Don't Stop Not Sleeping, NYC: Awaken Together

There are some really great cultures uprising right now, and it’s totally important for my 11^th house uptonian hopes and dreams, let alone the collective Uranian liberation. But for the first time, I’m hesitant to return to Manhattan for Phish New Years. Vulnerable island, high population, international crisis...Of course I will go; I haven’t missed a year since...whenever this five or more or less year-run began. Of course. Go home to begin the New Year, finish the rest somewhere else. Of course. So what's really going on in the city? Am I afraid? Or I am no longer called?

 

Yes, hipster loft parties are fun, but at what point do mystical animal-named bands start sounding the same? At what point do you stop trusting $2 well drinks that have you lose your fairy wings and make out with a caterpillar twice your age on a rooftop? At what point do rooftops cease feeling infinite and largely become entrapping?

 

So move to the woodland rocky coastline in Maine an hour from a smaller city, five minutes from one of the country’s best breweries? Hear the coyotes all night and see David Grisman the next? Be encompassed by tourmaline dripping mountains and near-blinded by the stars? In a community of self-sustaining homesteaders who haul their spring water, chop their wood, and grow their own food? Anyway. What are the spiritually inclined New Yorkers doing to free their brethern’s spirits in this universal time of chaos and fear?

 

Aside from sacrificing more trees to print more conspiracies to shove in strangers’ faces. Aside from wearing underwear in the subway for the sake of nonchalant publicity. Aside from manipulating gluten and calling it vegan. Is everyone defying conformist capitalism sleeping in the L-Train terminal? Bleeding more music into tunnels? Growing pot in boarded up warehouses and charging triple its worth to the corporate class? Or are they all going to overdose underfed in a mask-wearing society that doesn’t see them or anyone for what we are…One.

 

Not that I didn’t quote my father’s tear-jerking, emphatic memory of how united the city was when he was cleaning up Ground Zero for a decade. Not that I didn’t feel that total communion with our heartland, not that anyone didn’t feel it, experience it, and live it together. But does it have to take another tragedy to forget the space between natives and tourists or the Upper and Lower East Side? Why is it only okay to make eye contact and nod in simple recognition of another on a bus or train after a communal tragedy? Why is it otherwise common law to look away and pretend to be alone?

 

We are not alone. The freegans have a strong, beautiful platform. They take care of each other with selfless Free Store offerings and dumpster diving wealth distribution. And it’s good pickin’s. There is truly a lot going to waste that is bountiful to share. But while the freegans are enamoring and quite openly nurturing, I cannot got swept away. And upon my last cigarette dancing to “Mambo Italiano” under the blinding Maine stars, I randomly came up with the analogy of why.

 

They are the seagulls. Quite beautiful and bright, sometimes loud and laughy: “Ha! Ha! Ha!” they caw, take what they want, and fly off to vibe off the ocean and what can be felt/experienced/consumed there. And they always come back. There’s always a lil more.

 

It’s like this one ethereally beautiful woman I know, who converted from vegan to freegan to avoid as much waste as she could in a throw-away culture. “Would you like some mussels?” a mutual friend offered her in her home, where she had prepared the garlic, butter herb dressing a regulated vegan would refuse, along with the idea of shellfish altogether.

 

“If there are any left,” the freegan said, smiling with neither a nod nor a shake.

 

“Would you like some?” the other offered again, this time with a small plate extended. The freegan didn’t shake her head, she simply swooped it diagonally outward in denial of the plate.

 

“I would certainly not let you throw any away, but as of now, I am good,” the freegan explained.

 

Nothing was accomplished. Nothing was satisfied. It was a total miscommunication in which one party felt the other was unappreciative while that party felt the other was being pushy. And I doubt the seagull ever returned, feeling more comfortable scavenging with the flock who seemed to understand her.

New York is money. New York is time. New York is everything. New York sets the stage, turns the dial, drops the ball for the rest of our teetering country. And there are ample mediums, guides, teachers, yogis, mostly individuals in this warp to bring it together for all the boroughs. But it's not giving and taking. It's not handing out or keeping. It's not seagulls and king rats.

 

I empathize with both sides. I am both sides. But really, I shy away from being the seagull as well as the mothering crab, because I’d much rather go by butterfly. Cocoon all winter in a world of my own and emerge with more expansive colors every spring. That’s why I’m on the craggy beach, in the woods, ideal distance from the city. Because who knows where each new year will guide these wings? 

Yes, Phish in my own Ground Zero has always fulfilled my blast off into my own calibration. Still I feel safe and rested in Maine, with the room and support yet space to be One with it all. So assuming I do make it down for Phish…I’ll be vibing that into our incessant Manhattan Earth, an apex, the climax, our culmination—hopefully of universal creation. To make a brand new start of it...in old New York!

Last Tour Ever To Follow Up With Another "And Company": "Not that bad"

To be fair, I am totally one of those haters who can't get over "Your Body is a Wonderland" to view John Mayer as a serious guitarist, but admit Furthur tour got very repetitive. Heard mostly nothing but positive feedback about the Last Ever Dead tour, now spanked with a pop guitarist and billed as "And Company." 

Okay, okay, okay, I've never given his version of the blues a chance, and some muscians I respect defend it. And I did even groove to him doing a song with Buddy Guy on some jam montage movie thing once. I believe though, that working in a health food store that played that corny whispery Wonderland song multiple times a day on the satellite radio, that I am tainted forever. Much like all the country pop songs of summers 2009-10 when I worked for a tobacco farm heiress. I regress. I resent that I know all the lyrics to songs that now make me cringe. I've had to mentally strive to get the redundant looping out of my head. So thank the real Dead for jam.

None of my friends in Maine who intended to see the latest Dead congregations actually made it to Worchester, as ticket prices lept to 5"" bucks. My dearest Venutian sister from the south shore went, and chiller than the crispest cucumber ever--when I asked her how the show was--her eyes lit right up, she pursed her lips and nodded, like her pupils were expanding again. Still nodding, she said, "Not that bad."

Of course Show Magic Meggy on the Jersey shore flounced her way into the city, happened upon a miracle ticket into MSG, and had the band's setlist snuck to her from a security guard. But those stupendously how-great connections were the biggest aspects of the show she expounded upon, and when I asked about the music, it was an echo of her whole gooeyly stoked vibe: "IT WAS SO GREAT!"

Granted, not every jammer is gonna say, "The style was this!" or "the danceabilify was that!" And to be fair, my amazing coparent companion who's been touring since the '80s can hardly ever tell you what anyone plays, 'cus if it's the Phish or a Dead spinoff, he'll always gleam, "This is my Favorite Song!" and skip away like a dancing Pan in the forest having his heart fluted to, and if you ask him what they played afterwards, all he can ever say is, "ALL MY FAVORITES!"

He didn't make the pre-$500 Worchester tickets, but he saw David Grisman last night in Portland, and Dark Star Orchestra the night before. Of course when I asked him what DSO played, he started giggling and shimmying, through laughter at my irritation, he got it together enough to explain--at first the whole set sounded really familiar, then he realized he was AT that show they were covering, perhaps September 24th though wait a minute he forgot the year - and all of the songs.

"Ya know, I was IN it," he said, shrugging and sinking into another knee-bending spoodle of laughter, show vibes tickling his aura, which tickled me in return. Even though I can't phathom simply "forgetting" songs, and can probably name at least one or two songs from the +/-30 Phish shows I've seen, i mean at least the openers and encores and THEY PLAYED WHAAAAT moments. But he really vibes the show, Til the next day. So that's a damn good show. And I am epically curious with wonder whether he would have been so enthusiastic about John Mayer, who he knows nothing about.

