Texas Welcome Center

1) In Texas there are different speed limits at night.

2) Texas has bats, a lot of bats.

3) Animatronic versions of dead U.S. presidents are creepy

4) It is not impossible to eat an entire Don Juan, just painful and delicious.

5) The Dizzy Rooster crossed the street to get to the Chuggin’ Monkey.

6) Showtime only shows terrible movies…

Defining Song(s)

Modest Mouse- “Custom Concern”

Special Thanks to…

JHicks for the lodging… and Milwaukee for always giving us its best…

1) Mississippi is pronounced (mis-sippi)

2) Waffle Houses are amazing. And in certain parts are even called Huddle Houses. The difference is apparently mostly in price, similar to a TGI Friday’s / Ruby Tuesday comparison. You can also park at Waffle House when trying to avoid parking fees.

3) Motel 6 employees are not allowed to take anything from your motel room. It must be donated to Salvation Army and a receipt of the transaction kept.

4) Mississippi is the “magnolia” state and not the “hospitality state” though it was once used on their license plates.

5) There are really people that talk like Boomhauer (from King of the Hill)

Defining Song

Britney Spears “Hit Me Baby One More Time…”

Special Thanks to…

JJ’s in Meridian for giving us directions… and Darryl owner of Ptolemy’s in Starkville

Guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn overlooks downtown Austin

Monday morning I awoke for my first full day of exploring Austin, Texas and all of it’s related activities.

12:00 pm

My first stop was a statue erected in honor of one of the men who helped make Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World,” a claim it backs up with two annual music festivals and of course a massive statue to Texas blues gunslinger Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Four years after his death, the city commissioned this bronze statue of Vaughan which overlooks Auditorium Shores, a scenic park that houses many afternoon joggers, dog-walkers, and a free stage at Austin’s annual SXSW. The park is easy to find and offers free parking, so for any music fan, the statue is a must. Though in Austin there remained a lot more to be seen for this traveler.

A collage of LBJ buttons...

1:15 pm

After a bit of traversing through the winding highways of downtown Austin, I finally found the elusive exit 240B accompanied by a sign for The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. This museum dedicated to our 36th president houses four floors of memorabilia and oddball collections with everything from trivialities like his trademark stetson hat and campaign pins (seen left) to ceremonial ivory tusks and life-sized animatronic of LBJ himself.

Among the regular attractions at the exhibit were also a brand new showcase (which runs through January of next year) dedicated to the recently deceased Walter Cronkite. The exhibit features a 15 minute CBS flashback film in one of the museums viewing areas as well as collections of his old business cards (below),

WC's business cards

signature tobacco pipe, and kitschy desk ornaments. Also fun fact one of his nicknames is “Old Iron-pants” though the exhibit fails to elaborate on its exact origin. The Museum is free of charge and open to the public daily from 9am-5pm (everyday but Christmas), and also provides free parking and great scenic view of the UT @ Austin campus.

2:30 pm

After the my small foray into touristy activities I decided to skip out on both the George Washington Carver Museum and the O Henry Museum having eaten far too much peanut butter lately to be fully appreciative of

Oh Henry!

the former and entirely too unaware of the latter’s published work (seen with awesome mustache to the right). Instead I opted to go back to the hotel for some organizational fun, but not before I resolved to stop at both the local Salvation Army Family Store and the adjoining Goodwill. Since my visit to Hatbox in downtown Austin my thirst for Cowboy garb had become unquenchable. And since the $80 felt and leather hats at the “modern haberdashery” were far outside my budget I decided to do some low-end shopping. Sadly there were no Cowboy hats, fedoras, or any headgear that wasn’t leftover from a company picnic in the mid 1980′s however I was able to spy an excellent pair of mid-lower leg high black cowboy boots. Though despite the alluring pricetag ($2) they were at least one-size too small to be too small to begin with. So sadly I return to my Extended Stay America hotel empty-handed.

