Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

August 21, 2007

You’re probably thinking, “Why even go to the Hot Sauce Festival if I can’t bring my dog or my cooler? Touché. Point taken. Nothing completes your festival experience like the companionship of a furry friend or the crisp, clean taste of your own choice of brew. What’s the use of attending a festival where you can’t play Frisbee fetch with your dog – especially in the midst of a crowd, and especially when your dog is sporting a bandana jauntily fastened about its neck? Kee-ute. So what if he occasionally hikes his leg and “marks” a baby stroller or tries to ferret out a red rat from beneath some stranger’s sundress? He’s not trying to hurt anyone; he’s just being a dog. And if (God forbid) he freaks out and mauls some innocent toddler while you’re fist-pump rocking to the band, you can reassure the parents that he’s never done that before and that it must have been because their toddler made some menacing movement. After all, there are no bad dogs, just bad people. Dogs aren’t moralists. If they were, they would probably judge it immoral to take a dog to a crowded festival. Then again, that’s just hypothetical extrapolation – something else dogs suck at. They are however, very good at eating, pooping, peeing, sniffing, and catching Frisbees, which is more than can be said of many dog owners, especially when they’ve knocked back a cooler’s worth of beer. No, it doesn’t take an especially sharp intellect or an excessive amount of skill and agility to safely shepherd the average canine through a press of festival-goers, but the mere act of doing so reveals a certain lack of judgment – the type of stupidity that is only further amplified by the consumption of alcohol. Drunk people are stupid enough, so how humiliating must it be to have to share a leash with one – in public? OK, so maybe you can leave the dog at home, but the cooler? Damn, that’s harsh. A dogless person should be able to enjoy a chilled beverage without getting hassled by the man. Right? Well … yeah … sorta, except that 10,000-plus people with their own coolers in Waterloo Park isn’t a hot sauce festival, it’s a clusterfuck. Besides, if you’re going to bring beer, you should bring enough for everybody. Otherwise you’ll look like a beer-hoarding asshole. So, unless your cooler has room for 20,000 beers, leave it at home. You can buy beer at the Hot Sauce Festival and the proceeds benefit the Capital Area Food Bank. Without the dog and the cooler, you’ll have two hands free to sample hundreds of salsas and more importantly, to carry the three nonperishable food items that the food bank is requesting for admission to the festival.

Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

MON., AUG. 21, 2006

If for some inexplicable reason you moved to Austin and you don’t like Mexican food, leave. Seriously. Go back to whatever culturally impoverished, Applebee’s patronizing, Wonder Bread loving suburb you rolled down from and stop fucking up the office lunch run with your whining about acid reflux. Everyone is tired of you dipping the corner tip of your tortilla chip in the hot sauce, biting down, waving your hand in front of your mouth and declaring, “oooh that’s sooo spicy!” Not even a well-tipped waitress will fake sympathy for that weak shit. Oh yeah, and just because the restaurant is named “Chili’s” doesn’t mean the food is hot … not any more than a fish symbol on a business sign means they won’t fuck you in ways the devil himself never imagined. So, if you don’t like Mexican food, there are at least two northbound lanes on I-35. Ta Ta. Austin didn’t work out for you. Go back whence you came to the place where they spice their chili with cinnamon and nutmeg. Go back to the place where they eat flapjacks and Krispy Kremes for hangovers and pronounce jalapeño with a hard “J.” Don’t hate, emigrate. Leave us crazy Austicans to indulge in our sick, masochistic fetish for capsaicinoids. Leave us to sit sweating over our serranos, anchos, chipotles, piquins, and habaneros – both on the way in and the way out. Mexican food is why we live here. It’s why we came here. It’s why we can never leave. You think you can get a decent plate of migas in Maine? Unlikely. And we won’t be producing any world-class maple surple either, but we do make some mighty fine hot sauce. If you’re not convinced, you should check out this weekend’s Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival, one of the world’s hottest events featuring a sampling of more than 300 hot sauce recipes and four Austin bands: NewBoy, White Ghost Shivers, Guy Forsyth, and the Texas Sapphires, all for a paltry donation of two nonperishable food items. If you don’t like Mexican food, this isn’t the event for you, but that’s OK, you should be busy packing anyway.

Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

Luv Doc Writings, The Luv Doc Recommends

SUN., AUG. 24, 2003

It’s three weeks into August, and with the monsoon season safely behind us, it’s time to get out and really enjoy the sunshine. Never mind that the temperature’s solidly in the triple digits, and even briefly exposed skin is likely to take on the color and texture of beef jerky if it’s not slathered with a thick layer of sunscreen. This is Austin in August. This is the page that’s torn out of our travel brochure; the hazing ritual for all of the doe-eyed, dough-bellied northerners who’ve come south for a little fun in the sun. Oh, wait … you were looking for San Diego. Austin in August is Phoenix with humidity. Of course, in the desert it at least gets cool at night. Here it just gets dark. People find ways to cope. For the more fragile flowers, air conditioning seems to do the trick. Others swear by Barton Springs which, on a mercilessly hot day, is every bit worth the shrinkage. Then there are those who break down and buy a frozen-margarita machine – an excellent idea if you have a few extra dollars to burn and aren’t a mean drunk. The rest of us just live with the sweat: nature’s natural coolant. In fact, if you’re hot and not sweating, something’s seriously wrong. It’s called heat stroke, and you may want to back off the margaritas for a while. Otherwise, if you’re schvitzing, you’re in good shape. In fact, in Austin you don’t even have to break a sweat to break a sweat. Take this Sunday’s Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival at Waterloo park for instance. Thousands of Austinites will be sweating for a good cause (the Capital Area Food Bank) by doing nothing more than drinking beer, sampling chips and hot sauce, and listening to live music. Beats the hell out of running a 10K, doesn’t it? Youbetcha. Especially since admission to the Hot Sauce Festival is free with the donation of a nonperishable food item. You’ll still need some folding money for things like beer and food from some of Austin’s favorite restaurants, but all in all, it’s a cheap sweat. Think of it this way: When was the last time you got to see Patricia Vonne, Grupo Fantasma, and the Derailers for a can of beans? When will you ever get to see them again for that price – especially with complimentary appetizers?