Art 'zine for kids!

My friend Ariel Tustin is full of sand. And good ideas. Her daughters Matilda and Lille are fast becoming soul siblings with my own monsters and we have grand plans for their little creative futures. Besides the hand built baby Stratocaster we just picked up at a yard sale, immersing them in art, rich storytelling and beautiful things in general is forefront in my parenting brain.

Here is the seed of Ariel's very worthwhile endeavors, a magazine for building creative little minds.



If so led, pour some proverbial water of your own to help it grow.
More details here.

Summer Food Recipes: Cool Mexican Tuna Salad

This is one of my very favorite warm weather recipes, brought to you from the kitchen of my loveliest Shauna Hill. She taught me a few tricks before she moved back to Mexico to marry her el profesor soulmate Davíd, and I still make them all the time.

What you'll need:

• tuna in water
• your favorite mayonaise
• large fresh jalapenos
• fresh cilantro
• limes
• avocado
• pears
• tortilla chips or flat tostada shells
  
• salt
• pepper

Gather your ingredients, I just mix them to taste since this is not an exact science. Make sure you have a cute helper to harvest cilantro from your overgrown winter garden from two years ago.

Squeeze all the water from the cans of tuna and serve as a salty cocktail to grateful kitties. Chop cilantro and pears, de-seed your jalapenos (DON'T rub your eyes!) and toss with tuna in a large mixing bowl. Add a hefty dollop of mayo, the juice of two limes and salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with sliced ripe avocado, sprigs of cilantro and a dash of red chile salt. Serve slightly chilled as a fresh dip for tortilla chips or atop tostadas as the perfect lunch before your afternoon siesta in the hammock.

I think it is a crime to eat canned tuna hot, so chilling it and making it limey and spicy really takes it to another level of awesomeness. I believe I made up the part about the pears but feel free to add other fun things like sliced almonds, bananas or tabasco. Bonus: this recipe is super affordable, almost healthy and no cooking involved. The amount shown here can feel three hungry adults.

Maybe we should call it GREEN FISH. Nah.

BEARDING Part 2: An Interview With Alex LaRoche

The second interview in a two part series about bearding and beard culture.

Meet Alex LaRoche, one of the best dudes to ever stomp the earth in colorful tennis shoes and an old and dear friend of mine. I'll never forget the epic costume parties we used to organize at our rental on the east side. Live bands, djs, dancing, our deck was the stage and our neighbors the cemetery and gospel church. We hollered in shorts together for 5 years of kickball and he filmed the super 8 footage at our wedding. (held in the side yard of said crappy rental house) Now we're "grown-ups", he starring in a tv show and I chasing babies. We see each other on holidays and birthdays if we're lucky. He is the proud owner of my Colorado Storms Jeep.

MS: Your dad has a cool beard. Did you always know you would grow up to be a
beard guy?

ALR: Dad had a beard when he and mom got married. But I only knew him with a moustache until this summer when he started growing out his full beard. It is waaay better than mine. His Moustache is insane now too. (note photo evidence)

MS: When we were roommates, you had chops but were clean-shaven. You were also a vegetarian. Do you find that beard wearing and eating of roasted meats such as a leg of mutton and home smoked bacon go hand in hand?

ALR: Actually, I started growing my first beard during sxsw of 2005. I was dating a girl at the time who loved beards. She also used to date Bryan Nelson (another friend on the show) back in the day. When I went out to Cupertino to interview for a job one of the interviewers asked about my beard and years later told me that it was the reason they hired me.

Before that I had sideburns for years and tried to grow a moustache once when I was working at a sandwich shop in west lake to piss off
the GM (he had one of those caterpillar-Magnum-PI style nut dusters).

But yes, I was vegetarian. Now I'm not. I am not sure what changed.
I think I just wanted to eat hot wings or Brisket or something. I was 30 lbs lighter back then. THANKS FOR BRINGING UP HOW FAT I'VE GOTTEN!

MS: Do you know any viking jokes?

ALR: There is nothing funny about Vikings except that they discovered the new world first and kept it a secret because the fishing and hot native ladies were so sweet.

MS: Do you find that hiding a good portion of your face gives you confidence or anonymity?

ALR: I think that if I wanted to fit in and disappear more I would shave. A bright red beard is hard to ignore which may be one of the reasons that I keep it. I definitely think having the beard boosts my confidence to a degree. One benefit is that it keeps the oils in my face somewhat under control which prevents complexion issues. Also 80% of my face covered by hair hides 80% of my blemishes.

However, when Bryan, Demling and I walk down the street or the airport terminal together, folks yell "La Grange!" or "ZZ-Top!" which kind of makes us anonymous.

MS: Have you met many young ladies with facial hair fetishes?

