AGLIFF

September 8, 2010

Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar

Don’t let this freak you out, but there are gays all over Austin. Whoa, right? What’s even crazier is that a lot of them don’t even act gay. So, you could be at some totally straight place (like a cigar shop, a Harley dealership, or a Hooters) and bend over to tie your shoes and have a whole bunch of them just run up and start humping you … and there you go … you’re headed straight to hell, and you were just innocently practicing pedestrian safety. Is it your fault if you have an ass that is just irresistible to gays? Hell no! Are you supposed to wear baggy jeans from Old Navy your whole life to avoid eternal damnation? Maybe. It’s hard to say, and Leviticus is a bit of a literary slog anyway. Really it’s best to be on guard at all times … everywhere. Yes, that sounds paranoid – phobic even – with an ass like that you can’t be too cautious. There are gays everywhere – not just the easily identifiable grab bag of Village People stereotypes (Native American? Really?) but cleverly straight-looking doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, landscapers, interior design consultants, and even the prep nurse for your vasectomy. As frightening as that sounds, who else would you trust to be so close to your junk with a straight razor and a handful of shaving cream? Even still, just the idea of not necessarily knowing which people are gay is enough to keep you up at nights. How can you sleep knowing your UPS guy is suspiciously buff and his uniform fits almost perfectly? He seems to use the word “package” a lot, too. What’s up with that? Is that some sort of gay come on? The skinny guy at the sandwich shop seems a little questionable, too. He always asks if you want extra mayonnaise and a pickle – even when you’re ordering a meatball sub. And what about your pottery instructor? Does he really need to encircle you in his arms when you’re at the pottery wheel? Isn’t there some other way he could demonstrate proper technique? And why does “Unchained Melody” always seem to be playing on his jam box? That can’t just be coincidence. You probably wonder sometimes if you’re just imagining that the good-looking guy behind you at the ATM is staring at your glutes. Why wouldn’t he be? They’re irresistible. In fact, that’s your big problem. You’re irresistible to gays, and you’re not even trying. You’ll probably never know for sure though, because you’re ceaselessly vigilant about keeping an eye out for them. It’s nerve-racking. Probably the best thing for you to do is just assume that everyone is gay. That way you won’t have to worry about whether someone who looks straight is actually gay. Of course, if you assume everyone is gay, then you have to assume you’re gay too. What a relief! Now you don’t have to act all butch to prove you aren’t gay. Go ahead and cross your legs, TiVo Glee, and rock that Justin Bieber haircut you’ve always wanted. The world’s your oyster. Time to start digging for pearls. A good place to do some pearl-diving this weekend is at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Through Sunday, Sept. 12, the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival will be offering a full slate of some of the best LGBTQI (for you straights, that’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexed) films being made. There are also some bumping parties planned, like Sunday night’s closing BearCity aGLIFF Afterparty at Cheer Up Charlie’s. Should be a fun time, but if you’re at all worried about exposing your irresistible ass, just keep it planted firmly in a seat at the Alamo Drafthouse.

‘Hammy and the Kids’

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September 1, 2010

La Zona Rosa CLOSED

Listen to the Audio Version of this artcle.

