The Austin Cut - Issue #4

Published on January 2017 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 88 | Comments: 0 | Views: 926
of 16
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Comments

Content

#4 sePtember 2011

DeaD Prez’s gangsta suPPlements P. 8

we’re sick OF hearing abOut “the Death OF FictiOn” P. 13

shOrt stOries

FOOD:24 hOur restaurants anD hangOuts P. 5

BARRY COOPER

AN INTERVIEW WITH

hOw law enFOrcement kePt texas’ ex-narcOtics cOP turneD activist Out OF the race FOr attOrney general Pg. 10

cOntents
An Interview with Barry Cooper . . . . 10 theater How law enforcement kept Texas’ ex-narcotics cop turned Marion Bridge: Sept 8th to Oct 8th . .
activist out of the race for Attorney General
by Brandon Roberts by Steven Campos

7

music This Happened . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Dead Prez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 by Tim Lambert FOOD Served . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Restaurant etiquette in the land of shitty tippers
by Marie Scott

“Revolutionary But Gangsta” Goes Fitness and Supplements
by Josh Newport

The Ultimate 24 Hour Restaurant Hangout in Austin & Drink of the Month . . 5
by Lisa van Dam-Bates

We’re sick of reading about “the death of (insert form of art/ literature here)” so here’s a different take on the future of short stories
by Wint Huskey

literature Salute Your Shorts . . . . . . . . . . 13

Film Ready for 3D Remakes of Recent Remakes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
by Sean Naito

4

The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com

serveD
Editor-in-Chief
Brandon Roberts

Managing Editor
Lisa van Dam-Bates

Restaurant Etiquette in the Land of Shitty Tippers by marie scOtt

Contributing Editor
Josh Newport

Copy Editor
Nick Longoria

Contributors & Columnists
Wint Huskey, Tim Lambert, Marie Scott, Steven Campos, Sean Naito

Cover Art
Lora Fritsche

Art Contributors
Shane Campos

Advertising Director
Lisa van Dam-Bates

attentiOn, Please!

Barry Cooper attempted to flip Texas’ backward ass policies upside down, putting us not just in line with other civilized states, but ahead. Then Texas law enforcement (who he would have been the boss of if he’d won Texas Attorney General) fucked him over. Read the interview for more than a cheap summary. Also note that this issue of The Cut comes in a new, expanded format! Being the writers we are, we’ve devoted more space to literature than any other discipline. But don’t throw us in the trash just yet – we’ve included sections on stuff that regular people care about, too. Namely: food and music. So, if you consider yourself knowledgeable about anything related to these topics, particularly (but not necessarily) if it happens in Austin, shoot us an e-mail and we’ll consider giving you some of our infinitely valuable column space. Or you could always come knocking on our door … but don’t be surprised if you’re greeted with a shotgun and a dirty look. Contact information is as follows.

cOntact

E-Mail [email protected] The Austin Cut 1006 Banister Lane #806 Austin, Texas 78704

About a year after I’d started waiting tables, my mother took me out to lunch. We went to a small Vietnamese restaurant that was a family favorite. The service was awesome and my mother even commented on how much she liked our waiter. She went on about how she went there all the time, that he was her favorite and that they had the best food in town. When the bill came, she paid and we left. I snuck a peek at the tip line on her credit card slip and was horrified that she had only left $1.50 on our 20-something dollar lunch. I tried to keep my mouth shut on the way home, but it was beyond me how a woman who used to be a waitress (granted that was over 30 years ago) could leave such a terrible tip. Things have changed in foodservice since my parents’ day. As the daughter of some bad tippers and generally annoying customers, I felt it my responsibility to fill the old folks in. My parents were horrified to learn that servers pay taxes on their tips (duh!) and, in most states, are paid a special reduced hourly wage. They were also embarrassed to hear that 12% is no longer every server’s dream (a REALLY great tip back in the day, or so I’m told). Later at a family dinner with a friend of my father’s, the topic of tipping reared its head again. My dad’s old-fart friend already had the updated etiquette and my surprised dad demanded: “how did you find all of this out? How was I supposed to know that 10% is no good?” John replied that he had “sensed a tension in [his] waitresses shoulders” and “a very strained smile” when they came to get the bill. It seemed obvious that the tip had been sub-par. It appears that for most people, the couple bucks that were left at the end of a meal thirty years ago are the same few dollars that make it to the table now. A previous coworker of mine that has waited tables nearly all of her life (only the past 35 years) told me that “the money’s the same.” Back in the late 1970s, she would make $150 on a good Friday night. Now in 2011, she makes the same amount. Either inflation is some strange conspiracy and dinner out always cost about $15, or people used to tip really well and now they don’t. I realize that some people these days are out of the loop and, with no good guidance, can appear to be a poor customer (in your server’s eyes). So I’m going to give you the scoop on what it’s like to wait tables in this decade, and let you in on what us servers like, and what we don’t (for the most part.) It’s pretty simple: Servers work for tips. This is true even in states where we make a normal hourly wage. Waiting tables is hard work (harder than most minimum wage jobs) and we’re in it for the money. Other aspects of our jobs are important too, but money is number one. I don’t care how nice a person you are, or how politely you ordered. If you don’t tip, I won’t like you. Servers talk too. If you stiff a server once, everyone they work with knows who you are and that you don’t tip well, or at all. You will get poor service in the future. I know that talking about money is a touchy subject. Proper tip percentage can get pretty hairy, but let me explain: servers in Texas do not make an hourly wage. The $2.13/hr that they do make, barely covers what they

pay in taxes (if even). A bi-weekly paycheck is likely to come out to less than one dollar. (I was shocked upon my arrival to this state to see a coworker’s whopping $0.13 paycheck.) Try to keep in mind when the bill comes that you are paying your server’s wages. I don’t think it’s fair for the customer to be directly responsible for paying the restaurant’s staff, but that’s another story. Keep in mind that 20% is the new 15%. To figure out 20%, figure out 10% (easy enough to do) and double it. Anything less than 20%, to me, indicates bad service. If everything was good, always leave 20%. Going out to eat can be expensive, if you can’t afford 20% you should just get take-out. Next, be nice! It’s okay to send food back, to have a problem or to ask questions. Your server is there to help you, but it’s never okay to be rude. If your service sucks, ask for a manager, politely. I’ve never been angry because a customer was too needy or I screwed up their dinner, but I’m always pissed if someone is rude. There should never be any reason to raise your voice at your server and absolutely no reason to use foul language. This seems obvious, but people can get pretty irritable when they’re hungry. Remember that your server is the person who takes your order and brings your food and bill, but that your server relies on a lot of other people to do their job. If your food is wrong, it could have been the kitchen’s fault. If your bill is wrong, it could be the computer system. Try to give your server the benefit of the doubt and if everything is wrong and your server is rude, just ask for a manager. If you are polite and nice, this will happen close to never. Dining out and small children… If your child is rude, we don’t think it’s cute. If your child is bothering other tables, or wandering unsupervised throughout the restaurant, it’s really not cute (and can be dangerous, we are carrying heavy trays). If your small child is throwing food or screaming or crying, it’s probably time for a time-out, outside. If the restaurant is family friendly and welcomes small children, they will have an abundance of highchairs and crayons. This doesn’t mean that the staff are professional babysitters too. Complaints are only welcomed when constructive. Restaurants and their employees always want to know if anything wrong with your experience if feedback will help them keep you as a customer in the future. We can tell when a customer is only complaining because they want something free or because they like to complain. Nobody appreciates this. If you go somewhere and it’s not that good, just cut your losses and don’t go back. Unfortunately being an underpaid and underappreciated server can make us cranky. We are only human and we’re just trying to do our jobs. Some of us are really good at it and others not so much. The better the employer, the better the service will be. It’s hardly realistic to expect great service from people being mistreated by their employers anytime soon, but by being a good customer you’ll be part of the solution. Once servers earn your respect, maybe they’ll have a chance at their boss’s too. austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

33

F restaurant hangOut in austin OOD the ultimate 24 hOur
Let’s state the obvious first: This is a comfortable, very “Austin,” diner. You get a lot of food and the prices are low. The servers always seem to be in a good mood and even when it’s busy, the wait isn’t too long. They’ve got wine and beer, but if that doesn’t do it for you, I’ve been told its okay to bring your own somethin’ else. My only real complaint about this restaurant is their lack of options when it comes to sides. I don’t want cottage cheese or chips and salsa with breakfast or a burger. For an Anglo diner they have a surprisingly large selection of Mexican food that I don’t really want to chance it on. I know this place is a beloved Austin favorite, but I’m not very impressed. The “hangout-ibility” is pretty low because they are always so packed and bring your check while you’re still eating.

