Luv Doc Writings

Cleavage Chronicles: Everybody Loves Boobs

The Luv Doc Recommends

February 9, 2011

Boob is without a doubt America’s favorite palindrome – followed closely by tit. They are often used interchangeably, but unfortunately tit is a much harsher, drier sounding word – the pronunciation of which forces upon the speaker the beginnings of a sneer. Boob, on the other hand, has a full, soft, voluptuous sound. Its elocution resembles the shape a baby’s mouth makes when it is about to nurse. Cute huh? Here’s something even cuter: You can put a nipple on every letter in the word boob (sometimes two, depending on capitalization) and it doesn’t look out of place. In fact, there are very few words in the English language that serve as a better visual reference to the object they represent. Yes, boobs are objects – objects that for centuries have inspired objectification. It’s no wonder. Sometimes when you bump into a pair of 36DDs, it’s hard to remember that they’re attached to a living, breathing human being. Sometimes the only thing that can shake you out of your catatonic fixation is the phrase, “Hey buddy, my eyes are up here!” Even still, you’re probably thinking, “Well, touché, but how did you get yours unglued?” A lot of people don’t know it, but Dolly Parton plays nine instruments. Nine. Chances are you can’t even name one, but you probably know she calls her boobs “Shock and Awe.” Dolly is 5 feet 1 inch tall. Imagine Dolly saying, “My eyes are up here.” It’s hard to believe she would, especially considering that Dolly’s boobs aren’t entirely real – just like Dolly herself. Nine instruments. That’s unreal. The problem with objectification is that you might be missing out on a really interesting person behind the objects. Dolly’s boobs might be spectacular (even though they have objects sewn into them), but they still don’t play nine instruments or hit the high note on “I Will Always Love You.” Just because boobs are sometimes attached to a Pamela Anderson (she calls hers “Pancho and Lefty”) or an Anna Nicole Smith doesn’t mean that boobs are running the show. Sometimes they’re attached to a chubby, sweaty dude named Meat Loaf who is both a talented musician and actor. Technically though, Meat Loaf is rocking moobs, which are neither palindromic nor particularly attractive. Nonetheless, Meat Loaf probably still finds himself saying, “Hey buddy, my eyes are up here.” For whatever reason, be it some primal urge to get back on Mom’s nipple or an overexposure to Internet porn, Americans are fascinated with boobs. Maybe it’s because we get to see them so rarely, unlike, say, Ethiopian tribesman who get to see them all the time. “Did you see her boobs?” Yawn. “Nice enough I guess, but how about that plate in her bottom lip? Yowza!” It’s safe to say there probably aren’t a lot of breast augmentation clinics in Addis Ababa. In fact, plastic surgeons in those parts are probably too busy fixing cleft palates and other facial deformities to worry about installing impressive sets of funbags on the locals. Here in God’s country, however, the size of your rack is only limited by the size of your bank account … and perhaps the size of your self-esteem. Yes, America is breast obsessed, but we’re also obsessed with Jersey Shore, Justin Bieber, and Shape-ups, none of which are sufficient inspiration for elective surgery, unless it’s perhaps a lobotomy. Boobs come in all sizes and shapes, and though they’re fun to look at and play with, they’re just not that big a deal … unless they’re harboring something that could kill you – like breast cancer. That’s a big deal. It’s also a good part of the reason for Cleavage Chronicles: Everybody Loves Boobs, a cabaret-style multimedia musical comedy celebrating women and their breasts that takes place at the Vortex this Saturday. Everybody Loves Boobs boasts an exciting lineup of entertainers: Ruby Joule of the Jigglewatts, Class Act & the Dazzlin’ Dames Tap Dancers, and Miss Continental Plus. Proceeds benefit the making of Cleavage Chronicles: If These Girls Could Talk, a documentary to raise awareness and aid in the fight against breast cancer. It’s not like you need an excuse to look at boobs, but this is a pretty good one.

