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February 8, 2010
Rodeo Gala at Palmer Events Center
Rodeo is big in Austin. As proof, the Rodeo Gala is Austin’s biggest such charity event. “We expect to see 2,500 guests when all is said and done,” said grateful gala chairman and former Rodeo Austin president Gilbert Turrieta on Saturday.
EJ Lawless and Claire Vo
Wow. That’s two and one half times the size of the biggest meals I’ve joined lately — for Dell’s Children’s and Philanthropy Day, each in the 1,000-guest attendance range. One draw: Pricing is democratic. Only $700,000 gross was expected, however, compared to Dell Children’s $1 million mark.
Nicole Alberda and Tiffany Greer
Lots of black hats, plus a few white ones at the Palmer Events Center for the 2010 Rodeo Gala. Denim was OK. So were gowns and abbreviated tuxes. Just handling 2,500 people would challenge any event planner, but Rodeo Austin comes with some experience moving people — and livestock. Drink stations flanked the silent auction tables on the south side. Ten or more buffet lines, laden with barbecue and other delicacies, were set at angles against the north wall.
Kyle Ballarta and Allison Huth
One curiosity: The corral-style fencing used to designate the VIP sections. Guards with sensitive people skills were stationed to keep those from the other 200-plus tables from dancing in this area. (I guess you can only be so democratic.)
Stacy Looney and Christy Bowen
County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt sat at our table (No. 20), but we could only shout over the country sounds of Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros, warmups for headliner Dwight Yoakum. I heard, however, from my left-hand companions, Kurt and Kelly Bender, about the Tequila Club, the all-male group that historically built the rodeo’s leadership.
My right-hand companions were Jeff and Liz Carmack. Liz, a former journalist and author of “Historic Hotels of Texas: A Traveler’s Guide,” has been commissioned to write a history of Rodeo Austin. What a delicious task! I hope rodeo leaders allow her to chronicle some of the road bumps along the way as well as the glories.
Mark Harrington, Megan Felker and Don Eckols
OK, yes, I’m a wuss. I left before Yoakum sang. I’m just not one for waiting and waiting and waiting. I’m sure he blew the roof off of Palmer. Remember, the rodeo is coming soon!
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January 27, 2010
Your A-List: Best Place to Spot a Celeb
While it is true that a bevy of celebrities attend University of Texas sporting events, it’s not always easy to spot them among a crowd of, say, 100,000 fans. Without a zoom lens.
Cut them some slack, though: Your A List voters picked UT Longhorns games as the Best Place to Spot a Celeb. Credit UT with 28 percent of the tally.
South by Southwest, Austin’s biggest single social event, perked up 23 percent, while the Four Seasons Hotel — especially the lobby — did quite well at 12 percent.
Austin City Limits, which points the spotlight on the house as well as the stage, picked up 10 percent. The Lady Bird Lake Trail ran up 6 percent.
The rest — Whole Foods, Guero’s, Hotel San Jose, Chuy’s and Continental Club — racked up 5 percent or less.
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January 25, 2010
Steve Hicks and the Rise Across Texas Challenge
The goal is $5 million. Already, donors have pledged $2 million. For one charity event.
Pick the right cause, at the right time, and one can line up the biggest names to back it.
And the news keeps on rolling in: You’ve probably already heard about the cross-state bike ride, slated for March 6-20. Or perhaps the launch party, set for Friday at the Mount Bonnell-area home of Sally and Mack Brown. (Drat! I will be out of town !)
It probably hasn’t sunk in, however, that, in a city where $1 million marks the outer limits for single-function fundraising, Hicks has already lined up $2 million and plans to pick up the other $3 million by the time the post-event buzz dies down later this year. Some of the Challenge dollars will go to other Rise Schools — which serves children with a developmental disability or delay — in Houston, Dallas and Corpus Christi. Yet the bulk of it will be devoted to building a stand-alone campus for the local Rise School, now housed, part-time, at a megachurch in Southwest Austin.
How does Hicks draft social superstars such as the Browns, Lance Armstrong, Gene Stallings, Kristin Armstrong, Tim McClure, Bart Knaggs, Evan Smith, Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Comptroller Susan Combs, Rep. Carol Alvarado and a slew of state senators — Kirk Watson, Jeff Wentworth, Rodney Ellis and Dan Patrick?
“They’ve asked me for favors,” the soft-spoken, mostly introverted Hicks says. “This time, I’m asking for one favor. And I’m not asking for myself. Not one has said no. Everybody I approached has helped in some way.”
Fewer than two dozen riders are expected to make the full trip from the Louisiana border to Presidio near Big Bend. Yet 200 celebrities will pedal from the Rise School to the Salt Lick in Driftwood on March 10 (an estimated hour ride). The public is invited to join them.
Donna Stockton Hicks and Sally Brown got the financial ball rolling for the local Rise School, run by Mandy Myers, after a granddaughter of Longhorn legend and Austin businessman James Street was born with Down syndrome. Their first event took in $50,000. A visit to the school converted Steve Hicks.
“These children touched something inside of me,” he says. “There’s no pretense. No ‘me’ gene. When I was growing up, they would have taken those kids away from their parents to be institutionalized. Now they can be main-schooled, have jobs, live fairly normal lives.”
During the ride, not long after the March 2 Republican gubernatorial primary, Hicks and Perry will jointly celebrate their 60th birthdays at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort near Bastrop.
“I hope I can look back and think: ‘That was a pretty cool deal when I turned 60 and made a little difference.’ ”
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January 13, 2010
Your A-List: Best Sportscaster
Come on! Mike Barnes, what happened? Sharing a name with the newspaper’s social columnist was not enough? I can’t believe you didn’t win. Punishment laps for you, sport.
KVUE’s Mr. Barnes did very well, placing second in the A List reader poll for Best Sportscaster, racking up 32 percent of the vote.
But the winner is KXAN’s Roger Wallace, pictured, who stretched for 37 percent.
FOX 7’s Dave Cody and KEYE’s Bob Ballou were neck and neck for third place, taking 14 percent and 12 percent respectively.
News 8’s Jeff Power rounded out the list with 5 percent.
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January 8, 2010
Longhorn Holdouts at Third Base Sports Bar
She kept the faith until the last seconds. He professed skepticism, but erupted with joy whenever the game went the Longhorns’ way.
Neither Jessica Manning nor Aaron Herzog attended the University of Texas. She’s a student at Texas State University-San Marcos, he graduated from the same school.
Aaron Herzog and Jessica Manning
Yet they joined the throngs at Third Base Sports Bar on West Sixth Street, riding the emotional rollercoaster of the National Championship Game on Thursday.
Bar owner Brendan Puthoff estimated a total of more than 120 high-definition screens blazed at three Third Base locations, plus his Aces Lounge on East Sixth Street, which opened early for the roaming football herds. Fans filtered as early as 1 p.m. By 6:30 p.m., trays of margarita shots were departing for far reaches of Third Base more regularly than planes from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport.
Mark SoRelle and Paul Purcell
Outside, patrons shivered in a makeshift beer garden on the loading dock. Almost as soon as they arrived, they moved inside, or left altogether. After all, the wind chill spiralled down toward the single digits.
It stayed toasty warm inside. That didn’t stop a table of five from huddling under burnt orange Snuggies. These young women area didn’t cherish memories from the last Texas championship four years ago.
“We were in Houston!” the shout went out.
Paul Purcell remembered.
“Back then, nobody even thought we’d be there,” Purcell said before the game began in Pasadena, Calif. “Now, everybody worries we’re not going to win, but they won’t say that. Four years ago, it was magical. It will be again, if they pull it off.”
Geri Dixon and Ashley Dixon
And not all present were pigskin maniacs.
“We’re here because we won a free table,” said shy actor Tia C. “We texted a code to the bar in a contest and won.”
She and table-mates Mike Hinojosa and Dorothy Davis waggled their palms hesitantly when asked about their UT fervor. “We’re moderate fans,” Hinojosa said, deafened by the cheering around them when icons like Bevo and Vince Young crossed the screens.
The first social chill spread through the crowd when it was announced that Texas had never lost to Alabama. “Knock on wood,” Herzog said. The chill turned arctic when Colt McCoy was injured. Even six early UT points didn’t melt the anxiety. By the end of the first quarter, orange-swaddled faces were frozen in anguish. A trip outside revealed that the cold had driven almost all those of those fans away.
Mike Hernandez and Dorothy Davis
The half-time mood inside? Manning: “Disappointed but optimistic.” Herzog: “I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.”
Nelly Byrne: “Frustrated but hopeful.” Marianne Scudder: “It’s time to move on.”
Sonia Merritt: “Still positive. Gotta be. No choice.” Brittany Fellwock: “If Colt McCoy comes back, he’ll turn it around.”
Sonia Merritt, Brittany Fellwock and Kelly Dixon
Davis: “I’m bored.” Tia C: “UT’s still ranked high academically.”
Mark SoRelle: “I feel sorry for (freshman back-up quarterback) Garrett Gilbert now.” Purcell: “I’m somber.”
During the ups and downs of the second half, Manning and Herzog’s mood matched that of the masses.
Nelly Byrne and Marianne Scudder
Then, late in the fourth quarter, as Alabama guaranteed its win, the bubble burst for good.
Herzog: “I feel so bad for Colt.”
Manning: “I’m proud. Very proud. With Colt, they would have dominated.”
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January 7, 2010
National Championship Day of Anxiety
This morning, I posted the following on Facebook: “Are you ready for a national championship? I’m oddly anxious. Tell me your thoughts.”
Forthwith, some of the most pointed comments so far:
Jodi Gonzalez: “I’m very nervous. I really am hoping the Colt has the game of his life, and ends his career on a high note.”
Sandy Walper: “Apt phrasing about your mental state. I’m there too. Everyone is touting Alabama. They have a better defense; their QB has not lost a game ever, it seems; they have Ingram; they have at least three other offensive and defensive players who are game-breakers. However. We have Muschamp and Applewhite and Brown, OH MY! I want to think that …”
Jeff Abbott: “I feel distracted today, not anxious, just very ready for the game to start. I think we have a better coached team and everyone is selling us short and I think that will be a motivator for them. I grew up in Austin, but didn’t go to UT (I went to Rice). But I married into a Longhorn family, and will be cheering as loudly as any UT grad tonight. Texas Fight!”
Kate Hersch: “I could care less about football, unlike El Rey. I am using the game as an excuse to eat queso.”
Elizabeth Christian: “I woke up feeling very anxious about it!”
Kerry Awn: “Vince and Ricky will be there. Maybe we could sneak ‘em into the game. Have some faith, people.”
Herb Belofsky: “A win tonight for the Horns will put Austinites in a good mood for a long time. An Orange tower is a beautiful sight.”
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December 23, 2009
Your A-List: Best Post-Workout Fueling Spot
Whole Foods Market is the key to all the development in the western quarter of downtown. The flagship store fits the lifestyle of the urban residents who also enjoy the proximity to the trails around Lady Bird Lake, multiple gyms, scores of clubs and slews of restaurant and shops.
Three other options were particularly popular with the voting readers: Daily Juice (14 percent); Central Market (13 percent); and Tacodeli (9 percent).
Six others picked up the voting slack: Mr. Natural (6 percent); Jo’s (5 percent); Austin Java (5 percent); Wheatsville (3 percent); People’s Pharmacy (2 percent) and Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse (1 percent).
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Mini-Season bonding as Longorns beat Spartans
Sports fans who sit in adjacent seats cement personal bonds over the seasons, even the decades. Some Longhorns football followers, for instance, have purchased affiliated season packages since the 1950s. Think of the witnessed victories and defeats, the changing attitudes toward coaches and marquee players. At some point, the shared births and deaths, arrivals and departures, feuds and friendships in a particular section approximate a family relationship.
Chris and Karla Boedeker
I felt that way during the 1980s and ’90s when I purchased, with friends, regular seats not far from the home bench for Texas women’s basketball team. This was during the Jody Conradt era, when championships always seemed possible, even if the last national title came in 1986. At times, relations in our section resembled a soap opera, given the shifting tensions and alliances among the casually connected ticket holders. (For most of one season, I simply moved across the Erwin Center to sit with newer friends.)
For the past three seasons, American-Statesman designer G.W. Babb and I have grabbed mini-season passes for men’s basketball. In an effort to build attendance during the drab winter months, Rick Barnes and crew offer six games for the astounding price of $60, give or take fees. We are now so attached to upper-berth Section 94, scraping our heads against the arena ceiling, it’s almost painful to move down toward the court when better seats go unfilled.
Carol Chisholm and Matt Pore
No threat of that last night, as the No. 2 Longhorns took on the No. 9 Michigan State Spartans. Just about every one of the 16,000+ seats were full of writhing, restless fans, some rooting for the green, not the burnt orange. You’ve probably read about the game, if you didn’t see it: Lots of sloppy play, but also some offensive and defensive heroics as UT cranked out another victory over a traditional basketball power.
As soon as I found our new seats on the very last row of Section 94, spiky-haired Chris Boedeker exhaled: “I’m not very happy about this.” He and cheerful wife Karla liked the pricing on the mini-season pass, but not the actual location, tangentially related to the visitors’ bench. As Chris, a claims manager for Mercury Insurance, scrutinized the game guide with the seriousness of a b-ball buff, Karla, an account manager for Hoover’s, clapped politely for Michigan State.
What? What? “Oh, we went to Indiana, so there’s some Big 10 loyalty left,” Kris explained. Hopefully, that will evaporate when the Horns steer into the Big 12 run.
Antonio Rodriguez and Amanda Bramblett (good sports on the Erwin Center staff)
On our other side were Carol Chisholm and Matt Pore. A graduate of Texas State University-San Marcos, Pore also revealed a deeper knowledge of this year’s team than I possess, and enthusiastically broadcast his delight with the Horns or his disgust with the officials. Chisholm, an actual UT grad, played along convincingly. Animated Pore joked about wanting Coach Barnes to notice him as a potential walk-on, not likely where we sat.
The couple works for First American Spatial Solutions, which provides insurance companies with information about flood plains and such. One of my areas of interest! So now G.W. and I know our seat-mates, who bought into the “very, very cheap” offer, too. Let the potential bonding begin.
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December 9, 2009
Your A-List: Best Sporting Goods Store
Austinites do love a local business. Alhough Academy Sports and Outdoors was founded in San Antonio and is headquartered in Houston, the business first flourished in Austin. As a military surplus outlet in the 1950s.
Rugged REI crossed line with 12 percent and local runner’s mecca, RunTex, followed with 10 percent. Two behemoths — Dick’s and Cabela’s — made fourth and fifth with 9 percent and 7 percent respectively.
The rest — Whole Earth, Sports Authority, Bicycle Sports Shop, Soccer World and Jack and Adam’s Bicycles — charged up 6 percent or less.
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December 4, 2009
The Trail Foundation reception at Zipp home
A state senator. A former mayor. A council member. Current and former editors and publishers. Dozens of top-flight philanthropists and activists …
Sarah Russ and Natalie Glover
They gathered Thursday at the home of Fred and Jodi Zipp, which was baptized last month with the Glossy 8 presentations …
Becky Beaver, Dr. John Hogg and David Garza
This time the beneficiary was the Trail Foundation, which looks after the priceless Trail at Lake Lady Bird …
Griffin Davis and Council Member Chris Riley
Leaders presented a landscape design for the MoPac overpass area …
Rich Oppel, Carol Oppel and Dick Clark
But conversations roamed all over the map, regarding architecture, books, politics and other salient topics …
Matt Garcia and Mo Pharis
As guests roamed to and from the returning Piranha sushi bar.
(Small note: Opening the door to the inviting terrace would not have chilled guests too terrifically as they massed, shoulder to shoulder, in the public rooms).
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November 18, 2009
Your A-List: Best Basketball Courts
A little thing called “hand-eye coordination” has, for the most part, kept me off area basketball courts. I show up often enough as a spectator to actual basketball games. But no, despite my height, there’s really no excuse for my handling a ball in public.
Two spots — Barton Hills Playground and Wooten Park — tied for third place with 7 percent. Three — Ramsey Park, Givens District Park and Brentwood Park — tied for fourth with 5 percent. The back of the pack: Walnut Creek Park, Alamo Park and Shipe Park.
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October 28, 2009
Your A-List: Best Tennis Courts
But if I still played, I’d head to one of three spots that nearly tied for Best Tennis Courts in the most recent A-List poll. Caswell Tennis Center in West Campus, South Austin Tennis Center in Galindo and Austin High on Lady Bird Lake rushed the net at 18 to 21 percent.
The World of Tennis and Westwood Country Club — where Andy Roddick is known to practice — rallied for 10 to 11 percent. All the rest — Penick-Allison Tennis Center, Old Settlers Park, UT Intramural Fields, Little Zilker Park and Austin Tennis Academy — lagged much further behind.
And, oh, that’s not even remotely me in the photograph. I wish.
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Your A-List: Best Outdoor Event
Our Austin lifestyle is often defined by the out of doors. Despite our Amazonian summers, we’re out on the streets, in the parks, on the greenbelts, at the lakes all year long.
The holiday Trail of Lights/Zilker Tree — a tradition that might soon change drastically with the introduction of a private contractor — came in second with 21 percent. Longhorn tailgaiting — as important an activity as the actual UT sporting events to participants — served up 12 percent.
Three other customs — Eyore’s Birthday, Old Pecan Street Festival and Republic of Texas biker rally — grouped between 6 and 8 percent. Attracting 3 percent or less were the Zilker Kite Festival, Fourth of July fireworks at Zilker, Gay Pride Festival, Movies in the Park, Zilker Summer Musical and Keep Austin Weird Festival.
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October 23, 2009
Marathon Kids' Heroes for Health at Whole Foods Plaza
How proud can you be of your city …
MK founder Kay Morris and Joy Authur
When it supports an efficient, forward-thinking, Austin-based, but national organization like Marathon Kids, which inspires hundreds of thousands of children to run and eat in healthy ways …
Ross Moody (whose family foundation just gave $2.5 million to KLRU for new “Austin City Limits” equipment) and Amy Skudlarczyk
And leaders such as state Sen. Kirk Watson, honoree at the Heroes for Health reception at Whole Foods Plaza, who help make such things happen …
MK board director Shannon Moody and state Sen. Kirk Watson
Leadership continued by former Mayor Will Wynn and state Rep. Mark Strama — also at the event …
Lisa and Jeremy Thiel
And powerful business folks like Susan and Michael Dell, John Mackey and Paul Carrozza, who give Marathon Kids their full financial support …
Heather and Wade Hodges
It all came together on a flawless night at the plaza, which is fast becoming the venue of choice for such health-oriented events.
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October 18, 2009
Out & About in Zilker and Barton Hills
The return of cool weather means time to explore Austin on foot.
Today, your flâneur wandered the Zilker and Barton Hills neighborhoods, close to our base camp in Bouldin, but in some ways stubbornly alien.
Nora the Explorer (otherwise known as Nora the Willful Chocolate Lab) joined me for the seven-mile jaunt.
The defining topographic feature is a north-south ridge that comes close to splitting Barton Hills from older Zilker. To the east, the land falls gently toward West Bouldin Creek, to the west, north and south, the drop is precipitous down to Barton Creek and Lady Bird Lake.
The tidy urban grid in Zilker inscribes evolving commercial density along Lamar, humble cottages and flashes of contemporary infill. Roads in more remote Barton Hills — developed in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s — curve around the terrain. The street names actually fit the physical features, which is unusual for Texas. Elms, for instance, do grow on shallow Elmglen Drive.
Since spring is our fall, flowers — plumbagos, lantanas, fall asters, Mexcian sage and, especially, yellow bells — blazed. Those trees not wrung dry by the drought shimmered. Butterflies, and not just mobs of white snouts, drifted over landscape.
