6th ave

18th
Well well well, it’s two AM, Saturday morning and things have indeed gotten extremely wild, then cool again. I’m tired, so I’ll give you the barebones. Friday I woke up to Dan’s roommate Eddy treating me with great hospitality and friendship. Eggs with cajun spices was dang fine. He took off and I had the house to myself for a bit, after recording an old song that my mother had written some time ago I took Leroy, the Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog http://www.bulldoginformation.com/catahoula-leopard.html for a walk. I cleaned the house then took off on the two mile walk downtown. Austin is an incredibly beautiful city, the river has lot’s of greenspace and everyone seem happy and relaxed.

My first new friend of the day was Dustin Thomas http://www.myspace.com/dustinthomas a young man with great passion and talent. We sat by the river with his bass player Tim and chatted about life and love, digging each moment to the core. I followed the river into the city and things were coming alive, I’d never scene so many cool looking young people all at once. Sounds, smells and sights were coming from all over and it was all beautiful. I spotted a fellow with dreds, a plaid shirt and overalls, CJ and I became instant friends. I was on my way down sixth street to catch the watson twins, but their show turned out to be a bit boring so I went back the other way and found CJ again. He was with a girl named Emma, another traveler who was playing a resonator guitar. She has a wild swing, ragtime voice/style that wasn’t expected from her street person/traveler look. We got along splendidly, smoking, drinking, eating, jamming the afternoon away. We parted ways for a bit and made contact again while meeting up with the rest of their traveling crew. The rag tag bunch of acoustic musicians were preparing a number with a dance crew led by a pop singer, who’s name escapes me, something like unique, or mystique, who had wild makeup and a leopard print dress. The plan was to burst out in the middle of the busy street with in a flash mob style performance, I broke out my banjo and played along with the rehearsal.

Back on 6th, the street was closed off for full street party style craziness. The road was packed with every kind of strange and beautiful person you could imagine. The street and surrounding area has about, and I’m not exaggerating, about a hundred music bars, all of the with music audible from the street. I strolled with awe and glee and the marvel. There was a five piece bluegrass band that I quite enjoyed. I hooked up with the street performance group and we gave it hell, an audience gathered, all quite enjoyable. To wander was a great pleasure, all sorts of sounds and sights permeated the atmosphere, indescribable really, sensory overload is a good way to it. I ran into my friend Shawn who gave me my first every rock gig, we chatted for a good deal of time. Some grass found itself my way and soon after came the breakdancing.

At one end of the street I met a fellow who’s name is pronounced like “Diem” but it’s really DM, as in the dude man. He’s a black dude from Lafayette Louisiana who was wearing all leather and carrying a skateboard like a shield. He sings in a metal band sang a love ballad for me with a great voice. His voice was sweet but with passion and twang. We talked about various kinds of skateboarding, he’s into freestyle. Freestyle skateboarding is usually done on one’s own and is highly technical, influenced by dance and gymnastics. It’s starting to regain popularity after dying out in the last decade.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqPaayUYGe8&feature=related

It was a great hangout with DM, he also shot some film pictures of me.

We strolled the avenue and he pointed out some of the cool bars. It seems there’s awesome live music every night of the week in Austin. We ran into a freestyle rap cypher, heard some metal and parted ways. I was strolling with my banjo out and played for a number of different people. I met a pixy girl named katy who sells precisous stones for neckaleces, we danced together on the street and talked life for a good little while. Then I walked the two miles or so back to Dan’s place. I didn’t want to wake him up so I slept in the shed behind the house. There was a mattress in there so I was comfortable, it got a bit chilly though, so I covered myself in a rug that was in there.

Around 8 AM I got up to see if Dan was awake, there was no movement so I texted him, he said he didn’t mind waking up at anytime, so now I know. I crashed on the warm couch and slept quite well.