i'm too old for this shit

i may have to put sxsw on my murtaugh list pretty soon. i was out today for about 10 hours and i feel like i am dying. all in all, we didn't even do that much walking either but somehow my entire body is aching. my shoulders are killing me from lugging my bag around all day, too. BUT i had a really fun day so i can't complain too much but i do realize that i lose a fair amount of steam each year that goes by. i noticed it last year when i was home and in bed by 10:00 every night. i used to rage all day and night and now i get tired just thinking about doing that! i'll list some highlights and lowlights of my day.

let's get the lowlights out of the way first
-waiting for 2 hours to get wristbands to the fader fort
-almost peeing my pants in said 2 hour line
-getting into a confrontation with assholes who cut in front of us in said 2 hour line
-my iphone's battery seems to be on its last leg

highlights!
-DANA!
-tito's and lemonade while waiting in line for fader wristbands
-fader fort no longer being sponsored by southern comfort
-free espresso and lattes!
-free fresh popcorn from cornucopia
-walking to liberty specifically to buy food from east side king and discovering that the food is FREE during whatever event we stumbled into
-spending my day with these weirdos

now it's back to work for a couple of days and then i'm going to try to pull off a day AND night party on saturday. rachael ray and perez hilton parties! 

what's in your bag?

i just finished packing up my supplies for tomorrow. i know i'm over-prepared for sxsw but i would obviously much rather be safe than sorry. last year 4 or 5 people charged their iphones on my charger at the fader fort because i was the only one who brought a charger! anyway, this is what's in my bag:

1. a mini first aid kit containing a lot of crap

2. clorox wipes

3. sweet leaf chapstick 

4. kleenex

5. tums

6. ziploc bag full of random otc medicine like pepto, pepcid, sudafed, and benadryl, also my antihistamine nasal spray

not pictured: ibuprofen, maxalt (migraine medicine) and ondansetron (nausea medicine that goes with migraines)

there's nothing worse than having an upset tummy or heartburn while you're trying to drink your weight in free booze, not to mention a migraine. i know this is more stuff than some people take on camping trips but whatever, i'm always super popular with my friends and strangers because of my bag o' crap.

and on a totally unrelated note, i had to renew my driver's license this year. i went in on valentine's day and they said it would take 6-8 weeks to arrive. less than 4 weeks later my new license came in the mail and i have to say, i quite like my picture! i haven't taken a driver's license picture since i was 18 so i was a little nervous how it would turn out. 

obviously the color in that picture is a little off but what do you think? i think it's pretty nice!

888 hours

by next monday i will have spent 888 of the last 1,992 hours taking antibiotics. that's 37 out of the last 83 days. ridiculous! 10 days on amoxicillin, 10 days on augmentin, and 17 days on cipro...all for my sinuses.

about a week ago i started to get concerned that i had a chronic sinus infection so i made an appointment with the ear, nose, and throat doctor i saw back in december to get the results of my sleep study. he told me, and i quote, "there's not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do about a sinus infection." he also mentioned that i would probably be fine once the summer rolled around and we were out of "sinus infection season." there's a sinus infection season? he did a ct scan of my sinuses and found that the 10 days i had just spent taking cipro had not cleared up my infection so he put me on it for another 7 days. now i'm even more convinced that i have a chronic sinus infection because if those 10 days on antibiotics didn't do anything, why would i believe that the previous 10 day rounds of antibiotics would have?

the good news is that my ears aren't infected anymore. i still have some ear pain due to the swelling in my sinuses but it's not unbearable. i also haven't had to take the vertigo medicine in several days so that's good. the bad news is that my mucus membranes are a hot mess. i won't go into any more detail but, ugh, this whole sickness suuuucks.

sxsw is just around the corner but it seems i'm probably only going to be able to do stuff wednesday and saturday because of work. i'm sad about it but it's probably for the best. i am not really healthy enough to "do it to it" for 4 or 5 days in a row anyway. however, that also means less time to spend with my bff and that is way lame. but if i had to pick 2 days to participate in the madness, wednesday and saturday are good ones because wednesday is my birthday and saturday is the rachael ray party. i'm not really a fan of rachael ray on tv but i am a fan of her party. the food is always decent (i'm sure it would be a lot better if it weren't being prepared for a few thousand people and stored in warming boxes), the drinks are good, and there's always at least one band that i will want to see. this year that band is fitz and the tantrums. usually by saturday (her party is always on saturday) i'm worn the hell out but this year maybe i'll be more energized! i'm just trying to put a positive spin on my lack of days off from work.

