Transcendentalism, Vodka-Induced Insanity, Illegal Dance Moves and DickTarp: Coachella Music Festival 2010
Bomber | Apr 29, 2010 | Comments 0
Coachella is gone now, leaving only the grizzly, kill-me-now physical affects: ears that feel like they are being invaded and viciously assaulted by the Rice Krispie kids, ‘Snap’, ‘Crackle’, and ‘Pop’, a voice that doesn’t work, a throat that feels like it has deeply-embedded wooden slivers in it, the shaking, rattling, hot rushes and flashes and cold sweats marching up and down my spine from alcohol withdrawal, heat-exhaustion, and sleep-deprivation, vision that will not comply to my demands to focus on objects, and a mildly-stubbed toe. But, it was all worth it.
I know it sounds crazy to love something that hurts you so much. It reads like a textbook abusive, “where the hell’s my Budweiser”, “Mankind is the greatest athlete of our generation and Jeff Gordon is a fag”, co-dependent relationship. But, honestly, guys, it’s my fault, you don’t get it, I deserved it. In this case, this gut-wrenching line of reasoning rings true: I over-did it. You can only blame yourself when you drink enough vodka to kill a Clydesdale or a Russian Prime Minister. To the security staff it might look like water, but it doesn’t hydrate like it. Lesson one for a successful Coachella: stay hydrated…drink vodka waters.
“OK, I get it, you love Coachella and probably have a serious drinking problem that will cripple and kill most of the relationships you cherish besides the ones with Jim, Jack, Jose, and Prince Igor, but what the hell is it?”. Well, the literal definition is that it is an annual music festival that takes place over 3 days, featuring nearly 140 bands playing on 5 stages on the beautiful Empire Polo Club grounds in the peaceful desert town of Indio, CA. But, in reality, it is much more than that. Granted, it is a place where some of the most mind-boggling, maniacal joy-inducing, I-think-I-get-it-now-dude music is played that makes you feel like the hand of God reached down from the sky into your head, squeezing down hard and fast on your hypothalamus splashing your consciousness with the divine chemicals in a torrent of awareness. But, really, it is more than that; I promise….honestly. It is a place where individualism fades, fizzles, and burns and a real tribal sense of community rises from its ashes; it is a place where grown men can cry during Jonsi and it be as acceptable as crying during Rudy; it is a place where you can slump out of your tent writhing around in heat-induced pain and have three people you do not know from a campsite 8 over literally run to rub ice cubes on your back; it is a place where a man can wear hot pants and not be at a gay pride parade; it is a place where you can ask larger men to put you on their shoulders and they will do it even if you’re only wearing hot pants; it is a place where I honestly didn’t wear hot pants; it is a place where we are stripped bare of all those psychological possessions we lug around – vanity, self-doubt, social anxiety, using stand-offish humour to keep people at a distance, and perhaps even xenophobia – leaving only the core urge to share the experience of some great music, sit around, drink enough vodka to fill a kiddie pool and giggle…a lot.
In short, Coachella is about a real sense of community; not, the community of, say, “Winchester Heights”, where everyone is boxed off in their cars, popping in and out of shops, ‘paper or plastic’, ‘credit or cash’, going to and fro, always going somewhere, but never really arriving anywhere, but a real community. Sure, in ‘Winchester’ you will talk and relate, share pre-packaged thoughts – “nice weather out”, “thanks for holding the door”, “you dropped this”, “Sir, you need to wear a shirt in here and your penis is hanging out” – but you are boxed off from each other, not just in your cars, but by social conventions, fears of being negatively judged or ostracized entirely, and, really, by all those social guards that break-down when you are sitting with your loved one in bed or around a campfire amongst best friends. It took me some time to realize it, but these buffers don’t exist at Coachella; you are immediately amongst best-friends around a campfire. Take a look at this picture,
Every single one of those tiny colourful specs is a campsite — 65 000 in all — and in each and every one of them you can walk in and sit down and ask for a beer if you are not immediately given one or, really, ask anything you want: “In human form, who would be a better dancer, the sun or the moon”?, “If you had to have buttsex with either Cap N’ Crunch or Papa Smurf, who would it be?’, and “If you could kill the lead singer of Nickelback how would you do it?” These are weird questions — try asking them to the person sitting on the bus next to you – but every time they were met with open arms of contemplation instead of cocked eye-brows of indignation.* There’s a true tribal sense of community, where indeed rules still apply, but it is only one: all is in the name of fun unless ye harm someone. Here’s an example to help explain,
This story was later re-counted to me. It was our first night and I was drunk – Mel Gibson, Orson Welles and Jon Belushi rolled into one drunk – and decided I had to urinate. The port-a-potties or phone booth’s of pooey awfulness, depending on how you look at it, were pretty far away – about 20 metres. We had a tarp in-between both of our cars and I figured that was my best-bet, I’d pee there with my back politely facing our campground. I lifted the tarp up about half-way so I could pee under it, but, apparently, when there are 65 000 people crammed into a field camping, your back is not politely facing everybody. Here’s what a group of camper’s saw,
“We heard someone wrestling and falling onto a tarp across from us yelling about how he jammed his knee in the wheel-well of the car, we laughed and thought nothing of it. But, then it happened, the tarp was slowly lifted up like a curtain revealing what I can only describe as something that should be in a Fellini movie, this weird-shrivelled tootsie roll of a penis urinating powerful jet-blasts at us – luckily we were across the fire escape route so there was enough space to not get hit. We started to laugh a little and then the tarp spoke: “can you guys shut the fuck up, Jesus, can’t you see I’m trying to fucking pee here, you’re making me nervous – have a little goddamn respect. Fuck!”.
