Vacation

Are You Ready to Go? ‘Cause I’m Ready to Go: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Zero)

/ Rev. Joel / 9 Comments

I’m finally sitting down to write about Louder Than Life 2024, but I’m not actually gonna talk about the festival itself yet. Naturally, my first instinct is to start with Day One and continue chronologically, but there’s a fair amount of backstory that helps every day of the festival make more sense, plus it’ll be easier to move forward if I cover some if it now, so it seems like starting before the beginning might be a better idea. And I’m aware that “starting before the beginning” may sound like nonsense, but time is clearly an illusion, and this is my blog, after all, so I suppose I’ll start wherever I doggone well feel like starting.


Louder Than Life 2024 officially began on September 28, 2023, approximately one week after Louder Than Life 2023 ended. On the 27th, we received an email telling us we were on the Early Bird List, and that in just two days, we would be among the First People on Earth to get the chance to purchase tickets to a 4-day music festival where we had no idea who would be performing. We were pumped!

Listen: I spent one football season in elementary school making Monday Night Football bets on the bus, and I had a pretty good run overall, even though I knew almost nothing about football. As an adult, I enjoy playing slots occasionally; I even won 200 bucks one time, and that was pretty neat. And one Sunday night several years back, I even tried my hand at blackjack, craps, and roulette when the table minimum was $5 (I did not do well). But if you’d told me even six years ago that I’d ever gamble on something as big as weekend passes to a four-day music festival without knowing a single band in advance, I’d have called you dadgum liar.

The thing is, when Danny Wimmer Presents puts on a festival, you know the lineup is gonna be solid. It’s always a mixed bag, but for every steaming turd like Falling in Reverse or Ghostmane, you get a delicious morsel like Clutch, Suicidal Tendencies, Green Day, Cypress Hill, or Pennywise. Occasionally you’ll get one of those rare French chocolates wrapped with edible gold, like Metallica playing two unique sets on two nights, or one of only three reunion shows of the year by Fuckin Slayer. And even when there are steaming turds on stage, there are other stages to check out. And even if all the other stages have turds steaming on them at the same time (uncommon), there’s other stuff to do, and the people watching is just aces.

Anyway, the next day (9/28) I got another email telling me that extra-special fancy-pants packages were now available, so we took the plunge and splurged on “The Luxury Package”, which – in addition to admission to all four days of the festival, access to the exclusive Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP area (which we enjoyed very much in 2023), and 5 nights at the Galt House Hotel (our preferred hotel when in Lousville) – included, and I quote:

  • Downtown shuttle pickup at your hotel: all 4 days
  • Dedicated fast track entry and re-entry
  • Access to Welcome Party
  • Watch a performance from the soundboard
  • $50 Louder Than Life merch voucher
  • Artist-signed festival poster
  • Louder Than Life mini-guitar
  • Commemorative lanyard

End quote.

Considering we were planning to get TSVIP passes, stay at the Galt House, and use the Pegasus Transportation shuttles anyway, it seemed like a big ol no doi for us. Plus we were able to pay it off in installments! I’ll get to most of the perks later, but a couple of them came into play before the fest actually started, and that’s what we’re here to talk about this time (more or less).

A quick aside: Our accommodations were fuckin brilliant. The Galt House is always at least very good, and most times it’s great. The staff is friendly and helpful, the restaurants and bars are great, it’s close to lots of cool restaurants, shops, museums, and live performance venues, and it’s very easily accessible by automobile. I cannot recommend it enough if you’re staying in downtown Louisville. I digress.

Look, I know I said earlier that LTL2K24 officially began on September 28, 2023, but I was being dramatic. For us, it actually began on February 21, 2024, when the full lineup was released. We have a System when the lineup gets released, see? I’ll make a list of all the bands, and on Saturday nights over the next few months, we’ll spend a chunk of time watching videos from all the bands. We’ll usually start with either the newest song or the song with the most plays on YouTube, and we’ll work our way through the lineup over the course of a month or two. When we’ve made it through all four days, we’ll go back through and watch a second video of each band, this time focusing on older songs when possible/as needed. After we’ve finished a second run-through, we’ll go through the whole list once more, this time watching live performances from each band.

The System isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better each year, and it’s helped us discover some really kick-ass bands and artists in previous years, like Ho99o9, Amigo the Devil, Mannequin Pussy, and Gnome, to name a few.

This year I fine tuned The System a bit more. We assigned a letter grade (A-F) for each video, and then a couple of weeks before leaving this year, I went through and made a short list of bands who averaged a B- or higher, double-checked each one on Spotfiy (one C-/D+ band almost made it through – yikes!), and made a playlist with two songs from each band. Then the day before, I mapped out a guideline schedule for each day so we could keep track of who was playing where and when without having to consult the app, thereby draining our phone batteries.

Here’s an example.

This ended up being somewhat handy, but there are always last-minute changes that’ll muck things up, like for instance Jigsaw Youth and KNEECAP‘s times being pushed back after I made this schedule, due to Veil of Maya dropping off the festival on the morning of Day One. And a cursory glance at said schedule will reveal lots of overlapping set times, so we ended up having to make difficult choices, like for instance I had to decide between watching KNEECAP on the Loudmouth Stage and watching Bob Vylan on the Decibel Stage. Spoiler alert: I chose KNEECAP, but that hasn’t happened yet in this timeline, plus I haven’t even actually started talking about Day Zero yet, so I’ll save that for the next post.

Fast-forward to September 13, when I received an email about our Soundboard Experience. Sheila and I had both forgotten about that, so it was a very exciting email to receive. Imagine my dismay when I got down to the important part:

Of all the fuckin bands…
Same, Ralph.

