Nuts and Bolts Valentine’s Party

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SAT., FEB. 11, 2006

Tuesday is Valentine’s Day. For single people in the workplace – at least those in a mixed-gender environment – it’s also known as “Awkward Moments Day,” that harrowing eight-hour gauntlet when iPods are worn like garlic necklaces, when diabetic bracelets are flashed like gangsta bling, when the hot receptionist gives the phone-call-stiff-arm Heisman pose all day. Be Mine? Talk to the hand. Here’s the bad news, Sparky: If you’re waiting around until Valentine’s to bust a move, your Love Boat is already sunk. Invest in a blowup doll. Macking on V-Day is about as hopeless as flashing that split-fingered, tongue-flicking cunnilingus sign favored by ogling construction workers and shirtless guys in Camaros. You might as well scrawl a big “L” on your forehead with a red Sharpie. You might as well wear your cell phone on a belt clip, eat Limburger and pickled herring for lunch, and remove your earwax with your car keys. Maybe you’re confused about Valentine’s Day. Understandable. You’ve been getting mixed messages: Hearts, cupids, roses, chocolates, beanie babies, pink, red … forget that shit. V-Day is for closing the deal, not initiating the transaction. If you’re single, you should avoid it like bird flu. Hunker down, order one of those Cheesy Bites pizzas, and resolve to be the dog that hits the track early next year. Of course, if you’re one of those impatient types and want your bunny now, there’s at least one last hope: This Saturday Fadó is hosting a “Nuts and Bolts” Valentine’s party. The idea is that all the men at the party get bolts and all the women get nuts. Then everyone walks around trying to get screwed. Sound crass? Maybe, but it’s much too late for subtle metaphor. If you don’t hook up you can still claim you got screwed

Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums’ Burns Supper

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SAT., JAN. 21, 2006

When was the last time you stared into the dark, gaping maw of your own mortality? Maybe it was that time you had a few too many rum drinks at Louie’s Backyard in South Padre and nearly lost your drunken brawl with the undertow? How about that pocket of wicked turbulence over the Rockies on the redeye back from Vegas? Both browned your knickers quite nicely, no doubt, but the face of death you can’t shake belonged to the leathery skinned, blue haired lounge lizard giving you the skunk eye from across the $3 blackjack table at Binion’s Horseshoe: Liver spots, smoker’s cough, wheezing, watery-eyed cackle, vintage 1970s polyester leisure suit offering up a pungent olfactory memoir of every soaked-up scent of the last 30 years. While you were out doing the dew he was already dewing the done. In your mind you see him willfully plunging into the abyss with roughly 40 years of belay rope strung between you. Eventually that slack will play out and you’ll be yanked down with him. Scary ain’t it? Old folks are so scary and they don’t even know it. They dig old timey music like the Stones, the Beatles, and the Eagles, wear black leather jackets and Hawaiian shirts, and drive PT Cruisers and Harleys. They’re also really hard drinkers and relentless raconteurs: fun to hang out with as long as you’re not doing anything aerobic. This Saturday at the Senior Activity Center on Shoal Crest (that’s not a typo), you can chill with the Q-tips at the Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums’ Burns Supper. The STPD is a Scottish bagpipe and drum band with kilts and caps and even those little Braveheart fanny packs – dope plaid pimpin’. Not surprisingly, the Burns Supper honors Robert Burns, the national bard of Scotland and not Montgomery Burns, diabolical geezer from the Simpsons. It involves Scottish food, drink, dancing, singing, poetry, and plenty of bagpiping. If you’re into haggis, Ed Miller, and pipers in kilts, it’s suppertime. Don’t let the blue hair scare you.

Saturday Free Show at Emo’s

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SAT., JAN. 7, 2006

Enough with the goddamned football already. You may still be jacked up about the Longhorns’ crushing defeat of the mighty Trojans of USC, still basking in the heady glow of victory, still gleefully humming the glorious strains of “Texas Fight!” but it’s over. Time to move on. Time to wash off the huge, burnt-orange “T” you painted across your luxurious carpet of chest hair, the stem of which follows the dense treasure trail that traverses the summit of Mount Beergut, the “T” that was your personal, alphabetical contribution to the undulating “T-E-X-A-S” spelled out in stark contrast against the pasty white fanflesh of you and your drinking buddies, a sweaty, stanky spelling guide for slow-witted color commentators and bored cameramen. It was a stroke of genius, no doubt, and no one would ever question your school spirit, but you might want to get after that thing with some Go-Jo and a loofah before it gives you a rash. Rashes generally turn USC red before they go burnt orange, and you don’t want that hanging on your conscience. You’ve had a good run. In the eloquent words of former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, relax and enjoy it. Take some time off. Let the light beer, nachos, hotdogs, and their noxious byproducts and preservatives leech out of your system. You might even want to take up some sort of hobby, although the only way you can replicate those four-hour-long butt-numbing sessions in front of the TV is to take up an equally sedentary pursuit – maybe bass fishing? Golf? Sleeping? Hey, the world’s your oyster. Shuck it and suck it. Here’s an idea: Instead of coming early (which is pretty much a faux pas in every culture and meaning but Longhorn), being loud (this is Texas, right?), and wearing orange (once described as the “black of the Nineties”), maybe you can wean yourself by doing something where you come late, wear something dark, and generally act antisocial. A really good place for that type behavior is Emo’s, where, as luck would have it, they’ve been offering free shows all week long. Holy shit! You win again! This Saturday is a spectacular lineup featuring I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, Zykos, the Lemurs, and Lord Henry on the outdoor stage, and What Made Milwaukee Famous, Glass Family, the Fall Collection, and Crash Gallery on the indoor stage. Make an effort to just drink Guinness. It’s pricy, but dark as a politician’s heart, and it serves as a decent meal in the absence thereof. Also, if you and your friends insist on painting something on your chest, you may want to go with Zykos instead of I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness.

