The Texas Observer

Regular readers will be pleased to learn that former Observer editor and syndicated columnist/rabble-rouser Jim Hightower is back between hardcovers with Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow (John Wiley & Sons). A breezily positive-thinking antidote to the necessary negativity that pervades so much of the non-mainstream muckraking media (mea culpa! mea culpa!), Swim Against the Current unearths the success stories of activists, dissidents and go-their-own-way go-getters who’ve abandoned apathy and found ways to buck whatever oppressive, greed-guided or simply wrongheaded system was telling them no. It’s downright inspirational.

And in the spirit of doing well by doing good, Hightower and co-author/accomplice Susan DeMarco are celebrating the book’s release with a “hoo-rah” and booksigning on Thursday, March 20, from 5 to 8 pm at Austin’s Boggy Creek Farm (3414 Lyons Road; 512-926-4650). There’ll be music by The Lovers and La Strada, plenty of local food and drink, and, as befits an event promoting the work of a former Texas Ag Commissioner, the $10 suggested donation benefits the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

For more Hightower appearances nationwide, check out the schedule on his website.

And just to put it on your radar, look for an excerpt from Swim Against the Current in the April 4 issue of the Texas Observer.

Anyone interested in journalism — can we get a show of hands, please? — ought to make a point of taking in Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the mad genius/incorrigible iconoclast who most famously offed the American Dream with the literary shotgun blast of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and later killed himself (in 2005) with a single bullet to the head.

(Even if journalism isn’t your thing, you should still check Gonzo out, if only to remind yourself that this most apologetic of contemporary professions once played in the big leagues of American star-culture, right alongside politics and rock and roll.)

Thompson’s full bibliography and influence are too rich to repeat here, but director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; The Trials of Henry Kissinger) has gained access to never-before-seen archival film of Thompson at work and at play, and it’s revelatory, though it leaves unanswered the most enduring of HST trivia questions: How could a grown man who lived in snow country (Aspen-area Colorado) spend so much of his life wearing shorts?

With the addition of a few unfortunate but brief dramatic reenactments, Gibney has assembled a reasonably full biography and a monument to Thompson’s best years that doesn’t ignore the fact that they were relatively few. Or that having stared down Hells Angels and Richard Nixon alike with his twin senses of humor and rage intact, it was ultimately an enemy as insubstantial as fame that robbed the writer of his mojo.

Remembrances by running-buddies including Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Margaritaville tycoon Jimmy Buffett, illustrator/collaborator Ralph Steadman and likable xenophobe Pat Buchanan polish the already well-worn legend. Son Juan and two wives add painful human perspective to the apparently more-or-less true mythology of an uncomfortable but irrepressible cartoon character (HST is the model for Doonesbury’s Raoul Duke, of course).

The wealth of firsthand footage is a treat for fans, of whom there was no shortage Saturday night at the Alamo Draft House for the documentary’s SXSW regional premiere. The film shows one more time during the festival, at the same venue, at 10 p.m. on Thursday night, March 13th. If you don’t want to get stuck in a folding chair in the aisle, we recommend you arrive on the early side.

Special if potentially depressing treat for political junkies, of which Thompson was emphatically one: The film’s recollection of the 1972 presidential race, in which an exceedingly Bush-like Nixon beats ascendant out-of-Vietnam-now candidate George McGovern like a bad dog in the general election, is a tart and timely reminder of just how much hope and idealism can be squandered — even in the face of a compellingly evil alternative — by a few stupid mistakes. The contemporary parallels are unavoidable. And, one can hope, imprecise.

Word just reached us that local songwriter/artist Daniel Johnston has canceled his opening weekend performance at SXSW due to illness, but as usual with all things Johnston, there’s a silver lining, and it’s this: Johnston is suddenly scheduled to make a post-show appearance at tonight’s March 7 performance of Speeding Motorcycle, peripatetic director Jason Nodler’s rock opera based on Johnston’s sweetly unrefined music and self-mythologized life, currently running at Austin’s Zach Scott Theater. To be clear, Johnston isn’t in the play (though longtime cohort Kathy McCarty, of Glass Eye fame, takes a notable star turn), but he’s scheduled for a brief after-show performance with the rockin’ post-show band at 9:30 pm.

There are plenty of reasons (fantastic songs, well sung, and a comically heartbreaking storyline) to grab a ticket to any of the remaining performances in Speeding Motorcycle’s run (the play opened Valentine’s day and is up through April 13), but if you’re looking for a hometown event of international cult-epic proportions, you’ll want to be at the Zach tonight.

A caucusing friend just called in to report that she’d just successfully completed her caucus duties, having waited in line for 2 hours to do so, and having left a line estimated at another several hours behind her. The polling place, near Pleasant Valley and Oltorf on Austin’s east side, was described as a “ghetto apartment complex,” poorly lit and seemingly designed to discourage turnout with its spooky voter entrance all the way around back. That description, though, was belied by a crowd estimated at 500, including all of about a dozen Republicans pulled out of line to caucus among themselves while the Dems wait. But Dems, eastside and otherwise, have been waiting a long time, and they don’t seem to mind waiting a bit longer to help choose an administration they can live with.

