Identity Festival 2011
The identity of the Identity Festival 2011 is straight white male...
In the spirit of trying to be more social with good friends I decided to go to the Identity Festival at the Gorge. There were only two artists there that I knew of and cared to see and those were the headliners: Kaskade and The Crystal Method. I believed this trip was going to be more about the journey rather than the destination. It was a bit of both. It was a wonderful time despite the less than smooth interactions described below. Yes I would do this all over again.
Friday night we had decided that we should meet up and pack up the cars so we can leave bright and early Saturday morning. At the Pretty Kitty Palace we discussed who was going and what needed to occur the next morning for a smooth send-off. This was all pleasantry that fell by the wayside as plans do. I arrived at the designated time because I don't have a life. This was inconsiderate to those that do have a life. :) actually I had a really great time waking up with my friends who decided to party late. i am astounded at how much of a good morning attitude they all had even though they were still awake or were newly awake. definitely a skill i should try to learn. while I was double parked we slowly gathered everyone's items together including the 2 new people that were suddenly part of the pack. Times like this I am glad I have a large car. Eventually we were able to herd everyone together (like a herd of cats at least) in order to pick up more essential individuals, i.e. brittin baker. Brittin (he's kind of a big deal) set up a freaking wifi and dj booth in the backseat of my car! that was pretty cool.
After a spirited exit from the city we arrived at the venue. It was great we could park right at our campsite. it forced us to be efficient. We erected all the tents and established an awesome music system via brittin's laptop and my car's audio system. It was HOT outside. I think it was 94 when we arrived at 2 pm. After everything was established we sat around in the shade and drank. and drank. and continued to drink until around 630pm when we decided to brave the sunlight and go check out the festival.
The heat had dropped to a very comfortable level, but damn we were at least a mile away from the festival. at least there were still plenty of shirtless boys running about. Unfortunately noone I was excited to see was going to start for several more hours so we just went to the first stage that had someone playing and it was this dubstep crap. I need to check out less hardcopre dubstep stuff and maybe try some "dubbish" because I just cant dance to that crap. it's way too agro. it's like when a bunch of frat boys go to a rave and are dicks to people. that's what that music makes me think of. We continued our drinking (they only had 24 oz cans of bud light and other crappy beer) but that was probably for the best considering how drunk we all were already.
Time flew by and time was upon us to see the main acts. stupidly they put the main headliners on at the same time at different stages so i had to watch half of one and then half the other. there were several hundred people seeing crystal method and I danced my ass off during their set until they ended with some DUBSTEP crap. blah. the better show was by far Kaskade. I was blown away by the huge stage and the insane visuals he had going on. it was like his entire stage was this living creature of light. i literally was brought to tears a few times. the other craziness was the sea of people that were down in the main area in front of the stage. there were thousands and thousands. i dont even have an estimate, but it was awesome and I was so glad I wasn't down there in that craziness.
They ended right at 11pm and so then the real partying began. well first we had to drag our tired asses back the mile to the campsite in the dark just like the other thousand people within my immediate view. I was really worn out from dancing for an hour, but we had more partying to do! We got the dj booth going (my car) again and shared our stories of the day. At 215am some authoratative types came by and told us to shut down the music. i shut off the car and music and promptly went to sleep.
I woke up 30 minutes later in a panic that I had lost something. I frantically search my tent trying to figure out what was missing when I realize my car keys were gone, but I know I had gone to bed with them. I run out of my tent and it's really quiet in the camp and my car's trunk is open. im freaking out and run up to it and see Kyle and Brittin sitting inside the car watching videos on a laptop. I rip open the door and see my keys were safely there with them. i angrily mumble something because i am exhausted. I can't hear anything because I have ear plugs in. I slump back into my tent and close the door. As I get comfortable in the sleeping bag I happen to glance over and see Brittin's face staring at me from 2 feet away. I scream because he scared the shit out of me. I pull an ear plug out and he says "sorry I have been telling you what happened for 15 seconds! i didnt mean to scare you!". LOL poor guy doesn't know how grumpy i can get when just waking up. i say it's fine and go to sleep. and so begins the bad part of the evening. I am grumpy from having just woken up in a panic and just as I fade off to sleep again (i had taken a zyrtec to try to help me sleep)the neighbors show back up and start blasting their music from their car which was 3 feet from my head. My earplugs were rendered useless at this point. The freaking authoratative types never showed up for these guys and so I was forced to listen to The Strokes for I don't know how long. At some point I sorta fell asleep but within an hour or two our camp had my car playing music again. After another hour or two of laying there I got up. It was 830am.
