http://view.break.com/480012 - Watch more free videos

Anyone who knows me knows that I get into April Fools Day. I enjoy a good prank now and then. From going up to the ranch foreman and telling him that I'd chopped off my finger (a few months after he actually did chop off his finger) to convincing half of the people at the horse show that our grooms got deported on my way back to Austin from Houston, I've always taken pride in my 04/01 foolery.

Today before I left the office, I unplugged my coworker's keyboards from their CPUs. Genius!
I also came very close to inserting my SD card into one of my coworker's digital picture frames. But I decided against it, mainly because I know him to be a pretty vengeful dude who would probably retaliate by killing my goldfish or stealing my Red Bull tomorrow. We can't have that.

Anyone else doing pranks today? Either way, Happy April Fools Day!

Some of the most memorable experiences of my young adulthood have happened at the Travis County Exposition Center: horse shows, half marathons, the night I slept in a cardboard box to bring awareness to Ugandan displacement camps. That is either a testament to its functionality as a local meeting area or it merely speaks to the fact that it is basically a dump and rents for a relatively low cost. I will now add to the list of memorable, stressful, physically & emotionally draining events I have attended there: the Travis County Democratic Convention.

Unparalleled in its series of lines, perhaps challenged only by the esteemed Texas Treasure casino boat, we arrived at the intersection of Loyola & Decker Lane at around 7 AM today (about twelve hours later than we should have gotten there if we wanted to avoid a traffic jam).

There are not many things for which I will wake up before 11 AM on a Saturday -- these being bottomless mimosas, once-in-a-lifetime meteor showers and, when I was riding, a horse show. Evidently, a historic Democratic convention is equally worthwhile.

For as miserable as the lines were, it was pretty phenomenal to see die-hard Democrats streaming down two-lane roads in their hybrids, in Bush's proverbial backyard -- and given that the Expo Center is located in CD-10, it's safe to say we were flooding Democrats into Republican Congressman Mike McCaul's front porch as well.

He should be concerned by this.

Maybe it was the fact that I spent fifteen minutes explaining to a client how to fill out a TSA document yesterday. Or maybe it was the fact that Northwest flew a representative all the way from Chicago to walk around our building, talk to us for ten minutes about his dog, and then go back to Chicago on Tuesday, or maybe it's just that we are mired in a war that got kicked off in the name "terror."

But this picture just made me spit out my Red Bull laughing.


From the article (credit goes to $2 for sending this with the subject "Was this you?" -- for the record, that is a resounding NO):

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

My favorite part of the photo is the concerned woman in the pink suit and pearl earrings and the obvious disdain she has on her face.

Mandi's momma always said she'd go far!

I swear I haven't been drinking and I'm not dyslexic (at least, I don't think I am). But this headline on Swing State Project almost made me drop my laptop.


Don't ever leave me, Mr. Mayor!

I don't know why but I found this video of Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to be kind of amusing (thanks to the Statesham political blog for the link). Also, somewhat corny. But that is his namesake, so I guess I can't hold it against the guy too much.



I'm always kind of tickled when people of authority and/or people who have nothing to do with blogging mention bloggers. Although whoever filmed that video should have been notified that the American flag protruding from Cornyn's skull makes him look like a Conehead having a birthday party. He should go back to Remulak (thank you trivia tidbit I learned last night).

You're welcome, Corny. That's the nicest thing I have to say about you. See you around teh interwebs!

This morning the Sox played their season opener against the A's in Tokyo ('cause that's where baseball reigns supreme, duh). Austin's own Huston Street was there to save the day...for the Sox at least. He gave up the game-tying home run to Brandon Moss in the ninth inning, which subsequently led to the Sox's 6-5 victory over the A's.

Thanks for the win, Huston! You were always a pompous asshole in economics, but then again, who wasn't in high school!

Today intentionally left blank out of respect for the 4,000 killed and those who wait for their return.

Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers
Riding triumphantly laureled to lap the fat of the years,
Rather the scorned -- the rejected -- the men hemmed in with spears;

The men in tattered batallion which fights till it dies,
Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,
The men with the broken heads and blood running into their eyes.

Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne,
Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown,
But the lads who carried the hill and cannot be known.

Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth,
The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; --
Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and the scum of the earth!

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;
Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.
Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold --

Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tale be told. Amen.

- John Masefield
"A Consecration"

Amen.

Little Woodrow's on West 6th gets a Little Sense of Humor on Friday night, challenging its caddy-corner neighbor, Star Bar, to a sign war. Too bad Star Bar doesn't have a sign.


1) Who here is a Cancer? (I have synergy with Cancers)
2) Who thought Saddam Hussein shouldn't have been hanged? (Three people raised their hands but I took the girl whose hand went up first -- she became "Saddam.")
3) Who's voting for Obama? (We called him Obama)
4) Who cried during The Notebook? (No one raised their hand, so I had to say "Okay, who has seen The Notebook?" The guy who raised his hand ended up being our MVP and we called him Notebook the whole time).
5) Who enjoyed the TV show "The Nanny?" (Again, no hands, so I picked the first guy who admitted to having watched it)
6) Who's been to Switzerland? (This guy was very fair and balanced)
6) The last guy we just called "Default."

I think those were all my questions, someone remind me if I'm leaving something out. Anyway, if you've never chosen your teammates based off of their ideology, I highly recommend it. We killed.

Dear CNN "Breaking News" Updates,

At first, I cared.

