Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta

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September 14, 2011

One thing’s for certain: Dyslexia is a hibtc. Words are hard enough to understand without having to play a game of mental jumble every time you’re confronted with a line of text. Plus, it’s extra difficult getting the subtext when you’re struggling to get the text – forest for the trees and whatnot. Sometimes the subtext is the most important part … the icing on the cake or maybe the razor inside the apple. Without subtext you wouldn’t have nuance or tone. Those three preceding nouns are fairly vital components to emotional communication, and missing them is missing the full message – maybe the entire message. For instance, take the following sentence: You’re a fucking dick. Taken literally, it’s a fairly straightforward message: You are a penis engaged in the act of intercourse. Simple enough, right? But to most people outside a mental hospital, the real message of that statement is that the object thereof is an insensitive/obnoxious/aggressive person – likely a male in this case. By the way, there is a female version too, but it’s even more incendiary, and unless you’re from Ireland or doing a one-man show on the life and writings of Chaucer, you’d be better served by utilizing the Italian word contessa and simply overemphasizing the first syllable. Unfortunately, that’s one of the many advantages of oration that isn’t available in the two-dimensional worlds of ink on paper or pixels on screen. It’s been said that somewhere between 60% and 90% of communication is nonverbal. That seems accurate. When you start parsing sentences, you find that verbs are pretty rare, all in all. They’re mostly just a jumble of nouns, pronouns, adverbs, and adjectives – the starchy ingredients of a tasteless grammatical stew, so to speak. To get real communication, you have to have the emotional roux provided by subtext. Grammar is so BORing, isn’t it? GAWD. Sadly, the written word will forever be hamstrung by its inability communicate emotion nonverbally. If only there were a grammatical equivalent of John Belushi’s eyebrows, Marilyn Monroe’s upthrust cleavage, or Martin Luther King’s oratory quaver. Yes, you can add an emoticon, but for most people, tacking on an emoticon is like sending a cute kitten picture: It either makes you so weak-kneed with fawning adoration that you forget all communication that preceded it, or it makes you want to choke the living shit out of the sender for mucking up the message with extraneous cutesy bullshit. No. There is no middle ground. Emoticons are best suited for fleeing from ghosts in Pac-Man mazes. Putting a smiley face at the end of a sentence means you haven’t done your fucking job as a writer. J. Considering all of this should at least, in some small way, give you insight into the challenges of dyslexia, even if you continue to be insensitive to its suffers. Sometimes being cute or funny with language only obscures the message and infuriates those who struggle to comprehend it. Fortunately, the guys who put together the Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta recognize this and added a clarifying “F” to the end of their acronym to avoid confusion with the other big music festival happening this weekend. ACLF: Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, and it’s happening Thursday through Sunday at Lovejoys, the Hole in the Wall, Trophy’s, and the Scoot Inn. The lineup is an A-List of bands antithetical to the shoegazer set. It also leans hard toward rockabilly/country with a punk aesthetic, but if you like your music with a heavy dose of hardcore, hell-raising humor, you won’t want to miss this party. Try Friday’s show at the Hole in the Wall. Here’s who’s on the bill: Monkeyshines, Glambilly, Hickoids, Billy Joe Winghead, Poor Dumb Bastards, and the Beaumonts. Pay attention to the name: You really are going to need to love corn and love to party.

Alamo Drafhouse & Parkside Present: Rolling Roadshow – ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’