ALR: Certainly I have met a bunch of ladies who love facial hair and many who just don't understand yet how awesome it is. I think many of the ladies that like beards had fathers or grandfathers with beards and those memories of comfort are attractive.

I married a gal who used to like my beard, (see hot librarian photo) but it is far too long for her now and she wants it to be shorter. One day I'll have a short beard again but I'm too busy making spaceships out of mine to cut it off just yet.

MS: You have traveled the world for your competitions. Norway for the world beard and moustache competition and LA for the Whisker Wars series. Would you call it a hobby or a lifestyle?

ALR: I think the hobby and joke of growing a huge beard has definitely taken over as a lifestyle. I'm not sure how comfortable I am writing that, but it is true. The Austin Facial Hair Club does spend a lot of time doing events in Austin as well as around the country (and the world). We have at least one competition somewhere every month. We have several business meetings and social events in Austin as well. Some might say it is too much but we manage to raise enough money to help pay for other team members to travel around with us. We meet and hang out with a ton of really nice and fun people. We drink a lot, we eat great food, and sometimes we win trophies (but not that often).

MS: For the reality show, did they coach you or lead you into scenarios at all? Were you surprised, pleased or annoyed at the way they portrayed you in the final cut?

ALR: With any "reality" show there is a bit of coaching that can get annoying like "say that again" or "turn this way" or "walk in through the door again." But as far as the drama goes it's all sort of smushed together. Our (AFHC) characters in the show are rowdy, rambunctious, and occasionally accidentally irreverent about the old-school beard culture. For example I wore Texas flag swim trunks in Norway because I had an octopus beard. I thought that made sense. However, when 60 year-old bros come out wearing $3000 suits and $500 handmade ties it can make you feel like an ass.

Other characters in the show are mostly portrayed correctly as well. Myk is a rad dude (who we are trying to get to move to Austin with his wife and almost-daughter). Aarne is a sweet and brilliant guy. Those other dudes are in their own world. I don't really like to talk
about or mention them by name anymore.

I am happy about the way that they portrayed me and the team. I find it interesting that at the beginning of the show we were like "This guy is just trying to make money and brand us blah blah." Then in later episodes you see us selling tons of merch. Now we actually have to send cease-and-desist notes to beard teams who steal our logos and so on. We have greater than 20 different Koozie designs we have made over the years. It has become slightly ridiculous, but now it's gotten into this totally different realm of fun.

MS: Where can we watch episodes and when is the new season starting?

ALR: I'm not at liberty to say when the 2nd season is starting but you can read more here:
http://www.ifc.com/videos/whisker-wars-season-2-coming-soon

As far as watching the 1st season it can be found on iTunes, and now airing in the UK. I don't get any money for buying the shows, so don't feel obligated to do so.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/whisker-wars-season-1/id451234777

MS: I love your freestyle category, I know you use hairspray and beer cans to shape your designs, any other style secrets for burgeoning facial hair growers?

ALR: I'd say take care of your beard when it is short. Use conditioners or oils that you like. When it gets longer and you want to try out some freestyle ask some folks who have used rollers before for some techniques (ladies, hair stylists, beardos). Then practice! After a competition or party or whatever, make sure you wash out all of the products really well. The most important thing is to have fun and be proud of whatever style you choose. Also be sure to wet the moustache every-now-and-then with some Los Lonely Stars if you are into the whole beer thing.

MS: Is there any real animosity between the young beard enthusiasts like yourself and more traditional all natural old dudes? Say, similar to skiers versus snowboarders?

ALR: In general no, the old guys love most of us. When I was in Norway I spoke (mostly listened) to a couple of the German guys who were sayingthat they were sad that their own sons wouldn't compete. They are happy that young guys like us from the United States will help carry on the traditions. When they all started they were in their 30's too and just a bunch of totally ridiculous dudes partying in the 80's. Sometimes we need to
slow our roll at the serious competitions, but for the most part they love us.

MS: Is the movement getting bigger everyday, or is it a niche club where everyone is friends?

ALR: Man, this thing is getting pretty big but still somewhat limited. There are sometimes over 100 competitors at a competition and I've met guys who started clubs because of the TV show.

I don't think society is at the point where beards are mainstream again. Having that guy from the SF Giants celebrate his beard is a plus but not a lot of guys can go to a job with a 2ft beard. Austin, Portland, and the Silicon Valley can hang with beards, but lawyers, doctors or chefs have a hard time pulling them off. When was the last time our president had a beard? Why am I answering a question with two questions?

MS: Could you make bearding into a full time job, would you want to?

ALR: I enjoy my current full time job so much that it would be hard to quit it to do anything else. I don't think I have the patience to make my beard a full-time job. Maybe acting, playing in a band, or something else. I don't want to drive around in an RV promoting guitar strings or Tequila for a paycheck. I'd miss using my brain.

