The Passive-Agressive, Summer, Solstice

In just about one week, in fact, in exactly one week, the summer solstice will be upon us. It will be the longest (not hottest mind you) day of the year. It comes at a very reflective time for my mates and me at the moment (above: Scott and Travis take a meditative smoke break in the front lawn around 6am under the tree we all dream under, ...wired).

The heat thus far into the Texas summer has left us able to move slowly across our household terrain in an attempt to stay cool. It reminds me of a Twilight Episode I saw as a kid where you watched an entire community wait and suffer the heat caused by a sun that was getting closer and closer to Earth. Getting out of the house to go to work where there are giant freezers has become a highlight despite my becoming tired and fed-up with my current serving position at Opal Divine's.

A while back, a very good friend of mine Adrienne Mishler threw a party for everyone we knew that was a Gemini. This of course included me and several other friends who were all in attendance for the evening. I invited Scotty, Travis, Mike and my stepsister for a night of drinking and mingling. It was fun and the party went all night. Mike eventually left. Travis got belligerent and headed home after saying some disruptive words to me. Scotty and I went the whole night and into the morning.



It was great. When Scotty and I did get home, Travis told us he'd had a conversation with a ghost that told him "life is good," and then continued down the street with his dog and chains. I found out today during a disappointing day at the disc golf course that the "ghost" as Travis called him was actually an inebriated homeless man who walks his dog through our neighborhood. After that, we had to call the Sci-Fi channel and tell them we needed to withdrawal Travis' application to their show "Ghost Hunters." Score one for Travis.

On a really positive note, the San Antonio Spurs were crowned champions last night after sweeping the Cleveland Cavs in four games in Cleveland. It was good to see and while Tony Parker, the first European to win MVP, accepted his trophy and called out Michael Finley for kicking ass all season, I thought to myself about what I was doing this time last year. Then it hit me, I was getting this thing cut out of me, for not even close to free, but definitely not $18,000 dollars.



Go Spurs Go



ANywho, Travis has already started crying about his desire to use the Air Conditioning system and Scott who lives in the room with the A/C unit right outside his window has told him ‘no.’ I’m sort of ambivalent about the whole thing. I know that our "real" battle with the hot weather will come in the months following this one with August potentially threatening our lives. I'm personally not ready to start shelling out dollars because Travis can't take clammy skin or sweat on his back. Scotty who has decided he'd rather not have the A/C unit outside his window running whilst he sleeps will more than likely reverse his position when it starts getting really hot. Sooner or later we'll need it, right now though, it just doesn't quite seem like a necessesity.

Until then, Travis can take cold showers and fall asleep like an old man in his fake leather chair and get some much-deserved rest. Maybe he could even catch a few flies with that open mouth, or, ... hmmmmmmm...



In the coming weeks: Wolfmother at Stubb's, FCC training for radio, more Gemini parties, the purchase of ACL single day tix (since three day passes are now sold out), and an old friend/lover of mine will come down to where she got her undergraduate degree with some much, missed, mutual friends for her unisex bachelorette party.

Oh, and by the way, my "check engine" light went off. Score!

Check Engine, one year left...

So it seems only fitting that on the day of my 29th birthday, my check engine light would come on, and stay on. Is this indeed a message from God? A way of my car telling me that we're both getting old? Or did a raindrop from the previous onslaught of thunderstorms make it's way past Battlestar Tealactica's metallic, perimeter defenses and manage to seep into it's main computer? Either way, it will require some attention at some point I'm sure. In saying that, I wonder if I require some attention, some maintenance.

My birthday started early this year. Eight in the AM to be exact. I decided to work since rent was right around the corner and I knew that I needed to make some more dough before the end of the month. It was like any other Sunday morning. Woke up, dazed from the previous night of Asian Karaoke, alcohol still coursing through my body. I didn't talk to anyone between the hours of 9am and 10am at work. The only audible sound they received sounded something like Peter Boyle playing the monster in "Young Frankenstein." "Puttin' on the RITTTZZZZZZZ!!!!"

