Next Best Records Blog

At long last, Part II of the diary.  This covers Day 1 in Austin (Friday).

Friday, September 8th

• 12:40 p.m.: Finally, we've arrived in Austin.  We check into our hotel, which had some generic name that we could never remember (and which I still don't remember, so I'm making it a point not to look up the name).  Everyone checking in is wearing a Buckeye jersey (except for me ... I'm wearing a gray Ohio State shirt that has Brutus Buckeye on it).  While I'm waiting to check in, I scan the front page of UT's student newspaper (there's a few copies on the desk).  One of the headlines says that Austin is preparing for an OSU "invasion."  According to the article, 40,000 OSU fans are expected in Austin this weekend.
• 1:11 p.m.: While we're relaxing for a few moments before heading out, Dave turns on Tyra Banks's daytime talk show.  Tyra has this woman and her ex-husband on, and apparently the ex-husband ended up leaving because of his addiction to strip clubs.  Tyra is appalled, and so she decides to go "undercover" as a stripper to see why men like strip clubs.  She's really into it too--she's getting a Hollywood makeup artist to put a fake nose on her so no one will recognize her.  Being the true red-blooded Americans that we are, Dave and I realize that football is more important than Tyra Banks going undercover as a stripper, so we turn off the TV, call a cab, and head down to Sixth Street.  (Did I just write that sentence?)
• 1:44 p.m.: First beer of the day at Iron Cactus on Sixth Street.  Even after seeing all the Buckeye fans in San Antonio, it's still unbelievable how many OSU supporters are in Austin. There's literally a stream of people wearing scarlet and gray walking along Sixth Street, not to mention the fact that about 75% of the people in Iron Cactus are wearing Buckeye gear.
• 1:53 p.m.: A guy walks down Sixth Street with a Ted Ginn jersey.  That's cool.  The problem is, he's got his Ted Ginn jersey tucked in to his shorts.  Please, people, stop tucking in jerseys!  It doesn't look right, unless you're on the team and you're on the field.
• 2:04 p.m.: OSU fans seem to keep pouring on to Sixth Street.  There's no way Ohio State doesn't travel the best of all the Division I college football teams.  Austin is Columbus South right now.
• 2:08 p.m.: I had purposely gotten a Budweiser because the Bud Light bottles had the plastic wrapping around them with UT logos all over them.  After drinking out of the same bottle of Bud for 24 minutes, I realize that an outline of the State of Texas is emblazoned over the Budweiser seal.  This becomes a running theme for the rest of the day: I can't escape Texas intrusions on beer labels.
• 2:40 p.m.: Two sweet old ladies walk in with matching t-shirts.  On the front, the shirts say "Beat Texas."  On the back, they say, "And send Bevo back to the barn."
• 3:14 p.m.: Dave and I venture westward on Sixth Street and walk in to Shakespeare's.  It's literally packed with OSU fans.  Like, their main room is filled with Buckeye fans, and every seat in the other room and the outdoor patio are occupied by scarlet-clad visitors.  After a few minutes "Hang On Sloopy" and the OSU fight songs are played ont he stereo.  People are getting fired up.
• 4:03 p.m.: Word is (that's my tribute to Roger Brown), this restaurant/bar called Stubbs is supposed to be Buckeye headquarters today and tomorrow.  We venture a few blocks and find out that the Word is right--Stubbs is also packed with Buckeye fans.  We take a seat at the bar and survey the scene.  There's a dude dressed up as Woody Hayes (he really could be Woody's twin) and a few hundred other Buckeyes in the building.
• 4:30 p.m.: We discover that there's a back porch and a big open backyard at Stubbs.  It looks like a scene out of an old Western, complete with wooden saloon-looking buildings and hitching posts.  Instead of cowboys, though, all the extras in this movie are dressed as Buckeye fans.
• 4:49 p.m.: The Outback Steakhouse blimp is in sight.  It's not the Goodyear blimp, but it'll do.
• 4:57 p.m.: The TV crews are starting to arrive.  Needless to say, this is firing up the crowd even more.
• 5:01 p.m.: Our friend (and recent graduate from OSU) Ivan arrives.  He's working in Austin, and he tells us that he's just scored unbelievable seats for the game from work.  Ivan's going to be sitting in a luxury box on the 50-yard line, with free food and drinks.  The catch (there's always a catch, isn't there): since he's sitting with Texas fans and alums, he can't wear any Buckeye gear, and he has to keep cheering for OSU to an extreme minimum.  It's still worth it, though.
• 6:18 p.m.: The crowd continues to grow at Stubbs.  There's easily 1,000 people here, and there's a line out on to the street.
• 6:20 p.m.: I admit, I've been a little tired.  We were out late last night, and we really haven't had much time to catch our breath.  Dave and I are troopers, though, and we've been plowing through the minor exhaustion.  Things are starting to turn, though, and Dave and I agree that we're beginning to hit our stride.
• 7:40 p.m.: Along with a few other OSU fans we met at Stubbs, Dave and I head back over to Iron Cactus.  There's more OSU people there now, to the point that it's taking ten minutes or so just to grab a beer at the bar.  We're digging it, though.
• 7:53 p.m.: I see the first Texas jersey of the trip.  Maybe they don't like wearing jersey so much in Texas, but I still find it hard to believe that people aren't wearing their Longhorn gear.  Maybe they're scared.
• 8:20 p.m.: I see the first Michigan jersey of the trip.  Dave had insisted that we were guaranteed to see some schmuck wearing a Michigan jersey sooner rather than later in Texas.  I doubted him, but Dave was right.