Just think: If you were in Canada right now, you would be chill. Give it some thought. Canada is only one border crossing away, and, unlike Americans, Canadians are much more respectful to their southern neighbors. In fact, in a lot of places along the U.S.-Canadian border, there’s not much of a border at all – maybe a ditch, a swath of clear-cut forest, or, like in Derby Line, Vt., a simple line painted across the street. How awesome would it be to do the Hokey-Pokey in two countries at the same time? Really … not much more awesome than actually doing the Hokey-Pokey. Regardless, no need to pay a coyote for a run across that border. In fact, the biggest threats in crossing the Canadian border are gray wolves and grizzlies. They’re particularly fond of people who smell like bacon – Canadian or otherwise – so if you decide to scarf down a few Egg McMuffins before your hike into the promised land, you might want to consider packing a loaded .45 and a couple of spare clips. Back before 9/11, crossing into Canada was even easier. You didn’t have to declare anything except maybe your intent to get pissed on Molson’s and bang anything that didn’t look like a moose or a Mountie. In those days, Canadians were willing to tolerate unconscionable levels of obnoxiousness. Not only that, they let almost anybody into their country: draft dodgers, the Grateful Dead, boat people, the French. The result is one huge frozen cultural clusterfuck that has contributed more to American society than the entire state of Wyoming – and that includes Jackson Pollock and Dick Cheney (who, by the way, are no strangers to clusterfucks themselves). Strangely, as diverse a place as Canada is, Canadians are largely a peace-loving people – unless you happen to be a moose with a huge rack or the opposing hockey team. Canadians also have a likable humility and a great sense of humor – traits conditioned by years of being America’s ruthlessly hazed sidekick. Think of it this way: Canada is the Paul Shaffer to America’s Letterman. Would it surprise you to know that Paul Shaffer is Canadian? Of course not. He’s incredibly talented, has a great sense of humor, is amazingly humble, and is loved by everyone. Letterman, on the other hand, was apparently loving anything that wasn’t a moose or a Mountie. When it comes to tapping the office talent, nice guys always finish last, eh? Or at least a close second. Canadians (other than Tommy Lee trainee Pamela Anderson) really don’t put off the sexual freak vibe anyway. Maybe it’s their layered clothing, their chirpy disposition, or their inability to put on a game face for anything other than a hockey brawl. In truth, Canadians may actually be freaks, but they keep in on the DL … at least until their boyfriends videotape it and post it on the Internet. There are some, however, who couldn’t keep it on the DL even if they tried: Howie Mandel, Jim Carrey, Kiefer Sutherland, and, of course, Kids in the Hall‘s least popular member and most successful freak Kevin McDonald, who will be in town this weekend for the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. Sunday evening at La Zona Rosa, McDonald will be performing Hammy and the Kids, billed as “A one-man exploration of working with the Kids in the Hall and coping with an alcoholic father.” Joining McDonald on musical numbers will be Canadian guitarist/alt-folker Alun Piggins, who would be playing Paul Shaffer to McDonald’s Letterman if McDonald weren’t Canadian.

‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival

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August 25, 2010

Waterloo Park

You might ask yourself: “Why here? Why now?” Waterloo Park in late August will be hotter than Satan’s taint – sweatier too. Of course, the same could be said of Austin in general, so apparently there are quite a few people here in Weirdsville who don’t mind a hot, sweaty taint. Hot, sweaty taints were all the rage back when Waterloo was the name of a village on the banks of Shoal Creek instead of a municipal park sandwiched between a hospital and a parking garage, but ever since the advent of air conditioning, Fudgsicles, and more recently, South by Southwest, Austin is a much cooler place. People all over the world (who can actually point it out on a map) are always saying it, so how can it not be true? Austin actually is cool – as long as you stay inside for about eight months of the year. Easy enough, right? You may have to quit smoking and work the bleached-out vampire look, but it’s doable. You might also want to check in to getting one of those remote start devices for your car. That way, as long as the soles of your goth shoes don’t melt during your mad dash through the parking lot, you will only have to endure a few seconds of roasting. Remember: Dogs die in hot cars. So could you. If you don’t have a car with air conditioning … or for that matter if you don’t have a car at all, you are, to paraphrase, up Shoal Creek without a paddle. Like the original settlers of Waterloo, you are condemned to chase the shade like cows and, when things get really desperate, shrink your scroat in the frigid water of Barton Springs. Really, Barton Springs is the only sure bet. Shade is nice and all, but it can easily reach 100 even in the shade, and if the humidity’s anywhere in the normal range, your clothes will always feel like a hot swimsuit that hasn’t quite dried out yet. Sure, you can wear light, cool clothing. Couldn’t hurt. A thong is light and cool – at least for the parts of your body that aren’t in contact with it – but rest assured your taint will be a raging red furnace. Regardless of what you wear or don’t, you’re going to sweat like a whore in church, so even if you’re dressed like one, you still need to drink lots of water. Back in the old days, hydration was much more of a sticky wicket. It contained things like cholera, intestinal parasites, Comanche poop from up river, and water moccasins (not Weejun preppy loafers, but real, poisonous snakes). Nowadays, however, there is always some benevolent corporation willing to slap its logo on a plastic bottle, fill it with water, and sell it to you for a few dollars. That way you can avoid the embarrassment of violent bouts of bloody diarrhea, stomach cramps, and projectile vomiting. There is also a small chance you might develop breast buds from synthetic estrogen released from the plastic bottle the water comes in, but hey, everybody likes boobies, right? Oh yeah, and also there are apparently enough plastic water bottles to encircle the globe 190 times. Apparently somebody is staying hydrated. That’s the key to a healthy life isn’t it? It’s certainly the key to a healthy Hot Sauce Festival. Beer will only get you so far when it comes to withering heat – if you don’t down a little water along with it, it eventually will get you to the first aid tent. That’s an important thing to remember if you’re attending this Sunday’s 20th annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. Your body is definitely going to burn through some water – either from the heat of the sun or the heat of the sauces in the tasting tent. Usually the samples run into the hundreds, and for a couple of cans of food from your pantry, you can taste them all if you have the fortitude. It’s an epicurean extravaganza that is about as uniquely Austin as they come. Certainly it’s worth a little sweat on your taint.

