Preface To Listening: What About The Other Four Senses? Not "Radio Friendly"?

This is coming to Austin: the Austin Booger City Booger Limits Festival Booger. Except for maybe the Decemberists, whom I've seen live, & the National, whom I'd like to see at a smaller venue, I have zero interest in the band coming to this. I have actually zero interest in the event itself. I have only been to one or two "festivals" in my life, &, except for the fact that nice people gave me nice drugs there without really knowing me, it was hot, noisy, boring, & smelled like a toilet more often than not. So what's the draw?

I have a theory.

Life on the lonesome prairie was kind of lonesome, what with the prairie being big & wide & expansive, & also not a lot of people around, unless you count prairie dogs as people (& remember, dogs don't count prairie dogs as dogs), & so when there was a house fire, or a quilting bee, or a lynching, or a bible-beat-off, or some other community event, it was worth the seventeen day journey to the nearest town to just hang out. You might could even to get a bath.

All human societies, you will recall from our earlier lessons, began on the lonesome prairie. Except for the mountain folk who dwell beyond the night. But then they never make it to music festivals, so fuck them.

Years have passed, & the drugs have become more illegal, but even so, we live in the lonesome prairie of our own lives. Since we haven't yet discovered how to share our thoughts (or even, really, how to throw our voices), we are trapped evolutionarily on the lonesome prairily, & music festivals, even if they have to bring Bob Dylan back from the dead, remind us of those times.

Also, we're kind of snobbish fucks & we're envious of everything, so most certainly a town full of moronic hipsters will be ejaculating all over themselves for months for having "seen" so many "big names" at one time. It's as easy as Cheney hunting quail for them. It doesn't require any real work on their part, but now they can say, "Oh, sure, I've seen BLEH." I'm sure some of them might even get to have some superstar snort cocaine out of their ass. Those people are COOL.

But I still can't see the draw, so please, you can come to my slightly bloated city & make use of our facilities, but remember: you're really just a forlorn settler who's spent the majority of your life in a badly-built cabin in the middle of nowhere, scared most of the time about hurtful enemies & monstrous beasties, & all that the City Booger Austin Booger Limits Booger Festival is to you a chance to get away from the lonesome prairie which is your soul. You poor fucker.

What a theory! Just by writing it I got accepted into graduate school! Thanks boring trendoids! I hope to milk your pathetic posturing & grubby grasping into irrelevant pop culture paperbacks that you'll unironically embrace! Hooray!