ATX Four

A Music Man’s View The Story of Waterloo.

A Collapsing Conference Why the Big 12 shouldn’t break up.

Rollin’ in the Dough How eating at home can save you money.

Paint It Green

SXSW is more eco- friendsly than you think.

5 A Collapsing Conference

11 Rollin’ in the Dough

7 Gilbert’s Gazelles

13 From Amateur to Pro

Cover page art by the ATX four staff.

Table of Contents art by the ATX Four staff.

Bios

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17 Paint It Green

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15 Texas By the Book

21 A Music Man’s View

Too Little, Too Late

Letter from the editors

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Biographies Hi, my name is Alisa, I’m 14, and I go to LASA High School. I was born in Austin, TX, and have one older sister, who people have thought is my twin. I’ve played the alto saxophone since sixth grade, and I love it. I’ve also played soccer since I was four. This summer I went to Costa Rica, and I had an amazing experience and I’d like to go back.

When I’m older, I want to travel across Europe and South America. My favorite movies include Pirates of the Caribbean, How to Train Your Dragon, and Cars. My favorite animals are horses, dogs, and cats. I love most music, but right now, my favorite artist is Enrique Iglesias.

Hey, my name is Leah Siff and I’m a freshman at LASA High School in Austin, Texas. When I was 13 months old, my parents adopted me from the province of Wuhan in China and brought me to the United States. At the time, we had one cat, Bucky. Then, 7 years later, we all went back to China and adopted my little sister. When we got home, we were welcomed by a new cat, Blanco, who we say adopted us. Later we got a dog, Sargent. Some things I like include music (Cage the Elephant, Panic! At the Disco, Gorillaz, etc.), movies (The Breakfast Club, How to Train Your Dragon, 50/50, etc.), and animals (cats, turtles, dogs, etc.).

Wassup you guys, my name is Alexis, I’m 14 years old and I go to LASA high school. My favorite sport is soccer. I’ve played soccer for 11 years now and I have traveled to many places because of this sport. Soccer being my favorite sport can basically explain why my favorite video game is FIFA 12 and why I play it so much. I have made many friends and I have been fortunate enough to have met many professional soccer players. My favorite soccer team is Real Madrid. My favorite type of food is Mexican but I also like Italian food and Chinese food. Every weekend after my soccer games all of my family goes out to eat at a restaurant. I like to spend as much time as I can with my family because we don’t really see each other during the week and its sad because we always have a good time. Anyways that’s a little about me, I hope you guys enjoy the magazine.

Hi, I’m Aaron. I’m a 14 year old boy and go to LASA High School. I have always seemed to love sports. I’m a big UT fan and have lived in Austin for about 11 years. Ever since I moved to Austin I have been a big Texas Longhorns fan and I watch them almost every time they play, whether it’s at the stadium or just on TV. I enjoy playing soccer and I swim for my high school, but I’ll pretty much try anything sport related. I have always enjoyed the outdoors and have always loved being active. On the contrary I also play lots of video games like any average teenage boy would, such as games like Madden and FIFA. I have lived in Austin ever since I could remember and still do, and I have played sports since I was that little as well, so the two seemed like a good thing to write about.

A Collapsing Conference Why The Big 12 Should Not Break Up

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efore, the Big 12 was known as a powerhouse conference.

A conference bursting with huge rivalries and big teams, good at every sport, always in the top 25 teams; they didn’t lose much. It was a conference full of tradition and prestige, a conference that seemed like it would never end up splitting apart. Held together by the locality of the teams and the major rivalries we, as fans have come to love; Texas vs. Oklahoma, Missouri against Kansas, Texas playing Texas A&M every Thanksgiving, we were used to it. Now, things aren’t so simple.

Nebraska moved to the Big Ten and as Colorado to the Pac-10, and Texas A&M joins the South Eastern Conference next season.

While teams like Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech are all thinking about joining different conferences as well to play better and other teams, leaving the smaller teams of the Big 12 behind and taking any offer they can get. The point is that the Big 12 should not break off into separate conferences. The Big 12 needs to stay together to keep major traditions alive, keep fan support and locality, and we need to prevent the formation of super conferences to give smaller schools a chance.

As the Big 12 breaks up, many huge rivalries are being destroyed such as Texas-Oklahoma or Kansas-Missouri, and would take away many long-standing traditions that teams have been carrying out since they began. Over the summer, the Aggies athletic director Bill Byrne told the College Station Bureau, “We ATX FOUR 5

By Aaron Heikes

need to play each other every year.

Other than that, both schools need to do what’s best for them.” about the famous Texas-Texas A&M rivalry game, although he has already signed off on going to the SEC next year.

