As soon as I’d read that Buda (pronounced byu-DAH, despite its spelling), a small town a few minutes south of Austin was hosting a crawdad festival, officially called the “Louisiana Swamp Thing” that included a free plate of crawdads and all-day music with headliner George Clinton with Parliment, I immediately started singing “Atomic Dog.” My fellow capoeiristas, Liz and her daughter, Luna, and I trekked down to Buda to make our funk the P funk.
After initially driving by the town since there were virtually no advertising signs along the highway save for a scrolling bank prompt which announced all the upcoming events for the town that happened to display something other than the event we were going to when we initially drove by, we parked miraculously close for arriving so late at 6 pm. We wanted to get there early enough to eat before listening to Clinton, but late enough not to wait around too much. I figured that people who had come in the morning, eaten and drank to their fill, had to go home before being overtaken by the food coma. Everything’s a tradeoff; so we got a good parking space, but missed out on our free plate of crawdads. Nonetheless, I was very happy with a delicious bowl crawdad etouffee followed by a fresh batch of crisp, flaky beignets lightly dusted with powdered sugar.
We then watched the last part of a unicycle football game. As impressive as the athleticism showed by playing football on a unicycle was, I was preoccupied with how much their crotches must have hurt conditioning for that sport.
Luna happily played on the playgrouond equipment while Liz and I talked until about 30 minutes before George Clinton and Parliment were due to grace the stage. We figured that was the perfect time to join the slow-moving port-o-potty line. Once we joined a misleadingly short port-o-potty line, dusk rapidly set and Liz asked the pertinent question of whether we’d be able to see once we’d closed the door to the port-o-potty. I’d already been juggling two other port-o-potty concerns: 1) available toilet paper and 2) handwashing facilities (I hate it when places with port-o-potties don’t have accompanying port-o-sinks! Do they want an outbreak of cholera?). Her third consideration motivated me to suggest that we wait in the longer, slower women’s bathroom line at the permanent facilities in the park. Of course there were only two stalls, but the bathroom was well lit and new toilet paper rolls were invitingly lined up along the tops of the stalls. Plus there was a sink with running water.
Liz and I passed the time, swapping capoeira stories, when the woman in front of us asked an exiting woman about the condition of the second stall. The woman, who’d obviously had too many mind-altering substances, brashly slurred, “It’s fine! It’s fine!” and stumbled out into the night. The next two women in front of us, timidly peeked in, shrieked that there was too much “poo” and rejoined the line, waiting for the first stall. Sensing the chance to shave off at least five minutes off my public bathroom line wait, I looked at it and declared it usable, to the horror of the other two women. I proudly and loudly declared, “I didn’t live in developing countries for nothing!” closed the door with relish and secured the lock as if someone would have actually interrupted me.
Whichever diarrhea-suffering woman had hovered over that toilet had misjudged the target by about two inches and hit the back of the seat. Therefore, the front of the seat looked squeaky clean in comparison; so I used my balance training from yoga/capoeria/tango, put all my weight on my left foot, lifted the lid with my right foot and hid most of the shitty scene. Granted, I still hovered to do my business, but at least I’d pyschologically minimized the damage. Flushing the toilet with the same balancing maneuver I’d used to lift the lid, I was quite proud of myself and informed the same two women who were still waiting for the ever elusive first stall that I’d “fixed it”. They still didn’t find it to their pleasure, but a woman several women back in line jumped at the chance, stating, “Just cop a squat!” and closed the stall door with the same relish as I’d done moments earlier.
Now you know when I spend this much time on a shitty public bathroom story, that George Clinton and Parliment must have stank worse! Where shall I begin? (Of course that’s merely a rhetorical question since I’m sticking to a chronological unfolding of this story.) The show began nearly an hour late, during which they played back-to-back tortuous country music save the one Johnny Cash song to deter mass suicide. I figured the DJ either wanted to see how dedicated we were to listen to all that crap or was just attempting to make the headliners sound just that much better in comparison.
As the band members rolled out one by one all decked out mostly in outrageous looking costumes, we anxiously awaited to spot Clinton. Among the many things we learned in the women’s bathroom line was that Clinton had shaved off his rainbow-colored locks. Yet, I figured I’d still recognize him by his stage presence alone. About forty-five minutes of listening to various Parliment members doing their thing, which hardly hit the spot, Clinton strutted onto the stage decked out in iconic Fidel Castro camouflage. He spread his arms wide, bowed to the audience, removed his camouflaged hat and rubbed the top of his head to emphasize that the dreads were gone. A third of the crowd had already left.
After another forty minutes, they finally played “Flashlight”. True fans scattered among half the crowd who still remained, broke out with their little flashlights. And like a lover who spends too much time on foreplay in an attempt to get an erection, Clinton shot his load prematurely. His voice, the last we heard of it, sounded painfully gravelly and he could not continue the fifteen minute version of “Flashlight. (I’m estimating here since we didn’t stay for the end of the song, but every other “song medley” had lasted about that amount of time.)
The only silver linings, besides how close the car was once we made our escape, were the sheer professionalism of the band who took turns singing the lead and the guy who played Sir Nose. Just imagine a medium brown brother (almond joy?) with rock hard abs, impressive flexibility and knowledge of basic belly dancing moves and break dancing poses.
As I looked back at the stage, I noted sadly how that much-anticipated show had managed to decimate (literally means to reduce to one tenth) its original crowd. I imagine that the people who stayed until the very end were too high to realize that anyone in their right minds had already left. At least they got to hear “Atomic Dog”, assuming they had not passed out beforehand.
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