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.

lots and lots and lots of fake poladroids

i made some fake poladroids using poladroid and i'm going to post them because i like them. this is my blog after all. i did this after sxsw last year but there weren't nearly as many.

recap!

let's see if i can manage to recap my week! i'm going to post a silly picture from each day as well.

tuesday
dana flew in! hooray! she's only been gone about 2 months but it feels like a lifetime. i picked her up in the evening and we headed to try to score from free drinks at a party at beauty bar. the line was looong and didn't move for the 60 seconds we were standing in it so we decided to go to side bar. i showed bonzai my id for the 10 millionth time. then dana couldn't find her id. she had shoved it in her backpack when she was flying earlier and forgot to put it back in her wallet thing. soooooo her loving father drove 30 minutes downtown to drop it off. while we were waiting for that we met up with josh and melissa and got in the line to pick up our pure volume passes. the line was pretty long but we had time to kill waiting for dana's dad anyway.

after we got our passes i ran into my friend kim who is in town from new york. we all went in and had a couple of drinks. well, i only had less than half of one. the free drinks were miller lite or deep eddy's tea infused vodka mixed with sweet leaf tea. i am not a fan of tea anyway, but vodka tea MIXED with tea? that's too much tea! we saw the kid who plays landry on friday night lights at the pure volume thing. he ended up being my only random celebrity sighting of the entire week.

i got tired of standing around there and the entire place smelled like a fart so we left to meet erin and alicia at side bar. we all left by midnight because we're old and lame. or because it ruins the entire week if you have a really wild tuesday night.

wednesday

we woke up bright and early and got moving. dana wanted to get a pedicure and i wanted to go to party city to get some st. patrick's day flair because i forgot to bring anything green to wear. then we headed down to the eastside to scoop up hobbs and go get our wristbands for the fader fort. that line was pretty quick and the next thing i knew we were walking towards the convention center so hobbs could get her conference wristband. that's when we saw landry again. no bill murray (who was apparently ALL over the place) sighting but i see the same kid from friday night lights twice? weird.

we parted ways with hobbs at the convention center and headed to the parking garage on red river between 8th and 9th to see broken bells. you already know the story about that line so i won't get into that again. after that we stopped by the austinist party at mohawk but we got bored quickly so we went to fader for some free drinks. we ended up staying there pretty much all day. there was a "special guest" on the schedule for that night and we decided we'd stick around to see who it was. the rumor was that it was the flaming lips. ughh yeah, it was nas and damian marley. apparently we were the only people there who didn't give a shit about that which really surprised me. we fought our way (literally) out of the crowd and decided it was time to go home. 

thursday
we got a later start and had to park a little further away than we would have liked but it was cool. i got to meet up with my friend david which was awesome! he flew in on tuesday afternoon but i hadn't seen him yet. we all walked over to the eastbound and found party. it was kind of lame. i kept reading that it was sponsored by ziegenbach and some tequila company so i thought that meant free drinks. no, it meant $5 beers. david and i stuck around to see slow club, kind of, and then i went to meet dana at fader. then melissa got there shortly after i did.

we were at fader for a few hours. that's when i ran into jacob and everyone and let them charge their iphones on my charger. after fader we went to get pizza at stony's, then we tried to go to some open bar dj party on congress but it wasn't open bar and there were only about 5 people there. awkward. david came back downtown and met us as we headed to the night party at fader fort. i don't know what time we got there but the line was ass long and it, like, was not moving. we stood there for a pretty long time then realized how tired we all were so we decided to just got home. at that point i was unsure what i even wanted to do on friday because i was so exhausted. i was thinking about just staying home.

friday
i convinced myself that i wanted to go to the village voice party at la zona rosa  to see the xx. dana and i got down there around 1:30 and the place was already packed with a line around the block. it looked like they were at capacity so there was no way we were ever going to get in. we cruised by the filter party at cedar street which i knew would be insane, and it was. so we decided to trek down to club deville for the brooklyn vegan party. no line, free drinks, and great bands. it was perfect. my friends chris and danielle were kind of wandering around, trying to find some parties so i had them meet up with us. it was fun! we stayed there for a while then jacob tried to meet us and there was a crazy long line so chris and danielle left to go to side bar with him. dana and i went to jaime's to eat because we realized we hadn't really eaten anything all day. josh and melissa met us at jaime's and josh and i left to go meet the others at side bar to see the generationalists. they were great! after that was over, though, i was pretty much exhausted and ready to go home.

