Harmony Festival @ Sonoma Fairgrounds

[Drunk Monk]

6/8-9/007
Blasted up to Sonoma on Friday because I had to come back Saturday since I had to be at this tournament Sunday where a lot of Shaolin monks would be. Got there well before 4:20. It used to be called Health & Harmony and it used to be a street fair, but last year, it was moved to the fairgrounds and overnight camping was added. This year, they dropped the Health. It's an eclectic mix of music, politics, new age, green and hippies. Dm managed to get escape before anything significant happened beyond watching people puke. There was an amusing incident with our electric cart. It failed when we were way out in the perimieter. Then we discovered that it would still work in reverse, so we drove it all the way back that way and no one batted an eye. People could just pass out anywhere. Saturday morning, Dm talked to some tweakers who had crashed out right in front of medical. Once they woke up, they started scouring the grounds for half finished beers.

Musically, STS9 was awesome Friday night. Big dancehall sounds in a quanset hut like building with cement floors - awesome for big base - rocked the heart of my bottom. Skanked 'til my hips were sore. Afrodesia was good - a friend has many friends in that band. They were heavily influenced by Fela Kuti and had two very amusing front women and a great female trombonist who wore an Anchor Brewery uniform. Umphree's Magee was satisfying, still capable of hairpin turns in their jams. There was some sound system I really liked because it was just a guy working a turntable, a standing base and a percussionist, but I didn't get their name. Politically, Amy Goodman got me all fired up, but stole a lot of thunder from Dean Kuchinich (who I admire politically). There were lots of good free organic snacks, which made for a perfect breakfast. Then some new age salesman spoiled it byconvincing dm to take a hit of vaporized pine oil. 'Cures 150 things' he said. Tasted like a urinal cake. Take my advice - Don't inhale pine oil - it's a gateway inhalent and could lead to horrid things.

The show got busy after Dm left, right after, in fact. Dm was very amused by that. The next day at the tournament, a Shaolin monk elder brother of Dm's asked 'why are your eyes always red?' :oops:

[Drunk Monk]