Magnolia Café

is the absolute worst I’ve ever had. The servers are a little bit over-extended and I’ve ended up feeling ignored or rushed. Again, I know this is a supposed Austin jewel, but can’t we do better?

by Lisa van Dam-Bates

The menu is huge, with lots of vegan and vegetarian options, but my plate always looks (and tastes) like it was literally thrown together. The soy sausage

Kerbey Lane Café

Let me start by saying the staff is the nicest I have found in this state. Everybody seems genuinely nice and happy to be there (even when they are busy and probably stressed to the max). They have a bomb happy hour (half off all specialty drinks from 7am-7pm) and a couple vegetarian options, with soy sausage that some meat-eaters prefer to the real deal. The menu is a little pricey and a step up from general diner food, but you don’t get very much of it and the descriptions tend to leave you slightly disappointed when your plate arrives. It’s super clean and nice inside, but lacks that cozy feeling you want when you’re trying to hang out after you eat. They probably have the best Bloody Mary in town with tons of pickled goodies on top.

24 Diner

a million times and never knew that it’s 24 hours or that it’s a full restaurant (and coffee shop) with free Wi-Fi. Everything about this place is awesome. This place has pretty authentic, greasy, and cheap Mexican food. I even spotted some potato tacos that are most likely vegan. They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner around the clock, as well as $1.50 imports and domestics during happy hour. At night, it’s super quiet, but pretty well staffed. This is definitely somewhere I could chill for an extended period of time.

like you’re annoying someone. I don’t know why this place is overlooked as an Austin classic, but in my opinion, it most certainly is.

dRINk
OF the mOnth
Lisarita
I love grapefruit, if you do not, you can use any other citrus fruit in its place. Ingredients: 1.5-2 oz. silver Toro de Lidia (100 % blue agave) Tequila Splash of orange syrup (homemade is best) Juice of 1 whole lime ½ grapefruit ½ lemon To make orange syrup, simmer ½ cup water with ¼ cup sugar. Add zest of 1/3 an orange. Stir constantly until sweet, orangey and thicker than water consistency. Strain out any big pieces of orange zest before using. Cut the grapefruit and lemon into small wedges. In a shaker (if you don’t have a shaker, use two plastic cups with different sized rims and fit them together to get a makeshift shaker) muddle grapefruit and lemon wedges with orange syrup vigorously. Use a couple of ice cubes to facilitate pulping the fruit. To avoid splashing, add lime juice and tequila after you muddle the fruit. Shake well and strain over ice in another glass. Shake mixture with ice and pour into a glass (shaking with ice will help mellow out your Rita by adding a little bit of water). If you prefer a tart Margarita, omit orange syrup and muddle part of an orange with the grapefruit and lemon. You should be able to taste the tequila, if you can’t, just add more! This is an approximate recipe depending on size of fruit and juice rendered. The tequila that you decide to use is not important as long as its 100% de agave. Tequila that is not 100% de agave is just vodka with synthetic “tequila” flavor. Toro de Lidia is my personal favorite and isn’t too pricey. Try using a reposado (instead of silver) for a stronger tequila flavor in any mixed drink.

La Mexicana Bakery

I’ve driven by this place what feels like

Upon my arrival to the final 24 hour restaurant in Austin, I was a little disappointed. This place is dingy and attached to a shitty looking motel reminiscent of the Denny’s attached to the Days Inn I stayed at in Vegas. It was empty, dirty, and so cheap I was sure the food would be awful. I was surprised when everything was awesome. Mimosas are only $2 and they have a decent beer selection. My food was good and this is the kind of place that you can hang out and drink coffee at until the wee hours of the morning without feeling rushed or

Star Seeds Café

austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

53

by tim lambert
When was the last time you sat down and thought, “Wow, the 1500s were crazy?” If you’re like me and find history incredibly fascinating, it was sometime last week. If you’re a normal person, you probably haven’t thought of the 1500s since you went over it in high school. But if you’re like Ferdinand Magellan, you were thinking about how crazy the 16th century was all the time because you were living in it. It was an age of European exploration. Christopher Columbus had just made it to the New World in the decade leading up to the 1500s and the rest of the ocean faring elite were not only excited by his “discovery,” but were more pumped to one-up him. On September 20th, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set out with five ships and 270 men with the aim of finding a Westerly route to the Spice Islands (the Maluku Islands now part of Indonesia) for the Spanish. They made it to South America by December. The first thing on Magellan’s mind was to find a way through the landmass to the other side. The crew set up on the Argentinian coast, waiting out some bad weather. While in the new settlement, named Puerto San Julian, two captains in the exploration party decided they’d had enough. In April of 1520, a mutiny erupted but didn’t get far because most of the crew were loyal to the leader of the exploration. Magellan ruled with an iron fist, and two captains were drawn and quartered. Their bodies were left on the beach, to be found by Sir Francis Drake 57 years later. Another captain and a priest were marooned there when Magellan and his men finally left. The explorers made their way down Argentina and found a spot that looked like it could possibly lead through the landmass to the other coast. Magellan sent two of his ships, Conception and San Antonio, to explore the inland strait he had his eyes on. However, the captain of the San Antonio decided instead to call it quits and head back to Spain. With three ships remaining (one other ship had been lost in a sudden storm on a scouting mission), Magellan took 38 days to navigate the strait before he sailed into the giant body of water on the other side. 46 He had discovered the Pacific Ocean for the white man and named it “Mar Pacifico” because of the calm waters. Next stop, Philippines! The trip across the Pacific took two and a half months but only 150 of the original 270 man crew had made it. Though for some of the sailors (Magellan included), the Philippines would be the last stop.  After converting the Filipino tribe leader Rajah Humabon to Christianity, Magellan was unable to convert Humabon’s enemy Datu Lapu-Lapu and decided he must be conquered. He sailed to the island of Mactan (Lapu-Lapu’s stronghold) with a group of about 50 guys and tried to invade the island. The native tribe had amassed around 1,500 fighters and was waiting for Magellan and his men as they waded onto the shore. Some reports say that he was hit with a poison arrow and died. Other reports say he was wounded with a spear, pounced on by the native people, and torn to shreds. Either way, long before he could be gellin’ like Magellan, he was killed and no trace of his body was found. There weren’t enough crewmen to sail the remaining three ships after the Filipino fiasco, so they burned the Conception. With the hulls of the Trinidad and the Victoria full of valuable spices, the sailors headed west to Spain. The Trinidad began to take on water and turned back for repairs. A few weeks later, it set sail again, but was caught by the Portuguese and sank in a storm. The Victoria, however, prevailed and on September 6th, 1522, almost exactly three years after the voyage started, the 18 remaining crew members were safely back in Spain. Captained by Juan Sebastian Elcano, the Victoria became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe nearly 500 years ago. And if you think the 1500s were crazy, they were still 100 years behind the people that lived in the 1600s! London in the mid-1600s was the heart of the country that, 100 years later, would control a global empire. And by that I mean London was cramped, overcrowded and plague ridden. Much like the inner-cities of today, London proper was where most of the business went down. It held factories and foundries, a bustling wharf, and large amount of poor people in tenement housing. The best part was, it was all made of wood, and yeah, it all caught on fire. September 1st, 1666, baker Thomas Farrinor went to bed in his house on Pudding Lane (really guys, Pudding Lane?) without properly extinguishing his oven fire. Shortly after midnight on Sept. 2nd, the fire was raging on the ground floor while the Farrinors were trapped upstairs. Everyone in the house escaped, except for a maid who stayed because she was afraid of heights. The fire destroyed the Farrinor house and starting to spread, when the authorities were alerted. In 1666, London didn’t have firemen, a fire brigade, or anyone who could be counted on as an expert in the area of fire. There was the “Trained Band” (members of the local militia, somewhat trained in peacekeeping) and the local churches that stored some of the tools needed to suppress fire. Ladders and buckets of course, but their most effective tool was a “firehook.” This was a giant hook on a long pole that was used to rip down houses that either were on fire already, or needed to be ripped down to create a “fire break,” an empty area in between the fire and other structures where there was nothing to burn. Things weren’t looking good for these Londoners. Word got to the Lord Mayor, name of Sir Thomas Bloodworth. Some people in the area had experience with fighting fires and told Bloodworth that the buildings surrounding the flaming house on Pudding Lane should be torn down. To this, Bloodworth scoffed, “Pish! A woman could piss it out.” The fire soon spread to the buildings on the river full of flame inducing material (tar, pitch, rosin) as well as large stores of black powder. These things, along with a strong breeze, made the fire a sweltering inferno in just a matter of hours. It was burning houses and buildings left and right (even houses on the London Bridge) and all the while Londoners were gathering up their valuables and trying to find safety. By the second day, people trying to escape across the Thames River found all the passenger boats had raised