-- The State Department says security on Barack Obama's passport file has been breached, campaign officials tell CNN.

Then I watched three hours of MSNBC and got my fix. Okay, we get it. File was breached. Several months ago. The world kept turning. I got my Obama plates, what do I care?

-- Hillary Clinton's passport file was breached in 2007, Secretary of State Rice told Clinton, according to the senator's office.

Hills had her passport breached?
That's what he said.

-- The State Department confirms John McCain's passport file was breached as well as Obama and Clinton's files.

Okay, McCain? That's just foul.

Stop sending me these lascivious updates about people having their files breached! Let me know when they break into Brad Womack's.

In surrender of my homeland security,

MeanRachel
Celebrating Passport File Breaches Since 1984

I just wanted to take the time, on the 5th anniversary of the occupation (not a war -- we declared mission accomplished long ago) in Iraq, to say thanks to everyone who took the time to submit MeanRachel.com as a write-in candidate for Austin360's A-List: Best Local Blogger.

I had not checked the backlog of write-in votes, but have since added them. I apologize for the error. A nod of the cap to Rachel Farris of MeanRachel.com, who received enough write-in votes to finish 4th in the voting. Congrats.
-Matthew Odam / Austin360

MeanRachel.com received 4% of the vote against the rest of the balloted candidates, most of whom are blogging on corporate blogs around town. When it comes to lonely, ranting lushes with a penchant for Billy Joel and cats, you people really know your stuff. At least, 4 percent of you do.

I'd also like to thank George W. Bush because if it wasn't for his quagmire in Iraq, I wouldn't have spent the last seventeen months honing my blogging skills. You know what they say about idle hands: they make blogs. Tony Snow would be proud.

We're only going to go up from here, people! I'm just one local Bachelor away from fame now.

The British are coming and they've brought not only a new Bachelor (hello Matt Grant, do you have any bars I can patronize?) but also a professional football team.

'Cross-the-pond football, that is.

This past weekend when I was bemoaning the lack of a professional baseball team, someone jokingly mentioned that we might instead get a professional soccer team.

The fact that I said "Why the hell would we do that? Soccer sucks unless you're playing it," and everyone agreed with me does not bode well for the new Austin professional soccer team, the Austin Aztex. Granted we might have Zilker Park and endless amounts of soccer games going on every weekend, but I think that has more to do with our proximity to the equator and the amount of SUV's Austinite's tool around in.

Imagine my shock and awe tonight when I saw a news story on the Chronicle about how the Aztex tryouts were going. Uh-huh. I bet they are going fantastic. I'm sure we have plenty of people trying out -- but who the hell is going to attend these games?

Evidently the team is backed by Phil Rawlins, owner of Stoke City FC (that stands for Football Club, people). The website for Stoke City currently is offering a 50% off sale on their hot soccer players. Or something. Rawlins apparently decided to come toss around his sterling in Central Texas, thinking he might actually make a profit. Sorry, Rawlins. If the indoor football team can barely make it, I'm not sure how well the British football team is going to do.

Also, I'll just say this last final piece before I go stare at my Josh Beckett World Series limited-edition poster and sob: The Aztex? What limey came up with that? Did they not know that we have absolutely no Aztecs in Texas? This is like when we celebrate Columbus Day, when we really should be mourning the slaughter and repression of Native Americans.

And how about your logo design? A pyramid (of which we have none) with the Dallas Stars logo superimposed on it does not a new logo make.


Seriously, my UK friends -- loved you in Love, Actually but please stick to what you're good at: dopey-eyed male actors and tunnel building. We'll stick to the Lend-Lease and sports teams.

Update: Eye on Williamson posted a rather timely entry today about whether Texans should be worried about the economy (um, yes). -mr

Flint, Michigan we may not yet be, but I've started to notice something in the wake of last season's layoffs at GSD&M's Idea City: West 6th Street is a little quieter these days.

First I just thought it was my imagination --after the advertising powerhouse's mid-December layoffs, the crowds at Molotov and Key Bar seemed to thin out, but I assumed it was more due to holiday travel and cooler temperatures.

Then, through the early months of 2008, I noticed that even the upstairs deck at Union Park actually afforded one room to move around and sit down -- something that was relatively unheard of in the golden days of GSD&M's heyday. GSD&M's primo location at 6th and Lamar, Austin's equivalent to Times Square, encouraged their young, single employees to teeter on their heels down West 6th after a long day in front of their iMacs. I always felt as though the West 6th area was like going back to high school -- my peers seemed to cordon off various areas, tables of similar-looking people appearing unimpressed and bored, cliques forming but under the new headers of "AT&T" girls and "BMW" execs and "they're just IT dudes." I knew a few people who worked there and subsequently got a somewhat insider's look at the innerworkings of GSD&M -- just enough to be able to enjoy hearing the gossip and finding out who was hooking up with whom, but not enough for any of it affect me whatsoever.

I used to rant to anyone who would listen about GSD&M's (named after the founding partners, but jokingly referred to as "Greed, Sex, Drugs & Money" by employees) failure to drug test their employees. Out of all of the businesses in the world that should drug test, I thought a young advertising firm -- if they knew what was good for the company -- would. I thought it was an injustice to their employees that they didn't. The petri dish of sex, drugs and Photoshop that GSD&M employees lived in on a day-to-day basis seemed like a breeding ground for some of the problems I heard about, long before the layoffs came: once successful employees no longer keeping their eye on the goal, too busy getting high and leaving at 3 PM for an early happy hour. With this sort of ground-floor workforce, it's no wonder they lost some of their biggest clients (AT&T to name one).

