March 27, 2009 - The Austin Chronicle

P0STMARKSCONTINUED FROM P.9passed anxious faces with their tickets in their hands, my husbandand I were happy to have our wristbands as we poured intothe show at 5:05pm. No sooner had we found a place to standthan the band started, after the crowd had been cued to “applaudloudly.” What ensued was an artificial, American Bandstand-styleshow that was empty and boring. It was obvious by the end of thefirst song that the band did not want to be there. Needless to say,neither did we. The people next to us tapped my shoulder to askwho the band was, and it was was regrettable to have to say, “Theyare supposed to be Echo & the Bunnymen.” After 42 minutes (Iknow this because singer Ian McCulloch remarked, “What can youdo in 42 minutes?”), we left feeling that we’d been “had.” All in all,it began the last night of South by Southwest on a bad note.Morgan VierhellerPATHETIC AND INSULTING,AND TOTALLY INFURIATINGDear Editor,Absolutely outrageous. The documentary film Drunken Angel:The Legend of Blaze Foley was to be screened at the ConventionCenter as an official South by Southwest event (including anadmission charge of $10 to non-badge-holders). The film took10 years to make, and literally hundreds of people came to thisevent, many of whom had flown in from out of town specifically forthis celebration of Blaze’s life and posthumous major success (asmany know, Blaze’s songs have been recorded by Merle Haggard,Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, John Prine, and others; “Drunken Angel”was of course written about Blaze by Lucinda Williams). AfterBlaze’s tragic death in 1989, his songs live on as does the highregard in which he is held by thousands already; this film waspositioned to be a “breakout” premiere event attended by peoplein the film industry as well as the music community. The audiencealso included several disabled people – all of whom braved thehorrendous traffic, parking, etc. After more than an hour of beingasked to “vamp,” the filmmaker, Kevin Triplett, was told his screeningwas canceled and would be “rescheduled” because of thelack of a lightbulb for the projector! This was after a “tech check”less than an hour before screen time. With the billions of dollarsgenerated by SXSW, you guys didn’t have an extra lightbulb?! Andthe wherewithal to take care of this? Disgraceful, disgraceful.People were offered $10 refunds, but what about having paid topark, paid for a plane flight to Austin, paid for a cab, etc., etc.,and without even consulting the filmmaker, an alternate screeningwas announced out of nowhere at the Paramount in the middleof the afternoon (!) two days later on a workday. What good doesthat do the people who flew in from out of town? They can’t gethotel rooms for two more nights; there isn’t a room to be had!Demonstrating this truly shameful lack of professionalism for aFestival that is purportedly “state of the art” is an unbelievablefailure of your obligation to your participants and your audience.Shame, shame, shame on you guys. Really pathetic, not to mentioninsulting. Absolutely and totally infuriating.Madeleine Mercier[Louis Black responds: The situation was not as simple as a“bulb” for a “projector,” as you state. This was an advanced highdefinitionprojector. There was a spare bulb, but the projector had tobe reprogrammed in order for that bulb to work. The estimated timefor this reprogramming was at least one hour, but after a couple ofhours into the reprogramming, it was realized that the “one hour”minimum was ridiculously overly optimistic.]REMEMBERING DAN DEL SANTODear Editor,Re: Dan Del Santo [AMDB]: I met Dan in 1978 straight out ofNorth Texas State as a sax player who would soon be a Professorof Pleasure. Dan hired me to write down some 500 tunes he hadswimming in his head for a new band he was forming. Dan couldn’tread or write music and was with one of the craziest cats I wouldever encounter! He had just finished living the life of a Deltablues man with Alligator Records, I think … but by the time I methim, he was drawing back on his Italian roots and was starting to“fuse” Italian, blues, jazz, reggae, New Orleans, and Texas swing.Crazy stuff! Totally impossible to write down because he was notonly jumping styles but jumping meters and tempos. He got the“Professor” part from Professor Longhair and got the “Pleasure”part from King Pleasure. But looking back, Dan was sort of apioneer of world beat. I would have to say that we never really“fused” styles, but the music was much more like shiftinggears without a clutch. He turned me onto the Meters and reggaeand Fela Ransome-Kuti. We (his sidemen) were basicallyjazz cats trying to keep up with this madman! He was nonstopmusic and could go days straight. I had heard a rumor thatDan skipped town and was on the run from the law years ago.Not surprised. Dan was a bigger than life guy. When I met him,he was so against alcohol and would lecture that that stuffwould kill you. Dan loved milk, and I would literally watch himdown a gallon of milk at a sitting. He was the original “GotMilk?” guy … maybe because he had a bad stomach. Henever told any of us about his early years. I knew he was fromNew York but not much else. He also loved Southern cultureand so revered the old black cats like Lightnin’ Hopkins andRobert Shaw. He also so much wanted to be