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September 2011
It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Introduction
Don’t expect the Mayflower Society.
Unlike the descendants of the Pilgrims who survived the 1620 Mayflower voyage, the Out & About 500 did not make the social grade through genealogy. And this annual list of 500 especially social Central Texas singles or couples — who count as one unit — changes significantly every year.
People move away. Among the social powerhouses who recently moved — or are moving — from our city are Suzanna Choffel and Paul Oveisi; Dana Friis-Hansen and Mark Holzbach; Ken Stein and Ken Lambrecht; Patti and James Huffines; Jen Shoemaker; Lonnie Limon; and Mary Ann Rankin.
Luckily, all of the above maintain binding local ties and some even keep homes here. You’ll see them again. Just not as often.
People pass away, too. Funny man Cactus Pryor, gallery owner George Attal, architect Hal Box, University of Texas stalwart Shirley Bird Perry, journalist Michele Kay, sculptor Damian Priour, former St. Edward’s University president Stephen Walsh, community volunteer Janis Guerrero-Thompson, and former Huston-Tillotson University President John Quill Taylor King Sr. were among the distinguished socializers to leave us.
(Not all were widely social in later years.)
Also, some people just decide to eschew the social life and stay at home. Life unwinds in cycles. Perhaps 100 of those who had appeared on last year’s list of Austin’s most social citizens had babies, changed careers or just decided to rest.
As always, American-Statesman employees and their families are not eligible.
To nominate a Central Texan for the 2012 Out & About 500, formally introduce them to me via mbarnes@statesman.com
To view the 2011, choose “The 500” category link below.
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: All-Stars
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
ALL-STARS
Carol and Chris Adams. Austin Film Society, Animal Trustees of Austin, Zach Theatre, Blue Lapis Light, HAAM
James Armstrong and Larry Connelly. Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Zach Theatre, Ballet Austin, Austin Children’s Museum
Linda Ball and Forrest Preece. Ballet Austin, Badgerdog Literary Publishing, Austin Film Festival, AIDS Services of Austin, Project Transitions
Suzanne Deal Booth and David Booth. Dimensional Fund Advisors, Booth Heritage Foundation, University of Texas, Waller Creek Conservancy, Booth School of Business
Becky Beaver and John Duncan. Law Office of Becky Beaver, Ballet Austin, Mexic-Arte Museum, Planned Parenthood of Austin, People’s Community Clinic
Sally and Mack Brown. University of Texas, Rise School of Austin, Neighborhood Longhorns, CureDuchenne, Red Cross
Sarah and Ernest Butler. Butler School of Music, Austin Museum of Art, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, Austin Lyric Opera
Olga Campos and Kevin Benz. CultureMap Austin, U.S. Money Reserve, CASA, Any Baby Can, Lutheran Social Services
Susan and Michael Dell. Dell Inc., Dell Family Foundation, Dell Children’s Medical Center, Dell Pediatric Research Institute, Marathon Kids
Eloise and John Paul DeJoria. Paul Mitchell, Patron Spirits Company, John Paul Pet, Arbor Recovery Center, Palmer Drug Abuse Program
Mary Margaret and Ray Farabee. People’s Community Clinic, Southwestern Writers Collection, Molly National Journalism Prize, Ransom Center, University of Texas
Maria Luisa ‘Lulu’ Flores and Scott Hendler. National Women’s Political Caucus, Hendler Law, Mexic-Arte Museum, Save Town Lake Association, Hispanic Bar Association of Austin
Anna Hansen and Lance Armstrong. Livestrong, Texas Bicycle Coalition, Mellow Johnny’s, Team RadioShack, Tobacco-Free Kids
David Garza and John Hogg. Mexic-Arte Museum, Hispanic Scholarship Consortium, Westlake Fire Department, Center for Child Protection
Deborah Green and Clayton Aynesworth. Women & Their Work, Austin Film Society, Austin Museum of Art, Arthouse, University of Texas
Maria and Eric Groten. Zach Theatre, Center for Child Protection, Vinson and Elkins, Ballet Austin, Gazelle Foundation
Kim Heilbrun and William Powers Jr. University of Texas, Austin Triathlon, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Jeanne and Michael Klein. Blanton Museum of Art, Arthouse, University of Texas, Center for Child Protection
Diane Land and Steve Adler. Anti-Defamation League, GenAustin, Ballet Austin, PE3, Progress Texas
Teresa and Joe Long. Long Center, University of Texas, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Caritas of Austin
Carla and Jack McDonald. Silverback Acquisitions, Dynabrand, YNN, Tribeza, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Andrea and Dean McWilliams. McWilliams Governmental Affairs, Heritage Society, Mamma Jamma Ride, Ballet Austin, Marathon Kids
Lynn and Tom Meredith. MFI Foundation, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin Children’s Museum, University of Texas, Long Center
Stephen Moser. Austin Chronicle, Made in Heaven
Willie Nelson. Farm Aid, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Nobelity Project, Carl’s Corner
Nona Niland and David Braun. Ann Richards School, Long Center, People’s Community Clinic, Center For Public Policy Priorities, Niland Foundation
Anita and Rick Perry. Perry for President, Governor of Texas, Texas Conference for Women, National Governors Association, Texas Association Against Sexual Assault
Christy and Turk Pipkin. Nobelity Project, Miracle Foundation, A Glimmer of Hope Foundation
MariBen Ramsey and Karen Kahan. Austin Community Foundation, Seton Foundations, Women’s Fund, Con Mi Madre, Settlement Home
Joe Ross. CS Identity, Livestrong, LifeWorks, Planet Cancer, Coats for Kids, Center for Child Protection
Amy and Kirk Rudy. Endeavor Real Estate Group, Anti-Defamation League, Equality Texas, AIDS Services of Austin, Ballet Austin
Nancy Scanlan and John Watson. Save Our Springs Alliance, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Harry Ransom Center, Westcave Preserve, KMFA
Nina and Frank Seely. Ralph Lauren, Long Center, People’s Community Clinic of Austin, Austin Jazz Workshop
Eugene Sepulveda and Steven Tomlinson. Entrepreneurs Foundation, Wheatsville Coop, Obama for America, Out Youth, Marfa Public Radio
Julia Null Smith and Evan Smith. Texas Tribune, Corcoran & Co., KLRU, Texas Book Festival, People’s Community Clinic
Donna Stockton-Hicks and Steve Hicks. University of Texas System, Capstar Partners, Stockton Hicks Laffey, Austin Community Foundation, Rise School
Amy Grace Tharp and Doug Ulman. Livestrong, Casis Elementary School, O. Henry Middle School, Town Lake Foundation, Austin Community Foundation
Bobbi and Mort Topfer. Topfer Family Foundation, Castletop Capital, KLRU, Zach Theatre, Seton Fund
Michelle Valles and Ray Benson. Asleep at the Wheel, HAAM, Emancipet, SIMS, REEL Women
Suzanne and Marc Winkelman. Calendar Club, Texas Book Festival, Democratic Party, Long Center, Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Lynn Yeldell and Alisa Weldon. L Style G Style, Human Rights Campaign, Animal Trustees of Austin
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Arts
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
ARTS
Arts Star: Sylvia Orozco. Mexic-Arte Museum, Serie Print Project, Austin Saltillo Sister City Association, Mexican American Cultural Center, Women’s Art League
Arthur Andersson. Andersson-Wise Architects, Zach Theatre, W Austin Hotel & Residences, ‘Natural Houses’
Amy Barbee. Texas Cultural Trust
Ron Berry. Refraction Arts, Fuse Box Festival
Annette DiMeo Carlozzi and Dan Bullock. Blanton Museum of Art, Zach Theatre, Arthouse, Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, Forklift Dance Company
Elisabeth Challener and Brett Bachman. Zach Theatre
Joyce Christian and Rudy Green. Austin Museum of Art, ProArts Collective, Care Communities, St. Stephen’s School
Dick Clark. Dick Clark Architecture, Hangar Lounge, The Grove, Soleil, Rainwater Court
Charles Duggan. Long Center, Austin Lyric Opera, Ballet Austin
Barbara Chisholm and Robert Faires. Zach Theatre, Austin Chronicle
Mela Dailey and Peter Bay. Austin Symphony Orchestra
Sean Gaulager. Co-Lab, Austin Museum of Art
Carrie Fountain and Kirk Lynn. Rude Mechs, University of Texas, St. Edward’s University, ‘Burn Lake’’
Mary Ann and Andrew Heller. Heller Records, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Long Center, University of Texas
Karen Jantsch. Long Center, Rude Mechs
Lisa Jasper and Jim Ritts. Paramount and State Theatres
Brent Hasty and Stephen Mills. Ballet Austin, University of Texas, Arthouse
Gail and Jeff Kodosky. University of Texas, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Symphony, Ballet Austin, Conspirare, Long Center
Wendi and Brian Kushner. Austin Lyric Opera, Long Center, FTI Consulting, Austin Asset Management Co.
Chris Mattsson and John McHale. Austin Museum of Art, Arthouse
Anton Nel and Bill Jones. University of Texas, Long Center, Concierge Family Medicine
Bettye and Bill Nowlin. University of Texas, Zach Theatre, Austin Community Development Corp., University of Texas, Long Center
Allison Orr and Blake Trabulsi. Forklife Danceworks, Fusebox Festival, Zocolo Design and Advertising
Karen and Chip Oswalt. Texas Cultural Trust, HeartGift, University of Texas, Texas Exes
Kathy Panoff. Texas Performing Arts
Graydon Parrish and Scott Balew. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin Museum of Art, The Art Department, Aids Services of Austin, TAS Specialty Pharmacy
Candace and Michael Partridge. Austin Lyric Opera, Zach Theatre
Cookie and Phil Ruiz. Ballet Austin, Con Mi Madre, Girls Empowerment Network, Texans for the Arts, CreateAustin
Michelle Schumann and Matt Orem. Austin Chamber Music Center, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Sharon Radovich. Art Divas, Panache Interiors, City Art Link
Judith Sims. Austin Museum of Art, Art Divas
Melba and Ted Whatley. St. Edward’s University, Arthouse, Austin Museum of Art
Eva and Marvin Womack. Austin Lyric Opera, Procter & Gamble, Long Center
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Business
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
BUSINESS
Business Stars: Debra and Brett Hurt. Bazaarvoice, KLRU, Entrepreneur’s Foundation, Jewish Community Association of Austin, The Nobelity Project, Safe Lanes
Molly Alexander. Downtown Austin Alliance
Sandra and Joe Aragona. Austin Ventures, Livestrong, Dell Children’s Medical Center, Entrepreneur’s Foundation, St. David’s Foundation
Val and Beau Armstrong. Stratus Properties, W Austin Hotel & Residences, ACL Live, St. David’s Foundation
Charles Barnett. Seton Healthcare Family, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, APIE, American Heart Association
Charlie Betts. Downtown Austin Alliance
Clayton Bullock. Clayton Bullock Real Estate, Young Men’s Business League, Leadership Austin, Long Center, Austin Young Chamber, Austin Sunshine Camps
Gigi and Sam Bryant. Bryant Wealth Investment Group, United Way Capital Area, Assistance League of Austin, Austin Community College Foundation
Mike Rollins. Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Cotter Cunningham. WhaleShark Media
Jill and Jeffrey Dachis. Dachis Group, Arthouse, Bazaarvoice
Erin Driscoll and John Thornton. Austin Ventures, Texas Tribune
Susan and Bobby Epstein. Long Center, Jewish Community Association of Austin, Austin Film Society, Children’s Medical Center Foundation, Circuit of the Americas
Gay and Lee Gaddis. T3, Women’s Business Council, Governor’s Business Council, iMedia Communications
Regan and Billy Gammon. William Gammon Insurance Agency Inc., Texas Book Festival
Bonita and Jeff Garvey. Austin Ventures, Livestrong, Austin Community Foundation
N. Rudy Garza. G-51 Capital LLC, Dell Children’s Medical Center
Rebecca and Bryan Hardeman. Mercedes-Benz of Austin, University of Texas, Austin Children’s Shelter
Amy Holloway and Chris Engle. Avalanche Consulting, Creative Fund, HAAM, StrataTX, Dive Bar
Joe and Sandra Holt. Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Austin Symphony Orchestra, JPMorgan Chase, American Heart Association
Robena Jackson. Group Solutions RJW, Dispute Resolution Center, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Bobby Jenkins. Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, ABC Pest Control, Chem Free
Rosie Mendoza. R. Mendoza and Co., SafePlace, Travis County Hospital District, Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Emily Moreland. Moreland, Paramount and State Theatres, Zach Theatre
Mary Pat Mueller. Door Number 3 Inc., Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, New Milestones Foundation, People’s Community Clinic, Impact Austin
Deep Nasta. Deep in the Heart of Texas Realty, Young Men’s Business League
Eddie Safady. Prosperity Bank, Austin Symphony, L3, HAAM, Ann Richards School
Brian Sharples. HomeAway, Austin Ventures
Martha Smiley. Austin Area Research Organization, Enoch Kever PLLC, Capital IDEA, University of Texas System, Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Women
Whitney Casey Sooch and Nav Sooch. Sooch Foundation, Silicon Laboratories Inc., Miracle Foundation
Mary and Roy Spence. GSD&M, “It’s Not What You Sell,” University of Texas, Students of the World
Claire and Carl Stuart. “MoneyTalk,” Carl Stuart Investment Advisor, Westwood Country Club
Suzi and Roy Sosa. Rev Worldwide, United Way, MPower Venture
Diana Zuniga. Investors Alliance Inc., Spring, Real Estate Council of Austin, Zach Theatre, Austin Area Research Organization, E3 Alliance
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Charity
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
CHARITY
Rodney Ahart. Keep Austin Beautiful, Windsor Park Neighborhood Association
Joanie Bentzin. Center for Child Protection, Leadership Austin, Women’s Symphony League, St. David’s Foundation, Helping Hand Home
Allen Beuershausen. Whole Kids Adventure, Whole Kids Lifestyle, Bootstrap Style, Catalyst 8, ATX Equation
Donna and Philip Berber. A Glimmer of Hope Foundation
Caroline Boudreaux. The Miracle Foundation
Julia Cuba and Mike Nellis. Austin Children’s Museum, GenAustin
Frank and Tina Fernandez. GreenDoors, Austin Metro
Jesus Garza. Seton Healthcare Family
