Got up about 1pm and decided I just didn't want to rush down to the Alamo Downtown to see "Kill Your Idols." I wish I could have but it would have killed me. Instead, I took a shower and Johnny and I went to Baby Acapulco's and had some Mexican food. I should have had a drink but I didn't. They tried to put us in a weird table (which still had a drink on it) and I made them give us a better one. The menu I got was filthy.

Johnny was going to go to some weekend art festival at some outdoor space. I went downtown to see "Reel Paradise" at the Alamo. Just about everything I wanted to see today was at that venue.

As I was driving down 6th Street, I noticed that the Ritz, one of my all-time favorite punk bars, had a banner that said Blender Bar up and when I drove passed, it also said that in the letters on the marquee above the front door. I hope they just changed the name for SXSW. The Ritz has been there forever (it's an old theater) and has a huge neon sign in front. Why would you want to change the name of the place? I tell you, it's bad enough that there is a Hard Rock Cafe down there. If the fucking yuppies start taking over 6th Street it will be the death knell for Austin.

It's been a long time since I've been driving down 6th, I noticed that the old Grove Drugstore, which has been empty for a long time, and which would be a cool place for a bar, is now the Visitor's Center. And Wild About Music, which used to be next to the Paramount, is now also on 6th. There were also a ton of hottie rocker boys walking around. I love SXSW.

I drove around looking for parking and after just a couple of minutes found a great spot back on 6th about a block and a half from the Alamo. It was only about 3:20 but they were already letting the badges come in. I went in and found a seat and watched the place fill up while the same videos I had seen the other night before a film played. I did see that the James Brown segment was from show called "Future Shock" and not from "soul Train." Brown did some of his trademark growling and hrumphing to the instrumental track of Bowie's "Fame," which was really weird.

One of the Alamo's cutest waiters stopped by and I ordered a Hard Core Cider. It came quickly. A little before 4pm, SXSW guru Matt Dentler got up and introduced John Pierson of IFC's "Split Screen" fame. Pierson has recently moved to Austin to teach at UT after spending a year in Fiji with his family running a theater on a remote island. "Reel Paradise" is a documentary about that. Pierson told us that his wife and son Wyatt, who he called "the star of the show," were there and would be doing a Q&A after the film but that his daughter, Georgia, was at the Dobie being a projectionist all day.

The SXSW trailer ran and people heckled it again. There a part when the guy opens the door to go downstairs where there's some sort of squeaky noise and I've been tempted all week to yell, "Don't step on the dog!" during that part. I finally did and it got zero response from the crowd, most of whom were yelling, "Don't go down!"

After the screening, the family did get up and do a Q&A. Wyatt must be about 15 now and he is adorable. When the first question was someone asking him about the differences between the school in Fiji (which is shown in the film - where Wyatt is the only white person) and his new school in the U.S. and Wyatt said that there wasn't any real difference in the schools, I knew that he was indeed the delicate, contemplative soul that we see in the movie. He's also funny as hell in the film. A true film lover, watching him argue with his father about what to program at the theater in Fiji is one of the real joys of the film.

Someone asked Pierson what was going on with the theater and he told us that it was not open and he still had the keys, which he showed us. He told us that if anyone wanted to go to Fiji and run the theater that they should see him in the lobby after the movie.

After the Q&A, I went to the lobby and went to the bathroom then went out and got in line for the 7pm show, "Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party." I had seen the cute little guy who was in front of me in line at "Layer Cake" on Sunday in the lobby a few minutes before and he was getting in line right ahead of me. He started talking to one of his friends, a cute but snooty looking collegiate type in a green jacket who looked bored and boring. He didn't hardly give this cute boy the time of day. They chatted a bit and when jacket snob's other friends arrived, he turned his back on cute boy and ignored him. I should have talked to him but I just didn't have the balls. I noticed cute boy has really small hands and he seems just a little deformed, like his hands kind of curl and his legs kinda bow. But it doesn't stop him from being hot. When we went inside and I climbed the stairs behind him, I got to see just how cute his little bubble butt was.

