Jim Stockbauer, a wise guy who owns a little live music bar in East Austin called the Scoot Inn, thinks he's getting the shaft from the city for cutting a big limb off a walnut tree in his beer garden. He says he had the limb removed because the Butthole Surfers will be performing at his club on Halloween weekend. And he doesn't want any Surfers' fans taken out by a falling tree limb that, by my estimation, was about a foot in diameter and about 5 feet long. 'I can't afford to kill any hipsters or sorority girls,' he said. 'I mean, I don't like killing trees, but I don't like trees killing people. That's kind of where I draw the line with trees.' The city gave Stockbauer a whopping $1,563 ticket Oct. 8 for doing what the Planning and Development Review Department's violations fine schedule refers to as 'Removal of a Heritage Tree.' Stockbauer contended that the tree the limb was attached to was deader than Ulysses S. Grant. But after showing me a picture of the tree with some leafy green branches up top, he changed his tune and said the tree was partially alive. 'The tree was not dead,' said Michael Embesi, the city arborist. He said that the tree had a 'canopy' before it was pruned and that it was its size -- the trunk being 28 inches in diameter -- that made it a heritage tree. 'Important to note that the ordinance that protects trees protects them when they reach a certain size -- when their trunk reaches 19 inches in diameter,' Embesi said. Stockbauer scoffs at the use of the word 'canopy' to describe the tree's greenery, when he had it pruned. 'Canopy. (Swear word). That's really smart,' he said. He saved the smaller limbs that were cut off for evidence, and they're hollow, he said. What's left of the tree -- which looks like a 15-foot stump -- is hollow, too. 'It looks like something out of Sleepy Hollow,' Stockbauer said. 'You can stand inside the tree and stick your arm through a hole in it. It's pretty damn funny.' Apparently the city isn't laughing, because the city was on Stockbauer faster than you can get a pizza delivered. He said the crew he hired out of Johnson City cut off the limb about 10:30 that Friday morning. He adds the two city inspectors -- one of them Embesi -- showed up to write him his ticket around noon. Embesi says the tree cutting crew told him they had intended to remove the whole tree but apologized when they heard they were violating the ordinance. 'If they render the tree useless, which was the type of pruning that he performed, it's considered removal,' Embesi said. Stockbauer points out that the limb he cut off is quality wood. 'I was thinking of making some commemorative gifts out of it,' he said. He is chapped, though. 'I'm bringing in an Aggie to help me fight this court case; I'm not paying this bill,' said Stockbauer, whose court date is Oct. 29. 'I'll find one. I'll call over there. I'm going to hire a younger one because the older ones are expensive.' Numbskull alert: And I'm the numbskull. I made a mistake in my column that moved Friday, Oct., 15, making fun of Nebraska football. I said that the only time Nebraska had beaten Texas since the two started playing each other in the Big 12 was in 2001. It was in 1999. John Kelso writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: jkelso@statesman.com. 