Notes
from Austin Volume 3 #9 - 9/25/2001
Well with the events on 9-11 swirling around in my mind, as
it was in all of our minds, and with the incessant TV coverage
of the events, I found myself in a bit of a funk last week.
I imagine a lot of people did. I didn't do much last week. I
did go out to see "Rock
Star" and "Ghost
World" as well as viewing a couple of films sent to me,
the best of which was an Austin original, the Zellner brothers
"Plastic
Utopia."
Before going to see "Ghost World" up at the Arbor, I went
to the new Fry's Electronics store up north on Mopac. Wow.
This place is massive. They have 70 cashier registers. 70!
About 30 of them were operational on the weekday night that
I went. The place was packed.
Also somewhere around the time of the terrorist attacks,
I taped a couple new episodes of "Lube TV" with Mark Brauner.
Mark has a new girlfriend and he has really been neglecting
the TV show. I've pretty much given up on trying to do much
with it. It is too much of a hassle and I have to go on Mark's
timetable and I have to trust him when he says it is ACAC
that fucks up and not him. I would like to take the class
so I could produce my own show but that seems like a really
large undertaking. Anyway, the shows we taped included short
films "Harry Knuckles and the Aztec Mummy" and "Miss
Gentilbelle" - both of which I think I'm messing up the
titles or misspelling here. Anyway - I think the show is going
back to Wednesday nights at 11pm on Channel 10 (rather than
channel 16) which means will come on directly after "The Reel
Deal" on the same channel! This is supposed to start in October
sometime.
Anyway, this week I have tried to get out a lot more.
Thursday night I went to The Metro to see Kissinger. I can't
believe it has been 6 months since I saw them at their SXSW
showcase. They rock. There very much a band that plays a style
I like. There are elements of the pop-punk-new wave movement
in their music, with seeming nods to The Knack and Lemonheads,
as well as a similarity to Goo Goo Dolls. But these guys are
much more fun than Goo - and a bit more serious than The Knack.
Chomsky, a band from Dallas, opened. Visually, Chomsky (and
aurally somewhat) reminded me of a late 70's Brit new wave/punk/pub
group called Dirty Looks. They also remind me visually of
Pere Ubu. Maybe that's because the lead singer is kinda chunky
and wore a skinny time.. Sonically, they reminded of those
great 70's Brit pub bands like The Motors. They were really
cool. I would like to hear their CD.
During the Kissinger set, the crowd kinda thinned. I guess
it was kinda late on a weeknight. I didn't have to work the
next day, so I watched their set and then left. There were
four of us guys in the front of the stage while most everyone
else sat down in the Metro's cool table area. Chopper, the
frontman of Kissinger, at one point in the show, asks a roadie
to bring him 4 CD's and gives one to each of us four guys
standing towards the front of the stage. This was so cool.
It was a sampler thing with some songs from "Charm," their
latest CD, including the show-stopper "Rock N Roll Asshole"
as well as a video you can play on your computer. Plus there
are a couple of audio Easter Eggs (Hidden Tracks) too. Kissinger
rocks man.
After the show, I headed over to my friends Rich and Kelly's.
Kelly is helping me with a film I am trying to put together.
I am going to get Rich to shoot it. He just bought a Mini-DV.
I saw some stuff that Rich shot, just testing the camera,
on the first day that he got it. It was phenomenal. He shot
some stuff at Barton Springs and it just looked great. Rich
has a real natural eye for composing beautiful shots. Meanwhile,
Kelly is acting in this thing I want to do and it requires
him to be pretty bold, sexually, I mean. There's not really
nudity but some sexually charged gay scenes that he is going
to try and do. I've already talked to a couple other friends
who say they will be in it. I have already put a little together
from what Kelly and I have shot so far and I think it is going
to be quite nice.
Friday night, I watched most of the "Tribute to Heroes" TV special
which was far too eerie and reverent for my tastes. I thought
it was cool that none of the celebs were identified but there
were a couple times I wish I knew who the performers were. The
highlight for me had to be the song by Springsteen that started
the program. That was a beautiful and haunting song and provided
exactly the right kind of mood for the program to follow. I
also enjoyed the rendition of Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" by
Fred Durst (wasn't it?) and the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls.
And there was a pretty nice song by a young African American
woman who provided her own piano accompaniment. The performance
of "Walk On" by U2 seemed like more of a plug for their latest
album than any sort of tribute. I would have preferred to hear
"New York" off the new album or "One" performed. Later, a video
montage used "One" to highlight images of the events of the
past week.
On the down side, the songs by Stevie Wonder and the Dixie
Chicks did not work. (What the hell was up with all that mummbled
dialogue by Wonder during the intros and outros of his song?)
And many other performances just seemed highly, well… dull.
The moments between songs provided by high profile celebs,
like Jim Carrey and Julia Roberts seemed far to stuffy and
scripted. At least Roberts seemed to have some genuine emotion
about it all. The most glaring promotional gimmick of the
night had to be trotting out the shaking Mohammed Ali with
Will Smith, who plays the "Champ" in a Michael Mann film due
out during the holidays. Not only did it seem like a plug
for a film, but watching Ali struggle to speak was just heartbreaking.
