I’d heard about this Oklahoma Joe’s spot even before I had moved to this part of the mid-west. Everyone who’d talked about it made it very clear that I needed to “eat at the “gas station one” to get the best experience.
Circumstances led me to accompany a friend out to K.C. and sure enough it turned into a trip to Oklahoma Joe’s.
When we pulled into a nearby parking lot, and I saw the line that was wrapped around the building, I had a feeling that I knew what was in store for us (Apparently the line is never that long during the weekdays and Saturday was black Friday weekend). I had only seen lines this long at amusement parks and Franklin’s BBQ in Austin. I knew it had to at least pretty good. K.C. knows its barbecue so I knew the food would be good. The question that was begging to be asked was where did it rank in the pantheon.
It wasn’t quite the spectacle that Franklin’s lines can be. No college kids were throwing around footballs, drinking beers from a coozie and sitting in banana chairs. The line consisted mostly of families and older people. I felt self conscious about my buddies drinking Hamm’s while we were in line but no one said anything. Eventually (almost an hour later) when we got inside they had started going to the bathroom to transfer their beers from the cans into a styrofoam cup.
There were lots of framed articles hanging on the walls, restaurant reviews by celeb foodies like Anthony Bordain. He said that the BBQ at Oklahoma Joe’s was the best in the world. This made me wonder if he’d ever been to Texas because I had two places I could think of off the top of my head that belonged in the pantheon of all time greatest smoked meats.
I decided I wanted to try everything so I ordered a combo ham and turkey sandwich, a sausage link, a half slab of ribs, and some brisket. I went ahead and grabbed some sides, potato salad, beans and rice, and dirty rice.
I sat down to eat with my buddies, who’d both bought the “Z man”sandwich, barbecued brisket topped with fried onion rings and a slice of provolone cheese (I got to try a bite and it was legit to say the least)–kind of sister sandwich to Franklin’s Tipsy Texan.
The Turkey and Ham were underwhelming. A little dry, so I added some BBQ sauce to it for taste. The BBQ sauce by the way, was some of the best I’d ever had.
The ribs were pretty phenomenal. Better than Smitty’s but not quite as good as Franklin’s.
The brisket was good, but thin. The slices weren’t quite as thick as the slices you get at Smitty’s, with the extra smoky marbles of fat hanging off the meat.
The sausage was really good. As good as Smitty’s or Franklin’s. I couldn’t think of anything negative to say about their links at all. By the time I got to it, I was so full and wasn’t able to dig in. I did eat some for breakfast the next day and it was hitting on all cylinders.
“Okie Joe’s has Smitty’s and Franklin’s beat is their side dishes. Their sides are overwhelmingly better than either Texas establishment. The dirty rice was mouth watering, the potato salad was flawless, and the red beans and rice was so full of flavorful heat.
So who has the best food? Well depends on what you want.
Smitty’s meats are so good that it doesn’t matter if you like the sides or not. Franklin’s lines makes going there a real turn off, and the food is not quite as good Smitty’s. Okie Joe’s is well rounded and the meats are almost as good as the former two places.
If they were college basketball players, Smitty’s would be Julius Randle, meaty and impossible to not drool over–not nearly as much fanfare as the other two spots. Franklin’s would be Andrew Wiggins with a ridiculous amount of hype preceding it, and high admission prices and lots of media attention. A little underwhelming once you get to finally see what its about, but not cause of the quality–simply because of all the hype.
Okie Joe’s is Jabari Parker, extremely well rounded and excellent, the best right now with the least amount of development needed to be NBA ready.
But if you asking me what I prefer: well I like meat and Smitty’s has the best meats. I’m not waiting in line for 2 hours just so I can eat delicious sides. I can make delicious sides in the comfort of my own kitchen.
Franklin’s is good but it seems silly to wait 2.5 hours when you can drive 20 minutes to Lockhart and get better meat for less of a wait.
Smitty’s is still the champion in my eyes, but Okie Joe’s is a close second and definitely lives up to the hype. The Z Man is definitely one of the better culinary creations this side of the Mississippi. The “Z-man” may be the best thing to come out of Missouri since Mark Twain and David Cone.
Quite a build up to this show. My buddy in Chicago had abruptly moved to Minneapolis for a job, and I had to scramble for a place to stay.I didn’t have a ride to the Kansas City Airport, and I had very little money in my budget for party favors for the show.
Things as they sometimes do, just came together. Within days of each other, I found a host on the couchsurfing website, I found a ride (barely made the flight by the skin of my teeth), and I found someone who traded me some brownies for a little vodka.
By 7:00 pm Tuesday night, I was at a bar in Wrigleyville, munching on the hash brownie and washing it down with tap water.
By 11:00 Deerhunter was taking the stage to a blanket of red stage lights. They opened up with Earthquake.
DO YOU RECALL? WAKING UP ON A DIRTY COUCH IN A GRAY FOG?
I could tell from the opening chords that it was going to be one of those shows. The sound system was top notch and the theater had great acoustics. A wall of sheer energy was blasted onto the floor. I was digging it.
DO YOU RECALL? WAKING UP ON A DIRTY COUCH IN A GRAY FOG?
Yes. I did wake up on someone’s couch that morning. Yes I had taken a nap at the library to escape the heat outside. This was it. This marked the beginning of the end for this period of my life.
There was an immediacy to their music that I hadn’t felt in decades. It was exactly like the feeling I had when I saw Radiohead in 1998. They had yet to become the household name they are today, and it felt like I was in on the biggest and best kept secret around. There is a special feeling intimacy of seeing a band in a theater–especially a band as good as Radiohead was then (and Deerhunter now). There is no way to describe the feeling of hearing such a pure sound. I silently considered my luck in seeing them at the height of their powers. There was this familiar urge to follow them around the country for a week.
But that wasn’t to be. I was no longer 24, with a disposable income and a reckless attitude. I had to enjoy the moment for what it was. There was no telling when (or if?) I would see them again. I wanted to soak it all in.
Moses Archuleta, the drummer, drove the pace for the five piece group, thrashing ahead at his bandmates like a sled-driver with a team of Alaskan snow dogs. They played fast. They played hard. They sounded very tight and rather locked in.
They went from Earthquake into Memory Boya song evocative of the 60’s band The Byrds ,
into Don’t Cry ( a song very Zombies-ish tune)
into my personal favorite Desire Lines.
As soon as they went into Desire Lines I nearly lost it. I had told a housemate that as long as I heard this song, that I didn’t care what else was played the rest of the night. Now it was being thrown down four songs into the set. Where could this show possibly go from here?
A stream of figure like lines were draped in yellow-orange light.I wanted to see every chord that was being played, but the music kept tightening my eyelids and pushing my head towards the floor. I felt the electricity running through my veins. This was it. I was there. I was HERE.
When you were young
And your excitement showed
But as time goes by
Does it outgrow?
Is that the way things go?
