Journey, til the end

Austin seems to be emblematic of the development spectre haunting western cities. Cranes loom over the skyline, restaurants and bars appear and disappear overnight, banners with happy faces and catchy names decorate the fences of gutted open spaces to warn of impending condominiums, and construction everywhere. Sixth street is bar after kitschy bar, and the UT campus concentrates Starbucks, fast food, and wing and pizza joints. Condos really are everywhere, even downtown. And it continues to stretch out, to sprawl. In a word - a word that's been kicked around, but serves its purpose - antiseptic.

But this is only half the story, and the other half is why I'm here, now. Sixth street is actually quite fun, and the campus itself is a pleasure to walk through and marvel at the combination of buildings and greenery. South Austin, where I live - especially just south of the river - is funky and pretty. South Congress Ave may be yuppified, but the neighborhoods are full of cacti gardens, stone houses, genuinely inviting coffee shops, and a plethora of taco wagons, including the great Trailer Park Eatery. But the real bastion of the unique and real in Austin, and I didn't realize this until after moving here - through random events, exploration, and word of mouth - is the East Side. Until the bastards come and take it over, the East Side is a testament to the particular, the organic, the different, the free. Here there is no architectural "plan," no compartmentalization, and very little gentrification. That will come - as it always does (42nd street in NYC, Chinatown in Boston, etc.) - but until it does, follow me dear reader, on a journey, an exploration of the unique and the real. It won't last forever, but we will journey - until the end!

After watching the great 12 Angry Men, roommate Tania and I wanted to go see the modern Russian version that just came out, 12. But the cinema is way up north, and she drives a scooter that's really only "made for one and a half people." And highways are out of the question. But we made a valiant effort, really - trying to hit the major roads that might eventually take us to the oasis - until we realized it wasn't to be. So, with ham and cheese sandwiches already made, we decided to go to the East Side.

Parked in a random lot off of E. 6th that happened to be right next to a bar I'd been meaning to check out. Don't even remember the name, but it's a no-frills prole-friendly place, with a spacious back patio. We got some funny looks as we arrived, and I realized that showing up on the back of the scooter driven by a young woman (not to mention my H&M jeans and Hamilton T-shirt) might not endear me to the Budweiser crowd. Tania asked me to carry her bag in (with the sandwiches), and under any other circumstances I would've, but not now, not here. Trust me on this one. So we got our beers and sat at an outside table. Looking out at two big trees surrounding port-a-potties, as the setting sun hits the light side of a church next door, it's quite serene. Then the owner bought another round for the whole house - something I'd only heard about in movies. Never found out why, but it was awesome. We decided it was okay to eat our sandwiches.

On to the next: a bar further east on 6th, with a patio, but no discernible name or sign. I asked the bartender, who was very friendly. "It's called Rabbit's. See that old guy in the chair over there? That's Rabbit. He's owned the place for 40 years." Rabbit waves to us and points to the dance floor (a small space between tables), saying, "Feel free to dance." We sit at an outside table near speakers, pumped from the jukebox, playing everything from the Platters to Quincy Jones. Under Christmas lights, flying ants spin drunkenly in dizzyingly tiny circles on the table-top. I've never seen anything like it before.

Further east on 6th, past Comal, there are condos, and it's too far. South, then west on 5th, past the amazing (and apparently permitted) mural of mushroom men and a Pam Grier-like blaxploitation queen with a shotgun, we arrive at Cafe Mundi. It's free outdoor movie night, but the movie (Orwell Rolls in his Grave) is almost over. No matter - the outside seating area is like a jungle, even better at night. Blue bulb lights illuminate all sorts of plants and bamboo, and in the corner, a circular stone alcove with a ring of columns surrounding. Explore the alley behind the jungle and it looks like a huge mushroom is coming out of a tree, but it's actually just a stool attached. Still sitable. The place closed down and apparently forgot about us while we were lost in the jungle.

Past the cool European-style train station (Tania was delighted to see something like this, which you rarely find around here), and further west on 4th, to the Scoot Inn, to show the Portuguese (that's Tania) how we play Skee-Ball. (I've recently joined a Skee-Ball league down here, and it's one of the best things I've done.) They also have a huge outdoor beer garden. Chatted with the bartender for a bit, and he recommended we head up to Long Branch (owned by the Scoot folks as well). North on Navasota, past a cemetery and a church, through a residential neighborhood (there really is no line between the residential and commercial on the East Side), up to 11th, and over to the Long Branch. Like the Scoot, they have animal heads hanging on the walls, and raccoons on the gallery behind the bar, but the deer are accentuated by colorful modern art, like a pink nose-guard or a green sleeve over an antler. It's a wonderful counterpart to the farmhouse that is the Scoot Inn that is my second home.

The night ends with a homemade chicken caesar salad split at a bus stop. But the journey will continue....

Still honest

I have a series of posts to make about Austin's East Side, but first a brief addendum to the walking posts:

I am scratched up, baby, bruised and scratched up.

The grid-like formation of scratches on the inside of my lower right arm and the scab on my left knee are due to pure silliness, but the cut on the inside of my lower left pinkie is for the cinema.

