Austin's Winchell: Gossip Isn't for Wimps

Controversial column was like Michael Barnes' "Out and About," only more gay

May 1998. They had never been connected romantically before.

I knew as early as the seventh grade that I was destined to be a celebrity columnist. All my friends used to pretend they were the Rolling Stones. I used to fantasize that I knew the Rolling Stones.- introductory “Austin Inside/Out” column, AAS, Nov. 22, 1997

During my seven months in Dallas purgatory, from Nov. ‘95 until June ‘96, the pop music critic role at the Statesman was assumed by Chris Riemenschneider, a former Round Rockian in his early 20s, originally from Minnesota with that accent that never goes away. Meeting with Chris and fellow Upper Midwesterner Don McLeese (Chicago) for our ambitious “Was the ‘90’s Boom a Bust for Austin Music?” project sounded like a Fargo table read.

Back at the Statesman fulltime, it didn’t take long to realize that I had a couple of minor issues holding me back as a music critic: I didn’t like to listen to new records or interview musicians. My tastes were not adventurous, but three stars is never having to say you’re sorry. (Unless you bought a Sebadoh record on my recommendation. Do you have PayPal?)

With the ambitious Riemenschneider covering the music beat with enthusiasm, I felt the freedom to pitch an idea I’d kept for months in a notebook with the words “Riviera-On-the-Range” scrawled on the cover. That title was an homage/ripoff to/of San Francisco three-dot columnist Herb Caen, who was syndicated in the Honolulu newspaper when I was growing up. He called S.F. “Baghdad-by-the-Bay.” I didn’t get the reference then or know the people he was writing about, but loved the idea that you could make a living going to bars and writing stuff down.

The Statesman earlier had a popular society column by recently-retire Lee Kelly, but mine would have more celebrity gossip and roasting of local titans. Late ‘90s Austin, with recent arrivals Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey, plus the Big Four of local cinema- Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge and frequent visitor Quentin Tarrantino (plus Louis Black, “the Fifth Beatle”) was ready for a column of bitchy reporting.

I didn’t exactly pitch it that way. Editor-in-chief Rich Oppel was a pure journalism snob who didn’t go for flash. He’d rather the paper be boring and accurate than compelling and, “hey, Michael Douglas’s people say he was filming in Montana on Friday and couldn’t possibly have been making out with a GSD&M exec at Mezzaluna.” When I brought up writing a three-dot column to Oppel, he sneered, “I can’t believe you want to write dots-and-dashes.” He didn’t have to say, “Why don’t you put on a dress?” Chronicling the goings-on of the rich or beautiful was not a job for a grown man with sailor tattoos.

“Let’s have lunch with (managing editor Kathy) Warbelow and (features editor) Ed Crowell, and you can show us what you’re thinking of,” Oppel said.

I chose Hernandez Cafe on E. Sixth Street because it had been a location on MTV’s quirky Austin Stories earlier in the year. That was the kind of stuff I’d be writing about. My audience of three (one below my maximum for easy public speaking), was impressed when I grabbed a display easel and started laying out pages over “Enchilada Plate $6.95.” (No wildcat, I was a semi-regular who had earlier arranged to use the easel for my presentation.) The proposed column had a new name: “Austin Inside/Out.”

As soon as we were done ordering I went into my spiel. “You know why everyone reads the horoscope every day?,” I said, standing next to the display. “It’s because it’s usually the only thing in the paper about them.” My column would have something of personal connection to almost every reader, whether they got to work in a $30,000 car or a $200,000 bus. “Maybe they'll see the name, in bold, of someone they know. Maybe it'll be an item about a favorite restaurant. Everybody loves to read about famous athletes or actors sharing their airspace.” From high-society charity functions to the grit of inner-city life, “Austin Inside/Out'' would be true to its name.

As the kids say, I killed it! The Statesman agreed to publish the column every Saturday and see how it goes. After a few months, Tuesday was added, plus I wrote a one-topic column for XL every week. I retained the “pop music critic” title, and did various reviews, but Riemenschneider held the beat down.

Until my column got the beatdown in March of 2000. “A public flogging” was how the Chronicle referred to the final column, which was written by editors yet contained my mug shot. Why didn’t I quit? The answer to all your questions about the Statesman is health insurance.

In the first two years of “AI/O,” I’d become the least-favorite writer of several powerful people in town. I called out one of Susan Dell’s best friends for showing off her new chimp at parties. I got into the acrimony at Texas Monthly, when a staff writer called publisher Mike Levy “a rich white boy” in a letter to the Statesman. When Levy gave actor Chris Noth a tour of the offices, I had him point out, “and over here, uncomfortably close to the men’s room, is Joe Nick Patoski’s new desk."

