Daily - The Austin Chronicle (2024)

My mom made the best Kool-Aid ever. There was nothing like running up the path at my uncle’s cottage on Collins Pond in Maine to a delicious pitcher of that sugary fruit punch. All the kids in my neighborhood used to make me ask her to make it like I was the only one at the party who was 21. My refusal would mean certain ostracizing.

Kool-Aid would eventually come to freak me out though, and not in that awesome, way-too-much-sugar, no-time-to-pee kind of way. It freaked me out when I opened Time magazine and saw those perspective-changing pictures of the Jim Jones massacre. The insidious cauldron from which they all drank their brand of Kool-Aid under the watchful eye of their leader was prominently featured among the many corpses. It still gives me the willies.

The Boston sports media has always referred to anything New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichek and VP of player personnel Scott Pioli do that might be construed as a bad idea as “drinking the Kool-Aid." An obvious reference to blindly following anything they do as a good idea regardless of every voice in your head screaming “No” like a 45 on 33. Our first sip came at the expense of our first overall pick Drew Bledsoe, who was unceremoniously shelved for Tom Brady, an unproven backup who would lead us to three Super Bowl championships and at the very least a time share in the playoffs.

NOLA... as in, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. As in, you still have time to roulez your laissez bon ton on down to the Crescent City for Weekend 2 of the fest, if you hurry, crawdaddy.

Last week, we Buc-ee'd and Stuckey'd our way across TX & LA for a virgin trek to witness weekend one of the famed fete.

Rolling across the bayou at sunrise was almost as humbling as hitting the eerie Katrina-damned landmarks of the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center at dawn. Almost two years after the tragedy of storms and levee breaks, the town is still creeping to a question-mark recovery, teetering on the brink of a true soul comeback or being overrun into becoming the corporate bitch Vegas of the Gulf.

Every ounce of the fest, too, was steeped in a humid brew of hometown hopes and self-sufficient dignity – the subtext of a body-memory's worth of abandonment, all too present. But fret not. This is NOLA and her stiff upper lip and stubborn good-times-roll spirit has pulled them up this far and can only take us higher.

This vein of rejoice and recover was tapped in just about every act – locals and special guests alike: in the uproarious joy channeled through Lady Tambourine (and Lord forgive me for not knowing the name of the unlisted choir with which she performed) in the Gospel Tent; traipsing across the fairgrounds in the second-line funeral parade memorial for Fest Fan and bro 60 Minutes man Ed Bradley; pumping through the new-meets-old school throw-down called Trombone Shorty at the Congo Stage (then later at Cafe Brasil); swinging through the smooth skronk of Pharoah Sanders in the Jazz Tent; tiptoeing atop every gray-hair in attendance at Pete Fountain; slurring and crooning with Lucinda Williams; sangin' and blangin' with Ludacris; and especially coming right out with it and laying it on the line during just about every break of Charmaine Neville's set. And that's not the half of it. (Click the Open Image Gallery link above for pics of many of these artists and more.)

We missed more than we saw – that first weekend was impossibly stacked – but what we saw, felt, tasted, and sang made it all better. If you go out for weekend two, tell Trombone Shorty and that nice lady who sells the pies near the Fais Do-Do Stage that Texas sends her love.

TODAY'S EVENTS

HAAM Corporate Battle of the Bands at ACL Live at the Moody Theater

MUSIC | MOVIES | ARTS | COMMUNITY

What’s next, Coca-Cola?

It seems Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s legal eagles have got themselves all hopped up on Cocaine. That’s right, Cocaine. In a lawsuit filed May 2 in Dallas County District Court, the AG’s Consumer Protection and Public Health Division says Las Vegas-based Redux Beverages LLC must be stopped from peddling in Texas a drink called Cocaine, which the AG argues is an illegal alternative to the illicit street variety co*ke.

In part, the problem is the way the product is described – and although they don’t come right out and say it, part of the problem seems to be the name itself, Cocaine (cocaine, cocaine, cocaine!!), which apparently makes the AG uncomfortable, seemingly in a way that approximates having a sex talk with a parent – eek! First of all, the letters of the word “cocaine” are spelled out in a font that looks like a “white granular substance” – and we all know what that is, right? Cocaine! The drink is also billed as a “legal alternative” to co*ke, as “speed in a can,” as “liquid cocaine,” and promises drinkers – albeit jokingly, though the AG seems especially humorless here – a “high” and “euphoric rush” that, might, depending on the user, feel something like a co*ke high.

