god,
what happened?
actually, no that’s not true, its all clear since I was on the no drug
kick during this small art festival and camping trip I went to on thursday.
i met someone
from cromwell,
a small-town located not two towns away via icq,
this funky way to talk to people anywhere in the world, but we were
talkin not 7 miles away. a couple weeks before, she icq’d me cause she
got super bored after a trip from europe, cause ct isn’t known for its...
anything. well, anyhoo, i told her to come to my work
to pick up her nondairy mac and chreese and say "hello" cause
its one thing to talk to someone all night with little text messages,
its another to actually say hello to a stranger, at least in ct where
we’re all too coo to say hi while walkin down the street. but shyness
was the cause this time, i was almost certain she did come to pick up
her yummy vegan treats, but she didn’t say who she was and i usually
don’t query people they’re name and life story while ringin up tofu
delights. work that day was weird, there had to be 20 very very attractive
women that decided to shop that monday and it was extremely hard to
try to pick her out.
but
wednesday, my guess proved out correct, it was her, she confessed bout
being shy, "but hey, lets do somethin!" so that day we (her
name is kelly btw, sometimes i forget to add these little things in)
went to see a movie with her lion maned hair Ian and somehow i got talked
into going with her to rome, ny for a little r&r.
"but
i have to work on sunday and monday!, i’m goin to a play on thursday,
i want to see my girlfriend soon, its been like a week, i have a doctor’s
appointment on monday, i’m supposed to go skateboarding and swing dancing
on saturday, a friend i haven’t seen in a month and won’t ever see again
is coming for one day on friday, i have so much stuff to do before i
move!"
"hey, your goin, its woodstock"
i had to agree.. "let me see what my girlfriend says, i’ll know
at about 1am... when do you plan on leaving?"
talked to her, actually tried to talk her into it to, but theres no way
she could go, she was workin too much in an attempt to live a life tat
she wanted, a life free of all the crap that surrounded her, and anyways,
if she was gone for more than twelve ours, the people she was staying
with would put her on a missing person’s list and she would be dragged
home. but got a similar statement fromn her: "dude, go i’ll make
it up to you when you come back"
so
thursday, after some fallouts with other people we were supposed to
go with we set out towards rome, actually, meriden, i had to buy a ticket,
smarty kelly got hers for a cool 100 off of e-bay, i went to filenes
with my gold chain wallet and coughed up $185.50 for the three day pass.
all the money coming from my scholarship i was presented to by the good
people at cox communications,
thanks guys, i’ll remember the trust you gave me as i steal books, live
off of credit cards and find a restaurant that’ll let me take 3 square
breaks a day on my offtime. 
we actually met up with two people we were supposed to meet up with,
a twenty three year old girl who wouldn’t stop talkin bout her boyfriend
and her mother, who had total control of her life. be in their car they
had a radar dectector, guaranteeing a speeding trek across the native
american named cities and counties of upper NY, so it was all coo, till
we found ourselves stuck behind them for hours on end in the left lane
goin 55, angry people behind us, angry people in the car, actually,
just kelly and i, kelly used to getting passed once a trip, flooring
that blue tercel, now stranded behind a prism with a homemade psychedelic
"woodstock or bust" poster. the second rest stop we went to,
we decided to lead with our car, and as i dozed, we somehow lost the
other car, i looked at the speedometer, a cool 85, as the the tercel
began to shake and vibrate from the shear magnitude that 12 cylinder
beast mustered up.
we made it to rome at a pitiful time, it was 730, the air was cool
but choking with anticipation and fumes of cars full of rampumctious
youngins just ichin to have a good time. traffic was extremely tolerable,
we parked right by one of two stages, and walked with our belongings
:
me, sleeping bag, 3 shirts, snowpants (i dunno either) long underwear,
2 pairs shorts, two pair pants, no extra boxers or shoes,
kelly:
sleeping bag, one person tent, food (p+j, two loaves of bread, rice
crispie treats, crackers) clothes, lactaid pills.
we were set, be prepared my mom/scout leader told us, yeah we’ll make
it 5 days, no problem.
it took about an hour to walk around the whole airport/concert area
to get to our campsite, loo did we know, this little excursion would
be just routine. they checked for no metal, no glass, no cans, but didn’t
care bout drug at all, and i really didn’t care. i’d rather have 200,000
lazy tired paranoid people around me as i wandered throught ny’s third
largest city than having a quarter mil drunken people slobbering around
me, beer couldn’t be brought in cause of the container, but rest assured
they were sold at $5 so all the rich kids could get their kicks, hey
it was cheaper then water.

