By Emily Grobe and Forrest Burnson
For Reporting Texas

The band named Austin Heat had just finished its set at the Hole in the Wall, a longtime music hangout in Austin just off the UT campus. Sitting on the back patio, singer Brian Scartocci mulled over his half-eaten Philly cheesesteak.

“To be completely honest, this sandwich was not worth $9,” he said.

The band was not paid to play at the the Hole in the Wall. Nor were the members given any handouts from the grill. Such is the life for one of the scores of bands trying to make it in the Live Music Capital of the World. Austin Heat, whose five members range in age from their mid-20s to their 60s, have their own tale to tell.

Austin Heat plays a combination of soul, rock and funk — yes, similar to a sound heard around the city for decades, most famously promoted by Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan. But in this band’s case, the funk rock sensibilities of Parliament are paired with Beatlesque arrangements, and Scartocci’s voice, reminiscent of Al Green, brings it all together. These are not your father’s Fabulous Thunderbirds.

The group has jammed around Austin for the past three years, picking up gigs downtown, playing the fraternity circuit and the occasional wedding. Now, Austin Heat is on the verge of releasing a new album, and the band members hope to a solidify a bigger fan base.

Singer Brian Scartocci and guitarist Austin Roach of Austin Heat on stage at Club 606 in downtown Austin earlier this month. Photo by Emily Grobe.

Keyboard player Don Burrows played with Joe Ely in the early ’70s. Drummer Dexter Walker regularly fills in for national acts, and played for Willie Nelson and Rick James. Freddie Marshall on bass has opened for the Bee Gees and played alongside Kenny Rogers and James Polk.

The younger members — Scartocci and guitarist Austin Roach – draw much of their inspiration from the experience of the older members.

“The other three grew up in the era of real music, and me and Austin are definitely old souls in that regard,” Scartocci said.

The band members agree that they were lucky enough to find each other and crazy enough to make it work.

Roach and Walker first met about eight years ago when Roach, then 15, was playing gigs at which his parents dropped him off. Walker, 60, was so impressed with Roach’s playing that the two started jamming together. Roach’s college roommate is the son of keyboard player Don Burrows. Walker, Marshall and Burrows crossed paths on the music circuit throughout their roughly three decades of making music. Scartocci, a New Jersey native, was introduced to Marshall over a phone call after dabbling in the Austin scene for a few years.

“I remember when he auditioned over the phone for Freddie,” Walker said during practice recently. “He sang ‘Ain’t Too Proud to Beg’ and we all knew, ‘Dang, that is our guy right there.’ ”

“The guy that put me on the phone asked if I knew that song, and I laughed,” said Scartocci, whose son was named for David Ruffin, who sang lead on The Temptations’ vintage hit. “Of course I knew the song.”

Scartocci is as comfortable singing Motown as he is crooning Sinatra or the wedding reception standards. But the intensity of their rehearsals, held in a run-down house in an otherwise quiet neighborhood, makes it clear that Austin Heat wants to be more than a cover band.

“Certainly singing songs other artists have sang isn’t our idea of what we want to be doing, but it works for now,” Scartocci said before pausing to hear Marshall explain how that last verse should finish a little quicker and with a bit more upswing – “the way [he] used to do it in the ’70s.”

“We certainly know how to make each other better,” Scartocci laughed. And they each agree that starting a band in Austin is “difficult” – in fact, so far it has been trying, according to band members.

“Every show we play we play it our hardest, but if no one is paying attention, it’s really frustrating,” Scartocci said.

And like most bands in the city, they each make their own sacrifices to see it through.

Roach, who graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in electrical engineering, works at a pizza place by day and plays music by night. He isn’t ready for a job where he has to wear a tie, as he puts it, but hopes to put his degree to use and some day open a boutique guitar amplifier company with his father.

“I’m really happy with this band,” Roach said. “It’s really unique, and it kinda freaks me out sometimes. It shouldn’t work as well it does. But it does.”

Late on a Thursday, playing to a marginally non-existent crowd, save friends, girlfriends and bartenders, the band used the time to relax, work through songs and have some fun. But the wait for the established fan base, the first finished album and the flowing funds can be trying.

“We just want to play music and have fun, and we want the audience to connect and have fun too, you know?” Roach said. “It’s hard to get to the next level.”

Getting to the next level means trucking through barely attended shows. It’s frustrating for the older band members, who seem to have less patience for gigs that will not make any money.

“I’m too old for this,” Walker said, before being called back to stage to finish the band’s last song for the dozen audience members at a downtown spot, Club 606.

Back at practice in the house, the band worked on a new song — the first on their second album, a sign of optimism. The floor of the practice space is beer-stained, and the doors were kept open to let air circulate on the balmy spring night.

“We’re drifting, honey,” the band harmonizes at the end of the new song, possibly singing of their future. “We’re drifting to the promised land.”

The four arms of the da Vinci surgical system are controlled by a doctor at a remote station and operate inside the human body. The da Vinci system and other high-tech innovations are revolutionizing how doctors learn and practice medicine. Photo by David Barer.

By David Barer
For Reporting Texas

AUSTIN — Leonardo da Vinci toiled over human and animal bodies 700 years ago, slowly dissecting and analyzing them, with now-antiquated methods he pioneered to advance medical understanding. Today, Leonardo’s name is synonymous with a cutting-edge technology, the da Vinci robotic surgery system, that is fast-forwarding surgical procedures and how young doctors learn about medicine.

It’s a robotic arm that can reduce an aging doctor’s tremors during surgery. It’s a three-dimensional, interactive visualization of a human kidney allowing students to examine the organ’s underside before removing it from a cadaver. It’s a surgical simulation a gynecologist can use to rehearse a hysterectomy technique hundreds of times sans patients.

For all of the benefits, however, such innovations could create new problems: a division between those who can afford the technology and those who can’t, as well as the loss of traditional surgery skills. In addition, doctors are quick to point out that while robotics may be the future, and simulated surgery training for robotics will be more prevalent, the nuances of operating on real people and dissecting actual cadavers aren’t easily replicated.

