After a Fashion

I'd-like-to-thank-the-Academy good! aGLIFF's Jenn Garrison puts the squeeze on Leisha Hailey (Alice from Showtime's L-Word) at last Saturday's fundraiser at Mercury Design. (Photo By Roxanne Jo Mitchell)

DOWNTOWN "When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go …" Bravo to the folks at Action Figure, the Downtown Austin Alliance, and KLRU for the launch of the second season of the Emmy-award-winning series Downtown. The first episode of the new series was good, but we wanted the party to be better. It's always dicey to critique someone else's hard work, and parts of the evening were perfect (and the gift bags were exceptional), but the show had a definite variety-talent-show feel. Dance group B Boy City performed what can only be described as "interpretive crunking." Calling it breakdancing would conjure up images of clothes with too many zippers à la Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. It was more akin to a sidewalk ballet – backflips and other assorted gymnastics. We were in awe primarily because, well, we simply don't bend like that. After a Chinese dance troupe performed, emcee Pat Hazell took over. A comedian, magician, and Seinfeld writer, Hazell's glib comedy-club delivery and jokes left us yearning for someone who had more relevance to Austin; we were, after all, celebrating downtown Austin. The appearance of Mayor Will Wynn (with his shirt on) provided a needed charge of energy, and things picked up from there. This compelling series returns tonight, Thu., April 20, 7:30pm, on KLRU.

HEB-ing Texas grocery chain HEB is a great melting pot, particularly the ones at South Congress and Oltorf and at Pleasant Valley and Riverside. HEB's not so much multicultural as it is a culture of its own. You lose all sense of space and time when you enter, and when you leave, you are completely disoriented and out-of-synch. Recently I went to the Pleasant Valley store, trying to avoid the demoralizing experience of shopping at the South Congress one. From the side parking lot on the Pleasant Valley side, you have the enchanting experience of entering through what I think of as the Arbor of the Grackles, a virtual theme park dedicated to bird shit. On the sidewalk, curb, and street, there's so much of it that from a distance it looks like fine Italian marble. From the tree limbs are breathtaking formation of bird shit stalactites that urge the viewer to stop and study them … but lingering under the Arbor of the Grackles is a very unwise idea. It never fails to shock me to find entire families, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, parent, teenagers, infants, and toddlers all shopping in a pack at 3am – 12 people to go shopping for a loaf of bread and bottle of Big Red? And why are school-aged children grocery shopping at 3am anyway? There are seldom simple answers to these questions at HEB. Questions like: Why is HEB always out of 2-liter bottles of Diet Pepsi? HEB says they don't sell enough of it, and yet, what they do order always sells out immediately. One manager said, "Go ask the Pepsi guy." I go ask the Pepsi guy, "What's up with HEB always being sold out of 2-liter bottles of Diet Pepsi?" He says, "HEB will only allocate a certain amount of shelf space, so they never have enough. They're always completely out of stock when I come to make a delivery." There is always plenty of Cherry-Flavored Diet Pepsi, Lime Flavored Diet Pepsi, Vanilla Flavored Diet Pepsi, Vodka Flavored Diet Pepsi … or whatever the new flavor is that they're pushing. Where the hell is the plain ol' Diet Pepsi?

ZACH I don't need to give you facts and figures about the great things Zach Scott Theatre does for Austin. You already know how cool they are. And of course you already know that I learned to sew and design costumes in Zach's costume shop over 30 years ago, so they mean a great deal to me. Zach's big fundraiser Red, Hot & Soul, held at the Austin Music Hall this Sat., April 22 at 7pm. Buy a ticket, buy a table, whatever. Just go. Go and give until you can't give anymore, so that Zach Scott can keep giving back to Austin. For complete info, go to www.zachscott.com/get_involved/Red_Hot_2006.html.

AGENDA Tonight, Thu., April 20, Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival presents Bloom!, a fundraiser at the Nest at Big Red Sun with food, spirits, and performances (with emcee moi). See www.agliff.org for details… Fri., April 21, the UT fashion design students present Mosaic, the annual show of student designs at the Frank Erwin Center, 8pm… Thu., April 27, 6:30-9:30pm, is the Umlauf Garden Party, one of the dreamiest parties of the year. For more information, please visit www.umlaufsculpture.org.