Drone: A Border Affair That Crosses a Line

The Luv Doc Recommends

February 2, 2011

Austin is just teeming with people engaged in weird, quirky, and interesting creative endeavors. Wherever do they find the time and energy? How do they put in a full day’s work then go home and work even harder on their art? Here’s a little secret: Some of them don’t even have jobs. How awesome is that? Hey, if you’re truly intent on being an artist, it doesn’t hurt to have a lot of time on your hands, and you can’t spend much time in Austin without some serious money, right? In fact, if you don’t have a lot of money, why are you even here? Nothing sucks worse than being poor in a playground for the rich, so tap into that trust fund and start participating in the ongoing juvenile fantasy of Austin! Stay out late, make the scene, party all night, sleep in, get breakfast tacos at 11am. Austin was made for you. Smoke a lot of dope, play Frisbee golf, ride your fixie, make some home brew, and every once in a while maybe take a crack at that artistic thing you’ve been working on. If you get bored with too much leisure time, you can always start your own business – perhaps a food trailer that specializes in kombucha and raw food? Or how about opening a vinyl record store? Sure only about .0003% of the population actually listens to vinyl records anymore, but market research and business plans are for people who have no true passion for what they do. The most important thing about opening a business is that it’s something that you love, and if what you love is badminton, then rock out with your shuttlecock out. Business might be slow at first, but it’s bound to catch on. Plus, there is probably a space for lease between Geode World and Unicornz “R” Us now that Just Ferrets went out of business. Man … who could have seen that coming? Maybe retail isn’t your bag. Fair enough. Maybe you’re more cut out for the life of a traditional artist. Fucking score, right? Who knew you had talent? No one probably – especially if you’ve never done art before. Don’t let that stop you. Just start painting shit. No, not dogs playing poker or the guy staring into a metallic globe at the reflection of a guy staring into a metallic globe (ad infinitum), but something interesting … like watercolors of kittens wearing clown hats or maybe baby torsos with wolf heads. That should definitely shake up the art world. If it doesn’t, maybe your talents are in the area of sculpting. The only way to know for sure is to buy a welding rig and a couple of tons of pig iron. What could go wrong with that? If all else fails, you could always try performance art. No, not karaoke. Your artistic message is much deeper than that. You’ll probably want to start with an interpretive dance that explores the oppressive totalitarianism of Stalin-era Russia … maybe with some feces smearing worked in, just to add to the sensory bouquet. With theatre, the possibilities are endless. If you can conceive it, you can probably achieve it … at least theatrically. Just open up and let it flow. In theatre as in art, nothing is wrong … just different. ¡Viva la diferencia! If you want to check out some different theatre this weekend, try Friday night’s performance of Drone: A Border Affair That Crosses a Line, a comedic satire about boy and girl drone pilots who patrol the Texas border … remotely as it were. The plot alone sounds awesome, but guess what? It’s a musical! With a live fourpiece band! And it’s brought to you by the Crank Collective, which may or may not have something to do with meth. Either way, it sounds like a teeth-grinding good time!

