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Temperatures are on the rise and Hays County is bracing for a fourth year of drought. On top of familiar water restrictions and limitations, there are now new severe issues with the county’s water wells.
In a viral clip heard around the world, actor Timothée Chalamet questioned the relevance of opera and ballet. The clip got people talking, but how do these words hit right here at home? We’ll hear from two local arts organizations, Ballet Austin and Austin Opera, to get their take.
Hole in the Wall is under new ownership. Find out what the new owners have planned for the historic Austin music venue.
Plus, Accent Unmuted, a live storytelling event, is happening tonight. Hear more from the event’s creator.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Miles Bloxson [00:00:09] Temperatures are on the rise in Hayes County. It’s bracing for a fourth year of drought. Now with familiar water restrictions and limitations, there are new severe issues with their water wells. And in a viral clip heard around the world, one actor questioned the relevance of opera and ballet and everyone’s talking about it. But how do those words hit right here at home? Well, we’ll hear from two local arts organizations, Ballet Austin and Austin Opera, to get their take.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:34] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Miles Bloxson.
Miles Bloxson [00:00:39] The historic venue hole in the wall is under new ownership. Find out what the new owners have planned for the music venue. Plus Accent Unmuted, a live storytelling event, is happening tonight. Hear more from the event’s creator. That’s coming up next on Austin Signal. Hey Austin, I hope you’re having an amazing day. It’s Thursday, March 26th. I’m Miles Bloxson and this is Austin Signal. As temperatures climb and summer dryness creeps in, residents in Hayes County are bracing for a fourth year of drought. Aquifer levels have been depleted to historic lows, threatening a major source of drinking water for the area. Alongside now familiar water restrictions, some Hayes county residents are having new or more severe issues with their once reliable Water wells. KUT’s Hayes County reporter Lee Walden has the story.
Leigh Walden [00:01:41] Radiance is a small rural community in northwestern Hays. It’s got small town charm, a neighborhood where you can reliably enlist help to find a lost dog or count on a wave while you’re driving. Madeleine Brock has lived there for decades.
Madeleine Brock [00:01:55] Everybody is interested in community living and so we pretty much know all of our neighbors.
Leigh Walden [00:02:02] Radiance, like most of Hayes County, has been living with drought restrictions on and off for years, but their well was steady and reliable. That was, of course, until early last year.
Madeleine Brock [00:02:12] Then it just started, we had less and less water coming from that well. And finally, at the end of January, 2025, it was not pumping anymore.
Leigh Walden [00:02:24] After the well dried up, residents had to use an old well. It had been out of commission for years because of contamination that made it unsafe to drink. That retired well was the neighborhood’s only source of water. They had to boil the water before drinking it. They lived like that from February to September of last year.
Madeleine Brock [00:02:42] It was a long haul for everybody.
Leigh Walden [00:02:46] The health of wells isn’t just a concern for radiance. All over Hays County, wells are struggling to provide water as aquifer levels get lower and lower. That’s been keeping well drillers and servicers busy. Not only doing routine well care, but also solving problems that have been exacerbated by the drought. Well maintenance is time-consuming, delicate work.
Mathew Taylor [00:03:06] It depends on if you’re replacing the water, replacing the pipe, you know what I mean?
Leigh Walden [00:03:09] Around 20 miles southeast of Radiance in Buda, Matthew Taylor and Vanna Welch stand near the tailgate of their truck. It’s decked out with all the equipment needed to service wells. Tools that look like giant metal rabbit’s ears, wrenches so big they come up to a grown man’s waist. A huge spool of electrical wire. Growing out of the back of the truck is a 40 foot tall arm that draws the pieces of the well up section by section. Today, Taylor and Welch are working on a pump replacement.
Mathew Taylor [00:03:42] There’s the water. 198
Leigh Walden [00:03:47] This well is in good shape. The men work together to bring up the old pump, replace the old electrical line, lower a new pump, and reattach each piece of the pipe leading down the well. Jared Thompson owns The Well Doctor, the company working on this well. He’s been in the water game so long that he can guesstimate what the water level in this area used to be.