MS: Finally, is this a phase, or is it forever? Will we ever see your sweet face again?

This is my face!

MS: Will you lose all your strength if your beard is cut like Samson in the bible?

ALR: Nah, I'm sure I'd be equally as weak without a beard. Actually I might be stronger because I'd force myself to exercise since I wouldn't have the luxury of a giant beard to hide my man-boobs.
*

Alex LaRoche hails from Atlanta, Georgia and has worked for Apple computers for a million years. I'm pretty sure he's in charge of everything. He can be found smoking meats, inventing and brewing fancy beers, soaking his moustache in Lonestar, chillaxin' with his wife and giant dog (nicknamed "Pony") and generally kicking ass. Secret: He has dimples. I was so glad when he finally moved back to Texas.

Bean Birds

We're so 70s around here. I love our little stolen girl hours together as Jesse naps. I always think I'll make Ruby nap too, or clean house, but who could resist those big eyes when she says "Mommy, let's make art!" We obviously collaborated on these, but she did all of the bean placing on the crane and it looks quite superior to my near-sighted owl.

(when I pulled out the tin of bird seed it had been invaded by tiny crawling bugs so I unceremoniously tossed the lot in the front yard and we've been enjoying peering out at the cheeky fat squirrels and doves feasting just a couple of feet from our screen door.)

Grounds for Play

Here are some sun soaked photos of the playground frolics we had while trying to do a mural match shoot. Taken by the sassy and talented Sarah Natsumi Moore.

(and though the long bumpy object my children are climbing on resembles frosted dinosaur bowels, I believe it is a caterpillar)

Hooray Spring!

MURAL MATCH: Brentwood Mosaic

Our second (actually first official) mural in our Mural Match project. Okay okay it's a mosaic. But so big! Getting two squirrelly monsters to stand still in front of a wall when there are slides in sight is something one should probably only do for hard cash but me? I do it for...pure silliness I guess.

Lucky for me I was joined by my friend Sarah (we used to work art department on feature films together) and her sweet Scottish boyfriend Arun and they gamely agreed to be ridiculous with us. These globescamperers have been living in an adorable house boat in Amsterdam for months (fight waves of green jealousy) not only that- they get paid to take exotic vacations together, Sarah taking the pictures and Arun writing articles. Yep. Poor things. Thank your stars we can live vicariously through them, check out Arun's muli-talents with music and writing at arunsood.com and Sarah's beauteous camera skills and my new favorite blog at nats-umi.com. Seriously? I can't believe I didn't know she had one because every last thing she puts up I want to re-post. Art, food, photos, movies, culture, travel, so wonderful! Do yourself a good turn and frequent her corner of the web.

This particular large piece of art I chose because not only is it in my neighborhood but it happens to be at the very playground we frequent, literally a few short leaps away from the same kickball field in which I spent many a dusty Sunday in my twenties forging strong friendships and never scoring goals. Runs? Whatever. This is my neighborhood. I love it. I used to drive to Austin when I was in high school in a car full of waifish girls to try to sneak into rock shows with our older guy pals, go swimming in unchlorinated waters and swing lazily in hammocks with a belly full of tacos.(2 blocks from here) It was the first Austin neighborhood I ever called home when I moved here eleven years ago and now I'm back, family in tow. (only one street over, it's like this barrio owns me)

I tried to look up who did the darn thing and instead I found a charming little 12 minute movie about the history of the hood. Most of the houses were built in the early 1950s and many of the original tenants remain, peppered with young families like mine and tons of character. A woman in the movie gathers her little community together to make a welcome wall mosaic to emblazon the bricks in front of the old mom'n'pop grocery and beauty salon. I wouldn't be surprised if she were behind this one too. It reads "Write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world." Sappy? yes. You like it anyway.












This mural was easy to match because it had almost every color, and the pictures look great because I didn't take them, Sarah did. Have a hankering to know all about an obscure patch of Texas? No problem:

Sneak Peek

Here's an animated gif of Jesse and us doing our second mural match. The lovely Sarah and her Arun joined us with their fancy camera and lent some professionalism to the project. She's been living in Amsterdam for years so it was a treat to see her and play dress up. Photos to follow!

Bazow

Look at this poster! It's us. I can't wait for the video to come out!

aaaand..... the beer chair. My friend sent me a picture after all.
Gotta head back to work but please enjoy goosebumps from this man flying with home made wings:

SXSW Recovery

Looks like we made it. After working ten consecutive nights (and days!) at a rock club during South By Southwest film/music festival my ears are ringing, my dogs are barkin', my shoulders aching, my fingers bleeding, my legs leoparded with bruises, my mind numb with lack of sleep and my liver whimpering for mercy.