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September 7, 2011

If you saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off during its opening run, your tattoos are probably green. Wait a minute … you probably don’t have tattoos – at least not ones old enough to be green. Back in the ’80s, tattoos were mainly sported by sailors, bikers, and gangbangers … not exactly the demo John Hughes was targeting when he cast Matthew Broderick as Bueller. This is not to say gangbangers wouldn’t have enjoyed Matthew Broderick, but most likely it would have been in a prison setting rather than in a theatre. In fact, even today it’s probably a good idea for Matthew Broderick to avoid prisons altogether – unless he would like to get his own tattoo: BITCH. No dis to Matthew, but if he ever gets the slightest inkling he might get sent to the big house, he should start hitting the weights. A movie star of his caliber should easily be able to afford a top-notch personal trainer and high-quality steroids. If not, what’s it all worth, really? It’s frightening to think that the payoff for being an ’80s teen idol is a receding hairline, pasty skin, and Sarah Jessica Parker. And yet … it could be worse. He could be one of the Coreys. All in all, Broderick has done all right for an ’80s teen star. His impressive run includes hits like WarGames, Election, and Glory, and then some other movies … like Godzilla and The Road to Wellville – the kind of cinematic train wrecks that make you wonder if Broderick even bothers reading his scripts … or maybe he’s just high as a bat’s ass when he does, which is the only reasonable explanation for Inspector Gadget. Whether he read the script or just got lucky, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a monster wave that Broderick still rides to this day. Not only did it make Broderick bulletproof, it also launched/enabled the careers of several other actors as well. For instance: Jennifer Grey. Her prize for playing Bueller’s bitter little sister was a quick snog with a pre-hookers-and-coke Charlie Sheen. She also scored a co-starring role in Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze, which apparently made her so self-conscious she went out and bought a brand-new schnoz. That youthful indiscretion and her limited acting ability eventually spelled doom for her showbiz career. Oh well, at least she got to play tonsil hockey with Charlie Sheen when he still had humility and a septum. Sheen cannonballed his cameo in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with a starring role in Platoon and a rather spectacular string of forgettable films until he found his groove playing the asshole brother of another ’80s star, Jon Cryer. Perhaps the most improbable career launch from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is that of Ben Stein, who played Bueller’s monotone, nasal-voiced economics teacher. In an odd twist of Hollywood’s star-making machinery, Ben Stein was actually a man of distinction and achievement before becoming a famous actor. A Yale Law School valedictorian, Stein was also a trial lawyer, a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and a columnist for a variety of impressive publications like The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and New York magazine. After Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he ruined his reputation by hosting Win Ben Stein’s Money and Turn Ben Stein On, the shameless Hollywood equivalent of humping fame’s leg like a randy Chihuahua. Regardless of the indulgences and indiscretions of its cast, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is still an entertaining critique of materialist and status-conscious ’80s culture. Sure, it’s an easy knockoff of nonconformist fictional heroes like Don Quixote, Robin Hood, and Huck Finn, but it’s still fun nonetheless. If you somehow missed it the first few thousand times it’s been shown, you should definitely head down to the 500 block of San Jacinto (between Fifth and Sixth streets) for a Rolling Roadshow presentation of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off presented by Parkside restaurant and the Alamo Drafthouse. Bring a lawn chair, buy some suds and grub at the food and beer tents, and (re)acquaint yourself with this American classic. Proceeds benefit the 6ixth Street Austin Association, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of the historic Sixth Street Entertainment District.

