The Optimist: “My glass is half-full.”

The Pessimist: “My glass is half-empty.”

The New Yorker: “What the hell is this? Did I order this? I don’t think so.”

Linus: “My glass is … hey, look at her glass, with the gold band on the rim. I want a glass like that.”

Because it brings Mayflowers.

Haw haw haw.

(Smacking sounds are heard)

New Scientist reports on a large-scale study of mp3 downloading versus CD sales:

The most heavily downloaded songs showed no decrease in CD sales as a result of increasing downloads. In fact, albums that sold more than 600,000 copies during this period appeared to sell better when downloaded more heavily.

For these albums each increase of 150 downloads corresponded to another legitimate album sale. The study showed only a slight decline in sales as a result of online trading for the least popular music.

So, people download songs, and if they like them, they buy the CD. Duh.

The RIAA will probably sue them.

If you saw Jeepers Creepers in either its original outing or its second coming, you’ll be familiar with the notion of the near-indestructible demon who ventures forth every 23 years to eat him up some nubile young thangs. I am much the same way with cleaning my house, except without the nubile young thangs.

Spring peeped out this week, strobing briefly through the cold nights and occasional overcast, the reminders of a winter that hasn’t quite let go yet. In one of the balmy bits I had an urge to sit on my couch and read for a space - positively vernal, I! It was a brave plan, a good plan, a righteous plan. But a glance at where the couch used to be dashed it. Where I remembered a couch there was a great mound of books, papers, CD’s, pictures, bags, itinerant laundry, and dusty bric-a-brac. Time to bring the mountain not to Mohammed, but out to landfill. I kitted up with crampons, mattock, and garbage bags, and set to.

This is the part where I’m supposed to say that it wasn’t really that bad. Unfortunately, it was that bad.

My Mom used to save teabags when I was a kid. She had a little square dish for the purpose, the sort of thing that these days would be a mixer for wasabi paste and soy sauce, and after the first steeping she’d squeeze out each one, let it dry, and pop it in the fridge for further use. (I should note that Mom was reared shortly after the Depression, and she also likes very weak tea.) So that’s my excuse for discovering that I had kept a stash of every single box I have ever brought into the apartment over the past nine years - it’s genetic. Computer? There’s the box. Keyboard? Check. Speakers? Yup. Those games I bought from eBay? Of course. I had so many boxes, I could have mailed all my boxes to myself.

Have I mentioned that I run Home Office Records out of my apartment? Lotsa boxes. Don’t even get me started on the plastic bags.

By the time the first round of motivation started to flag, my curbside looked like a shantytown ready to migrate. I stopped buying the Times a few years ago when I realized that I was a non-essential step in the paper’s journey from newstand to curbside - I usually only penetrate as far as the reviews and the crossword puzzle - so it was really just boxes, with a smattering of ancient circulars and Return Service Requested credit card offers. By “smattering,” I mean two garbage bags full.

I’ve struck couch; I even sat on a bit of it. But now of course I have all these papers that want filing, and bits and pieces of this and that to sort. And I’ve got nothing to put them all in.

Speaking of waiters. Back when the East Village was still a cute idea and Avenue A was the eastern border of commerce in Manhattan - we’re talking 1998 here, more or less - my chefly friend Joe was one of the people behind a spiffy downstairs restaurant called 85 Down. The food was monster good, the prices were mostly right, the beer was decent and often better than that, the joint was molto simpatico, and it was a regular stop for me.

One of the waiters, Andreas, was a strapping guy with a barrel of a voice, a couple of early piercings, and the occasional visible tattoo. He’d lumber toward tables of paralyzed tourists with a thundering head of grave deadpan (“Just be calm, Mabel, let me do the talking - and keep your hands where he can see them”), and take up a glowering watch position for a few moments. Then, when they were good and nervous, he’d conjure a menu and daintily set it down, just so. And in his soft, resonant basso, he’d say, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Would you like to see a wine list…?”

Got ‘em every time.

If it weren’t for Rachelleb’s recent entry on chain restaurants she likes or wants to try, I wouldn’t have known that P.F. Chang’s was a chain at all. We don’t have any here in the City, and of course you can imagine how much attention New Yorkers pay to eating habits in the rest of the country … yes, that’s right. None at all.

Pierre and I ate at the Chang’s on San Jacinto in Austin, right across from our hotel. It’s a cushy, comfy place, and the food was excellent. Our waiter looked remarkably like Kevin Spacey and gave us the sort of deferent flat-hand reserved attention that we don’t ever see up here, where your waitperson is either wacky-friendly (“Hi! My name is Heather! Scoot over and let me sit with you for a minute!”), obsequious (“I am Karl. Give me money to be pleasant to you and watch, I will now smile”), or too pretty/ moody/ in the East Village/ hung over to be helpful (“What, are you still here?”). I was so relaxed I actually had a drink with a little umbrella in it.

