Month: February 2019

Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot

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MON., NOV. 20, 2006

Thanksgiving is the most American of all holidays – not because it reminds us of how the Native Americans (sometimes referred to by the Freudian phrase “Naive Americans”) welcomed the white men with open arms and saved them from starvation (a small kindness white men repaid with disease, famine, and genocide), and not because it is a holiday that reminds us to be thankful for what we have (approximately 3.7 million square miles of prime real estate previously inhabited by said Native Americans). If you buy that shit, you truly are a naive American. No, Thanksgiving is the most American of all holidays because it is all about the thing America does best: eating. Whether or not we’re really thankful for it, this Thursday Americans will be gorging themselves with heaping piles of food, stretching their intestines like sausage casings with criminally bland cuisine: turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, and stuffing (which, ironically, is suitably descriptive of all the preceding). With the exception of a few hypercompetitive, skinny Japanese guys with hot dog fetishes, Americans eat more than just about anybody else in the world. We’re big people with big appetites, and Thanksgiving is America’s superbowl of gluttony. We eat all day and when we’re not eating we engage in an impressive amount of sloth. Combined, these two (in)activities create luxurious folds of body fat. Seriously, take a long, slow waddle around the mall on Friday with the other 200-million-or-so bargain hunters, and you’ll think you’re at a sumo wrestling tournament. It may seem like they’re out to knock off their third deadly sin, avarice, but really they’re just getting too big for their clothes. Most Americans, like their cell phone plans, have rollover. How do we solve the problem? Do away with Turkey Day? Not hardly, but maybe a quick jog Thanksgiving morning wouldn’t hurt. Fortunately for Austinites Thundercloud Subs sponsors their annual Turkey Trot, a 5K fun run benefiting Caritas, a local charity that fights poverty, hunger, and homelessness. You might not get rid of your rollover in a 5K, but you should feel a little better about engaging in some gluttony and sloth.

The Art of Andy Warhol

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MON., NOV. 13, 2006

Trolling for strange in an art gallery is, at best, a challenging proposition. Even at the wildest gallery openings, you don’t see a lot of binge drinking, drug swilling, and dirty dancing. It’s a shame really, because artists, by and large, are unrepentant freaks, and you would think some of that deviant behavior would make for a wild time at the gallery, but not so. Art galleries are the business end of the creative process, and whenever there is money involved, there is always someone around to make sure everything is buttoned down tight. Besides, even the craziest artist doesn’t want the hoi polloi projectile vomiting $15-a-bottle screw-top Merlot on his masterwork … well, with the exception of maybe Jackson Pollock (who, by the way, died when he flipped his convertible after a hard day of drinking gin). So maybe a life of excess isn’t for everyone, and doing a high-speed face plant into a tree is surely a tough way to check out, but at least Pollock was smart enough to leave the art back at the gallery where it would eventually make its way into the hands of people like David Geffen, who recently sold his Pollock for nearly $140 million. Needless to say, Geffen isn’t trolling art galleries looking for strange, strange is trolling art galleries looking for Geffen. It doesn’t matter what country you live in, $140 million can buy you love, or something so flawlessly similar you won’t stay up nights worrying about its authenticity. Back here on planet Austin it’s unlikely that you’ll run into David Geffen at a gallery opening gnawing on a cheese cube and knocking back skunky merlot, but that doesn’t mean you should give up your pursuit of art appreciation. There is plenty of eye candy, animate and inanimate, in galleries around town every week, and just because it doesn’t have back or a bankroll doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out. For instance, this weekend is the final weekend of the Warhol Exhibit at Art on 5th. If you’ll recall, Andy got his freak on about as well as anyone: Porn stars, drag queens, meth heads, musicians, and movie stars all got it on at the Factory, and in between all the squishing and squeaking and squealing and squirting some pretty decent art got made too. A good bit of it is at Art on 5th through Saturday night. This may be your best shot at checking out some strange at an art gallery for some time to come, so don’t miss it.

