Luke was in a band called Gauzee and they actually toured around the country living in a van for one summer with almost no money. At least he had that one summer of living the dream. Gauzee wasn't a great band. They sounded sort of like Green Day. I told Luke so and he agreed. He was always struggling to get their lead singer to open up and sing more freely… more like himself. But it was a real band and they actually played gigs and put out a CD. I saw them play at 710 one time. Luke could really play bass. He wasn't just fucking around. One time he told me he wanted to learn to play the Theramin.

I still haven't cried about it yet. I still don't believe it. I'm still in denial. I still expect him to show up smiling and laughing and telling me that he got me good with a joke. I expected the same thing when John Christensen died.

I've had two friends die since I moved to Austin four years ago. I never had a friend die when I lived in in Houston. No one I knew as well as John or Luke. Nowhere near like that. I lived on the planet for almost forty years and never lost a friend. Now I've lost two. And they were both so young. John was still in his twenties. Luke was barely 21.

When I was driving home last night after hearing the news, for some reason, the song I really wanted to hear was Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight." I don't even know if Luke liked this song. I don't even know it that well. Luke liked all music. He probably liked the song even though it was a little mellow. I don't know why the news of his death made me think of it… It seemed random. But I went home and downloaded the song and played it on my computer. And I discovered that it starts with these words:

"Time is never time at all. You could never ever leave without leaving a piece of you…"

I went to ACAC, Austin's Cable Access… place… because I've been toying with the idea of producing my own cable access show. I enjoy doing Lube TV with Mark but I'm only talent on that show and Mark does all the filming, editing and submitting to ACAC. I get frustrated sometimes because Mark seems to be pretty lax at getting the shows on the air in a timely manner. We've only shot 3 episodes in 2003 and only 4 or 5 new ones have aired this year with the rest being an endless repetition of reruns, sometimes the same episode airing three weeks in a row.

I went to an ACAC orientation, a prerequisite for getting a producer's license, which you must have to air a series. The orientation was about 20 minutes worth of information but lasted about 2 hours long. They run this ridiculous and stupid video that they themselves have produced that talks about how great cable access is and how much of a part of are American Freedom of Speech it encompasses. It was long, poorly produced and dull as hell.

Then Jesus, an odd guy who I've met before when Mark and I used to edit "Lube TV" at ACAC, spoke for an 45 minutes or so. Jesus is the training manager at ACAC. All he basically had to tell us was that we could take classes to learn how to do everything we need to do to produce our own shows. There are classes to run cameras and editing equipment and such. Instead he rambled on and on about how he could teach us to not only use a camera but shoot in a typical TV production style and so on. Yadda yadda yadda…

The meeting began with an elongated and boring and pointless introduction to "content," the basic gist of which was this, you can say or do anything you want on a show. The catch is, if a legal body, like the D.A. and such, determines it to be obscene, you can be arrested and prosecuted (and lose your producer's license). If you make a statement about a person, they can sue you for slander or libel if they think it is such. ACAC doesn't screen for content and doesn't protect you from prosecution.

Anyway, all of this was rather dull and pointless. Again, It could have been a 20 minute meeting but these guys just yammered on and on.

It's not dirt cheap to have a show either. You need a producer's license which is $100 a year. A series fee is about $40 or 50 a year. And to take the classes to run the equipment is about $40 or so. I'm still trying to find the 12 hours I need to take the class to run the simple editing suite.

Meanwhile, my roommates at home gave me an entertainment center, which I put in my room and organized my jambox, TV, 2 VCRs, DVD player and switcher on. I took the table all of that stuff used to be on and put it in our dining room, which we mainly use for storage, and set it up with my CD player, cassette deck, receiver and Phillip's CD burner. I bought a dual DVD/VCR deck and am going to get a bigger TV for my room and put my old TV down there too. It's going to be an editing bay/workstation of sorts for some of the video stuff I want to do.

And finally, I was going through some old 8mm videotapes and at last found some short films that I made with Tim Norfolk that I've been looking for. We made two rather odd and improved shorts a couple years ago called "Fifi" and "The Name Badge" that I want to submit to Agliff's Make a Gay Movie festival. They both need a little editing work so I'm going to have to have Mark help me with that.

"Snake Pit" is a really unique local underground comic that was written by some guy named Ben here in Austin who was once in the band Pink Swords. It kind of reminds me of my "Notes from Austin" column a bit. Ben simply draws a three panel cartoon every day about what he did that day. He, at first, titled it "Snake Pit" because that was the name of the punk house where he lived but later started entitling each strip with the song he was listening to when he drew it. Some of the strips are really simple like… "Went to work to day… Then I went to a party… Then I went home and slept." But they begin to have a meditative quality to them which comes out of this repetition. Because of this lackadaisical approach to documenting his daily life, the moments that are unique also stand out that much more, such as when Ben joins the Pink Swords, (then quits them to be in a band called Pizza Party) goes to Emo's shows, or meets a local celeb, like tattooed oddity Enigma who I used to see at Casino's all the time when I first moved here. (He was on that "Freaks" episode of "The X Files.")

