I think SXSW broke my brain a little bit. When I got back and I had a show to play that week, I started brainstorming. The result was taking two pages out of the Tony Clifton playbook, one page out of Neil Hamburger’s, and a paragraph of Bill Hicks, and roll them into possibly the best show I’ve ever played.

Drunk Not Retarded by Catlike Reflexes

Half of the audience loved it. The other half was calling for blood. I don’t think I’m going to get invited back to Nick’s Night Club, but fuck it, that place is over rated anyway, and it was worth it.

According to a piece in USA Today a 78 year old woman who went to a hospital in Germany last month for a little surgery on her leg ended up leaving the hospital with - get this - an artificial anus. Opps. What this woman do with her shiny new artificial anus besides maybe buy it some nice, soft, triple-ply TP from some of the funds in her forthcoming settlement is yet to be seen.

German newspaper Frankenpost says some members of the surgical team have been punished in connection with the series of mistakes that led them to operate on the wrong patient.

Prosecutors are said to be looking into the incident. As for the unidentified patient, she still needs knee surgery and plans to file a lawsuit.

Keep your eye out for A Life For Sale in Perth, Australia. It’s “a beautiful place to live,” and it’s all set up, waiting for you. Ebay has always been a bazaar of the bizarre (past things for sale: a grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary, a pretzel shaped like Abraham Lincoln; once someone tried to sell a punch in the face…), but today the game was stacked even higher when recently-divorced Ian Usher put his entire life up for auction. In a grand sweeping gesture, the 44-year old Australian adventure enthusiast is selling everything, from his house and all his possessions, to his relationship with his friends and their pets (Usher’s closest friends have pledged to be nice to whoever wins the auction, which is set to begin June 22nd and end June 29th).

From his web site:

Hi there, my name is Ian Usher, and I have had enough of my life! I don’t want it any more! You can have it if you like!

No, I’m not contemplating suicide, I am going to sell my life!! I have my reasons, for further details click the “Why” tab below. However, I am still not sure whether this is inspired madness, complete foolishness, or just some sort of mid-life crisis.

Whatever it is, it’s all going up for sale in one big auction. Everything I have and everything I am.

On the day it is all sold and settled I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else at all, and get on the train, with no idea where I am going or what the future holds for me.

Sadly, he still gets to retain control of his own destiny and central nervous system, which I was hoping he’d throw into the auction. That would make the $500,000 price tag he’s hoping for totally worth it.

I thought this post would somehow link in with Daniel’s post yesterday of a man who built a suicide machine and then used it to kill himself using plans he found on the internets. When I first heard of this I thought he was selling his life, which would have been ten times more awesome. I always found the plot to Hostel dangerously alluring. But he’s just selling his stuff… And in the immortal words of Ian Mackaye, “You Are Not What You Own.”

On Usher’s web site, http://www.alife4sale.com, you can find out all the details. Or just watch this:

This isn’t the first time someone has tried to sell their life on eBay. But maybe you should try renting before you own. If you don’t want Ian Usher’s life you can always RENT A GERMAN.

Who would ever sell a life to the highest bidder? Sounds like a easy way to start to industrialize agriculture in a new country though and destroy a few cultures and generations of lives in the process…

Not having a camera during a music festival can be a real drag. I made the best of what I had by utilizing my previously unused camera phone, but I’ve been a walking disaster since last week, and today I managed to break my cell phone as well. I fully expect to break my guitar at my gig tomorrow. Over my own head. Tired…still so incredibly tired….

SXSW is different for all types of attendees, and after attending as a music journalist for the last three, I really am looking forward to being a spectator or band member next year. While ‘08 was my best South By Southwest music festival yet, it was also been a draining one. Interview after interview, broken up by meeting with publicists and filming shows, it feels like I hardly saw any music; Incredible, given the 1,800 bands and 70 venues that buzzed and clattered as I made my way to the next assignment. I think i saw 5 bands total that I was not actually working on in some way.

That’s why on Saturday night, I cut loose loosey-goosey. Bonkers mad drunk. I managed to worm myself and Brit Unicorn past the lines to catch Two Gallants and a bit of Tokyo Police Club (where double Stoli Redbulls were $8, $14 and $12 depending on which bartender you wound up with) before heading to the Promised Land where American Spirit Cigarettes were being given away two packs at at time and free vodka flowed like the whores out of a crumbling Babylon.

I am a people person, and instead of badge-snooping for Spin hotshots and BBC personalities who I heard were in the herd, i ended up doing what I do every SXSW: finding a group of Austinites and shooting the shit about music while getting pissed. I remember Colin having a sweet handlebar moustache, some girl with a big booty named Ann freaking me, and encouraging some random dude to sign his name on my arm, all while spouting Bill Hicks quotes and being affable drunk Spencer.

