I took a shower and headed over to the Westgate. I couldn’t remember everything on my schedule for the day, but knew I was going to the Westgate at 3. I also knew that if I was early I could go to the Chinese Buffet across the street from the theater and have lunch. I went in with my bag of Chronicles and stuff and got myself a plate of food and some iced tea. I saw my (ex-)friend Ravkill there and said hello but he did not reply. I guess he is just not going to talk to me. Whatever. His friends are all part of that Harry Knowles clique and I guess they can’t understand the fact that they are minor celebs and people are going to write stuff about them and call them on their bullshit. Again… Whatever.

I didn’t get to read too much but did notice that the special edition of the Chronicle for SXSW for Thursday had a really stupid ad for the Austin City Limits Music Festival with the banner tagline “Don’t Move Here… Just Come Back in September!” Fuck that! Move here! This city’s economy needs all the help it can get. Move here. Open businesses here. Open your mind here. Ads like that really piss me off.

Went to the Westgate theater and saw that the film playing was one from the Arturo Ripstein retrospective. I didn’t think that was on my list and wondered if they had moved theaters. What I found out was that I had written down that I was going to go to shorts at the Alamo at 3pm but had went to the Westgate instead without checking my schedule. I wanted to see one of the Ripstein films anyway, so I decided to go in. The volunteer there, who I had seen at various venues all week and had dyed his hair with leopard spots (but after the first day always seemed to have on a hat), told me that the films all day at the Westgate were good and that “Deprivation” was really worth seeing. He was really nice but reeked of alcohol. I had planned on staying there most of the day and seeing films, so I thanked him and went in to the theater.

As I was going into the theater, Rav came out and held the door open for me but again didn’t speak to me when I said “Thanks.” The audience was pretty small and it wasn’t long until the volunteer came in and introduced the film. He also told us that Ripstein’s wife wrote the script and stumbled through her Spanish name. He exited the theater and we waited another five minutes or so. At this point Harry Knowles came in and the film immediately started. I assumed Rav had went out and asked them to hold the start of the film until Harry got there but I could be wrong.

After the film, I went to the bathroom to take a crap (yes I write about everything I do but this is important because) as I went in Harry was going into a stall at the same time. Other than functioning bowels and a large daily intake of calories I don’t think Harry and I have anything else in common. Well… we are both pretentious fucks too!

After washing my hands and going to get some concession items, I saw that Harry was talking to the cute girl I had met a few days before at the Westgate who said her husband knew him. Rav and Harry’s father were also there and we all soon headed back into the theater for “Lilya 4-ever.”

It was a while until the schedule start of the film so I opened up the special Thursday edition of The Chronicle again and saw an article about and a picture from Hobble’s show on Wednesday night. The story was by Greg Beets, former frontman of The Peenbeats who now has an awesome band called Summer Breeze that I saw a few weeks ago. Beets called Hobble “one of the most exciting bands to emerge from the Room 710 hard rock armada” and even commented on Oriah’s wonderful man/child fashion sense. All in all it was the best article I’ve ever read about Hobble (other Chronicle writers love them but just don’t seem to get them). The only thing that Beets got wrong was that Hobble’s forthcoming disc will be their third or forth rather than their second.

I was over at Oriah’s a few months ago and he played a disc the band released when they were living and gigging around Seattle a few years ago which sounded very much like early Alice in Chains. In Austin, their first CD was “Wrec-kids” (pronounced wreck-ids like someone from Boston saying Records) and then the hard edged “Blackmassking” a couple of years ago came third. I like all their CD’s (I need to get Oriah to burn their first one for me) but none of them truly represent the amazing Hobble sound you get live. And none of them can begin to capture the pure dynamic that is the foursome on stage. Oriah is a showman of the most amazing magnitude and no recorded song will ever be able to capture that aspect of the band.

The band has finished mastering this forthcoming recording and I hope I don’t give away too much by telling that it will have 18 songs and 1 bonus track of a reworking of one of those 18 songs. I can’t wait. I’ve heard some early demos and raw mixes from the new recordings and they sound awesome. I can’t wait for the artwork to get finished and the mass copying to take place so I can add this new disc to my collection.

On the opposite page of the Hobble article was a piece by David Lynch (no, not that David Lynch) about my other fave Austin band, Manatee. They played Wednesday night at the same time as Hobble but across the river at the Backroom. Had Hobble not been playing, I would have easily opted to see a SXSW Manatee show. Lynch seemed to like Manatee and said one of their songs featured “harmony vocals that might sound like XTC after a box of cheap beer.” I think he meant that as a compliment.

After reading the Hobble review I called Oriah and left a message to tell him about it. I read this and that while eavesdropping on the conversation Harry Knowles and his clan were having behind me. Harry said he saw “Irreversible” 2 or 3 times without subtitles and then realized he misunderstood the dynamics of the relationships of the characters after he saw it with subtitles. His conversations are always fairly pretentious but I love to listen in on people talking about films, unless they’re giving away plot. And, I say pretentious, but I don’t mean in a bad way. Here’s how I see it: If you are in public with friends talking, it is your duty to have conversations worth eavesdropping in on. Otherwise, you should whisper and draw no attention to yourself! (It’s a very Quinten Crisp mentality, I know).

After “Lilya,” it was only a ten minutes wait until the start of “Deprivation.” I basically turned around and went back in to the theater. I did have time to notice that Harry and his clan were leaving when I was in the lobby.

“Deprivation” was a pretty horrible film, and it spoiled any desire I had to see anything else. I hopped in my car and went to Wan Fu for some Mongolian chicken to go and then headed home. I had thought about going to see “Fisher-Spooner #1” at the Alamo at midnight but opted out and went home and wrote instead.

Oh, and I listened to the Before Braille sampler CD that I got at the party the day before. They don’t really sound too much like At the Drive-In on record. They’re pretty typical and lame on disc.

On day to go!

Lodger2003@SXSW2003