This means that even to him, the man who decided to make the move to a new conference, feels that their program needs to keep the traditional rivalry game alive, although they won’t have that game in the regular season. The Lone Star Showdown (the game between Texas A&M and Texas) has been going on since 1894, and to ruin an over century old tradition would just be wrong.

Keeping rivalry games alive would be so much easier if the Big 12 just stayed together, so teams like Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State must stay in the Big 12 or at least the same conference, or else some of their major rivalries will be gone completely.

“The chancellors and presidents of the Big 12 are committed to keeping our conference competitively and academically strong,” said Missouri chancellor Brady Deaton, who serves as the chairman of the Big 12 board of directors. This means that the Big 12 is needs to stay together, but some colleges in the Big 12 are urging to leave instead. After being asked about Texas and Texas A&M staying in the same conference, Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds told the College Station Bureau, “It’s always been that way, and I assume in the future it will always be that way.” This meant that the Aggies have always been a part of the Big 12, and if that changed, things just wouldn’t be the same. I grew up watching the Texas A&M vs. Texas game with my family every Thanksgiving, and next year, things just won’t be the same. Traditions and FALL 2011

rivalries are a key component to why college football is so fun to watch, and if you get rid of that, college football would simply be a smaller version of the NFL.

If teams start switching conferences, then college football

“...A few people are upset about Texas having a TV network, so we’re all gonna change conferences? I don’t get it. No fans want this.”

-Tanner Pieschl

could lose a lot of fan support due to losing the locality of away games.

I mean, sure fans could go to home games, but think about it, would an A&M college student want to go all the way to Florida for one Saturday to watch Texas A&M play? Not very many average college students would be able to afford plane tickets, a hotel room, and tickets for the game to go see A&M play, when they could watch the game on T.V. instead. With Texas A&M now officially out of the Big 12 and a part of the SEC, their team will lose their “12th Man” factor, considering all of their away games will be much farther away now. Jed Mosher, an A&M fan, told the Kansas City Star in early September, “You can’t get into your doggone car on a Friday night and drive to an away game at Syracuse or West Virginia or wherever the (heck) we end up.

gious basketball team will not get to play against strong programs and won’t have a shot in the March Madness Basketball Tournament. It’s simple; super-conferences are bad. They don’t allow smaller schools get better and play in BCS bowls, therefore creating a system of the same

teams over and over in the BCS bowls, and no fans would want to see that.

Although the Aggies leaving the Big 12 allows them the opportunity to play different styles of play and better teams as well, it kills tradition, which is a large price to pay. One of the major factors which drove Texas A&M to leave was the University of Texas created an exclusive, controversial television network which they thought would better Texas’ recruiting options, but that doesn’t give Texas that much of an edge in recruiting. “I’d love to see Texas A&M swallow their pride and say, ‘OK, we’ll stay in the Big 12.” Mosher said. Although the Aggies could better their team and finances through this, they still need to consider how their fans and Big 12 fans in general feel about this whole situation .

If you want to get involved and tell the President of A&M why the Big 12 needed A&M, you can email him at president@ tamu.edu to get your opinion to him. The Big 12 has always been a solid conference and needs to stay that way. That definitely won’t happen if we keep losing teams. In the next year, share your concerns, get involved, and be ready for next season, sadly, without the Texas A&M Aggies.

the formation of super conferences, teams that aren’t as good in football such as Kansas, who has one of the most prestigious basketball teams in the nation, but whose football program has struggled for the past few years, will not be in a super conference. A team has been in the Big 12 since it was formed, and now a team that could possibly be out of BCS Bowls. A prominent Kansas fund provider, Dana Anderson, says, “We need to be in a BCS conference for football, obviously.” For Anderson, no BCS conference means less T.V. revenue and a negative effect on a football program that’s already struggled the last three seasons. As a Kansas fan, this could in no way make you happy, and if Kansas is left behind from the super-conferences then their presti-

That would be bad for students and fans.” These changes to the Big 12 are clearly upsetting fans and causing lots of frustration. Tanner Pieschl, a former Big 12 student said, “It’s too much about money now. A few people are upset about Texas having a network when others don’t, so we’re all going to change conferences? I don’t get it. No fans want this.” Big 12 fans are very upset about the teams who are leaving. Plain and simple; the Big 12 must stay together.

Having super conferences may seem like a good idea; where 64 college teams compete in 4 major conferences, however, there is a downside to all of this as well. In a super-conference, there would essentially be 4 conferences consisting of 16 teams each, having 64 major teams with many of the smaller schools being left out. With the formation of super conferences, it will basically be a first come first serve basis on what teams will be in the super conferences, and what teams will get left in the dust. The problem is that with

Three dedicated Longhorn Fans watch the game as they hold up their horns in support of Texas.