Forever reaching for the goal
Forever fading black
Comes a glow
Things were already changing and I could feel it. There was a psychic pull towards a more focused, more disciplined reality. This was the last stop on these type of trips–haphazardly making traveling plans, leaving things up to chance and improvisation had its place in my early to late 20’s. But things were changing…….because they had to. I started to see myself in a different light. It was as if I was already looking back at my present state in a past tense. My tendency to shirk jobs with responsibility (or responsibility itself) in order to live an unconventional lifestyle was taking its toll on my bank account. The cost of “freedom” was revealing itself to be pretty high.
At the song’s apex–the mega ending with the soaring guitars, I felt a splash on my shirt and face. I looked up. There was this drunk girl up in the balcony spilling beer onto the people at the bottom.
I screamed at her. “Hey!” “Hey!”
Of course she couldn’t hear me. She was rocking out, her long hair twirling in her face. It looked like she was biting her lip. Suddenly I was angry. Not at her but myself. I let a little beer pull me out of myself, the music and the moment. She was in the now and I suddenly no longer was. I laughed and took a few steps closer towards the stage and out of range from the clumsy drunks above me–no telling what else could fall from up there.
Throughout the show I would sneak a peek into the balcony and sure enough she was still leaned against the railing, banging away. For such a bad ass show, the crowd itself was tame. I was happy that I wasn’t the only one going ape-shit tonight.
I was in Chicago, I was at Deerhunter and I was loaded up on yummy brown THC goodness. It was only three or four months ago that I was bombing the hills of Austin on my long board–with Nothing Ever Happened playing through my ear buds. It felt like such a distant reality now.
The opening chords to Cover Me Slowly rang out just as I had concluded this thought. This meant that Agoraphobia was going to be next.
I looked up in blissful disbelief. I wondered if this was the amazement people felt when they saw Sonic Youth or Television during their heydays?
Deerhunter definitely had their own particular sound. I found their music gripping and difficult to ignore. They had a flavor that ran across many genres and it was difficult to really pin down their influences. I could hear elements of doo-wop, 60’s pop, post punk, post-rock, grunge, indie, and even a little melancholia. For an American band this is particularly rare–having so many subtle influences and yet still having one’s own sound. I was thoroughly impressed.
Of course no moment is ever truly perfect. Though the set was nearly flawless the encore ended with a weird long song that took way too long to apex. It was a song from the new album Monomania that contained lots of weird distortion, fuzz, delay pedals, and even barking.
This part of the show wasn’t interesting weird like say Pink Floyd, or Godspeed, just you know, weird.
They saved this tune til the very last song, which I can see why because any other moment to play it would have disrupted the set. As a person who can appreciate the need to go WEIRD, I was with the. But it was not all that pleasant of what felt like 5-6 minutes. The end of the song was pretty good and almost worth the strange and meandering build up.
And then that was it. Easily the best show of they year I’d attended and it was over. I was set to leave the bar and hang out at the train station to catch my 6:00 AM bus to Meh-dison, Wisconsin– a biker friendly, but meh-tastic city. It would be too dark (coming and going) to catch the rolling hills of green that Steinbeck promised in “Travels with Charley”, but I didn’t know any of this yet. Nor did I know that Union Station in Chicago closed from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM. I got there at 3:00 AM and had a couple of hours to kill. Nothing within walking distance was open this late, so I laid on the pavement at this office building down the street.
A string of epiphanies ran through my brain.
I looked up at the sky and promised myself that I would never put myself in a position like this again. I then closed my eyes and imagined the next 20 years of my reality.
No more cutting corners, no more selling myself short–settling for less, and most importantly, no excuses. I knew how I wanted to spend the next 20 years of my life, and this wasn’t going to fly. There were big plans to look forward to the stakes were only going to get bigger.
This time period was officially closed. I imagined myself looking back on this particular moment. I felt a great satisfaction and pride within him (and possibly a hint of fondness looking back at this memory). I opened my eyes just as a bus was stopping nearby.
I jumped on, and slept til the end of the route. Then I took the same bus back across town–nodding off again until I was back in front of the train station. It was finally 5:00 AM.I went inside and waited for the Mega Bus. When it finally came I put my ear buds on. I found some tunes to jam, and let the rest take care of itself.
The Perfect hike
erased all the bad thoughts
beneath the sunshine
amidst the Doug Firs
the roar of the Umpqua below.
Thanked the heavens
said hullo to my old self.
Dear Greyhound staff,
I’m writing in order to obtain a refund for a purchase I made on May 29th, for a trip that was to take place on June 3rd, from Dallas to Tulsa, with a stop in Oklahoma City.
The bus leaving Dallas was supposed to leave at 6:40 pm and get me into Tulsa at 2:50 AM the next morning.
Things would change for the worst however when I arrived at the terminal to find that every bus scheduled to depart from that station was oversold, and that no back-up plan was in place to accommodate patrons who’d bought their tickets ahead of time.
There weren’t extra buses to put these people on and everyone on my bus to Tulsa was told that they’d have to wait until the next day to catch their bus.
I asked a staff member if there was anything else we could do and he suggested a late night bus out of Dallas that would take me to Amarillo for the night, and get me into Tulsa at 5:40 PM the next day.
I explained to him why this wouldn’t work for me and suggested to him that he change my ticket to the 6:35 AM bus that would take me to Tulsa via I-75. He agreed that this would be a better plan and changed my ticket.
After a mad scramble, the Dallas Greyhound management gave free food vouchers to patrons who were inconvenienced and told me that another bus was on its way to collect the remaining patrons who needed to get to Oklahoma City in less than an hour.
The supervisor told me that I could get on this bus and possibly still make my connection in Oklahoma City. I asked if I needed to change my ticket back to the original itinerary and she said it wasn’t necessary. For further clarification, I asked two more employees if I would need to have my ticket changed to correspond with the bus I was taking and they said no.
2 hours later, the bus finally arrived and I again showed my ticket to the bus driver, he said that things should be okay and that we should probably make our connection in Oklahoma City.
When we pulled into the bus station in Oklahoma City, I had found that not only had I missed my bus, but that no one from the Dallas station had called and alerted the OKC station about the bus delays.
At this point it was 1:30 AM and the next bus out of Oklahoma City wouldn’t leave until 11:00 AM. The employee at the counter asked me why I was even on this particular bus to Oklahoma City– and why I wasn’t on the bus going straight to Tulsa.
He then told me to talk to his supervisor in the morning and that his supervisor could straighten things out, since it appeared I was going to have to purchase another ticket to get me to Tulsa.
Because it was 1:30 in the morning and I had to be at work at noon, sleeping on the bus station linoleum didn’t appear to be a good idea. So I had to reach into my wallet and purchase a room for the night at the Quality Inn for $56.93.
The next morning I walked into the station and talked to the supervisor and he told me he’d do what he could, and possibly talk to the driver going to Tulsa.
