You’ve probably seen Carlos Alazraqui as Deputy James Oswaldo Garcia on Reno 911!—but you’ve probably heard him, too. Alazraqui is a prolific voice-over actor, having performed as Néstor in Happy Feet, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Rocko in Rocko’s Modern Life, Winslow T. Oddfellow in CatDog, and Goofy Goober in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. But in addition to acting, Carlos is also an accomplished stand-up comic. We spoke with Carlos before his run of shows......

Same thing, another week. As you move on to the next line on the calendar, you're still out there trying to make a connection. Sadly you let most of them slip by without saying a word. We understand, no one wants to be overzealous and get shot down. If only you had some place to find a second chance. Oh yes, Missed Connections. If only you had someone to sort through and find the......

California's Cold War Kids have been the object of both adulation and derision since their inception in 2004. The band's songs traffic in third-person tales of downhearted and desperate characters, and their music frames the stories rather than overpowering them. After playing SXSW in March, Cold War Kids return to town for both a spot on the ACL Festival bill this Saturday and an aftershow at Stubb's on Sunday evening. Austinist traded emails with......

The seasons will change and young lads will grow older and deeper with regret, but Perry Farrell will still be churning out the alternative rock. It’s nice to know that some things are constant. The ex-Jane’s Addiction, ex-Porno for Pyros, Lollapalooza co-creator is bringing the celestial shindig Satellite Party to Emo’s Friday night, along with New York pop rockers Mink. Farrell and team come with their pockets full of uplifting celebration and a sound......

Austinist was deeply saddened and disturbed to hear of the horrific murder of Randall Hays, better known as Tennessee, a long-term resident of Hemphill Park. A frequent presence in the park, Tennessee was blind and spent most of his time in the immediate area. Police are still searching for Tennessee's family, but in a sense the people with whom he came into daily contact were his family. Austin's homeless community is mourning one of their......

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey now faces an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after a widely-distributed article in last week's Wall Street Journal revealed that he'd been making anonymous postings on internet message boards about his company. Writing as "rahodeb"—an anagram for "Deborah," his wife's name—Mackey left a string of messages and comments dating from 1999 to 2006. Many of the remarks focused on Mackey, Whole Foods, and, more recently, on......

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors It’s about the mind and the body. A connection. That the product of the mind is little more than a projected representation of the physical health of its container, and that any fissure in the cemented form which constructs the human body will be the single thread to be pulled at the......

We’ve had a soft spot for Jamie Kennedy ever since his performance as mega film geek Randy Meeks in Wes Craven’s Scream. And we’ve also spent a lot of time watching his short-lived but very funny hidden-camera show, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment (which for our money was much more daring and inventive than that lame-ass Punk’d. For example…). At the tail end of South by Southwest this year, we got a chance to chat with......

[The following is an editorial column by contributor Alison Coffey and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Austinist staff. --The Editors] I realize that I should be blogging about the new season of 24, but four hours of Jack Bauer and company is a lot to commit to, and so it's waiting on my DVR for a few long evenings of reruns. Or at least next weekend. Instead, let's talk about Grey's......

The previous night started well enough. But somehow, the birthday party for a friend’s one-year-old devolved into drinking and cards. I don’t honestly know or understand how these things happen. Sometimes I feel like I’m on bender rails. I am but a mere rider of the Space Coaster. I cannot control its fabulous rainbow exhaust....

The Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest? Brilliant. Here’s a contest where the point is to show the world that not only can a single human eat and vomit a whole gallon of material within fifteen minutes, but that the “material” need not even be food, let alone nutritious. It helps the entire Sub-Saharan region to understand that what might currently be seen as inedible or even deadly to ingest, is actually perfectly fine to eat if done in a highly competitive format and dipped in a cup of tepid water first. Anything can be seen as food if you’d just stop nay-saying. Stuff like sand, your own hand, or an overwhelming sense of disappointment in your fellow man. ...

I am more than pleased to announce, right here on this site, that I alone have come up with the end-all, be-all best-of-breed solution to the Las Manitas development conundrum faced by the Finley family. I only mention the Finleys because really, they hold the only opinions that are worth more than growing an extra big toe. ...

"The book is a riddle, it's our generation's bible, and you have to guess the title with one clue: After photoshop was used only to remove certain letters, what remained were the words FACT and CON..."...

[The following is an editorial column by contributor Alison Coffey and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Austinist staff. --The Editors] By accident I flipped to #1 Single, the new E show featuring songstress Lisa Loeb, who's dating her way through New York City's available hip men, lookin' for love. I was instantly hooked. It's funny that the tagline calls her the real-life Carrie Bradshaw. She's cute and sassy and creative, but......

[The following is a new editorial column by contributor Alison Coffey and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Austinist staff. --The Editors] Welcome to my new tv column. The title is a sort of roundabout homage to Knowing Me, Knowing You, the wonderful failed talk show of the infamous (and fictional) Alan Partridge on the BBC, which in turn is a nod to that ABBA song. I have to thank our editor......

A few weeks ago, Death Cab for Cutie played two sold-out, back-to-back shows at Stubb's in support of their latest album, Plans. We had a very brief chat with their bassist, the affable Nick Harmer, and discussed a wide variety of topics: their recent move to Atlantic Records, being on the road, Death Cab pushing their mid-forties, writing the Great American Novel and more. Read on for the interview! --- So we’d might as......

Not long ago we sat down at Progress Coffee and shot the shit with one of Austin’s most respected DJ Institutions: DJ Mel. For almost ten years Mel has been plying his trade, developing his craft, and honing his skills here in Austin. Sure, we could focus this interview on his nine years DJing at the fabled (and debaucherous-by-reputation) Monday Night at Nasty’s. Or his Friday gigs at Tambaleo. We could ask him philosophic......

Last week, we posted a review of a brilliant locally-published novel entitled "Egypt Egypt" by a certain Sam Ramos. An enthusiastic bout of Google-stalking yielded, to our surprise, nothing. It seemed that, so much as 8,058,044,651 web pages were concerned, neither the author nor the publisher existed. This, naturally, left us intrigued and somewhat confused – had we yet again replaced our vitamins with crazy pills? But mere days later, through a series of......

We begin this week's recap with a few small corrections to the last one, which have been requested by umpteenzillion readers. First off, the person who appears in episode 2 in the big directors chair is John Pierson, not Paul Stekler. Stekler appears later on in the episode, and is the guy who is going to actually be helping the housemates film their documentary. Pierson is the guy who had to defend his relationship......