Hey dudes; Rob here. I’m hijacking the Lighthouse blog today to post some of my reactions to the City of Austin’s proposal to make people pay for street parking until midnight each Monday through Saturday.  (Currently the city only charges for metered parking until 5:30pm on weekdays.)

First some background: The city has been working on a study of the parking conditions downtown (which they define as north of Lady Bird Lake, south of MLK, west of I-35 and east of Lamar). They are conducting a public survey to gauge how many drivers park downtown regularly, how much people are willing to pay for convenient parking, and which areas are in need of most improvement. The survey is available until Jan. 18 if you’re interested in filling it out.

The committee has already endorsed the extended meter hours and has spelled out a number of reasons they think they would be a good idea. According to info included with the survey, the panel believes the longer hours would:

• Increase turnover of parking spaces / free up parking for more drivers
• Help pay for new signs directing drivers to existing garages
• Fund improvements to pedestrian walkways and other public amenities
• Create a “feeling of security” (because there would be more cops writing tickets in the area)

There are several reasons I think this proposal is a very bad idea, and I spelled them out in the “additional feedback” section at the end of the survey. In case you’re interested, below is a copy of what I submitted. Thanks for reading!

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I understand the need for additional funding, but I do not think it would be in Austin’s best interest to extend meter hours until midnight and also on Saturdays. Here’s why:

1) Even if extending the hours would increase turnover of parking spaces, it would also create a number of logistical problems and irritations. For instance, many people who visit downtown in the evening are going to live music shows, which can last for 3 hours or more. If there is a time limit on the meters, those people would have to leave in the middle of a show just to move their cars.

Additionally, I believe that extending the hours would lead to an increase in drunk driving. People would be pressured to leave the bar before closing to go move their cars, meaning they would have to circle around the downtown blocks filled with pedestrians to find an open spot. Austin has a bad enough DWI problem when most drunk drivers are “just” getting on the road at 2am or later. Also, if the city charges for meter parking on Saturdays, fewer drivers would be inclined to just leave their cars parked overnight on Fridays in favor of a safer ride home.

2) Privately owned garages are fine, but the cost ($8-$15 and rising) is prohibitive for many people. I know the city doesn’t set the rates for those, but if increasing the number of private garages is part of the strategy, this point certainly needs to be considered.

3) Adding signs for parking garages might be helpful, but I think the difficulty of *finding* a garage is much less of a problem than a) the lack of available street parking, due in large part to the volume of spaces occupied by private valet services; and b) the high costs of existing garages and lots. Basically, it doesn’t help much to point people in the direction of garages they can’t pay for. The pedestrian improvements mentioned above seem like a much better investment.

4) The “enhanced feeling of security” argument doesn’t make much sense. There are currently dozens of police officers keeping watch on the downtown area each night; if APD feels like the current amount is not enough, why wouldn’t they just move more *patrol* officers to the area as opposed to “parking enforcement personnel”? If the city is going to pay for additional officers, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to be actively patrolling rather than focusing most of their attention on expired meters?

In summary, I believe that extending the meter hours into the night and the weekend would be a major inconvenience, a public safety hazard, and a severe blow to Austin’s downtown culture. Further, there are alternatives that make much more sense.

Why not reopen the City Hall garage for free parking at night, like it used to be when it first opened?

Or, reduce the number of public metered street spaces that are reserved for valets.

Or, offer better alternative transportation options, such as additional bus service, to and from the downtown area between 8pm and 3am.

I urge you to consider all of the possible alternatives before putting more of a burden on those who want to support local businesses and artists.

Thank you,
Rob Heidrick

Photos from FFF Fest.

What is Masturbation Diary? It’s going to be the most metal band of all time. Or, it’s just an awesome band name I just made up. Either way, someone must start a band and name themselves MASTURBATION DIARY!

Dear people of Austin:

We’re looking for a new roommate to join us starting in November.

Built in 2006, our home—nicknamed The Lighthouse by our friends because of the numerous recessed lights lining its high ceilings—is a 2,000 sq. ft. two-story, energy-efficient modern marvel of awesomeness in Hyde Park within short walking distance of the 10 bus and Hancock shopping center (H-E-B, Twin Liquors, 24 Hour Fitness, dining).