Double Exposure

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MON., NOV. 6, 2006

You can go ahead and peel off that “I voted” sticker now. Show’s over. No use sitting by your mailbox waiting for Governor-Elect Friedman’s coke binge/casino gambling/varmint rescuing inaugural ball invite. It would have been fun, but unfortunately, your boxcar was hitched to the little engine that couldn’t: the one with just enough steam to blow the whistle but not enough to get over the hill. Think of it this way: You made a statement. You showed the world you’re willing to stand on principle, even when the principle you’re standing on is sinking like the Titanic, parting the sea, making way for the Two-Headed (and at least one of them is side-parted) Beast of the Apocalypse, Governor Goodhair. Now is not the time to start second-guessing yourself. Just because effectively your vote might as well have been cast for Perry doesn’t mean you weren’t being heard. Think about the sweeping reform brought about by the Nader/Bush voters in 2004 – the primary one being that Bush had to start wearing Depends because he was peeing on himself with glee at the thought of Nader staying in the race. Come to think of it, Perry seems to favor roomy, pleated khakis too, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s experiencing happiness-based incontinence himself, it may just mean he has frequent boners. Wouldn’t you if you knew some stogie sucking cowboy crackpot was splitting the opposition vote? As rich as he is on back-room payoffs, Perry can’t afford high-grade Viagra like that. Besides, even if he had the money, no one really believes that Perry would secretly pay Friedman to play the foil, do they? How Machiavellian would that be? He would have had to understudy with Bush for years to pull a stunt like that. Yeah, it’s best not to let your imagination run wild. Politics is for people with vision but not peyote vision. That kind of vision is best left to artistic types – people like David Jewell and Wayne Alan Brenner, the writers, directors, and primary performers in the new Hyde Park Theatre comedy show, Double Exposure. They may not be running for governor, but they have their own two-headed beast thing going on. It involves sketch comedy, monologues, and singing and dancing – sort of like a gubernatorial campaign, but without the sick sweat of desperation. It’s also for adults only, so you may want to leave the “future of Texas” at home with a sitter.

Extravagasm 2006

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MON., OCT. 30, 2006

Before you haul your entire fetish wear collection down to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and begin your vow of celibacy as a nun, take a minute and consider the fact that the nun outfit is maybe one of the top five fetish costumes of all time, so you really wouldn’t be departing the realm of kink entirely, just visiting another fiefdom. As religions go, Catholics pretty much dominate the fetish market, and not just because priests historically have introduced so many young people to their first sexual experience. They also have some pretty hot costuming. Sure, you can argue that the loose fitting smocks and vestments were originally chosen precisely for their asexuality, but even though a nun’s habit shares more in common with a burka than a bikini, you’d be hard-pressed to find a decent bikini selection in a fetish shop – kind of ironic considering that ostensibly the Catholic Church has been the vanguard of sexual repression for nearly 2000 years. In fact, (props to the papacy) the One True Church has spiced up sex considerably over the Old Testament drudgery it once was. OT sex, other than some occasional masturbation, buggery, and incest, was pretty cut and dry. Jewish clergy were allowed to marry from the get-go. They were bumping uglies like they were the Chosen, so there wasn’t much need for pageantry. The early Catholics followed suit, but in AD300 the Council of Elvira (not the hot, big-bosomed mistress of the dark played by Cassandra Peterson, but the Spanish town) prohibited Catholic clergy from doing the nasty. Sex has been getting freakier and freakier ever since. Blame it on the Catholics if you want, but kink is here to stay. This Saturday, you can get a whole mess of it at Extravagasm (one “I” short of “Extravagism”), a fetish ball billed as a “celebration of sensuality, eroticism, and creative naughtiness.” This year’s theme is “Carnival of the Senses.” It should be a fun time, but maybe not the best time to begin your vow of celibacy.