With high technology “entering into the surgical sciences, you can expect paradigm shifts, or leaps forward,” said Dr. Thomas Payne, an obstetrician gynecologist and medical director at the Texas Institute for Robotic Surgery at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center. Payne also speaks for Intuitive Surgical, the makers of the da Vinci robotic surgery system and the simulators used to train the physicians that use it.

At the forefront of these surgical technologies is the da Vinci robot, a remote-controlled device that allows a doctor to peer inside a patient’s body at 15-times magnification and conduct procedures with joysticks and three machine arms equipped with pincers, scissors, grips, cauterizers and other specialized tools.

The robot could be mistaken for a science fiction torture device, but it might be the best reducer of post-operation pain since Demerol.

In a laparotomy, now considered the traditional method of surgery, surgeons cut a large incision into the abdomen and pull the skin apart to expose the patients’ internal organs. Laparoscopic surgery is the practice of introducing the instruments and a camera into the body through small holes and performing the surgery completely using a display screen. Still, a standard laparotomy procedure could leave a patient in the hospital for several days on narcotics.

The da Vinci is laparoscopy 2.0.

“The amazing thing is that the patients don’t have pain,” said Bill Rowe, an obstetrician and gynecological surgeon at The Woman’s Hospital of Texas in Houston. “Now, under the robot, many times we can send the patient home the same day … at the most the next day, and there is essentially no pain.”

The robot’s precision and how it couples with the body through four finger-sized holes amounts to minimal cutting of the skin, nerve and soft-tissue damage and inflammation – the major causes of post-op pain.

The patient’s comfort comes at steep price for medical practices and hospitals. A single robot costs about $1.5 million. In addition, the maintenance contract for the machine runs about $500,000 for three years. The instruments at the end of the robot’s arms must also be changed after 20 uses, at a cost of $1,000 per instrument. All told, it’s an investment of nearly $3 million per machine.

The big price tag means most hospitals using the da Vinci are large facilities with deep pockets.

On the other hand, you can’t put a value on the life of a patient Rowe said. While the machine creates an artificial environment for the surgeon where movement and vision are enhanced far beyond human capability. Rowe, who says he has no financial interest in da Vinci, looks forward to other companies entering the market to help reduce costs.

“Even for already seasoned doctors … the more you do the robot surgery, the more you lose your old ways to do it without the robot, so that is one of the major disadvantages,” Rowe said. In every procedure there could be complications requiring the doctor to revert to a laparotomy-style operation. A doctor who rarely performs surgery without the robot’s precision and magnified, three-dimensional optics could be stymied by such a complication.

Dr. Michael Breen, an obstetrician gynecologist and director of robotics and minimally invasive surgery at the University of Texas Southwest OB-GYN residency program in Austin, believes the advantages of using robotic technology go to the patient. Going through medical school 31 years ago and watching the profession change Breen has learned that, in medicine, old habits don’t die hard.

Breen says he was intimidated at first sight by the robot-machine but found that after a couple dozen procedures he could perform surgery with more precision than ever before.

“It’s like having Mini-Me dropped inside someone during surgery,” he said. “It’s just a tremendous perspective. I can perform a hysterectomy using both laparoscopic and the da Vinci, so I can choose which one I would use, and I choose to use the da Vinci.

“There certainly are some old techniques that have gone by the wayside,” Breen said. But “all the benefits … for the patient are much more important than being able to say, ‘Well, this is a traditional technique that doctors used for years.’”

Some medical practices cannot be easily replicated by machine or technology, insists Dr. Omid Rahimi, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and director of the human anatomy program there, who oversees the receipt and dissection of cadavers.

A few modern conveniences notwithstanding, Rahimi teaches his students about anatomy the same way that da Vinci learned more than 700 years ago — by dissection. The willed-body program receives between 100 and 150 cadavers each year. Each body is dissected from head to toe over the course of a year or more by Rahimi and his students in the health science center’s basement laboratory.

Yet even in this most time-honored of medical traditions, technological advances are creeping in. Rahimi himself is developing an iPad app that will show snapshots of minute portions of human organs and anatomy to aid students in learning their lessons.

Perhaps the biggest advance of all is the addition of three-dimensional, digital representations of human bodies allowing students to visualize organs and body parts intensively without ever making an incision in a cadaver.

Rahimi sees three-dimensional representations as an excellent enhancement to his student’s learning but doesn’t think digital dissection will ever completely replace the cadaver. Dead bodies prepare a student for the stark realities of the medical profession.

“[Students] have to very quickly come to grips with ideas such as death, dying and, ‘I’m going to work on this cadaver that used to be someone’s lover, a real person, a dynamic, vibrant person,’” Rahimi said. “There is no way that you can convey that, ever, from a computer software or 3-D experience.”

For now, technology appears poised to alter the practice of medicine at an ever-faster clip by augmenting decidedly human skills, not replacing them. According to Breen, a surgeon’s knowledge is tantamount to the instruments he uses.

“The da Vinci won’t do any operation on anyone. It only does what the surgeon does. It’s a mirror of the surgeon’s hands,” Breen said. “The easy part of surgery is the actual scalpel motion. The hard part is knowing when to use it and what it is you’re trying to do with it.”

By Efren Salinas
For Reporting Texas

What does the future hold? It depends on who you are and how you look at it.

Two vastly different sorts of visionaries elaborated on their approaches in Austin recently. One has borrowed a trend from semiconductor technology and imagined the results it would produce in such fields as nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The results are fantastic, even world-changing, though the proof of his imagining remains 20 years away. Another visionary, a generation younger than the first, has exercised his imagination by borrowing bits and pieces from existing technologies to produce products that are fantastic right now.

Famed futurist Ray Kurzweil uses elaborate mathematical projections that produce a picture of what theoretically may be coming down the pipe, while Austin’s William Hurley takes existing technology to innovate new products and ideas.

Kurzweil, a keynote speaker at South by Southwest Interactive in March, is responsible for many inventions, including the technology behind print-to-voice scanners that allow blind people to read. Before attending MIT in the early 70’s, Kurzweil, 64, built the first computer software capable of synthesizing new piano music by analyzing the structure of famous musical compositions.