But GSD&M wanted to stay young and hip, the foundation falling to perhaps the same fate as the founding partners who make up the acclaimed acronym. All that is gold is doomed to fade. GSD&M became a company going through a mid-life crisis -- that awkward uncle who starts bleaching his hair and wearing velour track suits because that's what the younger kids do.

Last night when I was on West 6th for St. Patrick's Day, I expected the street to be rife with drunken fashion plates, the usual platinum-blonde sorority girls who make up the freshman class of media planners each year at the company. A year ago around SXSW I remember talking to GSD&Mers atwitter about mandatory carpooling and the crunch on parking. But in drizzle and fog of the evening, there seemed a demur calm, a void of Balenciaga bags and bubble skirts so frequently found draped across galvanized outdoor seating. Maybe they're all trying to find jobs; maybe they've allocated their bar tab toward some other expense; maybe they just patronize bars closer to home. Whatever the case, a demographic is missing. The veterans are still there, buying Goose on the rocks and talking to the owners of the bars, some of them partners at the firm itself. But those who were hit in the layoffs have scattered.

My last look, as I walked down 6th Street to my car, was a glimpse of the darkened GSD&M, it's once urban architecture now outdated and so...Clinton-era, if you will. I noticed for the first time that the post-layoff name change had officially taken place and the new monochromatic "Idea City" had taken front and center stage. I couldn't help but stare skeptically at the new name, feeling somewhat like Jerry in Seinfeld when he asks Kramer to defend his crazy notions. "It's all up here," Kramer says, pointing at his disheveled nest of hair with wide-eyed desperation. The advertising agency formerly known as GSD&M may reinvent itself, but it's going to take more than a slick name change to convince me that they're back on top. They may be full of ideas but one of them obviously wasn't how to retain major accounts.

I'm going to have to start a support group for Austinites -- I'm talking real Austinites -- who don't like these pseudo-festivals coming through town. Hell, next year I might even host an AASX (Austinites Against South By) party.

I'll go ahead and fill in those of you who just happened to waltz into the city within the last five years or so. SXSW was originally a spin-off of the Austin Battle of the Bands and eventually morphed into what was supposed to be an industry gathering. Read that again: industry gathering.

A handful of showcase artists -- again, emphasis on showcase -- would come to our city, gain exposure, play their shows, and then, as I like to say, GTFO. Perhaps a few record labels would send their reps down here to check them out and maybe even some serious music fans would travel for the event, but at the end of the day, SXSW was a quiet affair that up until three or four years ago, really didn't seem to affect the day-to-day lives of Austinites.

What SXSW was not supposed to be was a bunch of guitar-strumming jam bands being crammed into the back rooms of restaurants and hotels, charging cover or asking for the elusive wristbands/badges (who the hell keeps up with the wristband/badge hierarchy anyway?). When you have over 1400 artists vying for attention over the span of four days and several hundred venues, you kind of lose the meaning and weight of the word "showcase." The only show I actually wanted to go to (Ingrid Michaelson & Sara Bareilles, two fantastic female piano player/singer-songwriters who played at The Parish on Thursday night) didn't even let you buy tickets -- you had to have a wristband or badge. Why? I have no idea. And frankly, once I realized that, I didn't care to go anymore.

SXSW may be a huge economy booster but it has lost its roots. The industry feel of the festival went by the way of thousands of tourists coming to town for the sole purpose of buying cowboy boots and strolling the streets, throwing their hot dog wrappers on the ground, drinking to excess, monopolizing restaurants, bars and cabs, and generally crippling the already stymied flow of pedestrian & vehicle traffic.

I don't like the people it brings to town and I don't like the all-encompassing, love-thy-fellow-smelly-beer-stained-neighbor, asshole to elbow faux-quality scene it begs to create. Quality music can be found any night in Austin -- and most of the time, for free and with more accessibility than the shows at SXSW. Good films roll through here so often I hardly pay attention anymore. Industry parties are a dime a dozen if you know where to look.

And if you're just there for the free booze, trying to pick up a warm Miller High Life where you can because you RSVPed a week in advance, then you've got the very essence of what SXSW was supposed to be completely wrong.

Jesus, if you want a free drink just stand around J. Black's long enough looking bored. I guarantee you'll get your money's worth -- and you don't need a wristband.

With all of the SXSW excitement by proxy, this is the first time since Thursday I've had a chance to take inventory on the last few days. Let's see, where did we leave off.

Thursday

Went out with $2 and the usual suspects to see one of $2's Greenwich friends, Stephen Kellog & the Sixers, play at Thirsty Nickel (or Uncle Flirty's, depending on who you ask) on 6th. The band was good although I got distracted talking to a really abrasive lawyer who tried to give me his business card about five times. He asked me several questions about my life, where I was from, what I did for a living, why I was so bitter, etc. and every time I answered "Unimportant." This is my new favorite response to a conversation I don't want to have! I suggest all women try it.


