Taco Vampires

I just stopped by the El Primo taco trailer* at 1st and Live Oak, one of my favorite places to get breakfast tacos for lunch in Austin. Today I went with bean, egg and cheese as well as migas, ham, egg and cheese with a ton of hot sauce...well, not literally 2,000 pounds of hot sauce, but, you know, a lot of it...because it is really good.

One of the great things about El Primo, besides its friendly owner, low prices and delicious authentic taco goodness, is that it sits in front of Once Over, which is one of my favorite (and one of the best) coffee shops in south Austin or anywhere. The 78704 area of south Austin is particularly blessed with an abundance of pretty good-to-good local coffee joints (which will be the subject of another post later on in 2011).

Prior to my stop at El Primo I went into Once Over to score some of their epic** coffee. While standing in line in front of me, a couple*** was ordering coffee and having an entertaining conversation with the usual afternoon barista dude, who's name escapes me at the moment because I'm kind of a jerk about remembering the names of people that I've talked to more than a dozen times.

While I was standing there, the cool barista dude**** mentioned that he was on his sixth shot of espresso for the day, which prompted the person filling the guy in front of me to remark that on the seventh shot of espresso, half of a person's blood stream turns into coffee*****. To which, the barista replied that he'd had some tacos that morning, which likely evening things out. He then continued this purely rational thought by stating that the same thing probably happens upon consuming three tacos in one sitting, that half of your blood stream turns into tacos. I laughed, but then my mood sobered when I realized a frightening ramification of this: What if there are taco vampires, who would wait around a tex-mex restaurant or taco truck trailer until they see them eat three or more tacos, then ambush them and consume their delicious taco blood.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that I have only a limited interest in the paranormal and virtually no interest in the vampire/werewolf/whatever genre of novels and films based on said novels that are so popular with a large percentage of the younger female population (and the guys who feign interest in order to make-out with them, etc.). I'm not in any way what you could describe as "goth" and my interest in Robert Smith is limited to "the three-or-so Cure songs that aren't depressing". As far as Twilight goes (I can't believe I'm writing about this) I usually refer to my friend Justin Dent, who once summed up his reservations with: "You know what happened the last time a Mormon wrote a book about a dream they had". However, the greater question remains. How can we be so sure that we're not vulnerable to this? Can taco werewolves vampires be detected by those new TSA body scanners? These are the questions that need to be answered.

If taco vampires are real, is eating more than two tacos at Torchy's, Tacodeli, Maria's Taco Xpress or another Austin purveyor of tacos worth risking a potential taco-vampircal assault? There is only one possible answer: of course it is. Tacos are delicious.

Thanks for reading, and keep Austin whatever,

- Jordan

__________________

Notes:

*Food trucks in Austin are typically called "trailers", which represents an irony-based level of affinity for the redneck culture that most people move to Austin to get away from. See also: Uncle Billy's

**The word "epic" has apparently been banned by (probably) the same people who led to the cancellation of Arrested Development because they didn't get it, or refused to watch it.

***I assumed they were a couple because they were one male human and one female human of roughly the same age standing next to each other, which is about as close to dating someone as I tend to get much of the time

****No sarcasm here, this dude really is an epic cool person.

*****It's science

El Blog Nuevo

I've decided to start this site to provide a better focus for my writing and observations concerning the great State Capital of Texas that so many people know and love. My Old Blog has been around for a long time, and was updated so infrequently, that it no longer reflects what I wish to write about. This new blog will be full of entries giving my (hopefully sometimes funny) take on Austin, the surrounding metro area (mainly San Marcos, I guess) and the Hill Country as well as a very Austin-centered take on Texas as a whole.

Topics will be groundbreaking for this area and will include (but are not limited to) things that have never been covered in an Austin blog before, such as:

• The local music scene, venues and festivals
• Transportation and urban planning issues
• Young people 
• Culture, whatever that means
• Point-counterpoint arguments over the definition of "hipster"
• Wondering where the old hippies have gone, 
• Where to find the best breakfast tacos to be eaten for lunch
• Leslie
• Complaining about how Austin has "changed" and "used to be better", 
• California transplants and their alleged money
• Why Gary Bradley sucks
• Blaming everything on Tom Delay
• Noise complaint issues in Central Austin
• Talking about how San Marcos is starting to resemble the way Austin used to be, but not in a way that encourages too many people to move there and turn it into the Austin of today
• Desperate attempts to get people in Austin to notice my nearby alma mater, Texas State
• Gentrification on the East Side
• No mention of the fact that I spent most of my childhood in Belton
• Complaining about people who complain about cyclists on public streets
• Vague discussions of topics such as "new urbanism", "smart growth" and "sense of place" (whatever they mean)
• Trying to think up new reasons to have more 5K runs and festivals (might ask Leslie for ideas the next time I see him* walking down my street).

Perhaps all of these conflicts and problems related to the aforementioned topics will be solved now that someone is finally mentioning them in a local blog. I am hopeful that people who know me and other people who just think I'm another self-important opinionated person with internet opinions will bookmark this page and check it hourly on their fancy smart phones**.

Have a good evening and keep Austin whatever,

- Jordan Stewart

*While determinations of his gender are, understandably, the subject of considerable debate, Leslie has made it known that he still wishes to be considered a man.

**If you have an iphone, I'll understand if AT&T makes it difficult to read this on a consistent basis