Look: I try not to yuck anybody else’s yums, but Falling in Reverse is easily my least favorite band that I’ve ever heard, that has also played at Louder Than Life. I just do not get the love for that band. I was sad. I responded thusly:

The next day, they responded with this:

I was even sadder. Plus it seemed like they didn’t really understand what I was trying to relate to them even though I thought I’d made it extremely clear and easy to follow, which I just found kind of disappointing. Sheila was concerned that this meant our artist-signed festival poster would also be affiliated with Falling in Reverse, but I soothed her concerns by pointing out that if we did receive a poster with Ronny Radke’s autograph on it, we’d at least be able to get a li’l money from it on ebay. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself again; there’s more to the Soundboard Experience, but it’s not Saturday yet.

Let’s move on to Wednesday the 25th, shall we?

I spent the morning getting a few last-minute supplies and gassing up and packing the car while Sheila worked a half-day. We stopped for lunch at Tumbleweed in Floyd’s Knobs, IN, and it was great as always. My “B- or Better” playlist served us well on the drive.

I’m pretty proud of this packing job. Nothing shifted at all.

We checked into the hotel, unpacked, freshened up, and had a drink and a snack at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in the hotel. We then made our way toward Tavern on 4th (home of the Official Welcome Party), with a brief detour to the Bluegrass Brewing Company for a pint of their delicious Altbier. We arrived at Tavern on 4th and took our place in line behind a couple we sincerely hoped we wouldn’t find ourselves in close proximity to once we got inside. They were turned away at the door because the guy didn’t realize they each needed a ticket, and therefore only bought one, so everybody ended up winning, except for them.

The Welcome Party promised snacks, and an open bar, so we got a couple of drinks and located the snacks. We were definitely glad we had a snack at the hotel bar, as the only vegetarian food we could locate were some pretzel bites with beer cheese. They were tasty enough, but we were expecting a bit more.


We ended up striking up a conversation with a couple that seemed kinda like us, but a few years older, and they were cool, but all I can really remember about them at this point is that the lady was extremely stoked to see Bob Vylan (as was Sheila), and the guy was wearing a Beastie Boys Check Your Head t-shirt. He actually appeared next to us while the DJ was playing a Beastie Boys song (way too loud, I might add). I’m aware of the irony of a dude who loves live music as much as I do being such a cantankerous old curmudgeon about loud music in other situations, but I can’t be alone in thinking that music shouldn’t be so fuckin loud when people are in a situation where talking is encouraged. Also, I’m very quickly becoming a cantankerous old curmudgeon, so it’s only natural.

I’m not all doom and gloom though, see?

We also hung out with this guy for a while. He was cool, and we never saw him again. These are the days of our lives.

This is a little blurry, but so were we.

The rest of the night is less clear, on account of the open bar, the lack of vegetarian food, and the anticipation. I know we had fun, and I know we made it back to the hotel safely. We woke up the next day ready for an adventure, and we were not disappointed, other than having to choose between KNEECAP and Bob Vylan, which I mentioned previously, but again, that’s in the future, at least relative to this story, which ends here.

Speaking of the future, Part Two of this multi-part concoction will be here (relatively) soon. It’ll cover Day One and possibly Day Two, if I can manage to keep myself on something resembling a track. Until then, go on and git. And thanks for reading.

Somehow It’s Already Been a Year: A Thing About Louder Than Life (and Also About Death)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Howdy. I have many things to say about the Tenth Anniversary of Louder Than Life (September 26-29, 2024), and I’ll get to all of them eventually (likely not as soon as I’d like; we’ll see), but I’m gonna start at the beginning(ish), which is to say, 2019 (well, 1995 if we’re being technical).

Let this picture of me from the Welcome Party the night before Day One of this year tide you over until I get around to writing about it.

Sheila (aka Mrs. Circlepit) and I both attended our fair share of one-day festivals in our younger days, back when we were shadows of each other’s lives. My first was X-Fest ’95, followed by Lollapalooza ’96, followed by several iterations of the Van’s Warped Tour (between 1998-2001). She attended Lollapalooza ’94, Ozzfest ’98, and the 2002 Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. More recently, we attended Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival together in 2018, six days before my sweet, sweet mother passed away.

In 2014, my homeboy Dustin scored free tickets to days two and three of Rock on the Range (now known as Sonic Temple – also produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, the folks behind Louder Than Life). That was my first experience with a multi-day festival (even though we only ended up attending one day), and you can read my write-up about that on my old blog here.

I don’t wanna get too much into our first two years at Louder Than Life, because I’ve written about them before as well, but just for some background, Sheila and I attended Day Two of LTL 2019 (the day after the burial of her sweet, sweet paternal grandfather), and all four days of LTL 2021, which, while not directly related to us, had something in the neighborhood of 800,000 US covid-19-related deaths coloring our experience.

We also attended all four days in 2022 (about which I wrote very little, and which I’ll cover directly) and again in 2023 (about which I wrote a little more, but still not a lot, because I got lazy and never got around to finishing the project). I’m gonna cover both of those a bit more before I dive into this year’s fest.

After almost dying in the heat on that one day in 2019, and struggling to find a single sliver of shade that we could both hang out in over the four days of 2021, we decided to upgrade to VIP status in 2022. The promise of a shaded tent, air-conditioned restrooms, and shorter lines for some food vendors was too much for us to resist, but it turned out to be (mostly) a bust. The VIP section seemed to be oversold, and as I mentioned briefly in an old post, many of the dickheads who arrive when the gates open will claim every empty chair, and absolutely refuse to let anyone else use those chairs for any amount of time, even when all 8 of their friends are off wandering around for one reason or another, leaving all 8 of their chairs vacant, except for their backpacks, and the remaining friend’s big fat dumb feet.

Our good friends Mitch and Amanda decided to join us, and we went all out by upgrading to a fancy apartment-suite at the hotel, which is almost certainly the nicest hotel room I’ll ever stay in. It was pretty awesome. Among other things, we were on the 3rd floor, with escalators only steps from our room, so we only had to wait for an elevator when checking in and checking out!