At 11:00 a bus going to Tulsa arrived but because it was Jefferson Lines, I would have to pay for it myself. Otherwise I’d have to wait until 11:35 before the Greyhound bus going to Tulsa arrived (as it happened that particular bus was delayed by at least an hour). I did not want to wait another hour and a half so I reached into my wallet again and just bought the ticket.
There were many things during this experience that bothered me:
1)The fact that Greyhound can overbook buses without any sort of backup plan.
2) Not once during this day did anyone apologize for the inconveniences created.
3) No communication between the stations to inform each other that buses are running late.
4) That I had to book a hotel room as a result of worker dishonesty/incompetence. Sleeping in the lobby was not an option I was willing to explore. No one shot me straight about when my bus was arriving which would have allowed me to plan accordingly. If I’d have known I was going to miss my connecting bus I would’ve just spent the night in Dallas (FOR FREE).
5) I talked to 3 different Dallas employees about my ticket (time/location change) and they all said it wouldn’t be a problem. When I got to the OKC station, the manager looked puzzled. How is it that no one seems to be on the same page within the company?
This is not an isolated event only the latest. So with all these other options, why would I bother traveling through Greyhound ever again?
I’m a frequent traveler and I have spent 1,000’s of dollars with the company in the past 8 years. With all the options available to consumers these days what is stopping me from flying (Southwest airlines is a glowing example of professionalism and incredible customer service), renting a car, or taking the Mega bus? I’m tired of the apathy from Greyhound employees, and tired of feeling shit on as a customer.
When I purchase a ticket, I understand I am entering an agreement. I’m agreeing not to bring booze or smoke on the bus. I’m agreeing not to assault the bus driver or other passengers. I’m agreeing not to disrupt the harmony of the ride for anyone else.
When I can’t make my destination on time or even on the same day, then Greyhound isn’t keeping up their end of the bargain. This results in an uneven exchange of services for money and this is what makes me angry. No one likes to feel as if they have been swindled.
I’m paying to arrive at my destination on time or reasonably close to it. I’m not paying my hard earned cash to be inconvenienced and mistreated. If things can’t somehow be made right not only will I never ride Greyhound again, I will tell everyone I know about my negative experiences with the company.
Perhaps I will pay more to exercise these other traveling options but it will be worth it. Greyhound may be slightly less expensive to use for travel, but my time is just as valuable as my money (if not more). If I experience ridiculous delays in places like Springfield, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, there is no realistic way for me to get that time back.
I am requesting a refund for my ticket from Dallas to Tulsa that was purchased on June 3rd, 2012 (my receipt is enclosed within). I am also enclosing a copy of the receipt from that date for the hotel that I had to purchase because of these delays.
I appreciate your time and I thank you for what I expect will be a swift response.
Sincerely,
Robert McFail Jr.
My experiences in Missouri could best be described as mildly uncomfortable, to wildly absurd, to downright shitty.
Besides my first Royals game where I watched Mark Mulder (then with the A’s) pitch a 2 hitter (I had bought seats behind the plate for like 25 bucks), my trips to Kansas City have gotten progressively weirder. Whether it was being hosted by some weirdo ballet girlfriend of a traveling companion or being (almost)seduced by a tranny in a nightclub in Kansas City.
“Oh you’re transexual? Post op or Pre-op?
Pre-Op, huh? well it was nice dancing with you. You should let a guy know these things before you come inches away from being kissed by him” (which taught me that just because there’s no Adam’s Apple, doesn’t mean that she (?) isn’t a he. I thought I felt warmth coming from her (?) crotch area, but wasn’t sure if it was just my paranoia from being drunk in a gay club. The lesson as always is to trust your instincts.)
I’ve been on Greyhound buses where we picked up some weirdo with extra chromosomes in small towns there, and Kansas City Pedo’s with underage girlfriends (who could easily be mistaken for brother and sister or kissing cousins–thought that type of behavior may be accepted out there).
I got stranded once in post-apocalyptic Joplin for nine hours because we missed our connecting bus. The operator of my bus from Kansas City was a power-tripping, crazy lady whose two unscheduled stops caused me a night of discomfort on the linoleum station floor.
I got stuck in Springfield once because I was left during during a 20 minute stop (totally my fault for trying to fit in an argument with my then girlfriend).
I had a shitty visit to ST. Louis, a place where nothing seemed to be on the level. My buddy and I paid 50 bucks to stay in a flophouse that presented itself on the internet as a hostel (we should have known with a name like the Huck Finn). It was there that I learned that no one even lives in St. Louis.
They commute from the surrounding burbs and go into town. The actual city itself is comprised of restaurants and businesses and has a pretty big racial problem.
I happened to walk up on a domestic dispute between an Italian and his lady (she was sobbing with her head against the steering wheel) and he stopped yelling at her to say ” Hey nigger what the fuck?.I laughed hysterically. My buddy from California was not impressed either.
This visit coupled with the Rangers’ loss to the Cardinals in last year’s World Series has flamed a passionate disregard for the shit hole city ( Miles Davis crazy ass might be the best thing to ever come out of there–oh yeah he was from the Illinois side–fuck em!)
Another time on a road trip to Toronto, my buddy and I had the misfortune of trying to stop at a Best Buy in Wentzville (to pick up some tunes for the road) where we encountered a fifteen minute detour because we missed the exit. We were shown a real life example of the meaning of the word, anti-climatic. Not only was the music section small, but the best selections it had to offer were in the forms of Yanni, Michael Jackson, and Yo Yo MA.
The phrase “going to Wentzville” was coined as a way to define any ridiculous endeavor that results in a bigger headache than what it was originally thought to be worth. (For example: taking a girl on a really expensive date to realize halfway through that she was annoying, boring and talked too much, but then powering through the night only to find that at the end of night she couldn’t sleep with you because she was on her period–that my friends is “taking a trip out to Wentzville).
The ”show me state” had yet to show me half the hospitality bestowed unto me in neighboring Kansas. I’ve been treated like a rock star up in Wichita. They rolled out the red carpet for me on many a visit there. The women have treated me well there, I never had to worry about a place to sleep, good coffee to drink, or good pot to smoke.
Then of course there is Lawrence. I have never been shy about my developing love for KU basketball. I can list so many epic games I’ve seen on television throughout my adult life alone. My adoration for the program really blossomed during the 2002-2003 era, when Drew gooden, Nick Collison, and Kirk Hinrich were the stars there. Keith Langford was one of my all time favorites (the lefty who could always seem to get his shot).
When I moved to Austin in ’01, I had the pleasure of seeing Drew Gooden (Don’t laugh. He was ill back in college) put up some crazy numbers against the TJ Ford led Horns.
What I took away from the game though wasn’t what happened on the court. It was what took place in the stands. There were thousands of people dressed in Jayhawk blue who had commuted from Lawrence, KS to see their team play.