Most of Kurzweil’s fame comes from his predictions. In his first book, “The Age of Intelligent Machines,” published in 1990, he correctly predicted that emerging, primitive social networks would cause the fall of the Soviet Union and estimated that a computer would beat man in the game of chess in 1998. In fact, IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat the world’s then-reigning champion chess player, Garry Kasparov, in 1997.

Moore’s Law states that computers and devices continue to shrink and double in computational power roughly every two years; in 1999, Kurzweil adapted this paradigm to his research and created the Law of Accelerated Returns (LOAR), which plots the exponential growth of fields such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and bioengineering, to name a few. It has yielded wild predictions.

Having reached a nigh prophet status, Kurzweil draws massive crowds wherever he speaks. The keynote speech at SXSW, moderated by journalist Lev Grossman, was no exception. Dressed in a suit, with no tie and a ring on almost every one of his fingers, Kurzweil walked on stage with the confidence of a heavyweight champion.

“I’m from the ’60s generation, and we sort of invented the counterculture,” Kurzweil said. “I’ve always felt that the hippie movement morphed into the Silicon Valley movement.”

In the not-too-distant future, according to LOAR, advancements in nanotechnology will allow us to inject robotic blood cells into our bodies that will grant us the supernatural ability to stay at the bottom of swimming pools for eight hours, for example. Or how about literally downloading our brains into a computer and then fusing it with a Terminator-like cybernetic vessel? And for those who think they would never submit themselves to these radical physical alterations, Kurzweil argues that whether it was the calculator or today’s smartphone, humankind has a long history of augmenting itself.

Pointing to his phone, Kurzweil explained that we have reclaimed some of our brain’s capacity by relying on what he calls “brain extenders” like Google, Wikipedia, digital planners and the all-powerful social network that stores and pushes information. He reminded the audience that just 25 years ago, the largest supercomputer was no comparison to what we carry around in our pockets today – all evolutionary changes that can be plotted by LOAR.

“Within the next 25 years,” Kurzweil told the Austin Convention Center audience of thousands, “this phone will be the size of a blood cell and will be another billion times more powerful.”

Hurley, in contrast to Kurzweil, stressed the importance of using the existing technology when he recently visited a University of Texas class.

“You guys are living in this amazing time where there is technology just lying around,” he told a multimedia journalism class. “Twenty, 30 years ago not even world superpowers had this kind of access.”

Hurley, better known as “Whurley,” wears his trademark thin-rimmed glasses and sports a neatly trimmed chin strap beard – think nerd chic with a cocksure attitude to match. He has worked in research and development for Apple and was a Master Inventor for IBM before co-founding Chaotic Moon Labs in 2010.

Based in Austin, Chaotic Moon works toward turning ideas into apps, assessing their viability and holding the inventor’s hand through to completion. Chaotic Moon claims on its website that its engineers are smarter and more creative than you and are able to make you more money. In reality, it is hard to pigeonhole the company.

When Chaotic Moon launched, Hurley knew the company needed to get people’s attention. The team at Chaotic Moon dreamed up the Board of Awesomeness, a self-propelled skateboard that uses existing technology, like the motion-sensing video game peripheral Kinect and a motorized skateboard, to create a brand new form of transportation. Even more impressive is its successor, the Board of Imagination, which forgoes motion sensing and reads the rider’s brain waves, letting him or her imagine where to go and how fast to get there.

Though originally intended as a publicity stunt, the board brought even more press than expected.

“I thought, ‘This’ll be good, and we’ll talk to a few reporters about it,’” Hurley said about the Board of Awesomeness, “but we’ve done hundreds of thousands of interviews and licensed the video to 16 different national news organizations.”

“It’s” — he said pausing for dramatic effect — “ridiculous.”

At the end of the day, Kurzweil and Hurley are two different types of futurists. One envisions a far-off future of inspiring innovation, and the other builds a future with parts from the present.

“You know what Kurzweil is trying to be, right?” Hurley asked rhetorically. “He wants to be the next Jules Verne.”

In this case, one man’s predictions of the future is another man’s science fiction.

The Central Texas Tattoo Removal Project first began as a free service to youth looking to remove vulgar or offensive tattoos, but has since expanded to offering an affordable $60 removal to adults looking to remove an illustration, regardless the reason. Photo by Lizzie Chen.

By Lynda Gonzalez
For Reporting Texas

On a recent Saturday morning, the front door at Seton Kozmetsky Community Health Center swung open, and Andre Costa, entered the lobby with his mother following close behind. Looking to enlist in the U.S. Navy, the crew-cut 21-year-old was on a mission: To appease his recruiter, he needed to lose the part of the tattooed cross on his neck that would be visible above a uniform shirt collar.

Costa had come to the right place. Through a partnership with Seton, the nonprofit Central Texas Tattoo Removal Project offers to remove unwanted tattoos for a generally affordable $60 for adults. That’s popular with people like Costa for whom recent changes in military regulations meant erasing his body art or giving up on dreams of serving his country.

“I’ve always wanted to do military, and I couldn’t get into the Army, same reason,” Costa said. “But Navy, they were actually willing to work with me if I got it removed.”

Jeannette Burke founded the CTTRP in 1999, with seed money from the state attorney general’s office, to provide a free service for adolescents seeking to shed obscene or gang-related tattoos. The project has since expanded its clientele and charges a fee for adults aged 19 and older. The organization holds a clinic on the third Saturday of each month where volunteers, both non-medical and medical, serve up to 15 clients.

But growth has brought challenges. CTTRP’s $60 fee covers its minimum operating costs, but it doesn’t generate the funds needed to provide business support services or buy state-of-the-art equipment.

“It’s frustrating for me,” said Mackayla Belle, who handles scheduling at CTTRP. “There’s a lot of nonprofits out there that have a very sophisticated structure and don’t do a lot of good on the ground helping people. Whereas this organization, which I feel does a lot of good… doesn’t really have that higher structure to take care of it.”

