Holiday Odds and Ends pt. 2

Can you believe in all the years that I have lived in Austin I had never visited the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue until this past Christmas?



Some 10 years ago my X and a bunch of friends and I stumbled up and down the grassy knoll near Town Lake (now called Lady Bird Lake) trying to find this thing. We were drunk verging on hung over and had been dancing into the wee hours of the morning hence the excursion was not a success. I think we all eventually collapsed under the bridge and tried to blend in with the transient population that night--never mind the plethora of PVC leather and velvet we wore.

In retrospect, I have no idea how we missed it because the thing is huge. My brother waned a pic with good ole Stevie (in case you're a poor soul who doesn't know who he is, Stevie Ray Vaughn, a TX boy, was one of the greatest blues guitarists who ever lived, an inspiration to many rock gods and unfortunately had his life cut short after a tragic helicopter accident after a show in 1990)so Christmas morning, the family set out to Lady Bird Lake on a mission to get the photo and because none of us were drunk (perhaps a tad greasy in the stomach from breakfast at IHOP, but certainly not drunk) we succeeded!



It was a beautiful Christmas day with blue skies, cool crisp winds and bright sun out. A lot of people were walking up and down the lake (which is really a river...too complicated to go into) with their dogs or kids. A lot of other people were paying their respects to Stevie...Apparently the statue is one of the most visited landmarks in Austin, TX next to the capitol building and the UT Tower where Charles Whitman shot down a bunch of students back in the 50's. Anyhow, mom wanted a pic with Stevie too. Here she is snuggling with him:



So of course I had to take a pic too. I asked him to make me a rock god and maybe rub off some of that stage persona onto little ole me. I also asked him if I could have a pony:



(as T just pointed out a second ago, if he made me a rock god, I could easily afford my own pony, so why bother asking for one?)

On the way back to the car, T spotted some beautiful black swans in the lake and I took it as a good omen:


**
Christmas Eve dinner was lovely. Instead of going with a fancy schmancy roasted goose or ham or turkey...I decided to go with store bought tamales this year with guacamole, rice, beans and a big salad since I wasn't in the mood to cook an elaborate meal. Mom make curry empanadas that went really well with everything. As always, Jbro helped me in the kitchen as T took photos:



My best friend Shawn was in town and joined us for dinner. Of course no get together in my household is complete without a good ole fashioned jam session after the meal. Since I bought my brother a new Vox tube amp for Christmas we just had to try it out to make sure it sounded right and all. (For the record, he's getting a stick of gum for his birthday since I spoiled him and went over budget....he's my brother. He's talented. He deserves good gear so I don't mind...)

I think Shawn had a good time:


Brown Dog enjoyed the music as well:


Momma was dancing:


Shawn's looking pretty hot here:


Family pic:


And of course one with my best friend:


***
So, we've got a New Year's party coming up and then a few more days off. Unfortunately, I've been doing contract work a good bit during the break. However, I haven't been so busy that I haven't been able to socialize. Lots of friends in town. Lots of parties. Lots of food and lots of music. Till then, enjoy images of my brother doing a lyrical jazz routine to Benny Bennassi:

Opium War Era Empress at the Sluggo! Ball

That's what I went as to the Emo's Sluggo! Benefit Ball on Friday. Travis took this photo at my favorite restaurant Koriente:




I ended up making an opium pipe out of a bamboo flute and a small perfume bottle that I got from my very wholesome and spiritual sound friend Lisa...which is why i felt funny using it. However, it came out perfectly convincing. The idea was the look like the drugged out Empress Wan from The Last Emperor. My coworker, George, suggested a Mogwai doll (in reference to the opium addict from Gremlins) and that was pure genius in my opinion.

I love how the Asian men in the background really add to the ambiance.

As the night progressed, I accumulated another "prop." Sheldon handed me a wad of cash for the merch booth, which T and I were working that night.



So, I called it "drug money."



