19.3.13

SXSW 2013 - Part 2

Texas Friendly
One of the most common talking points espoused by "Locals" during SXSW is "come, have fun, give us your money, and DON'T MOVE HERE. GO AWAY! FUUUUCCCCKKKKK YOUUUUUUUU!!" It's manifested in t-shirts, and bumper stickers, and tons of bathroom graffiti, and it's sickening.

Austin is pointed to as the Texas bastion of free spirits and radical thinkers up to and including the silly, reductive mantra of "Keep Austin Weird". I've lived here for twelve years, my father was born here, my grandparents lived and died here. I've been visiting Austin over Spring Break since it was a sleepy college town and SXSW was this rickety piece of crap spread across a few clubs and a five page fold out in the Chronicle. Somewhere along the way perspective has been totally lost.

No one is a local. The people I know who purchased the aforementioned tee's have lived in Austin less time than I have. Willie Nelson isn't from here, Stevie Ray Vaughn isn't from here, the guys from Spoon aren't from here, Robert Rodriguez isn't from here, Paul Qui isn't from here, and--generally speaking--locals of the "I've lived here my whole life" variety are rejects who couldn't escape the vortex of familiar environs. And the only people my age I know who were actually born and raised in Austin hate the don't move here bent more than I do. No one moved here before some arbitrary cut off, and everyone has one friend they can't wait to move here, but I guess they're just "Austin" enough to qualify.

We have a nice town, a wonderful town, but we need outside influences to grow the city. This notion New York City people, and the dreaded LA person set foot on ATX soil and immediately concoct a plan to erect a condo over your favorite venue/bar you never actually go to, get over it. Big city people don't need Austin as much as Austin needs big city people. You think the sweet Doritos money for SXSW comes in because Austinites are just that charming? Guess again.

Austin is special to us, but guarding the thing you love with overly protective vitriol is not the answer. Want to make sure Austin maintains its standing as a respectable and livable mid-size city? As my friend, Austin's native son, Rob would tell you, vote. Understand the policies and lawmakers and bond issues really shaping the future of Austin. Worry less about some dick from Santa Monica looking to relocate.

I'm from Texas, and my state is a friendly place. My town is open arms. No one person will ruin this town, and the minute this city is vacuum sealed from outside influence, growth is over, and the only thing replacing growth is decay.

The Rambler
Movies should shock and horrify. Movies should be challenging and subvert easy answers. Movies should star Dermot Mulroney. The Rambler, the newest film from director Calvin Reeder, has all of these things, but in daring to dream so big, failure is a kind of certainty.

This film is not an abject failure. Like a nightmare, the events depicted in the film get worse and worse with every frame. No respite or redemption, making the cinematic equivalent of a tar pit is a kind of marvel. Choked with violence and gore and abhorrent characters, the film forces you to feel something whether you like the feeling or not. Jarring, and at times despicable, more than one person walked out.

Reeder's failure was not in making a film that is uncomfortable to watch, but his failure was in never finding the butter zone for all of these elements to balance. Gratuitous, disquieting films are a proud tradition in the annals of modern cinema, but whether it's Santa Sangre or The Hitcher or Enter the Void, there is a moment--even if it's a small and quiet one--where you can cling to some chunk of flotsam in this churning whirlpool. It goes a long way toward making it all "work."

The Rambler goes over the top in some of the least satisfying moments, and then goes half speed in moments where the film appears ready to rip some eyelids off. Ultimately, the film gave me nothing to roll around in my brain except a scene where a disfigured girl on a leash vomits on Dermot Mulroney's face for damn near 45 seconds. In cinema time, that's like fifteen minutes.

The film's absolute highlight was actress Lindsay Pulsipher whose performance turns from ethereal beauty to blood loss hallucination with an effortlessness this film does not readily facilitate. Otherwise, the argument for this film, the ideal legacy, is to be forgotten. Reeder will make other films, and seems capable of making something exceptional. Then, many years later, as a new generation of cinephiles unearth the independent films of yore, The Rambler will fall into the hands of some aspiring director and be the perfect primer for new, daring young minds.

Upstream Color
People get sick. Life wounds deep. When the sickness hits, it controls everything. Over time, the illness expands, hooked deep inside. When it's finally grown to an all consuming length, an expert is required for the arduous, painful extraction. It can destroy mentally, ruin financially, end marriages; this is the pain of sickness, the cost of healing. When it is finally out, the sickness may be gone, under control, but the little hollow tunnels left in its place are equally difficult to fill. As life happens, other people riddled with their own traumas emerge from the ether. Wounds are compared and woven together. The holes are bored deep, but this doesn't mean new life is forbidden.

If I tried to describe the film any other way, I'd be talking about mind control, found sound ambient music albums, and every word of Walden hand copied onto a paper chain.

Bewildering, gorgeous, thoughtful, there will not be another film this year like Upstream Color.

ViceLand
Emerging from the fog of Upstream Color, I go to meet Julie at the Parish. There aren't many people I love more than Jules. Put together, tattooed, so stylish, smarter than most but in a grounded and reasonable way, she's the prettiest girl you know. I'm glad I've known her so long we are effectively genderless, otherwise I would have broken my heart on her rejections 1000 times over. I am her fake boyfriend from time to time, and even then, I think she could do better. Love that chick.

Shakey Graves is playing, a one man band, a guy with a Stetson and a kick drum. His songs are really well composed. Lyrics stop sounding like anything after a while, but his song structure is really complex and still palatable enough for pop. Driving rhythms and anthemic chord changes, I walk away from his show really impressed. Julie and I go outside and stand in a doorway. A deaf guy tries to sell us buttons and he gives me a death stare when I refuse. We chat for a while. In the ambient street light with the white noise of foot traffic filtering around us, it feels like we're in a terrible indie drama. I start to get uncomfortable afraid I'm not holding up my side of the conversation. She tells me she is going to the convention center, I tell her I'm going to a place across the street, but we walk off in separate directions. I don't know why I make it so hard to be my friend sometimes.

ViceLand is already a shit show. Lines everywhere. I'm mostly here just to meet up with friends. I stand in one line, and happen upon Mark and Ranjana. Mark has a full sized Apple keyboard in his pants pocket. It's for our friend Eric. I stand with them for a minute and then it comes out this is the press only line. I go around to the front of the building, and the line has vanished. I quickly go inside to a pleasure dome of complimentary bevvies only to find ViceLand's dark secret. There are Inception style lines within lines in the building. There is a DMV style line to get to the bar, and then there is a post WWI Russian bread line to get outside. The line to get outside splits in two and I chose the line on the right. It does not move. You can see inside the room, but there is no tin of sardines on the other side. Curtains cordon off the area we are all trying to get into. People come up in droves to peak behind and don't like what they see. The room should be packed to the gills, right? People keep lobbying and bullying and sidling to breach the door man, but it doesn't happen. Some other people find a chink in the porous barrier, twenty or so charge through until the fire marshal, or one of his men, plug the hole. At one point, after waiting through most of the set you can hear thudding through the walls, the line jolts forward. We're pushing through the curtain and the door man looks rattled.

"Everyone GET. BACK. ALL OF YOU, GET THE FUCK BACK!!"

His voice cracked, he was scared for a second. It was the bum rush. I guess some assholes at the front felt they had waited long enough. In line I strike up a conversation with an Aussie girl who's hair is pink until it fades out into dishwater grey underneath. We finally make it through, get to the patio where the music is, and there is almost no crowd. I'm not sure how tight the reins are this year, but this is an unusually small crowd for such a major SXSW venue.