Not many people outside, except in or near the fantastic nearby parks, including playscapes next to horizontal Zilker Elementary and more vertical Barton Hills Elementary.
Not as many aggressive, new home designs as in Bouldin, but also virtually no McMansions. The only one I spotted fit its pie-slice lot comfortably.
It struck me that I knew very few people here. Or not well. Former state Sen. Ray Farabee — profiled in the space last week — and his activist wife Mary Margaret live in Barton Hills; mystic masseur Bruce Christman and his midwife wife Barbara resided in Zilker, but are moving west of the Balcones Fault. The family of late newspaperman John Bustin grew up in one of those perfectly poised mid-century moderns up above Zilker Park.
I’ve roamed the tree-sheltered streets of Zilker with dogs many times before, but more westerly Barton Hills, through nobody’s fault but my own, might as well have been the wilds of Idaho. (In fact, it more resembles suburbs in Colorado, Georgia and, of course, California.) There’s an odd, though nicely landscaped concrete ditch, for instance, bisecting Barton Parkway. Years ago, I encountered one very similar splitting the redundantly named Arroyo Seco north of Koenig Lane.
It was broad Barton Hills Boulevard, however, that stumped me. How had I never walked or driven past this arcing strip of green suburbia slap dab in Central Austin?
Most strange to me were the apartments shelved above the popular greenbelt, some clumpy (like an inwardly-oriented New Orleans-style garden complex), others campy (a set of Hollywood haciendas). Even the prominent placement of striking sculptures out front could not banish the suspicion that some of these complexes were in the wrong place.
In the rest of Zilker and Barton Hills, one finds neat, tiny slip-in apartments, duplexes and condos (proof of ancient condo mania). They tend to fit the character of the neighborhoods, which are long-settled.
Taken as a whole, both hoods are handsome, walkable, relaxed and close to countless amenities, not the least, superior parks. I’m sure I know scads of people living behind those crazy-quilt lawns, but just haven’t been invited inside yet. The folks I do already know in Zilker and Barton Hills are open, kind and, well, typical Austinites.
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October 7, 2009
Your A-List: Best Running Trail
Not sure why we bother to count the votes in this category.
The Lady Bird Lake Trail outdistanced all others with 78 percent of the A-List vote.
Rugged, scenic Barton Creek Greenbelt fell way behind with 7 percent. Mystical Enchanted Rock State Nature Area — which seems to receive votes in A-List contests no matter the category — tied with Lake Georgetown and Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Um, are we talking about the one that’s 400 miles to our northwest?
Closer candidates — Pease Park, Walnut Creek Park, Bastrop State Park, McKinney Falls State Park and McKinney Roughs — lost to that far-out selection with 2 percent or less.
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Your A-List: Best Gym
Gyms serve many purposes in Austin. Fitness fits into the overall scheme. So does socializing, flirty or friendly. And for some, it’s just another place to go, a chance to get out of the house. Hey, if it leads to good health …
Virtually tying for second place were 24 Hour Fitness (3 Austin locations) and Lifetime Fitness (2 Austin locations), each taking between 16 and 17 percent of the tally. Veteran Gold’s generated 13 percent. UT’s renovated Gregory Gym and the YMCA pulled down close to 8 percent.
Ending up with 6 percent or less were Castle Hill, Hyde Park Gym, the Hills Fitness Center, Body Busienss and Premiere Lady.
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Hawks in the 'Hood
For the second year running, a family of hawks has made its home in our Central Austin neighborhood. Their presence tells us something about the human and non-human evolution of our town.
Clearly, the green, fecund, mostly residential character of our city favors species that had abandoned such haunts during my youth. Protection against threats like hunters probably helps. Personally, I find their presence thrilling.
To judge from our neighborhood’s message board, however, not everyone is pleased. Nobody weeps over the loss of a few grackles or rock doves (street pigeons), but area chickens and show pigeons have also been harassed. A similar discussion arose last year when foxes returned to our yards with sly intentions aimed at area poultry and pets.
These human/non-human contacts do not take on the high drama that attend coyotes hunting the hills and canyons of West Austin (although I saw one not two blocks east of downtown). Or the rare report of a mountain lion in the wilds of our preserves. Still, hawks are pretty efficient predators and the discussion will not go away.
They also play into the ongoing tension between those who want to preserve the almost rural character of our near-in neighborhoods and those who negotiate for more urban-style density. Despite what some readers presume, I do not take sides. I like nature close at hand. But I also abhor sprawl, traffic and freeway culture. Which means, I’m open to enlightened, pedestrian-friendly density.
If we are going to stay green, we’re going to attract hawks. I can live with that.
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October 1, 2009
Children in Nature Picnic at the Four Seasons
Charities can make a bigger impact through strategic alliances with like-minded charities, governments and associations, large and small.
Nancy Scanlan and John Watson (the original preserver of Westcave)
The Children in Nature Collaborative hitches together the Westcave Preserve, Texas Parks and Wildlife, National Wildlife Federation, Austin Parks Department, Austin City Planning, Lower Colorado River Authority, LBJ Wildflower Center, Austin Independent School District, Dell Children’s Health Center, St. David’s Health Foundation and the Children and Nature Network.
Lynette Holtz and Jenny McMillan
The organizations pool their resources to push children back into nature, in part to help alleviate some of the symptoms associated with “Nature Deficit Disorder” — obesity, ADD, mal-socialization, etc.
Juan Miro and Rosa Rivera
Westcave Preserve hosted the Children in Nature Picnic at the Four Seasons Hotel on Wednesday.
Rep. Elliott Naishtat with Susan and Bill Stotesbery
The weather gods approved.
Joe Llamas and Sarah Churchill
The event started with drinks in the ballroom lobby and on the terrace. It moved into the ballroom for an awards program and salad. The guests trooped out to the lawn overlooking Lady Bird Lake for a sweet dinner. (By this time, I’d moved on to another social event next door at Trio.)
Mireya Zapata and Rep. Patrick Rose
We’ll add the list of winners later today.
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September 30, 2009
Your A-List: Best Place to Ride a Bike
Smooth or rough. Long or short. Easy or hard. All kinds of ways to roll in Austin. And the A-List poll for Best Place to Ride a Bike tenders fresh evidence.
Mountain-biking Barton Creek Greenbelt, bumped up to 15 percent, while the Park road linking Bastrop and Buescher state parks” smoothed out to 13 percent. The Dam Loop and the Driveway (have to admit I don’t know that one) virtually tied at 9 percent.
Hitting 6 percent or less were Walnut Creek Park, Shoal Creek hike-and-bike trail, Muleshoe Recreation Area and Pace Bend Park.
Wish I biked.
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September 28, 2009
Tour de Suites at Royal-Memorial Stadium
I had long suspected that experiencing a Longhorns football game from a private suite would diverge from my usual practice of scrounging up the least expensive bleacher spot in the sun …
Jonathan and Linda Traylor
I just needed a guide to the social scene. I found an ideal one in Mary Tally, who navigates the dozens of slotted suites on the north, east and west sides of Royal-Memorial stadium like a pro …
Lindsay Smith, Julie Crenshaw and Eva Late
First we met for snacks at Mary and Rusty Tally’s penthouse atop the Milago, the residences at the end of Rainey Street. The views — right in the path of the bridge bat colony at sunset during warm months — were thoroughly unexpected, set above a dramatic curve in the river …
Corrine and Lauree Moffett
The first clue to the alien aspect of the day’s experience: The game tickets were laminated and hung from lanyards (I was to discover why). The second clue: The Tallys’ reserved parking spot just a few yards from the stadium. No 3-mile walk for me this warm, but gorgeous Saturday (first time in 25 years) …
Tammi and Brett Buckman
We passed through several layers of security (thus the laminated tickets) to reach the suite, shared by several couples and located at the northeast corner of the arc. Only one general dress requirement throughout the building: burnt orange …
Debbie Cone, Alicia Cone, Chelsea Cone, Amy Mills and Ronda Gray
Each deep, narrow suite opens to a different scene. Decor is chosen by the suite-holders, although images of longhorns naturally dominate. Edibles, I found, vary from comfort food — corn dogs, burgers, wings — to fancy, catered concoctions and homemade sweets. Beverages — soft and hard — also vary from spot to spot. (Some suites are dry.) …
Michael Vivio and Harry Davis
In the home suite, I caught up with Long Center architect Stan Haas and chatted with new acquaintances like Bill Schneider, who grew up in San Saba County and now owns, with wife Ann, a home-health care tech company that could revolutionize rural medical testing. (We talked a lot about San Saba County, which I recently visited on the river tracings.) …
Mary Tally, Terri McClendon and Lucy Needham
So everyone stands for the National Anthem and cheers, just as they do outside. The Miners kept the game close for a few minutes, but after it became clear that this was going to be the expected rout, Mary grabbed my arm for our ‘Tour de Suites.’ This was complicated by the fact that the usual passages between the older and newer suites have been blocked this season — staff gave us various reasons: safety, security, etc. So instead of skimming along the hallway outside the suites, Mary and I ducked up and down stairs and elevators, through the broad, new club areas, back down to the general refreshments area (where people escaped the afternoon heat) …
Ann Schneider and Rusty Tally
We headed to Eric and Maria Groten’s suite on the far west side. With Maria in hand, we made the tortuous trip up, down and around back to the far east side, ending up in Ben Barnes’ suite. Barnes, graciously told us about Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s own Tour de Suites last week when she was in town for a Democratic National Committee meeting. Along the way, we dropped into at least a dozen suites and popped our heads into others. In the hall, we met APD Chief Art Acevedo. (He’s a super-hero! He’s everywhere!) Inside suites, we encountered the famous and not so famous. I even discovered that the American-Statesman holds a spot. There I made my apologies to publisher Michael Vivio and circulation manager Harry Davis for our brief stay and necessary departure — to see more suites …
Almost all these party rooms — including those owned by sports stars, business bigwigs and political powerhouses — were open and inviting. One of the only closed doors belongs to Matthew McConaughey’s posse. By the time we returned to our original location, I was exhausted, and so watched the rest of the game from a comfortable chair, while matching up super-secret Long Center stories with Mary (who had been development director) and architect Haas …
We stayed until the final boom of the cannon. Even though the car was in site of the stadium gates, the whole thing took a full six hours. Which meant I was not ready to hit any evening events. Luckily, readers provided their own accounts of the Jewell Ball and Arthouse Toga Party, so look forward to a future posting …
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September 23, 2009
Your A-List: Best Dog Park
Located at the busy intersection of Riverside Drive and Interstate 35, Norwood Estate is Austin’s most visible dog park. The hilltop with the former swimming pool was adopted by a village of dog owners who believed their pets could form their own communities around a leash-free zone. It fenced in a full 41 percent of the A-List vote for Best Dog Park.
Rugged Bull Creek Park, recently put off limits because of the drought, commanded 7 percent. Sprawling Walnut Creek District Park pulled up with 4 percent. Taking 3 percent or less were Georgetown’s Bark Park, Shoal Creek Greenbelt, West Austin Park, Emma Long Metropolitan Park, Onion Creek District Park, Turkey Creek Trail and St. Edward’s Park.
Nick and Nora have frolicked in all but one.
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September 14, 2009
2009 Fortunate 500: Sports
2009 FORTUNATE 500
SPORTS
For a previously posted micro-profile of Claire and Doug English, go here.
Hill Abell. Bicycle Sports Shop, Hill Country Ride for AIDS, Real Ale Ride
Candy and Rick Barnes. University of Texas, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Charles Breithaupt. University Interscholastic League
Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell Meat Products, University of Texas
Sheila and Paul Carrozza. RunTex, President’s Council on Physical Fitness
Marion Cimbala. Moving Through Cancer, Danskin Women’s Triathlon
Ed Clements. KLBJ-AM, Alzheimer’s Association of the Capital, ARC of the Capital Area, American Heart Association
John Conley. Austin Sports Commission, Conley Sports Inc., Austin Marathon
Brenda and Tommy Cox. Austin Independent School District, Coaches Outreach
Julie and Ben Crenshaw. PGA, Coore & Crenshaw
Brooklyn Decker and Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick Foundation, Association of Tennis Professionals
Mary Ann and DeLoss Dodds. University of Texas
Bill and Rhonda Farney. University Interscholastic League, Georgetown High School, Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau
Gail Goestenkors. University of Texas
Augie Garrido and Jeannie Grass. University of Texas, Hospice Austin
Michele Golden. Rodeo Austin, Golden & Co., Heart Gallery of Central Texas, Polo for Puppies
Brendan Hansen. PureSport
Christy and Tom Kite. FedEx Kinko’s Classic, Kids Classic, Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas
Bart Knaggs. Capital Sports and Entertainment, Mellow Johnny’s
Donnie Little. University of Texas, Longhorn Foundation, Urban Life Group, Longhorn Legacy
Keith Moreland. University of Texas, Longhorn Sports Network
Kay Morris. Marathon Kids
Dan Neil. University of Texas, NFL Alumni, GOPAC-TX
Aaron Peirsol. Race for the Oceans, 2008 Summer Olympics, University of Texas
Christine Plonsky. University of Texas
Edith and Darrell Royal. University of Texas, Caritas of Austin
Nicole and Reid Ryan. Round Rock Express
Julie and Scott Sayers. Coore & Crenshaw, Austin High Alumni Association, Texas State Directory Press
Eric Shanteau. University of Texas, 2008 Summer Olympics, Lance Armstrong Foundation
Bill Stapleton. Capitol Sports and Entertainment
James Street. Rise School of Austin, James Street Group, University of Texas
Gilbert Turrieta. Rodeo Austin
COMPLETE 2009 FORTUNATE 500 LISTS:
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September 11, 2009
Game Days at Bikinis on Sixth, Part 2
For Part 1 of Game Days at Bikinis, scroll down for previous post, or go here.
Let’s get this straight: Guller is no leering, middle-aged businessman who left a good position selling software to the government to follow his boyish bliss.
“People are always going to drink, happy or sad,” he says. “And they’ll eat, if the price point is right.”
Guller scanned various potential markets for his Bikinis idea.
“I wanted a place where I could wear flip-flops every day,” he says.
Footwear aside, Guller is a fanatic about organization, hygiene and customer service. And he’s built a loyal workforce based on the concepts of teams, coaches and huddles.
When he purchased the former Roux, Guller inherited the Parish. The music club upstairs has attained sacred status for some music-lovers, its wood-lined spatial configuration and sound system creating an ideal listening post. As he did downstairs, Guller first improved the plumbing and fixtures, then he started working on the green room and fixes to the rustic hall. He plans to retain the same act-booker, but wants to make the experience for musicians and fans first-rate.
Let’s review. Guller can run a restaurant. He builds teams. And he respects music. What about the matter of basing a business on a key portion of the female anatomy? Isn’t that asking for trouble? Guller says verbal bad manners is almost always the worst of it.
“I don’t know how some men were raised to talk the way they do,” he says. “We take care of that.”
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Game Days at Bikinis on Sixth, Part 1
Sports-bar owners must pray for blackout games. And pay-per-view games. And away games.
How else are red-blooded fans going to share the mass social rituals of cheering the home team, throwing back brews and devouring comfort food?
“We’re making the world more beautiful one bikini at a time,” the Austin entrepreneur says without irony. He has quickly opened five editions of the Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill, including spots in San Antonio, San Marcos and Charlotte, N.C.
The first Bikinis transformed a freeway-side restaurant across Interstate 35 from Highland Mall in 2006. Guller’s most recent emporium, where female servers wear fairly modest bikini tops with Daisy Dukes below, opened just in time for football season in the former home of Roux and Jazz Louisiana Kitchen on East Sixth Street.
Judging from the crush on the first college football game day, Guller is filling a Sixth Street niche. Orange-jerseyed men — and a few women — occupied all the tables, upstairs and down, and spaces at the bar. This, four hours before kickoff.
The next Saturday, as the Longhorns played the University of Wyoming Cowboys in Laramie, torrential rain kept most Sixth Street spots empty. Not Bikinis.
Round Rock resident John Selvera was passing by and liked the roomy look. “It wasn’t so cramped and stuffy,” he said.
U.S. Marines Erick Rheinhart and Jon Buckland, based in Corpus Christi, had noted the plethora of big screens when they had walked by Bikinis’ open facade the previous night. Austin students Gerg McIvor and Mike Stobie said they liked the “good food at reasonable prices,” plus all the screens. “The waitresses are a bonus,” McIvor said.
“I love working here,” said veteran waitress Whitney Bell. “The girls are happy. The customers are happy. It’s a happy place.”
Of course, sports bars are proliferating like flat-panel, high-definition televisions in, well, sports bars. Besides locally based chains like Third Base and high-end experiments such as Cover 3, many of the approximately 900 Austin-area bars and restaurants licensed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission link up their screens to game day.
Along with sports bars, accentuated breasts are not uncommon these days, as comic author Sarah Bird noted in the September issue of Texas Monthly: “We’re living in the most boob-o-centric time since Napoleon dated Josephine.”
In fact, it’s difficult for your social columnist to snap a party picture in Austin without accidentally preserving evidence of casual cleavage for history. Even at conservative charity galas.
Leaving aside the outright strip joints, you’ve got numerous establishments like the Tilted Kilt, Twin Peaks and Bone Daddy. Then there’s the one company Guller thinks of as Bikinis’ competition. His employees refer to it as “H-dash-S.”
More to come.
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September 7, 2009
Fortunate 500 Top Picks: Sports
The Top Picks for the 2009 Fortunate 500 list of socially active area citizens were published in Glossy on Friday. In Out & About, we’ll mete out those Top Picks over the next few days. Then, beginning Tuesday, we’ll release the full lists and galleries.
Top Picks: Claire and Doug English
Almost anyone who has played for a winning team at the University of Texas Longhorns has itched to return to Austin. Few have done so with as much social aplomb and charitable effectiveness as Doug English and his wife Claire. After contributing to three Southwest Conference championships, English joined the Detroit Lions defensive line, peaking in 1983 with 13 sacks and recording a pro career total of 59. He was named All-Pro three times and went to four Pro Bowls. Since returning to Austin, he helped found the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation, which helps people with spinal cord injuries, and he remains its leader. Claire, who volunteers in the Eanes school district, and their daughter, Rachel, got involved with the National Charities league, a mother/daughter philanthropy group. (Their son, Blake, is still in middle school.) They spend time at their ranch on the shores of Lake Travis, but also help out with the Center for Child Protection, Longhorn Foundation, CASA, Any Baby Can and NFL alumni charities. Would that all former Longhorns did a fraction as much for the community.
For more 2009 Fortunate 500 updates, follow the category link below.
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September 2, 2009
Your A-List: Best Park
Ever wonder who lent Zilker Park its name? This is from the Handbook of Texas online:
Huh. Anyway, Zilker Park, cooled by ice or not, won the A-List vote for Best Park by a wide margin, beating “nudity may be happening” Hippie Hollow 51 percent to 10 percent. Barton Creek Greenbelt — to some an extension of Zilker Park — zipped into third with 8 percent.
Pine-studded Bastrop State Park followed with 7 percent, then Auditorium Shores and Pace Bend tied with just under 5 percent. Voters gave 4 percent or less to McKinney Falls State Park, Bull Creek Park, Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Waterloo Park, Republic Square and Rollingwood Park.
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Your A-List: Best Athlete
Who can really argue with these results? Seven-time winner of the Tour de France, one of sports’ most demanding tests? After cancer? Later, he rejoins the tour, looking pretty resurgent for a 37-year-old, also balancing two households, and spearheading a huge anti-cancer organization.
