Metal Regression

I went on a trip to Austin after telling my friends for years that I wanted to go. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was seeing all of them take their epic summer vacations to Europe. I know it sounds tone deaf considering I just went on an epic trip to Japan earlier this year. But I also feel that being in a privileged and unique position to have the agency to take these trips puts me in moral bind. If I do not exercise these powers that I have, am I worthy of having them? If I don’t take advantage, am I wasting the opportunities presented to me? and most importantly will I regret it later in life when I think, “oh how I could have traveled in those days and chose instead to be humble about it and wait for my turn again”. There’s this capitalist instinct to squeeze as much productivity as possible into your days. Yet everyone’s concept of productivity really rests on the goals they have defined for themselves. And for someone such as I, whose only real goal is to live life authentically…how is one productive at living?

My answer is to act on those flourishes of inspiration. When the muse speaks to me, I listen. And here it told me (not literally of course) that I needed to get away for a bit. I felt that inexorable rejection of the mundane which visits me from time to time. I don’t want to end up like Ivan Ilyich and reject these in favor of a predictable existence so I checked and the universe laid bare a gift to me: Fantastic Fest. The Alamo Drafthouse’s film festival held at their base camp in Austin, Texas. I knew about this festival before but I had previously decided not to go thinking I couldn’t make the days work with the already lavish time I had taken. Now it would serve well as the grounds for a revenge trip, a revenge on myself really, the me that had dared to decide I wasn’t going to act on it before.

The plan was simple, I wasn’t going to take the 7 days off required to attend the entirety of the festival. I was going to opt for the cheapest badge possible, the second-half badge, partially as a trial run to see if the full experience would be worth it and also so I could offset some of the negative optics around my trip by working remotely a couple days. I flew in Friday night after work and would cram as much tourism as I could into that first weekend including some bike rides, work Monday to Wednesday, attend all five rounds of movies on Thursday, Fly to Dallas Friday morning and hang out with my cousins there, then fly back Sunday night. Only two days total of official vacation time if I could make it work.

I found out that Lance Armstrong is based out of Austin and it just so happened that the bike shop I placed a rental with was his bike shop. I discussed with Daniel, as a barometer of the cycling community, if it was cool to like Lance Armstrong again. He said that it’s kind of undisputed that everyone on the Tour De France (TDF) would cheat during his tenure there, and that’s a big reason why he felt he could confess the truth but that he still acted like a total douche about it and that’s why public opinion is against him. So okay relatively speaking he wasn’t any worse in deeds than his peers, but if we’re dealing with absolutes maybe him and the rest of them deserve the hate evenly spread amongst them. But all’s fair in love and war and morality tends to go out the window in intense competitions like the TDF, especially if winning is determined by the amount of cheating you do or don’t do. So this is all to say that although I don’t worship at the altar of Armstrong, being in his home base bike shop was still pretty cool.

The morning before picking up the bike I walked to the state capitol of Texas which I think was the biggest checkbox on my list of tourist activities plus I thought it would make for a great “I’m here” photo for my IG stories.

I didn’t go in as it was too early for visiting hours but I walked along its grounds and just tried to absorb the Texas-ness of it all. There was a statue of the ten commandments across the street which I thought “yeah, checks out” and then I was surprised to find a statue dedicated to the confederate dead….which okay I see what they are trying to do but the dedication said the reason for the secession was a matter of “states’ rights” but I think it is intentionally obfuscating the real issue at the core of the civil war: slavery. This was the same kind of Lost Cause gaslighting I saw on my trip to Virginia and Georgia last year so I guess I should have anticipated it, but that’s when I finally felt like I was in Texas.

I picked up the bike from Mellow Johnnys, only to realize that it was way more hot and humid than I had anticipated. I’ve ridden in hot conditions before but it has been a while and I was afraid my body was not acclimated. Still I shook it off and thought that it wouldn’t be any worse than the Tour De Palm Springs century I did a year and a half ago. I set off probably at the worst time, 11 am, as the heat was beginning to climb but the first part of the ride was through the shaded canopy along the Colorado River, then through some beautiful forested areas on the Austin-to-Manor Bike trail. It was going so well that I even stopped for a decadent coffee at a mochi donut shop also conveniently located next to a bike shop. Okay you probably feel me setting it up but once I hit the open plains and the blacktop coming back from Lake Long I was WRECKED. I explained it better in my Strava recap but I definitely was suffering from heat exhaustion by the end of that ride and I had to lay down and focus on not passing out for about 20 minutes once I got back. This kind of shifted my plans a bit because I decided bike rides were no longer in the picture.

