The Ultimate KLOWN Experience: A Journey Into The Heart Of Drunkness Part One

I've had a rough year.

Yeah, I know this probably isn't the place to pour out my heart, but sometimes a story needs some context. In the last eight months my family and I have been through one near fatal car accident, one life threatening cardiac incident, and numerous financial catastrophes. To top it all off, about two weeks ago I learned that rats had taken up residence in my engine block and chewed the shit out of the wiring, rendering my car useless. I took the car to the shop, they said they fixed it, I drove it home and went on a well earned vacation, leaving it behind. When I arrived home from my week of rest, I took my car out to get gas, and wouldn't you know it, the fucking rats did it again. This was June 22nd, a few days after I'd accepted an invitation from Drafthouse Films to cover the latest Rolling Roadshow event, The Ultimate Klown Experience.

This event was to take place on the Guadalupe River, about an hour and a half outside of Austin, TX, which is already about three and a half hours south of my home in Dallas. Obviously, this trip necessitated a car, of which my family was now down to one. I passed the possibly bad news on to our fearless leader Todd, and said that there was nothing I wanted more than to make this trip, but if I didn't make it, he'd know why.

This is where by blessed angel of a wife came into play. You see, for the last week and a half she's been toting my round ass all over town; to the day job, to the auto shop, wherever I needed to go. When I mentioned that I was probably going to have to cancel the trip because of the car situation, she wasn't having it. She insisted that I go to Austin with her car and have this experience that I'd probably never have again, and so I did.

If there's one thing you should know about me, it is that I'm not all that different from most of the online film press. I'm slightly overweight, I fear the sun, and under normal circumstances canoeing is nothing that I would ever even remotely equate with fun. However, the opportunity to take a trip with like-minded folks down a river with as much beer as we could drink made the idea of this journey a bit more palatable. So, I got in my wife's car, with no air conditioning in the middle of the Texas summer, and I drove down to Austin to meet my fate, whatever it may be.

My first stop was at the home of my press carpool buddy, Brian Salisbury (@briguysalisbury of Movies.com, Film School Rejects, Horror's Not Dead, Hollywood.com, et al). When I arrived at Brian's place, I was greeted by fellow film geek Luke Mullen (@ldmullen), who immediately offered me a beer and we sat down to watch a couple of episodes of The League before Brian and I headed out into the great unknown. This house was like a Mondo poster museum, and it was all I could do to keep myself from shoving that Frankenstein one sheet under my shirt and scurrying out the door to drive back to Dallas, but I had a job to do, and I'm no quitter.

You see, when Drafthouse Films extended this invitation, my first reaction, was, "Yeah! That sounds awesome! I hate nature, boats, water, bugs, and physical activity, but I LOVE Klown!" My second reaction, however, was the far more practical, "Um, okay, what exactly is my responsibility on this trip?" When I posed the question to my dear editor and general overlord, the word came down, and it was good. My assignment for The Ultimate Klown Experience:
I love my job.

In the name of journalistic integrity, I managed to thrown down a couple of Lone Stars at the Salisbury Estate before Brian and I hit the road. If I was gonna do this thing, I was gonna do it right. Unfortunately for me, since the Guadalupe Canoe Livery was about an hour and a half outside of Austin, by the time we arrived the first couple of beers had worn off. This only meant that I had to get more beer in me, ASAP. However, it took a little while for the beer to come online, so I took advantage of my time to meet some of my fellow press with whom I'd be making this epic journey into uncharted territory.

The press contingent of The Ultimate Klown Experience was a roll call of the twitter film geek Illuminati. Many of the popular film sites are based in Austin, and as such most of the major geek sites were well represented. Through my guide, I was able to make friends with Peter Hall (@PeterSHall, Movies.com), Jeremy Kirk (@JeremyKKirk, Film School Rejects, Golden Briefcase Podcast),  Vince Mancini (@FilmDrunk, Film Drunk), along with meeting my soon-to-be partner in crime, Don Simpson (@DonSLSS, Film School Rejects, Smells Like Screen Spirit). There were several others there as well, but this ended up being my clique, as we all seemed to have a similar affinity for the free beer portion of the trip. In addition to those folks, I also managed to rub shoulders with Todd Gilchrist (@MTGilchrist, The Playlist, Boxoffice Magazine), Jen Yamato (@jenyamato, Movieline), Scott Wampler (@ScottWampler44, Collider, Examiner), and several others. However, as much fun as it was to hobnob with these folks, I had my orders, I would not be deterred.

With the two early beers having been absorbed into my bloodstream hours before, and less than an hour to go before I tamed the river wild, the race was on. Enter The Beerliner.
The Beerliner is essentially a giant draft beer on wheels. When this bus backed into the camping ground at the livery, all conversation stopped, and rightly so. Our invitations, and the tickets purchased by the general public, initially entitled each of us to two beers, with additional pours available for purchase. However, a last minute amendment to the ticket terms now meant that everyone going on the journey was now entitled to throw as many beers as the could into their depraved gullets over the course of the evening. This meant only one thing to me: I had to drink all of the beer. How could I write a drunken travelogue without being drunk? So it began.

Of course, the press were the first to mob The Beerliner when they announced that the taps were open, and I was among those leading the charge. Between the time that the Beerliner opened for business and the time that the press were rounded up for our shuttle to the launch point was about 45 minutes. In that time I figured that, given my body weight and the fact that I hadn't eaten anything but a burrito in the last 7 hours, I needed to get about a sixer down if I was gonna do this thing right.

I was about halfway through beer number four when the kind event coordinators began waving around some kind of contract for everyone to sign. Yes, this was the perfect time for me to sign the waiver indemnifying everyone of responsibility for my safety, should I be mangled or killed in a tragic, low speed canoeing accident. In the name of journalism, I signed away my life and threw back beers number five and six just in time to hear the cattle call for the press corp to meet at the bus for our journey to the launch point. So, with nothing but our wit and cunning to protect us from certain sogginess at the unmerciful hands of the mighty Guadalupe River, we made the trek over the hill to the bus.

It was here that the real journey began, and so, beer in hand, I followed the herd toward destiny and into the heart of drunkness...