i’m finally done enough that i can write something…

in the past six days i have performed jack and the bean stalk six times, performed with the fremont philharmonic three times, performed Big Bois With Poise once, waited in various different lines for approximately 12 hours, slept four nights in “mosquito acres” (otherwise known as “Chelamela staff camping”), spent 4 hours tearing down the stage, traveled almost 900 miles, got lost in Portland for 4 hours, spent 8 hours working, 3 hours getting my car fixed again, and 1 hour doing an emergency web update for diana.

country fair went well, although it was more of a job than a vacation. it was very odd seeing the dichotomy between the fantastic utopian dream that it could be (and almost is), and the harsh, stark reality of hippies that are so hung up on their own fantasy about “what country fair is”, that they complain because somebody has their tent set up 6 inches to the wrong side of some imaginary line that only exists in the hippie’s over-stoned brain, or bitching because they can’t drive against the flow of traffic, because that’s what they have “always done” at country fair, regardless of how unrealistic it is this year.

thursday afternoon check in was the most difficult part of the whole thing. i drove for 5 hours and parked in the “temporary” lot to check in and get my “wrist band” (which is one of the ways that they identify people and sort them out into categories), but my name wasn’t on the list, so i had to wait in line to see the “troubleshooter,” and then wait in a third line once the troubleshooter had straightened out whatever screwup had happened. then, once i had gotten the wrist band, i had to wait in line again so that i could have the priveledge of paying $5.00 to have it cut off and made into a laminated card that you wear around your neck, because the wrist band was too much like being in the hospital.

then i had to wait in line again to be able to drive my car to the place where we could offload our stuff (which was about a quarter of a mile from the actual camping site), and proceded to lock myself out of my car, so i had to go find the quartermaster, wait in line *again* while he did several other things before he found his lockout kit and opened my car… and after all that, i had to park about 2 miles away from where i was camped, which was about a mile away from the stage… john called it H.I.F.: Hippie Ineptitude Factor. i’m not entirely sure i approve of calling it that, since i *am* a hippie, but it seems to fit anyway.

the jack and phil performances went really well, and the phil sold all 50 cds that we had made (don’t worry, they were phil cds and not my personal cds), so there’s a possibility that i’ll even get paid eventually. BBWP was a gigantic hit: i heard someone that i didn’t know, ahead of me in line at the ritz, raving to someone else i didn’t know about how hilarious it was. there were probably 100 different artists that all swung poi with great aplomb and immaculate skill sunday night, but the one act that they’ll remember 10 years from now is BBWP, which is *REALLY* cool.

as i said before, i met one of the musicians from dreamtrybe. i was talking with pam and R.A., and got inspired to go and chant hare krsna with a bunch of hippies, and it turned out that the one who was leading the chant was from dreamtrybe. i hadn’t even thought of their album since my injury, but i remembered that i had bought the album for one particular song, and it turned out to be *exactly* what i needed to hear. i also saw carl (the one from bellingham, not the slime ball who was responsible for my unemployment), who i hadn’t seen since before my injury, tim “fyodor karamazov” of the flying karamazov brothers, who i haven’t seen for almost two years, and matthew bob, who was also camped in mosquito acres.

i saw jill friday and saturday. she lives in philomath, which is nearer to veneta (the town where country fair happened) than any other place i’ve been since i have been in contact with her. we hung out together for a couple of hours, and didn’t say much… which, i think, is a good thing. there’s really not much that needed to be said. it was nice hanging out with her and gawking at the hippies, and it was really nice to hang out without having to worry about her crazy step father and his shot gun. she had her daughter with her on saturday, and it was pretty odd to be introduced to an adult person whose mother i had originally met when her mother was younger than she was. it was a little awkward, because apparently jill isn’t as much of a hippie as i am, but at the same time, it’s been 25 years since we’ve seen each other, and a lot has changed for both of us in that time. apparently jill took a whole bunch of pictures while she was there, which she’ll be sending me, and i’ll probably post a couple of them either here or on my brain injury page when i get them.

by the time we got to country fair, the car was smoking. NOT what i wanted to see. it turned out that the constant velocity joint cover had come loose, so the smoke wasn’t serious enough to strand us in the middle of nowhere, but i had to get it fixed for real this time. supposedly it was supposed to be fixed on wednesday before i left, but i showed up and the guy who was going to do the work never showed up, so i had to drive to and from with a leaky power steering line, and a constant velocity joint that was smoking. hopefully, now that it’s fixed for real, i won’t have any more problems for a while and i can work on turning it into an art car with no further distractions.

it was kinda sad, not being with my sweetie on my birthday, but i made up for it by taking a 6 hour sauna at the ritz (note to self: the next time, buy a house with a sauna!) and buying myself a double dragon brooch, which is shaped like the letter “S”. i also got goodies for moe, so she wouldn’t feel left out when i got home: a goblin “bonnet” with horns, and two pairs of earrings. all in all, i spent too much money at the fair, so i guess i’m going to have to go back to work again. sigh.