talk to us, part four.
this was at sxsw in austin. read other post for more details. got jason of bangarang! to participate.
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“TALK TO US ABOUT ANYTHING?!”
elvis, the guy from arkansas.
afterwards, we went outside and played “talk to us” for a while. that’s always good. i made a sign from a poster ripped off a post. it was quite easy because they like saran wrap all of their posts there, so shit comes off in a fucking jiffy. jason had said that he had no plans so he would do whatever we were going to do, so i made him sit with me outside of some bar. before we had even finished making the sign, some guy had some to talk to us. his name was elvis. he was from arkansas and had just moved to austin, and said that he loved austin and that he sold roses for a living. he said that on an average day sometimes he makes like, $20 of profit or something, but i guess he gets free housing from some guy who offered him free housing during his first week in austin, in exchange for housework. he said his name was elvis and i didn’t quite believe him, but he pulled out his arkansas license and it was true!! aaron elvis or elvis aaron. i forget the last name. la la la. anyway he was missing a lot of teeth and i thought he was a hobo at first but he wasn’t. he said he was excited about purchasing a trailer home from the guy he was living with, which had everything except for a shower. nice guy. he wanted to join us or have a sign of his own, so jason made him one, also using a poster ripped off from a post. it said, “talk to me about anything. (my name is elvis.)” i’d be curious to see how that worked out! elvis fucking hated the police. i told him to draw something in my book and he draw “FTPFTW” making up the outline of a cross type object. and when i asked him what that meant, he said, “FUCK THE POLICE, FUCK THE WORLD.”
the cows and pigs girl.
some girl, who is dressed like she’d be the fan of invader zim or something, came up while elvis was still there, saying, “about anything?! about cows or pigs???” and we said, yeah! elvis, however, pointed at a cop in the middle of the street and said, “there’s a pig right there!”
the guy who made us move.
well, so we were sitting against the wall of a heavily populated corner, with our backs resting on a bar. bouncer didn’t like it and told us to move. i said, “we’re community building!” he said… “it’s our building.”
so we moved. the new spot was subpar, and we sat in the middle of the sidewalk as opposed to on a corner. always a mistake. no one really looked too much.
the hippie girls.
there was some hippie girl who read our sign and then asked us if we knew anything about something cycles something chakras. i said no, but i knew that we have chakra points. she didn’t seem to like this answer and kind of didn’t pay attention anymore and left. her friend, with very hairy armpits, said, “there’s a good reggae show going on (in the bar right behind us).” we said, thanks. that’s about it.
the old lady named phyllis.
i saw phyllis and the first thing i said to her was, “hey, i saw you yesterday,” and she was like, “yeah, i did.” because she was smiling at me the previous day. she mentioned she had just gotten hip surgery and couldn’t afford to pay for medications even though it was like $5, and that none of the young people wanted to help her. we said we’d give her money if we had money but we didn’t T__T she was a cute old lady. i had her draw in my book. she wrote, “you two are beautiful people. phyllis. xxxx” and then she was off on her way. aw. i like phyllis.
there were some other hits here but nothing significant. mostly subpar.
T__T and then we were getting up to move to a corner but then hojo showed up (he had been calling me, i guess, but my phone had not been ringing… i looked and had three missed calls!) and then we continued this later.
anyway, though, before i continue on the second part, sit outside for long enough and you see interesting things.
***
sat in the middle of the sidewalk again, and hojo said, “your sign is not working.” i knew that it wasn’t going to work there and wasn’t really even trying, but since he mentioned it, we (jason and i) moved to the corner again. there were some hits but nothing that great. seems like everyone was in a rush somewhere. which is lame sauce.
the guy who liked the raveonettes.
this picture is actually of his friend who dressed crazily. but this guy chatted with us briefly about music and was fairly nice. all we had to do was ask him to talk to us. it was all good. he was from the bay area 
the free hugs guys.
i had previously given these guys with free hugs signs a hug as we passed them in the street, and earlier when we were at the barricade with tera melos we saw them and had said hi again. i saw them across the street and called them over and we mini-teamed up. except their free hugs sign seemed to work better. we had a brief debate over which was better, because hugs attract more people but on a more shallow level. HMMM DEEP. these kids were total ravers so i chatted to them a little about the scene in austin and got some contact infos. werd. they had a third friend, though, who didn’t have a sign. owned. :[
mick, the micturiting guy.
so i’ve never heard of this word “micturition” but jason used it, and apparently it means to urinate. this guy seemed like he was curious about what we were doing, but then was like, “i have to pee really badly,” and ran off.
seville, the indie music promoter.
she worked with a lot of hip-hop artists, most notably tech n9ne, and yeah. her friend was really cute. they were both very friendly and into independent music promotion.
gilbert, the guy who was looking for a park, and redheaded friends.
gilbert was quite friendly enough and asked us if we knew where this park that had free food was at. we didn’t know. he was with two redheads, because in his words, he is only friends with redheads. we said we weren’t from austin, and he was, so we were weirded out by why he didn’t know where the park was. he said he hadn’t been here that long. one of his red-headed friends was into film and editing and production stuff, and i chatted with him a teeny bit. the other didn’t talk and just looked quite uncomfortable the whole time. this was while they were waiting for gilbert to finish drawing in my book. awethome.
the old political man.
i would have liked to talk to him for longer, but gilbert and his friends were around and i felt bad. the guy’s first question to us was, “who are you voting for? i know it’s a personal decision and all…” i said i was voting for nader. he said, alright, because he had voted for nader in a previous election. jason didn’t really know much about politics and said he didn’t much know the candidates and would have only voted for ron paul. apparently (?) this made old guy mad and he walked off. damn. i wanted to talk to him. :[
the confused girl.
i merely waved to her and she just said, “do i know you or something?”
the spanish-speaking guy and girl.
a girl from monterrey, who runs a music blog there, and a guy from spain, who didn’t speak all that much. the girl talked about how she was staying with random friends and they crammed “10 persons in a room.” she was cute. he was quiet.
and that was about it. i would have liked to do it for longer :[