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austin interlude: how not to make friends at sxsw
At the Flatstock Poster Art show we passed one artist who had a note on his sign, "Will trade art for Converse." I looked at the immense Converse bus packed at the back of the convention hall. "What's that about?" I asked, and he explained that the day before they'd been giving out free Chuck Taylors. He'd gotten a pair but when he tried to snag another for his girlfriend, they'd told him they weren't giving shoes to artists anymore, only bands. "That's lame," I said, focusing on the "artists" part and not the more important "bands" part. Meg and I continued wandering the aisles until we'd wandered up to the bus ourselves. A table was set up at the front, manned by two fashionable girls and a guy. Off to the right, three young, shaggy-haired boys filled out forms. I smiled and walked up to Girl 1.
"Hi. What do you have to do to get free shoes?" My voice was friendly, my smile wide. The girl smiled briefly at me and put her hand on a form.
"Are you in a band?" she asked. Without thinking, without even realizing the opportunity that was being handed to me on a silver platter, I answered.
"No."
"Oh. Well we're only giving shoes out to bands." I was shocked. That made no sense. And still in a friendly tone I asked her, "Don't bands get enough free stuff?"
I could see the mask drop over her face. She was an enemy now. She leaned back and pointed to the three shaggy-haired boys. "I don't know. Ask them." I did.
Me: Don't you get enough free stuff?
Band Boy 1: Like what?
Me: Like free drinks backstage and groupies throwing themselves at you.
Band Boy 2: Ha! I wish.
Band Boy 1: We actually had to pay for our drinks last night.
Me (drifting from friendly to hostile pretty quickly): Oh yeah?
Band Boy 1: And we only made a hundred and fifty dollars.
Me: Huh. Well, I had to pay to come here and I'm broke...
At this point Meg is clearly uncomfortable and I'm not getting shoes and somehow it all went from harmless and amusing (at least to me) to hostile, so I shrug and wave and leave. I spend the next half hour alternating between feeling badly about bringing a bad vibe into those kids' days and trying to figure out how to get the shoes despite the firebombed bridge. I'm no good at scams.