Here’s what was not pretty awesome about Louder Than Life 2022: my dad passed away at 7:42 AM on Day One. In fact, it was the exact opposite of awesome.

Here’s a list of the things that went through my brain upon receiving this news, mostly in order, but not necessarily verbatim:

  • This fucking sucks. I can’t believe both of my parents are gone.
  • I have to go home and talk to my brother.
  • I don’t wanna go home and talk to my brother.
  • Tough shit, pal. Sometimes we gotta do things we don’t wanna do.
  • If Sheila goes with me, our friends will have nowhere to stay, because the hotel is in her name.
  • Shit, the hotel is in her name!
  • We spent a lot of money on this trip…
  • If I don’t get the opportunity to let out some of the aggression and angst that have been building up inside me since LTL 2021, I’m not sure I’ll make it another year myself.
  • Dad is already gone, so it’s not like I can do anything to change the circumstances.
  • Aside from Dad, the only immediate family I have left is a brother and a sister, and none of us really get along with each other.
  • Dad would absolutely not have understood the amount of money we spent to attend a music festival, but he would definitely not have wanted us to waste that money.
  • Maybe I can just go home for a few hours, and return to catch part of Day One, then I’ll play the rest of the weekend by ear.
  • Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
  • Here I go, then.

And so off I went, driving 2 hours back home to hang out with my brother for a while, and discuss arrangements. I stopped by our house first, to try and rest a moment, check the mail, and make a few phone calls. I eventually told my brother I was going back to Louisville for the weekend to be with Sheila and our friends (I honestly don’t know what he thought/thinks about my decision, because I’m one of the only men in my entire family who ever shares his feelings with anyone). I also told him that when our sister arrived and they went to the funeral home, I trusted his decisions, and that he could feel free to speak for me. I got back on the road, drove like hell back to Louisville, got to the hotel, changed into my festival clothes, happened to catch a shuttle that was just about to depart, got inside the gates, bought 2 Budweisers, and found my crew in front of the Disruptor Stage with less than five minutes to spare before HO99O9 took the stage and blew my mind. It was a very strange and surreal juxtaposition.

This was recorded from approximately 10 feet in front of us. As you might imagine, it was cooler in person.

Ministry almost made us permanently deaf immediately after, and we tried to watch Tenacious D‘s set after that, but the crowd was too big to really be able to see it, so we headed to the VIP section while Bring Me the Horizon played, so we could rustle up a spot for Day One headliner Nine Inch Nails. They’re one of Sheila’s favorite bands, and I’m not necessarily a huge fan, but I do like plenty of their songs, and I’d never seen them live before, so I was certainly looking forward to it. It ended up being an incredible set, and when they played “Hurt”, I cried for the first time since learning about my dad’s passing, and it felt good, even though I was sad.

I should interject here and mention that my dad and I were never particularly close. He was a very quiet man, raised to keep his feelings and emotions inside, and we didn’t have all that much in common, so we just didn’t talk much. He had a ridiculous sense of humor, which I was lucky to inherit, but aside from that and a love of Clint Eastwood westerns and silly action movies, our common ground was blood, almost entirely. That’s not to say we didn’t love each other; more like we didn’t really understand each other.

He would’ve moved heaven and earth to help me if needed. When I moved to Austin, Texas in 2003, he led the caravan on the 18-ish hour drive and helped unload all of my stuff. And when I split from my ex-wife three years later, he rented a van and drove back down to help me load it all back up and come back home. After my oldest sister died, we started to say “I love you” to each other on a more regular basis, and after my mom passed, we said it every time we talked. I was able to tell him toward the end that I appreciated all the things he’d done for me in my life, and he thanked me for saying so. But the truth of the matter is, I was always closer to Mom, and I had more time to mentally prepare for Dad’s passing, so his death didn’t have the same kind impact on me.

Anyway, the next morning, as I was approaching the front desk to ask for more coffee pods, I got a call from my brother telling me I had to come to the funeral home and sign some insurance papers, as I was the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy. I went back to the room to share the news, then made the 90-minute drive to Bedford, Indiana, signed the papers, and drove back to Louisville again, arriving just in time to join my crew for lunch at Merle’s Whiskey Kitchen. The lunch was delicious, and we went back to the hotel afterward to catch the shuttle to the festival.

We entered the gates to the sounds of Amigo the Devil, which was the first act of the day that we were hoping to see. We watched In Flames, followed by Clutch, then hauled ass over to the Revolver Stage to catch Helmet, which is always a good time, then watched the beginning of Baroness, headed back to the main stage to the last song from Mastodon, then were treated to an incredible performance from Lamb of God. We went back to the Revolver Stage to watch a little bit of GWAR, and were planning to hang around for Slipknot‘s headlining performance, but all the driving and walking back-and-forth that day and the day before had wiped me completely out, so Sheila and I decided to call it a night, and left the grounds to the sounds of Shinedown (I’m apparently a poet, and didn’t know it).

I didn’t make this meme, but I like it very much.

The next morning the four of us had breakfast at Wild Eggs, which we had to reschedule from Day One (and which has been a Day One tradition for Sheila and me since we started attending the full weekend), then we headed to the venue in the early afternoon, arriving in the midst of a pretty electrifying performance from Airbourne on the main stage. We watched them for a few minutes, then headed back to the Revolver Stage to watch what we learned was the first ever US performance of New Delhi, India’s Bloodywood, who were absolutely incredible. They gave very Roots-era Sepultura vibes, and it was powerful.

We rested a bit, then made our way back to the main stages to watch Sevendust, Jerry Cantrell, Ghostmane (which I hated a lot)(the guy seriously kept yelling “MOOOOVE!” at the crowd while fucking beeping noises were coming from the stage), Chevelle, and as much Alice Cooper as we could possibly watch without cutting into Body Count‘s headlining set on the Disruptor Stage, way back on the far end of the grounds (right next to the Revolver Stage).

