coming to the United States Art Authority 8pm July 15th, 2010:

Live comedy by ‘07 Funniest Person in Austin Winner BRYAN GUTMANN, LUCAS MOLANDES (FPIA ‘10 Winner), AMBER BIXBY, hosted by BENJAMIN JOHNSON, followed by a screening of Bob Fosse’s LENNY.
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Bob “All That Jazz” Fosse might seem like an unlikely director to helm a biopic on comedy’s patron saint, but considering Lenny Bruce’s jazz-inspired delivery, the resulting 5 Academy Award nominations aren’t so surprising. As critic Albert Goldman described him, “Lenny worshipped the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association. He fancied himself an oral jazzman. His ideal was to walk out there like Charlie Parker, take that mike in his hand like a horn and blow, blow, blow everything that came into his head just as it came into his head with nothing censored, nothing translated, nothing mediated, until he was pure mind, pure head sending out brainwaves like radio waves into the heads of every man and woman seated in that vast hall. Sending, sending, sending, he would finally reach a point of clairvoyance where he was no longer a performer but rather a medium transmitting messages that just came to him from out there - from recall, fantasy, prophecy. A point at which, like the practitioners of automatic writing, his tongue would outrun his mind and he would be saying things he didn’t plan to say, things that surprised, delighted him, cracked him up - as if he were a spectator at his own performance.”

Made in 1974 (eight years after Bruce’s death, when his routines were finally safe for the big screen), LENNY chronicles the rise of a burlesque club comic to social satirist to heroin casualty (or death by “an overdose of police,” as one journalist observed), and its success is due in no small part to a sharp screenplay by Julian Barry adapted from his own play, and a young Dustin Hoffman’s gritty portrayal of a comic who truly suffered for his art, and has been cited as an influence by Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Bill Hicks among many others. Not since Oscar Wilde had a man been virtually hounded to death by the authorities for refusing to bend to their idea of acceptable art, Bruce’s countless arrests in the 60s for his uncensored club routines leading up to an obscenity conviction that was upheld even after testimonials by the likes of Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer and Woody Allen, only to be overturned following his death. Here’s a man who once impersonated a priest and solicited $8,000 in door-to-door donations in order to get his stripper girlfriend off the stage, and avoided jail time because he donated a portion of the proceeds to a leper colony. If that doesn’t provide an insight into the complex mind of this compassionate yet uncompromising performer, and inspire you to examine a man who turned his life into a work of art that reflected society’s own contradictions and hypocrisies, you’re missing out on the beauty of the human comedy.

This month’s original poster by Lisa Bussett, with her paintings on display in the gallery. Come toast to stand up’s most infamous martyr in the kind of place he got his start, while also supporting a selection of the best local comedy Austin has to offer. $5

Feral Cinema #5 coming Wed. June 16 ‘10 to the United States Art Authority in Austin, TX:

To keep updated on all Feral Cinema screenings, join the Austin Underground Film Society.

“Joe R. Lansdale has a weed eater fetish. And this is no closet fetish either; he shares it with anyone who will listen. Oh sure, he puts it in the guise of telling a funny story; something about a blind man and a church and some landscaping. Hell, he loves it so much that he made it into a short story. Even suckered some people into buying it.

Course, Joe has made a living out of suckering people. Over sixteen novels under his own name[2], some 500 short stories, a bunch of comic books, and assorted other things like screenplays and essays. (I think the numbers are right. It gets difficult when the toes are involved.) Anyway, that’s a lot of suckers out there. A lot of people who think Joe is some sort of literary genius. The Second Coming of whatever was the flavor of the week.

And ya know what? They’re wrong. Joe R. Lansdale, his ownself, is no Second Coming to no one. He is 100% Lansdale. Oh sure he had his fair share of influences. I once described his work like this: a literary mishmash of Chandler, Hammett, Cain, Matheson, and a healthy serving of Flannery O’Connor for good measure. You’ll see what you want. We all do, but whatever it is, it will be Lansdale.

