The Armadillo Podcast

Mother Nature Displeased with Texas Legislature. Save Yourself for Kinky or Suffer a Plague or Two

Mother Nature, AKA the Great Spirit, is fixing to put the hurt on Texas.  But what you do today might make a difference.

Once upon a time, in 1901, the Texas legislature named the bluebonnet the state flower.  According to the Texas State Historical Association, some Indian lore said that this pretty flower was a gift from the Great Spirit.

Flash forward over a hundred years and three special sessions to solve the education crises in Texas, and the bluebonnets are dying.

  Texas bluebonnet Originally uploaded by DogMyCats.

While experts are saying that our high-level drought will cause the these lovelies to put on a lesser show this year, we here at The Armadillo Podcast wonder if it might be something more dire.

Perhaps the Great Spirit is displeased with the way the Texas Legislature has repeatedly mucked up school finance despite three special sessions and millions and millions of wasted tax dollars.  Perhaps the Great Spirit thinks our current governor Rick Perry speaks with a forked tongue when he tries to claim that everything is A-OK with Texas' education system.

What can you do to make the Great Spirit smile upon Texas again?

Stay home from the primaries today and save your vote for Kinky Friedman.  See "Is Texas Ready for Kinky?" for all the details.

Remember, only you can save the bluebonnets.

Want to hear Kinky talk about the issues?  Download The Armadillo Podcast interview with Kinky back in Episode 9.

Texas bluebonnet photo originally uploaded on Flickr by DogMyCats

What it Means to be a Texan

In honor of Texas Independence Day check out this letter on What it Means to be a Texan, purportedly written by Bum Phillips, native of Cisco, Texas and the former coach of the Houston Oilers.  It's been circulating through emails from one Texan to another for a year or three now, but I have no proof that Coach Phillips actually wrote this. 

All I know is that if it doesn't make your heart race, then you ain't a Texan.  With that, some parting words and lyrics in a (fairly) new classic Texas tune by Ray Wylie Hubbard. 

You can preview this ornery song on iTunes, or purchase other Ray Wylie classics like "(Up Against the Wall) Redneck Mother" by clicking here: 

Happy Texas Independence Day, ya'll!

March 2nd is Texas Independence Day, whereby Texans here and expatriates the world-over celebrate the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on this day back in 1836.

Link: Texas Declares Independence from Mexico.

A little Texas history for ya'll from the Navasota Examiner:

"Most people born in Texas already know this but for those of you who just rolled into town from the East or West Coasts, from the frozen north of Canada or the mountains and sands of Mexico, March 2 is Texas Independence Day. Park your U-Hauls over by the hitching post in front of the saloon and learn about this historic day.

"To natives, it is an almost, but not quite, holy day. It was on this day, in 1836, that just down the road a piece at Washington-on-the-Brazos, while the Alamo was under siege at San Antonio, that a group of men signed a declaration that made Texas, not a state but a nation, the Republic of Texas....

When Armadillos Attack: Rare Video of Ferocious Assault

Below is a rare video of a nine-banded armadillo, our mascot, attacking a videographer. (NSFW, viewer discretion advised.)

For those of you outside of Texas, our average-sized armadillo is about the size of a Chevy Mini Van and they've been known to carry off cattle.   In the 1940's Texas began to phase out one-room school houses because during mating season packs of males seeking mates would often mount the buildings and terrify the school children.  The invention of armor piercing bullets in 1965 eventually pacified the maurading male armadillos.

New Austin City Hall Built on Top of Old Redlight District

Remember in the movie Poltergeist when that poor family discovers that their home has been built over an old graveyard?

Turns out Austin's new City Hall was built over the ruins of a 19th century redlight district called "Guytown" that once took up four square city blocks. See article.

So what happens when you disturb the bones of old prostitutes?

Austin, TX: Keepin' it Weird since 1839.

The Myth of Austin

  Sunset from Oasis ruins (Austin) Originally uploaded by phantom_of_the_opera.

Sunset from Oasis ruins (Austin)
Originally uploaded by phantom_of_the_opera.

