On TRF, TXK, ACL, IMG, MP3, and TXT

Went to the opening weekend of Texas Renaissance Festival. I give my weekend’s experience a score of 65%. Friday night sucked, saturday morning sucked, but saturday afternoon and evening made up for it mostly. I hung out with my Texarkana friend Brian. We set up camp close to this group of people from Houston and San Antonio. A bunch of party animals. I made sure to get myself drunk saturday night on some of Brian’s camp-famous punch and two rum-and-cokes. Over two evenings I was able to eak out less than eight shoddy hours of sleep.

After the higher-than-expected ticket price, the flat tire made when looking most of friday night for Brian and his camp, and my expenditures on food, drink, and supplies, coupled with the lack of sleep, I made the choice to strike camp sunday morning, skip the second day of Festival, say g’bye to my new friends, and drive home where a shower and bed awaited. After unpacking and cleaning up, and during the process of getting dressed, I fell asleep. Woke up enough to transplant to the bed and stayed there for 11 hours. Got up around 2am sneezing my ass off, then went back to bed at 4 for another 4 hours of sleep before work. Sunday just did not exist.

65%.

The presidential debates are under way. Watched the Vice Presidential debate. Wasn’t as clear as the first Presidential debate last week. Both sides made good points.

Currently feeling something resembling the leading edge of a case of bronchitis. I’m in the denial stage. Feeling a little better after vacuuming my room and cooling off. Funny what a little cleaning up can do. A cluttered, unsanitary room with papers, tissues, and stuff everywhere is totally the way my room is when I’m sick. It’s not that way any more, so maybe it’ll work in the reverse direction.

Water + vitamins + cleaning = healthy Shawn

So, I got paid today. Rent is now paid, as are two of the three house bills. I got one of my breathing medications refilled. Got my three rolls of Austin City Limits film processed. I’m now certain that my camera has outlived its life expectancy. Quite a few of the shots are seriously lacking. Some are even double-exposed. I’ll have to do some creative cropping and color correction to get anything decent out of them, as most shots have the members of the various bands consisting of small blobs of film grain. I hate to admit, but I fear it’s time to get a digital camera.

I’ll see what I can do about the pictures; I’ll have to edit and decide which to post. That’ll be later. Sorry.

I got the inspiration to work on some Glass Door songs the other day. The desire waned by the time I got home from work and commenced to screwing with my music software. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it to even bother with the Glass Door venture.

Course, same could be said for Chrontium, Glyph (the planned website engine for Phaysis.com), the image gallery tool, and some other secret side projects.

Shawn, the Great Initiator.

Sleepy now. What follows is a bit I wrote a few weeks ago concerning an element currently no longer in my life. Enjoy. Signing off.

Resigned
(8/25/2004)

This back is broken shapeless, the bastards got it beat
hands empty to the merciless, on knees to pledge defeat.
Running from the headache, to flee from venom’s might
I could have won the battle, but I have lost the fight.

These ears are filled with sludge, from months of backstab hate
and petty bicker laughing, the faceless fools’ berate.
Holding back the bile, who cares if you are right
I know I’ve won the battle, but I have lost the fight.

Hands burning from the liars, who tempt and tease deceit
who promise love unconquered, then pull from under feet.
Bowing to the heartbreak, I’m lonely here tonight
I may have won the battle, but I have lost the fight.

Heart aching from the lesson, each passing day is learned
you think of me as nothing, your silence has me burned.
I leave your cold contempting, and make my burden light
tonight I’ve won the battle, but I have lost the fight.

Austin City Limits Music Festival

ACL ticket, wristband, rockhand
What you see is the wristband that gets me in the gate of the biggest music festival I’ve ever seen. In its third year, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has a lineup of bands I’ve wanted to see for some time, most notably The Pixies (touring after a decade split). After much procrastination, I finally got a 3-day pass (at a daunting but well-spent $89). Just in the nick of time too: they sold out later that day.

Friday:

Friday had me at work most of the day. I managed to duck out early, went home, and prepped myself for the festival. Decided to drive down to the state parking garages downtown where I could park for $5 and catch the CapMet shuttles from Waterloo park down to the festival. There was a long line at the park, but it moved surprisingly fast because the busses never stopped coming; they would stop long enough to fill up, then be off while another bus took its place. A 15-minute ride got us to the festival in style. I was impressed.

