Month: February 2019

Lucky Tomblin CD Release

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FRI., FEB. 17, 2006

Last weekend Vice President “Deadeye Dick” Cheney went “Final Fantasy” and declared open season on lawyers. Apparently the V.P. is among those who believe that lawyers, like quail, are an intolerable nuisance that must be flushed out and exterminated with extreme prejudice. Cheney’s birdshot facial of Austin attorney Harry Whittington (a.k.a. “that wascuhwy Hehwy Whittington”) brilliantly underscores the unholy communion of impunity and incompetence in the current administration. After five years of bungling, idiotic governance, the only thing the White House has produced in abundance is irony. This latest example is just a drop in the bucket. As any lawyer worth his salt will tell you, the second amendment isn’t about protecting yourself from thieves, murderers, or even vicious, marauding game birds, it’s about protecting yourself from the government, which in this case is literally a grumpy old codger with a bum ticker (or maybe it’s just too cold?) and an itchy trigger finger. It’s enough to make you join the N.R.A., and even though Whittington is no spring chicken, the fact that he doesn’t buy green bananas is no excuse to move him to the front of the line. There are plenty of more deserving lawyers who could have walked point for the V.P. – Condi Rice for instance – but instead Cheney chose to pick on the old dude. Before ol’ Deadeye mows them all down, you might want to head to the Broken Spoke Friday to check out local lawyer Lucky Tomblin, who will be celebrating the release of his latest CD with an all-star band of country musicians that includes Redd Volkaert, Cindy Cashdollar, Earl Poole Ball, and Sarah Brown. Lucky is right. Lucky he’s not quail hunting with the V.P.

Nuts and Bolts Valentine’s Party

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SAT., FEB. 11, 2006

Tuesday is Valentine’s Day. For single people in the workplace – at least those in a mixed-gender environment – it’s also known as “Awkward Moments Day,” that harrowing eight-hour gauntlet when iPods are worn like garlic necklaces, when diabetic bracelets are flashed like gangsta bling, when the hot receptionist gives the phone-call-stiff-arm Heisman pose all day. Be Mine? Talk to the hand. Here’s the bad news, Sparky: If you’re waiting around until Valentine’s to bust a move, your Love Boat is already sunk. Invest in a blowup doll. Macking on V-Day is about as hopeless as flashing that split-fingered, tongue-flicking cunnilingus sign favored by ogling construction workers and shirtless guys in Camaros. You might as well scrawl a big “L” on your forehead with a red Sharpie. You might as well wear your cell phone on a belt clip, eat Limburger and pickled herring for lunch, and remove your earwax with your car keys. Maybe you’re confused about Valentine’s Day. Understandable. You’ve been getting mixed messages: Hearts, cupids, roses, chocolates, beanie babies, pink, red … forget that shit. V-Day is for closing the deal, not initiating the transaction. If you’re single, you should avoid it like bird flu. Hunker down, order one of those Cheesy Bites pizzas, and resolve to be the dog that hits the track early next year. Of course, if you’re one of those impatient types and want your bunny now, there’s at least one last hope: This Saturday Fadó is hosting a “Nuts and Bolts” Valentine’s party. The idea is that all the men at the party get bolts and all the women get nuts. Then everyone walks around trying to get screwed. Sound crass? Maybe, but it’s much too late for subtle metaphor. If you don’t hook up you can still claim you got screwed

Fronterafest Short Fringe Best of the Week

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SAT., JAN. 28, 2006

It would be a serious chain yank to tell you that you’re going to love everything you see at the Best of the Week FronteraFest show Saturday night at the Hyde Park Theatre. There will be ugliness. There will be a few gaffes, bloopers, and outtakes. There will be quiet, awkward moments when the dramatic ball is dropped, when you feel a vicarious blossom of sweat tickle your philtrim, when the fidgety creak of chairs and muffled coughs provide the only auditory signals that a performance is taking place. Hey, this ain’t 42nd and Broadway, it’s 43rd and Guadalupe. The neighborhood may seem safer, but it isn’t – at least not artistically. FronteraFest is the cutting edge of experimental theatre, and when you’re on the cutting edge, you have to expect a little abrasion. So if the avant garde doesn’t flip your switch, or if you’re not even sure what avant garde is, this may not be your festival. You may want to hold out for Winedale. If however, you don’t mind a little schmutz on your Technicolor Dream Coat or more to the point, if your dream coat is sort of a patchy, rabbit fur jacket kind of affair, you should feel right at home. If you’re on the fence, it should comfort you somewhat to know that Saturday’s Best of the Week show is the crème de la crème of this week’s Short Fringe, so even if it seems really atrocious, you may rejoice in knowing that some unlucky sap had to sit through something even worse earlier in the week. That ought to turn your frown upside down.

Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums’ Burns Supper

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SAT., JAN. 21, 2006

When was the last time you stared into the dark, gaping maw of your own mortality? Maybe it was that time you had a few too many rum drinks at Louie’s Backyard in South Padre and nearly lost your drunken brawl with the undertow? How about that pocket of wicked turbulence over the Rockies on the redeye back from Vegas? Both browned your knickers quite nicely, no doubt, but the face of death you can’t shake belonged to the leathery skinned, blue haired lounge lizard giving you the skunk eye from across the $3 blackjack table at Binion’s Horseshoe: Liver spots, smoker’s cough, wheezing, watery-eyed cackle, vintage 1970s polyester leisure suit offering up a pungent olfactory memoir of every soaked-up scent of the last 30 years. While you were out doing the dew he was already dewing the done. In your mind you see him willfully plunging into the abyss with roughly 40 years of belay rope strung between you. Eventually that slack will play out and you’ll be yanked down with him. Scary ain’t it? Old folks are so scary and they don’t even know it. They dig old timey music like the Stones, the Beatles, and the Eagles, wear black leather jackets and Hawaiian shirts, and drive PT Cruisers and Harleys. They’re also really hard drinkers and relentless raconteurs: fun to hang out with as long as you’re not doing anything aerobic. This Saturday at the Senior Activity Center on Shoal Crest (that’s not a typo), you can chill with the Q-tips at the Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums’ Burns Supper. The STPD is a Scottish bagpipe and drum band with kilts and caps and even those little Braveheart fanny packs – dope plaid pimpin’. Not surprisingly, the Burns Supper honors Robert Burns, the national bard of Scotland and not Montgomery Burns, diabolical geezer from the Simpsons. It involves Scottish food, drink, dancing, singing, poetry, and plenty of bagpiping. If you’re into haggis, Ed Miller, and pipers in kilts, it’s suppertime. Don’t let the blue hair scare you.

Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival

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THU., JAN. 12, 2006

Just about everybody at some point in life gets wasted and does something stupid. What else explains the population explosion? The Macarena? Low rise jeans? Gerbiling? George W? All of these things seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time…well, except for the gerbiling and George W. The wonderful thing about life though, is that the painful memories of the thrashing and the clawing and the muffled squeaks and the bleeding eventually fade away. Ideally we learn from our mistakes, evolve and achieve a higher state of consciousness. This is not to say we don’t slip up on occasion. Bush is a prime example: an unfettered rodent still thrashing around in the collective rectum causing ugly and irreparable damage. Of course a stupid metaphor doesn’t last nearly as long as a stupid president and it isn’t nearly as dangerous. Some people believe that stupidity makes a great argument for sobriety, but that’s a bankrupt premise. The world is full of stone sober simpletons that make even the most reckless inebriate look like a genius in comparison. Point is, you don’t have to be wasted to do something stupid, but it certainly helps. A lot of people get wasted before they get a tattoo, but that doesn’t necessarily mean tattoos are stupid. Like Bush, they may be hard to get rid of, but a lot of people would say they are an art form. This weekend, those people will be staying at the Red Lion Inn, the site for the Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival. Tattoo artists from all over the world will be on hand to show their work and maybe make a lasting impression or two. Go wasted if you dare.

