South Bye

We’re sitting at the airport. Our flight was delayed for de-icing. That makes it sound like someone’s licking the frosting off of it. I hope our plane is chocolate flavored. We ran into Mr. Kevin Lyman – owner of Warped Tour, among many other things – who told us about his bass fishing experience the day before. Apparently he’s an avid fisher, and Jaime told me a rad story about a band that wanted to get his attention, so they sent him a fishing pole. HEY BANDS: do your homework!!! Don’t you wish you were those guys? Brilliant.

We also ran into my colleague Gregg Lagambina, Filter’s Editor-in-Chief. Poor guy is living the movie Terminal. Maybe he engineered it to avoid this issue’s deadline.

We saw Sean “Har Mar Superstar”, in town with his other project “Sean Na Na” (or Sean Na Na Na to Jaime), who’s apparently headed to London to promote Axe body spray. How hilarious must that ad campaign be? I can’t imagine what the stuff must smell like, but if he were in the U.S. ads I’d definitely be motivated to buy some for my boyfriend. Or at least my dog.

As we approached the gate I was excited to see a girl I know from L.A. I won’t name her as I’m about to talk shit. Anyhow, we met through a common friend and she’s always been exceptionally friendly. I thought nothing of approaching her and saying hi, despite that she was hanging with a hot young band from the U.K. (no, not Arctic Monkeys). Wouldn’t you know, I got the cold shoulder. Go figure. I guess she was feeling a bit protective of her gang. The more interesting fact, however, was that I had met and photographed the guys at SXSW 2005 – and even more importantly, one of the members remembered me and came over to chat. So see, chicky? I don’t need you to talk to cool guys. I can do it all on my own. And besides, I really just wanted to say hi to a cool girl a friend had introduced me to.

Jaime’s working on getting us in to see Dir En Grey this week. Thursday night. If you’re in L.A. and can get your hands on tickets, I highly recommend it. Not because I’ve ever seen them. Or heard them. Or heard of them more than 3 days ago. Just because the buzz is out of control, and sometimes that’s a good enough reason to go. Oh – and they sold out the Wiltern in less than 15 minutes.

Time to board. I suck at writing conclusions. See ya next year, Austin.

Dir En Grey, The Final