After putting on my wristband and having my satchel searched, I walked through the gate to the busiest sight I’ve ever seen. Eight stages and a ton of people were all over Zilker park, which is something like 15 acres. Looked to be more people there than in most large towns. Amazing.

Several bands were doing their thing. To my left (the west), on a major stage was a rasta band named Toots and the Maytals. I dug their sound. Walked on, grabbed something to eat from the Stubbs BBQ booth, and walked around to hear other bands like Ryan Adams. Not bad, not bad.

An acquaintance of mine was the drummer for a local band named Gomez. They were fine, from what I hear. However, they found out about another band, from England, with the same name. They filed lawsuit and won; the English band had to change their name to Gomez UK. Well, the local Gomez is defunct, apparently, because the English Gomez is doing ACL. Knowing this, I had to hear this band for myself. Truth be told, they’re good. Like a mix of Ours and Vast with a ton of I Mother Earth (with pop sensibilities) thrown in. I was rather impressed.

The main act I wanted to see Friday night was Sheryl Crow. I missed the chance to see her when I went to the first Lilith Fair tour in ’96; she didn’t play the show in Raleigh, NC. Her set started kinda early, while I was watching Gomez, but it was a relatively short walk after the Gomez set to see her set. In a nutshell, she’s a consumate showman. A little self-agrandizing, but consumate. She pulled out a good amount of her popular songs and threw some unknowns into the mix. Had several singer-songwriter blues guitarists from other bands sit in with her and her band on several songs. Kinda cool. Something that can only be done during festivals. Her show was the last of the day, and she and her band came out for an encore of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Pride and Joy”, which was pretty good for a cover.

The venture home was frustrating, at best. After wandering around for forever, I discovered that the line for the shuttles back to the downtown garages stretched for what seemed to be a quarter mile. I decided to walk to my friend BC3’s house to take him up on his offer to host me and carry me back to my car. After spending 10 minutes walking, mostly uphill, I got to his house and discovered nobody was home, so I took my tired, aching, thirsty, having-to-pee self back downhill in the hopes that the shuttle busses were still running. 10 minutes later, I finally get there and caught the last bus of the night. Phew. Got to my car, raised my hands with the rocker signs, got in, and headed home.

Today will be superbusy and superhot. Looking forward to seeing The Pixies, Modest Mouse, The Wailers, and Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

Saturday:

Saturday was a test of mettle. Most of the afternoon found me sitting down in the nearest shady, breezy spot trying to stay hydrated and fed, so until around 5pm I really didn’t go to see any band in particular. I was just kinda in between stages, so I got to see and hear several bands at a time.

I got to the festival around 3:30, during Big Head Todd and the Monsters‘ set. I got to hear a few songs, some of which I knew, but overall I missed this set. Sad, because I wanted to see them. They’re good. After BHT, I wanted to see The Gourds, but I was dealing a mild case of heat exhaustion, so I felt it more important to sit down than deal with the crowd in front of the stage. Got to hear them, but still.

I joined in to watch the Modest Mouse set. I was impressed. These guys are good live. Still fighting the exhaustion and not able to stand at a decent spot, I couldn’t hang much past their playing of “Float On”, so I went to float on and get more water and some food and sit down again.

It was during this time that I managed to listen to Abra Moore‘s set. Haven’t seen her in years, and her folk-country style was just kinda cool.

I didn’t know what to expect of Dashboard Confessional. I had heard a few of their songs, and was kind of iffy on the sound, so I decided to check them out. I’ll be damned if the audience area was jam-packed with all the people Fratonia could dredge up. I overheard someone near where I was sitting that they are this generation’s Deep Blue Something. I kinda agree. As happy and as weak and acoustic this band is, I could sense something dark and depressing in their lyrics. Not that I could hear the band over all the talking, but I could hear lots of other people singing and mouthing the words.