I’m partial to the Heather style myself - I am hopelessly fond of waitresses and barmaids; it’s a curse - but our Kevin fellow made us feel like actual welcome guests. It makes me dislike our grubby chain fooderies - like T.G.I. Friday’s - all the more. Bah. Humbug. When’s it going to be spring?

Austin, TX: 3/20/04

Saturday gets into fab gear with one of the architects of the 60’s, Andrew Loog Oldham. He’s a graying gent, now, and his memory is mostly kind except in a very few occasions ("Brian Jones: he was a pain in the ass. A whinger and a moaner.” “Phil Spector: antidepressants and martinis don’t mix!")

We hear about the early days of the Stones, from the time they’d taken over the residency at the Richmond Station Hotel from the Yardbirds; their recording of the Beatles’ I wanna be your man that John and Paul pretended to finish writing on the fly just for them; and Mick and Keith finally starting to write on their own (but not locked up in a room until they produced a song, as the legend has it.) One remark tossed off casually, that in writing songs, the sound of words is more important than the words themselves, is something that I’ve always believed to be true but that many deny heatedly. Yet a good “sha la la” or “be bop a lula” is worth a thousand words!

From the old statesman to the young businesswoman: Andrew Loog Oldham made way for Ani DiFranco, and the audience changed accordingly. A lot of her comments focussed, quite naturally, on the process of independent music making, it’s joys and its pitfalls, and its motto: “get a gig; then get another gig!”

Into the stretch… The evening starts inauspiciously: Angel Dean & Sue Garner, an old-time, traditional acoustic duo at times reminiscent of the Everly Brothers, were booked into Coyote Ugly, a new venue that takes its name too literally. The bartenders dance on the bar; they also straddle the chattering customers, whip them with leather belts and tie leashes around their necks; they do body-shots; they rub lime slices onto one another’s crotch with their teeth; they hop along the entire length of the bar like demented rabbits with taps! Hello? Acoustic music venue?

From the east side to the west: Mary Lou Lord is setting up on 6th Street as I walk past, toward the former, lamented Waterloo brewery that is now the Fox and Hound. The set-up is the same as in earlier years, a covered stage set in the middle of the courtyard on the side of the building, but what’s new is the huge satellite dish on top of the terrace, beaming some televised sport to a noisy crowd whose whoops at times drown the music down below. Steve Tannen and Deb Talan, a.k.a. The Weepies –why “Weepies,” I don’t know; their record is called “Happiness"– play on despite the noise, folkies in the mold of Simon and Garfunkel, except that they both play the guitar, and that Deb’s clenched-teeth delivery reminds me of Mike Ferrio of Tandy. They’re fun and not weepy in the least, and the audience is appreciative.

From the west back to the east. Mary Lou Lord has a good crowd on her street corner now, but we’re hurrying back toward Coyote Ugly for Tammy Faye Starlite “l-i-t-e like the adjective", who is the one person who can be expected to be able to tame the unruly Uglies. And so she does. Tammy’s rude, she’s crude, she’s Mel Gibson’s wet dream and worst nightmare. The medium is country, the message is XXX, the crowd laps it up, and the bartenders stay behind the bar.

Time out for a couple of Fuller’s London Porter at Lovejoy’s, just across the street, and it’s back on 6th for a non-SXSW show: the popular Austin punk band Cruiserweight or, as they would put it, “cruiserweight” is playing at the Flamingo Cantina after midnight. Stella, the singer, is a small, jumping bundle of energy –the ultimate quantum. She pirouettes, bounces, gesticulates like a disjointed robot, and barely escapes various flying bodies and guitars on stage. The audience is mostly local, though there are a few SXSW badges here and there, and they sing along to most of the songs. My feet are beginning to complain; fortunately, that’s it for the evening.

Austin, TX: 3/21/04

If it’s Sunday, it’s softball and barbecue. Despite a dodgy forecast, the weather is cooperating. The softball tournament is already under way when we arrive to the playing field (eventually, the club owners’ team will win over the print media’s) so we pile high a plate of Ruby’s barbecue and sit on the bleachers to watch the games (injuries! flying catches! sliding into first but coming to a halt 3 feet short! a double play! a 22-0 score!) and chat with fellow survivors of another year of madness.

It’s not over, though. We’re not leaving until Monday, which leaves us time for dinner at the Bitter End (mixed green salad with glazed pecans and goat cheese, and rib eye with tomato coulis, barbecued zucchini, and penne for me, with a glass of the wee heavy; the same salad, and salmon with mushrooms, corn, and black beans for Linus, with the excellent O’Brien stout) and a final visit to Emo’s for The Dung Beatles. Crude, lewd, bewigged and bejacketted, they’re just like the Beatles except scatological, and they regale us with the soundtrack for their movie “Felch!” It’s well done, in a “what were they thinking!” kind of way, and would not breach our defenses on any other day, but by now we’re helpless and they know it. Oh, and they squat between songs, too…

Next, and also from Austin, Ping, a band with several members, and shiny lights, and … I don’t much remember what else. Definitely a guitar, probably some kind of keyboard? Not heinous, I think.