Then I noticed Sweden’s Soundtrack of Our Lives setting up. It would prove to be the most epic set I had witnessed at SXSW, if not ever. Okay, so my cameraphone is less than ideal, but I did get a few snaps as I was right up front, thighs against the stage.

Pretty much stationed right underneath Ebbot Lundberg’s impressive rock tummy. Restrainign myself from reaching up and patting it.

I felt the show so hard, hanging on Ian Person’s unbelievable rock moves. Inspirational. He’s got moves like my dog’s got fleas. How is it that Scandinavian rock bands know how to rock about 100 times harder than most American and British rock bands? I was awestruck with TSOOL’s set, a heady brew of psychedelic trippiness and kick-out-the-jams face melting. Honestly, I’d seen the band at Curiosa from about 50 yards back, but being right up front was way more than 50 yards better. Don’t do the math.

My video camera was on the fritz. My digital camera was broken. My brain was scrambled and my hands were in the air, making continuous rock gestures. I spilled drinks on the leather jacket-clad rockers behind me. I grabbed random drinks off stage when mine was empty. The rock took over and I became my alter ego. Before I knew it, Buck Knuckle leaned over to Synthesis editor James Barone and said something like “I think this is their last song,” before grabbing the monitors and hoisting myself onstage, making a mad dash for the free tambourine over by Fredrik Sandsten’s drum kit. I smacked that damn instrument for all its worth, and when the song was over I escaped into the VIP section to retrieve another drink, getting nods of approval from, well, the VIPs I suppose. I doubt I was nonchalant about it. One guy did say something about ‘thanks for runing the show,’ but envy-green wasn’t a good color for him. “Mmmm, how witty, you must be a writer for Spin, mmmmm…” I condescended back.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives set was then over, but the band decided on an encore and made their way back out on stage, with Ian and Martin beginning the song in a soft manner. (For the record, I am not a TSOOL expert, so I have no idea about track names and was too drunk to find out or care. I just know that I felt the rock like never before.) As Frederik began clicking his sticks to a Latin-flavored rhythm, I had to get back on stage, knowing full well I was pressing my luck.

But I had plenty of luck to be pressed. I sauntered back on stage and grabbed the free tambourine again, making eye contact with their mildly concerned drummer. It wasn’t the easiest rhythm, so he began mouthing me the hits. I followed him, and once I had it down Frederik pushed the overhead mic over to me to play into. From then it was on. My hand was so bruised because, well, drunken tambourine players show no mercy. I shook that thing in the way you should NEVER shake a baby. I was throwing high kicks in there, earning a shit-eating grin from the Townsend-dressed Mattias Bärjed who i was situated behind.

I don’t think I was too off, either. Of course, given my state I can’t be certain. All I know is that for two songs I was a member of The Soundtrack of Our Lives for the closing set of SXSW 2008, and it felt perfect.

Of course by then Ryan, who got great shots of the band earlier in the set, had taken off. So I have no photo evidence of my moment in the sun. If anyone was there at the Soundtrack of Our Lives Saturday late night Spin/American Spirit party and got photos of the band with that random long-haired dude who decided to jump up on stage and play tambourine, please, PLEASE send them to:

gorgeousarmadapresents (at) gmail [d0t] com
myspace.com/gorgeousarmada

I’m trying to find new ways to both stoke out my bandmates and make my mother feel mortified. Thank you.

And 81-year-old Australian man used plans he downloaded from the internet to build a ’suicide robot,’ which he then used to fire multiple shots from a .22 pistol into his head:

Notes left by Mr Tovey — who was born in England — revealed that he had scoured the internet for plans before constructing his complex machine, which involved a jigsaw power tool and was connected to a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets. It could fire multiple shots once triggered remotely.  At 7am on Tuesday he set the robot up in the driveway of his £450,000 house and activated it.

Just another example of how technology is making our lives better!

Borders, the second-biggest bookseller in the US, is looking for potential buyers after suspending its dividend in the face of a funding crisis:

Borders said its largest shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management, agreed to loan it $42.5 million, and will receive options to buy a 19.99 percent stake in the company at $7 a share. Without the financing, Borders may have faced liquidity issues, it said.

“Borders effectively announced this morning that they are out of cash and took a stopgap funding” from Pershing, Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter said in a research note.

While some analysts raised the possibility of a deal with Barnes & Noble, the company said on Thursday it had not been approached by Borders’ investment bankers, but would review a possible acquisition if it were contacted.

In so many words, there will soon be one less place for Americans to not buy books. But hey, at least we have BLOGS!, which are like books only for stupid people.