Molly Chronicles: Serotonin Serenade chronicles the public and private exploits of longtime Austin resident Jim Simons, a Movement lawyer in the late 60’s and beyond. Mr. Simons has many stories to tell: from the numerous and varied legal wrangles and the accompanying raucousness characteristic of the times to his personal struggles with alcohol and depression. Throughout, the book is a plainly written account of a life fully lived and flecked with indirections. It is also an insider’s look at Austin’s political scene in what many believe was the most exciting time of the last century, the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Why was it important for you to write this memoir? What prompted you to write it?

JIM SIMONS: It was important to me to write the memoir. I just started writing one day without knowing what it would be Read the rest of this entry »

The Burger Situation:
An M.O. Entreaty

Okay, here’s the deal… my life has been spent in the pursuit of excellence on many levels, not the least of which is gastronomic splendiferousness. Today is no exception. However, today I’m in search of something specific, something arguably ambiguous, yet, in my mind, very specific. Today, my quest is simple. I must find the most get down burger in Austin (or surrounding areas), and nothing less will do!
In my checkerboard, brawlcrawling existence I’ve sampled some of -what I consider-the best burgs to ever pass between two lips. Read the rest of this entry »

Well folks, here goes nothin’… wanted to get this party started! I just returned from my delivery of a stack of fresh Austin Daze mags to the latest item of interest (chronicled in edition #66), Buenos Aires Restaurant, where I happened upon a young lady that has had me moaning out loud (literally) ever since. She looked like she could have been from Penelope Cruz’ extended family. She was there to pick up some coffees for what looked like either her work force or a project of some sort. Read the rest of this entry »

I have had a girl crush on Mary Stuart Masterson ever since, well, I was old enough to have a girl crush. I wore out my VHS copy of Some Kind of Wonderful as a teenager, saved my money from working at Whataburger to buy a drum kit, and painted it pink. I then found I keep better rhythm typing than banging. We are all better off.

My heart pounded when I found out she would be at the showing of The Cake Eaters, which she directed. It is the story of a terminally ill 15-year-old girl named Georgia, who wants to explore her sexuality with a boy that works in her school cafeteria. His name is Beagle. What a dog this boy is…. just kidding. He is actually too nice of a boy really.

So did I mention that I absolutely love Mary Stuart Masterson? It was all I could do during the Q & A session to not ask her where she got those fabulous shoes!

Oh, yes the movie…. Georgia is stricken with FA (http://www.mdausa.org/disease/fa.html), a disease that limits her ability to walk. The story moved a little slow for me, but the characterization was excellent and the acting was incredible with Bruce Dern anchoring the cast.

Which brings me back to girl crushes, because I have to admit I have also had one on Laura Dern for as long as I can remember. If I could invite four people to dinner, it would be Mary Stuart Masterson, Laura Dern, Jessica Lange and Ann-Margaret. Girl crush Heaven.

I subtitle this film; “Peer Pressure and People Pleasing will get you in to a whole lot of Trouble, Darling.”

Tracy Orbison is a naïve young man who writes poetry, is addicted to food, has no self-esteem and thereby allows himself to be completely manipulated by pretty much everyone he comes into contact with. My reaction was that those people were a drag, but unfortunately, that is probably how this scenario would play out in real life. We live in a world where sincerity and trust often receive harsh punishments, so we all have to be careful. Apparently Mr. Orbison missed that day of class.

His need for approval is enhanced by his weight problem, and winds up getting him falsely accused of sex crimes and fired from his job. Not a good day. Still, the movie ends with you feeling hopeful for him, the charges are dropped, and you hope he finds a meeting of Codependent’s Anonymous.

William Baldwin plays a real slime bag, and does a wonderful job of it. Insert your own joke here.

Friday Rocktober 12, 2007

Austin International Film Festival

Are we blessed or are we blessed? The Austin Film Festival brings us some of the best in independent cinema every fall. I only wish I could take the whole week off and see everything that I would like to.

