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August was a long time ago and I don't really remember anything special in August. Biggest thing to happen in August was my work Blackberry getting taken away. It was replaced by a flip phone. I just googled "Samsung flip phone" and it wasn't even in the first 50 pages of google images. I then googled "old samsung verizon flip phone" and it showed up on the second page. I went from Blackberry to this. Needless to say, I no longer have a way to put cell phone pictures on here. So no more feet in a cooler pool, or American flag Buds, or Mustache seesaws. I'm not even bitter. Let's move onto September.
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September was setting up to be one hell of a month: my parents were visiting, the next weekend my oldest sister Katie was flying in and we had tickets to see the Austin City Limits on that Friday, and I was preparing to move at the end of the month. Things were going to be swell. Hectic, but swell.
Well things kind of went according to plans, until Labor Day weekend. I had tickets to go see the Round Rock Express (Texas Rangers AAA team) at 6pm on that Sunday. There were even supposed to be fireworks. Fireworks! My boss called me around 2pm asking me to come into work because apparently there was a large fire north of Austin. What I would come to realize is that the whole fucking state of Texas was actually on fire. I spent the next 4 hours at a shelter in Pflugerville. (I just wanted to type out the name of that city on here because it looks so fucking ridiculous.) I didn't get home until 1am that night. (I was pulled over on my way home. Once I explained that I had been working on the fires, the cop let me off with a warning). I was at work the next day (which was Labor Day) until midnight again. My three day weekend had turned into a one day weekend. I eventually ended up working 13 straight days.
(In no way am I attempting to make light of the wildfires. Me working 12 hour days is nothing compared to 1600 people losing their houses and businesses. NO ONE DENIES THIS.)
I saw Jim Gaffigan's stand up on Friday the 9th, which had been my sixth day in a row at work. I ended up falling asleep for parts of the show because I was so damn tired. Ninety-five dollars for a fucking nap.
My parents came into town the same night I saw Jim Gaffigan. I was able to get some time off while they were here so that was pretty awesome. Read: we drank at their hotel bar two straight nights, dad and I got drunk watching the Bears win, and we made it back to the hotel bar on their last night. It's true what they say, Austin's Holiday Inns have the best, most generic hotel bars in the West.
Would also like to point out that we witnessed Austin's "famous" bats on Saturday night. If you've never heard of or seen this spectacle, then you're doing better in life than me. Don't waste your time. I realize bats come out at night but it was damn near impossible to see them against the dark sky and the dark water. Bats exiting the bridge at 8:30pm: not so cool. Bats exiting the bridge at 3pm: pretty damn cool. Think about it Mother Nature.
Parents eventually left Tuesday, the 13th. Weird thing about their visit: they were here 4 full days and never once set foot in my apartment. My shithole of an apartment isn't that much of a shithole.
One day later, Katie flew in. I hadn't seen my family since June and here I was seeing them for a week straight. (Not hating on you Ker. Or Lil' Paddy. Or even you big Pat. But I definitely know big Pat doesn't read this. Even if he did, he definitely just stopped after I referred to him as big Pat. ((Big Pat is my future brohan-in-law))).
Earlier in the week, someone had donated two 3-day wristbands to ACL to work and they were being raffled off. I had mentioned this to Katie and she said something along the lines of "Don't get my hopes up. If you win, just bring me a diaper when you pick me up because I'll shit my pants." Foreshadowing at it's best, when I picked up Katie at the airport, there was a baby diaper on the front seat. I won the 3 day passes and had the best reveal I've ever participated in.
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Bands we saw at ACL (with Spotify links to their songs. If the links don't work, you should probably sign up for Spotify): Friday-
Cults-Cults – You Know What I Mean- pretty upbeat music and the lead singer looks like one of my co-workers. WHICH ONE THOUGH??
Theophilus London- rapper who we'd never heard before. He was pretty good. Couldn't tell you any of his songs though.
James Blake- kinda slow so we left.
Smith Westerns- we had seen them at SXSW in March. Also, they're from Chicago. And are only 19 years old.
Big Boi- only heard one or two of his songs, one of which was "Bombs Over Bagdad."
Foster the People- yes they played "Pumped Up Kicks." Also played "Helena Beat."
Nas and Damian Marley- again, only a few songs and from a few hundred yards away.
Pretty Lights- best show up until this point. I had never heard of him but he was an extremely talented DJ and he made the white people dance.
Kanye- rocked the fucking house. He was the only artist to put on an actual show instead of just playing music. He had 10-15 ballet dancers on stage with him and had his set broken into three parts. He played so many of his hits: Can't Tell Me Nothin, Dark Fantasy, Champion, Flashing Lights, Gold Digga, Good Life, Heartless, Love Lockdown, a few verses of Through the Wire and Hey Mama, Monster, Power, Robocop, Stronger, and Runaway. I'm sure I missed a few in there, but he played all the hits. Sadly, there were no surprise guests like Jigga and Beyonce or Nicki Minaj, or even Pusha T. He even held back his usual ramblings so he could play more music. Apparently the city had him on a "curfew." Best concert of the weekend. By far.