We then walked over to Stephen F. Austin Hotel bar to see a friend of ours, Maggie Walters, do her showcase. I always associate the hotel with the 2006 election results watch party, and I couldn't help but reflect on what a different world I am now in, nearly two years later. We ended up catching the performer just prior to her named Magic Arm. Magic Arm was actually just one dude from Manchester, England who was basically a loopmaster, recording his music as he played it live, and then looping the tracks over one another. He had a British accent which immediately made him sound more legitimate and I could pretend he was the guy from Once so that was good. He also was just about impossible to take a picture of.


After that, we walked allll the way to 2nd Street in an attempt to go to a party at the Austin Children's Museum. We apparently were not wearing enough skinny jeans and hair product to get in, and only half of the group managed to get in. After watching one of the girls we were with nearly get cut in half when some twenty year-old hipster in a black and white houndstooth hoodie slammed the door to keep her from coming in, I decided I'd had enough of the pretentiousness of the SXSW demographic and decided that if I wanted to hang around pretentious assholes, I'd go to The Marq, thankyouverymuch. At least they let me in there.

Friday

Bootcamp buddy Singing Banana was having her birthday party at Playland Skate Center (yes, that would be her twenty-ninth birthday party) and so I headed out there after work. There are some hilarious pictures of this night captured on Chels' camera somewhere but the turnaround on getting these might be a bit slow.

Let's just say that I have a hard enough time balancing on my own two feet, let alone on eight wheels with little children flying by all around me. You can't beat skating rinks for their soundtracks, though. I've never heard such a great succession of music from the 80s, 90s, and today.

I also had the wonderful task of picking up Gingy on the corner of "somewhere and somewhere" at about 11:30 PM, which she so kindly chronicled on her blog. Sometimes being the DD absolutely sucks, but surely this will all come back to me in the form of karma someday.

Saturday

Yesterday the weather was freaking amazing and as much as I wanted to sit by the pool, I didn't. I actually sat on the patio for quite a while, baking in the sun. There is really nothing better than the first heat wave of the year. And all the SXSWers who melted on the streets can pack it up and go back to wherever you came from.
In the evening I went to the Austin Symphony to see Andre Watts play. You might recall me attempting to win tickets on the easy-listening station a month or so ago. Well, I didn't ever win tickets but I decided I was going to go anyway.
The symphony was held at Riverbend Church, one of Austin's most notorious mega-churches and made famous by the Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey wedding. The venue itself kind of sucked, we basically sat in pews. In fact it was the last symphony performance there before they move to their permanent home at the new Long Center for the Performing Arts, which opens in two weeks. The symphony patrons seemed quite glad when Peter Bay said "This is our last performance here at Riverbend," as this garnered a round of applause that seemed more like them saying "Good riddance."
Andre Watts was absolutely amazing. I've got a lot of learning left to do. He played Saint Saens' Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, entirely from memory and with an almost athletic air. My favorite part was paying attention to the various tics he'd developed as a way of keeping time -- sometimes it would be his left foot stomping, at other times he'd take his right foot off the pedal and tap his toe, at one point he was literally bouncing up and down on the bench. All three movements were really incredible, and his performance garnered a standing ovation from the crowd. He played on a Steinway exactly like the one I played at my recital last month -- it was cool to think about how the keys felt and how a piano like that practically plays itself just at the slightest touch.

Sunday

Today I woke up, practiced my piano (Andre Watts here I come!) and then went to the UT-Kansas baseball game. My BOS contingent will be happy to hear I sported my Sox hat, and anyone from Kansas will be happy to hear that Kansas won 7-2. Kansas won the battle but lost the war, as it was a 3 part series and UT won the first two games. It was a good day for baseball -- cool, overcast and breezy -- and if anything else made me excited for MLB to start up!


Now I just have to find somewhere to watch the games because I found out that my usual haunt, Ringer's, was shut down due to (wait for it!) taxes. Bar owners of Austin: If you don't pay your taxes, the IRS will shut you down. Seems pretty simple. Anyway, maybe someone knows of a good sports bar with, perhaps more importantly, a good accountant. Let me know if you do.

Had dinner at El Chile, which made me intensely want a prickly pear margarita. I then drove through downtown Austin, surveying the crowds still lingering on 6th Street. I made a pass by the IC, forlornly boarded up and covered with fliers advertising various bands. I've been thinking about taking a picture of it but honestly it's the most depressing thing you'll ever see, so instead I just drive by it regularly, wondering when they'll finally take the sign down.

The exodus from Austin continues -- everywhere I went, groups of shaggy-haired kids goth and punk-rock kids were dragging themselves home, no doubt wiped out from the SXSW weekend events, attempting to hitch rides in beds of pick up trucks and seeking reprieve inside Whole Foods. SXSW seemed to really turn into its own beast this year, and I'm happy to see it thunder the hell out of here.

Now it's a quiet, cloudy spring evening. It's a time of year that always reminds me of baked potatoes and an extra hour swinging on the swing set, in the backyard of my childhood home on the corner of Barton Springs and Lamar; the sound of cicadas and rear-end collisions providing a happy soundtrack to what I consider to be quintessential Austin.

Dear Austin,

I love you. You are amazing. You allow all of these out-of-towners in for SXSW and say "Fine, come drink for free and crowd my streets and listen to live music from all around the world." And not only that. You throw the curtains open, reveal endless crystalline blue skies, and shine sun and 90 degree heat down over everything, in the process saying, "Who's the live music capital of the world now?"

I wouldn't trade you for all the silk in China. Or all of the Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Or all the big apples in New York. Or all the beaches in California.

That is all.

