March 20, 2004

SXSW Part Two: More Bands and Visiting Tara

...I hopped a cab alone and headed a few blocks outside of town to check out the Vice Magazine after party. I didn't have a pass to this party either, but I ran into Suroosh (one of the guys who started Vice) at the door and he sort of remembered me and motioned for the bouncer guy to let me in.

Here's the scene from where I walked in.

The party was at some abandoned farm. It was pretty cool. There was a barn/house, and a big yard with all sorts of crumling walls and benches.

I took this pic from the back of the yard facing the barn/house.

me, victoria — Right when I arrived, I ran into Victoria!

victoria — Spin's resident smarmster, Chuck Klosterman.

Just as the party was starting to lull a bit, The Stills (who I'd never heard before) hit the small stage that was set up outdoors in the corner of the party and played.

They blew me away.

Another band shot. Woo.

Same here. Except this time it's 30% artsier.

robbie, sarah, victoria — Sarah, Robbie (some teenboy that was being all flirty-girty with her...hehe), and Vicki.

At 2:45am, the party ran out of beer and booze and started winding down.

Then the cops showed up.

The long, blurred walk back to the hotel.

I got back to Caryn and Sarah's room and found a bunch of people hanging out and relaxing. That's Caryn on the left - thanks again for letting me crash in your room Caryn!

Adrianne and some other girl getting their end of the night nap on. It was a little before 4am and just when I was starting to consider calling it a night, my cell phone rang. It was Samantha and Emily!

This is Emily - she lives in Colorado now but is originally from Austin. She and I started emailing a while back through my website. She was in town visiting her friend...

...Samantha (shown here modeling the best queso I've ever eaten). They came to my hotel, picked me up and took me out for some late night (we're talking 5am) TexMex.

You haven't lived on the wild side until you've eaten a full TexMex meal while watching the sun come up. (I'm still burping).

I got back to the room a little after 5am and found this in the sink when I went to brush my teeth. Hahah.

Not me, apparently.

Sunday, March 21st

sarah — On Sunday, there were no more offical SXSW events, so Sarah and I decided to go see a movie. We wanted to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and ended up having to take a 25 minute taxi to get there. After the movie, we went to Amy's Ice Cream (which I'd heard about from Tara), and while waiting for her cone, Sarah pulled one of the best "make one eye go crooked" faces I've ever captured with a camera. So fucking great.

After ice cream, we set out down the road to check out a carnival we'd seen from the highway on our way to the movie theater earlier that afternoon.

No one you know love a ghetto carnival more than me. If you need to buy tickets to ride the rides, I'm in heaven. Look at her...glowing like a jewel in the Texas twilight.

This carnival was set up in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere and was practically empty (which only added to its surreal-ness).

I studied the guy running this game for five minutes and watched him effortlessly climb the rope ladder without capsizing (the rope ladder is anchored on both ends by swivel joints. If you make any sudden moves, it's spins around and dumps you off). After I was confident I'd figured out the trick, I paid my $3 bucks and gave it a go.

Sarah was letting me stay in her room, I figured the least I could do in return would be win her a big stuffed panda or something. But to no avail. Shortly after she snapped this pic of my valiant attempt, I went down like a bag o' bricks. Damn you, you misleading (yet surprisingly nimble) Carny man!

sarah — Sarah's friend Stephen (who runs a rad, indy label in London) was there with us. After we were done fucking around with the games, we decided to all go in on a book of tickets and experience the thrill of near-death that can only come from ghetto "it took me and the other guy over there that only has one arm 22 minutes to assemble this from off the truck you see over there" carny rides!

First up: THE ZIPPER!

sarah — Then the: CLIFF HANGER!(Which Sarah just made the height requirement for, by the way)

sarah — (Which Sarah just made the height requirement for, by the way)

sarah — And then after realizing we only had enough tickets for one of us to ride another ride, Sarah and Steven (who'd watched me writhe with glee on each ride) decided that I should take the remaining tickets and go on one more ride.

Here's me going solo on THE OCTOPUS! (Thanks guys!).

After we used up our tickets, we hiked back towards the highway and called a cab company. Check out the carnival from a distance at night. So pretty!

leah — After getting back into town, Sarah, Caryn and I went out to a sushi dinner with a whole bunch of people. On the walk back to the hotel from dinner, I yelled for Leah to "Watch out!" She was wearing high heels and almost broken her ankle stepping on a sewer grate - however, while she looked down to avoid the grate, she accidentally walked into a tree and cut the bridge of her nose. Some big help I was.

dan s, me — Later that night, Stephen and I headed out together and went to have some Sunday night drinks at Emo's where I ended up meeting Dan Sharky, who I'd been emailing with for years!

gavin — Stephen consoles Gavin.

