Story and photos by Dennis Hensley
Howdy from Austin, Texas! I'm here for the 21st annual Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film
Festival , where two short films I wrote, Screening Party and Reunion , played last Friday afternoon at the Alamo Ritz Drafthouse Cinema, the festival's home.
The Alamo Ritz is a movie house that was clearly created by film lovers for film lovers. The atmosphere's great and the food's delicious. Before I left L.A., I saw The Women
with Meg Ryan and I was underwhelmed. Now that I've experienced the
Alamo, I realize what was missing from that film for me; deep-fried
pickles. Deep-friend pickles could have made that film palatable.
aGLIFF was nice enough to put me up at the swanky Austin Hyatt .
Town Lake is nearby and there's a bridge that goes over. I was told
upon my arrival that millions of bats spend their days under the bridge
and if you go there at sundown, you can watch them flee for a night of
carousing. My old friend Alan who lives here and I joined a throng of
other bat groupies and dusk and though we did see some bats, it wasn't
the swarm we were hoping for. After 45 minutes of waiting, we weren't
going to be satisfied unless we left that bridge covered in bat leavings,
which we didn't.
Austin's a great food town and here's a bit of what I've eaten so far:
green chili enchiladas at Z'Tejas , meat loaf like mom used to make at The Woodland and French toast the size of a futon at Starlite. To satisfy our sweet tooth, Alan and I hit Amy's Ice Cream s
in the trendy South Congress shopping area, where an adorably shaggy
ice cream scooper named Adam smashed 'Nilla Wafers into my Mexican
vanilla ice cream then tossed the scoop under his leg and into a cup
like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. The man's an artist.
Apart from the super fun film fest, my favorite hang so far in Austin
has been Barton Springs Pool ,
a natural spring public pool that stays a crisp 69 degrees year round.
This place is so charmingly retro. I kept expecting to see Baby from
Dirty Dancing practicing her lifts in the shallow area. I got up the
nerve to take the plunge and the water was so refreshing, like a
Mountain Dew commercial come to life. There's also lots of male eye
candy, a total Sausage-Fest if you know what I'm saying. More sights of
Austin to come…stay tuned.
Story and photos by Dennis Hensley
Howdy from Austin, Texas! I'm here for the 21st annual Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film
Festival , where two short films I wrote, Screening Party and Reunion , played last Friday afternoon at the Alamo Ritz Drafthouse Cinema, the festival's home.
The Alamo Ritz is a movie house that was clearly created by film lovers for film lovers. The atmosphere's great and the food's delicious. Before I left L.A., I saw The Women
with Meg Ryan and I was underwhelmed. Now that I've experienced the
Alamo, I realize what was missing from that film for me; deep-fried
pickles. Deep-friend pickles could have made that film palatable.
aGLIFF was nice enough to put me up at the swanky Austin Hyatt .
Town Lake is nearby and there's a bridge that goes over. I was told
upon my arrival that millions of bats spend their days under the bridge
and if you go there at sundown, you can watch them flee for a night of
carousing. My old friend Alan who lives here and I joined a throng of
other bat groupies and dusk and though we did see some bats, it wasn't
the swarm we were hoping for. After 45 minutes of waiting, we weren't
going to be satisfied unless we left that bridge covered in bat leavings,
which we didn't.
Austin's a great food town and here's a bit of what I've eaten so far:
green chili enchiladas at Z'Tejas , meat loaf like mom used to make at The Woodland and French toast the size of a futon at Starlite. To satisfy our sweet tooth, Alan and I hit Amy's Ice Cream s
in the trendy South Congress shopping area, where an adorably shaggy
ice cream scooper named Adam smashed 'Nilla Wafers into my Mexican
vanilla ice cream then tossed the scoop under his leg and into a cup
like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. The man's an artist.
Apart from the super fun film fest, my favorite hang so far in Austin
has been Barton Springs Pool ,
a natural spring public pool that stays a crisp 69 degrees year round.
This place is so charmingly retro. I kept expecting to see Baby from
Dirty Dancing practicing her lifts in the shallow area. I got up the
nerve to take the plunge and the water was so refreshing, like a
Mountain Dew commercial come to life. There's also lots of male eye
candy, a total Sausage-Fest if you know what I'm saying. More sights of
Austin to come…stay tuned.