The Cine Las Americas, a great Latin American film festival in Austin, started yesterday. Was behind the ball in my preparations, but I went to town to make a list of picks today. The Headless Woman, an Argentinean flick that I missed at the Harvard Film Archive, was playing tonight at 6 and Saturday at noon, but at 5 today, I decided I didn't want to take the chance I'd miss it again. Last minute decisions have served me well, so over to S. Congress right as the bus pulls up. First song that comes on my Ipod is Lloyd Charmer's crooning and faithful reggae version of "Let's Get it On," which I took as a good sign. Never been down this far on Congress, but I like that the taqueria population seems to increase the further we go. Off the bus somewhere past my vague idea of the right bus stop - 6300 S. Congress.

Google Maps is great and rewarding as an artistic device, but can steer one wrong in the realm of functionality if one is careless. I walk, but do not see the street I'm looking for (Little Texas Lane). Also, there are no sidewalks here. I often get the feeling that I'm walking where I'm not supposed to. Some times it's more than a feeling, like the way the sideview mirror of that truck brushes up against your T-shirt sleeve. The people I ask for directions clearly don't speak English, but I'm giving it a shot anyway. Gonna take a right on N. Bluff Dr. and see what happens - an elementary school and kids playing on a trampoline. Gonna - I guess - take this left on Crow Lane, where they're clearing down trees and the sign reads, "No outlet." I'm sure I'm heading in the wrong direction, so now it's just an exploratory walk. Down the road, away from civilization, I see the most surreal part of my journey: a wooden staircase that leads to nowhere. Walk up the 20 or so steps and there actually is a small landing. Survey the landscape, like a dessert, with trees beyond, a hotel in the distance, and... oh shit, that looks like a movie theatre! Back down the steps, further down the road, and there it is. With a tall, chain-link fence separating us. And there are no openings in this fence, even remotely squeezable ones. That's okay. One foot up, then the other, pause like a vaulter with hands on the top of the fence - there's my pinkie scratch - and the long drop down. Success. Just gotta make a quick trip to washroom to wash my cut with soap and water, so as to avoid infection. I think they even waited for me for ten minutes to start the movie. Pretty damn interesting movie too.

On the bus ride back, the driver pulled over at a stop, swaggerred to the back of the bus, sat down next to some dude, and told him to stop cursing and being vulgar. I love Texas, y'all.

Ode to the Tropics

Easter reached in like the first hand that stokes the devil's furnace - to get the fire started - preceded by a Saturday jaunt to the East Side and movies at home; succeeded by Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.... Days of soccer (playing or watching the Europeans play) and washers (a great game, for days when one isn't up to horseshoes), nights on the job hunt. Minimum two sandwiches a day, cereal, and maybe soup or pizza, or a visit to the ubiquitous taco trailer. I like to read and I like to write, but I'll go days without doing either - activities perhaps made more meaningful after a few days off? Or perhaps I'm full of shit.

On another day (was it bellini day?), I was walking past Vinny's on Barton Springs Road, and thought I saw Phil and Laura having a nice Italian lunch on the patio. Strange to see them there, but in South Austin, it's not terribly unusual to run into a compadre or two on one of the main drags. Upon closer inspection however, the guy (we'll call him "Bill") had a chubbier face, and a goatee in place of Phil's rather suave stache. The girl (shall we call her "Maura?") had a similar haircut and color, from the back, but probably had a good 15 or 20 years on Laura, at close range. Doppelgangers. I don't think Bill and Maura would've had as positive a reaction to my conversation about skee-ball, but I was tempted....

Thursday was groceries and household shopping and margaritas with the roommates, beer with Phil and Laura, and water balloons. We need practice. Had a hard enough time hitting parked cars from my bedroom window.

Friday was thunderstorms during the day, which have been pretty rare - rain in general, as a matter of fact - since I've been down here. My lone chance this season to watch the New England Revolution at my place, on ESPN2, and they almost pulled it off, but DC United tied the game at 1s in the 90th minute. Always someone out there to spoil your fun. Spent a good hour or two reading The Austin Chronicle over tea, took a walk, and made a sandwich consisting of turkey, brie, mayo, Granny Smith apple, and lettuce, on 100% whole wheat. My only goal was to re-watch Withnail and I and absolutely not leave the house. Five minutes into it, I had an epiphany, and realized I had to leave the house, to meet the Hooligans. If I can catch the 11:30 #5 bus downtown, then it's meant to be. Would rather not have to walk back with the possibility of T-storms, but that too will take care of itself....

Liz and Larry are down at Red 7 with the Hooligans FC - an indoor soccer team that plays on Sundays with a fan club that drinks Lone Star. A team after my heart. Very good people, they are. Some networking (soccer and film), some skee-ball, and a visit to Hoboken Pie for the day's second slice. Meanwhile, back at home, my roommate Anjela has called out from the porch to a guy who she thinks she knows, but who turns out to be a neighbor whom she does not know. I arrive home to find roommate, neighbor, and a bottle of Merlot in the middle of the floor. The neighbor is a very nice and smart and genuine guy, but also in a very advanced state of inebriation, a combination that yields the following quotes, among others:

"For ten years, I did things that people shouldn't do."
"I came here and jumped off bridges. (Metaphorically, you mean?) No, I jumped off the South 1st bridge. In the air, it was fine. When I hit the water, it was a bit wobbly."
"He puts too much ice in his gin." - on Henry Miller
"Is there a continuity with nude drinking and not drinking because you're slamming the hammer?"
"Some people that shouldn't, aren't."
Etc.

