Austin Texas RFI

Maybe I will stay at the vaunted Double-Tree next time I am in Austin because honestly the Sheraton is a little ghetto. Not even a fridge in the room, let alone a bar. Weirdos inviting me to drive down alleys and then crazy punks spilling out of Built to Spill down the street WTF with that dude???

Ha well dude that's downtown for you. Can't say we're much better in the weirdo dept, but we do have a bar and fridges and a restaurant and shit. Just remodeled too.

I can't afford to stay here at the regular rate, but ay you (or anybody else!) hit me up if you're coming into town, I can hook a dude up like $79/night.

"Friends & Family Rates" are a wonderful thing.

This is all business trip shit and I don't really give a fuck what my company's paying, but the "negotiated rate" is $210/night and this is definitely not a $210/night hotel. For 1/2 that in LA I get a minibar and snacks which are v. important traveling amenities.

Damn skippy.

btw

fucking rain already.

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, March 3, 2008 5:33 AM

I TAKE IT ALL BACK OH GOD

I'm an hour NW of Austin now, and can't work because the wind is blowing 50mph. This shithole little town has nothing to do, and I can't even buy episodes of the Wire on iTunes.

Trying to decide whether I want to learn to love Lost or One Tree Hill.

out in the burbs?

ps only go lost if you are willing to invest a bunch of time

only go one tree hill if you want to watch something terrible

one tree hill goes better with drinking alone.

rural - building a lodge on the Llano River (near... Llano)

Georgetown/Round Rock might be South Dallas... but I would gleefully take either of them over this area

STAY AT HOOS'S HOTEL

This winter has been so awful in Chicago. I am thinking of taking a schoolbus to Austin and spending a few days writing in my journal at a table outside the Taco Cabana on south Lamar, surrounded by grackles.

doooo it

TACO CABANA? you're better off at Hoos's hotel's hot breakfast buffet.

So, the gf and I find ourselves in Austin until Sunday. In addition to the fine suggestions found upthread, anything particularly unmissable going on this week Austin ilxors would suggest?

i hear good things about the doubletree hotel

^ lyar

nothin real big happening that i'm up on, just regular stuff. good jazz @ the elephant room. whereabouts you at?

I don't know of anything super-special happening this week either. I can't even say offhand if the bats are back from Mexico or if Barton Springs is open.

If you have the time on Sunday afternoon you should def. visit Ginny's Little Longhorn for honky-tonk music and Chicken Shit Bingo.

We're at the Crowne Plaza on I-35, thanks to hotwire and very last minute planning.

We ate at Polvo's last night. I dug it, the better half not so much.

Oh, and wtf is with your buses being so cheap? Paying fifty cents feels like I'm in a magical time warp. Or Pleasantville.

Yeah it's a beautiful thing dude. A buck and you ride all day!

drove into SW Austin looking for a guitar store (and/or because I was bored)

The 71/290/1/360 highway cluster is a fucking disaster.

yessir

i once spent an hour trying to get from one corner to another

How do you feel about the 183/360/1 interchange in North Austin?

so both NPR stations (89.x, 90.5) are mostly music? Do you get Fresh Air or the Diane Rehm Show at all?

http://kut.org

http://koop.org

schedules on sites

koop does Fresh Air - I forget when

I mean, kut has Fresh Air. Sorry.

afternoons booooo

Yeah Fresh Air 3-4pm. I don't hear Diane Rehm at all?

They ran Radio Lab during Terry's vacay last week and I think I have a new favorite show.

Dude the worst thing about leaving DFW is leaving KERA. (Well KTCK too). But you can listen on the www

No www in my truck/on the job, unfortunately. And even if I get Sirius for NPR, they have Rehm and Fresh Air on at weird times.

KERA has ruined me for all other NPR stations.

Is there a good bar in Austin where you can actually talk, no loud music?

The Grand!

Oily got me going there now.

Yeah, I like that joint. Crawling distance from home, too.

Wound up at Spider House which did the trick volume-wise (and there was an adorable cat monitoring the order pick-up window). But good to know about The Grand - I'm constantly searching for relatively quiet places to talk.