Oh, music? Is that why we go to these things? I guess the Japandroids played. Everyone talked about Celebration Rock like it was the second coming of rock and roll. I debate more and more every day whether or not I like rock and roll anymore. It's a silly internal argument, I think I've just reached a saturation point with this movement. Indie was the crucial response to the tail end of bloated MTV rap rock, Indie became the ritual, now I'm waiting for a new generation to come along and reject this sound. And even within the many facets of indie, it's all one box set. The day we die a little because Time Life sells a "Decade of  Indie Boxed Set Collection!!" packaged in Sailor Jerry tattoos and converse and skinny jeans, maybe only then will we be set free. The Divine Fits come on after and sound just terrible. Ugh. What am I doing here? They played a cover of a Tom Petty song. "Don't do me like that," maybe? Any which way, it was sluiced straight out of my memory.

I found my new Aussie friend and she was talking to other Aussies. They didn't previously know each other, but I guess if I was on the other side of the globe I'd be talking with any Texans I found. She's from Sydney, her friends from Melbourne. Apparently Melbourne is the spot. One of her friends from Melbourne was really cute. Aussies say "o's" like they have "r's" in them. As we walk out, my pink haired friend can't find a ride so I offer her one. Her friends jokingly memorize my badge in case I'm a creep, but I doubt they could remember. We go to my car and load her bike. She tells me she's shocked people were tipping the bartenders on complimentary drinks. It would never happen in Australia. She also tries to enter my car on the driver's side. Charmed.

I drive her to south Austin. As the trip progressed, and we turned off of the highway onto darkened neighborhood back roads, I could feel the tension rise in her. I'm in the middle of nowhere with this guy I don't know. I get the same feeling when I'm by myself all of the time. I get her home, wrestle her bike from the back seat and wish her well.

I try and watch her make it into the house where she is staying, but it's dark. I drive away feeling pretty good about being me. I really like to pat myself on the back when I do an unremarkable kindness. When I got home, I found her tote bag with bike lock and keys in the floorboard.

Odd Man Out
I won the lottery to attend the Café Tacuba, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Nick Cave show, and I gobbed in its pale, concave face. Mohawk had a showcase with The Stooges and Ghostface Killah on the same bill. Instead of embracing the kindness the SX Gods had afforded me, I wanted more. Every time I bemoan the sorry state of rock'n'roll I always wonder aloud why there are no more Stooges, and I don't think anyone who isn't me or Pretty Toney himself owns multiple Ghostface Killah t-shirts. It was like Mohawk's booker reads my diary.

I got there two hours early. The line hardly moved, but I was okay with that, all part of the plan. The Japandroids reeled off another set from inside Mohawk. I missed it, but no big deal, I was only 70 or so people back and Iggy didn't go on for another hour plus. The line starts to give a little and I can make out the beards of the door men. In an unintended coincidence, the level of authority goes up with beard thickness. Mohawk's door runner is almost all beard, and has really short cropped hair on his head to further accentuate the density of his face nest. As we near the door, an Englishman walks up with a bag full of camera gear and tries to cajole his way inside because he is media. He starts talking to the group in front of me. They're Mexicans, but not in the bigot-y way, I can tell from their Mexican voter registration cards they are actual Mexicans. A little commotion surfaces as one of the Mexicans stepped out of the line to respectfully smoke a cigarette away from the throng. When he walks back up, one of the door men tries to stop him certain he's cutting. The Englishman uses the kerfuffle to insert himself in line. The Mexican couple in front of me lets him hide. The door man even comes up and asks if anyone has cut, but I hold my tongue because so many elementary school teachers echo in my brain telling me not to tattle.

The set is getting close. The door guy finally opens the tap and we shuffle in, the Mexicans, the Brit,  they all make it in. As I cross the concrete boundary into Mohawk, the arm drops right in front of me. I was the last man out. I was shocked at first, and just followed the arm up to the face, but he had already looked away. No eye contact is probably best. Okay, it's still about twenty minutes until Iggy goes on, surely a few will trickle out and I'll be all set. As soon as I had talked myself down, King Beard marched up with fingers pressed against his ear piece.

"Hey guys, no one else in, I heard, like, the owner OWNER of South By is coming with ten people and we have to make sure they get in."

Murderous rage. Who is this British guy? What makes his time more valuable than mine? What did those people owe him? Oh, you're from "the media." What, you're gonna take one more shot of a musician standing on stage? What a benefit to the world. I'll gladly pull out my AP News app and help you find a number of places where the stories actually matter. Frothing, teeth ground to bloody bits, Iggy takes the stage and things quickly devolve..

People rush to the door. Some try to walk straight in like they belong here and are quickly rebuffed. One guy in a sleeveless denim jacket accented with a faux leopard collar and studs tells the doorman he should be let in because he is,"(dismissive glance down the line) a fan." The rest of us were clearly faking it. Iggy opened with "Raw Power," but it's gonna be alright. He won't play anything really worth hearing for like thirty minutes. The next wave of people come to the door, and it's the one with hugs, the ones that hurt the most. They hug the door guy, they hug the dude working the podium inside, they hug someone who comes from the inside to retrieve them. Each familiar embrace pushed me closer to the red line than the one before. A few people trickle out and I grab King Beard's attention.

"We don't do one in one out. I'll do an assessment in a few minutes. You two will be the next to get in, I promise."

He pointed to me and the really nice German guy by my side. More waves of people crashed into the front door. The VIP list people hit and were ordered to the side door. Some quickly came back and insisted they be let in because even the VIP was too long in proportion to how special they were. Some kid was brusquely ushered out by two security guys. More people trickle out, no one is let in. My stomach is toxic with bile, I'm about to blow. Iggy and the boys were finishing a track from The Weirdness. It could be too late.

"1970," happens. The dream is dead. This is the song, the only song I wanted to hear. I hate the door guys, but I can't hate them because they have the worst job of all. If I see that British guy I'm going to break his fucking face. I feel demoralized and demeaned, less human than all of the humans whisked through the doors on favors. I'm trapped in a SXSW microcosm. All the entitlements and poor organization and line standing pooled in front of the Mohawk. I even look at the platinum badge  around my neck given to me by a connected friend and think, "what did you do to deserve this privilege?"

Why? WHY? WHHHHYYYYYY...oh, I can go in? Excellent.

I catch three Stooges tracks from all the way back. The Specials are a really welcome surprise. I always forget there is a huge ska loving nerd inside me. Sky Ferreria and Middle Class Rut are something that happened. I had to look up the names to remember. These kids... Ghostface Killah aka Pretty Toney aka Iron Man aka Tony Starks aka Ghostdini did his shit. It wasn't better than the first time I saw him, but it was better than the third.

When I got home I shame ate Taco Bell. The itemized list isn't important, but the total was $11.26 for one person.

Feed the Meter
I got downtown early to watch Lunarcy and found awesome metered parking. For one movie? A meter is perfect, and I horde pocket change in my car so I paid with found income. After the show, operation move the car to the East Side is the first order of business. I send a few texts to get a feel for my options. Hype Hotel. Everyone I know is at Hype Hotel. Well...I can feed this thing for three more hours, come back, move the car, and go to Fader. I descend on Hype Hotel. They had more free Taco Bell. I had a bean and cheese soft taco. It was free, so maybe it means I somehow spent less money last night? I see lots of familiar faces, good friends, and it occurs to m how much of SXSW I've done on my own. I get to talk to Lisa. She remembers music from before the Internet, and it's one of her most admirable qualities. You remember Suede? Of course you remember Suede. She had a baby recently and is still going hard. I don't comprehend the sheer force of will, but her and her husband are like Noon to 2 AM everyday. Eric decides he's is going to break away from the group and we head over to the Main or what will forever be known to me as Emo's.

