SXSW, Fri night and Sat, March 18 & 19

Friday night is a blur. After the showcase, we had to return equipment, find something to eat, and, yes, go cowboy boot shopping. Oh, yeah, these are my new boots!

We also went to the closing night film party.

Met more people, including a very drunk Irishman. He told us he was a drummer in a band called the Frames and that he’d lost his bandmates. We were like, that’s nice, and chatted and had a laugh for a while. On the plane home the next day, I was thumbing through a Rolling Stone magazine and saw the Frames have the #10 album on the college charts. That’s SXSW – you meet people everywhere. And there are so many parties going on all the time that you’re bound to bump into interesting people all over the place. (We won’t even go into Ritchie, the drummer we met at the Indie 911 showcase – he was definitely a laugh….)

We also ran into an environmentalist on the street earlier that day – well, Moopheus did. Rebecca and I were happy to know we weren’t the only environmentalists down there in Texas! We’ve exchanged cards and are hoping to do something together in the future – I’ll keep you posted.

The rest of Friday is a blur. We got almost no sleep the entire time we were there, so we weren’t functioning at full capacity. Just trying to make a decision about where to go or what to do took up almost all our energy.

Saturday was bliss – had an uneventful flight back and was so happy to come home, sit down, and relax. I think it’s going to take a couple weeks to catch up on my sleep.

So, I guess the big question is – was it worth 2 environmentalists going to something like SXSW? All I can say is that from my perspective, this was one of the best things we’ve done to promote The Meatrix and what we’re doing. We met a lot of people, got word out about the film to people who didn’t know about it, or might have heard of the film but weren’t really sure about the message, and I think we had a pretty big impact with all that we did. (We’re interested to see if anyone else goes around with a cardboard cutout next year!….)

Tomorrow it’s back to the office. As you know, this blog is new and we’re still feeling our way around to see exactly what we’ll do with it and see what it’ll grow into. I’m proud that I learned how to upload photos! That was the goal for this trip – and to introduce you all to what we do behind the scenes.

This blog is about The Meatrix, and it’s also about everything that we do with Sustainable Table. So in the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about our plans for The Meatrix sequels (yes, there will be at least two), as well as some really exciting, creative stuff we’re going to be doing around the films. I’ll also introduce you to the Eat Well Guide, which is our online directory of sustainably-raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs, as well as what’s going on in the sustainable food movement. We kicked off the blog with our trip to Texas because we thought it would be fun and humorous – but now we’ll also try to bring you news about what’s going on in the sustainable food world, as well as with the struggle across the world to stop factory farms from destroying the environment and many people’s way of life.

And, of course, we will always keep you up to date with Moopheus and what he’s doing. Maybe he’ll even go on tour himself sometime soon! Stay tuned for more!….