This column is about not just missing the forest for the trees, but about being so confused by the trees without the context of the forest that you are not just dim but lost. It’s about stepping on a $100 bill to pick up a dime. Those visitors to Austin who end up outsmarting themselves by going to a chain barbecue joint rather than Iron Works because the latter is too close to the Convention Center so it must be “touristy” are covered here as well. It’s about ignoring what is in front of you because you are way too worried that there might be something better happening somewhere else that you are missing.
This is an area where I specialize, very rarely dealing with what I should be, rarely focusing on what is in front of me when there is the much more scattered approach of entertaining a range of disconnected worries, interests, and concerns. Gifted by being able to attend some extraordinary events and blessed by uniquely wonderful opportunities, usually, instead of feeling appreciation or gratitude, I’m wrapped up in wondering what I’m missing elsewhere. I’ve never claimed that I am unusually observant or demonstrate much awareness of what is going on around me. But even at my densest, I’ve always been well aware how fortunate I’ve been – in what I’ve had access to and with what I’ve been involved.
Last week’s column was about the passing of Robin Shivers. There was no way to be honest about how great and important she was (and is and will be) without going on at great length about the unique and special place that is Austin, Texas. Robin was a leader; she coordinated, provided a support system, and translated social graces, as well as playing the role of a caste and class diplomat who offered help across the board to so many. Both before I wrote the piece and after it was published, any number of people have come up to me to share one Robin moment or another.
I’ve long walked point for this publication, being the first one to take fire or stumble on booby traps. On top of that, in this column I’ve sometimes drifted into free-form discussions about myself that are excruciatingly oversincere. I know that when part of a piece is praise and appreciation for modern Austin, there is going to be incoming hostility – reactions offered in rebuttal to any such statement.
In general, offering praise or any kind of optimistic outlook requires some built-in defensive strategies from the very start.
Over time, I’ve discovered that it is far better to agree with criticisms and charges leveled at oneself, no matter what their focus, than to try to argue.
Now I respond, “You are so right, so brilliantly on target.” Right off, I agree that “Yes, Austin sucks,” “the Chronicle sucks,” and “I suck.” Not only do I suck, but it’s also my fault that Austin has gone to hell, that it’s become yuppified, that the music scene has gained an international reputation, and that any particular band hasn’t been signed.
I’m to blame for whatever the Chronicle is, regardless of what that is exactly, whether it is “too mainstream,” “too radical,” “too much about Austin,” “not enough about Austin,” and so on. Each and every one of those charges, even if contradictory, is true.
When questioned about some of Alex Jones’ comments about me that seem grounded in no reality, I’ve even taken to agreeing with them. Remember, Jones is a self-anointed Truth Master who, along with Bill O’Reilly, is a sage offering not opinions but the truth! So if you ask, I’ll tell you, “My real name is not really Louis Black, but I’m not sure exactly what it is.”
Last week, there was no way I was going to offer up a proactive defense – that old, insincere, please-don’t-hit-me two-step. Self-effacement is fine, but I’m not about to feign belief in crap or pledge to any inadequacy when it comes to Robin. She deserves being honored, not demeaned; she deserves the best and no cheap disservice done to her.
I find my affection for and gratitude toward Robin constantly surprising, because she was so wonderful and unique. She was many things, including private and modest. She was also widely loved and never forced to travel alone.
Austin is unique. It was not better two decades ago or three. It was cheaper, and it was easier to get around, but it was not better. Many of the people who work the hardest to keep this town’s integrity intact and its creativity ever unfolding are rarely given any credit. Instead, they are far more likely to be offered criticism than compliments. It is a terrible irony that more often than not most public response in Austin is in the negative.
But the “this town sucks” tirades are especially annoying, because they indicate more about the attitudes of those speaking them than they do about Austin. There is a real sense that even if those expressing those opinions were here back in the day, their comments wouldn’t have been positive then and are glowing now only because such sentiments strengthen their current contempt.