A very bro-y rock band is playing. You can spot a certain kind of rock group when the guitar player is a Gibson Les Paul guy, and more than three quarters of the band wears three quarter sleeve baseball tees. They aren't bad, but it's hard to make an impression at this grand buffet. We see Bradley inside. Two years in a row he's been snapped by some random photog and run up a list of SXSW's best dressed . He said my favorite thing of the weekend: "I compare all movies to Star Wars." And this isn't some ironic R4-D6-eating-a-slice-of-peperoni-pizza-tattoo kind of thing, he's the intense intellectual type. I'm sure he has a wonderful conversation saved in there about the merits of Star Wars' overt simplicity. He mentions a psych showcase later in the day at Hotel Vegas.

Eric and I navigate our way through the straits of people streaming the opposite direction into Emo's Jr. A band named Paws takes the stage and it's nice three man punk. A bass string broke, a rare occurrence, and the drummer lost a stick for most of one song, but they motor through their two and one half minute pop punk confections. Less So Cal and more England. No ballsy solos and less attention to three man harmonies, but it's still songs about girls and hurt feelings.

We duck out of Emo's and see if we can get into Red Eyed Fly. The line is suspect. We have a party at 5 pm at 6th and Nueces, so...I should just feed the meter again, right? I race back to my car and my my found quarter stash isn't quite as deep. Well, I'll feed it one more time, then I have a movie at 7, then I'll be set. I got to a bank and buy a roll of quarters, feed the beast, and head back to Emo's.

I catch the last two songs from Metz. Yes. Rowdy hard rock meets Canada nice. Three dudes barreling through a controlled chaos of thunder drums and feedback. Never phony screams, but caterwauling like a third level possession from the rock and roll devils. I wish I'd seen the whole set, but sometimes at SXSW an amuse bouche is ideal. Just enough to make me commit to a full, properly sound checked set when Metz returns. I make my way inside and find Eric. We're here for Beach Fossil(s)? It turns out Widowspeak is next.

They have three guitar players, and one of those water voiced lead singers a'la Beach House. It's sort of drone pop but with subtle folk affectations. Some of the chord shapes are very country, but there is an overriding current of thick, fuzzy tone. This music might be better for making time with your best gal and/or fella, but in the frenzied ramble, it's hard to connect. Oh, and you guys don't need three guitar players. Lazy music decision. Bad business decision. You're not the New Main Street Singers.

We split out and go to the now infamous Entertainment Weekly. They publish a lousy rag, but man, when it comes to free bevvies and apps, they do it with the Dionysian charm of the guy who first thought out loud, "it's a fully stocked bar, but you don't pay. It's an 'OPEN' bar." The line is gridlocked and then gives way in a nice orderly fashion. I don't plan on staying, though. Spring Breakers is the last movie I want to screen. I figure as long as I get there an hour early I should be fine. The film tested huge at the premiere, but once the music conference gets in full swing, it's a lot easier to get in to movies.

I light out and work my across the width of downtown. The seams from my jeans gnash their teeth into my inner thighs. I need to come to terms with some things and buy bigger pants. I grind through pedestrians and pedicabs and crosswalks and as soon as I get to Alamo, the line already curls around the building and into the street. An hour early, damn. I'm married to this meter.

When I'm plopping in my quarters a coldness falls in my gut. It's Thursday, meters have to be paid until midnight. I made a stupid, amateur mistake. Where I thought this was my last quarter dump, I'm signed on for at least one more. Not only in cost of time, but in cost of money, this was more expensive than if I had just used a parking garage. I should have listened when Rob told me to go vote.

I roll back to the EW party, and how 45 minutes of open bar can really loosen the bolts on my nearest and dearest. Arms draped on shoulders and ruddy cheeks and it's a good Thursday by 8 PM. Christine, my older brother Lon (to my friends: "He's done a really good of hiding you guys away from me." You have no idea. Family, AmmIright?!), and I make the move to some shows. I have a plan, grab the car, go to Hotel Vegas, and we've lifted the cumbersome yoke of the meter. Christine mentions one of her two must see bands is playing downtown at 11. Shitballs.

We go to meet the Tristan at my car. Twelve quarters go in the furnace. We go to Taproom to see bands someone else recommended. When we get in Kamp! is playing. Everything can be done right, and these guys do Synthy rhythm driven dance pop extremely well. It's like if Memory Tapes only cared about hard dance digressions. And for dudes walled behind a fortress of keyboards and wires, their presence could be felt in the pit. Tristan has no credentials so I go outside to wait with him in line. When he gets to the front, they ask me why I'm waiting with my badge. I reply that I think it's only fair someone without a badge gets to go in. Tristan peels a fiver off his wad and goes in. Someone says it's really cool of me to let someone else in. I immediately use my credentials to go inside.

Wildcat! Wildcat! is next. A quick rundown of things Old Man S&D doesn't like about you kids and your band names these days: Punctuation, other non-alphanumeric symbols (Beak>), repeating words, combined words, and replacing a U with a V. Harumph, get off my lawn, etc. Wildcat! Wildcat! doesn't hit my sweet spot. After the Kamp! set, they sound really anemic and their desire for song dynamic downplays what is fun about their sound. It did kick off a nice round of Royal Tannenbaum's "Wildcattin'" references which is the best kind of gift a band can give.

We head over to Meudse Lounge to see NO, Christine's must see band. Yikes. Love the girl, don't like this band. What measuring stick are we using anymore? Rock is much more layered and complex these days, and usually rock outfits are coordinating four or five musicians, musicians grown up in the lessons from professionals era. It's real challenge, but it comes out like musical gruel. A flat tone, no real arc to the songs, a lead singer--like all he does is sing--it's just dull. They can all play, they write songs elevated above three chord drudgery, but truly, of bands dictating my feelings with their name, No.

After No, we round up my car and relocate to the East Side for the tail end of the Psych showcase at Hotel Vegas. There are no parking tickets. From 11am to almost midnight, I rode the beast. You don't beat the meter, but you can keep the meter from beating you.

The Soft Moon is the first band we catch at Hotel Vegas and they are awesome. It's like all of my favorite industrial bands took off the leather trench coats, put away the KMFDM poster, and decided some San Francisco psychedelic was the deeper, weirder vortex. The stage was completely dark save a couple of slats of white light drifting across the band. The bass player is Tristan and I's new hero. Rigid, thumbing his bass, dressed in a black button down and black pants, his gaze is fixed on some unknown point. We start referring to the Soft Moon as the house band from Sprockets.

Up next is TOY, a much gentler kind of psychedelic from London. Songwriting and some pop sensibility is favored over shaving off thick bricks of sound, but it serves them well. The front man looks like a Robert Smith lite, a comparison he has to dread because it is so obvious, but the woman on keys stole my heart. In her keyboard command center, she lobbies with the sound man almost the entire show. She'd look up every few minutes, find the sound guy's eyes, and raise her hand showing a little space between her crooked pointer finger and thumb. Just a smidgen more. The crowd starts to fill in and they roil us in sonic billows. During the last song, the climax ascending to a peak, the lead singer's amp goes out and he storms off stage. I sort of love him for it. The next day when I go home and listen to their music, I'm disappointed. All of the things they capture with their live show are sacrificed for the Robert Smith Jr. show in the studio. Shame that.

Afterwards Christine and I had a Whataburger feast. I've never seen Christine eat so much in one sitting, especially breaded and fried meats. There is no shade thrown here, it made me admire her that much more.

Limping into the Gate
It's Saturday. I took Friday off, weird timing, some bad news, it just wasn't meant to happen. When you've being running, it's hard to walk and get back to full speed. I head to the Fader fort, but it's a mess and no one else I'm with can get in. I head over to our bar to meet Tristan. Our bartender is looking especially radiant, even with the tonnage of SXSW hanging off her. Full usuals. Tristan is trapped in a conversational vortex with an older guy who just wants to talk about music. I jar him loose an immediately feel for the guy just left to sit atop a bar stool and look over the sea of counted heads.