I thought it was harmless fun, but the higher-ups got tired of fielding irate calls. Even former mayor Roy Butler, who had schmoozed me with lunch at the Headliners Club when I was starting, was not a fan. “It’s used to be a good thing to see your name in the society column,” he told me after I called for an item. “Now the first thing I do is make sure my name’s not in it.”

I had some big scoops- a lawyer named Liz Lambert buying the seedy San Jose Motel, Ashley Judd having dinner at Guero’s with racecar driver Dario Franchitti, who would become her husband, and every fucking bowel movement of Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock- but only one item got me on Hard Copy. You have to understand that when I reported that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were shacked up at the Four Seasons in May 1998, their names had never been linked. There was no evidence they’d even met. I was struttin’ around the newsroom after that. “You think two celebrities can fuck in this town without me knowing about it?!”

Oppel asked me, in more an awed than accusatory way, how I was 100% sure that it was Brad Pitt that I spotted with Ms. Aniston. “You’re never 100% sure unless their representatives confirm it, and they wouldn’t, of course.” This answer didn’t sit well with Oppel. “Well, you better be sure or risk losing all credibility,” he said, to which I replied-I will take a polygraph- “credibility is overrated.” I swear Oppel’s eyeballs wiggled.

I had entree to Oppel’s office when he didn’t look busy, and as time wore on we mostly talked about toning down the mean spiritedness of the column. By we I mean he. I knew the spirit in which the column was written and it wasn’t mean. It was to entertain- and who better to take the hits for everybody than the privileged? See, I should’ve just thought that, not written it in a column. Warbelow asked me to clarify my equalizer mindset and I couldn’t talk my way out of it.

Then comes SXSW in March 2000. I was always a workhorse, but it got nuts during SXSW, which I always considered my Super Bowl- if the players drank heavily during the game. I not only wrote my three weekly columns, but daily wrapups for the front page and XL’s special SX editions- nine pieces in five days. Most were written buzzed because, to quote Zorba the Scribe, “there’s only one sin that God won’t forgive and that’s if free drinks are offered and you don’t imbibe.” What’s wrong with experiencing SXSW as the average badgewearing, to get a more realistic portrayal? Oh, the rationalizations go deep in mid-March. But being overworked and overserved is no excuse for inacuracity in journalism.

The thing that led to the suspension of “Austin Inside/Out” was an item about Matt’s El Rancho towing cars of festgoers who packed Maria’s Taco Xpress across the street. When I arrived at Maria’s for the annual Saturday blowout, a friend said, “I hope you didn’t park at Matt’s, they’re towing.” It turned out, however, that they had a lot attendant who kept Maria’s crowd from parking there, lest they be towed. My item’s insinuation was that Matt’s was jealous because Maria’s was doing 10 times the business during SXSW.

Matt’s was understandably livid, as was Warbelow. After she chewed me out I called every towing company in town to see if they removed any cars from Matt’s parking lot during SXSW. Not a one. When I went to pick up my kid, and my ex-wife opened the door, I said “I fucked up,” with tears in my eye.

My next column announced a hiatus. "While the column has been an entertaining and unique feature ... our goal is to make sure it ... meets our standards of accuracy, fairness and tone,” read the editor’s note. “In recent weeks, some items in the column failed to meet those standards." It didn’t matter that the Matt’s gaffe was in the XL party column, not “Austin Inside/Out.”

Read here to see why the suspension ended up being a good thing.

The break was only a few months, with a Saturday-only return. The barbs were history, which was just as well. Once I brought up the power and popularity of Walter Winchell as a model for success, and Oppel said that only one mourner attended Winchell’s funeral, his daughter.

Well, I never glorified Sen. Joseph McCarthy nor received tips from J. Edgar Hoover, but I got the point. I’ve spent so much of my time and energy on this meaningless bullshit, and what did it get me?

In June 2001, Riemenschneider was hired away by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where he’s still the music critic, with a recent book about legendary Twin Cities venue First Avenue. His departure left a hole in our music coverage that I was happy to give up the column to fill. That reassignment lasted about a year until new full-time critic Joe Gross was hired.

Back as a features writer, I started doing primary research on a sweet-singing, zither-playing East Texas preacher named Washington Phillips. Black Texas gospel pioneers of the 1920’s became my thing for awhile, but when Tree of Life, brought the Brad Pitt- Angelina Jolie brood to my street in Smithville in 2008, I got right back into the celebrity gossip.

MORE: A hefty “Austin Inside/Out” sampler.