6:30 pm

Shortly after 6 o’clock me and my Austin compatriot Justin Hicks ventured out of the hotel in order to grab some grub. This unfortunately led us to Church’s Chicken a sort of Southern version of both KFC and Popeye’s. For $15 we were able to get 1o pcs. of chicken (thighs and legs, all dark meat) as well as two sides (mac ‘n cheese, mashed potatoes) and four biscuits. Overall the chicken wasn’t bad, it was moist, though admittedly I’m not a dark chicken fan. Though I was perhaps least impressed by the biscuits which fall far short of the scrumciousness and flakiness scale (both important biscuit judging scales).

7:30-10:30 pm

One of Austin’s most bizarre tourist attractions (and perhaps most well known, hitting a high #1 on their the

Austin home of America's largest urban bat colony

city’s travel brochure) is the city’s large population of bats. Here is a little info on the bats from the great travel blog Places 2 Explore – The Congress Avenue Bridge spans Town Lake in downtown Austin and is home to the largest urban bat colony in North America.  The colony is estimated at 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats.   Each night from mid-March to November, the bats emerge from under the bridge at dusk to forage for food.

Arriving at 7:30 we found ourselves at a crowded bridge full of onlookers complete with solicitors selling everything from light-up swords to bottles of water, and from there, we pretty much waited. And waited. And waited. Until there was no one left. And there were only a few bats fluttering here and there. Talking to one of the locals we heard that it was rumored that the bats (who usually begin the show at dusk) had taken to exiting later this year (around 10PM) although on this night they didn’t exit at all (that we say). Though there is no word on whether this is a result of the B.P. oil spill, Barack Obama, America’s general godlessness or the bat’s ongoing contract negotiations with the Bulls, Heat, Knicks, Nets, and of course long shot Cleveland.

Filed under: Road Trip 2010 Tagged: austin, austin bats, bats, church's chicken, LBJ, LBJ library, Lyndon B. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, O Henry, Stevie Ray Vaughan, texas, University of Austin, Walter Cronkite

Rating: 2 / 5

This morning while flipping through the channels at my hotel, I made a choice that surprised myself. I opted out of watching CNN’s live feed of gushing oil and ESPN’s morning updates (figuring it couldn’t be that different from the same highlights last night) and stumbled toward my complimentary Showtime channels. Okay so it was 9 a.m. and my only two options were Dolph Lundgren’s 1980′s He-Man Movie, and An American Carol.

Now even as someone who follows movie developments closely (new Dune movie yeah!) I’ll admit that I had heard very little of this film, and it seems for very good reason. After about 5 minutes of watching Kevin P. Farley (Chris’ younger brother) bop around as a pinheaded anti-American Michael Malone, a straight satire (that would be too much of compliment perhaps) of film director Michael Moore, I quickly changed the channel. However something intrigued me about the movie and I kept going back. Perhaps it was it’s airplane style slapstick humor that followed through every scene, particularly with the inept terrorist characters with deadpan lines like “Its is getting harder and harder to find suicide bombers. All the really good ones are gone,” or maybe it was just too early to fully appreciate Dolph Lundgren’s chiseled pectorals.

So I did what any person would do, I wikipedia-ed the movie, and was a bit surprised to find out that the movie wasn’t a low-budget knockoff of the great spoof-masters, but directed by David Zucker himself. Slowly I began to stopped switching back and forth and put He-Man to rest for another time, not because An American Carol was good, but because as a critic it seemed to require my attention. It’s not that An American Carol wasn’t funny (admittedly it was at parts), the terrorist training videos were offensive and hilarious in the old Zucker way, even Kelsey Grammar seemed to be having fun marching the caricatured liberal director through an ‘A Christmas Carol’ type parody, it’s just that the jokes didn’t have a point. And the Zucker brand of comedy, well at it’s best, reveled in pointlessness.

Even more surprising was the long list of cameos with actors as diverse as Jon Voight and Gary Coleman coming out of the woodwork for particularly unfunny cameos. Here’s an example scene. It features Jon Voight as George Washington giving a very bland and overly preachy speech. What passes is over two minutes of film during which largely all the jokes fall flat if there are any at all, a real disappointment as Zucker has always been best when keeping things fast and irreverent.