Sheila and I were fortunate to see an Alice Cooper headlining show in the fall of 2019, otherwise that would’ve been an impossible choice to make. We arrived with a few minutes to spare, secured a primo spot right on the edge of where the pit ended up being, and had our lives changed by Body Count. I was high as a kite by the time their set ended, and it was all adrenaline (plus probably some bourbon and beer). Rob Zombie conflicted with Body Count, back over on the Loudmouth Stage (aka Main Stage 2), so the only thing I got to see from his set was a full-length trailer for The Munsters, which was released 3 days later, and “Dragula”, which, due to issues which seemed to plague that stage all weekend, did not sound good.

KISS was the headliner that day, and I’ve never been a KISS fan, but they’re obviously a legendary organization, so I was still looking forward to screaming along to a bunch of their dumb songs for a while. My anticipation disappeared moments after they started playing “Detroit Rock City”. According to what I wrote in my journal afterward, “Paul Stanley sounded like he was being strangled while yelling for help.” I stand by that, but I would also add that he sounded like a cat being stepped on. I probably could’ve dealt with it and enjoyed myself a little bit, if not for the fact that Body Count had just ruined live music for me for at least the next 12-14 hours.

On the last day, we caught The Native Howl, Oxymorrons, Anti-Flag, Joey Valence & Brae, and about half of Bad Religion (we coincidentally left while they were playing “Walk Away”) before trying to wrangle some quality spots for Alice in Chains. I never got a chance to see them with Layne Staley, but I fucking love their old albums, and everything they’ve released since they re-formed with William Duvall on lead vocals has also been great, so I was pretty pumped about their performance. What I hadn’t anticipated, until it started happening, was the sheer volume of tears that would fall from me when they played “Rooster”. If you don’t know, the song was written by Jerry Cantrell, about his Vietnam veteran father, and my dad was also a Vietnam vet. Seconds into the song, I started crying. By the time it was finished, I was absolutely sobbing for the first time since my mom’s death, and my voice was almost entirely gone from singing along. It was the culmination of the entire roller coaster of a weekend, and it was exactly what I needed.

This kinda sounds like ass, on account of all the people singing along in and out of every possible key known to music, but trust me when I tell you it sounded perfect when it was happening.
Here’s the studio version, if you need a li’l palate cleanser.

Red Hot Chili Peppers finished off the night, and they were even more boring than I thought they’d be.

I’m fully aware that I haven’t talked about this year’s festival yet, but like I said last week, I can’t really write about this year’s fest the way I want to without writing about some things from the past two years that I haven’t written about yet (at least not for public consumption). I’ll get there eventually, and I’ll try to make it as entertaining as possible, but it needs context to really make sense.

To be fair, I’m not sure how much sense any of this has made yet.

As for last year’s LTL, I’m gonna write less here, since I already made two full posts about it, plus a bit of a recap of the remainder of it earlier this year (all linked above), but I need to mention that, like every year since 2019, death was intertwined with the fest, although last year it was an imminent death rather than a recent one.

My mother-in-law Susan passed away in early October last year. Susan was a fantastic human being, and she would’ve given you the shirt off her back if you needed it. Since the day I met her, she was never anything but kind to me, even when I didn’t really deserve it. She loved to feed people, and she had a great sense of humor (even if she did refuse to give Futurama a chance). She was courageous and strong through her struggle, and I never heard her complain once. Her presence in this realm is, and will always be, missed.

She was diagnosed with cancer of the endometrium in January 2019, and doctors were able to remove her uterus, and she was fine and seemingly cancer-free for almost five years, then she started having pains in her hip and leg in late fall 2022. Thanks to the wonderful for-profit medical care in this country, she was getting her pain treated, but no doctor and no amount of botched biopsies could figure out what was wrong with her until she was sent to a hospital in Louisville, where she was given the diagnosis we all knew was coming: her cancer was back, and had basically started filling up the space where her uterus used to be.

A stage four diagnosis came soon enough, she was given a relatively short amount of time to live, and we all began to wait. Every free day we had was spent visiting her, because we expected every visit to be our last. She kept on trucking, even staying alive while Sheila and I did our best to enjoy last year’s Louder Than Life. One of the last semi-coherent things she said to us was “I want you to go and have fun. You spent so much money on drugs. No, wait, you spent money on tickets. I’m on drugs.” Hilarious to the very end.

Her funeral service was beautiful and moving, and I’m sure I won’t be able to listen to Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” or Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” without crying ever again.

Having the inevitability of Susan’s death hanging over the festival made us feel weird about enjoying ourselves, but we did our best, assuming every day that we’d get a phone call telling us she was gone. Sheila and I both bawled like babies when Green Day played “Wake Me Up When September Ends” near the end of their phenomenal set that closed out Day Four last year. We drove from the hotel straight back to the in-laws’ house the next day, and every free day afterward. Susan’s body held on for 13 more days until she passed peacefully in her sleep.

During the early days of her diagnosis, an album called Stage Four by a band called Touche Amore came into my awareness. I’d heard of the band before, but I hadn’t really thought about them one way or the other until I happened upon a reddit post that encouraged me to check them out. After a particularly shitty day at work, I decided to listen to Stage Four while I drove across town to get a Culver’s veggie burger basket with cheese curds and a root beer, because I needed to eat my feelings. By the time I got home, I was approximately 3/4 of the way through the album, and I could tell it was on the way to becoming one of my favorite albums of all time.

Released in 2014, Stage Four was written and recorded following the death of singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother, Dorothy. She, too, whipped cancer’s ass once, only to find it back and metastasizing. The album is so fucking catchy and good, and it’s simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, and I’ve listened to it well over a hundred times since that drive home by way of Culver’s, easily. In addition to dealing with Susan’s illness, it also helped me deal with all the other recent losses I’d experienced. I’ll write about it more at some point.