saturday

the big day. the day we planned to go to rachael ray and perez hilton. the day it rained a ton in the morning. the day it never got above 50. the day where the windgusts were 30mph. we got in the line for rachael ray around 10:00. they opened the gates at 10:30 and we were in shortly after that. but it was freeeezing and stubb's is an outdoor venue. we ate a bunch of food and had a few drinks but mostly we just huddled around thinking about how cold we were. she and him were the closing band for that party and there was just no way i was going to miss that. we managed to stick it out for them and it was totally worth it. we were surrounded by douche bags in the crowd though. i didn't have a drink in my hand by that point but if i did, i would have poured it on them. they were the worst people on the planet. 

oh yeah, matthew mcconaugheyhey was at rachael ray's party to introduce mishka. i didn't see him again after that. that was also at 11:00 and i was quite surprised that he wasn't even awake then. he probably hadn't slept yet from the night before. 

even before we got into stubb's dana and i had pretty much decided that there was no way we were going to try to go to perez hilton's party. it was going to be insanely crowded and we'd have to wait in line for hours, in the freezing cold. i've seen snoop dogg before, i don't really give a shit about hole, and i can just buy some tito's. i think it was absolutely the right decision. i was beat when i got home last night. there's no way i would have survived the perez thing.

here's a list of bands i either saw or listened to from afar this week:
broken bells
we were promised jetpacks
free energy
freelance whales
brahms
nas w/damian marley
slow club
neon indian (from outside)
local natives
chew lips
the morning benders
sondre lerche
holly miranda
the antlers
centro-matic
the generationalists
mishka
bob schneider
the cringe
andrew wk
dr. dog
jakob dylan w/neko case and kelly hogan
she and him

i saw and did more stuff this year than ever before while spending less money and sleeping twice as much. i'm not sure how that's possible but it happened.

pet peeve #58: cutting

i've never been very tolerant of people who cut in lines. when i was in high school i used to call people out for cutting in front of me in the chicken nugget line. we're all hungry and we all know that the chicken nuggets are the best food in the cafeteria but we need to wait our damn turns.

my only goal for this sxsw was to see broken bells. the best chance to see them without a wristband was at the spinner/aol party on wednesday at 1:00pm. dana and i got in line around 12:30. the line was pretty long but once they actually started letting people in it moved pretty quickly. when we were up almost to the front, the girl in front of us let 4 guys cut with her. i made note of it immediately but i wasn't going to say anything unless it created a problem for us.

less than a minute after those 4 guys cut in front of us the girl handing out the wristbands was told how many more people she could let in. she counted down the line and guess what? those 4 guys were going to be the last people let in. that's when i almost lost it. i shouted out, "well the 4 guys that just cut in front of us need to get out of the line then!" the girl who let them cut kind of rolled her eyes and laughed. i was not amused. i raised my voice and probably used an expletive or two. the girl handing out the wristbands just sort of froze, not really sure what she should do. i repeated the basic sentiment from my first statement, only a lot more angry, and the assholes finally stepped out of the line.

being cut in front of here or there isn't the end of the world. during sxsw i will let it slide but if it's literally the difference between me getting into a show and me NOT getting into a show, you better watch out.

the party ended up being great, too! they had free beer, soda, chips, and hot dogs. the show was fantastic. i'm glad i saw that set because i heard their set later that night at stubb's was pretty blah.

preparedness at sxsw

whenever i go to music festivals i like to be as prepared as possible without lugging too much shit around. so, what's in my sxsw bag?

point and shoot camera
flip video camera
excederin migraine
bandaids
gum
sunblock
crazy straw
iphone charger
extra hairbands
antibacterial hand and face wipes

yesterday i ran into some friends at the fader fort. jacob asked if i had an iphone charger on me and i was like, "duh!" so jacob, jen, a stanger, and then some other random friend of jacob's all juiced up their phones a bit. i like to think that i saved the lives of 4 people yesterday.

