\u201cI don’t know how many years he’s gonna have left,\u201d Lozada said. \u201cSo I think being able to make a film whilst he’s still alive is important. I’m glad that we’ve been able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Widely known for popularizing armadillos as the Austin music scene mascot, Franklin said he first encountered the animal on a hunting trip with his father when he was about 15.<\/p>\n
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Lorianne Willett<\/p>\n
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KUT News<\/p>\n
One of Franklin’s armadillo paintings hangs in his apartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw an armadillo on the other side of this pasture, slipped under the barbed wire and started creeping up on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The mammal then stood on its hind legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018Oh no, it’s seen me,\u201d Franklin continued. \u201cSo then I keep getting closer to it, and it walked between my legs \u2014 in the woods, in hunting season \u2014 and it\u2019s a dinosaur!\u201d<\/p>\n
Franklin took that encounter and incorporated the animal in the poster art for Armadillo World Headquarters, a music hall he opened with Mike Tolleson and Eddie Wilson in 1970. The venue drew crowds from across the globe, and artists like Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground and The Clash. It was recognized for fusing absurdity with music \u2014 a quality derived heavily from Franklin\u2019s uninhibited nature.<\/p>\n
Cut to 1973 when Leea Mechling first met Franklin at the venue. He was dance-roller skating in women\u2019s pompom skates, wearing shorts with a white 1950s petticoat on his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustin would not be the place it is today without him,\u201d Mechling said in the film. \u201cHe is actually the original person who made Austin weird.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mechling worked at AWHQ from 1974 until its closing in 1980. She is now the executive director of Austin\u2019s Museum of Popular Culture, which displays Franklin\u2019s artwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat’s important, people will see [in the film], is that while he’s gotten older, his viewpoints have not aged,\u201d she told KUT. \u201cHe really is influenced by the world around him, and it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jim Franklin<\/p>\n
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Concertposterauction.com <\/p>\n
A 1970s poster by Franklin advertises the grand opening of the Armadillo World Headquarters.<\/p>\n
But while Franklin hasn\u2019t changed, Austin has. Mechling said she has watched the city\u2019s gentrification squeeze out people who defined its culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got to do things differently,\u201d she said. \u201cNow that the damage has been done, the city and people are trying to backtrack and find ways to help that, but it’s probably too little too late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the changes, Mechling said, once people come into contact with \u201cthe real Austin,\u201d they want to be part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s alive and well,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like the armadillo: It’s gone underground a bit, but it\u2019s starting to poke its head out again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lozada said he initially wanted the film to focus on the city\u2019s gentrification, but shifted gears.<\/p>\n
“I’ve kind of come to realize that it has been such a huge amount of time since the Armadillo World Headquarters was around,” he said. “[Austin’s] changing very quickly, but I do think that there is still a lot of the interesting parts of old Austin that are still around, if you’re looking hard enough.”<\/p>\n
Franklin still finds slivers of the Austin he remembers, including the band Mau Mau Chaplains that performs at Flamingo Cantina on Wednesdays. He said the group often plays his favorite song, \u201cRam, Goat, Liver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes they’ll \u2026 say, \u2018Hey, Franklin’s here, so we need to do this song to close out the set,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really honorable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lozada said Franklin deserves much more monetary success for his work than he\u2019s received. He hopes this film encourages people to \u201crespect, understand and appreciate\u201d Franklin\u2019s art.<\/p>\n
Mechling said that while you can’t show Franklin\u2019s depth in such a short film, the documentary will give viewers a taste of what he means to Austin\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis willingness to take chances and go where no man has gone before is a great legacy to leave to inspire other people to take a chance on themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A framed poster featuring an intricately drawn armadillo hangs in an apartment overlooking Lady Bird Lake. That armadillo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[14703,14705,132,14001,134,133,14704],"class_list":["post-19210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-armadillo-man","tag-armadillo-world-headquarters","tag-austin","tag-austin-film-festival","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-jim-franklin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}