So, we were watching the election on CNN and I realized that we’ve now entered a new world of Political Correctness. The new minority group not to offend are conservatives. More specifically conservatives who use terms like the Main Stream Media, to describe non-partisan media outlets. Watching CNN on election night was ridiculous. They were constantly letting their Republican pundits talk. Constantly asking them for their opinion, even though a few were obviously delusional. They wouldn’t in any way analyze any of the elephants in the room. When Pennsylvania and Ohio went for Obama they asked the Republican pundits whether there was any way forward. They both replied that it was “hard”. Which was one of the most ridiculous statements of the night. Hard? Are we really at the point where we can’t even suggest that we don’t think it’s going to happen? Fox News was even reporting more honestly than this.

I think some of this was respect for people who hadn’t voted on the west coast. But some of it was just stupid. Conservatives aren’t going to start watching CNN because it’s ridiculously well-balanced. It’s always been pretty well balanced. There are a lot of people now who want entertaining news tailored to their bias. That’s fine. We have Fox News and the Daily Show. But when I want real news I don’t want silly pandering. I want you to report that it looks like Obama is going to win, when it looks like Obama is going to win. Otherwise you just look like ignorami who can’t do math.

So for those who came to our Halloween party on Saturday night and sat as we were buzzed by helicopters, we probably should have been in the house. Remember when I joked that if someone came in our back gate, it was probably a bad sign? Yeah, that joke was probably in bad taste.

One of the landlords in our neighborhood rents 4 properties out as sort of halfway houses. This particular home houses a woman we know is a prostitute and who has been seen smoking crack by many neighbors. While we were partying a fight broke out at the duplex and one man was shot. The scary thing is that a stray bullet went into the next door neighbor’s house and ricocheted around their bedroom. Thankfully no one was in it at the time. But the neighbors have kids, and this has mobilized our neighborhood even more to get rid of this sort of element. I think we all value the fact that we’ve got this great neighborhood where people of all economic classes are living together. We have apartments, condos, 4-plexes, duplexes, small and large single family homes in our neighborhood. As scary as this was, it’s really nice to see the neighborhood rallying around getting rid of this criminal element.

But we probably need to start going inside when the helicopters are buzzing the house.

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Comments

Tara

2008-11-06T22:25:10.000Z

Next time I’m there and hear helicopters around, I’m going outside. That bullet went into a bedroom not the backyard. ;)

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2008-11-06T22:30:13.000Z

Yeah, but the helicopter was trying to find the guy with the gun.

Ashley

2008-11-07T02:29:29.000Z

I feel ya. A few months ago, I stood on our deck as a helicopter buzzed our tree canopy, I realized my stupidity and went inside and locked the doors. But not before standing out there a few minutes with a baby in arms. Today as I drove to work I heard the report about the northeast austin swat standoff, the AK47, etc. Now, that was quite a few miles south of us but still close enough to make me wonder if the guys would run and seek shelter in any of the greenbelts along Cameron road which eventually come close to our hood.

Anonymous (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-11-07T02:50:43.000Z

Zoinks. Do you think we should hunker down when the military helicopters are buzzing our neighborhood? =) I’m glad to hear that your neighbors are behind making it safe for everyone.

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-11-07T02:51:15.000Z

That last comment was me.

Because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble even to notice the epithet. … Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers. They are opposed to the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us.

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Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-10-24T03:32:00.000Z

NO! Socialism BAD! I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s bad. Sorry, getting tired of people who slept through government class trying to talk about how this country is going to become some kind of Stalinist state with redistribution of wealth and higher taxes and… what? I’m trying not to engage with people like that. There is no hope.

Robert Matney

2008-10-24T18:13:37.000Z

Thanks for giving me a favorite quote.

The Chronicle has recommended voting no on Prop 2. They have a more thoughtful explanation than I could muster yesterday:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=689835

I blame the damn raccoon that keeps wandering into the house and waking me up in the middle of the night playing with the dog’s water bowl.