My OBAMA plates are now on my car. I had to put them on at work today because my life, while replete with tools when it comes to the male species, is devoid of actual tools used for working with metal. My commute home today will be the maiden voyage. I am wondering what will happen...should be interesting to see if anyone drives off the road/throws things at me/lets me cut in front of them in the ATM line. I will report back my findings when I get home.


Incidentally, we had a financial adviser come and talk to us today at work. As he was leaving he pointed at them and said "I am a Republican but I actually voted for him because I think he's going to change things."

Outstanding! Now let me sign up for that IRA.

And you guys thought I was kidding!

My license plates were finally ready (a month after I ordered them) and so I sent $2 down to Nelda Wells Spears' office (holla-atchur-tax-assessor!) to pick them up today, otherwise I would never get a chance to go get them. In order for him to pick them up on my behalf, I had to give him a limited power of attorney which originally I thought meant he could pull the plug on me a la Terry Schaivo if I ever became a vegetable, but it turns out that all he could do is change the title on my car. Bummer.

To answer some frequently asked questions, YES this is a real, legit plate and YES I will be putting it on my car. First I have to buy some Allen screws which will deter theft. Because everyone wants an Obama plate.

Yes we can drive with out road rage! Yes we can make it down Mopac at 5:30 without having a panic attack! Yes we can try to change our oil every 3000 miles but fail miserably because we're females! Yes we can be suckered into buying a new air filter every time!

I went to new restaurant tonight called The Rio Grande on 3rd and San Jacinto with some people I met in the campaign. To make The Rio Grande, they gutted the old "Real World: Austin" house (circa 2005) and turned it into a rather eclectic, hodgepodge joint with some throwbacks to the days when drunk 24 year-olds lived in it. The outside of the building is still the same tangerine-orange color and they kept the infamous "Big Tex" neon figure in the main entrance. Everything else seems more or less redone, and it's almost as if they just picked up as much crap on South Congress shops as they could and threw it up: deer-antler chandeliers, hand-painted tables, lovely rich wooden floors.
They even kept the Real World indoor swimming pool, or at least part of it (it's hard to tell), and tossed a plastic kayak in it. You don't get any more weird-Austin than that I guess.
Our chips seemed rather stale, although they claim they make them fresh and they just didn't have a chance to dry out. I liked the fact that they were at least thin and they definitely held promise. The menu was pretty run-of-the-mill Mexican food. My spinach enchiladas (which the waitress said was her favorite dish) were good, made with blue-corn tortillas, but not exactly earth-shaking. I'm told (sigh) their margaritas were excellent.
There were lots of SXSW hipsters in town and I kept my eyes peeled all night for celebs, but everyone sort of had the C-list-"I just finished filming a documentary" look about them.
On our way out the door, we couldn't resist stopping for a photo-op with Big Tex, since he was the only actual celebrity there, having witnessed first-hand the Real World debauchery.

It's not a bad location and they have some nice outdoor seating along San Jacinto. There was no wait, which was a definite plus and I think they will pick up a lot of Iron Cactus overflow. Worth checking out if you just want to be able to go inside the old Real World house, or just want to see what they have to offer when it comes to spinach enchiladas.

Our night concluded with our quartet singing "Uptown Girl" karaoke at Shakespeare's to a crowd of random hipsters and Texas Justice fans. This is what happens when Tuesday trivia shuts down for two weeks. People get hurt; people are forced to listen to me sing.

The March OPEN TAB came out this week. The irony in writing about bars while on a sobriety kick never ceases to make me snicker.

Company's coming!


Next month's edition: It's April so it's time to sit outside. here are the bars & clubs with the best outdoor seating scenes.

I'm taking suggestions, too! It can be any bar/club in Texas.

My first opportunity to vote was the following year, in the 2002 Gubernatorial Election, when Sanchez made a halfhearted attempt to beat Gubna Rick Perry-Sassoon. I went with my mom to vote in our neighborhood and I remember standing in line waiting for the polls to open. We were in line with about six Republican men who thought it was really something that they were in the presence of a first-time voter. I might as well have been in line with six Rush Limbaughs, with Dr. Laura sitting on my shoulder as my conscience. They asked me who I planned to vote for and in the moment that I hesitated, my mom said "We're yellow-dog democrats!" and slung her arm over my shoulder. I remember being mortified, completely embarrassed to be called out in front of these men who were so clearly conservative. The tone of the voting line changed entirely, the men suddenly stopped grinning and chatting with us, and I remember being conflicted. I was thinking like a high schooler: Do I vote Republican, out of spite for my mom for having called me out in front of all of these people, or do I vote Democrat because these men turned their backs on me?
I was in the polling booth and there I stood, trying to decide which lever to pull, so to speak. And then I remembered James Carville. And even though his wife was a Republican, I remembered thinking that any party that could value labor was a party I wanted to be a part of. I voted Democrat that day, and never looked back.

As I have spent the last two months and nine days (but who's counting?) sober bar-hopping, I have had a long -- dare I say, longneck -- time to observe drunken people, particularly men. And I'm starting to lose my patience. Now, I am known to be a hyper-observant person by nature, always noting the people and places where I go, with an uncanny memory of that one random guy with the green beanie who worked at the Bestwurst two years ago that handed me a rap CD along with the steaming bun of sauerkraut and beef. Bestwurst will not remember me when two years later, sans beanie, I run into him in the lobby of a hotel, but I am used to this kind of awkward encounter and delve into it without hesitation.

