I should have known it was going to be a bad day for films when I woke up. It was 11am and I was supposed to be at the Dobie an hour earlier for a press sneak of "Gerry." This is the new Gus Van Sant film with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck and I have been looking forward to it for months. I overslept and missed it. Apparently I set my alarm for 9am but forgot to turn it on. How depressing and frustrating. The only consolation is that it starts at the Dobie next week and I can go see it then.

I laid my head back down on the pillow for 15 minutes, or so I thought, but when I looked up it was now 1 o'clock. Damn! I had to go to the north side of town to the 107.7 The End offices to pick up the tickets I won to the Schmooze and Booze they were having that night. I also wanted to be downtown by 3am to see a movie. I hopped in the shower and got ready.

I drove downtown and was planning on seeing "M.A.M.A." at 3 at the Hideout and "Nosey Parker" at 5:30 at the Convention Center. Downtown was a bustle with all the SXSW music folks down around 6th street and parking was just a nightmare. I couldn't find anything. And it was such a beautiful day and I started thinking about the theme of "M.A.M.A.," how it was supposed to be about women who hurt their children for attention, and I just all of a sudden didn't want to go anymore. It was too nice a day to see such a depressing film. Plus it was already almost three and there was nowhere to park. I turned down Congress and headed south. I was going to go to Threadgill's and eat a real meal.

Of course, at the light at Riverside, I went left instead of right and totally missed Threadgill's. I was pissed! I turned around and decided to drive through a subdivision and see a different part of Austin, since I've lived here almost 4 years now and rarely travel into uncharted areas. I found may way around easily and cut back over to Congress. I went to have lunch at Magnolia Café and it was great.

While I was waiting for my food, I picked up a new Chronicle and looked at some of the movie stuff. "Max," which I had missed, was not showing anywhere. Marc Savlov's review of "Willard" was a complete rip-off of my review, which had been on line for over a week. But the food came and was really tasty and I forgot all my troubles. I even had a piece of awesome Peanut Butter Pie with ice cream.

The waiter at Magnolia was a big guy who said, "take your time," every time he came to my table which made me feel like I should hurry but I didn't. At one point, the guy who appeared to be the manager told me that the waiter had waited on an Australian family a few days before with parents, kids and grandparents all dining together and at the end said, "Did everybody get stuffed" which caused on audible gasp from Grandma! (In some countries "Get stuffed" means to get fucked, you know)! Another guy who worked there showed off a cool Iron Maiden T-shirt and when someone asked where he got it he admitted that he got it at the mall.

I saw my friend Kim Garcia again sitting at a booth and chided her for working. She said she was just hanging out with one of her friends who was volunteering. We talked for several minutes and she introduced me to her friends and told me she was going out that evening to see one of her friends' bands but for the life of me I can't remember their name. We also talked about "A Mighty Wind" and we both agreed it wasn't very good.

I finally headed over to the screening area, which was another 3 minute walk and when I got there, there was no one in the theater. It was like 5:25 or so, so I asked the volunteers at the booth if there was a screening at 5:30 and they said it was at 6pm. I asked what it was and the female behind the booth said some film I didn't even remember seeing in the program but I was too upset to listen. I saw a sign posted that said the "Nosey Parker" screening had been moved to the MYEC and that about blew my wig off! Fuck! If I hadn't stopped and talked so long to Kim, I could have made it back to my car and been at the screening on time. I was pissed! (Not at Kim but at my luck and SXSW's inability to make it easy for their patrons to see a fucking movie!)

I walked back to my car. I decided to go home since it was about an hour before I was supposed to get Oriah. I did some writing, downloaded some pictures off my camera and burned a CD of the pix I had taken at the Hobble show the night before to give to Oriah. I'm no professional photographer, but these pictures turned out awesome, if I do say so myself.

At 7pm, I went and picked up Oriah and we talked a bit at his place and hung out. He was burning a CD on his system, so we couldn't look at the pictures but that was okay. He had on a pin and I said I forgot to wear my new Hobble pin so I started looking around his room (he makes 1-inch pins as a side gig) and tried to find one to wear. He started making suggestions and eventually I ended up with a Jimmy Fallon pin. (Oriah had to tell me several months ago that Fallon is a gay icon. I had no idea).

We bought a couple beers and they were pretty cheap. Before too long the first group, The JGJ Band from San Antonio, were on some little tiny stage type area in the center of the restaurant. We were upstairs but you could look over the balcony railing to the downstairs stage area and see the band.

