Monday, Mar 21, 2005

Point of ingress: Atkins, AR Point of egress (4 days later): El Paso, TX Total mileage: fairly serious

On Tuesday we awoke and bade our hosts at The Godbey travel well and safely till next our path crossed theirs, then got in the Lobo Argentino and sailed for Little Rock.

It was to be a joyful day in the capitol, thanks to the Rudder family of Midland Road. At around 10, El Lobo secreted through the city limits, we raised Christian R. on a non-secure PCS line and received concise and accurate directions to The Satellite, a breakfasting service in Little Rock's Heights neighborhood that pulled no punches in dealing us a knockout meal. Next we headed to the Rudder home, where we met the lovely and graceful Penny R., the delightful firebrand Lissa R., and the warm, gentlemanly Pat R. At chez-Rudder, there can be no shortage of encounters with the animal kingdom. The Canine government is represented by Stewart, Lily and Annie. Stewart, a muscular russet chihuahua whose thirst for affection can't be quenched, spends his time indoors, while Lily and Annie can often be found ministering to the door mice and sunflowers in the yard. The world of cats elected three fine representatives in Veronica, Roger, and Name Forgotten. There is also a bird fella whom the Rudders rescued from a dysfunctional family environment where his parents made an activity of homicidally dive-bombing him.

In the afternoon, Lissa took us to a bar on the river walk called Flying Saucer. Here we did what is in our blood: played pool and drank hand-crafted ales.

That's Melissa there with the cigarette, and Michael there holding the huge cigarette. Any of you who used to read The Spark web presence back in the days of its ascendency will know that Lissa was subjected to much torture and duplicity by her brother Christian in the name of entertaining the faceless masses. A couple of hours of hang time with Lissa left us really burning with the injustice of it all, such a fine and upstanding person is she, and so when we returned to the Rudder's later in the evening, we snuck into the kitchen and removed some childhood pictures of Christian from the fridge and document-photographed them and now present them to you, the faceless masses, for your entertainment.

Jackpot.

"Why are you coming into my room while me and T.J. are working on Van Halen?"

Pictures of people when they are very young can be pretty funny.

"Here are the loaves you ordered. You should hold them like this -- they warm your chest and it's nice."

That last one with the loaves is sort of stunning. It should be noted that the magnet fixing it to the fridge was placed directly over the loaves of bread, presumably because those loaves do make this pic sort of creepy. "Childhood photo of a serial killer" sort of thing. Also, that story about serving justice was horse hockey. We snuck these document photos before we had met Lissa that afternoon and without even thinking about Christian's renowned commitment to disrupting privacy.

Tuesday evening we had a great show at the Whitewater Tavern, and liquidated unprecedented amounts of merch because of Lissa's won't-take-no approach to sales, which really struck home with the tipsy pub crowd. We formally invited her to travel with us as our merch person.

After the show we got back into the Lobo and made Texarkana, where a few hours of restless motel sleep were logged, then put van to pavement the next morning and got into Austin just before our 4 o'clock sound check time (which morphed into a 7 o'clock sound check time, then, at 7, shattered and reassembled as a sorry-there's-no-time-for-you-to-sound-check sound check time; we didn't really mind, though, since the only thing more boring than waiting around for a sound check is checking sound).

The show went really well that night. We got a great improvised introduction from our friend Neil Pollack, whom we haven't seen in over a year. The Hard Rock filled to capacity for the set, possibly because we circulated a rumor that U2 was going to be playing our slot. The folks at ASCAP did a fine job with everything, and our thanks go to Jen and Jeff and Name Forgotten and Name Forgotten, as well as to Name Forgotten, who performed flawlessly at the soundboard. At this point in the story, the show behind us, you will come to understand why there are so many "Name Forgotten"s in this news piece: we spent Wednesday, 10 pm, till Saturday, 10 am, drunk. God there was so much drinking. The section of Austin that contains most of SXSW (and our hotel) was very tightly arranged, so we were able to go everywhere on foot, except when we were too drunk to walk. For a period of about a day Michael rode around in a powered wheel chair. Right now you're saying to yourself, "Come on. This is boring. Oh boy, I can't WAIT to hear how drunk you got, you idiots. You sound like a couple of college kids." But seriously? At one point Keith was so drunk that he finished a beer and started eating the beer bottle; it looked like a man crunching into a delicate ice-sculpture, except with lots of blood. At one point Chris started chugging from a gallon wine bottle, declaring that he hoped to absorb some of the alcohol from his system. At one point Michael drank Jack Daniels from a plastic cup.

SXSW being a music festival, we saw a couple of great shows while we were there, but not THAT many because of how goddamn drunk we kept being. Tomorrow's Friend, now six members strong, really killed it. Mute Math, who played the ASCAP showcase with us, did some vacuuming of our minds. Their drummer, Darren, is not only literally the nicest person we've ever met -- just egregiously nice -- but also the most beastly, terrifying drummer yet announced, and watching him is totally exhilerating. Go to a Mute Math show and stand as close to Darren as you can, then mail us five dollars for the favor of wising you up. The Immediate, a band from Dublin, spun a delightful sound. There were also a bunch of bands whom we desperately, desperately wanted to see, but missed, one after the other, because of the thing with them having alcohol available at this festival. Some of those bands were: Oxford Collapse (missed twice), Dirty on Purpose, Bloc Party, BARR, The Double (caught the end of the last song (then passed out on the floor)), Kaiser Chiefs. The list goes on, a lengthy trail of shame. So much lost. So many opportunities shot out into space from the air lock. Don't drink, kids! It's bad! Don't ever ever drink! Unless what you want is to have a great, great fucking time, stay off the liquor! Unless what you care about is happiness and delight in living, steer clear of beer!

Now we're midway through the Austin-LA trek. It's some desolate stuff, but easy on the eyes, actually, all sagebrush and piñon pine and cacti shaped like clusters of tiny satellite dishes. Here's something we didn't expect to find at a rest stop in the middle of Texas:

See that curb? Get a good look at that curb:

**Monday: The Viper Room**

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