But I do know we raged the electric jammin funk out of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. Are you serious? Their show at Great North this September was THEE hardest I've danced at any love Dead anything. And really, who wouldn't take that amped up, charismatic raging of the whole freerange Dead spirit over that (sorry) throaty floaty song Furthur wrote about the Rain? I mean, that dimly sparked subtle swaying at best.

The potential with every new Dead arrangement is where that culminating energy is tapped into within the show as a whole. The vibration of the band with their current city, the energy of the crowd receiving the sacred musical communion. I love the Dead. And glad that I've only heard of good experiences, I am grateful for Joe Russo as my winter prelude Dead experience, vs Mr. Mayer taking Trey's place. Trey totally channeled Jerry but maintained his own guitar "voice," like if you closed your eyes, you'd know it was Trey. Ahhhh.....yeah. Let Trey Sing.

Thank The Past We Liked Good Music That's Still Good Right Now

Who can resist the rabid punky edge of Interpol?! I couldn't ten years ago as a high school freshman, and seeing them again in Portland the other day, I raged my whole body to the music still. The lights followed the cutting riffs as the smooth bass rippled beneath; the jumping and headbanging was hardly enough outlet for the energetic excitement. Killer show.

My first Interpol show, I was 15 in 2005; they played in between Tegan & Sarah and The New York Dolls at Yankee Stadium in Staten Island (minor league). The balladic Canadian sisters were cute, and my little girlfriends and I got their signatures on our tickets, with crappy flip-phone pictures. Interpol was incredible; playing all the favorites and never toning it down. Banks had a cigarette hanging from his mouth for half the day-lit show, sitting on a stool and not looking at anyone, like he was playing on his back porch. It was so enamoring we left two songs into The NY Dolls, mutually agreeing going back to Jersey to toke up would be a more fitting close to the music high day than staying for the headlining band The Killers.

I loathed Mr. Brightside.

I must say, in ten years Banks does not look or sound like he's aged five minutes. This show at portland's State Theater was a powerful performance for alll the band members, who each surged that gust of "AH!!!" into the constant climaxes of the music.

Admittedly I've barely heard their latest album, but from what I have randomly on Pandora. "It still sounds like Interpol," was the best I could surmise before the show. 

"That's...GOOD!" my girl said, and i outwardly agreed, and my impression held true. Every song carried as much energy and raw edginess as the last. "Slow Hands" jammed as hard as where that song has always taken me and higher. The builds ups and bridges had everyone in the pit dancing their asses off. The new songs fit well within the classics. And like my girl said, "There wasn't a song I didn't dance my fuckin' ass off to."

And yes, they played "Evil."

Fare Thee Well Done

Did he do it? How could he not do it?! Trey totally honored Jerry's signature sound of guitar with his high-pitched, searching-through-the-sounds upbeat playfulness with the Grateful Dead. After seeing the July 4^th show streamed at the State Theater in Portland, then streaming the audio free online after too many failed video attempts, I can say he did it. Trey raged Jerry for the “Fare Thee Well” Tour, totally channeling his guitar spirit yet playing with it in his Trey-zy way. With Phish for brains, I was stoked to still hear Trey at the core of the Jerry whittling and winding. Yes, the proof was in my third eye, as Trey even emanated the inner-visual I always get from Jerry's guitar, a green flower garden movin' and groovin and opening and closing blossoms to the slick licks, stems slithering like snakes up and down to the wormy diddlin'. But the Phishy flutter was flowing there too. I heard Trey come out in his rittling strummy build-ups before plunging into the high wails of a Jerry sound. Bridge into "Truckin'"? So Trey-zy!! He projected Jerry. But he kept it Trey. As well as tasteful. What more could a Dead-head ask for?

Well, to at least hear the damn shows that everyone we've ever met flew and caravaned out to in Chicago. I was lucky to have a line on free tickets for the streamed shows in Portland for the 4^th, and passed the Sunday tickets off to my co-parent so he could have a night too. After all, he was the one who hitch-hiked his way through Dead shows selling tie-dyes in the '80s, then helped haul Phish's equipment from $5 shows at the end of the decade, watching them rise as the Dead scene fell to dope and federal infiltration...all of which has transpired the cult-jam scene each band has molded and transformed...and basically this musical culmination happening would mean a whole big wow of a world to the daddyo.

So when I get a link from my boy down in Maryland for streaming the show, I'm stoked! The Couch Tour/Stream Scene has been growing so that people are throwing parties projecting the show on the sides of their houses, having July 4th parties based around streaming the show after bbqing. Some have paid so they can replay the shows all month. So I send this link out to like, ten people as broke as I am with the same warning from PJ: “Do not post, spread the love among family.” Then from PJ, my phone bleeps, “CHINA CAT!” Then from my co-parent, “I called the opening song china cat (smiling-with-sunglasses-on emoji) !!!!!! Love love love,” which is obviously one of my Top 3 Dead songs, so I go downstairs after just laying my daughter down to sleep and click the link. Ugh. Not working, check back later. Kait texts, “It says copyright infringement.” Michael, “Error message, bad link.” Ooops.

But then, this!

And so, a few of us stranded on the east coast were thankfully able to tune into the show. Like, Trey singing "Althea"?!?! My heart burst of the wettest dream alive in my ears!! And even without the video, we still all got madhouse picture messages of everyone we've ever met at the epic music event of the summer. And realize, yeah, this couldn't have happened at a camping venue. That amount of people is a city in itself and would surely sink a mountain. But hell yeah for the heads—Trey synced right up with the band and merged the musical legacies of America's biggest jam bands. So big, not even the internet can stop the rest of us from listening.

Photo by Meggy Schaeffer--Bear's Stadium July 5th

Blood Sugar Weed Baby

Coffee and bananas all day and beer and cigarettes all night may seem like the ideal diet to prep your body for life in the Amazon. But if you're not there yet, you could probably really fuck up your blood sugar.

So hypoglycemia/adrenal fatigue happened like this. My daughter and I took a bus then train to my parents, and after about eight hours of traveling, are fed very well with salmon, salad, and a sweet potato.

Then came the morning. Typically I get my caffeine fix from the organic coffee bar that employs me, and I drink it like water through the day. But not at my parent's house. There, we have the dreaded..Keurig..thing. And I remember last time, every cup giving me a headache.

I go for the Hazelnut and dip a dark chocolate almond biscotti and mmm...SO good. I drink the rest of the coffee and oo, don't stop at the headache, but a full-fledged migraine. This persists all week. On the trek home, I go for an iced Dunkin Donuts and nope, still get an earsplitting headache which I can barely think through, every sip is torture. And yet, waking up at 6 AM every morning with an almost 2-year old is so draining after her babble-kick-flailing fights before sleep, that I. Need. Caffeine.

 Or energy somehow.

And it was there in the car with my stepmom halfway through the car ride back north that I realize, I've had a crashing point every day, napping nearly every day with my daughter during our trip. And when I didn't, I fell asleep with her. I was wiped. Fatigued. Drained and...incaffeinatable?