Aye Eye Ball

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August 18, 2010

The Off Center

Piracy is in, so it only follows that pirates should be as well. Problem is, there are a lot of pirates to choose from and not all of them are equally cool. For instance, intellectual pirates, the most common pirates by far these days, are a thoroughly uninspiring lot consisting of a large swath of humanity: shut-ins, eggheads, techno-geeks, cocooners – pretty much anyone with a high-speed Internet connection and flexible morals. As far as fashion sense, pretty much anything goes as long as it’s comfortable enough to allow for long spells in front of a computer monitor. In an office environment this would mean business casual – maybe some Dockers, a polo shirt, and some Vibram-soled shoes. At home, however, where most intellectual pirates do their plundering, the dress code is a bit more lax – anything from a food-stained terrycloth bathrobe down to just a simple pair of tighty-whiteys with worn-out elastic will suffice. Probably a significant number of intellectual pirates pirate porn, which doesn’t really require much in the way of accessories other than a bottle of lotion, a box of tissues, or some sort of silicone prosthesis with a cute nickname like “Wankenstein,” “The Dildozer,” or “King Dong.” Really, if you can’t pirate porn in your birthday suit, why even bother? Somali pirates are getting quite a bit of ink these days too – not skull-and-crossbones tattoos but media attention. They deserve it, if only for their ability to dream big. Sure, they probably swashbuckled their way through plenty of expensive private yachts, but those are just toy boats compared to something like a Saudi supertanker. It’s amazing what a few enterprising young men can do on the high seas with a motorboat, some AK-47s and a couple of RPGs. Costumewise, however, Somali pirates are only a small step up from their pasty-skinned, computer-savvy counterparts – which is truly heartbreaking considering most have runway model physiques. To maintain a similar look, Heidi Klum would have to snort an ounce of meth a day, eat a bucket of tapeworms, and stick her finger down her throat after every meal. Even still, as model-thin as Somali pirates are, they still have a way to go with costume design. Their outfits may be functional, but basketball shorts, bandanas, and bandoliers are simply too avant-garde a look for anyone not perched menacingly on the bow of a longboat. Of course, the biggest fashion faux pas of Somali pirates is that they want it too badly. Desperation isn’t attractive to anyone except maybe sex tourists in Thailand. The key to a really successful pirate look is a devil-may-care attitude – something that is essential when you’re wearing a puffy shirt and buckle shoes. The nice thing about traditional pirate wear is that it’s a fairly easy look to nail: captain’s hat or bandana, eye patch, beard, puffy shirt, sash (remember that devil-may-care thing?), billowy pants, parrot (fake is best unless you want a smack-talking wingman who occasionally flies up to the mainmast and shits on your head), and, if you really want to take one for the team, a peg leg. Easy enough, right? You probably have a hacksaw and a tourniquet laying around somewhere. Of course, the most fun thing about being a pirate is talking like one. No, it never gets annoying, and anyone can do it. Tiger Woods can probably do a serviceable pirate. Martha Stewart can too. It’s almost as easy as doing an English accent, and like an English accent it’s hilarious to nearly everybody, except maybe the English. All you really need to channel your inner pirate is a few anachronistic nautical terms and a complete willingness to abandon your dignity. If you’ve got that, you’re ready for Saturday’s Aye Eye Ball, this year’s iteration of the Rude Mechanicals’ annual Eye Ball fundraiser. The Aye Aye Ball, though maybe not exactly a pirate shindig, is at least nautically themed, featuring a silent and live auctions; music by Eye Ball DJ for life, Graham “Poseidon” Reynolds; and an appearance by high-society hostess Rebecca Havemeyer. You could certainly rock your vintage cruise wear to this fete, but pirates get more booty.