The biggest bottleneck may be CTTRP’s lack of 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, which makes contributions tax deductible for the donor and helps raise funds. While the project submits annual financial reports to the state comptroller’s office, it doesn’t have funds for the accountant fees needed to apply for and maintain the 501(c)(3) designation, Belle said.

“We have not filed those papers because it’s expensive,” said Burke. “We’re so small, and we take in so little money, and whatever we take in is what we spend on supplies.”

Volunteers at CTTRP have helped potential military recruits like Costa, mothers looking to set examples for their children to eschew tattoos, youth under juvenile probation and adults seeking job opportunities.

“If you find yourself with a tattoo that … is prohibiting you from getting jobs and … there’s no way to get rid of it … it’s very frustrating,” Belle said. “So, I get to see the moment when people find there is a way.”

University of Texas at Austin sociology professor Mark Warr said removing a tattoo affects the way society perceives a person, especially someone who has had a brush with criminal activity.

“If you ask people to describe the prototypical criminal… tattoos are a commonly cited feature,” Warr said. “The fact that most gangs use tats to communicate identity and ideas surely contributes to the stereotype. When offenders want to desist from crime, removing tattoos can be a major step in that direction.”

Registered nurse Donna Payne has volunteered with CTTRP for about seven years and witnessed cases that illustrate how removal can transform a person’s identity.

In one case, a client’s husband had tattooed her name on his chest while he was serving a prison sentence. Released, the husband forced the woman to tattoo his name on her chest. The man was eventually killed in an encounter with police after a domestic abuse call escalated and he was shot.

“Getting this tattoo off for her was a huge transition in her life because it was symbolic of ‘I’m leaving that behind… I’ve gotten out of that,’ ” Payne said.

Unlike standard laser removal procedures, CTTRP uses a device called an infrared coagulator that dispenses a series of second-degree burns to the tattooed area.

The process leaves a client with raw, exposed skin, requiring from six to 12 months of follow-up wound treatment. That means having the treated area covered and under constant pressure to prevent the growth of keloids, the bubbly scar tissue common in burn injuries.

Despite its rigors, infrared coagulation treatment has its advantages, according to Belle, since lasers are not effective on some of the crudely homemade tattoos that are common among underage clients.

During the Saturday clinic at Seton, a 16-year-old named Sebastian, whose last name was withheld in keeping with CCTRP’s confidentiality policy regarding minors, showed up to get the number 45 removed from the flesh between his left forefinger and thumb, an amateur tattoo he’d had done when he was 14.

“You’ve got to be careful what you get,” he said, as he held out his freshly treated hand for inspection. Scar tissue resembling white pudding had replaced the tattoo. “I want to get a job. When I shake somebody’s hand or serve fast food or something, I don’t want to see a four and a five. I want to look professional.”

Rebecca Herring, another volunteer nurse, said her colleagues do not judge the choices clients like Sebastian have made in the past.

“We try to treat them with respect,” she said. “A lot of kids that we see don’t get a lot of respect, and I think they respond to that real well from us because we’re not judgmental.”

"Liking" candidates can function as a campaign yard sign. Photo by Nathan Bernier/KUT News

By Autumn Caviness
For Reporting Texas and KUT News

With the Texas primary on May 29, candidate bumper stickers and yards signs mark traditional outward signs of support from older voters. But one study shows that the younger generation prefers a more subtle approach.

A 2009 Pew Research Center study found that 10 percent of all Internet users 18 and older have used a social networking site for some sort of political or civic engagement. For those 18 to 29, that figure jumps to 37 percent.

While that number is not exactly a tidal wave of civic engagement, UT-Austin student body president Thor Lund said it is significant for college students.

“Social media is a huge tool to get people interested in things, and honestly, the biggest way to create interest — to spur the civic engagement — is numbers,” Lund said. “People being involved. So, whether or not someone thinks it’s a civic engagement issue, that they’re starting out and that they’re trying to do, when people get behind an idea, the power of people is amazing.”

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has 1.6 million “likes” on Facebook. Texas Congressman Ron Paul, one of his challengers, has more than 900,000.

For those students with a full semester and an evening job, being able to click “like” can make them feel engaged politically without taking up too much time. Huey Fischer, president of the University Democrats, sees it as a sign of awareness.

“When we’re tabling and flyering, we let folks know, ‘Hey, like us on Facebook, even if you can’t come at every meeting, even if you can’t be there physically, at least be aware of what we’re doing,” he said. “So that way, when you do have time, when you can make a commitment, you’ll know what’s up.’”

Morley Winograd, co-author of “Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America,” views hitting the “like” button as putting up a traditional political yard sign on Facebook.

“Certainly there is that level of engagement at that point,” Winograd said, “but I think real engagement involves translating that online enthusiasm into offline activity.”

By Raymond Thompson
For Reporting Texas

Ron Paul recently wound up a busy few weeks barnstorming Texas youth even as his official presidential campaign wound down. An April 26 rally at the University of Texas at Austin drew 6,000 supporters, according to campaign estimates. In addition to speaking at a Tea Party rally at the Capitol on May 6, Paul held a three-day series of town hall styled events at college campuses across Texas, including the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Houston.

Despite suspending active campaigning, Paul is still looking to build eleventh-hour momentum for his campaign. And young voters’ enduring fascination with the 76-year-old Texas congressman is an obvious bell to ring.

Mathematically speaking, Paul can’t catch Republican front-runner Mitt Romney for the party nomination. According to The Austin American-Statesman, he is angling to win the votes of uncommitted delegates or from those delegates whose vote is not awarded in the primary process.

Texas’ GOP runoff on May 29, where 155 delegates will get their marching orders, is important to the overall strategy. Paul also hopes to capture delegates in the six states holding primaries in June.

It’s an uphill battle, to be sure, but that didn’t stop supporters from attending the UT rally, where they cheered and waved signs with Paul slogans like “End the Fed” and “Principle Not Party.”

Paul’s unconventional platform, which proposes eliminating five cabinet departments, a 10 percent reduction of the federal workforce, lowering corporate taxes and the repeal of a long list of federal regulations, plays well among a voting bloc concerned about the future of the economy and their stake in it.

