There is absolutely no reason to stay in on Friday evening. Whether it's DJ Shadow at La Zona Rosa or Future Clouds and Radar at The Parish, downtown offers you a wide variety of music to kick off your weekend....

You can call it lowbrow art, pop surrealism or just plain ‘ol weird, but the work now on display at Okay Mountain features some of the best (and mind-blowingly bizarre) works by emerging California artists....

ACL Previews Austinist Launches Dedicated ACL Page! Preview: Manchester Orchestra and Patterson Hood Preview: Ian Ball and the Little Ones Interview: Paolo Nutini ACL Band Clash, Round 2: The Killers Vs. Björk Weekly Features Tales Of Mere Existence Hots On #9: Sound Off New Release Tuesday: Frisell's Floratone The Argyle Academy New Movie Releases: The Invasion, Superbad, Death at a Funeral, and More Truesday: Friesday The Laurie Show News, Features, and More Travis County......

Rush Hour 3: Don't Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker look dismayed to find themselves in the third installment of their never-ending Rush Hour franchise? If you find it hilarious to watch a BLACK GUY and an ASIAN GUY fighting crime--together!--then look out, because now they're fighting crime in France, the funniest place in the world! Which one of them do you think will be eye-rolling and making fish-out-of-water quips while dangling from the Eiffel Tower......

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

Great Lake Swimmers Ongiara (Nettwerk) Ongiara sees Great Lake Swimmers move a little further into country with prominent banjo strums and unforgiving Nashville-esque male/female harmonies. The themes are still dark, open and intimidating, never belying the band's daunting name. Production-wise, the songs are gorgeous: layers of acoustic guitars over a banjo and reverberating snare never sounded better. Tony Dekker's voice is straight out of the old dance hall and as slide guitars subtly make......

Vote y'all. Then go buy records. Here's what's new today: Pavement Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition (Matador) Pavement's 1995 masterpiece came on the heels of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, a decidedly more radio-friendly album. Pavement fans who dropped the needle on "We Dance" expecting some sort of answer to "Silence Kit" or 120 Minutes darling "Cut Your Hair" were probably surprised, but not disappointed (in time). Malkmus took a certain pride in alienating critics,......

Bush admits that Iraq could be maybe not going along with his Almighty Master Plan. Women are crankier than men in the morning. That's because we're smart enough to know what's coming. Rush Limbaugh thinks Marty McFly is faking it. Because Rush is the only one who gets to use prescription pharmaceuticals, dammit. Hollywood comes looking for the next Lonelygirl. Fame whores hyperventilate; Web ratchets up four levels of annoying. New definition of a......

You scoff at man-manipulating-nature. We get kind of turned on by the thought of blue tomatoes. 7-Eleven is pulling Cocaine off their shelves. We'll see it being abused in high schools any day now. Fat-ass police officers get offended easily. We often dream of being in the right place at the right time. Did your neighbor recenly install a disc golf course in his backyard? Ask him where he got the baskets. Michael J.......

WEDNESDAY [6] film • The Stunt Man with Richard Rush Live in Person at Alamo Downtown (6:45pm, $10) food • Angel Valley Organic Farm Farmstand at Asian American Cultural Center, 11713 Jollyville Road (10am-2pm) film • TerrorStorm with Alex Jones Live at Alamo South (7pm) film • Before Sunrise at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm, Free) film • Zatoichi: 7 & 8 at Spider House (8pm, Free) film • Quai Des Ofevres at Paramount Theatre (7:15pm)......

The August + September edition of the Alamo Drafthouse guide has left us punch-drunk. We can't believe they have packed so many unique and fun events into a usually sleepy time of year. The following are some highlights to book early for: - Blanks On A Blank: Yes, Snakes On A Plane is finally out this month, and in what must be a first, the Alamo will be showing winners from a SOAP parody......

Winning auction bid for a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar custom painted with Butthead's face and autographed by Beavis and Butthead-creator Mike Judge: $3,550...

Two days ago, Austinites David Broyles and Rush Vann successfully completed a 12.5-mile swim across the Strait of Gibralter, from the Spanish coast to Morocco. The extraordinary feat took just under five hours. In the days leading up to the final crossing, the two were unsure as to whether water and weather conditions would hinder their attempt -- a July 15th journal entry on the official site tells of formidable wind and waves, the former......

Median household yearly income in Austin: $48,267 [link] Equivalent purchasing power, adjusted for cost of living here: $53,275 [link] Money Magazine's average: $43,961 [link] National average yearly salary of an "Associate Store Team Leader" at Austin-based Whole Foods: $73,061 [link] Amount Texas collected in sales tax revenue in June of 2006: $1.49 billion [link] Percentage increase from last year: 15.6 [link] Cost of new Lakeline Station project -- including up to 3,000 homes and......

“Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs...And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.” - Rush Limbaugh, October 5th 1995 Adapted by Austinite Richard Linklater from Philip K. Dick’s 1977 novel, A Scanner Darkly is the story of......

Back in the day, rollerskating was the shit. Every Friday night involved some four-wheeled, toe-braking action to the sounds of ZZ Top, The Bangles, Pseudo Echo, [insert ubiquitous 80s country/western singer/band for “slow skate”] and The Cars. Young kids flocked to the rinks for a night of profiling, chili-dog eating, and hoping no one would see them fall on their ass. Mustachioed post-high school goons set up shop in the parking lot to blast......

According to Martha Stout's book The Sociopath Next Door, approximately one in 25 of us is a sociopath. So we figure here in Austin we have around 26,000, but since Austin is a rapidly growing city, there are probably a lot more. Of course, this may come as no surprise to Austinites. One weekday drive down I-35 is enough to convince anyone of a plague of sociopathy. Martha Stout, Ph.d has written this book......

On the hill this week select Congressmen badgered and belittled President Bush for misleading America into war with Iraq and demanded him to apologize for the mistakes of his administration. How is this in any way new or interesting? Well this time it was two Republicans. Or perhaps one and a half Republicans. Texas's own Ron Paul, representative of the 14th district and "Republican" (actually a libertarian, aka a Republican who smokes dope) railed against......