SLACKERVILLE

Austin is a slacker town.

Slacker according to the Merriam Webster dic:

1

: a person who shirks work or obligation; especially : one who evades military service in time of war

2

: a person and especially a young person who is perceived to be disaffected, apathetic, cynical, or lacking ambition

 
And according to the urban dic:

A person who does anything they can to avoid doing work. A person who doesn't do a big project till the last night, and then does it half-assed and turns it in. A person who writes urban dictionary definitions instead of studying for his finals. A person who would rather smoke weed and play video games all day than do anything else.

Some people say slacker like it's a bad thing. Those ppl should go work in Chinese factories if they believe hard work is a way of living.  On contrary to some misconceived notions hard work is actually a sin. If you do something great it never feels like work. If you do something lousy like passing around silly papers in an office you will suffer and suffering is against my religion. Unless we are talking about bdsm but that another story. Any-way, the singer Jerm Pollet wrote that Austin is a retiree city for 30 something year olds. I agree, at some point it began to feel like I'm taking a vacation from a vacation. On Saturday I did more things than a young spirited grandma at a busy home would do.

First we went to the Hope Farmers Market, ate some yummy things, listened to some good southern music and met some nice ppl.

A beautiful family serving healthy african food

The cactus lady

The cigar-box guitar musician

I don;t know what they are for, but they are shiny

Trust me, you don't want to eat the green beans

Cactus lady art

π

Seeing and getting jealous of all the art at the farmers market put me in the right mood to visit Stafanie Distefano at her FlamingO ranch. Stafanie is a ceramics fairy; her house is like Austin's wonderland and her workshop is a melting pot and a heating stove for artists coming around to play with clay.I haven't played with clay since I was 10 so I just grabbed that material and made some awesome clay work. I still believe that me early work, 17 years ago was better, but we will judge again after I glaze those kick ass figures.

FlamongO Ranch patio

The ceramics fairy's work

Clay Party!

Stafanie Distefano

This is Darshan Jani, he is an artist

This is Drashan Jani's work

After all that hard clay work we needed a retreat so we headed towards Barton Springs, the best city-spring-pool in the world.  This IS a slacker's paradise. The pool lies in the middle of the city and it's a habitat of a holy salamander so the evil city real estate ppl can not touch it. The pool was made with surrounding concrete walls and a dam that made the natural spring into a very long natural freezing swimming pool, real pretty and all.  I tried looking for the holy salamanders but apparently they are tiny and stick to the bottom. If I was holy I would probably do the same.

While resting on the grassy slopes I heard a Cuban band playing on across the fence.  The fellas I was with did not want to dance so I ended up teaching rumba steps to two retirees, one was an ex ballet dancer from Bulgaria and the other had golden teeth and crazy hip moves. A nice girl came by and taught me some Cuban salsa steps, apparently you do the same just in circles.  I think you should do a Cuban circle version to every dance. All those hip swings heated me up so I needed to take another long cool swim.

Pool side slackers

Claying, swimming and dancing , that's what I call a hard day's work. Luckily tonyromano took me to his friends BBQ in Cedar Park so I could be revived with some food and company. The dishes were good but Cedar Park sucks. Never live in Cedar Park, never live in a suburb of an interesting city, this is also against my religion.


That was the end of the day but definitely not the end of the Slackerville. This is not a name I invented, this guy Mike Poulson that rents studios to slacker artists in South 1st Street gave his compound that name. I hereby declare Slackerville as a name to the whole of Austin.

When they are not lying around, drinking or making art, Austin's slackers eat trailer food . The city is loaded with trailer food trucks eateries. Put a bunch of food trailers together, through in some picnic benches, and there you go, you have an Austin style food court. The reason for the food trailers up rise in recent years is that the city has so many rules and regulations  for opening a restaurant, that slackers prefer to open an easy-on-the-regulations food truck. Some trailer were so successful they became a local chain.

so you see, slackerism can lead greatness.  

Keep on slacking and bumming around. Being lazy is a birth right not a privilege. Use it well.