Brad Parsons, 45, a Ron Paul supporter, thinks the young voters’ interest in the congressman’s platform stems from their real concern about job prospects after graduation.

“He is not actually targeting the youth. They’re just the ones responding to his message,” said Parsons, who attended the UT rally.

Students attending the event expressed fatigue with the current group of politicians running the country.

“For me and a lot of my friends that have the same Ron Paul mindset – Romney, Obama, Bush, I feel their all just paid puppets,” said UT sophomore Logan Davis. “Ron Paul is the one that comes across as something real.”

Mayhaws are small, red berries that are indigenous to the southern United States. Their tartness is a flavor highly desirable in jellies and preserves. Photo by Jody Horton/Texas Folklife.

By Mary Baswell
For Reporting Texas

The 30th annual Hull-Daisetta Mayhaw Festival, recently held in the tiny east Texas town of Daisetta, included a beauty pageant, domino tournament and sporting events. But, not surprisingly, the toughest competition was in the mayhaw jelly contest.

Mayhaws, short for May hawthorn, are small, wild berries that bloom in early May and are indigenous to only a handful of Southern states and found only in limited parts of East Texas. In the Big Thicket and Piney Woods, the fruit is a summer treat steeped in local tradition. But because preparing the delicate ingredient is difficult to master, as well as the fruit’s scarcity and vulnerability to disease, the mayhaw folkway is struggling to survive.

“Growing up, I remember standing in a chair with my mom in the kitchen when she made mayhaw jelly,” said Patti Adkins, the daughter of the festival’s founding president. “We knew how much fun it was going to be to have that wonderful, fresh jelly on biscuits.”

Bill Jackson, owner of Jackson Fruit Farms in Livingston, Texas’ only mayhaw orchard, also remembers his mother’s jelly. “It was a rite of passage to go into the wood, pick the mayhaws, clean them up and make jelly out of them. It was part of my heritage, my way of growing up,” he said.

Robb Walsh, a veteran food writer in Houston and author of “Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook,” said mayhaws are to southerners what crab apples are to New Englanders: too tart to eat from the tree but perfect for sauces and jellies.

Walsh, who called the mayhaw’s flavor “unique and fantastic,” included a mayhaw jelly recipe in his cookbook, an homage to Texas food traditions in danger of disappearing.

Because of funding cuts in university research over the past decade, Jackson said, Texas and Louisiana have both lost programs studying mayhaw breeding and disease control.

Jackson said fireblight, an infectious plant disease, claimed a third of his crop this year, leaving him with 400 producing trees. Though he sold his entire 900 gallons of mayhaws, he said he “could have sold twice that many” had he had them.

This may mean travelers will have less opportunity to purchase the homemade jelly from the roadside stands that dot East Texas highways. Jackson said the majority of his customers buy 25 to 50 gallons, then sell their jelly on the side of the road or online, fetching up to $10 a pint. With his mayhaws selling for $9 a gallon, his customers’ investment becomes a potentially lucrative labor of love.

Mayhaws undergo intricate preparation on the journey from tree to jar. Mayhaws are harvested by shaking the trees and catching the fruit in tarps or blankets. The technique inspired Jackson to design a mayhaw harvester that attaches to his tractor. The contraption encircles the trunk with a net, then shakes the tree and catches the berries in a hopper underneath the machine. After that, the berries are air blown to get rid of twigs and the like, then cooled. The entire job takes less than half a day.

“When the fruit comes off the tree, the sugar starts to turn to starch immediately,” Jackson said. “To keep the quality of the berry up, we try to cool them in less than four hours if we can.”

Keeping the mayhaws cold is essential to making good jelly, Jackson said. Frozen berries actually produce more juice than fresh ones, but Walsh said thawing the fruit will turn it brown, so they must be taken directly from the freezer to the pot. Traditionally, mayhaws are boiled down and strained to make a syrup, but Walsh warns against cooking them too long “because to win a jelly contest, it has to be crystal clear with no particulates.” Mushy mayhaws make a cloudy jelly.

Jackson bucks tradition and uses a juicer to make a cold mash of juice and pulp that is much stronger. He adds it to a cake mix, then tops the baked dessert with a powdered sugar and mayhaw syrup icing. Other popular recipes include mayhaw wine, mayhaw butter and Jackson’s recent attempt at mayhaw vinegar.

Walsh, who prefers to dribble mayhaw syrup over ice cream, recently gave Houston seafood restaurant Reef four gallons of the fruit from Jackson’s farm. Reef sous chef Adam Saxenian said the restaurant plans to offer several menu items featuring the berry, including a ceviche dish using a mayhaw gastrique—a sauce of caramelized sugar and wine that generally also includes a fruit—as well as a mayhaw jus to complement a cooked fish dish.

He said that while the Reef chefs are still experimenting, they plan to use the fruit sparingly to avoid running out. The seasonal fruit is a lucky find at farmer’s markets and is impossible to find in supermarkets. Once used up, the berries will not be available again until next year.

Jackson said simple math is the reason mayhaws remain a little-known Southern delicacy.

“The supply is not there,” he said. “If you go into the wild to get them and you come back with 10 gallons a day, you’d be doing good. Commercially, that doesn’t work.”

Still, Jackson doesn’t mind that mayhaw jelly hasn’t made into mainstream markets. “There’s a world of difference in commercially produced jelly and jelly produced individually,” he said. “The real mayhaw jelly—the old-time East Texas mayhaw jelly—is produced one batch at a time.”

More recently, in an attempt to explore the small bright red fruit’s aesthetic possibilities, horticulturists have begun to incorporate the trees into ornamental landscaping. Walsh chuckles at the idea but calls it is an interesting one.

“Mr. Jackson said they could probably grow in Houston, “ he said. “So maybe next year I’ll try to plant some in my yard. You can call them ornamental, but I’ll be eating the mayhaws.”

Dave Martinez, 25, helps his daughter Kaidance, 5, with her homework. He says that family is most important: "It’s not about how much money I will have. I’ll be happy. It’s about what my children will have.” Photo by Emily Grobe.