BTW, the green room at Emos is actually green. Some rock star of days gone by decided to write this lovely phrase on the wall:



Speaking of Sheldon (the lead for Lucid Dementia) this is what he and Byron (guitarist) look like prior to makeup:



This is after the transformation:




Neat eh?

I took a lot of photos that night of the various bands. Here are a few of my faves...

Holly from Lucid Dementia:


Another great one of Byron:


SA Creeper:


Sky from Hipnautica:


Nik (bassist for Lucid Dementia):


Another one of Sheldon:


Luci with Holly and Byron:


The only photo I have of the drummer, AzilX is with the whole band. She's the 3rd one from the right:


Let's not forget some of the costumes as well. By far the best had to be the aging roller derby gal:


I love this on of T with Sky, from Hipnautica


The amazing thing though was that T won for "Most Demented!" It did not cross out minds how tasteless it would be for him to show up as a bloody surgeon to a benefit ball which was set up to raise money for Nick West's (founder of Sluggo!) medical bills. Yikes! Still, I'm proud of the darlin hubby. He beat out a bunch of elaborate costumes:



The prize was a bonafide copy of Sluggo! Magazine:


The makeup gal went as a Poppel. Remember those? The guys she's with is one of the tabla drummers for Hipnautica.



Dirty old ladies:


Even though it's blurry, I really like this one of Sheldon walking around before the show started:



Anyway, a BUNCH of photos and some of the best concert pics I've done in a while:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cchang_adzukientropy/sets/72157602768695383/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cchang_adzukientropy/sets/72157602769051503/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cchang_adzukientropy/sets/72157602766503190/

speaking of pretty boys with headphones...what 27 looks like

Good god, Ritch...you can trap a fly with those eye lashes of yours!


Or, as Darlin Hubby pointed out, he could make a convincing bearded lady. I've always thought that Ritch has incredibly doll-like features. I think it's the exaggerated and super expressive mouth as well as his huge eyes. Sheesh, he's prettier than I am in this pic.

Life is so cruel. Course, today is Ritch's birthday, so I'll quit whining.

BTW, for those of you in Austin, his band SubNatural is competing in the finals at Austin's Battle of the Bands competition this Sunday at the club Red 7. I have a feeling that they're gonna win.

icons and Shawn

Shawn looks like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Ville Valo here:


Hot goth or bar fight survivor? Not enough sleep or rocking guy-liner? Not sure, but it's a bad ass pic.

So is this one:


I've been wanting to switch out our user photos on the Adzuki Bean Stash Mp3 blog for some time and these were images he took with his iBook a while ago. Following his lead I then took a series of web cam stills with my own iBook:






I must say though, Shawn looks a heck of a lot better than me in headphones. Instead of looking like cool and legit recording artist, I look like a kid with a MacBook recording shit in the bathroom (which is precisely what I am). You'll have to traipse on over to the blog itself to see which pic I chose.


But enough of me. I'm devoting the rest of this post to one of my closest and oldest friends who happened to turn 31 a couple of days ago.

There he is to the left in his glorious graduate school pic. For whatever reason the Old Navy T cracks me up. It's just so not him. Unfortunately, you can't see his dark blue eyes in the photo, but look at the lovely nose of his... people pay money for a nose like that. Anyhow, I digress...

It's a misconception that I met Shawn back in grad school. We actually knew each other during undergraduate studies where both of us were math majors at the University of Texas at Austin and shared a Topology class together back 1998. What made the class special was that it was taught Moore-Method style where us hopefuls were given a handful of axioms and then with minimum guidance from the professor would be expected to solve theorems from scratch on the board each lecture. One of the best classes ever and to this day I probably retained the most from Topology I.