Check out the bar at the Driskill Hotel. Sometimes there's a piano player, it's always quiet... eternally anti-scene. De rigeur attire: starched white oxford shirt, new jeans, cowboy boots.

Anybody been to The Nomad bar yet?

Nope. But I'm a homebody.

it's too fucking hot to do anything. at all.

Me too, Hoos, and ryan otm.

There's a birthday/karaoke thing there soon for a friend I hardly get to see, and it's within reasonable staggering distance home. I should probably go.

I like Nomad! They've got a nice patio. Plus they're open until 2am now. Pints are a bit pricier than average, but being able to walk or bike there makes up for that easily.

I just went to Nomad for happy hour! I am drunk.

awez

being able to walk or bike there makes up for that easily.

This is an important trait, absolutely. But the last time I walked home from Carousel there was a car accident that looked like it was going to escalate into a murder as I was crossing 35 on 51st.

Continuing this weekend's drunkfest, tonight I went to the Poodle Dog Lounge! They were so friendly! It was so empty! Yet smoky. I drank a lot, but that's OK... I wasn't driving.

Boil your tap water or use bottled water

http://www.kut.org/post/austin-issues-city-wide-boil-water-notice

heading there march 3-7 for a conference. ill be staying in zilker. what's good near there? looking especially for good nature spots, food, art

That's pretty much right downtown. Zilker park and Barton Springs are close nature spots. Tons of food around there, my favorites include Ramen Tatsu-Ya, Loro, Uchi, 24 Diner, Easy Tiger. There's a cool graffiti park just north of there and the Blanton art museum up near UT. I think there's some smaller museums and galleries in the downtown area too.

Lots of good food truck parks right around there too.

Maybe this just a sign of how awful everything is these days, but last night's Nightline was an abridged version of a new Hulu doc about the Austin Bomber, and I had totally forgotten that happened.

Remember when a guy crashed his plane into an IRS office building on Research Blvd?

Yeah...now.

Took me a minute to remember the bomber and that was only a year ago. I guess the fact that he killed himself kind of brought that story to an abrupt end.

Yeah, and there isn't a whole bunch of public info about him. In the doc, they mentioned a taped manifesto that's been classified.

It's not a narrative that holds much appeal for the police, conservative leadership in Texas, or the press... a white Christian kid from the suburbs targeting black people. The Austin police chief and Governor Abbott's public waffling about whether or not his actions constituted terrorism are indicative.

and an explosion at a FedEx center near San Antonio last night; one injury

I'd nearly forgotten this happened, though to be completely honest after the nearby Sutherland Springs church massacre in November 2017 (and the 1979 Battle of Flowers shooting spree that took at least two lives before the gunman shot himself) "one injury" seems hardly worth mentioning.

We have a few nights in Austin in a week or two: anything any of you'd recommend doing / seeing that might not be in guidebooks?

Ok so 24 hours is obviously enough to make a definitive judgement and here is mine on Austin: nice town, nice people, shit weather.

Too hot?

It’s been like living inside a Bain Marie today. And then a stupidly violent storm. Then back to the steaming.

tomorrow's gonna be beautiful though

you came at a weird time, it had been completely dry and extremely hot for about 3 months straight prior to the past weekend

Any kind of extremely hot not desirable IMO.

Looking forward to tomorrow though!

Yeah, I'm glad we're getting rain and cooler weather

New Oral History of MTV's "Austin Stories"

https://www.austinmonthly.com/an-oral-history-of-mtvs-austin-stories/

I'm going to be spinning some vibey techno over at Gnar Bar on 6th tomorrow (Monday) night from 10-11. Drop by, say hi, grab a beer, dance!

https://www.kut.org/transportation/2023-10-17/austin-chronicles-historic-headquarters-to-be-paved-over-for-i-35

...and then

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2023-10-05/austin-chronicle-co-founder-louis-black-sued-for-alleged-harassment-abuse-and-sexual-servitude/

I see now those stories are from October (KUT re-upped the first one to FB today, and I thought it was new).

Austin peeps, we got a real show coming up next week!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Eh28bJItF/?igsh=MW04M29hYWEwdzBkYw==