By Emily Grobe
For Reporting Texas

A nice house and occasionally a new car. A good job. Enough money to be comfortable, maybe even to travel. Millions of Americans are still weaned on the expectation that they’ll do better than their parents and get their share of the American Dream.

But do diminishing economic prospects still allow such goals?

Even before America’s economy tanked in 2008, said Heidi Shierholz, labor market economist with the Economic Policy Institute, the “American Dream had already gotten a lot trickier to get to. But then the Great Recession happened.”

The huge loss of jobs that ensued has made achieving the traditional dream less likely, prompting soon-to-be graduates to reinterpret the dream itself.

A relatively small number of youth have taken to the streets in the Occupy movement to express frustration over perceived inequalities of opportunity in today’s economy. Others, as The New York Times pointed out recently, have joined nonpartisan movements such as Campaign for Young America and Fix Young America “to fight for this generation’s right to move out of the parental basement.”

Many young adults, however, have reacted to hard times by downsizing expectations. While baby boomers might have started adulthood spurning financial and material goals (before going on to achieve unprecedented success at both), today’s youth may not have the same options.

“For me, the American Dream means finding your calling, taking the passion you have and turning it into a profession,” said Zach Chastain, 22. But he acknowledges that his wouldn’t be possible without financial help from his parents.

Chastain, a West Texas native, pursued a medical degree with hopes of helping military veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Then he opted for an artistic dream, leaving medical school and enrolling in The Art Institute in Austin to become a portrait photographer.

“I’m lucky that my parents are able to help me do this and want me to do something that I’m passionate about – something that makes me happy,” Chastain said. “So I think I’m on track to pursuing my American Dream.”

Mariah Ojeda, 18, agrees that young people today are keen to pursue their passions. But job security is also a priority for her. “I used to think it was about the money and how much I made, but it isn’t anymore,” said Ojeda, a sophomore at Sam Houston State. “I would still like to be financially secure…but I want to be happy first.”

Ojeda started out as biology major, intending to be a high school athletic trainer, but then feared she wouldn’t get accepted into physical therapy school after graduation. So she switched to a major in human resource management, where she thinks getting a job will be easier.

Reaching material success is going to be more difficult for Chastain, Ojeda and many others who soon will enter the workforce. Shierholz said that compared with previous generations, today’s young adults have taken the biggest hit in the job market.

“In general, this group is entering with a severely reduced set of job opportunities,” she said. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Millennials have the highest unemployment rate since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping statistics in the 1960s. The jobless rate at the end of 2011 was 16.3 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds, compared with 8.8 percent for all adults ages 18 to 64, the widest spread recorded between the two groups.

The EPI estimates that 3.7 workers compete for every job available in today’s market; according to Shierholz, that ratio should be closer to 1 to 1. “The competition is very stiff right now. There are just not enough to go around,” she said about jobs.

Those who find jobs have to re-set their salary expectations. Luckily for Ojeda, her range falls in line with what experts consider realistic figures. “If I made $30,000-$40,000 right out of college, I would be more than happy,” she said.

While some young adults might have adjusted their financial and goals, others still seek the traditional dream. For Kenneth Prater, 32, owning a home, having a well-paying job and supporting a family remain his measures of success, and he insists it his goals are attainable.

Prater works part time at Best Buy and has returned to school at Temple College to finish his bachelor’s degree in network administration. After getting out of the military, he wanted to show his kids how to “be a productive member of society.”

“I want to be able to continue to contribute to a world that is most beneficial for my children so they have the opportunity to pursue their dreams,” he said. “I think the American Dream is still very much alive.”

Dave Martinez, a 25-year-old father of two with no college degree, said he feel his version of the dream is very close, just harder to get to with the economy the way it is. His wife, Amie, works off and on as a bank teller so their children can spend as much time with them as possible.

“I work hard every day,” said Martinez, a tank car maintenance man at Dow Chemical in Port Lavaca. “But I do it because I know if I keep it up, my family will be provided for and we will all be happy. That is what is most important. It’s not about how much money I will have. I’ll be happy. It’s about what my children will have.”

A Surprisingly Durable ‘Dream’

A recent Pew Research Center study, “Young, Underemployed and Optimistic,” found that among those 18 to 34, nearly nine in 10 people say they earn enough money now or will earn enough money in the future, an optimistic notion given the tight job market and lack of available opportunities.

“Today’s young adults would say no, the American dream isn’t dead,” Kim Parker, associate director of Pew’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, said. “We were really surprised by that.”

The study also indicates that parents are more sympathetic with their children’s progress toward their dream. The youngest generation has remained financially dependent on their parents longer than any other cohort, allowing them to pursue their education further than any other cohort.

A 1993 Newsweek poll showed that 80 percent of parents said their young children should be financially independent by the age 22. Today, according to the most recent Pew study, 67 percent of parents hold that view. About 31 percent say that children shouldn’t be on their own financially until 25 or older.

That result doesn’t surprise Chastain, who said that young adults have it much harder than their parents did and that getting an education is more expensive than it used to be.

His mother “didn’t need a college degree to go get a job or start her career,” said Chastain, whose parents are helping pay for his education. “Now, you have to have at least a bachelor’s and, in some cases, a master’s degree. And if you don’t have a degree, no one is hiring. It’s hard to be financially independent without those things.”

Ojeda agrees. “My mom is paying for me to be in school and still has my sister at home,” she said. “But I couldn’t go to school full time without her help so it’s just the way it is.”

Prater, a generation older, sees things differently. “I think young adults today don’t care as much about the things that they have,” he said. “They don’t realize how hard it is. I think they believe everything is going to be handed to them.”

Chastain adds: “I think my generation is lazy. But, at the same time, the economy isn’t helping.”

Motivation, of course, is a matter of debate. In their book “Generation We,” authors Eric Greenberg and Karl Weber noted that Millennials are “noncynical and civic-minded” and that they “believe in the value of political engagement and are convinced that government can be a powerful force for good.”

