Austin, Texas

"Don't stay in the same town you grew up in!," a girl once told me, "You'll stagnate!"

I've been in this same town 35 years now and sure enough, I believe I've stagnated. Tomorrow it's back to the ol' call center to hear the same old complaints. I'll weather that for five days until next weekend, when I'll sit in front of this computer looking for bootlegs, checking the latest scuttlebutt on the guitar forums and climaxing it all with my weekly walk around the Marietta Square. Stagnant, indeed. Is a change of venue needed?

One evening the Food Network's Rachel Ray was doing a segment on Austin, Texas. Austin immediately impressed me as perhaps a place for me. It's long on quirkiness and artsiness; they even print T-shirts that say "Keep Austin Weird." It's considered the hippest college/music town in the country, hosting the SXSW (South by Southwest) festival every year. And according to a recent HGTV episode on the city you can get a really nice house there for below the national average. Thanks to those shows I'm sure a mini-boom is about to take hold.

Atlanta certainly has it's good points: lots of pine trees; abundant malls and shopping centers; warm, mostly rain-free weather. However in the past I've also likened trying to start a life or get a career going here to striking a book of wet matches. Despite the influx of people from around the country and, particularly in the past few years, from around the world, Atlanta remains a very staid, corporate, back-and-forth-to-work, throw-frisbee-with-your-kids-on-the-weekend kind of place. Of course, worst of all it's a when-is-our-next-opportunity-to-vote-for-a-Bush? kind of place.

Of course Los Angeles is the city I was always truly enamored with but as my storyboarding pal pointed out, it's really a Ricky Martin kind of town. I'm not a Ricky Martin type. No highlighted hair or capped teeth for me, please. Plus, I don't have $500,000 to toss on a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house right now. And mudslides and forest fires could really ruin a summer.

So...hmm...what do you think? Should I schedule some vacation time and check out Austin? Anybody been? Hmm?

3 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Suppose you like it on your visit and decide to move out...what's the worst that could happen? You have to come back to Atlanta because it turns out your not a Texan after all? Now is time to try if your gonna try. You have very few things holding you here. How does the old saying go..."Nothing ventured, nothing gained". I say go for it.

11:39 AM, August 07, 2006  

 Art said...

Scott's trying to get rid of me! How would I boost the Oatmen from out there?

I thought it was interesting when that segment was on even my mom said, "Maybe it's time to leave Atlanta." She would be the last person I would have imagined recommending I try starting life somewhere else.

Even Ronnie said, "If I really make it big and can live anywhere I want, I'm moving to Austin." He said he was blown away that whereas here in Buckhead they try their best to run the bars out of business, out there they rope off two major streets so everyone can get trashed and walk around! Open containers and everything! It's not a once-a-year thing, it's EVERY Friday and Saturday night. Wild town.

It's probably idle chatter on my part, but...hmm...interesting. Maybe I should take a vacation there.

11:01 PM, August 07, 2006  

 Arthur Willoughby said...

I believe wholeheartedly that a person stagnates if they stay too close to where they grew up.

Leaving Nebraska 13 years ago was the best thing I ever did. My sole regret is waiting so long.

Parents shouldn't just boot kids out of the nest. They should boot them out of the city.

2:26 PM, August 08, 2006  

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