SXSW Recap: Volume 1

matt jared

Wow. I hope everyone is ready for a long and arduous journey as I update you on the happenings of The Bro Journey from the past two and a half weeks. Yes. It’s been a month since I put my two weeks in at my (not-so-well) paying job to come to Austin, Texas. Now is when you turn on Sabatoge by the Beastie Boys and puke on the first person you see….

It was an emotional few days since I last updated everyone on TBJ and I hated saying goodbye to so many great people, but when I woke up on Monday morning to over two inches of snow I said, “fuck lemons” and bailed. Next stop: Texarkana, Texas (or Arkansas). For an update on my first day away from the midwest you can take a look over HERE at a post I put up, but to make it easy on you….nothing happened. I saw some dinosaurs, a dead wolf on the side of the highway and I listened to A LOT of horrible music (mostly pre-Jessica Simpson John Mayer).

On Tuesday I woke up and downloaded some Explosions in the Sky for the journey across Texas. If you’re not familiar with EITS then don’t listen to them until Sabotage stops playing (Remember, you’re supposed to be listening to that). But play EITS when you need to go for a journey of some kind, hike a mountain, read the good book or just want to sob. They are the shit. You’ll recognize them as the soundtrack behind both the Friday Night Lights movie and TV show.

To give you an idea of how exciting the ride across Texas was, read the paragraph you just read over again and see if I mention anything cool happening at all. Go ahead and check, I’ll wait for you …. I didn’t at all. All I talked about was some damned good music. The drive across Texas is boring as all hell and I was seriously worried that Austin was going to suck serious ass when I got here. But after I journeyed through Dallas, which is meh by the way, it was a straight shot down I-35 to the promised land of Austin, Texas (YEEEHHHHAAAWWWWW) When I arrived in town I was welcomed by Bro Journey intern Jordan Bresler. Jordan’s first chore as our intern was to hang all my jerseys. (Fraturday season is going to be EPIC, Austin people.) I finished unpacking and Max and I hugged like no two men should ever hug and we will never speak of that moment again.

"All I care about is money and the city where I'm from" - some rap song.

Day 2 – Wednesday 3.7.12

I know that I started this post with super detailed stories, but I 100% don’t remember hardly any details from the rest of my time in Austin besides a few things. So here goes a more concise list. Also of note, South By Southwest started on Thursday. If you want to know more about South By, watch the entire season of Real World: Austin or just wait and read the how-to guide from some doucher named Max Bonem when he finally “gets around” to writing it.

Mad Cleo entered our lives on this day. Everyone go follow her NOW.

CHYEAH

Day 3 – Thursday 3.8.12

I’ve been sitting here for like 10 minutes trying to figure out what in the absolute hell I did on Thursday and I can only come up with a handful of things…and they all involve watching college basketball on my computer. Sic ‘Em Bears!!

Day 4 – Friday 3.9.12

I learned that Austin has a loop called the highway 1 loop, but is referred to by locals as MOPAC. Which stands for Missouri-Pacific which apparently is the railway that runs parallel to where the highway is now. School.

Unless you study Andy Dwyer  from Parks and Rec, like I do, you won’t understand why I just wrote “School” as an entire sentence there. Yeah, I’m dumber than you, don’t worry. Calm down friends, I’m not trying to insinuate anything. Come back to papa. It’l be ok…

Friday afternoon was filled with some fun times at a career fair where I got my networking on and passed out some of my slick resumes and referenced my portfolio. By the way, I’m looking for a job in Austin. Thought I’d mention that now and get it out of the way. After the career fair Max and I converged at a rooftop party hosted by his company where the below picture was taken.

Take a minute to drink it all in, ladies. We are A LOT of man.

Day 5 – Saturday 3.10.12

So Max and myself started this day by heading to a bar called Hangar where Forrest Whittaker was hosting a party for this “Social Production Company,” I don’t know how else to explain it. It was pretty cool and we drank some free Guinness and hit on our stupendously good-looking bartender as we avoided the rain. On our way towards the door we spotted some free food and TBJ got’s some eats. On our way out we spotted Forrest himself overlooking the party on the second floor of this bar. I leaned over to Max and said, “Holy shit, that’s Forrest. Wanna say hey to him?” At whichpoint I looked up at Forrest fucking Whittaker himself and yelled, “HEY FORREST!” We both started waving and the man responded to his fans…

Forrest was so giddy with excitement upon seeing us that the man not only waved back, he peace signed and then thumbs fucking upped to us. We then went outside, hugged, pissed our pants and carried on with the day as usual.