Out of Bounds Comedy Festival

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August 31, 2011

How much comedy can anyone truly take? That’s a very serious question, isn’t it? The mere prospect of six or so hours of gut-splitting hilarity should give anyone pause – well, at least anyone not swaddled in extra-absorbent Depends and clutching an empty paper sack. Just because you’ve never laughed until you peed doesn’t necessarily mean you have exceptional bladder control. It might just mean you have no sense of humor – or at the very least that your mother/father/brother/sister/cousin/girlfriend/boyfriend/priest never successfully located and exploited your tickle gland. If so, let your incontinence be a badge of honor. Better to be scarred by the embarrassing memory of soaking your birthday dress doubled over in paroxysms of mirth while being entertained by the comedy stylings of Chuckles the Party Clown than to be a dry-pantied old sourpuss with a superiority complex. Better to lose your dignity than your sense of humor. Besides, dignity is the consolation prize you earn after years and years of maddening incredulity, humiliation, and abuse – when your ego has been polished smooth like a river stone. A sense of humor, on the other hand, is a precious gift – a survival instinct that keeps you from being crushed by the gravity, cruelty, and absurdity of life. Yes, it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself … even and especially if you’re not all that funny … but it’s also important to be able to laugh at others. Laughter is one of the most important ways we share commonality. It’s also one of the ways we enforce uniformity … generally through ridicule. Were ridicule not effective, you would probably still be wearing shirts with tattoo designs printed on them … or bright-orange Crocs … or pleated jeans … or that spectacularly luxurious Kentucky Waterfall mullet you sported back in the early Nineties (yeah, you couldn’t let go, could you?). If your friends had been blessed with the miracle of Facebook back in those days, they would have just posted a few pages of witheringly mean comments under your profile photo instead of mercilessly teasing you to your face until you finally shaved your head smooth like Chad Taylor from Live … or Telly Savalas … or Howie Mandel … or Michael Chiklis. Whatever, the important thing is that their merciless ridicule and laughter motivated you to switch from a silly, white-trash hairstyle to no hairstyle at all. Put that one in the win column for the hyenas. Hilarity, like misery, loves company. Humor not only motivates personal change, it can effect societal change as well. Who can forget the wicked satire of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” or George Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003? There probably wasn’t a dry pant leg on that entire flight deck. Of course, let’s not be too generous in extolling the virtues of humor. Laughter may sometimes be the best medicine, but sometimes it can make you sick (Carrot Top), crazy (Gallagher), or give you a headache (Roseanne Barr). The sad truth is that not all comedy is gold. If you sit through enough of it, you’ll find more slag than precious metal, but sometimes the treasure is worth the effort. This weekend the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival (or OOB … rhymes with “boob” … what are the chances?) is celebrating its 10th year of bringing sketch, improv, and stand-up comedy from across America to the “live music capital of the world.” Great idea! Austin could stand a different kind of wanking – at least for a weekend, right? Through Monday you can check out some of the best up-and-coming comics in America at the Hideout Theatre, the State Theatre, ColdTowne Theater, and the Velveeta Room. If you’re not terribly adventurous, Labor Day night at the State you can catch Saturday Night Live star Tim Meadows’ comedy trio Uncle’s Brother. That should be worth a pair of Depends at least.

2011 ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival

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Augusat 24, 2011

The 2011 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival is this Sunday at Waterloo Park. That’s all you really need to know. Even still, you might have some questions. You might, for instance, wonder why the Hot Sauce Festival logo features a dude on a dirt bike. Touché. Nailed us on that one. Dirt bikes are wicked cool and whatnot, but they don’t really have much to do with hot sauce. Correct. So, why is there a dirt bike in the logo? Here’s why: Because it isn’t a Doberman in a Quaker bonnet or a clown with a vacuum cleaner. It’s not difficult to imagine that after 21 years of Hot Sauce Festival logos, we’ve completely exhausted meaningful hot sauce iconography. We’ve had the chips and hot sauce bowls; the cowboy/-girl riding the jalapeño; the hot-sauce-eating bat/armadillo; the sweating, hot-sauce-eating Satan; the happy tomato; and even a logo that included a cherub with flames shooting out of its mouth and ass. Like Keith Richards, we’ve pretty much done it all. Next year expect a logo that features Slim Pickens riding a jalapeño into an apocalyptic bowl of hot sauce. Just sayin’. Nonetheless, if you’re counting on this year’s logo for information about what to expect at the festival, that’s probably a mistake. Yes there will be flames and peppers, but dirt bikes are strictly verboten on festival grounds, even if they are wicked cool. There are, however, some things you can expect, so you should be prepared. Expect it to be hot. Not only will the temperature be in the 100-plus range, there be will thousands of hot, sweaty people who will be radiating a considerable amount of heat themselves – an amazing amount of biomass considering the temperature. Plus, they will all be eating hot sauce and swearing – with watery eyes and flushed faces – that they love it. They really do too … so much that they bring along their children, even babies in strollers (who truly wouldn’t want to miss it), as well as dogs (ideally festooned with a jaunty bandana fastened about the neck to ward off the chill) and all manner of other attention-grabbing fauna: sugar gliders, hamsters, snakes, parrots, falcons, really anything that might entice a curious member of the opposite sex to strike up a conversation. Really, if you haven’t bought a spider monkey in an attempt to reel in some strange at an outdoor festival, you probably don’t even care about getting laid at all. Something else you should expect at the Hot Sauce Festival: dirty feet. If that’s something that bothers you, keep your chin up. Shoes are hot. Dirty feet in flip-flops are not. It’s that simple. You may have the priciest pedicure in town, but after you’ve shuffled around Waterloo Park in late August for a few hours, your feet are going to look like you spent the day hippie-spin-dancing at a Leftover Salmon concert. That’s bad, yes, but it could be worse: You could be wearing Vibram FiveFingers. That kind of ugly you can’t wash off. There’s plenty of pretty stuff, too. Some people actually look better when they’re hot and sweaty. Just think of the Hot Sauce Festival as one big, hot oil-wrestling match with snacks included – only the hot oil is perspiration. Well, either it’s that or the tiny sample drop of habanero oil on the end of a toothpick that ruins your taste buds for the rest of the day. Really, the only way to fight the heat is with ass-coal bear. No, that’s not a typo. It’s a phonetic representation of the way Texans pronounce the phrase “ice-cold beer.” You could also drink ass-coal warter, but that wouldn’t make it a festival, would it? Water isn’t very festive, but bands are, and the Hot Sauce Festival has a lineup that will surely dirty up your dancing feet: Schmillion, Moonlight Social, Foot Patrol, La Guerrilla, and the Bright Light Social Hour. Best of all, the Hot Sauce Festival doesn’t put a dent in your wallet; it frees up space in your pantry. All it takes to get in is a donation of three nonperishable food items to the Capital Area Food Bank. That’s all you really need to know.