But dear daughter only got a half an hour of sleep on that lovely ride. So I did something I hadn't done in years. I drank a Pepsi. As something I never do, I felt great. Awake. Sparkles! But an hour later, I crashed. I could barely keep my sinking-on eyes open during the baby screams that stopped reading/singing/tickling my restless car-ridden baby. I had to take a rejuvenation period of head-against-window, shutting out all the outside noise. It was as if I had reverted to a child, helpless to my body, brain, and discomfort, and had to go inside. And whew do I hope my incredibly intelligent and astutely alert child can learn this one day.

The days settling back into home only get worse. One of my favorite meals of bananas, nuts, blueberries, and maple syrup gives me the same splitting headache. And it doesn't go away anymore. It pierces my brain until I fall asleep. When I return to the cafe, I don't get coffee, but figure a soy chai will offer protein and a tea high rather than a coffee one. Wrong. Horrible, deafening, dizzying headache. Holding my head up becomes a challenge.

What was different? Why all of a sudden, was I intolerant to sugar and caffeine? I avoid it and even do completely uncharacteristic things like eat meat to try and balance my blood sugar. I do great and even though feel weak, drink two 9.8% Founders beers before a Wailers concert and try to reawaken my lively self.

Oh god. What a mistake. In my weakened state and a few normally alcohol-levelled beers after the show, I completely black out. I drank wine basically every night over the winter without reaching that level. My body and mind were completely out of control of each other. That was Friday. Today is Sunday.

Yesterday was Saturday. I actually woke up without a hangover, and generally happy about the good experience of the show (as I did not black out until after, and chain-smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes with my equally-as-giddy coparent). So la la la, we recover the last of the cash from the show, peeking in the diaper bag, digging for my wallet, finding some beneath the driver's seat, and other dollars in his wallet. Eventually, we have enough for breakfast and stroll off into town. I get this big, beautiful sandwich at the Country Store called the Jake's Garden, and it is an art piece. Jam-packed with veggies, sprouts, and avocados, I was in breakfast heaven.

Was.

Until the last bite. Holy shit. The headache split my head like my skull was pinching my brain, and would not stop until hours and hours later that evening. The good news is, I quit smoking that day yesterday (this time, I really have to stay quitting to keep my brain operating at a near-decent, socially acceptable level.) I took a nap and woke up at 3:30 with my hands and feet tingling. Oh shit. I call my stepmom who has seen my symptoms and agree I should get my vitals checked at the hospital.

Here's one thing that probably would have saved me the trip. After a head-wrenching hour of failing to put dear daughter down for a nap, her dad comes back from a grass run to take her for a ride in the car. And to allow me to rest as well. He finally got some green that was not the scuzzy trim that burnt my throat. And in too much pain to even lift my head to smoke it, and did not want to further inhibit oxygen flow to my brain.

Well the next day after working from 8-430 with no caffeine, no sugar, no bread, and small squirrelly meals every two hours, I had no headache. And I finally, for the first time since the trip to my parents, toked up. HALLELUJAH. I felt more connected and clear-headed since I could remember. The blood in my brain wasn't burning, but flowing. I do a little research. Ah ha. So marijuana is rising as "The Diabetic Drug." It regulates blood sugar, of which mine was continuously getting too low.

So PLEASE friends. Do not take a week off. It could be the worst detriment to your head you've ever known. But I am almost grateful. If I hadn't taken a break, I wouldn't have been able to identify the food triggers that are hindering my body. So I have to revamp my diet and lifestyle completely. But I know one thing that will not stay very far. Yesterday, I literally felt like an infant unable to move or take care of myself. Today, I almost felt coherent enough to read a book. And at the least, felt inspired enough to think about writing one.

(YES! I AM THINKING AGAIN!)

Five Guidelines to Housing a Happy Wook

(Or how to advance the music festival community at home.)

My wook is a good wook. He may be a broke drifter hippie who smokes every other one of my cigarettes, but he rakes the yard. He sweeps. Drums and dances with the baby. Does all the dishes after breakfast, including the sinkful accumulated the day night before. Honestly, welcoming wooks as they pass through may be the counterculture's solution to housekeeping.

So long as we don't get overpowered and reduced to a mooch house.

My wook may be wearing a jacket he picked up off the street after a Biscuits show, but that doesn't mean I haven't offered him freshy clothes and a rainwater shower. He is comfortable with showering four days ago, and I accept this. Because of the  revolving wooks on my couch, I will share how to best care for your drifter hippie as he/she comes and goes.

MY WOOK YIMMY IN HIS SECONDARY NATURAL HABITAT, COUCH

1) PATINA IS IMPLIED.

Don't offer your wook a shower every day. Chances are, after a couch invitation, the wook will feel quite welcome to your available resources. Excessive offers toward grooming and hygiene will appear as if you have some highstrung neuroses. You may be spoken to and treated differently. Wooks go for months on the road with lakes as their cleansing solace. If your wook is like mine, he may offer to wash your car after your first offer for the shower. That doesn't mean he'll feel inclined to take another before the week ends.

2) A FED WOOK IS A HAPPY WOOK.

This could be a square meal or two a day. Many wooks find luxury in dumpster diving, and may be enthusiastic/creative about the contents of your cupboard.

3) BEER, CIGARETTES, UNO MAS, ETC.

"If you got 'em, smoke 'em," right? So long as there is beer, wine, cigarettes, pot, or a nitrous tank in the house, a wook probably won't feel inclined to leave until it's all gone. Your invitation extends to your chemicals. It often repeats itself in the form of, "You don't mind--" or "Is it cool if I grab another?" After all, who has fun hoarding?

Wooks can be the loosest, most outrageously hilarious company you could foster, and they often contribute however they can. I find the proactive and heartfelt contributions more sustenant than monetary offerings. Many wooks don't "work." But when they do in the ways that they do, they hustle their asses off.

4) GIVE YOUR WOOK DIRECTION.

While a wook is between shows or cities or whatever, he or she will best serve you and his or herself with clear direction. Otherwise, they may lose themselves in your books or tv for a delusional accumulation of hours. Simply sharing sentiments you'd like to accomplish that day, whether it be clearing out your garage or writing a folk opera, a wook is sure to jump in, get involved, and offer unique twists and tweaks. Drifters get around. The whole perspective is to see a lot of shit, and live fully to experience more. The rambling outside world can offer a lot to the domesticity of a sheltered one. Sometimes, we all need to pick up the dread-head flagging a sign to a couch. Sometimes we all need some shaking up.

5) TAKE CARE OF YOUR WOOK AND LET YOUR WOOK TAKE CARE OF YOU.

Yes invitation and connection is flowing and fruitful, but with all drifters, always watch your wallet. Of course there are wooks who will run into the street trying to sell your jewelry without a dream of keeping a dime, but blind trust often leads to loss and deception. Situations like a promise for two hundred dollars for those old Oxys you never took is never a safe idea. In most situations, do not lend out your car keys without sitting in the passenger seat. Wheels don't have to run away; they drive. Always keep the safety and interest of your family in mind when working with wooks. The only self you can truly know is your own.

Perhaps adopting traveling wooks is something your family is considering. Perhaps you are seeking traveling hippies and artists and don't know where to look. If you'd like a couch population narrower than couchsurfer can offer, there are countless forums and threads for different shows, tours, and festivals, and loving drifters. Or just hit up the nearest Shakedown and hold up a sign: "OPEN COUCH."

