Deep in the heart of etc, etc

Having spent almost a week in Texas, I'm disappointed to see that it's not nearly as Texan as I was expecting. San Antonio is a big city with lots of fat lanyarded conventioneers flocking into town to eat overpriced shrimp and slap other fat landarded conventioneers on the back.

Austin is a little nicer though, like a slice on Byron Bay in the heart of Far North Queensland. It's a fun city, with plenty of live music, some supurb improv comedy, a mayor called Will Wynn (I shit you not) and an unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Wierd". That's my kinda place.

UPDATE 5/2, 7:50pm. In response to the comments:

- Austin as Byron Bay was not meant as a geographic reference but as a cultural reference. Whether it's in Queensland, New South Wales or Timbuktu is irrelevant to the comparison I was making.

- I'm trying to imagine the conversation I might have with this Jason Traxal: "Hi Jason, my name's Ari from Australia. An anonymous person told me to look you up and tell you that you played basketball with him in Melbourne four years ago. Do you mind showing me around Texas?" Too long a bow to draw, I'm afraid.

- The improv comedy I saw in Austin was the excellent Available Cupholders in their 27 January show, which featured a wonderful long-form narrative play based around a colourful crime gang known as The Wheels, each of whom possessed their own set of, er, wheels. For what it's worth, other classy improv was seen in the forms of the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, who performed an improv battle between Jews and Christians (Baruch-Ha-Ha-Ha vs The Kings of Kings of Comedy... very cute) and some slightly underdeveloped work by the Peoples (sic) Improv Theatre in New York.

Comments

boy_fromOz said…
last time I checked, Byron Bay was in New South Wales. Or did you mean that Austin is what Byron Bay would look like if it were in far north Queensland (and a few hundred kilometres inland)?
31 January 2007 at 01:26
Anonymous said…
Hi Ari,

Hope you and Linh are having fun. When do you get back in Melbourne?

Dozza

PS The guy above me is an idiot
31 January 2007 at 18:23
Anonymous said…
Ari,

sounds like you're taking in the American homebrand colloquialisms. Well done. With that you won't need esoteric geographical demarcations. Haha...

1. Do a piece on the girls in the USA. Contrast to the girls Down Under (no pun intended) Just make it tastefull (double entendre for us only!)

2. Look up a guy called Jason Traxal. He's a nice guy. Christian Evangelical but just tell him you know the Jewish guy he adopted for a couple of weeks following a conversation on the Basketball court at Melbourne Uni in 2003... He's a very nice guy. Show you around a bit if you're still in Texas.
2 February 2007 at 00:55
Anonymous said…
Hi,

I came across your blog doing a random search for Austin Improv.

Do you remember what troupes or shows you saw when you were in Austin?
5 February 2007 at 17:06
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