Democratic Party officials in Austin confirm that certain Texas precincts - apparently plural, but no official word on how many or which, just a few out of thousands - began phoning in informal caucus results as early as 7:15 p.m. based on early head-counts of signed-in attendees. Those calls arrived at the undisclosed-location Austin phone center where 175 lines have been set up in anticipation of record turnout, and to forward info to the media handicappers you see on your screen even as you read this. Party officials sicced lawyers on the offending precincts, instructing them not to jump the gun, to hold their caucuses and THEN call in with results. The spin at headquarters is that the problems so far are minor and to be expected, given voter volume, which itself is a good problem to have, considering. Simultaneously, and unrelatedly, CNN analysts are now opining that white males may be the key swing voters in the Obama/Clinton battle royale. About time those guys got a say in American politics! 

As you may have heard, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, having aced his merit badge in self-hairstyling, has waded into the treacherous waters of ostensible authorship with On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For. The book, a bit astoundingly, debuted at #1 on the Washington Post bestseller list Monday (according to a press release paid for by Texans for Rick Perry), and it may have received a boost — in the lucrative homophobe market, anyhow — from a Sunday New York Times Magazine interview with the governor by a clearly astounded Deborah Solomon, excerpted below.

Solomon: On My Honor “draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties.”

Perry: “Yes, to their legal defense fund.”

Solomon: “Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause?”

Perry: “I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.”

Solomon: “Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual?”

Perry: “Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.”

Solomon: “But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty?”

Perry: “The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?”

Solomon: “No”

Perry: “Well, then, why don’t they call it something else?”

Like what, absurd reductivism?

We will let the governor — famously and a bit tiresomely both an Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, and not even in the least tiny bit gay — slide on his title’s sentence-ending preposition (his grammar badge must be pending). But there’s no getting past the wrongheadedness of his message, which seems to be something along the lines of gay people are obsessed with sex and if they’re allowed anywhere near impressionable young minds, then you don’t even want to know what tomorrow’s Webelos will be doing after school in the garage with all those fancy knots.

That message wasn’t lost on Equality Texas, which Tuesday issued a statement decrying Perry’s narrowminded bigotry and — gotcha! — unseemly preoocupation with sex. The group invites gay scouts to attend Perry’s three scheduled Texas booksignings this week.

in case you’re interested, that’s Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Border’s Books in San Antonio; Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at BookPeople in Austin; and Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 at Borders Books in Dallas. Expect to find Perry set up at a signing table in the farthest possible corner from the Gay & Lesbian Literature section. Because you know, you can catch those cooties just by breathing too deeply in their proximity.

And Perry should know. Rumors about his own possibly closeted orientation have circulated for years, prompting the governor in 2004 to take the extraordinary step of denying them publicly.

So far no one has been cynical enough to suggest that the Perry book’s square-jawed broadside at the gay and gay-friendly communities is perhaps nothing more than a self-serving bulwark against that very rumor, which bulwark might come in handy if those other rumors — of Perry’s ambition for national office — ever turn out to be true.

But finally, lest mockery get the best of us, let’s pause just a moment to credit Gov. Perry for not encouraging his dog to write a book, as other governors have done. We all know what dogs have on their dirty little dog brains, and it’s certainly not loyalty and trust. And we’re pretty sure there’s no merit badge for it, either.

After the debate, I made my way to what someone (CNN, I guess) actually labeled “The Spin Zone.” There was signage at the borders in case one accidentally wandered out.The Spin Zone was a broad hallway with a little raised platform to one side for the more professionally unwieldy camera crews, and every other inch of floor space was crawling with people holding little point and shoot cameras, fuzzy microphones, or full-on heavy digital video cameras, aimed into the air, shooting whatever their high horizon encompassed and simultaneously trying to scribble in small notepads with only one hand.

At the same time, another group of people, 35 or so, held one and sometimes two wood-staked placards aloft, each printed with the name of a campaign spokesperson, a state legislator, a university professor, or in one case, a man self-identified simply as “Expert on Texas Politics.” The signs were held by aides, and they were designed to help the people with the cameras and the notebooks find appropriate sources. No sign of Kirk Watson, sigh.

The expert on Texas politics — why advertise his name? — was doing brisk business, with a small swarm absorbing his pronouncements. In the background, a the constant hum of people muttering “sorry” for stepping on your feet.

The LBJ School’s Ed Dorn didn’t seem to be fending off any crowds so I introduced myself and asked a stupid question. Both candidates raced to claim-jump the legacies of Barbara Jordan. What ought we make of that? The obvious, Mr. Dorn answered, more forebearingly than was strictly necessary. Jordan means a lot to Austin. Same reason LBJ and Ladybird got their namechecks.

No one, by the way, tagged Bush as a Texan. He’s everyone’s problem now. So I asked Dorn what the debate said to him, and he said something that sounded smart. Said he saw two candidates appealing so uniformly and resolutely right down the middle of the American road that either could enter the general election tomorrow, one day one so to speak, and not have to change their pitch to the whole American people a whit. John McCain couldn’t say that. He can’t address the presumably necessary religious right and everyone else in the same tone, and the imbalance will hurt him.

Dorn doesn’t think the candidates did much to distinguish themselves from each other, though, and I don’t either. The minutiae over health care was uninspiring and flat, Dorn says. More important that both are committed to universal health care. Probably not a lot of minds changed tonight is what I thought as I walked out, which took something stupid-close to an hour because you don’t want to just go shoving through a crowd of mostly pretty girls holding splintery staked placards and ugly dudes holding expensive camera equipment and sharp ballpoints. I spent a moment trapped in the scrum near the “expert on Texas politics.” I heard him say “no unforced errors.” He said, “a little bit of a draw.”