Remember when we were young and Austin was like a big sleepy bed with clean cotton sheets made of hemp? And remember when it was cheap cheap cheap. You could park anywhere, listen to live music every night of the week, and did I mention the rent? –Sure you lived someone’s garage and there was a hole in the kitchen floor, but it was a garage in Hyde Park and that was awesome.

In fact, I remember when Austin was cool. Everyone wore jeans and t-shirts and there were beer fountains on every corner. Tra- la –la  Oh, I remember. But before I remembered how cool it was. My parents remembered.

Don’t get them started on Armadillo World Headquarters and Threadgills. My mother lived in Clarksville for $250 a month all bills paid! UT paid HER to go to school. Willy Nelson would simply show up on people’s porches and start singing songs from the Red Headed Stranger Album….he did it so much, people were like, “Sheesh, there’s Willy Nelson again.” Life was grrreat!

And Barton Springs of course. Esther’s Follies. The Salt Lick. Austin City Limits. Victory Grill. It’s all good and from way back.

We can’t help it. We’re like the Texans that aren't intolerably obnoxious about our guns and trucks… even though we totally have a gun rack in our truck that runs on solar power and acorns. …No we’re obnoxious about how our dogs and yoga. We order lots of stuff on the side. We talk to each other in line at the bank even if we don’t want to. And there’s a whole lotta fun runs in this town. Seriously. There is a plethora of fun runs. We’re nosy and nice and neighborly. It’s ridiculous, it’s contagious, and everywhere I go people always tell me Austin is the only place they’d live in our big, loud, state. Austin is the blue dot in the big red marble. Austin is the diamond in the goat’s butt. We’re the diamond and the rest of  Texas is a big smelly goat.

We rock. Unless you’re at Shady Grove and then you can’t rock or even get your folk on because some condo owner who’s not from around here moved to the music capital of the world and then complained about the music. But because I’m from Austin, I have hope, even for Mr. Grumpy Pants. That one day, he too, will rock.

And yes, Mr. Grumpy Pants isn’t the only thing that stinks around here. Traffic’s bad and we haven’t quite gotten on board the bike lane/light rail thing. And Yes, our city is pretty segregated. I-35 is more than just a road it’s a boundary. I notice that most of the people who get pulled over who are brown, with the exception of my husband who manages to get pulled over all the time and he's white. I worry about shootings and neighborhood safety. We ask our police force to solve problems that we as a community are either unwilling or unable to tackle. Where do kids go after school? What do we do for daycare and health care for hardworking families? If you’ve got a drug problem or are homeless, Austin is a better place to be than the rest of the state, but it’s not great. Thank God for Mississippi.

But we’ve had good leaders and teachers. I think about Molly Ivins… especially, when the Legislature comes to town. I think about Ann Richards and Liz Carpenter and all the work they did from the grassroots up so that women and their families had a better shot at just being all right. Austin has been and will continue to be a city of leaders, do-ers, and thinkers.

I have to admit, I was fond of our sleepy little college town, but I’m pretty excited about our big, fancy city. I like going to the Blanton and the Long Center. I like that the park in my neighborhood has a new skateboard ramp and less trash. I like condos and fancy buildings. But I also like deer, and raccoons, and I remember when Barton Springs was actually clear, and frogs, and moon towers, and summer nights that weren’t so hot and dry. 

So, in conclusion,

We’re not as good as Portland on some things (trains and bikes)- but it rains there all the time and it’s really dark in January and people commit suicide right and left. New York is  fancier- but you can’t bring your dog to dinner and if you choked, no one would help you so you'd die. Chicago still works harder- but they all die of heart attacks when they’re like 40. Finally, San Fransico’s more tolerant, but there will be an earthquake any day now, according to the History Channel, that will completely sink the city…Conversely, according to Nostradamus, Austin will be a short car ride away from the beach, which would just make us cooler than we already are.

So here’s to Austin. You probably won't die here.

Loretta Invite, originally uploaded by genvc.

If you're in Irving next week, stop by and meet a great candidate!

gen

No one will be tried for torture. Not the former President, not the lawyers, not the generals, not the private contractors…too costly, too damaging. Can’t be done. The nation can’t afford it.