I had a slight choice problem: should I go to see The Neville Brothers because of what they were, or should I go see The Wailers because of who they used to play for? Well, the problem was solved when The Wailers exchanged slots and stages with G. Love and Special Sauce. I checked out a little bit of The Wailers (and their nice, fat bass) before Modest Mouse, and some of The Neville Brothers while I was pushing through the crowd on my way to see The Pixies. Which brings me to:

THE PIXIES. Oh my god. It was good to see them. I never thought I’d ever see them, and here I am standing in this crowd, sweating my ass off after sunset, watching them. Photons travelled from the lights, bounced off of them, and landed in my eyes. :vibrating:

They pulled out a lot of stuff from “Surfer Rosa” and “Doolittle” (both of the albums I own) and played a good bit of stuff I didn’t know, which may have been from “Trompe Le Monde” or “Bossanova”, neither of which I own. So I don’t know if they’ve written new stuff. Not sure about that, but it’s all just as good. Frank Black can still scream. Every time Kim Deal did a solo, the crowd went nuts. My hope is that the rumor of The Pixies getting back into the studio is true. We can all hope.

They finished their set with “Vamos!”, but didn’t come out for an encore. Makes sense, really. Heh.

The trip home was a bit easier and filled with less heartache than the night before. My friend BC3 let me park in front of his house where it’s a short walk to the festival. He watched his curbside to make sure there was space for me and some other friends, which is highly commendable (and gave him a few good stories). After my walk back to his place, I found that someone was at home (thankfully), so I was invited in to rest, cool my heels, and take a load off, which I did with much aplomb. Chatted about the festival with them, and we watched some Firefly, then I headed on my way home around 11:40 to go shower, have a snack, treat my mild sunburn, take some pseudoephedrine, and go to sleep. The day was a wandering success.

Today, my bands of note are: Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Spoon or Drive-By Truckers, Wilco, and Cake. I don’t need to be to the festival until 4, which is good, because I’m feeling pretty rough after yesterday. Heh. More later.

Sunday:

Sunday was much better on me heatwise and restwise. I managed to get some rest and take my time getting ready since the first band I wanted to see was Elvis Costello at 4pm.

During that time in the early afternoon before I had to prepare for the day, I went to check out the live stream provided by Launch and Yahoo. It was there that I got to see newcomer Rachael Yamagata on stage. She’s a singer-songwriter in the alt-rock, alt-folk style; she has a warm, smoky, rounded voice and a charming, easygoing demeanor. Very sexy. Lyrical style ranges from relationships gone bad, naturally, to lighter, sentimental stuff. Accompanying her are bass, lead guitar, drums (by her cousin), piano, violin, and cello. Definitely KGSR material. I should probably keep my eye out for her work in the future.

So. After preparations, I got to my friend’s house and parked with no trouble. Taking in the lessons from Saturday, I adopted the policy of constantly sipping water once I left my apartment; the bottle was empty by the time I reached the gates, and I had zero dehydration and exhaustion. Time to rock.

I was a little late, as is my idiom, in getting to the festival, so I missed half of Elvis Costello’s set. When I got inside, it was straight to the food stands with me to get some nutrients going, so I was able to at least hear Costello’s set, which was good stuff. Honestly, I wish I knew more of his material; he’s as prolific as he is varied, if not more. Respected as a trailblazer; now he’s blazing into concert composition. From what I heard of his set, he still has respect.

I was unsure what to expect from Spoon. I had a notion that they were one of the successful local bands, but I couldn’t remember their sound, so they were on my list of must-sees. I’m glad I saw them. Solid work, solid sound. Mellow, and melodramatic. It’s what Ben Folds Five should’ve sounded like; almost like a mix between local band Zykos and Radiohead. I intend on picking up one of their 3 discs soon.

I had heard of Wilco for years, but never paid attention or learned of their sound. These guys are old pros, and they put the rocking back into rock. Pretty avant-garde stuff, and I so like it. There are so many albums in their discography, I’m not sure where to start. But their solid riffs, their experiments with onstage noise, their use of piano and, occasionally, horns is pretty refreshing.