All of that is pertinent to this year for a few reasons:

  • This was our first Louder Than Life without the grim specter of death hanging over it.
  • Susan found a way to be there with us this year, and it was fuckin rad.
  • Touche Amore was announced as one of the bands on Day One this year, and I was finally gonna get to sing along with them.

Spoiler alert: I did, and it was amazing, but I’ve written enough for today. I’ll do a full write-up of Day One soon (along with the pre-party that was part of our package)(alliteration!), and unlike last year, I will actually finish writing about the whole weekend. Here’s some footage of a different performance from Touche Amore. I wish I could’ve seen them in a crowd like this one, but at least I got to see them.

It was time this whole time.

Thanks for reading.

The More Things Change…

/ Rev. Joel / 7 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post, Sheila and I ventured to Austin, TX last week to visit some friends and get the fuck out of Dodge (that is to say, Bloomington) for a while. A good time was had by all, and as is the case with vacations, it wasn’t nearly long enough. Big thanks to our homeboy Sal for putting us up for the week, and for driving us all over town and entertaining my nostalgic whims. I still plan to write more about my time living in Austin at some point, hopefully sooner than later, but for now, a brief debriefing of our trip.

This place was across the street from where we parked for lunch that first day in town. I don’t know what it is, but it sure looks cool.

We landed in ATX more or less right on time, and were quickly carted away for lunch through some terrifying traffic at a really great vegetarian/vegan spot called Bouldin Creek Cafe, located on the south side of the sprawling city. After lunch, we went on a brief driving tour of some southside landmarks (I was pleased to see Peter Pan Mini-Golf appeared unchanged in my 13+ year absence) and found ourselves at the Broken Spoke for a mid-afternoon vacation libation.

Dr. Frank-N-Furter, in leiu of a mirror in the men’s room of the Bouldin Creek Cafe.

I went to the Broken Spoke once during my time living in Austin, and it was like walking into a time capsule then. I recall very few buildings in the immediate vicinity of the gravel parking lot when I visited in early 2006, but the mostly paved parking lot now sits in the midst of 3-4 towering high rise buildings that I assume are condos, but what they are is irrelevant; they’re an eyesore no matter who spends time in them, and for what reason. Progress is often such a regression.

An abundance of cars in the parking lot hinted that they were open for business, and we walked in to find the bartender cutting limes at a table, with a few other people (and a couple of dogs) sitting together on the left side of the room. She asked if she could help us, Sal said we were hoping to get a beer, and she got up and walked behind the bar (where an older gentleman who we soon realized was the owner) was already standing, previously unnoticed by us. We perused the beer list for a moment before he said “if you’re drinkin in Texas, you gotta have a Shiner or a Lone Star”, and considering the other best options were Budweiser and Dos Equis, we obliged.

We wandered around and checked out the impressive collection of memorabilia placed all around the legendary honky-tonk (which is how we figured out the nice older fella was the owner), and it made me happy to see that in spite of all the “progress” surrounding it, the Broken Spoke, like Peter Pan Mini-Golf, hasn’t changed either (except for the beer prices). And by that, I mean that I don’t think they’ve even dusted since I was last in there, sometime in early 2006. It was truly a beautiful thing.

The group sitting on the left side of the main room seemed to be shooting a music video, or perhaps a promotional spot – a lady was wearing a fancy flowered dress with bow on her head, playing an upright bass, and she sang a little, and someone took pictures and video inside as well as out in front of the building. No idea what was going on, but it was an interesting thing to accidentally be a part of.

As we were finishing our beers, a guy came in and stood at the bar, where the bartender was nowhere to be found. He wandered around briefly before asking us if anyone was working. We told him someone was, but we didn’t know where she’d gone. I heard a sound from the direction of the kitchen and told him as much. He went to the kitchen and asked about getting a beer only to be told that they didn’t open until 5:00. I’m really not sure why they didn’t tell us the same (or why there were so many cars in the parking lot) but if they had, I suppose I wouldn’t have a story, however boring, to relate. At any rate, I’m pleased to announce that walking into the Broken Spoke is still like walking into a time capsule.

Next we headed up “The Drag”, which is the portion of Guadalupe Street that runs along the western edge of the University of Texas campus. The biggest change I noticed there is that the signage on the front of the Church of Scientology building is covered by black trash bags, which is where that shitty, ridiculous fraud of a “religion” belongs – in the trash. I don’t know if they’re closed forever (I’ve since read that they’re renovating), but a girl can dream, right? We stopped at the Amy’s Ice Cream on Guadalupe, which I’m pretty sure is the first Amy’s I ever ate ice cream in, and where I promply got my fix of their unbelievably good coffee ice cream. Seriously, I’ve been thinking about that coffee ice cream since I moved away from Austin, and it was every bit as good as I remembered.

Dinner that night was at a place called Licha’s Cantina (they refer to their cuisine as “Mexico City Soul Food”, whatever that means), located a bit east of I-35, on the eastern edge of downtown; that whole area is way more fancypants than it was when I lived there. The restaurant was packed to the rafters with shitty hipsters, but the service staff was top notch, and the food was good. We went for drinks after at Yellow Jacket Social Club, where a bunch of guys did a bunch of cocaine in the men’s room. It was a cool place other than those douchers – top notch country music playing, (relatively) cheap drink prices, and lots of entertaining graffiti on the picnic tables outside, as well as in the men’s room.

Poor Danny’s having a rough go of things.
This one was not there when I sat down.

