So I just bought one of my favorite movies on Criterion the other day- Slacker. Watching this movie took me way back to my youth. Circular logic rambling moments aside I love this film. The extras were great though especially the Les Amis Cafe segment. Reminded me a lot how corporate culture has really taken over everything and small independent shops are getting rarer and rarer. For example growing up near Philly I remember when South Street use to be corporation free. I use to love going to Third Street Jazz & Rock. Which made me think are there any cities where there are untapped artistic communities such as the one in Austin (which is presented as a thing of the past in the extras)? I need to escape to one of them.

Next film in the mail: The Wild Bunch (1969). Love Peckinpah!

Austin old-timers often lament how things have changed in the last twenty years. I've only been a resident for 10, but there are still tons of local business and hangouts here, and I think the art scene is pretty lively. It's maybe that Austin is no longer a "slacker" town, but a city with more energy now. The good shit is not too hard to find.

After The Wild Bunch, you gotta watch Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Totally brutal, bloody, hilarious. Warren Oats!

LOL. Yeah I've been meaning to pick that up also. I'm always on an endless Peckinpah kick.

Thanks for the tidbits on Austin. I was in a bookstore yesterday on our "supposed bohemian strip" here in Buffalo and was lamenting just how badly it sucks here. I'm sure weather has a lot to do with it (cold, snow) but you can never really meet interesting like minded people here to hold intelligent conversations with. I mean in the summer the homeless nuts are fun to chat with but that's it...

Lixx, what was the name of a toy store off south street, they had a decent selection of Japanese stuff. I remember they had one of those store display Mazingas in a showcase at the end of the street...does it still exist?

My friend Brubaker from Circle Of Shit used to have a record store nearby, CHAOS records.

I haven't lived in Philly since 98 so I'm struggling to remember. Might have not known either because I wasn't into japanese vinyl then. Now I'm intrigued because I'm going back the beginning of May.

The Wild Bunch is so bad-to-the-bone it hurts. Some of the best shootouts/gunfights ever filmed.

That store would've been late 80's early 90's. Pretty small with a neat selection of toys, mostly sci-fi/oddball stuff but about 1/4th Japanese toys.