The Lighthouse features bamboo floors, an open floor plan, two living areas (including a game room featuring multiple televisions and a beverage fridge), an office area, central heat and air, an attic, a garage and a laundry room equipped with a high-efficiency washer and dryer.

Your future room, which is located on the second floor with an east-facing window overlooking Red River Street, is carpeted and includes a massive walk-in closet and built in desk and bookshelves. It comes with its own bathroom and has no shared walls with any of the other bedrooms. The room can be rented furnished, unfurnished or at differing degrees of furnished-ness to meet your specific needs.

The guy on the left: he’s out of here.

You’d be living with three roommates (two male writers and one female museum educator), two friendly cats named Spud and Chewie, and a pair of chinchillas downstairs named Colt and Vince. We’re easygoing and drama-free and enjoy live music, cooking and entertaining, having a cold beer with good friends and dinosaurs.

If you think you’d be a good fit, know someone looking for a room or want more details, message me or shoot me an email at ericspulsifer@gmail.com.

—The Lighthouse

To celebrate my transition into year 27 and my gradual decline into inevitable senility, I thought it would be fun to gather some folks over at The Lighthouse to do a blind cheap beer tasting.

The whiteboard after the end of the tasting, including an illustration about how the cool, clean taste of Coors is largely due to being made with water Mark has urinated in.

With the combination of a sizable haul of reasonably priced six-packs from the grocery store and a mini-fridge loaded with Keystone Lights upstairs, we assembled a list of potential contenders for our beer tasting on the whiteboard. By the time others showed up with a few new challengers for the tasting we had more than 20 beers but narrowed it to 16, an even number of beers easy to work out into a single-elimination bracket system.

For our game, the beers up for competition included a mix of ultra low-grade lagers, a couple Mexican beers and a relatively respectable beer—Shiner Blonde—thrown in to make things interesting.

Contenders included: Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch, Coors, Steel Reserve High Gravity, Miller High Life, Lone Star, Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Natural Light, Icehouse, Keystone Light, Schlitz Malt Liquor, Tecate, Corona, Shiner Blonde

Lisa was kind enough to sit the drinking out and serve as beer pourer in the laundry room, keeping the cans and bottles away from the eyes of the tasters (to keep it a true blind taste test). But while she knew the beers she was bringing out to the table in plastic pitchers, their ordering and pairing was done at random by drawing numbers before the evening began.

We passed pitchers and tried two beers at a time in plastic party cups. After each tasting we turned to score cards crafted by Rob to note the flavor, body, strength, overall score and guess for each of our beers. Critiques from the forms collected include:

• Flavorful. Could be a decent beer (Schlitz Malt Liquor)
• Tastes like poop—I don’t like poop (Schlitz Malt Liquor)
• A little wet-sockey (Miller High Life)
• Smells like asparagus pee (Miller High Life)
• Tastes like my tongue was burned (Miller High Life)
• Ass-flavored mouthrape (Corona)
• I rather eat poop!! [sic] (Corona)
• Actually smells like shit. Schlitz (Corona)
• Like a waterfall of urine (Shiner Blonde)
• Shitty (Tecate)
• Tastes like Walmart (Icehouse)
• Tastes like a slightly classier Walmart (PBR)

After each pair of beers, Rob calculated scores in a prepared beer tasting spreadsheet while Lisa prepped the next two beers behind the scenes. In the end, we had some results that illustrated the power of marketing and brand in our beer preferences (or, perhaps more likely, our inadequacies as beer snobs).

The worst

In the end, Corona sans lime pulled in the lowest score, earning unanimous disgust from our not-so expert panel of judges.

The best

According to scores awarded to the beers in the first round of eliminations, the beer with the higher score was the one that beat the most elite beer in the contest, Shiner Blonde. That “beer” was Schlitz Malt Liquor…

The winner

…but based off our bracket system, Coors Original beat out Lone Star in the finals to be the judges’ pick for the best of the beers.