Beard Prom

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January 26, 2011

American Legion Hall

Your beard may look ridiculous, but here’s some good news: You can shave it off. You can’t say that about your My Chemical Romance armband tattoo. Sure, you might have been a cutter, but you probably don’t have the sack (or unexpressed emotional pain) for a bloodbath like that. Maybe it’s best that you stick with grungy long-sleeve shirts, ratty jorts, and the type of beard Moses brought back with the Ten Commandments. After all, God has a beard, and He made us in His image, right? Of course by that reasoning, God must have an uncircumcised penis, an appendix, and possibly a disturbing amount of back hair. Jesus, on the other hand, was circumcised, but only because circumcision is prescribed in the Bible, which, it turns out, is the word of God. How perfect is that? Jesus also rocked a beard, but unlike God, his was more of a high school guidance counselor beard – the kind you wear to show you have feelings. As for back hair – apparently that went out with the Old Testament. If current trends are any indication, however, back hair is poised to make a comeback. No one could have imagined that so many seemingly intelligent young men would willingly abandon thousands of years of personal grooming evolution just so they could hide their ironic smirks. That would be crazy … especially now that the Gillette Fusion ProGlide is available. Five blades, motherfucker, five blades! Not even Axe’s ball scrubber can outshine that type of brilliance. One blade lifts. One blade cuts. The other three define the term “redundancy.” Oh those scruffy-faced, dirty-sacked old-timers with their twin blades and shower puffs! Such crude and ineffective implements are enough to make men abandon grooming altogether. Maybe that explains why so many young men these days look like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Then again, maybe it doesn’t. There is a certain hipster cachet in sporting a look that says, “I’m just too lazy to give a fuck,” even when you aren’t. And really, the harder you work that angle, the more it seems like you’re trying. You think Billy Gibbons just woke up one morning and said, “What is all this shit?” Well actually, considering the copious amounts of drugs ZZ Top probably has access to, that’s a real possibility, but if you’re walking around sporting Ambrose Burnside-style mutton chops or a Rollie Fingers handlebar mustache, you’ve fully crossed the Rubicon of mindless sloth and into the territory of consciously cultivated narcissism. No shame in that game, just own up to it. Better yet, flaunt it. This Confederate generals facial-hair craze isn’t going to last forever. Soon enough Gillette will invent a pre-lubed razor with seven blades, and we’ll all be as smooth and hairless as a baby’s ass. If you’re running short on places to flaunt your chin varmint, you’re in luck this Friday, because that’s when the Austin Facial Hair Club is throwing its first-ever Beard Prom, a full evening dedicated to the celebration of that which makes you look more heterosexual than you really are. You know … facial hair. Check it: Appetizers, raffle tickets, prom photo booth, DJs from Second Sunday Sock Hop, and, most importantly, an open bar. That alone is worth growing a quick George Michael.

Austin Gorilla Run

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January 19, 2011

City Hall

Jogging is uncomfortable, time consuming, hot, sweaty, boring, and, most of all, exhausting, but jogging in a gorilla suit is just fucking silly. Really. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Not even a gorilla would jog in a gorilla suit … and not just because it would be creepy, but because gorillas, being primates, are smarter than that. Unlike those of us higher up the primate order, gorillas know what it’s like to actually wear a gorilla suit, and there are just certain things you don’t do in a gorilla suit. One of those is jog. Beat your chest? Check. Jump up and down with your arms curled at your sides? Yep. Swing through the trees on vines? Of course. Delouse your buddies? Definitely. Jog? Nuh-uh. Why go to all that effort when you could be lollygagging around in the grass munching on foliage? Gorillas can run, yes … on their hind legs even. They max out at about 20 feet – which is plenty enough distance for even the most ambitious primate. Why should humans in gorilla suits be any different? Besides, you don’t need to run in a gorilla suit to realize it’s a bad idea. Just put one on and wait a few minutes. There’s nothing like polyester fur and black rubber for working up a prolific schvitz. As long as you’re at it, you might as well pop some peyote and make it a real sweat lodge experience. You may not cross the finish line, but once the mescaline kicks in, you won’t even remember you were racing to begin with. Look at it this way: Anytime you wear a gorilla suit, it’s a vision quest, so you might as well make it official. Those eyeholes don’t offer a lot of peripheral – just enough of a window to let in a little fresh air, a margarita straw, or the wet tongue of a mischievous friend. After all, if you’re wearing a gorilla suit, you pretty much have to expect to get pranked. It’s part of the territory. You can’t go sashaying around town in a gorilla suit without consequences. What self-respecting gang of disaffected adolescents would allow you to pass within a stone’s throw and not chuck a few at you? You should expect a fair ration of slaps on the ass, “kick me” signs, and occasional mountings by Great Danes … or even just plain Danes. Danes are fetishy like that. Oh well, if you’re going to draw attention to yourself, you have to expect some of it to be negative, right? One thing is for certain, a big (or even small) group of gorillas, whether fake or real, is going to attract attention, and that’s the point, really. The plight of the mountain gorillas in Central Africa doesn’t get a lot of play here in Central Texas. We’ve got our own species to endanger and enough genuinely good causes to keep us impoverished until kingdom come. A city can only do so much, right? Austin may be nearly tapped out philanthropically, but when it comes to a sense of irony and a love of dorkiness, our wealth is limitless. This is exactly what makes Saturday’s first-ever Austin Gorilla Run so ingenious. It might be difficult to get a few hundred people to fork over money for endangered mountain gorillas that are half a world away, but getting people in Austin to run around in gorilla suits? Slam dunk! That’s exactly the type of ridonkulous nerdfest that whips the locals into a lather. This Saturday you can join those locals as they run, walk, skate, and bike their way through the streets of Austin in support of the mountain gorillas. Plus, after it’s all over, you get to keep the gorilla suit … and maybe even all the new silly friends you made.

