be the ultimate hook up or anything, im just glad to be “busy” and have some stuff to do. I took one bit of kidds advice yesterday and when I found myself thinking about “her” and I think you know who im talking about… I just started thinking about other stuff.. I started reading road signs, making my list in me head of stuff I needed to do, just occupying my little head with any thing I could to get it off of her…not allowing myself to make a “thinking about u text.” Mission accomplished!!!

WEDNESDAY:

Ok, I had a dating service date last nite…oh my!
Ok, why do people think that when you look nothing like your picture, that’s ok???
I am going to be as honest, yet gentle, as possible here and take a chance that since the girl I went out with has no idea that im on the radio, I wont hurt her feelings. (she’s relatively new to town and I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings)
Its no secret that guys are visual. So when guys are looking at pics on match.com or wherever, 95% of the time, we decide that whether or not we are going to go out with you based solely on the pictures that we see. Its sad but its true. So when my date showed up (over an hour late) last night, not looking at all like her pic, it was a bit of a let down.
im not saying she looked one way or another, im just saying she didn’t look like her picture and we’ll leave it at that. She’s a smoker and kinda had that “smiker look” if you know what I mean. So she sits down and within 3 seconds of sitting down, she reaches into her front pocket and pulls out her pack of Marlboros..

the date went on and on but there is nothing worse than knowing that the date you’re on is a first and a last. You start thinking of other things that you need to do. Other places that you could be.

I know this sounds mean but I don’t mean for it to be. It just wasn’t a match and physically, don’t you need to be attracted to a person? Sure you do. Oh well, that’s why they call it dating, right???

Have a great one.

my neck, my back!!!!

This was a weekend full of pain. Not the emotional pain ive been whining about so much lately. This time it was physical pain. A long time ago, I had a back injury and it never really has healed and apparently, it never will. And while in mexico for labor day, I stepped into a pot hole and it twisted my body in such a way that it aggravated the old injury. This actually happens about once a year or so and hurts like hell for about 2 weeks. Sitting down and standing up are the most painful parts.

Pity party starts now:
The worse part about being hurt, wounded or sick is when you have to deal with it by yourself. Man, that sucks doesn’t it? its been a while since I stayed in the house on a Friday, Saturday and a Sunday night but there was just no way I could deal. And with no one to nurse me or baby me while I was hurting made this a pretty long weekend. (everyone, say awwww!!) But it did give me time to catch up on my myspace account and to look around on match.com for “new friends” to hang out with. And since I was sooo fronted out by making the last match.com date a “bit/date”, (which I guess it was), rest assured that these wont be.
Pity party over!

Im gonna try to get a couple lunch “meet ups” lined up for this week. Things have been a little slow but all things work in cycles right? And just so that you all know, bartendica and I have not spoken or texted. That’s all im really gonna say about that. Im not mad at her about anything, and I assume shes not mad at me either but I just thought that I would mention that there has been no contact.

I have not mentioned the bar in quite a while so I will say that everything down in playa del Carmen is going fine. Big al and redneck steves beer bucket (.com) has just made it past 3 months and things are still going. It’s the slow season right now so this will be the toughest part of the year..the 2nd half of hurricane season. we are far from making any profit out of this thing but we are trying to hang in there.
Ok, that should bring a few things in my life up to date.

Have a great day everyone.

al

ok, i need a plan of action!

IM STUCK! Ok,;d let me be honest. Its been a few months since “the breakup” and I wouldn’t call myself “over it” yet. How long is this supposed to take? Then again, how do you know when you’re “over it?” is there a “over it” test? Are there questions that you have to ask yourself to know if you’re over it? Here’s the problem… (this is gonna sound really sad and its kind of embarrassing but it’s the truth.) I thought I was done thinking about her. but I still do. And that’s what I mean. When we we’re happy, it was great. so I don’t really want to totally forget about her and those happy times. But at the same time, she has moved on and I need to do so as well. And truthfully, it would be easier to “forget” if there was another person in the picture. But there isn’t. ok, I went out with “the doctor” but there has been NOTHING physical. And I think I am intentionally not really totally getting into her because im not totally over bartendica. But I probably cant really get over bartendica because im not allowing myself to get INTO anyone else.
SO, I actually talked to “general practionia” about this and let her know what my feelings and thoughts were and she seemed to, at the very least, appreciate my honesty. Who knows??? This is probably why the relationship is not progressing!
So the question is: how do you know if you’re over them or not?