Kendall and Ken Gladish. The Seton Foundations
Alan Graham. Mobile Loaves & Fishes
Joene Grissom. GenAustin, Badgerdog Literary Publishing, LifeWorks, iAct, Leadership Austin
Priscilla Guajardo Cortez and John-Michael Vincent Cortez. FuturoFund, Livable City, Capital Metro, Community Action Network Community Council, University of Texas
Janet Harman and Kent Mayes. KDK-Harman Foundation, St. Stephen’s School, Southwest Council of Foundations
Cindy and Greg Kozmetsky. United Way, RGK Foundation, PeopleFund
Ava and Steve Late. BMW of Austin, Center for Child Protection, Ballet Austin
Joanna and Peter Linden. Capital Area Food Bank, Association of Fundraising Professionals, Joanna Linden Public Relations, Silvaco, Inc, Mexic-Arte Museum
Marcia and Bruce Levy. Seton Healthcare Family, Anti-Defamation League,Temple Beth Shalom, I Live Here I Give Here, GenAustin
Susan and Craig Lubin. Austin Gastroenterology, Ballet Austin, Hospice Austin, Jewish Community Association of Austin, Seton Healthcare Family
Bill McClellan. Family Eldercare, Envision Central Texas, St. David’s Hospital
Monica Maldonado Williams. Giving City
Earl Maxwell. St. David’s Community Health Foundation, Maxwell Locke and Ritter, Austin Area Research Organization, Austin Partners in Education
Joann McKenzie. Human Rights Campaign, LifeWorks, Atticus Circle, Legacy of Giving, ACCION Texas
Laurée and Jim Bob Moffett. St David’s Foundation, Caritas of Austin, University of Texas, Freeport-McMoRan, Dell Children’s Medical Center
Rebecca Powers. Impact Austin
Monica Peraza. MexNet Alliance, Dalma Imports, Hispanic Alliance for for the Arts
Denise and Randy Phillips. Promiseland West
Harriett Pozen. Jewish Community Association of Austin, Candlelight Ranch
Beverly Scarborough. Texas Commission on Mental Health and Mental Retardation, Ballet Austin, Girl Scouts, Congregation Beth Israel
Lily and Yigal Saad. Anti-Defamation League, Austin Lyric Opera, Jewish Community Center Association
Courtney Spence. Students of the World
Tom Spencer. Interfaith Action of Central Texas
Venus and Bill Strawn. Center for Child Protection, Rise School of Austin, Humanities Texas, Women’s Fund of Central Texas, Women’s Trust Fund Dell Children’s Hospital
Margot and Grant Thomas. YouthLaunch, People’s Community Clinic, Town Lake Trail Foundation
Kelly and Richard Topfer. Topfer Family Foundation, Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas
Alex Winkelman. Citizen Generation
Armando Zambrano and Bryan Gardner. Four Seasons Hotel Austin, Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Education
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
EDUCATION
Kathryn Anderson and Doug Dempster. University of Texas
Sylvia Acevedo. Ann Richards School, Girl Scouts of America, National Hispanic Education Council, Austin Community Foundation
Sandy Alcala. Junior League of Austin, UTLatinos, Texas Exes, Con Mi Madre Alex Brown. Austin Community College Foundation, AMD
Meria Carstarphen. Austin ISD, Austin Partners in Education, Dell Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Ballet Austin
Jesús H. Chávez. Round Rock ISD
Graciela and Francisco Cigarroa. UT System, Mental Health America of Texas, St. David’s Foundation
Penny and Thomas Cedel. Concordia University Texas
Susan Dawson and Ken Mannas. E3 Alliance, Austin Area Research Organization, Leadership Austin, United Way, Austin College Access Network
Carol and Sandy Dochen. Austin Area Research Organization, IBM, MCC, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Larry Earvin. Huston-Tillotson University, Austin Area Urban League
Thomas E. Gallagher. Austin Community College Foundation, Seton Healthcare Family
Machree Garrett Gibson and Michael T. Gibson. Texas Exes, Links, The Graydon Group, HeatWave
Terri Givens and Mike Scott. University of Texas, KLRU, Take Back the Trail
Katy Hackerman. UT College of Natural Sciences
Terry Hazell. RampCorp, Texas State University, Texas Emerging Technology Fund, Springboard Enterprises
Carla Jackson and Kelvin Phillips. Austin Community College Center for Public Policy, Dimensional Fund Advisors
Andrew Kim. Manor ISD
Jill Kolasinski and Rip Esselstyn. KIPP Austin, ‘The Engine 2 Diet’
Michael Lofton. African American Men and Boys/Women and Girls Conference George E. Martin. St. Edward’s University
Heather McKissick and Innes Mitchell. Leadership Austin, The ATX Equation, Young Women’s Alliance, St. Edward’s University New College
Amy and Al Wong Mok. Asian American Cultural Center
Laura and Jeff Sandefer. Acton School of Business, Acton Academy
Juan Sanchez. Southwest Key Programs, East Austin College Prep Academy
Jane Woodman Schrum and Jake Schrum. Southwestern University
Linda and Mark Williams. Austin ISD, Center for Child Protection, United Way, Any Baby Can, Envision Central Texas
Denise M. Trauth and John Huffman. Texas State University, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Evelyn Reed Updegrove and Mark Updegrove. LBJ Library and Museum
Veronica Vargas Stidvent and Chris Stidvent. University of Texas, Hispanic Leadership Initiative
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Food
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
FOOD
Food Star: David Garrido. Garrido’s, Share Our Strength, Communities in Schools, AIDS Services of Austin, Livestrong, Center for Child Protection
David Alan and Joe Eifler. Tipsy Texan, Edible Austin, United States Bartenders Guild, Tipsy Tech Mason and Mylie Arnold. Greenling, Go Dance
Susan and Ed Auler. Fall Creek Vineyards, Wine and Food Foundation of Texas
Eddie Bernal. 34th Street Café and Catering, Santa Rita Cantina, Blue Star Cafeteria
David Bull. Congress, Second Bar + Kitchen, La Corsha Restaurant Management
Paula Biehler. Crave
Marla Camp and Jeff Kessel. Edible Austin
Shawn Cirkiel. Parkside
Rebekkah and Tyson Cole. Uchi, Uchiko, Austin Food and Wine Festival
Samantha and Ty Davidson. Trace, Uchi, Cultivate PR
Quincy Erickson and Stephen Nagle. Fete Accompli Inc., Stephen Nagle and Associates, Wine and Food Foundation of Texas, Le Cordon Bleu Austin, Les Dames D’Escoffier
Melissa and Larry Foles. Z Tejas, Eddie V’s, Roaring Fork, Center for Child Protection
Lisa and Emmett Fox. Asti, Fino
Bryce Gilmore. Barley Swine
Jennifer and Marshall Jones. Wine and Food Foundation of Texas
Cameron Lockley. La Sombra
Larry McGuire. Lamberts Downtown Barbecue, Perla’s
Lisa Matulis. Delish, LifeWorks, Women & Their Work
Tamara Mayfield and Jesse Griffiths. Dai Due Supper Club
Rob Moshein and Bob Atchison. Austin Wine Guy, Pallasart
Sue Mueller. Headliners Club
Jenna Noel and Zack Northcutt. Edible Austin, Meaty Monday Madness
Deborah and Larry Peel. KLRU, Larry Peel Co., Wine and Food Foundation of Texas, St. David’s Foundation
Carlos Rivero. El Chile, El Chilito, Red House Pizza, El Alma
Ronda Rutledge. Sustainable Food Center
Suzanne Santos. Austin Farmers’ Market
Carol Ann Sayle and Larry Butler. Boggy Creek Farms, Green Corn Project, Project Transitions
Amy and Steve Simmons. Amy’s Ice Creams, Phil’s Ice House, Austinville
Karen Odom Spezia and Roy Spezia. Tribeza, Clark, Thomas and Winters, Les Dames D’Escoffier, Wine and Food Foundation of Texas
Kathy Steele and Jeff Trigger. Congress, Second Bar + Kitchen, Berry Austin
Foo Swasdee. Satay, Texas Asian Chamber of Commerce, Get Sum Dim Sum
Tiffany Taylor and Leon Chen. Tiff’s Treats
Beau Theriot. Oasis, Soleil, Austin Symphony Orchestra, St. David’s Foundation
Toni Tipton-Martin. International Association of Culinary Professionals, Sande Youth Project Culinary Cultural Center
Sharon Watkins. Chez Zee, Zach Theatre, Long Center, University of Texas
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Heritage
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
HERITAGE
Ada Collins Anderson. LEAP, Austin Lyric Opera, University of Texas, ProArts
Melanie and Ben Barnes. Ben Barnes Group, Boys Club/Girls Club, University of Texas, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Ballet Austin.
Kathryn Scarborough Bechtol and Hub Bechtol. Turnquist Partners Realtors, Junior League of Austin, Impact Austin, Bechtol Golf Design, Austin Children’s Shelter
Ann Butler. University of Texas, Seton Healthcare Family, Austin Community Foundation, Caritas of Austin
Elizabeth Christian and Bruce Todd. LBJ Foundation, Elizabeth Christian Associates, Bruce Todd Public Affairs
Jo Anne Christian. Austin Lyric Opera, Long Center
Tana and Joe Christie. AIDS Services of Austin, Austin Lyric Opera, Armstrong Community Music School, Out Youth, Ransom Center
Nicole Nugent Covert and Brent Covert. University of Texas, Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Joanne and Jack Crosby. The Rust Group, University of Texas, Sundance Institute
Carol and Tim Crowley. Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Ronald McDonald House, Junior League, Helping Hand Home
Mandy Dealey. Heritage Society of Austin, Austin Community Foundation, Ransom Center, Junior League
Wilhelmina Delco and Exalton Delco Jr. North Austin Medical Center, Huston-Tillotson University, Greater Austin Crime Commission
Charmaine and Frank Denius. University of Texas, Seton Fund, Center for Child Protection
Fidel Estrada. Estrada’s Cleaners
Dealey and David Herndon. Herndon, Stauch and Associates, Texas State History Museum Foundation, Texas Governor’s Mansion Restoration Fund, State Preservation Board
Nancy and Bobby Inman. University of Texas, Paramount and State Theatres, Texas Natural Science Center
Willie Mae Kirk. Texas Federation of Women’s Club, Travis County Democratic Party, Carver Museum
Luci Baines Johnson and Ian Turpin. LBJ Holding Co., Friends of the LBJ Library, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Melissa Jones. Houston Endowment, Annie’s List, Molly National Journalism Prize, KIPP School
Virginia Lebermann and John Wotowicz. Austin Film Society, Dimension Fund Advisors, Marfa Public Radio
Charmaine Denius McGill and Gordon McGill. Sydcor, University of Texas, Center for Child Protection, St. Andrews School
Gay and Shannon Ratliff. Gay Ratliff Interiors, Heritage Society of Austin, Texas Governor’s Mansion Restoration Fund, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Sara and Dick Rathgeber. Rathgeber Village, Austin Children’s Shelter, People’s Community Clinic, Salvation Army
Catherine Robb. Sedgwick, Detert, Moran and Arnold LLP, LBJ Library Future Forum, Austin Music Foundation
Jane Sibley. Austin Symphony Orchestra, Long Center, University of Texas
Cindy and F. Gary Valdez. Focus Strategies Investment Banking, Seton Healthcare Family, St. Edward’s University
Pam Willeford and George Willeford III. Texas Cultural Trust, Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, Helping Hand Home, College for All Texans Foundation, 2011 Texas Inaugural Committee
Tomi and Pete Winstead. Winstead PC, Long Center, Economic Development Corp., Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council, American Heart Association
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Interactive
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
INTERACTIVE
Joshua Baer. Inbox Love, Ignite Austin, Capital Factory, Austinpreneur
Ashley Cass. Gowalla, Transmission Entertainment
Mike Chapman. Austin Social Media Club
Oscar Davila. Meals on Wheels and More, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Communities in Schools, SafePlace, CASA of Travis County
Cynthia Fedor and Jason Stoddard. Creative Fidelity
Kyle Flaherty. BreakingPoint Systems
Jude Galligan. Downtown Austin Blog, RE/MAX, Downtown Austin Alliance
Richard and Laeticia Garriott de Cayeux. Ajna Partners, ‘Lord British’s New Britannia,’ Austin Planetarium, Science and Technology Center
Tammy Lynn Gilmore. South by Southwest
Michelle Greer.. SimpleSpeak Media, Austin Twestival, Rackspace Hosting
Ricardo Guerrero.. Social Media Dynamo, Stwittergy, Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, Austin Cooperative Think Tank
Tim Hayden.. 44Doors, Meals on Wheels and More, Mind Meld Alliance
Marcy Hoen and Bijoy Goswami.. Bootstrap Austin, The ATX Equation, Fusebox Festival, Austin Creative Alliance, Austin Art Start
Scott Ingram.. NetworkInAustin.com
Kelly and Sally Jackson.. Midlife Gals, The Austin Alliance
Liz and Josh Jones-Dilworth.. Jones-Dilworth Inc.
Chris Apollo Lynn.. Republic of Austin
Nancy Mims and Rodney Gibbs.. Austin Film Society, KUT, Forklift Danceworks, Mod Green Pod, QRANK
Lisa Peterson. Dell Inc.
Tolly Moseley.. Austin Eavesdropper
David Neff. Lights.. Camera. Help.
Bryan Person.. BryanPerson.com
Ixchel and Armando Rayo.. TacoJournalism.com
Connie Reece. Every Dot Connects, conniereece.com
Benn and Lani Rosales. New Media Lab
Dustin Wells. Headsprings Systems
Phil West. Orange Cone Age
Josh Williams. Gowalla.com
Kim J. Wilson. Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, Austin Flyers
Rachel and David Wyatt. WyattBrand, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Diabetes Association, Mobile Arts & Wishes
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Law
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
LAW
Tanya and Art Acevedo. City of Austin, American Heart Association, Special Olympics Texas, Child Protection Center, Humane Society, American Youthworks
Denise Brady and Chris Riley. Austin City Council, The Rusk Law Firm, Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Julie Byers and Lee Leffingwell. Mayor of Austin, Water Conservation Task Force, Seton Healthcare Family
Perla Cavazos. City of Austin Commission on Women, Latinas Unidas Por El Arte, Teatro Vivo, Mexican American Cultural Center
Rick Cofer. Travis County, Capital City Young Democrats, Bag the Bags Coalition, Austin Multiple Scelorsis
Sheryl and Kevin Cole. Austin City Council, Cole and Powell, Leadership Austin, Austin Area Urban League, Communities in Schools
Susan Combs and Joe Duran. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Marathon Kids, Marfa Public Radio
Crystal Cotti and Mark Strama. Texas House of Representatives, Sylvan Learning Centers, Greater Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce, Council of Neighborhood Associations
Libby and Lloyd Doggett. U.S. Congress, Pre-K Now
Dawnna Dukes. Texas House of Representatives, DM Dukes and Associates Inc., Links, Inc.