Basketball was still a novelty in longhorn country and the only reason people came close to selling the arena out was Sugarland phenom TJ Ford. But even as good as he was, the place wouldn’t fill up unless it was a marquee matchup.
So to see people who genuinely cared about basketball was intriguing. And they were so nice. The fans had a lot of class and they cheered so loudly that they eventually took over the game and the arena. There was never any doubt either. They knew they were good, but they weren’t cocky, they were just good and they knew it.
I couldn’t help but sit down and root for them when the NCAA’s came around. The eventual National Champion Terrapins of Maryland beat them in the Final Four.
But they made things interesting and made me pay attention the next year when I saw Nick Collison put up a 20-20 game against the Horns down in Allen Fieldhouse. That team had Hinrich, Keith langford, Jeff graves, Michael Lee, Aaron Miles, and that team came SO close to taking it all against Carmelo Anthony and the Orange(men).
That was an awesome tourney to watch and it really made me wonder if I was really a Jayhawk fan at heart.
Maybe the Thunder should consider signing Hinrich??
In 2004 I’d take my first visit to Lawrence while on a road trip to Kansas City.
I was immediately impressed with the town, the rolling hills were unlike what I thought could be possible in Kansas. The campus was enormous, and beautiful and there was a serene calm about the town.
I liked Lawrence immediately but I was already living in a small town, and there didn’t seem to be anything to do but shop and eat.
It was sheer coincidence that I happened to be in San Antonio during the ’08 Final four.
I was in downtown San Antonio, right outside the venue when Mario Chalmers hit the game tying 3 pointer and go into overtime to beat the Memphis Tigers. I got a chance to party with the Jayhawk faithful on that championship night. Even shared a wink and nod with the great Larry Brown (pound for pound as Sheed called him) at a restaurant. I even ran into former Jayhawk 3 point specialist Michael Lee down by the Riverwalk. There was something different about these fans and they left a lasting impression on me.
When the NCAA’s came to Tulsa, I took the opportunity to treat myself and get a taste of the excitement For 75 dollars I got great seats behind the basket (THE BOK is a smaller venue with no real bad seat in the house.) and got to watch two very different games.TNT was covering the games and Craig Sager could be seen on the sidelines. When I recognized the hairdo’s of Stever Kerr and Marv Albert I knew it was for real.
Texas played Arizona in the first game and KU played Illinois. There were so many things to take away from the game. Arizona’s basketball band was really fun to see. They had a great selection of tunes to go through and you could tell they were enjoying themselves. They all wore matching Hawaiian shirts and played uptempo and contemporary songs (I’m pretty sure they played a range of JethroTull, Pearl Jam, and even some White Stripes).
While UT’s band played the same stale tunes they were playing when I was working security for them in 2003. It was actually pretty sad.
Only a handful of people had made the trip from Austin and it was clear that the U of A fans far outnumbered the Longhorn fans. It seemed like the only people there were family of the players and coaches, and people from the athletic department.
UT got hosed on a bad inbounds violation call and ended up losing in the final seconds. The dry ass Longhorn band started playing the “Eyes of Texas” for the few fans who’d commuted to lend their support and before the song was even over, the Jayhawks players ran onto the court–amidst a sea of cheers that drowned out the pitiful UT faithful.
There was a Jayhawk invasion much like in San Antonio. They took over and it felt like a home game for the KU boys (may as well been Tulsa is only four hours from Lawrence).
KU trounced them but the Illini at least won the battle of the cheer squad. They were good. The cheerleaders had great routines and they were in synch with the Fighting Illini musicians, pulling off some pretty impressive stunts and acrobatics. They managed to pull of some gymnastic formations I’d never seen before and I realized that this was why I sometimes enjoyed being at NCAA events more than NBA.
Only the tip of the iceberg. they pulled out all the stops for the tournament
It wasn’t nearly as bombastic or artificially loud. There was no crazy music going on during the game, and no silly PR promotions. It was just about the school traditions and spirits. The pageantry was on full display that night. Fans didn’t have to be urged on to cheer. They were already ravenous without prompting. The KU game against Illinois convinced me that I had to see a game in Lawrence.
Later that winter I road tripped up there, scalped myself a ticket and completed my trip to the basketball mecca of Allen Fieldhouse.
A basketball shrine. This was where it all began–where basketball was invented. Photos of KU greats like Wilt the stilt, Danny Manning, Mr. Iowa Nick Collison, Jacque Vaughn, and Paul Pierce was a bit unnerving. I felt like I was at a museum.
And of course everyone was just as nice as I remembered. Fans were such an intricate part of the process. It was a like being at a big high school game, everyone sat in the bleachers. Fans lined up along a roped off area that led to the tunnel of the players’ dressing room.There were no luxury boxed seats, no ridiculously loud music to whip the crowd into a frenzy. I couldn’t believe I was here. The only time I could recall having such a religious experience was the first time I went to a Cubs game in Wrigley. Though no tears time around, just a really big smile that lasted throughout the game and most of the night.
If you are a fan of basketball you have to go to at least one game at the Phogg. It’s truly a unique experience.
The best part of course was when the clock was running out in the second half and the chants of ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK began.
And this was just a non-conference game against Howard University. This wasn’t the famous Border Wars finale with Mizzou.
This was a blowout win against an inferior opponent. No one left early. Everyone was loud. They cheered everyone on the team from the star forward Thomas Robinson to the equipment manager. There was something to these fans that evoked admiration and respect. They were loyal, and knowledgeable and they respected the game. I was on board.
It wasn’t until the final conference game with Missouri that I was able to get some perspective on the rivalry between Kansas and Missouri. It was much bigger than basketball. This was legitimate bad blood that went as far back as the Civil War. The more research I did the more it started to make sense.
I felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. Of course I was having fucked up experiences in Missouri,it was a slave state (as if I’d never read any Mark Twain duuuuuuhhhhhhh). It was upon my last visit that some locals gave me the lowdown on Lawrence and how it was established and why the radical roots ran so deep. It certainly made anyone rooting for Missouri suspect in my mind.
I certainly know on which side of the fence I fall. Any enemy to Missouri is a friend of mine. Jayhawkers huh? Well maybe this was the town for me then.
The secret had been out for years by the time me and my crew moved down to Austin in ’01 . Even then old timers and locals talked about how different Austin had become since the 40 Acre days (This was before the ominous looking Frost building was erected. That was when I knew it was for real. That the the development of downtown and west campus was only beginning. So I high tailed it to California because Austin was surely on its way to becoming Houston).
I blamed Austinite Kevin Dunn and MTV. His appearance on Real World New York spelled the end of the best kept secret in the United States. He was clearly a cool dude ( and not just on television–we ran into each other a lot during UT football games), and his praises of is lovely hometown reached the masses.
Soon everyone wanted to know about the “best place in the world.”
