Daily - The Austin Chronicle (2024)

My Texicalli Chair

The last time I saw the Texicalli Grille chairs I was probably sitting in one, eating a chicken fried steak and jawing with the late Danny Roy Young. Danny wasn’t just the owner and proprietor of the restaurant, he was a side dish that came with everything. With every order, you got a friendly handshake, a heaping helping of his warm smile, good conversation, and the sense that even if everything wasn’t right in the world, it was all right in the Texicalli.Those chairs were lined up for the auction upstairs at the Austin Music Hall tribute to Danny on Sunday night, decorated with raffia bows. They reminded me of old footage I once saw of sad-eyed children in an orphanage lined up to be adopted. The chairs looked at me mournfully, as if to say “We’re a family, don’t break us up!” Okay, they didn’t look at me and I am anthropomorphizing them, but they did seem so vulnerable and out of place. Not so with the dozens of posters, photos, memorabilia, and other items in the silent auction.

Maker Faire: Mission Accomplished

Early Voting Off to an Amazing Start

The first day of early voting has ended, and the results are impressive here in Travis County. A total of 24,207 went to the many Early and Mobile Voting sites around the county today; combined with the 8,400 mail-in ballots received, that adds up to 32,607 votes cast already – 5.35% of Travis County's registered voters.Compare that with 2004, when it took the first two days of early voting to reach 6%. (And consider: Total registered voters that year in Travis was 553,565; now, it's up to 609,224.) That year's first day totals were 16,139 early voters and 715 mail ballots, totaling 16,854.Extend this out over the full 12 days of early voting, and the early turnout projects to be 290,484, well above the 222,085 of 2004. [EDIT: This is wrong; see below.] Of course, history shows us that turnout will not remain steady, but will actually spike sharply upward in the last few days, so we could be looking at some really fantastic numbers by the end.UPDATE: Holy crap, the lightbulb finally went off in my math-impaired brain: Registration is up only 10%, but voting (at least for the first day) is up 93%. Wow.UPDATE 2: Further proof that I'm math-impaired – I used the wrong number in my projection above and forgot to include the mail-in ballots. So actually, it projects to 391,284, well above the 60% of registered voters that the county clerk is hoping to get in early voting.

If You Encounter This Guy, Call 911

I expected dirty tricks in this election, but I'm not sure what's the point of pulling them in Texas, which is almost certain to go for McCain anyway. Please be aware that the "advice" this guy (see press release from Travis County Elections after the jump) was giving to voters – claiming that straight-party voters must also then select Obama's name again – is completely wrong and will actually "unselect" his name and cause no vote to be cast for Obama. (Actually, the press release doesn't specifically say the guy was trying to confuse Obama voters; I'm just assuming that, because the infamous e-mail referenced specifically was targeting Democrats.)Bottom line: Before pressing the "cast vote" button, review your choices on the confirmation page and make sure all your selections are accurate. If they're not, go back and fix them.Also: Intentionally giving misleading info to voters is illegal and anyone doing so should be reported to the cops.

Press My Buttons and Turn My Wheel

Here's something I found on Austin.Craigslist posted in the Men Seeking Men and Women Seeking Women/Casual Encounters section of Craigslist:Slim, flimsy yet sturdy, electronic voting booth ("Angelique", No. 5 at the Fiesta Mart) is revved up for your touch and waiting to be used. Discretion is assured, although, if you want to tell the world you just did me, I'm cool with that too. In fact, you'll get a cute little sticker to prove it.You will: Come in, speak with my associate, and punch in a secret code… then let your fingers do the walking across the matte plastic eSlate™ body. I'll click if I like what you're doing. Click. Click. I love it when passages of Monique Wittig's The Lesbian Body are read aloud to me.I'm DDF, but you don't have to be to use me.But please, be safe, and use protection.