At this point I was exhausted and cranky so I just set to packing up my tent and stuff. I was so brain dead I couldn't remember how to break it down. Thankfully a friend helped me figure it out, but while this went on I went and apologized to Brittin for being so cranky. He apologized as well. I very well may be going to Burning Man with this guy next year so I want to make sure we understand how each other works and that there was no ill will. We really haven't hung out all that often and he is such a genuinely awesome guy I knew he didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of my grumpiness.
Anyhow while I was breaking down my tent some random guy shuffles up to the garbage can by our camp, undoes his pants, and proceeds to pee into the garbage can. I just watch this out of the corner of my eye and continue cleaning and packing. This guy, I shit you not, took a solid 2 minute pee. It was amazing. Then, without closing his pants, he starts to amble towards the open trunk of my car that had been packed with lots of our supplies. We are all watching him at this point wondering what was going on. He hasn't said a word or even really acknowledged we were there. He grabs a backpack in the trunk and sets it on the ground. Then he grabs a camping chair that was in a case and tries to take it out but he can't even figure out which side is up. Ok so this guys must be shrooming his balls off or something. I think it's pretty darn funny. Tommy comes up and says "dude. what are you doing? why are you unpacking our car?". the guy just blinks and looks at the camping chair. I find this rather amusing. Kyle comes up and points at the guy and says "hey. you need a task. you need something to do. come pull this stake out of the ground. it requires someone with a lot of strength. I am sure you can help us with this." The guy drops the chair and sits on the ground next to the stake and proceeds to try to pull on it. BRILLIANT, KYLE! He is the high-guy whisperer. Did I mention his pants are still undone? Now that the guy is busy with that we are able to finish breaking down the camp. The guy is unable to get the stake out and promptly falls onto his back and just lays there staring at the sky. *I* am the he-man that manages to get the stake out. As we finalize the camp breakdown the high guy stands up, does up his pants, and then just wanders off from whence he came. As he stumbled by a tent he sort of fell inside it and just laid there. We don't know if that was his tent but it was amusing just the same.
The drive home was fairly quiet as everyone slept in the car because they stayed up all night. I am thankful for Kyle and Brittin's beef jerky. the food really helped me stay sane for the drove home.
thanks to all for the fun experience! I laughed, I cried. It was beautiful and experiencing it with an amazing group of friends made it all the better.
Quotes from the weekend:
Brittin: "I don't wanna get up!". Tommy: "Sorry a wrecked penis doesn't count."
Kyle: "Girls can be hot, but they should be shot."
Eric: "I'm raving in your colon."
Kyle: "I'm not a problem. I'm awesome."
In the spirit of trying to be more social with good friends I decided to go to the Identity Festival at the Gorge. There were only two artists there that I knew of and cared to see and those were the headliners: Kaskade and The Crystal Method. I believed this trip was going to be more about the journey rather than the destination. It was a bit of both. It was a wonderful time despite the less than smooth interactions described below. Yes I would do this all over again.
Friday night we had decided that we should meet up and pack up the cars so we can leave bright and early Saturday morning. At the Pretty Kitty Palace we discussed who was going and what needed to occur the next morning for a smooth send-off. This was all pleasantry that fell by the wayside as plans do. I arrived at the designated time because I don't have a life. This was inconsiderate to those that do have a life. :) actually I had a really great time waking up with my friends who decided to party late. i am astounded at how much of a good morning attitude they all had even though they were still awake or were newly awake. definitely a skill i should try to learn. while I was double parked we slowly gathered everyone's items together including the 2 new people that were suddenly part of the pack. Times like this I am glad I have a large car. Eventually we were able to herd everyone together (like a herd of cats at least) in order to pick up more essential individuals, i.e. brittin baker. Brittin (he's kind of a big deal) set up a freaking wifi and dj booth in the backseat of my car! that was pretty cool.
After a spirited exit from the city we arrived at the venue. It was great we could park right at our campsite. it forced us to be efficient. We erected all the tents and established an awesome music system via brittin's laptop and my car's audio system. It was HOT outside. I think it was 94 when we arrived at 2 pm. After everything was established we sat around in the shade and drank. and drank. and continued to drink until around 630pm when we decided to brave the sunlight and go check out the festival.
The heat had dropped to a very comfortable level, but damn we were at least a mile away from the festival. at least there were still plenty of shirtless boys running about. Unfortunately noone I was excited to see was going to start for several more hours so we just went to the first stage that had someone playing and it was this dubstep crap. I need to check out less hardcopre dubstep stuff and maybe try some "dubbish" because I just cant dance to that crap. it's way too agro. it's like when a bunch of frat boys go to a rave and are dicks to people. that's what that music makes me think of. We continued our drinking (they only had 24 oz cans of bud light and other crappy beer) but that was probably for the best considering how drunk we all were already.