I had a neighbor back in ’01 who said he’d met a chick in Amsterdam that was so fucking cool and was from Austin. This encounter with her caused him to move to Austin out of curiosity. He ended up staying for over ten years (through a strange coincidence I ended up working at a Greenpeace type organization with his best friend in San Francisco– but that’s a story for a different time–you know like–never).
There has been a large influx of Californians since I’d moved out of state back in 2006. Looking around and seeing all the California license plates made me finally understand what people in Colorado and Oregon were dealing with. The damned vermin had finally ruined their lovely state and were now coming for our respective territories.
This epidemic has spawned such T-shirts as “Welcome to Austin, don’t forget to leave.” and “Welcome to Austin, please don’t move here.”
And why wouldn’t you move there if you lived out west? Land and housing is 4 times as cheap as it is on the coast. You can live the lifestyle and not pay the booty tax.
Then again I was suddenly one of those interlopers. Having grown up in Dallas I moved down to Austin as soon as I could. For weirdo Texans like myself, Austin provided a haven for us.
Too gay for east Texas, too queer for the panhandle? Well come down to the hill country.Don’t let yourself get caught up in the rat race of bullshit, big city life. Move to Austin immediately. Cease, desist and CHILL.
It was fun, it was chill, and it was definitely weird. It was like being in a Simpsons episode. I dug it. But I wasn’t the only one who was cashing in. People were moving down in droves, saturating the job market and re-living the Linklater movie, Slacker.
And then the Yuppies came. Condos sprouted up from the ground like concrete and glass herpes sores. The capital and the UT tower were mere ornament pieces in the downtown skyline.
So it shouldn’t have surprised me when I encountered a large magnitude of people for the music and film festival. Things had reached Mardi Gras proportions. Every city bus on the “drag” heading downtown was a guaranteed 45 minute ride, when normally it took no more than fifteen.
Every bus was a party bus. Cabs sat in long lines of traffic. I soon regretted not renting a bicycle or buying a skateboard to bring down. I either walked everywhere or I waited on the bus.
By the end of the week my feet were killing me. Because of all the craziness and the way the festival had spread out, I knew I’d have to plan accordingly.
I had made a list of everyone I wanted to see. But the free shows overlapped and some of the others were way too expensive.
I did have 3 major highlights from the time I was down there:
#1 Seeing the film debut of the Bad Brains documentary,
I’d been a fan of theirs since I discovered them in college.
That was the first time I’d heard about an all black punk band from the 80’s who were also considered to be the best of all time. I’d read about their influence on some of my favorite bands like Rage Against the Machine, and the Beastie Boys.
One time I was a club in San Francisco and I saw a couple of dreaded cats in Adidas jump suits. I laughed to myself and made a joke like “Aww shit Bad Brains in the house.”
What I didn’t know was that it really was them. As I’d find out when I ran across a flier the very next day. They had played a gig that night and were playing again the next evening. I was debating whether or not I should go when someone told me not to bother. It wasn’t going to be what I expected.
The film footage in the documentary would only confirm what that person told me. The tour ended up being shitty because of some problems between HR( the lead singer) and the rest of the band and lots of that tour was documented at the screening.
The film American Hardcore touched a small bit on The Bad Brains influence in the early 80’s. I was still slightly dissatisfied with the amount of coverage on the band. Upon hearing about this new documentary being screened at South By Southwest, I knew that no matter what was going on, that I had to see it.
I met up with my friend from Colorado, L______ and we stood in line at the convention center for free tickets. I was surprised to walk in and see that nearly no one was there and that we had our pick of seats. We went towards the back row and sure enough there was HR sitting next to some fine little blonde shiksa about half his age.
During the movie I kept looking back at him to gauge his reaction to certain scenes. I imagined it must’ve been strange to see all the footage of himself as a young man, and hear people sharing all these weird facets of his life for everyone on the big screen.
The movie was highly creative, and in depth and had great interviews (Adam Yauch and Mike D were in a couple scenes as well). I walked out of the theater feeling like my trip had been made.
It was only about to get better. I went to take a piss in the urinal and it wasn’t 3o seconds after I’d whipped my dick out, that HR came in to take a piss in the urinal next to mine. “Fucking A” I thought. Taking a piss next to HR.
I bet his dick had rubbed against at least 6 times as much pussy as mine had seen. To punctuate this thought, HR ripped the loudest sloppiest fart I’d ever heard from a celebrity.
“Pardon me” he said. Then he shook himself and washed his hands and walked out the bathroom door.
I washed my hands and chuckled to myself.
#2 occured in a cramped club on Red River street. My stuffed backpack didn’t help things at all. (It just wouldn’t be a Japanther show if it weren’t in a cramped venue).
I could barely move and I was becoming irritated, agitated and claustrophobic. But once the punk duo took the stage, I hid my pack underneath a stool at the bar and went to it.
They were so punk that it was refreshing. Two dudes, a bass player and a drummer with weird telephone mics, and over sized speakers. And they were terribly loud!
Cats were moshing and fucking getting crazy as Japanther played tunes off their new album Beets, Lime, and Rice. It had the spirit of an old school punk show and they really threw down. I felt so lucky to a part of it all. I didn’t over pay to see them. I was right next to the stage the whole night, and afterwards had a great conversation about basketball with the drummer Ian (A nice bloke but I couldn’t help but remember the bike shop gig in Brooklyn when I had walked in on him and his buddies smoking weed and they all in unison gave me “piss the fuck off” looks).
Right there, so close to the band, getting wild and intimate, and trying to look up this chick’s skirt, because I suspected that she wasn’t wearing underwear. It was a loud and raunchy night. Even the dressed up girls were getting into the pit and throwing people around. It was pretty rad and possibly the best musical moment of the month.
#3 was a documentary on Hip Hop and the L.A. riots.
This was a sneak peek of a VH-1 film that was just shown in the month of May. It was real good. Hilarious interviews by NWA members and other Los Angeles artists who were around that time.
I’d forgotten so much about that time period. I was only a kid when it happened but I remember the helpless, sad, and angry feeling I had that blacks couldn’t catch any breaks in this country.
This was the point where Public Enemy and Ice Cube were really speaking my kind of language and I’d go to middle school just hoping that a white boy would say something foul to me.
The movie was real good though. I ate some over priced chicken tenders while it was being shown. This black lady and I seemed to be the only people laughing at some of the dark humor and ugly situations documented throughout the film (The white liberals in the audience were realizing that they weren’t quite as liberal as they believed themselves to be).
I had a great time at the festival. It was a pain in the ass getting around but it was nice seeing some old friends. Running around town got a little tiresome and I was constantly debating just how badly I wanted to move back. Any thought of me living in New York City was tempered with the realization that even Austin was almost too busy for me.
Things had certainly changed and not necessarily for the worst. The city felt a bit more swinging that when I’d last lived there. Californians brought a douchebaggery with them, but they also had brought lots of cool and innovative ideas along too.
The comedy/ open mic scene was more prevalent since my last gig in Austin. Tons more hotties and even a film studio as well. It was becoming little Hollywood.