I've read the "Snake Pit" thing over again and realized that I like it because it's about a guy who moved to Austin (from Richmond, VA.) and then he sort of writes about all the little things he does here. It's little snippets of his life, much like my "Notes from Austin" is. But what I like most is that Ben (I think his real name is actually Ben White, like the street on the south side of town) is simply honest about who he is and what he does. When he meets girls he likes, he draws himself with hearts for eyes. He never tries to present himself as hip or cool or important. He's just a guy living in Austin, hanging out and working and meeting people and partying. That's exactly what life in this town is all about!

I bought "Snake Pit" and the Daniel Clowes thing at the comic book store downstairs at Dobie Mall. I was looking for an old comic book I used to have called "Kid Anarchy." I need to look that up on the net. I got to talking to the clerk and asked him if he knew of any underground gay comic books but he didn't really carry them. He was really nice though. Later that night I saw him at the Alamo Drafthouse.

And the Chbosky book is so amazing. I got this book in a weird way. Somebody I work with found it and it has a note in the front of it saying that after you read it you should leave it in a random place. Someone bought it to pass around randomly. And what a wonderful book it is to discover! It is somewhat aimed at teen readers but WOW! I love this book. It is so beautiful. The main character is just amazing. You fall in love with him by page 20. I want to believe he is a real boy, you know. I know he is a fictional character and he was written by an adult but I still want to believe in him. I want to believe there is a real boy like him in the world.

Ben Lee - Something Borrowed, Something Blue (CD Single)

Ben Kweller - Sha Sha

Sigur Ros - (_)

Air - Premiers Symptomes

Leo Sayer - Just a Boy

Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By (http://www.discogs.com/artist/Ulrich_Schnauss)

Buy Ben Kweller's "Sha Sha" immediately. I've been downloading and burning a lot of random songs lately. So I've been playing a lot of mix CD's

Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows

Ben Folds Five - Rocking the Suburbs

Josh Joplin Group - I am Not the Only cowboy

Elton John - your song (remix)

Tori Amos - LoveSong (Cure cover)

Shaun Cassidy - Wasp

Jim Grady - Everything Is As It Should Be

Urban Verbs - Urban Verbs

Urban Verbs - Early Damage

Tim Curry - Simplicity

Tim Curry - Read My Lips

Tim Curry - Paradise Garage

Tim Curry - Best of…

The Caroler Singers - Frosty the Snowman

Neil Young - Reactor

Hawaiian Pups - Split Second Percision

In my DVD Player

Margaret Cho: Notorious CHO

Waking Life

Blondie's Greatest Hits

The Complete Jam

Scary Tales: the Return of Mr. Longfellow

The Complete Jam is awesome. It has tons of live television shows as all of their "videos." The band was always about music more than concept but it is still nice to see them play live. Paul Weller, during the pre-Style Council days of The Jam, was just as cute as could be. And I never realized how much of the vocals bassist Bruce Foxton handled. The clips and live sets here reminded me of just how beautiful some of Weller's lyrics are too. I particularly love the lyrics to "That's Entertainment" and "Man in the Corner Shop."

When I was in high school, I was in journalism. One summer we had a week long Journalism camp at the college in Huntsville and I went shopping at the local record store there one day and picked up a promo copy of "All Mod Cons" for 2 buck or something like that. After that, I was hooked. I got "Setting Sons" and "Sound Affects" when they came out. I picked up a copy of "In the City" but it was always a little too hard for me. (Watching the DVD, I fell in love with the line "In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you.") I had seen "The Gift" but for some reason never have bought it. I never saw or heard of the "This Modern World" record. I never saw it on vinyl and only know of it now because one time I went to Casino's and the owner himself (Casino) was DJing on a Monday Night and he played a Jam song I had never heard before. I went and asked him about it and he showed my the cover and told me it came out before "All Mod Cons."

One thing about the DVD that disappoints me is the lack of "AMC" tracks on it. There's no videos from it and only about half of the songs are performed live. Also, the Jam seemed to pick my least favorite songs as singles. Still, there's much to like here. A real standout is a clip from (seemingly the first episode of) Marc Bolan's TV show "Marc" where the impish one introduces the band before they perform a song live in the studio. Also nice is the clip for the song "When You're Young…"

Movie on my "To See" list

All the Real Girls

Identity

Better Luck Tomorrow

It Runs in the Family

Confidence

Chasing Papi

The Good Theif

Head of State

Holes

Bulletproof Monk

View from the Top

The Core

Agent Cody Banks

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Dreamcatcher

Ghost of the Abyss

DVD Mania!

