deaconkole

Patton Oswalt Rules the World and Other Austin Stories

These, my friends, are crazy times for yours truly.

Everything this year so far has been a crazy rush, and that's saying something when I spend most of my time in one place. As mentioned many many times before, I am gainfully employed by Austin Books and Comics. At the start of the year, I found myself as the store's second-in-command. This basically consists of running the day to day operation of the shop, but I've also found myself training new employees and organizing new events. Some of the things we've done this year include the Comic Book Legal Defense Fundraiser, which netted over two grand for the CBLDF with the help of Terry Moore and other fine Texas comic publishers. Also, we hosted the STAPLE pre-party. Jim Mahfood and Dave Crosland were kind enough to draw on our bathroom walls and had flattering things to say about the store. Those guys are the life of any party. Tony Millionaire was our special guest, and he was a really cool guy. And freaking tall. There was a great write up on Newsarama about it that you might have seen. Coming up, we will be hosting two teams for the Comic Jam War and a Manga Melee event on April 22. I'm having to take a crash course in shoot from the hip event organization. That's how we do things in Texas.

South by Southwest is going on in Austin right now. My good pal and former Austin Books superhombre Dave Justus clued comedy genius Patton Oswalt that we were the shop to get his Wednesday fix satiated. Sure enough, after the night of his Comedians of Comedy show, he comes in Wednesday morning with his printed list of comics and proceeds to do his shopping. He brought with him Whitney Matheson, who writes the excellent USA Today blog Pop Candy ( http://blogs.usatoday.com/popcandy/ ). She did a great write up of their visit to our store. Very flattering.

So, today, Thursday, the boss treated myself and Dave to Patton's show at the Cap City Comedy Club. Man, it was great. Despite having so much going on during SXSW, Patton was in top form. It was also cool seeing a lot of the shop regulars come out to see the show. Afterwards, we hung out with some friends and Patton himself. He bought us a round (there is just something cool about having someone who's work you admire buy you a Shiner Bock) and was just as lively and funny offstage as he was on. Because I he asked about it at the shop, and I havd bought the last copy the week before, I gave him my personal copy of Ivan Brunetti's Hee, and he seemed genuinely excited about it. Our gang got to see a little bit of the pitfalls of celebrity when some schlub glommed a drink on patton's tab, and my mind just started realing at the thought of what it is to be a celebrity. I also decided Patton is the perfect level of famous. He can always be around people that enjoy his company, but doesn't have to deal with papparazzi or rumour mills or Paris Hilton-level attention. He's truly a class act, being nice to everyone that wanted a moment of his time. And he's funny as fuck. I feel privelaged to have gotten to hang with him. Now to talk him into bringing Posehn and doing a comedy show at the shop.

Also, without our knowing it, Wizard magazine called us one of the top five shops to satisfy your indie jones. I wouldn't have know if it wasn't pointed out to me by Austin resident and Scurvy Dogs writer Andrew Boyd (in hi own write a very funny guy). Pretty cool! Again, a nice write up. All this attention all of a sudden makes me think I need to start wearing snappier clothes.

So, I guess I write this not just to keep you all updated on what I've been up to (WHO am I again?), but to just take a moment and reflect on how much I'm enjoying life right now. Things are good, and they're getting even better. Though I've gone on and on about some neat recent stuff, I haven't mentioned the one thing that has made me happiest this year, my wonderful girlfriend. She's the raddest person I know, and I don't know how I lucked into being with her, but I did. So go me. Now that I'm completely thrilled with every new day, I'm keeping a keen lookout for falling safes and other news of the weird-style disasters. You can never be too careful when things are suddenly really good.