SXSW 08 – The Year of the Red Bull

South By is always a blur, but every year the details of the blurry week are a little bit different. This year I got asked to be the emcee for the Red Bull Moontower party, which had me hosting the party from 10pm to 5am Wednesday through Saturday, and made the money I spent on a wristband a total waste. But it also led to all sorts of extra fun, so I’m not complaining at all. In just four nights, I got to:

Have a snotty band from New Zealand, the Mint Chicks, tell me that I was an asshole because the stage manager cut their set by exactly one song. I had to be the guy to go up on stage and say, “Everyone give it up for the Mint Chicks!” and when I did that, one of the band members came up to the other microphone and said, “Fuck that. Don’t worry about. And Red Bull sucks! Don’t drink that shit!” I think they were mainly angry because no one cared about their set. They went on immediately following Idle Warship, featuring Talib Kweli, and they were not dancey enough for the crowd that had gathered by the stage.

Talk to Alan Tudyk, otherwise known as Wash from Firefly, for like a half hour in the green room, all without ever telling him that I knew who he was. Later, Alan had sex with a groupie behind the Alamo’s outdoor screen at the party.

Made an appearance while ironically headbanging at the end of this video Red Bull uploaded to YouTube as part of their party P.R.:

Oh! And right at the beginning of the party, on Wednesday night, Tim and I got to do keg stands and beer bong hits during the Dazed & Confused Quote-Along party. That wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, as retro as it was, but it was made extra fun by the fact that there was a sheriff standing three feet away, watching us and laughing. Now that we’re old, we can do keg stands right in front of a cop, and it doesn’t matter. I think the last time I was around keg stands I was 20 at best, and so the combo of cop and keg still made me nervous. But it turns out there are no laws dictating how you position your body while drinking beer. Good to know!

Those are the main highlights of the party, I think. Other than the general drinking free Red Bull and alcohol every night and dancing around and hanging out with Brad and J. and Oliver and Josh and Caitlin. The film festival had its own set of highlights, none more surreal than the night when the Geico caveman walked past the line to get into Pangaea and girls that had been waiting to go to the Facebook party freaked the fuck out, bounced up and down like they were 16 in the 1960s and the caveman was Ringo, and then proceeded to follow him down the street as an entourage for the rest of the night.