pitched tent in the slapdash tenement, tried to figure out the spider
web road system, and went out to wander the vendors, concession stands
and music that had already started early.
checked out all the hippy bead places, hot dog stands and saw parliament
funkadelic. good day. i guess a local radio station was given out free
woodstock frisbees in mass. i small corner of woodstock’s airspace turned
into the testing ground for 300 frisbees to fly this way and that, the
effect was curiously calming and just a taste of what the vibe would
be for the weekend, just everything goin everywhere but nothing horrible
happening, just enough anarchy to have a good time.
found the tent and found some visual cues to tip us off....
yellow caution tape mucked around a tree... crappy bright orange tent
before ours... flying high tie dye wearing college student on the fence...
ok, all set.
got up early, too early, the sun touching the tent made an instant humidity
machine, i woke up sweating from my chest and stuck to my coleman sleeping
bag, getting up to see our once vacant campsite full and new neighbors
to meet.
so
kelly and i began to wander some more stands, saw the tatoo shop and
watched some awful good looking girls go topless so some middle aged
man could airbrush their chest to decency, at least woodstock decency.
walked to the main stage to catch the ending of james brown getin down
with his black self as the intermission gave me time to check, or steal
someone's schedule to see the next band, jamiroquai, not my fav, but
thi shat he had on and his dancin "cried homosexuality" as
my girlfriend sez, but thats all good, he made me shake my ass and start
off my day all soul funked out. live came next with their serious rock
all about the water, they impressed me with their state of mind. sheryl
crow came next, so we decided to get the fug outta there to eat or wander
some more, anything's better than that.
came back to see the last of dmx, and readied for a triple line up
of the offspring, korn and bush. offspring was fun to listen with, honestly,
safe punk for everybody, but they made nsync jokes so they were go enough
for me, korn were kinda korny to me, i’m still with the opinion bloody
beavis and butthead had with them being kinda unoriginal and lost in
a soup of mirroring bands, but the lead singer guy was wearing a kilt,
so big ups to that. kelly was totally in love with bush so we had to
weasel ourselves to the tippidy front of the stage, i’ll have to admit
that i thought gavin, the lead singer guy, was cute in a totally non
homosexual way, and so 4 people to the front up went kelly to crowd
surf to the front to leave me alone with her $300 elph camera singin
to bushe’s cover of "this one goes out to the one i love"
found
moby was playing at the aircraft hanger rave afterwards, so after the
show, i found the veggie burger stand, got one with everything, a big
cookie, a frozen nonfat yogurt and icky food bar, then realizing i had
3 more days to survive the retardedly high prices and only seeing $20
of the $300 i took out in my wallet, oh well, guess i’ll just make alot
more pb and j sandwiches....
but made it to moby and moby was awesome. for a techno "artist"
he came out with drummer, bass player and guitar and an odd assortment
for himself, along wit hthe usual electronic keyboard thingy.
moby
was blazin on the guitar, bangin on the drums, makin good noise that
made me happy happy. go see moby if you have a chance, that little vegan
can make some good tunes. his last song(?) was just him and the computer,
making a low, hollow beat the progressively got fast and faster while
he stood up on the table and looked all krovy krovy scary with white
lights mimicking campfire ghost story sessions.
