Whoa, snap. I’ve been mad-behind on my updates, but that’s because my internal organs were crying foul, and there are portions of my brain which may be permanently deceased as a result of all that went down this past week.
My word, what a mess. Always.
Tuesday night marked the second day of my SxSW 2006 bender (man, there must be a better way to entertain myself, right?). But in reality, the prior Friday was the first day (where I attended a somewhat lame-ish poetry reading at Deville, where I spiraled into a drunken, confused oblivion by the time the third rhyme-mangler took the stage). Saturday was a clutch of events and parties, which caused me additional drunkitude. I never really got a break between the weekend and the week of SxSW. Sunday night was rather tame, but the dealings of Friday and Saturday were strong enough to keep me soused well through.
Tuesday hit with a relative calm. Still holding down the day jobby-job. So I had the great fortune of being allowed to plod through my absolutely crippling hang over from the night before whilst staring at endlessly linked spreadsheets, pained in a shitty swivel chair, under the humming lights of a fluorescent hell… wondering whether or not my misty perspiration was booze-scented. One never knows how long it takes to stop sweating out the prior night. Could take weeks.
After work, I actually went for a jog. To aid in getting the toxins out of my system. I believe it worked rather well, since I felt like a thrice-used prison condom before the jog, and about a five dollar bill after.
That makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. Suffice to say, I felt much better after my jog.
After the jog, it was over to Allen Chen’s crib to bag shwag for the Austinist parties. Magazines, stickers, pins, hand-written notes of random sexual description, and other unnecessary budget-sucking marketing garbage which will necessitate the hiring of hundreds more street sweepers to clean off the cobbled tops of our downtown streets.
The notes were written, but only in my mind. And they were REALLY random. Like, bat-on-stryrofoam-duck-decoy sex. Screwdriver-in-light-socket-bucket-of-water type shit. Goat asphyxiation. And I don’t even know what that last one means.
Never got penned though, and that’s assured to be best for the population. Specifically for the individual shwag-grabber, if not the general population as a whole. Plus, there’s the whole Austinist rep to consider. I doubt Allen would appreciate the bat-on-decoy humor if some successful, unfortunately religious label exec were to have been the one to nab and read it along with the newest copy of Urbland Taist magawhatever. Might have been a tragedy.
Allen treated those of us there to stuff bags, by stuffing us with a couple of cocktails.
That sounds like some sort of sexual double-entendre, and if I meant it that way, it would be hilarious. But a blog is no place for inside jokery. It’s a place of mild embarrassment and platitude-laden navel gazing. So there’s no way I’d be talking about him here.
Back to me.
Few drinks into the evening, and I breezed out to meet up with Ceeplus (Eric) over at The Peacock for his pre-SxSW party. When I got in, Richard Henry was spinning.
Richard’s good people. He’s worked with Ceeplus before, and I definitely see him around town. We have a host of friends in common. That, and he’s a founding Feedback partner. Interesting to hear/see him on the decks. I knew he was known for spinning around town here and there, but I’d never run across it.
Starsign (Dave) got up on the tables after Richard, and dutifully did his thing. People weren’t drunk enough to really get down yet, so he was holding it all up on musical merit alone. There are songs that people WANT to dance to, there are songs that people WILL dance to (if: drunk, at a country wedding, or violently coerced), and there are songs people ONLY listen to (usually because they don’t dance at all, or they really, really, really love the song and prefer to kick back and dissolve whilst listening). It’s hard to nail that third variety without blowing straight past it into muzak/background music territory. Takes a delicate touch, and a mastery of music purpose. I could never manage to pull that off, but Dave’s pretty capable. I know he prefers to maneuver crowds that are up and moving, but admittedly, it’s much-much-much easier to keep an already-excited crowd than it is to build one. Them’s just facts.
Cee did his thing, and then Klassen showed up to finish off [my] night. I had to leave in the midst of Klassen’s set because I had reached a level of buzzed where I will talk almost incessantly about a single thing, and what I say about that singularity
Will
Not
Change,
Ever.
At some point in a night of hard drinking, I’d say hour 2, I usually make some unconscious and almost arbitrary decision concerning what pointless topic I will be beating the living shit out of for the remainder of the night. And on that Tuesday, it was my book. The book that I finished weeks ago, but have yet to do anything with.
And that’s what makes it so obnoxious. If the topic I had chosen had been something like “how brittle and useless those fucking apple crates from Fiesta are,” then I’d be alright with bothering strangers about it. But you can’t go around blabbing like a goddamn string-pull doll about shit you’ve either never done, are in all probability aren’t going to do. That’s just insincere bullshit. Unless you’re talking about being a ninja, becoming a wombat wrestler, or how you’d totally take a bulldozer through the drive-through at Popeye’s Chicken if you had a pink one, and that’s perfectly acceptable bullshit. Or, as in this case, if YOU’D NEVER WRITTEN A BOOK BEFORE.
If you’ve never written a book, well, then you’re just lying. And drunk people lie all the time. Comes with the territory. That’s why it’s best to only hang around other drunkards, because they won’t remember what ridiculous lies you slobbered out the night before. That, or they’ll confuse their lies with yours and just chalk it all up to hang over delirium, which is equally safe.
But I was actually chatting with people who actually READ what I write every now and again. They didn’t know it was me, necessarily, because it was out on the anonyrnets, but they had read my shit somewhere online. Then, I go and ramble on about how I’d finished a project which is still, clearly in the infant stages of development.
So now there’s added pressure and shit. Not much extra, but still. I mean, who needs extra pressure for purely creative endeavors, eh?
Goddamn alcohol. You’re supposed to hold me down and help me scuttle my potential, not whip me forward and force me to produce.
Not cool.
Tomorrow is the official beginning of the SxSW reporting thing. It may be here, it may be up on the Austinist site. Depends on my mood, and that of the editorial staff. They may pull what I write. Plus, the material’ll be a week old by tomorrow.