Average final scores

1. Schlitz: 3.25
2. Coors: 3.0
3. High Gravity: 2.83
4. Shiner Blonde: 2.83
5. Lone Star: 2.55
6. Busch: 2.54
7. Keystone Light: 2.46
8. Bud: 2.42
9. Miller Lite: 2.38
10. Miller High Life: 2.33
11. Natty Light: 2.33
12. Bud Light: 2.33
13. Tecate: 2.17
14. PBR: 2.08
15. Icehouse: 1.77
16. Corona: 1.23

–EP

I’ve been working on wrapping up the final version of Adventures in South By 2009. Look for more soon.

-e

Pickleton claims this isn’t her, but we’re not so convinced…

The weekend proved pretty action-packed at the Lighthouse, including a visit from one of our favorite bands, a trip to Austin’s “best” restaurant and the death of a Tuesday night tradition.

Friday night pregame festivities consisted of a trip to Hula Hut for Lisa and I and some Pearl Lights and hot gin back at the house with some of the gang in anticipation for Gil Mantera’s Party Dream at Emo’s.

Scissors was the first to arrive (and would be the first to leave the next morning). We were two or three beers deep when Kat made her way up the stairs sporting a Threadless tee I also owned. We convinced Rob to make a wardrobe change and follow suit, making the two twins for the night. Candace arrived a few minutes later after a botched attempt to kidnap Heath, and we departed.

The appropriately titled Threadless tee “Animals With Eyepatches! Yes!”

We trekked to the bus stop with minutes to spare equipped with the remaining contents of our 12-pack of Pearl Light, but as construction had ravaged our fair Red River, we spent half-an-hour waiting in vain for a bus that would never come. As the group grew restless we eventually realized our mistake and hurriedly made our way a few blocks south to board a downtown-bound bus.

Our driver rushed us aboard as we tried to force limp dollar bills into the cash machine. Half way along our journey while stopped, the impatient driver tried to ignore a man banging on the side of the bus. After finally convincing the driver to open the door while we sat at a red light, the young man with a cane told our driver he was lost and looking for a friend that was supposed to be picking him up. The driver cut him off abruptly and pointed to the road ahead, “Yeah, I see him up there,” he said and closed the door. The man with the cane was nearly to the other side of the street when our bus accelerated past him. He raised his hands and looked at the bus in disbelief, and we couldn’t help but laugh at our driver’s dickishness.

Emo’s may possibly have the most disgusting bathroom in the world. This old photo doesn’t even do it justice. Lucky for the staff that would otherwise have to clean it at some point, disgusting fits into the punk style the club is going for perfectly.

After arriving at Emo’s and assisting Mark in his quest to gain entry via stealthy measures, we met up with Ellie, Whitney and Jeff at the mostly empty indoor half of the venue to watch the opener, DJ Thibault. His song selections were solid (I heard some remixes of Yeasayer and Two Door Cinema Club), but the highlight of his set was a fan—one chunky girl who insisted on placing her hands on the stage and violently shaking her ass like a stripper in a rap video.

We spotted Gil, Ultimate Donny and AE Paterra in the crowd early on.

Candace approached Gil and said, “Last time you were here I threw my bra at you.” He seemed unsure of how to respond, though I’m not sure anyone would know how you’re supposed to respond to something like that.

After a few more minutes and beers the crowd really began to fill in, so we made our way to the edge of the stage. The costumed trio was sporting new outfits tonight: leopard and zebra print spandex tops, bulky black leather belts, black tights and, for Gil, matching animal print boots.

The gentlemen behind Gil Mantera’s Party Dream: surprisingly easy to spot in a crowd

The band started off with a big batch of new material, and, despite only drawing about half the crowd they did last time, the evening was on it’s way to being another memorable show. Then, Scissors raised the bar to a whole new level.

After five or six songs in, Candace and I coerced (though she didn’t take too much persuading) Scissors to join the band on stage. After some top-notch dirty dancing with Donny, the two shared in an extended exchange of tongues and mouth juices, to the delight of the crowd.