However, even my keen memory can fall victim to the wonders of alcohol, and so many times over the last two years of my life, A.A. (After Alcohol), these observances have come and gone. I've found myself remembering bits and pieces of things that happen between the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM, but for the most part, all I remember are the clothes I wore (thank you, digital cameras), the type of drinks I ordered (damn you vodka soda) and the cab driver who took me home.

Sober bar hopping is somewhat on par with eating at an Applebee's: you know you really don't belong there, everyone looks about ten minutes away from having their soul purchased by Satan and placed tenderly in a trashbag, and you sort of mirthlessly sip from your glass of water noticing random things that never have crossed your mind before. In an Applebee's, it usually is "Wow, I never noticed these chairs had wheels on them," or "Say, that guy has a gun tucked in his sock," (true story). In a bar, the details range from "I wonder why they never bothered to paint the ceiling" to "That man bears a striking resemblance to Gene Kelly."

People say that there's such a thing as a mean drunk, but I honestly believe that I am an incredibly mean sober person. My low-tolerance for the boring/pseudo-intellectual/overtly religious/self-serving deviant/hipster men who a girl might come across on a night of drinking is even lower when my drink of choice is water. Let's take Mute, for example. I gave him my blog address, so with luck he was able to hear it and will come find this sage advice.

Dear Mute,

Great meeting you last night. And by great I mean not at all interesting but I will remember it forever because that is what I do, not because you were at all worth remembering. I have some advice for you, though.
The next time you go to a concert -- I'm sorry, "a show" -- and you lose your voice, you might want to stay at home the following night. Or maybe you can go out but you should really rethink your game plan. What I would not recommend is that you go out to The Marq, the loudest possible bar in town that even my deaf Great Aunt Sylvia would walk through the front door of, glance around her while looking somewhat disoriented and say, "Why is it so loud in here?" Furthermore, I would not recommend you go to The Marq with the intention of picking up girls. Should you approach girls, I would not recommend your first words out of your mouth to be "I've lost my voice" in a scratchy, barely-audible whisper that makes said girls look up at you and go "WHAT?"
Should you get past the initial phase of announcing to the girls that you have lost your voice, at a decibel that only my cat Chubby Charles could hear, I would just like to explain to you how incredibly annoying it is to expect that girl to continue to talk to you when the only way you can converse is by having her lip read your words. I have never had to lip-read someone's name "Joshua" and, frankly, I never want to again. To have you earnestly expect me to want to talk to you after that makes absolutely no sense. Do not keep tapping me on the shoulder, pointing at your mouth and then mouthing out the words "You look bored." Damn right I'm bored! I'm stuck in a corner, unable to escape a boring conversation made even more boring by the fact that you cannot talk.

Toodles!
MR

Secondly, another gripe: I know we have discussed this on here before but WHEN OH WHEN will you men learn! Do not come up to a patron of a bar and say "Smile!" or "Why aren't you smiling?" or "Give me a smile!" I am not here to entertain your ass! Go to a strip club! Go talk to a bartender and maybe they'll smile. Until you're giving me a five spot for smiling, I ain't smiling. And to answer your question, I wasn't smiling because I was having a ten minute conversation with a mute named Joshua that was about ten minutes too long.

Given these recent observations, I would just like to say that I probably should stay out of bars for the remainder of the month. If people bumped into me, I would elbow them in the side. I felt like I was in a herd of horses, all of them either just trampling over you or not getting out of your way. Sober bar-hopping, in a word, sucks.

Meanwhile, the Fox & Hound is officially a pile of rubble. It is true poetic justice that this establishment, the place of many happy memories with Captain Asshat & Co. and one horrible fall down a flight of stairs, be completely demolished. I'm glad that God -- or the City Planner, whomever makes those decisions -- finally got on board. No business is safe. They didn't even bother to salvage the blinds.


I really can't wait until April 1st so I can resume not remembering any of this.

I am going to need to log more than five hours of sleep before I'm able to do any sort of actual writing. I think I am still running off of adrenaline and caffeine. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures from the volunteer appreciation party tonight and my Pulitzer Prize-winning captions.

This is a great chance to meet Larry and the staff. If you live in District 10, you'll get the chance to meet your new Democratic Congressional candidate. And more importantly, see where I've been hiding the last three months!

I got nine hours of sleep last night and knocked back a Red Bull -- I'm ready to celebrate!

---

Dear Volunteers & Supporters of Larry Joe Doherty:

On Tuesday night, we witnessed the result of the hard work Larry Joe’s supporters and volunteers have put in over the last few months. Primary voters endorsed Larry Joe by an overwhelming margin in all eight CD-10 counties -- earning 61% of the Democratic primary vote. This victory could not have been possible without the time, dedication, and involvement of all of Larry Joe's volunteers and interns. Your generosity with your time and support has led to this exciting victory. For that, we cannot thank you enough!

I would like to formally thank you for your efforts by inviting you to join us tomorrow, March 6, 2008, at Austin HQ. Please come as we celebrate your hard work over the past months, and our shared victory on Tuesday night.

When: Thursday, March 6, 2008
Time: 7:30 PM
Where: Austin Campaign Headquarters
3563 Far West Blvd, Suite 104
Austin, TX 78731
(the rear of the shopping center, behind the CVS)

I hope you can join us Thursday evening. If you are not able to make it, please stay in touch with the campaign to learn about future opportunities to visit with Larry Joe. Give us a call anytime, and we'll be touching base with you too as the campaign progresses.