Tristan and I talk about music's foundational beginnings. Percussion and voice were obviously first, but we both agree the first homo sapiens to intentionally harmonize must've sent the cave into a by firelight wall pounding, shrieking frenzy. We are not anthropologists. Ever notice how every culture has a drone tone? Maybe pervasive white noise. Somehow we toggle over to worm tracks of despair riddling us all. I never write anything new. It's all a talking point from somewhere else. There is one thread keeping us going, Death Grips, 11:45 PM, 1100 Warehouse. We'll make it.

We saunter over to Jackalope to meet Christine and Eric for burgers, but it's a nightmare so we settle for the lesser Chupacabra . I eat a way too big pulled pork burrito and the itis wraps me in its meaty, cheesy cocoon. My stomach is a city sanctioned dumpster at this point and the food does not agree with me.

Out in the fray, Saturday night is quiet. There are two heavy weight showcases, Prince and Justin Timberlake respectively, which seem to garner all the attention. Keep 'em, I want Death Grips. We go to Headhunters and there is a two man outfit called Army of Infants, and they really look like children. Their cigarettes caught me by surprise, when they had a beer in hand all I could think was, "this is how they make 21 year olds now?" Inside was a band with two Gibson Les Paul guitars. The lead singer had his mic taped to the stand and kept doing the kick out, yank back microphone dance. He also kept pulling these little, I don't know, brass knuckle scissor things out of a holster on his hip, twirling them around, and holstering them back. Christine left, her SXSW was in the books.

I wanted to get to Death Grips extra early, so we trudged to 1100 Warehouse. Eric didn't want to wait in line and Tristan wasn't going be able to purchase a ticket at the door. Eric went one direction, Tristan went the other. So, that's it?

Death Grips
I sat inside 1100 Warehouse and went back and forth for almost an hour on whether or not I should just roll up the circus tent. I mean...he'll be back. And his set is only 30 minutes. And this venue blows. But...Death Grips is currently the only artist I have on my could die at literally any moment list. I've got to soldier through. A couple of guys next to me recap their SXSW and try and figure out which one is which Workaholics character. One dude is assigned Ders. I'm always the Ders, too. We approach 11:00 and I head inside. I want to be up close and personal. I want Death Grips front man MC Ride to howl into mouth.

11 turns into 11:55 and techs are still fumbling around stage. There is a DJ set going on in the corner and people love it. The crowd is hype. A few rappers, including the Flatbush Zombies--kinda cool--do some impromptu flows. It's right at midnight when two Apple monitors are set up on stage and when they blink to life, the image on screen is Death Grips' signature empty hoodie. Maybe he doesn't exist until midnight? But it's real now. No more soreness, no more bubble guts, just shared wide eyed glances like watching a storm roll in off the coast.

After the lights went down, the details matter a lot less. MC Ride and drummer/mastermind Zach Hill take the stage in full black hooded jackets, and blacked out ski goggles. They Skype in a drummer? Maybe it's part of the visuals? There's no time to decide, the beat drops like a detonator cap.

What a crush, bodies stacked on heaving bodies, sweat slick and whooping, a few inches give and they fill with shoving limbs and shoulders on a collision course. Someone goes airborne and I get a sneaker across the face. My hat, my beloved corduroy Yankee's cap my grandfather gave me is gone. It's my tribute to the black mass. I peel out of the throng to attack from the back, I war whoop and a guy plants his cranium right into my front tooth. Back in the crush. Kerosene flows through my veins. My lungs barely fit in my chest. My heart, Death Grips doesn't care about your heart.

An unrepentant torrent of sound, and aggression, but there is no rain in this downpour. It's acid and brimstone and pollution and fragments of moonless dark. It is the icy clutch the name implies. It feels bad. MC Ride's tattoos glisten in the low red lights. Skulls and crescent moons and pentagrams confess away stretched on the rack torture device that is his knotty frame. Tracks don't being and end, it's just a smog of broken bone beats, and barked lyrics enveloping the crowd.

It's not kind, it's not polite, it's not ready made for a television commercial. This music is an incinerator of the light in the world. Punk has been defanged and sold back to us as haircuts. Metal is almost a gimmick and when the "Art" movement of any genre is acknowledged as the best of the sound, it might as well be jazz. But this, this moment in this disgusting warehouse with surrendered bodies adrift on Death Grips, it reminds what I've been missing, the fear. Rock and roll as a distillation of those hideous things we hide from, especially the most hideous things of all, the things we shrink from inside of ourselves. I hope there is a kid somewhere with this album hidden between his mattress  like it's pornography because his "cool" dad who listens to the Black Keys thinks it's garbage, and, "not in his house, not...that." I'm gonna be sick. I've needed this for months.

It's over. No banter, no, "We're Death Grips. Fuck You." It's over. the set was 35 minutes or three days, it's impossible to tell. When the lights come up, people are scrambling around like towns folk after an old West shootout. Single shoes, backpacks, t-shirts, sunglasses litter the floor. I want to find my grandpa hat. A guy has it clutched in his hand. He happily gives it back. It's filthy. I look at myself. I'm wet from head to toe. My Pablo Escobar on the run beard is overgrown. My hands are black. Not all rock and roll should be this way. It can't be, but this slow poison Death Grips pours in the saccharine ground waters of rock's current state is the thin, faint, hopeful reminder music will always find new, dangerous voices. It can be distilled, and marginalized, but the wellspring can never be capped.

I walk out. It's brisk. I feel sandblasted on the inside. Total rock and roll redemption. I walk down East 5th and erupt with sporadic, "Wooooooo's!." I go to our bar, I have to talk to someone about this. My stomach couldn't hold another drink, but I want to say words out loud. The bar is empty. Tristan is no where to be found. My phone is dead, It's over. I walk out into the street, and the gauze of SXSW's dying color and sound frays above the flickering city lights.

18.3.13

SXSW 2013 - Part 1

Opening Act
Complimentary drinks, free Mexican food well into danger zone temperatures, and an onsite art project where you mail a postcard to yourself: SXSW has begun, in earnest this time.

The party was for SXSW Eco, the burgeoning environmental group within the ever expanding SX universe. These events cloudy themselves up as sponsor and SX blend into one indecipherable mass of "respectable" consumer culture. The company on the pedestal was Geostellar. What they do, I have no idea, but their CEO, or COO, or whatever it is they are called these days has a band.

All men, 40 plus--not that rock and roll has an age limit--the front man, the CEO/COO, wearing a denim jacket embarrassed with Geostellar stickers, a sax player in a suit looking heroically bombed, a guitar player with a Fender Jaguar--who I'm sure will wax poetic on the Jaguar versus Stratocaster "well the Strat is more famous, but the Jag, that sounds like rock music" issue--a Rickenbacker bass player, and a drummer who seemed genuinely happy to be there.

The show disgorged in a dissonant aural assault, a nightmare sludge of poorly tuned instruments and under rehearsed tracks. The cues are a mess, two people with Geostellar t-shirts tucked into their jeans record the show on their iPhone and hoot, I caught the sound guy making a "Yikes" face. A guitar string broke, another song trudged to merciful termination, it was time for a front man speech.

"The story of Rome. Well the story of the foundation of Rome, is the story of Remus and Romulus. The mythology of the start of Rome is the story of these two brothers..."

Oh, go on. His lecture shuffled its feet around Remus and Romulus until it ambled into a dead end even a CEO's ego can't overlook. He reversed tack with a "long story short," made some nebulous symbolic connection between Remus' death and Romulus' wall as the beginning of mankind's separation with nature. The destruction of Druidic cultures was thrown in for good measure, and then there was a multi century jump to the rape of South America. Did he mention he's also promoting a sustainable energy drink? As unexpectedly as it began, it all dovetailed into a song called "Rockabilly Immigrant."

