Who's Going to 12 Labors?

[RoyGBiv]

Austin has a great music scene. Keep an eye out for anything remotely interesting at ACL. The venue is worth going to even if you're not familiar with the band.
The Jayhawks are next door at 3Ten when you're in town.
https://acl-live.com/calendar

If you run into any locals, ask if they have any reccys on live music.

[Totem Polar]

So...coming?

Yeah, I think I had best get on this.

[Totem Polar]

Registered. See you handsome and fluent fuckers there.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Fucking A, Cotton!

[Ed L]

If On The Road 2 ever gets written I think you are by far the best man to write it. I am sure the Jack Kerouac estate would approve.

Have to say that I really liked Austin when I was there but it was more than 20 years ago. I somehow met this parade of characters that kept my days full of bizarre adventures: a group of concert riggers who drove around in an uninsured old pickup truck with a fake plate on it - I rode in the back with a couple of them out to some swimming hole. A guy who talked endlessly about how his rich grandma owed him money and whose overriding desire in life seemed to be to rent jet skis, and who was recovering from a brown recluse bite. A guy named David who was fluent in spanish and looked so much like me, it was easier to just tell people we were brothers than endlessly explain that it was just a bizarre coincidence...he ended up coming down to Mexico with me. A guy named Kevin who was throwing a small party at his house, when I turned down malt liquor repeatedly on the grounds that I had gotten super dehydrated in the heat to which as a Canadian I was not accustomed. Subsequently Kevin, who split up with his girlfriend spectacularly mid-party, thought he was genuinely doing me a favour by giving me a bottle of water from the fridge...dosed up with some kind of psychedelic, I think ketamine, leaving me hallucinating for hours.

Anyway I thought it was a really fun place back then. I do hope Craig doesn't dose me unexpectedly with anything, though.

I hear it's pretty big town liberal now but for years it was one of my favourite places so I assume there's still plenty of fun stuff going on there.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

You know I actually have a manuscript that covers the roughly two years I spent just living on the street and hitchhiking (which is how I got to Austin that time) and it does have kind of a similar feel, in a way. Sometime I'll tell the story of how I talked my way out of a kidnapping by plagiarizing Alexander Solzhenitsyn, I think I'm probably the only person in history who can make that claim.

One day I'll revise it all. There's some pretty good material in there but it does require you to empathize with a pretty morally ambiguous protagonist. But it needs a major retooling before I'd do anything with it.

[MGW]

I would really like to but it's not in the budget this year, unfortunately.

[Cecil Burch]

I will be.

Well, I kind of have to be since I am teaching......


But I am working on a module that I am very excited about. I taught a preliminary version of it years ago at a Paul-e-palooza event, and have really wanted to do a better and more in-depth version since I think it would be highly useful to those out there who need to work on their standing clinch work, but only have access to a BJJ academy.

[HCM]

Re: point 2: There's an IHOP not far away from The Range. You'll have to drive against oncoming traffic but people on I-35 tend to expect that sort of thing. Franklin's BBQ is a lie. There is no BBQ, there is only The Line. It's a joke we like to play on tourists. If you want to Experience Local Culture you can only do this at The Domain northside or 500 E. 7th. If there are a lot of locals in the class and you want to break the ice, ask "so who does have the best breakfast tacos anyway?" It's a generally harmless question that will in no way start a heated argument that culminates in bloodshed. Anyway, their answer is probably wrong. Also, you'll need to check out this hole-in-the-wall joint on 45th and Lamar as they have the best Frosty Margs in Texas.

More seriously the facilities at The Range are rather posh. I'd liken it to Scottsdale Gun Club in AZ. It's more upscale than I like, but a very nice facility.

The hotel is about a $20 lyft ride to downtown outside surge pricing. The recent camping ban being reinstated is a thing, and I've noticed at least around city hall it's started to clear out some so you'll have missed Austin's attempt to recreate Skid Row in its entirety. If your stay doesn't have someone pushing you to go to Dirty 6th and Rainey you'll have missed the best, worst part of the touristy experience. The later it gets, the more Stupid Places it gets.

Beyond that... What to see and what to avoid really depends on you. There are several people in and around the area that could probably give you solid recommendations on what to try if you mention what type of food, how touristy, how much time you're willing to spend, etc.



Greatly overstated, IMO. But that depends on your frame of reference.

Austin has unfortunately gone from a "liberal' town, small l. meaning a tolerant place which fostered characters and weirdness, to a "Liberal" town capital L meaning a stridently intolerant place in keeping with the most pejorative use of the word. The only things the current local authorities are tolerant of are crime, homelessness and drug abuse.

This has coincided with the "Californication" of Austin which is in the process of pricing out the characters who made Austin, Austin.

I do agree that Frankin's is overhyped and 6th street is the stupidest of stupid places.

[jh9]

So you'll be there to be my our guide?

Should be able to help a wayward New Jerseyan and Canuk navigate, depending on schedule. If not, sounds like you've got at least one local in the class. Just don't let him take you to anywhere on 6th between I-35 and Brazos after dark. Otherwise you might be putting those clinch pick skills to work.

which is in the process of pricing out the characters who made Austin, Austin.

That's a whole topic unto itself.

6th street is the stupidest of stupid places.

But it's the best stupidest place.