FronteraFest Short Fringe

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January 12, 2011

Hyde Park Theatre

Not all silence is awkward. Some silence is golden. Some silence is blissful. Some silence is deadly – especially the silence that happens in the Car2Go after a gluttonous, hog-trough-feeding binge at Mr. Natural. Raise the little white flag and roll down the window. Some people are silent – sometimes, we are told, a majority of them. Others are singularly silent, often for reasons unknown to anyone else. Some people just like to keep people guessing. Confucius once said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” It’s a good bet that some wiseass at the back of the room followed that platitude with: “Hey Confucius! Shut the fuck up!” Ironically, the Confucian silence quote is also attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who could have used a little less silence at Ford’s Theatre. If only someone would have shouted: “Duck Abe! He’s got a gun!” It probably seemed like a foolish thing to shout at the time, what with the play going on and all. Some silent people are thoughtful and intelligent; others are just plain stupid. It’s sometimes hard to tell them apart. Some silent people are scary, which is an excellent argument for not encouraging silence. With silent types, you really never know what’s bouncing around up there. It might be the cure for cancer or an elegantly proven grand unified field theory, but it might be a screenplay for The Human Centipede. The scary truth is that there are some things in life you may not want to know but probably should before it’s too late. Terrorists aren’t particularly chatty – neither are Mafia hit men. Why would they be? Dead people don’t talk. If they did, the first thing they would probably say is, “I wish someone would have said something.” After all, isn’t the hallmark of evolutionary advancement the ability to communicate? Isn’t that what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom? Who knows? Oysters might be some wicked-smart motherfuckers, but until they learn to use their words or, to set the bar slightly lower, develop a brain stem, their lot in life is to be served on the halfshell. Being able to build your own home and make your own jewelry isn’t proof of intelligence – no matter what Martha Stewart would have you believe. Where does that leave the starfish? Let it speak for itself. The important thing is that everyone should speak up so we know who the stupid, crazy, and scary people are. That, in essence, is the genius of the First Amendment: Calling out the crazies so we can keep an eye on those bastards. Censorship only drives the nut jobs underground – where they’re more dangerous. So the next time you hear something spoken that is completely, abominably outrageous, make sure to send up a hearty hurrah! Help keep all the crazies in the open so they don’t sneak up and stab us in the back. Support free speech in all its glorious and disturbing forms. Speaking of, you can get a bit of both at FronteraFest, Austin’s own fringe theatre festival. The Short Fringe runs through Feb. 12 at Hyde Park Theatre, and the Long Fringe runs through Jan. 30 at the Salvage Vanguard Theater and the Blue Theatre. This Thursday you can catch a full night of Short Fringe performances at the Hyde Park Theatre. Check out Elevator Action, a comedic journey on an improvised elevator; The Priceless Slave, the true story of an antebellum slave architect; Dirty, Nerdy and Unemployed, poetry by Jacob Dodson; Route 307, an autobiographical sketch about the life of a mailman; and a sketch comedy performance called 4 Hole Punch. Rest assured, if there is silence on this night, it will probably be awkward.

