March 17: SXSW

Are you going to any shows? Are you in town for South by Southwest? You live in Austin? Cool! You must be looking forward to SXSW. SXSW this. SXSW that. Live music here, live music there! Matt's El Rancho.

I don't know how long I'm going to be living in Austin, but if I had to say right now, probably not much longer than August when my lease is up. Will I ever come back? I would like to say yes, but in reality, the answer is probably no. Doesn't it reason then, that I should be taking advantage of what the city has to offer while I'm here? Yes I should be, but how am I supposed to do that by myself?

The only friends I have in this entire city work at Matt's El Rancho so organizing a group of people to go out at once is impossible. Driving my car into the chaos of downtown parking to see a show by a band I've never heard of by myself doesn't make very much sense to me. I wouldn't even know where to begin either. "Just go on the SXSW website and look up shows." It seems to me that's taking quite a gamble. Why go through the headache of getting to a place (and most of the time paying) to listen to a band that I don't even know what they sound like?

I don't think I'm trendy enough to live in such a cool city. I've overheard people at work talking about what shows they're going to see and I honestly haven't heard of a single one. "Oh, so and so is playing on Thursday with this band and that band." "Wow, that's got to be an expensive show!" Who? How do you know about these bands? I know about Regina Spektor and Flogging Molly. That's about as trendy and hip as I get.

I've said it quite a few times already and this probably won't be the last time I say it either. Moving to Austin was an adventure. I wish I would have moved to a place where I knew someone though. I wish I had a friend here that didn't work at Matt's El Rancho that could show me the ropes. I wish my life involved a little more than sleeping and serving Tacos Al Carbon with a guacamole salad.



I wasn't listening to anything.