Sarah Eckhardt and Kurt Sauer. Travis County Commissioners Court, Texas Folklife Resources, Daffer McDaniel LLP
Donna Howard. Texas House of Representatives, Expanding Horizons Foundation, Texas Education Crisis Coalition, Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, Common Cause
Ramey Ko. Be the Change Austin, City of Austin, Capital Area Asian American Democrats
Revlynn Lawson. Texas House of Representatives, Links
Rosemary Lehmberg. Travis County District Attorney, Center for Child Protection, CASA
Nelson Linder. Austin NAACP, African American Quality of Life Implementation Plan
Susan Longley. Longley Group, Molly National Journalism Prize, Texas Democracy Foundation, Atticus Circle, Zach Theatre
Patsy Woods Martin and Jack Martin. Public Strategies, Blue Texas, Long Center, Livestrong, Austin Children’s Museum, I Live Here I Give Here
Linda and Michael McCaul. U.S. Congress, March of Dimes, St. David’s Community Health Foundation, Communities in Schools, CureSearch
Mark McKinnon. Public Strategies, Livestrong, University of Texas
Laura and Phil Morrison. Austin City Council, University of Texas, Austin Neighborboods Council Bettie Naylor and Libby Sykora. OutYouth, Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas
Rosalba Ojeda. Consul General of Mexico, MexNet Alliance
Pam and Pike Powers. The Seton Fund, Fulbright and Jaworski, Envision Central Texas, Texas Technology Initiative
Robin Rather. Liveable City, Hill Country Conservancy, Envision Central Texas
Eddie Rodriguez. Texas House of Representatives, Hispanic Institute for Technology Advancement, Sierra Club
Geronimo Rodriguez Jr. Seton Healthcare Family, LBJ School of Public Affairs, KLRU, Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, St. Edward’s University
Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza. Travis County, Austin Lyric Opera
Karen and William Sage. Travis County, Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force, University of Texas, Any Baby Can, Caritas of Austin
Paul Saldaña. Brisa Communications, Eastside High School
Randi Shade and Kayla Shell. Austin City Council (former), Dell Inc., Days of Service
Niyanta and Bill Spelman. Austin City Council, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Rainforest Partnership
Sarah Strother and Andy Brown. Travis County Democratic Party Brown & Snell, Scott & White, 21st Century Democrats, Capital Area AIDS Legal Project
Kathie Tovo and Tom Hurt. Austin City Council, Austin Neighborhoods Council, Liveable City, Hurt Partners Architects
Liz McDaniel Watson and Kirk Watson. Texas Senate, Livestrong, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Alexa and Blaine Wesner. Austin Ventures, Blue Texas, Austin Film Society, Lifeworks, Downtown Austin Alliance, Artworks, Austin Museum of Art
Lara Wendler and Mike Martinez. Texas Senate, Community Shares of Texas, Center for Child Protection, Austin City Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Media
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
MEDIA
Media Star: Dave Shaw. Congress, Second Bar + Kitchen, Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, University of Texas, Texas Exes, Cultural Fund, Arsenal Advertising + PR, Anti-Defamation League, The Texas Lyceum
Sarah Bird and George Jones. Texas Water Development Board, Knopf, Texas Monthly, Austin Coalition for Environmental Sustainability
Julie Blakeslee and John Spong. Texas Monthly, Big Red Sun
Bobby Bones. KISS-FM, Andy Roddick Foundation
Christopher Carbone. L Style G Style
Crestina Chavez and Chris Hardie. YNN, Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Texas
Linda and Bob Cole. KVET, Boy Scouts, Dell Children’s Medical Center, Frisco Shop, the Tavern, Hill’s Café
Victor Diaz. YNN
Mary Anne Connolly. AW Media, Reel Women, Conspirare
George Elliman. Tribeza
Lauren Smith Ford and Bennett Ford. Tribeza, Meridian Solar
Karen Frost and Charles Levy. Frost Media Relations, I Live Here I Give here, Whole Foods Market, Leadership Austin, Impact Austin
Elaine and Rich Garza. Giant Noise, Pachanga Festival, Austin Music Foundation
Nancy and Jerry Giordano. TEDxAustin
Erin and J.B. Hager. Mix 94.7, Austin Monthly, Bikes for Kids
Kathy and Robert Hadlock. KXAN, CASA, Easter Seals
Kim Iverson. Mix 94.7 FM, Austin Fashion Awards
Deborah Hamilton Lynn. ATX Man, Austin Woman
Elizabeth Hufnagel. KXAN
Jill McGuckin. McGuckin Entertainment PR
Tricia and Sandy McIlree. Bikes for Kids, Mix 94.7 FM
Judy Maggio and Thad Rosenfeld. KEYE, Dell Children Medical Center
Sherry Matthews. Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing, “We Were Not Orphans”
Christine and Terrence Moline. University of Texas, Jane Doe Ink, Creative Industries Advisory Group, Women & Their Work, Leadership Ausitn
Cile Montgomery. Giant Media
Fred Myers. Austin City Living
Ron Oliveira. KEYE, Leadership Austin, Any Baby Can
Kristy Ozmun. Ozmun PR, Longhorn Network
Jean and Dan Rather. “Dan Rather Reports,” Austin Museum of Art, News and Guts Media
Stephen Rice and Mark Erwin. KOOP Radio, Travis County Courts System, Advance Discovery
Rich Segal. YNN, University of Texas, AIDS Services of Austin
Jake Silverstein. Texas Monthly
Kevin Smothers and Michael Pungello. Austin Social Planner, Austin Museum of Art, Overhead Music Supervision, Leadership Austin, Rude Mechs
Jim Spencer. KXAN, Crystal Ball, Petcasso
Susan and Bill Stotesbery. KLRU, Hart InterCivic
Kerry Tate. Texas Mamma Jamma Ride, Hahn, Texas, Civic Interest, Leadership Austin, Moore Tate
Brenda Thompson and Pat Henneberry. Brenda Thompson Communications, Ann Richards, Zach Theatre, Leadership Austin
Yvonne Tocquigny. Tocquigny, Ransom Center, University of Texas
Laura Villagran and Chris Johnson. Austin Social Planner, Good Eggs & HAAM, KLRU, Leadership Austin
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Movies
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
MOVIES
Movies Stars: Michelle Guzman and David Modigliani. “61 Bullets,” Flow Nonfiction, Whole Foods, Austin Film Society, Clinton Global Initiative, Nobelity Project
Elizabeth Avellan. “When Angels Sing,” “Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World in 4D,” Troublemaker Studios, Texas Motion Picture Alliance
Bill Banowsky. Violet Crown Cinema, Magnolia Pictures
Alan Berg. Arts + Labor, University of Texas
Louis Black. Austin Chronicle, South by Southwest, Austin Film Society
Kimberly Buffington and Dennis Quaid. “Footloose,” “Beneath the Darkness,” “Soul Surfer”
Gary Bond. Austin Film Office, Austin Film Commission
Rebecca Campbell and Andrew Hinman. Austin Film Society, Austin Studios
Kathryn and Kyle Chandler. “Friday Night Lights,” “Super 8,” Beyond the Lights
Patricia Cho Jones and Harry Knowles. Ain’t It Cool News, Fantastic Fest, Butt-numb-a-thon
Amy Grappell. “Slacker 2011,” “Kids Green the World,” “Quadrangle”
Karrie and Tim League. Alamo Drafthouse, The Highball, Austin Film Society, Fantastic Fest
Richard Linklater. Austin Film Society, “Boyhood,” “Bernie”
Henri Mazza. Alamo Drafthouse, The Highball
Barbara Morgan. Austin Film Festival
Mark Mueller. Voodoo Cowboy, Mueller Law
Janet and John Pierson. South by Southwest, Austin Film Society, University of Texas
Bryan Poyser. Austin Film Society, “The Fickle”
PJ Raval. “Fourplay,” “Cooler,” “Habibi Rasak Kharban”
Robert Rodriguez. Austin Film Society, Troublemaker Studios, “Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World in 4D”
Tom Schatz. UT Film Institute, University of Texas
Janell Smith. “Viva Latino,” Iron Dragon Productions, Lifetime Fitness
Ben Steinbauer. University of Texas, “Brute Force,” “Five Time Champion,” “Slacker 2011”
Paul Stekler. Austin Film Society, University of Texas
Agnes Varnum. Austin Film Society, Doc It Out
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and Alex Smith. UT Film Institute, ‘Winter in the Blood,’ ‘Dadgum, Texas,’ ‘Friday Night Lights’
Sally and Bill Witliff. The Witliff Collections, People’s Community Clinic, Library Foundation
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Movies, The 500
It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Music
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
MUSIC
Music Star: Sara Hickman. ‘Best of Times,’ Theatre Action Project, Care Communities, State Musician of Texas, iAct, Austin Women’s Conference, Theatre Action Project
Greg Ackerman. Austin Concerts Examiner, Build Texas Media, GAC Digital Audio
Susan Antone. Antone’s, Help Clifford Help Kids
Ed Bailey. KLRU, “Austin City Limits,” Austin Food and Wine Festival
Marcia Ball. Health Alliance of Austin Musicians, Charity Partners of Austin
Troy Campbell. The House of Songs, “Long in the Sun,” “Happiness Is …”
Amy Corbin and Charles Attal. C3, Stubb’s BBQ, Austin City Limits Music Festival
Melissa and Kevin Connor. KUT
Dave Dart. Dart Music International
Lisa and Freddy Fletcher. ACL Live, Arlyn Studios, Pedernales Studios
Eliza Gilkyson. ‘Roses at the End of Time,’ Urban Roots, Sustainable Food Center, Workers Defense Project, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation
Patty Griffin. ‘Downtown Church,’ Save the Children East Africa Appeal, Band of Joy
Brendan Hannah. Fun Fun Fun Fest
Charlie Jones. C3, Stubb’s BBQ, Austin City Limits Music Festival
Josh and Yvonne Lambert. The Octopus Project
Andy Langer. KGSR, Esquire, News 8 Austin
Terry Lickona. “Austin City Limits”
Dean and Jeff Lofton. Jeff Lofton Quartet, Dean Lofton PR, Writing Your Life as a Woman
Casey McPherson. Alpha Rev, Music for the City, Mental Health Association of Texas
Kathy Marcus and John Kunz. Waterloo Records
David Messier. Same Sky Productions
James Moody. Transmission Entertainment, Fun Fun Fun Fest
Nakia Reynoso. “The Voice”
Tim Neece. ACL Live
Larissa Ness. “Hello”
Adrian and Celeste Quesada. Grupo Fantasma, Brownout, Ocote Soul Sounds, HAAM
Carolyn Schwarz. HAAM
Shawn Sides and Graham Reynolds. Golden Arm Trio, Rude Mechanicals, Fuse Box Festival
Rose Reyes. Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau
Donya and Randall Stockton. Beerland, Rio Rita, Shangri-la
Charlie Walker. C3, Austin City Limits Music Festival
Annetta and James White. Broken Spoke
Graham Williams. Transmission Entertainment, Fun Fun Fun Fest, Mohawk, Club de Ville, Red 7, Lamberts
Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison. kellywillis.com, brucerobison.com, Family ElderCare
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It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Nightlife
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
NIGHTLIFE
Monica Anderson. Austin Black Newcomers Association, St. David’s Foundation, Zeta Phi Beta, LifeWorks, Giving City
Paula and Paul Angerstein. Texacello Distillery, Paula’s Texas Orange and Lemon liquors, Project Transitions
Chad Auler. Wine and Food Foundation of Texas, Savvy Vodka, Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka
Tito Beveridge. Fifth Generation Inc., Tito’s Handmade Vodka
Clayton Christopher. Deep Eddy Vodka, Big Brothers Big Sisters
Neil Diaz. NCD Resources
Tre Dotson. Tre Dotson Productions and Talent, Stack Burger Bar, Maria Maria
Michael Girard. Speakeasy, TenOak, Imperia
Doug Guller. Bikinis, The Parish, Beale Street
Victoria Gutierrez. Apex Auction, Women’s Fund of Central Texas, St. Edward’s University
Jaclyn Havlak. Art Department, 101X, Full Service High Brow Creative
Mike Henry. ND at 501 Studios
Victoria Hentrich. Creative Consultants
Becky and Damon Holditch. Marquee Events
Sylvia and David Jabour. Twin Liquors
William Terrence Jackson. William Jackson and Associates
David Kurio. David Kurio Designs
Liz Lambert and Amy Cook. Hotel San José, Jo’s Hot Coffee, Hotel Saint Cecilia
Donaji Lira. Texas Heritage Songwriters Association, First Tee of Greater Austin, Center for Child Protection, Driskill Hotel
Julia and Dave McCurley. Something More, Accenture, Zach Theatre
Jetté Momant.Momant PR & Events
Matt McGinnis. Dell Inc., What Are You Drinking
Lance Avery Morgan and Rob Giardinelli. The Society Diaries, The Society Diplomat, Brilliant, Make a Wish, Octopus Club
DJ Manny Muñiz. DJ Dojo, RockIt
Tanya Posavatz and Denise Silverman. Clink
Paul Soileau. Rebecca Havemeyer
Camille Styles and Adam Moore. CamilleStyles.com, Spacecraft
Kara and Matt Swinney. Launch 787, Austin Fashion Week
Kevin Williamson. Ranch 616, Star Bar
Brad, Chad and Wes Womack. Molotov, Dizzy Rooster, Dogwood, The Chuggin’ Monkey, “The Bachelor”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Nightlife, The 500
It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Sports
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
SPORTS
Sports Stars: Jill and Jack Nokes. Austin Parks Foundation, Jill Nokes and Associates, Austin Museum of Art, Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, Sustainable Food Center, St. James Episcopal School, Friends of Shipe Park
Laura Jane Agnew and Hill Abell. Bicycle Sports Shop, Hill Country Ride for AIDS, Colin’s Hope, Sustainable Food Center, American Youthworks
Candy and Rick Barnes. University of Texas, Austin Stone Community Church, Neighborhood Longhorns, ABBA Funds for Adoptions, The Miracle Foundation
Debbie and Charles Breithaupt. University Interscholastic League
Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell Meat Products, University of Texas, National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Sheila and Paul Carrozza. RunTex, Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, Marathon Kids
Mardy Chen. Bikram Yoga
Marion Cimbala. Danskin Women’s Triathlon, Go Play Ventures, Body Therapy Center
Betsy and Ed Clements. KLBJ, ARC of the Capital Area, Alzheimer’s Association, Center for Child Protection, First Tee of Austin
John Conley. Austin Sports Commission, Conley Sports Inc., Austin Marathon
Julie and Ben Crenshaw. PGA, Coore and Crenshaw, Save Muny, University of Texas, St. David’s Community Foundation
Ally and Jeff Davidson. Camp Gladiator
Brooklyn Decker and Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick Foundation, Association of Tennis Professionals, Davis Cup, “Just Go with It”
Mary Ann and DeLoss Dodds. University of Texas
Claire and Doug English. Center for Child Protection, Longhorn Foundation, CASA, Any Baby Can, Lone Star Paralysis Foundation
Gail Goestenkors. University of Texas, Special Olympics, Neighborhood Longhorns, Texas Advocacy Project, Meals on Wheels and More
Jeannie Grass and Augie Garrido. University of Texas, Boys & Girls Clubs of Austin, Neighborhood Longhorns, First Tee, St. David’s Community Foundation
Tavo Hellmund. Circuit of the Americas
Jana and Jeff Holst. Colin’s Hope Foundation
Christy and Tom Kite. FedEx Kinko’s Classic, Kids Classic, Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas
Jyl Kutsche. Community Yoga Austin, Austin Yoga Festival
Donnie Little. University of Texas, Longhorn Foundation, Urban Life Group, Longhorn Legacy
Kay Morris. Marathon Kids
Ryan Nail. CoreFit, Citizen Generation
Aaron Peirsol. USA Swimming, University of Texas
Christine Plonsky. University of Texas
Edith and Darrell Royal. University of Texas, Caritas of Austin
Julie and Scott Sayers. Coore and Crenshaw, Austin High Alumni Association, Texas State Cemetery Commission
Tiffany and Mel Stewart. United States Swimming Association, “Gold Medal Minute”
Triphine and Gilbert Tuhabonye. Gilbert’s Gazelles, Gazelle Foundation, Run for the Water and RunTex.
Scot Tulk and David Smith. Whole Foods, Hill Country Ride for AIDS
Ginger and Fred Weber. Rodeo Austin, TIBH Industries
Garrett Weber-Gale. GWG, Athletic Foodie, USA Swimming
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Movies, The 500
It’s here! 2011 Out & About 500: Style
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
STYLE
Linda Asaf. Linda Asaf Design, Downtown Austin Alliance
Connie Bakonyi. Austin Fashion Association
Cheryl Conley Bemis. Fashionably Austin
Ross Bennett. Ross Bennett Collection
Lisa Brooks. Diaz & Brooks
Justin Brown. Wilhelmina Brown
José Buitron and Bill Pitts. Jose Luis Salon
Gail Chovan and Evan Voyles. Blackmail, Neon Jungle
Katie and Matt Culmo. By George
Stephanie Coultress and Todd O’Neill. Estilo, LEAP
Mandy Dugan. CW Star
Rachel Elsberry. Pickie Pie Productions, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar
Brianna Fleet. Butterfly Entertainment
Elizabeth Gibson. Eliza Page
My-Cherie and Anthony Haley. Shimmer & Bliss Accessories, Webber Productions, HRWK Public Affairs Consulting, Seton Forum, Austin Black Lawyers Association
Chad Harlan. Chad Harlan Photography, La Pistola Photography
Ricky Hodge. Ricky Hodge Salon
Patty and Corey Hoffpauir. School of Human Ecology, The Garden Room
Ron King. Ron King Salon, L’Oréal Professionnel USA
Jane Vanisko McCan. ShopShiki.com
Deborah Main. Deborah Main Designs
Joel Mozersky and Ted Allen. One Eleven Design, Avenue Five Institute, El Arbol, Uchiko
Nancy Nichols. Nieman Marcus
Rochelle Rae. Rae Cosmetics
Christian Ramirez. Last Call, Univision
Allen Ruiz. Jackson Ruiz Salon
Fern and Jerre Santini. Abode, Four Seasons Residences
Kendra Scott and Albert Koehler. Kendra Scott Design, LifeWorks, Dell Children’s Medical Center
Kimberly and Marcus Strenk. Kimberly Strenk Public Relations
Tracy Tenpenny and David Clark. Tracy Tenpenny Design
Sue Webber. Webber Productions
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Style Week Rock + Runway at American Legion Hall
First, the drama. About an hour before the outdoor runway show was scheduled to begin, the wind rushed in. Then rain and lighting. All the rigging, lighting and support equipment for the Style Week Rock + Runway show was disassembled, while guests evacuated to the American Legion Hall.
Megan Powell and Ashton Baker
Minutes later, the threat had passed. Guests trickled out onto the lawn, where benches and hay bales had been set up for viewing the menswear show that would include western attire from Allen’s Boots — as far as I know, a Style Week first.
Jennifer Nash and Sara Facundo
As always, the Tribeza magazine leaders proved the souls of professionalism. If the rooms inside the hall got a little frat-ish on bourbon and vodka, the folks on the lawn kept their cool in the relative cool temps of the post-storm calm.
Peter Zavadil and Penny Arth
The show was short, slender and slick, filled out by the essential young Austin men’s boutique, Service Menswear. I liked what I saw, even if, this time out, nothing would fit a normal man in his 50s. The conversation remained buoyant, however, and that’s why I was there.
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Food for Thought for Communities in Schools at ACL Live
Communities in Schools is one of those large, established Austin nonprofits that would be easy to take for granted. Its work, though, is essential. It provides resources, especially volunteers, to public schools to keep students engaged and enrolled.
