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Scott reports on..
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The Hippie Festival
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Gathering of the Vibes, Red Hook, NY - 06.29 to 07.01.2001
Pics are coming soon, I promise ;)
It’s been a while since I’ve written an article for this Ruse. The only reason I’m doing it now is cuz I’m at work, and being at work fills me with dread, sometimes. Actually doing the work I’m here to do fills me with worse things yet still, so here I am. Now, the story I’m about to tell is not for the weak hearted, my family, my friend’s families, or actual hippies. Everyone else should be A-OK with the whole thing.
It all started on Friday after work. Or, it was supposed to. The Gathering (which I called “That Hippie Festival”, using scorn and sarcasm) started Friday at some time I can’t remember. Fish and Kat headed up to Red Hook bright and early, but I stayed behind to work.
Tiring of work completely by about 12:30, I removed some of my fake teeth and marched into my boss’ office covering my mouth in mock embarrassment. I found it all rather humorous so he thought I was lying. (You see, amongst other times I’ve harassed him, I confused him as so: I walked into his office and enquired, “Do you have a garbage can?” He said yes, and pointed it out to me. I approached it, crushed it down and dropped in some change. On my way out he asks, “Was that money?” “45 cents”, I casually replied and exited). So anyway, he didn’t believe I was missing teeth, and for about 5 minutes this ensued in a loop:
“Are you really missing teeth?”
“Yes. But you don’t want to see. It’s really weird looking.”
“It’s ok, show me..”
“But it’s gross.”
[etc.]
So finally I showed him, making him ask the question:
“So, do you have to go do something about that?”
With a bit of false-embarrassment stammering, I explained that all my teeth were fake (true) and that I had to go get these four cemented back in immediately (true, but ‘immediate’ isn’t as urgent to me as you think). So I left and got home way early, to my parents’ surprise.
Was I ready to leave? Yes. All packed and everything. I just had to get a tent from Fish’s brother, who I was waiting to find. Instead, Fish called me and explained something about how it was raining and they lost the tent in the deluge and they were coming home. So I aborted my plans to go there and hung out with Sag instead, waiting for Fish and Kat. To my dismay they never showed up, and at some point I got a voicemail that they found a motel in New Palz.
It was late, so I slept and planned on going up the next day…
. . .
Saturday afternoon, as I was ready to throw my brand-new 130-dollar very-cool-looking backpack over my shoulder, I was quite surprised to find out it had no fucking straps. I laughed for about 10 seconds, then became angry and spiteful at the piece of luggage. Mickey laughed at me for about a half hour in the car on the way up. (Yes, Mickey is a doll. Shut up).
I was ingenious and violated the directions in favor of a route of my own design, but I sat in traffic in the Bronx for an hour or so anyway. A man drives up next to me and begins gesturing and yelling. “What the fuck does this asshole want?”, I mused. Then I realized it was this guy Roy from my last job. So we had an IM style conversation as our lanes surpassed each other alternatingly. I’d yell a sentence out the window and then have to drive ahead, and he’d do the same. Eventually the tide of autos separated us, and I took off in my Jeep northward on I-87…
. . .
I enjoyed the drive immensely, singing the whole way, and the relative ruralness of everything was great to see. I got to the festival entrance, but drove onward, just to explore. I had no real plan; No info on where to find Fish and Kat, and a garbled message from Liz describing her campsite.
When I finally settled on parking, I was getting my shit together in the car when once again someone pulls up next to me and gestures and yells in an excited manner. This time it was Fish, exiting from a car I’d never seen, accompanied with Kat, Jen and some guy. Introductions were made and everyone was glad, so we headed towards the campground.
It started raining. Hard. So we turned back to wait it out by the cars. A guy passed us by heading for the woods, but when he came back his motives didn’t meet with any of our conjectures: “Dude, I’m tripping my sack off!” So he wasn’t whacking off or shitting. Ah well..
After a little while and a little beer, it was declared to head back to New Palz and the hotel to regroup. (Of course it stopped raining upon this decision).
