AUSTIN -- If Friday’s comedians at Fun Fun Fun Fest contended with the low lows of celebrity and popular culture, Saturday’s theme might as well have been “Damn the man, save the Empire.” Politics, politics, and more politics. W. Kamau Bell’s set, for example,...
AUSTIN -- Once upon a time, before Formula One racing came to roost, before South by Southwest lay at the feet of Microsoft and Doritos, before everyone and their mother moved to the city to catch a whisper of hipness before it vanished into commodity, Austin quietly celebrated...
AUSTIN – In a paradoxical municipality like Austin, Texas, where small-town mentality seems to prevail even as the city itself continues to balloon, it’s easy to see how a personality like Tig Notaro’s would sell out tickets like a scalper on Super Bowl Sunday. To begin...
AUSTIN – As day two of the Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival arrived on April 24, I crossed the threshold of the Paramount Theatre, wondering how exactly a comedian like Dennis Miller would be received by an Austin audience. Well known for his outspoken conservatism and...
AUSTIN – If the third time’s the charm, then the third year of Austin’s rapidly growing Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival has the c-word turned up to 30. And who better to kick off this third-year charm offensive than Demetri Martin– he of the understated charisma...
Easter night is generally reserved for eating crappy chocolate-shaped bunnies and making sexual ‘He Is Risen’ puns-- but this was not the case for Austin, Texas comic, Kat Ramzinski who was brutally attacked while walking home on April 20. Ramzinski says a silver minivan...
The moon towers of Austin are the last of their kind in the world. Purchased secondhand from the city of Detroit in 1894, the towers were designed for no more threatening a purpose than to illuminate the city-- an early example of nighttime municipal electricity. But when they...
AUSTIN -- Day one of Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest kicked off with sunny skies and cool, brisk air, which, for a moment, made me forget that I live in Texas, the hot-and-sweaty capital of the South. Yours truly will be in attendance for all three days of the...
AUSTIN -- If there’s one thing I learned at Funny or Die’s Oddball Comedy & Oddity Festival yesterday evening, it’s that Austin, Texas is a really, really hot place to kick off a national tour if said tour is hosted outdoors in August. If there are two things I learned,...
