Music editor Raoul Hernandez says he has something of a theme section this week; he notes that both Robyn Hitchcock and Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips have penned an unusual number of songs about animals, or with animals in the title. And now, they’re going to be on the same bill, Saturday, Aug. 7 at Stubb’s. Not only that, but that’s Raoul’s birthday, National Mustard Day, and he won’t even be in town!
Over in Screens, this week’s feature is about Austin screenwriter phenom Tim McCanlies (The Iron Giant; Dancer, Texas Pop. 81), but editor Marge Baumgarten confides that she’s doing all she can to keep up with the “endless amounts of news” being generated by The Blair Witch Project. (At least two other staffers, meanwhile, opined that the movie wasn’t as scary as they’d been led to believe. Ad rep Sandy Martinez said she thought she’d read too much about it in advance; art director Taylor Holland agreed, saying he couldn’t suspend his disbelief enough to get scared. And he was more specific, citing a Chronicle article on the film’s production, written by Marc Savlov, which he said he couldn’t stop thinking about while watching the movie. Baumgarten was less than impressed, however. “If people don’t want movies spoiled, they shouldn’t read reviews in advance,” she sniffed. “Anyway, I think these are just kneejerk, backlash people.” Ouch. Baumgarten can perhaps afford such a haughty attitude — not only was she quoted in the national TV ads for the film [“Truly horrifying” — Austin Chronicle], she acknowledges that she has made “a couple of million dollars” on the film on the Hollywood Stock Exchange, where her portfolio currently stands at somewhere around $14.5 million. Says Holland, “That’s not a stock market, it’s a bunch of bullshit.”)
And around the staff box:
Not all the news is coming from the editorial departments, either:
- Kevin Fullerton was named Prooffer of the Week last week. Congradulations, Kevin. (By the way, neither he nor Cindy Widner, nor Kim Mellen, has ever been mentioned before in “Page Two.” Until now.
- There’s big news from the Database Team as well. Lindsey Simon announced that we’re in the process of upgrading our databases from Betrieve 5 to Betrieve 7, aka Pervasive SQL. That’s a product of Austin’s own Pervasive Software Inc. and Lindsey thinks that “maybe if we give them a plug for this convention they’ve got coming up [Oct. 10-13, with a keynote address by Douglas (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Adams], they’ll give us a break on the $900 conference registration fee.” Not likely.
- Eli Kouris might be getting a new car — Acura? Audi? — and says he used to date one of the Bush twins. The Politics department thinks he’s sweet on her, and he says maybe he’ll bring her to the office.
- Alison Linz-Bentley is in the hospital as we go to press. She was hit by a car, and has a compound leg fracture; we wish her a speedy recovery. On the plus side, she’s said to be enjoying the morphine.
- Daintry Orologio says she’s having post-partum depression; her son Devery is two months old.
- On the other hand,John McConnell‘s Labrador Retriever may be having puppies, even as we go to press; she should be comfy in her brand new whelping bed.
- Lee Nichols says that he can feel the tension mounting about the World Track and Field Championships (Aug. 21-29, Sevilla, Spain), but when I asked how this feeling manifests itself, he got all vague.
- A number of people around the office noted that we’ve been having frequent computer crashes on our network. Ron Nickell, our systems manager, has tracked the problem to a variant on the Y2K problem; he notes that, among the many different cultures worldwide, there are a large number of calendars in use, and “I don’t doubt that any one of them may be flipping over to a new year on any given day,” which could be causing the crashes. Ron also notes that he needs to find a band who needs a didjerido player.
Apart from that, common complaints around the office include the lack of available tennis courts, and of variety in sno-cones, and a “crisis in eligible single men in this town, and an overabundance of single women.” And Reno at the front desk asks, “Why do so many people call me because they don’t want to bother reading stuff in the paper?”
This article appears in August 6 • 1999 and August 6 • 1999 (Cover).