shane camPOs

their prices exorbitantly due to increased demand. Prices for renting handcarts to move things out of the fire’s path had also risen to an outlandish high. In the midst of the fire, rumors soon began to arise that foreigners had started it. So if the fire itself wasn’t crazy enough, Londoners began roaming the streets, looking for any out-of-towners. It was like the London of a few weeks ago, except half of the city was ablaze and, instead of fighting with cops, people were trying to beat and/or kill immigrants. By September 5th, three days after it had started, the fire began to die down, but not before St. Paul’s Cathedral had burnt down, King Charles II himself had joined in on the firefighting, and 4/5ths of London was destroyed. The recorded death count was incredibly small (no more than 10) but this is almost certainly inaccurate. Around 13,500 houses and countless other buildings had been completely incinerated in flames significantly hotter than any normal fire due to the weather pattern known as a “Firestorm,” wherein the flames are so hot that the fire creates its own winds. Bodies would have been nearly cremated and there were no fire investigators to get an accurate count of dead poor people. Of the Londoners who were left, many had gathered in a park with all of their earthly belongings. Much to their dismay, bread had doubled in price inside of their safe-haven. There were countless other important things going on in 1519, 1522, and in 1666, most of which you and I know nothing about. These were crazy times. Captaining a ship around the world must have seemed literally insane to a person who never went more than 7 miles from the house they grew up in (or maybe they wouldn’t give a shit, who knows?). A fire destroying 4/5ths of any large American city today (let alone the largest) would have a monumental effect on the economy of not only the United States, but probably the world. We’ll only really know exactly what it’s like to exist right now, but it’s pretty fun to sit down and think, “Wow, the 1500s were crazy.” P.S.: September 11th, 2001. Never forget. There, I said it.

The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com

Film
by Sean Naito

Ready for 3D Remakes of Recent Remakes?

By now, you’ve probably said to yourself: “Hollywood’s no longer original, what’s going on here?” Remakes are rampant, but then there’s the 3-D revival, which says: “Hey! If we can’t impress you with someone else’s work, will you please look at this object coming at you?” I, like most fans of the cinema, had strong feelings years ago about remakes. I always spouted off how dumb I thought they were without even once thinking, “Man, I love John Carpenter’s The Thing,” or, “David Cronenberg’s The Fly is the ONLY FLY!” Why would we make such exceptions to certain remakes, but not others?

True, it’s easy to make a judgment call on something like the recent Fright Night remake. I believe you can sometimes surely assume that this will not be a good thing. Aside from telling you: “Hey, times area-changing, get used to it!” I will instead say: the movie industry has completely fucked itself, so take what you can get. I’m serious. You can’t deny that every now and then some mega budgeted, heavily advertised, garbage bag will entertain you, and sometimes that movie you saw “just to be entertained” might rub you in a legitimate way. It’s not like films never existed before the year 2000, either. There are many, many, many hidden gems out there and

we can share those alongside the likes of Transformers: The Dark of the Moon and Walk Hard. So if we can agree on that, why not watch the horrifically yet undeniably humorous decline of the film industry as it reaches deep into its pockets for more gimmicks? Did you ever think one of those ideas would be to “restart” franchises that aren’t even 10 years old? Good. Because The Amazing Spider-Man is set for release next year and it’s not a continuation of Sam Raimi’s 24-frames-a-paycheck saga, but a brand new remake, redo, reboot, restart, reimagining … whatever. On a very quick side-note, remember when Tim Burton kept saying his Planet of the Apes remake was “not a remake but a reimagining?” There’s no difference, but I guess no one wanted to question a guy who looks like Nicholas Cage if he never left a comic book shop or brushed his teeth. Getting back to it, Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) is currently ghost-directing a Superman re-cycle. I say “ghostdirecting” because Snyder has proven more than once you can be faithful to the look of your source material and bring it to life with absolutely no heart. Warner Bros. is already making plans to reboot Batman after Christopher Nolan “inceptionalizes” his third and final installment next year. You have to admire their speediness with planning all this out while Nolan’s last outing is still in production. I wouldn’t be surprised if, eventually, these reboots started appearing in no less than a year. Then we have the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D. Remember when they remade it the first time in 2003, and then they released a prequel to the remake in 2006? Everything is being made more complicated than it has to be. Though I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be entertained by the ences and some with new additions to their lives, they were ready for a reunion of their beloved play. When re-picking up the script, the dialogue came back to the ladies as if they had just been at rehearsal back in 2002. When at one of the rehearsals, Mr. Webster asked if I wanted to view the first act of the production. Gladly accepting his offer, they started. During their performance, I found myself amazed at how well these actresses connected with not only each other, but with their director as well. After they finished the act, they asked if I was interested in viewing the second. I hesitantly declined, and thanked them for everything. While leaving the theater it hit me: it’s only been two weeks of rehearsals and they showed me the first act with hardly any flaws and were ready to show the second with still a little more than a month before opening night. They were on top of their game, no doubt. For a production that already seemed solid during rehearsals, I could only imagine how it would be during performance days. Things in the script that didn’t seem to have much meaning be-

