And it is … drumroll please! … Jennifer Gale. Oh well, shoulda seen this one coming. Gale just spoke during City Council's citizens communications period; in her alloted three minutes, she announced her intentions for 2009, and riffed a little on the race: "Who would be crazy enough to run for mayor of Austin? Mr. McCracken, Lee Leffingwell, do you know anyone crazy enough to run for mayor?" Hee hee hee! Planks of the Gale platform: "Asking that everyone carry a few quarters or dollar bills so we can hand them out to the homeless," and buying the Statesman from COX enterprises, so "we can make it our newspaper." Hey, the Hustle's on board with both. Gale also spoke to the national race: "People think Sarah Palin can't see the forest for the trees, but people don't realize she's from Alaska!"

Dress this one up in lipstick all you want, it's still gonna chap some asses out there.

Sarah Palin, McCain's incredibly eloquent running mate, has just made another enter-mouth-insert-foot comment. (Dinosaurs?) This one nailed gays. Palin was questioned by Katie Couric about her church offering a conference promoting the often-harmful conversion programs that claim to "pray away the gay."

[video-1] In this inaugural episode, we tackle the first presidential debate, the worldwide economic crisis and McCain's "suspended" campaign. It's all in a day for the Hustle.

The consensus among the crowds of bicyclists who've been turning out in greater numbers for the Critical Mass rides on the last Friday evening of each month – ranging from a handful of riders some nights to as many as 400 on others – is that they hit the streets for the fun of it, though many see the ride as an opportunity to make a statement about bikes' rights to the road. Debates have raged among cyclists as to whether the CM is counterproductive, and rides in Austin and bigger cities have historically met with police enforcement and seen violent confrontation with motorists. No such action took place on last Friday's ride, which was greeted by cheers as it meandered through the Austin City Limits Festival hysteria and met with looks of wonderment while pedaling past pre-tailgaters near the UT football stadium.

Democratic challenger Rick Noriega has pulled to within seven percentage points of Republican incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn – erm, maybe. Rasmussen Reports says that as of Sept. 29 Cornyn sits at 50% support in a poll of likely voters, with Noriega – a state representative from Houston – at 43%. Of course, as Newsdesk has noted previously, polling has been all over the place in this race, and we're not sure what to believe. Perhaps Rasmussen should use samples larger than 500 people. Just a thought, but hey, we're not professional pollsters, what do we know?

The Frenchman looked a little uneasy. He had, he explained, come to Missoula for two reasons. The first, to explore the highways of the American West at Mach speeds (back in the ‘90s, Montana had no designated speed limit); the second, he said, was to meet the crime novelist James Crumley. We had a laugh as Frenchy related how he had sped into Wyoming without seeing the signs – out of Montana and into the arms of the waiting highway patrol. Then my pal Charley marched him down the block to meet Crumley. James Crumley, who knew a thing or two about living hard and driving fast, died on Wednesday, Sept. 17. He was 68. He was born in Three Rivers, south Texas, but lived for nearly four decades in Missoula, Montana. A one-time member of the University of Montana writing faculty, he was a familiar sight in the local bars, and offered kind words of advice to this and nearly every other writer who sought him out. Crumley was most famous for his crime novels, which received mixed critical reviews. Regardless, his books were celebrated by legions of fans for their visceral violence (always moral, rarely gratuitous) and Jim’s fine way with words. No remembrance would be complete without quoting the opening from his 1984 classic, The Last Good Kiss. That indelible first line: "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."

Everybody's favorite chainsmoking, vest-wearing, Pulitzer prize-winning, Garbage Pail Kids-drawing, creatively neurotic and artistically groundbreaking Jew – Art Spiegelman, ladies and gentlemen! – brightens Pantheon's fall releases with a reissue (and reconsideration) of Breakdowns, his oversized and rare 1978 collection of experimental comix.

The original offered enough of the artist's weird graphic brilliance from the 70s to, like, blow your mind, man. This new edition's got all that, plus an illustrated introduction that runs for pages and pages to provide an autobiographical context for the original collection and an afterword that sums up the introduction, the original collection, the artist himself, and what makes comics worthwhile (and what it takes to make worthwhile comics). This vastly enhanced edition is subtitled Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@#*!, which is fucking hilarious, and it makes one wish that all young %@#*!s were this entertaining to read when they've gotten this old.

Photographers at big festivals are like field mice with short attention spans. It's a simple process: run to the stage, nod to the other photographers you've been bumping elbows with all weekend, shoot three songs, hop to the next stage. Repeat. My weekend at Austin City Limits Music Festival was a picture-taking workout with an awesome live soundtrack. I've finally cleaned the Zilker Park dust off my lenses, but it's still in my lungs. I'd like to talk to Jack White about the bass that's still trying to find its way out of my ear canal. Stages are high and up-the-nose shots are plentiful. I shot more than 30 bands, but only heard three songs from my two favorites – Against Me! and Jenny Lewis. The weekend is a blur and I didn't even drink. Click through the gallery for pictures I mostly don't remember taking.

I witnessed full or partial sets from about 25 bands during ACL this past weekend. Only a few stuck with me, though. Bands like Fleet Foxes, Nakia & His Southern Cousins, and Vampire Weekend seem derivative to a fault. Gogol Bordello was sweaty fun, but they really had only one song, which seemed to repeat joyfully yet endlessly. Louis XIV had this Kinks-meets-Sweet thing going on, but at least they didn’t seem to take themselves that seriously. And while in person Delta Spirit sounded much more like the Waterboys than they do on record, their goofy stage presence and soaring melodies saved them. Of course, the best part of ACL is discovering something new and wonderful and that happened with Jamie Lidell. His sound is oh-so-retro but his voice is sweet and clear enough to distance himself from the poseurs, and the light pouring out of him was pure and honest. I’m a sucker for sacred steel bands and Florida’s the Lee Boys didn’t disappoint with uplifting steel guitar and energy.