Today’s guest is Steven Cruser, who wrote the script for this year’s Secrets and Shadows Cemetery Tour alongside his wife, Cynthia. As co-director of this year’s tour, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Steven over the past few months.
The tour, which has its final performances coming up this weekend, uses actors to portray spirits from Lockhart’s past throughout our local cemetery. While cemetery tours typically feature actors delivering individual monologues, Secrets and Shadows takes a more theatrical approach, with interconnected scenes tied together by a narrator and guide: Gus Birkner, portrayed by Steven himself.
7 Oct 2026
Episode 14 - Kelly Dugan: 13 Years of Peach Fuzz Magazine
Today’s guest is Kelly Dugan, a founder and editor-in-chief of Peach Fuzz Magazine, a sex positive lady-run nudie magazine founded in 2013.
Kelly is also the owner of Slow and Steady, a beer garden in Lockhart, Texas opening on November 1, 2026
And finally, Kelly is a chef at Tomorrow's Partiez.
30 Sept 2026
Episode 13 - Donaly Brice: Passing on the Cemetery Tour
Today’s guest is Donaly Bryce. He’s an author and local historian, and he’s been involved with the Caldwell County Historical Commission since the beginning. He was also the driving force behind Lockhart’s cemetery tour from 2004 to 2019, back when it was called Speaking of the Dead: Night Ramblings in a Texas Graveyard. The tour came back last year, and I’m co-directing it this year, with the Lockhart Initiative for Tourism as its sponsor.
23 Sept 2026
Episode 12 - David Barr: A Caldwell County Anti-Quest
Today’s episode I recorded on a drive to nowhere in particular with my good friend, David Barr.
David is a founding member of the Lockhart Philosophy Club, has a radio show called Password on KLKT, and has an excellent dog named Buddy. Those are 3 facts about David.
Recently I discovered that David and I have something in common. We’re both fans of big aimless walks or drives. The wandering and discovery, moment by moment, is the point. Rather than getting from point A to point B.
If I ever had an excuse to make a podcast that is long, raw, and meandering, this is it.
You can think of this podcast as inspiration for your own aimless walk or drive, or as the ambient backtrack for it.
16 Sept 2026
Episode 11 - Samuel Grey Horse: Out on the Ranch
Today on Clockmaster’s Hour, I’m hanging out with Samuel Grey Horse. I met Samuel through the Lockhart cemetery tour, where he’ll be playing an Indigenous character this October. He invited me out to his ranch and sweat lodge so we could spend some time together and start building some trust around the project. Samuel has been an Austin local legend for years, and after nearly two years in Lockhart, I’m really glad I’m getting a chance to know him better.
9 Sept 2026
Episode 10 - Austin and Taylor Burge: Chaparral and the Changing Lockhart Square
Today’s guests are Austin and Taylor Burge, the owners of Chaparral Coffee and Chaparral Cantina on the Lockhart Square. Taylor also serves on the Lockhart City Council.
8 Sept 2026
Clockmaster's Hour Bonus Episode - The Cutting Room Floor Vol. 1: A Sound Collage
Ok I might be a compulsive recorder.
Phone calls, live performances at the Baker, nature sounds, conversations, field recordings, half-formed skits that got abandoned, interviews… this is the kitchen sink thrown in…. Experimental and for the adventurous only.
2 Sept 2026
Episode 9 - Peggy Engledow: The Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County
Today’s short podcast is also something of a plug for an organization that I think is extremely worthwhile for anyone with an interest in their family history, the history of the caldwell county, or the history of Texas for that matter. I’m talking about the Genealogical and Historical Society of Caldwell County, of which I became an official member today.
Peggy Engledow is a librarian and researcher at the Historical Society, which is located in the back of the Luling Public Library. She is also the author of Bad Boys of Caldwell County, which is now on its third volume.
26 Aug 2026
Episode 8 — Pastor Jodi Fischer: Meeting Jesus at Wounded Knee
Today’s guest is Jodi Fischer. Jodi is the pastor of Old Lytton Springs Church in the unincorporated community of Lytton Springs, about 10 miles north of Lockhart.