idea of a prequel of a prequel. What if you were some weird incompetent nerd who got lucky because you wrote a famously incoherent movie outline which you later revised (with help from smarter people) into a legible script, and then got it produced and released as Star Wars? Naturally you’d hang on to that one thing your whole fat frog-throated life, and you’d keep milking it until your hands were broken and your cow has run out of midi-chlorians. Next year will see the release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 3D and it’s not a one-off affair. Each year from then will see the release of every other Star Wars movie up until the Furby-friendly Return of the Jedi in 3D. Can we maybe assume that these re-rereleases will unveil even more changes? I can already imagine Han Solo eating a digital sandwich in the Mos Eisley Cantina, while a sloppily rendered tomato slowly drips onto his blaster. But maybe we should feel sorry for Lucas since he’s a slave to digital film-making technology and is probably just really jealous that it evolves faster than he can run. The sad obvious truth is that Hollywood isn’t truly out of ideas. They’re just rejecting everything that could be a threat to their precious franchises. Basically anything that can be labeled as “original,” “innovative,” and “creative.” After all, two of the franchises I mentioned above have already been remade once or twice. It also seems, from my personal observation, that moviegoers nowadays don’t care much about what they’re watching. It’s just a way to kill time before embarking on more adventurous rebellious youthful endeavors. It seems like our studio meat and potato portions have gotten smaller and colder, yet the price keeps rising. fore had increasingly become more potent this time around. Hitting marks that they missed in the past production, their performances felt stronger than ever. It was more bold, with an all-original flair. With the performance days coming up, this production seems to have just about everything theatergoers could want. Something more than just a show is going on; it is adults being able to reconnect with each other and bring something they all believed in back to stage. Marion Bridge opens September 8th at the Hyde Park Theater which is located at 511 W. 43rd Street and runs until October 8th every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night starting at 8 PM sharp. Tickets are typically $19 ($17 for students, seniors, and ACOT members) every Friday and Saturday; Thursday night is Pay What You Can Night. Tickets on final weekend (October 4-6) change to $21/$19. For reservations call 479-PLAY (7529) or visit hydeparktheatre.com. Contact Steven with theater events at [email protected]

th eat re 8th to Oct 8th Marion Bridge: Sept
by Steven Campos
One of Austin’s beloved stage plays returns, nine years later, in Hyde Park Theatre’s revival of Marion Bridge, featuring an all original cast and director. Originally produced in 2002, this bittersweet drama tells the story of three very different sisters reluctantly reuniting after their mother becomes fatally sick. Filled with genuine wit, unexpected turns, and a heartwarming theme, the Hyde Park Theater picked up the play with Ken Webster directing. During the showing, audiences and critics fell in love all around, leaving people breathless. With powerhouse acting and precise directing, the play was nominated for outstanding cast and director by the B. Iden Payne awards. Bridge was also the winner of best direction. After closing night, the Hyde Theater kept Bridge as one of their prized

plays. After years of new shows and new investors, Bridge still held its title as one of the strongest plays and is still one of the best. Nine years later, Mr. Webster suggested that they do a revival of the show. When asked, “why do a revival?” he exclaimed that it was a production he couldn’t shake from his head. He loved the script and the actresses so much, it was something that had to be shown again. With Hyde Park Theater behind the idea, Webster wanted to see if he could get the original cast behind him as well. He began to make phone calls to all three actresses (Rebecca Robinson, Emily Erington, and Kelsey Kling) to see if they wanted to be part of the production once again. The answer they all gave was similar; A yes, with no hesitation. With all three actresses onboard, they couldn’t wait to start rehearsals. Nine years older, all with new experi-

austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

73

“Revolutionary But Gangsta” Goes Fitness and Supplements
by Josh Newport
The last time I missed a Dead Prez show, I also missed a mini riot. The riot started after the arrest of an audience member, resulting with a whole bunch of pampered Evergreen State College alumni breaking shit and flipping over a cop car. After hearing my friends who were there talk about the riot and seeing it all over the news, I made a mental note to never miss a Dead Prez show again. We got to Red 7 around 9:20 P.M. on a Friday. The bill said Dead Prez wasn’t going to start till 12:30 A.M., so we knew we were in for a long night. We entered the venue and the song “Seaww” by oOoOO was blaring from the speakers while Western Tink’s tall MC was rapping along into a low-mixed microphone. There were only about 30 people inside and they were all avoiding the center floor because it was filled with huge puddles that smelled a little like sewage. During the tall MC’s banter, a mysterious voice interrupted over the PA and told everyone on stage they had two more songs and to wrap it up. During the next song one of the performers (Beautiful Lou from Western Tink) stopped rapping and started taking promo shots of everyone on stage. Even 48 after Western Tink finished their set and were all hanging out, Beautiful Lou was walking around them getting shots from different angles. Before their last song, the tall MC showcased his philosophical side with a cryptic proverb: “These niggas can’t be themselves ‘cause they can’t fight.” The rest of his words of wisdom were cut to a short mumble when the beat dropped. While the second band, One Against Many, was setting up their rock music equipment, I started to get major Lollapalooza vibes. After an intense nu-metal sound check, I didn’t know what to expect. They had the stage-presence of clean cut dorks that contribute to society, but their passionate angst-ridden jams are proof that underneath their calm and dorky exterior lies a vicious and unreasonable beast outshining Mike Tyson on cocaine. They ended their first song and I began wishing they actually were an over the top nu-metal band with ridiculous break downs instead of the frustrated modern hardcore band that they were. The band looked like it was holding back a lot to keep from alienating the hip hop audience that was slowly filing in the door. Between songs, the lead singer would switch from being the typical violent, loose cannon, hardcore front man to soft spoken and really polite. Throughout their performance, with a look of genuine sincerity, the lead singer told everyone how glad he was that we all stayed to listen to them. He also assured the audience the set was almost finished, even though the crowd looked pretty entertained. The League of Extraordinary Gz were a whole crew of MCs, hype dudes, a mascot, and a standup comedian. The League performed a variety of styles while they kept the energy on and off the stage up, with the crowd chanting their hooks. They played a bunch of weed songs like “Too Much Weed,” but unfortunately, at this point, only a few people were smoking. The Dead Prez crowd was finally starting to show up, and by the time The League finished, the whole venue was pumped and unrecognizable, compared to the place it was before their set. His first show in months, Roosh Williams got on a hot stage and maintained the crowd’s energy. I had no idea who Roosh was or what he sounded like until he played that night. When I saw a young Rick Rubin setting up a drum kit, and two guys in glasses (one of them looked like a 14 year old kid) walking around helping set up gear, I started to cringe. I was expecting the next 30-40 minutes to be a painful test of endurance, but fortunately Roosh is a total pimp live. Onstage with him was Houston MC Kyle Hubbard, DJ Dub 1 (the 14 year old kid), and drummer Nick Cogdill (Rick Rubin). By now, the crowd was much more loose and receptive and moved well with Roosh’s chill modern delivery. Riders Against The Storm (RAS) started their set by getting the crowd to chant “fuck my job” for a couple minutes. RAS is made of Jbro and Tiger Lily (AKA Tiger), a married couple who think our society is run by fuckers, and by touring and spreading good vibes they can change the world for the better. Their style sounded like an amalgam of a bunch of really African influenced genres and rap. A lot of their beats also had more of a natural raw drum sound versus heavily produced kits or a drum machine. Jbro and Tiger wore giant grins throughout their whole set and looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, which the crowd seemed to devour. RAS was all about good vibes, so they rapped about super positive things they were into more than their struggles. For their last couple

