You Can Like Psychedelics and Be Okay With It

You can like psychedelics and be okay with every bit of it. You don’t have to carry a nervousness in your shoulders when you’re engaged with something you’re okay with. You can enjoy it so much more when you let your shoulders go and be okay with totally breathing.

It’s just like how she can eat chickens and be okay with it. And so can you be okay with her individual choices too. No, really. Just like he can love someone of the same sex, and we can all be okay with it. Really. Sure, we can also be pissed off at cops and lawyers and brokers and politicians who abuse their power, because we’re not okay with it. We all have a gauge of what is okay for our soul and what isn’t. But how much do we turn it up?

So when we are okay with something, is there not always the presence, potential, opportunity to amplify that okayness? Are we breathing, loving, being, thanking the universe for the offering it has bestowed upon us? Whether acid, chicken, lover...beer?

When we accept an offering of the universe, are we accepting it with every sense? Are we seeing, feeling, knowing what we are engaging in? Do we fully feel the miracle of the earth air filling our chests and expanding our hearts?

When we take, engage, consume, connect—are we pulsing the love through our veins and roots, lifting the vibration of the energetic sphere?

Are we being one with the offering as we accept it—as we taste the metallic rainbows of the acid in our brains, or bite into the buttery leg of a chicken, or melt into the warm embrace of a soul who feels like home—are we being?

Are we thankful? Are we surging appreciation and gratitude for the fractals forming between the grooves in our fingerprints, the worthy bird that is feeding us, the warm touch of someone who is grateful, too?

 

And if we truly get to being beyond okay with what we like, what we enjoy, get highest on—wouldn't we shed the nervousness and guilt about it? Why must we assume a defensive social front to defend our identities from stereotypes like hippie, meat-eater, homosexual? Can't I say, "MY CONSTITUTION IS IPAS AND AMERICAN SPIRITS" and be more than okay with that, allowing everyone else to be more than okay with that too? Couldn't they appreciate my habits/nature for the boundless ways that I do? And be more okay with their own shit too? Why can’t we cultivate passion in the earthly offerings that enliven and empower us? Why shouldn’t we integrate everything as a sacred offering for our body and spirit? What is "mindless consumption" when we have a body AND a spirit to connect and consume? And why not respect our brothers and sisters for celebrating their ecstatic shit? Thank the crispy hoppy beer for every bubble and sip, and ooze smiles out our pores?

I’m okay with complacency. But I’m on fire for passion. Awareness. Ecstatic humility. We are here to live. Breathe. Be. Love. Thank. When we take something outside us into our bodies, our spirits, our spheres, we should celebrate it to its highest vibration. What else is there? You can accept vibrations…or you can exhilarate them.

Living The Way of the Bath Tub Monk

Believe in the bath

Meditate/self-hypnotize with the bath

Engage in bath tub yoga

Invent organic bath tub yoga

Write bath tub poetry

Record bath tub chants, ballads

Breathe the bath

Be the bath

Live the bath.

For outside the tub, we are still the bath.

You already are the tub. Be the bath.

Super Tuesday Super SCHMOOZEday for Hellary 2016

I try to stay positive about women's lib, and truly believe we are well overdue for a female President. When the right one steps up of course. Women's liberation lies with the candidate who is for EVERYONE'S rights, not one who separates us by saying, "For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear." (I don't quote without fact-checking; I heard and watched her say this in SC on film.) If that's her idea of an open mind, she's closed herself off from all who truly have one. I'm more terrified of her liar fire eyes than any of my friends who match this description.

Hillary Clinton is extremely close to home for me. Like lives around the corner from my aunt and cousins in Chappaqua, New York. And although I was behind Obama from the very beginning of my first eligible election to vote in 2008, I maintained respect for her as a solid woman who could take a lot of punches. No fucking more. I live in Maine now. And Bernie is my homie.

After watching the CBS live stream of her campaign rally speech last night in Florida, I contend that my respect for her as a political woman with integrity has completely diminished.

What I heard was basically a poorly plagiarized rendition of Bernie Sanders' Twitter feed. What I heard was a complete spew of hypocritical lies. How dare she speak like a democratic socialist to those who do not have the progressive Facebook friends to be exposed to the true, untelevised political revolution at hand. To have a complete foothold in corporate funding and pretend to speak for the 99% would be laughable if it weren't so damn manipulative and despicable. All I heard was a Monsanto Muppet forging her concern for the American people while since the '90s, she been poisoning them (see Hillary link below).

If Clinton could run a clean campaign owning up to the dynamics of how she is running it, I could see myself voting for her if she becomes the Democratic candidate. But to imitate Sanders' lifelong genuine care for the justice of humanity is inexcusable. She suddenly talks democratic socialism while for the past 50 years, Bernie has been LIVING IT. It saddens my soul to watch her masquerade his values to a population that has not witnessed his truth, as Hillary has all these reporters on her payroll, and Bernie is 100% funded by supporters like me, a working student single mom who can only afford to contribute $10 a week. That being said, he's hit record breaking individual donation amounts because he is the voice of the people.

