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GRASSROOTS NEWS MEDIA CONFERENCE & CULTURE JAM AustinJun e & Marcos, i a; M Organizing alternatives to corporate and government media, and struggling for liberty, justice, peace, and the free expression of creativity Participants include: Stephen Dunifer Black Liberation Radio, maquiladora union organizers; members of FreePaci fica, and others from Australia, China, Spain, Ireland, Canada, and Mexico. For more information: Grassroots News Network E-mail: grassroots @rootmedia.org ; online: www.geocities.com/ Hollywood/Studio/1082/ eccentrics. The rest of us are apparently too The filmmakers begin hearing the stories of the eccentrics who made up the characters in the original play. A few of these are interesting, but too many are just plain boring, over-the-top caricatures. The football coach, for example, rants about quitters and Vietnam, and shows his players his war wound, the result of a fragging incident. Seeing him go on about it, it’s easy to imagine a fellow soldier taking a shot at him. Other Texas types include a dip-snuffing son who brings his black girlfriend home to meet his redneck family, a lonely MexicanAmerican woman who was named after Hurricane Carla, a dedicated deer hunter who sees animals as souvenirs, and a retarded woman with an amazingly thick hick accent who unfortunately pronounces “pecan” the way Yankees do \(“pecan” being as sure a marker of Texanese as In fact, the most arresting characters are the two film-maker outsiders for a while. They have relationship trouble, and they quarrel interestingly about art versus science in filmmaking. But in the end and this is a huge, deflating, disappointing problem they enter “deep into the heart” of Texas culture. He starts wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat; she is rigged out in a country-western two-stepping long skirt, and a cute little ol’ Stetson. They plunge into the heart of Downhomeness, smack in front of the Treaty Oak. I don’t know what somebody from L.A., or New York, or Indianapolis, or even Oklahoma City will make of all this pure-dee Hollywood, Texas, horseshit. But as a lifelong Texan, seeing these three films, in rapid succession, didn’t make me want to have a chickenfried steak, or knock back a couple of Dr Peppers, or go Country & Western at the Broken Spoke, or hang out at Luckenbach \(the spiritual and intellecit just made me want to go to Europe, Australia, Nairobi, Formosa … anywhere else but Texas. Don Graham is the J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of English at U.T.Austin. His new book, Giant Country, has just been published by TCU Press. CLASSIFIEDS ORGANIZATIONS GRASSROOTS NEWS and MEDIA CONFERENCE and Culture Jam, June 19-21 in Austin. For more Info: [email protected] WORK for single-payer National Health Care. Join GRAY PANTHERS, intergenerational advocates against ageism and for progressive policies promoting social and economic justice. $20 individual, $35 family. 3710 Cedar, REVOLTED BY EXECUTIONS? Join the Amnesty International Campaign Against the Death Penalty. WORK FOR OPEN, responsible government in Texas. Join Common Cause/Texas, 1615 Guadalupe, #204, http://www.ccsi.com/comcause. CENTRAL TEXAS CHAPTER of the ACLU invites you to our noon Forum, the last Friday of every month, at Furr’s Cafeteria Banquet Room in Northcross Mall, Austin. For information call NATIONAL WRITERS UNION. We give working writers a fighting chance. Grievance procedures. Health insurance. Solidarity. Journalists, authors, poets, commercial writers. Forming locals in Austin, Houston, and El Paso. [email protected]. PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. Join the Texas Civil Rights Project, 2212 E. MLK, Austin, TX 78702. $25/year. Volunteers also needed. Contact Jim 474-5073. GREEN DEMOCRATS. The Environmental Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party is organizing statewide for the ’98 elections. It’s time for Texas environmentalists to create a grassroots political force to help elect earthfriendly politicians like Garry Mauro. For contacts in your part of Texas, call [email protected] . SUPPORT TEXAS ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS through payroll deductions where you work. Call Earth Share of JOIN THE FRONT LINE of opposition to plutonium processing in Texas: the Peace Farm, across from the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The Peace Farm, HC 2 Box 25, [email protected] . HOUSTON AREA PROGRESSIVES UNITE! End corporate domination of our lives and return power to individual citizens! Help get the Green Party on the ballot statewide by the year 2000. Join the Harris County Green Party Organizing Committee. Call SERVICES MARY NELL MATHIS, CPA, 20 years’ experience in tax, litigation support, and other analyses. 901 Rio Grande, HOUSEBUYERS, The Consumer’s Agent. Specialists in representing cen315-2565. WORLDWISE DESIGN, awardwinning graphic design studio. For creative, effective and professional designs for your educational and promoCLASSIFIED RATES: Minimum ten words. One time, 50 cents per word; three times, 45 cents per word; six times, 40 cents per word; 12 times, 35 cents per word; 25 times, 30 cents per word. Telephone and box numbers count as two words, abbreviations and zip codes as one. Payment must accompany order for all classified ads. Deadline is three weeks before cover date. Address orders and inquiries to Advertising Director, The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th, Austin, TX JUNE 5, 1998 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23