4/29 - Two Weeks Notice (Read Lodger's Review)

4/29 - Treasure Planet (Read Lodger's Review)

4/29 - Biggie and Tupac (Buy the DVD)

4/29 - The Adventures of Antione Doniel (Buy the DVD)

4/29 - Luc Besson's Atlantis (Buy the DVD)

4/29 - LeMans (Buy the DVD)

4/29 - Little Big Man (Buy the DVD)

5/6 - The Emperor's Club (Read Lodger's Review)

5/6 - Extreme Ops (Buy the DVD)

5/6 - The People vs. Larry Flynt - Special Edition (Buy the DVD)

5/6 - By Brakhage (26 films by Stan Brakhage) (Buy the DVD)

5/6 - The Incredible Hulk (Bill Bixby) (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - The Hot Chick (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - Analyze That (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - There's Something about Mary - Special Edition (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - Atlantis II (Disney) (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - This Boy's Life (Buy the DVD)

5/13 - The Courtship of Eddie's Father (Buy the DVD)

5/20 - Adaptation (Read Lodger's Review)

5/20 - Star Trek: Nemesis (Read Lodger's Review)

5/20 - Antwone Fisher (Buy the DVD)

5/20 - The 25th Hour (Read Lodger's Review)

5/20 - Max (Buy the DVD)

5/20 - Windtalkers - Director's Edition (Buy the DVD)

5/20 - Dances with Wolves - Special Edition (Buy the DVD)

5/27 - Talk to Her (Read Lodger's Review)

5/27 - Good Burger (Read Lodger's Review)

5/27 - Jubilee (Derek Jarman) (Buy the DVD)

6/3 - Animatrix (Buy the DVD)

6/3 - Die Another Day (Buy the DVD)

(Dates subject to change)

Upcoming Cool Shows

4/28 - Ted Nugent - Lazona Rosa

4/30 - Ben Harper - Backyard

5/2 - Steve Forbert - Cactus Café

5/2 - Halley - Red Eyed Fly

5/3 - Manatee/Dynamite boy - Red Eyed Fly

5/3 - Jackopierce - Momo's

5/6 - MC Paul Barman - Emo's

5/7 - Satan's Cheerleaders - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/7-5/9 - Willie Nelson - Stubbs

5/9- Hobble- Red Eyed Fly

5/9-5/27 - Mr. Sinus 3000 Theater "Terminator" - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/10-11 - Deliverance Canoe Trip - Alamo Drafthouse Roadshow

5/6 - Manatee - Soberfest

5/10 - Jennifer Holiday - Zach Scott

5/14 - Pedro the Lion - Emo's

5/15-6/19 - Steve McQueen Film Festival - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/16 - Explosions in the Sky/sons of Hercules - Emo's

5/16 - Michael Franks - One World Theater

5/16 - Manatee - Grafitti's (Round Rock)

5/16 - Alamo Drafthouse Lakecreek and Alamo Drafthouse Houston Open

5/17 - Open Screen - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/17 - Manatee - Emo's

5/23&24 - Ladyfest - Emo's

5/23 - Manatee/Cruiserweight - Java Jazz (Spring, TX)

5/24 - Pete yorn - Stubbs

5/27-28 - Blue Velvet - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/27 - Doors (w/ Ian Astbury) - Backyard

5/29 - Daniel Johnston - Emo's (early)

5/30 - Manatee - Stony Point High

5/30-6/1 - Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

5/31 - Dazed and Confused 10 Year Anniversary - Keg Party! - Alamo Drafthouse Roadshow

5/31- Buzzcocks - Emo's

5/31 - King's X - Backroom

6/5-6/8 - Let me Die a Woman - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/6 - Halley - Mercury@Jazz

6/6 - Jean-Luc Ponty - One World Theater

6/7 - I Love you but I've Chosen Darkness - Mercury@Jazz

6/8 - Open Screen Night - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/12-6/15 - Friday the 13th 3D - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/13&20&29 - Swinging Stag Night - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/13 - Red Hot Chili Peppers - VW Amphitheater - San Antonio

6/14 - Banned Toons - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/15 - Mondo 16mm - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/19 - Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - Mercury@Jazz

6/19-6/22 - Bottle Rocket - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/21 - Bizarre Japanese Videos - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/21 - Open Screen - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/22 - Drunken Film Festival - Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

6/28 - 2001 on the Moon! - Alamo Drafthouse Roadshow

6/28 - Ozzrfest - VW Amphitheater - San Antonio

7/4 & 7/5 - Willie Nelson's 4th of July Picnic (w/ The Dead, Neil Young) - Two River Canyon Amphitheater

7/11 - Acoustic Alchemy - One World Theater

7/19 - Dave Matthews - VW Amphitheater - San Antonio

7/24 - Sir Mixalot - Spiro's

7/24 - John Mayer/Counting Crows - VW Amphitheater - San Antonio

8/4 - David Gray - Backyard

8/9 - Lollapalooza 8/2003- Agliff 10/2003 - Austin Film Festival

3/12-3/20/2004 - SXSW Film Festival

1. The Collective Wee

2. Grimace

3. Workstation

4. Make Believe Fire

5. OnStar Fuck-ups

Not a stellar list this time. I always say that these are "up for grabs," meaning that if you had a band and were looking for a name, you were welcome to use one of these. Of course, I haven't checked to see if these are already used somewhere. Melissa and I really liked the name Star Hustler and joked that we would use it for "our band" but then I saw a CD by a band actually called Star Hustler in the bargain bin at Jupiter Records when I went there for the Manatee in-store. I think Grimace is a great name for a band but it's prolly already used by someone somewhere - or McDonald's might sue or something…

It was my roomie Amanda's b-day the other week, so we planned on going out to 6th Street that night. Earlier in the day I went to a press sneak of "Spider" at the Dobie and then returned at one o'clock with Ashton to see "Spun."