Jared Thompson [00:04:08] It used to probably be around 100 feet.
Leigh Walden [00:04:10] That is, the water was about 100 feet below the ground.
Jared Thompson [00:04:13] And so then they could have the pump set at 200 feet and have plenty of water.
Leigh Walden [00:04:17] The pump would be 100 feet below the water level, but the water has dropped.
Jared Thompson [00:04:21] What did you say the water level was? 190. 190. And so then they would be sucking air momentarily while they were running water. So at that point, if they knew that, then we could just simply lower it down an extra 100 feet.
Leigh Walden [00:04:34] Thompson says butyl wells, by and large, are pretty healthy right now, but wells near dripping springs aren’t doing so hot.
Jared Thompson [00:04:40] That’s where we really see the water level drop consistently.
Leigh Walden [00:04:43] Thompson and his crew are replacing or lowering more and more wells throughout the county. The last major drought that hit Hayes from 2008 to 2014 kept Thompson’s company busy. They were lowering pumps almost every day, and some wells needed to be dug even deeper. Now he says some of those deeper wells are going dry these days, and redrilling costs a lot.
Jared Thompson [00:05:05] It could be around $75,000 to get it re-drilled and all new equipment into it, so it’s quite expensive.
Leigh Walden [00:05:11] A lot of owning and maintaining a well is expensive. Even the pump replacement Taylor and Welch are doing in Buda is a $7,500 ordeal. Most home insurance doesn’t cover wells. The Radiance neighborhood had to take out a loan for $40,000 to restore water to their community. There’s another $5,000-$10,000 for testing and monitoring on top of that. All split between the 40 or so homes.
Arturo Rivera [00:05:35] You know, everybody’s gonna see that burden a little bit financially.
Leigh Walden [00:05:38] Arturo Rivera lives in Radiance, and he says that this is a stressful expense for some of the neighborhood.
Arturo Rivera [00:05:43] In order to basically provide water in this state of the drought, we had to spend a lot of money to feel secure in our water source.
Leigh Walden [00:05:52] It doesn’t look like the situation is getting better anytime soon. The Hayes-Trinity Groundwater Conservation District says aquifer and river conditions have not been this bad in the more than 20-year history of the district, including the 2011 drought. Every one of the District’s monitored wells are below historic levels. It would take 34 inches of rain in the next six months to pull the region out of drought. The Conservation District estimates there’s less than a 1% chance of that happening. Meanwhile, Hayes County has launched a countywide study to plan for future water needs. This will give local governments updated water data and information for the first time since 2011. But for now, in neighborhoods like Radiance, the impacts of the water crisis are already deeply felt and not resolved.
Arturo Rivera [00:06:39] It’s just going to be a bit of a steep hill to climb and it’s not like it’s going to be solved today or tomorrow, but we have to plan for the future.
Leigh Walden [00:06:46] From Hayes County, I’m Leigh Walden.
Miles Bloxson [00:06:53] Back in February, Matthew McConaughey and Timothee Chalamet sat down just across the street on UT’s campus for the CNN Town Hall. Then in the viral clip heard around the world, Timothe Chalamett said this.
Timothee Chalamet [00:07:08] And I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, hey, keep this thing alive even though no one cares about this anymore.
Miles Bloxson [00:07:16] Joining us now to talk about this is Jennifer Baston, Chief Advancement Officer at Austin Opera, and Cookie Ruiz, Executive Director of Ballet Austin. Great to have y’all here.
Jennifer Basten [00:07:28] Thanks so much. Thanks for having us.
