@ZackTeibloom If you go to concerts regularly in Chicago or Austin, you know Thax Douglas. The only rock n’ roll poet around. Strands of hair from his gray beard have shed onto his inside-out 3XL sweatshirt we meet at an IHOP 6 blocks from the art gallery Thax works and lives in. He sleeps on the floor. He likes it that way. He’s slept on the floor for years. He just feels more comfortable there.
Thax had trouble getting comfortable at IHOP, as we moved booths due to a draft and switched sides because the sunlight bouncing off car windshields in the parking lot reflected into his visibly smudged bifocals. He seems comfortable in Austin though. He hasn’t worked in 12 years, he doesn’t own anything and doesn’t travel, but he’s happy to be in Austin reading his poetry before bands take the stage on an almost daily basis.
Just look at his schedule of his readings in a sample week in the first month he’d been here: Oct. 25th: Disco Doom, Built to Spill, Oct. 26th: Underground Railroad to Candyland, Oct. 27th Givers, Dirty Projectors, Oct. 28th: Sea Wolf, Oct. 30th: Rachel Goodrich, Oct. 31st: The Black Angels. The 52 year-old estimates he reads 25 nights a month and has to remind himself to take a night off. Did I mention he doesn’t even get paid for any of these gigs? Read the rest of this entry »