Adam and Amanda Sencenbaugh
The group held its 16th annual Food for Thought benefit on Tuesday at ACL Live. The venue worked splendidly, with the uppermost tier curtained off, eliminating the barn-like feeling one experiences when that level is unused but open. The event, which features culinary tidbits from local chefs, attracted enough patrons to fill the first two levels, the lowest split between tables and rows of seats.
Rob Tonasino and Algela Woods
U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul was the featured speaker, and he graciously recognized the other elected officials in the house, especially Communities in Schools champion State Rep. Elliott Naishtat. I spied State Sen. Kirk Watson, less of a fixture on the social circuit of late, perhaps because of the legislative Session from Hell (so dubbed by both parties), but also because he was working on a concrete, 10-point plan to give Austin a medical school. Nobody is going to argue with that.
Annette Villarreal, Julie Humble and Meitra Farhadi
Spoke with various social leaders, including Dave Shaw of Arsenal Advertising and Public Relations. A promoter of the signally successful restaurant pairing of Congress Austin and Second Bar + Kitchen, Shaw has indeed been everywhere, all the time this year. You can bet he figures highly in the Out & About 500, which debuts in this spot very, very soon.
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The Big Give for I Live Here I Give Here at W Austin
The nonprofit group I Live Here I Give Here encourages philanthropy in Central Texas. It does so by raising awareness of local giving through numerous means, including its kicky and accessible website.
Erick Smart and Jennifer Porter
Journalists love aggregators. They offer one-stop shopping for those of us seeking information, contacts or links. Yet some argue that such umbrella groups drain the pool of potential donations through its own administration and upkeep. (I’ve heard this for decades, without finding a scintilla of evidence.)
Priscilla Guajardo Cortez and Madge Vasquez
The Big Give, an annual event, helps dampen that skepticism by allowing I Live Here I Give Here to pass along chunks of money to individual charities. There are two primary prizes, one large and one small, and an honor given to a special donor. Very simple. And therefore more powerful than some similar efforts.
Katy Dunlap and Chris Steiner
Sunday, the Big Give filled up the party spaces at the W Austin Hotel & Residences, virtually my second home this social season. (Everybody wants to try it during the W’s first year.) Well, this event and its guests of mixed ages fit the W like a kid glove.
It’s more cocktail party than dinner. High tables arc around the main room. A few low seats are reserved for the fatigued.
Despite the focus on guest circulation, which your social columnist personally loves, the finger food proved excellent.
And then there was the jazz band, complemented by singer Donna Hightower, still a commanding presence at age 84. We’re divinely blessed that Hightower decided to “retire” here in Austin! I wish more people listened to her snappy treatments of American standards, but it is a social event.
The winners: Divine Canines and Animal Trustees of Austin. Year of the Dog?
The honored donor: Ronda Gray, nominated by Austin Children’s Shelter.
Quite the party.
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Glitz for OutYouth at a Rob Roy home
What a welcome sight: A small nonprofit spreading its wings. For years, OutYouth has helped young people who might be socially marginalized through volunteerism and small donations. One mighty exception has been periodic boosts from big-hearted Bill Dickson.
Esteban Guardian and Amanda Mays
Saturday, OutYouth held its first large-scale fundraising event, Glitz, at the Rob Roy home of Cord and Anne Shiflet. The couple opened their vast pool deck and adjacent structures to several hundred guests clothed in cocktail and casual attire. (The pool even featured a well-stocked, sunken swim-up bar, although guests visited only the dry side while I was present.)
Tameika Hannah and Candice Towe
Given that it was a busy Saturday in September, socially, the size and range of the crowd was quite impressive. I heard stories about volunteers, staffers and businesses making sure that young people, labeled awkwardly LGBTQIA, make it through the potentially awkward years. (Mine certainly were. Still are, at times.)
Edgar Aguillon and Travis Cordingly
I was particularly struck by the story of Travis Cordingly, a Pflugerville engineer who had benefited from OutYouth services. Now launched in the world, he chose Glitz as his first-ever charity event. That’s exactly as it should be: When choosing a charity, start with one you can be passionate about because of personal investment. Here’s to the all the Cordinglys of Austin doing just that.
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MoJo Launch at Palazzo Lavaca
From the street, the building looks partially abandoned. No address confirms that the visitor has stumbled on the right place. Guided by the sound of a jazz band, an empty stairwell leads to a third floor.
Monica Burcham and Jonathan Tieken
The brain takes a few minutes to adjust to Palazzo Lavaca, a residence built inside a 19th-century firehouse and commercial structure on Lavaca Street that housed Capitol Saddlery and Boots for many decades. Inspired by a Venetian palazzo and graced with florist Coby Neal’s flourishes, it recalls scenes from Anne Rice’s vampire novels and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”
Juan Carlos Deleon and Dusty Turbeville
I had read and heard about Giselle Koy’s multi-million-dollar fantasyland. The advocate of modern musing now rents the multi-story palazzo for photo shoots, parties and overnight stays. Thus, the party I attended Saturday.
Tecla Cosgrove and Chris Lindenmayer
It was a launch for MoJo, an event planning company, or as Jonathan Tieken put it “experience planning.” He and business partner Monica Burcham believe most parties just don’t go far enough. They lack imagination, panache. This launch party certainly did not, combining lustrous guests with intense bites and the silky Copa Kings band.
Charming. Odd. But charming.
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Ballet Austin Fête & Fêteish at W Hotel
Ballet Austin has perfected the art of the blended gala. The soaring arts group matches the earlier-in-the-evening and more expensive Fête with the later, cheaper but even more festive Fêteish. The two previous years, these parties, the first a bit more grown-up with dinner and quieter music, were held in very different spaces. This year, Fête and Fêtish intermingled at the W Austin Hotel and Residences.
Liz Redwine and Panola Sabo
To paraphrase Noël Coward, galas are a matter of lighting. This one, chaired by the ebullient Ava Late, started in the dark. The W’s Great Room was lit by dim, ambient light until stirring music announced the beginning of dinner and the sequential lighting of each table centerpiece by Victoria and Sofia Avila.
Lee Walker and Carrie Fruge
This was my first sit-down dinner at the W, other than a couple of meals at Trace, the resident restaurant. It started inventively with a bewitching amuse bouche and then a bitter green salad. The entrée of salmon and steak was not exactly groundbreaking but did the job.
Kristin and Christopher Han
My tablemates included Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills and his partner, Brent Hasty, both in scampy moods. Also in our circle were simply but gorgeously attired Austin school superintendent Meria Carstarphan and New York City Ballet president David W. Heleniak. Nina Denny and Jeremy Rathke, to my right, were kind enough to engage me in periodic banter.
Lesley Angle and Brandon Taylor
Performance artist Norton Wisdom provided the entertainment with his instant paintings. Then came the live auction. Romantic travel packages went for premium rates. But I doubt anyone in the house thought the auction should have lasted longer.
Todd Hester and Beth Terwilleger
I exited to join Fêteish, already in progress in the succession of interior and exterior spaces that surround the Great Hall. Now this was a party! I met scores of folks dressed in kicky cocktail couture. A marvelous lounge singer, Ava Aranella, cooed on the deck, reminding me of Julie London in her golden years.
This affair floated above the Second Street District until it merged with the crowds that had taken in Erasure at ACL Live next door. (The intersection of these social spaces is worth examining more closely some day.) No possible arguments: Ballet Austin consistently throws one of the very best parties of the season.
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Style Week Opening Party at W Austin Pool Deck
I don’t take sides on Style Week vs. Fashion Week. I know, Tribeza’s Style Week came first. And Austin Fashion Week took three years to gel during its August residency. But really, they both promote socializing around stylish events, so for this columnist, both are welcome. Let others judge their fashion efficacy.
Camille Styles and Adam Moore
Style Week 2011 commenced Thursday with a swell party on the hotel-side pool deck of the W Austin Hotel & Residences. High-rise pool decks are tempting locations for party hosts, especially a long and lean one like the W’s, which nicely matches the AMLI Second Street’s deck across the way.
Arianna McKinney and Nicolette Mallow
It took me a while, however, to embrace its enclosed feeling, since so many downtown decks offer far-ranging views along with the usual cabanas, lounge furniture and handy services. Didn’t matter. So many fashion influencers and connectors showed up, my conversational card was full for more than an hour on a busy social night.
Lati and Sara Domi
Traded news with party and lifestyle planner Camille Styles and her matching spouse, Adam Moore, recently returned from a wedding in Buenos Aires. Also with Texas Book Festival brain Clay Smith, always a charmer. In fact, no tedious characters invaded my social space this evening. Looking forward to the menswear show on Tuesday and the final runway affair on Thursday.
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Reception at Blanton Museum of Art
Ravishing art, sociable leaders and nimble conversation: These elements blended gracefully during a reception at the Blanton Museum of Art on Thursday. The occasion was the opening of an exhibition by Nigerian artist El Anatsui, who graciously answered questions from guests in the museum’s aquatically hued lobby. His large, colorful, sculptural pieces will be described in an upcoming article by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin.
Simone Wicha and Doug Dempster
My focus turned to the people, including new Blanton director Simone Wicha, an adept fundraiser, I hear, and enormously personable. She plans to elevate the work of the museum’s curators, who specialize in various fields of art history.
Francesca Manning-Dolnier and Arsalan Eftekhar
Other amenable personages on hand: University of Texas President William Powers Jr., College of Fine Arts Dean Doug Dempster, museum namesake Jack Blanton and his family, dynamic duo Annette DiMeo Carlozzi and Dan Bulluck, former Blanton head Jessie Otto Hite, as well as key collectors like Jeanne and Michael Klein and Joyce Christian and Rudy Green.
Moyo Okediji and Kimberli Gant
May I add this throwaway: I think Powers will go down as one of UT’s most effective presidents. The way he has handled political intervention into the university’s governance and chaos among collegiate sports conferences is pretty darn amazing.
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Dancing with the Stars Preview at Neiman Marcus
After nagging Austin hosts to avoid obvious collisions during the social season, it was a relief to hear that two charitable groups coordinated the timing of their party peaks. The Center for Child Protection folks delayed the presentation of this year’s participants in their crowd-pleasing Dancing with the Stars gala until after the surprise announcement of a $1 million gift to the Seton Breast Cancer Center next door at the Domain.
Venus Strawn, Josh Brewster and Lindsay LeBlanc
Playing well with others is recognized and rewarded. I noticed that several of the top socials attending the first event migrated across the street from the Ralph Lauren boutique to the glowing Neiman Marcus for the Dancing preview. There, they were met with tasties from David Garrido, one of last year’s dancers, as well as several dozen well-furbished guests.
Ryan Nail and Rebekka Glass
The local celebrities who filled out the event’s dance card will surely draw a crowd for the gala Dec. 4 at Hilton Austin: Carol Adams (president of Animal Trustees of Austin); Samuel T. Biscoe (Travis County Judge); Vaughn Brock (principal at Brock Investment Group ); George T. Elliman (publisher of Tribeza magazine); Patsy Woods Martin (founder of I Live Here, I Give Here); Jackie Mooney (from Prominent Title); Ryan Nail (founder of CoreFit Austin); Kumara Wilcoxon (vice president of Van Heuven Properties) and Lynn Yeldell (co-founder of L Style G Style magazine).
Blake Menefee and Susan Kirklin
I will not be judging in December. It was fun to impersonate intemperate Bruno Tonioli last year, but I think once is more than enough.
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Westcave Preserve Gala at Four Seasons Hotel
Last year, a former Green Party candidate for Texas governor wrote to complain that not enough attention was given to environmentalists when we published the Out & About 500, our annual list of Austin’s most social citizens. I pointed out that numerous activists and supporters of green causes made the grade, but because the impulse is so deeply embedded in Austin’s culture, they were spread among many categories from Law and Charity to Education and All-Stars.
Rena Pancheco-Theard and Dan Driscoll
It got me thinking, though. Given all the Austin tribes with highly developed fundraising efforts — Arts, Movies, Music, Style, Media, etc. — where did enviros gather in unison with the larger public? In a social setting, not a political meeting or rally? They certainly run into each other at two places on an almost daily basis: Barton Springs Pool and the hike and bike trail around Lady Bird Lake. But what about evening events?
Anne Ashmun and Ellen Smitheal
I had recently attended parties for the Trail Foundation and Parks Foundation. And, of course, the gala for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is one of the season’s top events. Now the Westcave Preserve’s Celebration of Children in Nature is becoming one of those must-do affairs.
David and Sylvia Kauffman
Although the name is clumsy, the party is not. It starts with drinks in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel’s banqueting area, heads to the main hall for the presentation of slick videos and awards. Then it’s out to the lawn above Lady Bird Lake for dinner: All to benefit the wonderful interpretive center at the Westcave Preserve (it’s a sinkhole and box canyon on the other side of the Pedernales River from Hamilton Pool).
The winners this year for getting kids outdoors: El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission, Dr. Kimberly Avila Edwards of the Happy Living Healthy Living Program at Dell Children’s Medical Center, Round Rock fifth grade teacher William Earley and Art Pasley, national program director for C.A.S.T. for Kids.
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Profile: Joseph McMahan: Customized Austin Guide
In a sense, most Austinites do what Joseph McMahan does: Show off the wonders of our city.
Only McMahan does so through precisely planned, customized tours of the city’s restaurants, nightclubs, shopping districts and tourist attractions for visitors and locals.
“Any time I have an out-of-town client, my goal is for them to return home boasting to all of their friends and family about how Austin is so awesome,” says McMahan of his year-old SherpaLux concierge business. “I make it a point to show my customers a side of Austin that they normally would not see or enjoy. When people visit Austin, they want to experience Austin just as the locals do and I make sure that happens, too.”
“Every experience I create is different, since it’s customized around my customer’s interests,” says McMahan, 39, whose angled features are softened by his respectful demeanor and personable style.
This version of a sherpa — McMahan always wanted to be an outdoor guide — for urban Texas give his clients the option of his active participation during the tour. Otherwise, he retreats to the background after all the planning is done, monitoring the tour’s progress through drivers, photographers and other collaborators.
For instance, when a husband wanted to pamper his bride on an anniversary, McMahan remained on the perimeter, as breakfast was delivered to their home, a newspaper arrived with personal advertisement, flowers and treats turned up at work, then a limosine service whisked the couples away to drinks at the Four Seasons Hotel, appetizers at Uchi, entrées at Aquarelle and dessert at Jeffrey’s.
“She never knew who I was,” McMahan proudly says of the wife, making the husband the hero of the tale.
Although part of his company’s name suggests luxury, he’s just as likely to take customers to a barbecue joint, a hole-in-the-wall bar or other aspects of funky, familiar Austin.“I try to represent different parts of Austin character, all in one evening,” he says.
His background is Texan through and through. Born in Dallas, he grew up in small-town Canton, southeast of Dallas, sharing an idyllic childhood on a 100-acre farm with six siblings. He played every sport and did fine in school, and even showed cattle from the farm in livestock shows.
“I was never a true cowboy,” he says. “Never wore the hat, just enjoyed the outdoor aspect of it.”
He stayed in East Texas for college: Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, where he majored in speech and communications.
“I wouldn’t say I was studious,” he says. “Enough to make it out. My strongpoint is the social thing — interacting and working with people.”
After school, he moved to Austin to live with his father, who had split from his mother. McMahan worked hospitality jobs and did a stint as assistant sargeant for the Texas Senate. “It’s a grunt job — making sure everything is in place,” he says.
He polished his hospitality skills at Austin Country Club, the Four Seasons and elsewhere. Although he enjoyed going out, he didn’t really appreciate Austin nightlife until his thirties.
In 1996, he married Kelly Boyd McMahan, a teacher. They live with their three children in Round Rock. For a while, he worked in sales for Dell, Inc. and returned to the Capitol as a staffer. A transformative job came lobbying for the Texas Restaurant Association. He felt an instant empathy with dynamice, hospitable restaurant owners.
“I always aspired to be an entrepreneur so I asked questions: How did you get started?” he says. “Every one had a different story. Some started in the kitchen. Some on the business side. They all have a passion for the industry.”
As part of his lobbying efforts, McMahan matched Capitol staffers or legislators with some of the hottest places in town, but not on a lavish expense account. He learned the satisfactions of culinary crawls, especially to reasonably priced spots that offered something different. Among the early hits: Ranch 616, Boticelli’s, Malaga and Paggi House.
“(They offer) among of the best Austin restaurant experiences — food, vibe, décor, music,” he says. “I’m a big fan of environment and great service.”