Finally, and I stayed only because Linus wanted to check them out, The Diamond Smugglers. Same guys as the Dung Beatles, plus backup singers and a Neil Diamond impersonator. I know this not. Don’t ask me.

There’s still packing to do, fitting the loot between the socks and the underwear, and remembering to put the scissors in the checked bag. Sleep.

We’re back from beautiful balmy Austin, safe and sound and chilly and missing it already. You know you’re on a really small plane when this is what you hear from the pilot over the intercom when they reach the head of the runway, in place of the usual alert to the flight attendants:

“Paula, please be seated for takeoff.”

The newest part of my SXSW column is up at Music Dish; this one covers the on-stage conversation and interview with Walter Yetnikoff. And more, of course.

This New York place is cold.

Austin, TX: 3/19/04

Friday started late, with Pat DiNizio on the day stage pushing yet another copy protection scheme, one that looks like one more challenge to bored crackers everywhere to spend an afternoon writing a little script to blow the whole thing to smithereens… Still, Pat sang a few songs, in fine form as ever.

Petty Booka… Too small a joke.

Off to the Continental to see Mary McBride at the Bug Music happy-hour do. Name dropping: Patricia Vonne, David Berger, Benny Landa, Bruce Martin, Walter Salas-Humara are in the audience. Dan Baird is Mary’s guest for a few songs, starting with his Bottle and a Bible until he has to be reminded that … er … he’s supposed to be across the street at Yard Dog to play with his own band, The Yayhoos at the Bloodshot Records party. He hurries off the stage, while Mary and the band carry on bringing honky-tonk to the mother of all honky-tonks –or one of them at least.

A quick look at The Yayhoos, and it’s time to head back downtown. Somewhere along the way Linus joins me and we catch Electric Turn To Me at the Lava Lounge. They start swishy and surly, then a sudden shock and they turn angular and twitchy. Not arresting, but probably worth another look when there’s more time. For now, however, it’s first a miss: There’s a line for the Willard Grant Conspiracy at the Ritz. I saw them recently in New York, so instead we head off to Exodus for another look at Coco Rosie. They’re from New York, and have been playing in pretty serious venues, but when I saw them first at the Knitting Factory I wasn’t thrilled. They still blend an operatic voice with a pop voice full of wobbles, they still display an excessive fondness for noisy toys. There’s clearly something there, but it rarely emerges, except in the last number with the voices in unison over prerecorded tapes. They’re just too arty for my taste; maybe they need to listen to some Robert Johnson first.

Moving along, Jennifer Glass, at the Pecan Street Ale House (Rant: They call themselves “ale house” but all they have is mass-market crappy lager; before they changed owners a couple of years ago, this was one of the only two regular venues in Austin with an excellent beer selection –the other being the Elephant Room. Now it’s all fizzy piss.). Jennifer is accompanied by the esteemed Rich Ferridun on guitar, which is how we heard of her in the first place. She’s tall, she’s thin, she’s not blonde like on her web site, she has a big, bluesy voice, and this stripped down gig was obviously a serious departure from her previous dance/trance tunes. I liked the sound of it but I must hurry on to …

Scout Niblett at Buffalo Billiards. She’s small, she’s thin, she’s blonde, and she’s all alone on that big stage. When I arrive, she’s manhandling a <voice="Viv Stanshall">Heavily Distorted Electric Guitar</voice> in front of rapt girls who mouth the lyrics to the songs. Nice, but I think she should try using a bass instead of a guitar; I have a feeling the result would be nicer.

What do you say about a band whose sound-check song is better than the rest of the set? Swearing At Motorists is a duo from Ohio; at least they were not shooting at motorists, so that’s good, but we take it as a sign to get out of there and head west for a beer at the Bitter End.

The Bitter End is an excellent brewpub and restaurant; tonight, we’ll stick to the brewpub side of the operation: During the entire run of SXSW they have extra-festival bands in the side bar, and the Dexter Romweber Duo provides the soundtrack to an hour of R&R; then we’re on our feet again. We say hello to Jeff Pachman and Megan Hinckey on our way out, and along the way to the Crowne Plaza to see Trish Murphy, we catch two songs by Megan Reilly at the Ritz Balcony; one sounds like the Rolling Stones circa Fingerprint File, the other is a light ballad. Who’s the real Megan, we’ll have to find out on another day, for we’re moving along toward I-35. [Read more about it just below; it’s not worth a link for such a short jump.]

While Pierre has been keeping you abreast of the doings and goings-on down here, I’ve been scribbling some bits and pieces in my secret identity as a mild-mannered correspondent for Music Dish Magazine. The first two instalments are up; for the point/counterpoint Pepper experience of the SXSW Music Conference, compare the Pierre’s-eye-view here with my coverage of the Swollen Circus first night preview and of Little Richard’s remarks and the music between.

We’re back in town Monday night, ears satiated and feet sore and ouchy.