New Year’s Eve Spectacular with the White Ghost Shivers and the Small Stars

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SAT., DEC. 31, 2005

New Year’s Eve is pure bullshit, start to finish. It’s hype stacked on hype stacked on hype … ad infinitum. Not even Vegas blows as much smoke up the collective ass. Scratch that … not even the White House press secretary … well, you get the idea. One arbitrary digit flips and the whole world’s supposed to swap spit, spray champagne, rattle, whistle, honk, and holler? Well, actually not the whole world … just certain time zones in the Western hemisphere. After all, time is relative. In fact, it could be argued that time doesn’t really exist at all – that it’s just a philosophical framework we’ve superimposed on the physical world. Of course, as any philosophy major will tell you, that kind of thinking doesn’t get your timecard punched, but it sure might get you punched. People, Westerners in particular, like their time in a straight line. That way they feel like they can get a better glimpse of the end. Surely we weren’t blessed with consciousness just to chase our tails. Other peoples’ tails, well that’s something entirely different, and if you’re chasing tail on New Year’s Eve, it really pays to at least pretend to buy into the hype. Besides, the party is only as good as what you bring to it anyway, right? This Saturday Austin bands the Small Stars and the White Ghost Shivers are bringing circus freaks to their New Year’s party at the Blue Genie. Talk about putting your “Keep Austin Weird” money where your mouth is. It’s not like the Shivers didn’t have a serious Carnivále vibe going anyway, but pair them up with the Small Stars and you’ve got a three-titted bearded lady of a bill to say the least. Adding circus freaks to that mix is like spraying whipped cream on cheese fries: It might be good, but is it healthy? You should definitely go find out for yourself.

Jerm Pollet’s Merry F%@#ing Xmas

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SAT., DEC. 24, 2005

Last week the president of Iran called the Holocaust a myth. His statements were a huge shock to a world that expects slack-jawed idiocy of this sort to come primarily from American fundamentalists, the same thick-headed hayseeds who believe that evolution is a crock cooked up by Satan’s minions. Sure, Ahmadinejad’s comments were a bit over the top, especially since there are plenty of Jews in the Holy Land with numbers tattooed on their arms who would be more than willing to set him straight, but true, profound ignorance has never been bullied by empiricism, has it? What makes ignorance so scary is that you don’t even have to work for it. You can just trust somebody else to know shit for you. Certainly takes the pressure off the slow learners, but the problem with that model is that occasionally the person doing the thinking for you turns out to be Hitler. President Ahmadinejad is no Hitler, but his style of revisionist rhetoric is exactly the pile of crap from which issues the mushroom of atrocity. To his credit, President B swiftly and vociferously denounced President A’s comments, citing them as a prime example of Iran’s unsuitability as a keeper of the nuclear flame. It was a bold statement coming from a C student with a God fetish responsible for knocking off close to 30,000 people on the basis of bogus intelligence, but at least he was feinting in the direction of truth and justice. He probably missed the irony of Ahmadinejad’s freshly created myth coming a week before the Western world celebrates its oldest and most cherished one – a myth responsible for more deaths and misery than Hitler could ever conceive. Even if Bush got it, it’s unlikely his epiphany would have resulted in a swift condemnation of all myths. Myth busting is dangerous business. Fortunately there are a few brave souls who are on the side of truth and righteousness. One of those is Jerm Pollet, Mr. Sinus cast member, rock musician, and, as it turns out, cultural historian, who on Christmas Eve will be showing the final installment of Merry F%@#ing Xmas, his special Christmas porn show that exposes the pagan origins of Christmas. Go to this show and you’ll never see Christmas the same way again … unless you go to next year’s show.

Trail of Lights 5K

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SAT., DEC. 10, 2005

Nobody likes a health nut. Nobody wants a sinewy, sportive, high-on-life, idiot-grinning endorphin junkie getting all up in their chili, talking about waking up at 5am so they can get in their hour and a half of high intensity cardio. On the conversational thrill meter the workout recap raps up somewhere between shop talk and church chat, which is to say the needle barely twitches above zero. If you have a problem with needing to share the mundane details of your unexceptional existence, learn to hold them inside – like a dirty, shameful secret or maybe a deep, expansive bong hit. You’re not doing anyone a favor by recounting your neurotically obsessive fitness regimen – no matter what wonders it’s done for you. In fact, while it may seem that you’re engaged in a mutually beneficial dialogue, the net result is something more like Narcissus gazing into the reflecting pool. You might even find that the recipient of your self-absorbed soliloquy will lose focus and wander off to the smoothie bar. Consider it a sign. Maybe the cocktail party invites have been tapering off since right about the time you personally took it upon yourself to share with the world the wonders of the low-carb diet. Good for you, Sparky, but realize that the self-help section is only a small part of the bookstore – the part most people avoid like a bloody-eyed Ebola monkey. Fitness, like religion, is something you do instead of talk about. If you’re bored shitless exercising so that you’ll be healthy enough to be bored shitless exercising later in life, cut your losses and check out now. If however you’re one of those people who view their bodies as simply a means to engage the world and all its wonderment, then you’ll probably want to show up for the Trail of Lights 5K, a nighttime fun run that winds its way through the Zilker Park Trail of Lights Saturday night. Finally a workout you can talk about…

X-Mas Unwrapped! A Holiday Burlesque

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FRI., DEC. 2, 2005

You know what Christmas doesn’t have enough of? Nudity. Cold weather notwithstanding, Christmas just isn’t a very skin-centric holiday. Oddly, even Jesus isn’t wearing his birthday suit in most nativity scenes. He’s all swaddled up like a mummy. Can’t have the baby Jesus spazzing out and doing the Macarena or thrashing around trying to latch onto Mary’s milkbags. That would be unGodly, wouldn’t it? Really the only ones going native in the nativity scene are the cherubim, who appear to be blissfully freeballing despite a humiliating degree of shrinkage. Maybe it’s because they pioneered arrested development. Of course, back in the BC angels couldn’t just send off for a complimentary trial-sized sample of Levitra. They had to get their bone on the old-fashioned way, and a mangerful of farm animals, wiseguys, hay and placenta probably wasn’t doing the trick. Angels just aren’t freaky like that anyway. Remember Sodom? The original Sin City? Lot tried to offer up his daughters to keep the randy citizenry from “knowing” the angels he was hiding in his house. Wow. Talk about literally leaning over and taking one for the team. Without a lot of theological stretching, it can be safely deduced that angels don’t vacation in Amsterdam or Thailand and that they’re pretty much chill about not rocking big timber. Clearly God is not a size queen, but back in the day He had a thing against tan lines. Adam? Eve? Garden? Serpent? Quince? Yes, God loves us, but he loves us better naked. So, if you’re looking to add a little holiness to your Holiday season, look no further than the Hyde Park Theatre, where this Friday the Jingle Belles will be performing X-Mas Unwrapped! A Holiday Burlesque. Think about it: All the shameless schlock of Christmas dressed down and done dirty by six bawdy burlesque babes. Hallelujah!