counted in thoseranks. I left Austin for a lot of reasons and never kept up withDan, not that he would be the kind of person who would keepup with folks. I suppose he could have coined the term “worldbeat,” but I don’t think his music was world beat. It was agrand sampler of styles – very angular like a modernist paintingwith hard edges. Yet Dan had this amazing Texas Bob Willsside to him where he would “slide into” his notes as he sangwith a yodel. I never liked the name Professor of Pleasure asit was a pretty dumb name but none the less a tribute to theold school of territory musicians. We only did original music …nothing else. So I guess I’m proud I made my living with Danas a Texas Outlaw, too.John Eric CathcartWashington, D.C.TOO MUCH IMPERVIOUS COVERDear Editor,Austin is proposing more impervious cover with itsWebberville solar panel farm than exists in the whole ofDowntown Austin. The proposed 300-acre solar-panel farmincludes neither a quality pond nor a detention pond. We needto ask why, and we need to demand an answer. Is the citysidestepping this by granting itself a variance? The city needsto step up to the plate and practice not only what it preachesbut what it imposes on others. In short, it cannot be aboveits own law, law it imposes on small-business owners in theAustin jurisdiction. It cannot grant a variance to itself in thename of sustainability, which it may well try to justify by sayingthat rainfall will just run off the solar panels onto the groundanyway (so does the rainfall from Austin rooftops).This 300-acre solar-panel farm will eat up 550 acres of landbecause of the 65% impervious cover limit and would almostcertainly be better outfitted on rooftops, saving 550 preciousacres in the process. A total of 5,500 homes with an averageroof size of 2,375 square feet would achieve the samething. Or how about 11,000 homes with 200 square feet ofsolar panels? Or how about just placing the panels on parkinggarages (we’ve got a few of those). If we absolutely have todo this in Webberville, we’d better see some ponds. Big ones.Ponds that are probably not included in the cost approved forthe solar-panel farm by the council.Jim LaceyVALUE OF ‘ROOFTOP’ SOLARDear Editor,Robert Duncan’s letter, “Solar Power Way Too Expensive”[“Postmarks,” March 20] is partially true but misses the value of“rooftop” solar.Centralized solar power is currently more expensive than thewholesale cost of coal power, but rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV)is less expensive than the retail price of coal-based grid electricityduring the solar window, which is the highest-cost time for gridelectricity.“Rooftop” solar is clean and cost competitive, especially afterdoing everything energy efficient (EE) and time-of-use metering andpricing based on good cost-of-service studies, which would showthat the cost of grid electricity during the “solar window” is nowhigher than the cost of photovoltaics – plus net metering up toone’s own usage, offsetting one’s own usage at the retail rate. Thiswould create a hot market for EE and solar on the customer side ofthe meter.Add in a carbon tax with 100% return across the board (so the peoplewho conserve get more money back than they pay in carbon tax) andcreate a really hot market. (Why a cap-and-trade system for carbondioxide after the massive market collapses of the last few months?)Add in local financing for EE, PV, small wind … more than 20 yearsconnected to the local property tax and create a sizzling market.Distributed generation also 1) avoids new, expensive, landscapedespoiling,and energy-depleting transmissions lines, which lose asmuch as 10% and 2) adds redundancy, responsibility, and value forpeople rather than for corporations.Roland JamesSeguinHYMN TO OUR OWNDear Louis,A personal thank you note for your piece in last week’s Chronicle,“Hymn to My Own” [“Page Two,” March 20]. I’m a 42-year-old writerand camera operator who moved to Austin seven weeks ago todo exactly what you discussed in the piece – move forward, livedreams. Of course, it’s been a tough ride, but after 26 years of notever getting what I was promised from my three degrees in the corporateworld and with no one relying on me currently for economicsalvation, now is actually the right time to make it happen. But inthe days when I’m pushing it 18 hours and sitting questioning everypossible way of earning a living and making my life finally what Iwant it to be, your piece was a clarion call for me to hold tough,“rope-a-dope,” and it reminded me specifically of the 14 years ofsmall steps that have led me to this place. Your cry of “forward” iswhat’s kept me getting incrementally closer year by year and helpedme to overcome every bruise and setback, but it’s easy to forgetwhen the sticks are bigger than the carrots.I hope to be a part of the positive change coming to your city. Tothrow my shoulder to the wheel and make something new, to helpto create a place for others to create. I trust now that the answersand way to earn my living will come.Your editorial is now pasted on the dashboard of my car, and acopy will be on the mirror of every house I stay in.Thank you for articulating that when I really needed it.Most sincerely,Gabrielle Bouliane10 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E MARCH 27, 2009 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m