If you're open to it, bring the connection into your homelife. We are all here to learn from each other, to share our love and light so we can play with that in others. You may even grow a default wook as my family has, a constant companion leaving the question of when he will return, along with the exciting anticipation that he always will. Offering a sanctuary amidst a string of far-flung adventures is an invaluable commodity for new age festival hoppers. Contact me to put yourself on the map of my wooks today.

Six Hippie Parallels: Pizza and Sex

How is pizza as tantalizing and habit-forming as sex? Just ask a hippie. These six insights come from the wook on my couch, Yimmy III.

1) Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. 

2) You can't really truly get enough. 

3) Even when you think you have had enough, you're always down for a little more in 10-15 minutes.

4) You can always find a new style if you know how to look.

5) It's good anytime, anywhere. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6) Sometimes the sloppy kind is the best kind.

The sexy pizza chronicles ☺

Wobble Culture: The Rise and Plausible Takeover of the Bass Heads

The wobble is sweeping the nation. Still. Sure techno and electronica have amassed clusters of rave culture throughout the decades, but much of the dubstep is something totally else, a blurby womp attack on the brain cells. And I hear these computer mastication beeps and beats in cafes and gas stations now. They even ripple through the car radio in wah-wah-wobble waves, contorting a rap or pop song with robot genocide glitches and dubby speaker splurbs. Like, is that someone bumping Macbook beats in the car next door at a show? ...Justin Bieber? Dubstep has wobbled its way into the mainstream?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DSx8_ucSK9A

I've been resisting the EOTO and Skrillex rave fests for years now, and cringed with a groan when my little brother asked if I listened to dubstep in 2009. And six years later, people still constantly ask, trying to determine: are you a jam hippie or a wobbly wook? So all right, last week I did it, I went to an art opening in Portland, ME that was heavily dub-rave-centric, featuring local djs and button-pushers with color blaring strobe lights. I'd rather swing sweaty hippies around on a mountain to some bumpin' bluegrass, but I was out for a rare time in busy motherhood and super set on having fun.

I totally found tripped-out solace in the narrow gallery hall with big open, windows and bright starving-eyed geometric art, but, determined not to be a bitch in the mud, I let go of stubborn opinions and into the dance high of the crowd. So I got out there, I danced, I jumped, laughed, skipped, spinned, laughed more, spilled beer, made friends, laughed and laughed and laughed my head off. I admit it—I wobbled, and I had fun.

Still, immersion in that glitchy gravelly womp totally spins my head like a film stuck skipping the same bleep of a scene over and over and over. My chakras fizzle into television vortexes staticky on snow. I calculate that the half drooling, half dancing crowd has got to be smacked on ketamine to have such an entranced at-homeness in their glazey-bright eyes. Music is my home when it lights me up and charms my chi into an ecstatic dance, but dubstep distorts and blitches it, so I tried not to listen too intently at the show.

I suppose in the digi-world where getting off is only a click or sext away, the soundtrack of laptops short-circuiting totally fits the disconnected libido of young adults. Watching everyone grind and gear their bodies into the hyperspeed beeps and blooping bass whirls, I could not avoid the perception that everyone was playing out sexual frustrations to the ritualistic spooking and splitching of the speakers. We aren't tribal anymore. Flashing lights, glazed eyes, bumping bodies mechanical as pistons, we are technologick.

My first Bassnectar show was neon hell. It was All Good 2010 when the festival was still in West Virginia, and Bassnectar was scheduled right after Furthur, on the stages immediately next to each other. Everyone was there that weekend for either Bassnectar or Furthur. The musicians with the biggest followings crowded twenty thousand hippies and wooks on the mountain of an oversold, sold out festival—and the crowds clashed like day and night, like Jerry and Schpongle, whiskey and water, coke and dope. Bassnectar started setting up as Furthur's encoring with “Ripple,” pushing glo-stick fanged rave fairies and freak-shows sweaty and marble-eyed into the softly swaying Dead-heads. Of course, half my friends wanted to stay for the last ten minutes of “Ripple” and the others were ready to weave to the front of the Bassnectar stage. The half-naked bass heads started spattering all over the flowy family Dead-head crowd like glow-sticks on the trampled earth.

Yes I love the Dead and loathe the womp, but I was also 20 with raging hormones and high hopes of finding the Phish-head I was infatuated with in the crowd, so I followed my younger friends up to the very very front. Furthur literally played “Ripple” for what felt like a sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder, belly-to-butt-to-belly eternity. Someone actually shouted, “SHUT UP OLD HIPPIES” before Bassnectar dropped that glurgy, lasery bass that blew our skin back and made Dave's pupils swallow his entire eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsb1Xt9B3HM

Wedged into the jigsawing-hip proximity of thousands of people, we recycled each other's breath rapidly in a sea of revved-up, tongue-rolling, screaming, yelling, and insatiable LED toy spinning and swirling festykins. As soon as the music began skweeching, the somewhat anime galactic gangster rave-bots collectively hooked onto the same waist-up scissory dance groove that spiked the energy and glow-stick war beyond anything my journey-jam-dancing-on-the-moutain-for-ten-hours self could handle. I didn't see that lusted-after Phish-head before the digital chainsaw strobe show started, and no one was moving anywhere for a while. It was not my flow.

When I asked Dave if he wanted to find the others and he nodded fast and nervous like a deer, I knew he was human too. We wiggled and wove back into the shuffling trickle of bearded men lugging sleeping children in red wagons alongside long-skirted henna goddesses.Coming out of the day-glo painted, half-naked, wompily humping crowd, it was literally like humans and humanoids. I left feeling antennae on the beeboppler heads from their spines transmitting dubstep signals, that the heads of the Furthur crowd were light-bulb brains, though some were brighter than others. I felt like a light-bulb.

Many heads were flickering and sputtering in the wake the wobble fest takeover, but Furthur did play “Estimated Prophet” AND “Roses” AND “Terrapin” into “Scarlet” into “Fire” AND an encore of “Cumberland Blues” AND the never-ending “Ripple.” While the 30 year-olds grumbled and sighed about what the festival scene had become, patchwork pitbull mama Janelle said, “Doesn't matter. They played the hippie anthem.” The never-ending “Ripple.” Everyone rejoiced. Thankfully, no one mentioned the “SHUT UP OLD HIPPIES” interruption. At least in that moment.

Obviously, this is not a black and white divide in people, though the shows are in vibes. Plenty of bass heads play the Dead and go to shows where the performing acts feature instruments, not computers. In 2012, Phish headlined Bonnaroo with Skrillex, though they played completely different time slots and days. But with the last of the Dead members playing their last show this summer, what will become of the festival scene? 

Said wobble-fest takeover at All Good happened five years ago. If Bobby and Phil don't step on a stage together again after this summer, what will a music festival be five years from now? People are already bringing less guitars and drums in favor of music and mixing apps on smartphones and bluetooth speakers. Weeblin' with the wobblers yes can be fun, but how is anyone supposed to flow music without instruments truly? Where is the synergy? The human connection from soul through art, through an instrument, through music? Let's try to preserve the fuck out of that please. I push enough buttons a day to watch someone else on a computer blaring a light show be the outlet for my sacral chakra. Fun is fun. Music is sacred.

Three Energies to Manifest a Festival Threesome

Whether you are single in search of multiple partners or a couple looking for a playmate or two, there are vital energies to channel to actualize this fantasy into your tent or Subaru or riverbank or tree. Obviously, you do not want to scan the throbbing dancers at the stage like an iFestyBot tallying yays and nays while everyone's culminating to expand consciousness and jam-thrive a moment, yo. Enjoy the experience simply and enjoy it fully. Give into the music, celebrate and project these energies, and the sex will manifest itself.