There are a lot of awful rock shows in this world, but this one gave so generously of its own delusion, it would be unfair to try and forget. And I would give anything to sit in on a Geostellar board meeting.

The Fifth Season
This could have been a good film, but it wasn't. Someone booed it, and it didn't deserve that. It had all the pieces, but they couldn't be cobbled together. Every frame so love worn and doted on the over shot visuals choke out a fragile narrative. What could have been an interesting meditation on what we do when things go wrong, the film is so clouded by stiff camera movement and hackneyed art house scene blocking any hope of the story ascending beyond third or fourth priority is a vain one.

The film is quiet and meditative, but to a fault. The horror spilled out in the third act doesn't have the fuse burning tension hissing through the rest of the film to truly satiate. It's a shame, because the moments of comprehensive story building and dialogue crack with the sort of intensity the film reaches for in every other manicured frame.

The Fifth Season could be about the economy, it could be about irrational beliefs and the irrational behavior when those beliefs break down, it could have been about the permanent winter of empty, decayed morality, but sometimes movies should just be movies--what is actually committed to film--and this wasn't a particularly good one.

The Full Usual
The bar was a little livelier than usual. It's our bar, well it is since Judson moved away and we stopped going to the Hole in the Wall so much. Tristan already got his "LOCAL" bracelet. Our bar was issuing "LOCAL" bracelets. I felt pangs of superficial jealousy. I thought I'd logged enough hours at our perch to where mine would be issued intuitively. Mark was there, unexpected. A treat, but he and Tristan usually require a middleman of sorts. Mark was loose, squeaking with good cheer. Tristan was lubricated, but he wears his drunks with quite resolve.

"I had my worst Alamo experience the other day!" Mark started. He has good posture, a slight stoop, but nothing like the shoulders draped over gut I don't even catch myself doing any more. He keeps his legs close together, spindles and sinew planted into his signature green and yellow Asics Onitsuka Tigers.

We took a few pulls.

"First off I went to fucking Lake Creek, or whichever Alamo is way up north, and after the dun-dun-dun-dun intro (written words don't have a sound, but his vocal interpretation of the Alamo's no texting or talking promo song was impeccable) a screen comes up that says this is a kid friendly film. On cue, this lady with this fucking kid sits down behind me. And it's coughing! All movie long the baby is coughing and then it pukes and..." maybe he didn't like the timbre of these thoughts out loud, "...I mean, she took it out of there. And, I don't know, Alamo just used to be all about the movies. Now it's all commercials and shit."

"Maybe it's your Opeth hoodie talking, but I don't think I've ever seen you so upset about something," I poked at his cindering conversational fire bomb.

 "I love the Alamo! I used to say it was the best theater in the world. That's what I would tell people. And when I said it I believed it..." Mark's whole heart was talking.

"The best life lesson I've ever learned: nothing gold can stay. Embrace it. It really makes everything better"

Our conversation lumbered on like the bodies churning through the crush. Last call came. We went in and saw our bartender.

"Hey!" she said. This is our two step. She'll say, "Hey", unwrap her eyes up smile slotted with imperfect teeth, and we'll order drinks like slack jawed teenagers sauntering up to a kissing booth.

She has tattoos and a boyfriend with a cringe worthy name, but he's not me and Tristan, regulars, which is probably the first of many qualities he has over us. We give too much credence to going there to see her--we'll take any place with the drink--but she is one of those bartender's cut from the star lined cloak of whatever patron Saint is big enough to prop up the bar.

"The full usual." we replied in chorus. We've even added a hand motion similar to an ump signaling a home run. She grabbed the bottle of T.W. Samuels, two shot glasses, and two 16 oz Lone Star Beers. We turned to walk away, she called me back to the bar, and issued my LOCAL bracelet.

Yellow
People crowd the lobby before the 10 o'clock premiere of Yellow. Like a full color rendering of my naïve idea of "industry people" they're all there, skinny and pretty, not regular attractive, but silver screen good looking. Cellphones and cocktails are swung around like master leading gestures. A guy in converse and a sport coat kisses cozies up to a salt and pepper dude wearing a backward black and white Washington Nationals hat, a t-shirt, baggy jeans, and a pair of J's. Salt and Pepper has a woman flitting around him, a brunette with personal trainer muscles and some doctor made pretty stretched on her tawny frame. They seem to be everywhere. Gray hair has a procession of people talking to him and brunette is servicing and glad handing and filming things on her phone. What sort of LA bungalow do they call home?

As the film intro began, the director was brought on stage, and his backwards Washington Nationals hat stared me down. Nick Cassavetes, director of The Notebook and John Q, dresses like a fifteen year old whose mom dropped him off at the mall. When the film rolled, I realized the lead was the plasticine brunette. Glutted on superficialities, my mind became a black hole from which hope for this film could not escape. I'm glad I ordered the 22 ounce beer.

But this film had a secret, it's good. Really good. Not great, but bold and the work of a director who took his cache of creative capital and splurged it on HIS project. The story of a woman, a troubled woman, desiccated from years of being beautiful and medicated and broke her only feeling left is not feeling anything. The film unravels and re-spools like her manic psyche. There are lush stylistic digressions where Cassavetes tackles the specters of mental illness and anxiety with fearless gusto.

It doesn't always work, there is a scene near the beginning where an interoffice conflict plays out a'la Pennies From Heaven that almost put me off beyond redemption, but when Yellow works it is pure cinema--the sumptuous movie magic you want to cleave from the screen and squeeze into your mouth. Heather Whalquist, our brunette, gives a performance that could only be described as her own. No matter where her career goes, she has this naked, raw, soul-split-wide-open performance to claim as her moment, the thing she can point to and tell all the assholes back in Oklahoma, this is what it was all for.

The film is outrageous, and frustrating, and at times absurd, but if you could crack open the mind of a person suffering from this kind of internal tempest, it would spill out in a tumultuous Technicolor swirl of fractured reality. And Cassavetes, with the maturity of seasoned film maker, dips into this unpredictable medium and comes back from the void with something well worth the effort.

William and the Windmill/Lunarcy
These two films, both documentaries, are an interesting profile of the weight of our ambitions versus the cost of our ambitions. There is a colossal fulcrum between our aims and the realization of those dreams. Moving this vision from one side to the other is seen as success, but once the change has occurred, the unforeseen consequences of achievement can be harder to handle than the push to the top. It's a rather common narrative, especially within the documentary world, but to see the two sides explored in such separate ways was an incisive refresher into these familiar themes.

William, a young man from Malawi with limited education, built a windmill with nothing to go on except a picture in a textbook. With his ingenuity, he saved his family from the brink, became a TED sensation, and was jettisoned into a world of intelligentsia, book tours, and higher education. William is quickly torn between his duties to his family, plans for himself, and the obligations of an inspirational figure complete with benefactors. His relationship with his most ardent supporter and advisor, TED regular Tom Rielly, is one of the central elements of the film. Tom truly puts William at the forefront of his concern, but at times the line blurs between what Tom thinks William's ambitions should be versus what William wants.

The subject is fascinating, but the documentary is not exceptionally well made. Scenes drag on, and there is a lot of fat on the jowls of several sequences, but as with any documenting eye, director Ben Nabors captures a few moments of excruciating truth. Grown up outside of the craving-instant-fame culture and with searing exposure suddenly focused on his endeavors William is reticent and often seems displaced in this sea of admiration. In a reveling moment, the off camera filmmaker asks William, "Are you humble?" In a wonderful, stinging rebuke of self-appointed humility, William responds with a flat, "If people say I'm humble, then I am humble." William embraces the many opportunities presented with gratitude and hard work, but the struggle remains: how to be The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and how to still be William.

