A week ago today, I made it down to the Warhol to catch a band by the name of Look Mexico.   I’ve mentioned them once or twice before on the blog…  Thanks to SXSW, the city of San Antonio brought in a number of bands to play some shows locally.

They played a short & solid set.  took this snapshot of them setting up before their performance.

You need to drop everything you’re doing and VIEW THIS.

Caught a midnight showing of “I Love You, Man” over the weekend with Fin & Jaime…  If you’re on the fence about going out to see this, I’m of the opinion that the movie is an enjoyable picture to sit through.

Fin commented to me that the movie tries a little hard at times…  but I dug a lot of the minor characters that got screen time.  Especially members of the STATE and Human Giant…

If you have an hour and a half to kill, seek it out.

Just realized that I haven’t posted an update since St. Patrick’s Day…  a lot has transpired since then, here’s a quick recap of stuff going on with me.

Unemployment/Re-Employment
Interviewed and received a job offer from TimeWarner last week.   I submitted an approval for a background check and I took some drug screens… both hurdles should not be problematic before I receive the final contractual offer from them.  I was told to look for the email later today or tomorrow.   If all goes well, I should start training next Monday.

 Jaimetown
Welcomed Jaime into San Antonio late afternoon on March 19th (last Tuesday)…  It’s been great having him in the house.  We originally planned on having Chivo in town also but he was swamped with school so we’ve spent a lot of time hanging together around the house and city.   We’ve caught a number of shows around the city and we’ve partied a few times over the weekend with Fin.   All in all a solid visit.  He’ll be busting out of town tomorrow morning…. which will suck but I’m glad he got a chance to come into town.

verdict? Kinda “meh”

the streets get closed down at 10:00pm… there were a number of venues who opened their doors to free music and no covers. the 3 irish bars we walked by were filled to capacity and they were letting a trickle of people in.

one of the bars was only open to SXSW film attendees.

there was only one really drunk guy/girl (couldn’t tell.. it may have been a skinny guy with long hair) that couldn’t stand up. There was a black guy with a camcorder screaming “OH SHit!” capturing the whole thing in front of Sherlocks not helping one bit. He was really excited for some reason… you’d think that he was capturing two homeless guys in a rumble. Be on the lookout for that on YouTube. I’m in the background also not helping one bit…

One of the most happening places was “the beauty salon” on 7th. the place was filled to the gills and there were some decent bands playing but we didn’t stop by.

In comparison to other cities I’ve been on on St. Patty’s – Texas just doesn’t cut it. Perhaps its because there isn’t a very strong Irish presence here. Who knows… I missed Detroit last night more than you could possibly imagine.

I honestly can’t remember the last time San Antonio had so many worthwhile events to check out. The city kicked off an event called “Luminaria” on Friday at a local art gallery called the ArtPace.

What made the event so special was having Joe Jack Talcum (of the Dead Milkmen) perform an acoustic set. The evening featured a popular local dj “Jester, the Filipino Fist” and a lady who performed under two monikers. “Kristinamuir” and “Lederhosen Lucil”… she sucked out loud on both counts.

Joe hit the stage a little before 11:00PM and it was truly a pleasure to see him perform. He came right out of the gates singing “dean’s dream” (my favorite Dead Milkmen song) which was great because I didn’t have to shout it out between songs during his set for the rest of the night.

The best part about him performing that song was it gave me the opportunity to sing Rodney Anonymous’s part before the last verse. “He’s alright!”

I shouted the lyric and it drew cheers from the Milkmen faithful and a hearty laugh from Joe Jack who continued to sing the song to an end. His set was truly spectacular. I took some video footage with my digital camera and I’ll get that up on youtube as soon as I can rotate it from the landscape angle.

Hackett and I do. Got around to seeing graphic novel adaptation on Friday and was very happy to see it with someone who loved the graphic novel (so that I could bounce questions off of afterwards) and see it on the big screen.

All in all the movie was pretty good… albeit a tad long.

The movie was an ambitious undertaking and I think super fans of the graphic novel shouldn’t be unhappy about the attempt that was made. Whose kiddin’ who tho’… I get pretty upset when people fuck with the things I love.

When Fin and I made it out to Waterloo Records (Austin, TX), I figured I would pick up one… maybe two CD’s while there.

I had my heart set on a special edition Andrew Bird album and a new Lucksmiths disc. That all however changed when I saw that MTV put out a proper Unplugged Session for Cafe Tacuba.

I need to type up a proper blog entry about my appreciation for Cafe Tacuba and the importance of their album “RE”. (The “Sgt. Peppers” of Rock en Espanol)

When MTV Latino announced that they would be producing a round of Unplugged shows for notable acts : Maldita, Caifanes and Cafe Tacuba – I immediately circled the air date for the Cafe Tacuba show.

The band prior to that airing had never performed with a proper drummer. The band (a three piece really) had utilized drum machines throughout their career and it was a big fucking deal to see how they would strip down a number of the song arrangements for the Unplugged show.

After video taping the unplugged show… I went to the trouble of taping that video tape onto a audio cassette and I made myself a personal copy of the unplugged performance. I think i’ve listened to it (and this is no exaggeration) about 300 or so times? I don’t think there’s an audio note from that unplugged performance that I don’t know by heart.

Having this performance on CD / remastered in all its audio goodness has been an incredible treat. If you’re into this band and you don’t have this: drop everything that you’re doing and FETCH IT !

Finally got around to finishing up Chuck Palahniuk’s : CHOKE the other day. My goal was to have it done by mid February so that I could rent the DVD on release day but life decided to get a little hectic.

Seeing how I’m made of time these days… I’ll be posting reviews on a number of books I’m in the process of finishing up.

Not long after the release of “Fight Club” (the movie)… I had a number of friends who had recommended that I check out some of Palahniuk’s work. I never got around to reading any of his stuff… but that all changed when Fin recommended that I read the book “CHOKE”. We had a conversation about books we thought the other person should read and this one was atop her list of ones I should check out. I picked it up and tore into the first 80 pages or so, laughing my ass off hysterically. Provided you have some quiet time in your life.. you should be able to get through this book in two sittings.

The story is about a guy (med school drop-out & sex addict) who has a mother slipping away in a hospital. To help pay for those expenses, he goes to restaurants throughout the city and pretends to choke on food. His hope is that patrons (preferably wealthy ones) will “save his life” and then psychologically feel indebted to see how he’s doing for the rest of his life. The idea comes from overseas where it’s your duty to take care of the person you’ve saved for the rest of their lives.

The story explores a number of other interesting ideas… the one that gets revisited often is that we’re surrounded by people whom are into really freaky – sexual – shit.

All in all I found the book to be quite a rewarding read. Especially the idea that people who go through Med School have an interesting take on mortality. I spoke to Fin about this the other day (she’s a Vet Tech) and asked if she immediately jumps thinking of symptoms when she sees physical ailments in animals or people.

I know precious fuck all about the human body and intend to keep it that way. If you’re looking for a little thrilling read… pick it up.

In all the years of playing “three man” I don’t ever recall anyone enforcing a rule as embarrassing as the one that Fin came up with the other night.

“River Dance”

Any time the dice exchanged hands… I was to get up and do the “River Dance”. This is all the footage the world will ever see of this. Enjoy.