Cover Story
Let Him Entertain You
Why producer Charles Duggan is staging the biggest holiday spectacular Austin’s ever seen
Girl, What’s That Smell? Oh… 2009
The Top 9 events affecting the gay community in ’09
This Week’s Waste of Time
Didn’t your mother tell you not to play with your Internet browser
2009 ‘s Fab and Not So Fine
Top nine gay events of 2009.
Election Update, 12/29/09
Only two business days lefts to file
Hard-Boiled at B&N
Lou Berney to give reading from his new book ‘Gutshot Straight’
Take a Ride on the Wayback Machine with Atom Retro
Atom Retro picks your winkle
And Then There Were 71
Frank Corte latest longstanding Lege GOPer to step down
Richards Named Track & Field News Woman of Year
Quartermiler and two other Texas Exes get No.1 rankings
Bring on 2010!
…but please be gentle…
Sweet Relief
Vic Chesnutt RIP
Katz Going Ahead
Austin deli owner filing Friday for Dem lite guv race
Texies Into 2010
Texas Rollergirls’ schedule starting to fill out
Phases & Stages
Slayer’s World Painted Blood (American) album of the year? Find one more convincing. Like a soundtrack to cinematic year-high The Hurt Locker, the follow-up to 2006’s equally war-torn Christ Illusion (“Jihad”) issues a total armored response to its predecessor’s punker rototill. WPB rains lyric hooks and rhythmic breaks bursting at every turn from a jack-in-the-box…
A Decade Under the Influence
The Chronicle movie critics take a look back at what the Aughts wrought
The Rich, the Poor, and the AE Generation Plan
Social service groups weigh in on Austin Energy’s generation plan
The Young Victoria
The emotions of the teenage Princess Victoria (played by Emily Blunt) are the subject of this well-made palace tale.
A Decade Under the Influence
Agnès From Then to Now This is not a story about the marvels and muddles I have witnessed during the last decade of film production – the advances, setbacks, trends, and fashions that have paraded before my eyes over the past 10 years. This is, rather, a personal story about how with the conclusion of…
AE Programs for Those in Need
AE provides discounts, emergency assistance, free weatherization, and other programs for Austin’s low-income ratepayers
The Hightower Report
Weasels Undermine Ethics Reform; and Congress Coddles Credit-Rating Finaglers
A Decade Under the Influence
A Decade Under Unease “Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.” – Marlon Brando as the “unsound” Col. Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now “Disneyland? Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland!” –…
Austin Energy Generation Resource Planning Task Force Recommendations: An Excerpt
The task force set forth several recommendations addressing affordability issues or specifically targeting low-income ratepayers; those recommendations are excerpted here. 1c, iii) Austin Energy should pursue aggressive efforts to diversify its energy efficiency programs and extend the benefits of [demand-side management] throughout the community by … developing a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach for weatherization services and other…
TV Eye
Who might win what and why
A Decade Under the Influence
‘I’m Sorry I Beat Up the Bathroom’ I have a mind like a sieve. I confuse waking conversations with ones in my dream life. I’ve lost my wallet, my coat, my car keys too many times to count. My childhood might as well have happened to somebody else. So when tasked with summing up what…
HD 47: Playing Rough in GOP Primary
Workman goes negative on Turner
Konnichiwa, Austin!
Celebrating Japanese animation and pop culture at IkkiCon IV
DVDnds
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum Live (Time Life) A 9-DVD set totaling 1,443 minutes, or 24 hours, Time Life’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum Live boxes up everything the music business represents. Stupidly curated and packaged, exclusionary, and finally, musically genius – as in the rock & soul pioneers…
APD Dismissal: Religion, Incompetence … or Psychological Misconduct?
Forced resignation of officer raises questions about APD procedures
Photo Gallery
Meals on Wheels and More volunteer James Hart prepares the day�s lunch deliveries. The Meals on Two Wheels program is attracting a new generation of volunteers. James Hart delivers lunch to Ms. Trevi�o. Mobile Loaves & Fishes founder and President Alan Graham and friend. Tweet-happy MLFers (l-r) Alan Graham, Matt Freeman (of Austin Ridge Bible…
Forgotten Films Find a Home
Tim League talks about the newly formed American Genre Film Archive
The Hands That Feed
The groups that care for Austin’s hungry could sure use a few more helping hands
APD Implements Suggested ‘Action Items’
Acevedo agrees with all but four DOJ recommendations
The Penguin With the Pulitzer
Berkeley Breathed on putting Opus to bed and what comes next
Drink Texas This New Year
A guide to holiday boozing for the locavore
The Hands That Give
Her hands have opened doors, stirred pots, and flipped levers in voting booths. They’ve caressed, guided, and even disciplined a couple of generations of kids. Today, they tremble ever so slightly as she lifts the latch on the screen door. Her hands bear the test of time, weathered and lined with the proof of experience.…
A New Voice for the Waterfront
A new advisory group gets down to brass tacks
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Thomas Edison, hummingbirds, leaky toilets, and more
After a Fashion
Snuggies and Wal-Mart? What column are you reading?
