There is much more to it than that.

And yet, as a result of the days, weeks, months – sometimes years of uncertainty, highs, lows, encouragement, discouragement, little victories, and little gut-wrenching losses, the decision at the end carries exponentially more weight, whether for the good or the bad.

They tell you not to give up, that it will be worth it in the end, but let’s be honest: if this were always the case, no one would ever give up. The truth is that there is some value in giving up. And when you do give up, you can always hold on to some tiny, unproven amount of hope that somewhere in there, you were powerful enough to succeed, but chose not to, out of wisdom, logic, or “choosing your battles”.

But soon, it becomes a habit. You gather enough little meaningless hopes that they become a collection. You begin to hoard them, and you pretend to value each of them.

In your heart, though… You know. You know there were bigger prizes to be had, and a more meaningful life to be led. And maybe you would have suffered awful losses in pursuit that would have cost you all of your little hopes. Worst, maybe you will find that you were not powerful enough to emerge victorious in a battle you really cared about.

I still look back at my little hopes. They call to me still. “Come back to us. We will never disappoint you or tell you that your opinion of the world is wrong. There is no crying here. All is (theoretically) right.”

Ah, but they are afraid, just like you were when you chose them. Afraid to tell you the truth. Afraid you will choose something better. These little hopes are not your friend.

A friend is not afraid to cry your tears with you, and in the same breath, stand you up and take arms beside you. “We may cry today”, a true friend says. “And we may cry tomorrow, and every day for a hundred years. But in the final tally of your life, your tears carry weight. Infinitely more weight than your little hopes. Let us live. Let us succeed and fail gloriously. Let us bear the burden of life and be proud to carry it. Let us chase what is right, even if it means we must run longer, faster, and with less rest than what is wrong.”

So brothers, let us put to death our little hopes. It is not as difficult as it seems; they are already most of the way there.

I might have known that the biggest crisis of faith I ever encountered would end in a moment so peaceful. It was the 4th of July. (Ironic, given that the first breakthrough in this battle was realizing that I had begun to intertwine American politics and faith. It was when I began to rightly reject one long-held belief that others, sewn to it with accidental thread, also abdicated their seat.)

My wife and child were laying beside me, soaking in an archetypal summer day. We were at friends’ house, and had forgotten the pack-n-play, and thus, the collective parental unit was attempting to get the youngest Weaver to fall asleep after a long day of swimming. We needed a rocking motion, and with no forethought, I picked up my right leg, bent it at a 90° angle, and began to move it, right to left. The required rhythm wasn’t hard to pick up, even though I had no metronome. I just felt it out. Soon, the three of us were swinging back and forth, no one pushing us, on just the momentum provided by the simple movement of one leg.

I have occasionally had thoughts or explanations come to me in what I can only describe as a .zip file of thoughts. I have to sit down and “unzip” the package that came as a unit, and I begin to put words and actual thoughts to each individual piece. This was one such occasion. In one singular moment, This entire package of thought occured:

- While I do appreciate mathematics, I do not even know for certain the simple number of the combined weight of myself, my wife, and my child. I could estimate within probably 10-15 lbs, but (especially given the general tight-lipped nature of women on the subject) I had nothing precise. This number does exist, but I do not know it.

- While I do appreciate awareness of ones surroundings, I do not know the exact dimensions or material makeup of the hammock on which we are swinging. These facts do exist, but I do not know them.

- While I do appreciate physics, I do not know the equation for weight displacement that caused the one-leg-bent approach to work. These equations exist, but I have never researched them, much less committed them to memory.

- While I have built a large portion of my life on rhythm and melody, I do not know the exact speed at which I am moving my leg. I could estimate it to be about 50 beats per minute, but I am not certain. Again, it could be measured; again, I do not have an exact grasp of the facts.

But still, despite my overarching ignorance of all subjects at hand, I knew I could make the hammock rock. The fact that I could predict the outcome, even with none of the data, did not make me a fool or an easily-duped simpleton. It just meant that I had lived on this planet for awhile and had learned to function within its elegant tapestry of rules, even if I didn’t know each and every equation that provided their blueprint.

——-

It was a breakthrough to me to realize that admitting that I will not personally know every answer is not the same as claiming that those answers do not exist.

I reject the idea of an 8-bit God, playing monophonic Super Mario harp music in a two-tone Heaven, devoid of any nuance or subtlety. I believe any God must be immensely intricate and complex; how else would a system exist that for most of its prolonged history had no discernable technology within it more complicated than a catapult, but still allowed, in very quick order, for the invention of cars, rockets to space, and microchips so small that they can be embedded inside paper? (Yet we are still discovering things about the human brain, which has been around since our beginning.)

