spent the summer of 1997 as the entertainment editor at the University's daily newspaper. The paper's entertainment office was filled with wannabe promoters and armchair critics and snarly rock-obsessed fanboys - the ones who sneered at mainstream radio, who would drop to their knees and pant if you so much as mentioned the new Pavement album. They made pronouncements like this:
"Stevie Ray Vaughn is everything that's wrong with Austin music."
"You're being ridiculous," I'd tell the guy, because this particular guy was often being ridiculous. Like most of them, he was full of kneejerk contrarian nonsense and phrases cribbed from Rolling Stone.
"I'm serious. This whole guitar wanking bullshit has ruined music in this city."
Truth was, I kind of liked Stevie Ray Vaughn. I was going through my blues guitar phase, or my "songs about alcoholics" phase, or my pretend-you-know-Austin-music-because-you-know-Stevie-Ray-Vaughn phase, and I put "Life By the Drop" on every mixed tape I made. Stevie was sad, he was dead, it was sad that he was dead, and we owned a little piece of that sadness, he was ours, "Austin's Own Stevie Ray Vaughn."
"You're just saying that because he's popular," I would say. "Next you're gonna tell me Oasis is shit."
"Oasis IS shit."
"Oh shut up."

What the boys in the entertainment office never realized was that I was paying attention. When they announced that some label was a "purveyor of pabulum" or some album was "an onanistic experience" I just rolled my eyes. "Somebody's been using their Thesaurus," I might say, and put on my headphones to listen to my Ben Folds Five CD for the two thousandth time. But I took notes. I remembered.
Years later, when I worked at a paper staffed by fortysomethings who partied with Stevie Ray Vaughn, whose friends shared bottles with him and shared women with him and licked the same toilet seats in the same drugged-out dives, well, I sang a different tune about Stevie.
"Stevie Ray Vaughn is everything that's wrong with Austin music," I blurted out once at a staff meeting. It was like a line in the sand. Cool kids on this side. Old farts who like to play air guitar over there. Did I mean what I was saying? I did not. Did I even understand what I was saying? I did not. But that's how much of a presence Stevie Ray Vaughn has here. There is a freaking bronze statue of him on the Hike & Bike Trail. If I had to hear one more middle-aged wanker blather on about SRV, I thought I was going to crush my own skull. But this is Austin, man. You can't get away from Stevie.

I bring this up because it is Stevie Ray Vaughn's birthday today. He would be 48 today, if he hadn't died in a helicopter accident in 1990, at what many considered the height of his career. I know it's Stevie Ray Vaughn's birthday today because I was going to call in to John's radio show
from the statue, which I had never seen before. Now that I'm back in Austin, I'm going to report from around the city, and this report (which, like so many of my good ideas, was actually Julie's idea) would have been my kickoff. Unfortunately, some equipment at the radio show wasn't working properly, and John couldn't put me on the air. So I sat in the shade for a bit, observing. I had hoped some hardcore SRV fans might stop by to pay tribute, but all I saw were joggers and walkers. I started to feel a little sorry for Stevie. People used to lay roses at his feet, and now it's his birthday and who knows the diff?
Then this guy caught my eye. Big ZZTop-looking dude, black T-shirt and jeans and wraparound sunglasses. I tried not to stare, but I knew where he was headed. Knowing where he was headed gave me such satisfaction, the fact that he was going at all gave me such satisfaction. He didn't do much, just walked up to the statue, looked out over the lake, took a moment, and moved on. But I found this profoundly comforting. While Austin keeps shapeshifting, its best clubs and restaurants folding, I'm glad to know that the city's lifers still pay homage to the same guitar wanking sonofabitch.
Happy Birthday, Stevie.