Miles Bloxson [00:07:29] Of course! What was your first reaction when you saw the clip of Timothee Chalamet? Well for me
Cookie Ruiz [00:07:35] ended up being kind of a funny moment because I was in a situation where a television was going. And on this, it was a morning show, and this happened to be debating the war in Iran. And then the next clip up was this debate over what Timothee Chalamet had said. And as I watched it, I was really surprised to find the same rancor that was used to discuss Iran was passed over to conversation around Timothy. So, at one level… I felt that perhaps we should have a little difference in our opinions around what’s going on with the war versus what’s coming on with a young man having an opinion. But it ended up making me feel like let’s have a humor around this. So it was a moment of understanding that this was going to be quite a debate because it had risen to that level, but also a time for us to say, okay, perhaps we don’t share the same opinion, but maybe we can find some humor in this. What about you, Jennifer?
Jennifer Basten [00:08:34] Very similar reaction. I mean, the first thing that popped in my head was, ah, how rude. Of course, there are people who care about opera and ballet. I have the pleasure of working with them every day. I have donors who fund these art forms out of their own pocket, out of their earned wealth to make sure that our communities have these artforms alive and well. But to some extent, I understood. Where he was coming from, I think he worded it very poorly. I think, you know, what he was trying to get across was that he wants to work in mainstream popular culture, and that’s where the fame and money is. But we also have to consider that ballet and opera at one point were mainstream choices of entertainment, and people literally fought over, society members fought over who was to have the best seat at the box for the opera. And so, you know, these art forms have been around for 500 years, 400 years. They’re alive and well and thriving. And so yes, I thought it was kind of humorous and very poorly worded on his part.
Miles Bloxson [00:09:44] Agreed. So what has been some of the responses that you all have seen? Because this went viral.
Cookie Ruiz [00:09:50] Been actually a lot of fun. So I think at some level, we sort of have to thank him, because, to your point, Jennifer, these art forms have been around a long time. And so when he threw that out there, a lot folks froze up to our defense, and they were righteously indignant and supportive. And it’s just allowed for a good conversation. So what we decided to do was to say, okay, we’ve got a production coming up. So if you have Timothy in your name anywhere, your first name, your middle name, your last name. And then we afforded about four or five spellings of Timothy, come on to this next ballet, we’ll give you a free ticket. So it’s been fun, it’s allowed conversation to happen. We have about 14 Timothys that have responded so far. My next door neighbor mentioned yesterday his middle name was Timothy and he wants to come. So, you know, it allows for dialog and we can handle it. Are you gonna let the next door neighbors Timothy come? You bet, if he shows up, we’ll be there for him. But it’s, it has been fun.
Jennifer Basten [00:10:49] It’s definitely had a kind of an accidental positive effect. I mean, it’s the best marketing campaign I could have dreamed up, you know, and we’re in the middle of selling one of the most popular titles in the operatic repertory LabOM. And so to have this dialog going on and to have people galvanized coming together to support these art forms, I think will only help us sell more tickets and show the world and show Timothy that people care about these art They care about them very much.
Miles Bloxson [00:11:17] Do these words hit even harder because they were actually said in Austin for y’all? Well, that was kind of our.
Cookie Ruiz [00:11:23] Points. Like, you were literally down the street from us at the time. Our building is right here in the downtown area. So, yes, I do think that that was really kind of a bit of irony that was literally on the UT campus when these words are being said. So yeah.
Jennifer Basten [00:11:38] Yeah, we, you know, I think every opera company in America posted something on social media and Instagram, Facebook and whatnot, kind of poking fun at what he said. And ours was, you know, the famous I love you so much. We replaced, we inserted I love opera so much and, you know, we said, yeah, Timothy, we’re just down the street.
Miles Bloxson [00:11:59] To come check us out. All right, Timothy, he knows where to go next time he’s in Austin. The comments do definitely bring up the longevity of opera and ballet. What is your response to that question he kind of accidentally posed? Is opera and ballet relevant today?
Cookie Ruiz [00:12:13] You know, I think that actually was a great opening for us, particularly those of us, Ballet Austin is a producing company, which means we create world premiere work here. Stephen Mills is a producer choreographer and has created 42 brand new works in Austin in the last 25 years. So tonight, we will have our dress rehearsal for Marie Antoinette, Vampire Queen of Versailles. So only in Austin would Marie Antoinette be anticipated in. Thought of what would happen if she got her agency back and she actually found a way to gain immortality. So brand new score by Graham Reynolds, brand new sets and costumes, and this idea that we can create interesting new work.