The first AIFF film I saw this year was The Living Wake Read the rest of this entry »

And off we go! Click here to check out the Austin Daze Blogs

AUSTIN DAZE: How did this project come about and when did it become a reality you guys knew you would stick to?

BETO MARTINEZ: Before we had Grupo Fantasma we were The Blimp and it was like a funk rock project. When we started doing Fantasma more full time it was pretty much straight Latin. Brownout kind of came about from us wanting to go back and do the straight funk stuff. So it was like, 2003, that Adrian (Quesada) approached us and said, “Hey man we should put a funk band back together.” And that’s where we started. It was just a natural thing. We did it not with the intention of making it a hard core project or anything. We started with a bunch of covers of old funk stuff that we wanted to do and played a couple of gigs which were nothing special–7 people. Our first big was opening for De La Sol. We kept doing it but just every once in awhile—it was really a side project of Fantasma. I don’t think there was ever a question of “Do we want to do this?” because that is what we always did. It was a return to funk; it was a natural outlet. With Fantasma, it’s a bigger band and the music definitely has to be more structured and with Brownout it was kind of our stretching out thing. As soon as we put it together people just started bringing in music. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571532898,j=r,s=s,l=i]MICHELLE WILLIAMS: How important was it for you to premiere your movie here in Austin?

ETHAN HAWKE: I don’t know. I want to make sure that I sound as sincere as I am. The biggest collaborator of my adult working life has been Richard Linklater. And the work that he has done with the Austin Film Society is so impressive and has been such an inspiration to me. Before Sunrise came out, which was over 10 years ago, we would do these joint benefits—one for my theater company and then another for the Austin Film Society, which we raised a bunch of money for. And Rick just ran with this. They have raised so much money and helped start so many young people’s careers and given so much money to young filmmakers. In some ways when I was making The Hottest State my dream of the finish line was always premiering it at the Paramount. If I could finish this movie, and get a distributor, I would get to come down, we could raise money for Austin Film Society, and I still have a lot of family in Texas so they could come here and watch it right at the Paramount. So that was tonight and I’m really happy about that. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571541346,j=r,s=s,l=i]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get started in music?

CARL FINCH: I got started in the Baptist Church children’s choir. The conductor of that choir at the Church pulled my parents aside and told them that they should get me piano lessons. So I started piano lessons when I was pretty young, 7, I think. So I took piano lessons and then went to play guitar and then went to play rock and roll in high school. When I went to college I decided I needed to get serious so I got a degree in advertising art and then I got a masters in drawing and painting and thought I was going to teach college. While I was working on the masters I kind of collided with the idea of getting the band together to do the things that I was doing. I was working with sound installations—I had evolved away from painting and I think I also realized I wasn’t very good. I excelled as a conceptualist so anything could be the medium in that case. I always leaned towards sound. One thing that I really loved was the idea of leveling music out to be on the same plane and the way I saw to do that was to put as many different styles together. That was the whole bottom line concept—to totally even the whole playing field with music so you could eliminate the notion of having to label one style cool or not cool. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1581356318,j=r,s=s,l=i]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get involved with this project?

JESSE HARRIS: I’ve known Ethan on and off for a very long time. We’ve never been the kind of friends that would call each other up and hang out but we knew each other. And actually, the first time that he ever did call me was in regards to this. He said that he wanted to meet and I went and met him for a drink and he said, “I wrote a script based on my novel and I would love for you to read it. I need music and I’m very interested in your doing it and would love for you to be involved in it in any capacity that you want.” So I read the script and I loved it and I called him and said I would do as much as he would let me do.

Read the rest of this entry »

AUSTIN DAZE: What moved you to pick up the trombone?

BIG SAM: Well, they call me Big Sam and I was always big as a kid. I was playing basketball—I thought I would be a basketball star one day, you know? But that didn’t work out because I was too big for my age group. So after playing for years and years and years my agent finally said that I was too tall to play in that league but wasn’t able to play with the older kids so I had to find something else to do and I was in middle school and I said, “Well, I’m going to join the marching band”–just to find something to do, you know? I went to the band leader and said I wanted to play and he asked me, “Well what do you want to play?” And I said, “Well, whatever you need people on.” And he said, “The trombone.” And I said, “What’s that?” Ever since that day I’ve been trying to get better and better. Read the rest of this entry »

WE IS DIGGING IN TO THE AUSTIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FEST.

