posting the deal below until today so let me assure you that i havent already gone out tonight.

indeed my plans tonight are to meet up with ms melting dolls, princess mcintosh who is ripping up main street with people so big that it would not be prudent to name them until tomorrow when the shit has completely hit the fans.

so lets recap what happened today before this blog turns into pumpkins and rodents.

woke up this morning and got myself a beer. the futures uncertain and the end is always near. pardon me. woke up this morning and celebrated robert blake’s aquittal with a beverage and some second hand smoke from the ladies next door who were complaining that all these big flabby dudes were out there chickenhawking next to the pool or else they would happily enjoy some of this sunshine that capital city was finally getting.

so we commiserated and at noon sk smith picked me up and we went down a very nice street full of cute little shops and restaurants and etc. went to a famous boot store and suddenly i wanted cowboy boots and cowboy shirts and yes, even a stetson. somehow we resisted and moseyed over to a taco bar.

you always know youre in the right place if mc brown is there. half way through my fish taco who appeared but the mighty rapmaster and his lovely lady. we politely said hi bye and headed downtown to see tsar at the hard rock.

heres the problem with the record industry: its full of industry people. here you have 1,200 bands playing over 4-5 days in a great town. everywhere you go there are bands rocking. the art gallery next to the taco place had lou barlow playing in the parkinglot. elvis costello cant get on stage until midnight. the donnas are forced to play at a bbq joint. the stones werent even invited.

so here you have Tsar. the worlds best newly-signed band. and what does their new label do as a “showcase”? they lock anyone out who hasnt pre-arranged a way onto the guest list. yes there were free beers and margueritas and dudes with trays of cheese poppers and chicken bits but what about the passerbys? what about the kids?

tsar took the stage and ripped through their set. halfway through whalen looked up and said, “ten? we have ten more songs to play? oh ten minutes? we have ten minutes to play? no. yes? no. yes? youre kidding right?” and then played 22 minutes of the fastest hardest rock that austin has heard in hours. and it was so good that it made one of the industry ladies shut her fucking mouth for nearly one full minute.

then we walked down the street and every bar had a band and every car had a band and every curb had a band and every pole was advertising a band so sk took me to a swanky old timey hotel bar and a young guy was playing classy piano and we sat on a couch upolstered with cowhide and we sipped our st paddys drinks and we toasted to the fact that 15 years ago jeanine and i fell in love. and before we could finish our drinks a band had taken over the bar and were far too loud so we left.

i must say that i didnt find them too loud and i didnt think the drinks were bad and every time i explained to my host why i was being so tolerant i reminded her that i went to uc isla vista where every drink tasted delicious even if it was kool aid and mouthwash and every band sounded great even if they were painfully out of tune. that years of bad drinks and bad music had all blurred into one swirly haze that all sounded and tasted the same: awesome. and when i die and go to heaven it will look and sound a whole lot like austin where every step you hear something nice, see something nice or smell something nice.

in heaven of course you will be able to eat the tires right off the cars but thats pretty much the only thing that you cant do right now.

sk is sharp as a tack and for some reason the men arent hitting on her, which is odd because there arent that many super hot chicks roaming the streets. in fact if you plan on coming to sxsw to get laid youre better off thinking of a plan b. anyway sk has a biting sense of humor and at some point she started cracking jokes involving jello shots so we found three cops asking a passed out visitor if he was ok and we asked them if they knew any nearby bars that served jello shots and they laughed and we laughed and the drunken man awoke for just long enough to laugh and then one of the cops said as a matter of fact this here bar right there serves jello shots so we went in and the waitress laughed at our order and said shed check to see if they had any

and i yelled, “get some green ones” since its st paddys and all and she said she’d do what she could. and sure enough she returned with two jello shots and then two more appeared and two more and soon enough we were swapping bill cosby jokes and noshing on garlic fries. good times.

and now we are getting ready to possibly see spoon play and sk has freshly showered and i havent freshly done jack shit except of course written to you, and tomorrow i will fly home in the early morn and arrive in LA in the afternoon and my lil texas spring break will be overwith and ive gotta say it was so much different and so much better than i had expected and i have to of course thank my host ms smith and her cat named monkey and all the southern hospitality that everyone has given me.

i will come back to sxsw next year and the year after if all goes well because this is a magical town full of great bands and endless booze and good food and good people. it isnt true what they say about red states. not all of it. some parts of that red isnt so red and sometimes life isnt just one thing. sometimes its many things.