this is jacob and jen geeking out over something lost related on jen's phone. in the background you can see an outlet with a charger plugged in to it. it was super convenient because they were already sitting in that spot when i found them and there just happened to be an outlet present! 

after i was going on and on about how prepared i am, i spilled almost an entire drink down my leg and into my shoe. jen's response to that? "how's that for prepared"? haha oops!

another quickie post

this girl walked by us several times and then plopped down next to me and loudly proclaimed, "this party fucking sucks." we just stared at her. then she said, "where's all the free shit?" and we told her that ALL THE BOOZE (budweiser and southern comfort) was free. she asked if the food was free. "well, no." thennnn she said, "well is the water free?" haha no, just the booze. of course the water, sobe, and amp energy drinks are free.

not pictured: her scary front region. good lord. like meghan asked, "when will the "irony" end?!?!"

sxsw day one: pictures and video

i'm too tired to write much but i wanted to post these pictures and a video from the first day of sxsw.

photobooths: bff moments/taco time

watching strangers dick around at the ping pong table at fader fort

hmm, i guess i haven't posted a video since i changed my blog layout but it doesn't really fit? anyway, if you want to view the whole thing (and you do) go here. 

sxswristbandless and an auntie update

for the past couple of years i've had a wristband for sxsw. in 2008 i only used it a couple of times but last year i used it A LOT. i spent a lot of time debating whether i was going to get one this year or not. i went over and over and over it in my head for weeks. i finally decided not to get one. i really shouldn't spend any extra money right now since i don't have a job. plus, i do really love all the free day parties and that's just going to have to be enough for me this year. there are only a couple of bands that i really want to see that i haven't seen before. i will probably survive if i don't see them. on the plus side, since i won't feel like i'm squandering my time/money, i can finally go to the auditorium shores shows. the one i really want to go to is saturday night because she & him are playing. i missed them every time they played sxsw 2 years ago. sure, auditorium shores is a total clustercuss during sxsw but i don't think i'll mind so much.

so, as some of you know, my sister and her husband are expecting their second child near the end of july. for weeks i've been convinced that it's a girl. with nels, i was convinced it was a boy and i was right. well, this time i was wrong! we found out yesterday that it's another boy. none of us could believe it! i'll admit i was slightly disappointed because i wanted to shop for a little girl! there are so many cute clothing options for girls. i've bought shower gifts for friends recently who had girls and it was so much fun to pick out the little outfits. but i guess now that i know it's a boy, i'm just going to have to start another baseball card collection for him. i love my nephew more than you can possibly imagine so i'm very excited to meet his new guy and fall in love with him. i just hope he's lower maintenance than nels!

sxsw polaroids

here are a few pictures that i ran through poladroid today: 

sxswoo?

so after weeks of planning and organzing and rsvping, my sxsw was a little lackluster. i don't know if i mentioned this but my parasite isn't dead. it was only sleeping. this became apparent to me a few days before sxsw started. i tried to persevere but ultimately i knew that i really needed to take it easy most of the time so i could make it to the things that were really important to me (buddy and gomez). this is long but, trust me, you want to read it :) and i'm including one picture from each day. pictures are fun, right? 

monday

i woke up around 4:00am and could NOT go back to sleep. finally, around 5:00 i got out of bed and got dressed. i think we arrived at waterloo around 6:40 to get in line for the ifc crossroads ticket drop. yes, we waited in line for 3.5 hours for free tickets to see gomez and the decemberists. and i would do it again. i got to spend the morning with my friends, drinking mimosas on the sidewalk outside of waterloo. it was actually rather pleasant. 

that was also my birthday. i had dinner at vivo with 20 or so friends and it was great! i felt very special that so many people came out to celebrate my birthday. and i scored some fabulous gifts as well!

tuesday

i had to work until 6:30 and, let me tell you, it was the longest day of my life! right after work i showered and headed to dana's. i think we got to pangea around 8:30 but i can't be certain. doors were supposed to open at 10:00 but i don't think they opened until closer to 10:30. you see, the tickets we waited in line forever for said, "first come, first served" so we wanted to make sure we would get in. while waiting in line i got to see meghan!! she had flown in earlier that afternoon but we hadn't seen each other yet. reunited and it felt so good!

anyway, we finally got inside and headed straight for the open bar. btw, "open bar" to ifc means wells and domestic bottled beer. whatevs, it was free. we squeezed up front on the "tom side" and i was finally reminded why i love gomez so much. i guess after you don't see a band live for almost 2 years, it's hard to remember what it is that you see in them. but now i remember. they played a nice mix of old and new stuff and i really enjoyed myself! 

