Yet another wonderful Austin weekend has come to an end.
My mother visited Saturday, so I took her to witness a record-breaking 881 Austinites dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller in the afternoon sun. What a sight! Sweet Maggie rocked it, and I had several friends in the zombie-filled mass. I was so proud of my town, especially when no other participating city came close to our numbers. Lick it, Los Angeles! Check out the videos at thrilltheworldaustin.com.
Sunday, Maggie and I had the bittersweet experience of watching Willie Nelson play the last show at The Backyard, Austin’s best large-but-not-too-large outdoor venue for the past 16 years. When we bought tickets months ago, it looked like pure Willie show. Fine with me, right? In the last few weeks, though, it morphed into a one-day Texas Music festival! They kept pushing back the time when the doors would open. 5, 4, 3, 2 pm. We didn’t catch the whole shebang, but we did get to see Carolyn Wonderland, The Gourds, Kelly Willis, Jimmy Vaughn, and Grupo Fantasma.
Do whatever you can to see Carolyn Wonderland and Grupo Fantasma in your lifetime.
When Willie came on last, we were tired but ready for some universal classics and playful guitar solos. He did not disappoint, and we now stand at 3 Willie shows and counting.
The life cycle of The Backyard seems to be a familiar one. Something beautiful and artistic pops up somewhere, inspiring and entertaining people from far and wide. Businessmen and developers start to take notice that people are drawn to the thing. They put up disgusting malls and chain restaurants, smothering the very beauty and originality that brought people to the area in the first place.
Bohemia and community improve a place in the world, and then commercial banality swoops in to profit and destroy. It happened in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and it is happening now in Austin.
My question is this: Why do boring people always have to crash the parties of interesting people? YOU ARE BORING! You know this. I don’t judge you, but deal with it. Just go live somewhere boring, and don’t bring your Cinnabon to my neighborhood. Turn on your network television and forget you ever heard of Austin.
Thanks.
I’m trying to be more positive, so let me just say this: The Backyard was a beautiful Texas music venue, and it’s a miracle that it lasted 16 years before a galleria literally gobbled it up.
as reported in The New York Times
October 27, 1908
ORVILLE WRIGHT TO VOTE.
Injured Aviator May Have to be Carried to Polls.
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:
I can’t decide which tints and tinges to use in my decor. Will you come over and help me…
Highlight here for answer: [choose hues]
I Am Beautiful Too: Slime Mold Rehabilitated
For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.
Lucretius
EVERY DANG THURSDAY
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
www.flipnotics.com
________________________________________________________________
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com
Order the CD now at southpawjones.com.
Purchase MP3s at cdbaby.com or
.Grab a copy in real time at Waterloo Records, End of an Ear, or Bookpeople in Austin.
Or buy one from me any Thursday at Flipnotics @ the Triangle.
Thank you, come again!
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2008 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.