Saturday night rolled around and we decided to head to uShip for a party to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.. I had never heard of them before a few weeks ago and I didn’t really care for uShip. I talked to them for like 45 minutes at the career fair and they didn’t hire me on the spot so fuck them…. Wait what?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. at uShip.

Well these guys (uShip) blew my mind the second we walked in the door. uShip has a gigantic warehouse as their office and they just have a ton of space for random parties for South By that include live bands. They spared no expense on food that Max and I awkwardly ate while sitting by ourselves in a corner. They brought Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears out before Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr who rocked my face off. During the show their lead singer jumped directly into my arms while having his “Eddy Vedder” stagedive moment. All of this was happening in these people’s office. NUTS. During the party Max and I met and played fooseball with a guy who works for Pinterest (go change your pants, ladies) and he was a really cool dude.

OOOOHHHHH. I wanna dance with SOMEBODY!!

Day 6 – Sunday 3.11.12

Sunday was one of those cool and breathtakingly beautiful mornings. We finally got some sunshine after like about a week straight of pouring down rain. We headed downtown and walked to the corner of Fourth and Congress where we had a highly anticipated date with destiny…

I guess I'm hugging the city here.

Our squad was cruising around and we spotted these guys wearing Movember shirts, hats and most importantly, mustaches. The whole point of this blog (and everything that trickles down from it (like me moving to Austin)) is to shed light on men’s health issues through the Movember Foundation. Or something like that. So seeing Movember-esque dudes was a pretty exciting moment. I walked up to them and asked them if they were with Movember and the response I recieved was GLORIOUS.

“OYY. We’re the foundaaahs, mate.”

Like what. the. fuck.

We had not only stumbled on fellow Mo Bros but the founders of the whole cause. Originally from Melbourne, Australia these dudes were facking amazing. We snapped a quick photo with the team and asked to go grab a beer with them.

The Bro Journey with the Founders of Movember. Historians will have this picture in books for the next 37 centuries.

We walked with the Movember guys to some bar on the west side of downtown where we had some beers and introduced the guys to The Bro Journey. These bros not only knew how to party, they knew how to RAGE. The head honcho for the Ireland campaign was a riot and he found his way into like six bars while we were only at the one. I raged hardcore (had two beers) during the Selection Show, but we did it all while rubbing elbows with the founders of Movember. What an experience. We exchanged emails later in the day and we can’t wait to get to work with the OG Mo Bros. But the best part of the whole experience came as we were leaving…I was outside waiting for everyone and we we’re all kind just chilling gathering everyone up when Max came out with a story to end all stories… One of the co-founders pulled Max aside while we were all bidding farewell and said to him..

“OOYY. I wanted to let you and ya mate know… That if it wasn’t for you, and guys like you, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Thank ya, mate!!”

No. You’re not getting the epicness of what I just wrote to you. Go re-read what I just wrote in a thick Australian accent. Writing it and reading it doesn’t really do it justice, but it was awesome. After that we journeyed over to Maggie Mae’s bar for a bit and then waited in line to see the one and only Delta Spirit. They were pretty legit and will be hitting the airwaves in a big way in the near future. I wasn’t on board at first because I was tired and hungry and I yelled at Max for saying something to me and I called him the MORAL POLICE. A low point for The Bro Journey, but we battled back and I slammed a large amount of Whataburger to make me feel better. Also, if you call someone the Moral Police you sound like a 7th grade ass hat. Which isn’t too far off for me on most days. So there’s that.

Week 2 and 3 and every other day to today

So here is where my journaling got shittier than normal and I just started writing bullet points so I’ll do my best to fill ya’ll in on what happened.

As of that last sentence, I say ya’ll now.

On Monday I was rocking a sweet tshirt from the folks at Homage and some dudes walked up to me and asked me if I was from Cincinnati. (It was a Cincinnati t-shirt. I know I look like a midwesterner, but the shirt just gave it away). But it happened to be guys who I knew. They were the founders of Leap. A social wellness challenge application native to iOS (Android coming soon. Don’t cry, Google nerdboys) that has grown by LEAPS and bounds (I’m a copywriting genius) in the past month after they launched on Leap day. Basically all you need to know is that these guys are funded by the Brandery, they are from Cincinnati, have a slick product and you should go download their app right away. Also, they might buy The Bro Journey one day so I need to keep them happy and write nice things.

