Juan Apagado Spends a Lot of Time Wandering Around Town

We inadvertently kept it real Texas on Memorial Day by hitting up the local Tex-Mex spot and then hitting up the surprisingly thorough DVD section at Barnes and Noble where we decided on copping "Slacker," Richard Linklater's chronicle of a day in Austin.

Don't get it twisted. "Slacker" isn't "Dazed and Confused," despite the fact that both document generations of disaffected youth. It's also not to be confused with "Slackers," the Devon Sawa star-making vehicle. For better or worse, the film that put Linklater on the map (sort of) is still regarded as the OG "indie" flick. But for me, it's cool because it's like a time capsule to the early 90's. One of the dudes was sporting a dope Batman T-shirt that I used to rock ca. '89. Dunkin' Donuts cereal makes a brief cameo. And then there's the drummer from the Butthole Surfers showing off her newly acquired (and above pictured) Madonna Pap Smear. But it's probably not for everybody. Linklater's intent here was to structure the plot around loosely connected ideas interwoven by creative transitions. In short, it's something of an experiment and you'll probably get more out of it if you view it as such. If you like plot, don't come around here. But if you like stories, Linklater's got a chair and a beer coozie with your name on it.