The Rocky Horror Show

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TUE., OCT. 24, 2006

Inhibition works for a lot of people. From a purely Darwinistic perspective, it’s best not to stand out. The tallest blade of grass gets cut first; the nail that sticks up gets hammered down … that type of thing. Inhibition is great for survival, but maybe not so good for living. How comfortable can it be to walk through life with the puppet hand of societal conformity stuck up your butt – even if it is an integral part of a performance-art piece you’re doing at the Vortex? The truth is, if you live with something long enough, regardless of how ridiculous it is, it begins to seem perfectly sensible. More often than not, familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. Remember when your mom said the home styled rat-tail mullet she gave you looked cute but you went to Supercuts anyway and got a fade with frosted tips? Remember how it broke her heart? All you were trying to do was just “be you,” but she insisted you were trying to draw attention to yourself. Nobody likes a showoff. Then again, without showoffs, nobody would ever get shown anything. Every once in a while it’s good to shake things up, and no one is more qualified for thing shaking than your common, run of the mill exhibitionist. Thanks to recent technological advances, exhibitionism has reached a whole new scale. Nowadays we have exhibitionism for the sake of exhibitionism. Here’s a brief, inexact history of modern exhibitionism: Dennis Rodman begat the Soy Bomb guy who begat Girls Gone Wild, Girls Gone Wild 2, Girls Gone Wild “Orgy Island”, Girls Gone Wild “Doggie Style”, and of course Janet Jackson at the ’04 Superbowl (where one nipple begat a whole Beatle). “But wait,” you say, “There had to be something before Dennis Rodman.” Correct, and that something was the 1975 cult classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To date the RHPS has spawned several generations of first-class exhibitionists. All, like the Worm himself, share an unhealthy fondness for black fishnet. Regardless, if you want to get comfortable with getting your freak on, The Rocky Horror is a good set of training wheels, and through Halloween the thezzies down at Zach Scott are putting on a live production of Rocky that competes with the original. Pretty much everybody dresses up for Rocky anyway, but if you needed any extra incentive, the Halloween night performance is billed as a costume party. So what’s it gonna be, fishnet or puppet hand?

Rock & Roll Free-for-All

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MON., OCT. 16, 2006

Paul Minor isn’t just a celebrity, he also plays guitar

Here’s the good news, kids: You pretty much know where everybody’s parents are going to be Sunday night. Your first clue should have been when your dad asked you where his friend could score some “weed.” Or maybe you figured something was up when he dragged his Rick Perry-style leather bomber jacket out of the back of the closet. Don’t dis. That shit looks hot with some pleated jeans and snow white Reeboks. Then again, he might decide to blow it up with the H-bomb: The Hawaiian shirt. (Oh no you di—int!) If pops is a player, he likes it unbuttoned just a little past the sternum – aka the “Treasure Trailhead.” Maybe you overlooked the fact that all of the sudden your mother is bouncing around the house braless in a faded black Stones 1981 American Tour T-shirt you’ve never seen before and scrunching her hair with mousse for that “rocker” look. Speaking of rocking, you might have just noticed Moms is rocking saddlebags and funbags. Shake those bad thoughts out of your head. So what if Sunday night she’s in front of the stage, clamping your dad’s head in a Daryl Hannah Blade Runner headlock, pumping her fist to “Honky Tonk Woman” and giving Methuselah Mick an eyeful of menopausal mammaries? Good for her, right? Life is short (unless you’re Keith Richards, and even Keith has to crawl back into his casket before sunrise) so you might as well rock it, eh? Now shut the fuck up and burn that Sticky Fingers CD like your mom asked you to and maybe get Dad’s PT Cruiser washed while you’re at it. It’s a small price to pay to have Sunday night all to yourself – at least until 10pm when the ‘rents come in reeking of booze, weed, and old people sweat. Save yourself the recap by fleeing to the Hole in the Wall for Paul Minor’s new Rock & Roll Free-for-All featuring special guest Bryce Clifford. The Rock & Roll Free-for-All was one of Austin’s favorite mid-Nineties hangouts for scruffy, up-and-coming bands like Spoon, Fastball, Li’l Cap’n Travis and the like. The new version features only one new band per Sunday instead of several, but Minor’s Superego is still awesome, featuring seasoned veterans Landis Armstrong, Kevin Pearson, and Andrew Duplantis. It’s unlikely that the Mick will choose the Hole for his afterparty, but if he does, your parents will probably be asleep by then anyway.