Taken together, the AG insists, it is clear that Redux is marketing the drink as a “legal alternative” to co*ke, which is actually illegal since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved Redux’s Cocaine as a drug alternative.

The Wranglers (3-5) take on division rivals the Tampa Bay Storm (2-6) 3pm Sunday at the Frank Erwin Center. Starting in 1987 as the Pittsburgh Gladiators, the Storm are the oldest franchise in the modern Arena Football League, making a total of eight Arena Bowl trips under the two team names and winning the damn thing five times as the Storm. Coach Tim Marcum is the most successful in AFL history, with seven bowl wins. The Storm is also ahead in series history, 4-2, between the teams. This season, though, illustrious history or whatever probably won't be as much of a factor as TB's quarterback injuries.

After losing QBs John Kaleo and Stoney Case in back-to-back games, the Storm is left with two rookies behind center. Brett Dietz gets his first AFL start this week, and B.J. Symons from my alma mater Texas Tech (Whoo! Whooooo!) will suit up for his first game in the league. Wrangler QB Adrian McPherson, in contrast, is just starting to realize his sweetass potential. The Storm rank second in rushing touchdowns this season, but the Wranglers only allow 15.4 yards a game on the ground. Reminds me of the time I asked my ninth grade science teacher, Mr. Sharp, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. "Jeremy," he said,"why don't you just sit quietly and wait for your meds to kick in." That's good advice anytime. For more on the Austin Wranglers check out this week's sports feature, "Arena Rock." For tickets to Sunday's game, go to the Austin Wranglers Web site.

The Drive-by Truckers played in my tiny living room during South by Southwest 01. It was an unplugged affair, of course, kind of like what went down this week at Antone’s as part of their Dirt Underneath tour, except they were a very different band back then.

Every time there is a change in the Truckers, and there have been a few since 2001, it causes an uproar among fans. There is emotional attachment between any band and its fans, but DBT fans seem to take change especially hard. First, guitarist Rob Malone just up and disappeared in the fall of 2001 during the Southern Rock Opera tour. His replacement, the cherubic Alabaman Jason Isbell, became a force in the band, writing some of its best songs and blossoming into an excellent guitarist. Producer, bass player, and longtime friend Earl Hicks left in December 2003, and was replaced immediately by Isbell’s wife, Shonna Tucker, lending a whiff of Fleetwood Mac’s Sturm und Drang to the proceedings. There was also some record-company drama when they signed to Lost Highway, who reissued Southern Rock Opera after it had been initially self-released, only to leave the Nashville label for their current home, the Austin/L.A.-based New West, without releasing anything else.

Following yesterday's Star Trek-inspired insanity during City Manager Toby Futrell's presentation of the city's financial forecast, it only seems appropriate to steer y'all to LOL Trek, a riff on the admittedly retarded LOL Cats meme, set to the show's infamous episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles." Hey, if our butch sister blog, The Gay Place is doing it, why can't we?

But if you really want a laugh, the financial forecast is here for your perusal. Did we say laugh? We meant shivering, fetal-position-inducing cry. Our bad.

There were more – and even more disturbing – revelations out of Atlanta last week in the ongoing story of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was killed by Atlanta PD during a bogus drug raid at her house on Nov. 21 – including that police actually planted pot in Johnston’s basem*nt to bolster their insistence that drugs were being dealt from her home.

To recap: Atlanta narco officers obtained a so-called “no-knock” warrant – allowing police to enter unannounced – to conduct a drug raid at Johnston’s Northwest Atlanta home. Police obtained the warrant from a magistrate by claiming a confidential informant told them a man named “Sam” was dealing crack out of the small house. They needed the no-knock warrant, they averred, because Sam was known to monitor surveillance cameras at the house. The plainclothes cops cut through Johnston’s burglar bars and stormed through the door, only to be met by Johnston who, apparently thinking the men were intruders, fired a .38 revolver at them in an attempt to defend herself and her home. Johnston’s bullets failed to hit anyone, but prompted police to unleash a torrent of return fire – 39 rounds in all – striking the 92-year-old woman five or six times, killing her.