So Prop 2 is coming up. It’s widly supported and I expect it will pass. I mean how could it not? It’s phrased in such a way that voters will always vote for it. Prop 12 - New Parks for Austin, Prop 13 - Keep Pedophiles Away from Children, Prop 2 - Stop Subsidies to Luxury Retailers. Who would vote against any of those? They’re all written to appeal to the knee jerk. And I’m speaking as someone who’s generally a knee jerk. I’m constantly fighting my impulsive knee.

But sometimes we need to talk about whether our parks department has the budget to maintain a new park, and whether our plans to keep pedophiles away from children might also keep non-pedophiles from volunteering with chlidren, and whether stopping subsidies to a certain luxury retailer might actually encourage more of the Big Box developments we know and loathe.

We seem to have a lot of the same people who were against the WalMart at Northcross against the Domain subsidies as well. What are you guys looking for? What sort of shopping would make you happy? The city spent a lot of time and got a lot of input and decided that the majority of Austinites wanted the city to look like Hyde Park. Homes, mixed with apartments all withing walking distance of public transit and stores.

So IBM starts selling off parts of the domain and the city comes up with a plan to start creating a new urban neighborhood. They give these goals to the investors building the project. They provide incentives to hopefully bring in tonier clients (and thus bringing in better tax revenue). Remember we as Austinites have a real incentive to get high dollar businesses in town. Every time we drive to Sunset Valley or Beecaves to shop those tiny cities get to drive down their property taxes. And Austinites get the privilege of paying for the roads that lead there.
The city also provided incentives to build affordable housing (again something the electorate has been overwhelmingly in support of), and $1 million dollars to help get local businesses into the development.

Sometimes we have to make decisions. Do we use some of our tax dollars to ensure we don’t get more big box stores and have affordable housing? Or do we just hope and pray that developers will magically stop building the kind of shopping we hate (but go to anyway) and build the type we like?

And let’s not forget that Prop 2 was sponsored by a real estate investor (Brian Rodgers). There don’t seem to be a lot of people asking him what he’s getting out of the bargain. As a real estate investor is he planning on creating mixed-use developments like The Domain without the assistance of the city? Or is he just planning on building more suburban strip malls and big box retailers?

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Comments

kelli

2008-10-17T04:45:20.000Z

What are your feelings about the Domain? We visited Austin awhile back and went there and it was really pretty, but I don’t really know anything about the local story and what kinds of things building it might have done.

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com)

2008-10-17T15:57:45.000Z

It’s kind-of disneyland like. I can’t really imagine living there, but I have known a few people who would have loved to live over Tiffany’s or Barney’s. I think as a model for what I would like to see our neighbors change into it’s quite interesting. The group did another mixed-use development in South Austin called South Park Meadows. It has single-family housing, apartments, and retail, but it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the domain. The thing I do like about the domain is that it’s supposed to be phase 1 of a plan to basically build a walkable downtown in north austin. There will be employers, shopping, houses, and apartments all within a few square miles. I definitely think this is what people are starting to look for. It’s also great from a public transportation perspective. It’s much easier to link these live/work hubs than it is to link large suburbs and large big box retailers. This page has more info on their vision: “Within the coming 25 to 30 years, the City of Austin is envisioning the 2,243-acre Gateway/North Burnet planning area to become one of high-density, mixed-use developments which will include some 82,000 residents; 41,000 apartment, condo and townhome units (0 single-family homes); and businesses employing some 51,500 Austinites.” It’s also important to remember that all those great old neighborhoods that we love, originally were brand new with no trees and looked a bit goofy too. You have to plan for the future.

On Saturday night we went to see the Rubber Rep’s “Casket of Passing Fancy”. It’s a fairly simple theatrical experience, where you are given a list of options and you are expected to choose one. These “offers” are for a personal experience. Once your offer has been chosen it is yours alone and no one else can have the same experience.