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins

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August 17. 2011

Yes, it was Molly Ivins who invented the nickname “Gov. Goodhair” for Rick Perry. That single instance of wickedly brilliant wordplay is much more of a literary legacy than most political commentators can claim in a lifetime. In fact, it could be argued that the nickname alone is enough to warrant a one-woman theatrical homage, but Ivins’ trove of bons mots and “isms” is exceedingly full. It’s true Ivins possessed a rapier wit, but it also has to be acknowledged that Texas and Texas politicians never failed to provide bushel after bushel of low-hanging fruit: Dolph “Bread Puddin'” Briscoe, Bill “Burr Butt” Clements, Clayton “Dick Stompin'” Williams, George W. “Shrub” Bush, and of course Gov. Goodhair himself – not to mention the constantly changing clown car of the Texas Legislature, whose madcap hijinks kept Ivins’ typewriter humming. National politics weren’t off her radar either. Ronald Reagan was described as, “so dumb that if you put his brains in a bee, it would fly backwards.” She once said that “calling George Bush [Sr.] shallow is like calling a dwarf short.” Oh, snap! Then there was Shrub, the infamous post turtle (Google it) who arguably cemented Ivins’ status as a sound bite pundit. Why not? Ivins had a knack for summing up politicians and policy with incisive, accessible, humorous one-liners. On gun control: “I’m not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife.” On Texas: “It’s a low-tax, low-service state – so shoot us.” On moral leadership: “You want moral leadership? Try the clergy. It’s their job.” On Bill Clinton: “I still believe in hope – mostly because there’s no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.” Even though she took plenty of shots at her own party, Ivins was universally adored by liberals and had the grudging respect of many conservatives. Regardless of party affiliation, it’s hard not to appreciate someone who calls ’em like she sees ’em. Unless, of course, you’re Michael Dukakis, of whom Ivins once said: “This man has got no Elvis. He needs a charisma transplant.” Whether you were down with the Duk or not, it’s hard to argue with that assessment. Say what you will about George Senior, at least he had the wisdom to not let himself be filmed while power-walking with a pair of Heavyhands aerobic weights. What were you thinking, Duk? Not even a spin around the General Dynamics parking lot in an M1 tank could butch up that image. Imagine if President Obama was filmed during his presidential campaign doing his morning workout with a Shake Weights? Perhaps the most important thing to remember about Ivins is that she was a liberal progressive with balls – metaphorically, at least – though it could be argued that she had enough swagger and chutzpah to warrant an actual package check. It’s too bad Ivins is no longer with us. Her antagonistic defense of progressive, populist politics is sorely missed these days, and it’s a good bet she would have secretly relished the thought of skewering “The Coiffure,” aka “The Ken Doll,” all the way to Election Day. Don’t let the gloom overtake you. If you find yourself missing Molly Ivins more and more these days, the best thing to do is to head down to Zach Theatre for Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, a one-woman show starring Barbara Chisholm, a local fixture of stages and screens who has been voted Austin’s favorite actress in The Austin Chronicle‘s “Best of Austin” Readers Poll. If you don’t see this show … Gov. Goodhair wins. Then again, he probably will even if you don’t.

