DMB, Camp 41

Back when I said I'm up for a hell of a week before DMB, I also thought, "I'm tough." Girl pukin' in every trash can from tent to porto & back would not agree, but she did rally. I'm not going to be coy & demure & refrain from anecdotes - Thursday I worked 15 hrs, slept 5, ran 16 with workout with Ber at 6am & left for the Gorge. What I thought I was doing was earning the right to have fun; what I have to realize is that I deserve it.

The westy was filled with four lovers' goods, a homemade seahawks-painted cornhole set, massive booze, food fixin's & one pervy MadLibs book ready to be filled with the personplaceorthings we forgot we learned once. Stopped to find our caravan friends and buy more booze in Yakima, nibbling on store snacks and admiring pack-jobs. Al & T-man introduced us to cool cats, Aly & Thomstache, who were gems. We entered the gorge campground as a caravan, parked and purged all goods across the grass to claim space. Large canopies were constructed, chairs & tables erected, coolers blending ice & mixers & unlimited light beers rolled out. Backyard games were set up, tents up, beer tabs pulled. I felt like a true scout, sweeping the grime from the tent bottom, building my own tent, blowing up my own mattress pad. I felt like I was a woman. We circled up under cloud cover, roasting wieners, pouring endlessly, before hiking the mileandahalf into the grounds.

The westy.

Ber, Al & I. Chicago bound ladiez.

Ber's henna.

Cool Aly & Thomstache - sells his own stache wax.

The first night was soft. There was an intermission & within it I fell asleep on the slope. It felt like a warm up. The sky was gorgeous baring down upon the stage, mirroring off of the (pond) behind. I traipsed back with T-man, excited to get into my bag & catch up on sleep. Except that I woke up in the early light & upchucked to and from my tent; it was a curious thing as I had gone to bed mostly somber. Tried to sleep off the cold sweat chills and migraine until us girls gathered for a run from camp. Came back feeling better, ate a good skillet scramble of egg whites, chicken sausage, vegetables, fruit & coffee, then tried to lay low for the rest of the day to reestablish the center of me. A walkabout with Ber, whose mother baked colorful crispy treats to sell for beer $ was sold within an hour. Eventually, I pulled out the wine bottle, filled my body in food & rallied for the second set: Acoustic - Little Red Bird (Dave Solo), Stay or Leave, Old Dirt Hill, Recently, Snow Outside, Ants Marching, Sugar Man (Sixto Rodriguez cover), So Damn Lucky. Electric - Minarets, One Sweet World, Seek Up, Rooftop, Spoon, Out of My Hands, Don't Drink the Water, If Only, Dancing Nancies, Save Me (feat. The Lovely Ladies), Long Black Veil (Lefty Frizzell cover feat. TLL), Stay (Wasting Time) (feat. TLL). Encore - Sister, So Much to Say, Anyone Seen the Bridge, Too Much (fake), and ending with the epic, Halloween. The intermission hit & the grass called. The concert ended with great emotion. I weaved through the masses to find myself in the bag, sans post concert schmoozing once more.

Ber & her treats.

Slangin'.

Woke, ran, breakfast tofu scramble in a tortilla cocoon of cheese and flavor. Coffee. The deepest felt sun. Walk abouts, scouting, "Look a niner's flag - gross." Slip and slides, bodies rubbing Dawn soap down their rubbery beer bloated bellies, flip cup, blow up toys, a dance party with people in animal costumes, westy circle-jerks. We made homemade ghettogria: pinot grigio, rum, sliced kiwi, grapes, slices of apple. Let it steep for hours on ice & carried it around in mugs with straw and umbrella's people watching and finding laughter. We baked our buns beneath the sun, in what might be our last goldening.

Ryder wranglin' fish in his chest hair.

Pervy Christy.

The last set held: Acoustic - All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover, Dave solo), Grace is Gone, Slip Slidin' Away (Paul Simon cover), Tripping Billies, Loving Wings, Rhyme & Reason, Crash Into Me, Typical Situation. Electric - The Best of What's Around (feat. The Lovely Ladies), When the World Ends, Squirm, Lover Lay Down, Cornbread (w/ David Ryan Harris), Jimi Thing (w/ DRH), Grey Street, Steady as We Go (first time played since '06), Drunken Soldier (feat. TLL), Can't Stop (feat. TLL), You & Me (feat. TLL), Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel cover feat. TLL). Encore - Some Devil (Dave solo), The Stone, & Shake Me Like a Monkey. As I was grumpy walking among the masses alone, a giant bearded man laid this on me:
"I saw you twice today."
"Yeah."
"I didn't have the nerve to say 'hi.'"
"Ha, ok."
"Since you're wearing that turban I'm like the only guy that's going to talk to you."
"Oh...Ok..."
"I told this other girl I'd race her for $20 bucks. And I won."
"That's cool man."
"We should race."
"Mmmm no thanks."
He grabs my hand and goes,
"See!"
And tries to race me along the gravel among the swarms of concerters, but he slips on the gravel and his bigfoot frame smashes to the ground. The swarm coos,
"ooooooooooohh,"
and laughs. And I run. So hard out of there. Left the bigfoot on the ground, all the way to S. Morrison, exclaiming,
"I almost got maimed by a bigfoot."
I don't know what that turban comment was about.

I went to bed immediately, seeking to get as much sleep as a camp in a field next to a porto at DMB can muster. In the morning we packed & headed into town for coffees & egg sandwiches before the masses would filter from the fields on their way home. I wanted another day.