Chris Riley
Where plugging comes with a price
People are always asking us to help plug something of theirs—an upcoming show, a new record, some book they wrote. Because we’re not in the pandering business, we think there should be a trade-off. Debaser allows these folks to plug whatever they want, with one caveat: They also have to tell us something embarrassing about themselves. This week, Place 1 candidate for Austin City Council Chris Riley—he of ubiquitous blue-and-green sign fame—met with Decider to talk about how he plans to help keep Austin vibrant and the time he hid from the most terrifying authority figure of all.
Decider: Okay, we're all ears. Why we should sign on with your campaign?
Chris Riley: I think there's a lot that we can achieve, even during this downturn, by harnessing the energy of our citizens and making sure that we position Austin for the future. We can take advantage of the economic downturn to make adjustments to the way we think about things, and position our city to be what we want it to be going forward. With the active involvement of our citizens, we could see a city that is as cool and weird and creative as we want Austin to be. There's a lot of opportunity here.
D: You talk a lot about the arts, culture, and entertainment scenes in Austin, and how to keep them vibrant. What can you do from city council to support them?
CR: I'd support an effort to reorganize our city to be more attentive to the music industry. It's an important economic engine. I think that, to a great extent, we'll be able to accomplish that by reorganizing staff that we already have working on those issues. We'll have a mechanism in place for addressing a whole array of issues related to live music, including concerns about noise in neighborhoods. More importantly, they'll have a forum for addressing the musicians' own needs, a virtual watercooler where musicians can connect to find the resources they need, ranging from technical help to health care, and all the other issues addressed by the Live Music Task Force. One thing that the task force pointed out that's really helpful is that other cities across the country already pay that kind of attention to their industry. Here, we've seen that industry arise of its own volition without the support of the city. It's time we started paying better attention to it.
D: All political candidates embarrass themselves at one point or another during their campaigns. Now it's your turn.
CR: When I was in fourth grade, I took Spanish classes along with a few other students. It was a small class, maybe eight or 10 kids, and it met before school started. In a small, informal setting like that, we wound up just horsing around a lot, and we had a cool teacher that put up with it. I don't remember how this started, but we got into a habit of hiding in the classroom before the teacher arrived. The desks had little cubbyholes beneath them, and I found out that by putting two chairs close to each other, I could actually lie inside the cubbyhole. It was the perfect hiding place.
So I'm hiding there one day, waiting for the teacher to come, and eventually the door opens. And I don't see my teacher's skinny legs—I see the pants legs of the principal coming into the room. I immediately broke into a cold sweat. I guess the principal was covering because our teacher was out of town. I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed there. The principal went ahead and taught the other kids, and I just stayed there under those chairs, quaking. He came right by the chairs, and I swear he paused and turned in my direction. When you're in fourth grade, the principal is this big authority figure, and I was sure I'd been caught. But he wound up leaving, and I just stayed there. And that fear—of not knowing what to do, and of being caught—was the most ridiculous, embarrassing thing that I remember from that whole period. I'm not sure exactly what effect it still has, but the fact that it remains with me means it definitely made an imprint.
Chris Riley: I think there's a lot that we can achieve, even during this downturn, by harnessing the energy of our citizens and making sure that we position Austin for the future. We can take advantage of the economic downturn to make adjustments to the way we think about things, and position our city to be what we want it to be going forward. With the active involvement of our citizens, we could see a city that is as cool and weird and creative as we want Austin to be. There's a lot of opportunity here.
D: You talk a lot about the arts, culture, and entertainment scenes in Austin, and how to keep them vibrant. What can you do from city council to support them?
CR: I'd support an effort to reorganize our city to be more attentive to the music industry. It's an important economic engine. I think that, to a great extent, we'll be able to accomplish that by reorganizing staff that we already have working on those issues. We'll have a mechanism in place for addressing a whole array of issues related to live music, including concerns about noise in neighborhoods. More importantly, they'll have a forum for addressing the musicians' own needs, a virtual watercooler where musicians can connect to find the resources they need, ranging from technical help to health care, and all the other issues addressed by the Live Music Task Force. One thing that the task force pointed out that's really helpful is that other cities across the country already pay that kind of attention to their industry. Here, we've seen that industry arise of its own volition without the support of the city. It's time we started paying better attention to it.
D: All political candidates embarrass themselves at one point or another during their campaigns. Now it's your turn.
CR: When I was in fourth grade, I took Spanish classes along with a few other students. It was a small class, maybe eight or 10 kids, and it met before school started. In a small, informal setting like that, we wound up just horsing around a lot, and we had a cool teacher that put up with it. I don't remember how this started, but we got into a habit of hiding in the classroom before the teacher arrived. The desks had little cubbyholes beneath them, and I found out that by putting two chairs close to each other, I could actually lie inside the cubbyhole. It was the perfect hiding place.
So I'm hiding there one day, waiting for the teacher to come, and eventually the door opens. And I don't see my teacher's skinny legs—I see the pants legs of the principal coming into the room. I immediately broke into a cold sweat. I guess the principal was covering because our teacher was out of town. I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed there. The principal went ahead and taught the other kids, and I just stayed there under those chairs, quaking. He came right by the chairs, and I swear he paused and turned in my direction. When you're in fourth grade, the principal is this big authority figure, and I was sure I'd been caught. But he wound up leaving, and I just stayed there. And that fear—of not knowing what to do, and of being caught—was the most ridiculous, embarrassing thing that I remember from that whole period. I'm not sure exactly what effect it still has, but the fact that it remains with me means it definitely made an imprint.
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