I don't want to fall so easily., Graveyards make me wet and Someone please kill me, especially ElectricMollusk's writeup, provoke some sort of noder's-crisis in me at 3:30 am after long conversings with friends and roommate. What would potentially have made quite an interesting node ended up in the chatterbox. You had to be here.

Discover upon waking much later that N-Wing's chatterboxbot has logged it all - will post here after skimming and you can decide for yourself whether or not you had to be here after all.

Fool's Parade turned out well, even if I didn't manage to get the french fries-in-my-beard for the "the mad monk Ras-poutine" costume.

Spent the afternoon napping on the sofa curled around my best friend.

Debut of Perpetual Dream Theory at Chazz's cafe. I arrive late, after a demonstration of Jump and Bump. See lots of people I didn't expect to see in the small space. Good music. Pedal falls off the foot-pedestal. Spoken word well-received there for the first time ever.

Back to the Fool's after-parade party, accordion played. Yum. Fire-dancing. What more can be said?

Now officially 4:38 am April 2nd. Sleep.

chatterbox transcript follows:
disclaimer: some remarks omitted / shuffled for ease of thread-following. all remarks reprinted without permission (tell me if you want your words off / anonymized) and most hard links introduced at the time of reprinting, so the home audience can follow along 8)

11:28 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: everything is turning into something amazing and for once I have nothing to say. i almost feel like crying.

11:29 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: almost, mind you. it isn't, and shouldn't be, group therapy, but it is amazing to witness complex subjective emotional states articulated in such a manner as to be appreciatable by people to whom they don't apply.

11:29 UTC: xunker: ANy particual reason?

11:30 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: one starts wondering: don't I experience complex states as well? why aren't I articulating these if that is the case?

11:30 UTC: icicle: ditto pseudo intellectual. sniff.

11:30 UTC: icicle: actually, i'm in such a state tonight anyways.

11:31 UTC: Tabs: well said

11:31 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: back when I was the uber-hardcore-noder (think 150 nodes in a single sitting) I could discourse for hours on the status of my post-humanizing conditioning efforts. I could speak with authority on something personally meaningful to me.

11:31 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: now i have nothing more significant to share than "I had to urinate frequently yesterday for no explicable reason and was more than mildly disturbed at this turn of events."

11:32 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: when did I become so, so decadent? 8)

11:33 UTC: xunker: When you first used your powers for evil?

11:33 UTC: Tabs: yer gettin' old p_i

11:33 UTC: icicle: decadent? hardly. creativity ebbs and flows.

11:33 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: This-all was intended to be an audienceless address into the unwatching abyss, so I really don't know how to continue now that it's been made apparent that people are a) observing and b) sympathizing.

11:33 UTC: ModernAngel: p_i, what is this "post-humanizing"?
(darn, missed that question at the time - eventually it'll end up being answered here...)

11:33 UTC: discofever: amazing to witness complex subjective emotional states articulated in such a manner as to be appreciatable by people to whom they don't apply : sounds like a good definition of art to me.

11:34 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: are we only interesting when we're in dangerous places? am I in too safe / comfortable a spot to perform with credibility?

11:34 UTC: xunker: Pity the flow usually happens in the wee hours of the AM.

11:34 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: icicle - can accounts of quotidian life really be described as creativity?

11:35 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: disco - let's not get too modernist here. Meaning in art is such a bourgeois notion 8)

11:35 UTC: discofever: Every place is dangerous. Flip one neuron in your head, and discover insanity.

11:36 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: there is a flaw at the heart of all of this - that one's state, interesting or not, is necessarily worthy of sharing.

11:36 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: (insert john malkovich's head here)

11:36 UTC: icicle: my brain hurts.

11:36 UTC: discofever: Forgive me, p_i. I haven't been up this late in ages, and I can feel my mind slipping... ;-)

11:37 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: disco - I'd like you to sing your song 8)

11:37 UTC: xunker: Creativity is life. Life is the wholesone goodness that makes experience.

11:37 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: xunk - if living is the creating, then where does the sharing come in?

11:38 UTC: xunker: Am I the only one here who takes negative reputaions on my writeups personally? Or am I just a daft mogy?

11:39 UTC: discofever: My POV : your peers decide what is worth sharing, and the only way you'll know if it's worthy is to share it in the first place... so go ahead, spread.

11:39 UTC: xunker: If this ain't sharing I don't know what it. The untold experiance never happened.

(the unexamined life is not worth living? - Socrates)

11:39 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: I find well-written first-hand accounts of interesting life interesting, but somehow I find compelling accounts of true things with which the author has no tangible connection even moreso.

11:40 UTC: discofever: x : My forehead has a self-inflicted dent in it for every negative vote. Yes, it's personal - don't worry. ;-)

11:40 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: perhaps there's a bit of voyeurism-disdain in there, perhaps a bit of aversion to self-promotion...