Saturday:
Young the Giant- Yes they played "My Body." That's probably the only song many of you have heard from them, if you've even heard of them. "Cough Syrup?" Yes they played it too.
It gets kind of hazy which bands we saw and which we didn't. It was also about this time that it started raining. I know, rain in Austin is fucking crazy. That didn't stop us from frolicking in the rain and enjoying every moment of that wet dream from heaven. And by enjoying it, we spent time crammed under one giant tent filled with hundreds of people eating and another giant tent that was apparently covering a sand pit. Didn't make sense at the time and it doesn't make sense now.
Iron and Wine- pretty sure we saw them, but could be wrong
Fitz and the Tantrums- Fitz and The Tantrums – MoneyGrabber This is the only song I know by them. It was delightful in person.
Cut Copy- Had the third best show of the weekend and best non-headliner show. They played for an hour and we danced for a solid hour. My other sister Keri might refer to their music as "bee-bo boppy." Whatever you call it, hell of a show.
Chromeo- saw a few of their songs, but left to see
TV on the Radio- their bassist died from cancer a few months ago. But they still rocked pretty hard. I guess I could have lead off with something other than the cancer thing.
Headlining Saturday were My Morning Jacket and Stevie Wonder. Neither of us were much of a fan of either so we listened to both. We caught the first 45 minutes or so of MMJ then walked to the middle of the field and heard a few songs from Stevie. We left early to catch the shuttle home.
Sunday- First things first, we went to a sports bar and watched the Bears game. We actually ended up being the first people at the bar that day so the bartender turned the sound from the Bears game up and had all the other games muted. Like the old adage says, early drunks get the sound to their game.
We eventually made our way to the fest around 5. Pretty sure the first band we saw was Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses. And yes, neither of us had heard of them either.
Death From Above 1979- these guys are heavy rock metal yet somehow I felt like this was the best time for me to take a nap in the grass. Apparently more than a few people asked Katie if I was dead. Let a sleeping man lay/lie (still not sure which is correct).
Manu Chao La Ventura- only thing I remember from this show is that we only had to turn around from our spot on the ground from Death From Above so we didn't have to actually move.
Randy Newman- this was a personal goal. Katie stayed put and I searched out Randy. Of course I was looking to hear "Short People" but I managed to find him in the middle of his set. I'm sure he probably ends with SP. Listened to two of his songs then made my way back to Katie. In near complete darkness. With tens of thousands of people laying all over the fucking place. Was quite difficult.
Last but not least was Arcade Fire. They fucking rocked. They were the final headliners and were the only show going on. Most of the time, there had been 2-5 shows going on at all times. This just meant that their show was packed with everyone. Arcade Fire would have taken the top spot had Kanye not rocked two nights before.
Things I learned from ACL- Make notes of which bands you actually see. It will come in handy two weeks later when you're trying to brag to a bunch (a few) people on a shitty blog. And lastly, win three day passes again next year. That part was awesome.
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Moving blows. At the beginning of August, I put in my 60 days notice to my apartment complex that I would be leaving at the end of September. I spent August barely looking for an apartment since I had two whole months. Well that backfired (pun intended) pretty quickly on me when the fires began. I was then too busy with work, family in town, and seeing awesome music (not to mention I was still lazy) to look for a new place. I eventually reached out to my apartment management to see if I could just stay in my apartment for a few more months. (It honestly made perfect sense in my mind.) Well the manager informed me that she had already leased the apartment for October. I found this out last Friday, the 23rd. I had nine days to find and move into a new apartment. It was at this time that I went into "apartment finder mode." Meaning I googled "Austin apartments" while I watched football all weekend. To be fair, most every apartment offices are closed during the weekends, which seems like an awful business plan. I was eventually able to contact an apartment locator (free service to me, they get paid a finder's fee by the apartment. I think.) who was able to find me some places in my price range and that had current openings.
My current apartment is filled with boxes of my shit. One thing you always realize when moving is just how much pointless shit you keep around. (I literally have 9 kitchen hand towels. And two coyote masks on my walls.)
I pick up my new keys tomorrow and can begin to move in. The best part about the new place: free cable, meaning I won't have to wait a week or whatever for some dude to show up at my door and flip a switch. Also, there's a bar one block away. You'd think that after moving into two apartments, both of which have a bar within a two block radius, that bar proximity would be one of my criteria. And you would be correct.
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And to end it, a funny picture.
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| Wizard of Oz was always R right? |
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Not going to make any false promises about writing any more frequently. Is that technically a promise to not make a promise? Anyways, I'll be in my new place by Sunday. It's also like 20 minutes closer to work than I live now so that works out to 40 extra minutes I'll be at home a day! So you never know...
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Y'all come back