Bangor, ME Phish Tour Opener 2013

1. Openness.

Naturally, right? If you're seeking to maximize your sexual horizons at a festival, I'm guessing you're not very close-minded. When we're open, we bring and even suck others in, inviting their beings to dance as hard as our revved-up bodies are sparkle-splurging . So if you are rolling ready raring to jump on some laps, simply put it out there; dance your out your desires and pull others in like snakes being charmed. Basically, whether it's solo you or you and your girlfriend etc. seeking steamy tentmates, don't hide it. Be overt and the overt will find you. You're at a festival, a natural haven for human wildness. Open up, let it in, and the lovers will be as free and flowing as you expand your own self to be.

2. Sexuality.

Really, sexuality is not an energy that has to be distastefully presented. We can totally project this in an inspiring and tickling way that isn't offensive or compromising; sexuality should celebrated and uninhibited, especially at events like music festivals where people want to jam without feeling judged. Nervousness and second-guessing has no place in portraying our sexuality. Though my sexuality does not present itself the same way, what could be more fulfilling than watching the topless pixies fluttering around with painted chests and daisy headdresses and palm-leaf skirts? I mean have you ever seen anyone more free?

The point is not that I necessarily want to sleep with these earth-wild spirits, but that I can appreciate their blithe freedom to beam their carefree sensuality. We definitely have to be comfortable with the unbridled sexuality of everyone (even/especially those we don't want to sleep with) to be fully comfortable with our own, which projects an accepting, warm intimacy simply in our demeanor and brings all colors of lovers into our path. Accepting all shades of personal sexuality brings us to the nonjudgmental, unhindered plane of having multiple partners and truly enjoying the multi-vibrational experience. Three- and four- and five-somes are much more likely and lovely to occur when we aren't trying to “get” something out of the partners or experience. It's not about how many orgasms we can get in a night. It's about amplifying individual sexuality through one another's, raising the collective experience into the most ecstatic it can be, bringing us to our last critical energy to exhibit in the search of multiple lovers at a music festival.

3. Ecstasy.

This is the most attractive and powerful energy we can project. When every breath is ecstatic, our whole core glows. Our entire body sweats in smiles and exalts with the bliss of uninhibited love. When we laugh, skip, hum, drum, dance, narrate a story, look into others with our real eyes, people get high on the energy at an ecstatic vibration. Like a vast majority of jammers, dancing is my plunge into ecstasy, so this energy always bursts open at festivals, inviting others into my auric field and tempting them there. In the presence of ecstasy, people cannot stay away. No one can resist the sublime contagion of inner and outer joy. When we act from our true sexual nature, not a place of possessiveness but a divine will to interconnect, we pump the environment with orgasmic glee, digging the perfect rabbit hole for others of the vibe tribe you manifest for a night, or many.

In no way am I advertising music festivals as a Craigslist-hub for orgies here. But since many jammers either encounter threesome opportunities with uncertainty, I wrote the previous post about avoiding potentially uncomfortable and compromising situations. And since many jammers are also seeking how to channel multidirectionally enthusiastic sexuality, I present you with this list of energies in the hope that we can approach omniorgasms with the most uplifting, mutually beautiful intentions that will feed the most fruitful experiences. After all, drugs are superfluous compared to the highs we can reach together.

Three Guidelines for Avoiding Unwanted Festival Threesomes with Swingin' Hippies

If you're touring or hitchhiking or hanging out with a couple or crowd of swingin' hippies, you may not know it yet, or you may be hoping they don't hit on you. There's nothing wrong with an orgy unless you feel forced into it. This creates tension and imbalance in what could be a beautiful connection, platonic or not. So follow these rules if you want to keep or make swingin' hippie friends yet do not want to engage in a sweaty tent threesome.

1. Don't take the molly.

This is paramount to resisting any sexual advances really. If you outwardly do not want to sleep with anyone, do not take this drug. Because all of a sudden, you will.

2. Don't slap the bag. Don't try the moonshine. Avoid the ice luge. And definitely turn down the tickle-my-pickle.

You might think you will be more comfortable with swingers if you kick back a few drinks, but you could lose composure and control. Blacking out is really common where people are getting more inebriated with every hour we're raging this mountain together. At least with the molly, you're a revved up, happy and cognizant participant. But if you hit the tequila, you might vaguely remember ripples of entangled bodily flashbacks in the morning. So yes the tickle-my-pickle (tequila shot chased by pickle juice shot) is exhilarating, but it's so great that especially at a festival, there's no reason to ever stop drinking them. Point being, if you are camping with some swingin' hippies you don't want to swing with, save the boxed wine and liquor for another night.

3. Keep it real.

How do you say no if you are unwilling? Well if the swingers are true heads and not free-love-pretenders, they will respect your boundaries graciously and pass you the joint like nothing happened. But, as ever with sex, people can get frustrated and pushy. Are these cats really your friends? Keep it real. If they do too, yes, they are.

Basically, if you really like hanging out with some hippies and just don't want to sleep with them, never feel obliged to. Swingin' hippies can be the most providing, gregarious, loving people on this festivus planet, but no matter how many shows they take you to or chemicals they feed you, you don't “have” to swing if that's not your way. I'm an enthusiast, but not an advocate.

Everyone has their boundaries and the right to have them respected. Take me, I'm a belly sleeper; don't snuggle me until the morning. You, who knows, you might love swingin' shows with swingin' hippies. But don't feel guilty or like less of a open-mind if you don't swing all the way. If they are your friends who love you, the love will be stronger from a more clarified light. If they are random campsite neighbors who became your new best friends in two hours, keep keeping it real and gauge what their intentions are. Obviously not every hippie couple is trying to swing with you (though if you put that energy out there, it might seem that way). The thing about festival sex is you're either gonna do it or not, so ensure your decision is enhancing your festival experience, not compromising or dampering it in any way.

NOTE: This post uses “swingin' hippies” as a generic term for festival goers who like sex with multiple partners at the same time. They are not always middle-aged and living in a curtained van with three pitbulls asking whether you'd like to go twist palm-leaf roses on the side of a road on the other side of the country. (If this happens, definitely establish whether you want to be in or outside the couple's bed-life, because you're going to be sharing the back-of-the-bus mattress either way.) But sometimes the festival people coming onto us are doped-up dubsteppers or overstimulated twenty year-olds or vegan pagans. In the frenzied festival uproar, we can't always choose our suitors. But we can take simple, common sense steps to avoid discomfort and regret. Nobody likes to wake up in an irrelevant town in a strange van entangled with not one, but two random wooks. But in case you do, read on.

Rising Appalachia Bringin' the Heat this Spring

Rising Appalachia hits the road this spring, from the south to the west to the northeast and all over in between! After -22 temperatures and 60 mph winds this winter, I am stoked as a fiddle to catch the soul-spirit, razzity folk-hearted jam in Portland, Maine again. Sisters Lea and Chloe throw down and flow a lulling warmth in their music with a smooth kind of friction, like elegant but tribal, spiritual but dirty, vocals both haunting and enchanting, music both Southern but global, old world but new. It all grooves and grinds together in an entrancing melodic haze punctured by rolling rhythms, soul-dripping voices, and “LISTEN THE FUCK UP” lyrics.

