Austin Celebrity Sighting!

Zach and I saw Matthew McConaughey today while taking our dog through the dog park down at Auditorium Shores. I always knew he was an Austin figure, having been a UT student when he was cast in his first movie: Dazed and Confused. Usually he's sighted at UT football games, flashing the longhorn sign and looking generally laid back.

Today, Zach and I were winding around Town Lake with our Anna dog, working our way to the 1st Street bridge when Anna wandered toward this little girl about toddler age walking barefoot next to two men. As the little girl bounded toward Anna, our exceptionally ferocious dog sidled away and as one of the men looked up I thought *gasp* thats Wooderson and his daughter! I said "Hi" and he said "Hi" and Zach, still not realizing this was Matthew McConaughey said, "She's terrified of children" to which McConaughey chuckled and kept walking. Once I alerted Zach to who he was just talking to, Zach was like "Oh yeahhh.." I was like, "You just made Matthew McConuaghey laugh." And he replied, "I'm a funny guy."

some firsts

When it takes two months to post, a list becomes inevitable. Here are some firsts for me in this summer:

*Tubing/Canoeing: I did some tubing on the Comal river in New Braunfels and some canoeing on the King's River in Arkansas. Both were fun in different ways. I like the lazy luxury of tubing and the outdoorsy exercise of canoeing. Oh and beer+sun+river=pure delight.

*I gave my first power point presentation. Sure it was given to two people, but I'll treasure it always. My new job (see: www.1hourforkids.org) at United Way involves a lot of volunteer recruitment so I have to learn to do some shmoozing, some dog and pony showing, and some business carding. Oh and I have business cards now, that's also a first.

*I bought my first Mac. I had no alliances in the PC or Mac dispute, until my third PC laptop petered out. I wanted something that would last and Zach's positive experience with his 5 year old Mac (plus the current promotion on UT's campus that involves a free printer AND a free iPod touch with purchase) convinced me.

*I had my first fried avocado and my first piece of chicken-fried bacon.

*I missed my first Lollapalooza in 4 years. I plan to remedy this by volunteering at Austin City Limits in October and then hopefully Fun Fun Fun Fest in November.

*I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the first time for my first conference. Americorps requires a pre-service orientation, so I went there for four or five days and allowed myself to be fed and talked to on their dime. ABQ (as it is affectionately called) has one of the highest elevations of any US City and also has pretty mountains.

I had other firsts, but that's all I can think of now. Besides, I have to leave to pick up Zach from his first day of Thursday classes for the new school year!

TXRD

I recently discovered that I love roller derby. It came about suddenly, completely in response actually to watching Rollergirls. It was a 13 episode doc series on A&E (now on DVD) about the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls. I picked it up as a lark from the library once I saw that the show was based in Austin. It's interesting because the whole time I lived in Chicago I never did see any roller derby, even after the Chi*Town Sirens volunteered for Intonation and I spoke with the manager multiple times, I still assumed that it wouldn't be my kind of thing.
As Zach and I plowed through the season on Saturday I decided to check out the TXRD website and was delighted to find out that there was a bout on Sunday!
Now I'm not sure exactly what it is I love about this game (and I am keeping in mind what I'm temporarily calling the "frenzy effect"--that I tend to get very excited about something and then approximately a week after said excitement my enthusiasm peters out...since it has only been three days, I'm tentative about calling this my new love), but I do know a couple things that are drawing me in.
1- Names. These girls have fabulous super hero names. Punky Bruiser, Miss Conduct, Holly Peno, Heine Dancer, and Venis Envy are all monikers worth noting. I found it hard not to start trying to develop a name of my own. I like Miss Fit, but I find it a little derivative.
2- The Rollergirls show really emphasizes the sisterhood aspect. These are badass girls and they all seem to unite in the fact that they a)don't identify with girly girls and b)are unsatisfied with working a regular job and just going home afterwords to be regular.
3- The spectacle. Now I've never liked professional wrestling, but I'm willing to acknowledge there are similar dramatic elements between that and roller derby. There is fighting and screaming but for some reason, I guess because it's in pursuit of an unfixed victory, I see it as a necessary element.
Last night Zach and I went to the Convention center, bought some $5 beers and settled in to watch the Rhinestone Cowgirls take on the Putas Del Fuego. The Cowgirls came out in cowboy hats, shooting toy guns and the Putas came out in sombreros, many shaking maracas. When penalties were issued, a wheel was spun to decide if the offender and the victim had to arm wrestle, tug of war, race, or pillow fight. Prior to, and during half-time there's live music. Oh and one of the helpful things is that there were two announcers helping the audience keep track of the points and penalties. They are a very necessary component because the action is roller skate fast. The Putas (the team Zach and I were rooting for) lost miserably but they had so much spirit (read: readiness to fight) that they were crazy entertaining.
So if the "frenzy effect" doesn't wear off and I keep track of my calendar, I may be going again in July to see the Hellcats take on the Holy Rollers.