I couldn’t make a rash decision based on this visit though. I decided it would be best to come back during a non- event week and get a true gauge of things. The summer before I was convinced that I was moving back, but now I wasn’t so sure. I’d already done this, how much better could it get?
It seemed fitting to be sharing a late night cab with a plump and proper, british gal, whom I met at the all night eatery, Kerby Lane. What better way to salvage my evening and end my trip by making out with her on my way to the bus station?
I was heading to what I thought would be a pit stop in Dallas before catching a Spurs-Thunder game and effectively ending the first spring break that I’d had in six years.
But things didn’t quite work out for me. The plump girl and I didn’t make out. She was on some bullshit about staying in town an extra day and taking her on a proper date (Hilarious). I took her number down and threw it away as soon as I got to the bus station.
I boarded the bus thinking that maybe it’d have been a good idea to have booked my ticket for a straight shot to OKC. But the thought was quietly dismissed as we headed north on I-35, back into the weirdness i had escaped days earlier.
Sure enough Dallas would only bring about bad news. I’d find that my bus to Oklahoma City would be sold out–with the next bus getting me into town well after the Spurs game.
I’d miss the game and my ticket would be wasted (in fact it wouldn’t even be a game. The Thunder would get thoroughly dominated at home–causing many people like me to question the legitimacy of OKC’s chances to contend).
But this would only pale in comparison to the news I was about to receive that night from my little brother. His return home to Texas would be short lived as he had gotten word that his services would be needed in Afghanistan. This news sent me into a state of shock that would last for months.
My equilibrium suffered a great jolt and the ensuing shift in perspective would prove to be tremendously profound. Things were taking on a whole new meaning. There was no way I was going to be able to look at things in quite the same way . The fun and sun down in Austin didn’t seem so fun anymore. What the fuck was I doing with my life?
We were in the middle of a perfect moment when shit got weird.
Smoking some good grass and listening to King Tubby on Pandora. We were waiting on the brownies to cool off. My buddy got the text from his crazy ex. She indeed was going to be at the Of Montreal show.
“Maaaaaaannnnn she doesn’t even like Of Montreal. Why the fuck does she wanna be there? She hates that scene.”
“ You know why man. She’s a fun ruiner!!!”
And that should have been an indicator of how things were going to go (actually ruining the first batch of bud butter should have tipped us off)
And SUDDENLY EVERYTHING HAS CHANGEDDDDDD!!!!
Although neither of us said so, we both knew that the care free evening we had planned was going to be marred by his crazy ex.
My boy was in a no win situation.If he was a dick to her an ignored her, he’d feel badly. If he indulged her she’d probably want to rehash their issues. Either way, the show was going to be about her and not Of Montreal.
She was going to ruin the night just by being there.
We tried not to think about it too much, but clearly we were both distracted. We had to make the cabbie turn around and go back to his apartment because I left the tickets on his dining table. There was something off about the night and there was no way to restore the balance. Shit was about to get weird.
Trees is a venue I was familiar with. I spent part of the nineties drinking coffee and reading bad poetry in some of the Deep Ellum establishments. When I was 19 and an idiot, my friends and I would go see this shitty rock band called Pimpadelic. They played at Trees many a time. Sometimes I’d black out from taking pills and drinking, then wake up as we were driving back to Cedar Hill.
The best show I ever saw at Trees was in 2004. Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra came through and laid that shit down. I have never danced so much at a show in my life. At the end of the night we went next door to Cafe Brazil and ran into former Dallas Mavericks great Sam Perkins, getting his attention by yelling “GO TARHEELS!!”
I didn’t for see anything remotely as cool as that happening this particular night. I could just feel the weirdness permeating everything around us.
I’d never seen Of Montreal, but from all the Youtube clips I’d ever seen, they seemed pretty out there. My buddy D.T. Told me he’d seen them a couple of times. I asked him how it was and he kinda smirked and said, “Pretty homoerotic.” [shit gets really wild at about the 9:00 minute mark. The audio of the clip is bad so you may just want to skip to that point.]
I’d heard like three songs that I’d really liked by them, one of them being The Past is a Grotesque Animal on the “Hissing Fauna” album.
[the audio is much better on this clip from an NPR show]
I’d jammed the shit out of their album, False Priest which had elements of David Bowie, Prince, and oddly enough Outkast (maybe not so oddly– they were from Atlanta after all). I was curious about these cats and it seemed fitting that weird shit would go down with them in town.
The opening act was Kishi Bashi, some Japanese cat who seemed like he was sounding like a mixture of James Iha, Tim Reynolds, and one of those Pure Moods cd’s. We listened to about 2 minutes then decide to wait outside before catching a bit of the second act.
It was this cat from Atlanta wearing a purple jacket and no shirt. He picked up his guitar and started playing a familiar riff. He was starting out with a cover. It was “ That Lady” by the Isleys. White people were loving it. His name was Roman GianArthur, and he reminded me of that dude Calvin from 227.
My buddy and I looked at each other and walked towards the smoking area on the patio to get some fresh air.
And there she was. FUCK!!!!!
She waved.
We waved and kept walking to the part of the patio where we weren’t engulfed in Dallas hipsters and cancerous cigarette smoke (which wasn’t easy).
“Don’t look at her man. We waved. You don’t have to go talk to her.”
He nodded. I could tell he was annoyed.
We stood outside in awkward agony trying to decide which was worse, seeing that corny ass nigga inside, or being out there with this psychotic ginger broad.
We decided to go back inside.
We gutted it out. His ex would come inside and keep looking at us. We escaped to the balcony and shot the shit until the main event came on.
And it was almost worth the wait.
The stage show was phenomenal. The lighting was perfect. The costumes were perfect. The leader of the band Kevin Barnes had this weird ass haircut where it was long on the left side and buzzed on the right.
The lead guitarist looked like Jeff “Skunk” Baxter Jr. It was like the Muppet Band were cast into a spell that made them human.
They sounded well rehearsed, tight, and funky! Not a false note anywhere. The rhythm section was on point–grooving. They were on tour to support their latest album Paralytic Stalks, not a song had I heard before but I enjoyed everything they played.
It was highly theatrical and impressive–like a mix between Rocky Horror Picture Show,David Bowie, and Queen.Well done but subtle (pretty much like the above clip from an NPR gig). This was just as impressive as a Radiohead or Flaming Lips show, but even more so because it was scaled down. Everything about the show was meticulous and seemed well thought out. A very high energy show.
The stimulating evening ended with one of my favorite songs, one of three I knew;
The Gronlandic Edit.
I looked around to catch eyes with my buddy but realized he wasn’t around. I looked down onto the floor and saw him in a heated conversation with psycho red.
“Well, fuck.” I thought,I at least was going to enjoy myself.
I walked down the stairs feeling very satisfied after the set. I still had my buzz and the show was well worth the $20 we’d paid.