All American Rejects, Rooney, The Action Is

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FRI., NOV. 25, 2005

Thanksgiving, like communism, cat bathing, and anal sex, is much better in concept than execution. The idea is great: Take some time off … reflect on all the good things that are going on in your life. Everybody has something to be thankful for, right? Even Osama bin Laden has to at least give it up for portable dialysis. It’s probably safe to say that if his glass is half full, it’s half full of bile. About the only thing that’s going to turn his frown upside-down is a roll in the heavenly hay with 72 virgins, which seems like a mess of holy hymens to bust, but we are talking about eternity … Of course, Muslims who have actually spent quality time with a real virgin know that Allah could sweeten the deal considerably by offering a couple of thousand-buck-an-hour Vegas hookers instead. The savings on laundry alone would make the decision a no-brainer for most deities, but clearly Allah is marketing to a dumber demographic: people impressed by big numbers like 72. If all goes as planned, successful terrorists will be condemned to an afterlife full of tentative, whimpering, missionary sex followed by post-coital sulking. If they’re really lucky, they might occasionally score a fumbling, half-shafted, tooth-dragging, blow-job … a sort of metaphorical maraschino cherry on their payback sundae: looks great, but mostly it’s just disappointing. Some people set themselves up for disappointment, you know? For instance: Making a relatively bland, mentally challenged, mildly narcotic bird the center of a thanksgiving feast seems a bit of slip-up, doesn’t it? Pumpkin pie? Maybe the Pilgrims were thankful, but they sure came up with a lazy, uninspired way to show it. Besides, the Pilgrims couldn’t have been the only grateful immigrants. Surely there were thankful Italians or Mexicans or Haitians somewhere down the line. Run the numbers. It’s pretty much a lock. Think about it: A more festive color scheme, better food … and the drugs? Tryptophan vs. Haitian zombie weed? Are you kidding? Still, even though turkey day in practice is a gut-bombing, couch-potatoing, carbo-coma of a holiday, you have at least one reason to be thankful: It only happens once a year. You can spend the other 364 days shaking it out of your system. A good way to get back into your swing swing is Friday’s All-American Rejects show at La Zona Rosa. Since their first and last big hit, the Rejects have taken long, creative nap and coughed up a catchy new album, Move Along. They’ll be sharing the evening with L.A.-based popsters Rooney and Austin alt-rockers The Action Is (formerly Hotwheels Jr.), so expect a healthy contingent of screaming young girls. You might even think you’ve gone to heaven, but be thankful. This is Austin. They’re probably not all virgins.

Dr. Seuss: An American Icon

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SAT., NOV. 19, 2005

Back in 1931 a 27-year-old cartoonist named Ted Geisel illustrated his first book. It was called Boners, and it received lackluster reviews. The illustrations however, were roundly praised. Mind you, this was a simpler time, when boners were something you committed rather than popped, so instead of deft renderings of turgid phalli, bulging purple veins, and little flesh-colored German infantry helmets, the book is filled with illustrations of students’ schoolwork gaffes: mistakes, malaprops, and the like. For instance, the sentence “Catherine the Great’s husband was hung by her supporters” is humorously enhanced by a cartoon depicting a regally dressed man dangling from the straps of a corset. OK, maybe that doesn’t tickle your funny bone, but consider that at the time, America was ass deep in the Great Depression, so rich people getting snuffed was high humor. Funny or not, Boners inspired Geisel to write his own books, which he did under the nom de plume “Dr. Seuss.” Actually, Seuss was Geisel’s middle name, but he wasn’t a real doctor. If anything, he was a surreal doctor, an avant-garde savant who drew up whimsical, curvy cartoonscapes populated by freaky-looking, rhyme-rapping creatures like the Grinch and the Lorax. In all, Seuss wrote and illustrated 48 books and is the best-selling children’s author of all time – definitive proof that children can assimilate weird shit more easily than adults. Maybe Geisel knew this all along. Regardless, can you imagine Boners as a book full of Seussian penises? Sort of a McElligot’s Pool primer on the various shapes and sizes of the erect human phallus? That would be scarier than anything by Maurice Sendak, wouldn’t it? So what, do you ask, does the good Dr. have to do with you breaking off a piece this weekend? Here’s what: Dr. Seuss is beloved by nearly everyone with the exception of a few hateful psychopaths, and while it is considered obnoxious to quote more than a few choice lines of any Seuss verse, an appreciation of Dr. Seuss’s work is a sure sign of a well-rounded individual, and well-rounded individuals are more fun to boink – even if they look like the Lorax. If you need to fill out your Seuss, you’ll want to make it over to the Austin Museum of Art Saturday night for “Dr. Seuss: American Icon,” a lecture by author and Kansas State professor Philip Nel, who will be holding forth on the doctor as well as showing some little-known Seuss films – perfect stuff with which to work your stuff.

James McMurtry

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FRI., NOV. 11, 2005

It says a lot that on a Friday night when you could be out trying to get laid you’re at the Continental Club watching James McMurtry. Sure, you could be dirty dancing at some theme club down on Sixth Street, poppin’ that ass, throwing back Jello shots, getting your mack on…because yeah, you occasionally roll like that, but sometimes you also like to peel back the skin from the onion that is you and reveal a deeper, intellectual layer, that smirking bastard spawn of erudition and irony who appreciates a well turned phrase nearly as much as the lure of tawdry disco sex. In fact, if you could figure out a way to sell the sizzle of that whole “interesting person” steak you’ve been cooking up, you might just find yourself swimming in sex, but be forewarned that most of your thoughtful, bookish types – let’s call them “readers” – generally have to be led by the hand to the dark, dense delta of the promised land. This is not to say that it’s absolutely impossible to find hot sex at a James McMurtry show. Weirder shit has happened, but you may have to massage your definition of “hot” a bit. Probably wouldn’t kill you to do that anyway, would it? Here’s the thing: You may not share bodily fluids with any of the people at the Continental Club Friday, but by the end of the night you will share the common belief that James McMurtry is one of the finest songwriters to ever stumble into this burg. Sure, he’s got pedigree, but he also has the decency to not waste it. If anything, James’ songs pack as much meaning into a few verses as the several hundred page tomes of his father. There is refinement at work here; evolution. Even still, the younger McMurtry won’t be trumping the elder with sales records anytime soon. Dense as they may be, McMurtry’s lyric laden songs still clock in several minutes longer than commercial radio’s attention deficit 3 minute pop song format. They’re packed with carefully observed details of the commonplace ingeniously woven through with larger themes – the kind of stuff that rolls around in your head for years and pays you unexpected visits like acid flashbacks. Can you dance to them? Yeah, maybe. James has a thunderous, ass kicking rhythm section (Ronnie Johnson and Darren Hess, a.k.a. the “Heartless Bastards”) and has some impressive guitar chops his own self, but more than likely you’ll be too frozen in slack-jawed awe to bust a move. That’s all right. You can impress the hotties some other night. Maybe you can live with not getting laid. Maybe sometimes it’s enough just to have your mind blown.