And, finally, the last band I wanted to see: Cake. They followed Pat Green on the smaller stage next to his, but the audience was much, much bigger. After dealing with crowds all weekend, I had no intention on pushing through to get a closer spot; I instead decided that standing higher up on the hill was a much better place due to the breeze and the spectacular view of the scene. Cake is a good band; their five or so radio songs have anchored them to the timeline, and stands as a small testament to their quality. The lead singer’s chatter was sharp, witty, and humorously pessimistic as he waxed about the music industry, the hopefulness of the nation, public transport, phone calls, and so on. They played some songs from their upcoming album; they sound good, a little more electronic than in the past. They finished their set with a new song, “No Phone”, left the stage, and then came back for an encore to play “Never There”. They thanked us, walked off, but the crowd didn’t leave, so they did a double-encore by playing “Going the Distance”. The crowd that hadn’t left already went nuts.

After the Cake set, I wandered off to join the throngs leaving the festival. Kind of somber, as expected, but kind of relieved that my ceaseless walking, standing, and sweating could come to a pause. As I reached my friends’ house, I collapsed on their huge ottoman and just laid there for a few as we had a laugh. ACLFest 2004 was over, and I played an active part in it by going. With this year’s lineup, I knew I couldn’t let myself down; I’ve had enough with not taking opportunities for a lifetime. I owed it to myself.

The unofficial rumor I’m hearing from the radio stations is that on all three days of the sold-out festival Zilker Park was at peak capacity of 75,000 people. Wow. That is three quarters the population of my home town. Seriously, I love this town. Rock!

Since personal-use cameras were allowed, I took mine and took plenty of photos and snapshots. I’ll get these rolls developed soon, and then I’ll post select shots here. So, yes, pictures are forthcoming.

Sequence:

A month ago was the beginning.

It all started innocously; after using the same installation of Windows 98 since November of 1998, transferring it from one hard drive to another and then to another, moving it from one computer to another, with various pieces of hardware moving in and out, and with no operating system reinstalls ever, I had reached a point where the limitations of my desktop OS of choice and the benefits of the most recent OS version far outweighed the familiarity and sentimental value of the old ways. My system, no matter how well kept, how closely guarded, how well configured, had developed deficiencies, inconsistencies, instabilities. I was running out of drive space. I had a spare 120 gig drive sitting on the other IDE channel with 8 partitions, into which Windows XP and Redhat Linux 9 was installed. With the exception of one 10-gig partition, the drive, as it stood, was useless to my Win98 installation. After a year of waffling on the triple-boot idea, I made the concrete choice. I had no better option than to drop the burden, upgrade my computer, and upgrade myself.

There was a previously-installed XP ready and waiting for me on the 20-gig primary partition, I wiped the other partitions on the large drive and combined the space into one partition giving me around 95gigs on the remainder. Perfect. All NTFS, relatively crash-tolerant, all set up with proper file permissions and everything. And for a while, things seemed good, and they were, except for one minor thing: my screen was too dim.

I played with the display settings and realized that XP was using the “reference” driver for my Voodoo3 video card, therefore I had little control over how bright the output was, and no control over color correction or anything. With the card’s manufacturer, 3Dfx, dot-bomb-dead and in the ground for four years now, my chance of finding a suitable XP driver for the card were slim; the only pickings were from a hobbyist group. No official support. The card, though it still functioned and worked well, was now a burden. It had reached the end of its time in modern equipment. Long live 3Dfx.

It was then that I remembered, “Hey, what about the video card I got as a thank-you gift a year ago?” Yes, the ATI All-In-Wonder card, with the built-in TV tuner. YES! So I found updated drivers for it on the company website, installed the card, dealt with the driver install, rebooted, and boom, I had a new video card and proper configuration drivers. No more dimness. After a quick install of the tuner and video recording application suite, and a day-long scramble to buy a coax cable, cable splitter, and an audio cable to go between video card and sound card, I finally had suitable cable television in my own bedroom. And it was good.

These events laid the groundwork and set the reverberation pattern for what was next. After several days of “tuning in and dropping out”, spending the evening watching television instead of chatting (as is my idiom) on IRC, the sequence continued on to something which galvanized me, opened my eyes, and gave me a new outlook on things.