dEAd PREZ

MUSIC

The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com

songs, they told the audience they needed to get free and get on stage; they also wanted the crowd to sing with their call response songs, but the participation was moderate. People just danced. Finally Dead Prez played. Their set totally ruled and they played all of their unanimously popular songs about white authority being bullshit and how Dead Prez is “revolutionary but gangsta” (RGB/red, black and green). They carried the message: the best way for impoverished blacks to keep from being further exploited by whitey, is to be militant revolutionary gangstas. The majority of the audience wasn’t black, but a lot of Dead Prez’ lyrics and banter were addressed specifically to the part of the audience that was. The air was getting filled with more and more weed as the show progressed. About a third of the way through Dead Prez’s set, throngs of joints had already made their way past me. I was surprised how many people weren’t smoking though; it looked like more than half the people were skipping out as joints were being passed around. Over the course of the show, I pegged M-1 and stick.man from Dead Prez each with one, which they both ignored. I assumed they were so in the zone that they didn’t notice the joints curving past their faces and bouncing off of them. Given the group’s reputation, and fact that they have songs

about weed and past shows where the whole audience and stage were blazing, I figured if they saw smokeable weed, they would have been all over it for sure. Later through their set, stick.man talked about how healthy he had been lately. He mentioned how he had been exercising for the past two months, cutting back on how much pot he smoked, and quitting drinking altogether. This segued into the promotion of RGBFitclub.com (which came like a bucket of cold water),a new album and Dead Prez format meant to inspire discipline and a healthy lifestyle to anyone that hears it. Dead Prez did a couple songs from the new RGB Fitclub album. One was a tribute to Crips founder and late death-row inmate Tookie Williams, about working out and getting “Swoll like Tookie Williams” with lyrics about being “back in the gym and back on my vitamins.” They also did some songs about how eating healthy, drinking water, and reading are beneficial, and how it’s a good idea to make disciplined habits out of their song’s subject matter. The transition from poverty and police raids, to drinking water and brushing your teeth, was such a dramatic shift it would’ve made anyone laugh. The songs live still sounded gnarly, even though the lyrics were about taking vitamins and working out. I personally thought the songs they

“They had the stage-presence of clean cut dorks that contribute to society, but their passionate angst-ridden jams are proof that underneath their calm and dorky exterior lies a vicious and unreasonable beast outshining Mike Tyson on cocaine.”
played from their newest mixtape “Revolutionary but Gangsta Grillz” topped most of what they performed all night. I especially liked “Malcolm, Garvey, Huey,” which they performed after talking about some of the new literature they were studying and how the audience should make special note to always “remember the classics”: Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Huey P. Newton. Toward the end, they dedicated some songs to all their “RGB sisters out there… gun in the purse, Serena Williams looking, holding her man’s weapon for when he’s searched down by the police, revolutionary sisters out there…” After their most successful single “Hip-Hop” had the crowd going wild, Dead Prez talked about how there were more black people on parole or locked in the system than enslaved before the civil war. They got the crowd chanting “free them all…free them all…free them all…,” before their DJ Mike Flow rapped over Kanye’s “Power” with the chorus “No white man should have all that power.” We left the show around 1:30 A.M. and passed by 6th street, which was louder and about a million times more bumpin’ than most shows ever are. It’s too bad the bars don’t stop serving at five o’clock instead of two.

austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

93

How Texas Law Enforcement Teamed Up to Keep Barry Cooper Out of the Race for Attorney General
by Brandon Roberts
Barry Cooper has been called an “ex-cop gone pot activist” about a million times, but that’s only the tip of the buzzwords iceberg. Yes, he released a DVD series called “Never Get Busted” where he describes in incredible detail how and where to hide your drugs from the police during a traffic stop. Yes, he went in-depth about the science of how police drug dogs sniff out your illegal substances and how to properly avoid detection. He even made a DVD about keeping your million dollar grow-op under the police radar (“Never Get Raided”). Until recently, Barry Cooper’s slow and articulate counterpoints to the war on drugs were generally limited to YouTube and Jerry Springer-esque political TV shows. After the Never Get Busted DVDs, Barry Cooper got to work on KopBusters with his wife, Candi. This project, according to the Kopbusters’ website, “was hatched in one of many late night board meetings which consists of Barry and Candi smoking herb and pillow talking their upcoming strategies they will use to assist Americans.” Essentially, it’s a bizarre and brilliant reality TV show where police are lured into breaking the law on camera. In Odessa, Texas, Kopbusters rented a house and set up a light that generated a lot of heat. They pumped this heat out of the house. As a self-admitted crooked narcotics cop in the past, Barry Cooper knew that the police would illegally view this house through an infrared camera and think that it was marijuana grow house. (Police need evidence that the house is involved in crime, and the approval of a judge, before they can inspect it with an infrared camera.) He was right. On December 4th, 2008 police illegally entered the house, only to find an elaborate trick, a Kopbusters T-shirt on the wall, and a bunch of spy cameras. Obviously the evidence that would have been required to search the house for drugs didn’t exist, so police stalled when pressured by media to provide the search warrant affidavit. When they eventually coughed it up, police handed over an “anonymous 4 10 The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com letter” from some preacher tipping them off to the drug house. In the beginning of 2009, riding the media attention and internet publicity from the KopBusters videos, Barry Cooper announced that he was going to run for Texas Attorney General. He was damn sure that he’d win it, too. He outlined his plans for being the “sheriff of Texas” to the police themselves. He was going to allow citizens to sue the government if they felt their rights were violated by police. He was going to pay police much more money to attract more physically and mentally fit officers. All the while, Kopbusters kept catching police doing unethical and unconstitutional things. In October of 2010, his crew filled a lunch bag with a crack-looking pipe, a beer, a sandwich, some 3D glasses, a fake drug ledger, and some cash. They called in an anonymous tip about a suspicious package. The officer who arrived on the scene looked in the bag and left it there. Kopbusters called again and the officer returned. This time he stole the money ($45), the crack pipe, and ledger and threw the rest in the trash. A freedom of information request showed that no report was ever filed. Cooper approached the Chief of Police with the tape. The Chief thanked Cooper and said he’d look into it. So, the Texas Rangers looked the case over and decided that nothing needed to be done. Kopbusters staged the same stunt, but this time in Lockhart and in Florence. This time both officers turned in all of the evidence and filed reports. In March, Williamson County Police, Travis County Police, and Texas Rangers raided Barry Cooper’s house and confiscated his computer equipment, including his Kopbusters footage. Police claimed they found miniscule pieces of marijuana. He was arrested for filing a false police report and for possession. At the time of this interview, Cooper was nearing his trial date of August 8th, 9th, and 10th in Georgetown, Texas.