Spike Gillespie’s Free Sex In Public

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SAT., FEB. 14, 2004

If here was ever a hell night for the relationship inhibited, Saturday would have to be it. Going stag to any event on Valentine’s takes an extra amount of moxie. Even intelligent couples don’t go willingly out in public on V-Day unless their love is on the rocks in the first place. Valentine’s is king of all amateur nights. Every decent restaurant in town is packed with wide-eyed love bunnies dragging their dinners out to just short of eternity by pitching woo, holding hands, exchanging gifts and lingering interminably over one dessert with two spoons. The spectacle alone is nauseating enough, but if you’re sitting at the bar with an empty stomach knocking back highballs and developing an eye twitch waiting for a table, it can sour you on romance forever. Don’t worry. Romance isn’t dead, it’s just being suffocated by people with preconceived, unrealistic expectations. Maybe the problem is that instead of looking for love, you should be looking for something more easily attainable, like sex. This Saturday, local author/raconteur/bon vivant Spike Gillespie will be hosting her annual “Free Sex in Public” party over at Book People. For two hours, from 7 to 9pm, local poets, musicians, writers and such will celebrate the more titillating, biomechanical aspects of love. Don’t worry, it can’t get too freaky. After all, it’s in a Bookstore. If it does, well, won’t that be a night to remember? Here is just a short rundown of the talent expected to be on hand: Mr Smarty Pants (of Chronicle fame) who will be donning the guise of his alterego “Mr Sexy Pants” and dispensing tidbits of sex related triva; Feminist poet/Gynomite author Liz Belile; local spoken word slammer Genevieve Van Cleve-age; red haired chanteuse Laura Freeman; poet/writer Diane Fleming; author Faulkner Fox(y); real live astrologer Ben Poliakoff as well as musical guest Tom Benton and his inspirational band The Polished Skull of Jackie Collins. There will also be a re-enactment of Janet and Justin’s Superbowl breast bearing and well as eats and drinks. You might expect to pay huge sums of money for pageant and spectacle like this, but Spike’s Free Sex in Public is exactly what the name says: free. The sex thing may be a little harder to pin down, but isn’t it always?

Rock and Roll at Ruta Maya

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SAT., FEB. 7, 2004

Usually when a beloved Austin institution moves and sets up shop in new and shinier digs, there issues a chorus of complaints about how it’s not as cool as the old place, or that the supposed institution has sold out. It’s the truth as often as not. Old Austin is characterized by its freakiness and funk. Newer places tend toward a more generic, less cluttered, culturally homogenized appearance that appeals to the largest possible demographic. Old Austin, to the uninitiated, is a little intimidating. Take Ruta Maya Coffee House for instance. The original Fourth Street location was a barely converted, un-air-conditioned warehouse filled with aging, mismatched furniture and an even more mismatched clientele. The porch was nearly always filled with dreadlocked, pierced, tattooed, alternative types smoking cigarettes and giving the skunk eye to starched-collar yuppies who dropped by for a pick-me-up after visiting ritzier places like Sullivan’s and Cedar Street. Inside was an equally intimidating gauntlet of noise, steam, smoke, and eclectic music whose terminus was a well-graffitied, two-stalled unisex bathroom with no lock on the outer door. Good times. Ruta Maya’s new location at Penn Field (actually, not so new anymore, having been there now for nearly two years) has same-sex bathrooms, air conditioning, a huge stage, and a great sound system. In short, other than the same-sex bathrooms, it’s a vast improvement over the old Ruta Maya. Why? Because it still possesses all of the elements of the old location, but in a larger, more accommodating space. Drawbacks? It’s more isolated for one thing. The only foot traffic these days is the occasional Exposé titty dancer who strolls up the hill for a cup of joe. Otherwise, it’s a drive-to destination, albeit one with ample parking and a pretty wicked view of St. Ed’s and downtown Austin from the back patio. Most importantly, Ruta Maya still buys its coffee from an organic farming cooperative in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, which helps improve the living condition of the cooperative’s participants and the region in general by promoting sustainable agriculture. If you’re going to feed your addiction, why not help feed people with it as well? This Saturday, Ruta Maya is host to Rock and Roll at Ruta Maya, a benefit for the Mayan Communities Fund which provides health care and social services to people in southern Mexico and Guatemala. For $3 you can enjoy six hours of glorious rock & roll from six Austin acts: Primordial Undermind, Beecher, the Band With No Name, Dum Dum & the Smarties, Madamimadam, and the Amazing CJ. That’s an attractively priced 50 cents per band, so you should have plenty of jack left over for some Mayan homegrown. If you’re not a coffee achiever, relax. Ruta Maya has plenty of other libations, both alcoholic and non, to get you through the night.

Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation

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FRI., JAN. 30, 2004

January is Austin’s coldest month. It would be something worth bitching about if the average high in January weren’t 60 degrees. Compare that with our unofficial sister city, Austin, Minn. (aka Spamtown, USA), where the average daily high is 17, and you start to realize that things could be a lot worse. We could be called Spamtown, USA, for instance. Nonetheless, we still have our chilly days, those rare occasions that demand socks in the Birkenstocks, felt instead of straw, and thermals under the cutoffs. Better yet, you could just stay indoors. One of the best places to stay indoors this weekend is the Alamo Drafthouse, where Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation 2004 has set up shop. It used to be that the calling card of Spike and Mike was that they brought us Beavis and Butt-head – either a blessing or a curse depending on which side of that fence you fall, but these days they’re more widely recognized as discoverers of innovative and interesting animation, stuff that falls outside of the mainstream fare delivered on Saturday mornings or the Cartoon Network – stuff like Southpark. While only a butt head would argue that Southpark is sophisticated animé, it does, nonetheless, offer something most popular animé does not: biting social commentary mixed with crass, lowbrow humor. If anything, at its best, Southpark animation is sophisticated satire wrought with construction paper and at its worst, juvenile potty humor with paper dolls. Currently the Sick & Twisted Festival is home to “The Spirit of Christmas,” Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s wacky animated Christmas card that pits Jesus and Santa Claus in a pitched battle to decide who is king of Christmas. “The Spirit of Christmas” is the genesis of Southpark and even features a couple of the characters from the series. Other animators whose works have debuted in the festival include Eric Fogel (MTV’s “Celebrity Deathmatch”) and John Dilworth (creator of “The Dirdy Birdy”). Regardless of what you see, you can count on it being at the very least interesting and more often than not hilarious. The down side, if you can call it that, is that you might find some of the images disturbing and even offensive. As the promotional material warns: “This show is not recommended for those of a delicate constitution.” Powerpuff Girls it ain’t, but it’s still well worth the trip. Besides, how often do you get to watch cartoons without a bunch of obnoxious kids throwing popcorn in your hair?

FronteraFest Short Fringe Best of Show

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SAT., JAN. 24, 2004

If you have been here long enough, you probably already know it, but if you haven’t, here’s Austin’s dirty little secret: There are a lot of bad musicians in this town. No, really – a lot. For every Eric Johnson, Redd Volkaert, and Rich Brotherton, there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands of blundering hacks who, through ego, love, or a dangerous mixture of both, keep plugging away in relative obscurity. In this respect, Austin isn’t all that different than the rest of America or even the world. What makes Austin anomalous is that, by and large, we embrace the ugliness, even celebrate it. Why? Because, metaphorically speaking, you have to go through a lot of oysters to find that rare pearl. From the outside it seems that Austin is somehow disproportionately blessed with a wealth of talent, musical and otherwise, but the reality is that other places just aren’t willing to open the oysters. Austin has the reputation (deservedly so) of a place that is willing to try new and different things. Probably this is because so many people move here because they want to create something new and different. The price we pay is swallowing all of those oysters – so many in fact that we learn to appreciate the oyster as much as the pearl. That is the quintessence of the Austin aesthetic and generally it carries across all of our creative endeavors. If you can’t appreciate that, you’re probably living in the wrong burg. If you think you’re on that train, but aren’t sure, you can prove your mettle this weekend at the 11th anniversary FronteraFest. FronteraFest is Hyde Park Theatre’s festival celebrating theatrical performance of all kinds: monologues, plays, dance, improv, music, multimedia – a veritable hodgepodge of dramatic arts. The festival is primarily held in two venues: the Blue Theater in East Austin, which hosts the Long Fringe (works up to 90 minutes in length), and Hyde Park Theatre, which hosts the Short Fringe (works up to 20 minutes in length). The timid may find the Short Fringe more palatable if only for the fact that if it’s bad, it’s only 20 minutes of bad. Plus, for those with a short attention span, the Short Fringe tends to be a little faster paced and at times over the top as performers go for the quick, big payoff. There is also one additional venue called the BYOV (Bring Your Own Venue) whereby performers provide their own venue. This weekend’s is at the garage apartment next to Sandy’s Custard. You may not have the sand to dive in at that level yet, and that’s OK. Fortunately for you, Hyde Park Theatre’s Short Fringe offers a Best of the Fest show on Saturday that reprises the best performances from that week’s festival. It’s a great way to tiptoe into the Austin aesthetic gingerly and with a healthy amount of reservation. After all, oysters aren’t for everyone.

Third Annual Rabble-Rouser Roundup and Fat Cat Schmoozefest

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SUN., JAN. 18, 2004

Sincere, earnest, well-meaning people almost always deserve a swift kick in the ass – if only because they’re showing up everybody else. That in and of itself is pretty obnoxious social behavior. Very few people are as irritating as someone with an agenda and no sense of humor about it. Politicians are the worst. Take Howard Dean for instance: Never has there been a Democratic presidential front-runner more in need of a colonic irrigation since … well … Al Gore. Fortunately Al received an electoral enema in 2000 courtesy of Georgie Junior and ever since has been on a wild-eyed hippie spirit quest that has proven to be a quantum leap in Gore’s personal development. Now that he’s condemned to walk the Earth like Cain, all bets are off. These days Gore is genuinely engaging, with a sense of humor nearly worthy of his Harvard degree. No more superficial hand gestures, eighth-grade vocabulary, or artificial empathy with the plight of the downtrodden. The new Al Gore casts a tight net, and if you don’t get it, there’s another honorarium waiting down the road. Someday Howard Dean might plug into that sort of peace of mind and hopefully it won’t be after he’s already lost the election. George Bernard Shaw once said, “It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.” Unquestionably the president has both covered nicely. If Dean is as smart as he is earnest, he will unknit his eyebrows and discover that America still has a sense of humor. Sometimes the truth is easier to swallow when leavened with wit, and right now very few politicians are delivering the goods. For that reason, Texas is blessed to be served by The Texas Observer, a local biweekly devoted to reporting on issues ignored by the mainstream press and politicians alike. For years the Observer has turned out great writing and writers, winning numerous awards and becoming one of the most respected publications of its kind in the nation. This weekend, the Observer will be hosting its Third Annual Rabble-Rouser Roundup & Fat Cat Schmoozefest, a yearly fundraiser hosted by Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower featuring great music by local Austin artists. This year’s formidable lineup includes Joe Ely and David Grissom, Lloyd Maines (yes, that’s Bush-bashin’ Natty’s daddy), Jimmy Pettit, Davis McClarty, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Colin Gilmore, Terri Hendrix, and Grupo Fantasma. The show is $20 in advance and $25 at the door and for an extra 50 you can drink with Jim, Molly, and other Texas Observer writers, editors, and staff at the preshow Schmoozefest from 6 to 7pm. You could probably drink with Jim and Molly for less somewhere else, but then you wouldn’t be a fat cat, would you?