festival season

I remember the thrill that came with warm weather in Chicago. It seemed that, starting around June, there would be some sort of neighborhood festival every weekend. I used to go to Market Days, Wicker Park festival, Lakeview art festival, 57th Street Art Fair, Printer's Row Book Fair, the outdoor films in Grant Park, Lollapalooza and anything else I stumbled across while walking to and from public transportation. So, you can imagine my glee when I realized that festival season has already started here.
Last weekend was Eeyore's Birthday and this weekend is the Pecan Street festival. I just got back with some incense, handmade soap, and locally-produced honey in my purse. It seems I'm pretty willing to go hippie when it comes to street fairs. The Pecan Street festival is an arts and crafts fair with live music and reasonably-priced cans of beer. Now, I won't give high marks to the arts and crafts present (it's like any other "art" fair in that there's only a few tents that have really impressive work to show) but I enjoyed walking around browsing with a TECATE in hand.

Eeyore's Part II

Eeyore's Birthday was pretty much exactly as described on the wikipedia page. But first, and most fabulous of all, I had my first confirmed Leslie siting. I was pretty sure I saw him at SXSW, but didn't have any sources to back me up. Yesterday, my friends confirmed that I was, in fact seeing, Austin's favorite mayoral candidate. Leslie has had three official bids for mayor, his most successful run in 2000 when he received almost 8% of the vote. He is so popular that you can now buy a magnet with his likeness here in Austin that comes with interchangeable magnetic outfits. He's known for flashing his thong at public events and generally bringing the party.

Anyway, back to Eeyore's. My first ten minutes set the tone. While waiting in line for drink tickets I stood behind two people who were smoking a joint. Then, two minutes later at the costume contest an old woman got on stage, wearing rabbit ears, a skirt and her boobs painted like Easter eggs tossed out condoms from her Easter basket. There was a lot of hula-hooping, a May pole, a large crowd of people attempting to double dutch, and people of unknown qualifications that had set up "free body painting" areas. It was pretty fabulous for an event just minutes from downtown.

When I first heard of Eeyore's birthday I was pretty sure it would be little kids, mostly lame games, and a lot of store-bought Winnie the Pooh costumes. There were a lot of kids, but they were the breed of hippie kids that I like. Oh and the costumes were amazing. Here's one of my favorites:

Eeyore's Birthday

Reason #15763 you should live in Austin:

(from wikipedia) Eeyore's Birthday Party is a day-long festival taking place annually in Austin, Texas since 1963. It typically occurs on the last Saturday of April in Austin's Pease Park.^[1] It includes live music, food and drink vending which benefit local non-profit organizations, attendees in colorful costumes, and very large drum circles. Although frequented by children and families, with specific events presented for them by the event organizers, Eeyore's Birthday Party is also known for its high incidence of recreational drug use.

It's happening tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it goes!

April Showers of Shows

Since SXSW I've been jonesing for more music and luckily spring time in Austin brings a lot of opportunity for music.

What I'm missing:

Austin Reggae Fest was today. Zach and I drove by it and saw white folk in droves wearing everything green, black, yellow, and red that they found in their closet. While the festival is cool in theory, and I'm a little tempted to see the one and only Skatalites, it looked a little douchapalooza to me. There seemed to be too many dudes wearing knitted hats.

May 7th: Flight of the Conchords. This broke my heart. Tickets went on sale back in February and I mistakenly waited a whole 10 minutes before trying to buy them. They sold out so fast that people were immediately on craigslist offering to pay $100 and up for two seats.

What I'm hoping to not miss:

Right now my Google calendar shows two events for the next three weeks: Lucero and Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down. These are both bands that I saw at SXSW, but at a festival you only get teased for 25 minutes...theres no encore and theres no leeway for which songs and how long they go. Thao is this Thursday, April 23rd and I'm desperately hoping that I can get myself together enough to go. This song won't leave my head and I'm convinced I'll just have to see it live again before I can rest. Then, a few weeks later is Lucero. After SXSW I bought Zach this documentary called Dreaming in America and it endeared me to Lucero in a whole new way. It's a good movie because it shows how they're successful by most peoples' standards (they've put out half a dozen albums and are able to survive on their music alone) but that with this success comes a back-breaking tour schedule that puts them on the road constantly (about 200 shows a year). Zach and I have talked about seeing this show to celebrate our 8-year anniversary. Yes, my readers, you all are really that old now.