updated 12-07-14
I Used To Romp In AUstin
In the 1990's, I moved to Austin, TX, and called it home for six years. I was a dopey, deeply culture-shocked, twenty-something, couldn't be fresher off the boat, a mess of naïveté, pathetically tangled, knotted with preconceptions and pride. Jaysus... I have great sympathy for people dealing with me back then. This is why I regard Austinites as people with great patience.
In Austin, I
lived in backpacker hostel for nine-months, a corner bed in a musky
male-only dorm room, communal showers, with kitchen and refrigerator
access denied after 8pm. Spent a few months living on a friend's
couch, then moved into a small house with three other people, three
dogs, and three cats. My bedroom was the garage. I lived there for
several years. I worked in a library. I worked as a laborer. I
entered the country with a student visa, and for six years maintained
legal resident status as a full-time student at a two year college. I
amassed six years worth of credit hours, no degree, but then again,
TS Eliot, F.Scott Fitz, Kerouac and a bunch of others went to school
and never got a degree (sans MFA programs, eh?).
Featured in SXSW spoken-word showcase. I bought a minivan, named it
Johnny AppleSpeed, removed the rear seats and put a mattress in it.
That fucker got to 200,000 miles before it died. At 26, I was struck
by a debilitating illness, taken to the hospital writhing in pain,
screeching, given morphine, continued writhing and screeching, given
more morphine to passed-out dosage, woke up in an MRI machine that
was like a bright coffin, then sent to an isolation room for two
nights where nurses and doctors pricked and prodded endlessly with
all tests coming back negative. It was the first time I felt my own
mortality. I still suffer attacks, albeit to a lesser degree, to this
very day. Character building stuff, thanks to Austin.
THE DRAG
Below, a poem about The Drag, a section of Guadalupe Ave along the western fringe of the University of Texas. The Drag has history of a hang-out for students and those of liberal attitude, a forgiving respite in the middle of conservative Texas for the odd birds to flock. In the 1960's, Janis Joplin probably wailed here on her way to the original Threadgill's on Lamar Ave. It should be noted that from the 1950's through the mid-1990's, the majority of undergrads at the university pursued a liberal arts degree. Today, the majority are business majors.
The frog creature in the "Hi, How Are You" graffiti at the start of the video poem is called Jeremiah The Innocent. Painted at this location in 1993, it is now an Austin icon. Kurt Cobain used to wear a Jeremiah The Innocent t-shirt. The image dates back to the 1980s... more about Daniel Johnson, its creator.
The Drag was also targeted during The University of Texas massacre. Bullet holes apparently still evident in building walls.
Harry Ransom Center
With a student population over 50,000, the University of Texas, Austin, is one of the biggest schools in the country. Sitting just off The Drag, is the university's Harry Ransom Center, one of the great repository's of art. The world's first photograph is on display inside a specialized viewing booth. But the Ransom Center's big draw is its huge archive of original notes, drafts, manuscripts, correspondence of famous authors and artists. All of it available to peruse and hold, not only for students but also the general public. For free. You can walk off the street, go to the Ransom Center, read a draft of A Streetcar Named Desire with Tennessee Williams' hand-written corrections and edits (In regards to the Streetcar draft, the play was initially titled The Poker Game and the character Stanley was named John. In this late draft, Williams crossed out the old title, replaced it with the new, and also left a message: “Dear Printer, please change the name of the character John to Stanley.” Extraordinary late edits!). Just about every literary great from the 20th century is represented. Early drafts are often embarrassingly poor. The initial drafts of Catcher In The Rye, for example, do not hint at a final product that would become one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. Famous correspondence is also available to handle, such as letters between Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, or the poet Frank O'Hara and artist Willem de Kooning. The Ransom Center offers the rare chance to deeply examine the creative process of the creative greats. An Austin visit is not complete without going there. And if you are truly into books, it is the literary Mecca.
I find it surprising that the Ransom Center lets anyone hold these rare manuscripts. But as one librarian friends tells me, it's better that this material is available than to have it locked up in a closet and never be seen.
Revealed in an early draft, Holden Caulfield's middle name is Morrisey.
Complete draft of Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Farina, arguably one of the best novels from the 1960's. Thomas Pynchon described the novel "like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch... hilarious, chilling, sexy, profound, maniacal, beautiful and outrageous all at the same time."
North of the drag
The old Half Price bookstore on Guadalupe is now a gastro pub pretending it's old. I ordered the 18 dollar sliver of lamb on a bed of "Mexican street corn", sank a few craft beers. I once wandered drunk in the building when it was bookstore, when the shelves had rickets, the floors dullard linoleum like elementary school, heel-to-toe ricochet wandering lost-then-found down florescent tubed aisles til closing. Where the bar counter is now, there used to be bins of old Playboy magazines holding articles of Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, Raymond Carver; cartoons by Shel Silverstein. Time, gentlemen, time.
Torchy's Tacos, regarded by many as one of the best in Austin. Left, the Barbacoa taco. I prefer this type of barbacoa. Right, Torchy's Trailer Park taco, made extra trashy (where the lettuce is replaced with queso.) Fried chicken, green chillies, pico de gallo, cheese on a flour tortilla. It was messy. Both tacos were a little under-seasoned.
At Torchy's, a dude on a bike uses several feet of saran wrap to secure his drink to go. Huh?
More to come....