The beauty may be in the infinite complication, but the elegance is in the simplicity. I can still function inside this world without omniscience. What’s more, single cell organisms can function inside this system with no conscious thought whatsoever.

What I cannot do, at least by any sane series of thought, is claim that I choose to only operate in the things that I know for certain. (I would never be able to open the book that explained to me the physical nature of its pages to bend without folding themselves in half.) This is not an excuse for ignorance, but a simple acknowledgment of my limitations. I don’t think I’ll ever stop searching for answers to questions that puzzle me. But I can now say with conviction that “Is there a God?” is no longer one of them. I have far too often swung my leg and felt the movement of the hammock to believe otherwise. Sadly, I have far too often refused to swing my leg, and I have seen those outcomes as well. I have watched as some swing wildly and fall from the hammock, and heard the shrieks of those who scream angrily at others for moving an arm instead. I have seen some abandon the hammock altogether. I have had times when I just wanted to empty the beer cooler in hopes of escaping all thoughts of the hammock altogether. Now? I am finally able to relax a little. Enjoy the summer day. Spend my manic thoughts on something else…

Is God really all-powerful?

Is God really all-good? (and, If yes, and if yes, how do we deal with that paradox?)

I don’t know.

But I feel now that I can explore those questions with a stronger foundation, an elegant blueprint under which I can function and continue to learn. And for now, that is enough.

I just e-mailed this to Bud Selig:

Mr Selig -
I know that one e-mail from an inconsequential fan is not going to
change your mind. And I know that the likelihood of this e-mail even
being read is slim, so I will keep it short. But as it’s within my
power to add my voice to the argument, I feel I must at least do what I
can, as small as that may be.

I understand that your job is a difficult and often thankless one. I’m
sure you’ve gotten your fair share of mindless, misspelled, or violent
e-mails regarding the Armando Galarraga debacle. But sir – overturning
this call is the right thing to do. For the sake of Galarraga, but also
for the sake of Jim Joyce, long considered one of the best umpires in
your game. Do not stand idly by and allow this to be his legacy. For a
player to make a career-defining mistake is one thing (Bill Buckner),
but players are the attraction. Umpires should not be. It is within
your power to right a wrong that everyone wishes had been correct in
the first place.

This is not a situation (a la the Twins/Mariners game on the same
night) that overturning a call would affect the competitive balance of
the game. The next batter grounded out. The only Integrity-of-the-Game
issue here would be Jason Donald’s batting average (and, technically,
Brandon Inge’s fielding percentage).

This would not set a dangerous precedent (unless getting a call correct
where it would not otherwise affect the competitive balance of the game
is “dangerous”). Everyone involved in this incident has handled it with
a sense of class and grace befitting of this great game.  The only
person who has not is the one person who has the power to change it.
You.

Please, for the sake of Baseball, do what should be done. Overturn the call.

- Levi Weaver

I mean that I just finished typing out the names of over 500 CDs so I could list them, in bulk, on Ebay. I had to write a description, so I listed the bands, mentioned the fact that most of them had my name on them in Sharpie, and hit “submit”. Here’s what I probably should have just written instead.

It’s fitting that you are buying these CDs in bulk for much less money than I paid for them, because I’m keeping the most important part.  Memories Not Included.

(if you want to bid, there are three: #1 – “More Underground” / #2 – “More Mainstream” / #3 “Quality, Not Quantity“)

-

When I had a real job, I bought a LOT of CDs. (2-3 a week, for awhile). In fact, this whole list looks like a “Best Of” from about 2004-2006. Not that all of them are good. For every Sufjan Stevens/Taking Back Sunday/Frou Frou record, there’s an Evanescence or a Sum 41. But seeing those embarrassing CDs is part of the sentimental value. I can trace my journey from casual listener to connoisseur. I have every Dave Matthews Band CD released, up until Busted Stuff. I still remember where the transition from bad to good began: Brandon Frazier introduced me to Pedro the Lion’s “Winners Never Quit”. It was like a revelation. I can honestly say that it changed my life.