after moby, moby fan needed to get home, but home was hard to find
after all that music and miles to walk with little knowledge of where
mi was supposed to go. i literally was walking for an hour and a half
through the maze of tents, people and port o potties tryin to find that
damn tent, i gave up and decided to sleep in a corner under a huge american
flag a tent circle brought, one of those monsters that you have to steal
from a government building, and wait till the mourn. passing the same
guy in the chair with the unsightly look on em, the same people playing
the drums, the same 40 year old bastards tryin to get all the girls
to show em their titties was too much. i turned around and saw in the
trees the caution signs, turned slightly left, saw the crappy orange
adobe, looked beyond, and their was my hokey tent, i climbed in at 4:00
am and woodstock day one ended.
i’m
not sure when i got up, but it was way too early. at what was now the
usual pb and j sandwhiches, the bananas were getting a little too ripe
there, especially after i stepped on them from the night before. but
such is life. saw this massachusettes band named guster, which was coo,
got passed out free condoms which was excellent and checked out all
the grassroots independent tents trying to make a difference. signed
a million petitions on gun violence, abortion, kelly bought this weird
thing you fill with water and it keeps you warm for ten dollars, we
then found the same thing for 3 for ten dollars, heh heh. got miself
to the anti racist action tent and saw all the cd’s that they were givin
for donations and realized i had all of them cept 1, i made a note to
buy it and this book on the philosophy of punk, good reading.
counting
crows was ahh... boring ("this is a song about when i was in my
twenties and i wasn’t doing anything") , limp biscuit was unapologenically
dumb, rage against the machine rocked (of course) and metallica got
silly after the 4 t h encore. after metallica, i once again
went back to the rave this time to see norman
cook, who i deemed the dork of woodstock. i got real close and saw
how he mixed his rhymes, ciggarette in one hand, beer in the other,
dopey buck toothed smile and horrible haircut, makin the jocks and hippies
dance dance dance. i honestly don't know how he does what he does, it
looked like he had like two turn tables, he'd take a live sample, screw
around with it, make a transition from the last beat while looking at
the crowd and flailing his arms, and unlesh his new tune, it was interesting,
but got kinda boring when you have no room to dance and people wanted
to crowd surf (?).
oi
got outta there in time to see the smoke from a fire near the mountain
bike course lurking towards the aircraft hanger rave spot and found my
way home first shot.
third day last day, totally tired of my wet shoes, the bathrooms or
lack of them, the cost of food, the smell of other peoples sweat on
me, the amount of change i didn’t have, the fact that i had to go home,
the fact that i didn’t know wat was up with my girlfriend.
did
the last of the wandering of the stores, kelly finally got a green shirt
she dug, i couldn’t find anything for my girl jess, for the quarters
i found in my wallet, but i kept searching.
saw elvis.....
costello, sat down twenty people away to listen to jewel yodel, kelly
once again fell in love at the lead singer, this time of creed, and
i got myself physched to see my favorite band of the show, the red hot
chili peppers,
i
really wanted to be close for the peppers, got about 9 people away from
the front, the feeling that there is 250,000 people trying to get to
where you are is pretty core. i looked around my backside to see what
the hell was sticking out and saw a mother and her two little children
right in front of the stage. the mother was obviously in total delusion,
thinking she would somehow make it through the set, she was trying to
get all these tall strong guys near her for added protection. kelly
and i noticed that we were surrounded by lots of teenage girls, which
usually means that we’re in no fly zone for crowd surfers and mosh men.
this
being not the case as flea comes out stark naked and starts the chilli’s
set. which rocked unequivetly, i sang with them in all there songs,
as the crowd in back of me pushed with the force of the trojan army’s
opponents. i had to hold on to kelly, who held on to anything she could
to survive this total crushing force of the fans persecuted with the
same conditions as i, but i didn’t care, the songs were good, the peppers
were inside, anthony’s hair was bleach and short, the songs melancholy,
funky and honest, the crowd fuckin crazy, the set seemed to short, the
fires
the fires!?