Speaking of football, long-retired but still beloved Heisman winner Earl Campbell ran up 21 percent, while Heisman hopeful and current UT quarterback Colt McCoy was not far behind with 17 percent. Other football greats: Vince Young (8 percent); Major Applewhite (4 percent); Drew Brees (4 percent) and Ricky Williams (3 percent).
That leaves a position each for tennis (Andy Roddick, 10 percent); softball (Cat Osterman, 5 percent) and basketball (Kevin Durant, 3 percent).
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August 30, 2009
Texas 4000 Tribute at the Four Seasons Hotel
Naturally, they looked fit as a fiddle …
Amit Anandwala and Kate Wallace
Not only the Texas students who rode the Texas 4000 this year …
Whitney Yang and Tyler Mann
But those who endured the summer cycling and camping circuit to Alaska and back in previous years …
Ben Atkins and Michael McAllester
And those who have signed on for the next rotation …
Hannah and Michael Lu
(You could distinguish the classification of riders by the colors of their ribbons) …
Doug and Stacy Bain
Chris Condit, who helped conceive the annual long-distance fundraiser, told me that $300,000 had been collected so far …
John Fitch and Ana Coronell
The money goes to back a special position at M.D. Anderson …
Mandy and Chris Condit
Last year, Lance Armstrong treated the Texas 4000 riders to dinner at Chuy’s …
Daniel Tesfay, Zaid Hassan and Maxim Polanksy
I guess this year, he’s back on the tour and wants to spend time with his girlfriend and new child in Aspen …
Maxim and Alexander Polanksy (rider son the on the left, proud father on the right)
No one begrudges him those honorable commitments …
Jeff Boes, Emily Parham and Colin Doyle
Last year, too, I met a whole rally of Olympians, but none this time around at the Four Seasons Hotel. .
Socar Chatmon-Thomas and Martin Thomas
Ah well. Next time, maybe I’ll stay for dinner, too. Sure ain’t biking to Alaska with these 54-year-old legs.
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August 28, 2009
Andy Roddick betrays wit on 'The Late Show with David Letterman'
One expects wit from a talk-show host. But from a sometimes media-shy tennis star?
On “The Late Show with David Letterman,” Austin’s Andy Roddick was asked if his new wife, swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker, played tennis. He said no, and that Decker had turned down lessons from her pro husband. Roddick said: “I guess as with any wife she doesn’t want to take instruction from me.”
Recreational player Letterman suggested that Roddick’s recent losing Wimbledon match with Roger Federer would go down in history. “You’d like to be on the better end of tennis history,” Roddick responded. Was the challenger in a better mental place to beat the champion, now getting inside Federer’s head? “Oh yeah, if there’s one thing people know, I’m in Roger Federer’s head. That’s probably consistent with gravity.”
After the loss, Roddick’s spirits were raised by the rare American attention to tennis. “Everyone here in the States was talking about it,” he said. “Normally it’s football or baseball on the front pages.”
Before airing a few ace serves and shared volleys, staged on a New York City street, Letterman teased Roddick about his record 155 mile-per-hour serve.
“It would kill a guy. Have you killed anyone?
“Not yet.”
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August 17, 2009
Three questions for a Ringling Bros. ringmaster
Chuck Wagner acts as the primary ringmaster for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, coming to town Aug. 19-23. Hailing from Pensacola Beach, Fla., the 51-year-old actor/singer has been cracking the Ringling whip for four years.
Who’s in charge behind the scenes, and how do you communicate, especially if something goes wrong?
We are a team. The production manager, stage manager, band leader and I work together. And after over 600 shows, we know what needs to be done in the moment of crisis. It is my job to keep smiling and be poised, and give at least the illusion of control. The most important thing is to spot the developing problem in the first place, before it turns serious. If there’s a problem in an act that isn’t a safety concern, it’s up to me to try to cover it so that, as far as the audience is concerned, nothing has gone wrong. But sometimes, the audience clearly sees that an accident has happened. In those cases, all you can say is, ‘These stunts are real, things can go wrong, and let’s give them a big hand.’ And you move on.
Give me an example.
Once we had a gas-cap malfunction on a motorcycle up on the high wire, and gasoline started to pour down. But because I was watching the stunt, I was able to help move some audience members very quickly.
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July 29, 2009
Your A-List: Best Place to Rent a Canoe or Kayak
A colleague at work has been spilling stories about her kayaking group. It sounds enticing. I’m a canoe guy myself — I owned at least two in my early adulthood — but I could be converted.
Capital Cruises steered into a respectable second place with 21 percent of the tally. The Texas Rowing Center paddled up 14 percent, while the veteran Zilker Park Boat Rentals pushed off with 13 percent.
Sloshing 3 percent of less were Rowing Dock, REI, Mud Outdoor Center, Lone Star Kayaks and Kozmik Kayaks.
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July 19, 2009
Lapping the Capitol again
For the first time since the heart procedures and blood-thinner incident, Nora and I lapped the Capitol.
Not long ago, that would have counted as our shortest weekend walk. Nowadays, it’s the longest.
The cloud cover kept the morning heat down, but supplemented the humidity.
Perhaps because of the weather, the Sunday streets looked emptier than I remember.
Perhaps for the same reason, the street people appeared more desperate.
Hackberries have joined ornamental and fruit trees among the desiccated.
The Capitol grounds gleam, jade-like. From where does the State of Texas derive its water? City of Austin? At what rate?
Not that I begrudge the Capitol’s gorgeous grounds. The shady oasis serves as one of our city’s parkland gems, underutilized, I suspect, by locals.
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July 8, 2009
Your A-List: Best Golf Course
We saw this coming from miles off.
Suburban Avery Ranch swung into second place with 10 percent, while Falconhead off Ranch Road 620 near Lake Travis took third with 8 percent. Virtually tied were Yaupon, Grey Rock, ShadowGlen, Wolfdancer, Morris Williams and Star Ranch.
Following in close order were Roy Kizer, Jimmy Clay, Bluebonnet Hill, Teravista, Riverside, Forest Creek, Delaware Springs, Pine Forest, ColoVista, Lago Vista, Blackhawk, Plum Creek, Quail Creek and White Wing.
Planners give golf courses such evocative monikers. Maybe next time the vote can be: Best Golf Course Name.
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July 7, 2009
Longhorns in national championships Webcast on SwimNetwork.com
Try instead the Webcasts at SwimNetwork.com. Herds of Longhorns are headed to the finals, Eric Shanteau and Scott Spann in the 100-meter breaststroke.
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July 6, 2009
Actually, yes, depressed about Andy Roddick
I meant to dash off a facile blog post about the Wimbledon finals, but was crushed by Andy Roddick’s last-minute defeat. So I put this off until I’d returned from visiting my parents in Houston, watching a musical in the park, then two back episodes of “Lie to Me.”
I’m ready now. At 2 in the morning.
Oh, I don’t mean forgotten by readers of this column. Instead, Roddick doesn’t get the respect accorded our other local sports superstars.
No, he’s not in Lance Armstrong’s league. He doesn’t dominate his sport like Pete Sampras did or Roger Federer has more recently. And yes, he has disappointed even his fervent fans in the big matches.
Yet he’s been the top American male tennis player for years and has rarely fallen out of the Top 10 worldwide. That counts as more than something.
I daresay his fame outside Austin is often greater than inside. He’s better known in many circles for his recent local marriage to swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker than his frequent wins at non-Grand Slam tournies. (Non-sports Web sites dripped with “HOT” Decker photos.)
The Twitter and Facebook fever, however, shows a latent identification between hometown and hero. He handled himself well in defeat.
Win our lose, we hail you, Andy.
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July 4, 2009
Roy Bedichek's 'Adventures with a Texas Naturalist'
My return to far-flung walking coincides with my first sustained acquaintance with Roy Bedichek’s 1947 classic “Adventures with a Texas Naturalist.”
Bedichek deplored overgrazing, overhunting, overfencing and mechanized agriculture. (He foreshadowed the current documentary “Food, Inc.” by nearly more than 60 years.) Yet his conclusions arose from observation and contemplation, not ideology or commerce.
Some of his thoughts might surprise contemporary nature lovers: He believed the Texas highway system’s right of ways, for instance, had preserved biodiversity endangered by organized farming and ranching. He was baffled why the railroads were not as careful stewards of the land.
Beyond the roadsides, Bedichek spent disciplined time noting the changes in his Austin neighborhood and the Bear Creek ranch were he finished the almost lyrical manuscript for “Texas Naturalist.”
In the 19th-century tradition, Bedichek was as much inspired by his love of beauty as by his dedication to science. His prose is peppered with references to Romantic poetry and ancient literature. Along with historian Walter Prescott Webb and folklorist J. Frank Dobie, he is immortalized as part of the Philosophers’ Rock sculpture at Barton Springs.
Although considerably less prolific than his friends, Bedichek will likely be read longer and more closely.
Also makes me want to see Steve Moore’s “Nightswim” about the the trio again.
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A Flâneur's Guide
The flâneur’s method is indirection.
Take that alleyway never before noticed. Stop in a shop that previously looked alien. Snack on street food, then lounge for an hour over drinks at a sidewalk cafe.
Google your general route in advance. Use the “Directions” mode and alter the lines for variations. Choose the “Walking” option for approximate trip durations. The “Terrain” button helps determine the ascent difficulty.
I hope to regain my traditional 10-mile radius by winter. That puts me in the range of most Austin green spaces, although not Emma Long or Walnut Creek metropolitan parks. It’s also the Austin I discovered when I arrived in 1984 (recorded on this 1985 map).
Comfortable, sturdy walking shoes, weather-appropriate clothing and a big-brimmed hat are also musts.
I carry a pedestrian satchel, purchased at Mellow Johnny’s, which is different from the wider, thinner bicyclist’s satchel. It’s best worn crossed over one shoulder and the opposite hip.
Inside the satchel: Wallet, iPhone, light canteen filled with water, field glasses. In a first-aid pouch, sunscreen and medications. For Nora, I carry a plastic watering bowl.
Why Nora and not Nick? Some readers may remember that our other Lab collapsed at the very most remote point of the Turkey Creek Canyon trail in the spring, forcing Alex Dotte and I to carry his 100-pound majesty all the way back to the car. No more long hikes for Old Yeller.
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The Return of the Flâneur
The legs are back.
Not just the limbs of Andy Roddick, Lance Armstrong or other superhuman Austinites.
The flâneur has returned.
Why explore the city on foot when temperatures levitate above 100 degrees? Well, Roddick and Armstrong trained in this climate. Just think how pleasant the strolling will be by late October.
Of course, my range is still limited to the several miles of streets adjacent to the Bouldin neighborhood. That takes me, however, up and down some of Austin’s prettiest byways.
They’ve changed since my last explorations. Lots of additions, renovations, new houses. Ninety percent of these projects receive my enthusiastic endorsement. Clearly architects and other designers contributed their sensitive talents to most of these improvements.
During the late 1990s, when we moved into the neighborhood, almost all infill attempted historical resemblance to the existing homes. The early ’00s brought a wave of aggressive modernism, though often aptly massed and sited. The latest trend: Combining modern and traditional in the same structure, often with surprising grace.
The field glasses remain in the satchel. Most birds retreat into the deep shade as early as 9 a.m., except pea-brained doves, territory-guarding mockers and grackles — common and great-tailed — where someone has over-watered.
Strange, given the heat, so many people, too, venturing into their yards, tending those gardens, gently exercising kids or pets, testing porches for breeze exposure.
Note: These photos of Travis Heights are lifted from Flickr. I’ll pack my camera more often.
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July 3, 2009
Kay Morris at Once Over
Kay Morris danced. When she could no longer dance, she ran. She took lessons from running guru Paul Carrozza. She kept a diary.
Thousands did. (Meaning Carrozzo had to mint thousands of tiny medals.) The program spread like wildfire. Tens of thousands of students — many of them in danger of obesity and diabetes — have signed up in multiple cities. Hispanics have taken to it even more intensely than Anglos.
Morris told me over French press coffee at Once Over on South First Street that the secrets were to let the kids recruit themselves, make it free and throw a party at the end of the process. The kids earn the T-shirts. Benefactors pay for everything. Lance Armstrong once led the victory lap on his bike.
At the end of the summer, the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living will release a study on the impact of Marathon Kids on self-perception. Morris didn’t tip her hand, but we’re betting it does good.
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July 1, 2009
Party at Cover 3
Sometimes Out & About misses social news that’s as big as Dallas …
Adam Krueger, Amanda Krueger, Eddie Garcia
Such as the opening — last November! — of Cover 3, a sports bar and restaurant on West Anderson Lane …
Doug Young, Chip Brown
Not just any sports bar and restaurant. This one from Doug Young and Matt Dodson looks like an high-modern lounge and spreads out over more than one floor. …
Matt Dodson, Kathy Dodson
And talk about TVs. Last week, I teased Players on MLK Boulevard for their ancient big-screen television, horrible for sports. Cover 3 has gracefully installed top-quality HD flat-panel screens everywhere, even in unmentionable locations …
Emily Hummel, Dan Michaud
The food I tasted was savory and complex, a step above the usual pub grub …
Marah Reece, John Defee, Alison Carson
But the real find was the signature drink, the Cover 3 Press, or as the bartender called it “spa in glass.” Starts with muddled limes, adds herbal Hendrick’s gin and continues from there. The best cocktail I’ve had in ages …
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June 29, 2009
Miss Rodeo Austin Princess now Miss Rodeo Texas
The New Braunfels resident joins a growing royal family of statewide winners: 2007 Miss Rodeo Austin, Lauren Graham, won the title of Miss Rodeo Texas Teen in 2008.
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Capital City Front Runners at Rusty Spurs
“You’re the guy from the paper, right? How can we get more lesbians to join our group? …
James Skornicki, Rey Hernandez, Joseph Halverson
Not the sort of question one anticipates while waiting to cross over from Rusty Spurs to sibling bar, the Other Side, for an Equality Texas fundraiser …
Daniel Guerra, Michael Arbuckle
Yet Joseph Halverson and Michele Zambrano waste no time helping out their club, Capital City Front Runners …
Mitch Martinez, Michele Zambrano
The gay running team was meeting, mixing and two-stepping on the Spurs’ wide expanse of dance floor …
Jack Goodman, Ben Watts
It’s true: When a social club is almost all men, few women want to join. And Michele is the single lesbian in the group (single in both senses of the term, she urges me to write) …
Glenn Brown, Jim Caruth
I urged them to recruit a prominent lesbian, assuming others would follow in her healthy tracks. Also to exploit social media, like FaceBook. Or convince L Style G Style to profile Zambrano, the brave pioneering woman with the Front Runners … (I assume the club’s name is derived from the Patricia Nell Warren bestseller.)
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June 24, 2009
Your A-List: Best Swimming Hole
Whenever a someone is considering a move to Austin, I warn them: “You’ll love it, but it’s hotter than Africa.” Austinites generally find three ways to cool off during the six hottest months: 1) Travel; 2) Stay indoors; or 3) Find water.
A-List voters didn’t look far to find their favorite, iconic Barton Springs Pool, which monopolized a full 42 percent of the tally. Hamilton Pool, the west Travis County sinkhole with waterfall, trailed with a respectable 25 percent of the vote.
Private but popular Krause Springs in Spicewood splashed up 8 percent, while the clothing-optional Lake Travis coves known as Hippie Hollow exposed 7 percent. (I’ve always marveled at the grammar on the signs: “Nudity may be occurring.”)
Spring-fed Deep Eddy pool dove into the mix with 6 percent, while the Blue Hole in Wimberley posted 4 percent. Sculpture Falls and Campbell’s Hole — both on Barton Creek — virtually tied in the next position, followed by Georgetown’s Blue Hole, Stacy Pool and Enchanted Rock.
Hmmm. I’ve never hit water at Enchanted Rock. Wonder why.
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June 23, 2009
Orangebloods, where were you?
Watching the most exciting, entertaining, excruciating sports game in months, I still checked Facebook and Twitter periodically to see how others were responding to College World Series championship Game 1 last night. The LSU Tigers eventually won after 11 innings, but the UT Longhorns kept the suspense high.
Updates and tweets on social media indicated a high viewership for the game, either from home or in sports bars. Obviously, my gang pushed the Horns. But the Twitter gauge showed LSU winning the tweet war hands down.
The game starts at 6 p.m. tonight. If there’s a third, it will be 6 p.m. Wednesday. Don’t miss ‘em, even if you must Tivo.
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June 22, 2009
Rodeo Austin Update
After I left the Rodeo Round-Up, the following good guys were recognized as Volunteers of the year.
David Kardosz, Shirley Pruitt, Hap Feuerbacher and Dr. Frosty Moore standing in for Kellie Bryson.
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June 20, 2009
Rodeo Austin Round Up
To outsiders, the Rodeo Austin crowd is a tough social nut to crack.
Courtney Ellis (Miss Rodeo Austin), Devin Felger (Princess)
True believers are dedicated to preserving a particular slice of Western culture. A laudable goal, but a hard sell in cosmopolitan Austin, which has welded its Western heritage onto dozens of others, all of far from pure.
Shirley Pruitt, Stephen Kosub
Also, the Rodeo gang represents families and businesses that go back decades in a city where almost everyone else arrived more recently. Within its circles, Rodeo Austin embraces farming and ranching dynasties, as well as representatives from construction, sports, and dry goods.
Terry Stanley, Dan Stanley
In other words, rough-hands professions. And the Rodeo itself is such a massive undertaking, attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees and producing big scholarship dollars, not just in Ag fields.
Gilbert Turrieta, Lori Oakes, Katy Berdoll
So Rodeo Austin is a world unto itself. I’m grateful to Michele Golden for introducing me to its inner circle, and Jennie Richmond for keeping me abreast of the group’s news and events.
Dian Burgener, Jerry Burgener
Together, they’ve opened my eyes to a group of (mostly) guys — funny, thoughtful, hard-working, bursting with history — who’ve made me feel welcome at events such as the Round-Up, a barbecue, concert and informational get-together for the rodeo’s volunteers. Held at the rodeo’s sprawling campus near Walter E. Long Lake on Friday, it was a cheery, down-home affair, slow to start, probably because the College World Series game between the Longhorns and Sun Devils was delayed.
Note: What a game! I Tivoed it. I’ve watched many a CWS, but this is turning out to be the most exciting, from a Longhorn fan perspective.
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May 27, 2009
Your A-List: Best Camp
Summer camp is one reason I live in Austin. Coming from Houston, our Boy Scout troop could choose between flat, steamy Camp Strake near Conroe, or steep, semi-arid El Rancho Cima near Wimberley. Guess which one I liked better. And remembered all my life.
The Art School at Laguna Gloria — a very different kind of experience on Lake Austin — came in second with 37 percent of the tally. Camp Longhorn fell far behind with 4 percent, while Mo-Ranch, Camp Doublecreek and Austin YMCA virtually tied at 1 percent to 2 percent.
All the rest — Camp Mystic, T Bar M Camps, Austin Nature Center, First Tee of Greater Austin, Wet and Wild Adventure Camp, Art Garage, Austin School of Film, Lost Pines (Boy Scouts), Camp Buckner, Paul Green School of Rock Music, Champions Academy, Sports Country, MasterSchool, Vista Camps, Camp Arrowhead, Camp Stewart, Outdoor Texas Camp, Camp Texas Ski, Echo Hill Ranch, GameCamp and Natural Ear Music Rock Camp — all scared up less than 1 percent of the vote.
Lots of camps. Lots of choices.
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May 17, 2009
Roll 2 Walk at South Austin Athletic Club
I estimate it would take almost 20 years to attend one nightly event for each of the more than 6,000 public nonprofits in Central Texas (see previous post).
Carly Millican, Haven Peschko
So I’m grateful when a nonprofit unfamiliar — to me — holds a social gathering not three blocks from our house. And at a convenient hour.