My mother rang at 10:54 am, which is the exact moment, 29 years ago, when I went down that non-memorable, slip-and-slide called the vaginal canal and entered this crazy world. She has been very sweet and I love her more than life itself. If there is one thought that rummages around in my head on the day of my birth, it is how I would not even be around at 29 if the strong woman I call 'mom' had not reared me and made me the lovely man I am today. Thanks mom!

I went home after work and slept for an hour or so and then woke up to news that Travis had planned on taking me out to Vespaio for my birthday. AWESOME!!! Vespaio is a very lovely and unpretentious Italian food restaurant on South Congress that has most delicious food and wine. In fact, it was there that my long-term love affair with a bottle of wine called Ripassa began. I LOVE it and recommend it to anyone who considers themselves attracted to red wine. The wait was long, but worth it, especially since we got the wine flowing the moment we walked through the door. Travis Seewald, you're a great man and a most loyal and honorable friend. Thank you!



So there I was sitting, enjoying dinner with the four people I would consider my closest friends. I had the duck, as did Travis and Mr. Reeb. Mike went out on a limb and ordered ravioli stuffed with veal and then when it came to the table, he proceeded to complain about the portions he received. I just couldn't get over the fact that he was eating veal. Ugh! (On so many levels) I think we even started talking about all the horrible things that happens to veal while he was eating it in a hope to make him feel guilty. It didn't work and he just kept making comments about how his draft Moretti tasted like Lone Star. Oh Michael, what are we going to do with you and your sexy, tight white jeans? The answer to that is, don't take him to the Speakeasy Terrace overlooking the warehouse district. There was an average DJ spinning on the roof while Austin burnouts, Vallejo were playing downstairs. I guess since it was Memorial Day the next day, everyone was out for a night on the town. Between Mike, Scott, Travis and myself, we dropped 50 bucks just to get in the door and have A shiner (which I think taste like shit). Lame. So we proceeded to the Elephant Room for some low-key jazz and less extortionate prices. (By the way, heard that word for the first time the other day, I love it. ["Extortionate"])

We got to the Elephant Room and various peeps started showing up as we proceeded to get hammered. I believe the pitcher count was at 7 or 8 by the end of the night. Then it was back to my new pad for some after-hours drinking. That's when the circus came to town. I took my socks off and got comfy.



Travis was curiously quiet the whole evening. I think his mind may be elsewhere. He and Scott spent the evenings prior to my birthday at a party or two, where the rules were nonExistant and the gloves had come off. Plus he posed a very interesting question to me at the dinner table earlier that evening. He said, "You know, I just don't get it, Scott and I were talking the other day about the 30s dating scene and I just don't get it, I don't know how you do that." I thought about it for a second and then I thought about the fact that Travis (who really never has had any problems whatsoever with the "Dating" scene) and I broke it down in my mind. I think his question had a wider scope to it though. I don't think he was just asking about dating per se, I think he was wanting to know how to do the other half, how to close the deal and find those runway lights to what some (mainly me) might call a "relationship landing." For this, I had no real answer; I didn't even have a funny fake one to fill in the silence that came after his question. I realized at that moment, that finding someone, finding the "right" one would be an uphill battle and that all the people who had started to settle with a significant other (Mike and Matt, for instance) could officially count themselves lucky. Or could they? I mean after all, we bachelors live such a different lifestyle than the people who have been in committed relationships for years. Maybe we're just ready for something new. Is it a biological desire to become monogamous with another or is it just a product of the commercial/traditional lives/culture we've been raised into? Maybe it's a little of both. Like many things, I'm still not sure.

The last time I tried to ask a girl out to dinner, (a proper date) the conversation quickly turned how she thought it would be better if we didn't. This had come after a week of mostly successful and non-presumptuous meetings and dates. I was like, "not go to dinner?" And she replied, "No, like continue dating." And there it was, again, that fear that comes along with putting yourself out there, making yourself vulnerable. I sensed it in her voice then and in the week prior to that moment, as well as in myself. The attraction for each other was still present, I knew that because we continued dating after the dark pause we had, and we both continued to talk via phone, email and (the best) in person. More on all this later though. This was only one thought swirling around in my head that night as my birthday was coming to a close.

