End of Silence

Some nights on the way home, my drive takes me down Wickshire Lane bordering Mabel Davis Park, which is currently undergoing a massive cleanup from illegal dumping of pesticides and car battery casings among other things from the days when it was a landfill, and Linder Elementary.

This past week, I was driving that way and happened upon four deer standing just on the edge of the road. They were all of a similar size and either all does or too young to have antlers. As I passed them, I was listening to KGSR play “Story of An Artist”, a Daniel Johnston song covered by Matt Ward from Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered. It’s a very haunting song and it fit the moment perfectly.

Daniel Johnston is one of those famous but not-so-famous Austin-area artists. You can find plenty about him on other sites, so I leave the searching to you. There’s a regional premier at SXSW of the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, about his life. He’s also performing live this Wednesday at Escapist Bookstore at 6pm. I think his live appearances are fairly rare.

For the out-of-towners, there was a controversy early last year, when the Wendy’s owned Baja Fresh moved into the space formerly occupied by Sound Exchange, an independent record store that had been there for as long as I can remember. Daniel Johnston had painted his famous, “Hi, How are you?”, alien on the wall years back and it was going to be demolished as part of the changeover. There was a quick mobilization of citizens who wanted to see it preserved, driven to some degree thanks to blogs and e-mail, if I’m not mistaken, and Baja Fresh did The Right Thing and kept it. A small victory in the battle between what Austin once was and what it is becoming. You can check it out for yourself. It’s at the intersection of Guadalupe and 21st Street, effectively the southwest corner of the UT campus.

One of Metroblogging’s founders, Sean Bonner, will be here this weekend for two panels as part of SXSW Interactive.

Saturday March 12, 5-6PM : Blogging Without Borders: Bridging the Digital Content Divide w/ Jonas M Luster, Christopher Ulbrich, Ze Frank, Hossein Derakhshan

Sunday March 13, 11:30-12:30PM : How to Create a Compelling Community Website w/ Jake Dobkin, Alaina Browne, Andrew Huff

If you have the chance, be sure to check him out and say hello.

After 5 years of construction, there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. For those of you that have to brave the I-35 / Ben White interchange, it’s been a long time coming. If the rumors are correct, it was a lot longer than it should’ve been.

We live very close to the intersection and have been intimately familiar with its metamorphosis from a somewhat rural highway to one of the concrete monstrosities that are all too familiar in Texas. We’ve dealt with the extra traffic on northbound Burleson and the loss of quick crossovers into our neighborhood, forcing a wait at the Burleson stoplight. It’ll all have been worth it in a few months (I hope). I’m certainly not going to miss the lights heading east or westbound on Ben White.

There’s still a little pain to endure before it’s completed this summer. We’ll be avoiding the intersection like the plague for the next month or so. The Statesman has a story today on some of the last growing pains and KXAN has a little history and future from earlier this month. I suspect that all of the rain we’ve had lately has pushed the estimates from that story back another month. I’m now wishing I had taken more pictures over the last 5 years, because the area looks dramatically different.

A bittersweet step away from the Austin that I fell in love with 16 years ago.

It appears that the switch of 104.3 from Urban/Hip-Hop to All Talk didn’t last very long. Last July, Beat 104.3 became The Coyote, an all talk format with Howard Stern in the morning, followed by some Comedy Radio compilation show, Don & Mike, Russ Martin, and Tom Leykis. I noticed last week that the Beat had been resurrected (hopefully they’ll find the time to fix that godawful web site).

It appears that Howard Stern remains in what is now a somewhat peculiar hybrid station. It may be the best of both worlds. Austin couldn’t really afford to lose Beat 104.3, but their morning stuff left a lot to be desired. I found the rest of the Coyote line-up annoying at best and I can only stand Stern in small doses unless I’m interested in the guest.

If I’m not mistaken that’s some Trudy’s chips and salsa that our own Bruce Sterling was craving after being away for most of the last few months.

I know I get a craving for the stuff after a couple of weeks away from Austin. I like Trudy’s green salsa. I’m also partial to the green stuff at Guero’s and the borracho sauce at Curra’s. I find the jalapeno ranch and hatch chile sauce at Chuy’s irresistable as well, but I don’t particularly like their salsa.

What are some other local favorite salsas/sauces? What about the chips? I’m sure everyone has an opinion, so have at it.