Scott Henderson, my current roommate and good friend, had his lovely sisters; Kay and Robyn come over from England for the Austin City Limits music festival.
Another English gem in the form of Christopher Tilly, a film journalist from the UK, also came to visit for his official second time, but his journey was more of four-month long surprise I had arranged to spring on Scott and Travis. Here he is, well, being Tilly.
Chris and I have really become close over the last few months in a similar way that Scott and I did before he decided to come live with us here in Austin. Even though Chris and I are separated by 3,000 miles of water, we still manage to write to each other fairly frequently and update each other about the events taking place in our respective lives. Chris and I are shown here enjoying a good read on my bed during some down time. Chris is clearly enamored by my book, The Beach, by Alex Garland.
We tried to show the girls and Chris as much of the city as possible during their stay and I think they, like most people, had their expectations blown out of the water as they very clearly fell in Love with Austin. Here we are sitting outside the new and improved coffee shop, the Spiderhouse just north of the UT campus.
They were lucky enough to enjoy a hike and swim on the Greenbelt during one of the last warmer days Austin had to offer. Chris took a pensive posture on a rock and thought about the surrounding beauty while Robyn, Kay and myself swam, laughed and explored the rocky surfaces nearby.
The Austin City Limits festival had its highlights for certain, but for me, the real highlight was having such amazing and wonderful human beings as our guests. When they left, Travis, Scott and myself went through a 48-hour period of “re-adjusting” to what felt like a sad, empty house. I’m really glad I got to meet Scott’s sisters and even more so that I got to hang with Chris Tilly again. They will, of course, be missed.
Oh yeah, and here’s Scott getting ready for a night on the town. OR, is he getting ready to be Mr. July? You decide.
Anywho, time goes on and through the remainder of the month of September, I sort of fell into a hole, got lost, and spent some time trying to figure things out. It didn’t really occur to me that my boss at work had basically been breaking me down morally since May like he’d done to most the employees at Opal Divine’s. One day, he tried to send me home for a week and told me to call him when “I felt like working again.” I told him to tell the owner to expect to hear from me. Then, I went home and pulled up an old five page letter I’d written a few months earlier basically slamming my General Manager for failing to manage the store and causing the entire staff to become disgruntled, and I sent it to the owner. If there was one thing I learned during my 6 years of management experience, it was that you need to know how to talk to people with grace, kindness, respect, and understanding. Unfortunately for my General Manager, he lacked all these things. I suppose it’s not his fault since he was basically promoted from a cooking position to overseeing an entire store. Nevertheless, I sent in my strongly worded, literary masterpiece to the head hanchos and the next day I got a phone call from the owner informing me that, well, let’s call him ‘Dave,’ no longer worked there and that he’d like me to come in and resume my work. I can’t say that I alone am responsible for his demise. There had been a history of abuse and mistreatment that had already been documented. Not to mention the fact he had pretty much shot himself in the foot already. My letter was just the icing on the cake after months of carefully sizing up the situation and planning. When I returned to my job the next day, I was greeted by applause from my co-workers and warm smiles. Suffice it to say, the moral at work has improved immensely and people seem much happier. This was to be my greatest accomplishment for September and although the employees loved me for it, I still felt like I was living in a hole. I didn’t really want to hang out, or go out, or spend money and became a homebody of sorts. I feared I had become depressed and decided a poker game at our place was a good way of sorting things out. I invited several people all from different circles of friends (a new one for me). I think this was a pretty big hand that my good buddy Matt Reeb took home. I have yet to beat Matt at poker, although I DID come in second that night.
Most of October I spent saving up for monthly bills and our trip to New Orleans for the Voodoo Festival at the end of the month. Yet another festival poster for our living room wall which now bears witness to our travels and adventures together. My brother turned 25 and although I went down to visit him briefly in San Antonio, I couldn’t stay long enough because of work and had to return right away. He’s been living with his girlfriend Michelle for sometime now in north San Antonio and right around the time he turned 25, I think they celebrated their three-year anniversary. Eeks!! The last time I talked to Michelle was, …well, to be honest, I don’t think I can remember the last time. Maybe April, around Easter was the last time I saw her. I suppose he’s happy in his relationship, but the night before his birthday, we went out for some drinks and I asked him how his friends are. He replied by saying he doesn’t know because he never sees them and that he really doesn’t even really have friends anymore. I thought to myself, “how sad.” Is this the way the best relationships, the ones that work, are suppose to go. I don’t know if it was San Antonio, the absence of a girlfriend for myself, or what my 25 year old brother had just told me that left a bad taste in my mouth, but once again, I was left with a flighty feeling to return to Austin. By the next morning, I was home.