Back at the house Travis seemed to be in better spirits while I was almost completely pissed.



We had a giant sleep over because several people were just too intoxicato to drive home. The night ended sweetly with wet torrential rains coming down. This is the best soundtrack to fall into sleep to. And that's what I did, ...sort of. But what happens at Casa de SheaSeewaldHenderson, stays at Casa de SheaSeewaldHenderson.

One thing is certain, at some point in the near future, I'm going to have to do something about that check engine light that just came on. I'm sure it will have a price associated with it as most choices in life do. All we can do is hope for the best.

Settling in... Part 2

Upon reading the rest of what I can only call my "blog opener", you will be privy to all sorts of colorful information about me and the people in my life.

When we last left you, a strange, but curiously ballsy Australian named Joel was using some spare time during his visit to explore how exactly gravity and inertia work in the United States, specifically, South Austin Texas. Yes, we had finally secured the house we'd all been wanting, shelled out the necessary fundage to get there and now it was only a matter of moving our belongings out and cleaning up the mess.

There wasn't much of a mess left as we had only occupied the space for a measly six months, but later on we would come to find out that our landlady needed most of our deposit to "clean" the entire apartment. Thank you Tonia, you overpricing, speakerphone-only-using, unavailable, twat of a landlady. Upon getting everything lumped into our new three bedroom house at 1103 Fieldcrest Drive, we then started the arduous task of packing for what has been called the biggest music festival in the West, ...Coachella.

Since Scotty was just starting on his third week of snowboarding in the beautiful mountains of Lake Tahoe, it was up to Travis, myself, and what was left of Joel after his abrupt encounter with the stone pylon outside our old apartment. It wasn't too difficult, but let's face it, I still had a job, an internship and a theatre company that were all asking for me to be present during all of this. It didn't take too long and before you know, the carport my mother had brought up to Austin, was fastened to the roof, the bags were packed and the gas tank was full. We were ready.



So we set off on Wednesday from Austin around 3pm on what could only be described as the LONGEST drive ever. We had company, another car, filled with friends of old was caravanning with us out there along interstate highway 10. We practiced many driving essentials including, but not limited to: codenames (We were car Ramrod/Battlestar Tealactica and they were White Lighting, Cherry Thunder, but I always just called them "White Lighting, Cherry Balls), smoking cigarettes, speeding, rocking out, stopping quickly in the strange place between Austin and Cali, and of course trying to stay awake.



There are some sections of this drive that I found completely boring to look at because basically, there's nothing out there, but occasionally, we'd come over a hill and descend into a massive valley with a perimeter of mountains as far away as the eye could see and THAT was gorgeous, especially if it happened around sunset.



Then night came and the "Late Shift" started. I managed to drive my car from Austin all the way to Phoenix, but alas, I could go no further and I had to finally relinquish my vehicle to either Travis, who hasn't operated a motor vehicle in more than a year and a half or Joel, who is from a place where they drive on the other side of the road and also hasn't operated a motor vehicle in some time. Travis would take the helm of my car and Joel grabbed the reigns of the other car in our caravan.

Finally, after 24 hours (including stops) we found ourselves in the desert town of Indio, California on Thursday around 3pm. We had made it. A little worse for wear, but alive and desperate for the fun to begin.

Coachella is an interesting place at first, but once you've been there for two hours, you quickly figure out that the only reason this town exists is to facilitate this festival and that most the people you see there are actually from somewhere else. We began on Thursday by setting up our tents in camping field designated by large letter suspended over the grounds. We were in section C near the large and sometimes loud shower trucks. I guess it was nice having the shower trucks nearby, but as we would come time find out, it didn't matter how many times you showered, you would be sweaty and filthy in less than hour. The heat on every day we were there climb past the 100-degree mark and acted as a thermal alarm clock of sorts.



On Friday the rest of the campers had pretty much moved in and Jeff, Laura (car White Lighting, Cherry Balls), Travis, Joel, myself and a reacquired Scott Henderson (Freshly dropped from Tahoe) were ready for the music that we had been anticipating since February, when we got the tickets.



