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NOTES FROM MARCH - MAY

As I arrived back into Austin from a two month sabbatical of rest and relaxation, I slowly got back to the Austin pace of life and even found some time to update my website here or there.  Here's some of those little things I got done during those months:
 
ONE OF MY ARCH ENEMIES EXPOSED
As most everyone by this point knows, I have a rather love/hate relationship with movies.  I've never been one to want to just sit down and watch a movie, let alone the latest Hollywood blockbuster.  Over the years , my disdain for the uncreative schlock that gets made has focused on all the little bits - I fill up with a nervous energy mentally rewriting the script, changing characters, trying to fill plot holes and worst of all - I spend the movie grimacing when all those sounds created by foley artists. 
For the uninitiated, foley artists are the pretentious sounds guys who record all the sounds you hear in a movie.  Locked away in a studio, they reach into a grapefruit to simulate crushing a skull, bang trash cans for swords, etc. 

Sure its an art form in its own right, but the sounds sound so fake it tears me up all the time.  And then I found this video one late night, and the profession got a just treatment for all to see. (If you have a job, the video may not jive with the workplace)

 
R.I.P. DOS XX MAY 5, 1997 - MARCH 19, 2008
On May 5th, 1997, I celebrated Cinco de Mayo with my friends Donnie and Donetta at Kansas City's venerable Mexican Restaurant Ponak's.   Sometime during our experience, we all received Dos XX bottle openers as part of the festivities, along with cheap pitchers and plates of dollar tacos.  For eleven years of surprisingly reliable and steady service, my bottle opener finally succumbed to the laws of nature and broke at approximately 11:30.  It was perhaps the most amazing piece of cheap molded plastic I have ever come into possession of in my life.
 
DATING WHEEL
While on the phone with a good friend catching up on all the sordid details of my life, I tried to defend recent dating patterns and interests when a perfect analogy rolled off my tongue.  Dating in your thirties is like spinning the wheel at the end of the Price is Right.  When it starts slowing down, your heart starts to beat faster and harder, and every spot on the wheel becomes magnified - 85 - 25 - 45 - and as it slows down more and more, you start hoping and praying there's enough spin left in the wheel to move it past the 35 cent space and at least catch 60 cents.  Of course, there's always that $1.00 space out there too...
 
 
CHANGE DOES YOU GOOD
I spent the day driving through town with a friend I hadn't seen since December.  We poked through the active film sets at Austin Studios, drove around the new Mueller developments expecting to see Jim Carey from the Truman Show, and joked about incorporating a tap dancing Young Frankenstein to the shark-laden dance floors of newly minted downtown clubs.

The conversation switched to a more serious tone when we started talking about the past few months and our situations and changes we've made.  He was particularly impressed I cured myself of the OCD curse that plagued me the past few years: whenever I would get my hands covered in dry, dusty dirt, I would compulsively need to wash them clean immediately or else the wiring in my brain would start to freeze up and I would be tortured.  It's now three months without a reoccurrence, and I think it's beaten.
 
A MOMENT WITH IAN - CULINARY DELIGHTS!
(editor's note: knowing Ian is a joy, living with him has brought us closer than we'd ever thought possible.  Late nights fused with alcohol bring the following visions to light, I hope you enjoy)

"Venom was talking to me the other day and he actually asked me to go to a pig roast, but I had just gotten up and I had already eaten at Denny's.  It was about 1:30 in the afternoon when he called.  He told me he's been waking up around 4:30 in the morning lately, because he's been getting wasted a lot lately and passing out drunk around 9 or 10 at night. 

So my wife and I both ordered the two egg breakfast, but we both wanted more so we split a side of pancakes and a side of bacon.  My wife was upset because I ordered her an orange juice and, apparently, she doesn't like orange juice anymore.  So she was upset and wasn't getting water fast enough.  On top of that, we hardly ate any of the food, and she was really parched as we were trying to leave the restaurant's parking lot.  We ended up going out the wrong way and couldn't get out the right exit from the parking lot onto I-35.  From then on, I was silent. 

My second meal of the day was brought on by extreme hunger, because it was 7-8 hours since I last ate, but I was almost out of gas so I had to stop at McDonalds because it was the closest top home.  I ordered some nuggets and when I got home I started eating them.  A nugget into them I realized just how pale the nuggets were and the next nugget I bit into wasn't fully cooked so I had to tear apart each nugget so I could find out which nugget were cooked or not, and as it turned out, only half were good, but there were plenty of fries. 