Meh.
Yeah, I’m late, but so fucking what? I haven’t taken a shit in two days. Being blackout drunk for a good three out of seven nights of binge drinking coupled with fevered bouts of half-sleep really, really fucks with the standard operation of even a healthy man’s colon. Whatchu got on that? Huh?
Nothing. You’ve got NOTHING.
My butt hurts.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
SxSW 2006: Day One and The Rock
So, the yearly disaster that is SxSW started on Monday, really. Last year was a beautiful accident, which I documented here, for anyone interested/willing to read. This year, I’ll be doing the meat of my daily journal-type-shit on Austinist because, quite frankly, I really enjoy it when all the anonymous dickhole commenters crawl out and say really ridiculous shit like “hey asshole, this writing is really stupid, plus you’re a dumb gay”. They’re so brilliantly witty, that it makes my clenched fists tighten yet further.
But the first two days so far, Monday and yesterday, I’m gonna fuckin’ write here because this is where I like to spill my guts to no one in particular. Into the void, one might say.
Plus, my hit count on this blog went abysmal since I’ve seized-up on posting here, so I feel totally comfortable with the resultant anonymity. The ten of you who read this won’t judge. Except you, mom. But you were always a hater, so we’re cool like that.
Let’s do this shit. Right? Right.
On Monday night I was a bit intimidated by the whole thought of doing what I did last year, again. It really is abusive to the system. Drowning useful lucidity with waves of liquor, for hours on end, only to eat some really awful food at four in the morning before drifting into a booze-hammered five-hour nap, for three…
-- Fucking cell phone. Man, I’ve been trying to type this for four hours now. FOUR HOURS and I’ve got FOUR measly paragraphs done, and there’s no fucking story yet. Phone. Keeps ringing. But I’ll stop answering. Fucking cell phone. --
So Monday was the Consumating party. If you’ve never heard of Consumating, that would be because it’s fairly new and is overshadowed something serious by the myspace disease. That, and it’s been a word-of-mouth sorta viral marketing campaign to date. Like, links on blogs (ahem, even lame blogs). Ben Brown, ½ of the Consumating creation team threw a party in honor of Consumating at The Velvet Spade. My favorite word coupling was involved: open bar.
So I intended to get sweaty fucked up, while my girlfriend intended on going home early so she could do real, productive work. Such is the ironic way of relationships.
And we both achieved our private goals. The open bar did me well, as I stayed double fisted the entire night, up until the open-bar tab was closed out. Then I was single fisted, and missing more cash than expected.
There was lots of drunken conversation between strangers, and strange conversation between drunkards. I got to see lots of people that I don’t normally run into, which can be almost awkward. Especially if I haven’t seen them in a while and I’ve managed to drink myself into the “pretty tossed” stage of boozery. Because I get all huggy and shit. Not that I don’t want to hug people all the time, because I do, but because when I’m stone sober, I understand how uncomfortable it makes some people, so I keep the hugs to a minimum.
But when I’m drunk, I just don’t fucking care what everyone else is crying about. If I’m down to hug, then hugging is what fucking happens, damnit.
So some of these people hadn’t seen me in a year or so. They were obviously unsure as to whether or not we’re even friends anymore, really. Which is ridiculous in my mind, but I understand how some people can get touchy about not being contacted on an hourly basis. Better yet, that they think I hate them because I don’t “reach out” and “make an effort” to contact them more often. Again: utterly ridiculous, with an added element of silly hypocrisy. Anyway, all friendship-fires got rekindled, and hugs got distributed.
Did I mention that I was pretty fucked up? Because I was.
Ben Reed sent me a text from next door at Deville: “Frodo’s here”. That’s all it said. Fucking Frodo is back for some SxSW action! I ran into him a couple of times last year, at the Fader parties. Never said a word to him, because a) I don’t know the guy, b) he was usually asking me to get out of his way so he could get past, and c) he’s a really, really fascinatingly tiny fellow. Like, nymph tiny. Like… a fucking hobbit. Dude’s mad petite.
Plus, I knew if I talked to him that I’d call him Frodo, and that’s really lame. He’s heard it a billion times, and it was never funny to begin with. But I just know I’d be “that asshole” who’d say it anyway, just because I can’t seem to wrangle my id.
Moving on.
So the open bar at Velvet Spade closed out, and Ben Reed came over from Deville and offered that we join him for drinks instead. So we did.
Halfway through my beer, Ben mentions that earlier in the day he had seen a n’er-do-well in the parking lot beneath I35 and 8th Street, writing on a rock with a marker. What was fascinating about the whole thing was that the bum was laying down to do this, in broad daylight, and he had a fake leg. The idea of this was completely insane to me. What would posses a one-legged homeless man to lay down in a parking lot and wax poetic on a chunk of rock? What could possibly be that important or interesting? Would it have to be interesting, if the circumstance in which it was written was so fascinating?
I had to see whether or not Ben was bullshitting me, so we went looking for said bummetta stone. We walked from Deville to the freeway, to the exact spot where Ben claimed to have seen the stone.
And there it was. A triangle of crumbling concrete, presumably lifted from a curb somewhere, with a paragraph of nonsensical bum-scribblings which concerned some confusing story about a frog and a scorpion. I kept referring to it as a proverb, while Ben gave it the fable label. In retrospect, the term “fable” is much more fitting, in the Aesop tradition.
Whatever it is, Ben intends to photograph it and pass the physical rock on to me. I want that rock. It’s quite possibly the most interesting thing I’ve come across in the past year. I don’t why I picked a year, but it seems like a safe bet.
Fuck I’m much more hung over from last night than I thought. And I barely even described what went on Monday night… but, fuck it. Next, is the Tuesday breakdown…
Gotta get that rock.