Saturday Free Show at Emo’s

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SAT., JAN. 7, 2006

Enough with the goddamned football already. You may still be jacked up about the Longhorns’ crushing defeat of the mighty Trojans of USC, still basking in the heady glow of victory, still gleefully humming the glorious strains of “Texas Fight!” but it’s over. Time to move on. Time to wash off the huge, burnt-orange “T” you painted across your luxurious carpet of chest hair, the stem of which follows the dense treasure trail that traverses the summit of Mount Beergut, the “T” that was your personal, alphabetical contribution to the undulating “T-E-X-A-S” spelled out in stark contrast against the pasty white fanflesh of you and your drinking buddies, a sweaty, stanky spelling guide for slow-witted color commentators and bored cameramen. It was a stroke of genius, no doubt, and no one would ever question your school spirit, but you might want to get after that thing with some Go-Jo and a loofah before it gives you a rash. Rashes generally turn USC red before they go burnt orange, and you don’t want that hanging on your conscience. You’ve had a good run. In the eloquent words of former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, relax and enjoy it. Take some time off. Let the light beer, nachos, hotdogs, and their noxious byproducts and preservatives leech out of your system. You might even want to take up some sort of hobby, although the only way you can replicate those four-hour-long butt-numbing sessions in front of the TV is to take up an equally sedentary pursuit – maybe bass fishing? Golf? Sleeping? Hey, the world’s your oyster. Shuck it and suck it. Here’s an idea: Instead of coming early (which is pretty much a faux pas in every culture and meaning but Longhorn), being loud (this is Texas, right?), and wearing orange (once described as the “black of the Nineties”), maybe you can wean yourself by doing something where you come late, wear something dark, and generally act antisocial. A really good place for that type behavior is Emo’s, where, as luck would have it, they’ve been offering free shows all week long. Holy shit! You win again! This Saturday is a spectacular lineup featuring I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, Zykos, the Lemurs, and Lord Henry on the outdoor stage, and What Made Milwaukee Famous, Glass Family, the Fall Collection, and Crash Gallery on the indoor stage. Make an effort to just drink Guinness. It’s pricy, but dark as a politician’s heart, and it serves as a decent meal in the absence thereof. Also, if you and your friends insist on painting something on your chest, you may want to go with Zykos instead of I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness.

New Year’s Eve Spectacular with the White Ghost Shivers and the Small Stars

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SAT., DEC. 31, 2005

New Year’s Eve is pure bullshit, start to finish. It’s hype stacked on hype stacked on hype … ad infinitum. Not even Vegas blows as much smoke up the collective ass. Scratch that … not even the White House press secretary … well, you get the idea. One arbitrary digit flips and the whole world’s supposed to swap spit, spray champagne, rattle, whistle, honk, and holler? Well, actually not the whole world … just certain time zones in the Western hemisphere. After all, time is relative. In fact, it could be argued that time doesn’t really exist at all – that it’s just a philosophical framework we’ve superimposed on the physical world. Of course, as any philosophy major will tell you, that kind of thinking doesn’t get your timecard punched, but it sure might get you punched. People, Westerners in particular, like their time in a straight line. That way they feel like they can get a better glimpse of the end. Surely we weren’t blessed with consciousness just to chase our tails. Other peoples’ tails, well that’s something entirely different, and if you’re chasing tail on New Year’s Eve, it really pays to at least pretend to buy into the hype. Besides, the party is only as good as what you bring to it anyway, right? This Saturday Austin bands the Small Stars and the White Ghost Shivers are bringing circus freaks to their New Year’s party at the Blue Genie. Talk about putting your “Keep Austin Weird” money where your mouth is. It’s not like the Shivers didn’t have a serious Carnivále vibe going anyway, but pair them up with the Small Stars and you’ve got a three-titted bearded lady of a bill to say the least. Adding circus freaks to that mix is like spraying whipped cream on cheese fries: It might be good, but is it healthy? You should definitely go find out for yourself.

Jerm Pollet’s Merry F%@#ing Xmas

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SAT., DEC. 24, 2005

Last week the president of Iran called the Holocaust a myth. His statements were a huge shock to a world that expects slack-jawed idiocy of this sort to come primarily from American fundamentalists, the same thick-headed hayseeds who believe that evolution is a crock cooked up by Satan’s minions. Sure, Ahmadinejad’s comments were a bit over the top, especially since there are plenty of Jews in the Holy Land with numbers tattooed on their arms who would be more than willing to set him straight, but true, profound ignorance has never been bullied by empiricism, has it? What makes ignorance so scary is that you don’t even have to work for it. You can just trust somebody else to know shit for you. Certainly takes the pressure off the slow learners, but the problem with that model is that occasionally the person doing the thinking for you turns out to be Hitler. President Ahmadinejad is no Hitler, but his style of revisionist rhetoric is exactly the pile of crap from which issues the mushroom of atrocity. To his credit, President B swiftly and vociferously denounced President A’s comments, citing them as a prime example of Iran’s unsuitability as a keeper of the nuclear flame. It was a bold statement coming from a C student with a God fetish responsible for knocking off close to 30,000 people on the basis of bogus intelligence, but at least he was feinting in the direction of truth and justice. He probably missed the irony of Ahmadinejad’s freshly created myth coming a week before the Western world celebrates its oldest and most cherished one – a myth responsible for more deaths and misery than Hitler could ever conceive. Even if Bush got it, it’s unlikely his epiphany would have resulted in a swift condemnation of all myths. Myth busting is dangerous business. Fortunately there are a few brave souls who are on the side of truth and righteousness. One of those is Jerm Pollet, Mr. Sinus cast member, rock musician, and, as it turns out, cultural historian, who on Christmas Eve will be showing the final installment of Merry F%@#ing Xmas, his special Christmas porn show that exposes the pagan origins of Christmas. Go to this show and you’ll never see Christmas the same way again … unless you go to next year’s show.