Rays of Sandstone drummer Ben Rayborne introduced me to Rising Appalachia and Nahko Bear on Southeastern travels last winter, and I've been hooked since. My alienation to modern music dissolved; the music so spoke to what I was feeling in sound and intention, after YEARS of not hearing any new music that sparked me up. Truly I'm picky and have no patience for radio indie-pop or the soberest kid's Macbook dubstep. But I have seen both Rising Appalachia and Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People this past year, and totally have my show calendar marked to see both bands again.

Rambling bongos and bouncy banjos, the three friends I brought to the July 2014 show in Portland actually danced as hard as I did (which usually only occurs with a drug-induced endeavor.) But there were no drugs—can't even remember drinking, and we were skip-dip-hoppin' with the high swing-around energy of a hoedown, then wiggle-wham wormed into the deep, low bass notes that follow you creeping “Downtown” through a dark alley to swerve your limbs like snakes. These ladies and their high energy band raised my auric plane into a sunrise over the Blue Ridge parkway and sent it falling fast but featherly all at once. That alpine mountain soul-jam is gonna rage Wakarusa this year, hot damn. And it's a lot of things, but mostly magic when artists hook you somewhere no other music can take you. I'm sure as hell not gonna miss what's next. Check the dates and make sure y'all don't either!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOsEvYBLo7I&list=UURmxz4fw_LzwQF19LKXgRVg&index=1

Of Modest Mice and & '90s Children

Modest Mouse is absolutely the first band to awaken my jam-dance: unencumbered catharsis extreme. 2006 on the NJ Transit to the city, we were rolling our 16 year-old faces off each with an earbud in, the entire discography up until their latest album Good News for People Who Love Bad News on my iPod set to shuffle. The train was stopped for an hour because a man had jumped in front of it. We compensated by raging our whole bodies up and down the slippery seats, elbows flying, heads thrashing as far as our shared earbuds would allow. "Teeth Like God's Shoe Shine" was so wild and heavy that when "She Ionizes and Atomizes" came on next, my thumb hovered over the next button, ready. Fast as a snap, Meg grabbed my hand in hers and gasped, "I love this song!" My heart nodded and body smiled as i sailed on the dreamy twang cascade.

"I hope we move soon," I commented, rolling my wrists and arms into waves forward. Meg's hand jumped from my hand to my thigh.

"WE HAVEN'T BEEN MOVING THIS ENTIRE TIME?!"

Obviously we sprinted and wormed our way through the blue-lit crowd just as Modest Mouse came onstage, immediately plunging into "The Ocean Breathes Salty." Through the show, my whole dance spark inside woke up thrilled and ready to light up with the music. "Bukowski" moved my snakey limbs in new twisty ways and "Paper Thin Walls" had me jumping hard enough to feel my skeleton reverberate off my ankles. I've only heard secondhand stories about a bad Modest Mouse show. They've had me dancing just as hard every time I've seen them. And after their latest album, this anticipatory hunger in my soul pocket has been ceaselessly squiggling to see them again this summer.

En route to the Colimbus Circle show, 2009. On the way to an "All Nite Diner" not to mention "Cowboy Dan"

I'll admit. When Ophelia hit me up with the early Internet release of the "Lamp Shades on Fire," track, I had high expectations of a dirty, out there Mousey wilderness, because she kept going on about how great it was and how she couldn't stop listening to it. But when she came over and we listened together, I shrugged. "It sounds like it could be on 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,'" I said, following the uppity layers and buh-buh-duh-duh bridges between them. She went upstairs to pee and came back down with a partially melted moleskin notebook. 

"You left this on your fucking LAMP!" she said. "We're listening to that song again!" We did, and my opinion was the same. I didn't listen to it again until this girl at work asked if I had. When I reactively replayed the song in my head, I fondly craved the rugged frenetic  riffs that appeared and wanted to hear them again. Beyond that, I also enjoyed getting it stuck in my head as Amy continued streaming it from YouTube multiple times a shift. I gotta say, yes! It's Totallyyyy fucking Mousey.

There are some musicians who clearly use their instrument as an outlet for the soul, like this guitar riff is rolling directly out of a facet of its player. It's why no one can echo or come close to singing like Isaac Brock or Janis Joplin; its why Mousey riffs, tempos, and layers can only be described as Mousey,  and why the glurbdacular culmination of funk and foodling can only be described as Phishy. There is a distinct difference in musicians playing from their inner-selves compared to music that all sounds the same on the radio. So after jammin' out the cafe two days to  "Strangers to Ourselves," I feel guilty for my initial reaction that Isaac Brock was recycling a sound. Hell no, this album is Mousey as ever.

"Nobody really likes this song, but they just don't get it," says Amy, the first time she plays me "Pistol." "But I LOVE it," she says, bouncing on her combat booted ankles to the thwackiting of drums as she turned the tiny speaker-knob up with a cheesin' smile. Amy's 18. And she's geeking out about Mouse as I've been for oh-my-oldness, a year and a decade now.

And head bangin, feelin that low-to-the-ground, grimy subway-fog beat start to build with frisky piano, I stop stocking coffee cups, look up at Amy and say, "HELLLL YEAH!" She claps and jumps up and down, and even throws both arms into the air with a triumphant "YAY!", and we dip our heads in and out of the whacky abrasion of lyrics that make us laugh and the taser-arcadey spook-beats. We dig it.

Through the years; Modest Mouse has steadily been a prominent favorite; I love it all. They've got a new flare on the distortion layers, which riddle and rattle, pump and pulse, blorp and bang beneath the distinctively haunting guitar ring-around that it could only be Isaac. Again, hell yeah. Each album carries its own taste, vigor, environment, dream-world, one for every mood and mindset, yet all share that striking Mouse sound and play. Even though it's hard to fathom an album to pin my soul down harder than The Lonesome Crowded West does, Brock's musical vernacular has spanned so many portals and forms, all while channeling that unmistakable Mouse jam, that yeah, it's spanning generations and bringing us together in our own esoteric Mouse hole. It's dark, it's bright, it's wig-out weird and dancehall explosive. It combs your brainwaves and flogs your ears, flings your neck and knocks your knees, pulling your cerebrum and forcing you to know: WE HAVE DEFINITELY BEEN MOVING THIS ENTIRE TIME.

"Fare Thee Well" Shows July 2015: Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock your pockets

Some Phish vs Dead stuff is just true. Like with my ex-boyfriend. He could hear any Dead track and tell you what members were playing, what early to late decade, or even what year it was, and anecdotes about that tour. But get him on Phish tour 2011 right my ACL surgery, and I literally danced the fuck out of my wheelchair more than he did in his healthy two feet. He danced to one song. ONE SONG. Okay, I get that it doesn't exactly blither and flow so smooth-ecstatically through everyone as it does through me, but like, can't you open up a bit? Really, spanning 14 shows, six states, and the only song to stimulate you to shimmy and snake around is “It's Ice”?!

Bethel, NY 2011

I know what you're thinking. There's got to be something else going on there.

And yes, it's called “NOT BEING THERE FOR THE MUSIC.” This boyfriend made thousands of dollars off phans, and that was his sole reason for following a band he resented with a trunkful of crystals and wire-wraps. But it's not the Dead, right? So how could it ever be good enough? So goes the logic of the Dead elitist (at least this one), so set with the Dead on the top of the pyramid that nothing else could possibly reach those heavens and therefore really matter at all. And man, those elite show-goer heavens are higher than my high-interest student loans could dream of surmounting to. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars high. EVEN with a splash of Phish.

