I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
July 28, 2009 - 2:01 a.m.
I have to get up in 6 hours and 12 minutes and I'm just now starting to write my entry. Isn't that me in a nutshell? Oh, I should add that I'm getting up early because I'm going down to Washington D.C. for the Nationals (North American Bridge Championships). Oh yes. I haven't started packing yet. Some things never change. Before I get into FRFF I'll point out that at least I remembered to move my car in front of my building and to give my key to the porter who is going to move it for me so on Wednesday so I don't get a ticket on Thursday. That's because of alternate side of the street parking.
As for packing, when I started visualizing my trip tomorrow I realized that I can't travel the way I usually do, using sports bags as suitcases. I can't use my left arm so carrying bags isn't the best idea. I have a suitcase but it is huge. So today I went to Marshall's and bought a small one on wheels. That will make things a lot easier.
Now for what you've all been waiting for adventures at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.
On Wednesday morning I got off to a late start. I never found my box of small things I need for camping or my stake bag. Steve has everything needed to put up the actual tent so I just bought a few things, like a light for my tent and a headlamp on my way up. I also stopped at a supermarket for large water bottles, bathroom wipes, and cereal. When I got to Falcon Ridge guess what I discovered; I left the wipes and cereal at the checkout counter. It really is the fault of my broken elbow. It makes doing small things difficult and require planning. By the time I managed the water bottles the rest of it was forgotten.
When I talked to Sue today she asked me what my "idiot story" was going to be. She explained that's the things I do that make me call myself an idiot and say I have no brain. She finds these very amusing. When I suggested that perhaps I didn't have an idiot story she didn't believe me. She was right. Oh one more thing. The leaving the things at the supermarket isn't it. That's nothing. I'm a much higher class idiot than that.
When I got to Falcon Ridge Paul and Steve had to set my tent up for me. I hate being helpless. I did what I could all weekend but I pushed things too hard. My elbow acted up quite a bit.
I spent Wednesday night down at LORi's RV. She was joined this year by her neighbor Paula.
The Festival proper started on Thursday. The most fun I had during the day was manning the WFUV booth. It is supposed to be a chore but I love it. I sit there and the world comes to me. Friends always find me and when I'm not talking to them I'm meeting new people that come by for information about the station or to just say hi to someone from a station they love. There are also entertaining cranks. People have some very strange notions.
One of the friends that stopped by was the beautiful and talented Chris Thompson. Now it is not surprising to run into a favorite musician at a festival but Chris wasn't playing. She was there as a volunteer working security. Even in uniform cute small blonde girls are not very intimidating. She'd have to rely on charming anyone that gave her trouble. It would work.
The Festival lineup was weak this year and the weather terrible. That seriously cut down on the amount of music I heard. On Thursday night the only act I saw on the main stage was the first, Kim & Reggie Harris and Magpie; two groups I like playing together as a supergroup. I actually had company on my tarp for that, Ellen. Andy and the kids were off exploring. After that I went for some food and then I ran into Michael. He was limping badly and I insisted that he visit the First-Aid tent. We were standing in front of it and it wasn't hard to convince him. The problem was in his foot, he had injured it before the festival and reinjured it right before I met him. When they patched him up we were quite a site walking up the hill, he was on a crutch and I had my arm in a sling. I walked him back to his camp, Tribes Hill/AcousticMusicScene.com and hung around with them for a while. I'm friends with many of them. One of the people there was, Jim, was not part of the camp and just met them. When we were introduced he knew who I was because he's a friend of Rebecca. That kind of thing is one of my favorite things about the festival. Jim is now my friend too. Rebecca has the best taste in music and people. Why the hell does she like me?