After Emo's, we went down the street to some club that was having a werid dance party inside. Here's me posing with the place's creepy (yet artsy) naked chick wallpaper.

"Hey dude, that's a fresh hat! I've never seen a cowboy skull hat." "That's because I made it myself." "Wow! You made that? I can't believe it! It's like a work of art - that you can WEAR! Say, you wouldn't mind posing for a picture, would you?" Bwahahaha.

gavin — These two were friends of Stephen's from Island Records in the UK, Stephen and Gavin.

This guy on the left used to be a famous British rocker - I have no idea. Anyone?

If the night gets late enough, and we've drank enough, sooner or later I'm going to try to teach somebody how to jump over their own leg. Kid n' Play got nothing on me.

Monday, March 22nd

After sleeping less than 90 minutes, I got just shy of 5am and took a cab to the bus station. I had bought my return flight ticket out of Houston so I could visit Tara! I figured I'd be able to rent a car in Austin and drive there, but it turns out all the rental companies wanted to charge me an extra $300 DOLLARS for not returning the car to the city I'd rented it from. So intead I called around and found out I could get a one way Greyhound ticket for just $16 dollars!

Which is apparently why Greyhound is the preferred method of travel for all brow-pierced teen runaways! They just can't say no to the savings!

A bus trip really ain't a bus trip unless you manage to enjoy a shoddy-ass microwave sandwich en route. Extra points if consumed beofre 7am. Mmmm...breakfast.

The only thing that topped my sandwich was the fact that I got to sit behind fucking Lil' Richard for the entire trip. (Dude's wearing a silk kimono on the bus!)

About halfway through the three and a half hour busride, we stopped at this cute little rest stop in the middle of Nowhere, TX. Here's the pic I snapped for posterity's sake.

tara — Look who it is everybody! It's Tara! It's Tara. (She was so overwhelmed to see me the only way she could express it was by miming that she had ginormous gazongas.)

me, tara — I don't get to see my babygirl much these days, but we'll be a sweet dream like cake and ice cream until...um, until I guess one of us is dead.

tara — Yo, you just can't fuck with a set of BluBlockers.

After picking me up at the bus station she drove me around Houston. In typical Tara fashion, the first place she took me to was an abandoned mental hospital. Creeeeeeeeepy.

tara — Then we went for coffee. When I ran to the bathroom, Tara picked up this copy of Wallpaper* magazine and discovered that someone had been using it to surreptitiously cover up their...

tara — ...GAY PORNO MAG! Noice!

tara — By the way, isn't that Nina's friend Jason?

Yeah, the guy on the left.

I'm just sayin.

me, tara — After coffee we went and got Thai lunch (and made faces).

me, tara — And then we went to some cool park to shoot the shit and catch up. After eating, we only had about ninety minutes to hang out before I had to head to the airport to catch my flight home.

tara — There have been lots of complaints and how Tara-less my site has become since her departure from NYC, so in order to appease creepy internet stalker weirdos everywhere, I made sure to take lots of pictures of Tara. Here's Tara with messy hair.

me, tara — And here's Tara and I making stupid faces.

me, tara — Here's Tara and I in front of some gigantic waterfall sculpture.

tara — And here's Tara making her "Oh yeah!" face in front of a building.

me, tara — And here's Tara driving me to the airport. Now before you blow your nut looking at all these Tara pics here's...

tara — ...Tara in a GAY-ASS HAT! Whoops! There goes your erection! Hehe. Anybody that knows me knows that my biggest pet peave is girls in hats. Ugh, they just make me angry. Tara had stashed this in her car and meant to wear it when she picked me up at the bus station, but had forgotten about it. After we had said our goodbyes and I was walking towards the terminal she called out "Wait, wait! Brian, check me out!" and when I turned around...*shudder*...a fucking hat. (Actually it's not just a hat. It's the gayest hat to end all gay hats. It's the hat-equilalent of a unicorn co-owned by Nathan Lane and Ricky Martin.)

Leaving Texas.

And since we all know I'm not capable of not taking a photos for longer than like three hours max - here's a shot of the airplane.

grant, mohawk — Grant (with brand new Travis Bickle mohawk!) who was babysitting the Fatty's car while we were in Texas, was rad enough to save me $30 bones by picking me up at JFK. Thanks again to Fatty, Sarah and Caryn! I had the bestest time ever.