And you know what they did? Did they get angry? Did they laugh at me and call me an idiot? No, they actually all went quiet for about 2 minutes to let me finish…and I finished. I actually became really good friends with these people that are among the many unfortunate enough this weekend to see my penis and came to be endearingly known as ‘Dick Tarp’, which basically makes me a shoe-in for the next U of Kentucky basketball play-by-play position.
But, honestly, where else in the world can you pull out your dick, blast urine towards people, and then tell them to shut the fuck up and it be met with a) quizzical amusement and b) satisfaction of that demand? There are many reasons to look at someone negatively – they may have body odour, talk to loudly, wear pink polos, like the Montreal Canadiens, be a fan of Nickelback, or own the Sarah Palin auto(yeah, right)biography – but at Coachella these reasons simply did not exist (unless you are a Nickelback fan). A man spastically rocketing urine towards you while maniacally demanding you shut the fuck up should and could easily be interpreted as a negative – indeed, you probably don’t want to invite that guy over for dinner. But, it wasn’t perceived like that – it was seen as a ridiculous occurrence by an absurdly drunk person that they were able to derive pleasure from. Point being, at Coachella I began to understand that you decide what ‘things’ mean, you decide the evaluation you are going to attach to a ‘fact’ or an ‘event’, you are the arbiter of your own reality and reaction to it. Why not choose to see things as funny or downright awesome instead of rude, tactless, and technically illegal? At Coachella anything goes as long as you follow the cardinal rule: all is in the name of fun unless ye harm someone (unless they want to be harmed, then harm away!).
In addition, to the social facade that legislates our interactions being reduced to rubble, there was also some really good music. With almost 140 bands playing and deadly, sweltering heat, you have to wisely strategize who you’re going to see and, unfortunately, who you won’t be able to see. The old adage, ‘less is more’, definitely applies to Coachella. If you attempt to shoot from stage to stage watching back-to-back shows all day, you will die. Dehydration ruins music no matter how good it is, so don’t waste all your energy seeing three bands you sort of like and staggering hopelessly to your favorite band afterwards. That being said, I saw some music that changed my life, shook and rattled my perspective, or just made me dance like a methed-out lunatic monkey-man in ecstatic joy. Here are my top five moments in no particular order,
1) Major Lazer - They are a collaborative musical project from DJ’s Switch and Dip-Lo. Their most recognizable work is producing M.I.A.’s smash, massively over-played hit, Paper Planes. However, Major Lazer, is nothing like this song. They play bulked-up, muscular, in-your-face-and-down-your-windpipe-feel-it-in-the-soles-of-your-feet reggae-driven techno insanity. Before I explain what occurred in the dance tent on this night I a) need to consult my lawyers and b) need to show to you the level of balls-out, dick-on-the-floor absurdity that is MajorLazer, which is captured and distilled perfectly in – yes, this is bold – the ‘greatest music video of all time’.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call visual crack; play it again, try to look away…good luck. The dude with the sweet hair, he’s Scared Boi, their hype-man/dance machine. He does his job better than anyone in the business. And, yes, he brought the ladder, and yes he may have impregnated at least 3 girls on stage.
Take the absurdity from this video roll it around in crystal-meth and a healthy dose of MDMA and pure unadulterated crazy joy and you will have an idea of the scenario in the dance tent. The second I saw the tent, I bolted from my group of people, injecting myself into the frenzied madness. The energy was break-neck, the vibe was pure lunacy, and Scared Boi was on his game. At one point, I bumped into two people attempting to conceive their first child or, by the looks of them, their 7th or 8th. The absurdity began to rise and rise, people on each other’s shoulders, dude’s grabbing girls, girls grabbing dude’s, dude’s grabbing dude’s, girls grabbing girls, condom wrappers fluttering everywhere in the air, and then it happened: Pon De Floor came on. It’s hard to describe, but almost everything I witnessed is probably illegal in most states. I was caught in the absurd-frenzy of it all – at one point, I had a lil‘ Asian man on my shoulders while I pulled my ‘fist shuffle to ejaculation pantomime’ all over a group of girls (well, mostly girls). They jokingly called me out, “that’s all you got, why don’t you actually whip it out”.(Or, at least, that’s what I think they said). They called out the wrong guy: so there I am, Pon De Floor is only about half over, and I am completing #76 on my life’s to do list, “dance with a small Asian man on my shoulders with my dick-out”. And since I was dehydrated and blood was being demanded in all my extremities, my dick was stupid-tiny – like medical journal tiny – but no one laughed or pointed; dicks and people are seen the same way at Coachella: they are categorically a good thing no matter what size, shape or colour. So, yeah, Major Lazer was ‘pretty, pretty good’.