FALL 2011

Photo by Dave Wilson ATX FOUR 6

Gilbert the Gazelle

The Story of Gilbert Tuhabonye

By Aaron Heikes

Photo by Mohammad Khursheed

“W

hen you think about what has happened to me, it should be bitter, or angry, but running has helped me to find the joy.” local running coach and founder of Gilbert’s Gazelles, Gilbert Tuhabonye said.

Gilbert Tuhabonye is a running coach who lives in Austin, once an Olympic runner and one of the best runners in Burundi, until he was a part of a genocide in which he was the only survivor. Once he recovered, being a running coach became his life’s work, as well as helping his home country through the profits he makes from his foundation, Gilbert’s Gazelles.

Gilbert was born on November 22, 1974 in Songa, Burundi. He was born into a family of farmers as part of the Tutsi tribe. As a young boy, his family didn’t have transportation so he walked, or ran everywhere he went.

“I would run every morning to get water. I had to walk about two miles for the water, and then run to school.”

Gilbert said.

Gilbert was a boy who had to run everywhere he went, which became a part of everyday life to him, until he got into 7th grade.

“Things changed when I went to middle school. The school organized a race, and it was 5 miles and, I won.

And when I won I was really small, and coach came up to me and he told me I could be the best from all over the world and I really believed in him and he started training me and coaching me.” he said.

He showed Gilbert the best ways to breath and how to swing his arms, and by 9th grade Gilbert was one of the best runners in Burundi, and then while in 10th and 11th grade he was the best in the country.

In 1993, everything changed. Gilbert survived a genocide in his boarding school and was the only survivor.

Some people of the Hutu tribe came to his school and put all of the Tutsi students and teachers in the building, and then set it on fire. Gilbert was able to survive by hiding under the bodies of his friends, until he was able to break the window with a charred bone and escape as the one person who wasn’t killed that day.

“I kept hearing a voice, telling me that I was going to be okay and luckily I escaped and I ran through the nights, trying to find a hospital,” Gilbert said.

He finally found a hospital where he spent 3 months recovering. The doctors told him that he would never be able to run again because from the accident he lost nearly 30 percent of his body in burns, but Gilbert didn’t give up hope. While recovering, he received an invitational letter inviting Gilbert to run in America on a full scholarship, which gave him hope. Gilbert started training once again, and started doing therapy, and in 1996 he came to America and carried the Olympic Torch. Gilbert stayed in America, learning English, and training to run. He attended Abilene Christian University on a full running scholarship.

“When I got out of college, I felt that I wasn’t good enough to run out of college, but I felt like I had something in me.You see, when you get out of college, you don’t have a school to run with, either you turn pro or you just quit. I didn’t want to quit, I wanted to keep running.” Gilbert said.

Once Gilbert graduated, Runtex became his sponsor because of his college running, and eventually moved to Austin.

“When I moved here to Austin I was FALL 2011

working with Runtex and finally, people asked me to start coaching them.

I love coaching, and I love seeing people exercise and improving their times, and before I know it, here’s the Gazelles, and it’s been growing since.”

Gilbert said.

Gilbert loves being a coach. For him, it isn’t just about winning, it’s about seeing the people he teaches improve and become the best they can be as runners. He tries to help people enjoy running as much as he does, and to share that passion with him.

“When people come back and tell you, I enjoy running more because you have taught me how to relax, to breath, running is easy now, running is fun. Those types of things are the stuff that inspire me and motivate me to get up everyday and come out with energy and desire to help other people.” he said.

As a coach, he teaches people of all ages. In the Gazelles, Gilbert has 2 groups; an adult group and a youth group. When coaching adults, what he enjoys the most is helping people reach the goals they set for themselves, whether it’s qualifying for a major marathon or becoming the fastest they have ever been. For his youth group, Gilbert is the head running coach at St. Andrews Episcopal School. In his years of coaching he brought them 4 championships , and helps them with form so that they can be the fastest the can be.

“I want to get out and help more people. It gets fun, because I love running, I love coaching, it’s just part of me. It’s who I am, I love helping other people.” Gilbert said.

For Gilbert, running is more than just a sport. To him running represents how far he has come since Burundi, and it has helped him to forget the bad things that have happened to him ATX FOUR 8

in Burundi.

“I have so many friends here in America because of the running.

Running got me here.” Gilbert said.

His running has helped him create a better life for himself in America, whether it’s improving his running or just making new friendships, all of this has helped Gilbert to forget.

“When you run, you go through stages. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and one of the things that I always appreciated, is when you win or lose, you go back and look. It always took me back to during the accident in 1993. It showed me how lucky and thankful I am to be alive.”

Gilbert said.

Gilbert believes that running isn’t about winning or losing, that it’s

about staying positive and realizing that you need to be thankful for what you have, because things could always be worse. The things that happened in Burundi have helped Gilbert in many ways. Even though he lost 30 percent of his body, he still manages to find the positive side of what happened.