But the first two days so far, Monday and yesterday, I’m gonna fuckin’ write here because this is where I like to spill my guts to no one in particular. Into the void, one might say.
Plus, my hit count on this blog went abysmal since I’ve seized-up on posting here, so I feel totally comfortable with the resultant anonymity. The ten of you who read this won’t judge. Except you, mom. But you were always a hater, so we’re cool like that.
Let’s do this shit. Right? Right.
On Monday night I was a bit intimidated by the whole thought of doing what I did last year, again. It really is abusive to the system. Drowning useful lucidity with waves of liquor, for hours on end, only to eat some really awful food at four in the morning before drifting into a booze-hammered five-hour nap, for three…
-- Fucking cell phone. Man, I’ve been trying to type this for four hours now. FOUR HOURS and I’ve got FOUR measly paragraphs done, and there’s no fucking story yet. Phone. Keeps ringing. But I’ll stop answering. Fucking cell phone. --
So Monday was the Consumating party. If you’ve never heard of Consumating, that would be because it’s fairly new and is overshadowed something serious by the myspace disease. That, and it’s been a word-of-mouth sorta viral marketing campaign to date. Like, links on blogs (ahem, even lame blogs). Ben Brown, ½ of the Consumating creation team threw a party in honor of Consumating at The Velvet Spade. My favorite word coupling was involved: open bar.
So I intended to get sweaty fucked up, while my girlfriend intended on going home early so she could do real, productive work. Such is the ironic way of relationships.
And we both achieved our private goals. The open bar did me well, as I stayed double fisted the entire night, up until the open-bar tab was closed out. Then I was single fisted, and missing more cash than expected.
There was lots of drunken conversation between strangers, and strange conversation between drunkards. I got to see lots of people that I don’t normally run into, which can be almost awkward. Especially if I haven’t seen them in a while and I’ve managed to drink myself into the “pretty tossed” stage of boozery. Because I get all huggy and shit. Not that I don’t want to hug people all the time, because I do, but because when I’m stone sober, I understand how uncomfortable it makes some people, so I keep the hugs to a minimum.
But when I’m drunk, I just don’t fucking care what everyone else is crying about. If I’m down to hug, then hugging is what fucking happens, damnit.
So some of these people hadn’t seen me in a year or so. They were obviously unsure as to whether or not we’re even friends anymore, really. Which is ridiculous in my mind, but I understand how some people can get touchy about not being contacted on an hourly basis. Better yet, that they think I hate them because I don’t “reach out” and “make an effort” to contact them more often. Again: utterly ridiculous, with an added element of silly hypocrisy. Anyway, all friendship-fires got rekindled, and hugs got distributed.
Did I mention that I was pretty fucked up? Because I was.
Ben Reed sent me a text from next door at Deville: “Frodo’s here”. That’s all it said. Fucking Frodo is back for some SxSW action! I ran into him a couple of times last year, at the Fader parties. Never said a word to him, because a) I don’t know the guy, b) he was usually asking me to get out of his way so he could get past, and c) he’s a really, really fascinatingly tiny fellow. Like, nymph tiny. Like… a fucking hobbit. Dude’s mad petite.
Plus, I knew if I talked to him that I’d call him Frodo, and that’s really lame. He’s heard it a billion times, and it was never funny to begin with. But I just know I’d be “that asshole” who’d say it anyway, just because I can’t seem to wrangle my id.
Moving on.
So the open bar at Velvet Spade closed out, and Ben Reed came over from Deville and offered that we join him for drinks instead. So we did.
Halfway through my beer, Ben mentions that earlier in the day he had seen a n’er-do-well in the parking lot beneath I35 and 8th Street, writing on a rock with a marker. What was fascinating about the whole thing was that the bum was laying down to do this, in broad daylight, and he had a fake leg. The idea of this was completely insane to me. What would posses a one-legged homeless man to lay down in a parking lot and wax poetic on a chunk of rock? What could possibly be that important or interesting? Would it have to be interesting, if the circumstance in which it was written was so fascinating?
I had to see whether or not Ben was bullshitting me, so we went looking for said bummetta stone. We walked from Deville to the freeway, to the exact spot where Ben claimed to have seen the stone.
And there it was. A triangle of crumbling concrete, presumably lifted from a curb somewhere, with a paragraph of nonsensical bum-scribblings which concerned some confusing story about a frog and a scorpion. I kept referring to it as a proverb, while Ben gave it the fable label. In retrospect, the term “fable” is much more fitting, in the Aesop tradition.
Whatever it is, Ben intends to photograph it and pass the physical rock on to me. I want that rock. It’s quite possibly the most interesting thing I’ve come across in the past year. I don’t why I picked a year, but it seems like a safe bet.
Fuck I’m much more hung over from last night than I thought. And I barely even described what went on Monday night… but, fuck it. Next, is the Tuesday breakdown…
Gotta get that rock.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Life Liquid Makes Me Want to Blow Chunks
Giving blood has always scared the living hell out of me. Actually, it’s the blood part that bothers me. I don’t care if it ends up in bags or on a Luby’s restroom floor. The idea of bleeding profusely, whether controlled or not, makes me want to vomit.
But it goes even further than that. Back in my fourth-grade days, we used to sit on the floor, in a big mass, with our health books splayed out in our laps, and read about health-type shit. Disease. Bones. Internal organs. Vaginas and penises.
Not that last one. But that’s what we really wanted to learn about.
Anyhow, we would be chosen, individually to read sections of that day’s chapter, aloud. Well, whoever wrote/edited/published those evil goddamn health books must have been some sort of gothic Satanist, because every fifth fucking word was “blood”. It was as if they were making a concerted effort to squeeze it into any and every place they could. Almost autistically so. Sentences would go something like:
“The human blood is blood red and the blood flows through blood veins to get the blood into the organs which need blood because blood is the bloodline of all blood using blood creatures of blood-dom. Blood is really bloody when it bloods out of the blood system. I love blood. Bloody, bloody, blood-blood.” And then I’d vomit all over some girl with pigtails sitting in front of me.
