What Makes Austin Weird

Austin's city motto is "Keep Austin Weird." We see this motto everywhere: emblazoned on mugs, tie-dyed tee shirts, bumper stickers, posters, shotglasses. Perhaps like you, we wondered, "What makes Austin weird?"

Perhaps the place to start is with the obvious, the three B's of Austin weirdness: bars, bats and BBQ. Austin is the self-proclaimed live music capital of the country, which seems a fair boast. We hear live music at the grocery store on summer weekends and at many restaurants year round, including small beer and hamburger joints (called ice houses here); even the elementary school's main fundraiser is a live music concert. And then, of course, there are the bars. Austin's 6th Street is renown, but not someplace I like to go because I don't enjoy venues where the volume is so loud I cannot hear myself think. Our first bar foray was instead to a classic venue, the Continental Club. Sushil and I went for an early show (7 pm) and between the two of us had five shots of tequila and an evening's worth of great live music for the tidy sum of $17. That's good living.

As for the bats, Austin is the proud home of the largest urban colony of bats in North America. These are Mexican free-tailed bats and over a million of them hang out underneath one of the several bridges that span the river that runs through downtown Austin. People gather in the twilight to see them take flight, a spectacle that lasts several minutes. The bats are definitely cool.

Austin's food scene is not all what one might hope, but apparently for lovers of BBQ this place is heaven. We don't eat beef or pork, so we're missing something like 90% of the fun (some places don't even serve any BBQ chicken or turkey; this is the state where pork really is the other white meat). Nonetheless, we try to be good sports and take our visitors out and about to the various BBQ joints to partake the local fare.

But talking about bars, bats and BBQ when trying to describe what makes Austin unique is missing some of the really striking differences between Austin and the rest of the country.Take, for example, tattoos.

I would argue that Austin is the tattoo capital of the country. We came in summer, which is the prime tattoo-viewing season. Think people splashing around in the swimming pool and you get the picture. Now you might think I am just talking about some old men sporting reminders of wild times during some war or the other, but you would be wrong. I am talking women: young women, middle-aged women, old women. You might be thinking little roses on the ankle or, coyly, on the hip. You would be wrong. I am talking tattoos that fully cover the arms, the back, and the legs, sometimes all three of those places on a single woman! I've lived in places like Portland and Berkeley and San Francisco, all of which have reputations for being a bit weird or hip, but none of them has a female population with such highly adorned skin as does Austin. Now THAT makes a place weird! And I mean that in a good way.

Another facet of Austin weirdness is its anti-corporate stance. Austin is determined not to allow itself to simply become the locale of store #5438 of national chains like Gap, Chili's, and Starbucks. Austin residents really celebrate local, independent businesses. A prime example is the independent bookstore, Bookpeople, a deep, full space with quirky exhibits like one on Texas history. There are plenty of other examples, including Allens Boots, which has an astounding array of cowboy boots with prices that go up to the thousands, and Toy Joy, a place arguably more for stoned college students and baby boomers looking to relive the past than it is for kids, but our child gets silly there right along with us. The anti-corporate movement keeps Austin weird through the creation and distribution of the "Go Local" card, which gets you small discounts or bonus treats at lots of funky, small establishments.

Finally, Austin is certainly weird for Texas: it is liberal and heavily Democratic in a state that most of the nation associates with W. And thank goodness for that; Austin's political weirdness is for many its saving grace. There's no doubt more to Austin weirdness than just what I have recounted, so I might have to write about this topic again some day. But suffice it to say, this place is different. And that difference, that weirdness, certainly made our move easier and makes us happy to call ourselves brand-new Austinites. This is the kind of city you can proudly tell someone you are from, the kind of place that sheds a good light on your image of yourself and the identity you show the world. At least for those of us, like me, who value place.