floyd and threadgill’s – a tale of sadness and embarrassment

i have NEVER flat out spaced on an appointment of plans…

…until last august.

and with all people it was floyd. my last hurrah in radio came from a nationally syndicated talk radio program that allowed me to make friends with such fun folk as john mccain, jello biafra, al lewis, and floyd – the guy on the show i talked to the most because we were in close proximity to one another.

floyd plays piano. well. he does country music mostly, and has been the go-to guy by such small time country folks as willie nelson, george strait, merle haggard, and waylon jennings. see – nobody you’ve heard of or anything. he was also in asleep at the wheel forever, and helped score the best little whorehouse in texas on broadway.

and i stood him up for lunch after we hadn’t seen each other in nineteen years.

but we made up for it thursday when we had what might be our last meal at threadgill’s world headquarters, a south austin institution where we actually did the show. the restaurant is scheduled to shutter it’s doors after turkey day. for real this time. if i make it back again, i make it back. i had a super time with floyd, and if that’s my last memories of the place i’m kinda okay with that.

it was my work place for around eighteen months, and sitting there with floyd was a really cool way to close the chapter. there’s a couple staff members that go back to the days we did the show (late 1990’s) but the north is closer to my current work and the menu’s the same, so i might just hit that again soon. it ain’t exactly health food, but it’s comfortable culinary memories to say the least. it will be missed, but i almost feel like i’l sullying the memory if i hit it again after the floyd food.