Tribute to the King

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FRI., JAN. 9, 2004

If you were planning on sitting home this weekend getting lubed and quietly celebrating Linda Lovelace’s birthday with a private screening of Deep Throat, think again. Linda isn’t the only deceased entertainer celebrating a birthday this weekend. People the world over are also commemorating the birth of an even more popular entertainer: Bob Denver. Wait a minute. Bob’s not dead. That’s right, Jan. 9 the skipper’s little buddy will turn 69 – most likely without the aid of Linda Lovelace who would have been a relatively spry 55. One thing is for certain: When Gilligan turns 69, you can bet he will be wearing his first mate’s hat and maybe even his red shirt with the white collar. If he’s lucky, maybe Maryann will send him another ounce of pot in the mail. Keep your fingers crossed, Bob. Sixty-nine is better than the alternative – the one currently being experienced by one Elvis Aaron Presley, who checked out more than a quarter-century ago, ostensibly because of an “erratic heartbeat.” Elvis would have turned 69 on Jan. 8, but chances are the King had a more than passing familiarity with the number, having lived an impressively full life even at the age of 42. Elvis may not have been bigger than Jesus (actually, technically speaking he was; it is unlikely that Jesus clocked in anywhere close to 225), but he ran a close second, and he undoubtedly got more play – air and otherwise. Even in death, the Kang still gets much love. This weekend he gets even more as Ted Roddy & His King Conjure Orchestra host their annual Tribute to the King Friday and Saturday at the Continental Club. Since 1986 Roddy has produced a yearly Elvis birthday tribute with veteran Austin musicians that features a full horn section, backup singers, and all of the flash and panache you would expect from the Kang himself. The show has become so popular that it is now a two-night extravaganza that includes an early, nonsmoking performance at 7pm, then a vice-friendly version at 11pm. Time to dig up that velvet Elvis T-shirt and start TCB. The Kang is only going to turn 69 one more time, but if you’re lucky, who knows?

The Diamond Smugglers

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WED., DEC. 31, 2003

This year New Year’s Eve falls on hump day. Larry Flynt couldn’t have dreamed it up any better himself. The electric buzz of indefinable expectation that always accompanies New Year’s will have an additional sexual subtext this year – as if the pressure of copping some lip at midnight weren’t enough. Don’t sweat it. People are supposed to hook up on New Year’s. If you’re single and planning on staying home, it’s time to take some stock in your initiative. New Year’s Eve is the spawning season of the doe-eyed optimist, a veritable shooting gallery of the willing. If you’re not making serious plans to work your stuff Wednesday night, maybe it’s time to throw in the towel and adopt a houseful of cats. At least that way you’ll be assured of getting to touch some pussy every now and then. Crass jokes aside, it’s go-time for the relationship inhibited. No other holiday is fraught with so much misplaced sexual and emotional urgency. Valentine’s is for lovers, St. Patrick’s Day is for drunks, Halloween is for freaks, but New Year’s Eve is prime time for the unattached. It’s the only holiday that is predicated on drinking, dancing, kissing, and staying up past midnight. Everyone knows that nothing wholesome happens after midnight, so you’ll definitely want to get in on it, whatever it is. One of the most unwholesome things happening Wednesday night is the Diamond Smugglers show at Stubb’s. Neil Diamond has always been a crassly attired emblem of the moral and cultural decay of American society, but the Diamond Smugglers take that decadence to a whole new level by paying homage to the sequined superstar in a variety of inventive and at times disturbing ways that nearly outschmaltz the Neil himself. This is no mean task for even the most talented Diamond disciple, but frontman Steve McCarthy is unquestionably touched by the spirit and has the chops to channel it. The rest of the band is filled out by equally talented veteran musicians like John Ratliff, Davy Jones, Dave Mider, Hunter Darby, Julie Lowery, Ernie Ernst, and Steve’s brother Kevin McCarthy, the other half of Steve’s (other?) band, the Fighting Brothers McCarthy. Fortunately, other than the whole Neil Diamond cover band thing, they use their powers mostly for good and not evil, and even the evil is pretty damned good. Think of it this way: If you don’t find a tonsil hockey partner for a midnight make-out, you’ll still have a ball with the Diamond Smugglers. What more could you ask for on hump day?

12 Steps to a More Dysfunctional Christmas

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FRI., DEC. 26, 2003

Friday is Boxing Day, the Feast of St. Stephen. You remember St. Steve, right? The first Christian to be martyred (stoned to death, to be specific) for his faith? The patron saint of headaches? No, really. Look it up. Then again, you might be more familiar with him as the patron saint of stonemasons or maybe coffin makers. OK, so it’s apparent that the early Christians lacked a certain amount of sensitivity training, but St. Stephen is also the patron saint of horses and of the Catholic diocese of Owensboro, Ky., the third largest city in the commonwealth of Kentucky. Not too shabby. All of the street cred notwithstanding, St. Stephen’s Day and its conjoined twin Boxing Day don’t get a lot of play here in the states. Pity. Boxing Day in England derives from the tradition of the churches opening their alms boxes for the poor on the day after Christmas … or from the tradition of wealthy folks giving their servants presents on the day after Christmas, presumably after having made them work on Christmas. Either way it sounds like a nice holiday, a holiday for poor and working-class types – the kind of people Jesus liked to hang out with. In America, Boxing Day is traditionally celebrated in the exchange lines at the mall, waiting for the harried customer-service clerk to swap out the box of crap you don’t need for the box of crap you think you do. Boxes, boxes everywhere, but what about St. Stephen? One thing is for certain: All over America people will be getting stoned on Boxing Day – not in that painful, biblical way, but in a relaxing, arguably medicinal way that rarely involves a headache. Maybe that’s not the kind of homage the One True Church intended, but Christianity has a long tradition of appropriating existing traditions and giving them a Christian context (Saturnalia for instance), so why not add another? Here in Austin, when people get stoned around Boxing Day they invariably end up down at Zilker Park spinning circles beneath the Christmas tree. Even if you’re not baked it’s a wonderfully wholesome, dizzying end to the Trail of Lights – although you have to be careful not to trample the toddlers. Later that night if you’re still in a celebratory mood, head over to the Vortex and check out the 10-year anniversary revival of comedian Rob Nash’s 12 Steps to a More Dysfunctional Christmas, a hilarious look at dashed expectations and familial dysfunction during the holidays. After all of the nauseating earnestness of Christmas, a little well-placed satire should make a nice aperitif.