So now, this play I was in last year is apparently going to be “re-mounted.” It’s called The Assumption and is basically a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but instead the Kingdom of Denmark has been replaced by a used tire farm with white trash, paint-huffing, kung-fu fighting, singing, white-trash.
We’re currently trying to get a sponsorship from Miller High Life, which we drank a shitload of last year. It was a very fun play to do and got some great reviews from critics along with a handful of awards.
Then there was the 2007 Voodoo Festival in New Orleans’ City Park. It was the first year it was a three-day festival. A while back, sometime in July, Travis thought it would be a great idea to get Scott a ticket along with lodging in the Crescent City for his birthday gift. You see, we saw Rage Against the Machine at the Coachella Music Festival back in May. It was their first performance in 7 years and a big deal for all of us. Their show was electric and caused riots at the campground where we were staying. (read blog below) So a chance to see them again was to good to pass up, especially since the tickets were pretty much a third of what a three-day pass at Coachella cost. I had been to New Orleans, but not since Katrina hit in 2005. On the outside it seemed like a great idea. Scott could explore another American city, we could hear some great music, and we could glimpse, first hand at a city absolutely devastated by a category 5 hurricane.
We left Austin early afternoon on Thursday and traveled over 500 miles in less than 7 hours thanks to some “efficient” driving on my part. Pretty sweet-ass if you ask me. I did the drive all alone as Scott and Travis slept in the car. We got to New Orleans about 11:30 pm or so and called our good friends Jeff and Laura who were staying in a motel on Canal Street and have sort of become festival traveling buddies.
You see, in our excitement, Travis and I didn’t realize we would need a place to stay the night before the festival started, so Jeff and Laura very kindly allowed us to pass out on their floor for the night. It was freezing and uncomfortable, but free and that was good enough for me. The n ext morning, we awoke, stiff, cold, and tired. We drove down to the Hilton on Gravier Street, which was three blocks from Bourbon Street and proceeded to check in. Once we got our room, we pretty much changed clothes, showered and headed out to Canal Street where we took a trolley four miles north to beautiful City Park, where the festival was already underway.
The festival was good. There weren’t too many people in attendance at the festival, which made for a very intimate setting. Also, most of the attendees seemed to be travelers from the surrounding states. Rage Against the Machine who had only performed three other times (including their reunion show at Coachella, which we saw) were about to make their fourth appearance Friday night. Unfortunately for me I decided to try the festival gumbo early only to find out later that my bowl was probably, somehow covered in un-clean, stomach-churning, bacteria. Right when Rage came on, I got one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had and Tom Morello’s hardcore guitar playing was basically assaulting my senses forcing an aneurism type pain into my head. I told Scott and Travis that I was going to leave right around the time Rage was doing their last song (Killing in the Name, of course) and we bounced.
I had my head down the whole time on the bus back and when the person sitting next to me asked if I was okay, I knew what he meant. Realizing that trying to explain my condition, that I was undergoing food poisoning, starting with a head-shattering headache, and probably to be followed by some hardcore puking, didn’t seem like an option. So I told the gentleman, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Long story short, we got off the bus and I sent Travis and Scott to retrieve advil and water. I bolted for the hotel right when I felt what can only be described as my stomach flipping upside down with a side of esophageal shivering and sure enough, I ralphed between two parked. People passed by passing judgment about how drunk I was, but I had only wished that was the case. Suffice it to say, I was out for the rest of the night, but I felt better after I got rid of the gumbo thank you.
Saturday night was huge. After a great day at the festival, with blowout acts like Ghostland Observatory,
the boys and I headed down to Bourbon Street. It was around one in the morning when we got out there and roughly six in the morning when Scott and I foolishly stumbled home from the casino. Travis had expressed true wisdom earlier and went back to the hotel before Scott and I made our way to the Casino. Here’s a few on Bourbon Street.
Sunday was, well, have spent. After waking up, wayyyyyyy late, we caught like three acts at the festival and returned to the hotel for an earlier night watching/buying “The Bourne Ultimatum.” We really were out of money. We’d spent a lot the night before with Scott and I losing more at the mercy of the Roulette wheel. The next day, Monday, we had begines and coffee at Café Du Monde on Decatur and did a bit of site seeing. I’m almost certain, that if the weather had been anything shorter than beautiful, we would of shot ourselves, but it was absolutely gorgeous, especially when viewing the Mississippi River.
After some brief sightseeing including this beautiful church…
We headed back to Austin, thus concluding Voodoo Fest weekend. Oh yeah, this picture was taken for Scott, so that he can always remember that he’s a grown man.
Shea philosophy 101: think about it, and next time, don’t get caught.
More to come, ...promise
