"Wedding Bells Are Ringing"

Ex Austin Dispatches                No. 3                     February/March 1999


    No, not for me. My cousin, John Kiser, and his fiancee, Melissa Tidwell, wed at the Alliance Bible Church in Hillsboro, Ore., on Feb. 20. It was a lovely wedding and everyone had a good time. Almost all of John's (and my) relatives attended. Of particular note was the multimedia presentation about the couple, which occurred during the wedding ceremony. Also of particular note was the bride's ability to go through with the service and reception while enduring whatever flu is going around this season. That's true love.

    News about this wedding, of course, is a change in tone from the usual carping in "Ex Austin Dispatches." Think of issue No. 3 as an informally themed "happy issue" (with nods to zine mavens Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair).1 Soon enough, I'll return to more angst filled tales of despair at trying to find a job, let alone one that pays, and about my likely return to school full time while living at home with my folks.

    Speaking of which (or who), we lunched at McDonald's before the wedding, to avoid sitting through a highly formal ceremony while impatient and hungry. I hadn't eaten at McDonald's in four years. The last time was in Carson City, Nev., at the peak of "Pulp Fiction"'s popularity. I tried to be clever and asked for a "Royale with Cheese."2 The clerks, young enough to know what I was talking about, didn't. Didn't taste very good then, either.

    In the meantime, I did acquire one more unnecessary bauble in my life. Some distributor sent a promotional package for John Waters' latest flick, "Pecker."3 The package included a videocassette and a soundtrack CD. We still haven't watched the video. I traded the CD at the great indie record store Happy Trails in downtown Corvallis (consider this a free plug) for the complete Atco recordings of Guitar Slim.4 Just what I need for my job search: obscure '50s blues.

1 Frauenfelder, Mark, et al. Happy Mutant Handbook. Ed. Frauenfelder et al. New York City: Riverhead Books, 1995.
2 Pulp Fiction: A Quentin Tarantino Screenplay. New York City: Miramax Books/Hyperion, 1994: 15.
3 Kahn, Gwynne. "John Waters." Retro Hell, 242-243.
4 "Guitar Slim." NRSE, 400.

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