The King of Austin

A couple weekends ago I had the pleasure of flying down to Austin to spend a few days hanging out with my old and dear friend James.

It was great to see him again. The last time I saw him, two years ago, was just at the start of a long road trip around the country. A lot had changed in both of our lives since then.

When I got to town, I texted him right as I was getting into my hotel. I was staying downtown this time, in a big highrise that hadn't even been built, when I lived in Austin.

From the window I could see down at the rooftops of Sixth Street, the buildings of which were all the same as back in the day, but probably grimier and more worn. A few of the business names were recognizable---Esther's Follies and a few bars, but most of the establishments had probably undergone more than one changeover since James and I last went down there to tie one on and listen to Rockabilly.

James is the King of Austin, to me. We stayed on after I left and built his life here, amidst the giant experiment that the city strives to be.

That evening we went out amidst the crowd, which looks exactly as it did back then, but with more tattoos. We wandered up Red River, past the old site of Emo's, which is still a bar of the same type, but with minor alterations. We went looking for a Bar Rescue bar, which turned out to be shuttered, despite the "rescue." James had remembered it from before its crossover.

On Sunday I took a cab up to his place, The little bungalow he owns in in North Hyde Park. Actually it wouldn't have been called that back in the day, but the defnition and culture of Hyde Park had accreted new territory. The restaurants and boutiques along North Loop feel like direct extension of the kind one saw on the Drag (Guadalupe) back in the day.

 "We never should have left," we both agreed, in reference to the neighborhood, and our having had to relinquish our awesome place of Duval in the spring of '92.  Our place after that had been over by Shoal Creek, in a very unwalkable quarter of the city. Both of us had been later reduced to using the local bus system at once point, which as the vernacular says, sucked.

But that's Austin---trying to appreciate the slackitude coolness, while being judgmental of one's surroundings in a way that strives to make it even cooler. One strives to balance the desire to slack out versus that to analyze and improve. But really I guess I'm just describing myself back then.

We really saw a good chunk of it together, James and I.