Coachella in a NUTshell had basically the makings of a great music festival with tooooooo many stiff (and in a lot of ways unreasonable) rules in place that pretty much sucked most the life out of the experience. You can't have this, you can't bring this in, you can't do that, keep walking here, no stopping there, no In and Out of the festival gate to the campground during the day, beer is $7.00, water is $2.00, or you can dive into the trash cans filled with people's refuse and if you were lucky to come up with 10 empty water bottles, you could get ONE new one for yourself. After spending $300 dollars on this experience, we were made to feel like nothing more than cattle. We even had to leave on Saturday to get more ice for our melting rations in our storage tent to keep the water and food cold. If I had known that leaving and coming back was going to be such a clusterfuck, I would have never even given it a second thought. The police and Coachella staff had relatively no information about the festival or goings-on anywhere other than where they were at. For instance, one police officer only seemed to know how to say one thing to us and that was to "turn around and go back the way you came, you're on the wrong side of the grounds." This comes after waiting 45 minutes in the perimeter traffic around the overheated polo field called Coachella with my Air Conditioning relentlessly on high. It was infuriating and totally stressful. The only redeeming quality of the entire festival was the music. It was enchanting and when the sun finally tucked itself behind the mountains, the cool air began to blow. It's almost like the temperature drop made the festival better.

At night after we were "herded" into our campground with massive dust clouds and inebriated revelers, we were suppose to quiet down and go to sleep. People who wanted a solid 8 hours of sleep and the chance to not be awoken by the sun at 7am crashed quickly, but c'mon, it's fucking Coachella. Why else are we all here on this little plot of well-manicured grass if not to get crazy? Well, Saturday night, about 24 hours before Rage Against the Machine was to go onstage and close the festival out in a most memorable fashion, things back at the campground took a turn for the worst, ...sort of.

Around 4am, I was sitting in our tent area and Scott had wondered out into the unknown. Joel, Travis, Jeff and Laura had all gone to sleep and I was pondering the same end to my night when very quietly, I heard sirens. They continued to get louder and louder and before you know it, police cars from five or six different local policing agencies had driven up to the main gate of the campground. I got up to find Scott and to see what was happening. Apparently, a party that Scott swears started with some drunken Canadians had reached "riot" proportions and the police were here to shut down the curfew violators. They got out of their cars in full riot gear as a helicopter circled above, it's light trained on the masses below.







For about an hour, I stood next to a fleet of people using their digital cameras to record the whole event. In a way, it felt like the camera I was recording with was the only thing REALLY stopping the police from descending on the crowd. They had the rubber bullet guns, the dogs, the shields, the tazers, and the tear gas. It had become scary in moments. Finally, after an hour or so, they packed it up and went home while the campers sung aloud, "na na, na-na-na-na, hey hey hey, ...gooodbye." The campers had won, the crowd broke up completely an hour after that and day three would be under way with the sun forcing me to wake up in less than two hours.

The festival closed on Sunday night with Rage Against the Machine playing for the first time in 7 years and in fact reuniting. The show was nothing shy of amazing and even though I wanted to hear something about the "Battle of Coachella" that happened the night before, it couldn't put asunder the sheer brilliance and emotional eargasms had by 60,000 people when they closed with "Killing in the Name."



That's it. The festival was great. I fell in love with LCD SoundsystEm and cEmEnted some new friEndships with people from far away from here. There was a really grEat moment on Sunday night as we ran from end of the festival grounds to the other to catch Rage. We were running with our arms and hands outstretched to our sides like airplanes. I fElt likE a kid playing with my friEnds and in fact, I felt frEe.



but that would only last for 12 more hours as the trip home was inevitable and beckoning us.

24 hours after we got into our sand soaked cars and headed back East, we had arrived in Austin. We were tired, stressed, and angry with one another and we needed to be separated and slept. So that's what we did. We took an extra day to do nothing but recuperate. Now it would be time for our lives to return to the norm again, whatever that was for each of us.

It would also be a time for some changes... (more to come)

Settling in... Part 1

Well, these last few months have been nothing shy of interesting considering only a month ago my best friend and our Scottish/Londoner import were preparing to move into a three bedroom house situated quietly in one of South Austin's greener plots. The move, being completely a physical and financial obsticle before cruising out to California for more debauchery, carries some metaphorical undertones as well.