Jennifer Basten [00:12:59] Yeah, in a very similar fashion. Austin Opera is also a producing company. I think, we think, of course, opera is relevant. That’s why myself and my boss, Annie Burrage, the general director and CEO of the opera company have devoted our lives to producing it. Living composers and librettists are writing works all day, every day that speak and reflect modern stories and diverse stories. Two of our operas next season are modern stories. They’ve been written within the last 10 years. And the one that is opening our season in the fall, of Frenda, is actually being finished up this year. And it’s a story, it’s an immigrant story, a mother-daughter story centered around Dia de los Muertos traditions. And so it’s deeply connected to Austin, deeply connected the people who live here, our community, the community that we’re trying to serve. And so yes, of course, opera is relevant. I also think that even operas that were written 200 years ago continue to be relevant. They continue to make us laugh and cry. The human condition hasn’t changed much. Our emotions remain the same. We all experience love, loss, conflict, friendships, and those stories that were written 200 hundred years ago, I think, still continue to share what it is to be human, and we feel that deeply now as we did hundreds of years ago.
Miles Bloxson [00:14:24] Beautiful, a lot of cool events coming up and a lot cool performances coming up. I’ve been speaking to Jennifer Baston, Chief Advancement Officer at Austin Opera and Cookie Ruiz, Executive Director of Ballet Austin. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We’ll have links to those performances at kut.org slash Signal and in the podcast show notes. This is Austin Signal.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:53] This is Austin Signal, I’m Jerry Quijano. The Texas men’s basketball team will be back on the hardwood tonight, looking to extend their, air quotes, Cinderella run in this year’s NCAA Championship tournament. The Longhorns just barely snuck into the field of 68, and it’s probably fair to say that most experts didn’t expect the Horns to still be around this late in the game. But Texas was able to prevail over North Carolina State before knocking off higher seeded BYU and Gonzaga. Hey, Texas head coach Sean Miller, I guess the horns must be a lot better than their 11th seed reflects, right?
Sean Miller [00:15:28] The one thing about this tournament that you learn is the best team doesn’t always win. It’s the team who plays the very best on that particular day.
Jerry Quijano [00:15:39] Well, in that case, Texas is going to need a pretty darn good day to advance past second-seeded Purdue. The silver lining for Texas fans? The two programs have played just six times, with Texas winning four of those. Tip-off tonight against the Boilermakers is scheduled for ten minutes past six o’clock local time. This is Austin Six.
Miles Bloxson [00:16:06] This is Austin Signal, welcome back. The Austin dive bar hole in the wall is changing hands. The historic venue has struggled to stay afloat over the last decade. But as KUT’s Andrew Weber reports, the new owners hope to keep the Austin fixture alive and well for another 50 years.
Andrew Weber [00:16:25] Whether you’ve been in Austin for 10 years, 10 months, or 10 weeks, you’ve likely heard of Hole in the Wall, one of Austin’s finest dive bars that’s hosted everyone, from Doug Somm, Gary Clark Jr., and Blaise Foley, to Townes Van Zandt, and Kevin Russell and his band Shiny Roops. And like the Austin-based singer-songwriter told KUTX last year, if you’ve ever darkened the doors of this beloved half-century-old dive, Russell says you likely have a Hole in the last week.
Kevin Russel [00:16:53] I remember the night we raised the cover from $5, our normal $5 cover, to $7 and man, it was about a riot out there. People had chalk and they were writing horrible things about us on the sidewalk. One guy even paid the $7 cover just to come in and flip us off.