But not everything was right for everyone. My friend was in a state of agitation I’d never seen him in before, screaming at this poor silly girl, who actually thought it’d be a good idea to show up.
Knowing what it could look like, he being Latino, me being a Nigger, it was best that we kick rocks, and fast.
I hailed the closest taxi and drug him away from his stalker, as she grabbed my arm with desperate eyes, pleading with me to “just let her talk to him. She just wanted to talk with him.”
“Time and place woman. Get a hold of yourself!”
We got into the cab in a state of disbelief. It was best that we head back to the apartment before things got weirder. I half expected her to be waiting at his apartment with a knife in the parking lot. She was that crazy.
I hate to admit it but I was a little scared. Steve McNair gave every dude who’d dated a nut a serious dose of reality. My own brother had once been stabbed by his crazy, half Mexican girlfriend and he still stayed with her ( he once said to “I don’t think she’ll ever stab me again” ) I didn’t want to be an innocent bystander because two years ago my boy had wanted some strange.
Thankfully she was not there. Going back out for food, however; was slightly unnerving. Coming back from Taco Cabana we were relieved to see that she wasn’t sitting in the parking lot, rocking back and forth. My paranoia was so intense that I half expected her to be waiting inside the living room of his apartment for us with a big ass Cutko knife.
We did finally calm down enough to laugh about the sheer zaniness of the evening. The only way things could have been more appropriate would have been had they played this song:
Cause she was indeed a crazy girl in desperate need of some help.
Thank God for marijuana and X-Box. And thank God I was leaving for Austin the next day. Shit was getting just a little too weird in the Big D. It was time to make a break for it.
Before the new year began I bought myself a dry erase board. This was a way to achieve two things:
1) I could keep track of weekly activities and duties.
2) I could have my yearly goals set right in front of my face and be accountable for them.
There were silly ones like get a membership at the local Y,
get myself a colonic,
take piano lessons.
Then there were the serious ones like buy a longboard,
take a cruise out of New Orleans and most importantly hit up my old stomping grounds for SXSW.
Last year I badly wanted to go because there were so many bands I wanted to see.
The Great Lake Swimmers interested me, I believe M. Ward was playing, this band out of Quebec, Final Flash was making an appearance. Unfortunately I didn’t get my schedule request in on time and couldn’t get the days off I wanted (I just cringed remembering that I wanted to go see Donald Glover perform as Childish Gambino).
So I didn’t go.
This year it was a priority.
But with my recent increase in pay, I was delighted to find that I could afford to purchase really good seats for Thunder games. I bought 3 for the month of March alone. I had tickets to see the Clippers, Timberwolves, and the Spurs.
I also had lucked into a ticket at the Radiohead show in Austin. On top of that Of Montreal was playing in Dallas at Trees.
Something had to give. It was going to take some serious creativity to do all of this AND keep my job.
SXSW was suddenly looking iffy. Two trips to Austin in a week seemed a bit crazy. But as some who know me would say, crazy was what I was best at (especially when it came to women).
Radiohead would be easy. That fell on the 7th which was an off day. I took the first bus out of Tulsa ( 4AM) and got into Austin about 3 that afternoon. I met up with my friends around 5 and we got ready for the show.
Let’s just say I ingested an assortment of party favors so that by the time the boys from Oxford took the stage I was seeing tracers ( and it wasn’t just from the light show).
Some quick history about me and Radiohead:
I’d first gotten turned on to them before my freshman year of high school. There was this punk ass kid who lived in my apartments who liked making trouble even more than I did. We immediately took to each other. We’d open unlocked cars and pilch through them, smoke cigarettes and drink beer from his mom’s fridge.
We eventually had a falling out over a girl. He asked out someone I was digging on at the time and this soured things between us. She would come spend the night at this place which perturbed me because he was already sexually experienced and I hadn’t even French kissed a girl yet.
One night when we were chilling at his place–the three of us– time got away from us, and before we knew it, six in the morning had come. A mixture of fatigue and melancholy hanging over me when this video came on MTV. It was a slow ditty, with this fella who had a beautiful voice, and it just captured me. There was a build up that led to a well timed feedback, and then it had this nice crescendo. Obviously this was the Creep video.
I went to school the next week and during social studies I looked over at this guy’s notebook and it had the words
“I wish I were special. You’re so fucking special.”
Yes. He knew. And I looked at him differently from that point on (PAUSE).
1993-1994 was a pretty interesting period for music when I look back on it. At the time I was only into hardcore hip-hop and totally missed out on the alternative wave. I couldn’t understand what all these white people were so angsty about in their dull flannel shirts and weird hairdo’s (though I do remember digging on some Mazzy Star–that shit went hard).
Fake Plastic Trees/High and Dry was the first single I bought when it came out in ’95 (I didn’t finally get Pablo Honey til ’97 because the only song I knew was Creep). I jammed the fuck out of that during my teen depression period–having finally kissed a girl but still not gotten laid.
At this point I was listening to the shit out of some U2 along with the hardcore hip hop (I was progressing) hiding my “white boy shit” in the closet whenever my black friends came to hang out.
By the time OK Computer hit the shelf I had graduated high school and was completely intrigued with this band that kept coming up in different junctures of my teen aged years.
This album got me to buy in completely. I first heard it on headphones and it completely blew me away. Took me to places I’d never been. I spent months just driving around North Dallas listening to that album on full blast.
My friends called me a pussy. Though critics were hailing their latest work, most of my friends still knew them as the ‘Creep band’. Radiohead were certainly not in the mainstream quite yet.
When I found myself driving to Fair Park Music Hall to go see them, I was driving alone because no one I knew wanted to go to the show. I didn’t have a ticket–in fact I had planned on watching a Red-Sox game on ESPN. It was a last minute decision to check them out.
I found a scalper and paid $80 bucks for a third row seat then I walked into the venue. It was pretty awesome to say the least. It was a life changing experience, one that I shared with only a few hundred people. It felt like being in a cool little fan club. It seemed like all the artsy kids I never hung out with in high school were there.
After the show I went out and bought their previous album, The Bends, and having heard a lot of the material live; I was officially a fan.
In the fall of 2000 I met a guy at North Texas who had all the B-sides. He burned them for me and I couldn’t believe how many good songs there were that had never made it to an album. He had to put them onto two discs so that I could get them all.
This couldn’t have been timed any better because Kid A was their highly anticipated release. No one knew what to expect. When it came out I was a little disappointed. The beautiful depressing songs were few in number, replaced with these weird electronic beeps and noises.
What the fuck? I thought. Yorke has this beautiful ass voice and he was hiding it behind synthesizers and weird effects and compressors. I couldn’t understand it, and just as weird as their music would become, so would the decade.
Every time I could finally catch up to what they were playing they would go in a different direction. And man the B-sides from that Amnesica-Kid A period was pretty fucking grooving. Some of them were better than songs that they put onto album(Fog is definitely in my top 20). Eventually I stopped trying to get it and just started digging it. Some songs of course were easier than others.
