This was a dark week, and it’s difficult to think of anything else. But it’s too soon for me to write about it.

So instead I’ll do something I’ve done before, and post a reprint.

My selection this time is a brief essay I wrote about my beloved home city in early 1997, first published as an introduction to my story “We Love Lydia Love” in the 1998 collection ONE DAY CLOSER TO DEATH.

This time around, though, I’m including footnotes to comment on what’s changed (or hasn’t) over the past ten years.

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AUSTIN, 1997^{(and 2007)}

There’s an old adage that says writers (or artists or musicians) should write (or paint or sing) only about things they know firsthand, and I’ve met a number of writers (etc.) who take that adage to heart. Their chain of logic is as follows:  1) Writing (etc.) is about life. 2) Life at its purest involves suffering and confusion. 3) I must therefore suffer and become confused. And 4) Hey! Drugs and destructive liaisons could be a fun way to accomplish 3)!⁽¹⁾

My own philosophy differs. My drug of choice is Ben & Jerry’s Coffee-Toffee Crunch⁽²⁾, and I’ve been married for seventeen years.⁽³⁾ In other words, I don’t think you have to be hip or degenerate⁽⁴⁾ to be creative . . . just so long as you live in a place that serves that function for you.

And that brings me to Austin, Texas, which (with the Hill Country⁽⁵⁾) provides the setting for “We Love Lydia Love.”

I’ve lived in and around Austin since 1988, and I can assure you that it’s a stunning city of beautiful hills, wooded glades, vibrant neighborhoods, and sparkling creeks.⁽⁶⁾

I can also assure you that it’s an urban armpit of hideous overpasses, God-awful architecture, allergens that could choke a cyborg, and traffic that sucks beyond belief.⁽⁷⁾

Austin is an isolated bastion of progressive thought in a conservative state. It’s also the state capital.⁽⁸⁾

It’s a city where country music rules, rock’n’roll will never die, and blues is king. It’s the Live Music Capital of the World – but there’s a strict noise ordinance, so don’t let a whisper of that live music seep into a residential neighborhood after 10:00 P.M.⁽⁹⁾

Its natives are fierce defenders of everything Austintatious: barbecue, Barton Springs, slackerdom, salamanders, Sixth Street, free movies, live oaks, the O. Henry Pun-Off, salsa, bare chests, bad poetry, worse tattoos, chicken-fried steak, and armadillos.⁽¹⁰⁾ And some of the fiercest native defenders have Yankee accents.⁽¹¹⁾

This was the home of Madalyn Murray O’Hair until she vanished in 1995. (One theory suggests it was the Rapture.)⁽¹²⁾ It’s still the home of American Atheists, a passel of pagans, and the biggest Baptist church I’ve ever seen.⁽¹³⁾

It’s also the home of James Michener, and of the Butthole Surfers.⁽¹⁴⁾

In short, Austin may be the most schizophrenic city on the planet. It’s a joy and a trial, a pain and a pride.⁽¹⁵⁾

It’s perfect, and I never want to live anywhere else.⁽¹⁶⁾

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Footnotes:

(1) Seriously, don’t bother. Drugs and bad relationships are expensive and time-consuming. Trust me, the suffering and confusion will show up on their own, for free, regardless of whatever else you’re doing at the time. Save your money and brace yourself.

(2) It’s actually called Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. I don’t know why I called it something else. Maybe I was afraid of the Heath Bar people.

(3) It’ll be twenty-seven years in August.

(4) Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

(5) A formerly beautiful region just west of Austin, now being bulldozed to look like Midland.

(6) Still true, although a number of the hills and glades are being eaten away by McMansions and shopping centers. And some of the sparkling creeks don’t sparkle as much as they did.

(7) All still true, only more so. Some of the hideous overpasses now belong to toll roads. And some of the God-awful architecture has been imploded . . . to make way for more God-awful architecture.

(8) You should hear the way the legislators from the rest of the state talk about us. You’d think they were being forced to serve their terms in Sodom-on-the-Colorado. (If only!)

(9) Whenever the Ax Nelson blues band played outdoor parties within the city limits, APD always came to hassle us at about 10:07 P.M. Every time.

(10) I left out Spamarama and Eeyore’s Birthday Party.

(11) And now California accents, too. I mean, ohmygawd, fer sure, totally.

(12) But it turned out not to be the Rapture after all. They found her buried in a barrel in South Texas in 2001. Parts of her, anyway.

(13) The American Atheists have moved to New Jersey. But the pagans are still here (ask Rory). And, alas, so are the Baptists. (As Molly Ivins used to say, the biggest problem with some of our Texas Baptists is that they aren’t immersed long enough.)

(14) James Michener died in October 1997 – after this essay was written, but before it was published. And according to Wikipedia, Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes now lives in Brooklyn. (If you call that living.)

(15) Austin’s trials and pains have increased at least threefold since 1997. But the joy and pride are putting up a hell of a fight. And the schizophrenia is still semi-divine.

(16) I ain’t budgin’.