First Friday Frolic

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January 5, 2011

Club de Ville CLOSED

It’s scary out there. Birds are dropping from the sky. Fish are washing up dead. Crazy shit is happening. The good news is that it’s mostly in Arkansas, and Arkansas is always scary and crazy. Then again, God may just be pissed about the new Walmart logo, which is surely by now universally acknowledged as a line-art replica of a puckered anus. Hey Waltons, times are bad, but do we need to be reminded of it by the old red-eye (well, technically it’s yellow, which may be a nod – wink? – at Walmart’s largest trading partner)? More likely it’s symbolic of how the average Walmart customer feels when shopping there. It’s like a little, yellow warning sign that says if you want low, low prices, you’re going to have to bend over. As for the birds and fish, it seems unlikely that God would take his Wal-wrath out on them, but God always seems to throw curveballs when it comes to moral logic. For instance: The Haitian earthquake. Dude, WTF? Sure, the Haitians are big pot smokers and dabble in voodoo – hell, some of them probably even occasionally engage in acts of sodomy – but that shit seems a little much, especially when there are so many other more deserving assholes. Maybe God hasn’t yet invented smart-wrath technology. Maybe that earthquake in Haiti was supposed to smite Osama bin Laden and God missed by a few thousand miles. Hey, it’s a big universe, so it’s probably a miracle He was within a few light years, right? By that measure the floods in Pakistan were nearly a bull’s-eye. Who knows? It’s possible God actually did smite Osama with the Pakistani floods. Osama can’t be much of a swimmer with that bum kidney and hipster beard. Glub glub. If he’s still alive, well, he’s going to catch hell when he gets to hell, that’s for sure. Then again, maybe Satan will go easy on him for being such a massive dickhead. If hell has a VIP section, you have to think Osama has earned a spot in it. Walmart, on the other hand, may be evil, but it hasn’t yet busted its homicidal cherry. If there was money in it, maybe, but Walmart would prefer to keep you around to enjoy its shitty, plastic-tasting food and cheaply made, ill-fitting clothing until you die from cadmium poisoning. Hey, if you want to live longer, don’t suck on your Chinese-made plastic jewelry. In fact, you should probably ask yourself why you’re buying Chinese-made plastic jewelry in the first place. Maybe God actually does have smart-wrath technology, but it only works on stupid people. That doesn’t help explain the dead birds in Arkansas however. Yes, birds are stupid, but they’re intelligently designed to be stupid. You can’t fault them for that. They are, by nature, bird-brained. They are also blessed with the undeniable innocence of the simpleminded. So really, the best explanation must be that those birds in Arkansas were the beginning of the Rapture. Yep, it’s the end of times, and apparently those nitwitted critters scored first-class seats on the flight to eternal bliss. Either that or they made first contact with some really hostile aliens. Either scenario doesn’t bode well, so it’s time to seriously ramp up the partying. Good thing it’s Free Week down on Red River. No cover charge means you can spend more money on booze – booze that kills brain cells, ideally the ones that are stressing about the dead birds. Get your party started at Club de Ville, a laid-back bar with reasonably priced drinks and skilled bartenders. This Friday, the free weekend kicks off with First Friday Frolic, a gratis lineup of local acts including BK & Mr. E, Eagle Eye Williamson, Erin Ivey, Monarchs, Stereo Is a Lie, One Hundred Flowers, DJ I Wanna Be Her, and DJ uLOVEi. Rest assured the beats will carry you away before the Rapture does.