It was a Friday night. Typically, I would’ve spent the evening with my IRC friends at Flightpath, sitting around being bored while we all poked at our laptops. That night, the disinterest was too great and I decided to give that plan a pass when my friend and coworker invited me to join him, his girlfriend, and some other mutual friends at Spiderhouse for coffee and chatter. I was game for it and wanted to go. When I got home from work, I unwound with the standard amount of channel-surfing while I cooled my heals. It was in that surfing that I remembered a very important event was to happen that night, and that it was a requirement for me to watch. So that night, two weeks ago, I stayed home and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games.

There is something you must understand about me. When I was a youth, I made my life centered around activities that involved large groups of people, swarms. Youth conferences, youth camps, church groups, youth group outings, school football games, pep rallies, revivals, the works. I gave myself to situations like that, not just for the one-on-one interaction with strangers, but to be part of the mosh if you will. To lose myself in the whole, to be overwhelmed.

Now here I am, a mild 14 years later. I’m older, quieter, a staunch individualist. I’m typically no longer given to doing group things. For the most part, the world at large be damned; I’ll stand with my fist clenched and do my own thing. I’ve become learned enough to understand now, in this age of mine, that the “movement of the Holy Spirit” I felt those many years ago in all those youth conferences, prayer meetings, revivals, was little more than the overwhelming sensation of joining something larger than myself. A neurological, neurochemical process. The ruse is now shown for what it was.

After stripping down the facade of that, after removing the religious overtones, I now see what it was that I felt, and I acknowledge that I, still, am weak to the power of Many. I still have the heart to join with strangers for something bigger, something greater than me, greater than us. And, to me, the Olympics is one of few things still worthy enough for that kind of social junction. There is nothing higher.

So I watched the ceremonies. I watched the faceless audience. I saw the crowds, I witnessed the art, the pageantry, the symbolism of the ceremony. I counted each country that entered the arena during the Parade of Nations, saw their flags, their outfits, their proud representation for their home lands. And I absorbed every bit of this and wept. I wept that I was witnessing something that was really happening. I wept that I was part of that moment. I wept that history was happening, and that all I could do was watch and be overwhelmed while sitting in my bedroom half a world away.

It was after that experience I realized that all the things in my life that were big pains, huge troubles, everpresent hassles were nothing. I was set straight again, my perspective readjusted. All those little problems I had to deal with, the interpersonal tug of war, the bickering, the backstabbing, the worries about who said what and why, they became meaningless, useless, expendable. It was after a day or so of careful consideration that I quietly parted from the main IRC channel I was member of and walked away. Every argument and snide comment was washed away. Replaced. Upgraded. I walked away. There are too many people in this world to end up wasting time, heart, and tears on a small few who return so little.

I just quietly walked away.

So during the next two weeks, the Olympic competitions continued; our American teams won medal after medal; around 104 medals in all for us. Worldwide, there was fierce, passionate, astounding competition; an Olympian mountain of sportsmanship, peace, and cooperation between athletes from every country. Peace. I smiled and wept that life could be so good, and smiled that it indeed could be. I wept that I had wasted most of the past nine months pursuing the friendship of those who I ran with only to be returned with heartache, tension, and little good reward. And I smiled that I had removed it from my life, that I had lightened my load and lightened my heart. I wept that it took a total of thirteen days before anyone in that group bothered to contact me to see if I was OK. And now I smile to say that I am perfectly OK, and happy to rejoin the world and my previous and varied sets of friends in their endeavors.

A few nights ago, I watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. I was sad and felt a cold emptiness about the closing of the events, but there was something underscoring that sadness: I felt hope because the event happened in the first place and that I, in my newfound happiness and in my own little way, got to be a part of the crowd again. The ceremony was a grand party for everyone at the arena and abroad, and I watched it all through my tears of joy. I’m different now; the touch has changed me. The long sequence of happenstance that brought me here has brought me to the world as it is now, as I see it now. I still am the individualist that won’t get a LiveJournal account simply because “everyone else has one”, but I (at least for this duration) have less trouble with the idea of going outside of my own track to see something new. Even if it means by doing the expected and the usual and going alone.

There’s a quickness in my pace and lightness in my step; the lightness is my loss of burden by the roadside, and the quickness is the pair of winged sandals on loan to me by Hermes, the god of Marathon.