Top Drawer’s 17th Birthday Party

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August 10, 2010

Top Drawer Thrift

Need some new clothes? If you’re going to drop coin on that David Bowie “Let’s Dance” button-down shirt at Target, you might as well strap on a pair of golf cleats and do a river dance on a litter of baby seal pups. Oh yeah, and if you truly are that heartless, at least make sure you buy your golf cleats at a thrift store, otherwise you might as well stomp on yet another litter of baby seal pups. Fashion is a bloody business … even when PETA isn’t involved. On the other hand, every time you buy some type of hot new designer togs, you’re giving some 9-year-old Asian kid a valuable 14-hour-a-day job. Sleep well, clothes pony. You might have saved that child from a life of prostitution and homelessness. Of course, buying new clothes and cleating baby seal pups aren’t the only ways of raping the environment. There are literally tons and tons of brand-new useless things you can buy that will not only clutter and complicate your own life but will also waste environmental resources and litter up the earth. Here’s a good rule when shopping: If you see something made out of plastic that also comes packaged in plastic, buy it. When you pay for it, ask them to put it in a plastic bag. Congratulations! You just gave one or more multinational petrochemical corporations something known as a “happy ending.” Remember, even as you read this, American patriots are giving their lives to keep you flush with plastic. Don’t dishonor their service by easing off the throttle of your mindless consumerism. Keep buying shit. Don’t worry about paying for it – you can use plastic. That way, not only are you giving a multinational petrochemical corporation a happy ending, you’re giving a multinational financial institution one as well. You also might want to buy a pair of plastic safety goggles and a plastic rain poncho, because at this point, the corporate jizz will be flowing pretty thick. Sounds like a Japanese porn site, but what else can you do? It’s not like you’re going to start raising chinchillas or Angora goats or, worse yet, hemp, which unlike the first two is not only batshit crazy but illegal. Cotton farming is also problematic in that it involves farming cotton, which is a bigger pain in the ass than trying to shave a goat in the middle of August in Texas. Nothing feels better than a face full of wool on a hot, sweaty summer day … and no, that’s not a euphemism. Even if you did somehow miraculously raise enough chinchillas to slaughter, you would still have to figure out something attractive to do with their pelts … something that doesn’t look like it was designed by Leatherface from Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Sewing is tedious work anyway – the sort of thankless toil Asian preteens are best suited for, apparently. Instead of spending sleepless nights wracked with guilt over the child labor syndicate you’re running by proxy from a self-service checkout stand at Walmart, maybe you should seriously consider buying your clothes secondhand. At least when you buy used clothing, you know what they’re going to look like after a few washings. Not only that, you get the good feeling of knowing you didn’t throw an extra dead baby seal on humanity’s trash heap … or at least the plastic equivalent. Sometimes too, if you’re really lucky, the place you go thrift shopping will exist for the sole benefit of raising money for a charitable organization, just like Top Drawer Thrift does for Project Transitions. This Saturday, Aug. 14, from 10am to 7pm, Top Drawer is celebrating its 17th anniversary with an all-day party featuring special deals, music, food, drink, and a raffle. You really should drop by and see what Top Drawer have in your size. You might be amazed. Even if you’re not, you can still get fed, watered, and rocked without paying a dime. Should be funner than a baby seal golf cleat river dance.