Maybe a lawyer will face a disbarment hearing, and they convicted the functionally illiterate girl with bad teeth and nowhere else to go but to Abu Graib. I guess that’s something.

But man, if you’re a black kid and you reach for your back pocket on a traffic stop, you will be shot. “Justifiable lethal force.” The cop felt threatened. That’s enough of an explanation. 

Everybody knows what shit costs. If you don’t get your car registration in on time. If you don’t pay your rent, your mortgage, your traffic tickets, your taxes, if you don’t pay you go to jail, you lose your house, you get a record, you get bad credit, and if you’re a black kid asleep in the back of a car and you’re barely hanging on you get shot.

But if you’re Bernie Madoff or his lieutenants, the Securities and Exchange Commission might just not have the resources or political will to investigate until the money is spent and the market crashes.

If you’re a mixed up kid that buys a couple of pills at school you’re a felon. If you’re a financial advisor without a license who defrauds the sick and the old, but finds Jesus in time, you retire with your wife of 35 years to the air-conditioned comfort of a high-rise condominium in Florida. No piss test for you!

It’s not so much who knew about the torture that pisses me off, it’s that we can’t seem to acknowledge that it’s morally bankrupt and dangerous and inhumane and wrong.  

We can’t admit that the bombing hasn’t worked. That the kid that got shot had problems…AND intrinsic value as a human being. We can’t admit that we ask police officers to clean up the mess of enduring poverty and hopelessness and bitch when they don’t do it to our specifications and satisfaction. 

We are comfortable selling guns to anyone crazy enough to fucking want one including the Saudi royal family and unemployed white guys who think Barack Obama and the abortion planned by a girl he planned to leave are reason enough to kill his kids, his wife, and anyone who fits in his sharpshooter sites at the Amish schoolhouse, on the highway, or in a Unitarian church in Tennessee. What the fuck? Fuck you.

I'm always shocked when people are upset by shooting sprees at schools. Freedom's not free. Some your children are going to be shot at school. Get over it, whiners. Gun control's for liberal pussies who don't love America.

I was watching FOX news with my stepson and the guy on the screen was complaining about how the media and the atheist cabal that runs things NOW is actively discriminating against Christians, we’re punishing evangelicals because their beliefs. I looked at Frankie and said, you know who that guy is? That’s Bernie Madoff’s long time employee who lives in Florida in a condominium with his wife. He ripped off thousands of people of millions of dollars. He’s a fucking thief.

Look I don’t hate Christians, I hate liars and people that steal money from old people on fixed incomes and then show up on FOX news and talk about how hard it is to walk in the path of Christ because of me. I ain’t your problem. I’m not why you wake up at night in a cold sweat. Look wherever you want, but the bottom line is you are a bad man. I don’t give a fuck who you get on your knees for, just as long as you aren’t robbing senior citizens when you’re down there.

Bad man, you wanna know what’s not fair?  What’s not fair is a middle school in Austin, Texas that assigns the special ed kids to wash the football team’s jock straps and uniforms. I guess there's no child left behind on Laundry Day! Where’s your Jesus? Where’s the fucking money? You don’t have answers. You have excuses. -And we can’t afford you anymore.

Times are tough, but if a black man can be elected president and a woman can be the face of our nation throughout the rest of the world, miracles can happen.

We got to figure what we can afford. Can we afford 16 year old fathers? -In prison jumpsuits? -Who can't read?

Can we afford to let our proclivity to bomb and torture and shoot-to-kill slide because George Bush moved back to Texas?

Can we afford empty houses and homeless families? Can we?

Every time I see a drowning polar bear on PBS or a coyote in a suburb or a house on fire in Santa Barbara I think- that’s our fault. Where did all the goddamned bees go? And do we have the sack to find joy in the midst of great darkness? Can we manifest enough hope and wonder and love to steel our nerves for all the work that so clearly must be done?

We can’t afford not to.

If you ever plan on seceding from the Union, Chuck Norris has got your back!

He'll be your commander-in-chief, y'all!

The actor and avid Mike Huckabee supporter ranted in an online column on Monday and published his desires to become Texas' first president!

Can we say delusional?

Says Norris: "I may run for president of Texas. That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state."

The martial arts master believes "thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation" with Texas leading the fight!