“I was able to put Burundi on the map, I mean you didn’t know where Burundi was. Of course I’m an American, but I still have that African look.

And really that has helped Burundi, I put Burundi on the map. So all of those things put Burundi in place, in a better place.” he said.

Gilbert was able to tell his story, of growing up, running, and his survival. He wrote a book, “This Voice in My Heart”, about what happened to him, and because of hearing his story

and seeing him run, he has helped his home country so much, whether it was through his foundation, Gilbert’s Gazelles or by just making people realize what’s going on in Burundi.

Gilbert’s story has been an inspiration to many people around the world.

Gilbert Tuhabonye; whether he’s a genocide survivor, an Olympic athlete, or your running coach, Gilbert is a person who loves what he does, and loves to help other people. He wants to help others enjoy running and wants to help his home country as much as he can.

“When I run, I’m free, my mind is free, my mind is clear. I just think about being the best I can be versus who I’ve been and those are the things that have really helped me the most.” Gilbert said.

Art by Runtex ATX FOUR 9

FALL 2011

UT Football.

Be there when it happens.

support the ut athletics department

Rollin’ In the Dough How Eating at Home Can Save You Money

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By Alexis Andraca

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25 to $35. This is an estimate of how much money I would spend if I went to a fast food restaurant by myself every day for lunch each week. The price would only increase if all my family went with me. Families tend to like eating at fast food restaurants but I wanted to let you know some benefits of eating at home. Some things to take into consideration are you save money, you can eat healthier but most importantly, you get to spend more time with your family.

When eating at home, you tend to spend less money than when eating at a restaurant. When you buy groceries, you spend a good amount of money but you usually buy things to last you more than one day. People can do a lot to save money. Families now often use coupons, look for store brands, buy items that are on sale and some people buy processed food because organic food tends to be a bit more expensive. An article published in 2009, “From Dining Out to Cold Turkey,” from The New York Times had an instance where a family cut back on eating out and saved about $250 a week. Another example of a family saving money is my own.

We have a very limited budget and having a budget is extremely important. Families with diminished budgets are the ones that tend to eat at home more. Occasionally when families eat out, they have options on what restaurants dine in. My family consists of 3 people and when we go out to eat at a fast food restaurant we spend an estimated amount of about $30. When we go out to a higher quality restaurant like Olive Garden, we spent around $70 which for our

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budget could be having enough food to eat at home for about a week.

When you eat at home you can choose what you eat giving you a huge advantage over going out to eat because you can eat healthy. Fast food restaurants usually don’t give you a choice of ordering something healthy; they typically just offer fattening foods. An article called “Why Eating Out Is So Bad For Your Health,” from Articlebase.com stated that when you eat at a high quality restaurant you intake way more calories than necessary. Appetizers can easily add 500 calories depending on what and how much you eat.

When you are at dinner you order the main course, for example a salad, the restaurant usually has a lot of options from you to choose from. Every ingredient that you add increases the calories that you are in taking. So a normal salad that has around 500 calories at the end can end up have up to 2000-3000 calories which is an unhealthy amount for just one serving. According to the World Health Organization eating out is one of the main reasons that so many Americans are overweight and they predict that by 2030 there will be more than 350 million cases of diabetes. In recent years, about a million people have died from cancer. The cancers have had a relation with people being obese or overweight.

One of the main ideas that is expressed when people are talking about why eating out is convenient because at a restaurant you don’t have to buy anything and you don’t have to make an effort to cook it. People that go out to eat often don’t want to take the time to go to the grocery

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FALL 2011

store and buy what’s necessary to for a meal and don’t want to cook the meal themselves. People that disagree with this logic could say that at home you can cook a healthy meal and have family time.

A study from in 2004 by the University of Minnesota showed that eating together as a family causes a better nutritional intake which means that children are less likely to have weight problems when they get older. It also showed that children who eat with their families have a better performance in school. A study performed in 2000 by Harvard University also proved that when families eat together every day or almost every day have an increased intake of important nutrients. Some of these nutrients include calcium, fiber, ion, and vitamins B6, B12, C and E. These children also consumed less fat overall. One important thing that comes from eating as a family is that children tend to eat more fruits and vegetables.

People ultimately have the last decision on whether they decide to either eat at home or dine out.

People have different budgets so they know what’s right for them. I personally would rather stay at home and enjoy a nice meal with my family than rather eat out. When you eat at home you have more family time which gives you an opportunity to share private moments or events that you had during the day.

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From Amateur to Pro

By Alexis Andraca

Photo by capl@washjeff.edu

E

verything around him is calm, he is fully concentrated.