Ok, so I just disclosed the above thoughts and feelings on the air and that didn’t go exactly as I had planned. (to say the least)… then again, on this show, what ever really goes as planned? But at least MAYBE it helped to talk about it on the air. I don’t know.
You want to be honest and tell a girl whats up. A guy doesn’t really sit around and tell his guy friends about not being over a chick. Then what are our choices? Well, If you’re on the radio, I guess you bounce it off your coworkers! Haha…bartendica isn’t a bad person and this whole mess is my fault. Im gonna take kidd’s advice and just stay busy.
Full speed ahead. If you’re out and you see me somewhere, just come up and talk about…something! ive got to occupy my mind and body and get my head straight.

Ok, ive gotta make my plan for today!

well, we’re back from a three day vaca and things are looking up a bit. i heard from bartendica and she (at least) is on speaking terms with me again. its not that i expect her to be ready and willing to try anything with me…im sure she doesnt even want to try to “try again.” so, i will just let her do her thang, and i will “get over it.”

the bar, “big al and redneck steves beer bucket” in playa del carmen is 3 months old and is still going strong. it hasnt made a dime of profit as of yet but lets focus on the positive… i know i am! the locals seem to have made the adjustment to us, the new owners. the hurricane didnt wipe us out. i did have to fire an employee which was a tough thing especially since i dont speak spanish. but after the translation was made clear, there were no hard feelings. i dont THINK there were anyway!
the points were put on the table and that was pretty much that.

in the condo, there were 6 girls right next door to us. SWEET! emily, who somehow ended up in our room one night sleeping in my bed as i crashed on the couch. there was a girl named kelly, who, (personally), i think was the hottest of the group. anyway, all of the girls supported the bucket pretty much all weekend. we danced we laughed we drank and we even and when it poured down rain saturday, yes we danced in the rain outside the bar. everybody had a great time.

someone did steal steves cell phone. at least, thats what i think. what happened was, he left it inside his t-shirt on a table. we left the table and went to get in the water. we came back and the cell phone was gone. we looked everywhere for at least 40 minutes. it was gone!
duke went back by there the next just to see if it popped up and it hadnt. duke offered the restaurant employees a $100 reward if someone found it… magically, this phone that had been missing for a day and a half, suddenly was found only 2 hours later after offering the reward!
funny how that happens.

well, thats aboout it for now.
glad to be back.
hey guess what…im thinking about hosting a day/night out really soon. i’ll keep you posted. i want alot of people to show up for a big party!

have a great day!

what a day!

This had to be the hardest day for my friend, kidd, ever! Living your life on the radio is a trip. When its good, its great. YOU HAVE A MILLION FRIENDS! But when its not so good…well, its one of the hardest things ever and you feel so freakin alone! Sure its fun doing what we do. but when times are tough, like today, you feel like you’re being examined and judged by everyone under the sun.

 

Like I said on the air, kidd was always the one that I went to when I was having marital problems. He was my go to guy! His advice was always thought out and it came from love. And it was coming from a person that “walked the walk!” I remember when kidd first told kellie and I about his situation. My mouth just flew open. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t!

 

Lord knows I have experienced my share of failures in my lifetime. We all have. But someone waaay smarter than me said its not the successes or failures that count. Its how we handle the failures. Thats what truly matters. And I think kidd handled this in a very mature, and selfless manner. Sometimes, there are instances where we just don’t know what to do or how to do it. Of all the failures that I have experienced in my life, my failure of marriage is the one that I, by far, feel the worse about. The reason being, it’s a failure that affects other people. People that you love. I have been around a lot of divorced people in my day and I have to give kidd credit on one thing. I have NEVER heard him say one negative thing about his ex-wife. Not once! I really respect that. Yeah, it may have taken a while to get this out there, but who can fault a person for trying to protect their kid?

 

So, I guess all im trying to say here is we all have our “issues.” Kidd, kellie, jc and myself are very blessed to have these wonderful jobs that allow us to share our lives with you guys. Kidd spends his life working on this show and I am so lucky to be here learning from the best. And even now, I am still learning… learning how to deal with the most private issues in the most public way.

 

Kidd, I love you man! Im here for you…

If you need a beer, the first one is on me…AT THE BEER BUCKET!