Shortly thereafter, I heard twothirtyeight on a sampler, and immediately bought Regulate the Chemicals. Not long after, I picked up Emotion is Dead by The Juliana Theory. Many of them in that era I bought on recommendation from a friend, before I’d even heard the music. (This is the only reason I own a Shiny Toy Guns CD. Thanks a lot, John.) Many of them I bought at shows. I was so impressed at one show that I emptied my pockets and asked the merch girl what $7 would buy. Turns out, it bought the broken-jewel-case version of Josh Ritter’s first (self-titled) CD. The recordings weren’t that great, but the show was, and his subsequent albums have each been better than the last. Some of the CDs were given to me once I started playing shows of my own. Time on Our Hands by Erika Werry has become one of my favorite albums of all time.

I bought with a cavalier lack of scrutiny for awhile, which means that even though I own Sacred Love by Sting, I also own Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie. I’ll take that sum total.

A few others…

Kid A by Radiohead – I remember hating it the first time I heard it. This was not the band I knew. But I gave it a second chance, which was just interesting enough to make me listen a third time, at which point I was hooked and bought their entire catalogue.// Taking Back Sunday – Where You Want to Be I can’t even explain why I think this is their best album, even better than Tell All Your Friends. It was just the right album at the right time. I have broken more things in my darkest hour listening to this album than any other… Well, possible “Maybe Memories” by the Used. or “Silence” by Blindside. I needed that loud, angry music for awhile. // Travis – The Man Who – This record taught me so much about songwriting and melody. I bought it at the same time as I bought Love is Here by StarSailor. Both albums taught me that there was a lot more to music than I’d previously realized. // Weezer’s Blue Album. This is my third copy of this album, and “no, you can not borrow this cd” is written in Sharpie at the bottom. Pinkerton was a better album, but it didn’t get stolen like the Blue one did. // Nickel Creek – Why Should the Fire Die? I was living in England, and had just broken up with my girlfriend AND a band. This was the album that let me know it was okay to make unhappy music that wasn’t aggressive in production value, but aimed to stab slowly rather than shoot. How I didn’t learn that from The Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come, I may never know.

-

The CD is a dying medium. The last one I bought was last November (David Bazan’s “Curse Your Branches“). before that, nearly a year had passed between purchases (“You’re Awful, I Love You” by Ludo). They are too shiny and space-age-y to have quite the sentimentality of vinyl, but not efficient enough to keep up with mp3s, iPods, and Spotify. Still…

If I’d had more free time, I would have arranged them, like that scene from Elizabethtown. “Start Here“, It would say, somewhere around Matchbox 20.

But that, I suppose, is the beauty of the journey. If someone else had told me where to start, where to end… well, then my journey would have looked completely different. So I pass them on to the highest bidder, and convince myself that whoever gets them will love the ones I love, and withhold judgement of me when they see that Collective Soul CD.

It was all part of the journey.

-Levi

EDIT: I am keeping some of these. I can’t put Deja Entendu in the case. I physically can’t do it. The same goes for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot / Friction, Baby / OK Computer / Neon Bible / Brother, Sister / The Ugly Organ / Pretend You’re Alive / A Grand Don’t Come For Free / Heartbreaker / Love is Hell / O / Grace / August and Everything After / Two Way Monologue and a handful of others named above. There are still good CDs in the case, but some of these have just meant too much.

EDIT #2: Some of the ones I am leaving in the case to be sold are getting sticky notes as to why the buyer needs to love them, specifically.

I dreamt I was at a church somewhere, one of those really progressive churches, and they had brought in Aerosmith to lead the music. Kids were invited to come to the front, presumably to pray or worship (God, not Steven Tyler). My old friend Phillip Howe went to the front, was crying and really having a moment, and Steven, really getting into the emotion of things, gave Phillip a hug and put a microphone up to his mouth. At this point, Phillip began to sing:

Lord, you are great, we worship You
For all the wonderful things you do…
(Steven Tyler hugs him a little closer)
You’ve created in me a heart that’s new
AND I’M TOUCHING STEVEN TYLER’S MOOBS!!! WOOOOOOO!!!

The whole “moment” had been a ruse.

Aerosmith were offended and stormed off stage.

End of dream.

(you’re all welcome).

But occasionally I still get a chuckle from them. As in this case:

I was {reading|studying|scanning} something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your {perspective|position|linear perspective} on it is diametrically {opposed|contradicted} to what I read {earlier|before|originally|in the first place|to begin with}. I am still {pondering|reflecting|contemplating|mulling} over the {different|various|opposite|diverse} points of view, but I’m {leaning|inclined|tipped} {heavily|to a great extent} toward yours. And {regardless|irrespective|no matter}, that’s what is so {great|good|super|superb} about {modern|advanced|contemporary|modern-day|modernized} democracy and the marketplace of {ideas|thoughts} {online|on-line}
{chuckled at|marked as spam|deleted}.