I was the second person in the audience to chose. My offer spoke to me - “Who wants to taxidermy an animal that was picked up off the road just today?”. There was something about that offer than made me think I wouldn’t get a second chance at it in my lifetime. My hand went up quickly. I was given a narrow plastic bin. It was quite heavy, and whatever was inside was wrapped in a black shroud. I was escorted to a small table lit by chandelier and blindfolded. After a few moments the blind fold came off. I was introduced to my domestic who was wearing a hunters cap and vest. We discussed her “methods” of taxidermy. “Shellackadermy” she called it. Much simpler. Our animal was a small toad. We covered it in several coats of shellac attaching it to a board. We discussed where in the house to hang it. I suggested my workshop. It was built in the sixties and has peg board. It’s screaming for taxidermied life. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to convince Julie to put it on the mantle.

Once we had a nice layer on the toad, I was provided with a wood burning calligraphy tool. I mentioned that perhaps we shouldn’t be using heat on a shellacked board. So my domestic thoughtfully rummaged around and found a new piece of wood for us to use as a label. I burned the name we had decided upon for the toad (Vernid) into the label, and then we shellacked the label to the mounting board. We discussed ways in which the mounting could be improved. Perhaps a montage with Matchbox cars to mimic his untimely death?

It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience, and even though I was done quickly I hung around for another 30 minutes or so to hear about the experiences of others. I cannot recommend this experience highly enough. You can see what you’ve missed on Rubber Rep’s blog. Then you should go purchase your tickets. The offers are going quickly. Don’t let someone else claim yours.

I do have to say that Julie and I had trepidations about how weird this would be. We were frightened that we would find the experience uncomfortable. But we found that for us, and pretty much everyone we talked to it was a joyful experience that was really fulfilling. And because there are so few offers, you can bet that people will be talking about their experience for years to come. Don’t miss out.

On Sunday I began reconstructing the stage in our back yard. The surface was a solid piece of decking with no holes drilled for water drainage and it was starting to give when anyone other than toddlers walked on it. I unscrewed the first piece of decking, lifted it off and was startled to find an equally startled opossum under the deck. He scurried under the next piece of decking. We repeated this dance until all the decking was removed and he had to find a new home in our neighbors yard.

As I was working on rebuilding the frame I made a gruesome discovery. Right next to the opossum’s nest was an opossum’s skull. And hipbones. I had discovered the opossum’s spine and some fur by the fence a few weeks earlier. I had been ignoring it since it was decomposed past the point of smelling, and who wants to pick up possum carcass? I did not realize that possums ate their own, but I guess that’s part of what it means to be a scavenger. Gruesome all the same. I picked up all the pieces and put them in the bag. I posted about the fact that I was having a weekend of death on the Rubber Rep’s blog and offered the skeleton and I immediately had an offer. The skeleton was picked up by a certain arts editor on behalf of someone else at around 3pm today.

Quite the weekend. I’ll try to get a picture of Vernid for those who are interested.

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Comments

kelli

2008-10-14T00:02:10.000Z

This thing looks really cool! So does everybody in the audience get an offer, and do you get to watch while they all do their thing?

Tim

2008-10-14T02:30:38.000Z

They all get an offer, but you really can’t watch other people’s offers (unless you get an offer like the guy who took the offer to watch 5 other offers). That’s why we all hung out outside afterwards talking about what we had experienced.

No, I think he’s being completely rational. I think he believes he’s going to loose so he’s going to screw the economy to ensure that Obama is a one-termer. Think that’s impossible? Remember, we’re talking about Republicans, they’ll do anything to win.

We’re still almost two months away from Cinco de Slapdash, but already tickets are selling fast. We will make every attempt to accommodate everyone who shows up to the theater, but the best way to ensure you get a comfortable chair with a great view is to reserve your tickets now!

Loaded Gun Theory is now a part of the Austin Circle of Theaters as a sponsored project. This means you can continue to support Loaded Gun Theory with tax deductible donations. It also makes it easier for us to get grants to make our art bigger and better.

Loaded Gun Theory member Julie Winston-Thomas can currently be seen in the Vestige Group’s production of Marisol ,Sept 18-28 at the Off Center. More information on the Vestige Group’s website.

Loaded Gun Theory member Amy Lewis can be seen Sam Bass Community Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet, Sept 19-Oct 11. More information on Sam Bass Community Theatre’s website.