KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD

That's the rallying cry of a collective of local business owners here, trying desperately to preserve what has only been present as memory and facade for years.
What's really going on is a campaign to support and foster local businesses, and while I think that's a good thing and wholly support it, wrapping themselves in the corpse of what Austin used to be is kind of creepy...and smarmy.It kind of reeks of the very element they are campaigning against.
No sir...I don't like it.
You see it everywhere, on T-shirts, bumper stickers, in local businesses all over town..."Keep Austin Weird".
If you grew up here, or, in my case,lived here since you were in elementary school, Austin started losing it's charm,ne:"weird", a long time ago. For me, it all started when the Armadillo closed (thank you Carole Keeton McCleenen Strayhorn Mellencamp Garcia Strayhorn*...you bitch).
*Local longtime politico and currently comptroller, locked in an on going battle of wills with our "governer" (P)rick Perry, who looks and acts a lot like a 70's game show host and "governs" like the self serving asshole he is...but enough about that.
On the way to our job site this morning we were stopped at the intersection of Guadalupe and 8th,and there was a large black man sitting at the bus stop, who was normal looking in every respect. Except he had "crazy eyes" and the most beautiful 70's Farrah Fawcett blonde wig perched on his head.
That dear reader is what keeps Austin weird.