Gathering together at restaurants and bars to wile away the night with booze and food used to be a
way of life at the Chronicle. Wages were meager but there was always
some trade account where we could eat and drink, charging it to the
Chronicle. There would be almost regular gatherings the day an issue
came out. In those days, though, our life was the Chronicle and the
Chronicle was our life. If trade balances ran high, as they often did,
then we would eat and drink; it was one of the perks. In the earliest days we
would fill a table or two but gradually we grew to take up more and more of
whichever institution we were visiting. Our mainstays were the Texas Chili
Parlor and the Hole in the Wall, though we had a glorious run at a short-lived
campus bar called Uncle Su-Su’s where drinks were served in quart jars. There
we got too drunk, talked too much, saw the Butthole Surfers for the first time
and had crushes on the bartender. Actually, this description, in one way or
another, fits all the places we frequented.
As the staff grew larger, gradually these excursions became more and more
impractical. I remember one gathering at the Hole in The Wall, which began with
three tables joined together, ending with almost every table in the bar shaped
together in some twisted snake-like configuration. Eight or 10 people gorging
out (filling our maws, as it were) was one thing. 20, or 30 or 40, something
else.
Over the last years, that social nature of the Chronicle has, by
necessity, changed. There are more staff, more families, more people.
Occasionally, we still gather to cook hot dogs and play volleyball in our
backyard, only now a couple of hundred people show up and our backyard is four
empty lots.
The other evening our fulltime staff — with one guest apiece — dined
together at the Granite Cafe in honor of our 15th anniversary. (Coincidental
to the staff dinner, Rebecca Chastenet de G�ry reviewed the Granite Cafe
for this issue. She was not present at the staff dinner.)We completely
filled the restaurant. There was wine rather than quart drinks. There were
companions, and dates rather than just Chronicle staff, and salmon and
pork loin instead of reality sandwiches and chili burgers. There were two
vegetarian choices, because so many of the staff lean in that direction. The
party didn’t get as dangerous as they used to get regularly, but to those of us
who had been there, this was an extraordinary relief.
Everyone was talking, visiting each other, eating, drinking, and always more
talking. It wasn’t like it once was; it will never be that intimate and
immediate again, thank god. It was more mature, less desperate… in a way,
richer and calmer. There was the innate sense of people who enjoyed working
together and knew and were comfortable doing the jobs that needed to be done.
We didn’t look forward to the next 15 years (especially when Nick Barbaro
kindly pointed out that by then, I would be 60), so instead we drank to the
indefinite future, the next few issues of the Chronicle, the next few
weeks, the next few years, (would it be too tacky to quote Bob Dylan here, who
once pointed out that those not busy being born are busy dying?). We drank to
the paper, the staff that puts it out, and the city that reads it.
No more cheap nostalgia, only the expensive, endless kind, but a revitalized CinemaTexas is back showing
films on campus. A graduate student-run film society of that name was where a
gang including Nick Barbaro, Marjorie Baumgarten, original Chronicle
founding editor Ed Lowry (now deceased), game wizard Warren Spector, and
myself first met.
This new incarnation is showing an impressive schedule of student films at UT
beginning Thursday evening, Sept 26; for more info, see Jen Scoville’s story on
page 46 or call 471-6659.
Restaurant Poll time, be sure to vote. This is your chance to check in on one
of Austin’s favorite topics: food. n
This article appears in September 27 • 1996 and September 27 • 1996 (Cover).