Here's more about the conference from South by Southwest (SXSW) out of Austin Texas. The conference runs from March 11th to the 15th with lots of cool panels and exhibitions.
I'll probably just participate as an online viewer, but I would definitely like to go to Austin some time. I bet it's a really nice place from what I've read and seen.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest and are thinking about traveling to Austin Frontier Airlines has fares from $193.00 from Seattle to Austin.
Maybe go to Jim Hightower's Chat and Chew cafe or you might run into Jerry Jeff Walker playing somewhere...sit out on the lawn and watch Austin City Limits. You never know.
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I've seen Jerry Jeff Walker perform live a couple of times. Once at the Arbor Day Festival in Missoula Montana with Heart and Jimmy Buffett. That was one heck of a party. It was a sunny day, on a hillside with trucks full of kegs of Rainier beer. It was fun!
The other time was at the Gallatin Gateway Inn just outside of Bozeman in the Four Corners area. Jerry Jeff was playing and Hunter S. Thomspson was speaking (sort of speaking anyway; he was mumbling some words). He's a much better writer than a speaker.
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There's a thread of writing from Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Alan Ginsburg, and Jack Kerouac that's interesting to read. Maybe essential reading to understand something about American culture, certainly in the 50's and 60's. Not only is it interesting, but it gives you an idea of where some of the old codgers like me are coming from. These books by Tom Wolfe and Jack Kerouac might not be a bad place to start -
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Betsy just reminded me of that concert with Jerry Jeff and Hunter Thompson at the Gallatin Gateway Inn. She was pregnant at the time with Rachel. This was just around the time they started the "designated driver" programs in Montana, so it was a pretty new concept. That night if you were the "designated driver" you got a special wristband and all the free soft drinks you wanted.
Betsy, in a slip of the tongue, accidently told them at the door that she was the "designated drinker". The doorman asked her, "don't you mean you're the designated driver?"
"Oh yes yes of course, that's it driver." :-)
