Results tagged “columnists”

So I'm not exactly sure what type of people I was expecting to find at Segway headquarters, but when I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. The guy behind the counter, my fellow tourists, and even Our Tour Guide all looked... normal. No duct-taped glasses, no headgear, no 'Segway Or The Highway' t-shirts. But then, as if to intentionally shatter my delusion, the guy behind the counter announced, "You can go ahead and pick out your helmets." Oh yeah. Helmets. While we were choosing our badges of dorkdom, Our Tour Guide poked her head in from outside. "I almost forgot to ask," she said, smiling. "Does anyone want to ride the 'hot pink' Segway or the one with 'flames' painted on it?" We shook our well-protected heads: 'No thanks.'

I love, love, love fake shit. And when I say, “fake shit,” I am not euphemistically referring to, say, “reality” TV shows, imitation boobs, or the way some of the ex-girlriends of my young, hot, domestic partner treat me at cocktail parties. No, no, when I say “fake shit,” what I mean is prosthetic poo-poo, crafted ca-ca, faux fecal matter. So when esteemed Austinist arts editor, Emily, asked me if I might like to profile Kourtney Lea Moon-- aka Angry Olive-- and when I found out that Kourtney sews embellished excrement as part of her emporium of uber-cool crafts, I jumped at the chance. I emailed Kourtney to tell her of my love of fake shit, and how thrilled I was when Warren gave me a box of plastic dog crap for my birthday. She enthusiastically responded: “You can never, I repeat, NEVER be given too much shit! Fake, real, plush, cute, fossilized... We deal with it everyday- literally. Best present ever...”

My life as a study in contrasts extends to my travel. I am a fan of getting in very large airplanes and hurtling thousands of miles to get to places where I can then dispense with all modes of transportation besides my feet. I enjoy hanging out in little towns and villages where the best live entertainment comes in sitting around, drinking coffee amidst the locals, alternately eavesdropping and participating in the conversation. Such it was, then, that last week I headed off for Oregon. For the fourth year running, I lighted temporarily in Portland, then joined forces with my friend David, whereupon the two of us headed on over to Astoria, a town famous for a few things. This is the place where the Columbia spills into the Pacific, Lewis and Clark wrapped up their little walk, and Goonies and Kindergarten Cop were filmed. And it’s the first town in Oregon Country where a white woman—an English barmaid named Jane Barnes— lived.

"Spoon bending is a metaphor for change," she continued. "Internal and external changes both start with energy applied to clear intent. Spoon bending shows us that everything is changeable as long we have clear intent." I couldn't help but be distracted by the couple who'd just joined us. The woman held a big wooden staff. Think Moses. Or the kind of thing they ban from festivals. And she was wrapped in a white sheet-like contraption. She had a calm smile on her face- one that signifies either inner peace or really awesome drugs, or perhaps some causally-vague combination of the two.

For maybe four years running—until I got overwhelmed with being so popular and having too much work— I think I could count on my nipples the number of times I missed the regular Wednesday night gig Matt the Electrician plays with Southpaw Jones, a running residency going on something like seven years now (and currently held at Flipnotics on Barton Springs Rd). I never, ever, ever get tired of hearing either M or SP play. And I’m so happy to tell you that this week Matt’s sending a new record out into the world, Animal Boy, with an official CD release party Friday, October 9th, at the Cactus Café. The disc is pure brilliance from the rich horns that open the first song— and you have to have cojones muy grande to open with a cover of Journey’s Faithfully and pull it off the way Matt does—right on through to the end. Matt somehow manages to consistently spin the equivalent of a multi-plot novel in four minutes or less, and he can rhyme and sing while he’s doing it. The imagery in his songwriting is nothing short of cinematic so that you find yourself in each song, interacting with the cast of characters that inhabit his tales: a naked valedictorian at graduation, an arrogant leash-loathing dog owner, giddy girls on bicycles in Osaka in the rain, an underpaid yet terribly kind Walmart employee saving the day, a truck driver peeing into a Gatorade bottle. In Animal Boy (the song) we get a spectacular view of a child looking back at some of the curious rules and choices offered by the grownups at dinnertime.

Have you ever forgotten everything you’ve ever learned? I had a severe case of amnesia last week that lasted maybe 48 hours. During this period, out the window went every single bit of accumulated sage advice from friends, any wisdom picked up over years of therapy, the philosophy behind my martial arts training, each hard won bit of insight from nearly a decade of almost daily meditation and plenty of Buddhist teachings and god knows how many self-help books, and all those lessons learned in the School of Hard Knocks. In short. I got pissed off. Really, really, really, really fucking pissed off.

Five days later, the reverberations of Sergio Kindle's crushing tackle of quarterback Taylor Potts in the Longhorns' 34-24 win over Texas Tech are still being felt. In a four-second burst of speed and power, the 255-pound Kindle blasted past Marlon Winn in 10 steps and crashed into Potts, knocking the quarterback's helmet off, the ball from his hand, and dislodging his contact lens. Watching the play again and again (as Texas fans have done all week), you wonder how Potts was able to recover.

Last Saturday, as Colt McCoy's passes floated in the thin Wyoming air and the senior quarterback was struggling through a first-half performance that was not up to his usual high standards, an old and feared monster reared its head: The Fickle Fan.

As students of alcohol history know, the production and importation of absinthe was illegal here in the United States until very recently: December 2007. Thanks to the Prohibitionists (seriously, thanks guys), the stuff had been banned Stateside since 1912, due to health concerns that its high alcohol content and compositional character caused madness. But who's madder than a drunk Austinite? No one, that's who.

Last week may have set a record for the number of college football stories that included the word "vomit". It had nothing to do with ESPN showing Kenny Chesney singing at nearly every commercial break, though: Swine flu is taking its toll on athletes across the country.