19 Aug 2026
Episode 7 - Sara Barr, Layne Tanner, and Jessica Rutland, the Founding Women of Lockhart Arts and Craft
Today’s guests are Sara Barr, Layne Tanner, and Jessica Rutland, the founding women of Lockhart Arts and Craft, which was a music venue, a bar, a multipurpose space, and a lot of different things to a lot of different people on the Lockhart square from 2017 until 2025.
12 Aug 2026
Episode 6 - Sandy and Cheryl Dozier: Lockhart's Unofficial Grandparents
Sandy and Cheryl Dozier talk about their roots in Lockhart, why it’s good not to be a jerk, and how photography connected them more deeply to their community. We also talk about Lockhart’s rapid change and why they’re not pulling their hair out about it.
5 Aug 2026
Episode 5- Doug DeGirolamo and the Cathedral of Community Theatre
My guest today is Doug DeGirolamo. Doug is the Artistic Director of the Gaslight-Baker Theatre here in Lockhart and most recently directed its production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
29 Jul 2026
Episode 4- Luca Newkirk: Lockhart's Clock Lady
Today’s guest is Luca Newkirk.
Luca apprenticed at Lockhart's now-closed Southwest Museum of Clocks and Watches from 2023 until its closure in 2025. She now operates Central Time Clock Repair Company alongside Lazarus Dugas, serving the horological needs of Caldwell County.
Luca was also the star and central subject of my film Clockmaster, which documented the museum during its final year of operation.
While many of these conversations on Clockmaster’s Hour are with old-timers, I'm just as interested in the threads that connect one generation to the next. Luca is part of that weave.
22 Jul 2026
Episode 3 — Two Generations: Roberto Mendez and Richard Mendez
Roberto Méndez is 91 years old. He went from shining shoes on the Lockhart square as a boy to owning two buildings on it today.
He is the son of Pablo and Frances Mendez, from San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
This conversation is recorded in Henry's Restaurant, where Roberto drinks coffee every morning.
And as a bonus, my conversation with Roberto is followed by a conversation with his son, Richard Mendez, age 61. Richard manages A-1 Bail Bonds with his sister, Belinda, in the building on Market Street that Roberto bought in 1969.
15 Jul 2026
Episode 2 – The Swearingen Family Legacy, the Murder of Carter Flowers, and the Graphic Novels of Jack Jackson: A Conversation with Jessamin Swearingen
Today's guest is Jessamin Swearingen. Through her fourth great-grandfather, A. L. Brock, and the Swearingen family, her roots reach back to the foundational beginnings of Lockhart. Nearly 180 years after her ancestors first settled here, Jessamin became the first Swearingen in that direct line to be born outside of Texas.
I was connected with Jessamin through her cousin, Philip Norman, who told me she had been researching her family's history with the goal of turning it into a graphic novel. That research became the starting point for our conversation.
As a quick note, you’re gonna hear us mention Jack Jackson several times throughout this episode. Jackson was a Texas-born illustrator, historian, and pioneer of the underground comix movement. He created books such as Los Tejanos, Lost Cause, Commanche Moon, and The Alamo: An Epic Told from Both Sides. And you should check him out.
9 Jul 2026
Episode 1- Segregation, The Navarro School, and the Two Spanish Movie Houses: Recollections from Velia Sanchez and Rose Marie Lockwood
Welcome to the first episode of Clockmaster's Hour, a podcast connecting the past, present, and future of Caldwell County through oral history. My name is Brandon Gray and I live in Lockhart, Texas.
In this first episode, I’m joined by cousins and lifelong friends Velia Sanchez and Rose Marie Lockwood. Velia is the daughter of Cruz Garcia Sanchez and Adela Mayo Sanchez. Rose Marie was raised by her grandparents, Monico and Dolores Cisneros.
As children in the 1940s, they attended the Navarro School, Lockhart’s segregated school for children of Mexican ancestry and Spanish-speaking families. Before it became known as the Navarro School, it was simply called the Mexican School. It closed shortly following integration in the 1950s.
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