spikegillespie

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• Favorited I Am So Popular: Open Letter To Jody Denberg on Austinist
• Commented on I Am So Popular: Open Letter To Jody Denberg
  Dear Will, Go fuck yourself. spike...
• Posted I Am So Popular: Open Letter To Jody Denberg to Austinist
  Dear Jody Denberg, WTF? WTF? WTF? AT-WHAY E-THAY UCK-FAY?!! Okay, so I was in the car the other day when I hear the news that you are leaving KGSR. There was irony, for Kevin Connor was the one who was doing the announcing. Now, I know Kevin has long been on KUT, but I will forever associate him with KGSR. Plus, since he was talking about you, and you’re not on KUT, I got confused and thought I’d entered some weird place of crossed signals. When he said the words, Those last songs are for my friend Jody Denberg, I actually looked to see which station I was listening to. Then, I had that dreadful thought that sometimes visits when, say, I hear four songs in one day by an artist not typically played so much-- Oh shit, is he dead? But no. You’re not dead. And yet, I realize I’ve been writing this letter to you in my head, an epistle with the distinct feel of a eulogy to it. Not such a terrible thing. See, I went to a fancy reading recently, the star of which was my great friend Sarah Bird. Sarah just won a big fellowship, and UT threw a gala in her honor. Before she read, there was this speech about her, and a slideshow.
• Posted Review: Leave it to Beverly at the Off Center [theater] to Austinist
  Proving once again that Austin is a town crawling with talent, creativity, and a most twisted sense of humor, DA! Theatre Collective’s Leave it to Beverly is a totally superb way to while away an evening. Presented as three TV episodes delivered over two acts, the show, written and directed by Kirk German, offers a send up of any number of classic old TV shows, with plenty extra pop culture references to boot. Leave it to Bev is the polar opposite of subtle, entirely intentional as German’s goal appears to be to push even further over the top the material that inspired him which, of course, was already over the top to begin with. Sitcoms are to real life what a Smiley Face is to the Mona Lisa—no room for nuance. Except…
• Posted I Am So Popular: You Are Here to Austinist
  As illustrated by the back hatch of my Scion (aka the Japanese ambulance) I am a big fan of pithy expressionism. I leap and swing from motto to slogan to uber-encapsulated life wisdom as if playing some sort of philosophical hopscotch. If it fits on a bumper sticker and moves me, I will adopt the approach, if only briefly. Let’s call it stuck-in-traffic therapy—you’re sitting there, gridlock, and you let your eyes shop around for that which appeals: Wag More, Bark Less; Be the Change that You Want to See; Breathe; Namaste; If You Don’t Like My Driving Call 1-800-Eat-Shit. And then, of course, there are all those utterly unique rearranged Waterloo messages. (My son’s is a favorite, enigmatically proclaiming: This Whip Slays Dragsons on the back of an old SUV.) I also cull advice and inspiration from t-shirt slogans, though this is a bit more challenging. Self-trained to not look at boobs—though like the rest of y’all, I really am intrigued by the miraculous mounds of mammary magnificence—I miss out on a lot of cools text and graphics. I have even extended my never-lock-eyes-with-nipple-line rule to menfolk, wanting to be fair and all. So I must consciously remind myself that if a slogan is being sported, the wearer does want you to look.