11:41 UTC: xunker: So then surealism is often more real?

11:41 UTC: discofever: P_I : I think I've got the 'accounts of true things' down... now, how do I get the 'compelling' part?

11:41 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: I read writeups that make me want to jump up and shout YES!!, to give the author a hug and say I know exactly where you're coming from... and instead I give it a +1 vote and maybe a cool.

11:42 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: disco - your accounts have compelled me, which is all I can vouch for in terms of worthiness 8)

11:43 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: xunk - something more along the lines of abstraction.

11:43 UTC: xunker: Perhaps that's what everything will evolve into -- a repository and mayhaps blueprint of the human psyche.

11:43 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: showing instead of telling.

11:44 UTC: xunker: A structured absraction. A very enlighting premise.

11:45 UTC: discofever: I try to follow the KISS rule here : sharing makes me happy if it's appreciated, appreciating what others have shared makes me happy. The rest is just fluff.

11:47 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: I scrape away the happiness, the appreciation. I only want to share things that are important, yet at the same time I want to be complete. I have severe disdain for my highest-ranking nodes.

11:47 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: What other people think shouldn't be a factor in anything. I am searching for truth, not popularity.

11:48 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: (... and am finding neither 8)

11:48 UTC: kessenich: My highest-ranking node is Brooks Brothers, which mystifies me...

11:49 UTC: kessenich: running third is That Morton Salt girl is hot. QED.

11:50 UTC: discofever: What other people think is my only guide. There's no way I could figure out if something is the 'truth' without them; I decieve myself.

11:50 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: kess - a well-written, informative and unbiased-appearing node. great form, but what does it tell us in the context of your having written it / decided it was something the world needed to know and that you'd be the one to tell us? (or should such

11:51 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: context be declared irrelevant?) Should we be learning about each other from what we say, where we say, or should we not be concerned with learning about each other at all? Is this an endeavour based on (role-played) personalities or on information?

11:53 UTC: kessenich: thanks, ps. The world needed to know, and I was destined to be the one to tell them. Or something.

11:52 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: Can anyone draw a connection between what I'm presently saying and how my outburst began?

11:53 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: I'm fairly certain there's a connection, but somewhere the focus shifted from the personal to the objective.

11:54 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: ... and devolved into me asking other people shortly after declaring the opinion of other people irrelevant.

11:54 UTC: discofever: p_i : there's no log in the chatterbox; all is lost to the ether. Sorry, I guess we forgot to drop bread crumbs or something... ;-)

11:55 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: ooh look, there's a house made of CANDY!

11:55 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: ahh, the earlier-tonight-cited state of being rational enough to realize that you're acting irrationally, but not rational enough to (bring yourself to) do anything about it.

11:56 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: i guess I'm not asking for someone to quote me back at me but perhaps am seeing if anyone else was following (or was capable of following) my progression.

11:57 UTC: discofever: the sun's coming up. I still have to do taxes.

11:58 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: Talk talk talk. And still no conviction that there is anything said. I have to be performing in eight hours.

11:59 UTC: Pseudo_Intellectual: .. so until my next crisis, i withdraw my buzzing brain from the hive.

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...

SXSW 2000 : Wednesday

Today's plan : wake up in Arlington and go to sleep in Austin. All else is malleable. After a quick jog and a shower, I pack, say goodbye to the fine friends who put me up for the night (Thanks, Jeb! Thanks, Anna!), and hit the road. Or, I drive around madly, looking for one of the two Krispy Kreme outlets that exist in Texas. Once I hit that, I drive south on a mind-bending sugar rush. Whee!

I pull into Austin at about noon and check into the Super 8 motel. My room's much nicer than I expect; there's even a microwave and a fridge. Classy. I unpack and consult the schedule - the fun begins NOW!

One-ish : My wallet is 97 bucks lighter. I've now got the fabled wristband that allows me access to any SXSW-approved show I want. Of course, I still have to deal with fire codes, but that bridge will be crossed (or not) when I get to it.

2:15. As I walk in to Waterloo Records, I'm struck by how utterly empty it is. I mean, my information says John Cale will be playing (playing what?) here about 15 minutes ago. Sadly, this is not the case. The PA system is not yet complete; no scuzzy roadies are shuttling guitars to and fro; no aging Rock Star outside having a smoke. I don't know what's going on, so I move on.

2:45. 33 Degrees. A girl that looks exactly like Christina Ricci, yet looks nothing like her at all, checks my bag. I tried to get my laptop working; no free Ethernet ports anywhere, my NetZero account fails, and the disk drive fell out, so no live noding from Austin. For shame! There's a band playing, the first of many - I'm prepared, I've got 10 ear plugs on me.