Politics are inextricably linked with history. Check Bernie's. Check Hillary's. Check in with yourself and VOTE, not for the privileged, not for special interests, but for all of US. People say Hillary has "evolved," but she's merely morphed to imitate Sanders' stances without backing them up. Hillary pretends to be for the "few" to manipulate the Democrats who haven't experienced the full breadth that Bernie's campaign has to offer. If Hillary is indeed the candidate, you are welcome to sail away with me. Because there is no way my 2 year old daughter nor I can be a part of a county that's called "United" with a figurehead  based on deceit and division. 

THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

Sometimes You Listen to Phish Because You Know What's Best For The Soul. Other Times, You Support the Candidate Who Is, Too

http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/bernie-sanders-just-called-phish-one-of-the-great-bands-in-this-country/

How To Be a Responsible Smoker

Easy. First of all of anything, smoke American Spirits. If you’ve been smoking the past decade as I have, you’ve tried the rainbow spectral Camels and Marlboros, the 99s and the 72s and of course the 27s. Kamel with a ‘K,’ Camel Crush with a poppable listerine ball in the filter. Reds, Blues, Turkish Silvers, Golds, Lights and Super Lights. It’s all highly toxic commercial shit that raises the nicotine content within each cigarette a year. So American Spirits. No fancy names, just colors. And the colors coordinate to the quality and feel of each blend. Mellow Yellow. Light Blue, Cool You. Organic Teal, Fullness Feel. Dark Blue, Rich With It. And MMM Black, Perique Magnifique…the Fruity Shadow Cigarette (obviously my choice blend).

American Spirits. No brainer. American grown, organic option, no additives, they last so long you don’t need to smoke tarry paper back to back to back for the illusion of reduced stress. In that case, it’s simply misplaced.

Next, never drop your butts. Always trash them, stub them into an ash tray, put them out and in your pocket, in your shoe, whatever will keep you from flushing them into the gutters and the ocean. Definitely, you’d be a philistine-ass smoker to mark your cigarette spots.

Also, don’t be afraid to clean up dirty butts. In one of my hometowns Red Bank, New Jersey, I did lots of cocaine with a lovely smoker vegan, who would make a note to pick up ALLL the butts and throw them away, wherever we were. Chances were, being in the most densely populated state, there would be lots of butts, and lots of trash cans. Watching her as an emerging smoking 16 year-old was a great inspiration through my long-winded journey to Maine, where I can be seen cleaning up the contents of rednecks’ ashtrays at the beach. If you don’t take responsibility, who will?

Scooping up butts at Pemaquid Point, ME. Because we're outside in 10 degree weather anyway, and these ones haven't made it to the ocean yet. And though prepared with fingerless mits, I had no trash bag, and instead, dug an empty pack of baby-wipes out of my co-daddy's car. Aww.

 This takes a responsible smoker and elevates he or she into a vibrant smoker, as that good energy of not leeching plastic filters to stunt the small fish population per three gallons of water will infatuate that whole area with your loving care. People care in an area, it shows, it vibes, it loves, and people can only pick up on that communal love. We take care of our own butts, and we’ll take care of yours too. Sure we know smoking isn’t all that ethical, but we can generate our own ethics and engage in a more dignified generation of smokers. Which obviously correlates to not smoking indoors.

Cars, roll down the windows. And don’t flick a fucking one of them.

Otherwise, don’t be a fucking idiot. Know that you are exposing yourself to a carcinogenic addiction. You should probably live in a medical state where Rick Simpson Oil is offered  by way of free medicine (Canada, California, Colorado, Maine). Just in case you do get a tumor, you can rest assured there are healers on hand who can stop its growth.

Engage in cardio. You find me one muscley marathon motherfucker who smokes and has gotten lung cancer. I haven’t met any. Seems like swimmers and runners and bikers who smoke have it pretty well made. Exercising makes my heart feel a lot less tight when I want to have a cigarette with my morning coffee. So from experience, I can viscerally tell you, if you’re going to be hedonistic, you’ll do a lot damn better if you’re also an athlete.

In all due respect to nonsmokers, such as my seriously anti-cigarette boss, carry around essential oils so you don't stink like a half-charred ashtray. To avoid offending her with the smell of smoke, I spray my hands, neck and hair with rose hydrosol to deionize the smoke, and have a couple drops of tea tree oil to really kill anything dirty. It's considerate for those who choose not to poison their lungs. Bonus points for peppermint or spearmint oils for your tongue (I tend to dab on the back of my band and lick.) 

This blog post is not meant to encourage or discourage smoking. I am merely encouraging in those of us who do smoke, let’s be as peaceful as possible for our indulgences. And really, I’m a lot more peaceful when my nicotine cravings are not stressful. Noninvasive, responsible smoking allows that. 

Like I said, I’ve been doing this a decade. So now, I don’t put on a coat or grab a purse that doesn’t have a Black pack of Spirits in it, even if there are only three left. Just happened ten minutes ago when I put on my bathrobe, and I smiled and gave Past Me a hell of a hug for remembering Now Me. Cus you never know when you might be hitchhiking for two hours, or what you might be wearing. And if you’re stuck somewhere, at least you have that one cigarette. And so long as it’s an American Spirit and you don’t stain the planet with its filter, you’re gonna enjoy the fuck out of every drag.