Hands washed, clean counter, several plates, all different sizes, each containing different ingredients. The stove is on, mild flames under the pot. He makes sure he has everything that is needed. While cooking, he adds precise amounts, not too little, not too much. To him everything has to be flawless, no exceptions. As he cooks you can see the smile on his face.

He wants to give the food he cooks a unique taste; something people haven’t tried before. Being a chef isn’t just a job but it’s a passion. It’s something he enjoys doing.

When Gustavo was a small boy, his dream was to become a chef. He always told his mom that he was going to work hard so that he could make his dream come true.

“Ever since I was a kid, I always found an interest in cooking,” Gustavo said.

Watching his family cook meals from time to time interested him: how the ingredients were added, the amount added and the timing. While he ate each meal, he enjoyed it because of the authentic Mexican taste. As he grew up, he started to learn how to cook.

He finally started learning when was around the age of 14.

“Whenever it came to cooking, I was a quick learner because it had to do with something I enjoyed doing,” he said.

Since Gustavo lived in a small town called “Terrero” that was poor, he wasn’t able to get many ingredients to cook so he started cooking simple meals like chicken soup. Being poor was an issue but it wasn’t going to stop him from doing something that inter-

ested him.

that tries his food enjoys it.

“Because I lived in a poor area, I couldn’t do much. Cooking was one of the few things I was able to do that actually caught my attention,” he said.

“My favorite thing about being a chef is when I see people’s positive reaction after the first taste such as a smile on their face or a head nod with a sign of approval, I know that I have satisfied yet another customer,” Gustavo said.

Growing up he liked to practice his cooking so that he became a good cook. Whenever he got the chance to cook, he would prepare a meal. Most of the time was chicken soup but there were times where he would go hunting and cook whatever he caught for lunch or dinner. Soon enough he was the one cooking in his house. He was glad because he knew that he was helping his mother out by cooking meals. When there were parties or other special occasions he was there helping prepare the food that was going to be served.

Everyone knew Gustavo because he was a young man that always wanted to help the people that he knew or that lived near him.

When he was 24, he decided to migrate to the U.S because he believed he would have a better chance of becoming a chef. He was determined to become a cook and maybe even a chef. He believed that by migrating, he would have a better job opportunity that would help improve his cooking by a lot. He moved in with the little family he had in Austin at that time.

Gustavo told his family that he wanted to become a chef so they helped him find a job at Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

“I have been a cook for around 12 years now. I started out as a regular cook and as the years went by, my skills improved and soon enough I had the privilege to become one of the head chefs,” he said.

One day Gustavo was cooking a meal for a customer when all of a sudden something unexpected happened; something that put his life in danger.

Gustavo can’t seem to compare this moment to anything else that has happened to him; it was something that he never expected.

“I was preparing a meal and then all of a sudden, in a blink of an eye I was caught on fire. The pain I was in at the moment caused me to screamed and run around. I had to go to the hospital to get treated. My family was very concerned when they found what had happened. That was the scariest moments of my life,” Gustavo said.

Gustavo is currently taking a break from working at a restaurant. He is a stay home dad that takes care of his three year old daughter.He likes to have his house clean and organized.

Gustavo is also a responsible parent.

He makes sure that his family has everything they need and occasionally he likes to buy his children a gift like a new toy or a new game. Even though he isn’t working at a restaurant, he continues to cook meals as if he did.

He begins by washing his hands, then he puts all the ingredients he needs on different plates and finally he double checks to make sure he has everything he needs. Gustavo still makes sure everything is flawless.

Gustavo likes to cook so that everyone

FALL 2011

ATX FOUR 14

TEXAS

BY THE BOOK How the Texas Book Festival began.

By Leah Siff

“I

“It was sort of like a dream, but it was really amazing that it all just happened,” Mary Margaret Farabee says, co-founder of the Texas Book Festival. “And you know, everything just sort of fell into place.”

Since its first date, the Texas Book Festival has become one of the major book festivals in the country. It’s the only other organization in the state that uses the Capitol for something other than government business.

Art by Leah Siff

The book festival began in 1994 when Farabee and Carolyn Osborn, an author from Tennessee,decided they wanted to create a book festival for Texas authors. They spent many days researching other festivals’ beginnings. As soon as the exploration was finished, they knew they wanted to hold it in the Capitol, because “if it’s not in the state capitol I really think that it’s not going to be as good as it could be.”

“We were turned down flat, because the Texas State Capitol had just been restored, and there was a very strict rule that no other agency or group outside of the legislature would use the State Capitol for anything else except state business. So that door was slammed shut,” she says.

“‘Don’t worry about that, we’ll see if we can work around that,’” Farabee recalls Bush saying to her.