We moseyed back to Sal’s place to finish off the night and slept the restless sleep that is slept by people who overindulged in food and drink. We awoke the next morning to varying intensities of rain, drank some coffee, and broke our fast at Torchy’s Tacos, where I had a really fucking good fried avocado taco and a really fucking good migas taco and some really fucking good (but strong!) coffee. Sal then drove us to see my last workplace (the building is still standing, but no longer houses the same business), my last residence, and my first residence, all of which are in the north-northwest part of town. It was pretty surreal to see places I used to live, and that I thought I’d likely never see again. Both apartments looked pretty much the same, like maybe they’d been powerwashed and had a fresh coat of paint at some point, but otherwise, if I hadn’t known better, I might think I was still living and working in all three places. I do wish it hadn’t been raining so hard at this point in the day, as I would’ve liked to’ve snapped some pictures of the places, but such is life. I’m pretty sure I have pictures of both apartments somewhere in my closet. Maybe I’ll share them here some day.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon checking out some local breweries, namely Austin Beerworks, Celis Brewery, and 4th Tap Brewing Co-op. I love visiting breweries, in part because I love beer, but also because it’s really cool to see how different they all are from one another while ostensibly offering the same product. Each location clearly reflects the vision of its owners and/or brewers, and I like that very much. From my journal: “AB was my fave, flava-wise, but Celis had the best “vibe” to me.” 4th Tap seemed very cool as well, but by the time we got there, I was too full to properly appreciate their beer. They’re worker-owned, which I love, and they had video and board games, so I imagine it’s a pretty fun place to hang out.

Men’s room sign at Austin Beerworks. The one on the left reminds me of Mr. Lahey from Trailer Park Boys, may he rest in peace.
Celis offered these, and they were indeed “so gut”! I love a good/dumb pun, but seeing a good/dumb pun involving multiple languages is like winning the World Series.

Our friend Adam met up with us at 4th Tap, and Sal and I disembarked to Sal’s house to drop off the car and get a Lyft to meet Sheila and Adam for dinner. Sal chose a place called Vivo, and it was mind-blowingly fucking good. The tortilla chips were clearly made with sorcery, all buttery and warm and just seriously the best tortilla chips I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat. The salsa and queso were top notch as well, and my spinach & mushroom enchiladas with poblano cream sauce were some of the finest enchiladas I’ve eaten, and I have eaten a lot of enchiladas. I also got a very good “puffy taco” with tofu and a bunch of other stuff in it, and from a strictly gastrointestinal standpoint, that was a mistake. I used to be able to eat an unholy amount of food (22 slices of pizza at a Mr. Gatti’s once, when I was in high school, but that’s a story for another time), but I just can’t eat Tex-Mex no more like I used to could. All in all, I’d easily rate that meal one of the 20 Best Meals I’ve Ever Eaten, Ever.

Karaoke followed at a place called The Common Interest, and it was fun. I sang “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, which is one of my go-to karaoke jamz, and the crowd was very laid back and supportive. I also witnessed a guy sing a Slayer song,which was definitely a karaoke first for me.

Next morning we all awoke a bit rougher for the wear, and made the wise decision to eat homemade oatmeal for breakfast. We then ventured south, to visit Waterloo Records (where I scored some pretty sweet stuff), eat more Amy’s Ice Cream (a scoop each of coffee and Irish cream for me this time), lunch at Magnolia Cafe, dig Barton Springs, and check out SoCo, not necessarily in that order. We then paid a visit my old southside apartment (the one in the bougie ghetto), which, like the northside haunts, looks no different aside from the exterior paint. We then met up with our friend Luc, who Sheila and I hadn’t seen in a whole lot of years, and had dinner at Home Slice Pizza. New York style pizza is definitely not my preferred style, but Home Slice does it well. A little tip, though: if you think yourself and your dining partner should each get a house salad along with a medium pizza (which is the smallest whole pizza they offer), fuckin think again. That house salad is monstrously large for a 7 dollar salad.

We finished that evening off with beers at the Draught House Pub & Brewery, and it was a very cool place (aside from the restroom nearest us, which was maybe the hottest place on Earth). The bartender was playing the Supersuckers, which was extra fun considering they were playing in town that night. I didn’t bother to find out if they were playing the Supersuckers because they were sad they couldn’t go, or if it was a coincidence, but either way, I always dig the Supersuckers.

You should dig them, too.
See?
Holy shit.

Our last day in town included a very good brunch with Sal and Adam at the original Kerby Lane Cafe, followed by a brief visit to the lovely and scenic Mt. Bonnell, sans Adam, who said “I’ve seen it”. I’d seen it once before, in 2002, at which time I left some graffiti that I’m 99% certain I managed to find, although I did not take a picture of it this time for some reason. Probably because I’m a dingus.

On top of Mt. Bonnell, looking whichever direction that is (east-ish?) toward what, if memory serves, is the Loop 360 bridge, whatever that’s called. It was really hard to not throw a rock toward those expensive-ass houses down there.
On top of Mt. Bonnell, looking whichever direction that is (south, probably!), toward downtown ATX.
Facing downtown from atop Mt. Bonnell again, from a slightly different angle this time.
Cacti are fucking neat. This was also taken on Mt. Bonnell (obviously?).

We followed this excursion with a terrible drive to the south side of town (every drive to or from the south side of Austin to or from the north side of Austin is terrible) to visit Luc again, this time at his place of employment, which is a small local coffee roaster. He gave us a glass of nitro cold brew coffee and a tour, and that was a very cool thing to get to do, plus we got to shoot the shit with Luc a bit longer. Also, if you like coffee and you’ve never had nitro cold brew, do yourself a favor and figure out a way to change that.

We left there and high-tailed it back to North Lamar Boulevard so I could finally set foot back inside Austin Books and Comics. I was able to fill a few holes in my G.I. Joe collection for a very reasonable price, and I got some good info about their back-issue program, which ships to out-of-towners. We dined at Vivo again, because I just couldn’t stop thinking about those cursed/blessed tortilla chips, and this time I got the calabacitas, and it was absolutely the right decision. We ended that day’s (mis)adventures with a punk show at the Sahara Lounge (first band who we missed, Utin Utin, Poizon, and The Ka-nives), and a good time was had by all, even if they were charging $8.25 for a pour of Bulleit.

