Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
I just got back from playing the Fun Fun Fun Festival in Downtown Austin and I brought my wife there for her first time in the State Capitol. I've bragged about how much fun Austin is to her for years. When she asked why is this place so much fun I had fun telling her that "a lot of it is why we vote for Republicans dear." (I assume she votes for Republicans.)
Never is the value of states' rights vs. a strong central authority more clear than when you're playing a wild music festival in a park in the middle of a Texas city. There are just less rules against fun in this state than there are in most. 6th street is raging and there are very few cops needed. There seems to be an unspoken agreement among revelers not to "blow this."
There are broken bottles cemented to the tops of walls as security. Why not? There are make shift food stands coexisting with "not over regulated" traditional restaurants. Here in California, the food trucks are at war with the over regulated and over taxed traditional eateries.
No one's freaked out about booze. No one's freaked out about guns. The Sunday mass I went to at St. Mary's was packed to the brim. The artists are thriving. Prices are low.
I heard Gov. Perry on the radio the other day bragging about the huge numbers of businesses moving from California to Texas. Good for them. Competition for buziness HQs is a healthy way to get sates to recognize that freedom leads to prosperity. What am I doing in California? My family's here, and we're close. But the government can only push people so far. And do the punks and the artists get this? No. But maybe some day.
Fun Fun Fun Fest featured MGMT, The Hold Steady, Bad Religion, The Descendants, Weird Al, and my lucky band, the Vandals, this year.
- Comment (16)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Gee, I always heard it referred to as the "People's Republic of Austin". A little piece of California in the middle of the Texas desert.
Jul '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
I agree 100% with Paul DeRocco.
Austin is the most liberal college town in Texas, if not the whole South, excepting Athens, GA or Chapel Hill, NC.
You want to see something on how other states should be like Texas (albeit indirectly) here's a video on how more places should be like Texas.
Edited on Nov 9, 2010 at 5:15amOct '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Arizona is the same way. You can walk into a grocery store while heavily armed and buy liquor and it's no big deal as long as you aren't doing anything silly that draws attention to you as a threat to someone. Do that here in New Jersey and you're cooked.
May '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
As an Austinite, I'll admit, yes, we have our weird elements. There is a bluer-than-blue core "donut hole" surrounded by circle of red precincts.
We get to enjoy the best of both worlds. We have yoga and sushi and music fests, but we also have pickup trucks, football, concealed-carry, and barbecue.
I almost never meet a transplant who wants to go home, and the Californians seem to take root quicker than anyone.
Aug '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
I'm not sure that's a good thing....
Jul '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Songwriter
I'm not sure that's a good thing.... · Nov 9 at 7:28am
Yeah, look what's happened to New Hampshire or Colorado...
May '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Austin's a cool town. A little screwy, but great.
Whenever Ricochet arranges its first get-together in Texas, Austin's probably where we should do it. We could meet at the Alamo instead, but I need to restock on homemade beef jerky.
Oct '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
I'm an Austinite (although San Antonio is my home town) temporarily transplanted to Chicago. IMO, the progressive impulses that rule in central Austin are naturally restrained by the "mind-your-own-damn-business"-ism that has been passed through generations of Texans. So the Whole Foods crowd is still annoying, but they're bearable. Side note: There's a popular bumper sticker in Austin that says "Don't Dallas my Austin". It's sort of in the same spirit as the "keep austin weird" slogan. This thread has made me think it might be about time for a "Don't California my Texas" sticker.
Aug '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
That's an issue which I've had to think about a lot. I've spent most of my adult life living in very liberal places: Provincetown, Boston, Portland, and now Los Angeles. I'm attracted to such places by the aesthetics, the architecture, the art, the cuisine, etc., but find the politics of most of the people repellent to a degree that it starts to tarnish the aesthetic factors as well. Why can't I find a place as historically interesting as Boston, as charming and quaint as Portland, with art as good as P'town, and food like Los Angeles, but with normal people in it? Why is it that people with the best aesthetic tastes seem to have the ugliest ideological predispositions?
Jun '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Dang! I didn't realize that you were that Joe Escalante. Ricochet just got cooler by association. Same thing happened when I joined, so welcome to the club
I don't know if anyone's told you this, but you guys coming out to Baghdad in 2004 was an incredibly kind act, and we needed it so very badly. I was with 1-41 Infantry in Sadr City, at the time the Army's most-deployed battalion. Thank you!
Edited on Nov 9, 2010 at 3:43pmJul '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Paul DeRocco
That's an issue which I've had to think about a lot. I've spent most of my adult life living in very liberal places: Provincetown, Boston, Portland, and now Los Angeles. I'm attracted to such places by the aesthetics, the architecture, the art, the cuisine, etc., but find the politics of most of the people repellent to a degree that it starts to tarnish the aesthetic factors as well. Why can't I find a place as historically interesting as Boston, as charming and quaint as Portland, with art as good as P'town, and food like Los Angeles, but with normal people in it? Why is it that people with the best aesthetic tastes seem to have the ugliest ideological predispositions? · Nov 9 at 12:37pm
Move to the South.
Jul '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
He's a good bass player, but he's no Carol Kaye.
Jul '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Paul DeRocco
Why can't I find a place as historically interesting as Boston, as charming and quaint as Portland, with art as good as P'town, and food like Los Angeles, but with normal people in it?
Because that place is Tommy More's no-place, Paul. Interesting and normal aren't mutually exclusive concepts, but they're not necessarily compatible either.
I'd bet Austin does pretty well, as do Madison, Columbus, and other midwestern or southern college town capital cities.
Paul DeRocco
Why is it that people with the best aesthetic tastes seem to have the ugliest ideological predispositions? · Nov 9 at 12:37pm
Because, often, if they have the leisure to indulge one then they can indulge both.
Aesthetics and soft-headed, knee-jerk leftism are all about feelings. Of course, aesthetics are supposed to be about the senses, governments are not.
Jun '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
That's an unfair comparison. Joe will never be an elderly white woman.
Michael Tee
He's a good bass player, but he's no Carol Kaye. · Nov 9 at 4:03pm
Aug '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
That's a question worthy of a Sociology course.
Aug '10
Re: Don't Mess With Texas, Make Other States More Like It
Songwriter
That's a question worthy of a Sociology course. · Nov 10 at 7:48am
Except that most sociologists probably don't think it's true.