Lunarcy is a sprawling profile of the Moon and the men whose fantastic designs rest on her luminous shoulders. There is the man who wants to be the first colonizer sent to the moon with no intention of coming back. There is the elderly Milwaukeean who has a regular newsletter about the various elements of moon colonization ranging from how to build shelter, to how we will make art and music on the moon. There is the man who is selling plots of real estate on the moon for $24 a parcel. The film is saturated with these elaborate rationales for Moon colonization, and as the documentary progresses, there are more and more moments when these arguments sound sort of correct, and make just enough sense to become emotionally invested. These men are misfits, and outcasts, and appropriately delusional--as with all men of such singular vision--and their stories are told with rejection and isolation coloring the background.

The film itself is overly cute at times, very title card heavy with some title cards dictating dialogue direct from on screen interviews. The font chosen is Wes Anderson's favored Futura. Along with the jaunty Mark Mothersbaugh-esque score, this doc--if it sees the light of wide(r) release--will often get the, "like it was made by Wes Anderson," comparison. It does keep the film moving at a brisk pace, but the nuggets are so digestible, the movie is plagued with several scenes which look and feel like the end. When the film arrives at it its rather satisfying conclusion, some tedium has already taken hold. During the duration of the film, there is no hope for the subjects to achieve this dream, but independent of the Moon, there is a consuming ambition these men have surrendered to which makes for compelling human drama on this celestial body, or any other.

But seriously, getting to the moon with no plan of coming back has to be when the real problems begin.

Some People
Perpetual gridlock has taken. Horns and brakes in need of replacing grind across the girder, concrete, glass skin of Austin's downtown façade. Energy chokes the atmosphere. People here to party, people here to build the brand, people here to get discovered, people who are mercenaries wrangling all the drunk idiots in various customer service capacities, and all the innocents caught in the fray who it's-just-another-work-week-can-I-please-go-the-fuck-home. Good and bad feelings, rendered with extreme prejudice, vibrate through the air.

I like to walk fast after work. It's still a time in the week when I can keep pace. Traffic hits a dead halt at 9th and San Jacinto. I see a young lady, dye job in need of replacing, storm into the middle of the street. Into the teeth of three lane traffic? A brand new Cadillac sedan, resplendent in steel grey and chrome accents with luster undercoat, sits in the middle lane of the street, hazard lights flashing, with no one inside. She spins back toward the sidewalk.

"I CAN'T PARK IT FROM HERE!"

Maybe she belts it out to force it above the din, maybe she screams it because she's already screamed it five times. How will it all end? This seems like a good place to cross the street. At her behest, a man saunters off the sidewalk and into traffic. Denim jacket, crisp snapback, fatigues as military industrial chic, tortoise shell wayfarers, Jordan's, all boutique purchased, maybe by a stylist, an icon of arrogant insouciance. Traffic is swollen to cloud burst proportions. Behind him, a young man in an old white truck filled with tools bears the look of trauma previously unknown. Slack jawed, flushed, caught in a flash point of ego explosion, he's shell shocked. Rage can't even find root, wide eyed incredulity is the only emotion made for this fever dream. I can see the Caddy owner's friends on the curb trying to look like they aren't with him, but doing nothing to say, "You exquisite piece of human garbage, life is not a valet service."

He stood by his open car door, flashers smoldering like the brazen obscenity of his existence. He casually checked his phone, and we caught eyes for a second. He smiled.

Good Vibrations
Festival films have a unique advantage over wide release films in that it's easier to walk in clean. Viewers haven't been inundated with months of media push and reviews and trailers, and the film gets a much better chance of being judged by what's on the reels versus filtering through expectations. Good Vibrations, with nothing more to go on than a blurb, is one of those films, unburdened on the festival circuit, whose treasure trove of delights hit with full impact.

Good Vibrations is a delightful BBC film about Terri Hooley, a man with the audacity to open a record shop in Belfast at the height of "The Troubles," who became an unlikely champion of the burgeoning Northern Ireland punk scene. Made straight from the heart with high style and a wonderful sense of humor, this is a film about loving music almost to the point of damaging obsession. For those who still believe a handful of records can do more for peace than all the guns and bombs in Northern Ireland, and those who find their memories bookended with more songs than names and dates, it's less about falling head over heels for this film, and more about finding a way to keep all of those massive feelings music's supernatural powers evoke under control for 90 minutes. And Terri Hooley loves reggae? Knock me over with a feather.

It's important to not say too much. The longer the film resonates in memory parts of the story--as with any love note--overstate the importance of the central character and the influence of his actions. Some elements are a little hokey, lots of sizzle, but make no mistake, the film sticks like good cooked food. In the ensuing months as this movie makes its rounds and more and more reviews spill out with lines like, "A stand up and cheer film!" (which, at the end, the entire theater literally stood up and cheered) ignore the hype, purge your memory of hearing Teenage Kicks a million times over, and let the film stand on its own merits. This write up clearly goes against the very notion, but Good Vibrations goes such a long way toward reinvigorating music's unique power, it would be criminal to say nothing. Yeah...forget I said anything.

New Friends
I went to the Paramount to see a film I didn't really want to see, but in a bit of kismet, it was full. I saw another line with a shorter line of badged assholes next to it and thought, "Hey! I'm an asshole with a badge, too." As I rounded the building, I did a quick case of the joint, and this thing was gonna be packed full of gross free booze you'd never normally drink, and apps. I'd wager a king's ransom on some kind of slider being omnipresent.

As I stood in line waiting, one of my strongest skills, I was bombarded. Two strangers, a man and a woman, were on either side of me with tactical precision. These were expert line cutters, and they even had my festival going mode pegged: loner weirdo. They started with this mock getting to know you routine like the joke was lost on me, but I'm a real prick and wasn't soon to be out bantered by these two. I hated myself for looking like a mark. The guy wore glasses and sported one of those jackets Teddy Roosevelt would have worn into the bush via Banana Republic. It was army green. The girl was one of those inverted triangle Mexican girls with hips and legs so narrow you wonder how they support the width of her shoulders and the chesty girth draped from them. She has one of those orthodonture free grins filled with manic, slow charm. We waited in line and bullshitted, and in fumbling for a cigarette, she said something beautiful.

"The only thing I have in my purse is a lighter and a rosary."

My wannabe writer brain was sated. I'd found a nugget I could jam into some made up narrative rich with phony portent, and I was out of there. Once the line gave, I hit the crease and shook them with impunity. I wandered the cavernous Austin Museum of Art painted up  like a strumpet in colored lights, DJ Music, and corporate logo posters. It was a Jansport/Samsung/USA Networks television series Graceland sponsored soiree.

I roamed around, saw them again, ducked away, went to the roof, ordered a beer, the bartender emptied the bottle into a plastic cup, I asked her if I could just have the bottle, she said no. On the first night someone threw a bottle off the roof. They found me again, and I acquiesced. It wasn't long until my movie, so I might as well talk to someone. We chatted a little more comfortably this go round, less talking at and more talking to, and something happened. In my painful getting to know you conversation, my hometown invariably came up. Us West Texas boys can hardly talk about anything else.

"We have a really good friend from there!"

Wonderful. I love to play the who do they know from my hometown game.

"His name is Chris S."

Holy shit, it's not a person I think I might have maybe had high school chemistry with, it is one of my very best friends. We reveled in the talking point. They knew him from work and as it all came into focus, I realized I was in the presence of his work best friends. We're through the looking glass.

We had a competition to see who he would write back if we all sent texts at the same time, and when mine came back (1st place, not a huge) it dripped with sincere awkward. He felt exposed. The button down, khaki clad nerd who he--who we all keep hidden from the world was outed.

