Trash and Recycling Day in South Austin

So, it is trash and recycling day. The day that begins with everyone wondering which of the neighbors' garbage and recycling receptacles I'll hit as I back outta the driveway. This can be quite a spectacle.

oof.

No Suspicious Activity on Tejas Trail

"Amazon Mistress & Friend" seem to have taken a hiatus from their Saturday night orgy down the street -- at least when I drove by after returning from Ft. Worth late last night, there didn't seem to be much going on. Apparently the tv news story and the neighbors shining the flashlights on their paying clients have discouraged them.

Suspicious Activity on Tejas Trail -- Now on Video!

Here's the KVUE report on the "Suspicious Activity on Tejas Trail" -- click on the title above, and look for the title "Sex Party Angers Neighborhood". (Right now you should be able to find it right under "PETA Protests Against Turkey".) Our street is only about 2 blocks long -- this house is across the street and down one block.

Gee, when I bought this place I thought, "hmmm, walking distance to Central Market South" -- this could be the next trendy Austin neighborhood, but instead, we're a red light district!

The news clip didn't give my quote, "Well, I'm upset because I heard they didn't recycle," but then again, they didn't interview me. I'm also upset because this is a business enterprise. Whatever became of Free Love?

It does look like perhaps they are moving out -- for the first time in months, there has been someone there during the week, and all of the lights to the place have been on. (or perhaps they have a large enough clientele for "middle of the week" parties?)

Still Suspicious Activity on Tejas Trail

So this morning, one of my co-workers asked (with this big grin on her face!) "You live in Western Trails, right?"

"Uh, yeah, right."

"Your street was on the news last night -- it was a long segment -- perhaps 5 or 10 minutes! They interviewed the neighbors -- one family had people knocking on their door at 2 a.m. looking for the sex party, and the other neighbors have been taking to shining bright lights on the 'guests' as they arrive. They also showed the home of the people who run this business -- apparently they have a very large house in a very nice neighborhood."

I e-mailed my neighbor -- she said it was on KVUE, and that her husband had taped it, so perhaps we'll get to see it.

S. is still put out that he hasn't been invited to one of their "parties", but as I tell him, it's a business, nothing personal, dude.

(For more details, click on the title of this post.)

11/1 Day of the Dead . . . Well, Sorta

Not a very good start to the day when your dean calls and tells you that one of the students from your center has been shot and is brain dead. I don't know the details, but he had called the police slightly before this happened to report that someone was trying to break into his place, just a few blocks from here, and by the time the police arrived, someone had called in to report gunfire. Your heart just goes out to his family.

The evening ended at Dionysium (click on title for more info). I only went because one of the first people I met when I moved to Austin, Paul Wilson, was taking the opposing side on the debate, "Resolved: That There is an Afterlife".

What I wasn't expecting was to hear Taps on a bugle, a Presentation on Mexico's Day of the Dead (which is tomorrow, November 2, not today), a declamation -- Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse", a rendition of Chopin's Death March, a lecture on embalming by Wayne Allen Brenner, topped off by a rousing sing along of "The Worms go in, the worms go out" (and all accompanied by a couple of glasses of house red.) The stage was decorated with various funeral props, as well as a Mexican altar (I've forgotten the term) which featured a picture of Bush, candles, flowers, incense, drink, pan de muertos (bread of the dead) -- a homage to a dead presidency, perhaps?

Austin's Dionysium is presented once a month at Alamo Drafthouse South by Salvage Vanguard Theater. (How to describe -- a movie theater that serves beer, wine, pizza, salad, sandwiches, noshes, etc., as well as "theme movie events" -- i.e. for the movie Chocolat, they'd have a special chocolate menu, etc.) Next month's Dionysium will feature a debate -- something about the Supreme Court, as well as a talk by Sarah Weddington.

After the debates, a show of hands is given to determine if the proposition of the debate passes or not. The show of hands was so close that the moderator called for the "Pro-afterlifes" to shout hallelujah -- an actually quite "eh" show from that crowd and something like "live for today!" from the "anti-afterlifes" -- a much more rousing sound, so the proposition was defeated.

I have no clue as to whether or not there is an afterlife, so I really can't believe in one. It would be nice, but I can't believe in something because it's a nice idea. That makes this short time we have on this world all the more precious -- it's the only life that I know for sure that I'll have.