barry cOOPer

an i n t e rv i e w w ith

•••

“My plan was to end the drug war in Texas overnight to prove to the rest of the U.S. that you can end the drug war. You can stop arresting people for nonviolent crimes and still have a safe state. I was going to be the sheriff of Texas and I was going to make Texas a safer place to live.”
Austin Cut: Do you really think that Texas is ready for a politician like you? Barry Cooper: Of course! The reason I’m not Texas attorney general now is because the police raided me for busting the corrupt cops. I made it clear in the media that I was really close to selling my Kopbusters reality show for cable television, which was going to give me the fame and the money I needed to win Texas Attorney General. As a part of my campaign, I was going to sting cops all over Texas on cable TV. So had I been able to sell the Kopbusters reality show, I would have won Texas Attorney General. It’s my belief Greg Abbott knew I had a big chance to win, so he allowed the Texas Rangers to begin arresting me and harassing me to the point where I couldn’t concentrate on the race any longer. And it worked; it knocked me out of the race. I don’t know any politician that survived a raid and three arrests in the same year of their campaign. So, if it hadn’t been for the retaliation of law enforcement, I believe I would have been the next Texas Attorney General. Austin Cut: So, you do think that people would have voted for you and that you did stand a chance? Even though Texas is notorious for gerrymandering and screwing with political races? Barry Cooper: That’s kind of what they did when they launched their raid and arrests against me. They predetermined that I couldn’t win after that. I still believe that if I’d sold that Kopbusters reality show for cable TV, Spike was looking at it really hard, that I would have won because I grew up in Texas working on farms and ranches. I coon hunted and duck hunted and deer hunted. And I understand the Texas farmer. I understand the Texans working the oil fields. And aside from some of my antics, I’m an electable person. This might not sound like much, but I was president of the student body in high school. The guy who ran against me in high school my senior year, he later became the Texas A&M student body president. So I really believed that I was electable and so did others. I just needed the money and the fame. You know how Jesse Ventura got in there, because he had the fame from wrestling. That’s the way I would have won. Austin Cut: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barry Cooper: Exactly. I have a movie deal about all of this. Austin Cut: I have a police scanner and I listen in a lot to the undercover police. They’re disgusting. How would you characterize your dealings with the Texas Rangers? Barry Cooper: Texas Rangers certainly arrested my wife and I under bogus charges of a false report to a peace officer stemming from Odessa Kopbusters. Those charges were later dropped by the prosecutor because they were bogus. So my respect level for the Texas Rangers on a scale from 1 to 100 is a minus 100. They’re supposed to be one of the elite law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Why do they bow to the level of making false arrests just to retaliate against activists and politicians such as myself? To me they’re a crooked organization. And I have many, many, many lawyers that tell me the same thing. That they’re constantly getting cases from the Texas Rangers that are just bizarre and horrible, horrible cases. Their reputation is declining rapidly. Austin Cut: They’re secretive, too. They don’t broadcast publicly on anything you can pick up. The only time you figure out what they’re doing is when someone gets arrested. Barry Cooper: That’s right. They’re the Texas Attorney General’s private police force. Austin Cut: So you would have been in charge of them. austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

A young Barry Cooper grinning and gripping a drug trophy from a successful bust

Barry Cooper: Yes I would have. Austin Cut: So when you set out to do this activism you must have thought, “I am going to become a target for the police.” Were you prepared for this level of retaliation? Barry Cooper: Absolutely not. It totally caught me by surprise. Because not only do I know the law as well as any lawyer because I’m an ex-cop and I’m currently an expert witness. I fly all over the U.S. to courts and testify regarding police. I know the law myself. But to be positive that I wasn’t breaking any laws, I allowed a team of lawyers and several other police officers to examine what I had planned to do on both stings in Odessa and in Williamson County. Everybody’s consensus was that I wasn’t breaking any laws. I certainly wasn’t doing anything immoral and I wasn’t doing anything wrong and I wasn’t doing anything illegal. While I knew these operations would climb me higher on the police hate-roll, it totally caught me by surprise that they raided my house and jailed me. I believe that a lot of that had to do with the FBI report. Did you read that? Austin Cut: Yeah. That was strange. Barry Cooper: Well, if you read that one paragraph in there, it’s basically the FBI tapping local police on the shoulder to join together to stop me. You know that paragraph that explains: “The best way to dismantle Kopbusters is for local law enforcement to join together.” You know? That’s exactly what they did, man. Texas Rangers, Williamson County, DPS, they all joined together, arrested me for misdemeanors to the point where I couldn’t keep up with all of it.

11 3

Austin Cut: How about plans for the future. Assuming you do win your legal case, do you plan on continuing political races? Barry Cooper: I’m definitely never going to run for politics again. I really believe in what Zeitgeist, the movie, teaches. It explains that politics and religion are such moving targets and they don’t work. Politics are different in America as opposed to China. Religion is as different in Iraq as it is in Canada. So since those two things are such moving targets and they haven’t worked for humanity, I believe that science is what we are going to have to turn to, to start running this world. Austin Cut: Science? Barry Cooper: Yes, science. I can conduct an experiment in the U.S. and get results and you can conduct the same experiment around the world and you can get the same results. You can’t do that with politics and religion. So, to me, politics is a broken equation similar to “two plus two equals six.” That’s politics to me. Everyone is arguing that the “two” is written incorrectly. They don’t realize that they whole solution to the problem is wrong to start with, so why argue the whole equation? It’s just wrong. Politics will never work. And never will religion. So until we go to science, we will keep repeating history. Austin Cut: Had you been elected Attorney General, did you have big plans? I’d assume you’d meet stiff opposition as an office holder. Barry Cooper: I did have a plan. I spelled that plan out to the media, which is what scared the other politicians to death, which is what caused Greg Abbott to sic the Texas Rangers on me. My plan was to end the drug war in Texas overnight to prove to the rest of the U.S. that you can end the drug war. You can stop arresting people for nonviolent crimes and still have a safe state. I was going to be the sheriff of Texas and I was going to make Texas a safer place to live, starting out by removing all drug enforcement officers from the street and paying regular patrol officers $100,000 a year, instead of the salary they get now and can barely get by on. It would also attract more quality people, instead of the ignorant, overweight men and women we see in law enforcement today. I was going to end the drug war in this way. I wasn’t going to be able to change the laws. But since the Attorney General is responsible for defending law suits filed against the State of Texas, I was going to call a meeting of all the chiefs and sheriffs. They were going to have to drive to Austin and attend a three-day seminar where I explained that if any of their officers made any type of search or arrest related to drugs that it would be okay, they could do that, they could place the person in jail, and they could still prosecute the person. But I was going to announce to the citizens that if they were searched or arrested for any drug violations, that it would be my opinion that it’s a fourth amendment violation and that I would approve the law suit, should they file one in federal court. It would cause cities and counties to instantly stop arresting for drugs because they couldn’t keep up and pay all the law suit money out. Austin Cut: So are you going to stick mainly with internet activism in the future? Barry Cooper: I’m going to continue my activism through the internet and through my expert witness program where I testify regarding police corruption. I’m really going to begin concentrating on the BarryCam.com project. That’s my website where I sell hidden cameras to film police. I have a second camera coming out that you can mount inside your automobile that comes with infrared. It records any traffic stops. I’m going to concentrate on that for a while and concentrate on this movie deal out in L.A. and see what happens.

Barry Cooper’s Permian Basin Drug Task Force badge, which he auctioned off to fund his campaign for Texas Attorney General

Austin Cut: Exactly. A normal person could never keep up. You gotta spend all that time and the money to keep your head up and it seems like that’s how they kept you out. Barry Cooper: It is crazy! After the Texas Rangers tested us for the Odessa sting, Candi and I, the prosecutor dropped the charges. Three days after the prosecutor dropped the charges, I walked outside of my house and the motherfuckers tested me again on a warrant for operating without a private investigator license. Like I said, they just hit me with so many arrests. I had to bond out and hire lawyers. Austin Cut: Was there ever a specific turning point for you? Or was it more of a slow realization? Barry Cooper: Well it was both. You know, I released the Never Get Busted videos ten years after I already quit law enforcement. So I had a chance to mature, raise my own family. Then when I met Candi, who is my current wife and soulmate of eight years now. She was my pot dealer, also the one who got me smoking pot and drinking vodka. She was the one who really opened my eyes to how rotten it was for me to have arrested all of those people. I’d already sensed that, and I’d already been having second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts on what I had done. I had never been presented with the proof. Candi started showing me things on the internet about prohibition and it just blew me away, and that’s what really changed me. Austin Cut: So she’s a huge influence on all of this? Barry Cooper: Yes, was the largest influence on my change. And she still is the biggest influence in my life. Austin Cut: Do you have many other influences? Barry Cooper: Yes I do. Marc Emery is one of them. He owns Cannabis Culture magazine. He’s serving five years for selling marijuana seeds to the U.S. He’s a big activist. I talk to him almost daily through e-mail while he’s in prison. He is a big influence. Raymond Madden, now, is a big influence on my wife. That’s Yolanda’s father, the lady who we helped get out of prison. I have several lawyers that are big influences on my life. My manager out in L.A., he’s a great influence. So, yes, I have a circle of people that I trust. 4 12 The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com