The Sinus Show: Snakes on a Plane

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MON., OCT. 9, 2006

This Friday is the 13th. If you’re feeling unlucky, consider this: At least you’re not in fucking Iraq. Sure, here in Merka you stand the chance of breaking a mirror or having a black cat cross your path, but being in Iraq is like breaking a mirror and having a black cat cross your path … and then having them both shoved up your ass with a sand-based lubricant. Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it – especially if the cat has just been sprayed with a garden hose, but either one is preferable to having an IED go off under your hummer. You can bet the average IED packs more explosive power than several gross of black cats – certainly wet ones. That alone (even if you get a stiffy over things like sandstorms, goat kebab, and nation building) makes the ‘Raq one damned unlucky place to be. Of course, it could be worse. You could have the misfortune of being a secret prisoner of the land of the free, duct taped to a chair in some squalid, makeshift dungeon in Afghanistan, fabricating false accusations about your Arab homies back in Detroit to keep the black ops boys from jump-starting your testicles. In contrast, being holed up in a FEMA trailer for 23 months while your vacant house rots, and government contractors stall for more cash seems a lot like winning the lottery, doesn’t it? Luck is such a relative thing. Some people – stuck-up Europeans for example – would claim that Americans are unlucky to live in a country governed by a corrupt or at least criminally inept administration, but luck had nothing to do with it. America voted for the dark side because the dark side blew in its ear and gave it a reach-around right before it began its dirty, painful business. Scary? Yes. Unlucky? Not so much. Unlucky is something that’s out of your control. Something like, say, snakes on a plane. If you find yourself on a plane with 450 deadly snakes, you’re either: A) unlucky, or B) a terror suspect being rendered by the CIA. If you’re the latter, you’re still the former, and if you’re lucky enough to sit on your ass and make jokes about it, you’re an American – at least for the time being. Might as well enjoy freedom while it lasts, eh? This Friday the 13th you can do just that at the Alamo Drafthouse when Mr. Sinus takes on last summer’s blockbuster Snakes on a Plane. Laugh while you can.

aGLIFF Closing Party

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MON., OCT. 2, 2006

You don’t have to be gay to appreciate the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival any more than you have to be straight to appreciate a gun and knife show, but it sure doesn’t hurt. It’s safe to say that the average breeder isn’t going to be queuing up for screenings like Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds, or 20 Centimeters (video rentals, on the other hand, might be another story – oh, and by the way, for you size queens, that’s roughly 8 inches). Regardless of the titillating titles, if you’re under the opinion that AGLIFF is just a compendium of lesbo/homoerotic sex romps, you may want to check the schedule. It turns out there are aspects of homosexuality you can film without harsh lighting, a wide-angle lens, or a fluffer. In fact, many of aGLIFF’s films deal with more universal issues – the type of stuff you might find in standard film fare – albeit informed with a gay perspective. The latter is pretty much a death knell for distribution deals in America. The moviegoing public may have seen Brokeback Mountain, but it isn’t moving there just yet. Fortunately, Austin has aGLIFF to remind us there is more out cinema out there than Hollywood would have you believe. Each year the festival gets bigger and the films get better. This year’s festival is nearly over, but there are still a few days worth of screenings left. You could catch Cruel and Unusual, Another Gay Movie, and Do I Look Fat? among others, or, if you like your gay films really out, as in outside, aGLIFF is hosting a closing night Rolling Roadshow featuring music from Amy Cook, performances by Queertown, comedian Stephanie Howard, and a screening of Outlaugh, a concert film showcasing some of the “funniest queer stand-up comics and queer sketch groups working in America today.” If all this sounds a little too gay, you might want to hold out for the gun and knife show.