Between the two of them, Farabee and Bush put together a task force comprising of close friends, newspaper people, member of state commissions, and book trade organizers.

With help from Carolyn Osborn’s husband, a lawyer, who took care of everything for the IRS (a necessary step in forming their non-profit organization), a press conference was held on March 2, 1996. There, the first festival was scheduled for November 15-17, 1996. But there was still plenty to do.

“You know, I mean, what had I bitten off?” she says.

After spending a year of concentrated work on the book festival, Farabee decided she needed a break from the project. A major frustration was her belief that it had to be in the State Capitol. In 1995, El Paso writer Robert Skimin contacted Laura Bush, the First Lady of Texas, and pitched Farabee’s and Osborn’s idea. Her curiosity piqued; the first lady attended a very important meeting. There, Bush learned many of the things that would lead to the first Texas Book Festival.

At the press conference, Farabee and everyone else in the task force realized they had no access to the names, addresses, or phone numbers of any authors they needed. Nobody on the task force had the Rolodex that was essential to the book festival’s development.

“And so the next thing I know, I get a call from Laura Bush, and I had never even met her before. So she called me, and said ‘I want to talk to you about a book festival,’” Farabee says.

At the time, all the major book stores were “at war.” There was newly founded Bookpeople, Barns and Noble, Boarders, and Bookstop. Luckily, at a meeting in attempt to get the stores to work together, Farabee met Dave Hamrey, the marketing manager for Bookstop.

Initially reluctant to continue working on it, Farabee gave in when she learned of Laura Bush’s involvement.

At the first lady’s invitation, Farabee attended a meeting with her at Bush’s office in the Capitol. At this meeting, it was made clear to Bush that that festival wouldn’t be as special unless it was at the Capitol.

“We focused on Texas,” Farabee says, “We were very, you know, we were proud that we were Texans, and we were proud that we could have such a huge diversity of writers.”

“And he had a Rolodex that wouldn’t quit.” she says.

that wouldn’t do anything for them.

He had the experience in the book market that would be critical to the festival’s success. Farabee explained the situation to Hamrey, telling him she wanted to have a committee of about 10, mostly Texan, authors.

“And he said ‘You got it,’” Farabee says.

The first Texas Book Festival kicked off with a black tie literary gala at the giant Marriott hotel. People paid $10-$15 thousand for a seat in the ballroom to meet and hear popular authors read from one of their books.

Many of the people that attended the gala lived outside of Austin, and “loved coming to the city.”

“And from the very first year, we sold out,” Farabee says.

Farabee remained chair of the Texas Book Festival, leaving after eight years for personal reasons. Eventually, she passed the spot on to Ron Weiss in 2004, who is the current chair.

“And so it just rolled along, it was just great and so much fun. It was just such a great event.” Farabee says.

The Texas Book Festival continues to be a huge event in Austin, receiving about 40,000 participants annually.

At the most recent festival on October 21-23, 2011, authors including Russel Banks, Libba Bray, and Alton Brown presented.

“And so the authors loved it, the press loved it, and we just had a lot of fun doing it.“

Because Hamrey was in the market, he knew which authors were the ones they needed, and the ones FALL 2011

ATX FOUR 16

Paint it Green SXSW is more eco-friendly than you think.

By Leah Siff

ATX FOUR 17

included LED lights, which run on just 3 watts each. Organizers of SXSW placed only recycled decorations and native plants in the zone; nothing was new. The directors really are trying their best to stay as green as possible, but there’s only so much they can do. “It would look cool if we put recycling bins…but frankly, drunks on 6th Street don’t recycle,” says Eve McArthur, SXSW’s former Director of Operations. I think they should use recycling bins instead of trashcans. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. SXSW has to get approval from the city before they can put

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“Stop kidding yourself,” says Paul Resnikoff, founder and publisher of Digital Music News in Austin, Texas. “ Because for most music companies, SXSW is simply an awful place to do business.” There’s been lots of talk from neighborhoods about the problems caused by festivals, but what they aren’t taking into consideration is how much Austin benefits from them. Some people are convinced that Resnikoff is right when he says that “SXSW is bad for your business,” but festivals help many companies.

According to impactnews. com, Austin businesses gained over $160 million dollars from SXSW. The Austin Film Festival’s income, also quite high, totaled about $917,793 in 2010. Sure, the festivals cost the city money, but the amount we gain outweighs the losses. The money comes from tourists who pay for parking spaces, food, street vendor’s products, Austin merchandise, hotels, taxis, clubs, pedicabs, etc. It’s great for the Austin economy, because they’ll stop to look at or go into any place that looks interesting. Put yourself in the shoes of a tourist: you come to this bright, exciting town before a concert later that night. You spot a painting on the wall of a Jamba Juice and realize how thirsty you are. You go to order some juice when you catch sight of a vendor selling “Keep Austin Weird” shirts. You buy one because it’s local, looks cool, and it’s the city’s motto. This happens multiple times every day.