•••
A few days before the trial was supposed to happen, Barry Cooper sent me a message: “No trial. I plead to a super sweet deal ... had to protect informant that they were going to make me give up in trial.” Instead of the three-day, nine to five, grueling trial in Williamson County, Barry Cooper plead guilty to filing a false alarm or report and paid a $200 fine. He also got his Kopbusters tapes back and the charges of operating without a private investigators license were dropped against him. A statement given by Barry Cooper’s daughter made it clear that the family had been through a lot. Other than getting Cooper’s son Zachary back (who was taken into protective custody after the raid), it sounds like there won’t be much going on but regrouping. With a political campaign and reality TV show in the past, it’s anyone’s guess as to what Barry Cooper will do next. But you better keep an eye on him, because he sure as hell doesn’t seem to half-ass anything.



We’re Sick of Reading About “the Death of (Insert Form of Art/Literature Here)” So Here’s a Different Take on the Future of Short Stories
by Wint Huskey
Everybody knows that the printed word is in a less-than-enviable situation these days. Old-fashioned “inkand-paper” news is less practicable than ever, magazines are not far behind, and fewer books are being published. What's worse, one in four Americans didn't get around to reading a book last year while more and more libraries are being scaled back if not altogether shut down. Rutgers University paid Snooki more to speak (literally) than they did for Toni Morrison to deliver their commencement address. And now Borders is closed. As the Romans used to say: et cetera. This is the point where the author usually goes all Nostradamus on their readers and begins waxing ephemeral about the ensuing horrors of life in the bookless world. Thankfully, I came here to praise the book and not to bury it. In a reverse of the usual “death of (insert form of art/literature here)” article, we might actually discover something useful if we focus on the explosive potential for fiction today, and in particular the short story. Even if the usual bleak bellyaching in the arts section tends to draw a good deal of attention and nerdly debate, I'm not interested in writing an obituary for short fiction. Not just yet. Because if anything is going to resurrect literary fiction, or at least bring it back to viability again, my money is on the little guy. recollections of yesteryear and ominous warnings about “the future.” No sentient body in the Western world can truthfully deny that we read and write more than any other generation, though. Simply think for a moment of how regularly we witness faces fixated on phone and computer screens. Aside from the folks busy trying to destroy pigs by launching birds from a slingshot, most people are absorbed in and composing messages on their phones- more so than even talking on them. Likewise, while games, video, and audio are big draws on the interweb, most of our day-to-day computing remains text-based. I actually tend to believe that the internet must have saved literacy from the horrors of television, which was constantly killing books in my day. The point is: even if there is a decided difference between Facebook and a book, people are still reading and writing aplenty. The rise of social media (which is purportedly the name of the next film in the Terminator franchise) offers the most compelling evidence that we are still interested in remaining literate. Seemingly everyone is engaged in chronicling everything they do, as well as interested in whatever the rest of the people around them happen to be busy with. We share, discuss, analyze, interpret, and debate every detail of our lives and we do it all as it's happening, from our phones. Linguist Chris Johnson explores this game-changing shift in his recently released book Microstyle: the Art of Writing Little. Although the book is mostly a how-to on marketing one's self in an age of absurdly short attention spans (Mr. Johnson is also a “branding consultant” which I'm sure pays better (and , sells more books) than being a linguist), Microstyle offers some interesting insight into our current love affair with brevity. The book is not limited to online content, as Mr. Johnson offers Picasso's simple line drawings, William Carlos Williams' imagist poetry, and, you guessed it, Ernest Hemingway's prose as examples of how striking a minimalist approach can be. The basic argument, though, contends that our copious web and mobile phone usage has created a “verbal attention economy.” While we may read and write more than our predecessors, both actions are done in a wholly different manner today. We might read articles in between writing an email, or caption our photos using high-speed internet with multiple tabs on our browsers. The instant a blog gets boring or a source becomes suspect, we abandon it. Microstyle is inarguably correct in summarizing that the internet has transformed our idea of readability and literacy to the point that writing needs to adapt to such changes. that “Hills Like White Elephants” isn't an entertaining story because it's about some couple's very awkward trip. This story remains a classroom staple in large part because of ambiguity, its eavesdropping-like ability to make us work a little to piece together what exactly is going on. It resonates with readers too, on a personal level, because of Hemingway's ability to capture our own irresoluteness and feelings of voicelessness in the face of overwhelming personal strife. And he does it all in the same amount of space taken up by 60 full-length Tweets. Stories like that just can't happen in any other form. Nobody wants to read 200 pages of dialogue where a pair of unnamed people pussyfoot around some undisclosed predicament. But we still enjoy these sorts of storylines and themes, and there is still an audience for them. The best short story authors tend to excel at providing readers with narratives that are as concise, readable, identifiable, and seemingly unremarkable as the emails and status updates that we more frequently delineate our lives into. The best example that comes to mind is Raymond Carver, whose short stories explore the isolation, disheartenment, and troubled relationships that we've all experienced by the time we've hit adulthood. Carver's characters struggle not with deep philosophical questions, but with nicotine cravings and, as one reads his stories, the people he writes of begin to exist not in our imaginations, but in our memories. Like “Hills,” Carver's prose and plotlines would probably not make for a pleasurable or even readable novel, but his collections of short stories are as impactful and readable as any book of fiction and speak to the very same fundamental truths explored by any novelist. The cinematic nature of short story coalesces with our impatient

SALUTE YOUR SHORTS

l i t e r at u r e



After hearing all the lamentable figures and anecdotes ad infinitum, most are ready to announce that it's all over: nobody reads anymore and nobody worth a damn is writing. Something like the child of Chicken Little and King Ludd, today’s literati manage to fill oped pages regularly with their mawkish

I. Computerwelt

If we are beginning to demand more from less, linguistically, it is perplexing as to why short fiction continues to flounder while novels remain the measure of literary success. Short stories should be better suited to our suddenly altered reading palate than novels. Microstyle provides some astute-if-indirect insight into several of the short story's strongest assets today, like ambiguity. Mr. Johnson astutely points out that, when executed correctly, the vagueness caused by the paring down of our messages in the digital world can be used to our advantage and help us “brand” ourselves. Often times what we choose to leave out makes us more intriguing to others while a solid double entendre or pun helps us seem wittier and more amusing. Similarly, anyone who ever took an Intro to Lit course can tell you

II. #shortstories

austincut.com | The Austin Cut, July 2011

13 3

inclinations, as well. A four-page story cannot stray beyond what is absolutely necessary, whether in terms of action or description. The simple elegance of the word count excludes short stories from many of the various methods of literary experimentation that often frustrate and alienate readers. A magazine or journal does not, for example, have the space to print some extended stream-ofconsciousness flourish where an abusive stepfather's bowling trophy collection is described in vivid detail. Short stories can be pithy, punchy, and pleasing in a way that other forms of fiction cannot. Brokeback Mountain, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Million Dollar Baby were all short stories before they were lately adapted into films. Some of the pristine and brilliant prose of Andre DuBus' short stories became 2001’s In the Bedroom and 2004's We Don't Live Here Anymore. Anyone who reads his highly impressive Selected Stories has every reason to suspect that even more of his work may soon end up in theaters. However, the authors and stories I've discussed so far are hardly exclusive of a tradition and form that basically date back to Canterbury Tales. And if your favorite author was writing somewhere between the 1850s and the past few decades, there is a good chance that he or she crackled out a tiny yarn or two in their day. The rest of this article could be nobly spent listing and suggesting great collections of short fiction and run a few pages long. Since I'm praising pithiness so much here, it will have to suffice to say there are short stories out there for every predilection, many of which take a lot less time to read than watching that Law and Order rerun.