Micro Championship Wrestling

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August 3, 2010

AFS Cinema

Whatever you do, don’t call it midget wrestling. Why? Good question. Pro wrestling has not traditionally been the model of political correctness. Rather than play down the differences of its competitors, pro wrestling has always built them up to comic extremes. Who can forget (remember?) ring legends like Ivan Putski “The Polish Power,” Norman “Black Magic” Smiley, Sheamus O’Shaunessy “The Irish Curse,” Umaga “The Samoan Bulldozer,” or “The Spaniard” Crusher Verdu? If none of the preceding sound familiar to you, you’re probably not a pro wrestling fan. Congratulations! You also probably didn’t grow up on the wrong side of the tracks in a trailer that smelled like moldy carpet and burnt toast. Feel free then to enjoy a little smug condescension for the unsoaped riffraff who find it entertaining. Regardless of what John Irving and sundry Greek philosophers would have you believe, wrestling has never been a big sport for thinkers. Sure, there’s a certain amount of strategy and cunning involved (well-concealed brass knuckles or maybe a surprise metal folding chair to the back of the head, for instance), but most of the time simple brute force prevails, just like in the real world. Wrestling is an age-old reality series that dates back thousands of years, probably to the dawn of man. The Chinese did it … as did the Egyptians and eventually the ancient Greeks, who passed it on to the Romans, who in turn passed it on like herpes (also Greek) to most of the world. The Greeks, however, get special credit for really refining the sport. They actually made up rules … and perhaps more importantly, had the means to write them down. Genius. Back in Greek times dudes wrestled dudes in the buff … while coated in oil. These days that sort of thing only happens at financially distressed gay bars on off-nights. The spectacle is much the same, except that in ancient Greece, it was against the rules to grab your opponent’s nut sack, even if just for a sensual caress. No, the ancient Greeks were much more into the violent aspects of wrestling. Other than hitting, kicking … or the previously mentioned scrotum grab, pretty much anything was fair game: choking, bending (breaking) fingers, gouging eyes … all of which still exist in modern pro wrestling, it’s just that they are illegal and usually the shameless, desperate behavior of the bad-guy wrestlers, known in the business as “heels.” Heels are the comic book villains of the pro wrestling world whose job it is to inspire hatred from fans through various forms of dastardly behavior directed toward “faces,” the good-guy heroes of wrestling. As with any good soap opera or reality series, the plot is thickened by switching things up every now and then. The bad guys become the good guys, the good guys the bad, and so on … sort of like an average episode of Jersey Shore or America’s Next Top Model. Yes, both are filled with buffoonish characters that everyone loves to hate, but the difference with wrestling is that it lacks even the scarce subtlety of reality TV. Therefore, if you are going to see wrestling, leave your thinking cap at home. You don’t want to ruin the experience by overanalyzing. This is especially true of midget wrestling. It’s best that you start by completely suspending both your disbelief and your moral superiority. This Friday offers a chance to do just that when Micro Championship Wrestling mixes it up at the Marchesa Hall on I-35. To whet your appetite for small-scale destruction, here’s a quote from the MCW website: “MCW Superstars have performed with Rock Stars: Kid Rock, DMX, Iron Maiden, Slipknot and others. They have also been featured on tons of TV Shows: Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, MTV, WWE, TNA, and Major Roles in The Bleeding and 100 Tears to name a couple.” That’s doesn’t sound unbelievable at all, does it? Question is, does it sound exciting?

Knife Party! With the Jungle Rockers, Salesman, Flatcar Rattlers

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July 28, 2010

Hole in the Wall

What a huge comfort it is to know that we live in a country where just about anyone can legally own and carry weapons. The saying, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” works equally well for broadswords and bazookas. Really, who wants to live in a nation where a toddler can’t grab a hair-triggered revolver from his grandparents’ nightstand and accidentally blow his brains out? Unthinkable, isn’t it? Are we going to punish millions of senile paranoiacs just because some 3-year-old’s parents didn’t teach him proper gun safety? That’s just another step toward outright totalitarianism. Should outlaws and their children to be the only ones who have the luxury of committing suicide with a merciful bullet to the temple? Seems unfair to the law-abiding clinically depressed. Other methods of suicide take so much more effort and planning. You can’t just go off half-cocked. Sure, gunshot suicides can be a little messy, but life itself is messy, and in these tough economic times, there are plenty of able-bodied citizens willing to do the cleanup for next to nothing – especially if our freedom is at stake. Perhaps most importantly, the right to “keep and bear arms” is essential to forming “well-regulated militias,” which the Second Amendment says are “necessary to the security of a free state.” As anyone in Northern Idaho will tell you, the only way to truly secure the blessings of liberty is to let the government know that you won’t succumb to totalitarianism without a firefight. When the government’s Apache gunships come swooping down from the heavens with their 625-rounds-per-minute 30 mm cannons, Hydra rockets, and Hellfire missiles, militia members will valiantly defend freedom with small caliber arms fire and improvised explosive devices … for a few seconds … until the Apaches reduce them to a fine, pink mist … freedom mist. Anyone who has seen the WikiLeaks video of the Iraqi journalists getting ventilated by an Apache gunship in 2007 has an idea of how useful small arms will be in securing a modern free state. Trying to fend off one of those nightmarish bastards with anything less than a Stinger missile is outright lunacy. You might as well be packing a camera and a tripod. Anyone seriously wanting to defend liberty should consider pushing the button in a voting booth before they flip the safety on an automatic weapon. Just like cities blow money on fireworks displays on the Fourth of July, America spends billions and billions of dollars on badass weapons so you don’t have to. That said, shooting guns can be a lot of fun, but you probably don’t want emotionally unstable people like the double rainbow guy walking around with an AK-47. It’s just not good public policy. There has to be some middle ground where people can shoot animals, tin cans, and themselves, but maybe not their fellow high school students or postal employees. It’s a balancing act to be sure, but who really needs a machine gun or even a semiautomatic pistol to go hunting? Polar bear hunters, maybe. The rest of us just need to nut up and take better aim. This is not to say that you couldn’t murder a lot of people with a bolt-action rifle; it only makes it harder – just like it’s harder for someone to “accidentally” knife someone to death. Knifing someone to death takes dedication and follow-through, even with a fairly good-sized blade. Knives aren’t handguns, but they’re still pretty dangerous, which is a good reason you should probably leave your knife at home when you go out drinking … except this Saturday, because the Hole in the Wall is hosting Knife Party! Bring your legal pocket knives (everybody has more than one, right?) to the Hole between 6 and 9pm and get it sharpened for free! You can also enjoy old timey music by Flatcar Rattlers; lyrical, acoustic indie rock by Salesman; and the wallet chain surf twang of the Jungle Rockers. Hey, with all those sharp knives around, do you even need to be told to drink responsibly? That’s the genius of the Second Amendment. Let’s see how well it works.