It functioned on the whole "learning through trauma" principle where one tends to remember things they've struggled through. Moore Methodology totally feeds on the stereotypical insecurities of die-hard mathematicians and their need to outsmart one another which in of itself creates maintainable trauma due to the competitive nature of the classroom. Hrm, I'm getting a bit philosophical here, so compare it to getting stripped naked in front of your classmates and made to do the chicken dance, but with the odd sense of euphoria injected at the end of your bought with humiliation...I suppose if you're kinky there's no difference between the two situations, but you get the point. Anyway, with the way class was structured, math talent and general intelligence levels were blatantly apparent and the very first thing that I noticed about Shawn was that he was definitely one of the sharpest students in the class. Nothing could phase him. He could prove these problems in his sleep.

From there, I can't quite remember how or why we stuck together for so long. I'm sure mix tapes had something to do with it as well as the common obsession for all things Nine Inch Nails and Trent related (Nine Inch Nails problem sets were a common theme in our math handouts when we were TAs. I also still have the Trent Reznor sack puppet Shawn made me). Maybe it was because I thought his "Bruce the Shark" videos were cool. We shared a love of music, visual arts, macabre, of course mathematics and let's not forget that both of us always seemed to be chronically depressed all the time.

I can tell you that the more I got to know him, the more I came to understand the term polymath.

Over the years we have given each other a gazillion reasons not to ever speak to each other again and managed long stretches of time where we both truly utterly hated one another, and yet our camaraderie has always managed to mend itself and become something that's much more profound and loyal than most of my other friendships with people. We're super blunt with one another. We've exchanged nights where we've cried for the other person. We divulge secrets and insecurities that no one else is privy to. However, we've never slept together, never "gone out" or dated because we both realize that we're too similar for any romantic path to ever work out. Crossing the carnal bound destroys the beauty of this unconditional devotion we share, but realistically the real reason is that we'd drive each other mad and probably murder each other or commit joint suicide.

With all that said, if you ask either one of us, "Do you love each other?" the answer is a completely effortless "yes."

So, happy birthday, Mr. Soon-to-be Dr. Shawn Westmoreland. Oh yeah, and please work on that "Fire Exit" demo because it's fucking long overdue, damnit!

The ultimate CD exchange Experience

World wide, baby. World wide! I'm really struck by how the contributors decided to take photos of themselves with the CDs they received. Some pretty interesting compositions I must say. Darlin Hubby took my pic in the car. he was so excited to see the package that he brought it with him when he picked me up from the boss stop. I got mine all the way from the UK!

If you ever wondered what some of us wacky pod casters look like, well, today is your lucky day. Here's who's who:

____________________________________________________

Ross from Just gimme indie rock
who got his CD from FiL from Pogoagogo

____________________________________________________

SAS Radio
who got his CD from Cindy from Adzuki Bean Stash

____________________________________________________

Colin from And before the first kiss
who got his CD from Marcy from Lost in your inbox


____________________________________________________

Crash from Pretending life is like a song
who got his CD from Natalie from Mini-obs

____________________________________________________

Tim from The face of today
who got his CD from ZB from So the wind …

____________________________________________________

Chip from Atomic Ned
who got his CD from Jim from Quick before it melts

____________________________________________________

Liz from The Roaring Machine
who got her CD from SAS Radio



____________________________________________________

Coxon from To die by your side
who didn’t get his CD from Chip from Atomic Ned

____________________________________________________

Cindy from Adzuki Bean Stash
who got her CD from Tim from The face of today



____________________________________________________

Jim from Quick before it melts
who got his CD from Crash from Pretending life is like a song



____________________________________________________

ZB from So the wind …
who got his CD from Colin from And before the first kiss

____________________________________________________

Natalie from Mini-obs
who got her CD from Coxon from To die by your side


____________________________________________________

Marcy from Lost in your inbox
who got her CD from Ross from Just gimme indie rock

____________________________________________________

FiL from Pogoagogo
who got his CD from Liz from The Roaring Machine

____________________________________________________

Visit:
Contrast Podcast #72: CD Swap

I stole Tim's html for this post. Ross from Just Gimme Indie Rock came up with the awesome idea.