There was a decent line at the Paramount and as I headed to the end of the badge line, I heard my name being called. It was my friend Alan Campbell. We chatted for a bit and he told me he had been seeing a friend over the weekend so he had only seen about five films. He recommended the Shirley Chisolm movie. When he told me he had seen "After the Apocalypse" and I told him that I might want to see that, he said, "Keep your expectations low." I went to get in the badge line and we agreed to meet in the third row.

I got in the badge line and, being bored and having no cool conversations to hear, I read the "Chronicle" article about the Alamo Drafthouse downtown opening a new 6-plex in six or seven months. Although it says the downtown location will close when its lease is up, it doesn't say when exactly that is. I thought they still had two or three years left there. Maybe I'm mistaken. It used to be that I would go to the Drafthouse and run into Karrie League, who owns the place with her husband Tim, but I have not seen her for quite some time.

I finished the article and noticed a young guy with a huge "fro" haircut walking down the street. During "Knots" the other day, there had been a cute guy with a semi-decent fro sitting in front of me in the front row with his girlfriend. I've seen lots of guys cultivating fros lately. All races, but especially white guys. It really makes me wonder whatever happened to Gary Muledeer.

I got in the Paramount and noticed that they had the balcony closed off? Why. I went to the bathroom and by the time I got down to the front, Alan was already waiting for me. We talked about our group of friends, people we knew through John Christensen and I mentioned that we went to Wimberly for new years and that we were going again in the summer.

There were some guys behind me talking about the "Hellboy" screening the night before and I turned around and asked them what time they had gotten out. They told me it was about 3am. We talked a bit about Guillermo del Toro (whom they praised as a speaker) and Kevin Smith, who had been in town last night too to promote his new film "Jersey Girl."

The film began and the SXSW trailer "Convergence" played yet again.

After "Dogville," which pissed me off royally, I was walking up the aisle talking to Alan and a bearded guy came towards me saying my name. I couldn't figure out who it was until he got very close. It was Austin filmmaker Kyle Henry (University, Inc). Kyle is currently working on a new feature but the name escapes me right now. Kyle said, "I fucking loved that movie" to which I replied, "I fucking hated it." We argued as we walked outside with the conversation getting highly political in nature and he was getting mad. We were both getting heated and he started to walk off and then turned around and smiled and gave me a big hug. I love passionate people! It's always awesome to argue fiercely with someone and then be able to shrug it off. We talked more and broke apart hoping to see each other again. I headed to my car and realized I had totally lost Alan somewhere in the crowd.

It was after 9 and I wanted to get to the MYEC by 9:30 for a screening of "Intermission." I got there and there was a line of people buying tickets. I put my badge on and sauntered in. I felt bad skipping ahead of people but I had to make sure I saw this movie. I went and the place was fairly packed. I sat in the second row and noticed the hottie young blonde guy who was with the couple from San Antonio at MYEC yesterday was there by himself. I would have said hello to him but he was on his cell. I "overheard" him talking and it was so insane. He was talking about a girl and how she was going to have to come apologize to him because he wasn't one of those loser guys who would let chase after a girl when she was wrong. He would need an apology. To think this guy was heterosexual was highly amusing.

Anyway, I sat twiddling my thumb and noticed the drawing on my SXSW bag, which I hadn't really looked at before. It is the most random thing I've ever seen. What the hell is that. I had to take a picture of it. It is so random.

The place filled up and at 9:30, a volunteer did the standard intro. The film was preceded by the SXSW trailer called "La Cineaste" which is in the style of the French New Wave. A joke within it finally dawned upon me. A guy goes into a room where film is being edited and a guy in a black suit and tie comes in holding a revolver and says, "Are you Lois Noir?" (in French with subtitles). The other guy replies, "Yes, who are you." The first guy replies, "A filmmaker" and shoots him. This is pretty typical film festival trailer stuff with one exception. The guy who gets shot is Lois Noir - or in English -Louis Black. Louis Black is one of the founders of SXSW and a bigwig in Austin film circles. That's pretty damn funny.

After the film, I drove home and it began to rain like crazy.

lodger@SXSW200