Creative people have always been drawn to Austin. From O. Henry to Elizabeth Ney to Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Gibby Haynes, Daniel Johnston, Robert Rodriquez, Richard Linklater and on and on and on—there’s just something in the air that inspires creativity.

In Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin, one of the novel’s characters talks about a commonly known myth about the origins of San Francisco.  It seems that everyone who moves to San Francisco is really a re-incarnated citizen from the city of Atlantis.  And when the last lost soul arrives in town, the city of San Francisco will immediately experience a great earthquake and the 49 square-mile tip of the Golden Gate peninsula will fall into the sea and all the lost Atlantians will return to whence they came.

I love that story and one of the reason I began The Armadillo Podcast is to discover the myth of Austin by talking to every single person in the city. And while we suss out the myth, I hope it inspires Galia, my best friend to move here.  (See Episode 1: My Friend Galia.) I’ve so far interviewed 18 people in Austin, the country's 16th largest city.  That's 18 down and 656,544 to go till I either interview them all, or my friend gives in and moves here.

So what is Austin’s mythic story?  Here’s my humble attempt at crafting one.

Austin, Mecca for the Creative Class

Austin, since becoming the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1839, has always been a creative mecca.

Writer William Sydney Porter, who authored The Gift of the Magi and The Ransom of Red Chief, moved to Austin in 1884 and spent his happiest years here.  (That is, before his wife's death, fraud conviction and a five year stint in the Ohio Penitentiary lead him to change his name to O. Henry, followed by a boozy, cirrhotic death.)

Singer Janis Joplin came to Austin in 1960 and lived here long enough to earn her chops at the feet of Kenneth Threadgill. (Ms. Joplin also suffered a boozy and allegedly drug-induced death.)

The obvious moral to both of these stories is that leaving Austin is bad for your health.

Legendary computer game creater Richard Garriott once left Austin for the "frozen wastelands of New England," as he tells us in the next episode of The Armadillo Podcast.  Fortunately, Richard was smart enough to listen when he got the urge to "go home with the armadillo," as the song says.

Austin and the games industry were fortunate, as well.  Upon returning home, Richard blazed a trail in the computer gaming industry by co-founding Origin Systems with brother Robert Garriott and producing one of the most successful, longest-running game series of all time: Ultima. In 1992, Origin was acquired by Electronic Arts. Richard stayed with Electronic Arts/Origin and launched Ultima Online, the first commercially viable massively multiplayer game, in 1997. He left Origin in April of 2000 and started a new company called Destination Games. Destination Games became a part of NCsoft Corporation in 2001.

We recently chatted with Richard about his endearing love for Austin and why he believes the creative mix here makes our town a perfect incubator for new game development.

We'll be posting this interview shortly and we hope you'll come back to hear what Richard has to say.

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When will NCSoft issue Richard's new game, Tabula Rasa?  Click here to read MMORPG.org's interview and find out.

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Episode 14: Melicious, Texas Rollergirl

If you'll recall way back before the winter break, my friend Galia said that she would like us to speak with a good role model for her daughter.

I think we've found one, or rather sixty women.  They have names like Misty Meaner, Buckshot Betsy, Vendetta Von Dutch, Reyna Terror and they skate for the Texas Rollergirls.

In Episode 14 of The Armadillo Podcast we'll be talking with one of the founding members of the Texas Rollergirls. When she's in the rink, she goes by the name Melicious and she's often called the Audrey Hepburn of roller derby.  If you've arrived at this podcast because of Rollergirls, the A&E reality show, then you're probably unaware the Austin has two different roller derby leagues and that the producers approached the Texas Rollergirls first.

Why did they turn down the opportunity?  In our eclusive podcast interview with Melicious she'll tell us what the producers said that made the Texas Rollergirls uncomfortable.

Click here to  Download ArmadilloPodcast14.mp3.

In this episode, I'll also you tell bout what I witnessed last night when Jim Swift from KXAN and I went to watch the Texas Rollergirls workout. 

Last night I saw strength and athletic grace.  I saw beauty and independence. 

I saw athletes. 