to be honest, the decemberists set is a little hazy for me. oh well, you can't win them all. and i don't really have a good picture from this day. they're all scary. 

wednesday

we headed out to pick up our wristbands in the early afternoon. we stopped by rusty's spur and the radio room before deciding that we needed heavy metal pizza. after that it seemed like a good time to try to pick up our wristbands to the fader fort. we got sidetracked by "free margaritas" at a hair salon on 6th. fyi, they weren't margaritas but margarita flavored wine coolers. but they were still free. while i was "enjoying" my "margarita" my wristband snapped! i decided to deal with it later. once we got to the fort and saw the 45 minute line, i decided to skip it and go see blind pilot at the emo's annex. yay yay yay! i had hoped to see them a couple more times during the week but that didn't work out. but i still have april 7 to look forward to!

after blind pilot i made jason go with me to get my wristband replaced. then we met megz, bombus and lisa at guero's. and when asked what she would like to drink meghan exclaimed, "queso! oh but not to drink!" when we dropped meghan back off at her hotel i realized that my second wristband was starting to crack. ughhh. 

i showered and got all ready to go out that night and then decided that i just couldn't do it. instead, i headed home to pick up posters from ato for gomez. 

thursday

i went to get my third and final wristband. you all know the story about that so...moving on. josh and i hung gomez posters all over downtown. and it was hot hot hot. good lord! i wanted to hit the paste party that day but the line was crazy long and i was already starting to feel pretty icky. i napped/relaxed all afternoon. after i got myself together i headed down to meet meghan, jason, buddy and will for a drink at shakespeare's. after that, some of us went to see holly conlan at the parish. love love loved it! she's a member of the buddy band but she also has some really fantastic solo stuff. you guys should all check her out. i think she's so much more talented than most of the female artists you hear on the radio these days. her songwriting is superb! 

after a quick stop at side bar i headed to stubb's for...gomez! i kept changing my mind about going to that show for a couple of reasons. 1)i thought it would be too crowded to get into because andrew bird and ben harper played after gomez and 2)no one else was going and i wasn't sure i wanted to go alone. but i am really, really glad i went! since i was alone it was pretty easy to squeeze down near the front. although, i guess i picked the wrong spot in the crowd because i was the only person dancing down there. boo! tom made a comment about everyone having gum on the bottoms of their shoes and maybe that's why they weren't dancing. later, i would discover that i actually did have gum on one of my shoes. haha! 

we made a quick stop at the parish and saw meiko and one of greg laswell's songs (the song that i love!). then heavy metal pizza. again. don't judge me. jason and i stopped by the "backstage" area at the emo's annex to bug meghan then went to side bar. it was crowded and i was tired so i decided to call it a night.

friday

woke up and piddled around until it was time to hike to la zona rosa. it took me about 30 minutes to walk there from casey and paul's house. oy. sarah and sarah were in town for the day and we all met up with amber, robin, and greg for the village voice party. vip for that party included "complimentary cocktails" which i figured would either be a couple of drink tickets or wells like the ifc party. i walked up to the vip bar and asked the bartender what the complimentary cocktails included and he said, "if you see it behind me, it's included." yikes. they also had free fajitas, chips and queso, beans, rice...all kinds of stuff! it was fanastic. 

the gomez set was short but i had a great time singing and dancing with meghan. we stayed through m. ward's set but i wasn't really paying much attention to it. sorry! at one point josh decided to leave and jason left me to go look for meghan. so i was left alone sitting on a couch in the back bar of la zona rosa. in retaliation to being left alone, i threw jason's silly putty under a couch. haha like a 3 year old! we finally left la zona rosa and hiked (and i mean HIKED) to east cesar chavez. good lord, that was far. i definitely had blisters on my feet by the time i got back to the house. 

after having such an eventful afternoon, i decided to lay low that night. josh and i went to amber's to hang out with everyone for a couple of hours. we left super early, like, 10:30 though. i was just so worn out! 