There are bleachers directly behind where I was standing when I took this picture.

Had one last pretty dang good breakfast taco at the airport, in a lounge area where live music apparently sometimes occurs (see above photo), then we were back in the air, eventually landing in cold, gray, shitty Indianapolis, where cold, gray, shitty real life awaited us the next day. But I kid; a vacation is never long enough, but then if it went on too long, it would no longer be a vacation.

Sign outside a dumpster near Vivo. Humanity could learn a thing or two from that dumpster.

Thanks for reading. See you next time.

I Be Trippin’

/ Rev. Joel / 11 Comments

I recently said to my buddy Marcus (as wise a man as I’ve ever known) that I wasn’t writing much lately because I had too many thoughts in my head and I couldn’t decide what to write about, to which he replied “isn’t that what writing is for?” And so here I am on a cold, rainy Saturday, remembering that I started this particular blog with no preconceived notions about what it should be, which means that the fact that I can’t decide what to write about should actually be a benefit to this blog, if not necessarily a benefit to you good people.

Mrs. Circle Pit and I are headed south next week, to visit some friends in Austin, Texas, and I’m extremely excited about that. I lived in Austin from late May 2003 until mid-August 2006, when my first marriage fell apart for a variety of reasons (namely that I married the wrong person), and I haven’t been back since I left, also for a variety of reasons. My time there is well documented in my journals, and I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about revisiting those days in my writing, and this seems like as good a time as any.

A little background: in my early twenties, I decided I wanted/needed to move away from the area I’d lived my entire life. I’d recently watched Twin Peaks for the first time, which went a long way toward instilling a sense of both wonderlust and wanderlust, and I decided to visit my friend Kara in Seattle, in part because I missed her, but also so I could make her drive me to North Bend, where much of the fictional town of Twin Peaks is located in real life.

Everything about the trip was amazing and perfect, and I returned home determined to move there. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen. If you know me at all, you know that I tend to be both indecisive and lazy, two things that are not good companions to determination. Instead I continued living in my parents’ house, delivering pizza part time, and saving approximately $0.00 toward any kind of life change.

Then one fateful day, my friend Matt got married. Well, the fateful day was actually the day before, when I arrived about 30 minutes early to the rehearsal. There I met Tara, best friend of the bride-to-be, bridesmaid, and all-around cool chick. I sweated my way through some long since forgotten conversation with her (and with the minister, whose conversational skills made mine seem good), and the next day at the reception, I slammed down two rum and cokes so I could work up the nerve to ask her to dance. She accepted my sweaty offer, and we had a nice time, and the next day I sweatily returned to delivering pizza part time while I lived in my parents’ house, where I continued to sweat.

A couple weeks later, fresh off his honeymoon, Matt called me up while I was working and dropped a knowledge bomb on me in a way that is so perfectly Matt. Our conversation – or at least my recollection of it – went something like this:

Matt: “Did you have a nice time at the reception?”

Me: “I did.”

Matt: “Tara had a nice time, too.”

Me: “Oh, cool.”

Matt: “Is that all?”

Me: “Should there be more?”

Matt: “No, I guess not. I’ll just tell Katherine to let Tara know you’re not interested.”

Matt is very good at talking in circles and speaking in riddles; it’s part of what I love about him. And while unrelated this particular conversation, he also likes to argue. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he decided to go to law school. Anyhoo…

Moving the story along: Tara and I started talking on the phone, pretty much every night, and we started making plans for me to visit her in Austin ASAP. Her involvement in grad school got me excited about college for the first time in a long time, and I decided to go back in school for something like the 300th time . I flew down to visit her shortly after the fall semester began, missing a few days of classes in the process, but I had an amazing time, and I fell in love with both the girl and the city. Suddenly, my wanderlust had a real and specific destination.

We spent time together over our Christmas break, and I flew back down to visit her over my spring break the following March. We attended the Bloodshot Records showcase at SXSW while I was there, and it was fucking awesome, and I also spent some time finding an apartment, finally settling on a one-bedroom place one block away from Tara’s apartment.

I had the most enjoyable and successful semester of my long and wasteful state university career (3 A’s and a B+), and moved to Austin less than one month after the semester ended. My dad, my brother, my cousin, and my nephew all helped with the move, which was an exhausting and miserable 18-20 hour experience that I wouldn’t change for the world. They left the next day, and just like that, I was 1,000 miles from home, seemingly forever.

I found a job at an H-E-B, stocking the grocery shelves overnight. It was awful, and it remains the only job I’ve ever quit via the hated “no-call/no-show”. I also decided on a whim (after seeing a commercial on TV) to visit the local culinary school and see what they had to offer, as I’d long had in interest in cooking. Approximately 90 minutes later, they had me signed up to start classes in two weeks.

I won’t go into my experiences at school all that much, except to say that it was not a very good school (they’re actually no longer in business, as they were one of those shady for-profit schools that preys on people like the person I was in 2003), and the bulk of what I learned there was only indirectly related to cooking (Chef Leichter’s stories of cooking in New York City in the early 80s were hilarious and fascinating). I did gain a few things of note, however.

First, I got a job through the school, working full time at a cafeteria (the Harcourt Cafe) in a corporate office building (the Harcourt Building), making coffee, then going on to cook breakfast and lunch for the employees of a company that publishes textbooks for elementary, junior-high, and high school classes. I met some cool people there – both co-workers and customers (I also met some real assholes there) – and I have enough stories from my two-ish years there for at least one more full blog post, but I also learned a lot about cooking while I was there (way more than I learned in school).

Second, I made some friends at school that I’m still friends with today. I’ve lost touch with/completely forgotten about way more of my classmates, but I’m still in contact with a few of them, and they’re good people, and I’m glad that I know them.

