Sunday, October 5, 2008


So, I'm hoping that the Kansas plate our car now sports makes my blatant speeding seem a little less noticeable. I would guess that cops pretty much anywhere have the New York plate committed to memory from a hundred feet. 

Sue and I have had another pretty eventful couple weekends. Well, me more so than Sue, unless you count grading papers to all hours of the night eventful. HEADS UP to all our New York friends and fam, Sue will be in town this coming weekend for the High School Reunion that I'm sure some of you are aware of. Enjoy! 

My musical adventures continued with an eight hour drive to Austin for Austin City Limits!
I was excited to visit one of the definitely cooler cities within a days drive of Wichita, plus I got to see my friends Erika, Alex and Eric who flew in for the weekend also. 
The pic to the right shows the gang in front of "Bat Bridge" which was a very unusual attraction. A giant colony of bats lives under this bridge, which is located right in the middle of the city spanning Town Lake. Every evening at dusk they swarm out for a little bug din-din and it makes for an impressive sight and attracts crowds of onlookers. Standing on the bridge, they form a virtual carpet of surging, flurrying activity just beneath the walkway. It seems like you could reach down and touch them. Cool!

At this time of year, however, it was almost completely dark by the time they came out so it was nearly impossible to get any good pictures of them, they don't like to stand still for photos. 
This is what it looks like when it's lighter out. The website says there are about 750,000 bats at peek season.

So, the festival: Austin City Limits, was a grueling but fun experience. Yes, I almost died from breathing clouds of dust and dead grass particles all Saturday, but there
were eight stages and a gazzilion bands, what was I supposed to do!? A sampling of some of the bands we caught: Gnarls Barkley, MGMT, Tegan & Sara, Man Man & Beck. Man Man would take the prize for band I'd never heard of who ended up being really entertaining. They're an everything and the kitchen sink kind of band with a circus sideshow sound and 
wacky stage show. Erika and Alex had to fly back Sunday but Eric and I went back to the fest again that evening, a little more prepared for the dust, and had a good time. 

Aside from the festival, we enjoyed the cool shops and local restaurants in town and got into a Rolling Stone party Friday night at a club downtown. Local band Voxtrot were one of the acts playing. Austin is a very cool music 
city and I'm sure I'll be back, maybe for SXSW! 

My mom came for a visit this weekend, Hi Mom! She stayed in downtown at the Hyatt, the nicest hotel in town. We took her to some of the good Old Town restaurants, the zoo (which is surprisingly big), the botanical gardens and the art museum. Hopefully she had a nice stay, she heads back tomorrow 
morning. We were happy to have our first guest, WHO'S NEXT!!

 A final word on my own musics stuff. I've been posting my songs on various sites like: Mediafire,
iSoundLastfm and Myjonesmusic. I've also been throwing together some makeshift videos for
 some of the songs and posting them on YouTube. The vids
are just an excuse to get the songs posted. Check them out sometime. You don't have to watch them, just give me a rating so it looks like somebody gives a crap.  I don't expect anything particular to come from it at this point. I just want to stay creative and see what happens. And finally, I am now sort of officially a
member of Half of Reason. Oh Snap! I'm even listed on their MySpace page! I guess it's officially official. 

Make sure to see Sue when she comes up next week, if you can, but we'll both be back in NY for the holidays, so hopefully we'll see you then! 

Love, Sonny & Sue.  
 










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