Hey, so… (pay no mind to the fact that I intro’d this with a story about spam). If you’re not on the mailing list, you should sign up now, because I’m sending something interesting out next week. No idea if it’s a good idea or not, but since I only send out about 3-4 of these a year, it can’t hurt, right?

Okay, back to your daily doings.

At about 11:15pm, a mere 45 minutes from our home in Nashville, Hidalgo (my CR-V) was running low on fuel and so was I. For the sake of time conservation, I decided that rather than stop twice, I would just eat a wrinkly gas station hot dog. Awesome idea.

By the time we got home, I was already feeling less than stellar. So you can imagine the combined effect when we opened the door and the angel of death himself lifted his arms and wafted his odor into our road-weary faces.

Something had died under our house.

(End of preface.)

After a night of stomach cramps and burying my face into my wife’s back (no idea what she did to cope) I called the landlord. After all, what good is renting if you can’t call some other human being to come drag a rotting carcass from under your living quarters?

When I got home Tuesday (I “work from home” which means I “work from the coffee shop, on the off chance that a depressed furball offs himself under my living room”) The note on the door read something like** this: “I checked thoroughly under the house, but couldn’t find any dead animal. threw some lime down under there. I’ll come back tomorrow to reapply.”

Problem… solved?

Of course not.

By the time Saturday (WEDNESDAYTHURSDAYFRIDAYSATURDAY.) rolled around, not only had I lost ten pounds via the Truck Stop Hot Dog Diet, but the stench was still there. I decided*** it was time to climb under the house to fix the problem myself. (Mitch Hedberg was wrong.) Once I was under there, things became a bit more clear. Allow me to translate the maintenance man’s note:

“I checked thoroughly under the house…” = “I took away the rotting piece of wood, its holes quasi-blocked by a COFFEE CUP, that covered the entrance, bent over and peered under your house.”

“…but couldn’t find any dead animal.” = “The offending deadling was not within 3 feet of the entrance. No way was I actually crawling under there, and besides, the animal had been dead a long time anyway. I figured it wouldn’t stink for much longer and gave up.”

“Threw some lime down under there” = actually, that’s a pretty close translation. atop the trash bags and cardboard boxes, it looked like someone had literally stood at the entrance and thrown lime as far back as they could, with no aim or regard whatsoever as to where it landed.

“I’ll come back tomorrow to reapply” = Worry not at my loose translation of the term “apply”. I am not coming back tomorrow. Or Thursday. Or Friday. It seriously stinks here and I think I might be sick.

So it was up to me: Domestic Superhero.

Armed with a tiny flashlight, too-small gloves, a trash bag, and multiple handkerchiefs around my face, I entered the sepulcher. The first problem was the water pipe. Either way was going to be a tight fit. Should I climb over, risk slipping and breaking the pipe, causing a major water leak costing hundreds of dollars to repair? or should I climb under, giving me no room to move (see: freak absolutely out) if I should awaken a poisonous snake.

Over.

Once I got past the pipe, It occurred to me that if I did, in fact, see a poisonous any. any snake. any freaking snake, I would not be able to make a quick exit. I would have to charm said snake by screaming and throwing my tiny flashlight at it while I calmly obliterated a water pipe on my way out.

Over to the right, I saw a heating vent which appeared to have a Davy Crockett hat trapped under it. Ah. this thing had just wanted to stay warm. If I hadn’t been so angry at it, I might have felt some compassion. I scooted over, putting the trash bag on my hand in the “pick up dog poop” position. What kind of animal was this, anyway? I chose not to look. If I discovered it to be a squirrel or a cat or a raccoon, then it would have turned into Rocky, Eek!, or Ranger Rick.

Maybe it was a chipmunk. Yeah – A CG chipmunk. with a red sweater. Okay. Hatred intact.

Because it was trapped under the vent, it wasn’t as easy as just “scoop-and-go”. I had to dislodge this singing heat-seeker. I got half of him on the first swipe. Yep. I broke Alvin in half. The second grasp seemed to do the trick, and I tied off the bag and began my exit, still thinking about snakes, still going over the water pipe.

…..

As I stood beside my house, throwing my clothing and too-small gloves into the trash can, I wondered what it was like to win a Heisman Trophy and rush for 2,000 yards in a season. I also remembered a poem my dad used to read to us when we were kids. It went like this:

My Child, beware of “good enough,”
It isn’t made of sterling stuff.
It’s something anyone can do;
It marks the many from the few.