But the opposite may be true, according to Monitoring the Future, an annual survey of American eighth, 10th and 12th grade students, conducted by the University of Michigan for four decades, and the American Freshman survey of first-year college students, conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute. The research found that Millennials were less likely than baby boomers and even GenXers to say they thought about social problems and to be interested in politics and government. They also were less likely to say they trusted the government to do what’s right. Millennials were also slightly less likely to say they wanted a job that was helpful to others or was worthwhile to society.

According to the Pew Research Center, 82 percent of respondents say finding a job is harder for today’s young adults than it was for previous generations. And 75 percent say it’s harder to save for the future, pay for college or buy a home.

And contrary to a commonly held notion, students are not waiting out the slump by taking shelter in college. Since the recession hit in 2008, enrollment at colleges and universities across the nation has increased about 1 percent annually, according to the Pew Research Center, not far from the average 0.7 percent annually since 1985.

“If I gave up this job and went to school, there may not be another job for me when I get out,” Martinez said. “I’d rather not take that risk. Doing that would make everything even harder for me and my family.”

Turning ‘Nightmare’ Into First Job

Young people entering the work force “are less likely to find a good match” of skills and jobs, Shierholz said. “Anyway you slice it, this is a nightmare labor market to be a job seeker.”

According to Tara Iagulli, director of career services for the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, graduates of certain majors find employment easier than others, but job placement has been more difficult in the past two years.

“The graduates that have skills that are needed in the workplace are finding jobs right away,” she said. “We are seeing that in the computer science fields and areas similar to that.”

Iagulli said only about 30 percent of the graduates from the School of Information – most of whom are pursuing library-type degrees – are finding work right out of school. About 70 percent are on the hunt for no more than about three months.

“Some of it is luck in interviewing, some of it is competitiveness. The students that tend to do well are the ones that start early,” she said.

Opportunities are starting to look up, though, Iagulli said. “This year is looking better than last year, and way better than 2010,” she said. “We are happy to see a little bit of an uptick.”

Chastain remains optimistic. “Sadly, I think I don’t have much option but to struggle,” he said. “But if I’m doing what I love and I’ve given it my all, I think I can say I will have reached my idea of the American Dream.”

He also has a Plan B, based on his previous career goal.

“If in a couple of years, I get out of school, and my financial situation doesn’t improve pretty quickly, I’ll turn around and go back to school and pursue my medical degree,” he said. “That is still a perfectly good American Dream.”

The Universal Cheerleading Association has seen an increase in enrollment at its summer mascot camps as more cheer coaches opt for sending their furry performers while trying out more budget-conscious approaches to train their cheerleading squads. Photo by Katie Raymond.

By Lynda Gonzalez
For Reporting Texas

At the Texas high school summer camps run by the Universal Cheerleaders Association, more costumed mascots than ever are perfecting their characters amid the pompoms and pyramids as the options for cheerleading instruction expand.

One reason is that, in today’s budget-conscious times, it’s cheaper for schools to send one Cowboy or Hawk or Antler to build their sidelines skills than a dozen cheerleaders.

UCA, the largest cheer and dance instruction company in the world, has seen a steady rise in mascot enrollment in the last four years, with 623 in its Southwest region (with Texas bringing the vast majority of campers) enrolled last summer, compared with 542 in 2008. Word-of-mouth has contributed to the climb in numbers, said Benji Gray, UCA’s mascot director.

“For the past four years, our numbers have continually gone up,” Gray said. “And that might not be by much — it might only be five or 10 kids more per year — but that’s still an increase and a boost to the program. Schools end up seeing other schools, coaches may be seeing other coaches and say, ‘Oh, we saw your mascot, what are y’all doing?’”

UCA charges just under $300 to register a student for cheer or mascot training, and that cost includes food and housing, which is often at a university dorm facility. That’s much cheaper than the $3,600 schools can pay to send a dozen cheerleaders or dancers to summer camp to craft competitive routines or improve skills for leading crowds at events.

One alternative coaches choose is to pay $500 instead for a pair of UCA trainers travel to a high school, Gray said. Such private camps, while providing a cheaper route, also offer customized attention to squads.

Coppell High School opts for private instruction from Spirit of Texas to train the school’s National Cheer Association nationally ranked team, according to assistant cheer coach Jodie Deinhammer.

“We get more out of private camps overall, [since] we have all the coaches for our squad,” she said, adding that her team wasn’t “getting anything out” of the bigger camps. “The girls weren’t learning anything new. So… we went to the private camp and they took what we had already, and they customized the camp for that so we could learn some different stuff.”

But Caroline Roberson of Coppell High School paid her way to attend UCA’s mascot camp because the camp her spirit team attends doesn’t offer mascot-specific instruction. There, she learned to embody the spirit of Cowboy Carl and learned skills that she hopes will help her become a collegiate mascot someday.

“UCA helps me develop my skills and lets me connect with other mascots from around the area,” Roberson said. “I have to say that my favorite part would be the people I met. They all were fun people who thought and acted just like me. It’s cool to be able to grow close to other people who have the same amount of passion to be a mascot.

Gray said the mascot is especially important to a school’s brand.

“The mascot is a symbol and foundation of your institution,” he said. “A mascot should embody everything that your institution represents — the academics, the extracurriculars, the mission statement, the athletics. That should be the one thing that you want to make sure is as wholesome and perfect as possible.”

Cheerleading has an enduring presence in Texas because of the sport’s long history in the state, said Denise Martin, the editor of Texas Cheerleader Magazine. Although the sport of cheerleading originated in Minnesota, it wasn’t until Lawrence Herkimer created his summer cheer camp in Huntsville in 1948 that cheerleading — and mascots — truly became part of Texas high school culture.

“In addition to that, he did see the importance of training the mascots how to keep the crowds involved and how to interact with their spirit teams,” she said. “He’s the one who created the spirit stick, held the patent for the pompom before he sold it off to someone else, and if you’ve ever heard of the Herkie jump, it’s named after him.”

Gray said that Texas is the biggest market for UCA, which offers the most cheer and mascot camps in the state.

“At Texas, y’all put such an emphasis on high school football, and that accounts for everything,” said Gray, who is originally from Tennessee [and a colleague of this reporter’s roommate]. That’s the cheerleading, that’s the band, the mascot, the whole nine yards,” he said. “That kind of emphasis is not at all seen at other camps.”

