I reserved myself this SXSW for one outing.... To meet Tony Fitzpatrick on South Congress, Gallery named Yard Dog..writer, visual artist, actor, former boxer and all around member of the exclusive but still in our midst club of - Raconteur !
I tap him on the shoulder, ''You must be Darla'', he says... not hard to miss me in a room of mostly men in slacks. A bear hug from a man in handsome beaver hat ensues. We two are like Elmore Leonard characters. Tony is a giant man with crystal peepers and fondness for my son's 'Little Rascals' nature. I stand back the way one does at a show to consider and gobble up the honies . His art on the wall are in neat rows; complex collages of memories with words, blood reds and black inks that remind me of wonderful old school pork chop tattoo flash. Something sacred.
At lunch the next day Tony and his go to man, Stosh, dig into a Hoovers plate of comfort food. We talk about heartache and being caught in twisters-about old Ukrainian ladies who speak only in nasty paper cuts with lemon juice chasers... all having the same uncanny results. I say, 'I'm a bit of a jazz nerd' that no one really wants to discuss it with me, that I play trumpet badly. Tony and Stosh humor me with tales from Miles to the Marsalis Family. I'm going to miss them the way you do someone you havent had the chance to say the most important things to. ( there's better grammar, so what) Another day, perhaps. Maybe in Chicago, maybe not.
They hit the road after that and later I read on the interwebs Stosh had been going 92 in a 70 stretch earning them an official pullover by an Oklahoma state officer. Nice guy, Tony says. I Imagine they had a laugh with the guy too. I imagine Stosh twister shy and lead-footed... That they just want to get home like that chick Dorothy.