Mike and Amanda and I went to Trudy's for dinner and Mexican Martinis and were joined by Johnny Oh! We had to wait almost an hour on the patio for a table but the weather was gorgeous and there was a waitress bringing us drinks and whatnot. Plus there was a cute young guy in a Dr. Pepper shirt to keep my mind occupied. (His shirt turned out to be a harbinger of things to come).

After dinner we went to Casinos and did what we usually do there - play the bar-top video games. John even played a little Galaga. We were joined by Amanda's friends Kahn and Emmy and I got pretty drizunk. Me and Mike were drinking beers but had a few Kamikaze shots too. Amanda drank a little more than usual, of course. Usually she is as good a designated driver as Johnny Oh! is.

I saw Bob Ray but didn't really get a chance to talk to him. I'd sure like to have him on Lube TV. The Chronicle had a blurb in Marc Savlov's "Short Cuts" column about how all of Bob's old work is now on-line somewhere. Plus Bob, as far as I know, is still working on his film about women's roller derby.

I also saw Corey from the cable access movie review show, "The Reel Deal" and said hello. Corey always says hi to me and is generally nice to talk to. Again, I was pretty drunk by this point. I know we talked a little about seeing "Spider" at the Dobie that morning and then he was going off with some friends to some club called Touché. My friends Die and Germ show up too and I continue to drink. Die was driving so Germ and I had a few beers and a shot. After a while, we decided to move down the road and ended up going into Touché. I have never been in this little bar in my life. (There quite a few like this in Austin that are narrow and have a bar that goes down one wall and it only leads to some bathrooms in the rear. They're like shot bars.) Anyway, I don't know how I know that they serve Flaming Dr. Pepper's here, but I do and sure enough down at the end of the bar they're lighting them up.

As near as I can tell a Flaming Dr. Pepper is made like this. You fill a beer mug 3/4ths full of beer then fill a shot glass with Amaretto. You set the Amaretto on fire and drop it into the beer. It fizzles and foams and you quickly slam it down. It tastes almost exactly like a Dr. Pepper. I've only had one in my life before (at Garbo's in Galveston several years ago) but Touché has made an event out of the drink. When you order them, they set up the beg mugs in a row and put the shots on the edges between the mugs. The bartender pours some Amaretto on the bar and lights it on fire around the mugs. Then he swallows a mouthful of the stuff and spits it onto the bar, the fire gets big and the shots catch on fire, he tumps over the shotglass on the edge and they fall, dominoe style, into the mugs, then you grab them and slam them down. The fire, when the bartender blows out the alcohol onto the bar, is a big "Backdraft" style poof and some of the guys who did their drinks before us didn't step back far enough and just about got their eyebrow singed!

Anyway, most of us did a shot and hung out at Touché until they closed it down. Close to the end of the night I asked John what it was about J.K. he had wanted to tell me a few nights before. I actually asked him if it was that he had slept with J.K. and he swore up and down that this wasn't the case. After ensuring that I really wanted to hear what he had to say, he said, "He really did love you dude." The bar was closing down so we didn't get to talk about it much more than that. I thought this was just bullshit anyway.

(Later on we talked more about it and he asked J.K. why he had brought me a rose on Valentine's Day if he wasn't interested in me and J.K. had some bullshit answer about wanted a friend to be romantic with but not sleep with or some stupid shit. I just dropped it because it's so fucking frustrating and such bullshit. I'll give J.K. this. I thought I understood guys and relationship but he proved to me that there's always something fucking new in someone else's head to prove to you that you really don't know shit about anything!)

Anyway, as we were leaving 6th Street, there were tons of black folk out on the street. I said something about it, because it had gotten really crowded when we were in the bar and Amanda said something about it being the Texas Relay or something like that. I think that's when a lot of college students from outside the city come to town or something. Anyway, there were also a lot of cops about and some on horses. We got about a half block north of 6th and all of a sudden everyone on the street was running towards us in a panic. It's funny. I stopped and turned and looked to see what was going on. That's what white people do. We stop and look. Black people just bust out running. Dumbass white people aren't going to run until they can see what they are running from. I was sort of standing there like a deer in headlights trying to see what all the commotion was about. Apparently it was about nothing. When the crowd got almost to where I was standing, everyone just sort of stopped and mingled about before turning back around and walking back to 6th.

Anyway, the next day I saw Die and she told me that I had called her a "fag hag" all night and continually accused Germ of being a "closet heterosexual." She also told me that they thought Emmy was pretty snotty. She's Kahn's friend so I don't really know her that well. She seemed okay to me. Apparently she also reminded Die and Germ of his sister. I don't know if Amanda had a good time on her birthday, but I certainly did!

Amanda, Kahn and I went to see "Bend It Like Beckham" a couple weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon. Mike didn't want to go. After the film, I invited them to go to Red Eyed Fly and see Manatee with me and they agreed. We went back tot he house and Mike still didn't want to go with us, so we left without him. We were hungry and it was a little early, so we went to Baby Acapulco's and ate some food.

We didn't have that much time, so I ate too fast and was hurting by the time we got to Red Eyed Fly for Manatee. Cover was only 5 bucks. Red Eyed Fly now has all their shows in the back, so they card you at the door and you can hang out inside or, if you want to go back to the outside and see a band, they card you and charge you cover. We paid to get in and noticed that there were lots of cute under-agers around. Must have been an all-ages show.