It was during these crawls that the seeds for SherpaLux were planted.
“When I started working downtown again about 10 years ago I realized: Wow! There’s something to this city,” he says. “I’d go back to Dallas or Houston and realize how fortunate I was to live in Austin. The whole vibe is so different. Obviously the people are part of that.”
During the day, McMahan works in government affairs for a company based in Dallas. At night, however, he comes alive, watching people discover, not only Austin, but each other during tours that often include live music.
One professional team of 15 was staying at the Four Seasons, for instance, meeting at the end of a long planning project.
“They often don’t know much about Austin except what they read and hear,” he says. “But it was fun to watch that group. At the beginning of the night, they were excited, but kinda quiet, kinda conservative. Whenever they got back on the bus, however, it was great to see their energy level progress. I heard more laughter. It got louder. The group didin’t know where they were going. At the end, my contact said: ‘This group has worked so hard, it’s been a while since I’ve seen them smile and laugh.’ That’s priceless.”
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Seton Breast Cancer Center Reception at Ralph Lauren
Everybody knew. Except Susan Lubin. The cancer survivor and idea woman behind the planned Seton Breast Cancer Center was kept in the dark.
Susan Lubin and Marcia Levy
For all she knew, she and buddy Marcia Levy were at the Ralph Lauren store in the Domain on Wednesday to raise a few thousand dollars for their dream of consolidated and humane services for breast cancer patients. Not giving anything away, folks casually wandered around the immaculately appointed boutique, inspecting tall models and deceptive mannikins, as well as temporary displays of jewelry and lingerie.
They nibbled on mere suggestions of food that could not possibly shed crumbs on the couture. (Manager Nina Seely is no fool. Fifteen percent of sales from the Ralph Lauren event were donated to the project.)
Susan and Michael Dell
Then came the announcement from Susan Dell, as a beaming Michael Dell looked on. The Michael and Susan Dell Family Foundation would donate $1 million to the project.
Lubin cupped her manicured fingers over her mouth. She wept. She hugged. And hugged and hugged. Clearly, everyone had kept the secret. The reception area for the $6.5 million Seton addition will be called the Susan and Craig Lubin Welcome Center.
Bill Strawn and Donna Stockton-Hicks
Plenty social stars were there to watch the drama: Co-host Candace Partridge and husband Michael Partridge; fabric potenate Donna Stockton-Hicks; the always beaming Venus and Bill Strawn; gallery owner Lisa Russell; striking Lisa Jasper; sparkling Carla McDonald; the elusive Lisa Epstein; and lawyer and tireless fundraiser Becky Beaver were among them.
Correction: Gallery owner Lisa Russell was misidentified in a previous version of this post.
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Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Awards at Hilton Austin
As much as anything else, a social meal depends on the person to your left and the person to your right. Also the person across the table, unless your table is large and round, as often is the case at galas or luncheons.
Sonia Ortega and Jessica Mason
At the Capital of Texas Small Business Awards, given by the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at Hilton Austin on Tuesday, to my left was Martin Ulloa, who manages the Anderson Lane location of Discount Electronics. This three-store chain sells previously leased or discontinued computers and other such items. The thirtysomething native of Mexico has led a engaging life, from East Los Angeles to Northern California and Austin. Courteous and commonsensical, but never stiff, Ulloa was particularly helpful suggesting how to recycle old computers (Goodwill!).
Abel Estrada and Sonia Gallegos
To my right was Rick Luna of the incipient Ya Basta newspaper. Luna grew up in East Austin and has accumulated a grab bag of stories about the personalities just the other side of Interstate 35. Seriously funny, Luna would be comfortable at the counter of one of those East Austin grocerias, dishing out all the neighborhood gossip along with mounds of sweets.
Mary Ellen Londrie and Bob Vesci
Ulloa’s companion was the quieter Carlos Hurtado, who runs the Round Rock outlet of Discount Electronics. Luna’s lunchmate was merry Romeo Rodriguez, who, I believe, is a member of the deeply rooted Austin Rodriguez family.
Johanna Smith and Nancy Rodriguez
To the Hilton’s credit, the stuffed peppers smothered with corn kernels were delicious, though they could have been spicier. The elaborate cheesecake was hard to resist.
Burnished keynote speaker Mary Ellen Londrie told her unvarnished story. She rose from Port Isabel to college at St. Mary’s University, a job with the federal government, and now at her fast-growing San Antonio firm that advises small businesses about best practices and how to respond to federal policies and agencies.
The winning Central Texas businesses according to my notes: Dulce Bread & Book Shop, The Gardener’s Feast, Community Impact Newspaper, Live Oak Pharmacy, Lone Star Awards and Trophies, Explore Austin and, I think, Muñoz Concrete and Construction. I was distracted by the great conversations at my table!
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 6
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
I take it back. The 10th edition of the Austin City Limits Music Festival was not a medieval hell mouth.
Social energy ebbed and flowed. Each day started subdued as the heat made its cruel presence felt.
Then came the rains. Euphoria.
After that, a resigned realization that everything would be wet for the rest of the day. The humidity felt most oppressive late Sunday afternoon.
Then the sun set and a collective friskiness returned. Along with some poor festival citizenship. Noticed a few more boorish drunks this year. Someone should remind our guests this ain’t “Jersey Shore.”
Some notes and quotes from Sunday:
Mariachi El Bronx, the Los Angeles alter egos of punk band Bronx, were vastly entertaining. “Look at the (expletive) beautiful day!,” shouted frontman Matt Caughthran. “Focus on the good (expletive)!” …
Later, the costume-clad group were the darlings of the ACL media center, posing with every journalist and appearing on every radio, television and internet broadcast available. ACL breakout? …
An unscientific estimate of the descamisados (shirtless ones): 10,000. Of those, 4,000 needn’t have bothered. Another 4,000 shouldn’t have bothered. …
“I do it through pacing, misting and hydrating,” said Austinite Kay Galvin of her ACL survival routine. “That and a hat and sunscreen. Plus a little Bells of Joy and a breeze.” …
Some of the curious in the crowd for Detroit’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. appeared confused. The guys in gimme caps and aviator glasses probably didn’t expect frontman Daniel Zott’s amazing technicolor dreamcoat or his ironic pop sound.
Around 2 p.m., the tented Zilker Beach was mobbed by refugees from the Honda Stage sun. I half expected a NGO to arrive with foreign aid.
Why does the mere sound of Australia-born, Austin-groomed Greencards — doubly expats — motivate listeners to square dance without a square?
At a certain point, the concept of queuing loses all meaning in the food village. One lines merges with another. Who knows where you will end up and what you will order?
Some day, I should spend an entire Sunday with the Durdens. The gospel group sounds as if they have earned endurance help from above. Never flagged during a full hour set.
Salvation: A Mexican vanilla shake from the Amy’s Ice Cream stand.
Every square inch of shade around the Bud Light stage, where the catchy Airborne Toxic Event played a mid-afternoon set, was colonized. The close proximity of portable toilets didn’t seem to determined discourage shade-seekers.
Courtney Jaye didn’t let the heat and humidity sink her soaring set at the BMI stage. Her audience, however, slowly eroded into the still-hardy turf.
Photo: Ashley Landis
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 5
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
Fled TV on the Radio to wait for Stevie Wonder. Alone in a crowd of many thousands — people passed my resting point at an estimated rate of 300 a minute — I had time to observe and analyze the obvious.
Humans are territorial. Finding a spot, they guard it. Chairs become walls. A circle of chairs becomes a walled city.
Younger humans are less likely to respect imaginary boundaries. Blankets only suffice as territorial markers as long everyone remains courteous. Once a certain crowd density is reached, courtesy dissipates.
Humans migrate periodically. They follow tracks blazed by other migrants. The easiest way — in fact, almost the only way — to navigate a colliding set of migrants is behind a tight group or a very large person.
Otherwise, humans like stability. Chairs provide that sense of security. Even those of us who never use them at festivals recognize their civilizing potential and gravitate in their direction.
Humans are natural architects and engineers. The chair people — the civilizers — create wide, straight, intentional pathways for the migrants. How does this happen?
Humans are stubborn. Having expended considerable energy to see and hear Stevie, they were reluctant to abandon the project once it became clear the amplification half way to the back of the crowd and dead center was severely flawed.
Humans survive through nimbleness and flexibility. Those festival-goers who fled Stevie early were more likely to have exited freely, happily, perhaps to return for one last day of music, people-watching and as much sun or rain as Nature divines.
Photo: Laura Skelding
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 4
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
At least the mature turf is holding up. In 2009, the tender shoots turned to smelly mush by the end of Saturday at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Despite more sustained rain today, an cursory inspection of the field from end to end turned up no significantly bald spots.
The ponchos, umbrellas and makeshift shelters popped up by mid-afternoon. The additional tents, intended for sun protection, were used to keep music lovers dry.
“It good for our skin,” said Beth Bellanti, marketing guru for Tito’s Handmade Vodka. “We curly-haired people have to pin it down!”
“The rain’s not going to stop us,” said Brandon Erickson, temporary caterer for Central Market, which served 1,200 diners last night and expects to serve 1,700 today at the Grove Cafe. “It’s nice to have this year.”
“We were here for ‘09, so this is no big deal,” said San Antonio small businessman Michael Hoyle, whose family stocked up on ponchos, umbrellas and other gear at Costco. “Our problem is the lack of big (printed) programs. We don’t know half the bands.”
(Pictured: Chris Bunk, Denise Bunk, Rachel Fisher and Nina Hoyle)
That was a frequently heard complaint: The gap is huge between the marquee acts and the day bands, according to some patrons.
“It just amazes how smoothly this thing runs and how big it is,” said entertainer and humanitarian Turk Pipkin, praising the new wristband accounting system, the nested circles of behind-the-scenes zones and the relative dearth of crises.
“We have been hoping and praying for rain,” said fashion leader My-Cherie Haley. “So it finally comes on the first day of the festival.” (She sighs.)
“I’m from Houston,” said her husband and lobbyist Anthony Haley. “So it feels like home. I was flying back from Houston yesterday and, out of the window, we saw something that people were trying to figure out: Is it smoke or is it mist? It was rain!”
“God must like music festivals,” joked Democratic political activist Austin Adams. “But he must not like Rick Perry’s grandstanding.”
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 3
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
Just as the Austin City Limits Music Festival evolves each year, ACL-themed parties do, too.
Susie and Jeff Turk have been throwing the “Turk ACL ADL” in one form or another since the fest started. (“ADL” stands for “all day long.”) Yet for the past three years, they’ve entertained in a more organized way at their Zilker neighborhood home.
“The first year, we were just a married couple, and it went from 9 in the morning to 11 at night,” Susie Turk says. “Last year, I was nine months pregnant, so we cut it back to 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. This year, with a 10-month old child, it’s noon to 7 p.m.”
“This year, it’s our smaller, kid-friendly version,” Jeff Turk says. “But by the end of the evening, everyone will be on the third-floor deck listening to the concert.”
Two years ago, the Mud Year, guests used the Turk’s house as a clean-up and dry-off station. Last year, as many guests were watching football as heading to and from the fest.
Neighbors, normally vigilant about festival traffic, are more gracious about the party guests.
The Turks home was designed for entertaining. In the past, Susie Turk, who sells software, cooked for two days to prepare, but with a small child, the couple decided to opt for catered barbecue.
While guest lists often ballooned to 200 or 250 — including friends of friends of friends — the Turks expect no more than 50 over the course of the day.
“People use our house to drift back and forth,” Jeff Turk, a furniture maker, says. “It’s never gotten really crazy.
“This is our second year of not doing ACL,” says one guest, Austin Business Journal editor Colin Pope, relaxing over chips, beer and mimosas with fiancee and wedding planner Livia Gross and nine-year-old son Fox Pope. “We still get the vibe without the hassle of going down there. You want to get away, but you want to get a taste of it, too.”
At 2 pm., about 20 guests gathered around a long wooden table, shoes off in deference to Susie’s Korean heritage. Perhaps half were talking bands, but every other topic under the sun seemed fair game.
As rain began to fall lightly, the only rock star at Turk ACL ADL at this gig was tiny frog-adorned DJ RiBbiT.
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 2
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
During the day, the Austin City Limits Music Festival does our city proud. People behave respectfully and kindly. Even when the sun is unforgiving, as it was for a couple of hours Friday afternoon, they make room, pardon themselves for bumping into you, and invite you to take advantageous spots in lines.
When that sun goes down, bad behavior creeps out. Lines grow tense. Drunks get boorish. And, as predictable as the day is long, smokers smoke.
My age clearly was no deterrent to those smoking within my immediate vicinity. I tend to take a libertarian stance when it comes to this sort of activity, but an exceptional drought is an exceptional drought, even though it rained earlier in the day. General safety trumps the urge toward intemperance.
The ecstatic consumers of Pretty Lights, a mesmerizing electronica act with hypnotizing visuals flashing on an urban skyline, were particularly careless about smoking, littering and forcing their way through the masses.
This is the first time at ACL I’ve allowed myself to be swallowed up by a crowd — I really didn’t have a choice — and, to some extent, it felt liberating to be part of such a joyous aggregation. As a rule, I prefer the margins of an unpredictable horde.
Yet I found the audience for Kanye West, on the whole, better behaved. Perhaps because they enjoyed more elbow room at the eastern end of the field, which, by the way, blanketed me in digital silence. Soon as I left the area, key texts, emails and tweets flew my way.
(West’s fully committed performance amid epic production values should be mentioned. Didn’t really understand his superstardom until now. But I’m slow about such things.)
Sweetly, I ran into more than a dozen friends, some I hadn’t seen in ages. This, despite then tens of thousands of random, lightly dressed folks on the field. I guess that will also happen, too. Unfortunately, the one friend I sought out fell victim to that texting outage, so we must try to meet up again another day of ACL.
Photo by Jay Janner
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ACL Fest: Made in the Shade: 1
Made in the Shade series: During the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2011, how will music lovers respond to the changing weather conditions and crowds as well as the acts they came to hear?
One way to avoid the heat is to stay off the field altogether. That’s the solution for Danielle Thomas, the Austin event planner (pictured) who relaxed under a tent at the Xbox Music Lounge as DJ Dan Gentile took the loungers back to club life in the 1980s.
Thomas slipped into the lounge at American Legion Hall across Lady Bird Lake from Zilker Park earlier to hear Big Boi playing to an intimate gathering of a dozen or so. Nearby were husband and filmmaker Adam Garner and their infant Bowman Thomas Garner.
She had already soared to a musical high at the “Austin City Limits” taping of Coldplay the previous night.
“It was unbelievable,” she says. “I had some religious experiences last night. There’s something Eastern European about the way he moves.”
Republic of Austin blogger Chris Apollo Lynn (pictured, too) had a subversive plan to stay cool: “Water gun fights,” he says. “I have two water guns in my backpack.”
His biggest thrill so far was encountering the act Twin Shadow.
“They’re electro band from L.A with an ’80s bathhouse ambiance,” Lynn says “There’s something playful and sarcastic about them. Not in a snarky way but in a tongue-in-cheek way. They have this video that looks like it was made for a snuff film.”
Lynn planned to head to East-East Sixth Street later.
“I am more excited the Ditch the Fest Fest,” he says. “It’s $5 for something like 250 bands. And it benefits wildfire relief.”
At Zilker Park, public relations intern Shawn Chapman has depended on all forms of water to stay cool.
“Been visiting misters regularly,” she says. “Lots of kids hang out there. It really cools you off in this breeze. And it doesn’t feel that humid out here just now.”
In the shade of tree near the Vista Equity Stage, Austin criminal defense lawyer and former music writer Jeff McCrary thought he would stay cool simply by drinking ice water.
“Today, with this weather and this cold front, you don’t really need to worry about staying cool,” McCrary says. “At least not like some previous years.”
“Up until 3 p.m. it was cool enough,” agrees Richard Stokes, a teacher from Pflugerville. “Now I just go where there’s shade. Hat is required. That and I put water on this handkerchief.”
Javi Soto, who recently moved to Austin from Laredo, was attending his first ACL Fest. He walked into Zilker Park just as it began to rain.
“It was so beautiful,” he says. “The rain was falling hard, there were clouds and a breeze. I could hear the bass booming on the field. Then I saw all these people. That was an experience in itself.”
Doesn’t get old: Walking onto the field, engulfed by this sea of humanity.