Lotus seed pods are a common trigger image for sufferers of trypophobia--the fear of clusters of holes. Photo courtesy of Tanakawho

By Mary Baswell
For Reporting Texas

Amy Rouse of Cincinnati says that she has had trypophobia as long as she can remember.

Trypophobes fear holes—more specifically, clusters of holes.

“It makes my jaw clench and tighten. It gives me the creeps. Weird, I know,” she said.

The term trypophobia is derived from the word “trypo,” Greek for punching, drilling or boring holes. Sufferers often report anxiety, nausea, itching, sleeplessness and disturbing thoughts after encountering or viewing images of clusters of holes in natural or manmade objects.

A growing number of trypophobes have found comfort in online support groups, including a Facebook page that serves as a forum for discussion about triggers and advice for alleviating symptoms.

Diana E. Damer, an anxiety disorder specialist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Counseling and Mental Health Center, said the Internet can both help and hinder phobics looking for information or relief online.

“I would say that my fear has lessened since joining the Facebook group,” Rouse said. “When I feel an attack coming on, I have somewhere to go.”

On the other hand, Rachel Davis of San Antonio said her anxiety became worse after finding several online trypophobia awareness groups.

“When I first discovered my fear had a name through a website, I viewed photos of trypophobia triggers in an online gallery,” Davis said. “I couldn’t sleep that night. All I could think of were those pictures popping up in my head. I’ve noticed that my uneasiness has evolved into full-on nausea.”

Damer said she feels that anxiety disorders have “proliferated” because of the Internet. “It allows you to immediately check any fears you feel you might have, and then you begin to check on other things. ‘Oh, am I scared of this or that?’ Then it becomes a preoccupation and can lead to OCD-like behaviors,” she said.

As is also the case with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, the American Psychiatric Association classifies phobias as anxiety disorders, and sufferers can often have multiple anxiety-inducing triggers. Michael J. Telch, psychologist and founder of the Laboratory for the Study of Anxiety Disorders at UT-Austin, said half of all phobias are the result of a traumatic childhood experience. Of the dozen Facebook group members polled, all but one said they could trace their fear back to childhood.

Elizabeth Neff of Mount Lookout, W.Va., said her fear of “holes that have something inside them” started when she was little.

“My mother removed some plantar warts from the bottom of my foot, and it creeped me out big-time,” she said.

Telch said phobias can also be “contracted” through “vicarious experience,” a learned response from exposure to others’ reactions.

Justin Whitesides of Henderson, Nev., one of the group’s administrators, said that his fear was brought on several years ago by a friend who “introduced” him to trypophobia.

No matter their history, more than a dozen Facebook group members contacted online as well as posts in other online communities indicate sufferers are astounded that their fear has been largely ignored by psychology.

Because of its relative rarity — many psychologists have never encountered the phobia — little scientific research and credible information is available online. And because it has not received mainstream recognition, many trypophobes have been teased, ignored or called liars. A recent Popular Science article reported that even Wikipedia editors have their doubts about the fear’s existence, calling it a “likely hoax” and “patent nonsense.”

Telch said he is not surprised that trypophobia has received little attention but noted that that should not stop sufferers from seeking help.

“There are millions of other phobias that are not considered phobias, but they definitely exist,” he said. “People can have fears of most anything. Just because a phobia is not recognized individually does not mean it doesn’t exist or is not important.”

The American Psychiatric Association details three classes of phobias—specific phobias, social phobias and agoraphobia. Each is classified as an anxiety disorder with symptoms characterized by the group as “overwhelming” emotional and physical symptoms like “panic and fear, uncontrollable obsessive thoughts and painful, intrusive memories.”

Of the 25 million Americans who suffer from phobias, 6.3 million have a specific phobia, “the irrational fear of an object or situation that is generally not harmful,” the APA reports.

The five classes of specific phobias include animals, like snakes or spiders; situations, like flying or tight spaces; natural environments, like water or storms; blood-injury, a fear of injuries or medical procedures; and an “other” category, which can be a fear of anything from clowns to loud noises.

“Anxiety disorders tend to be very idiosyncratic. No two cases are usually exactly alike,” Damer said.

As with trypophobia, sufferers of specific phobias may share symptoms or triggers, but the root of the fear can differ from one person to another. One trypophobe may think images of hole clusters conjure up diseases —for example, an infamous fake image of a lotus seed pod digitally manipulated onto a photo of a woman’s breast followed by the explanation that she contracted a rash in Brazil. Another may cringe at cracks in the sidewalk, which can be linked to asymmetriphobia, a phobia of asymmetrical objects.

By determining the reason a person fears an object or situation, coupled with the type and severity of reaction to the object, psychologists can often identify and treat any fear with tailored individual or group therapy sessions, Damer said.

Telch, whose phobia therapy sessions have been documented by National Geographic, said most phobias can be treated using exposure therapy.

Exposure, or habituation, Damer said, requires that the patient remain exposed to the feared object or situation long enough to realize that what he fears will not harm him or that the perceived consequences of a situation are unlikely to happen.

“The idea is to really experience the anxiety and then have it gradually come down,” she said. “The goal is not to not feel anxious; the goal is to experience the anxiety but tolerate it knowing that it will eventually dissipate.”

The problem with trypophobes’ seemingly therapeutic Internet research is that even though they expose themselves to disturbing images, they can easily look away or close the web page when their anxiety becomes too much to handle. This can make their condition worse, Damer said, because the stress relief triggered by avoidance does not allow for habituation to fully occur.

As the number of members filling the trypophobia Facebook group continues to climb, by almost a thousand in just a few months, most seem satisfied with this type of cyber group therapy, where they can discuss their symptoms and share tips on how to deal with attacks.

For one 29-year-old woman from Zimbabwe who fears insect eggs, cracks in sidewalks and groups of insects, joining the trypophobia group was a cry for help.

The woman, who declined to be identified for this story, said her fear is “a secret I have never talked about.”

“I only shared because I am desperate to get help,” she said.