Texas Freedom Network’s 11th Anniversary Celebration

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MON., SEPT. 25, 2006

For several years now the current administration has been engaged in a pitched battle against fundamentalist extremists. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been spent in the war on terror, the result of which, it seems, is that the U.S. has buried its head in someone else’s sand rather than its own. This might seem like a good thing because America has a big head and Iraq has a lot of sand, but as the body bags pile up, the body politic is going to demand that the administration pull its head out and come up with a different strategy for the war on terror. Easier said than done, right? Still, there is no doubt that the $200 billion spent so far on the war in Iraq could have gone a long way toward winning hearts and minds were it spent on social programs rather than shock and awe. Of course, trying to get dirt farmers from the Midwest to sign off on something like foreign aid in the name of national security is political lunacy, but no crazier than the idea of bombing Pakistan back to the Stone Age. Unfortunately, the ideological climate here at home doesn’t exactly foster enlightenment and understanding. For all our complaining about the benighted people of the Muslim world, there are millions here in the U.S. who profess the belief that the universe was created in seven days and the entire human race descended from one couple, half of which was formed from the rib of the other half. Clearly, if we’re going to wage war on fundamentalist extremists, there’s still plenty to do here at home. One group doing just that is the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based grassroots organization that advances “a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right.” TFN has helped defeat religious right initiatives like school vouchers, textbook censorship, and faith-based deregulation. This weekend they will be celebrating their 11th anniversary with a fundraiser at the Austin Music Hall featuring hors d’oeuvres from several Austin restaurants, a silent Auction, and music by Guy Forsyth and Carolyn Wonderland. Tickets are $50, but you’ve already spent about $700 on changing the hearts and minds of Iraqis, so what’s a few extra bucks on the fundies here at home?

Fantastic Fest 2006

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MON., SEPT. 18, 2006

One of the great things about becoming an adult is that you can fully embrace your nerdiness. You don’t have to live in fear that some musclebound meathead will yank your tighty whiteys over your head just because you occasionally like to pretend you’re Luke Skywalker. In fact, if you pop your head up out of your cubicle every once in a while you’ll probably find that there are lots of other people with the same sick fetishes you have. They’ve probably even formed an association or a support group or at the very least a Web site with a highly emotional discussion thread. You might be into Latin, or chess, or ornithology, or Barbie dolls, or puppets, or weiner dogs, or radio controlled cars, or dressing like a panda bear and doing the nasty with your stuffed animals, but rest assured that no matter how bizarre and unseemly your interests, you are not entirely alone. It’s just that sometimes it seems like you’re the only person in your department (or for that matter your whole building) who’s into scrapbooking. Don’t stress: It’s a rare bird indeed who is willing to spend time with someone who might someday frame their picture with pastel balloons. Nerdiness can either be a blessing or a curse when it comes to dating. There’s no more effective chastity belt than informing a potential mate you’re into Dungeons & Dragons and yet, there are actually D&Ders who have defied the laws of probability and hooked up – and not just in a virtual gaming scenario. Fortunately if you’re going to let your freak flag fly, Austin is the place to do it. You can’t swing a jousting stick without un(fake)horsing a nerd in this town: Tech nerds, word nerds, band nerds, film nerds … all of which should be in abundance this week at Alamo South for Fantastic Fest 2006, a seven-day festival of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and genre films that runs through Sept. 28. Some offerings this weekend are: Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell, Terry Gilliam’s Tidewater, The Hamster Cage, Blood Trails, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre – a little something for everyone. If you can’t find something for you, maybe you should start a Web site.