Thank you again for making this victory possible!

Democratically yours,

Andy Kabza
Campaign Manager
Larry Joe Doherty for Congress
(512) 345-5270
www.larryjoe.com

I sure do. I've been at the LJD campaign office since 6:30 PM today, and have spent the last several hours transcribing directions to various precincts all over Austin for when we put up signs in the morning...or later tonight...or today...wait. What day is it? Where am I?

It's March 4, that's all I know! It's a great day to be a part of Texas history and vote in this election. Don't forget to vote today between the hours of 7 AM and 7 PM (as if you could forget)! If you live in North Austin, keep your eye out for the LJD signs -- you just might see a certain MeanRachel.

Well I spent the better half (and by better half I mean most of the daylight hours) of this weekend walking around Austin & Pflugerville dropping GOTV lit for the LJD campaign. Yesterday was particularly brutal and I only know that because my cousin who helped me is also crippled. We covered a metric assload of streets.
I am getting really antsy about the election night and about one vodka soda away from writing an angry diatribe about Texas politics, but it's too close to the election to stir the pot. So instead I am going to tell everyone what happened here at the Barnett-Farris/Farris-Barnett residence on Friday night.

---

I have a pretty standard schedule. From the minute I get home until 10 PM, I practice my piano. I got home at around 9:15 on Friday evening after going to watch Dave play. So naturally I played the piano for about forty-five minutes, took a shower, wrote a blog and then hit the hay. This was at about 1:11 AM, which I remember distinctly because I had to get up at 8 AM to make my piano lesson that I had stupidly scheduled for 9:30 AM on a Saturday.

Some of you may not know that I am a borderline insomniac. Perhaps insomniac is the wrong word. I am someone who operates off of a very, very small amount of sleep. I choose quality over quantity however and when I do sleep, it is on. I have ear plugs and a sleeping mask that I put on and I rack out; God himself cannot wake me until my alarm goes off in my ear.

So imagine my rather sudden awakening when I hear "Austin Police Department!" and another loud noise. Immediately I pull off the eye mask and look at the clock. 2:39 AM. Okay, I think. I've only been asleep for an hour and a half, what could have happened? Then I see that under my bedroom door there are flashlights swirling around. Shit! I turn on the light, leap up, and go into my closet to put on some clothes. As I am doing this, the police come into my room.
From here, I am going to refer to these two goons as Good Cop and Bad Cop.

Bad Cop: "Come out of the closet!"
Me: "Uhmmm...I'm putting on clothes!"
Bad Cop: "Just come out! Cover yourself!"
Me: "Uhm....okay..." I make a very half-hearted, half-asleep effort to do so and step out of the closet.
Bad Cop: "Okay put something on." I guess the show was over.
I come back out.
Bad Cop: "Have a seat!"
Me: "Ok." I sit down on my bed, still holding my earplugs.
The Good Cop meanwhile has turned on every light in my apartment and is roaming around, looking in every room.
Bad Cop: "Are you the only one in here?"
Me: "Um...I think so?"
Good Cop: "Where's your roommate, there's another room in here."
Me: "Ummm...I don't think she's coming home tonight, is everything okay?"
Bad Cop: "That's what we're trying to figure out. So do you have anyone else in here with you?"
Me: "Not that I know of."
Bad Cop: "Then why wouldn't you let us in?"
Me: "I was...sleeping? And I couldn't hear you?" I offer my earplugs as proof.

This goes on for a few more minutes, the Bad Cop interrogating me while Good Cop rummages around. Bad Cop eventually explains that they had received a call saying that there was a domestic disturbance and a "man and a woman's voice were heard yelling." I told him that I had been asleep since 1 AM and, again, earplugs, you asshole.
Bad Cop starts asking me if I have a boyfriend, if I had brought someone home and had a fight with them and then they left, if I would have been arguing with someone else. I kept saying "No" to everything. Bad Cop then actually looks under my bed and says "Do you have anything other than a cat?" The way he said it was as if he was saying "Do you have any concealed hand guns?"
Maybe it was the fact that he was pointing out my lonely lifestyle or the fact that he was STANDING IN MY FUCKING BEDROOM AT 3 AM, but I suddenly snapped out of it and said "How did you get in here, is the lock all messed up now or something?"
'The door was wide open."
"What?"
"Yeah it was open."
At that point I started to wonder if perhaps there had been a break-in and there was someone in my apartment. Good Cop came back in and asked for my driver's license while Bad Cop went around and looked for the elusive "male." Trust me, officer, this place is like the Serengeti. In the entire year I have lived here, I've had one male in my apartment and that was Captain Asshat for two weeks. And look how well that turned out.
While Good Cop takes my information down, I ask him how the door was wide open because our front door slams shut every time. You have to literally prop it open with something very heavy to keep it open. Good Cop says "Well it was ajar, like it didn't shut completely." Ajar. The one time I somehow forget to lock my door and the cops come.

Eventually Bad Cop satisfies himself that I am unequivocally alone (+1 cat) and comes back into my room where I am still sitting on my bed like some crack addict in an episode of Cops. Keep in mind I don't have my contacts in, so these guys very well could have just been random people dressed in black, as I cannot see their faces or their actual uniforms.