ew Year’s Eve With the Diamond Smugglers and Pong

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December 29, 2010

Continental Club

Good to finally put a fork in 2010. The prepubescence of the 21st century has been hell so far, but maybe things will turn around in 2011. After all, it’s a brand-new year, right? Anything can happen, and that’s sort of the problem. We’re currently overwhelmed by ominous signs of an impending apocalypse, and God may not be merciful enough to smite us with a huge asteroid or crush us with a black hole. It might be much uglier than that. The world financial system might collapse. The ice caps might melt. Justin Bieber might get married. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to get the sneaking suspicion that God is just one more dumbass mortal fuckup away from shaking the creationary Etch A Sketch. In fact, at this point the Mayan calendar would seem like a pretty good bet if it weren’t for the fact that the Mayans were into human sacrifice and worshiped a corn god (they call it maize). The end of days may indeed be upon us, but before you start burying gold in your backyard or learning how to tread water indefinitely, consider that there may still be a way out of this mess: Learning from our mistakes. Yes, we can keep fighting the same stupid wars, filling our engines with dinosaur juice, and buying mountains of useless plastic crap, but it doesn’t mean we have to. As the saying goes, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” Thus, in the spirit of evolutionary progression, here is a short laundry list of the mistakes of 2010 that we should avoid repeating: 1) Hipster beards. Just fucking quit it. You look ridiculous. An overabundance of facial hair is perfectly fine for lumberjacks, Hasidic Jews, hermits, and fat old Mexican ladies, but on a 23-year-old bartender wearing a Hot Topic Misfits T-shirt and skinny jeans, it just looks stupid. That shit is over – just like full-sleeve tattoos and cock-ring-sized ear gauges. Hint: If you think you look like David Cross or Iron & Wine (fuck you, we know his name is Sam Beam), you probably actually look like the Lucky Charms leprechaun or Al from Home Improvement – and no, that doesn’t make you ironic; it makes you a douche. Shave that shit off, and let your girlfriend use it as a merkin. 2) Clothing with tattoo designs. Call it Ed Hardy or Christian Audigier or Rue 21 – just call it over. Anytime your shirt looks like the one being worn by the chubby singer from Rascal Flatts, it’s time for a wardrobe rethink. Plus, if you’re too much of a pussy to actually get a crucifix tattooed on your skin, having a BeDazzled one on your clothing doesn’t make up for it. 3) Fedoras. No. If you want to look like your grandfather, start drinking Old Crow and chain-smoking Pall Malls. A fedora just makes you look like a Josh Groban wannabe … or worse yet, Kid Rock. 4) Scarves/kaffiyeh/whatever. If it has tassels and looks like you stole it from a dead Taliban, it doesn’t belong on you, much less your Labrador. Scarves are never appropriate in Austin. Ever. Not even if you have a neck wattle like Andy Griffith. 5) Vibram Five Fingers. This is an evolutionary shoe design in that it attempts to prove you descended from monkeys by making you look like one. Either that, or it’s proof that the Italians hate us. Either way, the only appropriate time for wearing these shoes is if you’re getting shrimped by a South African prostitute. 6) Snarky comments about meaningless fashion trends. There are bigger, more important fish to fry, aren’t there? Yes, of course there are, but no one wants to read about BP oil spills, global warming, or dying whale otters (Seriously? Did you just try to iPhone that?), much less do something about them. It’s a brand-new year. Time to party! If you’re one of those people who like making fun of what other people take seriously, then you are going to love New Year’s Eve at the Continental Club, where cherished Neil Diamond tribute band The Diamond Smugglers will be holding forth along with local space groovers Pong. No one skewers the Diamond like the Smugglers, and Pong is the perfect antidote for the smirking arm folders who will surely attend. At least if 2011 swirls further into the shitter, you’ll be able to say you finished 2010 on a high note.

Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

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December 22, 2010

Palmer Events Center

There are probably a few money shots left to be fired in your annual orgy of excess. Sure, the economy is deep in the shitter and the red Chinese have us by the shorthairs, but that isn’t conclusive evidence that you need to rein in your consumerism. Who knows? America may only be a few hundred million maxed-out credit cards away from economic salvation. One thing is for certain: You’re not going to kick-start an economic recovery by sitting home singing Christmas carols, drinking eggnog, and stringing together popcorn garlands. That’s exactly the kind of tedious sweatshop work we used to pawn off on Third World orphans. Think about it: If stringing popcorn garlands is so fun, why isn’t there a Nintendo Wii game based on it? Even golf has a Wii game, and golf is just slightly more exciting than an afternoon nap … or maybe death itself – which may explain why so many old people play it. All golf requires is that you move slightly faster than the grass growing beneath your feet. If you can’t do that, just rent a golf cart – or buy a Wii. Wiis might be made by the Japanese, but they’re as American as apple pie. After all, this country was founded on the idea that if you work hard enough, eventually you can afford something or someone that will do the work for you. Remember when Tom Sawyer had to paint his Aunt Polly’s fence? He conned the neighborhood kids into doing it for him. Tom Sawyer is an American hero – just like the young men and women in our armed forces who pilot attack drones. Drone piloting surely lacks the glamour of humping it through the Helmand River Valley with 100-plus pounds of assorted gear and weaponry, but it definitely gets the job done, proving yet again that with enough money nearly anything is possible. Stringing popcorn garlands and singing Christmas carols doesn’t pay for attack drones or swarms of poison-injecting assassin nanobots. Buying a Nintendo Wii does, however. It also provides good training for the war of the future. Sharpened sticks are out; joysticks are in. Someday, if Americans can just cough up the cash, the roughly 1.4 million active U.S. military personnel in the world will all be equipped with their own predator drone and pocketful of poison-injecting assassin nanobots. That way they can sit safely in some underground bunker and unleash unmitigated hell on whichever unfortunate meat puppet has the audacity to challenge truth, justice, and the American way. As always, the tricky part to making this happen is coming up with the money. We can’t just ask the red Chinese to fork over trillions of dollars for us to build an unstoppable remote-controlled robot army. The red Chinese are not chumps. We have to backdoor this deal by mindlessly running up our credit-card debt. That will put the economy on hyperdrive and allow for some really lavish defense spending. Yes, at some point the red Chinese will try to collect their money, but all our military might rest assured that the knock on America’s door will be a very polite, timid tap. Of course, if you’re going to spend money to preserve America’s military world dominance, there’s no better place to do it than at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, which runs daily from 11am to 11pm through Christmas Eve at the Palmer Events Center. The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar is an Austin institution and a great place to purchase unique and interesting gifts made by Austin-area artists. You’ll also get to hear live music performed by some of Austin’s most beloved bands. Who knows? Something this fun might eventually end up on a Nintendo Wii … or maybe some things are just too much fun for a joystick.