How do you like your Dead?

These days, you can get Grateful with the Dead any way you like it. Phishified with Trey. Slow and bass-heavy with Phil and his friends. Fucked up and falling over on Ratdog. Nostalgic recreations of entire shows by Dark Star. Even pop-bluesy with Mr. John Mayer. Not to mention the rap mixes for the bling-custy niche that only listens to rap and Jerry. And, even if you missed the Furthur runs in which they incorporated new old man songs about the rain and other elder hippie business, you can still catch the funkity blue mastery of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. And in all likelihood, you will dance harder.

Like I can't stop dancing and have to pee everywhere but will drink everyone in the vicinity's water to keep fucking dancing hard. You don't want to miss a riff.

JRAD has brought the fire back to my mountain since I saw them this summer at the Great North festival. Now the Dead has been alive in me for nearly half my life, but I had never danced so hard at any orientation of the GD as I have at JRAD. Holy jamtastic. It's like Medeski, Martin, & Wood began blaring the jam classics in that creep-along jazz, funksplosive phenomena fantastica. Oh that Terrapin in Portland. The weebly warps of spookily space. The searing splooge of hyper-stimulated folk. The songs that have been a sacred auditory landscape for generations of jammers come to such an energized pinnacle and high point with every note. If you haven't seen Almost Dead, go forth Gratefully and catch them live....the music has still never stopped.

Pisces Band Fulfills Scorpion Desires, Blows All Else Out of All Water

If you missed the 2015’s most kickass orchestration of the year, that’s cus it happened at the very end if you weren’t one of the 10,000 jamsters at MSG, you were probably skankin’ elsewhere. Thing is, I know you felt it. Phish’s first jam first night of the New Years run, I knew EVERYONE felt it. There is truly nothing in life like getting real down on that gushy smile level with someone, that diggity dirty, funk flingin groove, all that Phishy absurdity oozing out every communal pore, like AHHHHHHH, really! REALly!!!!!...yep, this is still Mike's Song right now.

Like really, we danced as hard as those narrow cement tiers allowed us, funxtreme-tastica in every spoodley lick. And really, if you had showed me what the set-list would be for the first night of the MSG run, I would have nodded like I had heard all those songs a million times, because I have. But not like that. Each jam opened up into vibrating jams that opened and flowed and flounced so deeply and friskily in the moment and then the next. I haven’t missed an MSG run yet, and the hype’s true about this one. Every jam exemplified an ecstatic propulsion of art. And everyone felt it.

Phish reallh reaches all those under-water layers. Breaking through the Piscean chaos into the ️Neptunian love spell it has to offer, and bleeding, rippling, raging through the Scorpion/Plutonian core of if all. I swear. I felt it.

I always feel it.

Every head got so down on the whimsy, flitting “Bathtub” splanks, so thrilled thrashy wild as it built up and up and out for 15 minutes The whole show was riddled with the incessant sparks and tickle of the Phish crowd culminating again. So like wowwww, Phish totally is The band of the Scorpion Pluto generation, keeping us vibing, crawling, chasing their spirals under the rug, til they sting us with zaps of funk and splizzam lasers into zings and zongs we feel, love, rage and radiate. Yup. Phish has lured and played, pampered and swayed us all under the same covers. Where it’s dark, mysterious, and helplessly rainbow, so every cell in the midst of it is smiling so can’t-help-it-groovy.

I posted forever ago about my skepticism travelling to the city during such a chaotic time, but caught a ride with my daugther’s sister and her mom on their way back to Phili; thank the beauty of blended families. My excitement completely blinded me from initial hesitance, even through the metal detector and flashlights digging through my bag as one patted down my freckled friend in denim cut-off shorts and a “PURE SEX” button gleaming on her Mexican blanket coat, I was still unconcerened and completely shut off to the possibility of risk. But the cab driver on the way to my dad’s from the train reminded me.

“I hope security was tight,” he said, “ya never know what those nuts will do after that shit in Paris.”

At first I was like, “Come on, really…”, inclined to say something like, “Then we can blame all nuts for fear of the unknown, not an allocated few.” But before speaking, I let the intention behind his sentiment linger, and I remembered my gratitude. I prayed protection barriers for everyone dancing and celebrating music and art in beauty and love.

And to me at that point still, it was all very Phishy and drippy and teeth-clenching exciting to get home and drink so much water I wouldn't have to slip someone a dollar then duck away for it not being two...and have a cigarette and pass out with my toddler, replaying replaying replaying that bass-slapping energy, that build, that force of everyone singing “Character Zero,” knowing it was the last song; knowing in a breath, the boys would leave the stage and be gone. Until tomorrow, for most of them. Until Mexico, for the fortunate ones. The lesson here is urging everyone I know to get ready for summer tour, because Phish is gonna blast all our hats off. And also, all are welcome and encouraged to continue beaming love and protection for the jammin’ masses. We couldn’t have momentum without all of us making moves.

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.