2) Jonsi - He is the Icelandic front man of Sigur Ros and his music will change your life. His alien-like falsetto voice massages my soul and gently fellates it until it swoons, hoos, has, and coos in his arms. That sounds crazy, but listen to this, close your eyes, and stop thinking. Good luck.
I had never heard of Jonsi when my friend Raj dragged me to see him and I owe her for life as a result. When I arrived, before getting a chance to listen to him, I scanned the crowd and saw at least 12 dude’s crying…hard. “Jesus, look at these fuckin’ pussies”. 9 minutes later I was one of those pussies. What I am about to say will sound crazy and maybe even difficult to understand, but this is the most accurate subjective description I can give.
It was a perfect day in the Californian desert, the sun was shining, the beautiful Rocky mountains were towering in the background, and, there I was, completely oblivious to what was about to occur. The music kept building and building, drawing more and more people into it’s web of enigmatic brilliance, until finally I was pulled in. As the music rose and rose, I felt a pulling sensation, like something was being gently, but forcibley, extracted upwards from my body. It was everything; the entire cultural edifice, everything I had been told and learned in my life, my worries, fears, thoughts about who I was, insecurities, language, painful memories of ex-girlfriends, right, wrong, good, bad, black, white, everything, was being pulled from me. And, that moment, when it all finally came out, I ceased to exist; “I” was an empty vessel experiencing the universe, floating, and being…nothing, but everything at the same time. I don’t know how long this lasted – time had no place there – but when I came back down, I was rattled, a little scared, but mostly felt like I had been sand-blasted by a joyful peace. I hugged the people around me and staggered into the rest of the venue to annoy and confuse the fuck out of anyone that would listen to me for the next 10 hours.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes – They are an ensemble group led by Alex Ebert. According to Ebert, Edward Sharpe is a messianic figure that was “sent down to earth to kinda heal and save mankind, but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love”. But, really, it’s just happy music that reminds me of what the vibe would be at Woodstock (the first one).
The moment I had was sweet, simple, and made me happy. As the song above, “Home”, was being played, Ebert’s soothing voice bounced and frolicked around the crowd, “Home is wherever I’m with you”. This brought a smile to my face as I scanned the crowd for other happy-onlookers eventually resting my gaze on this cosmically synched-up scenario,
They have their whole kitchen right there at Coachella. They can truly say to each other, ‘home is wherever you are’. Then I saw this guy,
No one knows where his home is.
4) Tiesto – Tiesto is a DJ. I don’t know if you know that. His set was insane. I’ve never seen more people dancing in one place to one DJ. Truly – and I hate this word, but it’s the only way to describe it – epic. As Raj the roomie said, “it was like everyone was breathing the music”, Tiesto’s bass-dipped musical notes were dissolving into blood-streams and visciously circulating around everyone’s body. Check it out and try telling me you don’t wish you were “right there, right now”.
At about 1:30, the entire stage goes dark for 15 seconds. “What the fuck? I think it’s a blackout”. Nope. Regardless if you’re a fan of techno or not, that moment the lights and music punches back through, could melt your brain-stem.
5) Florence and the Machine – Florence is an angel. I imagine her skin feels like a heaven-cloud, her hair smells like fits of joy, her vagina feels like Jay-Z’s lips, and she shits gumballs filled with cocaine. This was, without a question, my favorite set and that includes Jonsi, which allowed me to contact the pulsating wonder that is universal love. So, yeah, I like her.
To some it may seem that Coachella, for me, was an excuse to indulge in my ever-developing alcoholism and pull my dick out. And it was, but it was also a great experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Get a shoe-box, a savings account, start stripping, sell your blood online, kill a family member and collect the insurance, clip coupons, panhandle; do whatever you can to save money for Coachella next year and I promise you will not regret it.
*The best answers for the above questions by the way were, firstly, the sun would be the better dancer because he would have more skill, he’d have some sexy, swaying, in-your-face, latin hip movements that astonished the crowd, but, the problem is, he knows it and he’s cocky to a fault because of it, whereas, the moon would not have as much skill, but be mellow, understated, and easily likable and approachable, which is the hall-mark of any great dancer. So, it’s really a toss-up. As for the Cap N’ Crunch or Papa Smurf quandary? It definitely has to be Papa Smurf – Cap N’ Crunch, I imagine, would have a very unwelcoming, granular, and crunchy butthole that could do some serious damage to your favorite appendage. Papa Smurf’s love canal would be plush, inviting, and gentle. As for the Chad Kroeger murder scenario, there were some quality entries, but the one that was clearly the best was the ‘Icicle Penis’: rip off his dick, freeze it, then stab his eyeballs with it for making us ever have to see his god-awful music videos.
The author, Bomber! (you have to exhale dramatically after you say his name), also writes a daily blog on his hopeless and grueling struggle with an unnecessarily extreme workout program. Chiggidy check it. http://bombersp90xperiment.blogspot.com/
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