It started raining while I was at Tribes Hill and I finally got the nerve to make my way back to The Budgiedome. When I got there I discovered that my car keys were missing. I usually keep it with my house keys but I separated them for just this eventuality. Of course I did have them locked in my car. I retraced my path in the rain. I went back to Tribes Hill, back to where my tarp had been at Main Stage, and all over the Budgiedome, it was no where to be seen. I didn't panic. I was upset but not in full panic mode. It was dark so I would try everywhere again in the morning and check out the WFUV booth. In the mean time my focus was on the Budgiedome music. My headliner for the night, John Elliott didn't make it. I found ot later that it wasn't the weather, it was his girlfriend. She got sick and he decided to put her needs first. Luckily for us the next act up that night was Emily Elbert. She was staying with the camp across the road from us and I ran over there and asked her to come over early and play for us. She agreed and brought her friend Ali Rapetti. Emily was amazing and put on a longer set than planned. Not only that but she told me when I brought her over that I had to make Ali play, so I did. Emily was right Ali was great too. Our next act, official FOB (friend of the Budgiedome) Phil Henry didn't make it up because of the rain. He called me to let me know. Despite all that the night was a musical success. Claudia Nygaard was the last scheduled performer and she did her set and the people that signed up that day.
I have to learn how to write a compact entry. I'm on page 3 and still on the first day of the festival. I'll have to pick things up if I want to get some sleep.
The camp that Emily was staying with was from the Steeple Coffeehouse, my new best friends. They were the friends and family of Joe who books the coffeehouse. Let's see who I can remember, his wife Emily, her sister Sarah, Sarah's boyfriend Drew, Emily's friend Katherine, Joe & Emily's babysitter Amanda, and their kids. There were others but that's way more than I usually remember. What's the secret? They fed me breakfast. Like I said, meeting people is the best part of Falcon Ridge.
I'm not going to go into detail about the rest of the festival. Friday went much like Thursday but the rain was even worse. They had to close down the Main Stage and moved the music to the volunteers dining tent. I never made it down to he Main Stage that night. I did see quite a few of the emerging artists. I got my press pass and got some great pictures from the photographers pit. I watched some of it on a tarp with Chris, Paul, and Brian, Pat, & Katie, aka We're About 9.
I checked Lost & Found but they didn't find my keys. They weren't in the WFUV booth. Tribes Hill didn't find them. I still didn't panic. The people at the Lost & Found were optimistic.
The rain that night was so bad that as we were sitting in the Budgiedome someone said, "how long are we going to pretend that musicians are going to show up. A little later who walks into the dome but Abbie and Anthony. Amy Speace couldn't make it but we knew we'd have music. We ended up having a great evening of music. My anxiety about my keys was drowned out by the joy of the Budgiedome. We had cancellations we had walk-ons and it worked. There was music to 4:30 in the morning.
On Saturday I saw more music on the Main Stage, Tracy Grammer, the Most Wanted Song Swap, during the day and Janis Ian and Girlyman at night.
I got lots of great pictures and hung out with my other photographer's pit friends, Jake, Jayne, Kathy, and of course Chris.
During the afternoon someone from AAA came up to help someone get their keys out of their locked car. I asked him to open my car keys out because I had come up with a plan if I couldn't find my keys. I'd get a friend to drive me home on Sunday after the festival then more difficulty, have someone drive me back to Falcon Ridge with the spare car key I have at home to get my car. How amazing are my friends? I was confident that if I could find someone that didn't have to work on Monday I could find someone to take me back. I was right. Chris said he'd do it.
That proved unnecessary. I've been wearing my fanny pack since I can't use my left pants pockets. I meant to look at that as soon as the key was missing but for some reason I didn't. The added step of taking off my sling before doing things keeps interrupting my thoughts. When I looked I found the key at the bottom. Hallelujah! So that is my idiot story. I spent the weekend going nuts and driving everyone else nuts while I was carrying around the key the whole time. It isn't easy not having a brain.
Sunday's drama revolved around getting my car out. Their had been so much rain the roads were pure muck. I did what I could and stuck my camp so I'd be ready when the roads were. Every year Paul and I help each other break our tents down. It is not only faster and easier than doing it ourselves but I find it a bonding experience. It's our annual dance.