At almost 6 p.m., the breezes are kicking up again. Plenty of room in the shade of tents, trees and stages. In some ways, the best time of day at ACL.
Photos to come.
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Coldplay Taping at ACL Live
They felt lucky. You could tell. The full house at ACL Live witnessed pop sensations Coldplay playing an intimate venue, free of charge, since it doubled as a taping for the “Austin City Limits” show.
William Johnson and Marianna Kovars
A New Year’s Eve episode, by the way, with confetti and black-light effects. Kind of unsettling in brutally hot September. That’s how television production works, however, and the noisy crowd go into the spirit of the theme.
Jay Herman and Marni Jade Evans
Coldplay’s charisma cuts across age brackets. Pretty sure that I spied from my upper-balcony perch Texas Tribune publisher Evan Smith rocking out mildly. Not far away was “The Voice” contestant and Austin stalwart Nakia Reynoso, shaking with more conviction.
Lance Mixon and Sameen Ahmad
It seems that everything KLRU does with its ACL brand rewards. The name graces the city’s second-largest festival and its newest concert venue. Both are mega-hits, though booked by fiercely rival teams, which is, in itself, interesting. Enough of ACL love to go around, I guess.
(How does Stubb’s, ACL Live, Long Center, Emo’s, Bass Concert Hall and Paramount Theatre manage to divide up the acts and still remain friends — and in the black?)
Dork that I apparently am, I loved the Coldplay set, though, perhaps because of an ear-blasting I’d received at an earlier event, Chris Martin’s vocals kept fading out for me. Didn’t mind. And now I can choose Kanye West tonight at the ACL Fest, instead of Coldplay.
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ACL Pre-Party at W Austin Hotel & Residences
Like SXSW before it, ACL has attracted a host of pre-parties, post-parties, side-parties and after-parties. One that drew a comely crowd was staged by W Austin Hotel & Residences on Thursday. While the ground-level bars hummed, this party occupied the banqueting rooms upstairs.
Raul Borromeo and Takkara Brunson
Some top socials were present: Wendi and Brian Kushner; Andrea and Dean McWilliams, etc. The main tribe, however, were more the clubbing kind. And why not when the musical attraction is eclectic British singer Katy B., herself a mere 22 years of age?
Ty Pryor and Keli Rabon
While most of the sleekly dressed masses soaked up the sounds, but I was forced to retreat to the hallway and balcony because of the amplification. Here’s my problem: My job is to listen to Austinites and then tell their stories. Can’t do that when every word is drowned out. Luckily, plenty of folks joined me in the comparatively quiet hallway.
John Goeth and Phillip Solomon
We aren’t allowed to share any details yet, but we heard of a smashing party planned for the tiered decks around the W’s pool. If all goes as indicated, it could be the social smash of the season. Will report at the right time.
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Driskill Grill & Bar Renovation Party
The changes are subtle. The less practiced eye might not even notice the added seats and tables in the bar area, the new chairs and curtains in the grill, the carpets that match the Driskill Hotel’s Western Baroque style.
Yet the changes are real. And they remind us that Austin’s oldest hotel must compete with other luxury brands: The classic Four Season Hotel, the chic W Austin Hotel & Residences, the soon-to-be updated Stephen F. Austin Hotel, plus boutique spots up and down Congress Avenue.
Amanda Barone and Donaji Lira
The changes came at the hotel’s northern entrance onto East Seventh Street. Food bloggers and others gathered for a small, expertly catered party to learn more about the visual changes, but also the renovation of Executive Chef Jonathan Gelman’s menu.
We snacked on bacon-wrapped figs, slender oysters, ultra-creamy risotto and other wonders. At my coffee table were Austin Wine Guy Rob Moshein, Driskill corporate events director Donaji Lira, freelance writer Lynne Margolis and Tribeza senior account executive Ashley Beall.
Lira seems to have landed quite nicely on her feet after leaving the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas — did you hear there’s also going to be an Austin Wine and Food Foundation? — so the Driskill staff continues to grow in stature.
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Austin Parks Foundation Party at Republic Square Park
Lost among the hoopla at the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend might be one special beneficiary of the gargantuan event. The Austin Parks Foundation has used $500,000 in donations from the Fest to fund park improvements.
Sheryl Cole and Susan Rankin
That’s no small amount, given government cuts and the challenges of keeping up Austin’s vast park, preserve and trail system. The foundation strongly backs public/private partnerships and lobbied to create a staff position at Austin Parks and Recreation to speed up those collaborations.
Lisa Harkema and Emmanuel Winston
That proposal was formally pushed by Austin City Council Member Sheryl Cole this week. She was among those who gathered Wednesday night at Republic Square Park, in part to recognize the contributions of the ACL organizers. Also present were Austin City Council Member Chris Riley, Austin Parks Foundation President Jill Nokes and Trail Foundation Executive Director Susan Rankin, who is still raising money for the boardwalk that will unite East and West Austin along Lady Bird Lake.
Shane and Adrienne Albregts
I was drenched with sweat — not from jogging, mind you, but just from walking to and from four downtown events that night. It’s still summer. I caught up with Alamo Drafthouse’s charming Amy Averett, who informed me that Drafthouse leaders Karrie and Tim League recently welcomed twins into the world.
Outdoorsy Fort Worth-based Orbans provided a suitable melodic backdrop for the park party.
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Redd Carpet Launch at the Long Center
One needs no excuse to toast Cliff Redd. Set aside the fact that the man raised tens of millions of dollars to build the Long Center. And that he brought together traditionally fractious individuals and groups to get it done. Earning his angel’s wings, he gracefully moved over to a development job at the University of Texas when his time at the center was done.
Sally Jacques and Cliff Redd
Redd’s a force beyond ordinary reckoning. Socially fearless, he knows just about everyone of consequence in four Texas cities (Houston, Dallas, Austin and Galveston). It starts with a laugh and a hug and it ends … where does it end? Almost everyone who is remotely open to the possibility becomes a Friend of Cliff. I’m proud to be one.
Rupert Reyes and JoAnn Carreon-Reyes
No wonder the Long Center has renamed a fundraising campaign after him — the Redd Carpet Fund — meant to subsidize the small performing arts groups that use the Rollins Studio Theatre at the center. It would take something on the order of $1 million year to make the Rollins absolutely free to groups like ProArts Collective, Teatro Vivo, Ballet Afrique and Austin Shakespeare, said center board member Wendi Kushner at the launch event on Wednesday.
Daniele Martin and China Smith
A delightful and not completely unexpected coincidence — my volunteer companion for the evening, Daryl Putnam, already knows Redd and his partner, Rick Johnson, fairly well. It was gratifying to witness their reunion.
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‘Jack & Jim’ Gallery Opening at ACL Live
You really don’t expect a crowd to gather in Austin at 4 p.m. Or for said group to be packed into the fourth-floor lobby of a concert venue at that time.
Yvonne Lambert and Josh Lambert
Yet Wednesday, the city’s music, media and related communities showed up in numbers for “Jack and Jim,” the opening of an exhibit of startling images by rock photographer Jim Marshall. (The Jack of the title was sponsor Jack Daniels. Apt.)
Danielle Thomas and Adam Garner
These visual treasures complement the documentation of Austin City Limits shows by Scott Newton, displayed on other floors at ACL Live. As I understand it, they will remain on view until 2014.
Lisa and Freddy Fletcher
Two couples I hadn’t seen in ages were there: Event planner Danielle Thomas and filmmaker Adam Garner (they’ve been occupied with a certain infant) and Yvonne Lambert and Josh Lambert (busily expanding on their Octopus Project successes).
The major ACL Live players mingled and indicated their favorite images. I met former star quarterback and current real estate player Peter Gardere for the first time. He proved quite gracious as I peppered him with questions, especially about the Longhorns’ ongoing quarterback dilemma.
The pictures are worth perusing further at a quieter time.
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Austin Music Beyond ACL
As music lovers gorge on the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend, those not on the Zilker Park field might feel olive-green with envy, or they might giggle at the image of so many grown people broiling in the September sun just to hear a few tunes.
Write it down. Live music hums all around us. At parties, galas, clubs, bars, restaurants and concert venues. Yet how often, on the way home, do we think: What was the name of that artist? Put it in writing as soon as you hear something you like. I use the notes application on my iPhone.
Join the club. Austin supports more than 100 music venues — and dozens of informal music spots. Why not try a different one each week? Years ago, I visited 100 clubs during the course of one August. That way, I quickly learned the layout, clientele, dress code and musical style for each joint.
Open the package. At countless Austin social events, one receives gift CDs, often samplers of an artist’s work rather than a completed commercial product. Additionally, emails arrive each day with links to MP3s or videos. Social media generates even more samples. Go ahead. Open them up. What can it hurt? You might discover the next great Austin artist.
On the radio. Hardcore music fans complain there’s not enough local music on the Central Texas radio dial. Yet I still hear plenty on KGSR, KUT, KOOP, KVRX, KAZI and elsewhere. Guided by enlightened DJs, the world of Austin music is as close as your low-tech radio. (Or your computer, on our own Austin360radio.com.)
Just ask. Social almost as rule, Austin’s music community is not shy about sharing their most recent obsessions. When I find myself at a party with anyone associated with music — artists, managers, techs, promoters, publicists — I try to ask: “Which Austin act should I see next?” An endorsement from within the community is just as valuable as a critic’s imprimater, perhaps more so.
Pick a winner. My first 25 years as an Austinite, I assiduously avoided choosing a favorite act. I thought: “Keep it fresh. Mix it up each weekend.” Then along came Alpha Rev. Something about its socially liberating sound invited me to return to them again and again. I learned the joys of watching a local act, step by step, grow into a respected regional and national one.
Keep it local. This is the hardest part. So many touring acts stop in Austin, one could easily skip all the local talent and never run short of top-shelf concert options. And, absolutely, one should stay in touch with national and international trends. But if you consciously put local acts first, you learn about the breadth and depth of the Austin music scene.
All bragging and self-promotion aside, Austin’s music scene is so vast and so rewarding, you’ll never run out of options.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Music
Champagne Brunch for Breast Cancer Resource Center at the Long Center
Sometimes, it pays to mix things up. The Breast Cancer Resource Center had staged its annual champagne brunch at the Renaissance Austin Hotel forever. Planners pulled a switcheroo by moving to the Long Center on Sunday and the result were … enchanting.
DeeDee Nelson and Donna Mercer
They employed every public area in the building, though they left the sun-blanched plaza alone. One lounge featured a jazz act, another a different kind of jazz act. In the lower lobby, guests heard an uplifting gospel group. In the upper, desserts were served and a live auction included some of the humorous items of a sexual nature the BCRC has made mainstream.
Salina and Clay and Butler
I counted five food stations and as many drink spots. Nobody went away hungry. (I stupidly ate breakfast at home.) I languidly spent two hours with such luminaries as Austin Parks Foundation president Jill Nokes (whose idea about freeing up time for Parks & Recreation staff to work on public/private projects was echoed in the newspaper the next day by Austin City Council Member Sheryl Cole).
Carolyn Perez and Rosemary Parker
Also spoke with Marquee Event Group’s Becky and Damon Holditch, whose tents were already going up at the year’s biggest weekend party, the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We all agreed that the brunch’s move to the Long Center was a smart one.
Nothing against the Renaissance Austin, perhaps the local top spot in town for charity luncheons. But why not toy with the format at least once?
I could not stay for the speech by the fabulous Ruth and James Pennebaker, but I left my regards with honorary chairs Forrest Preece and Linda Ball. No more social a couple you’ll ever meet.
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Austin Symphony Orchestra Season Opener at the Long Center
The first clue was the full seats. Usually, at Austin Symphony Orchestra performances, scattered seats, especially in the orchestra section, remain painfully empty. Purchased, but perhaps for reasons other than a love of symphonic music, and thus left fallow. Or simply, season subscribers failed to notify ASO they would not occupy them that night, so they were not resold.
John Chung and Laura Smith
The full house could have also been a function of superstar violinist Joshua Bell’s electrifying appearances in two pieces, the Tchaikovsky/Glazunov Meditation and Glazunov’s Violin Concerto. Three decades into his career and the still-boyish-looking soloist commands enormous audience loyalty.
Joe Greco and Marsha Robinson
The second clue, however, was the absence of tuxes and glittery gowns. Is the symphony’s second night usually this dressed down? I witnessed every variation on Austin casual in the crowd.
Terry and Kathy Bell
Then it struck me. Maybe the season ticket-holders were at the exciting football game between UT and BYU across town. They could have traded nights, or just skipped the season opener. And this time, they notified the box office, which was then able to gratify deeply invested music lovers.
Who were gratified, believe me. They listened to the two violin-graced pieces, as well as the Richard Strauss’s “Death and Transfiguration” and Rimsy-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter” Overture, as if they were dying of thirst for such glories. Conductor Peter Bay’s musicians responded by playing, in my humble opinion, better than I’ve heard them play in my 27 years in Austin.
This time, the standing ovations counted double. As did the glowing notices.
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AGLIFF Majestic Party at the Paramount Theatre
The Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival hit a rough patch during the past few months. The gay community’s longstanding cultural standard-bearer waved goodbye to one executive director, then to its interim director. One of its key fundraisers, an Oscar party, careened from one venue to another, then created division in the ranks of backers when crammed into a Driskill Hotel sideroom.
Wesley Shackelford and Adam Toguchi
Yet AGLIFF has bounced back, as evidenced by its merry Majestic Party at the Paramount Theatre on Friday. The overwhelmingly male audience cheered for two smart shorts, then dug into “Mangus,” a small, funny film which concerns a (straight) kid who feels destined to play Jesus in his small-town high school spectacular. It was equal parts “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Waiting for Guffman,” with a dash of John Waters thrown in for raunch appeal.
Michelle Randolph Faires and Dave Dunlap
Board president John Livingston and new executive director, Lindsay Muse, fresh from SXSW, seem to have put their house in order. And from the list of volunteers acknowledged from the Paramount stage, an army of folks still care deeply about the organization and its work.
John Livingston and Lindsay Muse
Didn’t stick around for the promised onstage dance party, but ran into many leaders of Austin’s gay community. The timing seemed right, too, since the primary Pride events were moved from June to this weekend in September.
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Dart Music International’s Icon Awards at KLRU Studios
I kept whispering: “Is Earl Campbell really here?” “When will Earl Campbell arrive?” “Where the heck is Earl Campbell?”
Claire Hermes and Greg Vendetti
They must have thought I was nuts. (Also because I made it to Dart Music International’s Icon Awards at the KLRU Studios late on Friday, having detoured by way of a mistaken stop at Austin Studios.)
Amanda Russell and Amy Holloway
After all, the awards go to heroes in the field of music, or at least Austin culture. That would make the Campbell of the evening House of Song’s Troy Campbell, who won the 2011 honors alongside Waterloo Records’ John Kunz, moviemaker Richard Linklater and Health Alliance for Austin Musicians’ Carolyn Schwarz.
Laura Gunn and Gina Castillo
Sigh. I made the best of my embarrassment. Told Kevin Connor how happy I was to hear his voice on KUT. At long last met Greg Vendetti’s indulgent girlfriend Claire Hermes. Spoke with Amy Holloway about her adventures trying to help Miami diversify its economy, and the House of Song’s Nathan Felix about his movie scoring and the recording of his symphony by one of the SUNY universities.
Listened to gorgeous Sahara Smith’s supple voice and unflappable Jackie Bristrow’s soulful sound. Gosh this city is mad with musicians of the highest caliber!
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Glossy 8 + Beauty of Life Parties
Austin had already endorsed the Beauty of Life. The annual luncheon for Hospice Austin regularly filled the Renaissance Austin ballroom with heart and style.
Darlene Fiske and Kristin McCullar
Then along came the Glossy 8. The yearly presentation of Glossy magazine’s Stylemaker Awards dovetailed elegantly into Hospice Austin’s mission and aesthetic. And the publication provided the benefit’s printed program, in its circulated pages and at the luncheon.
Stephanie Siegel, Kesha Dirkson and Michael Froehls
Now the two events are meticulously intertwined. This year, Glossy staged a pre-party at the Long Center’s Kodosky Lounge on Thursday. Beauty of Life silent auction items lined the entryway. While the party percolated, thematically, all pointed to the more serious luncheon the next day.