saturday

buddy played at some mtvu party at the compound. it was pretty hot in the sun and the sound there was kind of awful. but, of course, i enjoyed myself immensely. a couple of days ago i read on the compound's myspace that they have, "the best stage and sound in town." uhhh, no. just no. that's absolutely 100% incorrect. i would dare to say that they have the worst sound of any venue i've been to in austin. it was terrible. everything was way too loud and there was wayyyy too much bass. i can't possibly imagine why they would think they have good sound. 

i think we all know what happened to me after i left the compound so...

i had been confirmed plus one guest for the perez hilton party. my initial reaction was not to go but then i thought maybe i would go early (it started at 7), score the free shit, then leave. well after the ordeal with my car, it was already 6:45 and i hadn't showered so i knew i wasn't going to make it. it took me an extra long time to get motivated that evening but i finally got ready and went to get some heavy metal pizza. there, that's it. it was my last slice for who knows how long. i went to mohawk for a couple of hours for the mae shi and some other shit, then booked it over to the ale house (aka the shit alley) for buddy. the entrance is in the alley between 6th and 7th and trinity and san jacinto. barfy dumpsters galore! and the doors were open so the inside of the place smelled like shit too. but buddy was fab-fab-fabulous! i still don't understand why more people aren't in love with that band. aside from being tremendously talented, they are some of the kindest, sweetest people ever. what's not to love?? 

i had to work sunday morning so i was trying to make it an early night. i think i finally left the alley around 1:00 after buddy tried to convince me to call in sick the next day. 

so i barely survived another sxsw. i'm not too disappointed that i didn't get to do everything i wanted because i got to see all the stuff that REALLY mattered to me. and i got to spend a lot of time some great friends. but next year, i'm not going to have a parasite! 

sxsw: your wristbands can s my d

before i get to the details of sxsw 2009, i have to vent about the shitty, awful, terrible, moronic wristbands they had for the festival this year.

i picked up my wristband in the early afternoon on wednesday, the first day of sxsw. an hour later, while drinking some sort of margarita wine cooler (hey, they told us they were free margaritas) my wristband snapped. it was still attached to my wrist but the plastic had snapped. wtf? i went to get it replaced a couple of hours later. the lady put the second one on a little looser because she thought that was the problem. 

after i got my second wristband i went to eat at guero's. shortly after leaving the restaurant i realized that my wristband was cracking again. not long after, it had completely snapped. now, my biggest concern with this was that i was going to get hassled at the door and possibly denied entrance because it looked like the wristband had been tampered with.

i went to get a THIRD wristband the next morning and was kind of made to feel that it was my fault they were snapping. that really, really pissed me off. it's one thing to keep giving out a really shitty, faulty designed wristband but it's another thing to BLAME ME when i did nothing wrong. so, sxsw, fuck you and your shitty ass wristbands.

back to reality

sxsw is over. thank god. don't get me wrong, i had a good time but i am sooo exhausted. i'll write a real recap later. don't get too excited about it, i didn't do much all week. i felt pretty sick a lot of the week so i had to really pick and choose what i wanted to do in order to conserve my energy for the important stuff. if i hadn't done that, i probably would have died by friday afternoon. 

sxswish list

this is long. it is my list of bands that i would like to see at sxsw. i have pretty strong feelings about seeing some of these acts, and others i am much more casual about. * denotes a band or artist that i sincerely recommend.

akron/family

aqualung

the avett brothers

andrew bird*

black joe lewis and the honeybears*

blind pilot*

blitzen trapper

buddy*

camera obscura

chairlift

cold war kids

holly conlan*

datarock

the decemberists*

dinosaur jr

echo and the bunnymen

gil mantera's party dream

gomez*

grizzly bear

the handsome family

the hold steady (to give them a chance to redeem themselves. i saw them once a couple of years ago and it was AWFUL which was pretty upsetting because they seem like a band i would like)

ima robot

lady sovereign

loch lomond

loney, dear*

the mae shi

matt & kim

meiko

the morning benders

passion pit (for dana...maybe i will like them if i see them live)

elvis perkins in dearland*

peter bjorn & john

ra ra riot

shiny toy guns

angus & julia stone

vetiver

viva voce

voxtrot

m. ward

we were promised jetpacks

the whip

wintersleep

brian wright & the waco tragedies

youth group

wristbands are here! wristbands are here!

well, they're not actually here yet but sxsw wristband info has finally been released. visit wristbands.sxsw.com for info. i'll probably buy one, just in case. i don't know though. i only used mine, like, twice last year. we'll see.