None of these events ever

go on for more than a week, most of them only about two days. According to Paul Resnikoff, “It’s just as expensive party...one so full of noise it’s questionable whether any marketing dollars make sense here.” Because the festivals are so short, the noise, traffic, and few parking spaces for locals don’t last long, either. According to sxsw.com, the music portion occurs from the 13th to the 18th over spring break. Usually, they’re all right downtown, so the people living there should have expected these things when they chose to move into the heart of the city.

ATTENTION

“Stop kidding yourself,” -Paul Resnikoff

Art by Leah Siff

Some would say that people are unaware of the damage these festivals cause to the city. Lots of people, such as the organizers of SXSW, know about this issue and work, to reduce the amount of energy used, litter generated, and damage caused. SXSW bought offsets, hoping to invest in and help the environment in the future. According to readthehorn.com, Beth Ferguson, director of Sol Design Lab, started to bring her solar powered gas pumps to SXSW in 2010. In 2011, SXSW placed the pumps in “The Green Zone” which was created to make people aware of environmental issues. The pumps FALL 2011

up or take down recycling bins and trashcans.

Aside from the income and reduction of energy and litter, these festivals “keep Austin weird”.

They’re part of what everyone loves about Austin. The culture in our city revolves around an image we have made for ourselves that Austin is an artsy and creative city. Without things like these festivals, all of that could end. I believe that we should be able to maintain that image, and be green in the process.

See us at the Hot Sauce Festival!

August 28, 2012 at Waterloo Park

Too Too

Little Late

How we’ve left musicians in the dust

By Alisa Hernandez

F

or most of us, we get health care through our employers for musicians, however, it’s a luxury enjoyed by very few.

In September, Lou Barlow, lead singer of Sebadoh and member of Dinasour Jr., told Alt Press about a friend who almost died because he didn’t have health insurance, “He found out he had [been suffering from] diabetes for years. He was getting sicker and sicker and we were trying to get him to a hospital on a tour. He wouldn’t go because he didn’t have health insurance. I felt like I was watching him die... He waited until the last minute to go to the hospital and found out he was close to a diabetic coma.” This is just one of many stories of musicians who don’t get the medical assistance they need.

Although President Obama passed a health care bill in spring of 2010, health insurance is still too expensive for most musicians over 26, the new age when someone no longer has the coverage of their parents. In addition, because U.S. citizens don’t want to pay taxes for musicians to have health insurance, they have to go and get other jobs so they can get coverage through that. There are organizations such as Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM) that help musicians receive coverage, but you have to qualify. Only singer song songwriters and musicians that work on cruises would qualify for the coverage. This leaves freelance musicians and cover bands without coverage, which are the majority. Kristen Capps wrote for Campus Progess, “DurATX FOUR 19

ing the push for health care reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to visualize “an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance. But how, exactly, that might happen was unclear.”

Alex Maiolo told indyweek in April of 2008 “The toughest situations... involve someone trying to make a living as a full-time musician. The profits from the road and the costs of insurance often don’t meet. If you’re living on 15 or 20 thousand dollars a year, then health insurance actually does become a luxury... And it’s hardly a luxury. It’s something people need.” Musicians especially need the coverage because they go on tours, and can get terribly sick from the long night, and traveling a lot. Also, a lot of them jump of stages to add to their performances, and if they break their ankle or leg from that, coverage would be necessary.

“And it’s hardly a luxury. It’s something people need.”

- Alex Maiolo

According to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM) website, “Millions of dollars [are] added to the city’s economy and tens of thousands of visitors from around the world brought annually by Austin City Limits Music Festival and South

by Southwest Music & Media ConferFALL 2011

ence.

“[There is] nearly $1 billion in economic activity, more than $25 million in local tax revenue each year [and] it provides 11,200 jobs.” A solution for musicians could be that a percentage of this money could go to providing health insurance for musicians that don’t qualify for HAAM or can’t afford it.

If musicians were to go out and get another job, then they would either get a bad job that doesn’t pay well so that they could continue music, or would get used to having a good job, and would quit music because they got comfortable. Ben Rubenstein wrote for popmatters, “…your best chance of becoming a successful musician is to be relatively poor, regularly stressed and, of course, at least in the US, learn to live without health insurance.” Musicians should not have to live like this.

Having music as a job should be fun, hard work, yes a little stressful, but not full of worry. Musicians shouldn’t have to risk their health so that they aren’t paying too many bills. “... while creative work is always going to be less stable than other jobs, it doesn’t mean it has to be unsustainable.”

