If you ever get the chance, check out a band (now defunct) by the name of that dog. Back in the heady days of the early 90's, when I used to be obsessed by girl bands, that dog was among the coolest, with Los Angeles artiness and ethereal harmonies (did I really just say ethereal?). They had great pop inspired hooks and...a violin! Pretty much any non traditional use of a violin piques my interest, and this was some cool stuff. Here's a picture of them. The two women on the left and the right are twin sisters. The one on the right plays the wicked fiddle I spoke of. You can check them out at this site, which has a few tunes. The best, or at least the most characteristic of the tunes are actually under the "videos" section. One of their great tunes is "He's Kissing Christian" from their strongest album, "Totally Crushed Out." The other videos are pretty good too. The first, "Old Timer," was directed by the auteur of music videos, Spike Jonze. I don't really watch music videos anymore, so I don't know if he's still working or what, but the video is very clever. The group is dressed in "Hotdog On a Stick" uniforms. HOS was this freaky mall based chain that served gross food delivered by depressed employees in really degrading uniforms. I rarely go to malls these days, and when I do, I generally leave in a panic, so I'm not sure if Hotdog on A Stick is still in business either.
Since I spend about 75% of my work time either in or thinking about New Orleans but live in Austin, I am often asked to compare the two places. I spent the last five years of my life as a highly visible, highly vocal booster of New Orleans, so many people I meet are surprised when they hear that we have settled, at least for the near term, in Austin. For Cassie and me, the decision to stay in Austin was pretty easy. We didn't have any assets to protect in New Orleans. Our house was pretty thoroughly destroyed so there was no hurry to come back. We also wanted to find some degree of stability for our son; New Orleans is a dynamic place right now and since he had already spent about a fourth of his life in evacuation/gypsy mode, we decided we would try to give him a rest. So we arbitrarily chose Austin off the map. It was a reasonably short drive away from New Orleans. It was the only really progressive city in Texas. Much like New Orleans, it's a blue island in a sea of...
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