Kirstiecat | Blog

So…I’ve been having a fairly good time here in Austin (though…it actually in some ways makes me appreciate Chicago alot more despite the cold weather). Having flown in on Wednesday, Cinchel and I have seen a ton of thrift stores, some art, and of course music. Last night, we went to Emo’s to see post Spacemen 3 music Sonic Boom. Basically, Emos is a little like the Empty Bottle except no smoking and there’s a better place to stand to take pictures if you have a fixed focal point lens in order to get the full frame of the person playing.

Anyhow, getting to the point…the people here have overwhelmingly come off as very warm and nice-like my friend Jon from Houston who is a talented artist and has great taste. I’ve also seen enough anti-Bush bumper stickers, magnets, t-shirts etc. to put me at ease that I’m in a liberal city. (I knew that already but it’s good to have some reassurance.) Last night, there was a guy at the show who actually had on a t-shirt for a music store (sells records and gear) in my home town of Rochester called The House of Guitars and I was astounded at the randomness of it. Now, I thought he could have just been being thrifty but somehow I imagined that he had actually been there. Made me feel like the world was a little smaller anyway…

Before I go on any farther, I have to at this point divulge for anyone who may not know that I’m an animal rights type of person. I mean, not a PETA girl or anything (who have some good ideas but basically come off as the Scientologists of animal rights people.) I mean, did you see 28 Days Later when those activists let out the monkeys from the animal testing facility so that they could infect the whole country with rage and force hot Londoners like Cillian Murphy to run around in fear for his life fighting zombies? Oh…that wasn’t a documentary??? Anyhow, I haven’t eaten meat in over fifteen years now and I don’t wear leather or fur…that kind of animal rights activist. I prefer to align myself with Linklater only without so much of the bloody behind the scenes animal death…and I probably wouldn’t have cast Avril Lavigne in Fast Food Nation either.

I digress…the first thing that the guy said when I commented on his t-shirt was to welcome the conversation and talk about how he grew up there, had (like everyone who lives in Rochester) seen the commercials all his life, and had loved the store. The next thing he did was to affect a bizarre Rochestarian accent, which I’ve seen other people do with me and which annoys me to no end.

him:”Oh you’re from Raaahhhchestaaaaa too? You come from Raaahcchestaaaaa?”
We don’t talk like that. It’s annoying.
me: yeah
him: Boy, I don’t miss the snow.
me: yeah..still snows
him: we got out of there and moved here when oil got big
me: (cringing slightly) oh.
him: yeah and my dad got us into the fur trade.
me: oh.
him: yeah…you know so people here could spend tons of money on something they can wear a couple of days out of the year.
me: yeah…well, I have to be going now.

His eyes looked a little red, actually. Maybe he was a scenester zombie.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am and is filed under Awkward Conversations About Music, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.