However that said the movie does manage a few laughs. Malone’s visit to the college campus and a great satirical bit about Good Night and Good Luck, which has a spoof-version of the director accepting his award with the speech “Thank you. I dedicate this award to all the courageous filmmakers who take on tough issues like, well, McCarthyism, even though it no longer exists. Or like slavery or Nazism, even though they ended too.”

This an example of how the Zucker brand works best. This line is quick and sharply barbed and even though the point does lie to one side of the thought spectrum, it doesn’t offend, or even if it does, it certainly doesn’t become heavy handed. However when piled on one after another, as the jokes here are on liberalism, it just becomes too much and bogs the film down in preachiness.

This materializes best perhaps in Bill O’Reilly’s cameo. I’ll even admit that his one line was funny. It’s just that smartass smile he gets while saying it, like he knows hes acting, that sums up the whole movie. Everyone here is really happy to be on film, and very happy to be making fun at the American left, which is all well and good. However Mr. Zucker should’ve taken notes from the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and actually remember to be funny. Because throughout most of this film, it was as bad as watching reels of Airplane crashes while on a plain.

Found this after parking my car on 18th Street downtown Birmingham, Alabama near Kelly Ingram Park. It’s really the details that make the presentation of this business so awkward. I don’t really want to ask what kinds of services are provided here. Though further research on the Huggs and Kisses “Alternative Care for the Mildly Ill Child” seems to suggest that it is in fact a daycare though they also don’t seem to have a website to clear up any of these speculations…

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello wigs out on stage...

Rating: 6.5

Gogol Bordello are perhaps one of the weirder bands to gain a widespread influence over the last decade, doing so with some good old-fashioned touring muscle and word of mouth. In fact even I was surprised upon hearing that after almost 10 years and all the major American festivals that have embraced the New York band, “Trans-Continental Hustle” represents Gogol Bordello’s first formal studio album. The new release comes off of Rick Rubin’s American Recordings (once again the bard shows his infinite good taste.)

However the album (CD sounds so old-fashioned) plays as if Gogol Bordello are already well-introduced to the masses (one could even argue that perhaps they are) avoiding the all out brashness of their 2007 album “Super Taranta” with more emphasis on melodies and softer sing-a-longs. It could be said that “Trans-Continental Hustle” is the Gogol Bordello’s Spanish album, though this would hold no more merit than the fact that Elephant was similarly dubbed as the White Stripes’ “British album,” this brand of music journalist mumbo-jumbo only serves to convey one fact, on this record Hutz inserts many Spanish words and references, though this is worth noting as the band have always deliberately attempted to throw off any characterization to a specific region/genre.

Beginning with “Pala Tute” which starts with some low strumming and hand-patted drums, the opening track lulls you before the delicately strummed verse escalates, and a rising harmony leads you straight into the knock-over-the-chairs-and-table style rock and roll that Gogol Bordello have built a career off of. Heavy on the strings, always underlined by strong guitar strumming and of course over-layed with Hutz’s rambling mumbo-jumbo that often doesn’t appear to mean anything at all.

“My Compenera” and “Sun on My Side” keep the beginning of the album tempered, delaying the band’s noisy assault for later tracks. Though it’s surprising how well “Sun on My Side” works given Hutz’s lyrical nonsense “walk the Earth in lonesome cry/ but when the sun comes up / when the sun come up / it will be on your side” before blowing the track like a subtle breeze straight into a chorus of Gypsy gibberish. Though it would be hard to argue that the track doesn’t convey a strong idea of the emotion it attempts to categorize.

“Rebellious Love” is one of the albums best tracks finally upping the ante with the tempo increasing to the usual Gogol levels, the bass leading the 1,2 drive that keeps Gogol fans feet constantly tapping or at least jutting out at odd angles like they were at a crazy Baltic wedding. With the next track “Immigraniada (We Coming Rougher)” finally driving all the runners home out of the fifth spot, with a killer bass line and a speed that hits so hard precisely because of the wait.