Bad Cop: "Now you understand why we had to come in here tonight?"
Me: "Yeah I guess."
Bad Cop: "We just wanted to make sure you were safe and that there wasn't something bad going on in here, so this wasn't a violation in any way of your civil rights."
Me: "Mhmm." And Captain Asshat was an honest person.
Bad Cop: "Okay, so we want you to follow us to the door and lock it behind us."
Me: "Okay." I stand up and then it was like the moment in A Few Good Men where Tom Cruise's character asks Jack Nicholson's character for the transfer orders for the victim to be transferred off the base. "I'm just going to need your card."



Bad Cop whips around. "Why would you need my card?"
Me: "Oh, I don't know, maybe in case I have a problem?"
Bad Cop: "If you have a problem you can call 911."
Me: "Okay, maybe problem was the wrong word...a question?"
Bad Cop: "Do you have any questions for me right now?"
Me: "No but I'm kind of out of it." BECAUSE I WAS ASLEEP. "I might tomorrow though."
Bad Cop: "Well I don't have any cards on me."
Me: "Does he?" Motioning to Good Cop.
Good Cop: "No."
Me: "Well I need something to reference this incident with."
Bad Cop: "Okay, well let me go to the squad car and see if I have something."
He comes back up a few minutes later and hands me a card with his information and the case number. "And just so you know," he says, "this will be recorded as a disturbance not a domestic dispute."
Me: "Okay."

A disturbance? Do you mean the disturbance you caused on my deep sleep?

Last night, Man Shac, who works for State Rep. Solomon Ortiz, Jr., invited me to go with him to the Texas Democratic Women's awards banquet & dinner. After a long day of dropping lit for the LJD campaign, I was kind of concerned that the event was going to be a bunch of boring women sipping tea.
Not so. All of the women there were empowered, quick-witted trailblazers who have done some serious groundwork for the younger generations. One of them, Anne Mauzy, gave a hilarious and poignant speech for her friend Joanne Jenkins who was the recipient of one of the lifetime achievement awards. When Mauzy first got in front of the podium, she reached into a bag and pulled out a vibrant red scarf. "My friend Ann Richards always told me, 'You have to have some color around your face, otherwise you looked washed out in photos.'" After draping the scarf around her neck, she launched into a charming, pseudo-roast of the busy Joanne Jenkins. Jenkins then stood and advised women never to sell themselves short, citing an instance where, as Chairman of the Ellis County Democratic party, she had been trying to get through to a senator. His "gatekeeper" wouldn't let her get through on the line, so she called back and tried dropping her son's name. When that didn't work, she called back and tried dropping her husband's name. When even that didn't get her through to the senator, she called back and said "I'm JoAnn Jenkins and I'm the Chairman of the Ellis County Democratic party." The operator immediately put her through. Her message: Don't tell them who your children are, don't tell them who your husbands are, tell them who you are.


Boyd Richie was the recipient of the Oscar Mauzy Lifetime Achievement Award and also gave a stirring speech on the potential impact of Texas democrats this election year. After hearing Richie talk about the astounding numbers for Harris county voters in early voting (over 170,000 democrats voted early, in Harris County alone), I couldn't help but feel somewhat proud that on some level, the phonebanking we have been doing in Harris county has finally paid off.


Afterwards a lot of us went out. We headed over to 219 to see Duc and then made our way to The Marq which had an obscene line out front. The Bachelor was kind enough to come let us all in, where I then attempted to get tipsy off of just inhaling Redbull & vodkas (didn't work). April 1st cannot come soon enough.

Tonight I made the rather daunting 5:30 PM trek from one side of Austin to the other -- all the way up to Pflugerville. The traffic gods were smiling upon me, though, and it wasn't miserable at all. The traffic was so eerily flowing and smooth that it had me wondering where everyone was. Voting on the last day of early voting, perhaps?

It takes a lot to get me to drive out to Pflugerville and the destination was a place called Merkaba Lounge, where DTP (don't understand the acronym? I'm glad you asked. Go here.) plays occasionally on Friday nights. I met up with Cashmoney and her husband. While I was waiting for them I couldn't help but reflect on how different everything has become -- I mean, here I was in Pflugerville, for chrissakes.

Nevertheless, no sooner had the first chord in Purple Rain been struck did I feel more at ease. Mr. Habitz-to-the-reuther was kind/patronizing/secure in his man hood enough to do the electric slide with me...to a rendition of "I Will Survive" sung by a random audience member named Michelle (The Dave & Michelle Show? No thanks) who actually had a decent voice.

I also entertained myself by making various requests (written in pen on scraps of paper I found in my purse) for DTP to play. We threw in some favorites (Beastie Boys, The Outfield, Journey) and then put some not-so-common classics down. Like "Kenny Luna Is a Douche" (that one got a laugh out of DTP) and "Any Vanessa Carlton" (that was immediately rejected).

While we were there we had the opportunity to discuss the potential booking of a Dave & Joe Show event at Merkaba, to celebrate April birthdays as well as a sort of going away event for E-dub's impending PCS move to Kentucky (of all places, Kentucky, E-dub? Really?). So I am going to immediately begin trying to pull it off. We don't want to shut the place down entirely for the night, we just want five solid hours of the good old days, in a public venue that serves liquor. I think we could draw quite a crowd. All you haters who never would go to the IC with me when it was open who now say that you wished you had will get your chance.