The Big Easy Fall

Oh my God, has it really been so long since I’ve made an attempt at updating my blog??? To all the wonderful people who peep my blog from time to time, let me apologize. I don’t have any excuse other than to say I’ve been busy having fun as the weather here in Austin has gotten cooler and cooler. There is something about the way atoms start to move slower and slower around us as the air gets cooler that sends me smiling out into the world. I’ve always been more of a lover of the slightly cooler day then the perfectly warm one. Autumn is truly my most favorite time of the year. Finally, relief from blazing hot days comes in the form of warmer clothes, red leaves (which according to my friend Liza in Portland, is unexplainable, scientifically), and of course a melee of holiday events all starting off this year with the visit of some good friends from the UK.
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

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)