We went to the bar but that didn't have any glass bottles. So I got a Vodka and 7 and a Lite Beer in a plastic bottle. I began to drink two-fisted and got drunk as hell. It was Manatee's drummer Chalman's 21st birthday and they put on a rocking show. Kahn and Amanda had never heard them before and they really liked them too. There were lots of cute boys around and I got drunk and rocked out and sang the songs with the band (that's what you do at a Manatee show)! It was great.

After that, we decided to go gay bar hopping. We took the car down to 4th and the gay-rage (the free garage next to the gay bars) was closed off for construction so parking was a nightmare. Turned out, it prolly would have been faster to just have stayed parked down by 6th and walked to 4th.

Since it was Saturday night and Boyz Cellar charges a cover, we decided to go to The Forum. We went in (no cover) and the doorman told us that the upstairs bar was also open. The downstairs was dead - I mean DEAD - there was maybe 3 people in there - and this is like 10pm on a Saturday night!

We went upstairs and the bar was open. There was a cute bartender with no shirt on who was a little bit older than my usual tastes but had a smooth chest and a clean-shaven appearance, so we sat and drank and flirted with him. I think his name was David but we kept calling him something like Comanche or Cochise or Roman or something like that because of his "native" appearance and olive skin. If he told me what his heritage was, I certainly don't remember it. We drank and drank and eventually I started buying everyone Russian Snowshoes which is a shot made up of half Stoli Vodka and half Rummplemintz. They will definitely make hair grow on your chest.

There was this somewhat cute couple who came up and sat at the bar and I was so drunk that I soon went over and was chatting them up. I can't remember their names (Amanda told me the next day that his name was Hunter. She told me her name too, but who cares). Anyway, they had been a couple but weren't together anymore. She was moving to some place like Kansas in the next couple of days or something. I kept hitting on him and trying to get him to go in the corner and make out with me. He wasn't really my type, but he had a drop-dead killer smile and a nice face, cute personality. He was a bit chunky and wore a ballcap. Once, when he took it off to adjust his hair, I could see he had quite a bald spot even though he seemed to be in his early 20's. (I started thinking that he'd have to wear the cap while I blew him). He was pretty nice and even told me I was cute and charming. I was pretty damn drunk but I actually thought he was going to go and make out with me but he pussed out. He told me and his Ex that he had messed around with another boy when he was in the seventh grade and then admitted that this was his deepest, darkest secret.

Eventually it was time to go and Roman/Cochise presented me with a bill for 60-some-odd dollars, which was pretty small considering all we had drank, and I tipped him 5 bucks. I asked if that was enough and he said no so I added another 10. I don't remember getting home but apparently Amanda and I argued over who should drive but eventually I let her drive us home.

You know, I'm a pretty fat guy. I noticed that when I go to a concert or a play or something where you sit down and they give you a piece of paper, like a program or something, that I want to save or keep nice, I can sit it on my lap and trap it under my fat gut and it stays in place. It's like a human flesh Trapper Keeper. How do skinny people keep souvenirs like that from falling on the floor and getting ruined?

My favortie radio station, 107.7 The End, is now a Hispanic station. Sigh. Austin radio sucks. The one alternative outlet in town, 101X, is really hard and shitty. I can't stand that butt rock like Papa Roach, Korn, System of a Down and etc… That stuff sucks.

Last weekend on Saturday night Hobble was playing at 710. I worked during the morning and afternoon and was pretty tired so I took a nap when I got home. My alarm went off a little before 10 (Hobble was supposed to play at midnight) and my roommates woke me up and asked me if I was going to Hobble. I thought they wanted to go too. I knew I had some time. They said they were going to pick up a pizza. Long story short: They ordered a pizza and then told me about it. They ordered one pizza. Dude! One pizza between three people just does not work. If I'm gonna eat pizza then I'm gonna eat some pizza. They went to pick it up and I woke up and went to the living room and watched some TV. They came back with the pizza and offered me some but I was too pissed to eat any. How hard would it be to ask me BEFORE YOU FUCKING ORDERED IT?

So I sat and wait while they ate and when they were almost done I asked them if they were almost ready to get going. That's when they informed me they were broke and weren't going. THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WAKE ME UP AND ASK ME IF I WAS GOING AND NOT ORDER ENOUGH FUCKING PIZZA FOR ALL OF US. And don't think it's because I don't pitch in. I do.

So anyway, I went off in a huff down to 6th street. I went to 710 at about 10:30 or so and it was dead. A couple of bands were playing before Hobble, some band I've never heard of and The Action Is. I decided that it would be a while before Oriah or anyone showed up. Oriah's parents were in town and they were coming to his gig and he wanted me to meet them. You know how those lapsed Mormons like to freak out their parents with the gay friends.

Anyway, I walked down 6th thinking I would find a little stand to eat at or something but nothing really tripped my trigger, so to speak. As I was cruising around I noticed that there are a lot of bars out there now with new names. Same old bars, or somewhat remodeled, but new names like Rock Star Bar and Friends and stuff like that. I realized it had been a while since I walked 6th on my own. I used to do that all the time when I first moved here.