3:15, still at 33 Degrees. I'm hungry and horny - have I mentioned why I love Austin so much? The women. Dear Lord Almighty up in Heaven, the women. There are exactly three girls in all of Tulsa with short hair and tattoos; I know, I've counted them all. There's four like that in the store. It looks like I'm going to be a walking, talking erection for the next few days. I don't know the name of the band that just played, and I don't care to learn, either. A group called Roar! Lion is on stage now. They're cute and floppy, like puppy ears. I remember at the end of one song where they stop playing their instruments and just hop about and shout on stage. S'okay, but I've used up my cuteness quotient lately on Apples in Stereo albums.

4:30. I'm paying my bills in a Thundercloud Subs. Damn, talk about a great place. Three more insanely beautiful women, one great club sandwich, and a Sex Pistols album playing on the boombox. There's a bit of a to-do about a van parked in a handicapped parking spot, much pontificating about 'those damn frat boys' and abuses of parking priveliges, which appears to be a touchy subject to many Austinites. Refreshed, I head out.

6:30. I'm at Cheapo Discs, and there's a rockabilly revivalist band playing in a corner - The Cadillac Angels. The bassist kicks ass. She looks like an old porn industry reject (and if you saw the faces she made when she worked out a vibrato, well, you'd think the same thing too). Good old fashioned rock'n'roll. Near the end of the set, the bassist takes the stand-up into the middle of the crowd and proceeds to execute some insanely complicated maneuvers, mostly balancing totally on the bass while playing. Extreme Rock.

8:10, at the main punk club in Austin, Emo's. The SXSW organizers love going against type, though - Stubb's BBQ, where the chefs will serve what you want, as long as it's country-fried, becomes a big hip-hop venue on Saturday - so cutesy (twee?) rock/pop from Kindercore Records is in the smaller of the two Emo's rooms. A group called I Am the World Trade Center is on stage. This is their first show, ever. They must be terrified up there, too - first time out and you're playing to a room full of record executives. It goes about as well as can be expected - the lead singer's voice is flat and off-key, but it works in the context of the music somehow - and they finish up quickly.

9:05, Emo's. More equipment problems. Etienne Charry, a Frenchman, is lamenting the fact that his custom-made Kraftwerkian robotic back-up band is made for European voltage levels, not American. So, when he plays, there are these odd pauses where a prerecorded sample usually goes. But Charry does all right - he's got huge brown puppy-dog eyes and he's totally charming and you're fully entertained, if not by the music. I split a bit later and hit up Stubb's, to see an OK band called Crawdaddy-O (n'awlins swing, with tuba) and then I wander for a bit, checking out other venues with much less inspiring music. I seem to remember walking in on ThaMuseMeant's last song...

10:30, back at Emo's. This is the place to be, judging by the badges around. If I haven't mentioned before, the badges are roughly $400 and only for those in the industry or the press. Posession of one will get you into showcases before any wristbander or pay-at-the-door types, and they can get you into the private parties that are happening 24/7 all over this town. Badges I see here - David Geffen Records. Warner Brothers (it looks like they sent their janitorial staff). Nathan Thompson from The Onion. So, all the cool kiddies are at Emo's... if only the music was better. In the main room, The Dylan Group is barely audible over the snores. They sound like Tortoise, if you replace all the members with clones of pre-campaign Al Gore. The other room has more pop, a band called kincaid, and while the melodies are standard-issue, at least people here are awake.

11:30, Emo's. I standing next to Robert Schneider from the Apples in Stereo. He's a reflection of the perfect pop he writes; his blood is probably made of Prozac or something. The protégées of the Apples, a band called Dressy Bessy is on stage, and they jack up the sugar content of the club by four magnitudes. I'm experiencing a 5 minute crush on the lead singer, who a cheerleader-by-day, raver-by-night type.

12:50, Stubb's. I hang around while Dressy Bessy ends at midnight and proceed to catch the Essex Green - noodling psychedelia that heads nowhere. I split and check out some inspired polka by Rubinchik's Orkestyr at the Ritz, and then some of that aforementioned country-fried rock at Stubb's with the Damnations Tx. In the quest to get as many different styles as I can, I'm only getting two songs per band, maximum. There's no rest. Snap a few pictures of the band, run to the next club.

2:00, outside Emo's. Finally, it's time for blessed sleep. I caught about 20 minutes of Japancakes, who's (illegally) playing past 2 AM inside of Emo's, and who's more noodling psychedelia, but unlike the Essex Green, it's noodling psychedelia that seems to actually have a destination. So thumbs up there. Macha, one of the more hyped bands of the night, didn't start to play until 1:35, so I didn't catch anything that they did. The Gourds played at Stubb's, but they also had problems setting up - it looked like they were setting up microphones underneath the stage to amplify the (very) beefy guitarist's stomps and impromptu hoe-down dances. Well, whatever. I fall asleep on top of the bedcovers.

April 2, 2000

people hurt

They can hurt and they can make other people hurt.

but WHY?

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