Mr. Sinus Holiday Spectacular

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FRI., DEC. 19, 2003

Alrighty folks, it’s go time. No matter how hard you’ve been trying to shove the schmaltz to the back of your brain and concentrate on important matters, at some point you’re going to have to accept the fact that the holidaze are here. You have roughly five shopping days until Dec. 25 – that very special day when your dining-out options are limited to cuisines of the Pacific Rim. That’s actually a good thing. By C-Day you’ll be needing a few days at the bottom of the food pyramid. If you’re like the bulk of America, your diet until then will consist of mall pretzels, Chick-fil-A, Orange Julius, Lammes Candies and handfuls of Karmelkorn dredged out of huge, garishly decorated tins the size of oil drums. Don’t worry, the transition from Karmelkorn to baby corn is easier than you might think. If nothing else, the fiber will act as a nice purgative. If you’re looking for a purgative of a more spiritual nature, you might want to head over to the Alamo Drafthouse on Friday or Saturday and check out the 3rd Annual Mr. Sinus Holiday Spectacular. For several years now, Jerm, Owen, and John have made this a must-see staple of the Drafthouse’s holiday fare. The show includes more than 40 clips from classics like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “The Fat Albert Christmas Special,” and “A Christmas Carol,” as well as lesser-known gems like the “Star Wars Holiday Special” and “Christmas Evil.” All are woven into the centerpiece of Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but don’t expect to get misty-eyed with anything but laughter. Also included in the evening’s festivities are sing-alongs, drinking games, and free milk and cookies. This weekend features 7 and 9:45pm shows both Friday and Saturday, but you’ll still want to get your tickets online to nail down a seat.

Holiday Hullabaloo

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SAT., DEC. 13, 2003

If you haven’t had one already, your office holiday party is probably just around the corner. Try to reign in your excitement. Whether you’re down with the holidays or not, this annual outpouring of corporate cheer is worth every penny. If you’re lucky, you’ll have the big kind with lots of heavy food, hard liquor, and sentimental holiday schmaltz – the kind of party where your boss molts his scaly skin, dons a furry Santa hat, and does a reasonably competent interpretive dance routine to “Baby Got Back.” Go early and nail down a prime position next to the bar. Eventually someone will come along who’ll impress you with their lack of inhibition and decorum. Never mind that they’re teetering on the precipice of unemployment, a messy divorce, or outright insanity. That’s probably only the booze talking anyway. Just make sure you stay comfortably within their aurora of impropriety – at least long enough to work in a little of your own. For instance, even though you just finished a full eight-hour workday without even saying boo to the office hottie, make sure to give him or her a big, boozy, holiday hug at the party. You may not get another chance. You might even get hugged back. In the worst-case scenario, your brazenly emotional outpouring will most likely be ascribed to innocent holiday cheer rather than diabolical lechery. If by some unhappy coincidence or evil design you are bereft of a holiday party this season, you can work it over at Moxie & the Compound’s Holiday Hullabaloo this Saturday. From roughly noon to 10pm, you can eat pizza, drink vodka, shop for unique Austin-gifts and whatnot and listen to a dizzying variety of bands including but not limited to: Sarah Hickman, the Jellydots, Laura Freeman, Matt the Electrician, Floyd Domino & the Moxietones, Water, and Southpaw Jones. There is also a silent auction benefiting AIDS Services of Austin if you’re looking to blow your money on an even better cause. If shopping’s not your bag, baby, you can still get a massage, have your astrology read, or sit on Santa’s lap and have your picture taken – maybe even all at the same time. Go for it. Learning to gift yourself is the greatest gift of all.

Austin Ice Bats vs. Laredo Bucks

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FRI., DEC. 5, 2003

It’s upsetting for some that Austin bypasses fall and plunges directly into winter – no brilliant autumnal hues; no huge, playful piles of deciduous droppings; no crisp strolls through the pumpkin patch; no sweater weather. Well, actually, we do have sweater weather. It’s called winter. In Austin, winter happens when the daytime highs start clocking in at a pleasant 60 degrees. Regardless of what the thermometer says, those who put on wool in the morning will very likely be pulling it off in the afternoon. Sure, the mercury might plunge beneath freezing on occasion; the grass some mornings might be glazed with a silvery frost; you might wake up to find a delicate veneer of ice in the birdbath every once in a while, but by and large the “cold” is rarely intense enough to ruin a good game of Frisbee golf. If anything, winter weather in Austin drives people outdoors rather than in. Finally it’s comfortable to have a smoke on the patio or a jog through the greenbelt. You can even put the top down on your convertible without soaking your shirt, but drive carefully because everybody else in town is out running around blowing all of the money they’re saving on their utility bills. Even with all of the windfalls, however, there are still plenty of transplanted northerners who pine for the winter wonderlands of their youth. Somehow, occasionally seeing their breath in the morning isn’t enough. They long for pristine drifts of snow, icicles on the eaves, skating on the frozen pond – nothing wrong with that, but the only frozen ponds around these parts are indoors and glazed by a perpetually aloof looking guy on a Zamboni. Whether you’re a fan or not, hockey is an excellent way to experience winter without actually suffering through it. Happily, Austin has its own professional hockey team, the Ice Bats. Almost every week, the Ice Bats defend their slab out at the Travis County Expo Center, aka “The Bat Cave.” If you think the Ice Bats’ name is an odd combination, consider the fact that the Bat Cave normally serves as a rodeo arena (talk about your Texas-sized guano). Even still, the Bats play hard, fight hard, and provide a rollicking good evening of cool entertainment. This Friday at 7:30pm, the Ice Bats take on the Laredo Bucks, a fearsome group of transplanted northerners from an equally preposterous locale, climatologically. As an added bonus, local author Jason Cohen will be on hand to sign copies of his latest book, Zamboni Rodeo, a fascinating and hilarious look into the gritty world of minor league hockey. Literature? Hockey? Rodeo? How eclectic is that? Of course, no one in their right mind would try to tell you that a hockey game is a great place to meet the love of your life, but if hockey in Austin teaches us anything, it’s that weirder stuff can happen, right?