Jack Goodman, Tracy Frazier
Roll 2 Walk, an aggressive recovery program which helps people transition from traditional physical therapy into gyms such as the South Congress Athletic Club, is the latest to cross my radar.
Aaron Johnston, Jeni Godwin
I met executive director Keith-Ann Steed and talked at some length with social connector Tracy Frazier.
Tracy Frazier, Keith-Ann Steed
The match between charity and facility — formerly the Austin Rehearsal Center under the SoCo retail strip — seemed comfy.
Katie Phillips, Bryan Phillips
The whole project sounds worthy. And the South Congress gym regulars mingled merrily around light drinks and snacks.
Katherine Piaget, Paul Johnston, Lauren Dekker
Bonus: If I ever decide to join a gym — trading the social interaction for the solitude of our improvised garage workout zone — I have my eye on no-nonsense South Congress.
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May 4, 2009
Pamela LeBlanc meets Ally Davidson
I ran into her sister Amanda Webster and brother-in-law Brent Webster at the Austin Children’s Museum gala. We caught up on family news. You may recall the story, “Soul of a Gladiator,” that we ran in the American-Statesman earlier this year.
Photo by Pamela LeBlanc
Speaking of following up on local celebrities: Jeanne Claire van Ryzin posts about Austin teen David Bologna scoring a Tony Award nomination for his role in Broadway’s “Billy Elliot: The Musical.” Late Texan Horton Foote was also honored for his play “Dividing the Estate.”
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May 2, 2009
Nick collapses on Turkey Creek Trail
The notion had merit. Alex Dotte, my friend and personal trainer, agreed that, in preparation for my next Colorado trip, we’d hike. And we’d start easy.
With all the recent rain, I thought the creek would be up. Nope. That left the Labs without cooling baths or drinks. We headed uphill. Nick and Nora panted heavily.
At the very far end of the trail, Nick collapsed from heat exhaustion. He wouldn’t — or couldn’t — move. All manner of coaxing did not work.
So Alex and I hauled him — all 90 or 100 pounds — down the trail for more than a mile. An old, wet Lab. Not fun.
But I was more worried about his surviving the long haul. He did. He sounded awful. But once he got home to the cool kitchen tiles and buckets of cold water, Nick mended.
By this morning, he was sore and slow. Yet his eyes lit up and his tail wagged. He’s moving around more easily. We gave him extra joint medicine and will continue to watch him carefully.
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April 15, 2009
Roddick-Decker Austin wedding confirmed
It will be “very small. Just friends and family. Not a big Hollywood crowd as they’re not like that,” the publication says.
The New York Post previously reported that Decker and her bridesmaids “had a big bachelorette weekend in Chapel Hill, N.C.” last weekend. “They just bounced around and had a great time,” according to the Post.
No confirmation yet regarding singer and Roddick pal Elton John’s rumored appearance at the ceremony.
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April 4, 2009
Michael Huff Charity Casino at Gibson Guitar Showroom
The fans arrived early. The NFL players a bit later. The Michael Huff Charity Casino at the Gibson Guitar Showroom dovetailed neatly with Texas Relays-related festivities, which means it was just one of many social commitments hosts and guests made on Friday.
Kathy J, Tee Lynee, Comfort Agara, Brandy Broussard, Raquel Raquel
Still, guests were shy about playing the games of chance and skill until former Longhorns Michael Huff and Derrick Johnson sidled up to the tables.
Nicole Durand, Vince Galloway
Both men — Huff alert and fastidious, Johnson tall and quiet — drew the similarly dressed women (associated models travel in flocks to certain parties) and the hip-hop attired young men to the play.
Jennifer Mueller, Gregg Mueller
The music, however, early in the evening was bright jazz. People steered toward hearty food from Renee’s Catering. Others gravitated to the sports photos, signed jerseys and musical instruments that dominated the silent auction.
Karen Viotto, Dan Viotto (austin.com)
I wavered for a bit, wondering if my youngest brother remembered how he idolized Early Campbell in the 1970s. A framed and signed jersey beckoned. And his 50th birthday is not that far off.
Michael Huff, Marques Haynes, DJ Warrior
The NFL players didn’t seem too gregarious early in the evening. Polite when addressed, they tended to seek the margins of the room, as if they’d had their fill of the spotlight.
Dondra Wilson, Derrick Johnson, Cissy Stasio
The early closing of Highland Mall and some Sixth Street clubs during the Relays weekend popped up in several conversations. Everyone seemed baffled. The unwelcoming act just didn’t jibe with the Austin ethos.
Mike Hissey, Rhonda Hissey, Brian Northridge
The revelers didn’t let it dampen their spirits. Non-sports celebrities and ordinary ticket-purchasers mingled easily with the NFL elite, who could have benefited from an ID system. People don’t really look like they do on TV or from Row 73.
James Carranco, Chris Zabaneh
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April 2, 2009
Exclusive Report: Preview Party for the Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters
He wanted to help at least one other person with cancer. He has, instead, helped millions. Lance Armstrong started his drive against cancer way back in the 1990s, while he was still under a possible death sentence from the disease and before he won seven Tours de France.
Thursday night, a few dozen invited guests previewed the Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters, home for 70 or so staff members on East Sixth Street. “We began as friends and family determined to beat the disease,” Armstrong said. “Now it’s a great organization, efficient and effective with a special place to work.”
NASA astronauts Karen Nyberg, Mark Kelly
Guests, staff and board members milled around the former lumber yard and paper warehouse, which the architects at Lake Flato and The Bommarito Group have turned into a buzzing hive of bright activity (LiveStrong yellow is a contributing color). The primary room is shared among all, with saw-toothed skylights high above the cubicles to let in plenty of light. Smaller rooms that look like packing crates are placed at strategic spots for meetings and such.
Public Strategies’ Mark McKinnon, Annie McKinnon
Incredibly, 95 percent of the original building materials were reused and recycled. A Nike-backed fitness room waits off to the side and a “pit” for mass meetings and meals backs the west wall — itself leading to a patio. WiFi ties everyone together and allows them to migrated around the 30,000 square-foot building. (In the foundation’s previous offices on MoPac, there was no space large enough for the staff to meet, and the employees were separated into three separate suites.)
Foundation Employees Nos. 2 & 3: Liz Kreutz, Renee Nicholas
“Dealing with such a heavy subject, it’s good to have such a light, happy place to work,” said Renee Nicholas, Employee No. 3 at the foundation, and dealing with her own breast cancer challenge now.
Jack Reed, Sally Reed, Foundation President Doug Ulman
I talked with Eric Shanteau, the Austin Olympian who overcame testicular cancer to prepare for the World Games in Rome. (He checked out the competition at the NCAA swimming finals in College Station last week.) I met Bill Gimson the “$3 Billion Man,” who was recruited from the Centers for Disease Control to run the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (recall Armstrong’s championing the taxpayer funding proposition).
Becky Treviiño, Philip Chang of the Young Leaders Cancer Council
There was Ramona Treviño, principal of the University of Texas elementary school across the street, and, wearing his jaunty hat, Public Strategies’ Mark McKinnon (he’s on the foundation board). Doug Ulman spoke eloquently — he’s the former Brown University soccer player who went three rounds with cancer, met Armstrong by e-mail, and now is president of the foundation.
UT diversity specialist Martha Oestereich, UT elementary school principal Ramona Treviño
“It’s been a once-of-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the design and part of the staff teamwork, and to be embedded in the community as we are on East Sixth Street,” Ulman said. “I was always excited to go to work, but now I’m really excited.” The building will open to the public April 21. (According to the foundation’s amazing spokeswoman, Rae Bazzarre, Armstrong discovered the building while on an East Austin bike ride.)
Armstrong’s key players: Mark Higgins, Bill Stapleton
Among the most touching mementoes is a table with five chairs from Z’ Tejas, representing the place where Armstrong first dreamed up LiveStrong with Bill Stapleton, Bart Knaggs, Gary Seghi and John Korioth over lunch. Even the menu is there.
Andy Miller, Dr. Amelie Ramirez, Bill Gimson, head of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
At the evening’s climax, NASA astronauts Karen Nyberg and Mark Kelly presented Armstrong with his yellow jersey they took into space, where it traveled around the Earth 200 times and a distance of 5.8 million miles.
Clayton Christopher, Natasha McRee
Kelly shared a quick anecdote about hearing that he and his family would get to meet the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. When he asked his daughter, then 8 or 9, if she was excited, she said, “Yes, I get to meet Lance Armstrong!”
Nick Denby, Eric Shanteau, Olympian
Oh, and how was the comeback competitor doing after his extensive collarbone repair? He looked and sounded as healthy as ever. “I feel like a patient again,” he said. “But it’s going good for those of you who were wondering.”
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March 30, 2009
Michael Huff on his NFL Celebrity Weekend
Michael Huff is back. The former Longhorn defensive stand-out, 2005 Jim Thorpe Award winner and current Oakland Raider is returning to Austin for his second annual NFL Celebrity Benefit this weekend. We talked with him by phone from California.
Growing up, I never had that kind of support around me. I had it from my family, but not from outside. Just to see NFL players and be around them would have brightened my day and focused me even more.
Your charities are Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and Women Called Moses Coalition and Outreach Center in Dallas. Why?
I love kids. I don’t have any, but I love being around them. Visiting the hospital, seeing what some are going through, it tests my heart. As for the (Dallas center for abused women), I’m close to my mom, and I always wonder if what happened to them, happened to her.
You grew up in Irving, where you family still lives. Is Austin like a second hometown?
It’s my one-and-half hometown. (He laughs) I was there five years. Coach (Mack) Brown is like my dad. The other players were like my brothers. You go through all that blood, sweat and tears, you never forget it.
But you’re in California now.
I live in Texas; I work in Oakland. I’m a Texas boy at heart. It’s hard to get adjusted out here.
It’s not a coincidence that your event coincides with the Texas Relays, right?
The Texas Relays have always been big in my life. I’ve been running track since I was 5. And you know, the athletes are already in town, so it’s easier to get them involved. And for the people at the track meet, it’s hot outside, they can come into the air conditioning for a while, the go back to the meet.
It’s such a social weekend. A lot going on.
A lot going on. We have trouble getting rooms for all the players. We have to plan a year out. We’re thinking of maybe syncing more closely with the Relays down the line.
So NFL players on the basketball court. Quite a sight. Did you all play high school basketball?
Everybody except me. I was the one not blessed with any basketball talent at all. I may be the best worst basketball player. I look good in my shoes and everything. But not dribbling or making shots. There are guys out there dunking, making me look bad.
So you keep up with Michael Griffin, who owns a house here.
Griff, he’s the one I keep in touch with, yes. I lived with him at Texas. I’m gonna hang out at his house, drive all his cars. Always keep up with Griff.
Playing in the NFL must be quite a switch from college ball.
You don’t appreciate it until you leave. I tell (the new players), cherish every moment at Texas. It’s the best out there. The NFL is all business, not as much fun. There’s not that bond you have in college. That’s where it happens.
Events and stars: The second annual Michael Huff NFL Celebrity Benefit includes a visit to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, a private Evening with the Stars casino night, and the NFL celebrity basketball game at the Austin Convention Center (12:30 p.m. Saturday). Among the participating celebrities: Tim Crowder, Denver Broncos; Michael Griffin, Tennessee Titans; Antoine Harris, Atlanta Falcons; Chris Houston, Atlanta Falcons; Chris Johnson, Oakland Raiders; Derrick Johnson, Kansas City Chiefs; Aaron Ross, New York Giants; Roy Williams, Dallas Cowboys; and more.
Tickets: $20 at participating H-E-B locations, both University Co-op locations and Mitchie’s Gallery. A limited number of $50 VIP tickets are also available. Children under 5 free.
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Were those the Lost Cranes of Bouldin?
Almost a decade ago, around this time of year, we heard a strange, repetitive sound. Running outside, we gazed at hundreds of magnificent sandhill cranes heading north.
They floated just below the low cloud cover. We thought them “lost” because Austin in not on a major flyway. And I had never seen so many of these prehistoric-looking birds in the air at once.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. this morning (March 30), I looked up from our backyard to see dozens — not hundreds — of birds with wide wingspans, long necks and short tails. They flew almost exactly like our “Lost Cranes of Bouldin” of yesteryear, but I couldn’t make out the long legs which would have nailed them as sandhill cranes.
The weather situation, by the way, was very similar to our previous experience — low cloud cover, just enough thermals to keep them floating northward in broken Vs. The coincidence of them flying over our backyard again was more than a little startling.
Did anyone else see them?
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March 28, 2009
Beyond the Lights swings at Hyatt Lost Pines
First it was stormy. Then balmy. Ultimately, it turned cold and windy.
Marvin Kanter, Irene Kanter
The Beyond the Lights Charity Golf Classic not only survived the March weather madness at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort, it thrived. Everything was incrementally delayed.
Bill Wendlandt, Kelly Rees
The impeccably landscaped resort suits the annual event, which raises money for paralysis causes, to a T. The hotel staff, however, did not appear sufficiently drilled about the presence of the parties, leading to several cases of forgivable confusion.
Manuel Oblitas, Debbie Oblitas
Right away, Statesman executive features editor Kathy Blackwell and I were taken under the wing of a charismatic couple, Marvin and Irene Kanter. Parents of celebrity wrangler Shelly Kanter, this pair have stored up two lifetimes of perfectly polished stories.
Andy Reese, Quan Cosby
Marvin was, for decades, a football referee for college and high school games. He knows sports cold. Irene served as a high school teacher and administrator. She once put together a triumphant quiz bowl team by astutely guessing the members’ intellectual strengths.
Brad Sham, Paul Sham
They’ve been married 60 years, and, one of their late-life pleasures has been appearing in movies and television shows as extras — “the sophisticated elderly couple” was their speciality — they once dance all night for their silent role. They’ve also traveled from Rome to Tasmania and their delightful anecdotes could fill a dozen blogs at least.
Ed Goble, Caroline Boudreaux
Here’s one that I can’t wait to share: They were taking an older friend — in his 90s — out to dinner at Austin Land and Cattle Company. When they requested the check, they discovered that the gentleman at the next table had already picked it up. Astonished, Irene was determined to track him down. She squeezed out of the waiter a name — Robert Diaz. But Irene couldn’t contact anyone by that name to thank. Ideas, anyone?
Glen Powell, Jr., Glen Powell, Cyndy Powell, Leslie Powell
I talked with Texas basketball great Bill Wendlandt, who filled me in on the coach Abe Lemons’s years of the late 1970s, early ’80s. (The things you learn while waiting to eat!)
Sean Teegarten, Aimee Teegarten (Sean is Amiee’s artist brother)
I met UT football star Quan Cosby and “Voice of the Dallas Cowboys” Brad Sham. After catching up with the always newsworthy Turk Pipkin, I met Caroline Boudreaux, whose Miracle Foundation applies an entrepreneurial approach to helping the world’s neediest people.
Jesse Plemons, Courtney Peterson
Turning a corner, I ran into that fabulously talented family, the Powells, including hard-working actor Glen Jr. and his sister, “Endurance” competitor Leslie.
Drew Waters, Tim Doty
Dinner, served cowboy style, was actually quite sophisticated and yummy. After the auction, I ran into, at various tables, “Friday Night Lights” actors Aimee Teegarten, Jesse Plemons, Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland, each with their own take on the weather and the event. (I congratulated them on the report that “FNL” has been extended for two more seasons.)
The shot I waited patiently for all evening: Kathy Blackwell, Kyle Chandler
We didn’t stick around for Stonehoney, as the wind whipped up the Colorado River valley, and guests huddled under blankets at the resort’s hillside amphitheater. Yet our evening was already memorable without the musical cherry on top.
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March 25, 2009
Heisman, Olympic winners among additional stars for Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Classic
On Friday at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort, “Friday Night Lights” stars Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland will top the bill (we also singled out Kyle’s wife, screenwriter Katherine, and “FNL” regular Dana Wheeler-Nicholson.
Well, that’s not all. Also in the tournament will be Heisman Trophy winners Ty Detmer and Chris Weinke (above), Greenbay Packer placekicker Mason Crosby and Austin musician Bob Schneider.
KVUE sports director Mike Barnes, sports doctor Andy Cappucino, radio host Ed Clements, actor Blue Deckert (Mac McGill on “FNL”), college football great Koy Detmer, actor Richard Dillard (Frank Pickford in “Dazed and Confused”), former NFL-er Gale Gilbert and actor Burton Gilliam (“Blazing Saddles”) will play along.
All-around personality Turk Pipkin actor Jesse Plemons (Landry on “FNL”), actor Glen Powell Jr. (“The Great Debators”), actor Steve Prince (“FNL”), baseball pro Bruce Ruffin, KXAN sports director Roger Wallace, actor and model Drew Waters, former UT golfer Susan Watkins, and football/baseball player Chris Weinke are also slated to play golf.
Others, including “FNL” actors Aimee Teegarden and Liz Mikel, won’t be out on the course, but will be part of the evening activities.
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March 24, 2009
Above the chutes at Rodeo Austin 2
For Part 1, see post below…
I heard about the event’s origins in the Depression-era Baby Beef Expo and its later incarnation at the Quanset-hut shaped City Colosseum. I squirreled away data (300,000 attended last week’s cook-off; $6 million raised to build the Luedecke arena, $1 lease for the “dirt” from the City of Austin, then Travis County).
Michele Golden, Gilbert Turrieta
I noted that Rodeo Austin — the country’s sixth largest indoor pro event — was among the first to Webcast live (board secretary-treasurer and Dell Inc. executive Travis Asklund watched the first week of activities from Singapore, China and elsewhere in Asia).
I didn’t know the background on the 1983 referendum that made the move to Decker Lane possible, or the tremendous amount of sweat equity and donated materials that went into constructing the arena and surrounding structures; how then-U.S. Rep. Jake Pickle spurred the Internal Revenue Service to grant the enterprise nonprofit status, how Willie Nelson agreed to perform as the first headlining entertainer for no fee.
Hap Feuerbacher, Bill Knolle, Fred Weber
As the evening progressed, I heard more about the DIY adventures of the rodeo backers, personally rotating the arena’s stage from below; racing out to grab four heaters so that thin, cold Tammy Wynette would not freeze in 22-degree weather; partying in Mickey Gilley’s “disco bus.” There was the time they hog-tied Verlin’s bigger, louder brother, Jimmy, and drug him into the arena.
Yet I was most impressed — not by the obvious bravery and athleticism of the rodeo riders — but by the dedication of the backers to cause. I kept hearing how all the past presidents from the early 1960s onward were still committed to the rodeo 1,000 percent.
Yet young leaders are needed. I’ll go out on a limb and say the time has also come for the first female president in this deeply traditional field.
Verlin summed up the feeling of the older guard: “I still bust my butt,” he said. “But I’m beginning to wane.”
Rodeo Austin continues through March 28; www.rodeoaustin.org
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Above the chutes at Rodeo Austin 1
When traveling to unexplored lands, it helps to be escorted by royalty.
Monday, I stuck my nose behind the scenes at Rodeo Austin, lingering at the stock pens, dining with organizational founders, thrilling at the bronco and bull chutes above the president’s box.
All this, because I know former rodeo queen and Rodeo Austin board member Michele Golden, who kindly offered to lift the veil on the annual event.
Hungrily, I listened to tales from living legend Verlin Callahan, lawyer and unofficial rodeo historian Bill Knolle, board president and natural statesman Gilbert Turrieta, as well as helpful anecdotalists Hap Feuerbacher and Fred Weber.
The rodeo loyalists praised the event — which includes carnival, parties, barbecue cook-off, stock exhibitions and auctions as well as pig races and cow milks — for preserving Western heritage, but most emphatically for raising $1.5 million annually in scholarships, and not just for agricultural students.