A.J. Bingham and Shanleigh Wilson
Not surprisingly, the pre-party was visited by some of Austin’s most stylish set, since the eight winners included musician Trish Murphy, nonprofit turnaround hero Wendi Kushner, lobbyist A.J. Bingham, jewelry designer Kendra Scott, design center owner Donna Stockton-Hicks, designer Mark Ashby and publicist Kesha Dirkson.
Susan Shaffer and Jill Dewey
The Glossy 8 is not like any other awards in town — and few, that I know, anywhere. It honors those who set the tone for Austin style. Rarely by making or selling clothes, but rather by presenting a look, day in and day out, that’s distills part of our variegated social culture.
Nina Seely and Candace Partridge
The next morning, the same crew was presented at Beauty of Life. Dignified former Glossy 8 winner Carl Stuart emceed. Kendra Scott gave the keynote speech. A clever array of salads awaited lunchers on each plate.
Christina Toronyi and Renee Namvar
A replacement for the announced speaker, Scott assumed the job as if she were the celebrity to inspire us all along. She talked of her stepdad and family, who benefitted from Hospice Austin services, and of the astonishing rise, momentary fall and resurrection of Kendra Scott Jewelry, born in her bedroom not long after 9/11 and the birth of her child, now available in 800 stores, complemented by two storefronts (SoCo and Beverly Hills) and a third on the way (Dallas).
She left us with her stepdad’s words, which resonated long after the luncheon: “Do good.”
Permalink | | Categories: Charity, Style
Ballet Austin Mixer at Coal Vines
The timing was fortuitous. Coal Vines, a New York-style pizza and wine bar, opened right beneath ACL Live as the city’s top music venue entered its eighth month of often sold-out shows. The Second Street District is finally in full swing and any place taking advantage of the wide sidewalks is virtually guaranteed lively nightlife traffic.
Katherine Crenshaw, Sloane Garvey and Charisse Sayers
I talked to two of the owners, former NYPD cop Joseph Palladino and his Dallas-based business partner Jim Hammond. This is the second in a planned small group of restaurants themed around the original Rat Pack — Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop and sometimes others — whose sense of style has been back in fashion for many years now. The had graciously donated a portion of the evening’s take to Ballet Austin, whose Fête and (more affordable) Fêtish galas are right around the corner.
Tina and Ryan and Downton
I met the pert trio of Katherine Crenshaw, Sloane Garvey and Charisse Sayers. Two of the young women — guess who? — are offspring of Austin sports and heritage stars. All three are already accomplished at the preliminaries of social interaction.
Pei-San Brown and Taylor Terkel
I also spoke with Alex Winkelman’s friend, Tylere Brennan of Platinum Realty, who splits his time between Austin and Las Vegas. He spoke of plans for his upcoming wedding at a rented chateau near Lake Travis, also of various various A-List celebrities who have purchased homes in our area. Bonus points got to any reader who can irrefutably confirm the rumors that Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn recently joined that list.
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El Alma Launch Party
When Carlos Rivero opened El Chilito at Barton Springs and Dawson Road in 2009, CNN Money included it in a piece about cursed business locations. The most recent occupants of the eccentric building had been Gypsy Italian Bistro (2007-2008), Rockhound’s Cafe (2006), Castleberry’s Cafe (2003-2005). Before that, it had served as offices for green architects and, according to local lore, a hippie commune and a biker bar.
Carlos Rivero and Mirabel Rivero
Even Rivero, who had opened seven restaurants for other owners before hitting it big with his own El Chile, El Chilito and Red House Pizza on Manor Road, has tasted a bit of the curse. He quickly switched from the Chilito format to more upscale Chile way. Now he has given over the playpen to famed chef and longtime friend Alma Alcocer-Thomas, recently named executive chef for Rivero’s group.
Alma Alcocer-Thomas and Michael Crockett
It’s called El Alma. To tell the truth, Alcocer-Thomas was a little shy about her name plastered on the place, but she says Rivero had a sign ready to go with “El” and just enough space for “Alma.” “That means ‘soul,’” she says. “So it’s not really my name out there.”
C.J. Strehlow and Marina Thomas
At a little launch party on Wednesday, I spent a good deal of time getting to know life-embracing Michael Crockett, whose KUT radio show “Horizontes” is among my faves. Crockett came to Austin from the Westbury area of Houston in 1972 and has been at KUT almost as long. He’s training his grown daughter to follow in his footsteps, adventuring all over Latin America for the latest sounds.
I also got better acquainted with calm, bespectacled Rivero, whose history in Austin’s incestuous restaurant community could keep me fixated for hours. The Bolivian native has bounced from Austin fine dining spots to pop food culture and back several times, always landing on his feet. You can bet he’s a future profile subject for Out & About.
Oh, and the food, what we tasted of it between conversations, was excellent.
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Profile: Audiologist Soriya Estes
When Soriya Estes visits the Austin City Limits Music Festival this week, the audiologist will worry about ears.
“Without any protection at all and noise levels exceeding 100 decibels for longer than one hour, then they are susceptible to permanent hearing loss,” Estes says. “Anywhere close to the chair line, you are already close to 100 decibels. And (guests) aren’t there for just an hour. They are there all day. For three days.”
“It’s just really important to have that hearing protected,” she says. “Even if you don’t have the hearing loss at that time, studies show that, when age factor kicks in, it’s going to go quicker.”
Estes, 36, is one of that rare breed who has always known what she would do.
Born in Perry, Okla., she grew up in nearby Tonkawa, alongside members of the tribe that formerly populated Central Texas. (“I’ve never lived more than 20 miles off Interstate 35 all my life.”)
Her mother, DeAnna Smith, worked as a hospital administrator and now manages Estes’ practice with offices in Georgetown, Kyle and New Braunfels.
Her father, Iranian-born Majid Hamidi, owned restaurants and has since retired to Henderson, Nev. (Her first name, pronounced Sor-EYE-ya, is borrowed from Persian royalty.)
“Growing up, I never felt that different,” she says of her Iranian ancestry. “The very first time I ever had a concern was after the Oklahoma City bombings. I was in college at Oklahoma State. Before they knew who did it, my father called and said ‘Don’t go to class today.’ I thought: ‘Wow. My name could ignite prejudice.’”
The same anxiety followed 9/11, says Estes, who grew up Christian.
Estes became fascinated with the relatively young field of audiology on a sports field, where her boyfiend — now husband of 14 years — played high school baseball.
“There was a pitcher in the playoffs who was in a zone: Killing it, killing it, killing it during a championship game,” she recalls. “I looked over at his coach, who was signing to him. You didn’t see deaf students incorporated in the mainstream back then, not in a small town. It was one of those quirky little moments.”
She sat down with the deaf player’s family and started researching audiology. From that point, she never deviated, studying first at Oklahoma State Univeristy, then the University of Texas and — long-distance — finishing her doctorate at Pennsylvania’s Salus University.
She and her husband, Brian Estes, who serves as business development director for a precast concrete company, settled in Austin, where they are raising two young daughters.
After teaming with a ear, nose and throat specialist to build a practice in New Braunfels, she worked for Phonak Hearing Systems, a global hearing-aid manufacturer. Then Estes Audiology was born in 2005. (A fourth office is planned for Austin.)
So what causes hearing loss?
“Noise,” she says. “That’s one of the leading causes in people under 65. The mistake is thinking: ‘Hearing loss means I’m old.’ It effects all ages. Mainly because of noise.”
A recent study shows that the incidence of hearing loss in teens is on a sharp rise. “I thought: Holy cow! We are trying to educate hunters and musicians. We are forgetting teens,” she says. “Go to the mall and you see all the teens with iPods in the hands and in their ears. We are not doing a good enough job of looking at that.”
Very high numbers of active-duty soldiers are coming home with noice-induced hearing loss, too.
Variable hearing loss can be experienced by anyone who attends a concert or a dance club. (Just ask your social columnist. If he can hear you.) This is called a “temporary threshold shift.”
“You have these tiny, thin, upright hair cells,” Estes says. “Repeated beatings tend to make them not stand up straight all the time.”
Less glamorously, allergens can inflame the middle ear for temporary loss. That condition is treated with allergy medications.
Musicians and music lovers tend to suffer from permanent damage at different pitches inside the snail-like inner ear.
“The hairs here look like keys on a keyboard,” Estes says. “Every center is a pitch. High-frequency keys on the outside go first. Low-frequency hairs — protected, hidden, warm, fuzzy — they go last.”
The music clan tends to ignore such hearing loss, hoping it will go away. “During early hearing loss, people tend to ‘squint’ for a little bit,” Estes says. “Ray Wylie Hubbard would say: “I find my ears are squinting. I have to squint to hear people.”
So how did the HEAR program start four years ago? Estes: “I was getting ready for work one day. Tim Taylor, local attorney and HAAM Board Member, was promoting HAAM benefit day on the radio. I thought: ‘There’s the Seton part of HAAM (general medical) and the SIMS part (mental healthcare and addiction recovery). Where’s their hearing health care? Wait a minute. We are talking about musicians. This doesn’t make sense.’”
She contacted Taylor, who talked to HAAM executive director Carolyn Schwarz, who in turn surveyed her members. The vast majority requested hearing health care.
“Screen, educate and protect are the three missions,” Estes say of the HEAR sessions.
Up to 80 HAAM musicians may sign up at one time. Estes closes down her practices and they meet at a central location. Musicians learn about their hearing levels and types of exposure. Then the audiologists take silicon castings of each ear, sending them to labs to make custom ear plus with filters that allow all frequencies to be evenly attenuated, so sound quality is not compromised when volume is reduced.
Musicans pay $25 for a pair that would normally cost $150.
Estes says: “It is so rewarding when we can actually tell most of the musicians they have normal hearing or they are doing the right thing by beginning to protect their ears.”
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Music
Thank Edwin Waller for Austin’s rational plan
Austin does not honor Edwin Waller adequately.
We’ve named a creek, a park, a street and a tunnel — our own “Big Dig” — after Austin’s first mayor.
Grid plans date back to ancient Greece. Hippodamus of Miletus promoted the geometric arrangements as rational and orderly.
And yet, centuries later, some cities, such as San Antonio, still followed the more organic riverine form, with bending streets that follow the shapes of its waterways.
Laid out on a bluff above the Colorado River between Shoal and Waller creeks, Austin’s grid is oriented on a slightly tilted north-south axis, with wide Congress Avenue bisecting the eastern and western halves.
This orientation now leads to blinding sunrises and sunsets for vehicle drivers and some high-rise residents, as one reader recently reminded me.
Yet to the pedestrian — and in 1839, at Austin’s founding, walkers, horses and wagons dominated — a city oriented to the sun lent a reliable, almost unconscious sense of direction much of the day.
Another boon to pedestrians was that relatively level bluff, subsequently made even more regular. It is interrupted only by the two named creeks and the lost one that now runs below Nueces Street. The rise to the State Capitol and the University of Texas beyond rarely feels too steep.
So too, Waller’s blocks, not too short or too long, keep the pedestrian in a steady rhythm.
The wide sidewalks — when done right — open sightlines to landmarks, useful not only for finding one’s way, but also a psychological boost. If one can see a destination in relation to a more distant point, say the Capitol or the Austonian, the walker tends to relax and take that middle distance in stride.
The grid inscribes almost exactly one square mile, or 640 acres, making it, perhaps obviously, a mile wide and long. For a practiced pedestrian, a mile is a base unit, taking 10 to 15 minutes to cross without breaking a sweat.
Waller reserved key spots for public buildings and four public squares. None of the three remaining squares — Brush, Republic and Wooldridge — operates quite as Waller might have imagined, despite periodic efforts to enliven them.
Waller, who left Austin after his mayoral run, came back after the Civil War to work on veterans’ affairs. (One wonders how the first signer of Texas’ ordinance of succession was received in Travis County, which voted to remain in the union.)
Despite all the tall towers, vanished historical structures and radically altered waterfront — not to mention the present Capitol building, which was in planning stages when he died in 1881 — I think Waller would recognize his legacy in downtown Austin. His plan remains a sturdy foundation for our livable city.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: City
Weekend Report: Away from the Wildfires
The contrast could not have been more stark. While we enjoyed a blissful holiday weekend, our neighbors to the west, north and east watched as tens of thousands of acres of forest and hundreds of homes went up in flames. We awaited the news from afar.
For this Tuesday post, I had intended to record my wanderings in the dry, warm weather: To TenOak and more with Dave Steakley (it had been ages); Barley Swine with Kevin Smothers (intensely worked food worthy of all the hype); Lucky Lounge with Christine and Louie Messina (to hear their twin sons’ band, Electric Touch); Four Seasons lounge with Lawrence Morgan (to hear sweet-toned Reuel Meditz play the piano); Fonda San Miguel with Ian Carrico, Carter Wilsford, James Reggio and Justin Harrison (the latter two soaking up Central Texas ease during a visit from Seattle).
Yet, aware of the conflagrations, we checked in with friends and acquaintances threatened by the fires. Given the all-clear to return home, for instance, was active blogger Kristin McCullar, who lives on the back side of Steiner Ranch.
“My husband was on a conference call when his coworker, who lives in the front of the neighborhood, sent him an email talking about ashes falling in her front yard and how she had 3 minutes to gather her things and leave,” she writes us. “We decided to pack our important items and wait until we were told the same thing. It was strange … we had about 45 min to decide what mattered most. I hope I never have to do that again, but I do feel a bit more prepared.”
Our friend Darlene Fiske reports her house is safe, too, and that Lake Austin Spa, one of her employers, was spared. Still waiting to hear back from Sid Steiner about the fate of his family’s giant hilltop Steiner Ranch Steakhouse, and from former Austin City Council Member Betty Dunkerley, who lives near the Bastrop fire, which has already destroyed so many homes.
Stay with Statesman.com for the latest wildfire news.
CORRECTION: Former City Council Member Betty Dunkerley’s house near Bastrop may not have been destroyed. She received conflicting reports from officials.
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New Version: River Tracing: Colorado River
The following account first appeared on my blog in a 2009 series. It was trimmed, re-written and edited for the American-Statesman Travel section.
It took us just three days to trace the Colorado River from its source to its mouth - by car and on foot - in part because we know the waterway well. Or at least we thought we did.
Joe Starr and I — now practiced river-tracers — searched for evidence of the upper Colorado around the severely flat farmlands of Lamesa, which lies 90 minutes or so south of Lubbock.
No such luck. So we descended the Caprock canyons to ranch roads until we discovered a gully that looked suspiciously moist. It lay amid mesquite scrubland dotted with oil pumps. Not long after passing specklike Vealmoor, and after turning north on FM 1205, we spotted two fresh items: a puddling Colorado (finally) and an oil rig fire in the distance, throwing up a geyser of blue-gray smoke.
Next up: unheralded lakes. The deserted recreational areas on Lake J.B. Thomas left us to birdwatching. One can imagine the number of desert-drained avians gathering on the shores, even as late as midmorning.
Below J.B. Thomas’ earthen dam, we swiveled down to Colorado City, a railroad town of past prosperity now split between grand old homes and newer junkiness by the tracks, highways and the sad-looking river.
Narrow Lake Colorado City serves as a cooling pond for a hulking energy plant. We headed south to the E.V. Spence Reservoir. The land there is rugged and wild.
The lake itself — see below — was a revelation: two shades of sapphire on a clear day, and mobbed with white pelicans, grebes, coots, cormorants and other birds framed by limestone ledges and distant buttes. (Because of exceptional droughts, Spence has recently shrunk to virtually nothing.)
In Bronte, we stopped at a supermarket where a goth girl with streaked hair kindly helped us restock our supplies. Yes, goth, even in Bronte. (Nearby is the similarly literary Tennyson.)
We picked up the river through large and bustling Ballinger before heading into Concho County to view the O.H. Ivie Reservoir. As a lake, the Ivie is still pretty new, and development around its fringes has been comparatively careful.
This is one of our most cherished Hill Country towns, just remote enough to be spared ugliÂfication and sprawlification (symptoms of greed), but proud enough to resist quaintifcation and junkification (symptoms of sentimentality and shabbiness, respectively).
We ate with the locals at Diggs Restaurant and Club just outside town (thereby enabling the sale of adult beverages, though we abstained). I doubt all but the hardiest of tourists have discovered this poorly signed place, although hunters dig right in. Fantastic food.
The next morning, after a snug night at the Hill Country Inn, we broke our fast at a doughnut shop, where a good ol’ boy bade farewell to the clerk in Vietnamese.