The third thing of note that happened to me at culinary school was meeting Alison. She was in my class, and I’d noticed her early on, thinking offhandedly that she seemed funny and was cute, but that was that. We continued on with our schooling, finishing out our year by working together for six weeks in the school’s short-order style cafe. Next thing I know, I’m breaking up with Tara one week before we’re scheduled to move in together. I didn’t handle it well, but in my defense, I’d never broken up with anyone before. Tara was my first girlfriend, which I didn’t mention earlier only because it didn’t fit the flow earlier. I obviously should’ve broken up with her sooner, but I legitimately had no idea how to go about it.

I still feel bad about how the whole thing went down, and I don’t know if she ever thinks about me anymore, but if she does, I’m sure it’s directly related to what an asshole I am, and if that’s the case, she is not wrong about that.

Without a place to live, I ended up moving in with Alison right away, doing little to quell Tara’s suspicions of my infidelity (which for the record were unfounded, at least in a physical sense, though I’d certainly checked out of that relationship emotionally at least a month prior to the breakup). She drunkenly proposed to me on her birthday that August, and I stonededly accepted, and we were joined in unholy matrimony the following January.

In retrospect, I think that’s where we went wrong.

My family and my friends Kara and Katie all traveled down to attend the ceremony and reception, and a good time was had by most. I probably should’ve taken the raging migraine I endured on our short honeymoon as a sign of things to come, but I was too swept up in love and lust.

We kept on keepin on, me working full time at the Harcourt Cafe, her looking for work part of the time and doing who knows what the other part. Her employment status certainly added some strain to our marriage, but I believed in us, or I wanted to, anyway.

When our lease ended, we moved to the south side of town, into what I soon realized was a Section 8 apartment complex (when something seems too good to be true, it probably is). Many shitty adventures awaited us there, but there was a silver lining – Alison got a job! And it was close-ish to my workplace, so we could carpool!

Some of the shitty adventures involved Fred, our downstairs neighbor. Fred was unemployed and on disability, and spent most of his days and nights leaning on the stair railing drinking and smoking, making it nearly impossible for us to enjoy the out-of-doors, as he simply couldn’t not talk to us, or more accurately, at us. The memory of his drunken laugh still makes my skin crawl. His wife, Tammy, was friendly enough, but interacting with her always bummed me out; I could sense the sadness and regret in her eyes and in her voice.

Fred had a shitty mid-90’s Mercury Sable that he outfitted, bafflingly enough, with an alarm. It was a shitty car, owned by a shitty person, so naturally the alarm was shitty. Fred’s goddamn car alarm went off ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Neighborhood kid rides his skatebard down the sidewalk? There goes Fred’s car alarm.

Thundershower rolls through? There goes Fred’s goddamn car alarm.

Garbage truck collects the trash at 5 in the morning? There goes Fred’s motherfucking car alarm. And naturally, Fred was always passed the fuck out when that would happen.

There are many more stories about our year living in the ghetto, but I’ll save them for another time, because I don’t have all day. Suffice to say, the stress of living there (along with with stress of our 20 minute commute to work taking over an hour on the return trip because of the goddamn ridiculous traffic in Austin) definitely added more cracks to the foundation of our union. When that lease ended, we moved back north.

Our new place was much nicer, and it was located such that I could ride my bike to work, which was nice/essential when my car (my beloved 1994 Kia Sephia that I’d driven down there, as well as all over the midwest before I moved to Texas) wouldn’t pass the mandatory state inspection for registration. Alison got a new job somewhere around that time as well, and things were looking up. We moved in on a cold, drizzly February day, and the next morning, I walked out the front door and down the stairs to look around the parking lot, only to slip on some ice on the bottom step, bust my ass, and spill my coffee. Like that honeymoon headache, the incident should’ve set off warning alarms.

Time marched on, and Alison started talking about this new friend from work who she thought would be a good match for our friend Leah. She arranged for the two of them to come over and hang out one night, and there was no obvious chemistry between them, but looking back with that perfect 20/20 vision afforded by hindsight, I can see the faintest beginnings of what eventually culminated in Alison leaving our house to stay with him while I spent my last two weeks in town packing up my stuff and waiting for my dad and my cousin to drive back down and help me move back home, because she and I now resided in Splitsville, USA.

I wrote a poem about us:

You never changed your maiden name

I never got that matching tattoo

Neither of us ever did a goddamn thing

We said we were gonna do

I spent my last week there staying with my buddy Steve, who also let me keep all my shit in his garage while I worked out my notice at my job. In the early evening hours of August 18, 2006, my dad and cousin arrived in a rented van, we loaded up all my worldly possessions (aside from some junk I left behind on purpose, in part so she’d have to deal with throwing it away or otherwise figuring out what to do with it), and drove up to Waco, where we stopped to stay for the night. Next morning we lit out for home, taking a very long, not-even-remotely-on-the-way detour to Springfield, Missouri, so they could see the Bass Pro Shops National Headquarters. Given the situation, I was in no position to protest their decision, but to say I was unhappy about adding a couple hours of drive time to what already seemed like a 15,000 hour trip would be putting it mildly.

At any rate, we arrived at my parents’ house very late on August 19th (or possibly very early on August 20th), and Dad drove me to Bloomington the following afternoon and helped me unload the van into my new place, and a brand new chapter of my life began just as quickly as the last one had ended. That chapter may or may not be related here another time.

Long story short, I’m now happily married to the love of my life (going on 10 years!), and in just a little under 68 hours, I’ll be back in Austin for the first time in 13 1/2 years, and as I mentioned previously, I’m very excited. I’m gonna visit Austin Books and Comics and Waterloo Records and Amy’s Ice Cream and maybe Magnolia Cafe and I’M SO EXCITED! Also, I won’t be at work, and that’s definitely a bonus.

I do hope I don’t run into Tara or Alison, but it is a possibility, because as far as I know, all my ex’s do, in fact, live in Texas.

Thanks for reading, y’all. Until next time…