Foggedaboutit

I'm always interested in seeing people's stereotypes of New Yorkers and New York Jews. So we met Andrea's friend Sarah, who lives in Austin, for lunch at this place called Katz's Deli, no affiliation to the Katz's downtown in the city. It is SO gimmicky, and ridiculous. Everything on the menu is named after things, Tavern on the Green salad, Mayor Giulianni's favorite dinner picks, etc. And then these odd menu items like fried pickles. And then everything was "Kosher-style." A Kosher-style breakfast taco, with salami and cheese. What is Kosher-style? Something's either kosher, or it isn't, and a salami and cheese breakfast taco is not kosher. They had some good things, like egg cream and rice pudding, Andrea got stuffed cabbage. I got a BLT with Kosher-style beef bacon, which was so undercooked it was like Canadian bacon. Except kosher-style. So obviously that's somewhere that we'll never go again. Plus our waiter was like, really confrontational in a weird way, almost challenging me when I asked for no mayonnaise.

Then we went over to the East Side to see our new friend Nick's band, the Twilight Broadcast, at this place called Red's Scoot Inn, which was the first drive-through liquor store in Austin. I know, right? And inside there's a picture of a guy in a horse-and-buggy with someone handing him a beer. The band was playing outside, I guess outside is where live bands come and play, there's a really nice patio area, and then inside is a super local bar scene, with the music switching between that Hispanic music and country. I assumed they wouldn't have Heinekin, which is what I usually have, so I ordered a Dos Equis, but for some reason I was thinking it was pronounced like Italian or something, I don't know what I was thinking, and I asked this Mexican woman for a Dos Ekwees. And she was like, "What??" and I had to repeat myself three times and point to the sign behind her until she was like, "Oh, laugh at my stupidity, a Dos Equis (pronounced correctly)." At least I'm not super white so she couldn't be like, Oh that silly gringa. Luckily since I was driving I didn't have to order any more alcohol from her.

So the band was actually good, I was really worried that they would be bad and we would be really embarraassed, and since there were like, maybe seven other people there, we wouldn't even have been able to leave. But we liked them, definitely music I could dance to in the car. Then half way through we realized that the other people in the audience were actually other bands that were going on after our friend, so then we felt even worse. But once they had finished, they came over and were so surprised and excited that we'd actually come. And I guess they get paid by how many people come to see them, so when we told them, yes, we'd come especially to see them play, they ran back over to the bouncer and got paid their ten dollars, which is what Andrea and I had had to pay to get in. And they gave the ten dollars right to their drummer.

The next band that went on was SO awful. I knew as soon as I saw them, three skinny guys with that dyed-black shaggy helmet haircut, thick black-rimmed glasses, tight t-shirts, and sure enough their music was all screaming and odd sounds and really loud guitars that were like, off-key. And then the guys on the end started almost moshing, I thought they would fall off the stage or maybe smash their guitars. Meanwhile, there were still only twelve people in the audience so it's hard to believe they were that into the music.

Luckily Nick and the other guy in the band Drew weren't big fans of that stupid kind of music either, so we followed them back to their like, apartment community where there was a party. Ugh that sounds so gross, we were like "going home with the band," but it wasn't like that at all. They're both nice college graduates from Wisconsin who went to high school together and were in the same fraternity. Nick works at Chase and Drew is like, an almost-manager at Starbucks or something like that. Both philosophy majors, which I find humorous.

So all the apartment complexes in Austin are kind of the same, they're apartments arranged around courtyards that usually have pools. So Nick and Drew's neighbor Kerry, who is so Texan college student, was having a costume party, and we met some nice people, including this total character. That is the only way to describe him, a Character. His name was Eric, and he was maybe older, in his 30s or 40s, and had on a cowboy hat, bow-legged tight jeans, and cowboy boots. He was totally drunk and when Andrea said she'd been living in Boston, he starts going Omigod Boston, Omigod Omigod, come with me I have to show you something. So Andrea's like ummmm, and he's like No no, it's nothing perverted, come on. So she follows back to his apartment, and I followed them, it was right on the courtyard on the ground floor. So Eric proceeds to tell us all about how he runs marathons for a living, sponsored by Claritin, and his favorite is the Boston marathon, which was evidenced by two posters of Boston, which he kept pointing to, like, Oh yeah brick buildings, yeah, I can totally see how much you love Boston. Then he's like, I don't like to brag, and opens this cupboard in which are arranged a zillion medals, but I mean arranged, like obviously he shows this display to people all the time. And probably the oddest thing was that every sentence was punctuated by "Foggedaboutit" in this Texan accent. Maybe he was in the Texas mafia or something, because when Andrea asked what he did when he wasn't running marathons, mean a profession, he just said, "I run triathalons," and wouldn't elaborate any further.

So all in all it was a really fun night, and now we have two new friends, and some odd Texan acquaintances. Luckily they're actually people that we want to hang out with, because sometimes being friendly and extroverted causes you to get involved with people and then you can't extricate yourself when you realize you hate them. So we were fortunate. I would say which one I think is cuter, but you can never be too sure, I don't know how internet savvy they are.