Day 3.5 And Day 4 At SXSW: Spilling Beer In The Final Chapter

by Elizabeth Nelson

We are driven back downtown, into the fray, leaving paradise for Oz. Not the "Wonderful City of." The prison. It is a chaotic, incoherent hell of people and wristbands and thundering Marshall Stacks.

We've been invited to a party hosted by a popular triumvirate of independent labels, co-hosted by You Tube. The club is insane. Ginormous. Labyrinthine. multi-level. Two-stages. Cacophonous. At all times, two bands are performing simultaneously at panic-inducing volume. It is impossible to determine if what we are hearing is a folk band or the sounds of jackhammers, drills and banshees tearing the place down.

Security intervenes, roosters crow, and what was lost is found, after the jump...

 

We get inside, and our eyes kaleidoscope in the presence of all of the lights and the video screens and the people and the noise, and I promptly spill a can of Tecate on my pants and am escorted out by security. I capitulate and retreat to the cottage. It is an arduous, limping march, made ever more difficult by the competing drum solos. I am bowed, but not broken.

Cut to blackness, lying prone on what turns out to be, fortuitously, the mattress in our room at the hovel. We have by now accustomed ourselves to being driven out of bed by roosters.

(One significant surprise in this adventure is the massive number of roosters which surround our domicile. Also: grackles, chickens, woodpeckers, crows, buzzards, and various indiscriminate other birds of prey who serenade us each morning with a dissonant symphony so forceful and persistent one imagines it will soon be lauded by Pitchfork as THE bravura avant performance of the 2009 festival).

Anyway, this is like the other mornings - the roosters crow, my mind briefly splits open and then I attempt to reassemble it by dint of mental checklist. We take stock of our possessions and look ourselves over for any new injuries.

From the other room, we hear a low and miserable groan. We are not distracted by this, but when the groan crescendos into a scream, we decide to investigate the source of the anguish. "I have lost my phone," our housemate moans, pacing the floor of the living room and patting his pockets over and over.

The disappearance of phones and IPods, the misplacing of wallets, IDs, and laminates of vast import is nearly ritualistic here. It seems a metaphorical representation of the separation of self from senses. And sometimes — say, if it's your driver's license you've lost — you can't actually get on the plane to leave.

We spring into a sort of emergency action. We make calls across the city as our friend huddles in the corner, weeping and cursing. Bag pockets are unzipped and checked. Cabinet doors that have never been opened are now being opened and closed and opened again. Pillows are pulled from cases and the stuffing pulled out.

Just as we are completely confused, out of ideas, and nearly bereft of hope, an anonymous stranger pulls up to the house and comes to the door, our housemate's phone in hand. "Travis asked me to deliver this to you," he says, surrendering the phone. This outcome, at the time, seems an entirely logical conclusion.

With our bags packed, we cab to the airport. Our exhaustion makes for a bending of time and space that is probably not unlike being under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen, or perhaps the onset of a coma. I talk about past events as if they have not happened yet. My eyes dart in all directions, unable to rest or focus, looking for any sea monsters that might creep up from around the coffee stand and devour us whole.

We complain about our hangovers and vow to never drink beer again, and then pause to read about the drink specials at the airport bar. We settle into our chairs at the gate. With my ears still ringing from last night's show, I put on my headphones and play Purple Rain at maximum volume. I think of the last few days and of the ensuing nine hour journey home.

This is what it sounds like when I cry.