When In Rainbows came out I felt like that was the album I had expected to hear when they dropped Kid-A. It was an album I wanted to shag to, cry to, laugh to, dance to, it was impeccable.
When King of Limbs came out I knew better than to try and guess what it’d sound like. I even gave it 50 listens before I made a judgment about it. I knew there were some songs I liked, but some I wasn’t quite sure of (I still can’t listen to Harry Patch or Daily Mail).
I did know this would be a different show. They’d added a drummer to their stage show, and I was hoping this would be the thing to shake things up. I’d always been vocal about something having to change. I wasn’t sure if they were going to break up or what,especially after hearing how funky the Atoms for Peace band was.
My biggest fantasy was them doing an album with Brian Eno just to switch things up ( It made sense to me. Work with the guy who worked with the Talking Heads? they got their name from a Heads’ song).
But as always, the artist knows what’s best for them, and adding Clive Deamer (the drummer from Portishead) was a solid decision.
Every Radiohead concert I attended seemed to coincide with a transitional period in my life. The first concert that I’d seen them in Dallas (OK Computer tour) was a pivotal period in my life. I was 19 and was just tapping into this other side of reality (beyond what I had known as a dumb jock). My tastes in art, fashion, and music (and consequently drugs) would drastically change. My reality would forever be altered.
I missed the Kid-A/Amnesiac tour because I was saving my money to make a move to Austin.
I caught them on the Hail to the Thief Tour which signaled my return back to university life back in Denton. I had moved back to the north Texas area after being swallowed alive by the Austin rat race. My grandmother had just passed away as well and I had just moved into my own apartment. The highlight of that night was seeing them play Lurgee off the Pablo Honey album (Jonny’s guitar wailing made me misty-eyed)
There was a touch of bitterness because I wasn’t close enough to the stage (my mother had purchased me GA tickets because she didn’t think I’d want to stand up all night in the Pit seating). The whole show my eyes looked longingly towards the pit area, wondering what if.
I had ridden with this girl that I had known back in the dorm days. She had an OK Computer tat on her ass. She and her boyfriend drove down (with me in tow) and that was the first time I had a listen to the Gagging Order b-side, one of the prettiest tunes Thom had ever written.
In 2006, a buddy and I drove up to Toronto from his parents’ home in Michigan hoping to score some tickets to a show at the Hummingbird Theatre. They were only doing select gigs in theaters in a few cities across America. We scored some balcony seats for about 120 US dollars.
It was a great show. Very small and intimate. Not a bad seat in the house. But the night was soured because I couldn’t quit thinking about how much we’d spent to see them. I kept hoping that they’d play certain songs (Talk Show Host mainly) and frankly felt a little ripped off ( PLAY SOME B-SIDES DAMMIT!!!).
To punctuate the evening me and my buddy got into a fight because I wanted to eat at this Hooters by our hostel and he wanted to go somewhere local. We ended up wandering the streets looking for something open, both of us hungry and bitchy. We finally settled on a Falafel joint and went back to our room to smoke and go to sleep.
I’d go on to stand outside of 3 more concerts that tour, increasingly dissatisfied with their set lists. Why was I such a malcontent? Why did I suddenly dislike them?
Or was I just frustrated at how distant the band seemed from me in relation to that first concert? It seemed like every frat boy and douchebag liked Radiohead now. Some of these yahoos probably couldn’t tell the difference between them and Coldplay. But Radiohead’s increasing popularity was driving the price for tickets up and it was damn near impossible to get floor seats for their shows.
So yeah I was sour. This was (probably?) silly backlash, and a juvenile response for their success. They were no longer this underground band that made me feel cool to be at their show. Just observing the crowds and hearing them scream like groupies at Thom made me sick. I needed a break.
I skipped the In Rainbows tour for that reason and because most of the songs on that album I’d seen previewed on the theaters tour in ’06.
I wasn’t exactly sure if i’d see them on the King of Limbs Tour. My buddy Roach was very excited about the new stuff and had already bought a floor ticket for the Dallas show. He’d had good reports. Said it was easily the best show he’d seen by them.
This was encouraging.
So there I was. I was 33 years old watching a show in a venue I’d worked at in my early 20’s, working shows like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tool, and Tom Petty. Hanging with some old school Austin friends. The moment was speaking to me. The douchebags and sorostitutes weren’t bothering me that much either. I even had a real job.
But what the fuck was I still doing in Tulsa when there was a bad ass city like Austin for me to live in?
“If you think this is over then you’re wrong.”
The show was incredible. And easily the best set I’d ever seen by them. They had somehow surpassed the Dallas ’98 gig. I realized a few things that night.
They were not going to break up. In fact they were better than ever. Somehow they were also super funky, with lots of poly rhythms and percussion. The addition of Deamer added a lot to the set (kind of when Talking Heads added more musicians to their live act).
They seemed so loose also. In my head I attributed it to them taking a dip at Barton Springs, and getting in tune with the city.
Greenwood was wearing a Texas shirt. The audience showed them so much love. You could tell they were enjoying themselves. Yorke even told jokes on stage.
” what do you call a fish with three eyes?”
A Fiiish”
Yea I didn’t get it either at first.
But it was a perfect night that had given me something to think about. Mainly that I was way too liberal to be living in Oklahoma. But I was living there for a reason. Part of that was because I had a decent paying job that would allow me to do some crazy shit like I was doing this month.
I only got to spend a day and a half there on this venture but I’d be back in four short days for a week of mayhem. But I was not prepared for what I was about to encounter in the monster that SXSW had become.
Drinking OJ and vodka last night as the lights were staring me in the face. My summer is over. Time to go back to Tulsa winter. The hostel is super nice. The middle of downtown in a sketchy part of town yet the Alajuela Backpacker’s hostel is a haven from it all. Down the street from a grocery store it is fairly convenient in its location. There is also a shuttle that will take you to the airport. Had a good trip over with the Portland gals. We had a lot of laughs and got some good scenery taken in. I developed a little crush on one of them, Lisa. She actually saved my ass because I didn’t figure in the exit fee for my budget and was in danger of being stuck in the country with no money. Feeling good going back though.
My Minnesota friend flew in with me to Denver. Customs was a real bitch. They gave me shit for some bean dip I had in my bag. The dogs were going crazy over it. Little did I know that Mr. Minnesota suck in a gram of pure grade nose candy in the bottom of his shoe. How about that?
Returning home darker, stronger, slimmer and ready to pounce on the first piece of ass available. Good thing my concubine is picking me up at the airport. My masculinity affirmed and embraced with this trip. I thought this would quench my thirst for travel but it only enhanced it. But I certainly got my money’s worth and could see that a lot of good had come from the trip. Now that I was okay spiritually, it was time to take care of some physical needs.
She approached me at the baggage claim and we awkwardly embraced.
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 