Michele Golden, Verlin Callahan
I’m under the perhaps false impression that this prodigious charity work is widely known, so I spent time collecting other newspaper story ideas — 55 of them all told — that might appear in our publication with time.
More to come…
Rodeo Austin continues through March 28, www.rodeoaustin.com.
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February 28, 2009
College majors vs. City minors
Other than Columbus, Ohio, Austin is the largest sports market where college athletics ranks higher in the public imagination than professional franchises. The University of Texas Longhorns hoover up the vast majority of local sports mania, and who am I to complain, coming from four generations of Orange Bloods (albeit late to the game — you know that adolescent rebellious thing.)
Back-to-back basketball games from the UT Horns and the Austin Toros underlined just how different their college and minor-league social worlds are — and I’ll give away my opinion early: I like them both.
Glenda Conway, Catherine Love (one is friendly with an Albuquerque player, although she wouldn’t say which.)
The total number of fans at Thursday’s Toros game against Albuquerque at the Austin Convention Center probably equaled those way up in Section 93 for Wednesday’s close UT contest against Texas Tech at the Erwin Center. The Toros fans shade a tad darker. Although UT has been integrated for decades, the combined alumni and students at all their games are overwhelming white.
David Torres, Sarah Amrich, recently arrived from Corpus Christi
While the orange-clad fans remain relaxed, engaged until a big play or call, the black-clad Toristas stay even more quiescent.
Keith Lesikar, Danielle Schlema, Shama Sivalingam (the guys play pick-up ball at St. Andrew’s, where Sivalingam formerly coached.)
At the convention center, the back row is closer than virtually all the seats at the Erwin Center, and the intimacy of the action is startling at first. (Loved the little cocktail tables by the home bench.)
Mari Balentina (day job as student and works at Century 21, but for Toros, she runs the on-court contests), contestant Eddie Sedillo
The Erwin Center is a hive of social amenities, but most are separated from the game in an exterior corridor. The Toros place snack areas, children’s game zones and a cocktail bar within a 3-point shot of the court. But my favorite thing — and my point of social contact with most fans — was the walkers’ ring around the central area of play, allowing one to see the game from dozens of points of view, and to talk with multivaried fans.
Toros COO Peter Lubell, (U.S. Army Officer?) Damon Walker
Due to my previously reported leg injuries, I couldn’t stay for either complete game. Yet I will feel equally comfortable returning to arenas.
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February 20, 2009
Rodeo Queen Tips 3
Rodeo’s a’comin’ in early March. So we asked four current and past rodeo queens for tips on pageant glory. These gals are tough as well as pretty — riding is a crucial skill — so listen up.
Jamee Johnson, Miss Rodeo Austin 2006. Miss Texas Stampede 2009
A. Faith, family, and love for our nation are put first before all thingsB. Be prepared to be an honest and genuine role model. There is ALWAYS a little girl aspiring to be just like you.
D. Never ever let your hat fall off. If your hat falls off, your head should be in it (which shouldn’t happen either).
E. Do your home work and know who and what you are representing and learn from our western forefathers that continue to pour their souls into our way of life.
F. Be kind to your competitors. Trying to sabotage them will eventually lead to your own self destruction.
G. Be yourself and have fun. It’s better to fail in originality than win in imitation.
H. Proper health and nutrition are just as essential for you as they are your horse.
I. Value your education whether it is learned in the classroom or in rodeo arena. No one can ever take your education away.
J. Being a rodeo queen is just a part of life, not all of it. If you aren’t enough without the crown, you will never be enough with the crown.
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Rodeo Queen Tips 2
Rodeo’s a’comin’ in early March. So we asked four current and past rodeo queens for tips on pageant glory. These gals are tough as well as pretty — riding is a crucial skill — so listen up.
Lauren Graham. Miss Rodeo Texas Teen 2008, Miss Rodeo Austin 2007
B. Should be respectful and courteous of others.
C. You don’t have to spend and arm and a leg on clothes, but make sure they fit properly. You can always buy good, used queen clothes at a reasonable price.
D. Always have a clean, white hat with a good crease.
E. When you hold a title, you should know everything there is to know about the association you are representing and make the association proud to have you represent them.
F. When holding a rodeo queen title, be a good role model for others. Not only for younger kids you come in contact with, but also future younger and older contestants. Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.
G. Study, Study, Study. Every contest has either a test to take about their rodeo or rodeo questions in general. Also, be up on current events. There are always interview questions that come up about current events, rodeo knowledge, or about the rodeo association you are running for.
H. Be on time. Always be at least 15 minutes early to an event.
I. Learn to ride exceptionally well so you can ride any horse that is given to you to ride.
J. Take the time to have fun! Holding a rodeo queen title is an honor and should be respected, but you can also have a great time doing it!
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Rodeo Queen Tips 1
Rodeo’s a’comin’ in early March. So we asked four current and past rodeo queens for tips on pageant glory. These gals are tough as well as pretty — riding is a crucial skill — so listen up.
Brianna Sloan, Miss Rodeo Austin 2008
B. By running for various titles you are given the opportunity to learn and grow as a competitor and as person so take it and use it! You can always stand to learn a new thing or two from your fellow contestants or organizers.
C. Always investigate or learn about the contest you are entering or the event you are trying to represent. Know what you’re getting yourself into and what to expect.
D. Leave your boyfriends at home! Ladies, your boyfriend can be your best friend, but at times your worst enemy. Tell the boyfriend that you’ll call him when you get the chance however during the event you’ll be busy!E. Make a Pageant Day List - Write down what you will wear for every appearance or part of the competition that you will be doing during the competition. From the outfit, jewelry, belt buckle, boots, make-up and lipstick! Think of everything you will need and then everything you might need on the day of the pageant, and try to get it together a week in advance, so if you discover you need something, you’ll have plenty of time to get it.
F. Capture the memories! Always have a camera with you ready to for a “Kodak moment” you will stumble upon many!
G. Practice does not make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. If you want to succeed, you absolutely must practice. The only way you’ll improve is do it. So find good ways to practice modeling, giving a speech, horsemanship and just being social. After all, the rodeo organization needs someone you can speak to the public, ride in the grand entry and present themselves with poise while doing whatever a rodeo queen might be faced with.
H. As a rodeo queen you are an ambassador to the rodeo you are representing. Wear the crown with integrity, for them, yourself and others who may hold the title after you.
I. Lip Stick, it’s a must. Make sure that your smile is all it can be, at all times. It’s easy for your smile to get lost when you’re making a flying lap around the arena at the rodeo. Always carry a lipstick in your pocket so that you can re-apply when you have a chance.
J. Last but certainly not least. Do your absolute very best then be content with it! Sometimes things don’t go our way, that should be expected. However the real trick to being successful is knowing how to handle those situations. In the end there are no re-do’s so, there is no room for regret. However if you know you did the best that you can do that is all that you can do and that is enough to be pleased with.
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February 19, 2009
Rodeo Austin Media Party
I arrived late for the Rodeo Austin Media Party at Hill’s Cafe, missing the Guitar Hero competition, and, therefore, potential Facebook blackmail material.
Jennie Richmond, Jonah Kaufman, Wendy Collins
Instead, I dove into the social mix, talking with various rodeo types, including the incredibly helpful Jennie Richmond, and out-everywhere celebrities like Olga Campos, Kevin Benz and Gigi Bryant.
Gigi Bryant, Olga Campos
Long before I associated spring with SXSW, it was the rodeo. First in small East Texas and Louisiana towns, then through a completely unalike range of experiences at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo — which I believe was called a “fat” stock show back then.
Jimmy Vess, Jessica Vess
We got Texas Independence Day (March 2) off from school in order to watch the pre-rodeo parade every year. Easy amusements in those days.
Chris Fitzpatrick, Darshan Patel
I’m looking forward to my Rodeo Austin visits this year, now that I have learned to navigate the traffic and parking at the Travis County Exposition Center. Go Texan!
Amanda Adams, Adam Krueger
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January 29, 2009
I am not this Michael Barnes
Once, I received just such an e-mail from South Africa. From the diction, I think the one-time correspondent was struggling with the language. It was sweet. Then there was Jason Schafer’s play “I Google Myself.” Quirky and little dark, it played FronteraFest last year, then was revived at Hyde Park Theatre. Actors Cliff Miller, Chase Wooldridge and Jude Hickey shimmered.
More recently, I’ve used Google Reader to follow certain names on my beat — Lance Armstrong, Willie Nelson, Ally Davidson, etc. — scanning blogs, articles and news services for tips that I can use in my column.
I also follow “Michael Barnes.” That includes a former U.S. congressman, a deceased U.K. arts administrator, a professor teaching an arcane subject, and others with exactly my name.
One day, this photo popped up on my screen. He’s a track star at Denison University in Ohio. No relation as far as I know.
There’s a English footballer with our name. But this is the first time, as far as I know, that an American “Michael Barnes” excelled in sports. (We’re excepting KVUE sportscaster Mike Barnes, who is, after all, a “Mike,” though he does play golf and baseball, according to his bio.)
Congrats, Michael, from all your co-nyms. (I just made up that word.)
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January 28, 2009
Andy Roddick back in American news
By upsetting defending champion Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, Austin’s Andy Roddick — darling of the international press, but apparently less intriguing to the vast majority of Americans — has set up a semi-final round with perennial nemesis Roger Federer.
It also moves Roddick’s name higher in the Google Reader feeds, so that the top spots for the tennis champion’s news mentions are not sites titled “Muscle Jocks” or “Top Gay Sports Icons.” (The latter is a function of his large fan base, not his personal proclivities. And hey, I don’t choose what sites Google samples.) My personal hope: Roddick rocks Australia then returns to Austin in triumph again.
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January 16, 2009
Michael Huff Celebrity Weekend set for April 2-4
Then there’s that other category: The celebrity visitor. Former Longhorn and current Oakland Raider Michael Huff fits that bill. He’s planning a second annual charity event, April 2-4, timed to the socially rambunctious Texas Relays. Playful Huff’s efforts will benefit Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and the Women Called Moses Coalition and Outreach Center in Dallas.
The highlight of the weekend is a basketball game pitting NFL players against one another. Some, like Roy Williams, are actually built something like basketball players.
Invited celebrities include: Tim Crowder, Denver Broncos; Cedric Griffin, Minnesota Vikings; Derrick Johnson, Kansas City Chiefs; Dominic Rhodes, Indianapolis Colts; Shaun Rogers, Cleveland Browns; Stanford Routt, Oakland Raiders; Bo Scaife, Tennessee Titans; and Kasey Studdard, Houston Texans.
We tried to slip in an interview or two last year, but the sports reporters were far better at nailing down their
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January 14, 2009
Your A-List, Best Sportscaster
Veteran Dave Cody of KTBC tripped into third place with 23 percent, while Bob Ballou (KEYE) edged Jeff Power (News 8 Austin), both straddling 5 percent of the count.
Hey, stray thought: Where are the women?
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Satire: Malcom Gladwell follows the Longhorns?
The New Yorker writer and trend-spotter Malcom Gladwell is among the last people I’d expect to be covering the Longhorn football team. Yet he appears to do so in “Context.” He even examines the odds of a leader like Colt McCoy coming out of a small town.
In fact, it’s a spoof. Sounded too fun to be true. Entertainment is entertainment.
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January 11, 2009
Tease to Ally Davidson "American Gladiator" story
Read the whole story now online or in Austin American-Statesman’s Life & Arts section for Jan. 11.
What sets Ally Kelly Davidson apart is the set of her eyes.
From a distance, the champion of NBC’s “American Gladiator” looks like any other fit, young woman — lean, clean-limbed, coiled for action.
What’s behind those eyes? Sometimes a goofy, transgressive girl who once flooded the family house in Northwest Austin because she and brother Brandon were “watering it.” At other times, one detects the no-nonsense competitor, who lettered in four sports (softball, basketball, volleyball and cross-country) at Westwood High School, played college basketball for Ole Miss and Texas State University-San Marcos, then auditioned for “Gladiator” on her wedding day, veil and all.
Also behind the twinkle cogitates the adventurous woman who broke her neck skiing, barely skirting full paralysis and keeping her housebound for months. That was one of several times that Ally and her family invested ever deeper trust in a shared Christian faith that pops up, sunnily, in almost any conversation.
And, deep inside, there’s the teenager whose entire family’s stamina and faith were tested in ways that few today could guess. When she was 17, her uncle was convicted of murdering her aunt and cousin, as well as attempting to murder Ally’s brother Joey. During the victim-allocution phase of the trial, Ally trained those unblinking eyes on the convicted killer, saying he destroyed those who had only loved him in return.
Spend enough time with Ally — and her family — and those eyes will tell remarkable stories.
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Why I like Section 93
During the 10 years or so that we clung to Longhorns women’s basketball tickets, our seats were choice. No more than 10 rows back from the court, we sat at an angle to the home bench. We could watch all the planning and politicking, as well as a good deal of the action. Also the Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan contingent nearby. Still, I liked to move around whenever friends invited me over, because the Erwin Center offers so many radically different points of view.
I like Section 93 for several reasons. I can afford the mini-season-pass. And I assume the people sitting around me occupy similar income brackets. Parents bring along kids. It’s family entertainment.
At Saturday’s game against Iowa State, I realized that Section 93 was also reserved for loyal followers, not radical fanatics. (We’ve moved a bit away from the gentleman who yells at the players, coaches and officials as if at his TV. I don’t really notice him any more.) Everyone seems familiar with the game and the players, but nobody is arguing about rulebook legalisms or arcane stats.
One flaw: The management usually opens only one door on the upper west side. Which translates into one long line.
But yeah, I’ll stick with Section 93. For now.
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January 9, 2009
Trivia & BCS Championship at Aussie's
About half the crowd at Aussie’s cheered for Oklahoma, figuring that if the Sooners beat the Gators, the Horns would fare higher in the national standings. The other half preferred Florida, if, for no other reason, “It’s Oklahoma.” Hard to argue with that, though I found myself elated when the Big 12 representative made our conference proud (not much of that in the second half).
Brenton Meyeres, Deb Willens, John Holmes
Meanwhile, if you can believe it, Kip, gallery owner Jeff Kirk and I played NTN Buzztime electronic trivia. Now, you’ve probably read how Kip and I, along with former Paramount Theatre/State Theater bigwig Dan Fallon, would play NTN on Sixth Street at BW3, now called Daddy’s Bar & Grill. It was our lowbrow release, a chance to puzzle out answers, while competing with bars across the country.
Hilery Inglis, Abby Henson, Ashleigh Bartleet, Hanna Craft
It had been years. So the three of us — Jeff also played at BW3, though slightly earlier — plunged into our first game, a simple set of 10 questions. We were hooked. Kip won a round. Jeff won a round. I won a round. Eventually, we were placing in the Top 10 in the country. Ah, the unquenchable fires of competition. A great deal of fun and, again, swell Aussie’s service. But those grease-drenched fries! Ick.
Tiffany Whitehair, Bobby Poole
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January 7, 2009
Will Austin lose Lance Armstrong to Aspen?
Then, Lance Armstrong puts up his Dripping Springs ranch for sale. Now, Lance Armstrong appears to be securing a $9 million home in Aspen. (Hansen is from Colorado.)
At least the Lance Armstrong LiveStrong Foundation is still in Austin. And his Mount Bonnell-area house — dinged for excessive irrigating last year — still stands. Along with Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop and his other Texas connections. Still…
Pictured: The Statesman photo that pumped up my blog numbers in 2008.
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January 6, 2009
A grim Fiesta, then ...
Had sketched out my Fiesta Bowl party circuit, then we were blessed with a surprise out of town guest. Rob Kendrick, who teaches at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, stopped by after his adventures in Northern California with our friend Paul Talley (he boomeranged back through his ancestral haunts outside Houston).
The first half was grim going. No Horns running offense. No Horns running defense. Near-fatal interception in the red zone. Even fledgeling superhero Colt McCoy looked like he was about to cry. By now you know if you care at all, Colt zoomed back in the second half, saving the day and cementing his status. As of now, he’s playing on that rarefied field reserved for Earl Campbell, Vince Young and other immortal Longhorns.
Fox spent a good deal of air time cutting away to Colt’s family, but also to his camera-ready girlfriend, Rachel Glandorf.Enjoy it, Colt, but warning: Don’t tarnish that crown. A lot of people are counting on you.
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January 5, 2009
Last minute Fiesta Bowl party options
The Orange tourist crush may not have pounded the Phoenix area, but there’s still plenty of interest in the Fiesta Bowl in Austin. Here are some party spots to catch the game — socially. Should be cozy in this weather!
El Arroyo. 1624 W. Fifth St. Official gathering point for Texas Exes Austin Network.
Doc’s Motorworks, 1123 S Congress Ave; Doc’s Backyard, 5207 Brodie Lane. Huddle for warmth.
Headhunters. 720 Red River St. Chad Holt provides the play-by-play commentary, simulcast on KAOS pirate radio.
The Tavern. 922 W. 12th St. Site of the watch party hosted by AM 1300 The Zone (KVET AM).
Third Base. 1717 W. Sixth St., Austin, and 3107 S. Interstate 35, Round Rock. Central Texas’ red-hot sports bars will include an inflatable screen in the parking lot of the downtown location.
219 West. 219 W. Fourth St. No cover, happy hour prices until 9 p.m. Very large screen.
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January 3, 2009
Everything but the ball
I had an extra ticket and offered it to Jason Stoddard, the marketing guru who’s done up as Mark Twain for his Facebook mug. The only other things I knew about him were his passionate support for Ron Paul and his tenuous roots in Katy, Texas.
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December 17, 2008
Your A-List, Best Sports Team
Minor-league sports have not gained much big-league cultural or social traction in Central Texas, with the exception of the Round Rock Express, which came in third with 3 percent of the vote, well behind UT football, which scored second with 37 percent. Yet the Toros have earned their fleet-fingered fans, playing at the Austin Convention Center and standing second in the Southwestern Division with a 5-3 record.
Resurgent Texas State football — the Bobcats made the playoffs this year — took third, edging UT men’s basketball with just over 2 percent of the tally. UT baseball, always a winner under Augie Garrido, UT women’s basketball, back in booming business with Coach G, and UT softball all garnered 2 percent of the vote or less.
The defunct Austin Wranglers almost beat UT softball.
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December 12, 2008
Ally Davidson, 5:30 a.m. Dallas
Then I discovered her family’s sometimes tragic, sometimes inspiring story. And her near-paralyzing ski accident. Her romance with Jeff, mildly scandalous to start, then welded over long distances as he pursued his financial consultant career, she top-level sports in college. No small part: His reluctant but memorable appearance on “American Gladiator” as part of the Davidson team.
Now the Camp Gladiator fitness classes in Dallas. The couple dreams of an urban day camp or perhaps a Christian sleepover camp like the one Ally loved growing up in Austin. I drove up to Dallas last night to learn more, witnessed the adult boot camp in the predawn cold at a megachurch parking lot, then interviewed the resilient couple at a deli. They grew more interesting with each answer and anecdote.
Clearly, Ally is part of a generation of competitive, independent women athletes, the likes of which I cheer on Longhorns teams, but have never really known personally. Gently skeptical Jeff is her ideal complement, an adoring, supportive — and equally telegenic — husband who nevertheless tethers her infinite optimism and ambitions. I plan to spend more time with them in Austin over the holidays. This is going to be a gold-medal profile.
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December 10, 2008
Your A-List, Best Sporting Goods Store
Where’s the best place to buy a heart monitor, for instance? A sporting good store. (That’s on my list this week.)
The winner of the A-List poll for best sporting goods store is a longtime Texas institution, which started, if memory serves, selling military surplus in crammed, old-fashioned stores. Academy Sports + Outdoors, now found in bright big boxes, took 38 percent of the vote.