All Good Stuff

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SUN., NOV. 30, 2003

Thanksgiving again: Time to head back to dysfunction junction for a gut-busting glut of food, folks, and football; time to literally lean over the plate and take one for the team; time to reacquaint yourself with the marginal, milquetoast fare of thankful, yet ultimately starving puritan pilgrims. Start with the yam, aka “sweet potato” – but evidently not sweet enough to find its way to your plate without a generous crown of brown sugar, butter, and marshmallow – nothing more than window dressing for a profoundly ugly tuber. Is it dessert, or merely a side dish with an identity crisis? Then you have cranberries: Sliced, diced, minced, molded, pressed, or pureed, these are bitter, bitter berries – the only fruit that can take the fun out of Jell-O. How about turkey? Apparently all of the fish got used up fertilizing the corn, and these ugly, dim-witted fowl were the only fauna too slow to outrun a pilgrim with a stick. Yes, turkey is a serviceable protein substitute and a powerful sleeping aid, but these qualities alone hardly qualify it for holiday centerpiece status. When was the last time you enjoyed a bucket of Kentucky Fried Turkey? That’s no fluke, it’s epicurean Darwinism. Ahhh yes, and then you have the pumpkin. There are so many ways to enjoy pumpkins, and yet only a few of them involve actual ingestion – and then only if they’re generously lathered with a thick layer of whipped cream. Funny. Such a unique and delectable flavor deserves to be preserved and tasted year-round – sort of like that thing Dolly Madison does with the cherries and the apples. So why isn’t the San Joaquin Valley an endless sea of pumpkin patches? Same reason the Gap isn’t pushing pilgrim hats and shoes with big-assed buckles this season: Evolution. Now there’s something to be thankful for – that and the comforting thought that come Sunday, you can scream back to Austin and purge all of that boxed wine and leftover green bean casserole with a healthy dose of All Good Stuff, the high quality live variety show from the sharp minds at Two Note Solo. All Good Stuff is a hearty stone soup of readings, films, music, and favorite clips from its popular Open Screen Night that is sure to flush your spiritual plumbing. After a wholesome weekend of starch and stasis, a raucous night down at the Drafthouse is just what the doctor ordered … or at least recommended.

Drag the River at Beerland

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FRI., NOV. 21, 2003

If you really put some brain to it, this is probably your last weekend of normalcy before the shitstorm of holiday schmaltz blights the aesthetic landscape. By next Wednesday, you’ll have already begun the screaming descent into holiday hell, creeping along the slow road back to some faceless suburb in a doomed attempt to fulfill an outrageously outdated Rockwellian ideal. Even though the gun jumpers are already at work hanging lights, baking pies, knitting sweaters, and queuing up carols on the Muzak machine, there is still time for some happy commerce with the real world – one last chance to experience life that hasn’t been airbrushed to a cheesy, greeting-card gloss. If you’re looking for something real, try Beerland. There is a long list of adjectives that would describe Beerland, but gloss isn’t one of them. Situated somewhat anonymously between Elysium and Red Eyed Fly, Beerland offers cheap drinks, pool, video games, and, in their own words, “loud music” amplified to a certain extent by its cinderblock construction. What Beerland lacks in ambience, it makes up for in its bookings. Six nights a week Beerland books live music: lots of up-and-comers, first-rate punk bands, and an occasional roadshow score. This Friday is one such occasion as Beerland hosts Drag the River, a beer-soaked bar band from Fort Collins, Colo., featuring Armchair Martian songwriter Jon Snodgrass and All/Descendents frontman Chad Price. Although their roots are firmly in punk, Drag the River covers some of the same stylistic ground as current alt.country rock outfits like Wilco, Son Volt, and the Jayhawks, but with edgier lyrics and a crunchier sound. Filling out the bill are Austin punk band the Dirty Sweets, Minnesota’s the Switch, Chad Rex (who played guitar on a Drag the River CD), and local punk icon Spot. If you’re a little hesitant about a full evening of beer and punk/country, just remember that next weekend you’ll be glued to the sofa in a tryptophan coma watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The Resentments

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SUN., NOV. 16, 2003

If there were ever a geographical locus of the “Keep Austin Weird” battle, it would unquestionably be South Austin. While other parts of the city have already been blighted by chain stores and cultural homogenization, South Austin still retains much of the funk and freakiness for which Austin is known. Even still, corporate Generica is creeping its way up South Congress and pockmarking sections of South Lamar. It’s an unfortunate circumstance to be sure, but a lot of misplaced animosity gets laid on the greed mongers when in reality, they’re just a symptom of the real disease. Inevitably when creative, artistic types whip up a scene, moneyed folks are sure to follow – usually not with the intent of creating something unique and interesting themselves, but rather with the intent of buying into it. There’s the rub. South Austin used to be a funky, artsy, and ultimately cheap place to live. In recent years however, the hand-to-mouthers who created the scene are being pushed out by people with day jobs and Supercuts hairdos. Decent people, no doubt, but not the type of folks who are likely to roll down SoCo in an old Toyota Camry with thousands of Jesus statuettes glued to it. Truth is, weirdness doesn’t come from a marketing campaign, no matter how weird that marketing campaign is, and encouraging people to buy local is still encouraging them to buy. The cool thing about Austin and South Austin in particular is that it has always been a place where people are judged less by what they consume and more by what they create. Fortunately, South Austin still has more than its share of creative people. This Sunday night several of them will be gracing the stage at the Saxon Pub when the Resentments perform their weekly gig. Collectively they may not be overburdened with purchasing power, but Stephen Bruton, Jon Dee Graham, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, and Bruce Hughes all have enough chops to earn them cult status in South Austin. Bruton and Graham already have several impressive solo CDs under their belts and loyal followings outside of the Resentments. Scrappy Judd has a growing list of producing credits, and Bruce Hughes is an accomplished songwriter in his own right. It could easily be argued that the Resentments are South Austin’s supergroup. Stephen Bruton has performed with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, and Bob Dylan; Jon Dee Graham has played with the Skunks, True Believers, John Doe, and Michelle Shocked; Scrappy is a former member of Loose Diamonds, and Bruce has played with Poi Dog Pondering and Bob Schneider. Few other cities in America could claim as much talent in one city, much less a zip code, and you get the feeling that they’re still hanging around for love, not money. These days, that’s pretty weird.

The Pleasurecraft

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Month: February 2019