This joke has been cribbed about a million times recently, but I originally wrote it — with some assists from Angie Epley (center square) and Whitney Pastorek (B-6) — in 2007, so I’m claiming credit for the original idea. Plus, mine is funnier. Prove me wrong, internet.
It’s time once again for everyone’s favorite fun game, SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST BINGO! Bring this card with you to all badge-only events. First to get a bingo receives a free CD by the band that gets sixteen thousand column-inches of hype and then is completely forgotten about within eight months!
B-6: Extremely tall tattooed girl with dreadlocks waiting to be discovered by Suicide Girls photographer, making out with her curiously short boyfriend
B-7: Overdressed record industry guy with exposed chest hair talking non-stop into a Bluetooth earpiece
B-11: Roky Erickson
B-12: Bewildered-looking paleta vendor attempting to sell lime-flavored Mexican frozen dessert to bleary-eyed clubgoer at 9AM
B-14: Woman over 40 years old wearing belly shirt and chain-smoking Camels
I-16: Robyn Hitchcock
I-19: Post-post-post-ironic haircut
I-22: Blitzed-out shithead at the front of the stage area who has taken about nine ecstasy pills and thinks everyone in the club has come to see him dance
I-23: Drunk guy in trucker hat who crowds his way onstage and sings along with band
I-26: Pale-skinned art student/bass player from Brooklyn wearing black tapered jeans with a 24 waist and a 36 inseam
N-32: Fat dude with thrift store t-shirt walking a small, cute dog and thinking that it will make girls interested in him, when really they will only be interested in the dog
N-33: Morbidly obese bouncer trying to catch his breath after having to move the velvet rope stand
FREE SQUARE: Homeless? Or hipster?
N-35: 65-year-old hippie who smells like corpse-sweat and canned peaches, directly competing with band on stage by playing Strawberry Alarm Clock on an acoustic guitar that hasn’t been tuned since Nixon was vice-president
N-44: Young Asian girl wearing full-on Sailor Moon drag in apparent belief that SxSW is a sci-fi convention
G-47: Confused electrician who has no idea that there’s an event going on and wonders why parking fees have tripled all of the sudden
G-48: Local drug dealer making his entire year’s worth of rent in one week
G-51: 23-year-old lead singer of Williamsburg band who is acting like a total prick to everyone he meets because that’s the image a self-confident rock star needs to project, even though he is signed to tiny label based in garage of guy from Corona del Mar, CA and has only sold 700 records
G-54: Les Savy Fav
G-55: Jaded music journalist/label hack fumbling around for her last Kool and hoping the band hasn’t drunk all the Diet Cokes
O-63: Badly aging former party girl who wears a lot of pancake makeup to disguise her vanishing septum, and who hasn’t heard about the decline of rave culture so is still sporting a pacifier and a whole arm wrapped in flexible glo-stiks
O-64: Hulking former frat guy with huge beer belly, no shirt, and a Red Hot Chili Peppers tattoo vainly attempting to start a mosh pit
O-69: Cynical-looking Pitchfork stringer loudly complaining to anyone who will listen that SxSW has really gone down the shitter and desperately hoping that no one ever finds out that this is actually the first time he’s ever gone, and before this, the biggest live music event he ever covered was GermanFest in Milwaukee
O-70: Nervous hip-hop band trying not to stray very far from their hotel
O-73: Minor-league TV news reporter doing a live broadcast from local used record store and trying to think of something hip to say to the guy next to him who’s buying a Gorgoroth album