Ali and Emily tried to make their way out before I did. Emily and I walked out the path to see how it looked. I did that last year so I told her the tricks. When we got back I was talking to Ali when our neighbors said, "our father just drove straight out this road with no trouble" It's a straight trip so they could see the whole thing so we decided to try it. Ali drove and I road shotgun and navigated. We didn't have quite enough speed up when we hit a bog. We were totally stuck. We got some help from Steve, Paul, and some others but couldn't get it out. We spotted a tow truck and flagged it down. He was for AAA and said to call them and they'd put them on the queue to be rescued. We just had to move the car a bit to a place he could tow it from. I couldn't push because of my arm but they couldn't get it going. I then tried to use my head, well actually my other end. I turned my back to the car and pushed with my tush. That wasn't enough to get it going.
We made another attempt with me driving as I'm more experienced at driving out of mud and snow and ice than Ali. The trick is to give it as little gas as possible. Once the wheels spin you aren't accomplishing anything. We were able to get to move it to a towable position and the truck came back not that much latter.
Enough people had cleared out by then that I decided to make my own exit driving over where the tents had been and the grass kept the ground from turning to muck. I got a rush at the end when I raced through the new path through the uncut high grass at the end to get enough speed up to cross the bog right before the exit. I made it! I then moved my car to the day parking lot and went back to the festival. I had another idiot moment then. I had packed up all my stuff but my backpack with my camera and things I needed that day. I had to walk back to the Budgiedome to get it.
That meant missing some music I wanted to see but there was nothing I could do. I caught two workshops, It Takes Two and Torch, Twang & Troubles. Amy Speace was in that so it was on my must see list. She was also of course in the Most Wanted Song Swap as last year she won the Emerging Artist Showcase.
After that I said goodbye to anyone I could find and made my way home. I made my annual visit to the Chief Martingdale Diner. I love the food but the real joy is the indoor plumbing. The ride home was easy but I had to block a few blocks away and of course there was torrential rain as I walked back to my apartment. It stopped right after I got inside.
Now I have to get ready for tomorrow's trip. I'll write more when I get my photos edited and up online.
There is one more thing I have to write. I planned this when I was at the Festival. I always talk about how happy Falcon Ridge makes me but the joy isn't unalloyed. There are always times when I am overcome with loneliness and depression. Part of the problem is that even though I have a zillion friends there, they are not there with me. There is my tarp, not ours. I'm the only one of the Budgiedome Crew that wants to spend a lot of time watching the music on the stages so I usually do that myself. It's always "what am I going to do next," never we. It didn't help that this year I was felt like I was a burden on everyone because of my arm.
The loneliness and depression always pass. It is my favorite 5 days of the year. It is where I get my feeling of community. I talk to my friends and I talk to strangers, and they get it. I run into someone that I not only know but want to talk to and that wants to talk to me every few minutes. At one point I felt rude because I was doing Budgiedome business and as soon as I was done with one artist started talking to the next who walked by without giving the first a proper good bye. I apologized when I caught myself doing that. She totally understood and was nice about it.
I love that I get to be involved in the Budgiedome. One of the musicians told me how much he appreciated that "People do all this work and spend all this time and money, to be wet cold and miserable and have the time of their lives."
I love that musicians will come and play for us for nothing but the allure of an appreciative audience. Yes some do it for the exposure and to get people to vote for them in the Emerging Artist Poll but some are big enough to not need the exposure and some aren't ever going to be in it. At the end of Saturday night after everyone had left but the Budgiedome crew and one outside Brad Yoder came by and sang for us. He's played the dome for years. There was no one to win over. He had already played on Thursday. That didn't matter, he just wanted to make music for people.
The Budgiedome crew is amazing. Steve put up the Budgiedome all by himself this year. That's a lot of work. He and Lori buy everything we need and bring it up there themselves. Paul is our Emcee and stage manager. He researches all the invited performers for his introductions. He keeps things moving. He handles the people that sign up to play at the festival for the open mics we do at the end of every evening. He and Steve are Eagle Scouts. The way I can put it is, "They can do things." Lori gets goodies for us to give the artists and runs the bar and makes the coffee and keeps things running smoothly. She helps me get over my bad spells. They are all the best. They give me the best time I have every year.
Now I'm really going to pack and go to bed. I'll update again on Saturday.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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Horvendile July 28, 2009
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