he was on the way to the bathroom, when he saw someone he knew coming out. holding the door open, he stopped to talk to him.
i did not know either of them, so i went through the open door.
he, feeling slighted or disrespected in some way, called after me, “yeah, go ahead, man.”
i, looking at the empty bank of urinals called back, “come on in, man, there’s plenty.”
from across the obligatory empty “gay barrier” urinal, he stared at me. “hey, you know hanson?” he said loudly, to nobody in particular.
not realizing the confrontational tone he was putting out there, i said excitedly, “yeah! i just saw them play last week!”
“you look like them,” he said. this was clearly meant as an insult, and it was at this point that i realized someone was looking for a fight.
i ignored his tone. “yeah, just last week, they played south by! they’re all grown up now. they’re not blond, either! and they’re not very good.”
“uh…you look like ’em,” he muttered as he zipped up. his heart was clearly no longer in it. on his way out the door, he called, “see you later, mmmmbop.”
the ideas at work here–
a) that someone thinks saying i look like hanson is something i would care enough to fight about (especially since i kinda do), or
b) that i am the first long-haired blond guy he has seen in the last—what fourteen years?—
are both so inane and stupid, they could only have taken place at a lame “road house” style bar that’s not much different from the cheddar’s across the parking lot but that for some reason is full of no-necked jocks with hats slung low over their eyes, striped polo prepsters, and the hoochies they chase, dressed to the nines so as to stand on the patio and grind to matisyahu.
the cops tasering some guy does give it some sort of cred, i suppose, especially since it happened about five feet from us.
too bad it wasn’t the hanson hater. cause, as i’m sure even he knows deep down, that song is pure genius.
Filed under: random
…who can’t boil eggs, even with a fancy egg timer.
“ding!”
“ooh, i should go take those off the stove—in a minute…”
(if left long enough, they explode, btw…)
i defy you not to walk away humming this song. guaranteed to make you have a good day.
(well, a good few hours. who can say how your day will go? still, most likely…)
it was a computer printout listing all the sunday parties. it was much shorter than in the past few days.
“Black Label? Well, their Austin counterparts, “SKIDMARXXX,” are throwing perhaps the best (and by that I mean the worst) and most interesting party of the entire festival, as far as we’re concerned.
A “Bike Kill” of sorts, it will have jousting, a keg of absinthe, music, girlies, the mud pit of death, bodily harm, baby pants, explosions, some fixed gear bullshit, beer, pizza and more. Just look at this flyer! You are encouraged to “bring a bike and jettison your sense of decency.’ Phht, no problem.”
did you get that? “absinthe keg. bodily harm. fixed gear bullshit. jettison. baby pants.” it was like someone had just used a “random awesome word generator.”
it was presented with the attitude of, “listen to this, it’s crazy, but don’t worry, we’re not going.” which confused b. and me, on account of that it sounded like something we would want to go check out.
but after seeing best fwends (bad name=lower expectations destroyed by high, nuclear-grade energy performance; really just two guys screaming to a backing track, but prob. the funnest show of sxsw) at beerland (just about the only bar open that day), we had nothing else planned, so when a text came in about jousting on the eastside. we took that as our clarion call to arms, and convinced our friends we had to go.
by the time we found the house (it was the one with ten thousand people standing in the middle of the residential street), the party had been going all day. we’d missed the jousting; the absinthe keg, if there ever was one, wasn’t around; and no one even knew what we were talking about when we asked about the “baby pants.” what it really was was a lot of really dirty, bearded east austin gritsters (i just made that term up) standing in the yard, talking in little cliquey circles while angry, thumping punk rock blasted out of one almost-completely-blown-out speaker. there was some giant pillow/marshmellow-y thing tied to a telephone pole that we were told they was going to be set on fire later.
those that had not wanted to go, naturally, did not want to stay, while a couple among us embraced the idea, and sprinted to the nearby corner store for tallboys of malt liquor.
the cops came just after the first beer was popped open. naturally.
the cops were angry. (“how did all our dads show up at the same time!?” someone asked.) they cleared the revelers from the middle of the street, and told them they had to clean up the thousands upon thousands of cans, bottles, and giant reams of paper (?) that were everywhere. i’m sure they ‘d come just to say “turn it down, and stay out of the street,” but they made it fun–they couldn’t stop smirking, watching all the punks on trash duty.
ten minutes later we were told to go home. boo.
we stopped at one more party on the way home, a much friendlier one, i must say (“hey guys, what’re your names? it’s my place, so welcome, keg’s in the back, fajitas are in the kitchen…”), and it felt good to go out on a slightly less post-apocalyptic note. in fact, on the way home, i mused that we had actually gotten away from the out-of-towners and shown our guests the full range of honest to goodness austinites. which was not a bad way to end the trip. after all, sxsw is all about the music, but austin is really so much more.
laying on my desk is a small scrap of paper with a bunch of band names on it. sitting in my camera and about a million grainy, blurry pictures of those bands.
many days have passed since the sxsw caravan rolled out of austin. my ears have stopped ringing. my legs no longer ache. i am able to sleep before three, and can get up around nine again. life is slowly returning to normal.
on my to do list (sitting right beside the list of bands names) was “blog the rest of sxsw.” and blog it i have. just…not here. in microsoft word.
see, the recounting of the last three days of that festival took about 4,000 words. so i cut it down. you’re welcome.
the dogs have gone to stay at their aunt’s, since we are hardly home to care for them for the next few days: it’s quiet here this morning. this must be what it was like when we moved away from home. relaxing but depressing. i will try to pass the time by recording the memories, starting randomly and then going chronologically:
i guess there’s no sense in explaining to the guy shouting “get out of my town tourist!” that he didn’t found the town and so it’s not just his, and that his town wouldn’t really even be that big a deal without sxsw and the live music venues that are so crowded this week, or that not everyone here is a tourist on this street, including himself…well, he seemed pretty crabby. he probably wouldn’t listen.
my ears are ringing. this is a good sign.
it means it has begun. it means i have seen bands playing extra loud just to be heard over the bands playing extra loud on the other side of the fence separating one club from another, sometimes only about ten feet away from each other.
It’s an Austin tradition to spend all of SXSW sneering at the tourists and bitching about how crowded everything is. Basically, as an Austin resident, it is your duty to hate on SxSW.
It is not, however, part of the deal that you shouldn’t attend/enjoy every activity you can. You may hate, but you must still attend.
Witness me downloading, printing every party i can get my hands on. making note of every place to be. i feel days behind: though i’ve seen four films, i have not yet consumed one free alcoholic beverage, or rubbed one industry elbow. it’s time to get out there and turn “party” back into a verb for a few days.
friends get to town tonight and tomorrow. let the fiesta begin!
i’m sore.
my legs hurt, my feet hurt. my body is tired.
this is the basic result of actual “work” being done, something i’m really not used to doing at this point in my life. it’s the kind of tired i used to be after working twelve hours on a movie set.
i have been working. though there’s no actual pay for what i am doing. or i should say, no actual money. i’m working sxsw. i am a volunteer.
i look forward more to the arrival of time than i do for entertainment weekly these days.
weird.
