a love letter to Austin’s honky tonks

Just try walking onto the dancefloor of the Continental Club, the Broken Spoke, Sam’s Town Point, Whitehorse or Sagebrush without feeling connected to all those two-steppers, Western swing dancers, musicians, drinkers, loungers, lonely hearts, and hopeful stars who have danced, played, lived, and loved here.  It can’t be done.  Like Austin itself, these honky tonks welcome anyone in and link everyone to all those who came before.  Here cowgirls dance with tech guys, bikers with lawyers, architects with ranchers, and hipsters with hippies.  All come here to feel alive, to forget, to be twirled around, to find love, to get some exercise, to not be alone, to be held and to hold, to leave behind sorrow, loneliness, hardship, and heartache for a few hours.  Here, even though you missed the roaring outlaw country music at the Armadillo, you are welcomed in.  You enter, you breathe the air of cologne, beer, sweat, rot, and joy, and you breathe in the past.  It flows through you like the music itself - cosmic country, bluegrass, folk, old-time beats, jazz, blues, soul, and swing.  Steel guitars whine, fiddles sing, boots scuffle, and Sunday dresses make weeknight appearances alongside t-shirts and pearl snaps.  When you dance in these honky tonks, you are right here, right now, connected to the past and creating the future.  Throw your head back as you whirl around and watch the lights streak by like shooting stars.  This magical universe stretches across the globe to all who have brought their steps and their instruments here to give birth to this moment’s soul-sparking rhythms of dance and music.  As you move through layers and layers of history, of love and loss, of displacement and re-grounding, you become part of it all.