Andrew Weber [00:17:13] A colorful institution, something that’s always been and seemingly will always be. But the bar has struggled to stay afloat amid Austin’s growth, the city’s real estate boom, and the pandemic. It nearly closed in 2015, then in 2023, the bar, again, appeared to be circling the drain, only for the city to intervene, injecting more than a million dollars into the space and helping it secure a 20-year lease. Now, it’s facing a new challenge, new ownership. But the new co-owner, Mike Levine, wants everyone to know. This is, as he calls it, a peaceful transition of power.
Mike Levine [00:17:48] For this place to still be standing after this time is a testament to how much people love it. When you talk to people about the hole in the wall, it’s different than when you talk about their favorite restaurant or bar. They care. They care and we feel a great responsibility there and it’s not something we take lightly. It’s a true
Andrew Weber [00:18:08] Levine is partnering with Courtney Goforth to bring the iconic bar into a new era. Goforth has been a booker and promoter in Austin for more than a decade, working at places like Hotel Vegas. Goforth calls this opportunity a full circle moment. When she first moved to Austin, she would go to Hole in the Wall to meet up with friends. She knows the former managers, and the former owner, Will Tanner, who’s retiring. Last week when she was helping out during a South by Southwest show, that peaceful transition was on full display.
Courtney GoForth [00:18:36] But it is just, you know, like I was here the other night for one of the South by parties and I was back helping bar back for a second and walked two of the previous GMs and Will Tanner and it feels really good to know that everyone is still just vibing with each other. It’s like, it doesn’t matter what iteration they came from. Like everyone still wants to come to hole in the wall and hang out, you know?
Andrew Weber [00:19:01] Go Forth and Levine want to keep the bar pretty much the same. There’s a reason it’s been a mainstay for a half a century, but they want to bring in more shows, more touring acts, more everything, Levine says.
Mike Levine [00:19:14] Approach. More punk rock, more drag, more comedy, more shaking your ass, more opportunities to gather and be social and have fun. It’s just more fun. That really is what it comes down to, right? More fun. We’re gonna bring more people, more opportunities to have more fun
Andrew Weber [00:19:31] The bar will be getting some upgrades. Levine says, for one, it’ll have a new restaurant in its back space. Levine wouldn’t spill the beans on who would be taking that space over, but he did say it aims to be a full-service restaurant with late-night options as well. But the bar will still have its quirks. One thing that’s not changing? The side-by-side toilets in one of the bathrooms that have confounded patrons over the years.
Courtney GoForth [00:19:54] That’s staying.
Mike Levine [00:19:57] That’s the number one question I’ve gotten.
Courtney GoForth [00:19:59] Busty bathroom.
Mike Levine [00:19:59] You’re going to fix that bathroom, right?
Courtney GoForth [00:20:01] No, that’s the besty bathroom. It’s iconic.
Mike Levine [00:20:07] I mean, there’s album covers with that bathroom. We couldn’t change that.
Andrew Weber [00:20:10] Levine says the concept is simple, keep what’s made the dive bar iconic and tweak what needs to be tweaked, without sacrificing the soul of the bar that’s part of the city’s legacy as a live music capital.
Mike Levine [00:20:22] People build bars now to look 50 years old. This place is 50 years. You know, you can come in that front room and you can still feel the ghost of Doug Psalm over there, you know. But you know, we’re going to be a dive bar and we’re a great live venue and we are going to remind people of that and we going to give people more opportunities and more reasons to come. And that’s all we can do. I’m excited about it.
Andrew Weber [00:20:39] Levine says the era of saving the hole in the wall is over. He wants the venue to thrive. So a new generation of Austinites can have their very own hole in wall story.
Mathew Taylor [00:20:49] And here’s to all the ghosts. All the ghosts through the hole in the wall.
Andrew Weber [00:20:54] I’m Andrew Weber in Austin.