With the amount of money brought in by musicians every year, part of it should be able to go to giving them coverage. The amount of stories there are of artists who couldn’t afford to go to the hospital and ended up dying is depressing. Musicians should not have to suffer just to play music.

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603 N. Lamar, Austin TX 78703

Come down for a halloween mystery costume party!

October 30, 2012 7 pm

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Art By Alisa Hernandez

F

or John Kunz, the owner of Waterloo Records, music is in his DNA. “I’m one of those people who needs it every day of my life just like I need oxygen and water.”

Waterloo Records is considered the best record store in Austin, having won the Austin Chronicle’s Best Record Store Award every year since they opened on April 1, 1982. The success of the store is because of its bee bop, but music in general, loving owner. With walls filled with posters and t-shirts, CDs, LPs, and DVDs on every available stand or shelf, Waterloo Records is truly a place for people who love music.

“That first year, since we were a brand new business, we knew that our customers really loved us and they kept telling their friends about us, so that was one of those pretty perfect days,” Kunz said.

Before opening Waterloo, Kunz worked at Zebra Records, while attending the University of Texas.

When the manager position was offered, he quit school, and took the job. He worked there for ten years before deciding to leave and open his own record store because he felt that they were “not recognizing Austin for the musical mecca that it is.”

The day he turned in his resignation, Louis Karp, a competitor in the music retail industry, opened Waterloo Records. Having met at an industry event, and knowing each other because of being in the same business, they “reconnected to discuss how [they] could help one another as newly competing indie record store owners.” Since they both knew that they “shared the same general visions for our stores, that [they] individually lacked the time, inventory, credit/ financing and equity to achieve all [their] goals,” they agreed to become

partners.

His experiences at Zebra Records helped him in running Waterloo because he already knew how things operated at a record store. Working there also gave him music connections that were a huge help in running Waterloo, and gave him “a pretty good sized Rolodex by the time [he] hit Waterloo.”

Five years after opening Waterloo, Karp left to go do other things, which made running the store more difficult for Kunz. However, this was not his biggest challenge. The most difficult part of running a record store is knowing what to have in stock. With so many different genres to choose from, it becomes an “incredibly daunting but an incredibly fulfilling job when it’s done right.”

When Waterloo first opened, they wanted to sell everything they could because there was not a lot to pick from. Since there are so many CDs now, however, this job becomes more difficult because they have to choose which ones they think the customers will want most.

“And like everybody else we make our mistakes but I always say fortunately we’re not brain surgeons, if we make a mistake, the worst thing that happens is we just need to say we don’t have it now, but we’ll get it tomorrow or the next day,” Kunz said That is just one of the things that makes Waterloo different than buying from i-Tunes or places like Best Buy. If there’s a CD that they don’t have, but a customer wants it, they will order it for them.

Waterloo has a reputation for knowing what customer’s will come in wanting. The selection at the store is a wide range, with over seventy thousand CDs to choose from. Not only FALL 2011

do they have a wide selection of music, the staff knows and can locate any artist in the store. The store is a place where nobody is in a hurry and you could spend a while just perusing.

As you walk in, you wouldn’t think that Waterloo had devastating set back about two months after they’d moved into the location they’re at now. When they closed up for the night, no one knew that the toilet was clogged, so when they came in the next morning, the entire floor was covered with at least two inches of water. At that time, many things were still on the floor because they hadn’t finished moving in. Posters that had been signed by people who died were ruined because of water damage. “[It was] pretty devastating… a tough loss, but you know, nobody was hurt, that’s the big thing,” Kunz said.

“Life isn’t life... without music.”

- John Kunz

Almost as if to make up for that event, the very first time that Willie Nelson played at the store, he ended up staying almost the entire day, and played for over two hours. He didn’t leave until everyone in the store received an autograph, took a picture with him, and had a chance to talk.

John Kunz has had more than just the normal challenges of starting his own business, but he overcame them, and created a record store that is loved by all and second to none. His personality is everywhere in the store, and that makes it unique. His endless love of music that began with bee-bop jazz has created a store that everyone raves about.

And it’s all because, “life isn’t life to me without music.”

ATX FOUR 22

Letter From the Editors

ATX Four is a magazine solely designed for the Austin area. We want to educate people who live around Austin or just want to learn more about the city, about 4 major components of having the full Austin experience: food, festivals, music and sports. Our mission is to inform and entertain people who live in Austin and tourists about local music, food, sports, and festivals.

We want to inform people as young as teenagers as well as to the middle-aged population of Austin and basically anyone who wants to experience the capital of the Lone Star State. Hope you enjoy our magazine!

Sincerely, Aaron Heikes

Aaron Heikes

Alexis Andraca

Leah Siff

Alisa Hernandez

Alexis Andraca

Leah Siff

Alisa Hernandez