This whole segment took total attention of what Ali and Smith
were trying to say. It didn't work. Smith should have come
out and spoke perhaps mentioning Ali. It was sad.
What kind of asshole critiques a tribute show to the heroes
of 9-11 anyway?
Regardless… Later that night, I went to Flamingo Cantina to
see Hobble and the Pocket FishRMen. A friend of mine, who I
invited to the show, actually knew the lead singer for the other
band on the bill, the Peenbeats. My friend Trish, who has met
Oriah, the lead singer for Hobble, when we shot some Lube TV
episodes, surprised me by showing up. I also knew that Ryan
and his bf and some of their friends were going to be there.
It was cool because a lot of people I knew were there.
Hobble put on an awesome show. The sound was the best I
have ever heard at a Hobble gig. You could really hear the
lyrics and Oriah's unique voice. I have almost never heard
the band sound so good and the mix was perfect. I'm getting
spoiled by these guys. They rarely put on a bad show and yet
they are so consistently good, I have a hard time getting
into the songs because I've seen them perform so many times.
It was cool this time, though, because they had a pretty big
crowd and the audience ate it up. Oriah ended the show falling
down off the stage into the audience and landed on my shoe.
That was cool. Hot, shirtless, sweaty boy on my leg. Wow.
Who wouldn't love that? The guys also seem to have expanded
their new song "Love Slut." It seems longer now. It's really
good. So is "Itty Bitty Man," another new one. These two coupled
with the newer tunes "78 Speed" and "Cowboy Song" make me
think the next CD is going to be awesome.
The Peenbeats were really fun and funny but suffered from
a bad mix, which is odd since Hobble's was perfect. They opened
with a hilarious song that was like the theme to a TV show
or something called either "Meet the Peenbeats" or "We're
the Peenbeats" or "It's the Peenbeats" or something like that.
It was very kitsch. They also sang several pop culture ditties
in their set including the theme from TV's "Growing Pains"
and commercial jingles for Hershey's chocolate bars and Dairy
Queen. The highlight of the set, however, was "I Like to Rock,"
a cheeky send-up of the "scene" and rock fan mentality. Sure,
it was a bit mean-spirited, but so be it. It was also catchy
as hell. These guys are just fun and seem poised to take over
the reigns for funny rockers like, well, The Pocket FishRMen.
For some reason, the Peenbeats also reminded me of Houston's
The Judy's; perhaps simply because they seemed to have a real
fun time on stage. They even ended with another Peenbeats
theme song.
The Pocket FishRMen had funny Kiss outfits made out of cardboard
and battery operated lights and opened the show with "We Kill
Evil." But playing for almost 2 hours, they seemed to go on
way too long. For the faithful, it must have been a awesome
evening. I certainly like the FishRman but don't know every
song or anything. I have the "Heroes of Perversion" CD but
never really got into it that much. There's a new Fisherman
CD out by the way.
Saturday was another day, another party, this time for Mark
Brauner's birthday. It was held at his new girlfriend's house.
I don't want to talk too much about it or I'll end up saying
some things that will upset other people. It was nice to see
many of John Christensen's old gang whom I had not seen in a
while. John's brother Tim, Johnny Driskoll, .Diane Murray, Trish
the Dish, Allen Campbell.
Afterwards, my friend Johnny O and I went to Spider's House,
a coffee house near UT around 30th. I had never been there
before. It's an old house converted into a groovy coffeehouse.
There are a lot of interesting rooms and a ton of patio space.
It would be a great place to sit and do homework or read.
Or play chess or whatever, which many people were doing when
we went. John and I went. We talked and cruised guys and then
hung out in the parking lot after the place closed and did
more of the same.
I met John two years ago at the Austin Gay and Lesbian International
Film Festival and we have stayed in and out of touch since
then. I almost always see him at the festival but we talked
a lot more this past fest and hung out a lot more. One night
after the festival, we went to Katz's Deli and somehow got
the most amazing table by the front window where we were able
to watch cute guys parade around in front of the place for
hours on a weekend night. Another time too, maybe that same
night, Johnny took me to the Boyz Cellar for the first time.
It was Splash Weekend, a big gay weekend here in Austin, so
there were lots of guys there. It was crazy.
John also took me to my first rave a few weekends ago. That
was crazy fun. Tons of shirtless cutie young guys rolling
and having a good time. I had a blast even though I was sober
the whole time (not by choice mind you).
Ahhh… even in the midst of national tragedy, life is awesome
in Austin. I love this town. I love this country.
Can't wait for tomorrow.
Lodger2001
Email
Lodger!
Click
Here If YOU have something to say about this!
More
of Lodger's reviews indexed alphabetically! Just click your
favorite letter to go there.
a
b
c d
e f
g h
i j
k l
m n
o p
q r
s t
u v
w x
y z
HOME
|