For my money Lansdale is a literary genius.[3] I remember my first exposure. I was all of 20 and working in a bookstore. We did something illegal back then and I’ll tell ya about it if you can keep your trap shut. Sounds sorta sexy, doesn’t it? Well it’s not. Bookstores strip the covers off of mass markets that don’t sell and well, back then our beloved Mr. Lansdale didn’t sell so good. We stripped Nightrunners and I took it home to read. That’s the illegal part. No, not reading Nightrunners. The taking home of a stripped book. Stores are supposed to destroy them.[4] Nightrunners blew my mind. Blood & guts– really scary shit– tense beyond belief. And it was Texas. Very Texas. Texas practically oozes off the page of Lansdale stories.

I went on to read damn near everything he wrote and somewhere along the way we became friends. Somehow he emerged from the splatterpunks of the 1980’s into a distinguished Man of Letters[5] and is now one of the most respected crime writers going. He’s won more awards than he has hair and people like Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Andrew Vachss, and Philip Jose Farmer will take his calls.

Ya know, strip away the stories, take away the awards, remove his fame and I would still be proud to call Joe R. Lansdale my friend. Even with his bizarre weed eater thing, Joe is what they call good people. Perhaps I am another one of the suckers, being dragged by the runaway mule, but what the hell. So when is the next book coming out?
-Rick Klaw

In a previous life Rick Klaw was an award winning editor for MOJO Press. Currently he is a buyer for Book People, the largest independent bookstore in Texas.

The 2009 Austin Underground Film Festival will take place on Oct. 9th-11th as part of Art Seen’s 5th Annual Art Outside festival, a media and live music extravaganza featuring hundreds of bands and artists on 1,000 acres of wooded Texas hillcountry in Rockdale, TX just an hour outside of Austin, Dallas and Houston. The cinema show will be projected on a mobile big screen at night and will consist of a a retrospective on the last 3 years of the fest, view the lineup HERE.

We’ve partnered with Live Music Capitol as well to present the Art Outside Psych Stage. Here are a few of the bands who will perform:

Friday Oct 9th, 2009
The Warlocks
Ocha La Rocha
Shapes Have Fangs
Cartright
Smoke and Feathers
The Astronaut Suit
The Boxing Lesson
The Little Gentlemen
Acid Tomb

Saturday Oct 10th, 2009
Dead Meadow
The Vandelles
Woven Bones
Lower Heaven
Y
Amplified Heat
Golden Animals
The Chibas
Damon Moon & The Whispering Drifters
Planet Rye Co

FOR LOVE & STACIE, and independent feature by local Austin filmmaker/music video director Ray Schlogel that was screened at the Alamo Drafthouse (twice presented by Austin Underground), is now available to view absolutely free on his website.

This Saturday May 2nd 6pm at UT, our friends over at The Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art will be hosting a special screening of the film Jackelope, which explores the mythological draw of the state of Texas to visual artists. The exhibition is part of CASETA’s symposium and Texas art fair this week, check it out:
“This Bicentennial State Arts Film follows artists James Surls, George Green and Bob Wade as a means of discovering what makes Texas itself an obsession for its artists. The film originally aired on PBS in 1976. Two of the featured artists- James Surls and Bob Wade- will be in attendance at the screening. Visit http://www.caseta.org/files/docs/Jackelope%20Article.pdf for more info.”

This Saturday May 2nd 6pm at UT, our friends over at The Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art will be hosting a special screening of the film Jackelope, which explores the mythological draw of the state of Texas to visual artists. The exhibition is part of CASETA’s symposium and Texas art fair this week, check it out:

“This Bicentennial State Arts Film follows artists James Surls, George Green and Bob Wade as a means of discovering what makes Texas itself an obsession for its artists. The film originally aired on PBS in 1976. Two of the featured artists- James Surls and Bob Wade- will be in attendance at the screening. Visit http://www.caseta.org/files/docs/Jackelope%20Article.pdf for more info.”

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9pm Thursday May 14th @ Spider House

I LUV VIDEO and The Austin Underground Film Society present a night of mental hospital cinema for your viewing pleasure. We can’t tell you what the films will be, but rest assured they pack a one-two whallop.