i wanna make a tshirt that says

texas aint all fucked y’all

although the shirt that i will probably get will be the one that i see on the coolest people and it says

keep austin weird.

amen.

raymi + pics + mas pics + sk smith + chokey chicken + the statesmen

fish dont even drink this much cuz they’ll have to keep running behind the coral to wizz, but i dont care. its isla vista representing in this shit.

i do love austin and tonight the deputy met sk and her pals and i at the gingerman downtown and for having 1200 bands this place sure has enough bars to make it seem like there are only 12 bands in town. we drank pitchers of texas beer and then i dipped into the Spaten.

around the second pitcher these british soccer wearing jersey guys came up to us pretending that they were the fbi. i was all, i can trump that with my xbi password but im on vacation so do your thing limey. turns out they were just kidding and drunk and obnoxious and dumb. the deputy distracted them and me and sk and her friends kept yapping. good kids all of them. suprisingly every single one of them was from harvard.

so i kept drinking. karisa has taught me quite a few things but one thing i learned from her is that i truly can drink. and im a good drunk. i got up and put some quarters in the jukebox. jimmy smith, VU, elvis costello, stones, etc

got back to the booth and the brits had invaded the booth next to us as well. two cigar smoking yuppies. after our third pitcher the deputy turns to me and says wanna see a fight? and sure enough the locals are holding their cigars and the drunken slobby brits are driving them out of the bar. and then they drank their beer and slobbered over the girls we were with.

“aye whose this we have here?” pointing at sk’s half asian friend. “is her name princess?” he asked.

i said i wasnt sure, that i was new in town. that names were for far more advanced creatures. that women were property anyway and i just numbered females. etc.

“then who is this lass?” and he pointed at sk and i said that her name was juanita because i love that name.

and i was glad that they had made the frat boys run off with stogies in hand and soon we were headed across the street and down a few blocks to a new place, a better place, a brighter place, a place with a fireplace and a country band who was tuning up right next to us.

theres nothing my friends better than a really good banjo player doing his thing to get in tune and get warmed up

unless of course its a really good fiddle player who’s warming up next to him.

austin has been a delight. a capital d delight. too many bars the way santa barbara had too many beaches.

tomorrow at noon soundrack of our lives will play and then at two thirty tsar will give this town the rock enema that its so yearning.

its one thirty am and this computer doesnt let me see gmail so i cannot write back to everyone who wants to write me but for those of you who have ordered books i will mail them out on monday when i return and for those of you who have lifted yr shirts and sent it to me thank you, especially the women.

ive been drinking and i could drink some more but the only thing i look forward to more than the pleasant sleep that i will have is eating my leftover ribs that are waiting for me in the suite.

i heart you austin texas and i know you heart me back.

goobita

today i met the lovely and talented raspil k iverson who is shorter than she looks and very sweet and has the sweetest lil texan accent that you wouldnt expect but there it is.

we ate at the ironworks which is a bbq place downtown.

i really do like this town.

ok im drunk. lets just get that out in the open. because of that i wont worryt abvout my typing. sk has a big bottle of rum and everywhere i have gone people have iether bought be free drinks or given me drinks or the drinks are so cheap that they may have well have been.

raspil was cute. all my fans are cute. bunny mc is midflight right now or mid driving or mid something. perhaps she will call me mid-nightish.

have i told you how hot madpony kristin was? she is. and tall. she left her shoes in my hotel room. dont assume anything out of that. everything was very proper. she has a fiancee, you know. shes a good girl and oughtta run for vice president cuz everygthing she says is perfect and funny and a little awesome. i think ive fallen for her. i think she knew i had fallen for her so she i think was no long amazed by me. if i had played it cooler i think she would have followed me to the hottub insteade she kept me at bay with the glare of her huge engagement ring.

doesnt matter, im going to auction her shoes on ebay as soon as i get home, so start collecting your rubels.

sk has been the greatest host, she is watching obama on oprah like a perfect host, letting me use her computer, letting me drink her rum, letting me drag her around to meet these people at all these weird places.

the bbq place that we went to had huuuuuuge ribs. i had the jr rib plate, if you can believe it. it only cost $9. beers were $3. they had a pic of the president up and raspil warned me that it would be there, but even idiot leaders can know where the good food is, so why not.

austin is one of those bigger little towns. lots of room. lots of good stuff.

the rockers have arrived. you can tell rockers from “Interactive” people pretty easilly, one thing that seperates them is that they have little uhaul trailers hitched to their explorers for their gear. and they look like a band.