SO FAR, RECOMMEND EVERYTHING I HAVE SEEN: RESERVATION ROAD, NUMB,

AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get involved with music and when did you know it would be your path?

SHELLEY KING: I have been involved with music my whole life. My family is very musical. I always knew that I wanted music to be my path but I never had a clear idea on how to create that path. It took a long time to get there. When I was a teenager I started writing songs but for some reason I never really envisioned myself producing those songs with a band—it just didn’t dawn on me until much later. When I was in my early 20s I saw a band play in Houston called Miss Molly and the Passions and she was so awesome. We were at this packed club and everyone was sweaty and grooving to the music and I was drinking and I had a message from God laid on me that night that that was what I had to do–I had to do it. I walked out of Club Hey Hey in Houston in 1989 in search of how to put a band together. I started working on that and got some gigs in Houston. My drummer now, Perry (Drake) and Kyle Judd, they were in my Houston band in 1990 and 1991. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571521240,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get started in the music business?

GRAHAM WILLIAMS: I was into music from a young age. I started playing in bands when I was a kid. In high school we had a band and it’s not like clubs will book your band when you are a kid–you can’t get a show at a bar as a 14 year old playing punk rock–so we would put on our own shows. We’d rent out VFW Halls and warehouses and find old abandoned houses that were in a bad neighborhood. That’s just how we did shows. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571524040,j=r,s=s,l=i]AUSTIN DAZE: What does playing the ACL fest mean to you?

RAY BENSON: It’s part of my life because we’ve played it every year, because I helped them when it first started out to put the deal together, and because I also played the first Austin City Limits show in 1975. This has been so important for my career and I love it. Read the rest of this entry »

(George Porter, Russell Batiste, Brian Stolz)

AUSTIN DAZE: Tell us about the evolution of this project and how it came about.

PORTER –BATISTE-STOLZ: We were three of the four Funky Meters and as friends we just got together and then it started coming together and we started doing gigs and one thing led to the other. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1570634057,j=r,s=s,l=i]AUSTIN DAZE: How does it feel to be playing ACL?

ROBERT EARL KEEN: It’s kind of like a homecoming. I lived here for about 4 years and had some regular jobs and that kind of thing and played some music in lots and lots of bars so I have a lot of friends here. I haven’t really lived here for about 20 years or so and when I come back here and do something like this, especially because some of these musicians I grew up with and some of these guys that are promoting other shows I’ve known for a long time it feels like a big old family reunion.

AD: What do you think of the weather this year?

REK: Compared to the dust storms of two years ago, it’s been good. Actually, Texas this year has been a great summer. If you didn’t like rain it would be too bad but I like rain and I like cool weather so I thought it was like living in the North West without having to leave the state. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571522098,j=r,s=s,l=i]QUICK HITS: WITH CASEY AFFLECK AND ANDREW DOMINIK OF THE ASSASINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD

CASEY AFFLECK, actor

AUSTIN DAZE: What drew you to this project?

CASEY AFFLECK: What didn’t draw me to it? Andrew Dominik, I loved his movie Chopper, Brad doesn’t really make bad movies, the script was incredible, and the book was great. There is nothing really bad and I sort of thought there were no question marks coming into it. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1570629209,j=r,s=s,l=i]MICHELLE WILLIAMS: You are here with your movie Postal. Tell us a little bit about it.

UWE BOLL: Well the movie is based on the video game Postal. It’s a crazy comedy basically about a loser who lives in a trailer park and his wife is 500 pounds. He needs a job and he has a very bad day. And at the same time we have Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, everybody comes together in the small town basically and the whole history of the world will maybe end at this day. Read the rest of this entry »