Jim and his cameraman, Chris, got out in the middle of the rink and taped the girls rolling by in a blocking drill that resembled fighter planes in a dogfight.  If the KXAN segment that airs tonight doesn't capture the power in what we witnessed, then I don't know that my words can do it justice.  How can one describe the birth of a new sport?

Incidentally, Swift did a segment on The Armadillo Podcast for his "On the Porch" series.  It should air in about thirty minutes and if it's good, we'll link to it.  If not, you'll have to find it on your own. ;-)

NY Times: Don't Mess with Austin

Recently the New York Times wrote, "These players are all based in Austin, Tex., which is supposed to be Texas's classy town. One can only imagine Rollergirls' Night Out in Fort Worth." 

In this story, the Times wasn't writing about college football players facing assault charges. This snide comment refers to an unfortunate scene in the A&E documentary, Rollergirls, where one of the Lone Star Rollergirls goes to the bathroom in an alley.   

I don't think it's right to judge a whole town based upon one young lady who had to go really bad.  If I were to take a larger sample--say the New York Yankees--would it be fair to extrapolate out the characteristics of the team to the whole of New York City?  Just because the Yankees are the highest paid team in the league and they still can't win the World Series that doesn't mean that everyone in New York is an over-paid loser.

* * * * *

BTW, the producers of Rollergirls originally contacted the Texas Rollergirls, Austin's flat track league and they were the first to call themselves "rollergirls."  However, the Texas Rollergirls, unlike the Lone Star Rollergirls, felt that producers were concentrating more on the after hours drama and less on the actual sport of roller derby, so they politely declined the invitation to be on a reality TV show.

Roller derby was reborn here in the city of Austin and we are the home to two different leagues.  In the beginning, the two leagues were the same organization called Bad Girl Good Women Productions.  However, there was a somewhat acrimonious split in 2003 and 80% of the skaters left to form the Texas Rollergirls.  You can read more on the split here. (And if you'd like to hear the whole story, please come back to hear our interview with Melicious, one of the founding members of the Texas Rollergirls. We had a facinating and funny conversation with Mel and she's not one to pull her punches.)

The Texas Rollergirls would like to be on TV, but they are aspiring to the likes of network sports coverage or ESPN---and only on their own terms. And only if their sport is taken seriously.  In fact, the Texas Rollergirls, and forty other flat track leagues around the nation are diligently working to build roller derby into a recognized professional sport.  A&E could have made a documentary that chronicled the birth of a new sport, but instead chose to go down the low road.  And that's a shame, for both roller derby and the city of Austin.

Here's more from the MSM:

"Beware this rinky-dink 'Rollergirls,'" ..."I feel sorry for Austin" - New York Post

"Sometimes there aren't enough players for a team practice because too many are drunk." - Sun Sentinel

"Is a fake show about a fake sport four times worse than typical TV fare, or only twice as bad? ...Rollergirls will leave it unanswered." - Philadelphia Inquirer

Editor's note:  There's a rumor flying around that this show staged a fake lesbian wedding just to up the salacious appeal.  If true, this bodes bad for the sanctity of marriage, both gay and straight. 

Cracking Austin's Da Vinci Code

I think I've figured out a key component, or the Da Vinci code, in what makes Austin so different than the rest of Texas.  We read more than the rest of the state and are thus healthier, happier and smarter than our country cousins.

A new study by Central Connecticut University ranks the most literate U.S. cities and Austin was ranked the highest in Texas based upon six factors of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

Austin consistently is in the top five for lists as varied as Best Place for Business and Best City for Singles.  However, our number 16 ranking in literacy is due to the  low number of people reading the Austin American Statesman.  (See the survey: Austin is 51st of 69 cities when it comes to newspaper circulation divided by population. While in Internet resources, Austin is number 3.)

Our relatively high level of literacy (no thanks to AAS) makes up a key element in our citywide DNA.  As another indicator, note that our county, Travis, is the only county in Texas to vote down the bigotry of Proposition 2. 

So San Antonio (64th of 69 in the survey), Houston (53rd) and Dallas (48th), ya'll need to read a book or two and stop hatin', as the kids say.

Read the study, America's Most Literate Cities 2005, here.