some of the bands are very skinny and pale. the girls should be extactic. for some reason they arent. maybe its cuz its chilly.

im sorry i havent linked a lot of people. its because sk and i keep talking and i feel bad whenever i type so i type whenever shes on the phone which is rare.

anyway i love it here and i want to come back next year. maybe i will host a blogger panel of Topless Chicks Who Don’t Give A Fuck.

strangely im still not toooo drunk.

life something + norway loves me! + this what we do now + blogger buzz + msnbc loves me!

i wanted to tell you a lie about a girl i didnt meet at a bar last night but im having so much fun here and none of it revolves girls twirling around my hotel room that that is the story.

one that none of you would probably believe, even though much of the fun involves rum bud amaretto baileys and jd.

the bellboy told me that all i had to do was say the word and i could use the computer in the managers office but i just stayed in my room all morning writing long hand into a legal pad and when sk picked me up to write at her house all i could think is dont lie to the good people of the internet, tell them that youre loving austin loving texas and loving the fact that something as gay as blogging could get you mad props from people around the world.

last night i passed out early even though i wanted to stay up and watch hbo like a normal person but the truth is if i dont have something to do with my hands i get very very sleepy.

i think thats why people doze off on the bus.

yesterday sk and i went to this great bbq house by her home. they had bbq sauce in the squeeze things normally reserved for ketchup. they sold to-go slices of homemade pies. they had menus under glass and thick pork ribs and soda in cans.

we ate and walked in the cold and talked about mcdonalds and i dont think of chilly texas evenings when i think of spring break vacations but thats why we live – so we can see all the little unexpected happy surprises that come around.

remember that all you barely legal know it alls who think that you can see into the crystal ball of the future. i have been to the future and i come back to you to say you dont know shit and thats the good news.

tonight we may drink with bunny mc

photo by mc brown

and yes i got to meet her.

this picture was taken by ben from the austinist who captured the instant that wonkette was not allowed into the Side Bar because she didnt have her drivers liscense. to add to the irony it was the Gawker party where she was the guest of honor – one would think.

im not sure who she called but she eventually got inside only to get surrounded by adoring men including yours truly who towered over her because she is a petit lil number.

wonkette was very generous to me, answering every question that i had for her which i might get into more detail later but sk and i are off to an early dinner.

anyways the gawker party was great for many reasons

1 wonkette was there
2 the google kids were there being funny
3 henry copeland was impressing us
4 the replacements’ 16 blue was playing on the jukebox
5 two wannabe porn stars were in the hizzy
6 madpony arrived at midnight to much fanfare
7 most of the drinks were free
8 so many people said hi to me and were Amazingly nice
9 a nice girl was kissing every man on the cheek leaving huge red lipstick marks on our heads and cheeks
10 mc brown was sloshed

so yeah wonkette told me that she is working on a novel, and that washingtonenne was a crazy funlovin gal but despite the photographs that i post on this blog she is not the bosom buddy that she appears to be and the two arent really chums.

my fantasies are still intact though because rarely do i believe things that are told infront of salivating men

god shes cute. and lil.

tomorrow i get to meet raspil iverson! and maybe later in the week bunny mcintosh.

who knew that the best way to meet so many people who i admire was to come to the biggest red state in america.

with mad pony

sad to say i was drunk and she was perfectly sober.

sad because she had to endure me saying “omg yore so purrrrty.”

of the lovely sk smith. we’ve just had quite an eventful morning/afgternoon.

it began at the buttcrack of dawn as the texas sized sunshine woke me in the guest room. ah sunshine how are you buddy? i didnt want to wake up. i didnt want to go to the panel discussion. i didnt want to go to the bloggie awards. and i sure as shit didnt want to go to the booksigning.

thankfully sara had eggs and bacon crackling and when i heard the toast pop up i took off my nightcap and made my way to the spacious kitchen.

soon i had shit showered and shaved and we were on our way to the austin convention center which is about 1 mile away from the dan-n-sara ranch. everyone has ranches out here. its awesome. also gas is a nickle. fuckers.

go to the check-in area and they gave me a badge and i said hey can sk smith get a badge or something, im sleeping on her couch, they looked her over, didnt find her incredibly dangerous looking and gave her a backstage pass. rock on!

they ushered me to the “green room”. i was too nervous to eat or drink anything but i was very warmly recieved by my fellow panelists and we sorta went over the topics that we were going to discuss and before we knew it we were being asked to go to the meeting room.

within minutes the place was pretty well packed. jason noticed that, as expected, most of the black folk were up on stage.