But, before we went in, with my nads in a knot because I couldn't talk to cute boy, I had to listen to the idiots behind me talk about the most boring of things, ABC's "TGIF" line up in the 90's. One of the dumb guys in the group asked if anyone knew what the original line-up was like it was a trivia question and then he didn't even know the answer himself. What a dumbass.

The weather was a little cloudy and yet it was a beautiful day. I tried to ignore the dumbasses, and my lust for the cute guy ahead of me, and took some pictures of this cool new building in Austin that my mom likes. (It looks like a Transformer) and the Alamo marquee.

When we got inside, a music video by Devo was playing. There were several Dean Martin clips shown, where he sang; a clip of the Sir Douglas Quintet on "Hullabaloo," and a clip of "Wonder Woman" before a volunteer got up to introduce the film.

The dumb girl waitress waited on the people down the row from me and then on two ladies next to me, who had just came in. When she walked away without waiting on me, I said, "Stupid bitch." The lady next to me, who was the jovial, chubby, 40- something type looked at me and I told her about the waitress ignoring me. She asked me if I had been there before. I said I had. When the lights dimmed and the Alamo trailer begun, she leaned over again and asked if I knew about writing my order on a piece of paper and putting it in the clip. I said I did.

Fuck it. I sat there for 30 minutes before the movie started. If the waitress is going to ignore me, I am not going to order anything. The Alamo will just loose money on me. I was going to have a couple of Hard Cores and maybe even a pizza. Oh well. Their loss. It sucks, because I love Karrie and Tim League of The Alamo. They have always been so nice to me. Karrie is a real sweetie. But I just refuse to buy anything when I get ignored. It would be one thing if they were super busy when I first got there, or I got there late... But this girl just ignored me and waited on everyone around me except me. That sucks.

Anyway, the lights dimmed around this time and after the Alamo trailers, a SXSW volunteer got up and introduced the film and the director Robert Brinkman. The filmmaker said he had known Stephen Tobolowsky for several years and always wanted to do a film about him. He joked that this was the first showing of the film in "Full Sense-Around" and told us that we could eat and drink beer when the people in the film do and get the full effect.

There were loud hecklers at the SXSW trailer. I guess with the festival winding down, people were feeling free to let out their frustration with seeing the damn think 20 times.

Brinkman did a Q&A after the film and told us that he wanted to bring a big birthday cake and give us all a piece to eat during the film but the people at the Alamo wouldn't let him because it would cut into their sales. (Well, he said it more diplomatically than that). But I wondered if this was really true because the Alamo has always been pretty cool about doing groovy things like that in the past. Still, the downtown location has its ups and downs with service and management, so who knows.

I wanted to see "Jesus is Magic" at midnight and thought about staying and seeing "Dead Birds," or going to the ACC for "Shooting Livien," but I was really just beat. And after getting my car towed the night before, I really didn't want to go back to ACC again. I decided to go home and thought I would come back and get in line for the Sarah Silverman thing but thinking about all the trouble with parking downtown on a Saturday night at midnight just made me cringe. I still thought I might do it but in my heart, I knew I was done.

I walked to my car and someone had put some flyers on it for a band from Houston called Carmeci. There was even one of their CD's under my windshield wiper. I wondered if they had put it there themselves. Did they see the Filethirteen.com window sticker and think, maybe this guy will write about our band? I listened to the CD on the way home and it wasn't very good. Thanks for the CD guys, but, um, Candlebox has already done it and done it better. Although the song "Change" is better than the others, I wasn't to impressed.

I went home and wrote a bit and then relaxed and watched "SNL." Ashton Kutcher was the host and he did a fake commercial where he rolled around on a bed in tighty whiteys. Back to life... back to reality...

Lodger on the last day of SXSW2005