I thought about complaining, but really, who cares?"

 
SXSW COMES FULL CIRCLE
While I tried my hardest to avoid Austin's annual circus of hipster freakdom this year (and largely succeeded!), I wasn't strong enough nor anti-social enough to pass up the opportunity to see Tragedy, a Bee Gees metal cover band during the waning hours of the four or five day drunken festival.  While I only made the final five songs, it was the sort of experience that could only be described by repeatedly muttering expletives under your breath.  As the beers and shots flowed to soothe my soul after the performance, I was able to complete sentences once again and return to the realm of living, breathing human beings and was soothed by my good friend who reveled in my newfound love of all things pop culture. 

Of course, during the performance I couldn't help but think about the first SXSW I experienced, culminating with a live performance on the same stage at Emo's by the Diamond Smugglers, an equally abrasive yet lovable aborted Neil Diamond cover band. Oh, where exactly have the last six years of my life gone?

 
A GREAT FRIEND LOVES THIS VIDEO
So in the spirit of humanity, I'll pass it along free of cynical comments.
Watch it for yourself.
THINGS THAT MAKE ME CRINGE
After immersing myself in pop culture in the vast frozen north, some of those bad habits have been reinforced by my current living situation.  So in no particular order, here's some stuff that my life has been exposed to recently that really tears my soul into pieces: Millionaire Matchmaker, 4:30 AM with Ian Shults, watching VH1's Best Week Ever and following it with the Soup, reality competitions on MTV, and the word 'fierce'.
 
THINGS I LOVE THAT MAKE MY FRIENDS CRINGE
My secret love of all things Alton Brown has raised plenty of eyebrows among my good friends, who also asked when me if I was 60 years old for my unbridled enjoyment of Prairie Home Companion, my addiction to nutella, and inexplicable reasons for never drinking enough water.
THE LATEST STORIES...

PINATA TIME!!!
the White Vigilante meets his match
A4 PAPER: HOW I LEARNED TO HATE REAGAN
I finally figured out what bothered me all these years...
KANSAS CITY BBQ TAKES ON AUSTIN
a gift from the BBQ capital of the universe to Texas
VOLUME TWO: THE REALLY WHITE VIGILANTE
an in depth look at the next book in the series
THE POLITICAL SEASON
a rare look at politics from this website
HOME BEFORE DARK
the depressing journey artists take
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
the long awaited return to my painting studio
NORTH(EAST)ERN EXPOSURE
my two month sabbatical in the North
AUSTIN CRITICS' TABLE AWARDS
a surprise nomination, win, and a speech or two
IRON MAN AND MY IGNORANCE
my trouble with Hollywood continues
A TRIP TO KANSAS CITY
Thanksgiving with friends and the cold

MY COMIC BOOK SIDE PROJECT:
TALES OF THE REALLY WHITE VIGILANTE #1
the satiric tale of one young man's attempts to stop the gentrification of East Austin by becoming a superhero in a Mexican wrestling mask.
 
TALES OF THE REALLY WHITE VIGILANTE #2
the tale continues with the White Vigilante teaming up with Dos XX during Austin's largest music festival to fight a new, more menacing threat to Austin.
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GALLERY

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ONGOING AND UPCOMING SHOWS
2008

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11th

Bearded Lady Printing
East Austin
The Bearded Lady vs. the Really White Vigilante
The graphic work of Michael Schliefke and prints of Bearded Lady

NOVEMBER

Rio Rita Cafe y Cantina
East Austin
Solo Painting Show
A show of new paintings

DECEMBER 3rd - 24th

Blue Genie Art Bazaar
Monarch Events Center
Blue Genie Art Bazaar
creative gifts for the Holiday Season

2009

MAY 2009

Tales of the Really White Vigilante Volume Three
East Austin
Comic Book Release Party
General Malaise helps our young hero past some pitfalls as new developments hit East Austin.

NOVEMBER 2009

Tales of the Really White Vigilante Volume Four
East Austin
Comic Book Release Party
Does the final volume of the tale of the White Vigilante bring about the end of gentrification?
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