before the planned encore by the red hot chili peppers, it was announced
that there was a small fire near one of the towers and if we all cooperated
the firetruck could go in and take it out, i looked around my shoulder
and saw three nice blazing demons all scatter brick a brack around the
whole place. earlier that day the pax tent, which worked for less gun
violence in the usa, was giving away free candles for a vigil, i didn’t
see no vigel, so i think everyone used them for the song "under
the bridge" and then later these little waxy things made great
starters,oop. the peppers i guess wanted to finish and they did, the
only thing i could say that sucked was no higher ground, but a new tradition
was made; all menstruating women had to throw their tampons on stage,
i think i heard of that one before, but people did it, great another
thing being thrown at me.
walking back after the last set was interesting. kelly’s sandled feet
weren’t quite operational, so i offered to piggy back her all the way
back to camp, missing the rioters, the fires, the drunken masses, just
the masses, the people throwing whole tables and metal cans into the
fire, the leaking bathrooms and drinking fountains. the fires were awesome,
i totally dug the whole anarchy fuck everything mentality thang, i didn’t
dig it when i thought of fires near my tent, and the rioters near the
tent and the grrr.... not a happy night.
finally got all set to collapse in my stinky sleeping bag with kelly,
got into that nice happy floaty feeling and then i hear.
"oh my god, get out get out!",
i look up to see about five people flying away from my tent. i honestly
thought the tent next to me caught on fire, which wasn’t much of a leap
of faith since they kept me up with their drunken/high/wasted philosophy
about life and breakfast cereals, this guy’s laugh was unbearable, hyena
like, uncontrollable crap.
but lo, my fear/hopes faded just a bit as i saw it was a bunch of darn
hooligans that stole one of the souped up golf carts to take a ride,
he rode over one tent, which was vacant i think and got the fug outta
there with a winter ass shade on his face just mowing throw everything.
yells of, "i heard this is has been deemed a national disaster,
the fuckin national gaurd is coming, their closing us off, we’re under
martial law!!!"
but i was tired, i put on my contacts just so the next time i get awaken
by screams of tripping out girls or a tank rolls by, i could at least
see myself die. i needed to get to work on monday, it was supposed to
be my last day, i couldn’t miss that.
3 hours of sleep is all you need.
i looked over to the tent next to me that was giving me hell. deserted.
no one there. just a box of cereal samples, the collapsed tent, trash,
(shit that stuff was everywhere) and a prize for me. three beat up bead
necklaces. two purple, one green, showing the hellbent week in their
condition, and free for me, perfect. i plan on telling an extrapolated
version of that itty bit and give her the beads, maybe for a goodbye
gift, maybe just to end a night of talking and holding each other. we’ll
see...
3
frapachinos later a large (i mean large) hazelnut coffee and 2 hours
into driving back to ct, i was filled with astonishment of the show
i went to the people i saw, the good times, the fuckin bathrooms, the
messed up showers, the bands the bands. a new friend to miss when i
move, couldn’t beleive i didn’t see anyone i knew. got to work a half
hour late, high on adrenaline and caffeine, no one even asked what that
green band around my neck was or those 3 sets of beads around my neck.
went home.. tried to collapse, went out again skateboarding. which in
the state of my knees, legs feet and mindset should have been impossible,
but those kickflips kept coming out. i found myself screaming at anyone
i saw, being totally rash and filled with the fucked up mentality that
the show gave me. it hasn’t calmed down, i hope it doesn’t. life’s too
short to play it safe, i’m glad i blew off all those important things,
spend all my college money, went with someone i barely knew and had
alot of fun. summers been so good to me, i’ve been living this song
mark told me about, i’ve been doing so many crazy things this summer,
i thought the worst was getting into a relationship with a girl i just
met and have to leave in two weeks, but this show is quite a close second.
i know people are goin to blow off the show as what it eally was, corporate
sponsored greed, media driven hype, spring break in the summertime,
but screw that, it was fun, it was scary, its something i’m glad i was
apart of and something now that i have to get the vdeo for just to see
myself again.
good things:
no fights
i don’t think i saw one person get there ass kicked. my theory for this
is simple. i could have beat the shit outta someone during a show that
ticked me off, but about twenty people would do the same thing to me.