The summer started early this year as the South by Southwest music and film festival got into full swing in mid-March. There was a huge influx of UK musicians and attendees this year, both of which have been nothing shy of amazing and some I have been lucky enough to meet and call 'friends.' Having five people attempting to live in a one bedroom loft for roughly a week was quite the experience. Suprisingly enough, the two boys from London, Chris and Scott, my best friend Travis, myself and my visitor from Portland managed to keep fairly busy schedules trying to be the best culture vultures we could be. SXSW has always been a memorable time for me since the late 90s when I started volunteering for the festival. At first glance it appears to only be a week of film premieres and musical exhibitions blaring out of every venue Austin has to offer, but once you become absorbed by the sounds, entranced by the lights, congenialized by the people, and attuned to the city, you realize, that you have set off on a mind-blowing, binge-drinking, emotional rollercoaster of fast times, funny people and emblazened memories.

Not only did I have the sublime pleasure of meeting and hanging out with some new friends, but I saw some amazing performances from bands I will not likely see any time soon. On top of it all, the best (at the time) UK import came in the form of girl I started courting who lives and works right here in Austin. Most nights during the overwhelming music festival portion I would find myself standing next to her, staring at her eyes and smile, probably reflecting my own vulnerable emotional state. You see, music has a way of unlocking the deepest part of who we are and bringing that untouched, smothered part of our existance to the surface for a little leg-stretching. I honestly felt bad that I had been starting to neglect my friends in lieu of this girl, this English woman from Norwich, but it couldn't be helped. I was experiencing emotions I hadn't felt in years and more importantly, with music to accompany it all from the likes of The Good, the Bad, and the Queen, Amy Winehouse, Bloc Party, and Badly Drawn Boy. I felt so alive and the air all around me felt extremely electric, like when you feel the first cool bursts of air in Autumn. There was no way I could forget anything about that week which was right on the money for that special time in Austin, TX. I can't wait for next year.

Rainy days followed and Mr. Scott Henderson would embark on a new journey to Lake Tahoe for some snowboarding, leaving Travis and I to sort out our impending affairs at the small shanty we had come to call home for the last six months. Instead of cleaning the apartment, boxing up miscellaneous items, and making the necessary preparations to move, we decided that our time could probably be better spent slumming around in our bath robes raping the only piece of Scott left behind (his computer) for the remaining downloaded episodes of the dramatic juggernaut, Battlestart Galactica. We would continue on our emotional journey through season three accompanied by many smoke breaks as we assesed who we were as people and the world around us. I had found a house on Craigslist one random day that had three bedrooms and seemed within our budgy, plus it was also located in the part of South Austin we needed it to be in considering both Scott and Travis are without a car. The only problem was the landlady, who had informed Travis and I after an impromtu walk-though, that she would be taking the following week to weigh the possible tennant applications she had received. (yes it was a shock to me that we were not a shoe-in as well). The following days were dark. It was cold, getting colder and raining, still. Scotty was snowboarding (lucky bastard), the Virginia Tech massacre had just happened and the house we wanted, that we thought was ours already, had in fact become that proverbial basket we had put all our eggs in. Travis and I masked our depression with whiskey and sleep and if we had any tears to show, we would both start talking about how good Battlestar Galactica was, since we were usually always watching it during that turbulant time. Since we didn't really have a new place to call home yet, Travis and I thought it best to compare and contrast all the similarties between BG and the planet Earth, and way we might be able to fix it all. Finally, after many dark days doing nothing but the routine, we got word from Ann, the owner, and it was good news. She had chosen us and decided her house would be filled with 1 part - good credit/workaholic, 1 part - horrible credit/wonderer, and an immigrant who we told her over and over again wrote for an "online magazine" and was a reputable journalist. We had done it. Now we just needed to come up with $2,600 dollars and move all our shit over to the new place before packing up my teal stationwagon and heading out to California for Coachella, which was roughly four days from that moment in time. No pressure right?
What could possibly happen next you ask?
I'll give you a hint, ...

his name is Joel and he's Australian. (TBC)