Recon report from Section B (Terragon Sector)—this is our account of a two-week trip to sow seeds of rebellion, revolution, insurrection, and insubordination across the power grid (posted in reverse order for your administrative perusal):

KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD



After a smooth plane ride into town, we may appear doughy and complacent, but rest assured, under our camouflage there are FANGS and CLAWS and POISON GLANDS. Juli in particular has the look of death in her eye.

This is an authority figure. Although he was initially confused by Juli’s snapshot, she sweetly waved at him and he put away his gun.



This is a denizen of Austin.



There are many denizens in Austin, some of whom have battle bikes equipped with a horned skull and some of whom do not. This pic was taken at Guero’s, where I had fish tacos and many beers and Juli had a quesadilla and many beers. This was a profoundly bad idea in hindsight when you consider all the Bonine we took for the plane ride. We decided to take a half-hour nap at the Motel 8 before going to Emo’s to see the Electric Six and ended up rousing ourselves from death-like slumber at 1am wondering what the hell happened. More on the Electric Six later…

This is an awful shot of the Whole Foods Super Duper Supermarket Extravaganza downtown.



Apparently, Whole Foods started in Austin, and this is corporate headquarters combined with a grocery store about the size of FIVE Sam’s Clubs put together. They had an entire AISLE of mushrooms, including fiddlehead ferns, which are allegedly edible (who knew?). You could also cut your own natural soap from a block the size of a filing cabinet. I want to live there, thank you very much.

After the first uneventful night at the Motel 8, we relocated our base of subversive activities to the Austin Motel.



This freak haven is directly off of South Congress, where we basically spent the remainder of our time in Austin goofing off, having an interview or two, and then goofing off some more. Our room was great and the entire place was quite funky.







Juli hit some shops as she is wont to do, while I took a nap, as I am wont to do. She came back to tell me that she found an antique shop right up my alley. Holy shit, was she ever right:



This place was CHOCK FULL o’ Freemasonry. All this weird paraphernalia is Oddfellows stuff from the early 1900’s. They also had books about pyramids and flying saucers, but everything was close to $100, which is about $96 more than I am willing to spend on things like that.









This was one of the houses directly behind the hotel.



Apparently, this fellow has traveled to the future, stolen my future truck, future house, and future occupation (we think he actually makes signs like the one next to his/my truck). I need to remember that I may have to fight this guy to the death in the future in order to reclaim the future as my own.

Gardening is odd here, though—I’m not sure if Beth would approve of rusty boxes for a lawn:



I continued to go crazy and find shamanic spirals in the walls of a coffee shop called the Green Muse (an obvious grail reference—check the poster):




We also decided that seeing as how we’re in the Live Music Capital of the World and I am quite a fan of the Live Music, we should actually go see some of the Live Music in the Live Music Capital of the World. The Continental Club was right across the street from our hotel, and we saw James Hand, who is a straight lunatic:



He says, “Thank you a lot” after every song. Go ahead and say that out loud: “Thank you a lot.” It’s just not right. Here is a sample of a James Hand song intro:

[Johnny Cash voice]“Well, thank you a lot, thank you a lot. Y’know, I don’t know why anyone would even want to come out and see me, I’m just a guy up on a stage. But back when no one knew me at all…”*face crumples up in teary emotion*“…these people here gave me a chance, and I thank them for that.”*deep breath*“Anyhoo, this is a song about a parakeet. 1, 2, 3, 4!”

And then the band would go right into it along with the best pedal steel guitar player I have ever heard and/or seen. I know it’s TX and all, but this guy was really outta sight.

This was our server, R.J. She stood about 6’4” in her boots, and is also a roller derby girl. She can beat up the rest of the planet simultaneously.



I walked into the bathroom and saw the typical punched-out mirror, feeling right at home.



So I go pee and check out the local stall graffiti, expecting to find stuff like “Kinky Friedman sucks a fat one” or “TX cops can go to Hell” or “Don’t look here for a joke, the joke’s in your hand”. Instead I find this:



These people seriously love their town.

The next morning, we did the hangover breakfast at Magnolia Café, which has an incredible dish called Love Migas. Migas is apparently a Mexican thing where you take your scrambled eggs, add a bunch of garlic along with other omelet-type ingredients, and then either add chopped tortillas or wrap the entire mess in said tortilla. I know that sounds just like a breakfast burrito, but it’s not, because it’s Mexican. Or maybe Tex-Mex. Or something.
Magnolia Café also has extremely cool artwork.



Here is a squinty-eyed impersonation of Clint Eastwood, just to let y’all know I’m keepin’ it real:



Also, we climbed Mount Bonnell (all of 99 steps) to catch a view of the city. Big effing whoop:



But we did still manage to look cute together.



Me like tree.



Me take bookjacket picture with tree.



So that was Austin. Weird, funky, and comfortable enough to let dudes wear dresses in the middle of Texas.