Perhaps not that ridiculous. Take off the last sentence and I bet I’d be damn close though.
So I had the great pleasure of going to give blood the other day. It was for a very worthy cause, so I would never complain about why I was at the blood bank. But shit, it wasn’t cool.
The entire drive there was nauseating. I felt like I was about to go on stage to sing in an arena concert. For a band I didn’t actually sing for. With words to songs I’d never heard of.
So my stomach was doing all varieties of acrobatics, threatening to push material out of every orifice about my person, as I drove my fevered-self to the vampire cave.
When I walked in, they greeted me, had me sign in, and then handed me some laminated sheets with a bunch of “if you do heroine with aids patients while getting fucked in the ass by Australian spider monkeys on your weekly sex-trips to Nigeria, then your blood might be compromised” type shit on them. Actually, speculating on that, because every fifth word of the text was BLOOD. For fuck’s sake, these assholes need a thesaurus, as there HAS to be alternate ways of describing the system of red shit which courses through our veins. Alternate languages, or something. Anything.
That’s not nice of me, actually. In reality, I understand that this is my issue, not theirs. I haven’t googled it yet, but I doubt there’s a name for my particular phobia. There’s all sorts of blood phobias, but probably not ones related to passing out like death just from reading the word. But then again: whatever.
They “interview” me by asking exactly 53 questions (they tell you the number before they start, so you can prep yourself, or something) about my sex life (HELLO!), illicit drug use (hello?), and a shit-load of true/false questions about my contracting (or having “contact” with someone who might have contracted) of various diseases and maladies that the Cambodian nurse could not pronounce. And she had no idea what the diseases were.
I should have said TRUE. To everything. Hell, I might have “stifhlectimicoidal anotrophelia” or whatever.
We have a few laughs at the 53 question quiz, as I tend to crack jokes when I’m pants-pissing frightened. Then she ushers me into the bleeding room. A circle of pleather lounge-y chaise things is the focus of the fluorescent-lit room. Two other nurses are stealing blood from two other dudes. One of the guys, probably in his late forties, is looking pale and cross-eyed, while the other is a recent high school grad who may very well be afflicted with Downs, if not a social-interaction disorder of some sort. The older fellow complains that he feels really sick and he needs a cold compress for his forehead. The kid rambles on about how often he gives blood (way often), and that he doesn’t particularly like soda.
I really wanted to leave. The act was already scaring me, but the participants weren’t making the deal any easier to seal. But I decided to stop acting like such a pussy about it, and I sat obligingly, in a plastic-tough lounge-y chair.
Finger pricked, vein found, needle stuck, one pound of blood removed.
I stared at the ceiling tiles, opposite of my left arm where the robbery was taking place. So I never actually saw anything of the heist. But I did feel a little light-headed, and my exit from the establishment is a bit hazy. So I assume that they took whatever they needed.
And I got what I needed.
I got to mark that little deed from my “list of shit Craig fucking hates/fears but everyone else does all the time so he needs to suck it up and do it already”. Awesome kickasstastic sweet.
But it goes even further than that. Back in my fourth-grade days, we used to sit on the floor, in a big mass, with our health books splayed out in our laps, and read about health-type shit. Disease. Bones. Internal organs. Vaginas and penises.
Not that last one. But that’s what we really wanted to learn about.
Anyhow, we would be chosen, individually to read sections of that day’s chapter, aloud. Well, whoever wrote/edited/published those evil goddamn health books must have been some sort of gothic Satanist, because every fifth fucking word was “blood”. It was as if they were making a concerted effort to squeeze it into any and every place they could. Almost autistically so. Sentences would go something like:
“The human blood is blood red and the blood flows through blood veins to get the blood into the organs which need blood because blood is the bloodline of all blood using blood creatures of blood-dom. Blood is really bloody when it bloods out of the blood system. I love blood. Bloody, bloody, blood-blood.” And then I’d vomit all over some girl with pigtails sitting in front of me.
Perhaps not that ridiculous. Take off the last sentence and I bet I’d be damn close though.
So I had the great pleasure of going to give blood the other day. It was for a very worthy cause, so I would never complain about why I was at the blood bank. But shit, it wasn’t cool.
The entire drive there was nauseating. I felt like I was about to go on stage to sing in an arena concert. For a band I didn’t actually sing for. With words to songs I’d never heard of.
So my stomach was doing all varieties of acrobatics, threatening to push material out of every orifice about my person, as I drove my fevered-self to the vampire cave.
When I walked in, they greeted me, had me sign in, and then handed me some laminated sheets with a bunch of “if you do heroine with aids patients while getting fucked in the ass by Australian spider monkeys on your weekly sex-trips to Nigeria, then your blood might be compromised” type shit on them. Actually, speculating on that, because every fifth word of the text was BLOOD. For fuck’s sake, these assholes need a thesaurus, as there HAS to be alternate ways of describing the system of red shit which courses through our veins. Alternate languages, or something. Anything.
That’s not nice of me, actually. In reality, I understand that this is my issue, not theirs. I haven’t googled it yet, but I doubt there’s a name for my particular phobia. There’s all sorts of blood phobias, but probably not ones related to passing out like death just from reading the word. But then again: whatever.
They “interview” me by asking exactly 53 questions (they tell you the number before they start, so you can prep yourself, or something) about my sex life (HELLO!), illicit drug use (hello?), and a shit-load of true/false questions about my contracting (or having “contact” with someone who might have contracted) of various diseases and maladies that the Cambodian nurse could not pronounce. And she had no idea what the diseases were.
