Remembering Merv

I'm sure that you saw that Merv Griffin died the other day. While I'm not a big talk show or game show fan, the guy knew how to make a buck (and then some).

My wife and I have vacation friends, let's call them Jack and Katrina. We started vacationing with them close to 20 years ago, and while we don't go with them as often now that we have kids, we still have a great time traveling with them. Several years ago, we decided to meet them in San Antonio, then drive to Austin, then drive to New Orleans.

I'm not a big fan of San Antonio. The Riverwalk is too tourista and soulless (I prefer St. Mary's Street). We took the obligatory trip to The Alamo. On the way there Jack is needling me a little about Davey Crockett leading all of these Tennesseans to fight with the Texans there. So, we get there and there is a memorial to all of those from the Volunteer state (fighting at the Alamo is one reason it got the nickname)--all 12 of them. I got tons of shit after that (What, a bar closed and the last stage coach was heading west?). Later on we went to the Lone Star brewery (don't be jealous...the beer's just a shitty at the brewery). The tasting room is filled with animals heads and they try to pass it off as some sort of natural history museum. Regardless, we got our free beer, went outside and had what might have been the first discussion of Kandinsky ever held on the premises.

After San Antone, we drove to Austin. That is a great fucking town and highly recommend that you go if you haven't. We made a trip to the LBJ Library. Pretty interesting stuff since he had such a long political career. One document stuck out. It was from McGeorge Bundy. He had just gotten back from Vietnam (this was in 1964) and he basically said, "We can never win this thing, we should just get the fuck out." And, 8 short years later, we did. We also took a short trip to the hill country to do some wine tasting. Yes, wine tasting in Texas (OK, we drank a lot on our vacations with them). We headed to one place that was little more than a shack, tasted some wine and asked the owner/vintner why he was making the stuff there. He said something about the Ph in the soil and felt that he could make a pretty good $5 bottle of wine. He was right. We then meandered up the road to a much more ostentatious place. Big Georgian looking house with a curved driveway. Once inside, we saw all of the awards the wine had (supposedly) won. The employee poured us some tastes and we asked why Mr. Smith had a winery. Well, it turns out that he's a big time Austin lawyer, and a bunch of years ago he and the missus toured France, and boy, if the Bordeaux region didn't look just like their ranch outside of Austin. So, they should be able to grow good grapes there. The wine was piss. Before leaving town, a waiter at a big bar over looking Lake Travis turned us on to Banana Blender Surprise and we checked them out at a club/bar on 6th Street.

We then drove to New Orleans. On the way, we stopped at the Players Casino off of Lake Charles. It's a shitty riverboat casino on a lake totally polluted by the petrochemical plants that line it. So, we sat down and played. We were all doing well, especially Katrina. By this time, we had also had a few drinks. She was playing with her chips and Jack asked what she was doing. she looked down and said, "Fingering Merv." Hilarity ensued and every time we won a hand we made some joke about fingering, or otherwise abusing Merv. The rest of the trip was OK. It was ungodly hot, even by New Orleans standards, but we drank a lot and heard some good music.

But, when I think of Merv Griffin, I always think of Lake Charles, LA. RIP, Merv.