WAHHHHHHHH, it's late September, which means that here in Austin, it's time to get dirty, broke, and deaf. Friends, I'm talking about Austin City Limits Fest.
I have a love/hate relationship with the festival. I love the idea of it, this tremendous festival right down the road, and I love sharing this big experience with my friends and I love actually being there when I get a great seat for some unknown act that just stuns me (great example: Broken Social Scene in 2004). What I hate is a lot of the rest. I hate the dirtiness and the parking and the beer prices and the port-o-potties. Okay, I dislike a lot of things about the festival but I really only hate the beer prices and the port-o-potties.
I don't let rationality get in the way here, though; I've been every year and I'm not stopping any time soon. This year, I'm a groomsman in a wedding 200 miles away the night before. This is no mere wedding; this is the blessed union of Diddy and CB, where all have been encouraged to take off the training wheels and ensure that the alcohol fees don't go to waste. I'll be in a tuxedo. I sprained my MCL, but I'm determined to dance it up until the wee hours of the morning.
Clearly, I will not be in good shape that next morning. Does that stop me and Laura? No. We're like the crazy Kenyan in a marathon who sprains his ankle, vomits violently, and then wets himself at mile 13, but just keeps going to that finish line.
Okay, so we'll only be there on Sunday. I'm catching Okkervil River and Band of Horses. The rest of the day, there is no telling; I could very well get locked in one of those godforsaken port-o-potties for most of the afternoon. There is a good chance that the port-o-potty will be lit on fire while I'm inside of it, like last year (not that I was trapped, I was just an enthusiastic observer). And then, in the midst of putting the fire out, the fire dep't will probably knock the port-o-potty on its side.
Would that affect me going next year? It would not. As I get older, I get fewer chances to hoist the flag, and enjoy myself and excellent music in a reckless, possibly unsanitary fashion. The changes I get, I plan to capitalize on, like some sort of anti-ee cummings.
Posted by Cody at September 25, 2008 9:00 PM