Benefit for Gulf Coast Disaster Relief

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July 21, 2010

Jo’s Coffee

Here’s a bit of a paradox: Most easily bored people believe they are easily bored because they are so interesting. Fucking wow, right? Unfortunately, the foundation of knowledge is rarely self-knowledge. For most people it’s an inverted pyramid. Generally, the more you learn about the world, the more you learn about yourself. Acquiring knowledge takes time, energy, and perhaps, most importantly, enthusiasm. The latter is where many people drop the ball. In order to be interesting, you must first be interested. The preceding sounds like an empty platitude, but it’s not. You have to really care about something enough to want to try to fully comprehend it, to master it. This is one of the things that make nerds so scary. Is Star Wars really something to which you can devote an entire lifetime? Apparently so. Ditto for pigeon racing, chess, needlepoint, LARPing, and Japanime. Really there are endless variations of things to occupy your mind, body, and spirit, and that’s the point. If you’re bored, you are either too ignorant to conceive an alternative to your boredom or you simply lack the motivation and inspiration to change your state of mind. Either way, you’re not much fun to hang out with. Bored people are boring. Even still, it takes a certain amount of motivation to move on to something more interesting. Boredom can often be the catalyst. In fact, you may be bored right now and ready to move on to something more interesting. Bully for you. At least you found inspiration. Of course, using boredom to inspire you to do something truly interesting is the key to becoming an interesting person. Ideally, your interest will be something that consumes you – not only for a moment or an hour or a day, but for an entire lifetime. It’s important to keep in mind that the depth of your knowledge is every bit as important as the breadth. Being interested and interesting isn’t just about knowing a bunch of shit. You can get that from an iPhone, and we all know how exciting people with iPhones can be. No, interesting people have context, a sense of the larger picture, an ability to filter and synthesize the shitstorm of external stimuli and information into something coherent and useful … or at the very least entertaining. Unfortunately, context demands a long attention span – the type that is nurtured through a passion for understanding and mastery. These days, the world is full of people who are short on both intelligence and attention span. They are constantly distracted by a literally mind-boggling array of external stimuli, and in the absence of that stimuli, they are often at a loss of what to do with themselves. It’s no surprise that their fun boxes are short a few tools. They have never been bored enough to learn how to overcome boredom. Maybe that’s a good thing, but if you have ever spent time with an adrenaline junkie at a cocktail party, you might wonder. Whether motivated by boredom or not, there is no shortcut to becoming an interesting, well-rounded person. If you want to live an interesting, exciting life, no one is going to do it for you. Well, maybe if you join the marines …. Otherwise, you’re going to have to collect the tools it takes to make your own fun. For now, however, you can just piggyback on someone else’s. This Friday from 6 to 10pm in Jo’s parking lot on South Congress, Jo’s and Hotel San José are hosting the Gulf Coast Disaster Relief Benefit. The event is free with a $10 suggested donation and features music by Papa Mali and the Grammy-nominated Lost Bayou Ramblers as well as speakers from the Environmental Defense Fund. There will also be a $10 per plate shrimp boil by Perla’s, the proceeds of which will go to the Greater New Orleans Foundation Oil Spill Fund and the Gulf Restoration Network.