the panel went well. nobody could see how much i was shaking. i was shaking like crazy. ever do acid? you know how when you’re first coming on it feels like your body is going through turbulence? yeah me neither. but i was nervous. i felt retarded. everyone was laughing at my jokes but i was still shaking. i shake when i want to talk but i hold back. i was holding back because i was on a panel with four other people who were immensely cool who were all saying great things. i kept trying to pinch my thigh to stop me from shaking. nothing worked. i tried deep breaths, drinking water, anything. nothing worked. only when i talked was i able to mellow out. the energy had to go out of my body.

q. who do you link?
a. i’ve been linking a lot of pot smokers lately (laughter)

i saw matt from metafilter there, i saw henry copeland from blogads, mc brown was in the house, and jason and eric from blogger were there. i saw a few black people who didnt laugh when i said, “not every black man wears a koofi” but later one of them came up to me to tell me that i was really good. he looked like christopher darden. thanks bro.

so the panel went great. real great.

then immediately we went down the hall for the Bloggies.

the Bloggies were very interestingly organized. they assumed that nobody was there. so when they got to my award I WON so i took a few steps toward the stage to thank God and my mom and before i could make it they were on to the next award. which was fine.

no really, it was fine. it was nice to be nominated, it was better to win, but it was best that i didnt get on the mic because i was gonna give a painfully long speech talking about how the camgirls need more love and about how the republicans want to take blogging away from us. all lies but fun lies that i certainly would love to hear some crazy man say at a weird award ceremony at a convention hall – wouldnt you?

i poked my head over at the Borders Books booth who were selling my book. they had 5 people signing filling up the table so i asked if i could come back at 3pm. they said yes, 3:30p. so me and sk smith and jason goldman, and biz stone and eric case went to Casino El Camino, promptly insulted the punk rock bartender who had huuuuuge mountain climbing caribeaners in his ears.

Me (to Goldman): you guys should be stoked, this whole Interactive thing is sorta here because of you.
Goldman: Shit, Austin wouldnt even be here if it wasnt for us.
Me: Yeah it would just still be a suburb in Wisconsin.
Crazy Tattooed dude at the Bar: hey, fuck you.
Bartender: yeah, someone piss in their drinks.

we ate bacon cheeseburgers in the back patio and whipped green peppers at the birds who tried to shit in sara’s hair.

then we went back to the convention center and i sat there with a small pile of my books. nobody was there to see me. next to me was a huge pile of Al Franken’s book. many piles. people were lining up to get his book. it was full on Spinal Tap action. someone should have kicked my ass. mr. copeland bought my book so it wasnt a shutout. soon they asked me to leave, which i did gratefully.

now what am i going to do with 39 books? perhaps we will have a sale when i get home. fuck that. sale now. email howtoblog @ tonypierce.com and you’ll get a book for $18 + $5 shipping, signed.

ok now we’re off to the Google party and then the Gawker party. im living the life of MC Brown party hopping and shit, but thats what you do when you get out of the house i suppose.

word is at midnight ms kristin madpony will arrive and then my day would be complete.

my thanks to the academy and everyone who has been so nice to me here.

matt from metafilter took this pic of our panel

im about to do a few things that i dont like doing very much. im going to pack my clothes. im going to get in an airplane. im going to leave hollywood. im going to get out of the house. im not going to blog all the time. im not going to have my tivo. im not going to have my many mansions. im not going to be able to call a wide variety of xgirlfriends and beg them to come over to keep me company. im not going to be able to check in on my fantasy teams.

a long time a go i wrote a proposal to a company to let me travel around the country and represent them. a job i did right out of college for philips/magnavox, webtv, and microsoft, except this would be on a bigger scale for a smaller company. they said yes and i was happy and nervous, then they said no and i was sad and relieved.

the crazy thing is i love being in other lands and i love other people and i love other foods and musics and girlies and customs and television programs but i have a hard time getting out and actually doing it. it takes something as simple as a warm invitation and a group of people who i respect, and a thousand bands including my favorite, tsar.

my most recent x is generously driving me to the airport very soon and i will miss her deeply, and if she allowed me to photograph her i would take a picture and put it here but instead i will be forced to present to you this photograph of my college girlfriend jeanine smoking and drinking on a tuesday night. beautifully.

even though my camera is still in the shop, i plan on taking pictures of austin. im not sure how i will do it, i will buy a new camera if i have to, but someone needs to archive the inside of my hotel room besides the throngs of camgirls who will no doubt find their way to my hottub and slip in and eventually blackmail me.

