Barefoot Bryan in Austin. Part Two.

SXSW is an incredible event which takes place every year in Austin.  It features all sorts of popular entertainment from music to movies to speeches to light shows and everything else.  The biggest names from all area's of popular culture show up at SXSW and in turn there are hundreds of thousands of people who flock to the city limits for their entertainment.  Although admission to the various events at SXSW can be very expensive, there are more free concerts and shows and events happening around the city than there are events which require paid admission.  Because of these facts, people from all walks of life and backgrounds and cultures arrive in the City.  From the wealthy to the hipsters to the junkies to the gang members to the confused and lost to the hippies to the druggies to the drunks to the homeless to the curious.  Everyone shows up to SXSW with their own ambitions of doing and experiencing something new and different and wrong and right and expensive and free and opportunistic.

We walked into the midst of Sixth street and the mass of people.  There were no more than 2 steps you could take without bumping into someone or having to excuse yourself and squeeze past someones shoulder.  Not just on the Austin City Sidewalks but in the middle of the Austin City Streets, there were thousands of people all crammed together trying to make their way to some place they currently were not inhabiting.

We decided to make our way to get something to eat at first, and so we made our way down a few blocks to one of the few pizza places located on Sixth Street.  We walked inside and chose the slices of delicious, hand-tossed, pizza we wanted.  The workers behind the counter selected our delicious, hand-tossed pizza slices and heated the delicious, hand-tossed pizza slices up in the oven before taking our payment and handing us our thirst quenching soft drinks.

We took our delicious, hand-tossed pizza slices and walked out back and up a flight of stairs to the dining area.  We sat and ate our delicious, hand-tossed pizza slices and drank our thirst quenching soft drinks and talked about women and church and work and friends and non-friends and people and the night and the drive and the delicious, hand-tossed pizza slices.  We finished eating and wasted no time in getting back to the excitement of Sixth Street.  We walked down the stairs, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, turn, step, step, step, step, turn, through the even more crowded delicious, hand-tossed pizza shop, out the front door, and onto Sixth Street.

We heard of a band, Gungor, that was supposedly going to playing at a club down at the end of Sixth Street, and we made our way through the crowds of people and down to the spot.  Unfortunately when we arrived the bouncer, a very large man with a black curly haired pony-tail, told us they had cancelled the show because the band had called in sick.

We decided to walk up a block or two and across Sixth Street to a place where the city had set up some half pipes and other ramps for BMX bikes and skateboards and such other equipment I cannot ride.  We stood outside the skate area and tried to decide on something to do.  We couldn't really think of anything so we decided to walk a few blocks up Sixth Street where we saw a free DJ and light show going on earlier.

 On our way up Sixth Street we walked in front of a known area where a lot of the cities homeless would camp out and sleep at night.  It was in front of a homeless shelter and when the beds inside filled up the people who were homeless that didn't get a bed that night would sleep outside on the steps and the sidewalk.  You could see these men and women using the concrete curb as their pillow for the night as they tried to get some sleep despite the outrageous noises of Sixth Street taking place at their feet.

As we walked in front of the homeless shelter I noticed a man sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette.  We was wearing blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up an inch, an outdated blue sweater, and a sweaty bald head.  However, this man didn't have any socks or shoes on his feet.  We walked by rather quickly, just long enough for me to notice his bare feet but not long enough to stop and think about what I had just seen.