He asked for whiskey, and was savvy enough, however, when offerred instead a sip of Patron orange liquer, to reach for the tequila. I decided to finally call it a night.

Go to bed,
With lips stained red,
Like the little penguin

And I'm talking, but not chewing gum

Continued from last post, below.

I wondered if my romantic notion of walking had become perverse, and obsessive - walking 20 blocks at the end of a long day, in opposite direction of home, blisters formed on feet from the day before, to find the Spider House, where the Stalkers were to play a night during the weekend, but mostly to prove to myself that it was not this night - this is certainly not normal, but is it unhealthy? Perverse?

Conclusion: no, it's fine. I bought a bus pass this month for when I need it, and for the rest of the time, it's good and pleasurable to walk, no matter how skewered and contrived the justification is. Health, exercise, environment, smells, sounds, creativity, people, energy, etc., blah blah, it's all good.

3/9/09 - way back
A sticker on a post - a play on the popular slogan, "Keep Austin weird" - reads, "Make Austin weirder." Absolutely, I concur. Smell of french toast and fries is great in dining rooms of restaurants, but even better in the open air of the streets. Why the hell do people litter? Cans and trash on pavement is one thing, but dropped on green space, like the BBQ sauce that stains my white T-shirt, is much worse. A mesmeric attraction to stone buildings has developed, starting with the at-once primitive, ancient-looking, and beautiful flat-and-sharp stone design of the old church on West Mary and South 3rd; and continuing when I reach the stone exterior of Austin Pizza on West Mary and South Lamar. I should eat here.

Listening to music while walking some times seems to improve both acts simultaneously. The Mountain Goats song ("No Children") gives me chills as I walk past Ego's (the bar that's inside a parking garage - why don't you see that more often?). I usually like chills, but this fit is almost too intense - like all the short hairs on the back of my head pulled with extreme force toward some impossible ponytail. The intensity of the chills moves momentarily beyond pleasure into slight pain, and accordingly, back to pleasure.

Walk toward the dusk of that magical sky, with cascading pink and orange ridges... I'm like an animal that only sees certain colors. Due west. Red at night, Adam's delight. I want to feel this city - and keep in mind, it could be any city - with the pavement or grass beneath my feet, and nothing in between. There is an electricity, a direct connection, that can only be accessed by one foot and then the other, placed purposefully upon pavement or grass, testing the water....

Before it goes any further, I'll end this collection of thoughts on walking with an example of theory put into practice. Enrique Penalosa is the one person - more than any politician, lawmaker, or head of state - who makes me think that reform can actually work - when it's focused not on economic issues, but on transforming the quality of life, for everyone. As mayor of Bogota, he installed a mass transit bus system, put in hundreds of pedestrian-only streets and parks, planted lots of trees, and instituted a city-wide "Car-free Day." He recently spoke in Boston and Austin, and I missed him both places, but I did come across this quote of his that nicely illustrates a sound attitude toward city life and urban planning:

"We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be excluded."

Yes indeed

Something that I've been thinking about for a while - that has further polarized since being in Texas - is the variety of thoughts on walking. I've developed a romantic and idealized conception of the act of walking, partly from reading Herzog on Herzog ("In today's society - though it would be ridiculous to advocate travelling on foot for everyone to every possible destination - I personally would rather do the existentially essential things in my life on foot."), and partly because it just makes sense. Good for health, for the environment, for thought and creativity, for visceral experience; and it seems to give more purpose and means to the event in pursuit. I was telling Dad about this developing romanticization of walking, and he brought up a further point: walking exposes one to smells and sounds much more than do closed forms of transport. Smell the french toast and fries, hear the unseen animals sneaking behind trees.

Now, I understand that cars and buses are often essential for time and convenience, but - my god! - life is much sweeter, more passionate, and more intense when you are on foot. I've been walking generally two to three hours a day in Austin, and it feels great. My first thought was that these Texans are crazy for driving everywhere - I don't need to take a bus from the capitol building to West Campus, and I don't need a ride back to the bus stop (but thanks for the offer. You're very kind, if only a little lazy) - but is the rest of the world different? Am I the one who's crazy? Or is it all relative, and simply looks that way?

Do I look crazy - walking parallel to the highway with a lamp in one hand and a fluffy pillow in the other, on my way back to the bus stop from Target? Do I look crazy - accidentally walking through a patch of hornets, getting several stuck in my hair (this is gonna sting...), furiously brushing my hair with one hand, and blindly swatting at my head with the other, while walking in front of a traffic light that - who knows? - may be green? (The answer to the second one is probably yes, but there may be other reasons for that.)

My romantic notion has become perverse....