Randy Willis 15th Annual Pickin’ on Christmas and Birthday Party

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December 13, 2010

Dallas Nightclub

Dec. 25 is just around the corner, and the war on Christmas is really heating up. Not only is Christmas under heavy assault from the politically correct left, who for years have been insidiously leaving the “Christ” out of Christmas or nixing the entire name in favor of the more generic and inclusive “holidays,” it is also taking a huge hammering from corporate greedmongers with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets who quite wisely have appropriated the symbols of Christmas if maybe not the actual name. Big business is all over Christmas like a wet Santa suit, and why wouldn’t it be? After all, appropriating other peoples’ holidays is a tradition that dates all the way back to Adam – yeah, that Adam. Christmas itself has been a big holiday ever since it was Saturnalia. That Roman gift-giving holiday was a stroke of genius, and the early Christians knew it. Of course, they had to gloss over the fact that Jesus wasn’t much of a shopper. Far from it. Jesus was actually a bit of a hippie (or maybe his beard was just ironic, and he rocked a pair of jorts under that tunic). He was also a peace creep and an unrepentant (imagine that) inclusionist. He was down with the lepers, the hos, the paralytics, the blind (which probably translates as “visually impaired” in Nazarean), the mentally ill, the sick, the dead, and, most importantly, the poor. Back in the first century, the poor people smelled nearly as bad as the dead ones, so caring for the poor was really taking one for Team Yahweh, so to speak. Really, the only thing that really got under Jesus’ skin (besides a crown of thorns, some 9-inch nails, and a centurion’s lance) was when he saw that moneychangers had set up shop in the temple of Jerusalem. Jesus went Billy Jack and started turning over tables, setting doves and livestock free … all that shit. It’s fairly safe to say that Jesus wasn’t much of a materialist. If anything, he was hostile to materialism. Jesus didn’t ride into Jerusalem on a chariot with spinny rims; he rode in on an ass. That’s a statement. That’s like Obama rolling up to the White House on a shitty moped. Jesus didn’t wear bling or nice clothes. He didn’t dine at fancy restaurants or go clubbing with his posse. Instead, he walked around with a growling stomach and dropped mindbombs on his disciples – stuff like, “Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor.” Boooom! Given that sentiment, it seems rather obvious that these days Christmas itself is a war on Christianity. Best Buy isn’t having a “Give to the Poor” sale. That Mercedes with a bow tied around it isn’t waiting outside a homeless camp. Those Zales holiday charm bracelets won’t end up on the arms of war orphans. If Jesus were alive today (at least in a materialistic sense), he’d be waging his own war on Christmas. He’d probably be lobbying to have his name taken out of Christmas entirely. What would Christmas be without the Christ? Just “mas,” which means “more” in Spanish and pretty much nails the spirit of the season. At least then no one would have to fret over the war on Christmas and everyone could continue buying mas shit they don’t need without the nagging guilt of Christian morality. Sounds like a win-win, doesn’t it? Until then we’ll just have to settle for rampant materialism slowed by occasional attempts at Christian charity. One of those is happening this Saturday at Dallas Nightclub, where local music impresario Randy Willis is hosting his 15th annual Pickin’ on Christmas and Birthday Party, a live music concert benefiting the Travis County Brown Santa Toy Drive. For the price of one toy, you can see a lineup that includes Johnny Rodriguez, Vallejo, LC Rocks, Jeff Gallagher, the Cheyenne Band, Steven Franks, and Lucas Cook. That’s a lot of music for only one toy. Maybe you can bring mas.

