February 23rd Blog
I was the MC last night at the Busby Foundation’s fund raiser for ALS. I personally picked a dozen of Austin’s finest restaurants for a Taste of Austin event including Jeffrey’s, Mirabelle’s, Chinatown, III Forks, Eddie V’s, the Roaring Fork, McCormick and Schmick’s, Sicola’s: A Culinary Experience [private dining], Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill, Kenichi, Dona Emilia’s and Amy’s Ice Cream for dessert. I want to thank all the restaurants for donating their time and their delightful food. Also kudos to the Hyatt and their catering staff. They were great!
There is a real synergy between the restaurant community and Austin charities. The major draw for these “taste of” events is the restaurants themselves. Without great food, these events flat out wouldn’t work. And the tireless work of all these fine restaurants deserves some recognition. The evening was a phenomenal success for its first year. All the monies raised will go toward helping Austin families afflicted with ALS.
As is our tradition on the last Friday of the month, I joined Mark Caesar and Sam Cox (Ed Clements had the day off) at 9am on our Food Friday program on 590 KLBJ-AM. The show is a blast. Even with the occasional restaurant owner calling up and posing as an enthusiastic patron (most are almost instantly and humorously obvious), the show moves quickly, is lots of fun, and we cover a lot of ground. To my knowledge, the show is unique in the Top 50 US radio markets. It’s the only one of its kind in morning drive time.
Well, by the throngs around the town lake area today, (a very young crowd), it would appear that Senator Barack Obama kept his scheduled campaign stop in Austin. Sorry, but I can’t muster much excitement. While he may be blissfully idealistic at this point, by the time he gets to the final run, he’ll be as jaded as the next one. Our system is screwed. Obama is going to have to cosy up to some major corporate fat cats at some point to get the core dollars he needs to fund his media strategy (thus building his brand and name ID). He will then be indebted, as virtually every politician is, to some corporate entity that can accumulate soft dollars. He seems like a nice, engaging guy and I wish him luck. But he is about to step into the fetid cauldron that is national US politics. None emerge unscathed or uncorrupted.