They knew his family, and his wife. Work husband had a nickname for him, Squidwort, which if you knew the letters hidden behind the "S" in Chris S., it is--oh goodness--what a peach. They had heard of me, or some disc golf playing approximation Chris occasionally conjures in the office as disc is a solid 65% of our time spent together. They even knew to make fun of me for how my name is pronounced, an ongoing boondoggle hampered by those who were around during my younger days.

Chris became the centerpiece of our conversation, because what else do we have to talk about? Spurs basketball and Battlestar Galactica. Game of Thrones and Dallas Cowboys football. They laid out their threads of work Chris as best they understood them. Chris could only text unable to shunt me off from this conversation I was lapping up like it was in a dog bowl. A guy I know, a guy they know, and they are two different people. I liked their version, he seemed helpful and like the guy you miss the most when he's out of the office. My version is a much better cook, but he's a little pushier with the bottle of Jameson at 4 am.

Devastated--I could have rolled around in the mud pit of Chris' discomfort until dawn broke--I had to pull up stakes to make my movie on  time. Who are these people? In my world, they don't exist, completely made up outside of the human shaped shell I see in front of me. There is another world, a world right next to mine where they are convincing back story and animus. A world, as with so many of my own little worlds hidden from view, I'm not supposed to know is out there. I sent him a text on my way out.

"Like a little Laura Palmer. Just all full up of secrets."

He replied: "Well it's like I always say 'loose lips sink ships'...so ya gotta keepum close to the chest."

Nobody knows anybody. Not that well, anyway.

[Ed Note: Part 2 tomorrow. Did you really want to read all 9K words at once? Ugh, me neither.]

8.3.13

The Great Conspiracy Conspiracy

Of all the great American traditions, keeping the government off our backs ranks between 4th of July backyard barbecues and rejecting Saturday Night Live at some point because, "all the funny actors are gone. Even Tim Meadows." From bucking the Red Coats to making sure every American has at least one gun for each day of the week, and a few to coordinate with evening wear, we, the proud Patriots of this US of A, don't like being told what to do. But these are tense times in our beloved country. Mass shootings are run amok, rotten Barak Obama is trying to ensure everyone has health care which is basically a war crime, and our economy is one rocky pay cycle from having to take out a fast cash title loan from China. I mean, it is 69.57% APR, but we really need the 1300 bucks. Seeing as how the citizens of this great nation are above reprisal, there is something far more sinister at work, and none dare call it a conspiracy.

Well, actually, lots of people call it a conspiracy. This is another one of the proud American traditions, and it's really just a subcategory of our stringent anti-government stance. We don't like governments because, as the true freedom fighters know, by nature, their success is measured in oppression. When their conventional methods of repression no longer work, the well-orchestrated conspiracy is the only recourse. Naturally, I love a good conspiracy, but deep in my heart, I'm an Occam's razor guy. Amongst competing hypotheses, the one which makes the fewest assumptions should be selected. It's a radical position because it squarely drops me into the--we landed on the moon, terrorists perpetrated 9/11, Adam Lanza committed the atrocities at Sandy Hook Elementary, and there are no Lizard People holding elected office--camp. The last sentence isn't made to make light of any of these things, but it adds some perspective to the dizzying--and at times galling--state of modern conspiracy theory.

To know the modern conspiracy, it's key to know the preeminent voice in what he dubs the "information war," Mr. Alex Jones. If you had to conjure the image of world renowned Austin, Texas based alternative news impresario, would he be white, middle aged, and...well, paunchy is strong, let's call it stout? As long as this is America and there is a God in heaven, he is all of those things with the gravel pocked voice to set it off. And personally, I hope he stays this way forever. He shouldn't be allowed to look a day over 50, an age he's looked since picking up the bullhorn in 1996 at age 22.

Alex Jones is the hardest working man in "Truth" business. He broadcasts his radio show seven days a week for at least three hours a day, prints a newsletter, runs multiple websites, most prominently infowars.com, and has produced/directed over 29 films. Whether or not you believe what he has to say, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who believes anything as passionately as Alex Jones. If you were lucky enough to watch Alex Jones when he was still on Austin Public Access, it was like being at the Six Gallery reading. Beautiful, aggressive, untethered, frustrated, this was a man crowing out against the economic girth of the Clinton era when Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, and Waco were the humble designs made to destroy this onec great nation. This was when Alex was a young go hard sneaking into Bohemian Grove and hosting screenings of They Live at Alamo Drafthouse. Alex even did a Best of Alex Jones film in 2000, and much like looking at a copy of the Stones Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), you would think to yourself, "A greatest hits record? This catalog has not even begun..."

9/11 was the consolidation point in the Alex Jones movement. Already broadcasting online, and with the confluence of fear, confusion, and a severely battered American psyche, people flocked to Alex in droves. Now, in 2013, Alex Jones has a daily radio audience numbering in the millions and hits on YouTube more than fifty fold that figure. Jones has had two cameos in Richard Linklater films, conducted interviews with celebrity sympathizers ranging from Charlie Sheen to Heidi Montag, and has left a rash of unforgettable TV appearances in his wake, most recently with CNN's Piers Morgan.

What does Alex Jones believe? How much time ya got, buddy?

In broad strokes, there is a satanic cult of Globalists bent on total world domination. This includes the New World Order, Illuminati, Bilderberg group, etcetera, etcetera. Within this greater context there are operations big and small: 9/11 was an inside job, FEMA ran death camps after Katrina, the economic meltdown was manufactured, Aurora and Sandy Hook were both part of a government orchestrated gun grab, there are laboratories in Bastrop, Texas where scientists are working on a chimp/human, "humanzee," super-soldier, and Django Unchained is media conditioning used to make us okay with the collective murder of white people. 

Alex Jones has persevered through three different presidencies, and his talking points will not change with the tide. The designations of right wing git or anarchist or crank or conspiracy theorist are a rotating band of monikers swapped back and forth depending on who is in power. Alex even acknowledges as much in an article from Rolling Stone:
To Jones, what matters most is the "continuity of agenda at the top. When I called Clinton a Wall Street puppet, they called me a right-wing extremist. When I said the same about George W. Bush, they called me an anti-war communist. Now that I'm against Obama for the same reasons, mainline conservatives embrace me. When I attack the next right-wing 'savior,' they're gonna call me a communist again."
To wit, the people posting Sandy Hook as Obama ploy videos to their Facebook pages along with cunning insights like "WTF?!?" are the same who would scoff at the George W. Bush and Co. as 9/11 perpetrators videos, which is crazy, because 9/11 The Road to Tyranny is some primo Jones cannon. But it's not really about what Alex, or anyone else, believes. As with all conspiracies, it's about what you believe.

Let's take a second to do a full breakdown of what is purported to have happened at Sandy Hook:

A sick, disturbed Adam Lanza took guns from his mother, killed her, drove to a local elementary school, and indiscriminately massacred staff and children.

=OR=

Multiple shooters none of which may or may not have been Adam Lanza (either an activated sleeper cell or patsy) descended on Sandy Hook Elementary school and executed a mass murder. According to eye witness reports, there was a man seen in the woods with camo on and guns. The car the guns were found in didn't even belong to Adam Lanza. Of course, all of this was orchestrated by the Obama administration to garner public support for more gun control.

=OR=

Multiple shooters none of which may or may not have been Adam Lanza (either an activated sleeper cell or patsy) descended on Sandy Hook Elementary school and executed a mass murder because Adam Lanza's father was soon to be testify in senate hearings about the LIBOR banking scandal and it was all a distraction (PS. Aurora Shooter James Holmes father was scheduled to testify in THE SAME TRIAL!). Of course, all of this integral to the Obama administration's plot to garner public support for more gun control.