REI, a higher-end outfitter, came in second with 18 percent. RunTex, snugly tied to Austin’s fitness community, scored third with 13 percent. Whole Earth, which takes an ecological angle on outdoor activities racked up 9 percent, while giant retailer Cabela’s nabbed 7 percent.
Settling for 3 percent or less were Bicycle Sports Shop, Sports Authority, Dick’s, Soccer World, Ozone Bikes, Austin Tri-Cyclist, Jack and Adam’s Bicycles and University Cyclery.
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December 1, 2008
Tracking Gladiator Ally Davidson
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November 21, 2008
Flag football for a cause during the Sugar Free Bowl
The Sugar Free Bowl is a city-wide tournament featuring men’s and coed teams. Delta Epsilon Psi organizes the event, now in its sixth year, to benefit juvenile diabetes causes. The donation ceremony can be viewed 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of Texas Intramural Fields at Guadalupe and 51st Street.
Honoring Vishal Bhagat, who struggled with juvenile diabetes and died in a swimming accident, the fundraiser has spread across the nation to 20 campuses. Wish we were going to be in town for this one, but my quick trip to East Texas intervenes. Hope to have earlier notice next year.
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November 10, 2008
Andy Roddick says nude tennis lesson offer a joke
During Elton John’s Advanta World Team Tennis Smash, Roddick first auctioned off a private lesson, then upped the ante with a shirtless lesson, then went all the way with the promise of a clothing-free lesson. The item went for almost $15,000.
(Reminds us of the Andy Roddick Foundation gala last year, when Elton John raised more than $400,000 by expanding his offer, during the live auction, for private dinners at his several homes. Multiple bidders pooled their resources for the astounding take.)
Not so fast about that nude thing. Roddick insists it was all a joke. “First and foremost, I am not going to be playing naked tennis,” he told Contactmusic. “It was said in jest and the lady who bid was really cool afterwards.”
Now, all our sources are online reports, so we are seeking more specific comment from the Roddick camp.
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November 9, 2008
Deep into Royal Memorial Stadium
The expanded Royal Memorial Stadium is so large it generates its own weather patterns. A cool breeze will brush your face, coming from the north, which you know is impossible, since that side of the stadium is completely impounded by a U-shaped structure the size of the Roman Coliseum, Circus Maximus and several other massive monuments put together. Then you notice that some seating sections had just passed into shade. The temperature change alone is enough to produce wind.
“I’m shooting for 500,” he said, predicting he will be in his 60s. Wilson has also attended 20 years of Horns baseball games, missing only thrice. How can he get away with this? “I negotiate the deal every time I take a new job,” says the in-house counsel for the group that provides employee insurance for small Texas municipalities.
You may have read of good-natured Wilson in John Kelso’s columns. (I once lost a bet with him by proxy. He copped a case of Lone Star.) Wilson says he’s a “pop-off artist” and one assumes some of his material ends up in Kelso’s column, just as it will in mine.
“Don’t put me on the society pages,” Wilson pleads. Too late, buddy.
My other constant companion in Section 2, Row 40 was an adorable, extremely active 5-year-old in a black, orange and white cheerleader outfit. She restlessly moved from row to row, practicing her cheers, picking up on ambient opinion, squeaking once: “Die, Baylor, Die!”
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November 6, 2008
Guest blogger Geoff West: Watching the NFL on StoogeTV.com
Guest blogger Geoff West patiently explains StoogeTV.com on Crowd Noise.
I remember last Sunday … a dark and stormy night. I was in my boxers, unshaven at the kitchen table scouring the Internet, pleading with the gods for a Web site that would stream the Redskins’ game online and save me the headache of putting on clothes and schlepping it over to ta sports bar.
Well, happy to say, my prayers were answered through the intercession of StoogeTV. It’s a Web site where kind people upload and broadcast live TV for others to watch online — mostly sports or sports — related TV. Everything you (steal) watch is free — without registration or special software.
But before you dive in, it’s helpful to learn the basics. First, the homepage. Looks like this:
Notice the green tabs on the top right. Click “Channels” to get to the games (everything else is window dressing really). Once inside, you’ll see the TV screen on the left. In the middle, the channels. And on the far right, a chat board.
The chat board is where moderators and members post the channel number for the game. Sometimes an “Access Code” is required-unless you read differently, the password for any channel is always “stoogetv.com”:
So, you type it in and hit submit. Seconds later, you’re stealing watching that hockey game in the picture above. (Who knows why.) But there’s another way to watch games—follow the links posted in the chat room. This is how I watched my game last week. These links are posted by members inside the chat board like this:
You’ll start seeing them 5-10 minutes before game time. There are two types of links: the ones that swoop you to a web Site airing the game (like Justin.TV) or the ones that link you in with a private broadcast, which are usually the best quality.
However, private broadcasts limit the number of users who can join and stream the video in order to keep the buffer rate low. These links are only valid for roughly 15 seconds, so be on your toes. But don’t worry if you miss one. New links are posted every 3-5 minutes until the game finishes. So, if you don’t immediately see a channel number or link, don’t freak out. It’ll come.
It’s also a good idea to show up early — a lot of the quality streams happen right before the game starts. Enjoy your Sunday…
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November 2, 2008
Huston Street with Lacey Larson in Austin?
This from a solid-gold source:
Huh, we missed the banns and nuptials. Seems heartthrob Huston married Lacey Larson, a wine lover like himself, Jan. 5 of this year. They had been dating since 2004. He proposed to her standing in a bed of roses. Not sure if this is the same Lacey who was a cheerleader from Arlington, but the timing is right, since Huston was a key member of the 2005 national championship team.
Now, at one point the Austin native, like a growing number of former Longhorns, owned a condo here. Do he and Lacey still share one in town? To find out more, we’ll have to track down our sources in the Bay Area, which, believe it or not, is easier to penetrate than the Longhorn Empire. Maybe somebody with Richard Linklater’s camp will know — he did appear in Rick’s splendid documentary about coach Augie Garrido, “Inning by Inning.”
And you thought I wasn’t paying attention…
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November 1, 2008
Learning to lose
The city is quiet tonight. A team lost. I don’t have to tell you which one.
Neither is Austin. Which is why this is social news. Big social news, since Austin’s civic mood often follows the fate of its teams. (To deny that is to turn a blind eye.)
The city really doesn’t know what to do with loss. Even during economic busts — and I’ve lived through three here — it’s bursting with energy, imagination, good will, hope.
The Horns can hold their heads high. They played a tough team and lost in the final seconds.
Tech, on the other hand, still needs to learn how to lose — and how to win — with class. Last year, they lost, then whined about the officials. This year, they won, then stormed the field at least twice. (Newspaper reports said three times.)
You’d think a certain coach, with all his piratical powers, could discourage that kind of behavoir. But I guess when you live in Lubbock, you’ve got to let loose sometime. Go ahead, dance your dance.
The Raiders must still play OK and OK State. No patsies, as Texas can attest. We’ll see if Tech learns to lose with dignity.
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October 28, 2008
Beyond the Lights set for March 27
Can’t get enough of those “Friday Night Lights” gridiron heroes?
That’s when the Beyond the Lights Golf Classic returns to the magnificent grounds and comfy resort and spa interiors off Texas 71 near Bastrop. Performances at the Colorado River Amphitheatre are promised (no artists announced yet) and the proceeds will again go to football-related spinal-chord injury charities.
Let’s hope some big Longhorn names step up to the plate this year. And let’s thank the BTL folks for avoiding either SXSW weekend (March 13-22) this time around.
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October 27, 2008
Explaining Longhorns, Inc.
Texas Monthly photo by Van Ditthavong
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Olympian Brendan Hansen at Jo's, Part 4
Continued from previous posts …
Hansen is ready to contribute socially, already working with children’s hospitals and other charities. He’s kept up with his teammates, including Eric Shanteau, who competed in Beijing despite a diagnosis of testicular cancer (he’s cancer-free now).
The $2 million portable meet facility used for the U.S. Olympic trails in Omaha, with its speedy pool, showy lighting, jumbotrons and individual stadium-style seating, could be one answer.
Also, Hansen hopes to promote the sport incrementally, proposing, for instance, a open-water 5K swim from the Pennybaker Bridge on Loop 360 to Hula Hut.
“You’d have people in boats all along the way,” he predicts. “When a big race comes to town, people are excited to see it. Up until now, there’s been a lack of marketing in swimming. Nobody’s really getting the word out there. But you are also seeing a different breed of professional swimmer who understands sponsorships.”
He jokes - reminded of beach volleyball’s success - that Nike should come up with swimwear that shows more than the currently popular armor-like body suits. For the record, Hansen’s not single and has been dating the same woman, a teacher from the Rollingwood area whom he declines to name, for six years.
“We’re in no hurry,” he says. “We were best friends before we started dating. It’s a slow ride and we’re enjoying it. We both love Austin.”
He’s content with his Southwest Austin home, but longs to live closer to the action downtown. He hangs out with buds at central spots like Fogo de Chao, Uchi and El Arroyo.
“You can go out to eat every night and not hit the same thing in Austin,” he says. His El Arroyo reference gives away his salesmanlike - or just conversational - cunning.
“It’s got such an Austin crowd,” he says. “It’s mixed. You get twentysomething students, but also 55-year-old young professionals.”
Pause.
Fifty-five qualifies as young? Then I remember I’d betrayed my 54th birthday earlier that day.
Brendan, you’re good. Real good. Sold again.
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Olympian Brendan Hansen at Jo's, Part 3
Continued from previous posts …
And he’s a gifted salesman.
Didn’t expect that one, did you? The man with a degree in corporate communications (along with kinesiology) could sell a subprime mortgage to a laid-off investment banker. After all, as a middle child in a large Irish-Italian family, he learned to make his case around a crowded dinner table.
He circles (“Oh yeah, PureSport must have set this interview up”). He shares anecdotes about the drink’s origin (“I’d come to class totally beat from training and told my professor, John Ivy, that I was eating everything I could see, but still totally beat up…). He lays out the scientific data about the electrolyte-rich, protein-carb balance (“What sets it apart is the lack of sugar, so even a diabetic can drink it…).
Sold!
For his part, Hansen plans to continue training. After all, the upper age limit for swimmers has climbed into the thirties (Jason Lezak swam his best Olympics at age 31, while Dara Torres was an off the charts 41). He may change training groups, and, if sponsorship is pulled for his pro team, he might opt out of competition altogether.
“I’m not afraid of hanging up the suit,” he says. “I never swam to be in the limelight. Luckily in Austin, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. You just enjoy what Austin has to bring.”
To be continued …
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Olympian Brendan Hansen at Jo's, Part 2
Continued from previous post…
In the flesh, Hansen is anything but a bumbling, introverted pool rat with his head permanently underwater. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, yes, like most competitive swimmers, but he’s relaxed in his regular-guy gear and boots. He talks freely about his family in Pennsylvania, his non-breaststroke interests and, especially, his love affair with his adopted hometown of Austin.
He’s an avid outdoorsman. Loves to camp (recently witnessed elks bugling in Rocky Mountain National Park) and fish (bass and fly fishing - “It’s an art”). He climbs rocks and bow-hunts (not a crossbow, naturally, since he’s a breaststroker).
“When I’m in nature, I completely forget about everything else,” he says.
He glories in local music and soaked up the acts during the Austin City Limits Festival (John Fogarty was his personal fave). Not a runner, he felt a huge sense of accomplishment just crossing the finish line during the Human Race after only two weeks of training.
And he’s a gifted salesman.
To be continued…
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Olympian Brendan Hansen at Jo's, Part 1
Brendan Hansen is not what he seems.
At least, he’s not the Brendan Hansen we glimpsed on television during the 2008 Olympics.
In part because of NBC’s Olympic coverage, Hansen, a longtime Austin resident and University of Texas alumnus, class of 2004, remained something of a mystery. When the network wasn’t thumping “Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps,” the swimming commentators focused instead on fellow Longhorns Aaron Piersol’s surfer persona or Ian Crocker’s cars and guitars.
Hansen’s only claims to notoriety were his hyped rivalry with breaststroker Kosuke Kitajima - covered mostly by the Japanese press — and his disappointing fourth place in his specialty event.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the ultimate gold-medal winner - earned handily in the 4x100 medley relay — was terminally shy and maybe a bit dopey. Absent-minded, to boot, given that he lost his medal on a plane - until it was returned by a thoughtful Austinite who hunted Hansen down to return it. (He stays in contact with her.)
“It’s funny that now that’s more important to people than the actual Olympics,” he laughs before pulling the medal out of his pocket for a nervous reporter to manhandle. “I keep running into to people: ‘I can’t believe you lost medal.’ They don’t remember we won. Of course, what are you going to do with an Olympic gold medal if you find one? You can show your buddies, but they’re going to go: ‘You didn’t win this.’”
To be continued…
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October 19, 2008
Longhorns launch Austin above ionosphere
Even the weather argues that we’re No. 1.
No, I use “we” because I mean that Austin or, if you will, Central Texas now shares the golden glow. The mood of the city floats somewhere above the ionosphere whenever the Longhorns are winning big. And they haven’t won like this during my entire tenure in this fair city.
I didn’t witness the triumph over feisty Missouri at Royal Memorial Stadium. Not on a weekend of a million other social commitments. But I could sense from the way people drove - a little aggressively, a little giddily - that something went right. Not much suspense remained when I switched on TiVo in wee morning hours, but I savored every slicing drive, every new talent discovered.
Like Vince Young before him, Colt McCoy is now the biggest celebrity in town. If it weren’t for those pesky NCAA rules, he could write his own ticket. And if injuries or hubris don’t intervene, someday he will.
AP photo.
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September 20, 2008
'Pressure' Opening at Mellow Johnny's
Never turn down a party invitation from Mellow Johnny’s. Lance Armstrong’s commuter bike shop attracts a distinct tribe of lean world citizens. Some loiter curbside or out back in the parking lot. Others weave among the bikes, apparel and accessories inside the adroitly transformed garage. (It should win some design awards.)
Wade Henson, Megan Wilson
We discussed the intriguing Turkish/German movie, “Edge of Heaven,” with Janan and Marco Cabassi. We ran into Shout editor and grassroots philanthropist Rob Faubion with partner JoeLane Schumann, both hitting multiple parties like myself. Then we sought out cyclist we’d met at other social events — this group gets around Austin as well as around the globe.
Janan Cabassi, Marco Cabassi
The event under consideration was “Pressure,” a display of bike-related art. Yet I’ll confess I wasn’t quite sure which objects were art and which were merchandise. It didn’t really matter. Art openings are not the best place to see or discuss art. They can serve as lively social occasions, though, and “Pressure” was no exception.
Will Fox, Andrew Stevens
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September 9, 2008
Losing Lance Armstrong
Selfishly, my first thought was: “I’m losing him.” When freshly minted Statesman entertainment editor Charles Ealy — often on the edge of information gathering — shot me an e-mail around this time yesterday with the tip that Lance Armstrong was thinking about a Tour de France comeback, I cringed: “Now the sportswriters will want him full-time.”
The second that VeloNews Interactive and ESPN.com released their preliminary reports — rumors really — sports writer Suzanne Halliburton and fitness writer Pamela LeBlanc had pounced on the item. As well they should. Halliburton, particularly, has been the premier Armstrong expert for a decade or so. And, by the end of the day, she’d also discovered that her guy was not yet confirming his return to the field, a daily double for her. (Today, Vanity Fair confirmed the rumor.)
My favorite news residue came from another editor, who read only a partial version of the breaking-news e-mail: “Lance Armstrong coming out …” before seeing “of retirement.” Now that would have been a headline for Out & About
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September 8, 2008
Paddlefest at the Texas Rowing Center
Some fundraising events are still finding their way.
Paddlefest, which helps float the Texas River School’s efforts to bring outdoor living to kids without normal access to its wonders, is not one of the city’s biggest or most profitable affairs. But it’s got a lot of heart — and, now, a magical location. I’d never ventured out on the docks of the Texas Rowing Center, located across from Austin High School on upper Lady Bird Lake. At dusk, especially, it’s a bit of heaven, the sunset spiraling in reflections on the lake, a slight breeze passing across the waters and folks settling down for basic grub, local music and short ventures on the boats, including a non-boater-friendly raft.
Duncan McLaurin, Linda Overton, Matt Ritchie
Joe Kendall, one of the main men behind the school, told me that more than 4,000 children, normally terrified of the river because they don’t swim, have paddled up and down the lake, learning about its natural processes and, along the way, water safety. He’s planning campouts down below Longhorn dam, which should be even more challenging.
Linda Firestone, Erin Flynn
Anyway, the backers of Paddlefest, including board members Linda Firestone and Erin Flynn, expressed mild disappointment that the turnout was pretty thin on a September Saturday, but I assured them that their location was unmatched and that on a cooler Sunday later in the season, they’d likely draw more lake lovers.
Mickey Filpi, Cloe Justice
Then it was off to Antone’s to hear Jets Under Fire and, for starters, Beaux Loy, who has an amazing vocal instrument and made a bang-up starter for the Alpha Rev bill. Skipped the Rev this night to entertain brother Christopher and his wife Juliefrom Houston at Cru, where we shared a silky bottle of tempranillo and a very late supper. The Cru crew was extremely professional about staying open so late, too.
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September 7, 2008
Texas 4000 Tribute Gala at the Four Seasons
In the course of an evening out, one fit athlete offered to get me out into the Hill Country on a bicycle, while another tried to lure me onto Lady Bird Lake in a kayak.
Joe Weismantel, Audrey Neville, Sarmed Rashid
Did they think that, just because I walked to their separate fundraising events along a multi-mile stretch of the hike and bike trail, that I could actually join something like the Texas 4000, a cycling road ride from Texas to Alaska to raise money to fight cancer?
Luci Baines Johnson, Nancy Brown
Hardly. Although the promise of adventure is tempting. The course is actually more than 4,500 miles and is billed the longest charity ride in the world. Hey, Alaska is my next intended road-trip frontier, so …
Stella Jang, Dane Edwards
The tribute gala dinner for Texas 4000 at the Four Seasons Hotel resembled any other posh affair at the incessantly busy lakeside retreat. (Spied at a wedding next door: Texas basketball legend Jody Conradt.) Tempting silent auction items were lined up for the cocktail reception, then the revelers took their seats in the ballroom for the hotel’s usual creative banquet fare.
Pratish Kanani, Olege Esenkov, Anju Kanani
We talked a some length with aspiring journalist Dane Edwards, also with Luci Baines Johnson, who sat with event chairwoman Nancy Brown and informed me about attempts to bring the world to the gradually more open-to-the-public LBJ Ranch, including a mass bike ride out there come spring. She’s been riding herself lately, by the way, and looks fit as a country fiddle and not a day over 40.
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September 3, 2008
Your A-List: Best Athlete with Local Ties
But there’s room for only one sports superstar in Austin and that’s Lance Armstrong, who won 31 percent of the vote for Best Athlete with Local Ties in the A-List poll. He’s mostly running now, but the seven-time Tour de France cycling winner is hard to beat, when you consider his historic accomplishments and global philanthropy — not to mention headline-grabbing social exploits.
In the end, though, this is Texas and football rules. Of the other athletes receiving votes, six are — or were — football players, five of those appearing in Burnt Orange — Earl Campbell (26 percent), Vince Young (23 percent), Colt McCoy (3 percent), Major Applewhite (3 percent) and Ricky Williams (2 percent).
One, Drew Brees, played high school ball here, only to move up to Purdue University and the NFL. That leaves softball pitching machine Osterman (6 percent), tennis pro Andy Roddick (3 percent) and roundball prodigy Kevin Durant (1 percent). Maybe if Andy wins the U.S. Open again, he’ll move up in the ranks!