SIMS Benefit Bash

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December 8, 2010

Austin Music Hall

Mental health is a bit of a sticky wicket – especially where musicians are concerned. It’s no wonder. The constant vacillation between unbridled egomania and soul-crushing self-doubt is bound to leave a few frayed ends. It’s difficult enough for the average person to cobble together a sense of identity and self-worth. Musicians tend to compound the difficulty by pressuring themselves to be much more interesting than they really are – to be larger than life. The type of wacky, harebrained behavior that would land the average person in the loony bin (if such bins still existed) is actually tolerated and even encouraged in musicians. After all, normal isn’t very entertaining is it? The result is a whole slew of aberrant dress and bizarre behavior. Consider the questionably pedophiliac, body-mutilating, androgynous insanity of Michael Jackson (arguably one of the greatest entertainers of all time), or the karate chopping, UFO-sighting, rhinestone jumpsuit-wearing (also questionably pedophiliac) Elvis, who may or may not have been involved with the FBI, CIA, and extraterrestrials. Throw in a goat, a monkey, and a 50-gallon drum of Vaseline, and you have one seriously bizarre clusterfuck. Unfortunately, in the music world that’s the kind of thing it takes to get noticed. Liberace was probably at one time a fairly unremarkable Polish kid from Wisconsin; Madonna was just a high school cheerleader from Pontiac, Mich.; the members of Kiss were just hardworking metal musicians from the boroughs; and GG Allin was just a boy from Vermont who was born with the name Jesus Christ Allin, cross-dressed for the last three years of high school, did a stint at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and made a career(?) out of urinating, defecating, flinging feces, bleeding, and vomiting onstage. OK, so maybe Jesus was crazier than a shit-house rat from start to finish, but he still managed to get gigs, and that’s the point really. In the music business, there is always someone willing to encourage and reward insanity. Lady Gaga is a pretty good singer and all, but could she make it without the meat dress? Or the bubble dress? Or the Kermit the Frog dress? At some point her career will slow down and she’ll end up paying Franc Fernandez to design her a dress out of dalmatian puppy hides, human placentas, or maybe circumcised foreskins. At some point you either decide to wear the hamster carcass earrings or end up doing matinee shows in Branson, Mo. In music, you’re either on your way up or on your way down. In one night you can go from windmilling power chords in front of a club full of screaming fans to washing your underwear in a gas station restroom on the interstate. One month your album is at the top of the charts; the next month it’s not even on the charts. One night you’re on Leno, the next night you’re on Leno. It’s no surprise that many musicians try to even out the peaks and valleys with drugs and alcohol, which are always easily available. Often as not, they only amp up the insanity, and bartenders and drug dealers aren’t necessarily predisposed or trained to deal with complex emotional and psychological issues – especially if they’re not getting paid. Thankfully Austin has an organization that offers musicians opportunities to seek help from people who are trained to deal with psychological and substance abuse issues. It’s called the SIMS Foundation, and this Saturday it’s hosting the SIMS Benefit Bash at the Austin Music Hall, a fundraising concert featuring a who’s who of Austin Musicians: Eliza Gilkyson, Ian McLagan, Will Sexton, David Garza, Graham Reynolds, Kat Edmonson, Don Harvey, Brownout, Lauren Larson, Ruby Jane Smith, Amy Cook, Mark Andes, and Scrappy Jud Newcomb, among others. For less than the price of a round of Jäger shots, you can show some musicians how much you appreciate them in a way that actually does them some good.