I should have said TRUE. To everything. Hell, I might have “stifhlectimicoidal anotrophelia” or whatever.
We have a few laughs at the 53 question quiz, as I tend to crack jokes when I’m pants-pissing frightened. Then she ushers me into the bleeding room. A circle of pleather lounge-y chaise things is the focus of the fluorescent-lit room. Two other nurses are stealing blood from two other dudes. One of the guys, probably in his late forties, is looking pale and cross-eyed, while the other is a recent high school grad who may very well be afflicted with Downs, if not a social-interaction disorder of some sort. The older fellow complains that he feels really sick and he needs a cold compress for his forehead. The kid rambles on about how often he gives blood (way often), and that he doesn’t particularly like soda.
I really wanted to leave. The act was already scaring me, but the participants weren’t making the deal any easier to seal. But I decided to stop acting like such a pussy about it, and I sat obligingly, in a plastic-tough lounge-y chair.
Finger pricked, vein found, needle stuck, one pound of blood removed.
I stared at the ceiling tiles, opposite of my left arm where the robbery was taking place. So I never actually saw anything of the heist. But I did feel a little light-headed, and my exit from the establishment is a bit hazy. So I assume that they took whatever they needed.
And I got what I needed.
I got to mark that little deed from my “list of shit Craig fucking hates/fears but everyone else does all the time so he needs to suck it up and do it already”. Awesome kickasstastic sweet.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Last Week On Other Internets...
Good ol’ Truesdays…
I get all upset about that crazy fucker up in New England who went apeshit in a gay bar, and then went off to kill his online girlfriend and whatever. Dude needed some serious help, but found the internet instead.
Last week I kinda poked some good fun at the SxSW debacle that’s heading our way. The disaster that is… The Austin’s Lifeblood Festival… it’s a tempered disdain though. I always have a good time when the douche-balloon circus rolls into town. Always!
This week’s Truesday focused on that good-time holiday that we just breezed through. The most Hallmarkish of all Hallmark Holidays: You’re A Shitty Boyfriend Day! And that's AWESOME!
I swear I'll write up more on the Birthday Bender, but I'm behind on other shit. So there's that.
I get all upset about that crazy fucker up in New England who went apeshit in a gay bar, and then went off to kill his online girlfriend and whatever. Dude needed some serious help, but found the internet instead.
Last week I kinda poked some good fun at the SxSW debacle that’s heading our way. The disaster that is… The Austin’s Lifeblood Festival… it’s a tempered disdain though. I always have a good time when the douche-balloon circus rolls into town. Always!
This week’s Truesday focused on that good-time holiday that we just breezed through. The most Hallmarkish of all Hallmark Holidays: You’re A Shitty Boyfriend Day! And that's AWESOME!
I swear I'll write up more on the Birthday Bender, but I'm behind on other shit. So there's that.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
2006 Birthday Bender Pt 2
By the time people started showing up, my trail to buzzdom was seeing some giddy-up. Yes, I hate cowboy references too, but the restaurant, Guero’s, is dressed entirely in caballero fashion. That’s “Mexican cowboy” to anyone without the knowin’.
After a few more cans of Tecate, it was time to head to The Alamo South to see The Matador. It’s a happy little tale of how a seemingly washed-up killer-for-hire ends up befriending a seemingly goody-goody salesman-for-who-cares at a hotel bar in Mexico. They have a couple days of semi-homoerotic fun together and then part ways in such a fashion as to leave the viewer wondering whether or not their friendly tryst got physical.
Or maybe that’s just my take on it.
Months pass, seasons change, the nerdy fellow is back in The States doing the “normal life” thing, while the killer botch-fucks a job in Budapest so badly that he himself becomes a mark. Doorstep: killer, middle of the night, “hello, killer! Meet the wife”, “oh, hey, let’s have a drink, it’s been a bad year, they want me dead” sort of thing.
I won’t give away the ending, because it really isn’t worth spoiling, but they go on a kill together. Now who would a heartless killer want to kill if there was a price on his head? Fuck if I know. Just let that deep plot unfold before your eyes.
That Remington Steel guy was fucking brilliant in the role though. Kinnear was a good straight man, but he definitely plays better in subtly gay roles. I have no idea why I’m so obsessed with his potential homosexuality. Must be something latent. Like a herpes secret.
No comment.
When we left the movie, I was, in a word, drunk. But not a funny, boisterous, ambitious, complimentary, or angry drunk. I was a tired drunk. After several beers and the tequila, sitting down for a movie in a dark theatre with comfort food is not the best of choices. Better to keep on your feet, better to keep off the beer, better to have eaten a goddamn meal BEFORE the nexus of what was supposed to be a three day drunk-a-thon.
Fucking Bush league. That’s what it was. BUSH LEAGUE.
But I wasn’t so tired that I wanted to go home. I was in a lazy frame of mind, and just needed some environmental stimulation to get my gears to fire back up. I needed some moving lights. Some loud music. Some refreshingly unknown faces. And definitely some more hard liquor.
Beer just sits on me like that one asshole golden retriever that acts like a lap dog, even though the fucker weighs a hundred goddamn pounds. But he’s just sooooo happy to be on top of you! Look at him there! With his tongue in your mouth! Awwwww! He chews his butt with that tongue.
Onward to The Peacock where ceeplus and Starsign were to be spinning. Their sets were good, really good. But I spent the vast majority of my time there out on the patio, where I could smoke. It wasn’t packed, but the quality of booze-finders was top notch. I ran into several people who run in the same circles, who only know me as a drunk, and not as “that guy who does whatever”, because I’d rather be known for what I enjoy doing than for what others might enjoy me doing.
