As you may or may not have read elsewhere, Daniel Johnson’s venerable “Hi, How Are You?” mural —commonly recognized from the cassette and subsequent album of the same name (and years later on a t-shirt widely popularized by Kurt Cobain) was defaced Christmas Eve by a woman who told Austin police the wall art, “was offensive and meant to personally insult her”.
While some of my fellow residents have made a number of rude remarks towards the accused vandal, I’m totally feeling her. Every year when I see the list of bands confirmed to play the Austin Psych Fest, I find it offensive and personally insulting.
The building’s current owners, Thai How Are You (formerly Thai Spice), renamed their establishment after Johnston’s mural earlier this year. It’s estimated it will cost nearly $1,000.00 to remove the spray-painted “FUCK”‘s from the mural, though surely some of the area’s more beloved local residents (Lance Armstrong, Michael Corcoran, Tobey Maguire, Cedric Benson, etc.) will scrape up whatever they can find in the seat cushions of their respective couches.
If you’re keeping score, this is the second December in a row a UT campus Thai eatery has made national news. YOU’RE ON TAP FOR 2014, MADAM MAM’S.