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September 1, 2008
Longhorns & More at Doc's Motorworks
Socially speaking, football season means stadiums that hold almost 100,000 fans, tailgate parties that occupy dozens of downtown blocks and game-watching gatherings in dens outfitted with TV screens that would make the IMAX makers envious. Also sports bars.
Terry Pogue, Debbie Hildebrand
Doc’s Motorworks — the original on South Congress Avenue — is not a sports bar, technically, and its site, open to the western sun, argues against prime television viewing. Yet early on, sports fans flocked to this authentic-feeling road-house/bar/diner, ingeniously carved out of an automotive repair shop.
Greg Highberger, Brenda Highberger, Jessica Gilliland, A.J. Crockett
Prior to Saturday’s game, we considered joining the record-breaking crowd at Royal-Memorial, but, with my heart condition, 100-degree heat index at the top of the western tier is not a good way to spend an August late afternoon, not to mention the sweaty walk from whichever distant parking spot.
So, instead I toddled down to Doc’s and immediately met some fascinating folks. “We’re Longhorns for the day,” said quality control inspector Greg Highberger and court reporter Brenda Highberger, who’d normally root for the University of Kansas or Kansas State University, being from the Sunflower State and all. “The selection of sports bars in Wellsville, Kan. is limited,” added Brenda about her burg outside Kansas City.
Ted Rodriguez, Shana Rodriguez
“We’d watch it at home if it weren’t on pay-per-view,” said U.S. Army reservist A.J. Crockett, who shared with purchasing administrator Jessica Gilliland an appreciation for the vocal energy at sports bars. “Here, it’s in between going to the game and watching it at home,” A.J. said.
“It’s fun to be in a crowd tailgating, but we live literally 10 steps away,” said Akins High School teacher Shana Rodriguez. “And it’s hard to get tickets,” said Akins football coach Ted Rodriguez, who was also celebrating his team’s first win of the season.
Amy T. (traveling incognito), Patrick Dunphy
Patrick Dunphy, who works in the mortgage business, doesn’t like the noise and crowd inside Doc’s, so he gravitates to the unofficial employee table outside. “It’s a nice environment,” he says. “And some good-looking people come here as well.” (Soon, Dunphy was surrounded by four or five toothsome employees.)
The flip-flopped and summer-whited fans were still trickling in at 6:30 p.m., long after the 6 p.m. kickoff, catching up on the game narrative with strangers. Austin Fire Department Lieutenant Terry Pogue and his companion, Debbie Hildebrand from Killeen, had visited the Continental Club to savor the guitar genius of Redd Volkaert before the game. Pogue knew Doc’s would be jumping, “especially when Texas is winning.”
Actually, the crowd was pretty subdued, almost distracted until the Longhorns made an interception in the end zone. After that, every spectacular play by Colt McCoy and crew jolted the viewers into communal joy. So a bit like being at the game. But with beer.
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August 24, 2008
Anthony Lane -- Best Onsite Writing about the Olympics
Ahead of other onsite Olympics reporters by a mile was Anthony Lane of The New Yorker. For the Aug. 25 issue, the magazine’s wit-stained film critic dove deep into the Beijing scene, using his falcon eye to discern connections few other journalists would even notice.
On the mass spectacle of the ceremony: “Cometh the hour, cometh the glowing red drumsticks, the heaving sea of blocks, the Brobdingnagian scroll unspooling before our eyes, and other miracles of visual manipulation. … China supports a population of 1.3 billion, the knowledge of that resource was never far away; indeed, the whole evening became an exercise in number-crunching, as mass art was constructed from a mass of humanity.”
On Sebastian Coe, who heads London’s Olympic efforts: “He may have been hiding in the men’s room, calling home to order more light bulbs. ‘They had 2,008 drummers, all lit up. Yes, 2,008. And what have we got so far? Elton John on a trampoline.’”
On meeting rabid volleyball fans from Amsterdam: “How did they rate the Dutch chances this year? ‘We have no volleyball team,’ Mr. Goss said with infinite gloom. The Netherlands hadn’t qualified. The Gosses would have to make do with the beach equivalent, which is to proper volleyball what Elvis’s movies were to Elvis’s music.”
The New Yorker illustration by Robert Risko.
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August 18, 2008
Michael Phelps as celebrity and sex symbol
Yet will that magic endure, even as his records trump all others?
Mark Spitz, to whom Phelps is most frequently compared, was, for a while, a genuine sex symbol. Deeply tanned, sharply cut, roguishly coiffed and mustached, he competed with Farah Fawcett for most widely distributed pinup figure of the 1970s. (Guess which poster I owned?)
Phelps, on the other hand, despite his ideally formed swimming machine, can appear kinda gangling and dorky. And he’s certainly not as berry brown and dance-floor ready as his Time magazine cover shot would suggest. (I’m not going to link directly to all the discussion groups on the topic. You can find them.)
Phelps doesn’t benefit from Lance Armstrong’s survival story or Tiger Woods’ multiracial pioneer status. And he’s not nearly as worldly as either older sportsman. None of which was important in the pool.
Now Phelps is an undeniably nice guy. Close to his mother. Grateful for his teammates. Better spoken than many swimmers. He’s also an incredible athlete. Nothing will diminish his status as a sports deity.
But ongoing star power without a second career? Perhaps it’s best that he won’t melt — as so many have; think of Mary Lou Retton or Nadia Comeneci — under the ongoing and unflattering celebrity spotlight and he’ll remain in our memories just way he won eight golds in Beijing.
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August 13, 2008
Your A-List, Best Place to Go Rock Climbing
Barton Creek Greenbelt, where cliffs enclose a winding West Austin canyon, came in second with 16 percent. Reimers Ranch, 30 miles southwest of Austin but still in Travis County, tripped third at 15 percent. McKinney Falls State Park, the smooth, moundy rapids practically in sight of the Austin-Bergstrom Airport, pulled up 8 percent. Pace Bend State Park out on Lake Travis sailed into the next spot with 7 percent. Accruing less than 5 percent: Bull Creek Boulders, Guadalupe Peak, Hueco Rock Ranch and Monster Rock.
Aren’t a few of those way out in West Texas? I guess you can’t go too far for a good rock.
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August 11, 2008
Socializing around the Olympics
Everywhere I go, people are talking Olympics. At the dentist’s office, a discussion broke out about the rules of team handball. In the newsroom, the conversation ranged from criticism of team uniforms to estimates about the ages of Chinese women gymnasts and Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Conventry’s Valley Girl accent. Twitter, FaceBook and other social sites lit up around the U.S. men’s heart-pounding triumph in the 400 X 100 m freestyle relay.
At our house, there is no other subject. Kip comes from a family of athletes and coaches; his competitive field in youth was swimming, and he continues to swim almost every day. So you can imagine he has all the events and players memorized. Yet our first thrill was the Latvian men’s beach volleyball team beating a smug, lackluster U.S. duo. Like everyone else, we were surprised the U.S. women gymnasts racked up so many points after falls and mistakes in the qualifiers.
But nothing could trump our pride in Michael Phelps, Cullen Jones, former Longhorn and ham bone Garrett Weber-Gale and, especially, miracle finisher Jason Lezak in their relay climax. You live for moments like that.
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August 9, 2008
NBC commentary during Olympics' opener shameful
First, we helped readers find the best public screens for watching the Olympics’ opening ceremony. Among the places we discussed: Third Base, The Side Bar, J. Black’s, The Tavern and Doc’s Motorworks. Then we wondered aloud why the Alamo Drafthouse didn’t offer the ceremony with one of their signature banquets.
But the ceremony was soured — no, not by Russia’s cynical invasion of Georgia or John Edwards’ cynical admission of adultery on the same day as the Olympic opener — but rather by the servile PR-style commentary from announcers Bob Costas, Matt Lauer and color specialist Josh Cooper Romo. Nobody expected the trio to denounce Chinese authoritarianism, but to constantly emphasize the importance of order and harmony in the face of chaos was reading right off the government’s play card, as was the praise of cutesy representatives of China’s oppressed ethnic minorities and the almost complete elision of modern Communist history.
We’re asking for politics. We’re not even asking for morality. We’re just asking for some basic, mainstream history. The sorry threesome should have just kept quiet or continued to gush about the drummers, aerialists and human keyboards.
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August 6, 2008
Catching Up: Sports
While I was out West …
As for the Olympics, the focus has been on current and former Longhorns. Of course we flinch every time we anticipate the mindless repetitions of biographical details for each one by anxious on-air reporters. Eric Shanteau’s illness will likely be mentioned again and again, every time he competes.
Diane Holloway provided valuable previews for the NBC coverage, while John Maher, our man on the Beijing scene, detailed UT’s global athletic ambitions. We’ll watch every minute that we can TiVo. So for spectators, it will be 1-2-3: Olympics, political conventions, then football. No wonder so many people buy televisions this time of year.
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August 1, 2008
2008 Fortunate 500: The Complete List
Remember, this is our annual list of Austin’s most social citizens. It honors those Central Texans who go Out & About for the good of the greater social fabric.
Almost all our picks were originally nominated by readers, then followed by our social spies during the subsequent year. (I chatted with most of them, too, at the 1,000 or so social events I attended in the past 12 months.) So now is a prime time to alert us to people who contribute above and beyond to the social scene, so they can be eligible for the 2009 list.
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July 20, 2008
2008 Fortunate 500: Sports
SPORTS AND FITNESS
Top Pick Andy Roddick: He picked some pretty awesome role models in Lance Armstrong and Arthur Ashe, but Austin’s tennis pro wants to make an impact in life beyond the courts. So while the biggest chunk of his time is spent on the Association of Tennis Professionals Tour and leading America’s Davis Cup team, he also devotes his energy, fame and looks to the Andy Roddick Foundation, which supports, among other things, children’s health causes. He’s on every host’s wish list for local galas.
Katy and Robert Agnor. Hornfans.com, Bar & Grill Singers
Candy and Rick Barnes. University of Texas basketball, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Kim and Mike Barnes. KVUE
Laura and Roy Bechtol. Bechtol Golf Design, Planned Environments Inc.
Charles Breithaupt. University Interscholastic League.
Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell Meat Products, University of Texas football (former)
Sheila and Paul Carrozza. RunTex, President’s Council on Physical Fitness
Ed Clements. KLBJ-AM, Alzheimer’s Association of the Capital, ARC of the Capital Area Dave Cody. Fox 7, FedEx Kinko’s Golf ClassicJohn Conley. Austin Sports Commission, Conley Sports Inc.
Jody Conradt. University of Texas Women’s basketball (former), Giant Steps Award
Brenda and Tommy Cox. Austin Independent School District, Coaches Outreach
Julie and Ben Crenshaw. PGA, Coore & Crenshaw
Mary Ann and DeLoss Dodds. University of Texas athletics
Claire and Doug English. Lone Star Paralysis Foundation, Caritas of Austin
Bill and Rhonda Farney. University Interscholastic League, Georgetown High School, Georgetown Rotary Club, Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau
Ron Franklin. ESPN
Gail Goestenkors. University of Texas Women’s basketball
Augie Garrido and Jeannie Grass. University of Texas baseball, Hospice Austin, “Inning by Inning”
Christy and Tom Kite. FedEx Kinko’s Classic, Kids Classic, Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas
Bart Knaggs. C3, Mellow Johnny’s
Donnie Little. University of Texas football (former), Longhorn Foundation, Urban Life Group, Longhorn Legacy
Keith Moreland. University of Texas baseball and football (former), Longhorn Sports Network
Kay Morris. Marathon Kids
Aaron Peirsol. Race for the Oceans, U.S. Olympic Team
Christine Plonsky. University of Texas Athletics
Edith and Darrell Royal. University of Texas football (former), Caritas of Austin
Reid Ryan. Round Rock Express
Bill Stapleton. Capitol Sports and Entertainment
Gilbert Tuhabonye. Gilbert’s Gazelles, the Gazelle Foundation, Run for the Water
Kirsten and Nick Voinis. University of Texas athletics
Jeff Ward. KLBJ-AM
Craig Way. KVET-AM
While I’m away in Montana, we’ll reveal one category each day at noon. For a fully updated list, follow the brightly colored Fortunate 500 link at the base of this post.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JASON BELL/ CAMERA PRESS LONDON.
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July 17, 2008
Austin's Ally and Jeff Davidson in 'Gladiator' semis
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Longhorns, Texas the bad guys in 'The Express'
Orangebloods might want to avert their eyes: Trailers for “The Express,” an inspirational sports movie about Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Hiesman Trophy, show the halfback facing down racism in upstate New York and the Deep South. Sneers on campus. Cold shoulders from merchants. Stars and bars in the South.
Uh oh. It’s not just Texas. It’s the University of Texas.
Indeed Davis, played in “The Express” by Rob Brown, and his Orangemen beat Texas in the 1959 Cotton Bowl to take the national championship. Davis was told he’d allowed to accept his MVP award at the post-game banquet, but would be required to leave the hotel immediately afterward. His whole team boycotted the banquet.
Not Texas’ finest hour, especially since UT fielded all-white teams in those days, not raising the ban against black players until 1963. Extra cringe points: part-time Austinite Dennis Quaid looms large Davis’ Syracuse coach, who insists on playing his controversial halfback. The movie, which premieres in Syracuse on Sept. 12, is slated for an October release nationally.
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July 4, 2008
Olympic Trials, 'House' and 'So You Think You Can Dance'
Despite its resolution months ago, the writers strike has only now affected our well-banked TiVo cache. I’m down to no more than two unseen episodes of my favorite shows. I squirreled away the two-part season finale of “House” until this week, and for those who missed the bus accident and its aftermath, I won’t spoil the drama. Suffice it to say that it remains among the best written, directed and performed series — ever. Loveable TV misanthropes abound these days, but Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House is almost literary in his substance.
I’ve resisted “So You Think You Can Dance.” Do we really need another bloated “American Idol”? Especially given the tiny minority of Americans who can actually dance well. But I’ve grown fond of some of this summer’s contestants and I’m learning a lot about styles I’d never really studied closely. The show actually may contribute to an increase in the general dance IQ, which can only help the major fine art with the smallest built-in audience.
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June 19, 2008
Texans Ally and Jeff Davidson honeymooned on 'American Gladiators'
What a way to spend your honeymoon: Ally Davidson, who auditioned for “American Gladiators” on her wedding day four months ago, spent her honeymoon with new husband Jeff battling with the bruisers on the NBC reality show. In yet another twist, Jeff also competed — and the Texas couple will be featured when the episode airs 7 p.m. Monday.
“I wanted to do one last crazy thing before I got married,” Ally says. “So my bridesmaids and brothers took me to the tryouts.”
No dummies, the producers realized they had stumbled a marketable angle, so they asked about Jeff’s athletic skills — in a previous life, he served as a Amateur Athletic Union coach — then flew them both out to Los Angeles for the final auditions.
“All this happened just a couple of weeks after we got married,” she says. “We literally had a ‘Gladiator Honeymoon.’”
Not every bride imagines their happiest day bashing stuffed obstacles and wrangling muscle-bound menaces. But for Ally, it was a dream come true.
“Jeff was a great sport through it all,” she says. “I kinda felt bad when he was being tackled by 300-pound men though … ha ha … he weighs about 158.”
Sports-loving Ally, 25, who sells advertisements for Valpak, competed in basketball, softball, volleyball and cross country Westwood High School, then played college basketball for Ole Miss and Texas State University. She moved back to Austin after college, and recently joined Jeff in Dallas. Jeff, 29, a financial advisor, grew up in Irving, but lived in Austin for five years while attending UT. They met the summer after her senior year in high school and then dated for six years long-distance.
“The whole experience is the coolest and most fun thing either of us have ever done,” Ally says. “And a great way to start a marriage!”
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June 6, 2008
Brad Womack at Teva Mountain Games
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Lance Armstrong at Mellow Johnny's
No, Kate Hudson did not attend. But an extraordinarily gracious Lance Armstrong spoke to just about every guest during Tribeza’s soothing party at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop on Thursday. Once again, I was impressed with the uncluttered, unpretentious look of the huge space, which includes a bike repair shop downstairs. Learned, for instance, that they can’t keep the Mellow Johnny shirts in stock. I purchased a kicky Timbuks pedestrian satchel — hard to come by — narrower and lighter than most bike satchels. Sported around downtown the rest of the night as if I looked like the lookers who attended the party for the handsome-looking magazine.
The Lance and The Stephen
Catherine Mahon, Jon Landua, Jessa Landua
Matt Butterfield, Erick Smart
Nicole Rodriguez, Matt McCoy
Lance right and left hands Mark Higgins and Bart Knaggs
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June 4, 2008
Andy Roddick makes cover of Outside
The same month his hero, Lance Armstrong, makes the cover of two local magazines simultaneously — Austin Monthly and Tribeza — Andy Roddick relaxes on the front of the nationally distributed Outside magazine. The cover story chronicles the tennis ace’s return to form and includes one reason why he retreats to his Austin home: “I have to have windows every couple of months where I can put my body back together.” Roddick explained his sometimes volatile behavior on the court: “”I don’t ever think I am going to be one of those guys who can just mute it.”
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Augie Garrido, Richard Linklater at 'Inning' premiere
Baseball coaching legend Augie Garrido looked sharp in a dark blazer, accompanied by companion Jeannie Grass, herself smartly turned out in a slim, black outfit for the premiere of “Inning by Inning” at the Paramount Theatre. Garrido appeared humbled by Richard Linklater’s biographical documentary, which showed the University of Texas baseball coach as a sort of philosopher/teacher whose passion is bringing out the best in each student/player.
Jeannie Grass, Augie Garrido
The doc is terrific and will show soon on ESPN. Garrido gave Linklater unprecedented access to the dugout and locker rooms, where the coach’s motivational diction includes strong language. An afternoon showing of “Inning by Inning” — dubbed a “director’s cut” — included the expletives in full, but the evening premiere was a double benefit for the Austin Film Society and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Austin, so we got family version. Of course, you could always read his lips, and the audience got a kick out of his spray of traditional sports wording.
Richard Linklater with Will Crouch, part of the 2005 College World Series championship team, now into commercial insurance after a career in pro ball
Linklater was in high spirits, given that he had just completed two films. He spoke about his own interest in sports, literature, theater and movies, then we caught up on our shared experiences at the River Oaks and Varsity theaters during the golden years of arthouses. Linklater graduated from Bellaire High School — down the road from where I grew up — and says he sometimes reminds Dennis Quaid of their shared alma mater. He’d like to work with Quaid. Do it, Dennis, do it!
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May 26, 2008
Austin stars: Lance Armstrong, Kate Hudson, Andy Roddick, Vince Young, Drew Barrymore, Dennis Quaid
While I was soaking up the cool in New England, Austin-linked celebrities went crazy.
Lance Armstrong: After cruising around Austin, our town’s superstar cuddled with new flame Kate Hudson at the Cannes Film Festival. You gotta admire his moxie, even as he insists he and Kate’s ex, Owen Wilson, were never close friends, and thus he’s not picking his pocket.
Drew Barrymore: The frequent Austin visitor, said to be engaged to Apple cutie Justin Long, was seen in Michigan. Maybe she’s decided to take advantage of those 40 percent film production incentives for “Whip It,” the roller derby movie once headed for Austin.
Dennis Quaid: A stranger to Austin lately, despite the presence of his wife Kimberly Buffington’s family — unless we’ve missed a recent visit, and that’s entirely possible — Quaid will be honored June 12 at the Maui Film Fest. Tough gig.