kinda a nuclear war, no winners scenario, kept the balance because of
fear of the outcome. either that or everyone was too tired to fight
or didn’t want to get all stinky after taking that one shower for the
week.
canadian
pride
i didn't check a map or anything, so i'm not sure how far from canada
i was, but everyone from canada showed it by wearing the red and white
maple leaf flag on em, patches, t-shirts, whatever, it was really cool
maybe they didn't want to be thought of as american while goin to woodstock,
maybe their government has brainwashed their little minds, maybe i should
be so proud of my country (ha!) but thats not gonna happen anytime too
soon lots of stuff to fix.. canada actually looks pretty good. vive
canada or however you say it in franche.
kelly
kelly is cool, we’re both dorky computer people that hooked up online,
she made me realize you can start a real world relationship in the www
world, heck shes been doin since she had her 8086 and chatting on west
harford bulletin boards way before aol. i keep getting drawn in by really
laid back people, sorry kids no sex took place, we didn’t even wake
up in embarrassing positions in our teeny tent, so jess rest assured.
watermelon
food was inflated to the point of idiocracy. 4 dollars for water?!
yeah. but there was a stand sellin watermelon for a dollar and that
waterelon was gooood. other good eats was the big meal at the tibetan
stand and al the vegetarian delights offered to me, its nice to not
have to go to a hot dog start to ask for just the buns.
bad things
bathrooms
250,000 young adults can not use port of jons correctly, they’re too
much of a target to deface, push over and screw up. i would have certainly
paid 20 bucks more on my ticket for something, anything better. the
small was quite a scream, and having the bathrooms right next to the
clean water was a really good idea, really.
the
water system
there was free water available to us. it came out of pipes that were
attached to these huge concrete things, but by the second day, all the
fixtures were busted and not in any shape to use, so water got scare
or just hard to get to. what was really something they must have looked
over was the drainage to all the water that freely flowed outta the
pipes. ie, there was none. there was a group of bathrooms on the top
of a small hill in the concert area. each day i walked near it, the
muddiness of the grass that sat beside it got larger and larger till
it covered clear across the whole aircraft field, it was impossible
not to get your feet wet and muddy and as such my feet stayed nicely
wet for four days, dish pan hands are nothing compared to my feet these
days.
the playlist
the list of when the bands were playing was available but it got as specific
as what day they were on and of what order. there was even groups not
on the bil that weren’t on the list at all, which made trying to schedule
your day impossible. the violent femmes were supposed to play, they weren’t
even there, damn website. i hate when informaton is falsified, oh well.
the prices
everything was expensive
big shock
when i got halfway through writing this, i realized i could never write
everything that happened to me, theres too many details and odd stuff
that happened. i guess this is just goin to be something to remind myself,
to look at one day to use to get all the finer points back into mi noggin.
maybe you went to this show, and have another twist to it, i’d love
to hear, i’ll link to yours, or even post it for you lets
hear it.
sorry i didn't take any pics, something bout bringing my canon ae-1
with all its lenses, flash and motor drive didn't sit well in my mind,
luckily, this crazy person snaps
some good ones
update 8/7/99: my friend kelly who i went with put up her
story, with lots of pictures
of the whole thing, yeah!
some just random thoughts
the
king of woodstock :: the hugging guy :: the trash :: cool glass pipes
:: the op iv shirt i lost :: gelatin :: no sunburn :: broken sunglasses
:: sunscreen :: too many jocks :: uconn riots :: crossroad :: peer pressure
from a quarter million people to take off her shirt :: frozen chai ::
sid and nancy playing in the hanger :: free bottled water :: raisin
crunch samples :: no pancakes :: kelly lost 4 pounds! :: all that trash
everywhere :: skateboard ramps and me without a deck :: walking 15 miles
a day :: the feeling on my teeth after not brushing for five days ::
mail order is fun 2 :: first kiss with jess after i got home again ::
failing asleep during ultimate fighting championship 4 :: the trash
:: no working showers :: eating on a yellow frisbee :: mustard pretzels
have fishes in them? :: icq tats :: tongue rings :: hemp cookies ::
getting home.
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