20th Annual Buck Owens Birthday Bash

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August 10, 2011

Why Buck Owens? Why the fuck not, motherfucker? First of all, his name is Buck. That name is badass molasses on a stick. You can’t shake it off. No, it wasn’t his given name. That was Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. – the sort of name that inspires in most people a primal urge to hand out a vicious noogie. Not even Mike Tyson could have survived a name like that. Fortunately, at the age of 3, little Alvis Edgar saw the writing on the wall and adopted the name of his family’s favorite mule, “Buck.” It’s possible that at that young age, Alvis Edgar had no idea that he would be endowed like a mule – not just with a spectacular overbite that rivaled Mr. Ed’s but also, rumor has it, with an equestrian-sized beef whistle. It’s probably just as well. Irony, like wealth, beauty, and good liquor, is wasted on children. Suffice it to say that later in life, Owens could both eat corn on the cob through a picket fence and party like a porn star. Being a bona fide country star meant that Owens was able to exercise the latter talent more than most, but his true gift was of a more aural nature. As much as anyone else, Owens helped define the Bakersfield sound, a genre of country music defined by twangy Telecaster guitars, honky-tonk drum beats, fiddles, and steel guitars. Originally, the Bakersfield sound had its beginnings in the music favored by dust bowl Okies, Arkies, and Texans who moved to the San Joaquin valley in search of jobs in oil and agriculture. Owens’ family was among those fleeing the dust bowl. However, they never made it as far as California. Their car broke down in Mesa, Ariz., and that’s where they stayed. In his early years, Owens picked cotton and potatoes in the fields until he figured out that playing music was a much easier way to make a living. At age 13, he dropped out of high school and started working as a Western Union messenger, a truck driver, and a car washer until he teamed up with guitar player Ray Britten and began doing radio shows – first in Mesa, then in Phoenix, where he met his first wife, Bonnie, who would later divorce Owens and marry Merle Haggard (imagine how big the Hag’s hardware must be …). A few years later, Buck and Bonnie moved to Bakersfield, Calif., and the rest, as they say, is history … or at least a really salacious biography. Sure, his personal life was a bit of a train wreck. He married and divorced four times, sired four sons, and through it all still managed to amass a healthy fortune. With it he bought radio stations, houses, a bunch of really outlandish stage costumes, and, perhaps most famously, a Nudie Cohn-custom-decorated Pontiac Grand Ville, tricked out with pistol door handles and a huge “longhorn” hood ornament – actually, Owens didn’t buy the car, he won it from Nudie in a poker game. It now sits behind the bar at Owens’ Crystal Palace nightclub in Bakersfield. Much of Owens’ wealth was due to his 17-year run on Hee Haw, the corn-pone comedy show that pretty much defines homespun hillbilly humor – even though it was mostly written by Canadians. Owens’ true legacy, however, will be his contribution to defining a unique version of the country sound. It’s mostly that the folks down at the Continental Club will be celebrating at the 20th annual Buck Owens Birthday Bash this Friday. Expect great performances from a huge list of Austin musicians including Libbi Bosworth, Ricky Broussard, The Texas Sapphires, Ted Roddy, the Wagoneers, Lucas Hudgins, Roy Heinrich and many others. Proceeds benefit the Center for Child Protection – which may not be as fun as a tricked out Grand Ville, but it’s still money well-spent.