If You're White It's All Right

The Cleveland Plain Dealer looked at hundreds of drug cases there to determine whether white defendants are treated differently than blacks. Guess what they found: If you're white, it's all right. Indeed, the PD found that since 2000, a black person in Cleveland's Cuyahoga Co. is 12.7 times more likely than a white person to be sent to state prison on drug charges.The paper focused on drugs cases, "which not only dominate local court dockets but also are characterized far more than most violent or property crimes by judgment calls and policy decisions at virtually every level of the system."Read the Plain Dealer's story here.Kind of reminds me of a similar project we undertook in 2004, looking at the way black defendants fared in drug cases in Williamson Co. You can read that story here.

'The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life'

Timing is a crucial factor in investing and with the world's economy struggling (to put it nicely) it's the perfect time for the legendary investor to share his principles on life and investing. The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life is a 960-page tome documenting the Oracle of Omaha's life and business theories. Buffet's only request of biographer Alice Schroeder was, "Whenever my version of the story is different from someone else's … use the less flattering version." And unflattering much of it is. His obsession with business left him distant from those close to him, he doesn't believe in loaning money even to close relatives, and there's also a little adultery mixed in as well.Regardless of any personal shortcomings, he is nothing less than a brilliant businessman and shares his thoughts on the stock market, reinvesting savings, buying "cigar butts" (cheap and unwanted stocks that you can suck one last puff out of), investing in Berkshire Hathaway, and following your "Inner Scorecard" ("a toughness about financial decisions that had infused him for as long as anyone could remember").The Snowball is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the investment world and its release comes not a day too soon. That is if anyone can still afford to buy it.Author Alice Schroeder will appear at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2:30pm, in Capitol Auditorium Room E1.004.

Don't Let Up, Texas Obama Director Says

Don’t let those poll numbers lull you into letting your guard down. That’s the message that Juan Sepúlveda, Texas state director of the Barack Obama campaign, had for party activists at the Central Texas Democratic Forum luncheon today. He detailed how the Texas campaign is both sending volunteers and staff to battleground states (such as neighboring New Mexico) and trying to help Dems here. Some excerpts from his presentation:“We’re worried about a couple of things,” Sepúlveda said. “One, it is not over, and we’ve got to make sure we don’t get complacent.“The second thing is that this race is going to tighten up. We started to hear people say, ‘Oh, I guess we don’t need to go to New Mexico anymore, that’s done, it’s finished, we’re up by six, seven points there.' We have to remind them that four years ago, John Kerry was at exactly the same position. He was exactly seven points ahead of President Bush at the time, and we ended up losing New Mexico by under 6,000 votes.

Miss Banks

Yesterday I went to the Paramount to check out the AFF screening of Role Models, the new big-budget comedy from director David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer). From the flash-mob parade of zombies on Congress Ave. regaling those of us waiting in line with cries for “equal rights!” and, of course, “brains!,” to the less flashy, less living-undead mob scene inside the packed theatre - where the laughs came easy, often, and loud - the mood could best be described as raucous and partisan.Role Models is about two self-involved 30-year-old men (played by co-writer Paul Rudd and perpetual Stifler Seann William Scott) forced by court order to take part in a child-mentoring program. It co-stars Superbad breakout Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Christopher Guest Company player Jane Lynch, and several of Wain’s co-conspirators from the mid-Nineties comedy troupe the State.Of course, the real star of the movie is Elizabeth Banks. I say that not because her role is the biggest or her performance is the best but rather because her appearance is the most significant. A movie star for just a few years, Miss Banks has quickly become the most ubiquitous, most sought-after, and perhaps most powerful actress of her generation. She is the rare Hollywood hinge, a performer who appears in seemingly every movie – defying the laws of time, space, and physics as she goes – who can all but guarantee box-office success with her imprimatur. She’s a predictor of a film’s success, proof of a director’s influence, a barometer of Hollywood sensibilities, an arbiter of public taste. She’s a talisman, a good-luck charm, a sorceress, warding off evil spirits and putting bodies in the seats.Was there a Hollywood before Elizabeth Banks? If so, how did it survive? And how did it recognize itself?