Because here we are, facing our last ensemble of the Grateful Dead this July, with three 50^th anniversary “Fare Thee Well” shows in Chicago, Trey billed as lead guitarist. Come on, hyping up the mail-in ticket-order tradition and giving heads three days to gather hundreds of dollars for the threat of the last-ever Dead shows is not all that bad. Because after selling out 210,000 mail-order tickets, the band's heavily rumored to be announcing more shows. Really, why have one last show when you can have lots of lasts shows?

Right, so Trey is playing with the remaining original members of the Grateful Dead. Those stuck in the Dead vs. Phish complex are forced to accept the culmination of energy. My best friend growing up/tour wingman says, “It's pretty much my wet dream,” despite the fact that she among millions of others did not get tickets after coloring an elaborately beautiful Steal Your Face envelope in a potentially expensive effort to see that wet dream fulfilled. Instead, the Bears season ticket-holders got precedence in their Chicago playground, but at least they've been willing to sell tickets back to heads and custies for 1000% mark-up value. 

Truly, the music of these bands are food for my soul, and every head I've ever met is going/trying to go to Chicago this summer. But $200 for parking is not my wet dream. It's exploitative. The more I hear about it, the more I cower in the "REALLY JAM GODS?!" corner. This is a horrific jam scene rape.

“Oh it's totally about the money. If it were about the heads, the community, they would have done it where people could camp!” laments Ophelia, the space-cat spinning a magic wand center-forward of every lawn. As a Libra who loves both bands, Ophelia is positive about the musical potential. “I think it will be interesting! I've never felt the Dead and Phish were at all the same, except for the fact that they both jam. Obviously Trey is not Jerry, but I don't expect him to be. It will be a totally new musical thing...Basically, I imagine it as Phish playing Dead covers. For both bands, the lead guitarist is the one with the inimitable sound.”

Live artist Kait Buckley, actually an electronica-hooked hooper who's grown up on the Dead, speaks to the inevitable Trey-zy nature of Anastasio, explaining, “I've seen [Trey] play with Furthur before and at first, he was a little all over the place 'cus he's used to his own thing, but he got in the groove as the set went on. I'm sure they will be practicing a lot together for those shows and he will have a lot to live up to, so I assume he is taking it seriously.” Stoner Bob Pirrone is optimistic, saying, “He basically took over the jam band scene after Jerry passed. It feels right to give him the honor to play some Jerry. I mean, he plays well with Phil and Friends.”

Pirrone has a point about the scene takeover. The jam-world lost Jerry as Phish's following swarmed and swelled to a cult level. Trey has been quoted as saying that he used to avoid listening to the Grateful Dead to prevent being overly influenced by Jerry while coming into his own sound. These days, he details to the Rolling Stone, “I've made a conscious effort to learn everything I could about Jerry's incredible style.” From tripping on acid at his first Grateful Dead show and being trance-formed by the music to learning it inside and out twenty years later, “Fare Thee Well” is sure to be a collectively epic-beyond-jamtabulous-fathomability phenomenon of the decade. If of course, you can afford it.

Jerry's daughter Trixie announced the 4^th of July shows online as a celebration of American culture and history (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR3LaG4vcBk). With Scorsese filming the shows in the city of the Dead's last concert with Jerry, the event seethes the high profile status that hotel hippies like my ex cream over, a circus for glampers. 

Sure at first, even I was set on heading to the lot and the slim chance of a miracle, but the fact that three day passes are going for over $100,000 on StubHub turns me off from the whole jam porn wet dream thing. Maybe Meg, it is too good to be true! Go follow Phish for a whole Tour for the same cost!

This was the basis of my ex taking me on Phish tour: money. After too many months on the road driven by the hustle, I refuse to go anywhere where the spirit of money is heavier than the music. Monetary flow is so much more tainted than the organic/gasmic potential of jam. You can always tell a custy fest from a grassroots one. I'd rather pay twenty bucks to a family farm who hired their friends to rage bluegrass in their cow-field all weekend. But of course, I say that as someone with 20 grand in student debt and no degree...Are you an affluent grower/capitalist stoner like my ex? Have a blast! Maybe you can tell me about it at 3DL! (Check it out)

Welcome to Jam Sauce

Jam Sauce is your ultimate tour guide for the ins and outs of festivals, shows, and other manifestations of the collective consciousness. Much of Jam Sauce will come from my experiences. I've done the lush tour life vending every show with Orbitz discounting pet friendly hotels all across the country, and I've followed Phish seven months pregnant selling organic iced coffee out of a cooler on wheels, renegade camping in fields and up mountains (so long as you get there before sunset, depending on the mountain.) But, my expertise are limited to my own experiences, and this project is largely about the collective momentum that generates the jam love flow. For example, I have not toured in a camper yet, but perhaps you have; maybe you're the four season glamping guru who has all the rooftop gardening wisdom and bathroom systems down, and you want to write about your invaluably unique experiences. Email me at wordsthatwander@live.com and help stir the sauce. 

Any given jam is a melting pot of everything within its vortex vicinity--sights, smells, thought, desire, action, intentions and outcomes, energy and vibes, colors and filters--so what has your vortex encompassed? For lively glimpses into each other's vortexes, tune into Jam Sauce for lot life, live art, miracle tickets, hustlin', swingin', and the warbling gaps in between.

Bear Creek, FL

The Festy Forensic: How to Spot Fake Tickets, Bum Drugs, and Cops Disguised as Hippies

We'd all like to think of music festivals as free-loving escapes from the mainstream world where we can let our whole freak fly without inhibition or looking over our shoulder. But, flouncing around like there are only daisies and no aphids will catch us in compromising positions. Like when Meggy spent two hundred bucks outside MSG for a New Years Eve Phish ticket.

1. Does the scalper look like a head? Hemp, crystals, smiles, dreadlocks, moccasins, festy bracelets?
2. Look at the ticket. No, really. Is it a printed out Ticketmaster ticket? An old roommate of mine saved our friend fifty bucks at the Charleston with the simple observation that the page said VOID behind the event information.
3. Is the scalper going to the show as well? If not, did his/her girl/boyfriend get stranded hitchhiking or what? In Meggy's case, why is he or she not going to the sold-out, most coveted show of the year and instead, selling a ticket for five hundred less than they are selling for on Stubhub? And is this person alone, or surrounded by flowery, trustworthy hippies around to reassure good intentions and vibes in general?
4. Why is this person selling a ticket? Did a friend bail? Did he have extras and all his friends were already going? Or did she decide to go to the Biscuits show across the city instead? And most importantly concerning all of these points: do you believe this person?

Generally, your vibe-o-meter should be able to tell whether someone genuinely has an extra to sell or is trying to take advantage of go-lucky jammers. Unfortunately in Meggy's obsessive desperation to get into the New Year's Eve show, she overlooked her scalper's telltale sketchiness. Yes the majority of Phish-heads are white college kids (or graduates/drop-outs), but if the scalper is not and he's a middle-aged bald-head trying to sell you a ticket in Manhattan, he should be gregariously jolly and explain how he's come to sell such a cheap ticket for such a high profile show over a joint or coat-sleeve beer. The scalper should definitely not take your money and leave the scene without joyous tidings for a helluva show.