Overall, the album shows that if nothing else Gogol Bordello are becoming more aware of their skills and most of these tracks seamlessly meld into one another and serve to create a full-album feel. Sure signs that the band is coming of age and is not relying on their gimmicky nature (I mean no offense by this) that they rode to prominence on. Though what’s disappointing about “Trans-Continental Hustle” is that like it’s predecessor “Super Taranta!” it leaves behind the band’s earlier more hip-hop, space-rock leanings like “Tribal Connection” and some earlier songs that I can’t recall the names of… (googling)…

Still a very solid Gogol Bordello album, Gogol fans will love it, and even still a few more might pick up the gypsy punk torch on the way.

Pete Rizzo can be reached for comment @ prizzo33@gmail.com

I suppose at other times this could be a very accurate street sign as well…

If you’ve ever spent time driving around the southern states you’ve seen the inviting red and white coloring and perhaps goofy smiling bear that signal a Shoney’s restaurant. If you have, perhaps you’ve stopped in and said to yourself ‘hey this is very similar to a Friendly’s.’ If not, you’re probably not from the Northeast, where this highly similar restaurant with a highly similar color scheme runs rampant.

After ordering the ‘Slim Jim,’ one of the menu’s self-described ‘favorites/classics’ I waited fifteen minutes to find out that Shoney the bear, was out of ham. So far, very Friendly’s. Even the decor with the plastic benches and tables are reminiscent of Friendly’s, however Shoney’s does offer one nice feature, an unlimited salad bar, and bottomless coffee, the later which came in handy when leaving Tennessee in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

After a while, my waitress cleared up the sandwich issue and I instead ordered the Turkey Club, which was very similar to many turkey clubs that i’ve had in my time. However the waitstaff was in general very informative and caring, even comp-ing part of my meal due to the earlier mix-up. Though I’m afraid I was still left with a rather bitter taste after my extended stay at Shoneys, or maybe that was just the several cups of coffee (and a to-go cup to boot).

G.K. Chesterson, the 1800's answer to Jonah Hill

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.”  ~G.K. Chesterton

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Yesterday whilst wasting away a very beautiful Floridian afternoon indoors, and inspired by having just seen the stellar new Coen Brothers film “A Serious Man,” I decided to re-watch the Coen’s critically ignored 2004 film, “The Ladykillers.” Starring Tom Hanks and a deep cast of character actors including Marlon Wayans, Stephen Root and Spiderman’s J. Jonah Jameson J.K. Simmons (among others), The Ladykillers is a remake of the 1955 Alec Guinness (aka Obi-Wan Kenobi) movie of the same name.

The Ladykillers is certainly not one of the Coen’s best, and with a resume like theirs thats not exactly an insult, especially when compared to their late 90′s and late 00′s flourishes. However it fits well in their “period piece” phase, a kind of kooky sibling to the much more well rounded “O Brother Where Arth Thou?” However those two movies share a few common aesthetics, a time-specific soundtrack, and smooth-talking bad men protagonists among them.

Tom Hanks shines as Professor G.H. Dorr, a certain type of “smooth criminal,” with a dashing dress code, and southern charm. The plot begins when Dorr shows up at the door of a nice old lady named Marva Munson. What follows is a slapstick caper about the heist of a casino boat and ineptitude of the bank robbers. Hanks handles the Coen’s verbose dialogue with an adeptness of tongue, which for the first half of the movie remains its strongest asset. As most of the early scenes only serve to set up the later ones.

However once the Ladykiller’s get going the later scenes play with almost a picture perfect clarity of both character action, and cinematic flow. Each line carrying the maximum comedic effect and each situation entirely believable despite it’s unlikeliness.

Overall though you could do a lot worse than “The Ladykillers” if you have a few hours to kill, I tried, falling asleep through about 15 minutes of the preachy quasi-intellectual lecture that was “Waking Life.” And while certainly not the Coen’s best, it stands alongside “Burn After Reading” as a tight-nit escape worthy of your watching eyes.