The flaw which may escape the eye,
And temporarily get by.
Shall weaken underneath the strain,
And wreck the ship, the car, or plane.

With “good enough,” the car breaks down,
And one falls short of high renown.
My child, remember and be wise,
In “good enough”, disaster lies.

With “good enough,” the shirkers stop,
In every factory and shop;
With “good enough,” the failures rest,
And lose the one who gives the best.

Who stops at “good enough” shall find,
Success has left them far behind.
For this is true of you and your stuff–
Only the best is “good enough.”

I decided since the author was “Unknown”, he wouldn’t mind if I added one more verse…

If “good enough” your maintenance rank
Then from the floorboards, carcass stank
Will, leases, make your tenants break
Six months was “good enough”, they’ll say.

*Also like any good narrative, some inessential details have been changed for the sake of not boring the reader. It’s a common practice, really – if you’ve ever seen a movie “BASED ON a true story”, you should know that Luke Perry didn’t really ride bulls, there was no upper-deck/lower-deck romance that we know of, and Jake Sully didn’t really become a N’avi.

**I would have an exact exact quote, but we used the note to kill a spider. Yes, our house also has spiders. I love our house so much.

*** “at my wife’s behest”

…side note: When I say “Home”, I do not mean my house. My house smells like whatever animal decided it looked like a proper burial ground, at approximately the same time my wife and I left for Texas. The stench was so thick it was nearly visible when I opened my front door last night after a 12-hour drive. “oh man. I am so glad to be WHUUAAAHHHHGHGHG. UGH. UGH. WHAT THE. UGH”.

Welcome home.

So I am at my coffee shop. I’ve re-set my foursquare account, I’ve all but put @wristbandless to bed for the remainder of 2010, and I’m starting to catch up on life here in TN. But before I do, I feel the need to re-cap my SXSW experience.

…I just sat here and tried to give details, but I have to be honest – it was all kind of a blur, and there would be a lot of “oh wait, no – didn’t we… no no that was the next day… wasn’t it?” You can always go to the twitter if you want snapshots, but instead, I will list this like an awards show:

BEST FREE FOOD:
The France-Invades-Austin Party. Cheese and crackers, I expected. Less logical: Cava “Champagne” from Spain, PBR (Hipsters that wear striped shirts love it, that’s the best correlation I can think of.) and chips and salsa. Okay, so this was a very Spanish-feeling France party, but I did not complain. I hoarded extras in my backpack, and (this is the important part) there was still food left when we got there, which is more than I can say for most food-parties.

(Honorable Mention 1: The Basement Bash at Stubb’s. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just come from the France party.)
(Honorable Mention 2: The Banyan Branch Day Party. This was probably actually better food. But again, I had just come from the France party AND the Stubb’s party.)

BEST ACT-I’D-NOT-HEARD-BEFORE:
Dignan. And I saw them on the first day. They were great. I’ll probably get their album when my bank account recovers from the gas-money-to-Austin withdrawals.

BEST-ACT-I’D-HEARD-BEFORE-BUT-NEVER-SEEN-LIVE:
SoKo. I’d been wanting to see her for years, and she didn’t disappoint.

BEST-ACT-I’D-SEEN-BEFORE-AND-SAW-AGAIN.
Andrew W.K. – I maintain that if you can not party at an Andrew W.K. show, you are party-debilitated.

PARTY I THOUGHT WOULD BE AWESOME AND IT WAS AWESOME (tie):
1.) Thursday night, I made sure to get into Purevolume early so I could see Andrew W.K. at 3am.
Travis from Gym Class Heroes invited a bunch of people on stage during his DJ set and The. Stage. Broke. Health Hazard, y’all. So they cleared out some of the floor, reduced capacity (sorry, everyone in line.) and the show went on. About that time, i discovered my friend Aaron was in VIP, and he let us in. I eventually went on Floor (get it, because it’s not “stage”? okay.) with AWK, just briefly, because I think someone threw my sunglasses out there. I came back with three pair. Even though getting to bed at 6am was probably the onset of that cold I’d been fighting for weeks, I don’t care.

2.) Saturday,Stereogum’s party with Ben Gibbard.
Open Bar, Open Food, and I got in, despite leaving the line for over an hour. I know Death Cab was way cooler in 2004, and I just don’t care. I haven’t bought any of their albums since Transatlanticism, but I still love Ben Gibbard’s songs. He did some older DCFC stuff, a Postal Service song, and even covered Pedro the Lion. This was also the party where I got stopped a few times and asked if I was @wristbandless, which – again, I’ll admit this is not “cool” – totally made my day.

