SeeSawAustin

Written by: Laurie Lyons and Sinclair Fleetwood

With thousands of visitors and locals jamming themselves into every nook and cranny of downtown Austin each year during SXSW, things can occasionally get a little uncivil. Add in excessive amounts of free booze and the occasional bad weather day, and people can begin to forget some basic manners and social mores that are (hopefully) typically part of their everyday life. Here are a few tips to help keep some of those newly developed bad habits in check.

• Tip your bartenders! Especially at open bars. The past few nights I’ve noticed greedy revelers sucking down sponsored drinks like they just turned 21 and not tipping. Seriously?!? When you’re at an open bar, you should be tipping double what you normally would (which should be $1 per drink).
• Do not, under any circumstances, hippie dance on me while I am trying to watch Frightened Rabbit. Or any other band for that matter.  It’s great that you and your soul mate just dropped x and acid and are tripping balls, drunk, and making out all while singing along to the entire show, but the moment you get into my 12 inches of personal space, I will box your face.  Take it to the back row, please.
• Crosswalks are there for a reason.  Please do not just walk out into the middle of the street unless you have a death wish or are otherwise doing the rest of us a favor by thinning the gene pool. People work, live, and drive downtown and you do not own the roads because you just had your face rocked off by Titus Andronicus.
• You would think that this goes without saying, but please, for the love of your deity or lack thereof, flush, wipe, clean, mop, whatever you have to do to remove your bodily fluids from the restroom facilities. If you puke, clean it up.  If you shit your pants, go home.
• Our city is not a dumpster.  Make a concerted attempt to use the trash and recycling facilities. Better yet, get a reusable water bottle and carry it with you.
• When standing on a sidewalk, do your best to stand in a single-file line. We all need that sidewalk to get by and would really rather not have our toes smashed by a passing pedi cab. If you need lessons on how to stand in a single-file line, I’m sure we could find some Kindergarted teachers to come teach you while they’re off for spring break.
• Please, oh please, do not wear high heels. SXSW is not a fashion show, it’s a fucking rock show. We all know you’re pretty and fashion forward, but there is no need to dress up to go to anything. When you are packed ass to elbows in every room you go to, pretty much the only thing worse than wearing high heels is farting. The bruised top of my right foot can fully attest to that.