I ended up at Casinos, because the food there is so fucking awesome. Even more awesome was the fact that this guy who used to cook there, and who was a fucking rock star, was back in the kitchen. We exchanged hellos and he told me he was just helping them out for a night or two. I ordered a burger and some fries, got a beer and hit up the juke box.

After 20 minutes or so, Cookie brought me the best damn burger I ever had and a heaping order of their awesome French fries. It was way fucking better than any old pizza. Dude, I grubbed like a starving baby. (Okay, babies don't have teeth - so I grubbed like a starving 40-year-old… anyway…)

After I ate, and said goodbye to Cookie, I went back to 710 and sure enough most of the guys from Hobble were there. Mike, the lead guitarist and I talked briefly about getting the band's website going more strongly and getting an e-mail list generated, the latter of which they need to do desperately.

The Action Is started playing and we broke off to listen to the band. They've played with Hobble a couple times before but I always somehow missed those shows. I like their name but the truth is The Action Is… pretty drab. (I thought of all those rock critic things I could write while they were playing like: The Action Is…. Not happening or The Action Is… Actionless). They're tight musically and they have a fierce female bassists but the songs are not hook-laden or memorable. Also, the rest of the band has no presence and they're uninteresting to watch. I didn't hate them but I didn't like them either.

After their set while the rest of the band was setting up, I said hello to Oriah who was surrounded by some other Hobble fans. There was a somewhat cute, skinny, dorky young guy with a big mouth and massive teeth. He had on a Hobble shirt I'd never seen before. There's also this guy that's at almost every show who reminds me of the stoner dude character from "Dazed and Confused." We all chatted briefly and Oriah told me his parents had left on a seven o'clock flight to be back in Utah with the rest of the family for Easter the next day. They haven't seen him play in years. That sucks.

I went to pee and when I went to the bar to get another beer I ran into Oriah's gf Holly. She was wearing a slinky blouse and I realized she has quite a few tattoos. I never had really noticed them before. Anyway, Holly was being sort of pissy about this mod looking girl that was chatting up Oriah. She wasn't particularly pretty but she was with a cute mod boy (who looked as hungrily at Oriah as she did). I also noticed that Tom, the bassist, had his hair poofed into sort of a faux mowhawk. Tom can be quite amusing.

Hobble hit the stage and (I know I say this every time) rocked the fuck out! They were awesome. They played song after song and they just got better and better with every tune. Now, usually Hobble sets are about 35 to 40 minutes but this must have been a special night because the band put on a set that lasted nearly an hour. I had budgeted my adrenaline for a 40 minute set and was already sweating profusely from dancing with the other male fans (who all seem to be straight yet have homoerotic crushes on Oriah) and just about out of breath. Then the band launched into "Suicidal Blunder" (a really hard song and yet I do believe it is my all time favorite live Hobble tune - even more than "The Cowboy Song"). Then they did "8-Track Tape." Then they did "Backwards DJ." How could I not rock out? I reached into the far recesses of my glandular production modual and secreted the fuck out of more adrenaline. I rocked and rocked and rocked and rocked. It was fucking awesome. I was so tired and so thrashed out that I was seeing stars.

All during the last bit of the set, Oriah was really pouring it on and the mod girl was practically licking his feet. She even sloshed a bottle of beer all over him. Too bad Holly made me hate her, otherwise I would have thought she was a fucking awesome chick.

The next night, Sunday, Johnny Oh!, Melissa, her boytoy Robert and I all went to the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown for the A/V Geeks showing of 16mm education shorts from the 70's.

Well, first I went to dinner with John. We drove around looking for some place to eat and I noticed that everything seemed closed but because it was a Sunday, that didn't strike me as too odd. Then I remembered it was Easter. Well, that explained it! We decided to just go to Katz's since (all together now) Katz's never Kloses!

It was pretty dead there too but open and we both enjoyed a really good grilled salmon dish. We had a few minutes until we were supposed to meet Melissa and her beau, so we hopped over to TapeLenders, a gay video boutique over on 5th street. They were open and I got a cute card for my mum for Mother's Day and a DVD of "Urbania," my fave film of 2001. The young guy behind the counter was really cute and showed us a signed poster from the Margaret Cho show that Johnny and I went to a few weeks ago. There were some cute clothes and accessories and stuff at TapeLenders but I just didn't see much that I could afford that I really was dying to get.

I did look for that photo book that my little co-worker boy said he was in but they didn't have it. I've got to remember to razz him about that.

We went over to Colorado and 4th to the Alamo and a couple of John's co-workers were hanging out outside on the sidewalk smoking. We talked to them a bit while we waited for Melissa. I noticed a cute guy going into the theater out of the corner of my eye and swung around to look and realized it was my friend Kevin (whose in a band called) In the Dirty City. I said hello and he brought his new girlfriend Monica out to meet me. She was sweet but not very pretty. (He could do so much better). They met when he worked at Borders. He is now working at Tower Records.