You forget how lovely clean bathrooms are, baby kisses, sitting down, fresh produce, more than 5 hours of sleep, sandals, airwaves not vibrating with bass, breakfast. That being said, with our small crew and heavy load it was something like bartender camp where we had feats of strength and endurance, lots of team building and cooperation, sharing of snacks, doing favors, horseplay, running jokes and delirious giggling at 4am trying to count boxes full of soggy one dollar bills without falling asleep. You know the tired sillies, when saying "cranbaby juice" in a vato voice instead of cranberry can take five minutes to recover from.

It's tons of work, tons of fun, your body takes the toll and your winter bills are paid with enough left over- if you're lucky, for a couple of shiny new records and a sushi dinner. I think this year I'll spring for glasses without a fog of scratches and a craigslist loveseat. sigh. I had hoped to bring a camera to work to capture the lines of hipsters wrapping around the block, my increasingly bizarre barmaid fashion (an amalgamation of messy up-dos, dark jeans or thick running tights to protect your legs from injury and to hide splashed beer and unshavedness, feathers, sleeveless everything for ease of reaching and slinging, tall apocalypse boots, headbands made of my own hair, necklaces of buffalo teeth, fire engine lipstick so your smile goes a mile, always a towel in your pocket and a blade in your paw) some amazing music, tall stacks of benjamins and the general mayhem. I'm especially sad we didn't get photo proof of the armchair complete with foot rest the barbacks made entirely out of cases of Guinness black lager.

Oh yeah, I guess I could talk about music or something. I was so swamped opening thousands of bottles for people with accents who said 'cheers' instead of thank you I barely had time to notice the bands, aside from sneaked 1 minute breaks and the odd sound check. There were some pretty big names in town, Arcade Fire, Fiona Apple, Jay Z, Norah Jones (performing in her Willie Nelson cover band "Little Willies) Lil' Wayne was scheduled to not perform, but skateboard?? at my work with attendees Snoop Dogg and one of the top 5 world skateboarders- sponsored in an over the top fashion by Mountain Dew (oh the green shwag we were cleaning up for days) but I guess the half pipe never made it so neither did the ballers. I'm so glad that was my night off. Did I mention the Boss? Bruce Springsteen! Even Ruby and Matilda rocked out cute style to M. Ward and Skrillex. (pictured above)

Local boy Matthew McConaughey was out and about, talking about his slew of new films including controversial play adaptation of "Killer Joe". Read an interview with him HERE. He came to Club DeVille to catch the end of Pennywise and though I don't have a celebrity chasing bone in my body, I will admit- that man is a stone cold fox and I can't believe he's in his 40s.

DeVille also had an impressive line-up. Though divey and unreliable the rest of the year, SXSW is our time to shine. With our airy patio and epic limestone cliff as a backdrop for your most rock'n'roll posturing we attract some of the bigger acts and swankier parties, putting the grimy dark claustrophobic clubs of 6th street to shame. I wish I could remember half the bands that played this year, but a couple that I liked a lot were We Were Promised Jetpacks, Off, Dan Deacon, Sarah Jaffe, and of course our old friends the Midlake boys with Grandaddy's Jason Lytel performing as "Grandlake".


Speaking of stone cold foxes, I missed all of Evan's shows this year, but I'm sure they were awesome.

Everyone's arm.

Bathroom graffiti.

The view from my window, people crowd surfing during the day! Dan Deacon knows how to bring the party, he's a fantastic geeky genius. Watch a segment of his set at the Mohawk HERE.

A clever friend of a friend made this accurate, but not to scale map of Austin.

We knew when we couldn't get through to Chinatown for our lunches that it was time to leave the phone off the hook.
"Club DeVille."
"Um yeah, who's playing today?"
*click


Andrew WK was sitting in my well in his filthy white jeans and telling everyone who stepped up to tip more.
AWK: "Did you just get three beers?"
kid: "uh, yes."
AWK: "you tip three dollars. Do it. That's how it works."
me: "You're hired!"

Five minutes later he punched a guy on the patio for berating a family with children for bringing them to a music festival. The cops were called but I think he escaped. I also think he's my hero.

Be smart. Ride a bike.


Midlake playing with Jason. They played the old hits and even a handful of Midlake's own songs to make up my favorite (and record breaking) night at Club Deville EVER. We rounded it out with a huge dance bonanza led by celebrity dj Danny Masterson (Hyde from that 70s show). No footage was taken that I know of but here's a song from a different night to give you an idea of the greatness:



It's not a festival without cops and ambulances. The streets were closed to cars for three whole days for the glut of music loving zombie foot traffic. Also? LAZERS.

Okay I know I said I don't chase celebrities but I sure wish Bill Murray would come fake bartend at my place like he did at my friend's bar last year. Here he is a couple of days ago pictured with my ecstatic friend Richard Galloway.

Man or Astroman?

The end.



*most photos taken by my friends