Mexican sushi? Really…

A sushi roll. Photo by drp under Creative Commons license.

I got word that a new Mexican sushi restaurant opened in Dobie Mall, and it’s called Sushi Caliente. Kidding? I think not. Yet again, I didn’t know what to think. I imagined it would be a mixture of Mexican ingredients placed in sushi. Were they thinking about using algae instead of tortilla? I was curious, so I prepared for the worst and checked it out. 

I asked the attendant, who is also the owner, which plate was the hottest on the menu and went for that, the Doc Roll. It was nowhere near the top of my hot-o-meter, which was disappointing, but it had a unique, fresh flavor combining tempura with spicy sauce.

The owner told me that the idea of the place came because when he was a student in Austin he saw how popular sushi places were. So he went back home to Veracruz, in Central Mexico, and opened up a sushi place there. But people didn’t know what sushi was, and they were afraid of trying something new. So he had to “Mexicanize” it in order to appeal to customers, incorporating chile, cilantro, onion and other ingredients often found in Mexican cuisine.

Definitely weird, but hey, weird can be good.

Eeyore’s Celebration

This is Eeyore. Image by Toni Travels under Creative Commons License.

Winnie the Pooh gets all the credit. Seldom do people even care about the rest of the cast. In the case of Austin though, the city and many of its resident do care. This is why every year local non-profit groups get together to celebrate Eeyore’s birthday! They sell food for both meat and non-meat eaters, soft drinks, beer, juice, and they keep the profits for the causes advocates. 

People wear costumes as part of the celebration. Photo by PaddyMurphy under Creative Commons License.

The event is entirely free. Children, teens, adults, elderly all make their way to Pease Park where the day of fun and games is held. People wear costumes and participate in contests to win prizes like burritos or other materials donated by the local businesses.

Other highlights of the event include face-painting, temporary tattoos, maypoles for the young at heart, and lots and lots of music. People are encouraged to bring their instruments as long as they’re non-amplified.

This truly is a local weird event, and it’s been happening for more than 45 years! This April 25 will mark the 46th occasion of the wacky celebration.

Weird becomes Leslie

Just like the capitol is an emblem of Austin politics, Leslie is an emblem of Austin weirdness. Leslie Cochran is a man (I think ) that dresses like a woman and parades around the city in undergarments. Seemingly in his 50s, he hangs around the bar areas of 6th street and South Congress, normally wearing thongs and high-heeled shoes. 

Leslie takes a picture in front of the Capitol. Photo by Mr. Wright under Creative Commons License.

But with Leslie there is more than what meets the eye. He is a fervent advocate of homeless people, and in 2000 he ran for Mayor of Austin to do something about it. It’s surprising enough that he ran, but what’s more surprising is that people supported him! He came in second with 4.83% of the votes after Kirk Watson won with 89.35%. Imagine a transvestite for mayor. Just the fact that he won second place out of four contenders says that people embrace his weirdness.

Nonetheless, Leslie is more often than not a lighthearted streetwalker of the downtown bar area, saying hi to people he does or does not know, lending himself for pictures or interviews, posing, entertaining.  Here’s a video of him in action.

Friend or watchdog?

Louis Black, editor and founder of the Austin Chronicle. Photo by Squeek under Creative Commons license.

This year has been flagged as one of the worst for print journalism. Newspapers are closing down, some are going totally online. Yet strangely, the Austin Chronicle hasn’t been affected by the trend. Or at least, they haven’t publicly said so. And why should they be? They were the original creators of SXSW, which brings billions in revenue each year to Austin. But what’s curious about the Chronicle’s case is that its editor and founder, Louis Black, is one of the most popular guys in town. David Carr from the New York Times reported that he was seen saluting person after person after person during the festival, and he points how that  you don’t normally see the editor of a strong publication lingering with the local crowd. Austin’s just weird.

Weathering the storm

Austin’s weather is as unpredictable as the job market is these days. On March 25 the day started out sunny and fine. By 5 p.m., there was a tornado warning. The office were I intern evacuated everyone to their homes, and in less than two minutes the sky was covered in a dark, thick and what seemed like an endless black cloud. I was terrified. Never have I been in a  tornado watch, let alone a tornado warning, so I had a weird feeling of the unknown.

The view from highway 2244 at 6:02, March 25, 2009.

I packed my stuff quickly and went out the door, driving calmly on FM-2244 toward West Campus, in the university area. I was tweeting all the while, reporting on what I was seeing. I took this picture of how low the clouds were, and News8Austin picked it up, broadcasting it on air. Of course I didn’t get paid a cent for it, but I felt like I was doing my job as a citizen journalist. I wasn’t even getting the worst of it.

Hail the size of golf balls was falling in the North area of Austin. The windshield on a friend’s car cracked, and like him many other people had casualties as a result of the storm. It was weird that it was so sudden, that in the span of two hours the sky could turn so dark and scary, but the weirdest part of all, is that by 7 p.m., the sun was shining again. Hail? What hail? It was all gone by then.

Watch a video of an Austin resident filming his neighbors as they move their cars to protect them from hail. It’s almost funny.

A stop sign melts on 22nd and Pearl

If I wrote for The Onion (I wish!),  I’d write: A stop sign melted on 22nd St and Pearl St. causing traffic confusion. Police suspect vandalism. 