I realize that sounds dickish, but whatever. All too often, people make judgments about other people without bothering to gather much intelligence. They simply categorize based upon their own sense of personality. It’s as natural as taking a shit, but much, much nastier when examined. Take the following “invented” erroneous assumptions:
Hair products = pretentious douche in a house of mirrors
Republican = asshole kitten-kicker
Chick with cleavage = wants sex but can’t use mouth to ask for it
Cool shoes = future best friend for life
Dude with earrings = understands deep irony
Writer = unpredictable liar who sleeps around
Salesman = loves to visit whorehouses
Drunk = probably going to sell newspapers at an intersection
I’d rather take the Drunk association. There are no expectations associated with it, and there’s nothing worse than having expectations leveled on you by a stranger. Fucking weird.
Regardless, I know that the people I ran into at The Peacock are highly driven, intelligent, and capable characters. They really are. I don’t know this because I’ve spent day after day with them, and have cataloged their every intent and action. I don’t even know what they DO for a living, specifically. I can just tell by their personality. In and amongst the moments that I have interacted with them.
And I’ve been borderline falling-down-drunk on almost all those occasions. So much so, that it has become standard for me to greet them with “man, every time I see you, I’m so fucked up I don’t even remember what we talked about. Let’s do that again!”
Bygones, bygones, bygones.
I am getting better with names though. Much better. I made a point of trying to remember names that night. In fact, I logged six new names which I have successfully remembered and used since. That’s a big feat for me. Especially when I’m as drunk as I was.
Shots got tossed, shit got talked, and by the end of the night, ceeplus had become fast friends with the owner, Jason. Well, I can’t actually say that they were friends, but Jason and cee are both extremely friendly people, so they seemed to enjoy each other’s company.
I wasn’t aware at the time, but I had actually dealt with Jason on another occasion. A few months back I had been in The Peacock for some magazine party launch, and several tumblers of McCall’s ended up landing on my tab. I would guess that my tabs get padded, lifted, appended, and hijacked with pretty sound regularity (as everyone’s do), but the abuser(s) are usually smart enough to keep the dollar amount below my radar. Whatever my radar may be, it’s a damn sight below the cost of three goddamn McCall’s, that’s for sure.
So I got into it with the bartender, trying to explain that I didn’t even know what McCall’s was (I don’t drink scotchy-scotch), so I certainly wasn’t interested in paying off someone else’s leaching tab of boozery. Well, the bartenders that night weren’t interested in justice, they just wanted my cash. Not having a sober leg to stand on, I paid it, but left in a cloud of resolute fury. I was determined to get my fucking cash back, the bastards.
The next day, I myspaced their profile thing and explained how I was victimized and how I don’t appreciate being made out to be a thief in front of a shitload of pissed off drink-orderers (the bartender obviously thought I was trying to get away with having my high-class boozing comp’d by the tenders, which is, well, whatever man). Whoever was running the profile messaged me back and apologized for the mishap, and let me know that there would be a $25 comp at the bar under my name. I could go claim it at any time.
Well, I never found the time. I’d like to say I never made it back out there because I was morally opposed to how I was treated, or something equally shitty sounding. At least it wouldn’t be as lame an excuse as “I just… never bothered. ???” Laaaahhhaaaaaame.
Anyhow, immediately after cee introduced me to Jason as the owner, I coughed up that entire story, assuming that all had been forgotten, water under the bridge and whatnot. He actually remembered the whole thing. He ran the fucking profile. My comp was still at the bar. He was honestly sorry about the mix-up.
Fuck. I can’t even be wronged without managing to put myself in a situation that will end with ME feeling guilty about it. For the love of…
About an hour after they closed up the bar, cee is still drinking with Jason and the other bartenders. This is a common occurrence with cee, as he has a certain “just keep your bar open past last call so we can all drink together” Jedi mind-shit thing going. Many years of practice, I’m guessing.
Bill, Brother Nick and I had to pack up cee’s equipment while he hung on to the bar, trying to give records away to the owner and his “let’s fucking leave already” staff. Lucky for me, the combination of heavy lifting, not drinking for a good while, and the cool night air gave me the clarity to get home safely.
Where I slept like the dead because I had the following Friday off. Word to that.
After a few more cans of Tecate, it was time to head to The Alamo South to see The Matador. It’s a happy little tale of how a seemingly washed-up killer-for-hire ends up befriending a seemingly goody-goody salesman-for-who-cares at a hotel bar in Mexico. They have a couple days of semi-homoerotic fun together and then part ways in such a fashion as to leave the viewer wondering whether or not their friendly tryst got physical.
Or maybe that’s just my take on it.
Months pass, seasons change, the nerdy fellow is back in The States doing the “normal life” thing, while the killer botch-fucks a job in Budapest so badly that he himself becomes a mark. Doorstep: killer, middle of the night, “hello, killer! Meet the wife”, “oh, hey, let’s have a drink, it’s been a bad year, they want me dead” sort of thing.
I won’t give away the ending, because it really isn’t worth spoiling, but they go on a kill together. Now who would a heartless killer want to kill if there was a price on his head? Fuck if I know. Just let that deep plot unfold before your eyes.
That Remington Steel guy was fucking brilliant in the role though. Kinnear was a good straight man, but he definitely plays better in subtly gay roles. I have no idea why I’m so obsessed with his potential homosexuality. Must be something latent. Like a herpes secret.
No comment.
When we left the movie, I was, in a word, drunk. But not a funny, boisterous, ambitious, complimentary, or angry drunk. I was a tired drunk. After several beers and the tequila, sitting down for a movie in a dark theatre with comfort food is not the best of choices. Better to keep on your feet, better to keep off the beer, better to have eaten a goddamn meal BEFORE the nexus of what was supposed to be a three day drunk-a-thon.
Fucking Bush league. That’s what it was. BUSH LEAGUE.
But I wasn’t so tired that I wanted to go home. I was in a lazy frame of mind, and just needed some environmental stimulation to get my gears to fire back up. I needed some moving lights. Some loud music. Some refreshingly unknown faces. And definitely some more hard liquor.
