There's nothing like watching a candidate trying the "I'm just like you, the common voting hoi poloi" schtick when pandering for votes. Ever since Sen. Barack Obama's 'bitter' comment, Senators Hillary "I loves me a Crown Royal" Clinton and John "I heart Bush's tax breaks for billionaires" McCain have been feigning the common touch. Now for years, the king of adopted down-home-isms has been the commander in chief himself. Look at him now, clearing brush. Here's another photo op … of him clearing brush. He has a ranch, you know! But according to Waco's KWTX, Pres. George W. Bush won't actually be retiring to his ranch in Crawford. No, turns out that the Connecticut Cowboy will actually be spending his twilight years in Dallas. Hey, maybe he still has a box at Rangers Ballpark. Now far be it from Newsdesk to suggest that Dubya bought the Prairie Chapel ranch in 1999 (just before his presidential run) to remake this Andover-educated Yaley Skull and Bonesman as scrub-clearing reg'lar folks for the press. That point is made with greater force by the population of Crawford in the documentary called, erm, Crawford, which debuted at SXSW this year. Many of them saw through the stage act years ago.

The Madness is over, and the NBA playoffs take a long while. You want more basketball, but there's none left in Austin. Well, you're wrong. Because this Saturday at the Austin Convention Center, the Austin Toros are hosting an NBA D-League playoff game for the first time in franchise history. And if you think there's no reason to get tickets because there's not enough talent on the floor? You're dead wrong. Let me tell you why.

What are you looking for in a basketball game. Talent, competitiveness, and experience perks, right? Here's why the game this Saturday has all those things.

With Jakob Dylan & the Gold Mountain Rebels following in the footsteps of last year’s headliner Bob Dylan, the rest of the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival, September 26-28 in Zilker Park, is suiting up. While there are still a number of high profile veteran artists (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, David Byrne), the lineup, announced today, is dominated by alternative staples (Foo Fighters, Beck, the Mars Volta, Iron & Wine, Gnarls Barkley), right down to the local delegates (White Denim, the Strange Boys, Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears). OTR is personally stoked to see Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band, M. Ward, and Gillian Welch on the same bill, along with Spiritualized, Band of Horses, and Antibalas. View the whole lineup after the jump.

He looked certifiable at the time, but Ol' Dirty Bastard now sounds prophetic rushing the stage at the 1998 Grammys to tell the world, “Wu-Tang is for the children.” Like all misunderstood geniuses, ODB was simply ahead of his time. A decade later, a generation who grew up on the Wu’s poisonous paragraphs is pushing 30 (holler!), and three decades after the birth of hip-hop, Rev Run is known more for his parenting skills. It was inevitable: hip-hop for babies. This month saw the release of Dino 5, a concept album dreamed up by legendary producer Prince Paul. Five rapping dinosaur kids start a hip-hop band to play in the school talent show and, of course, teach life lessons along the way. Don’t cringe yet, check the lineup: Chali 2Na of Jurassic 5 as MC T-Rex; Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets as Tracy Triceratops; Wordsworth as Billy Brontosaurus; Scratch from the Roots as Teo the Beatboxing Pterodactyl; and Prince Paul as DJ Stegosaurus. Now that’s a supergroup!

The away season for the Texas Rollergirls got off to a stunning start in Houston in Sunday. Austin's own Hell Marys defeated the Psych Ward Sirens 126-83 at the April Annihilation bout at the Verizon Wireless Theater. That has to be good news for the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers, who will be heading down U.S. 290 on May 18 to face the Bayou City Bosse$. Boss by name, boss by nature: Sunday night, the Houstonians took down the Burlesque Brawlers 75-37, and handed the Machete Betties a 113-76 beating in the March season opener. Also, expect the Texecutioners to be scouting that bout: they'll be tightening up their road wheels to face HaRD Knocks, the Houston travel team, on July 13.

Has the Republican Party of Texas just inadvertently come out for Sen. Hillary Clinton? Sure looks that way. In a press release entitled "Ciro Rodriguez Should Step Up to the Plate: Time for Democratic Superdelegate to Say Whom He Supports", Texas GOP spokesman Hans Klingler tries to make more hay out of the Sen. Barack Obama 'bitter' comments by pressuring the Congressional Democrat. In it, the GOP flack said "Congressman Rodriguez can either choose to uphold the very ideals his fellow Texans believe in or he can continue to cater to Obama’s elitist attitude.” If Klingler is saying that Rodriguez should dump Obama, then isn't he saying that he should go with Clinton? Doubt she's going to be too happy about that implied endorsement. What's really funny is that, in his 'edited highlights' of Obama's speech, Klingler adds on another little-reported paragraph, where Obama said that American voters increasingly "take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.” Erm. Isn't that the platform that most of the GOP has been running on since Nixon?

The last time I saw the inside of Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio was in January of 1970. I was being shown the front doors, suspended for organizing girls to wear pants to school in protest of the dress code that said girls couldn’t wear pants. Given the height that skirts were reaching then, pants seemed a more modest alternative but that wasn’t my rationale. I believed we were being discriminated against. It seems so silly now, forbidding girls to wear pants to school, but it was a big deal then, what with liberation movements popping up left and right. Of course, my high school used “Rebel Rouser” as its fight song, we flew the Dixie flag, the band played “Dixie” at football games, and Johnny Reb was the school mascot. Those symbols are gone with the old dress code. I found that out last Friday, arriving for the dedication of the new library and its 50th anniversary. Why I was even going when my teen years were so full of rebellion against school is combination of rosy sentiment, a desire to show “them” I’d done something with my life. Still, driving into the parking lot by the familiar red brick buildings, my stomach shrank and my mouth dried up. It had been almost forty years since that was my life and here it was, in the school colors of red and gray once again.

Nothing like a Monday noontime bombshell to kick off the week. South by Southwest Film Festival announced today that SXSW Film Festival Producer Matt Dentler will be moving on to the cement pastures of NYC, where he'll head the marketing and programming operations of Cinetic Digital Rights Management, a film sales agency founded by indie powerhouse attorney John Sloss, among others. SXSW didn't have to look far for his replacement: Local film fixture Janet Pierson takes over the reins. Along with her husband John Pierson, Janet has been an instrumental figure in independent film; more recently, she's been heavily involved with the Austin Film Society. Able hands, to be sure, but we're sorry to see Matt go. A savvy programmer, an artful networker, and a champion of quality films that otherwise might never have found a home, Matt stewarded SXSW Film into a new era – not just of relevance, but of international recognition. We wish him the best of luck.

So are are really starting to ramp up our online contests and we are looking for new ways to get you what you want. We now have three different chances to win something cool.
1. be our facebook friend and keep an eye out for our notes
2. be our myspace friend and keep an eye out for our bulletin posts
3. check out our contest page (www.austinchronicle.com/contests) Each option can have different prizes or their own set segment of the original prize. Of course the contest page on our website has the most and coolest stuff but we will constantly have other stuff to give out through these other social networks. Keep checking back and you could be the next winner. Hugs and Kisses!