PARTY I MEANT TO GO TO, AND REALIZED I WAS MISSING IT AFTER IT WAS ALREADY OVER:
MWTX, IFC Crossroads House, Carniville, Pumps & a Bump, Brooklyn Vegan’s Saturday Party, The Crawfish Boil, The German Cookout, The Floating Fest, San Diego Hoe-Down, South by San Jose, Music Stiumulus Party, The Morning After Party, Spune Records Party, Trailer Fire Records Party, The Tenn Out of Tenn Party, Everything at Antone’s, Hype Machine, Piano’s (NYC), Vice Party, A in Austin, Eastbound and Found, MTYMX, The Cheer Up Charlie’s Artist Lounge, L4M showcase… oh geez.

PERSON I MEANT TO MEET UP WITH AND ON THE WAY HOME WENT “AHH I NEED ONE MORE DAY! CRAP!”:
Taylor from Sched, Brooklyn Vegan, Dan Mangan, Joel Timen, @Hipstercrite, @ThePeenScene, @SXSWPartyList, @TheMidgetmen, Zak Stred, Kabir from RiotVine, Josh from Lawyers4Musicians, Zoe Keating. Jet Cope, @TigerPop, You, if you were there.

BEST DECISION:
bringing a backpack that was also a cooler and had hidden compartments.

WORST DECISION:
eating that wrinkly old hot dog at the gas station on the way home.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Bill Murray

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR:
Beau Elkins

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE:
VIP guy @ Purevolume. I owe you 5 bucks.

SHOWS I PLAYED:
two of them, by the way, and they went great!

Alright! Back to my normal life as a musician, trying to make music that I believe in. If you’re new here, or only know me from @wristbandless, click on over to the music page. I’d love to know what you think. If you’re totally not into it, no worries! I’ll see you in the weeks leading up to SXSW 2011. If you are, maybe tell a few friends – it’s how I keep from getting a “real job” to keep me from having time to do this next year.

-Levi

No, I am not exaggerating.

Here’s the skinny: If you were planning on buying one of the guides i was coming up with – well YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY IT! The kind folks over at Sched* approached me and we made a deal. They would basically pay my expenses to/from Austin and instead of making my own spreadsheets, I would enter that information into their site. So you can now just go to http://sxsw2010.sched.org/ and design your own personalized schedule, just by clicking on the event.

I get paid, you get only the information you want, and you get it free. Everybody wins!!

We’re up to 4 new parties. This is officially a full-time job. for now.

OH OH OH – and quickly:

1.) I’m doing a 3-night residency at Lighthouse Coffee Bar. I’ll post details on my twitter account later today, so keep an eye on that.

2.) I’m now doing *two* SXSW showcases, both on Thursday. 5:30pm at the One-2-One bar, and 6:30pm at Mugshots (just around the corner and up the block. and around one more corner.)

3.) I get back to Nashville on the 22nd, and I’m playing at Bongo Java with David Dewese on March 25th.

Okay, see you in Texas (or back here in Nashville)!!

-Levi

(7 new parties? oh, stop it. there are enough parties, stop making new ones.)

I’ve been putting together a list of all the free-or-RSVP-required parties going on at SXSW this year. I’d asked people to pass along the info if they heard about these things going on, and I made too many promises to “do the same”, so rather than e-mail them individually, I started http://www.twitter.com/wristbandless.

Well, I have to figure out a way to pay for my gas money to/from Austin, so I have devised a plan. I’m selling these schedules for $10 apiece. Here’s the low-fi (also not necessarily comprehensive yet) version of Wednesday AFTERNOON’s for free. (Day/Night will be separate, for spacing’s sake.)

If you want Wednesday Night-through-Sunday’s, you can start ordering now (they’re $10 total for all 5 days/nights, and for all the money I’m saving you on free Food/Drinks, that seems fair… right?)

I’ll be e-mailing them all out on Monday, March 15th (by then, I presume I’ll have ALL the parties accounted for.)

If you want to order one now, you can (can not)! here’s the  (gap, the absence of the) click-thingy to make that happen:

(Oh, and I’m also playing a SXSW showcase. I’m playing the Spin it Indie Lounge on Thursday, 3.18 at around 5pm.)(This is still true, but there’s now one more: 6:30, same day, around the corner at Mugshots)