• 8:27 p.m.: We walk across Sixth Street to the Blind Pig Pub, a bar that has a patio on the roof.  We grab a beer at the bar and hang out for a while, checking out the crowd and listening to the dude playing guitar.  Feeling the Buckeye fever growing within me, I decide now is the time to take the OSU dominance over Sixth Street to the next level.  I walk up to the guitarist between songs and ask, "So, are you going to play 'Hang on Sloopy'?"  He looks at me, and says into the microphone, "It depends how much you want to hear it."  He didn't even have to say it, though, because I was already getting my wallet out and pulling out a $20 bill.  He plays what can best be described as an "interpretation" of the song (in the wrong key and with the verses cut out and replaced by some gibberish in Spanish--he's probably saying the equivalent of "The Buckeyes are going to get their asses handed to them"), but the OSU people immediately start the "O-H-I-O" response to the chorus and storm the open area of the bar to dance.  The guitarist finishes the song and says, "Enjoy it now because you're gonna lose tomorrow."
• 8:46 p.m.: As we walk upstairs to the roof patio, I ask one of the OSU fans we're hanging out with, "Where are we at?"  His response?  "Austin, Ohio."
• 9:03 p.m.: The Miller Light girls show up.  They go up to my companions and start asking them questions, dutifully taking down their responses on their electronic notepads, and then handing them free bottles of Miller Light.  I've been drinking Miller Light since we first got to Stubbs, but for some reason I ended up with a can of Bud Light from the last round.  The Miller Light girls are all very, very, very hot:  they're all blonde, with rolled-up white shirts on and those hot librarian glasses.  For some reason, I feel that a great injustice has been done, in that these gorgeous ladies are pushing a beer that I'm not presently drinking, and I'm in a mixing kind of mood.  I walk up to one of the Girls and say, "Ok, what is your deal?"  She looks at me puzzlingly and asks, "What do you mean what is my deal?"  I say, "What's your deal?"  She asks me what I mean again.  I tell her that I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing.  She tells me that they're trying to get people to drink Miller Light.  I say no kidding, but I'm a Bud Light man.  She then goes on and on about how Miller Light is less watered down, Miller Light has fewer calories, and on and on.  I tell her I want more water in my beer, and that I'm not counting calories (or carbs).  Besides, I tell her I stopped drinking Miller Light because there's a Texas logo on the bottle, and even though there's a Texas logo on the Bud Light can, it's smaller.  We go back and forth, with her delivering what normally would be persuasive arguments for drinking Miller Light, but given my current state and my purposely ridiculous steadfastness, I end up contradicting myself left and right in attempt to shoot down everything she throws at me.  This goes on for about 15 minutes, and about halfway through a second Miller Light girl joins in.  Eventually, they wisely realize that I'm not even paying any attention to anything they're saying, and they leave.  As she walks away, the first girl yells back at me, "Have a good night with your watered down beer!"
• 9:30 p.m.: We decide to leave the Blind Pig and find another bar.  As we walk out to Sixth Street, the entire street is like a mob of scarlet.
• 9:34 p.m.: We see a line of about 30 scarlet-clad people waiting to get in to a bar across the street.  Guess where we're headed.
• 9:48 p.m.: Finally inside the bar across the street (at this point, names are getting hazy), we're enjoying rounds of beers and shots.  My friend Kacey texts me to ask where we're at.  I text back to tell her, and she responds with, "Are you a member of the Real World cast?"
• 10:02 p.m.: Kacey and her brother show up.  After only a few minutes, I give Kacey's brother the title of, "Coolest Brother of Any of My Friends."  I don't really know why, but it probably has something to do with him going to school in Austin to learn how to design video games.  Maybe I'm making that up.
• 11:04 p.m.: We decide it's time to leave the Real World bar.  Dave and I haven't eaten since lunch, so we get in line to grab some slices of pizza.  I tell Dave to get me two slices of cheese, then I jump out of line to tell Kacey how cool her brother is.  A few minutes later, Dave hands me one slice of cheese.  I ask where the other slice is, and Dave asks the lady at the counter.  She says Dave gave it to some random dude.  After a few minutes of back and forth, Dave works out a deal where we'll get another slice of cheese if Dave runs into the middle of Sixth Street, dressed in his Ted Ginn jersey, and yells out, "Hook 'em Horns!"  If you know Dave, you know he'll do almost anything for late-night food.  It's a matter of moments before the second slice of cheese is in my hands.
• 11:55 p.m.:  While we're waiting for a cab, a Texas fan begins to heckle me.  Basically, he keeps saying over and over that OSU's run defense is horrible and will cost us the game (I'm making his argument a bit more cogently than he did, because he was incredibly wasted, and, really, I think he was just trying to impress his girlfriend).  I tell him that sure, we gave up a ridiculous amount of rushing yards to Northern Illinois, but Garrett Wolfe is the nation's leading returning rusher, so you can't really put so much stock in that stat.  Besides, I ask him, is North Texas even in Division I?  (For the record, Wolfe is currently averaging 207 rushing yards per game--36 more than the 171 he got against Ohio State--and, yes, North Texas is in the Division I Sunbelt Conference.)  My Longhorn friend refuses to hear my arguments.  He retorts back with, "But your defense got run over last week."  He walks away telling me to "have fun waiting for a cab in the rain."

Saturday, September 9th

• 12:02 a.m.: During our cab ride home, Dave complains to the driver that we hardly saw any of the highly-touted beautiful Texas ladies out and about on Sixth Street.  The cab driver responds with wisdom only a cab driver can give:  "That's because it rained.  They don't like to come out in the rain."
• 12:05 a.m.: Back at the hotel, Dave puts on ESPN and I fall asleep.  We've got a big day ahead of us, so it's best to crash now.

COMING SOON: THE BIG FINALE: GAMETIME IN TEXAS