In reality, yesterday while walking home I saw something truly out of the ordinary: a stop sign bent all the way to the floor. How did this happen? With no one around to talk to, I could only talk to myself and wonder what had caused it. It’s almost like the scene in The Wizard of Oz that Dorothy asks the Scarecrow which way to the Emerald City, and the Scarecrow points both ways confusing her before singing the legendary “Follow the yellow brick road”.  

Bent stop sign on 22nd and Pearl

As you can see, the boot of the sign is completely bent. I’m thinking it was probably a really heavy truck backing up and not noticing the stop sign, or a car crashing into the sign, or termites eating up the metal? Because it’s termite season, but I really don’t think they’re that strong.

It was certainly surreal to walk my normal way back home, and see this sight. I felt like in a Salvador Dalí painting, and instead of melting clocks I was seeing a melted stop sign.

Vintage relief

Vintage objects for sale

Vintage, vintage, where are thou oh vintage? It doesn’t take too much to find a vintage store in Austin. It’s weird that they’re practically a few blocks apart, especially concentrated around the drag (Guadalupe St. between MLK and Dean Keeton St.) and Hyde Park areas. I think it’s safe to say that vintage shopping is as common in Austin as hipster fashion is to LA or haute-couture to Paris.

What’s interesting is that some people make a living off of it by going to Goodwill stores, buying reasonable clothes at the lowest-of-the-rack prices, and reselling them at vintage stores that jack up the prices to sell to tourist (and sometimes locals) alike.

Buffalo Exchange location on Guadalupe St. and 29th St.

 One of the most active vintage shops is Buffalo Exchange, that buys and sells used clothing. But don’t try to sell them cheap, overworn pieces that not even your momma would’ve worn in her day. They have a keen eye to sort out what’s wearable and what isn’t , and they obviously only buy the wearable and sellable types.

It’s a thriving market in Austin, with more than five vintage stores that I know of. Though my favorite is Room Service Vintage, because they have an eclectic selection of everything from clothes, bags and accesories to room decorations, vinyls and furniture, these are a few others to contemplate:

• Blue Velvet
• Feather’s, on SOCO
• Big Bertha’s Bargain Basement
• Populuxe Wearable Art Boutique, close to The Triangle

Meet you at the Alamo

 

Alamo Drafthouse van by tibbygirl under Creative Commons license.

Whenever people visit Austin for the first time I always suggest they visit Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Which would be strange because why would I send someone to the movies instead of outdoors or to landmark places in Austin? Well I’m sure everyone around here would agree that not only is the Drafthouse a fixture in the city’s landscape, but it’s the weirdest it gets. Weird in a good way.

They have Master Pancake shows, for example, in which three comedians gather with microphones to crack jokes over classic movies. I’ve been to Forrest Gump, Friday the 13th and Matrix, and they always crack me up. The jokes are especially funny if they’re being said during a scary movie (like Friday the 13th) because the mood is so thrilling and suspenseful that anything humorous is as easy catch.

The Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz. Photo by I am K.E.B under Creative Commons license.

There are also other special events relating to entertainment. For the Oscars, for example, they make a special dinner and show party in which people gather to watch the presentation. There is some Oscar trivia and in the commercials entertainers invite the audience to participate by dancing or playing games. Lots of people dressed up to the nines because at the end there was a “Best dressed” contest and people won Oscar figurines and everything.

They’ve also co-hosted a dance marathon in which more than 800 people danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to break a world record. And the Downtown 6th St. theatre that goes by the name of “Ritz” has all the charm of a vintage movie theater, but with the modern perks. The Alamo is both quirky and weird.

Man or lizard?

Now this is really weird. Though he doesn’t have superpowers like Batman, Superman or Spiderman, The Lizardman sounds rights out of a comic book. He is a creation of illustrators, having undergone more than 650 hours of tatooing, most of them at Obscurities Trilogy Piercing in Dallas. He’s also placed implants underneath his eyebrows to give the appearance of ridges and filed his teeth sharp like reptiles’ teeth.

The Lizardman. Photo by rubicat under Creative Commons license.

Behind all the colorful ridges and the bifurcated tongue is Erik Sprague, though he prefers to be referred to as Lizardman. Now here’s the interesting part: he studied Philosophy under a full-paid honors scholarship. So what is a degree-holder doing making a living off his appearance? His interests in body art and its relationship to the way people form identity conceptions by unifying the image of the human led him to create a performance piece on his own body. He actually has a message to go with his rare looks. And he’s developed stunts and tricks to go with it, traveling and performing in many venues across the country.

It’s nice to see things out of the ordinary that question the nature of our thoughts. Watch out for the Lizardman if you live in Austin!

Local Spoken Here

 

Sign that says "Local Spoken Here" on Guadalupe St.

One of the things that remain true to Austin is its go-local discourse that many businesses present. Partially the reason why it’s had so much success is that it’s typified as something cool to do. Take this sign that says “Local Spoken Here.” Now that doesn’t make much sense, does it? Local is not a language nor a dialect, yet it’s a language that speaks to the business culture of Austin.

 From bookstores to toys and beyond, Austinites help each other and the city’s economy by shopping local. In order to support this cause, the Austin Independent Business Alliance created a campaign and a database for people to know the local choices available to them. You can search by the category the business fits in (like books or entertainment) to a member’s name or description. That’s another thing of local businesses, that many locals have stakes in them. Wheatsville Co-op, for example, is a grocery store entirely sustained by members. And a sign of its success is that just now its undergoing renovations and expansion to become a bigger grocery store. 

Austinites care for the city business, and although big chain stores and apartment buildings with no personality spring up every so often across town, there are still plenty of local options that are representative of the culture of the city.