I don’t understand why anyone who hates a place doesn’t just move somewhere else. This is not to say, “love it or leave it.” I’m neither demanding nor suggesting that anyone be made to leave here forcibly or in any other way. But why, if you hate a place, would you continue to live there? Some will claim that they can’t afford to move, but that is nonsense. It’s easier to travel when you’re already living close to the ground.
This is not specific to Austin, but the city’s extensive and overlapping creative communities can be in situations that are qualitatively situated between symbolic, flaming white light and late-night, sleep-devouring, burning flames of hell.
The way the community pulls and works together to solve problems and be proactive on issues marks the former. The sometimes-present tension between nonprofits reveals the circumference of the latter.
Not just often but routinely, it seems that some of the most vehement and difficult internal conflicts within these different communities are over the smallest issues.
I think that to this day I’ve never witnessed anything as ugly as the great art wars in the early to mid-Eighties. The discussion and tensions were over how to divide funding for the arts community. The larger, established entities thought they should get most of the money because they served more people and needed more money. The smaller groups felt the city needed to be committed to artists at every level.
The problem is that reasonable disagreements such as those, more often than not, devolve into irrational disputes. The art wars were vicious and insane.
A nonprofit I’m marginally connected to went through a rough summer. Again, this is because the same thinking one now finds in politics has saturated public discourse. It seems that there is no longer such a thing as principled disagreement. These controversies are not between two hostile groups but rather among those in one extended community made up, across the board, of well-intentioned people who share mostly common goals.
Now, instead of discussion and compromise, it seems necessary to cast aspersions and offer damning innuendo against those with whom you disagree. Lest I appear as though I believe I’m riding on some white horse here, I note that, unfortunately and regrettably, in the beginning of the controversy referenced above, I personally and mistakenly offered ugly and unnecessarily vicious criticisms of some of those opposed to what was being planned. There is no way to take it back now, but I’ve witnessed (and participated in spreading) too much vitriol in a disagreement within a large community that not only has similar and shared goals but has worked together harmoniously to achieve those goals over many years.
The decision sparking this controversy was not made lightly but instead was an economic necessity, agreed upon after a lot of consultation with professionals about the project’s economic health and long-term viability.
A decision was made because it seemed the absolute surest way to guarantee the ongoing existence of the project. The point of contention was over a short-term problem. Long-term plans that will solve any problems over the next five years have already been negotiated and are in place.
Raising questions about all of this is not only legitimate but welcome. Doing so in an accusatory tone – especially when directed at the very people who have donated so much time and energy to the project without expecting or receiving any compensation in return – is not only unnecessary but has been hurtful.
I responded to one of the letters blasting the organization by asking: “Now did you ever write and thank those folks who, time and time again, solved problems? Did you write the people who do not work in the field (thus generating no income from it) but still invested time, energy, and money in making the project happen and remain viable? One way or another it doesn’t matter. None of them did what they did for kudos; they did it out of a sense of community commitment and spirit. …
“Continuing to promote a hostile, divisive tone among all of those who for years have been working together to improve the city is going to make things easier in the future how exactly?”
My life has been ridiculously blessed, but I’ve always managed to ignore that reality. My main and longest-lived hobby has been self-pity. I pride myself on having practiced it with a sophisticated level of complexity, if in no other way than by embracing all contradictions, rather having any of them shorn. The more the self-pity is removed from any reality – the less it is instigated by financial, creative, emotional, and personal problems – the more it has no catalyst: lacking any cause that could be described or explained, in many ways the more perfect the self-pity.
It takes a lot of integrity and morally restricted vision to feel sorry for oneself despite a slew of real and mitigating circumstances that argue against that. I like to call this “character.” Most everyone else calls it whining – that’s if they are paying any attention at all.
This column is really a Part II to last week’s Part I. Next week will be Part III (on comic books)!
Congratulations to staff writer Marc Savlov on being christened by Hollywood-snark site Defamer, working off some Metacritic-based statistics in Web magazine Miller-McCune, as “the meanest critic in America.” The staff could not be prouder of him.
This article appears in November 13 • 2009.