Time flew by and time was upon us to see the main acts. stupidly they put the main headliners on at the same time at different stages so i had to watch half of one and then half the other. there were several hundred people seeing crystal method and I danced my ass off during their set until they ended with some DUBSTEP crap. blah. the better show was by far Kaskade. I was blown away by the huge stage and the insane visuals he had going on. it was like his entire stage was this living creature of light. i literally was brought to tears a few times. the other craziness was the sea of people that were down in the main area in front of the stage. there were thousands and thousands. i dont even have an estimate, but it was awesome and I was so glad I wasn't down there in that craziness.
They ended right at 11pm and so then the real partying began. well first we had to drag our tired asses back the mile to the campsite in the dark just like the other thousand people within my immediate view. I was really worn out from dancing for an hour, but we had more partying to do! We got the dj booth going (my car) again and shared our stories of the day. At 215am some authoratative types came by and told us to shut down the music. i shut off the car and music and promptly went to sleep.
I woke up 30 minutes later in a panic that I had lost something. I frantically search my tent trying to figure out what was missing when I realize my car keys were gone, but I know I had gone to bed with them. I run out of my tent and it's really quiet in the camp and my car's trunk is open. im freaking out and run up to it and see Kyle and Brittin sitting inside the car watching videos on a laptop. I rip open the door and see my keys were safely there with them. i angrily mumble something because i am exhausted. I can't hear anything because I have ear plugs in. I slump back into my tent and close the door. As I get comfortable in the sleeping bag I happen to glance over and see Brittin's face staring at me from 2 feet away. I scream because he scared the shit out of me. I pull an ear plug out and he says "sorry I have been telling you what happened for 15 seconds! i didnt mean to scare you!". LOL poor guy doesn't know how grumpy i can get when just waking up. i say it's fine and go to sleep. and so begins the bad part of the evening. I am grumpy from having just woken up in a panic and just as I fade off to sleep again (i had taken a zyrtec to try to help me sleep)the neighbors show back up and start blasting their music from their car which was 3 feet from my head. My earplugs were rendered useless at this point. The freaking authoratative types never showed up for these guys and so I was forced to listen to The Strokes for I don't know how long. At some point I sorta fell asleep but within an hour or two our camp had my car playing music again. After another hour or two of laying there I got up. It was 830am.
At this point I was exhausted and cranky so I just set to packing up my tent and stuff. I was so brain dead I couldn't remember how to break it down. Thankfully a friend helped me figure it out, but while this went on I went and apologized to Brittin for being so cranky. He apologized as well. I very well may be going to Burning Man with this guy next year so I want to make sure we understand how each other works and that there was no ill will. We really haven't hung out all that often and he is such a genuinely awesome guy I knew he didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of my grumpiness.
Anyhow while I was breaking down my tent some random guy shuffles up to the garbage can by our camp, undoes his pants, and proceeds to pee into the garbage can. I just watch this out of the corner of my eye and continue cleaning and packing. This guy, I shit you not, took a solid 2 minute pee. It was amazing. Then, without closing his pants, he starts to amble towards the open trunk of my car that had been packed with lots of our supplies. We are all watching him at this point wondering what was going on. He hasn't said a word or even really acknowledged we were there. He grabs a backpack in the trunk and sets it on the ground. Then he grabs a camping chair that was in a case and tries to take it out but he can't even figure out which side is up. Ok so this guys must be shrooming his balls off or something. I think it's pretty darn funny. Tommy comes up and says "dude. what are you doing? why are you unpacking our car?". the guy just blinks and looks at the camping chair. I find this rather amusing. Kyle comes up and points at the guy and says "hey. you need a task. you need something to do. come pull this stake out of the ground. it requires someone with a lot of strength. I am sure you can help us with this." The guy drops the chair and sits on the ground next to the stake and proceeds to try to pull on it. BRILLIANT, KYLE! He is the high-guy whisperer. Did I mention his pants are still undone? Now that the guy is busy with that we are able to finish breaking down the camp. The guy is unable to get the stake out and promptly falls onto his back and just lays there staring at the sky. *I* am the he-man that manages to get the stake out. As we finalize the camp breakdown the high guy stands up, does up his pants, and then just wanders off from whence he came. As he stumbled by a tent he sort of fell inside it and just laid there. We don't know if that was his tent but it was amusing just the same.
The drive home was fairly quiet as everyone slept in the car because they stayed up all night. I am thankful for Kyle and Brittin's beef jerky. the food really helped me stay sane for the drove home.
thanks to all for the fun experience! I laughed, I cried. It was beautiful and experiencing it with an amazing group of friends made it all the better.
Quotes from the weekend:
Brittin: "I don't wanna get up!". Tommy: "Sorry a wrecked penis doesn't count."
Kyle: "Girls can be hot, but they should be shot."
Eric: "I'm raving in your colon."
Kyle: "I'm not a problem. I'm awesome."