Everyone went to sleep, but I drove around the area for a bit, sat at a scenic overlook and watched the lightning in the valley, then sat naked in my own hotel room and read my book. Finally, everyone else was aroused, but the Chinese buffet was closed (it was well after 11 by now), so we scarfed down some “Mickey D’s”.
Then we got lost on the way to Kat’s friend’s house where I mocked these guys’ tattoos, some guy put two rifle barrels in his mouth, and some drugged up bitch was the source of much “drama”. The drama was the cause of our leaving.
Needless to say, we’d shown up at this house with a 55-gallon garbage can full of beer and ice.
Drunk, it was time to head back for sleep with the gas needle below empty.
. . .
It was such sorrow parting from Jen’s boyfriend ( ,=-- ), and Jen. Fish and I had a scandalous craving for Denny’s, and we drove a good hour to satisfy it. The Terrorist Van (Fish kept calling it “The T-Van”) was left at the motel we were no longer guests of, and it didn’t leave for another day or two.
Denny’s was followed by some SciFi store and our decision to, why not, actually attend the festival we shelled out 90 bucks for. So it was, and we commenced the trip back to Red Hook.
Obviously, it started raining as soon as we got near the place. This time, we put our shit in ziplock bags and braved our way in. It was something like 3pm I think.
Hippies do three main things: Wallow in mud, beat en masse on anything hollow they can find (or strum guitars), and smoke pot. They also seem to be in possession of the entire world’s supply of Humungous Hullah-hoops and VW busses.
Anyway, my back began to ache, but in my stupor I assumed I had to take a hardcore dump. The porto-potties, while above Woodstock standards after 3 days of existing, were not appetizing. In the end I felt I had no choice, and had my Phantom Dump Porto-Pottie Experience. I can’t tell you why exactly, for I simply can’t find the words, but that deserves to be capped and bold.
Fortunately, I couldn’t smell anything, but I spent a good 15 minutes in there “tripping my sack off”, and not getting much done in the pooping realm.
This was followed by more wandering, and slowly it began to come to light that we all had work the next day. So we formulated a plan to leave “soon”.
We each thought the other two of us knew what was going on and what to do and where to go, but that wasn’t the case at all. Eventually, just as the stage was warming up (the rain having stopped some time earlier), we conceded to leave.
Back at the car, it was discovered to be 9pm, and none of us were “Good To Drive”. (This was about 3-4 hours after the hypothesis began working). Fish and I contended to stay in the car, Kat promising to be back by 10:15 after seeing some bands. She left without a watch or sense, so I wagered we wouldn’t be seeing her again.
Contrarily, she showed up at 10:10, and I proclaimed myself “Good To Drive”. So I did.
To everyone’s amazement, we made it to New Palz efficiently. We left inefficiently by bullshitting around the cars for a while, deciding no one would be driving the T-Van home that night, then eating at a diner where I tried 2 or 3 more times to take a crap. Eating chicken fingers made me feel many times better, so we headed off to NYC.
Uneventful trip home, but I managed to squeeze something outta my ass in a McDonald’s shitter. A half hour later, I was done.
. . .
Got home, passed out, woke up, wrote the following email to my boss, passed out…
Subj: We hate scott
“[BossName].. I tried coming in today, but it’s not going to happen L . If you need anything done, email me or call my cell @ 516ETCBLAH .”
THE END
Disclaimer:
As should be obvious to you, this was all a ruse. All the people, places, dates, and things like that are fictitious, and of course we wouldn’t do anything it said in the story. Furthermore, you can go to hell and die (or is it die and go to hell?) if you don’t believe me.
Furthermore, hippies can suck my shiny white ass as I throw litter everywhere, run over small animals with my car and eat them (especially the cute ones – they don’t seem to mind if you kill the gross ones), tell people I hate them, destroy private property, vote republican, and generally not “chill out, man”.
Or, maybe I should just listen to more Electric Inside-Out Airborne Hat Rabbit and become a better person. (I bet that’s really a band).
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