=OR=

Multiple shooters none of which may or may not have been Adam Lanza (either an activated sleeper cell or patsy) descended on Sandy Hook Elementary school and executed a mass murder because, Adam Lanza's father works for GE doing genetic engineering and Adam Lanza's mother was draining him dry with child support paymentys. Per GE's buddy-buddy ties with the Obama administration the massacre was given the go ahead. Of course, all of this integral to the Obama administration's plot to garner public support for more gun control.

=OR=

None of it happened at all, and the parents are crisis actors (one of which is also James Holmes lawyer) hired by the Obama administration to fake grieve thus creating emotional currency to lubricate a wholesale government gun grab. The Dark Knight Rises and Hunger Games were essential in both pre-programming us for these attacks. One neighborhood in Christopher Nolan's Gotham was renamed Sandy Hook and was circled by Bane as "Strike Zone #1." Also, during the collapse of the stadium in DKR, the powerful elite in Gotham are standing in booth 322, a number favored by the Skull and Bones secret society. Oh, and the Hunger Games you ask:
...SGT Report cites a "coincidence" that will leave you thinking about a planned scenario at Newtown, just the kind of operation secret societies are reputedly famous for. In The Hunger Games, many times called a model of predictive programming, the ritual sacrifice of 23 children is carried out. Twelve districts, two children from each district; they fight in pairs and kill each other until one winner is left. 23 children are killed. In Newton, Adam Lanza killed 20 children. The author of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, is listed by Wikipedia as one of the famous people who lives in Newtown. You take it from there. Call it whatever you want to. I try to avoid winging big stretches, but this is too stunning to omit. WTF.
 WTF, indeed. But still, Obama administration. Take away guns.

Less fascinating than the theories themselves is the layer where one opts out. Where on this landmass does one erect their boundary of disbelief, rest their arm on the gate, and say, "Nice place, but these neighbors of mine are fucking crazy."

Is it easier to believe there are phantom shooters so loyal to the Globalists they would murder children indiscriminately? Is it easier to believe the entire Newton police force would be complicit in covering the Obama administrations tracks? Is it easier to believe a man called to testify (in a hearing that does not exist) would endorse a child massacre to throw attention off his testimony (in a hearing, if it existed, no one would watch anyway)? Is it easier to believe a man would rather have his wife murdered, frame his son, and then execute 20 children to "validate" the attack instead of pay child support? Is it easier to believe multiple actors so deep in the pockets of the powers that be would fake their way through a tragedy worth millions of lifetimes of pain? Is it easier to believe this conspiracy has been in the works since The Hunger Games and DKR were mere concepts several years ago? Is it easier to believe this couldn't be another senseless mass shooting in a nation who has experienced 30 since 1999?

For me, all save the first option are a stretch. And before it comes off like I'm an aspiring Technocrat heartily patting himself on the back, it's not the prospect of all this stuff being wrong, but what if it's right?

Sandy Hook alone would be a conspiracy hundreds of people deep. The other shooters, the police force, the crisis actors, the compliant media, Suzanne Collins, Christopher Nolan, all players. 9/11 is a conspiracy thousands of people deep. Corporations, Government, black ops cells, all participants in this flawless plan. Then you have to factor in the Jewish Liberal Run Media conspiracy. The conspiracy against the poor. The conspiracy against minorities. The conspiracy against the wealthy. The hip-hop conspiracy. The fluoridation of the water conspiracy. The UFO conspiracy. The moon landing conspiracy. The addictive food conspiracy. The AIDS conspiracy. The crack cocaine conspiracy. The media mind control conspiracy. The Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Moon Landing, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Waco, Oklahoma City, the first World Trade Center bombing, Columbine, 9/11, Aurora, Sandy Hook... If it's all true, all taught threads in an elaborate web of conspiracy, there quickly comes a juncture where we are all complicit. We are all part of the conspiracy.

If you go far enough down the wormhole, you'll find Operation Mockingbird, the conspiracy outing Alex Jones as a CIA disinformation agent. Why is all of his information correct? He says info dumps by the likes of WikiLeaks are a classic CIA disinformation ruse. How can the media sources he cites be the only accurate ones? He snuck into the ultra-secure Bohemian Grove, or was he placed in there? I'm supposed to believe the Mocking Bird being the state bird of Texas is just a coincidence? Alex Jones is a hegemonic source of controlled information dispersion who would not pass his own sniff test. I want definitive proof he's not part of THEIR game. What, because he says it's so? Sounds like a lot of Borg Stasi double talk to me.

And herein lies the real problem with conspiracy theory: there is no bottom. Nothing can be proved beyond all doubts, reasonable and unreasonable alike. Conspiracy is not a results business. It's an implication business, it's an innuendo business, and above all else, it's a talk, talk, talk business. Conspiracies eliminate accountability. Conspiracies rely on broad villains like the Government, the Corporations, the Media, and the most notorious of all, the "they". I've never heard Alex Jones describe his plan for the day after the revolution, or what this revolution even looks like. I've never understood what the Globalists' endgame really is. Total submission of every human on the planet? Okay, then what? It seems like such a petty end with no upside for all the work put in. It's all talk, and Alex Jones talks by the ton, and insomuch, he benefits from the perpetuation of the conspiracy as much as his invisible adversaries.

So...the conspiracy is the conspiracy? The concept is beautifully illustrated in a classic South Park episode, "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce," and it's well worth your 22 minutes. The underlying premise is all of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are created and dispensed by the US Government. Why would the government want its citizens to think it enacted 9/11? Because if they control everything, then people don't have to come to grips with the fact they don't control anything.

I'm not foolish enough to say false flag attacks and government sponsored black ops both large and small don't happen, but it's the exception and not the rule. There is a reason all of these historic examples ultimately come to light: people cannot keep their yaps shut. There are too many threads to keep subdued. You're telling me the impossible to tally conspirators in these elaborate plans are not gonna big mouth it to their friends? Even as a plan on paper some conspiracies seem viable, but when you remember a bunch of idiot humans have to execute said plan without a hitch, it's all a little unlikely. If you consider the sheer surface area of individuals expected to keep these nefarious plots under wraps, and it still seems believable, you have clearly never organized a surprise birthday party.

And if it's true, if the reach of this group is so thorough, so vast, what are we really gonna do? Keep talking? Got it.

Even the conspiracy as conspiracy implies a certain level of competence and cooperation from those at the top that it would actually be kind of refreshing if it were true. So, what then? After all the nonsense and paranoia is wicked away, the conspiracies deflated of their plausibility, what are we left with? The most sinister conspiracy of all: the conspiracy against ourselves.

Conspiracy theories are solipsism. Profound self-involvement, escapism, and exceptionalism trembling inside a version of truth so grossly devolved, it hardly resembles its namesake. Unable to accept such helplessness in the face of chaos, like children being gunned down in a random act of violence, the act has to have been perpetrated by a wicked cabal with unlimited power and resources. Disgusted with the facts, these facts become the lie, something only a select few have the willingness to see through. No matter how spurious the logic, these noble few know the real answers, and won't be fooled again . And in knowing these answers, perpetuating said truths is the only rebellion. No running for office, no effort to destroy this system from the inside, just tune in, talk, make a YouTube video, and rest easy knowing these efforts are the boldest kind of action--inaction. Impotent in a middling existence, crushed under the weight of ambitions unfulfilled, the results of this life couldn't be traced back to the one living it. It must be the work of some outside force who--with their limitless web of influence and coconspirators--have put the good few under prepetual assault. Because these people mean so much, they have to matter.

Perhaps I'm all wrong and right where the THEY want me. There are sleeper cells in every home. The gears within gears are convoluted by design to create further deception. Every politician is a puppet. Every corporation is in lockstep. The media is a singular entity bloated with the misinformation fed to them by the Globalist Decepticons. Or maybe, this executive board of seven white men who control everything really control only one thing--the most important thing of all--the critical inches between the ears ceded to them.