(I asked an innocent enough question to Elle, owner of Austin Modern(.com) in Austin Texas. The following was our "exchange") (SHE did all the work):

Elle,

I rewatched "Slacker" the other night. How do you feel it represents Austin?

Ronn,

Ohh good question..! I think that it represented one segment of Austin's varied demographic very well at the time it came out. Meaning if you were a young broke 20 something living in Austin in the early 90s, it was pretty much exactly like that.

I actually know a lot of the people that starred in that film, they used a lot of locals. The big beautiful Victorian in the background of the hit and run scene was actually the headquarters for Austin Film Society (basically a glorified crash pad for Rodriguez and his friends). I tried to buy that building since in the late 90s it was basically abandoned. Currently it's a Magic Wok or Johnny Rockets or some other chain cheap food junk palace. Broke my heart when they gutted that building.

Les Amis has also been turned into a Starbucks... Starbucks had a brick through their plate glass windows every week for months during their initial year here before they finally replaced all their windows with Lexan. People in Austin are funny.. they hold their local icons dear but they are also unlikely to donate to a fund to 'save' the icon.

Honestly I haven't seen the movie in about 10 years so... ?

Do people hang out and bitch about stupid stuff for months on end drinking cup after cup of coffee and chain smoking? Yes. Do the street kids actually come from extremely wealthy families in Dallas? Yes. Can you walk down the drag (main street downtown) smoking a joint without getting hassled.. Used to be yes. Do people openly share bongs with strangers at concerts? Yes.

I think Austin being a kind of underground freakfest in the 60s and 70s added to the environment that is Austin today. It's in the middle of straight laced Texas and yet we had Janice, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Big Boys, Johnny Winter.. lots of musical talent, lots of drugs and not a lot of money. But 3 big Universities. So you've got a town of creative, broke, talented, educated, diy'ers with a median age of 38. I think Austin is a lot like Tallahassee.. somehow.

If I had to pick a handful of movies that represented Austin, I'd say Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and Office Space. All filmed here and all by Austin based directors. Each representing a different slice of the Austin pie.

Bill Hicks is one of Austin's beloved (departed) comedians, Alex Jones is our favorite 9-11 conspiracy nutjob and Leslie is our favorite Transvestite who gets a heavy percentage of votes for Mayor every election. Leslie can usually be found downtown in the business district in a thong and platforms.. not pretty. We like to keep it weird. But if you have to make it a bumper sticker then it's not all that weird.

Slacker touched on one thing that seems to me to stand out as a weird phenomena specific to Austin. I think of it as concentric social circles that in a "real world" setting shouldn't happen.

For example, you go to a rent party thrown by some hippie/musician in central Austin, most everyone there is 20 something and aimless. 3 days later a girl at the grocery store invites you to a lecture at the University on Aquatic Animal Husbandry (for laughs and because Austinites love free info), the professor invites some of you out to dinner.

Over dinner you notice the bus boy is the guy who threw the rent party 3 days earlier. Three days later you go to some uber riche house out in the hills for a bbq with a bunch of new money 30 something techies from LA, one of them came to Austin because his sister works at the little co-op grocery store (oh yeah she invited you to that lecture), the following week you make plans to meet your 60 something friend at the library for a game of chess, he wants you to meet his friend who turns out to be one of the uber techies. In a small town it wouldn't be odd but in a city with a core population of 800,000 it's kind of weird.

It's like social circles that shouldn't have anything in common are always connected 6 ways from Sunday. If you are from Austin, it will not surprise you to run into a friend you haven't seen in years on a random street corner in Thailand. Nor will it surprise you to find out that the sister of the guy you went to high school with is your seat mate on a flight out of New York to Miami.

It's weirder to somehow NOT be able to find a common connection with a fellow Austinite. Though that is changing too.

It's a weird town. But everyone lives in a weird town. If you want I think this is a fairly accurate description of Austin Culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Texas#Culture

Though it's worth keeping in mind that they have to put a pretty spin on all of this and probably don't mention that most of our music venues don't PAY the local musicians leading to "Velvet Coffin" syndrome (It's killing you but it's such a comfortable way to go!)

Elle