Red Hot 2010

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July 14, 2010

Oilcan’s

The oil business has been getting an especially bad rap recently, especially since the Deepwater Horizon blowout. As with all preventable catastrophes, there has been plenty of finger-pointing but no truly satisfying scapegoat. In fact, saddling an actual goat with the symbolic transgressions of the various parties involved might ultimately prove easier to watch than B-roll of tarred pelicans, sludged sea turtles, and, perhaps most disturbing of all, beach cleanup workers in orange reflective vests, rubber dishwashing gloves, and frumpy lesbian-style cargo shorts. So it is. Oil spills are ugly business. People want blood, even if they have to burn through a few million barrels of oil to get it. They want answers too – not complicated, technically dense, ethically vague, lawyer-assisted depositions to congressional subcommittees, but flashy, shameless, simplistic confessions (ideally pointing toward a Machiavellian conspiracy by Big Oil), followed by public disembowelments by corporate executives. That would maybe do the trick. The Joe Six Packs don’t want to hear that average workers like themselves might have ignored safety precautions – perhaps in response to upper-management pressure to get the job done, or maybe they were just high as a bat’s ass, staring at their fingers. It’s hard to imagine that a couple of bad decisions by reckless individuals possibly could have caused one of the world’s worst environmental catastrophes, isn’t it? There must be larger forces at work here … some sort of systemic, conspiratorial evil. As much as the foil hat people would like that to be, it just isn’t so. The ugly bottom line is that Big Oil might have fucked us, but Americans helped them by buying the lube. While we were riding to work in our SUVs we were also riding on the back of the crocodile. We still are. BP, like any other business, is driven by profit, not safety – occupational, environmental, or otherwise. It was only a matter of time before a big spill happened again. Yes, again. Back in 1979 the Pemex Ixtoc I oil spill infused the Gulf of Mexico with more than 3 million barrels of crude. For years afterward, Texas beaches were speckled with tar. Beach lovers sported not only tan lines but tar-ball splotches. Pemex, Mexico’s government-owned oil company, didn’t take nearly the heat BP has drawn. In fact, it wrapped up the whole cleanup operation for around $100 million, claiming sovereign immunity against liability claims. Not surprisingly, Pemex is still in business, still pumping oil out of the Gulf. During the first Gulf War, Iraqis tried to preempt a U.S. invasion by dumping as much as 6 million barrels into the Persian Gulf. Didn’t work. Here’s something that might surprise you: The worst oil spill ever happened on land … in California no less. The 1909 Lakeview Gusher Number One in Kern County spewed 9 million barrels of oil into a desert valley near Bakersfield. That’s nearly three times the amount of oil floating around in the Gulf. Yes, it sucks big, stinky tar balls that the latest spill happened on America’s watch … in American waters, but just because BP had the largest stake in the profits doesn’t necessarily mean BP should entirely shoulder the blame. Hell, the rig itself was actually owned by a Swiss company (Transocean) flying a Marshallese flag (looking to start a corporation? Try the Marshall Islands!) and employed workers from several different subcontractors (including the nefarious-by-association Halliburton). If you’re mad enough to shoot somebody, you’re going to need a lot of bullets, including one for yourself. Perhaps the most productive thing to do might be to start weaning yourself from the oil tit – not just by buying a brand-new Prius but by turning off the goddamn lights every now and then, caulking your windows, or maybe walking or taking the bus or voting for un-American public transit. Maybe oil won’t be such an ugly word if we can reduce all those oil barrels to something smaller … like oil cans. Speaking of, this Friday, Project Transitions 19th annual Red Hot fundraiser is happening at Oilcan Harry’s. This year’s party includes performers from Cabernet Cabaret, cast members from City Theatre’s Into the Woods and Zach Theatre’s The Drowsy Chaperone, the Austin Babtist Women, Larissa Ness, the Austin City Showgirls, and the cast of Las Vegas’ La Cage. This blowout won’t be nearly as epic as the Deepwater Horizon, but it should be more fun!

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