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Annual Eeyore’s Birthday Bash Keep s Austin Weird - and how

Um, yeah - OK

Weirdness, weirdoes, everywhere – and not a dudley in sight! YES! Feast your eyes on color and movement, on sights strange that stimulate, on sounds and smells and feelings that move and penetrate – look around, walk around, and immerse yourself in the wondrous creativity of your fellow hipster – YES! This is what I’m talking about! This is Austin, exposed in broad daylight, its inner flower child arms up to the sun, spinning, laughing, and stopping to pierce you in the eyes and flash you the wickedest, sexiest smile imaginable – YES!

Who wouldn’t be seduced into returning time and again to celebrate another year of life? Thus it was such again this year, only this was the first time I experienced Eeyore’s Birthday as a civilian. Actually, I missed it last year and the one before that, but until then, I was a volunteer at the event for, oh, maybe 10-12 years?

Is it love, you think?

When I was first asked to participate, I had never heard of it before – What? You mean you are having a birthday party out in a park - for a fictional character - out of a kid’s book - and not even for the title guy? What’s up with that? How weird… (duh!) But it was Scott Sexton himself who turned me on to it over a game of pool at the Crown and Anchor, by putting it this way: “Dude, you volunteer for two hours, and you get free beer the rest of the day!” Well, who can pass that up? It was only later that I learned the annual bash was a fund raising event for Austin non-profit groups – all of a sudden I realized I was signed up to do charity work – but what the hell, it might be fun anyway. Little did I imagine…

Hula hipsters

So, for much of my formative years (my 30’s), once a year I got to sell beer tickets for a couple of hours, got free beer the rest of the day, and hung out and grooved and learned first-hand why Austin is one happenin’ town. Selling beer tickets was wicked fun, as you got to mess with people on a continuous basis, and they still kept coming and lining up to get messed with – whoohoo! It’s different, walking around and seeing the madness, and then dealing directly with individual weirdness, one on one, up close and personal, while money changed hands and IDs were checked. Yep, the situation was ripe with opportunity for merriment. Oh, you want 20 tickets? I’m waaayyyy too drunk to count that high – but hey, I can count to 4 five times – how’s that? What? No way this is you in this picture – and how do I know this is what Hawaiian drivers licenses look like? The best was when they asked for a large number of tickets, and I’d do some obscure folded-ticket math and hand them their change in one big flurry, and they’d start to leave with a little should-I-trust-this-guy puzzled look on their faces (until they realized I got it right). NEXT! Those were the days..

And these are these days, and they aren’t too shabby either. Going as a civilian had the obvious drawback of no free beer, but it did allow me to more fully enjoy everything going on. I hung out at the drum circles longer, I listened to the band for a while, I visited more parts of the park – or hmmmm, maybe I just remember visiting more parts of the park?

Anyway, the drum circles were different this year, in that they had actual drums – there was even a full drum kit in one of the circles. Before, everyone used plastic buckets and lids and pieces of metal and anything else that made noise when hit with a stick, plus maybe just a few bongos, and it was incredible how well they worked together. It was pretty good now with the drums, too, maybe just louder and more melodic.

Itchin’ to march to a different drummer?

If you’ve never experienced a free-form drum circle, it’ll be hard to imagine its impact on you. You can watch the short video I made, but what’s missing from that is how, after hours of continuous, persistent, ever-changing rhythmical variations-on-a-theme, with passages that ebb and flow and break down and rebuild and merge and synergize and escalate into a frantic crescendo, the pervasive percussion gets inside you, becomes part of your metabolism, and carries you the rest of the day. You fall asleep still tapping your toe and nodding your head to the beat that was – especially if you’ve had free beer all day!

A fair fight, a cool lady, tie-dye tikes

There were at least three established drum circles throughout the park that day. I really enjoyed the one up on the hill, in the woods behind the port-a-potties. These guys were rockin! Watch the video. Other events included a face painting booth (in case you showed up too “normal”), kiddie sword fighting, a maypole weaving attempt, egg toss and other organized games, hula circles, Eeyore petting, and splashing puddles (courtesy of the storm the night before).

It’s been said Eeyore’s Birthday is one of the last remaining events that are still true to its origins, and has not been corrupted or “toned down” to appease the up-tights. One reason it has endured, no doubt, has to be the attitude of the organizers. They’re a great bunch of people, who just want to put on a great party and have fun doing it. As a many-time volunteer, I can attest to the laid-back and open nature of the organization, that still manages to get the key work done.

Then of course, there are the party-goers themselves. Eeyore’s Birthday is a different event for different people. Those that sit in the woods by the drum circle get a different event than those whose small children play with Eeyore, which is also different from the experience of all the teens and 20-somethings running around – full of energy and creativity and expressionism. Yet these events all occupy the same space and time, their experiences interwoven, each adding richness and harmonious diversity to the others. Everyone has a good time, regardless of their perspective. Does it get any better than that?