So why has short fiction been pushed into a corner and treated like it's jazz music or something? This style of prose is at once versatile and often personal, all while neatly fitting into our suddenly active schedules in a way other forms of prose cannot. Obviously, there isn't going to be one compelling and straightforward reason explaining the current dearth of stories clocking in at under 20,000 words. The explanations are simply exponential. But as the great economic minds of the Wu-Tang school judiciously noted, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me (Dollar, dollar bill, y’all)” and the business of short stories are hardly exempt from this truth. Simply put: few, if any people can actually afford to feed themselves by writing and selling their short stories today. This was not always the case, as 4 14

III. Magazines, Circle Jerks, and the “C.R.E.A.M.” Theory

short fiction was the biggest moneymaker for authors until Hollywood turned into Mammon West. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for one, did more to support himself and his family when he wrote “Bernice Bobs her Hair” than when he penned The Great Gatsby (although one assumes he supported his heirs quite handsomely with that novel). Most of the magazines that once published the 20th century's best short stories and paid for the 20th century's biggest bar tabs are either now defunct or simply less committed to publishing fiction. The Atlantic Monthly, once a tremendous supporter of writers, now publishes fiction (once) yearly. The Saturday Evening Post, meanwhile, seems to obstinately believe that the 1960s onward never happened. Taking the Wu-Tang's “C.R.E.A.M. Theory” into account, then, it is only sensible that few people would venture into today's fiction market hoping to make a career of something nobody wants to pay for. Short fiction has increasingly been relegated to a sort of fine art, thanks to its move from mainstream magazines to literary quarterlies and journals. Of course, this “move” is more like an eviction. Even though the universities, nonprofits, and small presses that continue to print short stories are performing truly admirable and thankless work with fewer and fewer resources available, they are unfortunately doing little to help advance the form itself in most cases. Outside of modern art, few disciplines in the humanities have become more insular, more cannibalistic, and more hell-bent on estranging themselves from an actual audience than short fiction. The fundamental problem with having small, niche publishers become the main purveyors of short fiction is the fact that, like newspapers, short stories are really built for a sizable audience and not some sort of elite cabal. Those determining what will be published should not only know what makes for great reading, but must also remain cognizant of readers themselves- and hopefully a lot of them. A story needs to be something more than proof an author has an MFA or did, in fact, purchase a new thesaurus. Likewise, a magazine that costs $7-to$10 a pop is not going to generate a very diverse or substantial readership. Too many of the publications that still print short stories today have more in common with the average circle jerk than an actual magazine with fiction, as a small band of homogenous eccentrics furtively get together for no other purpose than to make one another feel good.

Not all of these journals, quarterlies, and lil' scrappers worship at the

IV. “Return of the Mack”?

altar of smarter-than-you exclusivity, though. Several publications are still putting out great contemporary fiction and doing their damnedest to save shorts as a whole. Whether you love 'em or you hate 'em, McSweeny's and Zoetrope: All Story are two excellent examples of what can be done to bring fiction, particularly of the short variety, back like something out of a Mark Morrison song. Although they are comparatively mainstream and have an aesthetic that’s domineeringly hip and overly-reliant on “celebrity endorsements” (OK, so I don't exactly “love” 'em), McSweeny's and Zoetrope are working with print's strengths while also cleverly adapting and diversifying its means of production. Perhaps most importantly, each publication does an above-average job of presenting readers with a variety of writers. They publish lots of names, both recognizable and fresh. And even if these two smallish outfits aren't exactly the second coming of Maecenas, they still offer aspiring writers a more realistic prospect than, say, the New Yorker or Harper’s. Print still seems fairly unsure of exactly how it should handle, and with any luck someday utilize, the digitalization of letters and numerical characters. Are e-books really the panacea that the publishing industry has been praying for? Or will it be cellphone novels, the Japanese phenomenon written and read on cellphone screens? A plenitude of potential saviors may end up reviving the publishing world, but the internet has unquestionably become our go-to source for reading. And it’s not much of surprise that, in addition to being available on e-readers and mobile devices, McSweeny’s and Zoetrope have a strong (and free) presence online, making their publications readily available for massconsumption. Both publishers wisely avoid investing all their prospects into 1s and 0s, however, by making their presence felt at bookstores and newsstands. This is good for a few elementary reasons. Most plainly, the physical presence of a book or magazine of short stories would actually serve as an important reminder to all passers-by and browsers that the genre still does exist. I hate that I need to admit that fact, but how else are most people going to know to Google “Zoetrope: All Story” if they don't notice it first at the coffee shop or newsstand? Furthermore, nobody has yet to come forward with a compelling reason for publishers to distance themselves from actual print as though they got stuck with a surplus of Betamax or something. Though bibliophiles alone might not be counted on to sustain a multi-billion dollar industry, there are still plenty of people who prefer the simplicity and relatively cheap and lasting entertainment value of a book or magazine over the implicit “check me

out” douchiness the iPad and Kindle are liable to exude. Larry McMurtry says this far more eloquently in his Books: A Memoir, when he explains “[s]ometimes books excite me, sometimes they sustain me, but rarely do they disappoint me- as books, that is, if not necessarily the poetry, history, or fiction that they contain.” Testify!

Many readers who have made it this far may believe they’ve just been tricked into reading something by Andy Rooney. Excepting the Wu-Tang Clan and Mark Morrison, most of the positive examples I managed to submit are dead white men. I don’t trust “hip” things that the young people like. I think elitists are to blame. I am familiar with The Saturday Evening Post. Maybe there is some truth to my being an old, shirty soul. But the fact is: I personally enjoy some pretty far-out stuff (See “Bury Hannah” Austin Cut, Issue 2), , and I'm not disappointed in or disgusted with the majority of people who choose not to slosh through it. And I don't see that as a harbinger of trouble ahead, either. I trust that platitudes like “things change” and “different strokes” have a factual basis. A discerning epicurean knows not to expect that everyone has appreciated, or even ventured to try, some tasty escargots bourguignons and acknowledges that people like (and need) to eat. So, too, should be the case with fiction, especially short stories. More than any other genre, the short story needn't be overlyliterary to be considered great literature. There really is an audience and it is not limited to the nation’s creative writing departments. In fact, The Association of American Publishers just released a survey announcing that publishers “generated net revenue of $27.9 billion, a 5.6 percent increase over 2008 [and]… sold 2.57 billion books in all formats in 2010, a 4.1 percent increase since 2008.” The most apposite bit of good news, though, is the unexpected fact that two of the biggest leaps have been in adult fiction (up 8.8% since 2008) and juvenile fiction (which increased 6.6% over the same period). These particular pieces of data ought to signal that we've perhaps underestimated the market for writing, which is larger than academia and even has a promising future, to boot. Nobody can guarantee that a generation of Twilight readers are going to reverse the slow decline of the short story or that e-books are going to allow writers to pay the bills 1000 words at a time. But, at the very least, it's time to quit feeling sorry for the short story and stop writing ourselves into a corner.

V. Shirty Souls and FarOut Facts

The Austin Cut, July 2011 | austincut.com

Sponsor Documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close