ATX

October 8, 2023

ATX

It has been a few years since I have attended what is my favorite large scale music festival, the  Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival held each year in Austin, Texas. With Covid and then other interests taking center stage, our annual visit to Austin has been on hiatus for the past few years. Though it hasn’t completely been forgotten, it just hasn’t been on the forefront of what I have been able to do.

This year, with Kathy on a long-term visit to our house in Colorado, I decided to fly solo and get back to Austin and get back to ACL. Not so much for the festival itself, which though I enjoy it a lot, I use it as an excuse to visit what is easily my favorite city in Texas and one of my favorite towns to visit anywhere, Austin.

One of the best music cities in America, Austin is also the state capital of Texas as well as home to the University of Texas and some of the finest barbeque places anywhere. I love visiting the funky, liberal and hip bastion of everything cool in the state of Texas all in one place. I just love visiting, though I must admit that I am not sure I could live there as it continues to experience massive growth and all the growing pains and problems that come with that.

The festival is held over two weekends, and I always try to attend weekend one so not to be traveling too close to Fantasy Fest in Key West. I also try to get out and experience as much of Austin and the surrounding area as possible. I especially enjoy the nearby hill country but there is always more to see and do in what is truly a beautiful place.

I rented a car so that I could be more mobile, which is something that I don’t always do, but the mobility is something that I enjoy and in the past I have traveled as far as Dallas and San Antonio during ACL weekend. I didn’t go anywhere so far on this trip, but rather decided to explore some of my favorite places around the metro area.

I love Austin. It is artsy, funky, wacky and filled with the sort of things that just aren’t found in a lot of cities in Texas. I love exploring areas like 6^th Street, South Congress and the East side. I love the wide range of Texas barbeque restaurants and just food in general and I love the many music venues that are scattered around town. My hotel was right next to a combo music venue/ bbq joint, Stubb’s, where I ate twice. I also ate twice at Terry Black’s Barbeque, mostly because I didn’t have the time of patience to wait hours at my favorite place, Franklin’s.

This trip, I also vowed to get out and explore some of the settings where one of my all-time favorite films was shot, “Dazed and Confused”. Richard Linklater’s follow-up to "Slacker," "Dazed and Confused" is on many people’s list of favorite films (including Quentin Tarantino) but, strangely, this ultimate hangout movie was not a success upon its release. Like "American Graffiti" and "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" before it, "Dazed and Confused" had an ensemble cast of unknown actors who went on to be the superstars of their generation. "Dazed and Confused" focuses on the last day of school for a group of Texas high school and junior high students in 1976. Like the cast, the soundtrack is a mix of the greatest hits from the mid-'70s, featuring KISS, Aerosmith and Alice Cooper. With "Dazed and Confused," Linklater decided to stay in Austin and make more films in the area, something he has continued throughout most of his career. The film also includes some of Austin's most iconic locations.

Some of these locations are still pretty much the same, while others have changed drastically since the film was released. My first stop was the iconic Top Notch drive-in restaurant which is still open and active and much the same as it has been forever. It was a favorite hang-out for the films characters as it has been and still is for generations of Austinites.

I also went to the location of The Emporium, the arcade/club where the cast spent evenings playing foosball and hanging out. It was in a strip mall that is still there, but has been converted into, yes a barbeque restaurant. There is nothing much similar to what was in the film, it was still cool to see.

Two other stops I made in Austin were the Purr-fecto Cat Lounge and the Museum of the Weird on 6^th Street. The cat lounge is pretty much as the name implies a large room with about 15 young cats that visitors can just hang out with for a small fee. The cats are all available for adoption, but many people come, like I did just to hang out and play with them. I had been to a similar café in Indianapolis (9 Lives Cat Café) and loved it, so I really wanted to go and check it out.

The Museum of the Weird is exactly what it sounds like, a storefront that opens onto the popular 6^th street, but opens up into a creepy multi-story building that apparently was one the apartment of Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. Now it is a museum filled with weird oddities and a creepy collection of truly bizarre items from shrunken heads, to bigfoot castes, to freak show memorabilia and all manner of odd and creepy things. It certainly isn’t for everyone, but I love a good roadside attraction and freakshow and this place fits the bill.