through the wonders of buzznet i will update this page electronically. mc brown, by the way will be in the house. he called me last night from a loud gathering wondering if i was in austin and i laughed. the deal is at 10:30a i will probably be there an hour earlier and run to the hills like iron maiden as quickly as i can.

a very nice reader offered to be my austin concierge. he emailed me his cell phone number and invited to show me around town and be at my beck and call. thats hospitality my friends. dont expect that when you come to los angeles. not from me at least. and its not because i dont love you. i do. its just because as marilyn manson said, im a black rainbow. but at least im rolling the stone from my cave door for this week.

my good pal sonny i. lavista will be housesitting in my stead. its funny how easy it is to find a housesitter these days when you have every directv channel and xxxflix and dsl and parking. it makes me wonder if i should charge him.

party at the convention hall monday at 11:30a

party at the hard rock on st pattys with tsar

raspil + sk smith + the deputy

which is quite an honor for me. and i will have a chance to possibly win a Bloggie for best post about blogging. And i get to autograph my book a few hours before Al Franken autographs one of his book.

and then i get to see tsar on st. patty’s day at the hard rock.

its going to be quite a spring break.

maybe i should start packing.

and i might even get to finally meet Madpony Kristin (!!!) which i might be more excited about than any of the above.

but what really got me excited/nervous was an article by The Register, a british website that flowed with a pre-write piece knocking, i think, all the big-time bloggers who will invade austin over the next few days.

of the hoards of “interactive” attendees, check out their short list:

The South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin has always had a technology bent to it. Intermingled with the voluminous quantity of music and movies were speeches from leading IT pundits, open source gurus and the like. Sadly, this tech bent has turned to a blogger hell with the globs set to consume an inordinate amount of airtime – and air – at next week’s show.

Does Robert Scoble really work at Microsoft? One has to wonder after seeing his name appear on the SXSW speaker list. Scoble seems to scoot around the country – by Segway most likely – annoying all kinds of audiences with his “revelations” about blogging. Shouldn’t someone be required to write something interesting before being asked to talk about writing interesting things?

Or maybe you prefer, the Wonkette (pictured, left), Sean Bonner, Jason Calacanis, Henry Copeland, Jason Goldman, Jon Lebkowsky, Cameron Marlow or Tony Pierce. Surely one blogger is plenty to describe the idea of an online journal. It’s not hard to imagine the SXSW organizers looking back on this year’s lineup with shame.

wait, did they just insult me?

im so confused.

maybe theyre bummed drudge wasnt invited.

if youre going to be in town, please visit the panel I will be speaking at on Monday 3/14, Blogging While Black, with George Kelly, Jason Toney, Lynne Johnson, and Tiffany B Brown, which promises to be very interesting. (Room 16a, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm) which will be immediately followed by the Bloggie Awards which happens at the same time that im supposed to be doing my book signing (remind me to fire my manager).

at 2pm join me in drooling over Wonkette,

and then it’s off to the bars with sk smith who swears theres enough booze in texas for my insatiable thirst.

xtx + bicycle mark + amy

she came over tonight with kfc and mrs fields cookies. the plan was for us to see tsar play tonight with karisa and her man.

the details dont matter. all you should know is that for a while she sat on one side of the couch as i ate and watched bill maher and for a while she slept right on top of me as i fell asleep to the reinactment of the michael jackson trial.

the trial that should have never made it to the pajama pants day since the sister of the accuser and the brother have now both admitted to have lied under oath.

her cell phone has a little alarm on it that she set for 1am incase we slept for too long because we knew we probably would because we knew we probably would never be together like that ever again. since all that sweetness is apparently troublesome later when broken hearts try to heal.

me, i dont believe in such things. i believe that one hour of goodness should have the same weight as one hour of sadness. therefore rack up the good as long as its there.

so i looked at her sleep. i looked at her wake. so pretty. even with cried-off makeup. i looked at her stand on my couch as i hugged her and i said all the nice things that nice boys always say

i said you’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll make sweet love

sunday we’ll have anal

and when i come back from texas i’ll tie you up real good.

then i gave her an autographed copy of charles bukowskis women

which i autographed for him

in front of her.

best piece i never got

signed,

charles bukowski.

four am is when she drove off cracking open a chilled frappuchino

her mommas gonna kill her

so i said just yell at her

we’re broken up are you happy

and slam the door.

and dont tell her we made out all night.

maizzy + zen for lunch + steph