characters from sxsw

i realize it's been several days since sxsw ended and that most post-sxsw blogs have already been written and posted. however, when i was telling my sister some stories the other night from my sxsw experience this year, she convinced me to blog about them. so, here are some of the people we encountered on day one of sxsw at the fader fort:

ghetto david cross in a yankees hat
this guy came and plopped down next to me on the padded bench we were sitting on. he said, "i have some important business to take care of" and proceeded to roll about 10 joints using a book to "hide" what he was doing. i say "hide" like that because he definitely wasn't fooling anyone. what i know about this guy: he's from new york, he saw erik estrada at the convention center the day before, and he once used a pay phone next to flavor flav. i asked him, "are you wearing the yankees hat because you're a fan or just because you live in new york?" he responded, "yes." umm, it was an either/or question, not yes/no. he finally told me he was just wearing it because he lives there. once he finished his "important business" he got up and, i shit you not, left nearly a joint's worth of weed on the bench and ran off. it looked like what you would see if you lifted up snoop dogg's couch cushions.

desi from el paso
while ghetto david cross was procuring marijuana cigarettes on my right, dana was on my left being chatted up by a guy named desi  from el paso. once gdc left, i turned back towards dana and was introduced to desi. he asked me what i do, to which i replied, "nothing." that's pretty much the truth anyway. then he told me that i, "look like an artist." i don't really know what that means but i told him i'm not. but dana told him that i'm a photographer so then he wanted to chat about that for a bit. after the conversation with desi began to wind down, he got up to go walk around and find his friends. dana and i continued to sit on that bench for hours (i'm not even kidding) and the first few times desi walked by he waved at us. then, as more time began to pass, he stopped acknowledging us because, let's face it, it was getting weird.

girl with an otterbox who works at wahoo's fish tacos
since we were seated on some very prime real estate, we had random neighbors all day. this girl seriously did not look over 21 but she either had a fake id, or i don't know how to judge age anymore. both are highly plausible. anyway, she had her iphone out (like we all did that entire week) and dana offered her the free iphone case she got from the aol/spinner party since she has a my touch. the girl said, "oh, i have an otterbox so...yeah." i'm sure otterboxes are the motherfuckin' jam if you're a construction worker or something but if not, they're just unnecessarily bulky. and i honestly have no idea how i know that she works at wahoo's fish tacos but at some point during her "stay" on our bench, she told us.

this girl

anti-marley guy who let his mouth write a check his ass couldn't cash
we ended up squeezed up near the front of the crowd for fader's "special guest" on the first night. we could overhear everyone around us speculating on who it would be. the guys behind us were fairly certain it was a marley, though i'm pretty sure they based that hypothesis solely on the fact that one of the stage hands was a black guy with dreads. one of them said, several times, "if it's a marley, can we leave? if it's a marley, i'm leaving!" well dip that guy in dogshit because it was nas with damian marley. but guess what? he didn't leave! he spent all that time flapping his trap about how he was going to leave if it was a marley and when the time came, we were the only people trying to get out of that crowd.

so, i didn't actually speak to that last guy but i was involved in some sort of back and forth conversation with the rest. it's kind of unusual for me to speak to that many strangers, especially all in one day. i guess that's what sxsw does to me.