‘Texas High School Football: More Than the Game’

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August 3, 2011

If you’re reading the Chronicle, there’s a pretty good chance that you were never too big on football – at least not the American kind. Let’s just be honest with ourselves, shall we? Yes, you might enjoy football for its camp and spectacle. You might even own a slightly stained, vintage, 1970s-era Dallas Cowboys cheerleader poster or perhaps an autographed photo of Walt Garrison (who was both a Cowboy and a cowboy, and America’s number one spokesperson for Skoal smokeless tobacco), but you probably didn’t actually play football – at least not much past Pop Warner. That’s understandable. After all, American football is a violent, brutal sport where size, strength, and aggression dominate. Walt Garrison himself sustained five concussions over the course of his football career before he was finally forced into retirement – not because of a nasty case of mouth cancer, but because of a knee injury sustained while pursuing his favorite leisure activity: steer wrestling. Yes, Walt was a bit of a badass, which is something that could be said of just about anyone who makes it to the NFL … with the exception of maybe the place kicker and the equipment manager, and even they are fairly butch in relation to the average male. Troy Aikman would certainly vouch for that. He had 10 concussions during his career. In fact, he claims he doesn’t remember anything about Super Bowl XXVIII … not even playing in the game … because of a concussion suffered in the NFC playoffs two weeks before. Now that is getting knocked the fuck out. The crazy thing is that Troy Aikman is a big, strong dude by just about anyone’s standards. He was certainly the big man on campus at Henryetta High School, where he was a center on the basketball team (that’s the tall guy in the middle). High school football is a bit more accessible to the average male (and in rare cases, female), but its players are still a relatively small percentage of the overall population – some would say a dumber, brutish, and belligerent percentage. Again, let’s be honest here … they’re mostly right. Nonetheless, we live in a state and a nation that either cherishes these traits or at least finds it enormously entertaining watching them play out. Perhaps it’s a little bit of both. Football is about the closest you can get to human demolition derby, and really, nothing is more satisfying than watching the asshole alpha male who gave you a swirly in the restroom during lunch break get the snot knocked out of him by someone even bigger and meaner than he is. Whatever the reason, in Texas, football is an unrivaled Friday night ritual. Yes, we could have chosen karaoke … or cock fighting … or naked baby-oil twister … but we chose instead to watch the tough guys beat up on themselves for a couple of hours … right after we spend a few hours in the parking lot getting our swerve on. Just about everyone who grows up in Texas has memories of Friday night lights, for better or worse. You might have been in the marching band, the drill team, the cheerleading squad, the pep club, a mascot uniform, or underneath the bleachers getting stoned, but football will most likely always be at least a small part of your identity as a Texan. This Saturday the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum is hosting a free opening day pep rally for “Texas High School Football: More Than the Game,” a special exhibit that examines high school football’s cultural influence in the state of Texas, curated by writer Joe Nick Patoski. The pep rally will feature marching bands, dancers, and a crash course in football rules. You might not be big on football, but you might be surprised to find you know more about it than you thought.