Sarah Asch [00:21:03] Oh
Miles Bloxson [00:21:04] What’s in a radio voice? And who was the right voice to tell a story? Well, that’s everyone, according to Accent Unmuted, live storytelling event. It’s returning tonight to KUT’s Studio 1A. We’re speaking now with Nami Saroo. Who puts the show together? Nami, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so there are a lot of storytelling events here in Austin, right? What sounds and voices were you looking to amplify when you thought of Accent unmuted? At the very basic level
Nammy Sirur [00:21:34] immigrants with accents telling stories because I am a big storytelling nerd myself and I kept going to a lot of events and not seeing any or enough accented voices. So I was like, I’m just going to start my own. I’m going to do all immigrants with accent telling stories.
Miles Bloxson [00:21:49] Really? So you would go to these events and you wouldn’t hear anybody really with an accent? Yeah. And you found the gap and you created something. I love this. So what kind of storytelling background do your participants have? Are they seasoned storytellers? Are people sharing their voices for the first time? It’s a bit of everything.
Nammy Sirur [00:22:08] There are quite a few seasoned storytellers because I’ve done Toastmasters for a long time. And just because it’s easier, I end up getting a lot of people who are interested in telling their story and they have that training a little bit. So it’s just easier for them. But then it’s also, I do an open call. So I’m trying to tap into communities that I don’t have access to. So I do basically a speaker nomination form. And sometimes I get people I’ve never met before who have zero experience. I help them develop their story and
Miles Bloxson [00:22:41] kind of curated. I love that. And I love that you said that you’re a storytelling nerd. When you first imagined this project, what did you think it would be and how has it evolved or surprised you along the way?
Nammy Sirur [00:22:52] I remember the exact moment when I had the idea and I pitched it to someone and they were like, but why? You know, they just didn’t and they were accented immigrants themselves and they’re like, what, why does this need to exist? What would this do for people? And so I think it just took having to actually execute on it and then getting the backing off something like KUT to host the event lent it that legitimacy that it needed. And now, it’s really cool, because now I see more and more people buying into the idea. And I also hadn’t fully thought about, so there’s two aspects to it. There’s the storyteller, but then there’s also the audience. And as I was developing this idea, I started to become really particular that A, I want the stories themselves to be sort of very slice of life, very approachable, relatable stories. And I want the audience to be a mix of not just immigrants, but also a lot of Americans, because I want to sort of demystify a lot of ideas or perceptions people might have of immigrants. And so it’s a nice way to bring the community together. In representation.
Miles Bloxson [00:24:03] Mm-hmm. I mean that that’s why too, right? Yeah. So what have you learned about the power of embracing one’s voice accent and all?
Nammy Sirur [00:24:11] And you know, when I think about, and this was something I only recently realized, I was like, oh, part of this, a big part of, this is also to solve accent bias. That’s a big thing that I, that we deal with, especially as immigrants who come from, and this is in every culture, but when we talk specifically about the U.S., immigrants who come from non-white, non-English speaking countries when they have a thick accent. Americans, even the most well-meaning ones, will tune them out because it’s just their brain is having to do a little more work to process that accent, or there’s just straight up biases. So that sort of manifests itself in all sorts of ways, socially, professionally, all of these things. So for me, it was, okay, how do we create an environment where it’s exposure therapy for Americans, but in a fun way where they can see themselves in these stories? So that’s essentially what this turned into.
Miles Bloxson [00:25:08] I love that. So the theme for the event happening tonight here in Studio 1A is Victorious. So how can people attend and what type of stories will they actually hear?
Nammy Sirur [00:25:17] Yeah, it’s all kinds of stories. So one person is talking about, you know, a certain part of their citizenship interview. One person is talk about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. So there’s all manner of stories, currently we’re waitlisted, but yeah, people can come. It’s a quarterly thing. So if you’re not able to make it, I’m gonna do this every quarter.
Miles Bloxson [00:25:37] The Accent Unmuted live storytelling event returns to KUT Studio 1A tonight. It’s free with an RSVP, which you’ll find in today’s show notes page at kut.org slash signal. We’ve been speaking with the show’s organizer, Nami Saru. Thank you so much. Thank you. That’s it for here at the Austin Signal. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director, Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer, and I’m Miles Bloxson. We’ll talk with you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