This was a day of closed doors that left unexpected ones open. Colorado Bend State Park, for instance, was gated against visitors. Yet that allowed us to poke around nearby Bend and the rock-strewn shores of that hamlet.
The Vanishing River Cruise was not available on Lake Buchanan, the highest of the Highland Lakes. But that left us time to wander out toward the meadows that choke the lakebed of the mostly dry upper Buchanan near Tow.
Entry to the recreation area near the Inks Lake Dam was similarly closed. So we drove around the tiny lake’s more ragged edges, ending at the virtually empty Inks Lake State Park.
Approaches to Lake LBJ were mostly blocked by rampant private development. So, instead, we perched on ledges or detoured down back roads.
Similarly, we could not make out on the map where Lake Marble Falls started and ended, therefore we tarried at a public boat ramp just below casual lakeside businesses.
The most enlightening choice of the day was taking RM 1431 from Marble Falls to Lago Vista, trailing drought-decimated Lake Travis. What a gorgeous path! Steep, green hills cascade down to a simple, two-lane road devoid of the uglification that envelops the byway from Lago Vista to Cedar Park.
Here lies the headquarters for the spectacularly wild Balcones Canyonlands National Preserve. To the outsider, Lago Vista looks like any other traditional vacation community, with golf courses, boating facilities and subdivisions. The parks on Arkansas Bend — again devoid of human activity — were invigorating and well-tended.
We raced down the last of RM 1431, onto U.S. 183 and over to Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway) to climb the lookout above the graceful Pennybacker Bridge over Lake Austin. I’d noticed people trekking to this spot hundreds of times, but never assayed it myself. Vertigo set in near the cliff edges, but we obtained dramatic shots of the bridge and lake.
Our final stop on this leg of the Colorado River tracing was within walking distance of our Bouldin house. We parked in Butler Park, crossed Riverside Drive, and tripped past the joggers and dog-walkers to stare up at downtown Austin.
Just the previous morning, the Colorado was a moist gulch in West Texas. Now it reflected the pinnacles of a vibrant, contemporary city, informed by, but seemingly alien to, the more slowly changing cultures upstream.
We used this information advisedly, because we knew that, once it leaves the Highland Lakes, the Colorado grows gradually broader, deeper and siltier. Not much alteration in the bankside flora either — pecans, willows, cottonwoods, to start — from Bastrop to Smithville to La Grange to Columbus.
Instead, we simply drank in the glory of the land. Stephen F. Austin knew what he was doing when he colonized the region between the Brazos and the Colorado. Sure, his settlers faced impenetrable marshes, jungle and cane near the coast, and the ports were subject to flooding, silting and hurricanes.
Yet the rolling land, high grass and oak-shrouded margins rival the Hill Country and Edwards Plateau for natural Texas beauty. No wilderness this, but man has proved a generally good steward of the land.
After Columbus, the horizon flattens out along the Colorado, dropping in elevation only slightly from there to MatagorÂda. Obviously, this and the soft banks of the river invite periodic flooding, as they did in 1991 when levels reached 43 feet, according to a LCRA marker near Bay City.
Wharton is the small-town gem along this stretch. An Old South settlement devoted to cotton — and home to late playwright Horton Foote — it has avoided twee and trash, at least in downtown. The crisply clipped courthouse is the apotheosis of historical restoration.
We ate inventive sandwiches at the Tree Frog in the square. There, I could even purchase an expertly prepared decaf Americano, not your usual small-town fare.
Not that I begrudge Bay City. I’m gratified the bucks are going for mostly worthy things. And they are doing the hard labor of generating our electricity.
Even sweeter: the efforts and dollars that went into the Matagorda Nature Park — and its well-staffed interpretive center — at the working mouth of the river.
Turns out, this mouth is artificial, like the Brazos’ and, like its sister’s, this opening is silting up. For decades, the former mouth on Matagorda Bay was blocked by a huge logjam. After a century battling the jam and then a shallow delta, in 1936, engineers built the new channel.
One story we heard, secondhand, from a longtime resident: An elderly woman had lived as a child in the plain below the logjam, and whenever they heard a distant rumble, they’d load kids, dogs, etc. onto the roof as a tsunami of logs, water and debris headed their way.
The 19th-century town of Matagorda is located on the inland side of the Intracoastal Waterway. Matagorda Beach, however, is a wide stretch of sand that curves around to the open mouth of the river.
We lingered here, watching currents run and the seabirds frolic. The sun beamed happiness as we completed our 25th Texas river tracing.
Photos: Joe Starr
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Interview: Garrison Keillor
Weirdly, Garrison Keillor waited for me around every corner. Perhaps because the prolific writer and entertainer has given so many interviews, or maybe because my questions were just plain obvious, but Keillor, who brings his touring circus to ACL Live on Wednesday, anticipated each topic. I wanted to talk about Molly Ivins; he brings up Ivins. I planned to him quiz him on particular Texas musicians; he beats me to the punch, thoughtfully and elegantly.
You’re about to get on another plane. Does all this travel weary you?
I don’t think so. I feel a little guilty about it because I have a 13-year-old girl at home. But she seems well provided for. She starts school tomorrow. I’m sorry I won’t be there to have breakfast with her and see her off.
Being on the road is a secret pleasure for me and I think most performers. We don’t want our loved ones to know how fun it is. We pretend to be tired of it. We feign. But it’s actually a beautiful world out there.
The daily world, the difficult one to live with, disappears. You live a simple, tribal life with your tribe of performers. You stay in hotels — we don’t stay in particularly fancy ones — that are comforting. Holiday Inn is really a comfortable sort of dormitory.
You don’t need to pick up after yourself or cook. Even though you carry a cellphone, your friends don’t call you. Dentists, urologists, the IRS, they just disappear. You do not get any older. Time does not exist. You forget what day it is. It’s lovely.
Your sense of place is exceedingly precise. What are your thoughts on Austin’s sense of place?
I don’t have that much experience with Austin. People keep telling me that Austin is proud of weirdness. I don’t notice weirdness. That’s mythology. I remember coming down to do the TV show.
Loved doing “Austin City Limits.” It’s the easiest show in the world to do. I associate TV with highly neurotic people who have a certain arrogance and whose exact function you can’t figure out. But I was down there with Chet Atkins and Charlie Gimble and the Hopeful Gospel Quartet.
Another time, I attended an amazing event, a wake for Molly Ivins at which she was present. It was in a big ballroom. You could see the Capitol from there. It was packed with Texas Democrats, also Republicans, legislators of all stripes, musicians and writers. It was the most comfortable group of people I’ve been with in a long time. It was just so warm, as if they were all Jewish and related to each other. Everybody ignored that she was nearing the end of her life.
I remember seeing Dan Rather alone at a table. One of the most famous Texans ever. Nobody made a big fuss over him. I sang a duet with Joe Ely. That kind of made my evening. I can’t imagine that sort of party taking place anywhere else. I can’t imagine Molly being from anywhere else but Texas. …
Once she drove me in a pickup truck to party at a house. Not a big house, not a party for big donors. A party for people who knew other people. You hung around kitchen and got beer out the fridge. You made yourself a burrito out of a burrito tray. It was hot. Dogs were wandering around. I had a great time. I’ve never had a bad time in Austin.
Why do you think there are so few authentic originals like Ivins out there?
She sort of created herself. I can’t attribute it to place. One creates a persona. The rest of the world looks on it as an act of deception. I suppose it is. It’s necessary for a writer. It makes everything easier. I think Molly was born to high society, as I understand it. So then she could have gone off in another direction. She looked down that road and didn’t see anything she wanted.
She created this hard-edged satirist with a heart of gold and a Texas accent. She could have become a Californian or a New Yorker or a Minnesotan. Instead she was this Texan.
She was able to say some pretty sharp things under that big hat. She gave encouragement to a lot of fainting liberals during Bush years. That’s a worthy thing. I’m sure she regrets not being around for Perry’s presidential campaign. An opportunity of a lifetime to go after Gov. Goodhair.
Your connection to Texas music is deep and abiding. What sets the state’s artists apart?
I don’t know anything other than what I’ve heard. The Mexican aspect to it is mysterious and sets it apart. With the songwriters that I love, like Joe Ely — I think he is a giant — and Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark, there’s a freewheeling aspect that you don’t find elsewhere, especially in country music.
It might not be true of Van Cliburn. Willie Nelson is a case apart. There’s only one. But in Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly there’s an adventurousness, a joy in the music.
I think about northern songwriters, who are dark, conflicted, troubled, for whom this song is an anguished confession. I don’t there’s that much anguish in the songwriters I mentioned.
I think they go right at it to attract women or to hold onto the ones they have. Might be the best way to write poems. That’s probably why Shakespeare wrote poems. I’ve always thought there was more than just one “dark lady.” You write to earn money and impress women.
After so many years of regular and microscopic attention, how do you keep the Lake Wobegon news so fresh?
I have to keep tugging at it. I don’t hesitate to make dramatic changes. I got rid of Pastor Ingqvist. He hadn’t developed. He had a pale and troubled consciousness.
His wife was more interesting. But there was not much I could do with her. So I brought in Pastor Liz and gave her certain qualities. (Here, Keillor falls into the closely cropped rhythms of his Wobegon reports.)
She had felt a mystical call, so she hitchhiked to town with a backpack on her back. She took off her clothes and bathed in the lake. One of the members of church board was fishing and saw a naked figure. He didn’t row toward her, but he drifted. The wind pushed him. He didn’t know what to do. So he lay down in the bottom of the boat. She took hold of its edge. She tapped him on shoulder said: “Are you alright?”
She’s a little different from the usual Lutheran pastor. It’s difficult to pin her down politically — liberal or conservative. I like that.
When you retire from American Public Media in 2013, as you have announced, will you continue to write?
Oh sure, as long as I can. As long as anybody wants to read it. I would still write if I didn’t have readers, though. I think I’m done writing fiction. I don’t read fiction anymore. It just ended for me, oddly. I maybe read two or three novels a year that I don’t necessarily enjoy. Used to read The New Yorker short stories, but I stopped. The people I was interested in died.
I’m very interested in the long essay form. Essayists like Edward Hoagland. It’s a good form for an older man. And I would very much would like wrote a play. I’ve tried to write plays, and I’d like to write movies, of course.
I think writing changes as you get older. If you are not locked into one form or genre, you’re lucky. There are young people who want to be poets and they only want to be poets — or poets only — this strikes me as utterly insane.
Why would you only write poetry and not write silly things? I don’t get that. But they are very serious about it. I guess they figure if they are going to be considered serious, they should write seriously. I wish I could tell them otherwise.
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Wayne Bell Reception at Zilker Clubhouse
When does an informal reception turn into a seminar about your city? When it honors Wayne Bell, the leading architectural preservationist in the city, nay, the state. He and his partner are taking their several thousand cookbooks to a small town outside Portland, Ore. soon. They are keeping their pied-à-terre in Cambridge Tower, while selling their South Austin house.
Darlene Marwirtz and Wayne Bell
Bell was one of my favorite professors at the University of Texas. I was studying theater history and criticism in graduate school, but art history and architectural history were my minors. Bell’s preservation classes helped me with my master’s thesis, a survey of 52 historic Texas theaters, and my doctoral dissertation, a history of theater in the state.
Emily Little, Jackie Schraad and Leslie Wolfenden
Anyway, we have remained warm friends. He’s also been an invaluable source. He knows Austin’s built environment inside out. I hope to interview him soon about the state of historical preservation in this city, a sort of “exit interview,” though he will be returning to town often, I hope.
Molly Alexander and Peter Stiles
Almost every conversation on the terrace of the WPA-era clubhouse with the million-dollar view of downtown circled back to our city and its history. I chatted with Jackie Schraad, Emily Little and Leslie Wolfenden about the mysterious Spanish mission that once stood near Barton Springs, the Umlauf house and various cemeteries. Molly Alexander, Peter Stiles, Kim McKnight and Darlene Marwirtz talked instead about the hidden treasures of Zilker Park, downtown in transition, and the whereabouts of colleagues from days gone by.
It was just as Bell would have it: A few friends nibbling on cheese and sipping mild refreshments with Old and New Austin in plain view.
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Profile: Pianist and Composer Reuel Meditz
A slender musician plays the piano for the first time at the Four Seasons Lounge. Guests keep up their chatter, snug in their comfy nooks, scattered around the city’s classiest bar.
As the tunes rise and fall, they grow quieter, putting down their top-shelf cocktails. At the finger-crunching finale of Ernesto Lecuona’s “Maleguena,” they cheer without reserve. Some even give Reuel Meditz a standing ovation.
As is Meditz, 23, who composes movie scores when he is not improvising at the keyboards in a fluent, melodious manner one observer has called “classical free-styling.”
Yet another Austinite who, creatively, doesn’t follow the rules. The Arlington-born former model comes from an Austin family that tends to veer off in inventive directions.
His mother, Jeanette Ingles Meditz, a writer, came to this country from Zimbabwe via Australia. His father, John Meditz, was the son of Greenwich, Conn. residential architects; he designs systems for Fidelity Investments.
Besides Reuel, there are six siblings with Biblical names: Adriel, Shiphrah, Shealtiel, Tirzah, Cassia and Shalisha.
“We’re not Mormon or Catholic,” Meditz says. “Just a big family.”
Slightly dylexic, Meditz was schooled at home and through correspondence courses. “Never scratched the door of a school until some classes at ACC,” he shrugs. “I’m not sure if I’m even on record there, other than enrolling before dropping the same classes.”
Instead, he studied the literary classics and, of course, piano, which he started comparatively late, at age 11.
“I think I missed out on some things in high school, like the social stuff,” he admits. “But this way, I could be different. I had very little pressure to be like everyone else. It gave me the option to look at people and not judge.”
Helped by teacher Julia Kruger — plus master classes from Victor Bunin from Russia’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory — Meditz moved from painful practicing to more advanced composition on the keyboards by age 13.
“Improvising saved my whole future on the piano,” he says. Not that the gangly kid remained indoors. He played adventure games with siblings on the family’s three acres above Lost Creek.
“I risked my hands like crazy with swords, jousting and quaterstaffs,” he says. “But you could be free out there. Do whatever you wanted.”
He stays in shape running along West Austin greenbelts and works out, gently, without doing heavy weight training, because it messes up his piano reaction time. He continues to risk those digits, though, rock climbing, paddle boarding and kayaking.
“I’m less fragile than most pianists,” he jokes.
For two years, he lived in the artsy Metropolis apartment complex while playing in a Yes-like band called Interstellar Transmissions. Now he occupies a small spot on a green hill off Southwest Parkway, a quieter place to delve into his piano improvisations, influenced by composition lessons from University of Texas doctoral student Greg Bolin.
“I create pieces on the fly as if dreaming,” he says. “I can tap into that subconscious state while playing, like a lucid musical dream.”
And that’s exactly how he went about scoring films, starting with the ultra-low-budget martial arts movie “Crosshairs,” for which he was recruited after meeting actress Laura Evans in a coffee shop.
“Like Danny Elfman, I improvise as I watch the movie, then score it,” he says.
Joining the Recording Academy — best known for the Grammys — helped Meditz network his way into a series of other movie jobs after that.
He helped Lexie Beard score the bigger-budgeted, Texas-filmed “The Legends of Hell’s Gate,” for instance, and served as lead composer on the even plumper “Ije: The Journey.”
Like other musicians, he teaches on the side, writes for commercials, and puts out albums on iTunes.
While he has played for the Grammy Foundation and he was among the first-place winners during the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition at Carnegie Hall, the Four Seasons gig was his first venture into small-scale concerts at upscale venues.
He hopes to build up to concert-hall tours in the footsteps of entertainers and composers like Victor Borge, David Lanz and George Winston, whose sound his pieces sometimes echo.
“My absolute biggest dream would be play the Sydney Opera House!” he says, getting ahead of himself. “I call my playing style ‘Mod-Class’ for mixing up modern and classical during shows.”
Still, he’s not so much a lounge stylist as a fairly earnest romantic.
“I don’t play for show,” he says. “I play for emotion.”
Single, Meditz recently ended a long-distance relationship and now concentrates on his music and a network of Austin friendships. Meanwhile, he is polishing his sartorial image for this new phase in his career.
“I like dressing up,” he says. “If people enjoy the look as well as the sound, that’s all for the best.”
Meditz plays the Four Seasons again on Sunday evening.
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