Getting Back to Basics

Hey there, everyone. As you can readily tell, your favorite site and mine, phaysis.com, has undergone a major redesign. This is the first time I’ve decided on using a white background in my designs. I had gotten the idea a few days before the redesign, and after grabbing updated drivers for my graphics tablet, I spent a few evenings drawing all the graphics for the site by hand and putting them into the design. I hope you approve.

So, otherwise, still the same ol’ nothing going on in the background at Phaysis. Things aren’t moving, really, and the motivation’s still not enough to get anything written, but as always it’s still in the back of my mind. Maybe soon I get some forward momentum, eh?

Ok. Follow the menu, look at stuff, send me a message, etcetera, etcetera.

Love

Fourth Annual

I realized yesterday that last week on July 27th (or somewhere thereabouts), my life in Austin is four years old. I wish I would’ve thought to look into it on the day of the anniversary instead of yesterday. But the fact that I remembered counts for something, yeah?

Wow. Four years. This is getting close to challenging my record time living in a town that’s not Texarkana. I spent 5 1/2 years in Arkadelphia, Arkansas during my time in school. Contrast this with the eight straight years living in Texarkana from the summer after 3rd grade to the summer after my senior year in 1990. My time in North Carolina, though it burned brightly, angrily, quietly and blessedly, was a mere 15 months. A small portion of my time in Austin. And to this day, I still draw parallels between my time in Greensboro, NC, and my time here. I still take lessons from that first post-college foray into big-life. I still tell stories.

So, yeah, it’s been a long trip, and I’m still on it. Austin. I’m at a fragile spot wherein I’m having to balance the fact that Texarkana is my home town, and thanks to my family and few remaining friends, I still hold some odd sort of allegiance to the place, and the fact that Austin is my home. I live here. This is my home. For good or ill, it’s my home.

I think every time I visit Texarkana, I come away with a small piece of knowledge that I could never live there again. The town has potential, yes, sure, it’s growing, of course, but I could never live there again. It’s too small. For me, it is too small. The people there are too small. The vast swaths of empty and decaying brick architecture versus the burgeoning masses of steel-beam and siding buildings. The sign companies that use the same 10 fonts. The lack of good bars. The plethora of shit-kicking “cowboys”. I just don’t fit there. Once I left that town to go to college, I no longer fit. I saw too much of the world at large, met too many varied people. It’s too small. Too simple.

And no visit was as illuminating of this fact more than the last time I went for a few days around July 4th. I spent only three days, but on that monday morning I was itching to return to Austin. That weekend, man. I don’t want to offend my friends who still live there, nor my family, but it’s just, bleh. Things are going wrong. It’s not visible to those who see the changes as they happen; it’s only when you look after a span of time, you see the changes, the railroading, the herding. As I drove around, I saw more instances where the people of Texarkana are being offered a seemingly larger but actually smaller number of choices on where to eat, where to shop, where to bank, where to worship, and so on. It’s just, I dunno, wrong.

If I left Austin and came back after some time, sure I’d see changes. The thing is that I see the changes — and I haven’t left. Acknowledgably, things are not at all what they had potential to be back in 2000 when I moved here. I’m nowhere near my dream tech job. Things aren’t the utopia that was envisioned. The money isn’t flowing, the bars and restaurants aren’t buzzing with ideas and activities. It’s just not what we had imagined. The changes didn’t meet expectations, but they’re still livable. The town actually is a city, and not the converse. Things are still happening here, there are still choices.

Over these four years, I’ve come to several realizations, many crossroads. I’ve come to understand a lot of things about life, change, growing older, moving on. I may not be the guy I was in 2000, but I’m still me. My health has downgraded somewhat, but I’m still alive. I’ve managed to make small changes towards my future; I quit smoking in February (a big change, actually), I bought a bicycle, I pay more attention to my diet and activity, I’ve left the daily grind behind in the push to shake up my habits, disrupt them so I could get some lifestyle agility back. Small changes, small life, big town.

So, yeah, it’s been a hell of a ride. I plan on living here for a long time. I know my family misses me. I miss my family. I wish I could bring them all down here. But they won’t fit. This isn’t their place. This is my place. I hate thinking about the whole “prodigal son” symbolism, but it’s there. I can’t deny it. But this is my home.

Four years. Damn.