Andy Roddick: The recently engaged tennis star dropped out of the French Open because of an elbow injury. One of his fans has started a “Book Fairy Project” to recycle old children’s books. Last time we chatted with Andy he was reading the “Harry Potter” series. The 25-year-old also placed on OK’s Top 50 Man Candy of the Year list.
Photo: Courtesy of Blogxilla.com
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May 13, 2008
Weekend heat wave at Mellow Johnny's
Did the short, brutal weekend heat wave alter Austin socializing? Not at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop on Saturday. Lance Armstrong’s gigantic retail outlet on Nueces Street behind La Zona Rosa doubles as a party palace, and the patio out back — broken in after the cool front passed through — is likely to host a number of events like this VIP opening. Most Austin parties are decorated with pretty, pretty people, but this exquisitely healthy crowd simply radiated good looks.
Charlie Tames, Greg Euckert, Salma Manzur, John Fantauzzi
Mike Hall, Amy Creed, Chris Adels
Help
Help
Help
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April 6, 2008
Michael Huff Charity Event at Austin Convention Center
What National Football League player, especially if single, would want to miss a sweet April weekend in Austin, especially with the Texas Relays in town? Not the ones invited by Michael Huff to participate in his charity weekend, which included a visit to the Dell Children’s Medical Center — one of the beneficiaries of the event — parties and a basketball game at the Austin Convention Center.
Our host, the gracious Michael Huff and man of good will
Yes, basketball. As Kansas prepared to mash North Carolina and Memphis set the record straight against UCLA — setting up an ideal final NCAA game on Monday — football players, yes, big, sometimes ungainly NFL football players faced off on the court usually reserved for the minor league Austin Toros.
Michael Griffin, serious after goofing around with his fellow players. Michael owns a house out on Lake Austin and has joined Vince Young at a return UT student
Before the game, fans, mostly Longhorn fans, lined up around the center’s lobby — all the way to the New Urbanism conference — to get hats, balls, anything signed by former Horns heroes such as Huff, Roy Williams, Michael Griffin and such. We admit to being starstruck in the company of such football talent, who chatted with sportswriters before the autographing onslaught, but their practice shots were about what you might expect — powerful but not exactly accurate.
Receiver Roy Williams actually could pass for a basketball player
Organizers found no problems drafting volunteers for this star-studded Michael Huff event: Casondra Brown, Toni Martin, Jalesa Bacon, Apryl Martin, Jordan Phillips, Taylor Bowser, Brittney Maxwell
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April 3, 2008
Austin Super Celebs: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
Yet Austin also regularly attracts super celebrities, some temporary, some resident, whose comings and goings are minutely tracked by thousands of media outlets worldwide. For instance, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have graced our city and environs for almost a month. A few paps have snapped them shopping for their growing family, but locals have gratefully left them pretty much alone. (That could change if Jolie gives birth here, bringing down the world celebrity press.)
As I write this, Pitt’s “Tree of Life” appears to be shooting at various South Austin locations. Despite this hard work, the tabloids, instead, are all over Pitt’s reported split with publicist Cindy Guagenti, the couple’s backing of a school charity in Missouri and George Clooney’s faked wedding in Italy for the couple. (Clever, clever Clooney.) And those are just the most repeated stories today. Our publication hasn’t even photographed them, which is why we’re using this AP photo from the Independent Spirit Awards, rather than something a rogue pap took locally.
All this to introduce a possible semi-regular feature for Out & About — Update: Austin Super Celebs. Here’s what’s happening according to the latest media reports, in no particular order.
Owen Wilson: I never know whom to trust on this guy. Some have him re-kindling romance with Kate Hudson; others say Jennifer Aniston is healing his emotional wounds. His mid-level movie comedy “Drillbit Taylor” has grossed more than $20 million to date.
Matthew McConaughey: The latest buzz is that he’s been offered the title role in the movie of “Magnum P.I.” I loathed the original, but would see it for MM. Still no plans to wed his baby mama, Camila Alves, and he can be counted on for a big, goofy quote almost every day.
Dennis Quaid: Almost everything lately has been about the medical accident that threatened his and Kimberly Buffington’s twins — legal action, charity foundation, etc. He’s also quit smoking for the kids and can be seen soon in “Smart People” and, later, “G.I. Joe.”
Vince Young: I was proven wrong: Austin’s favorite quarterback has not been tearing up Sixth Street during his return engagement at UT, for classwork this time. He bopped back to Nashville to study up with the Titans during spring break and caught a few Longhorn basketball games. That’s all we know.
Lance Armstrong: No startling romantic news lately. Mostly, he’s done a great job on the health and charity circuit, and he’s quoted often as an inspirational figure. Good place to be.
Dixie Chicks: More anti-war and pro-environment appearances. Hardly buzz magnets since their Grammy coronations.
Andy Roddick We were more than 24 hours late reporting the tennis star’s engagement to SI model Brooklyn Decker. Tonight he faces off with nemesis Roger Federer in Miami. Our question: Will they wed in Austin? Update: Roddock wins!
If you think any others Super Celebs belong in this category, drop me a line.
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April 2, 2008
Andy Roddick engaged to marry SI model
Photo courtesy of andyroddick.com.
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February 21, 2008
Olympic hopeful Eric Shanteau makes splash at Hilton event
Shanteau, an Olympic hopeful and subject of a recent Statesman profile, routinely ranks second or third in his events, but only the top two U.S. contenders can make the team, even if he’s also, say, No. 3 in the world.
Shanteau shined at a charity event, oddly scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday at the Hilton Austin’s 8th-floor health club pool. It was all part of a Hilton campaign to help local swim clubs and the USA Swimming Foundation. (Participants are swimming a total of 6,250 laps at various Hiltons — symbolizing the miles from Los Angeles to Beijing — while the hotel chain donates tens of thousands of dollars to train swimmers. Cool idea.)
Shanteau told me about his upcoming meets, including one in Austin on March 6-8 (the most overcrowded weekend of the Austin social calendar each year), as well as an encore exhibition event for spectators. He’ll take a week or so off, then head to the Olympic training village in Colorado Springs (we joked about gasping for air at the facility I visited last year).
What does he do during his off weeks? Read books. And lake activities: “My idea of the perfect day is a day at the lake,” says the athlete who grew up on Lake Lankier near Atlanta.
Two of the local groups participating in the Hilton event were Nitro, a North Austin swim club, and SWIM, a group that matches coaches with at-risk kids.
Dominic Testa of USA Swimming Foundation with Paul Wallace and Bryan Jones of SWIM
“It’s in between ‘learn to swim’ and competitive events,” says Paul Wallace, the investment banker and UT swim alum who helps run the program. Wallace says he grew up in a single-parent home in the San Antonio inner city, and swimming helped rescue him from a wasted life. So, working through Boys and Girls Clubs, he’s making a difference in Austin.
Hilton’s Sean Durkin, Joe Bolash and Paul Parr, executive sous-chef
It was also fun hanging out with the crack Hilton staff, although the only refreshment I sampled with the so-called Vitamin Water (from the Center for Responsible Hydration, whatever that is). It tasted like green tea, which is what it is.
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February 19, 2008
Longhorns and Rufus Wainwright, only in Out & About
I’m sure you’ve experienced this: There’s a season ticket holder behind me in Section 94 who talks constantly to officials, as if they could hear him half a mile away in the $10 seats. Now, I could understand yelling at the refs near courtside, and, by instinct, I’ll blurt out a criticism every once in a while, but the ongoing zebra-phobe monologue begins to wear after a few games. (He even critiques other fans’ critiques.) I chalk it up to TV-watching behavior, but a least in the arena, unlike a movie theater, it’s supposed to be loud.
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February 18, 2008
Michael Huff herds Horns for charity weekend
Signed for the fun April 4-5 in Austin are a lot of all-star athletes with bodies honed for other sports: Nathan Vasher (Chicago Bears), Roy Williams (Detroit Lions), Tatum Bell (Detroit Lions), Jonathan Scott (Detroit Lions), Shaun Rogers (Detroit Lions), B.J. Johnson (formerly Denver Broncos), Sloan Thomas (Houston Texans), Shane Boyd (Houston Texans), Jacoby Jones (Houston Texans), Trenton Shelton (Indianapolis Colts), Derrick Johnson (Kansas City Chiefs), Hollis Thomas (New Orleans Saints), Dominic Rhodes (Oakland Raiders), Fabian Washington (Oakland Raiders), Stemford Routt (Oakland Raiders) and Bo Scaife (Tennessee Titans). Details about the event to be announced soon.
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February 4, 2008
Super socializing during Super Bowl
Made-up holidays are cherished by Americans as much as their traditional or official ones.
Customary Epiphany (Jan. 6), once a major stop on the ecclesiastical calendar, passed this year with barely a blip. Designated by law, Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 21) was, rightly, more solemn than celebratory, also an excuse for a three-day weekend for some workers, but still too new to have developed a distinctly festive culture.
That leaves Super Bowl Sunday, a manufactured event with a shamelessly commercial function, as the year’s first fully anticipated and ceremonious holiday, and one not in danger of cancellation by the writers’ strike.
A mostly Patriotic crowd gathered at the Cedar Door downtown to watch the N.Y. Giants poison Boston’s perfect season.
Petra Dizdar, Brendan Starr, Audry Ley, Lea Markovick
“It’s an excuse for a party,” said Eli Catalan, an art director for A3 Design and totally disinterested in the game itself. “I came for the pretty girls, the food and the out of doors.”
Jane Martin, Erika Martin, Kate Millea, Melissa Shook
In fact, several of the celebrants, including devoted fans of each team, cited the clement weather as a reason to join strangers on the deck of the peregrinating Door.
“You can’t do this where we come from,” said Montanans Tracy and Heather Havens.
“Not without winter coats,” said Melissa Shook, a transplanted New Yorker and therefore a Giants fan among Bostonians Jane and Erika Martin and Massachusetts-born Kate Millea.
Tracy Havens, Heather Havens
The Martins had only just arrived in town, checked into the Hampton Suites and raced to the nearest game-watching post. Colorado techies Kyle Graver and Greg Pring, in town for business, were also staying in nearby hotels.
“It gives you something to look forward to,” said Graver, who favored the Giants, and claimed the team for Pring, who said he actually “couldn’t care less.”
“We liked the idea of $2 appetizers,” said Linda Ley about her posse’s choice of the Cedar Door. “And we don’t have to clean up,” added her companion Lea Markovik.
Ley was forthright about Super Bowl Sunday as a holiday: “It’s a good drinking day.”
“You feel the game if you’re with a lot of people,” said Ernesto Fraga, who split allegiences with his wife Claudia. “Sure it’s a holiday for us. But every day’s a holiday.”
Now there’s a response designed to appear in Out & About.
On a personal note, my Super Bowl Sunday was a bit frazzled because the previous two nights were devoted to the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner event to benefit Project Transitions. Our team of seven hosts, led by the American-Statesman’s Dale Rice, prepared an 11-course sit-down meal of Latin American and Texan dishes, accompanied by 20 varieties of wine, for 18 diners. Nine hours of marketing and prep work on Friday, followed by nine hours of cooking, serving and entertaining at the gorgeous Old West Austin house of Robert Mayott and Nick Shumway. I’ll leave it to other columnists present to describe the experience in detail, but your correspondent enjoyed himself just a little too much. Not a good idea for somebody with two big events the next day and an out-of-town guest on the way.
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December 6, 2007
Chet Johnson broncs into Vegas
The party is already under way in Las Vegas. As Chet Johnson, a member of the RodeoAustin Team, strained to update the Wrangler National Rodeo Finals over his cell phone, the whoops and hollers from his fellow contestants rocked his vehicle. “One of the veterans had a bit of fun at the practice,” he explained indulgently.
Johnson, a saddle bronc rider from Gillette, Wyo., is ranked 13th in the world for his event, which is scored on a 100-point scale for an 8-second ride. His 2007 average: 92. He’ll perform 10 times during the Vegas finals, and the rider with the highest average will win $15,000.
Although he doesn’t live in Central Texas, RodeoAustin helps support Johnson financially as part of its three-person pro team, and he, in turn, promotes the Austin event at the 70 professional events on the rodeo circuit.
“There used to be 125,” Johnson said. “But that was too much driving. So they decided to ease up on travel and other expenses.”
Although he flies sometimes, 80 percent of the year, it’s on the road again for Johnson. “We’re all all good friends,” he said of his fellow sportsmen. “We get to spend a lot of time with buddies.”
You can follow Johnson’s progress at prorodeo.com. We know we will be checking, too.
Betty Sue Flowers, director of the LBJ Library and Museum, would like to clarify the marital time lines for she and her good friend, former Sen. Bill Bradley. This from the library’s publicist:
Bradley was divorced in September 2007, after a long separation.
Flowers was divorced in April 2005.
Flowers’ ex-husband, John, re-married in April 2006.
Our truncated version was derived from published reports in the American-Statesman and the New York Post.
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November 7, 2007
Matthew McConaughey's Longhorn bike for sale on eBay
Now this is the way to show your orange: Buy Matthew McConaughey’s commemorative Texas Longhorn National Championship Tribute Bike, which is for sale on eBay. Minimum bid for the custom-built bike from Ralph Randolph’s Knockout Motorcycle Co. is $25,000. All proceeds will be shared by McConaughey’s Just Keep Livin’ Foundation and Texas Exes Scholarship Fund. You have until 5 p.m. Nov. 17 to bid. The shirtless one is quoted on eBay as saying: “Let the biddin’ begin, hook ‘em Horns, and now and always, just keep livin’.” Maybe he couldn’t find room for it in his recently purchased $10 million Malibu mansion.
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October 31, 2007
Boxers weigh in at Richard Lord's
You must search for Richard Lord’s Boxing Gym. The old-fashioned sweat-box, plastered with posters and crammed with punching bags, trophies and beat-up looking characters, is tucked behind several sets of nondescript buildings at 5400 N. Lamar Blvd. It’s the kind of place where you pay close attention to “No Parking” signs, lest you end up with cauliflower ears. Inside, unpunched youngsters vied for equipment and time in the ring, which is ticked off with a bell not unlike an actual boxing event, while gym owner Lord oversaw the preliminary weigh-in.
Jamie Leshikar, scaling in at 147 pounds, could be fighting somebody heavier or lighter in her welterweight class on Saturday at the Erwin Center, since several potential fighters have dropped out. The daughter and sister of black-belt Judo fighters was attracted to boxing because it’s “the most physically and mentally challenging sport,” she said. “Also I’m just mean and aggressive by nature.” The McCallum High School graduate, 26, wants to contend for world championship and figures she’s got a least 10 years of fight in her.
Adauto “Gallito” Gonzalez sparred in Lord’s ring, mugging for the camera with a jaguarlike grimace. Hailing from St. Luis Potosi, he was forced to drop his Mexican wins from his U.S. resume, but surely intimidates opponents with his 7-2 record and two knock-outs here. The “Little Rooster” leads the undercard Saturday with six rounds vs. Justo Vallecillo (3-4, 2 KOs). The Main Event is the Texas Welterweight Title Fight matching Gilbert “Boogie” Vera (7-0-1, 4 KOs) vs. Ray Lino “Randy” Gatica (7-0, 4 KOs).
The event is 7:30 p.m. at the Erwin Center. Tickets are $20-$100. Info: 471-7744 or uterwincenter.com.
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October 12, 2007
Andy Roddick at home in Austin
“Austin helps me find my balance,” says America’s top-ranked tennis player, Austinite Andy Roddick, who mellows here during the few weeks he is not competing ferociously on the pro circuit.
We spent a chunk of Friday with Roddick, his brother John, his sister-in-law Ginger and their friends at the Westwood Country Club near his Mount Bonnell-area lakefront house. For the first hour, Andy practiced at top intensity, as if returning to the finals of the U.S. Open, with brother John, his touring coach, and lanky University of Georgia rising star John Isner. Shirtless and dripping sweat on this brilliant but warm fall day, he grunted with each deadly swing, and when he missed his mark, which was rare, Roddick swore (mildly) at himself.
During short breaks, the Roddicks horsed around, indulging in their agile wit. John R. shared some childhood anecdotes that motivated Andy R. to vault high-speed balls in his direction when they returned to the court. (We’ll share the printable ones when we publish a more complete profile later this year.)
Later, over Andy’s “best chicken salad in the world,” we talked about books (he’s reading the last “Harry Potter”), movies (he likes anything with Will Ferrell), restaurants (his favorite: Moonshine), festivals (it steams him that he must miss SXSW and ACL every year), shopping for jeans with his dimensions (enormous thighs and glutes, tiny waist), home cooking (omelettes, etc.), recreation (his Motorcraft X45 — but no waterskiing or anything that endangers his knees — and a newfound obsession, golf, mostly at Spanish Oaks or Barton Creek), the Davis Cup (he’s one of the few American tennis stars who take it so seriously), Austin as a tennis town (surprise: UT dominates all sports here), his blog (where he zings he friends regularly) and his 10 years of youth in Austin, including school at Kirby Hall, family of high-octane athletes, and his unusually high heat tolerance.
Oh, and why this is the only place he ever wants to live. We promise much more in a future profile.
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September 23, 2007
Stars of the upper stadium: Steve and Cindy Bailey
On the field, Ryan Bailey is a celebrity. The University of Texas kicker with the sure foot, who danced, Cinderella-like, from walk-on status to scholarship player this year, scored a career-high 16 points and sailed a career-long 52-yard field goal in Saturday’s blow-out of the Rice Owls. His fellow Longhorns showed their appreciation through every sort of jumping, knocking and slapping borrowed from the jock after-playbook.
But way up in Section 103 on the shady west side of Royal-Memorial Stadium, Steve and Cindy Bailey were the stars. Ryan’s parents shared the metal bleachers with tens of thousands of other burnt-orange fans, but their social connections appeared to reach far beyond Row 32.
Even during a rout like Saturday’s, they scanned the action intently with their field glasses, and cheerfully shared observations with other season-ticket holders — or first-timers — seated around them. While impatient spectators sidled out for a quick sausage wrap, or checked their text messages obsessively, the Baileys never left their perches while the game clock ticked. And every time Ryan made another point, dozens of nearby eyes met theirs, while air-knuckles transmitted silent waves of congratulations to the proud parents.
How did the Baileys build so many social connections with fellow fans? Well, they settled in those very seats three decades ago — and haven’t budged since.
Down the way, they pointed out Larry Miller, who led Reagan High School to a state championship when Steve played ball. Behind them was a foursome who remember when Ryan’s secure place was in Section 103, not the sidelines, wearing No. 39. And though the Baileys can use Ryan’s player tickets for seats down near the crunching of shoulder pads, they prefer to spend their home games with old friends.
“It’s not that they are not nice people,” Steve says of the other fans, “but we’ve been up here for 30 years.”
They feel the same way about the required pre-game tailgaiting parties, too. For as long as they can remember, they’ve camped out in the parking lot at Disch-Faulk Field, relatively nearby, across Interstate 35. This year, however, the university’s parking assignments were shuffled, and the Baileys were exiled to a more distant State of Texas lot. Undaunted, they work the system to visit their longtime tailgating social network over at Disch-Faulk.
“What drives us crazy is that, in the current system, 40 percent of that lot is empty,” Steve says, guessing that certain lucky parking-pass holders choose other options before the game.
It would take a lot to snap the Bailey’s sports social safety net. During a short half-time, Cindy and Steve share dozens of other connections, with The Woodlands, for instance, which is where my sister, Elizabeth Mills, and her placard-waving daughter, Kate, live (Elizabeth purchased the tickets two rows behind the Baileys at a charity auction), or with Anderson High School, where Ryan went, and where future Longhorn scholarship player Charlie Tanner urged recruiters to consider the kicker’s potential.
Everywhere they look, the Baileys see friends or potential friends. As Steve points out: “The community gets real small when you consider all the threads.”