Lights. Camera. Help. Film Festival

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July 27. 2011

Do-gooders are an especially irritating lot, if only for the fact that their actions are a humiliating indictment of the self-absorbed, hedonistic, slothful, and apathetic majority of humanity – those of us happily occupying the meat of the bell curve, so to speak. While it seems only natural that folks who enjoy a happy, healthy, prosperous existence ought to feel at least the tiniest tinge of moral conscience – some sort of faint desire to give back to a world that has given them so much – it’s not always the case. Doing good … really doing good … takes a lot of time, energy, resources, and creativity – things that are often collectively referred to as a big pain in the ass. Just the overwhelming prospect of really doing good tends to completely bury that tiny voice of conscience, and if you arrange your life just so, you can pretty much ensure that voice never gets through at all. There’s a reason people move to the suburbs. A venti latte from Starbucks is so much more enjoyable when you don’t have a scrofulous homeless dude leaning across your windshield with a dirty squeegee and a wad of newspaper. There’s no shame in avoiding such ugliness, only honesty. People don’t acquire wealth so they can continue to wallow in poverty and squalor. In fact, the mere idea that people have the chance to improve their conditions is what powers the American way of life. Regardless of the relative success of our collective endeavors (the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, World War II, Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk … as opposed to Michael Jackson’s), Americans still hold firmly to the ideal of rugged individualism, and it is exactly this contradiction that is proving to be a sticky wicket in current political discourse. Can we rely on self-interest and the profit motive to do what’s best for the public good, or as individuals are we better served by a sense of altruism and the notion that by improving the lives of everyone, we also help ourselves? The former seems to be holding sway in most of America these days. The puzzlingly (or, given the very powerful insurance lobby, maybe not so puzzlingly) vitriolic assault on “ObamaCare,” the president’s highly watered-down attempt at bringing down crippling (poor choice of metaphor?) health care costs, leads the charge, followed by a nearly unilateral assault on “entitlement” programs, otherwise known as social welfare. Sadly it seems, the issue of the efficiency and efficacy of social welfare programs has become secondary, tangential even, to the issue of their actual necessity. The question that is not being asked stridently enough is: What is the cost of their absence? Will weaning people off the government tit prove adequate incentive to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? What if poor people get so poor they can’t even afford boots? Tough questions like the preceding are pondered most safely and comfortably in gated suburban communities – or rather, mostly not at all. However, if you’re the type of masochist who would like to expose yourself to the pressing social issues of our times, but would maybe like to do so without smelling vomit and dried urine, this Friday you should head down to the Spirit of Texas Theater at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum for the 2011 Lights. Camera. Help. film festival, which celebrates nonprofit and cause-driven films. Friday features eight screenings covering topics such as homelessness, urban farming, and sexual violence against Native American women, among others. Who knows? These films might eat at your conscience, but they might also change your life. Oh yeah, one more thing: All proceeds go to the nonprofits associated with the films.

‘Never Heard of ‘Em’ Book Release Concert

The Luv Doc Recommends

July 20, 2011

If you think it’s tough being a has-been, try being a never-was. The sad byproducts of Austin’s status as a live music mecca are the legions of musicians who endure in spite of heartbreaking obscurity, who never seem to be able to score anything better than a midnight Tuesday slot batting cleanup on a five-band bill at Headhunters. (Note: If you actually happen to be a member of Half Baked 69, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re condemned to obscurity, but it’s a pretty good hint that some introspection is in order regarding your music career.) Sounds a bit cruel, yes, but the ugly truth is that not everyone can be a winner. The music business in Austin is a heartless bitch – not necessarily because of the people who run the show, but because of the people who don’t. There are literally thousands of them, and none of them moved here because they thought they were shitty musicians. In fact, quite the contrary. It takes a certain amount of hubris to think you can waltz into Austin (or two-step or polka or watusi) and experience the same heady success and adoration you enjoyed back in Possum Snatch, Ark., or Bug Tussle, Ala. In fact, just scoring a free happy hour gig in Austin often involves disturbing amounts of fellatio – mostly metaphorical, yes, but that can sometimes be even more humiliating and nauseating than the actual physical act, especially if the booker or club owner has a huge metaphorical cock … and they usually do. Most don’t admit it, but it takes a staggering amount of time, energy, and enthusiasm just to be a working musician in Austin. It also takes at least a modicum of talent (which is what nonmusicians call skill) to even get your foot in the door – where it will get slammed many times before you actually gain entry. In Austin, it is obnoxious to assume that a musician you’ve never heard of lacks talent. It’s quite the contrary, in fact. One of the basic rites of passage in Austin is seeing a musician who literally knocks your socks off – someone who impresses you so much that you are actually incredulous that person isn’t touring with Springsteen or at the very least headlining the Austin City Limits Music Fest. After it happens five or six times, your incredulity will inevitably start to wane. After a few years of having it happen again and again, you begin to question whether or not the music business is even remotely merit-based at all. Well, it is and it isn’t. Music fans are a fickle lot, prone to fads, fashion, and spectacle. If it were all about “talent,” Lady Gaga wouldn’t have to wear a dress made out of meat. As it turns out, she’s not only in the music business, she’s in the entertainment business, so it’s kind of her JOB. If she thought she could wear a dress made out of baby seals, dalmatian puppies, or the foreskins of little Jewish boys, rest assured she would … just as soon as she could find some Chinese orphan toddlers to sew it. The point is, the music business is a complicated concoction of a lot of repulsive shit that doesn’t have a lot to do with music. Is it any wonder that musicians loathe doing the business part of the music business nearly as much as they do holding down a day job? Not at all. Really about the only thing you can assume about musicians in Austin is that they really enjoy playing music … and that’s a good thing, because for a majority of them, that’s the only reward they’re going to get out of it. This Sunday at Threadgill’s World Headquarters, a great lineup of musicians – some more anonymous than others – will be playing a show celebrating the release of Never Heard of ‘Em, a book written by Sue Donahue, former owner (along with her husband Mike) of the now defunct Local Flavor record shop. Given the relative obscurity of its intended subjects, it’s hard to say that the book will be especially profitable or highly publicized. You should not, however, assume it isn’t good.