Melissa showed up and we all went in. Kevin and his girl sat in the back of the room but I like to be closer to the front, so we headed up there. Melissa and Robert stayed in the lobby to smoke. Eventually I got up and went to talk to Kevin some more. We talked about lots of stuff including the Thievery Corporation show that Wednesday (I tried to make a date with him to go to it but he was working) and about his band's new CD "Cellar Door." Kevin mentioned that he'd like to work with me on a music video for the CD and that sounded really awesome. I'd love that. That made me think of a couple ideas for short films I had which required a cute young guy and I told him I might have a project or two that I'd like his help with and he smiled. I kept making innuendoes and stuff, which is my M.O. and which made Kevin smile. He's so adorable.

We watched a video of Monster Trucks while we waited for the show to start and the theater got full but not crowded.

Skip Elsheimer collects the 16mm and 8mm short films that were considered educational films in the 50's, 60's and 70's. He does programs on Driver's Ed films (I'm sure there are some really gross and bloody ones), drug prevention films, and the like. The one we went to was called "Kiddie Mindwarp" and was supposed to include "baffling films that warped and traumatized kid's minds."

The program began with a filmstrip and Elsheimer had each of us read the captions at the bottom in turn. It was kind of fun but not that weird. It was about how stuff is made. Elsheimer apparently begins each program with a filmstrip.

The first real film was called "Parents: Who Needs Them" and it was about a marionette who turns a unappreciative boy invisible so he can spy on his parents all day as they do things around the house. The freaky thing about it was that they had an adult woman dub the little boy's voice and it seemed really creepy. We were finally rolling here.

The next film, "Dirt Witch Cleans Up" had a dirty witch and a little girl taking a bath together. It was just ridiculous and weird. Then came "Safe places" an amazingly insane film when a mime (I wanted to yell out "Where's Yarnell" so badly!) plays hide and seek with a succession of children who wonder from the soundstage into the real world and hide in bad places like car trunks and open freezers. That's right, it's a mime that leads children to their deaths! Yes! Amazing little piece of weirdness. You just have to see it. It had no dialogue. Just a mime miming the fact that he wanted to play hide and seek with a succession of kids who came through the soundstage and then they'd go crawl into a place that is a notorious childhood deathtrap. With no explanation or anything. Then, weirdly, the film had dialogue at the end as the credits were read rather than done in text. It was creepy. Insane!

But the piece de resistance (as we say in Texas) was "Cipher in the Snow," a mid-70's short produced by Brigham Young University about a kid who was virtually ignored by parents, teachers and peers, until he became a virtual nothing, a "cipher." It begins with the kid asking to get off the school bus (the bus driver lets him get off at a random place which is totally bogus) and he gets off and falls face down dead in the snow. Then the principal takes a hike leaving a lonely school teacher to uncover who the kid really was and why he might have just dropped dead. It ends with the teacher vowing never to let a boy go by without his attention ever again and walking with his arm around a cute, little, teenage frosh. (Now that's a film I can relate to!)

We stayed after the show to talk to Elsheimer and buy a couple of his DVD's. Melissa and Robert bought one or two of the drug ones (20 bucks a pop). If you spent 60 bucks, you got a lunchbox with 4 DVD's in it! I asked Skip about "Hemo the Magnificent" which he said was a Warner Brothers animated film. It's the only film I remember seeing in school over and over besides "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Brian's Song." (The coaches who taught classes loved to show that one). Elsheimer also mentioned some 30-minute Afterschool Specials (starring Rob Lowe and other now famous people in teen roles) that he had and may show one day. That reminded me of a film called "The Girl who Drank Too Much" which I think starred Linda Blair.

After this Melissa and Robert went home and John and I hit up some gay bars but since it was Easter it was pretty dead. Boyz Cellar had maybe 5 people in it. (A better name would have been Boy Cellar because I think there was only one guy under thirty in the whole place). Oil Can's had a bigger crowd because they had dancers but they were all way too old for me. I did see Roman or whatever his name is from The Forum. He told me he didn't work there anymore and only works at Oil Can's at the door now. He kept hinting around about wanting a Russian Snowshoe but when I chided him about trying to get men to buy him drinks like a whore, he got mad and walked off. Hey boy, if you can't take a little verbal humiliation, get the fuck out!

Tuesday night I went to see a sneak of "The Real Cancun." The audience was pretty small and even though there were other sneaks that night(for "Confidence" and "It Runs in the Family") at other theaters, some minor celebs in the Austin film world were in attendance. Harry Knowles and his cronies, some folks from cable access TV's "The Real Deal" and Marjorie Baumgarten of the "Austin Chronicle" were all there. A friend of mine knew the folks from the radio station who were promoting the event and introduced me. There was some girl (who cares) and a really awesome and dreamy and obviously gay guy. He was only 18 and still in high school and either in the closet or totally unaware that he was gay but HE WAS SO GAY AND ADORABLE. We got to talking about movies and when "Austin Powers 3" came up, he just poofed and fawned all over the fact that Britney Spears has a cameo in it. "She's so gorgeous," he oozed. It was just fucking as cute as a poodle with big pink bows on!

