HaHa, you thought I meant the weather, but no. Obviously Obama is the first democratically elected African American to lead the party in the history of the United States, but what you may not have witnessed, was the amazing fist bump shared by Michelle Obama and her man before he spoke to a overwhelmingly elated crowd in St. Paul, MN. The fist bump originating with Bob Marley back in the day is a sign of respect and now, I think, love and you can rest assured it was heard around the world.
It’s hot outside. This week started Austin’s trip into the triple digits for our daytime high temps. Maybe we should switch over to the ol’ Celsius rating. After all, 38 degrees sounds a lot nicer and not nearly as overwhelming as 100 degrees. Thank GOD for air conditioning, which as I’ve been pulled nicely into my 30s, I’ve made sure to take total advantage of relaxing my 30 year old bones in at all times. I try to spend as much time as possible in doors. If and when I do decide to take advantage of being outside, you pretty much guarantee there will be a cold body of water nearby to counteract the effect of the suns radiation on my skin.
Speaking of being 30, …well, I finally turned it.
Bringing up the rear of our little group of friends here in Austin has its perks, but finally the fingers are all pointed at me in jest calling me the old man. Nevertheless, I never pass up an opportunity to turn the fingers around and remind the pointers that they’re just six months closer to being 31. It makes me feel good.
In all honesty, turning 30 feels just like turning 29, or 28 for that matter. I have to assume that turning 31 will be the true test. They call it “the sneak-up” age. As you relax into your 30s feeling like nothing’s changed at all, BOOM, you’re 31, a definite marker in your 30s, and with that your whole mental preparation goes out the window. But whatevs, I’m going with it.
That's me there flying a kite in the really big and beautiful park behind our house.
For my actual 30th birthday (I understand now that everyone celebrates their birthday as a week, especially if your birthday falls on a weekday), my friends and family went out to Mars restaurant on South Congress for great food and indelibly, memorable wine. I asked my mother to join me the Sunday evening before my Tuesday dinner because I got a message from her on my voice mail earlier in the day while I was at work that sounded morose. She made mention of how she was driving down from her weekend retreat and that she was sick as a dog, and that she was driving through Austin and wanted to meet up with me before my 30th birthday. As she got around to the last part of the message, I could hear starting to break down into tears and, like in perfect Chris Shea fashion, I freaked out. I’ve never been able to deal with the women in my life crying. It paralyzes me into inaction and I can find no sympathy in my heart as my logical/rational mind takes over. So I called her and told her to come to dinner with me as Bryan, my brother was already planning on coming up as well. She seemed to be more disturbed at my turning 30 than I could ever hope to be, so OF COURSE she should come to dinner. It was a good time with great food and wine shared by everyone. I honestly couldn’t have asked for it to be more perfect.
I went over to the restaurant I will soon be the bar manager of to have a few sips of Jameson 12yr Irish whiskey after Mom had left to return to San Antonio and the drinking progressed into the evening.
I don’t think I had been that intoxicated since I was 20, but fuck it, it’d been long enough, it will probably never happen again. The evening was great, except for the Spurs losing to the Lakers and I will never forget the year I turned 30. How could I?
Oh, here's me discovering a new species of party inside an atom. No matter what state of mind I'm in, there's always time for science!!!
Did I mention that Travis and my friend Adriene Mishler got together and threw me a surprise party in my backyard? YEAH! So many face were there to smile and there were other’s that weren’t, one’s that have moved on to other states in the US. I had just gotten back from playing sloshball. Essentially, sloshball is kickball, but there is a keg on third base and when you get to third base, you cannot leave to go home until you’ve drank en entire beer from the keg. Yeah, so you can see where the sloshing comes into play. There are other rules, special to the game (for instance, one handed catches mean an automatic drink and out for the kicker), but for the most part it’s hardcore athleticism meets hardcore drinking. Anyway, I had played TWO games before getting home Sunday evening to see everyone in my backyard yelling surprise at me. I couldn’t believe it. I sort of knew it was going to happen, but still genuinely surprised. I may have even had a little sob to myself somewhere.
Suffice it to say, I really didn’t drink too much more that evening as we sat next to the radio and listened to the Spurs on the radio beat the Lakers. The birthday celebration carried on through the week, but only with boring things that older people do, like watch movies and see friends. For the most part, it was enjoyable and memorable.
As the work week presses on, my friends and I, including my brother or more than likely preparing, both mentally and physically for our road trip to Manchester, Tennessee, where we will all be attending the Bonnaroo Art and Music festival for four days.
This involves, renting a big, but green van to carry us to Memphis for one night, then onto Nashville for an evening, then onto Manchester with our camping gear in hand four days of music and fun. It has been sort of testy lately to be honest with several friends trying to exert control over the planning of this festival. We have a few newbies to the festival circuit like my brother and my friend Mike. They don’t know what to expect, but I’ve assured them both that they will have a grand time, if they can just relax and flow into it.
Other than that, there’s nothing too new to report. I was offered salary the other day to become the bar manager of Opal Divine’s, an Austin-central restaurant that was established in 2000. I am simultaneously thrilled to be making good money again, but not-so-thrilled that my time and energy will be gobbled up primarily by this job with not so much time to play in the film and theatre world. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.
On the other side of the world, in a hemisphere, far, far away, my buddy Scott Henderson was made curator, more or less, of the Sydney Film Festival website in Sydney, Australia. I believe the red carpet, opening night gala was just the other day, or two. I keep forgetting, that in Australia, it’s already the next day there. We chat from time to time online where I ask him what the future is like and he tells me how he wishes he could come back to the past where I’m living. It’s all pretty funny. Anyway, he asked me to write a 1,000-word article about a movie that’s playing there on a panel of other American films. The film called, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story shows on the 21st of June and I will make sure to link my article as soon as he posts it. There are some podcasts he’s doing also for the website and those can be easily seen here. Watch them, because they're amazing and funny.
On a final note, amidst all the arguing and control-clutching that’s been going on about our trip to Bonnaroo, a relaxing breathe of fresh air came into our back yard yesterday afternoon in the form of a parliament of owls.
I think they might have been elf owls and I believe it was a whole family because, well, look at the pics,
some looked very mature and grown and others looked very baby-like and super cute. Either way, I considered it a good omen and suggested to my friends who were witnessing the appearance of each of these owls as we spotted them, that their arrival was a symbol that meant the trip we were about to share would be as amazing as the existence of the creatures in our tree. I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I see an owl, I sort of become paralyzed by the great respect I have for them and they stare at you with their big binocular-visioned eyes. It’s a thrilling feeling when you share the gaze of such a glorious animal. I have thought that owls always symbolize wisdom as well, an appropriate creature to visit me right after I turn 30. It felt good.Oh yeah, don't want to jinx it, but I finally quit smoking too. Take that 30!