Wammo vs. Forsyth

The Luv Doc Recommends

July 13, 2011

Yes, but at least it’s a dry heat …. Welcome to Austin! Don’t go thinking the weather is going to be this pleasant for the rest of the summer. This mercifully low humidity can’t last forever. Normally in July the humidity in your car is enough to make you look like Alice Cooper applied your mascara while tripping on peyote buttons. Ever get in your car, close the door, and have the rearview mirror fall off because the glue on the stem melted? Get ready. If you’re not an epileptic or prone to bouts of vertigo, you can have a friend try and hold it in place as you drive, but in terms of driver safety, you might as well just have someone attempt to burn a hole in your retina with a laser pointer. Your best bet is to just not worry about what’s happening behind you and focus on the road ahead – which will probably resemble a Salvador Dalí painting because of the heat waves coming off the asphalt. Don’t trip; that’s the way Texas looks in the summer. If you’re a big pot smoker, you may want to rein in your usage for the next three months. Heat is its own hallucinogenic. Plus, the only thing more disturbing than seeing the highway melting in front of you is getting a wicked case of cotton mouth in mid-July. Hint: If flies land on your tongue and get stuck there, you’re either: A) completely baked, B) in the death throes of dehydration, or C) you’ve actually turned into a frog. If you’re either A or C, you should write your dope dealer a nice thank you note. If, however, you look out your windshield and see Satan himself doing a reverse cowgirl on your hood ornament, you’re not hallucinating. He’s just here enjoying the weather. Think about it: If you had to spend eternity swimming in a lake of fire, you’d probably want to pop out and dry off occasionally yourself. What better place to do that than right here in River City? After all, we have plenty of sunshine and warm breezes and, barring some act of God … like a hurricane, for instance … the forecast isn’t going to change until late September at the earliest. Don’t let your hopes get crushed, but it is unlikely that God is going to get involved even if Satan is riding around sodomizing himself on your hood ornament. God doesn’t get into dick-swinging matches with the devil. Besides, how big of a beaker would you need to do a reliable water displacement test on God’s cock? Is the scientific method even a valid way to quantify the divine? While most Austin musicians lack the confidence to tackle big, tough questions like the preceding ones, former Asylum Street Spankers Wammo and Guy Forsyth are certainly brave enough to try. Both are mightily prolific, talented, and worldly emissaries of the Keep-Austin-Weird aesthetic. If you haven’t seen them perform together, this Friday at the Continental Club may be your last, best chance for a while. Wammo is headed off to Philadelphia, and though he will surely be back to visit, it probably won’t be for a while. The show is titled “Wammo vs. Forsyth” and features songs the two have written together as well as favorites from when they were in the Spankers. There probably won’t be a winner declared, unless maybe it’s the audience. You should make plans to be a part of it.