Off the Record
The good, the bad, and the ugly: a look back at the year in Austin music
City Still Mired in Tires
Documents reflect management problems within Fleet Services
Event Menu
Your local list of foodie events
First Night Austin
This New Year’s Eve, why not join the throngs at this free arty party on the streets?
The Joy of Giving
Many thanks to the organizations and individuals who allowed me the opportunity to experience, firsthand, the very real effect of giving. So many of us struggle, and it is so difficult for individuals to find the time and extra dough to make a difference, but in my four months working on this piece, I learned…
The View From 21 Rio
Workers mourn and OSHA cites contractors in fatal accident
Food-o-File
Hot chocolate, indoor turkey frying, and more for the holidays
Austin Arts Groups
A dozen culture providers have been very nice, according to the NEA
Soccer Watch
Barcelona won the Club World Cup Saturday, beating Estudiantes, 2-1, on an overtime goal by World Player of the Year Lionel Messi. It’s Barcelona’s sixth major trophy of 2009; they’ve won Spain, Europe, the World, and all the available cups therein. If this is not the best team ever, at least this has been the…
Developing Stories: What to Do With Waterloo
Turning Waterloo Park into a beach – and other fanciful ideas
Restaurant Review
Carillon has the right staff, a perfect location in the center of town, and a talented young man at the creative helm
Arthouse
Arthouse Curator Elizabeth Dunbar finds a promotion under the tree
Point Austin: What History Teaches
There are different ways of counting social costs
Media Watch: Radio Waves
Station chiefs turn to meters to gauge listening habits
Phases & Stages
The Flaming Lips Embryonic (Warner Bros.) “There’s no way back, it’s complete devastation,” warns Wayne Coyne on “The Ego’s Last Stand,” opening the second act of epic Embryonic in the throes of a maddening bassline that pounds from the deepest, darkest recesses of a repressed psyche. After a decade whirling in the ecstatic thrall of…
Gay Place
Did you have waaaay tee many martoonies? Please get a ride.
City Hall Hustle: It All Costs Real Money
Historic zoning, affordable housing, recycling, firefighting … and laundry
Phases & Stages
Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Music From Kerouac’s Big Sur (Atlantic) Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur registers among the reluctant Beat standard-bearer’s most brutally aware works, seeking to escape the aftermath of iconification and confronting the destruction created by his alcoholism and isolation. Yet even Kerouac’s darkest howls and most…
Day Trips
The Centex Wing of the Commemorative Air Force fills a giant wooden hangar with vintage flying machines and memories
Res Publica
Citizens’ calendar, Dec. 24-27
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore have good reason to squeak: Girl chipmunks enter the picture.
Phases & Stages
Built to Spill There Is No Enemy (Warner Bros.) The nexus between Built to Spill’s emotive early years and the more spacious guitar constructions of its post-millennium output traces back to a rapturous 20-minute re-creation of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” on 2000’s Live. With seventh LP There Is No Enemy, leader Doug Martsch fully…
Arts Review
Changes to the long-running holiday revue give the show a fresh sparkle
Headlines
• Hark! In a special meeting Tuesday, the UT board of regents partially reversed course on a plan to develop the university-owned Brackenridge Tract for commercial use, deciding against relocating the UT biological field lab, meaning the 350-acre researchers’ paradise on Lake Austin will stay put. • Travis County commissioners on Tuesday postponed indefinitely a…
Sherlock Holmes
This movie reinvents the chilly, brainiac sleuth as a tortured genius and occasional backroom brawler, and Robert Downey Jr. almost makes the character work.
Phases & Stages
Clipse Til the Casket Drops (Columbia) Be it for fame, money, “Freedom” from record labels, or more coke, Pusha T and Malice were never short on hunger in the studio, flipping freakishly minimalist beats from the Neptunes into big love from critics and a cult following. With Til the Casket Drops, the Virginia Beach brothers…
Arts Review
A busted valentine of a show with five artists rendering the signals of wracked romance
Naked City
News briefs from Austin, the region, and beyond
It’s Complicated
Far from complicated, this rom-com starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin is a wish-fulfillment fantasy for women of a certain age.
Phases & Stages
Thao With the Get Down Stay Down Know Better Learn Faster (Kill Rock Stars) On 2008’s We Brave Bee Stings and All, San Francisco multi-instrumentalist Thao Nguyen was the quirky folk singer with stories about ice cream and hammers: metaphors for sexual frustration. On her sophomore KRS LP with the Get Down Stay Down, she…
Do the Right Thing
Call me Commissioner
Page Two: The Future Is Glacial
Revisiting change in rocky times
Nine
Quick. Put down that Victoria’s Secret catalog. More women in corsets are on display in this musical than on any lingerie catwalk in your dreams.
Luv Doc Recommends: Dale Watson’s Annual Christmas Show & Dance
Ideally by now the manic materialist melee of the Christmas shopping season is behind you. There may be a few last-minute convenience-store runs for retaliatory gifting, but hey, you can’t anticipate everything. It’s not realistic to expect gifts from your yoga teacher, your postal carrier, or the person who towels sweat off the equipment at…