This was a thing that we did.

As you know, I have the musical taste of a 13 year old. So I was really looking forward to seeing Say Anything play a show at Buffalo Billiards on Dirty 6th Street. Max joined me for a 1:00AM concert on Thursday night and they kicked some serious ass. I loved every minute of it that the next morning when a good pal called me to see ANOTHER Say Anything show I hopped on the opportunity and went over to Waterloo Records for a fun time and another rock out session.

Max likes music.

The Counting Crows played a free show at Auditorim Shores. Their lead singer was pretty blacked out. Notice how I said blacked out and not drunk. There is a major difference there. Also, his dreds are fake. I hope your 1995 was ruined like mine was when Max told me that.

We went to a party hosted by the Yay or Nay and there are a lot of pictures. Go look at them here.

Being hipsters with Carly the Carl.

Saturday was St. Patricks day. We we’re tired, sunburned and sore by the time ole St. Patty came to visit and visit he did, violently…
Max and I managed to stand up straight and walk downtown where we slammed some Za and started drinking Guiness with Thomas (our new favorite bartender) at Shakespeares (our favorite bar). We’re on a first name basis with this cat now. I love this town. Anyway, we found out about the Amazon Olympics. Keep your socks on good friends, there will be MUCH more about said Olympics in the near future. Just keep this in mind, tall chicks, bikinis and obstacle courses. Wow. I’m surprised my computer didn’t blow up after writing that last sentence.

St. Patrick would later smite these two ass hats for not celebrating his holiday in proper fashion.

The pinnacle of South By went down a few moments later…

So we’re jamming out and listening to these two total bros (look at the pic right above) play some spring break themed party music. I don’t know how to explain the genre other than it’s something that you play on repeat if Panama City Beach and Frateau Motel is your favorite place on Earth. Aged more then 30 but less than 40 having a grandios time playing beach music on St. Patricks Day. I digress…

The lead singer was building quite the audience and one of his more chipper (hammered) audience members was hooting and hollering his praise when the lead singer took a minute to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick’s Day. He looked square into the loud fan’s eyes and said..

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody. And Happy St. Patrick’s Day to this guy. Cheers, Fuckface.

Hold on a second pal, you can’t just say that to your audience member. Well, this guy didn’t have a shit to give if he wanted and just kept playing as if calling one of his fans “fuckface” was commonplace.

Max and I immediately started busting out laughing and Thomas (remember, the kick ass bartender) looked over at us with one of the most startled looks I’ve ever seen. Max and I loved it so much that we immediately started saying it over and over to each other. It’s been six days and we’re continuing to say it to one another. And it hasn’t NOT been funny once. To add onto it, we just met people with accents (Movember guys) a few days ago too so all we do is talk to each other in accents and then “cheers, fuck face” entered our lives. Glorious. To make it even better, we ran into the guy on 6th street later in the day. He obviously rubbed off on us a lot because we look completely coherent…

Cheers, Fuck Face.

After our eyes we’re opened to the slogan of the century, we went and saw our pal Steve’s band, Santah. Steve stayed with us for the weekend and it was an awesome hanging with him. Santah is amazing by the way. Pleasant side note: The guitars and vocals of this band are a brother and sister duo and the sister is really hot. Max and I talked to her for like 30 seconds and we managed to look like even bigger idiots than usual which was a real pleasant surprise for both of us.

SANTAH!!

We finally got some rest for ourselves on Sunday and we watched all our teams make it to the sweet 16. After that I’ve spent the following days looking for job and for the “cheer’s fuck face” guy to play songs to put us to sleep at night.

My office.

Wow, thanks so much for reading all the way to the end. I don’t even want to put you through any more torture. Just know that I’m busting my (abnormally big) ass trying to find a job here in town and we will 100% be back to our old blogging / loveable selves in the very near future. We love you all… Max will have his piece up for y’all come Monday. Yep, I said it again.

My final note: I have been dog walking over the past couple days for a good friend of ours. I hated dogs growing up but I have fallen in love with this little thing. Her name is Zoe and she plays with me and I clean up her poop everyday. The perfect bond.

Cheers, Fuck Faces.

Zoe.