Truesday: The Soaked Corners of Your Mind

So there’s something for everyone at SxSW, and if those who bust their asses to put it all together make some cash out of the deal, then so be it. But the other side of that coin is that with success comes criticism. If you’re on top, you better expect a slew of downstreamers to tear you a new one, whether they have the right or not. Black knows that, which is probably why he’s so smug about it. What’s he supposed to say? “Yeah, sometimes I make decisions in my life with the intention of profiting from them. So uniquely evil, I know. Ta-dah, you got me. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to catch the bus to make my twice-weekly ego massage appointment.”

While everyone else cries foul and follows misty money trails, the rest of us go out, get absolutely obliterated for an entire week, and have contests to discover which country the worst haircuts are coming from these days. We’re so much easier to please.

My bets are on Scotland this year. Those crazy Scots! With their girlfriend-stealing accents! Damn them and their smooth doooooooos!

So it’s likely to be another difficult-to-remember week. Like Vegas, but involving less money and, well, I guess it’s just less money. The rest of the vacant morality is pretty much parallel. Short issue with the festival week: it’s hard to remember what the fuck went down after all those gallons of FREE poison.

Man, free booze really DOES taste better. Deliciousness.

So, in my typical list-happy fashion, I quickly jotted down three sweetly funtacular ways to make this SxSW more memorable for you and your band of merry miscreants. These are just guides, really, as you will likely want to adopt them to fit your own feel.

1. Pick a specific drink that you normally do not bother with, and make it your flagship drink for SxSW 2007. This one’s easy, really. Just mix whatever in whatever and drink it like your momma packed it in your sack lunch. Perhaps some Peach Snapple and spiced rum, in the Snapple bottle. Or fresh papaya juice with whiskey and bitters in a metal canteen. Vodka, Bud Lite and turpentine in a raccoon hat. Whatever. You get the drift. The idea is that maybe two years down the line, when you’re at another one of those trade shows for hybrid gas/electric anal probes or whatever, someone in front of you at the hotel bar will ask the tender for

“three Whiskey Shitting Monkeys.”

Tender: “straight up in empty Gatorade bottles, or in dirty sake boxes?”

Drinker: “oh, mix it up and surprise me!”

To which you will proudly bellow from behind “holy fuck! I MADE THAT FUCKING DRINK UP! Back at SxSW in 2007 when I shit myself!”

[Their eyes turn to you, in curious fear]

Drinker: “…”

Tender: “you what?”

Drinker: “…”

You: “I was on the kitchen floor of my friend’s apartment with a gash in my left leg, I think I fell out of a moving vehicle earlier in the day, south-by is sooooo crazy! I think the original drink had human urine in it. I’d know it if I smelled it, for sure. I shit myself twice during that week, once after passing out on my neighbor’s roof, hence the drink’s name.”

Tender: “…”

Drinker: “…”

You: “Had to shower in the yard a couple of times that week.”

Tender: [with a violent furrowing of his brow] “…”

Drinker: “Shut-“

Tender: “How did you get in here?”

Drinker: “-up.”

You: “seriously, that’s how it happened! And now you’re ordering it right in front of me! It’s fate! I’m totally a part of history now! Seriously!”

Drinker: “Well.”

Tender: “I’m serious too. Was the door just wide open? Was there anyone else AT the door when you came in?”

You: “Barkeep, let’s make that five Shitting Monkeys. Three for him, and two for me, for ol’ times sake! Good thing I’ve got my shittin’ trousers on tonight, right?!! Aha-ha-ha!!” [toward Drinker, in obligatory high-five stance] “Up TOP!”
Drinker: [disinclining your high-five] “Thanks America-”

You: “Oh, you’re most definitely welcome there, fellow drinker.” [wince-inducing wink]

Drinker: “-for ruining my life.”

Tender: [on phone, suspiciously eyeing you] “yep, that’s right. Bring bailing wire, two live ferrets, NO – just the two bigger ones, and a car battery.”

2. Pick a movie from the past, preferably recent past, to have playing on your TV constantly. This way, there will always be some kind of noise happening in your crib that will be both stimulating to your progressively pickled mind, and a swell reminder of the fun you will never remember about Sx ’07 whenever The Naked Gun shows up somewhere on network television in the future. Besides, it’s hard to be constantly witty and up-beat when you’ve been on the verge of complete organ failure for four days. Quoting Fletch every fifteen minutes will do wonders for the collective spirit of your crew.

3. Pick a theme song for you and your friends to use in thick crowds in order to quickly locate one another. Make it easily recognizable for everyone involved. Cartoon theme. “Captain…” and then wait for the “Cave Maaaaaaaaaan!!!” And as always, eighties sitcoms are a goldmine for shit like this. I don’t mean trying to sing over the whining vocals of that band of trick-or-treaters on stage at any music venues. Those vocal stylings will require sophisticated texting devices to overcome. But out in the streets, or between sets at the renegade magazine parties, it would be both helpful and entertaining to be able to shout into a crowd “well we're movin’ on up…” and have it answered back with “to the east sigh-hide,” and then “to a de-lux apartment, in the sky-high-high” from inside a nearby port-o-let. Just so you know where everyone’s at.

I’m really hoping to remember SxSW this year. Especially the more embarrassing moments.