Dear George:[Patterson, Performing Arts Critic]
Although the dust hasn't settled, and I have not yet fully recovered from the experience, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your support of me and my production of A Streetcar Named Desire. I truly appreciate the publicity that you provided for the show, and am certain that the show would not have been the enormous success that it was without your help.
FYI: For those who didn't get a chance to see it the first time, we will be restaging the same production (same cast, music, costumes and set, etc.) for six performances in March, 1998 at Le Petit Theatre in conjunction with the Tennessee Williams Festival. Some time in early February, '98 we will be sending out our press kits for that show.
Until then, many, many thanks for helping us spread the word. We created quite a buzz, and hope to do so again. Yours very truly,
--Michael Arata
Dear Editor:
After living here for seven months, I have found Austin to be the most "redneck", homophobic, Ku Klux Klan, hillbilly place I have ever lived. I have had countless such experiences with the homeless and famous crusty/drug-crazed Guadalupe Street drag crowd, in the work place, in apartment complexes and rooming houses, while riding and waiting for the buses and etc.
A few years ago, I had a very similar frightening experience while living in Sacramento, California. Like Austin, it was being promoted everywhere else as a tolerant liberal to moderate city politically. Because of my experiences both there and here, I will never live in another capitol city again when I finally decide to leave Austin. After moving to Sacramento, I did find out that Rush Limbaugh (who was born and raised in Missouri) likes to call that city his hometown and he did become a famous conservative/ right-wing commentator while living there.
Many "rednecks" and homophobes here like to embrace environ-mental, homelessness and other such issues to make themselves appear to be liberal.
After living in Houston for nearly four years befo re moving here, I found the Montrose and inner-city there to be far more tolerant, liberal and much less homophobic.
I have found living in "redneck" homophobic Austin to be very depressing and frustrating. The only reason I continue to tough it out and stay here is because Austin has the best job market of anywhere I have lived. I have easily been able to get and keep a stable job ever since a few days after my arrival. I do have to contend with a lot of subtley disguised and even overt homophobia, bigoted, racist, right-wing, neo-Nazi (fascist).
I do believe that gay people should know about the horror that they are in for when they think they are making a great and proper decision to move to Austin. I fully realize that my statement is contrary to the many tolerant liberal positives that are being promoted by various media sources nationwide. Sincerely,
--David Raffield
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