Oh, we also met Oriah's friend Patricia who he used to work with. Now she's a sales rep for The End. She told him she was promoting some punk shows coming up on Sunday and Monday night at a Bennigan's. That sounded interesting. We also met John, a drummer who apparently plays with a few bands including The Enz. I told him I was a friend of Tim Norfolk, who directed their video, and that's only sort of true. Tim and I are somewhat estranged. But I did see his video for the band and thought it was pretty good. It was shot at Beerland. I saw it on AMN a few days ago.

We continued to watch the band from the balcony and there were a couple of cute younger guys looking over the balcony and their nice butts were practically on display for me from where I was sitting. I joked with Oriah about what a good view I had and he joked that I shouldn't be looking at other guys when I'm on a date with him.

I thought I recognized this other guy standing next to Oriah and pretty soon they were talking and I realized it was a member of Kissinger. We hung out upstairs for a while but The JGJ Band was really bad. All their songs were mid-tempo and they sounded like one of those bands that can't decide if they want to play rock music or be the Goo Goo Dolls. When they said it was going to be their last song Oriah said he wanted to go stand right in front of the stage, which no one was doing. He said he would enjoy the band a lot more that way, so we went and stood right next to the little railed-in pit area that presumably usually housed Tejano bands and Mexican crooners. (From the balcony, by the way, it looked filthy and dilapidated). As we were standing there I realized we were both wearing checkered Vans, albeit Oriah's were hi-tops and mine were deck shoes. Then I noticed that Oriah's T-shirt, which was for the band Zeke, also had black and white checks on it. When I pointed this out, he lifted up his shirt a bit and showed me that his belt was also designed with black and white checkerboard squares. He's such a fashion plate.

When we walked away and were talking I told Oriah I didn't realize he could be so mean. And he was somewhat surprised saying he didn't mean to be mean. I told him he wasn't really mean but he seemed to be putting them on the spot. "It seems like you were asking them all the dumbass questions that people are probably always asking you about your band," I told him. He admitted that this was true but that he didn't realize that this was what he was doing when he was doing it and we both laughed.

We found out from Before Braille, who were from Arizona, that they were playing last, so Kissinger was up next. We saw the band loading in and got near the stage as they tuned up. The band soon kicked into their first song and then proceeded to play one of the hottest, most insane, most intense rock sets I've ever fucking seen in Austin. This was made all the more awesome by the fact that it was happening in a Mexican restaurant. It reminded me of the punk shows of the late 70's where punk bands would play anywhere they could get a stage with electricity. I saw a punk show in 1981 at a furniture store once in Houston where The Mydolls played. That is one of my most awesome memories (They were also the first band I ever saw when I turned 18 in 1981and could get into The Island. They came on stage and said "We're the Mydolls and we have one thing to say: Fuck you!" I was in heaven!) Anyway, Kissinger put on a set that was actually worthy of the overused term "incendiary." The bassist, whom Oriah called Adam, has various wonderful punk stances when he plays and just looks cute and cool as hell. The lead singer, I think his name is Chopper, jumped on and over the wrought iron railing around the stage, played guitar like a madman, and put on a hell of a show! It was great.

After their set, Oriah and I were so hyped up from rocking and having such a good time that we decided to stay and check out Before Braille. The bands loaded in and out and we drank another beer. Chopper came over and said hi and I took a picture of him and Oriah. They talked about doing some gigs together in the future and I sure hope that comes to pass. I'll pay to see either band any night of the week but going to a show where Hobble and Kissinger are on the same bill is the kind of thing not to be missed. That's surely the kind of bill that will cause you to call in to work the next morning.

We checked out the set by Before Braille and Oriah said they reminded him of At the Drive-In which was a fair assessment. Of course this was a fairly easy call as their lead guitarist had an Afro like Epstien on "Welcome Back Kotter" (in fact he looked like Robert Hedges grandson), a hairstyle which At the Drive-In also sport. BB didn't play very long at all, maybe 5 songs. The End is playing one of their tunes and they played that one, I think.

After the set ended, we said good night to some of the folks we'd talked to during the evening and walked the two blocks to my car, which, much to my relief, was not locked in the RunTex parking lot. Oriah wanted to be dropped off downtown so he could go see some shows. He asked me if I liked Blur because he had heard they were doing a secret show at Lazona Rosa, but I figured the cover would probably be pretty high and I was pretty partied out anyway. I dropped him off at 5th and Red River and then headed to the pad to crash.

Lodger2003@SXSW2003