{"id":369368,"date":"2026-07-11T10:53:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/369368\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:53:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:53:36","slug":"linklaters-austin-35-years-later-the-daily-texan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/369368\/","title":{"rendered":"Linklater\u2019s Austin, 35 Years Later \u2013 The Daily Texan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two films premiered on Independence Day weekend in 1991: \u201cTerminator 2,\u201d the first film to surpass a budget of $100 million, and a $23,000 indie experiment with no plot and virtually no professional actors. \u201cSlacker,\u201d which turned 35 on Sunday, follows a revolving door of eccentrics, most of them played by director Richard Linklater\u2019s musician friends, through a lazy summer day in West Campus. Over endless cigarettes and beer cans, job-averse conspiracy theorists, anarchists and wannabe philosophers hold court at long-gone haunts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Austinites, Sean O\u2019Neal wrote in his own \u201cSlacker\u201d retrospective<\/a> for Texas Monthly, carry an indefinite attitude of \u201cyou just missed it.\u201d It\u2019s not hard to feel some kind of longing while watching the film\u2019s endearing wanderers stroll through West Campus in an era that actually seems to embody the anti-establishment, outsider ethos Austin is struggling to hold on to through its Silicon Hills transformation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Daily Texan stopped by some of the filming locations to find out what we just missed \u2014 and what\u2019s still standing. <\/p>\n



\n\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The Castilian is pictured on July 6, 2026. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Linklater opens the now cult-classic with a rant to his cab driver (R.I.P. Roy\u2019s Taxi) about a dream he had on the bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery choice or decision you make \u2014 the thing you choose not to do fractions off and becomes its own reality and just goes on from there forever,\u201d Linklater\u2019s character, listed in the cast as \u201cShould Have Stayed at Bus Station,\u201d says in the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 2004 commentary on the film, Linklater said when conceptualizing \u201cSlacker,\u201d he asked himself, \u201cwhat if characters just spoke their interior monologues out loud?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The corner of 24th Street and Nueces is pictured on July 6, 2026. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

At Nueces and 24th streets, a man runs his mother over and speeds off before a couple of unhurried passersby discuss what to do next. Linklater, often inspired by stories he encounters in real life, said he got the idea for the scene from a local legend tying a matricidal hit-and-run to the famous Janis Joplin<\/a> house, where he lived with \u201cSlacker\u201d cinematographer Lee Daniel at the time. When the police show up to arrest \u201cHit-and-Run Son,\u201d he complies with the same unbothered affect that gives the movie\u2019s many \u201cslackers\u201d their puzzling charm. <\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The steps of University Baptist Church are pictured on July 7, 2026. The musician, played by songwriter Keith McCormack, plays \u201cA Disturbed Young Man With a Tan\u201d in the movie, one of Linklater\u2019s favorite songs. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)
\n\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"An empty lot on Guadalupe Street, which used to house Captain Quack\u2019s Bakery and Coffeehouse, is pictured on July 6, 2026. Director Linklater claims most of the \u201cSlacker\u201d cast were Quackenbush regulars. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Before it was an empty lot, the block above Guadalupe and 21st streets was home to the beloved record store Sound Exchange and Captain Quackenbush\u2019s, a coffee shop downstairs from the original location of Linklater\u2019s Austin Film Society, now in a plaza off Interstate 35 in North Austin.<\/p>\n

Inside, \u201cDostoyevsky Wannabe,\u201d played by Linklater\u2019s former roommate Brecht Andersch, delivers the film\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s ever written a great work about the immense effort required in order not to create,\u201d he said. \u201cCould it be that in this passivity, I shall find my freedom?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"704 22nd Street, previously a student co-op, is pictured on July 6, 2026. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

On the way from Captain Quackenbush\u2019s to a co-op at 704 W. 22nd Street, Jerry Delony, or \u201cBeen on the Moon Since the 50\u2019s,\u201d gives perhaps the most memorable of the film\u2019s unsolicited monologues, spouting moon landing conspiracies Linklater borrowed from an off-center screenwriter friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such one-sided interactions, Linklater said, were not uncommon on the Drag in those days, when \u201cdragworms\u201d would launch into wild, but ultimately fascinating, rants without warning. <\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The \u201cHi, How Are You\u201d mural is pictured on July 6, 2026. The couple in \u201cSlacker\u201d pass in front of the wall that would become Daniel Johnston\u2019s iconic mural. The wall is from Sound Exchange, which was an independent record store and live music venue that closed in the early 2000s. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)
\n\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The corner of 24th and San Antonio streets are pictured on July 6, 2026. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In front of Les Amis Caf\u00e9 at 24th and San Antonio streets, now a Starbucks, the late Charles Gunning, a \u201cnotorious character around Austin,\u201d according to Linklater, who worked the door at a number of music joints in town, bums a couple cigarettes and takes questions from a small interview crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hell with the kind of work you have to do to earn a living,\u201d Gunning says. \u201cAll it does is fill the bellies of the pigs who exploit us. Hey, look at me. I\u2019m making it. I may live badly, but at least I don\u2019t have to work to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The UT tower is pictured on July 6, 2026. Linklater based the botched burglary scene on a short story by friend Jack Meredith. Mike Laird, who plays the burglar, was a former student of Mackey\u2019s at UT. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

When \u201cOld Anarchist,\u201d played by the late Louis Mackey, a former UT philosophy professor, finds a hapless burglar in his home, he assures the would-be thief he has nothing of value to steal before offering to take him for a walk instead. As they pace in front of the main building, Mackey lectures on anarchy, lamenting his absence during Charles Whitman\u2019s 1966 mass shooting carried out from the top of the UT Tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis town has always had its share of crazies,\u201d Mackey said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to live anywhere else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Linklater said he felt an apocalyptic undercurrent in the art of the \u201880s. \u201cSlacker,\u201d though seemingly indicative of general disinterest in politics on first watch, ultimately captures that mindset in the context of Austin\u2019s left-wing counterculture, featuring characters preaching anti-capitalism, distaste for mass incarceration and, of course, anarchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWithdrawing in disgust,\u201d a character listed as \u201cCadillac Crook\u201d reads off an \u201cOblique Strategies\u201d card, \u201cis not the same thing as apathy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"From \u201cSlacker\u201d directed by David Linklater, publicly accessed on YouTube.
\n\"\"The side of Lamberts on Guadalupe Street is pictured on July 7, 2026. Local singer and DJ Wammo claims there\u2019s a rumor Madonna stormed out of a movie theatre when that scene played during a trailer for \u201cSlacker\u201d. (Ysa Mendoza<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In front of one of the many warehouses that used to populate Second Street, now a hub of hotels and upscale restaurants, Teresa Taylor of legendary Austin oddball punk group, The Butthole Surfers, tries to sell a Madonna pap smear to Stella Weir and Scott Marcus of then ultra-hip indie band, Glass Eye. Taylor, who passed in 2023, became the face of the film as it gained cult status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like so many of the vignettes in \u201cSlacker,\u201d the scene stitches together stories and ideas Linklater heard in passing with the easy charisma of his novice actors to create a particularly Austinite magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s cinema everywhere,\u201d Linklater said. \u201cYou just have to capture it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two films premiered on Independence Day weekend in 1991: \u201cTerminator 2,\u201d the first film to surpass a budget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-369368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369368","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=369368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}