The following day I decided to go to the Texas State history museum insetad. They have a cool immersive 4d theater experience were they play admittedly propagandic films about how great Texas is. No one loves Texas more than Texas I think and one of the films was about its identity as the Lone Star state who fights more its beliefs and doesn’t have problems standing in defiance of anyone who says otherwise. To wit outside the theatre there was a display from Gonzales, Texas the site of the very first battle in the Texas revolution. The narrative the museum tells is that being fed up with Texas’ poor representation in the Mexican government and mishandling of their economy forced them to rebel, and when Mexico showed up to Gonzales to take back the cannons they had given the outpost there, the Texans said enough was enough and erected a banner with the words “Come And Take It”. Mexico tried to do just that but was sent packing in what was the first volley towards Texas independence. Myths like these and the tale of the Alamo bolster this Lone Star identity. I admit as a story it is inspiring, and I can see why Texans love to embody this image of a scrappy, rebellious, and confident underdog. It hits the same notes that the American revolution did, and they would claim that Texas independence was also a struggle to break free from a tyrant. The reality though is a little suspect because at the time of Texas’ independence there was just as many Mexican residents as foreigners, perhaps it is for this reason that Texas would have preferred to be its own nation not really Mexican and not really American. Yet by eventually joining the United States it created a rift between it’s identity as an American white state and its true Mexican roots. To further confuse things it almost immediately seceded from the union in order to preserve its vast and powerful cotton trade economy. It’s still the Lone Star indeed but on the wrong side of history this time?

When you think of Texas what comes to mind though? Longhorn cattle, cowboys, horses, rodeos? Not slavery, cotton, sweet tea, the confederacy? That is because there was an intentional rebranding campaign during the Texas Centennial Exhibition. Texas was(is) a southern state yet after the massive publicity of the centennial celebration we not think of it as a Western state. clever isn’t it? Granted the division between South, West, and Southwest is blurry and imaginary but our relative perception is all that matters. The humidity, heat and general swampiness of Austin told the real tale of the South at least geographically speaking. Having said all that I still bought a Gonzales pin because there is something universally badass about telling an overbearing source of authority to dare and come take their approval back.

Fantastic Fest itself was an amazing experience. It was like being at a film camp, seeing the same people everyday and sharing your thoughts on the films with them and the actors, directors, or crew that were there for the premiere. Then it ended in an extravagant party that reminded me of the crazy company holiday parties Verizon used to throw. I think 2024 will include me buying a full badge but for now I’ve written about all the 2023 FF movies I did see on my letterboxd.

After the festivities I got to treat myself even further and take a short flight to Dallas to spend a whirlwind two extra days with my cousin there. I’ve been meaning to visit her for a long time and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity now that I was within striking distance. I went to the Texas State Fair, the biggest of all the state fairs, while there and wow…you know how all throughout the world the United States is known for uniquely death defyingly fatty foods, well the Texas State Fair is the breeding ground for them. It’s the wellspring of the American diet including foods such as deep fried fritos and chili, deep fried pumpkin pie, deep fried shots of Fireball whisky, deep fried texas oatmeal pie and much…much more. Of course what is America without our rich tapestry of immigrant backgrounds? They are not be left out either as I had deep fried Vietnamese coffee, deep fried cacio e pepe, deep fried birria bombs, deep fried bao buns and still much more. It was a culinary experience unique to Texas and perhaps all the state fairs in the US have a little bit of this and a little bit of that but there in Dallas everything was bigger and abundant.

Lastly and perhaps most overwhelming I visited the scene of John F. Kennedy’s death. There is a museum built on the floor where Lee Harvey Oswald fired three bullets at the president’s cavalcade. I’m not a big presidential buff, or even a fan of deifying presidents the way certain people do (looking at Reagan and Obama) but walking through JFK’s museum was absolutely gripping. I think there were several reasons for my fascination:
1) Just the general spectacle of death as entertainment which we are so accustomed to seeking out. It’s probably the whole reason the museum can be operated, droves of tourists coming to literally walk on the ground where a president was fatally shot. This tangible connection to the past is its own force too I think which is the reason we like to visit ruins and ancient structures etc.
2) The Zapruder film is an amazing public document. This was one of the first video recordings ever used in a criminal investigation shot on one of the first EVER home video cameras. The film runs at about 18 frames per second and each frame becomes a tick in the clock of the assassination. The detailing of events then unfold as each frame of the film snaps by. Is these 486 frames of films that have caused an explosion of conspiracy theories and deep dives into trajectories of the bullets etc.
3) The exhibits at the museum are laid out in such a way that it places you in the roles of an investigator. After covering JFK’s brief presidency you are inundated in facts about the murder each mapped to a frame of the zapruder film. Then you are exposed to various theories and although officially Oswald was found to be the only guilty assailant, the real nail in the coffin of any resolution is that he ALSO gets assassinated right after. So are you left trying to piece together what “really” happened yourself a technique which I admit left me wondering about the whole affair for weeks after.

My final act in Texas was to visit one of the South’s unique twists on open road culture. I joined the cult of Buc-ees which on paper is a gas station with a giant general goods store attached to it. In practice though it’s so much more, it’s like you’re walking into the temple of some ancient Greek god and their followers have set up a festival of goods and foods that you can only find in the shadow of the titular Beaver. You can buy idols and merchandise in his image to take to his followers back home for good fortune. You can indulge in the pristine bathrooms that upend the stigma of roadside lavatory usage and hygiene. This is all to say that I will be back to Texas if only as a pilgrimage to worship at the foot of Buc-ees once more.