Trail of Lights 5K

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SAT., DEC. 10, 2005

Nobody likes a health nut. Nobody wants a sinewy, sportive, high-on-life, idiot-grinning endorphin junkie getting all up in their chili, talking about waking up at 5am so they can get in their hour and a half of high intensity cardio. On the conversational thrill meter the workout recap raps up somewhere between shop talk and church chat, which is to say the needle barely twitches above zero. If you have a problem with needing to share the mundane details of your unexceptional existence, learn to hold them inside – like a dirty, shameful secret or maybe a deep, expansive bong hit. You’re not doing anyone a favor by recounting your neurotically obsessive fitness regimen – no matter what wonders it’s done for you. In fact, while it may seem that you’re engaged in a mutually beneficial dialogue, the net result is something more like Narcissus gazing into the reflecting pool. You might even find that the recipient of your self-absorbed soliloquy will lose focus and wander off to the smoothie bar. Consider it a sign. Maybe the cocktail party invites have been tapering off since right about the time you personally took it upon yourself to share with the world the wonders of the low-carb diet. Good for you, Sparky, but realize that the self-help section is only a small part of the bookstore – the part most people avoid like a bloody-eyed Ebola monkey. Fitness, like religion, is something you do instead of talk about. If you’re bored shitless exercising so that you’ll be healthy enough to be bored shitless exercising later in life, cut your losses and check out now. If however you’re one of those people who view their bodies as simply a means to engage the world and all its wonderment, then you’ll probably want to show up for the Trail of Lights 5K, a nighttime fun run that winds its way through the Zilker Park Trail of Lights Saturday night. Finally a workout you can talk about…

X-Mas Unwrapped! A Holiday Burlesque

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FRI., DEC. 2, 2005

You know what Christmas doesn’t have enough of? Nudity. Cold weather notwithstanding, Christmas just isn’t a very skin-centric holiday. Oddly, even Jesus isn’t wearing his birthday suit in most nativity scenes. He’s all swaddled up like a mummy. Can’t have the baby Jesus spazzing out and doing the Macarena or thrashing around trying to latch onto Mary’s milkbags. That would be unGodly, wouldn’t it? Really the only ones going native in the nativity scene are the cherubim, who appear to be blissfully freeballing despite a humiliating degree of shrinkage. Maybe it’s because they pioneered arrested development. Of course, back in the BC angels couldn’t just send off for a complimentary trial-sized sample of Levitra. They had to get their bone on the old-fashioned way, and a mangerful of farm animals, wiseguys, hay and placenta probably wasn’t doing the trick. Angels just aren’t freaky like that anyway. Remember Sodom? The original Sin City? Lot tried to offer up his daughters to keep the randy citizenry from “knowing” the angels he was hiding in his house. Wow. Talk about literally leaning over and taking one for the team. Without a lot of theological stretching, it can be safely deduced that angels don’t vacation in Amsterdam or Thailand and that they’re pretty much chill about not rocking big timber. Clearly God is not a size queen, but back in the day He had a thing against tan lines. Adam? Eve? Garden? Serpent? Quince? Yes, God loves us, but he loves us better naked. So, if you’re looking to add a little holiness to your Holiday season, look no further than the Hyde Park Theatre, where this Friday the Jingle Belles will be performing X-Mas Unwrapped! A Holiday Burlesque. Think about it: All the shameless schlock of Christmas dressed down and done dirty by six bawdy burlesque babes. Hallelujah!