After the movie, I called Johnny Oh! And we hooked-up to go to eat at Starseeds. We dished dirt and chowed and had a grand old time. There was a sexy little paper-thin waiter there that Johnny recognized from Spider House, one of the trendiest college coffeehouses near campus. This guy apparently used to work the counter there. He told Johnny he didn't work there any more and Johnny said he didn't know that because he'd been going to Mojo's lately because it was less pretentious which is just as funny as fuck because ALL coffeehouses are fucking pretentious and Mojo's is probably 10 times as pretentious as Spider House in my book.

As we were about to leave, the cute Hobble fan with big teeth that I had briefly met at their show at 710 came in and sat at the table next to us. He was still wearing his Hobble shirt (I need to get Oriah to specially make one for me too!) and I said hi and kidded him about still wearing the shirt. He was with this chubby guy who seemed pretty gay to me and we started talking a bit about Hobble and the show and the shirt and their new CD. The cutie told me his name was Josh and his friend was Ryan. Josh also told me that Mike had given him a rough mix of the new CD. That really frustrated me because I want to hear the new stuff but at the same time I want to wait for the official release so I can hear it fresh and with a new head the first time out.

Anyway, we were rambling on and on about the band and the waitress who had been waiting on us at times came over and said, "Are you guys talking about Hobble?" When we answered in the affirmative, she responded with, "Hobble's the reason I moved to Austin." This floored us. So, she sat down and told us she was from Houston and had met the band when they pkayed there and followed them here because of Oriah. She tried to play it off that it wasn't the only reason she moved here and that she wasn't in love with him or anything but it was pretty obvious that she had been. She apparently met him during the days when he had a live-in girlfriend (He lived with this older girl for several years and then she got chubby and stopped having sex with him. She moved out of town about a year or two ago). This waitress also knew he was dating Holly now, so she must have still kept up with him because he's only been dating Holly for a few months (maybe a year).

Anyway, for a little bit there it was a really odd impromptu meeting of Hobble fans at Starseeds and that was amazing and weird and cool and mind-blowing.

Johnny and I finally said our goodbyes and as we were leaving I noticed an ad for a play or one-woman show or something with Lee Eddy at the Hyde Park Theater, where John and I saw "Making Porn" a few months back. Eddy is a comedian who is in Courtney Davis' hilarious short "The Interview." We decided that since the flyer said that it was only $8 to go we'd try and check it out.

The next night I went back to Starseeds with Mark Brauner and Jen, my favorite Starseed's waitress (hell, my favorite waitress period), was working. We saw Dusty and some of his friends and said hello. I asked Mark if he remembered Eddy from Courtney's short and he did. He told me she was also in this thing he worked on called the "Hyper Jackson Chamber" which was some of stand-up and clip thing that was filmed for a cable pilot. Leon and Andy, who did the absurdist "Delirium" series of shorts here in Austin had something to do with it, I think.

Hyde Park Theater's number is 479-7529

I got to interview Ed Solomon, a scripter who wrote films like "Men in Black" and "Bill and Ted." He wrote and directed a new film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Morgan Freeman called "Levity." It opens at the Dobie here in May. I liked the film, but didn't love it. Anyway, Keith Garcia, the manager of the Dobie was setting up Texas press interviews and we're buds, so he got me an interview with Solomon. I took my friend Ben Kobbs with me, who works on the crew of many local movies and the three of us had a really nice conversation. Just another project I've got to get ready for the site.

By the way, Keith is leaving the Dobie at the end of April and I will surely miss him. He did an excellent job and really turned that theater around! He's going back to Denver and he wants to try working again on scripting and creating films. (He just didn't click with the scene in Austin). Keith's replacement is a guy named Dan whose been running a Landmark 2-screen theater in Berkley. He's got some big shoes to fill!

My roomie Amanda cut my hair the other night. She actually shaved my back too! It's good to have roommates that you don't want to fuck!

Anyway, after this we watched this short film that one of her friends made called ""At Sunrise." Khanh apparently helped her with it and apparently I've been spelling Khanh all wrong because it has 2 H's in it in the credits here. Anyway, the thing is 45 minutes long and pretty pointless. The worst thing is that it is a Western yet it is filmed on video (Lodger Rule #7 for young filmmakers: Don't do a period piece on digital video!) and the sets, costumes and props look ridiculous and all wrong. I swear to God, they have saloon scenes where there are neon beer signs on the wall... LIT UP! How fucking stupid is that! (Lodger Rule #43 for young filmmakers: If you're doing a period piece, get someone who is older than you - like your mom or dad or grandparents - to help with sets and period details!). There's also a Marlboro cigarettes sign and a backpack with a zipper. It gets bad.

(Amanda later told me it's supposed to be modern-day but not. Like the characters, who start off riding on horseback, are supposed to go to this town where things haven't changed in a hundred years. That's why, at the end, the character reads a date off of a tombstone as "1987." But if this is what it is supposed to be - then it's still a piece of shit because she (the filmmaker) doesn't establish this idea anywhere in the film.

The only reason I mention this film at all is because the film had a really cute guy in the lead named Zach Freeman. He was hunky and adorable. He spends a lot of time in the film in a wife-beater and looks hot as fuck. He even has a shirtless scene! This guy is gorgeous and has a smirking smile that could disarm a Las Vegas casino vault! (The film also features one of my favorite local actresses Deborah Abbott)… But what a piece of dung!

Lodger 2003

(R.I.P. Luke)

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