Blackwater Festival, FL

And ah, the drugs. The bum-drugs are trickier to identify because 1.) they are more common, and 2.) because what hippie doesn't look like a head shuffling through the campsites and dance-crowds, sputtering, “Moon rocks, mushies, oil, dabs...” And really, there's only one direct way to know if a chemical is what is said to be—try it! But indirectly, the best way to make sure your “mescaline” isn't 2CE or that your molly isn't meth is to only buy what trusted friends and heads have tried and recommend. There are (or always should be) those heads you trust through and through, to the point of saying, “If she did it, I'll do it.” The more acclimated you are to the scene, the less likely you are to be sold Shitake mushrooms on Shakedown Street. No, but really. It sounds preposterous, but there are real-life gutter-skunks who actually try to get away with overcharging 14 year-old rave bunnies household herbs and bicarbonate soda. My ex Mikey would always close his eyes and go on “antenna mode,” where he could read energy in rainbows and even dance without knocking into anyone this way. Sure he went schizophrenic, but he was an excellent judge of character. You don't need a spirit-antenna, but always be aware of your vibe-o-meter.

Plus the cops. There are the venues like Suwanee in Live Oak, FL where cops are allowed to assume duty so long as they buy tickets along with everyone else. So if you are you are tucked into a tick nest in the very back of the 300+ acre music park in Florida and a cheerful dude with a shaved head and crisp new tie-dye stumbles in looking for his cell phone, you can rest assured he is not there by accident. His shoes should also be a dead giveaway. Wooks don't wear stiff, brand new Nikes.

If you are on the lookout for under-covers, it should be fairly easy to pick up on scripted dialogue. “Cold night. Rad show!/Do you go to festivals often?/Do you have anything to smoke?”) These guys are like Porky Pigs in a field full of Roadrunners, but there are, however, the very schooled “dready feddies.” In 2011, I watched one standing in a line of busted wooks with his hands behind his back like the others. When the others were taken away however, he dropped his hands unbound and walked away, this dirty blond six foot something dready guy in Charlotte. An older, raspy guy with blue eyes and shaggy hair under a mad-hatter of a chapeau had come to my vending table on Shakedown and narrated this whole literal shakedown scene to me. When he called that the alleged dready feddie would walk away untouched, I was amazed, though not surprised when that exact action transpired. Unkempt teeth and parking lot hygiene should never be a ground for who to trust on tour—the older, crustier spunions have made it this far along for reasons.

Also, be it known that there is no magic “If I ask if you're a cop, you have to tell me” rule. Take it from undercover turned activist and legal consultant Barry Cooper, who explains, “I'm not sure how this rumor started but it is not true and actually helps law enforcement. Many times as an undercover, suspects would ask if I were. I would respond, 'No. I'm not a cop and you are correct. I would have to tell you if I were.'” To really tell if someone is a cop, Cooper suggests offering him or her a bong rip, as cops can be trained to fake a joint rip through their noses, and undercovers are often drug-tested following a bust.

Also, listen for the Rainbow children and other helping friends on scene. If you hear funny numbers and encoded words being thrown around, be on your guard. But in general, although it's super omni-chingadaza-blisstastico to lose yourself in every moment and be fully immersed in the groove-adelic magic of jam, always holding onto at least a kite-string of a clue is paramount. When any spunshine sprites of the festival-love-flow get taken away or even advantage of, the whole festival gets tainted; it's the manipulation of purity. Taking personal responsibility with even a toe-hold in reality can keep us out of jails, hospitals, even rude awakenings in the wrong states. (Been there...and other places too.) Because even though the smooth roll of ecstatic dance-shine moments can feel perfect and infinite, we have to wake up somewhere, and we can totally prevent unnecessary loss of money, rights, and control. Just remember your bag, your phone, your stash, and your Shakedown Street smarts.

For more on Barry Cooper, check out www.nevergetbusted.com for an inside look on preventing nonviolent drug crimes.

That's Not Blood, Man; it's Glo-Stick Goo: Nonviolence and the EcstaticDance Party

The only fight people seek out of a Sound Tribe show is a glow-stick war. And while I've known some to trip out from being on the “wrong” side of a color exchange, electronic enthusiasts pulse with the innocence of neon for the simple sake of bright and shiny. Initially, I struggled with that ease of satisfaction. When I first came onto the scene as an overeager Earth pleaser, I spent countless hours talking to the most tripped out chemists on lot to try to devise a way to recycle the thousands upon thousands of damn glow-sticks that always end up painting the grass in clear plastic by the end of the night. And really, not one of these new wave ravers wanted to hear or think about their toxic footprints. In fact, many say, “I never thought of that before!” with complete wide-eyed honesty and just as sincere a smile as they plunk right back into their dance or bra or pocket for some molly to share.

Admittedly, I've always seen the sparkle-faced Bratz Dollz generation with glow-sticks and dubstep as “them.” Evil. I saw plastic and computer glitch-beats as a robot-zombie plague upon the purity and synergy of jam. But when ecstatic Dave at his first Bassnectar concert squealed, “It's expendable energy!” and began collecting and throwing glow-sticks like flowers bursting from the pit of his highlighter-yellow soul, the electronic scene finally clicked into mine. Ah! These self-proclaimed “bass-heads” don't want to suck away souls, not out of the earth, music, nor each other...they just want to have a good time.

And that time that my friends and I left Charleston's Music Farm extremely perplexed as to how Nate acquired a spatter of blood on his T-shirt after the STS9 show/danciest energy-a-thon ever, it took us to be in the dark crashing five people on a bed and a couch to recognize the neon nature of the stain. And yes, it tickled and cheered me to know it was the reckless innocence of glow-stick goo.

Yes I will always be a jam band purist, and in the electronic realm, I will always pick a band like Sound Tribe or Lotus over a Macbook party like EOTO or Pretty Lights. Still, I must pay tribute to the nonstop party wizzam-wow that the dubsteppers celebrate and chase, as the ecstatic dance party is now a routine therapy for my daily kitchen sanity. My gay best friend in college explained the hypnotic rhythm of dubstep as such: “Sometimes you don't need the fucking intricacies of everything. You just need to wobble.” Me, still no—I'm not a wobbler, I'm a prancing jamming pirate with skippy, stampy gazelle legs and a punk-rock head-bang, and music like Phish and Toubab Krewe will always foremost satisfy my multilayer thirst for kick-offs and crescendos. But electronic music and the ecstatic dance parties have become a parallel friend instead of an opposing force of evil: I love the dance for the sake of feeling good, the wobble for a speedway into the collective zen flow, and the oblivious love of everything for the oblivious love of everything.

After the pounding headache that consumed my body after vending Electric Forest summer 2011 next to a K-holed kid pressing WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH on his warble machine and slapping “DIRTY GIRLS LIKE DIRTY BEATS” stickers on every shoulder passing by, I was convinced these electronic dubsters truly were part robot, digitized beyond salvation of the human soul, a foreign species—the enemy. But at the end of that weekend, when a shirtless boy in a pink bandanna, cargo shorts, and cowboy boots spray-painted the clop of cop-horse shit razzle-sparkle pink, giggled and ran away with kicked up heels like a naughty elfin farmhand, I had to smile, and even giggle too. What, really, is evil about bright and shiny? After all, calculating the damge of glow-sticks to the soil is not celebrating a festival to its highest potential, and it is human nature to want to have a good time,

Photo Credits: Meggy Schaeffer

Instagram @Nut_Meggy