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From: dennyzen@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: AFU Austin I: Tower Glower Power
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 94 09:42:09 -0500

Official Minutes of AFU Austin I: "Glower at the Tower"

I sat nervously in the #1 "North Lamar" bus, heading south, looking for my stop at 17th and Guadalupe. The omens were mixed for the upcoming event. True, I had been cheered by someone in the back row of the bus when I boarded. My black "Sturgis 1993" Tee had inspired his biker soul.

"Sturgis, yeah!" he had said. He gave me thumb-up.

But, on the other hand, Charles Whitman had sent his regrets. One of our star attractions would be absent, his decomposition a bit too advanced to tolerate the August heat. So as not to disappoint the waiting crowd of AFUians, Ted Turner had graciously agreed to run "The Deadly Tower" on TBS cable TV that night at 9:35PM. Would the crowd mind the substitution?

I deboarded the bus and made my way through the mass of grazing cattle. These Texans do not easily let go of their heritage. Each of them has a few head of bovine following hir around town, like so many two-ton pet pit bulls. After a while you get used to it. The cattle were lowing, what ever the hell that means.

The Dog and Duck is "a pub". It features 20 kinds of beer on draft, many of them imported from Britannia. Its menu includes such 'Merican fare as cheeseburgers, and such Britannic fare as bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, and Marmite. There are four picnic tables out front, and at one of these I found Joe DiMaggio and Lyn Warren scrutinizing the AFU ATE pictures.

Joe, Lyn and I were soon joined by Tom Greer, whose Tee labled him as a biohazard. Possibly it was due to this fact that we began to notice something unusual: bagpipers were materializing at random on nearby sidwalks. Was this a ruse by NSA? Was this the Evironmental Protection Agency? A rival newsgroup? A gift from Ewan? No, it was in fact the regular Friday night pipe-in at The Dog and Duck, featuring the Silver Thistle Pipe Band of Austin. Oh, rapture! I love the skirl of the pipes, whatever the hell that is.

The pipers eventually merged into a group and began to tune en masse. This they did by first giving a nearby hapless cat a jalapeno suppository. Said cat then began to emit the "concert A" which our pipers immediately emulated.

The band had not yet begun its first tune ("Scotland the Brave," of course) when we were joined by Jay Terk (whose name I first heard as "Kirk," and thought he might be Ewan's kin). And so was our mighty AFU party completed for the nonce. We immediately got to work.

We traded lies. We traded ULs. Joe regaled us with tales of AFU ATE. I ordered a "Ploughman's Lunch" for my dinner, expecting something a bit more hearty than "cold cuts and cheese on a plate with a roll" but polishing it off, nonetheless. Many pitchers of England's finest export, as well as an Austin favorite, Shiner Bock, were consumed. The pipers kept our toes tapping and the beer kept our lips flapping.

And then someone asked me about Kibo.

The name had a magical effect on the crowd. Several people standing near our table in order to better hear and see the pipers were in fact lurking netters (probably spies). The mere mention of "Kibo", though, made them drop their innocent guise and reveal their addiction. They wanted to know "what is Kibo really like?" At that moment, the band began to play *really loud* so that my response was drowned out. But no matter. Because I was not heard, each listener got to keep his or her own personal image of Kibo intact. I blessed each of them with a KN of 2, and their heartfelt gratitude was so complete that I wished I had held out for money.

But as all good evenings must, this, too, came to an end. The pipes fell quiet, their bags going limp in the highland heat. The Kibo fans drifted away, faces aglow. The AFUians bound their wounds, girded their loins and reined in their bull. It was time for fond farewells. With one last backward glower at the tower, we each rode off, like all good Texas cowpersons, into the sunset. Well -- into the moonrise. Same difference.

Look for AFU Austin II sometime in the fall.