Beer just sits on me like that one asshole golden retriever that acts like a lap dog, even though the fucker weighs a hundred goddamn pounds. But he’s just sooooo happy to be on top of you! Look at him there! With his tongue in your mouth! Awwwww! He chews his butt with that tongue.
Onward to The Peacock where ceeplus and Starsign were to be spinning. Their sets were good, really good. But I spent the vast majority of my time there out on the patio, where I could smoke. It wasn’t packed, but the quality of booze-finders was top notch. I ran into several people who run in the same circles, who only know me as a drunk, and not as “that guy who does whatever”, because I’d rather be known for what I enjoy doing than for what others might enjoy me doing.
I realize that sounds dickish, but whatever. All too often, people make judgments about other people without bothering to gather much intelligence. They simply categorize based upon their own sense of personality. It’s as natural as taking a shit, but much, much nastier when examined. Take the following “invented” erroneous assumptions:
Hair products = pretentious douche in a house of mirrors
Republican = asshole kitten-kicker
Chick with cleavage = wants sex but can’t use mouth to ask for it
Cool shoes = future best friend for life
Dude with earrings = understands deep irony
Writer = unpredictable liar who sleeps around
Salesman = loves to visit whorehouses
Drunk = probably going to sell newspapers at an intersection
I’d rather take the Drunk association. There are no expectations associated with it, and there’s nothing worse than having expectations leveled on you by a stranger. Fucking weird.
Regardless, I know that the people I ran into at The Peacock are highly driven, intelligent, and capable characters. They really are. I don’t know this because I’ve spent day after day with them, and have cataloged their every intent and action. I don’t even know what they DO for a living, specifically. I can just tell by their personality. In and amongst the moments that I have interacted with them.
And I’ve been borderline falling-down-drunk on almost all those occasions. So much so, that it has become standard for me to greet them with “man, every time I see you, I’m so fucked up I don’t even remember what we talked about. Let’s do that again!”
Bygones, bygones, bygones.
I am getting better with names though. Much better. I made a point of trying to remember names that night. In fact, I logged six new names which I have successfully remembered and used since. That’s a big feat for me. Especially when I’m as drunk as I was.
Shots got tossed, shit got talked, and by the end of the night, ceeplus had become fast friends with the owner, Jason. Well, I can’t actually say that they were friends, but Jason and cee are both extremely friendly people, so they seemed to enjoy each other’s company.
I wasn’t aware at the time, but I had actually dealt with Jason on another occasion. A few months back I had been in The Peacock for some magazine party launch, and several tumblers of McCall’s ended up landing on my tab. I would guess that my tabs get padded, lifted, appended, and hijacked with pretty sound regularity (as everyone’s do), but the abuser(s) are usually smart enough to keep the dollar amount below my radar. Whatever my radar may be, it’s a damn sight below the cost of three goddamn McCall’s, that’s for sure.
So I got into it with the bartender, trying to explain that I didn’t even know what McCall’s was (I don’t drink scotchy-scotch), so I certainly wasn’t interested in paying off someone else’s leaching tab of boozery. Well, the bartenders that night weren’t interested in justice, they just wanted my cash. Not having a sober leg to stand on, I paid it, but left in a cloud of resolute fury. I was determined to get my fucking cash back, the bastards.
The next day, I myspaced their profile thing and explained how I was victimized and how I don’t appreciate being made out to be a thief in front of a shitload of pissed off drink-orderers (the bartender obviously thought I was trying to get away with having my high-class boozing comp’d by the tenders, which is, well, whatever man). Whoever was running the profile messaged me back and apologized for the mishap, and let me know that there would be a $25 comp at the bar under my name. I could go claim it at any time.
Well, I never found the time. I’d like to say I never made it back out there because I was morally opposed to how I was treated, or something equally shitty sounding. At least it wouldn’t be as lame an excuse as “I just… never bothered. ???” Laaaahhhaaaaaame.
Anyhow, immediately after cee introduced me to Jason as the owner, I coughed up that entire story, assuming that all had been forgotten, water under the bridge and whatnot. He actually remembered the whole thing. He ran the fucking profile. My comp was still at the bar. He was honestly sorry about the mix-up.
Fuck. I can’t even be wronged without managing to put myself in a situation that will end with ME feeling guilty about it. For the love of…
About an hour after they closed up the bar, cee is still drinking with Jason and the other bartenders. This is a common occurrence with cee, as he has a certain “just keep your bar open past last call so we can all drink together” Jedi mind-shit thing going. Many years of practice, I’m guessing.
Bill, Brother Nick and I had to pack up cee’s equipment while he hung on to the bar, trying to give records away to the owner and his “let’s fucking leave already” staff. Lucky for me, the combination of heavy lifting, not drinking for a good while, and the cool night air gave me the clarity to get home safely.
Where I slept like the dead because I had the following Friday off. Word to that.
2006 Birthday Bender Pt 1
Last Thursday marked the start of the three-day birthday bender. I am somewhat hesitant to write this up at the moment because I am receiving some heavy traffic in relation to last year’s SxSW five-day bender. The birthday bender pales in comparison to the SxSW one, and to anyone who found my writing by way of googling “SxSW booze alcohol free party shit-on-foot”, there may appear to be an inordinate number of benders represented, digitally, here.
But, fuck it. I said I’d write it out, and so it shall be done.
So, Thursday it all began. The first Thursday of each month here in Austin is odd cause for celebration on South Congress. Makes no difference who started the thing. It has become an institution here.
The thing about “First Thursday” for me, is that five years back it was more rag-tag. And I prefer it that way. The stores would have kegs of beer, or bottles of wine, and if you wandered in, they’d just hand you a glass. Bands would play in the street or in a back-patio of some fucked-up little curio shop. It was hokey. It was a bit confused.