As the show winded down, Scissors made a second cameo on stage, and by the end of the night she had asked Donny if the band would like to come crash at the Lighthouse. He seemed up for it but said she would have to ask drummer Tony, a.k.a. AE Paterra. With promises of some brief after-partying, comfy sleeping arrangements and a breakfast of pancakes (we failed to deliver on that one) Lisa was able to convince the guys to come north the  40 some blocks on Red River and crash at the Lighthouse.

Going into host mode, we cracked open the pantry and dusted off an assortment of mostly empty booze bottles and some club soda and orange juice for mixers.

By the time the band arrived after packing gear into their white minivan, Scissors and Candace had passed out on the couch. Fortunately, the two quickly shook themselves from sleep to visit with the guys. Visiting for Donny consisted of serious flirting with Scissors; Gil talked with Lisa, Candace and I downstairs; and AE, Tom and Mark relaxed with Pablo upstairs—shortly after Tom wandered off for a three-mile walk home.

Ultimate Donny: The apple of Scissors’ eye

Upstairs, AE expressed concern about the smaller turnout at the show this time and wondered how long the band would be able to continue touring at with this level of support. It sounded like the work of constant touring and time spent away from home was beginning to wear on him.

Gil, a pantless Donny and everyone else eventually ended up upstairs and everyone departed for the dark, cool corners they would call home for the night. With our massive collection of sheets and blankets being put to good use, we turned in just before 5 a.m.

A couple hours later, with the summer sun just barley peaking over the edge of the horizon, Lisa got up, put on a dress and a graduation robe and headed off. Though she had technically finished school nearly a year before, it was her time to walk. 

Sometimes the morning is a real bitch.

I followed shortly after and rode downtown with her parents.

From the sixth floor balcony of the Bass Concert Hall, I wrestled with heavy eyelids and waited to hear Lisa’s name. I was in and out of sleep for a while and was envious of the kid a few rows in front of me as he openly napped in his chair. But, I managed to hear Lisa’s name, even if I was too horse to yell anything embarrassing. Three hours later, the painfully slow-moving ceremony was over and it was time for a walking tour of campus for some graduation day photo ops.

After lunch at Zocalo, we returned to the Lighthouse just after the band’s departure.

Following the next item on the agenda—shopping for Lisa and napping for me—we decided dinner was in order. Kat and Rob declined the invite in favor of a meeting of The Nap Club, so Mark, Lisa, and I joined Mr. and Mrs. Murray for an evening of fine dining at much-hyped modern Japanese eatery Uchi.

Though people seem to call Uchi a sushi restaurant, that’s really not fair or accurate.

Yes, there were sushi rolls, but the menu also featured cooked and uncooked fish, pork and chicken. While that doesn’t sound too revolutionary, these simple ingredients were used to carefully craft culinary delights the likes of which I’ve never experienced.

Added to the list of animals eaten in 2010: Baby octopus

The five of us (with a little guidance from an extremely helpful server) split a sampling of Uchi’s top five tastings (rather than putting ingredients together to make an existing dish—like mixing meat, cheese, sauce and pasta to make lasagna—these tastings are a few simple pieces put together to create something new—such as tender squares of roasted pork belly with granny smith apple puree, cilantro, sherry vinegar and fennel).

We followed that with a few one-of-a-kind rolls, some spring rolls with spicy tempura shrimp and frozen grapes and, at Mark’s request, grilled baby octopi impaled on wooden skewers. These smoky tasting little guys would have been pretty delicious if they weren’t so fucking cute it made you feel guilty to gobble up their little hollow bodies.

The dainty peanut butter semi freddo doesn’t look like much, but it’s pretty much the best thing ever.

Sunday morning was less eventful and basically involved purchasing a frame and window crayons for Lisa and I, yard work, blisters and a roaring fire fueled by dead Hibiscus branches for me.

At 6 p.m. people began arriving for the Lost-ume (Lost + costume) Party for the two-and-a-half hour finale of Lost. We cooked grilled pork chops, baked honey peaches and asparagus for a party of seven in costume and two sans outfits (Monte and I).

-e