https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Roadburn 2018 Trip Pt. 3: Getting Weird in the Canyon

weirdo canyon

04.19.18 – 11:55AM CET – Thursday morning – Hotel Mercure Rm. 224

I get asked a lot how I do this every year. Roadburn. The lack of sleep. The back and forth. Well, I’ve had about nine espressos from the machine in the 013 office so far today and I seriously doubt they’ll be my last, so I’ll just say there’s very little mystery when it comes right down to it. The fact is Roadburn comes once a year. The fact is I’m so, so, so fortunate espresso machineto be here. The fact is heart palpitations are a small price to pay for spiritual rejuvenation.

Those are the facts.

The first issue of Weirdo Canyon Dispatch with a review of the Hardrock Hideout by me that bears an awful lot of resemblance to a much more concise version of that which was posted here last night is done. Starting an hour earlier because of the new printer was no thing once we got in the 013 building. We weren’t even the first ones in the office. Busy busy.

Deadline to have the issue out was 11AM though and it was sent at 10:46 by my watch (Lee had 10:45), so I’d say that’s pretty good for a first day. Usually there’s some manner of lost passwords, failed connections, printer malfunctions, etc. I didn’t hear any explosions when the PDF was sent off to the press, so like the supervillain that I am, I walked away confident that the giant laser would split the hero in half starting at the crotch exactly according to my overly complicated evil masterplan. Because that’s how it works, right?

I walked back to the hotel through Weirdo Canyon. There’s a kind of tension in the 013 and the area surrounding. The air is tight. I think for many who come here repeatedly, Roadburn is an experience of what my country’s former secretary of defense might classify as the known-unknown. It’s easy enough to have the lay of the land roadburn 2018 issue and pass— though don’t ask me where the Koepelhal or the Hall of Fame are — but every year, something different unfolds in this space. It’s a heartening moment right now, and that tense edge is part of it. I think it’s called excitement. Yeah, that’s it.

For me, I’m going to do my best to remember not to pull my bracelet off this year — felt like quite the dumbass after doing so the first night in 2017 — and I’m going to try to take it easy, enjoy the day for what it is and bask in that wonderful Roadburn thing that every year when I go back to the States, The Patient Mrs. remarks on how refreshed I seem. Admittedly, it’s a different process of disconnecting from home for a few days — Walter came in the 013 office this morning and first thing accused me of missing the baby; I denied it outright and then video-chatted The Patient Mrs. just to recite a few memorized lines of Hippos Go Berserk for The Pecan — but the weather here is beautiful and the happening here is beautiful and I will soak in as much as I possibly can and write as much as I possibly can because these are the days one lives for.

Roadburn 2018 starts now. I hope I’m ready.

Tags: , , ,

3 Responses to “Roadburn 2018 Trip Pt. 3: Getting Weird in the Canyon”

Leave a Reply