It had free beer.
Nowadays, it has become another festival-type thing where the blatant focus is on selling people shit. All festivals are designed to make money. On the inside, everyone realizes that currency is the point of the thing. If they run the red, they disappear because no one is willing to pay for the good time of strangers. That’s how the evil wheels of capitalism roll. But no one likes it to be written all on the OUTSIDE of the event. At least make an effort to give the thing a haze of altruism.
If our current presidency can pull this trick off, so can a clutch of merchants. I mean, fuck.
First Thursday is no different. In the beginning the businesses on Congress were hungry, and willing to make sacrifices for the sake of community approval and the promise of better foot traffic in years to come. So they busted out the free booze, called up their friends in bands, set up some basic sound systems, passed out fliers, kissed stranger’s babies, and kapow. A few years later, they get a regular festival going on the first of every month to drum up some community business.
Too bad those pioneers did such a good job. So good that after they worked so hard to clean up South Congress’s reputation, they got shoo’d off by less community-interested businesses. Businesses that took advantage of all the groundwork lain down by those they replaced, but didn’t feel the need to bother continuing the spirit. Why try? All those asshole consumers are going to show up anyway, right? Right. Fuck it.
There’s no more free beer, and other than the music in the patio outside of Guero’s, there’s very little going on that’s free. Some side shows here and there, some makeshift “galleries”, and perhaps that same no-tooth dude from 7th and Congress has wandered down with his guitar to sing some shit I can never understand. But they’re all there for money, because culture, even if half-assed, ain’t free.
Regardless, Brother Nick and I made sure to start things off right with some beer and tequila shots.
I have no idea why tequila rang true as a good idea, because it never is, unless you’re requesting it from a firing squad. Nothing good ever comes of tequila. Just headaches, lost teeth, auto insurance claims, and unwanted pregnancies. That’s all tequila has to offer anyone. Life disruption and horrific discomfort.
So we had to have some…
But, fuck it. I said I’d write it out, and so it shall be done.
So, Thursday it all began. The first Thursday of each month here in Austin is odd cause for celebration on South Congress. Makes no difference who started the thing. It has become an institution here.
The thing about “First Thursday” for me, is that five years back it was more rag-tag. And I prefer it that way. The stores would have kegs of beer, or bottles of wine, and if you wandered in, they’d just hand you a glass. Bands would play in the street or in a back-patio of some fucked-up little curio shop. It was hokey. It was a bit confused.
It had free beer.
Nowadays, it has become another festival-type thing where the blatant focus is on selling people shit. All festivals are designed to make money. On the inside, everyone realizes that currency is the point of the thing. If they run the red, they disappear because no one is willing to pay for the good time of strangers. That’s how the evil wheels of capitalism roll. But no one likes it to be written all on the OUTSIDE of the event. At least make an effort to give the thing a haze of altruism.
If our current presidency can pull this trick off, so can a clutch of merchants. I mean, fuck.
First Thursday is no different. In the beginning the businesses on Congress were hungry, and willing to make sacrifices for the sake of community approval and the promise of better foot traffic in years to come. So they busted out the free booze, called up their friends in bands, set up some basic sound systems, passed out fliers, kissed stranger’s babies, and kapow. A few years later, they get a regular festival going on the first of every month to drum up some community business.
Too bad those pioneers did such a good job. So good that after they worked so hard to clean up South Congress’s reputation, they got shoo’d off by less community-interested businesses. Businesses that took advantage of all the groundwork lain down by those they replaced, but didn’t feel the need to bother continuing the spirit. Why try? All those asshole consumers are going to show up anyway, right? Right. Fuck it.
There’s no more free beer, and other than the music in the patio outside of Guero’s, there’s very little going on that’s free. Some side shows here and there, some makeshift “galleries”, and perhaps that same no-tooth dude from 7th and Congress has wandered down with his guitar to sing some shit I can never understand. But they’re all there for money, because culture, even if half-assed, ain’t free.
Regardless, Brother Nick and I made sure to start things off right with some beer and tequila shots.
I have no idea why tequila rang true as a good idea, because it never is, unless you’re requesting it from a firing squad. Nothing good ever comes of tequila. Just headaches, lost teeth, auto insurance claims, and unwanted pregnancies. That’s all tequila has to offer anyone. Life disruption and horrific discomfort.
So we had to have some…
Monday, February 06, 2006
Yes, You Are Reading Correctly
When you mouth through the words "Craig sucks, and hasn't written anything original in weeks here, and that's, well, that's just plain shitty of him."
I know. And my mind has suffered through the truth of it all. Ammends are in order. Something is in order, anyhow.
In my defense, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Just finished off the birthday. Three-day bender. And I plan to chronicle that one because I vaguely remember some things that I found particularly entertaining.
No one else has to care, right? Right.
I want to say that I've been dedicating more time to alternate projects, because that sounds better than "hung over, watching shit movies like The Crow and Blue Velvet". It makes me look like I've got irons in fires, lines in lakes, buns in ovens.
But not that last one. I just liked the way it sounded in the context, that's all.
So, soon, I will have a document of what I can piece together from my little birthday bender. The word that immediately comes to mind is "pain"...
I know. And my mind has suffered through the truth of it all. Ammends are in order. Something is in order, anyhow.
In my defense, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Just finished off the birthday. Three-day bender. And I plan to chronicle that one because I vaguely remember some things that I found particularly entertaining.
No one else has to care, right? Right.
I want to say that I've been dedicating more time to alternate projects, because that sounds better than "hung over, watching shit movies like The Crow and Blue Velvet". It makes me look like I've got irons in fires, lines in lakes, buns in ovens.
But not that last one. I just liked the way it sounded in the context, that's all.
So, soon, I will have a document of what I can piece together from my little birthday bender. The word that immediately comes to mind is "pain"...
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