6/12-14

hitched a ride up on fry-day morn but due to a gps error, wound up at sonoma marin fairgrounds instead of sonoma, but that was totally surmountable and wound up landing around lunchtime which was a tad late for the great real estate grab but given that they camp rm in the stables where animals shit, that was no great loss, besides dm had promised to work fryday nite only in exchange for getting the fam plus a friend of t's in saturday (mrs dm had never been to harmony and dm would have shined it completely had it not been for her desire to check it out) so knowing that there was no nite krew and dm eagerly took the first nite shift, armed with only a sleeping bag just in case (but it was never deployed) but given the new harmony, there was a totally explosive potential, because it has swollen like a prostate tumor, corpulent and gristle-full with vendors, vendors, vendors, so many damn vendors, every person would have to drop a K or two for all of them to come out in the black, but dm knew there would be plenty of eager rm newbies wanting to try their consciousness at nite krew (in the end only one lone semi-newbie survived and it would be nurse nancy, rambo's wife - both decade plus rm vets - who would watch the sunrise with dm and all the others faded one by one as the night wore on - yes, it's a new rm, one that has little interest or appeal to a vet nite crew, besides all are storing up for next weekend at snwmf; case and point: there was a medical tent that required a ca medical card set up soley for the usage of medical patients needing to take their dose of medicine and no one - NO ONE - but dm ventured in, even just to inspect) nevertheless, the nite went well with dm spending most of his time in the medical tent (not the rm tent where the newbies peeked out at the freaks with wonder and amazement but stayed basically contained like domesticated pets, it was the aforementioned non-rm medical tent - my lord, a tent just for medical patients CALIFORNIA UBER ALLES!!!) and in the techno tribal hall, catching the end of k'naan, who was a tad too hip hop for dm's liking but righteous and authentic as a child of somalia, then nanda, which was amusing but not notable, then balkan beat box, which was an extraordinary example of base worship and as a follower of the religion of base, dm was very very entertained (what is it about writhing with a horde of semi-clad drugged out hippies in a dancehall after midnite? dm just can't get enough of that!) then random rab, which was also diverting, well ok, truth be told, dm had a difficult time distinguishing between all the late dancehall night acts beyond k'naan because he was too busy skanking his ass off and he's cheating now by looking them up in the wrinkled program (you'd be wrinkled too if you spent the last 36 hours next to dm's ass as his skanked about at a campout music fest) but don't be alarmed because dm held the rm fort too, juggling his volunteer medical obligation with his hippie fun, helping when needed, especially with two odd patients, both males who seemed a bit too dramatic for dm's tastes but perhaps that was because there was too much fun to be had and dm could see physiologically that the issues were more psychological than chemical so he thought lighter of them than he should have (getting older, so that juggle is less compassionate and more self-serving, especially when dm knows that he only has about 36 hours to get his satisfaction sated) like in the situation with one older gent who worked there but was eventually hooked up with kat - a lovely manifestation of a hippie chick in complete fulfilment of a name like kat with a sultry uk-accent to boot, like emma peel or a bond girl, so much so that when she rescued said tripper saying 'he's going to be tucked in in that kat tent!' dm quipped reflexively 'wait! i wanna go to the kat tent!' which makes a lot more sense at 3 in the morning and also knowing that dm has a soft spot for uk accents (but so does most of doom); the other patient being a young man with three cute girls, to which dm first thought, 'you're with three cute girls. this is not the way to get attention. man up!' only to learn later that the patient was recently a woman, now in transition to manning up having already had the mastectomy and dealing with the testerone being injected into his system (yes, dm felt badly about the man up comment after) both more lessons that dm should be more compassionate in future, and there was also some medical with a guy that flipped on his face riding a bike, an injury that cost him 2 and a half teeth - ouch - but harmony is the kind of show where dm literally dodges some chick projectile puking outside the dancehall, checks in with her, gets a smile and an 'excuse me' and let's her go about her business because she's totally lucid and just needed to vent and could now get back to the party and dm could tell from the look in her eyes that such was the case; it's also the kind of show where at 4 am, the new age hot tub sample is running and there's nekkid people in it, staying warm in the june chill (global warming inconveniently also means global dimming) or bathing in hippie soup (which is almost as repulsive as having to camp where animal shit) so dm walked that venue end-to-end, the whole damn fairgrounds dozens of times, only resting in not-rm medical tent where dm spent way too much time, but after dawn, dm felt a little laying out would be good so he crashed for a spell in the lovely harmony altar tent next to a horde of other sleeping patrons (people pass out/sleep anywhere at harmony) only to be rudely awaken after a few winks and told 'you can't sleep here. it's for meditation' - damn stupid hippie - wft is that about? and then in the morning, dm witnesses a 'year one' caveman-hippie with a brown soiled ripped tie-dye shirt and some weird hippie overalls only slung over one shoulder in true fred flintstone fashion, who scavenged a coconut from the garbage (there was a fresh coconut juice vendor who doled out the shells but most people only suck out the milk and leave the meat) so the cromagnonhippie cracks the dam coconut on the curb, then raised his arms in a paleolithic victory like the monkeys at the beginning of 2001 and dm just watches in amusement, shaking off the night over morning tea, thinking how much he enjoys such silliness, then the family arrived and lemme tell ya, dm can and will chase some maniacal tripper across such a campout all night long but trying to keep up with two 9-year-old girls in a hippie shopping fest like this for half a day was way beyond his ability, so he eventually got them to the bad boy's stage where they were holding a skateboard championship, a new attraction called the eco-cup, and zepperella was playing, another all-female led zep cover band (the other being lez zepplin and of course, heart) and they so rock it, with a drummer that's all a mess of hair and flailing arms wielding drumsticks so racously that even mrs dm, the girls and even bonham were surely amuzed (totally stole the show) then the final act before dm was to make his calculated escape, was his fav sierra leone refugee all stars, who began with an awesome traditional reggae set and managed to squeeze out some lite skanking from dm despite his being on his feet for the last 36 hours straight (except for some moments in the non-rm medical and the meditation tents) but when they shifted to african, dm was done and left before the set was done, despite mrs dm's instructions to just enjoy the set and meet them back at rm after. take me home, please, to which mrs dm graciously complied.

one the way out, t's friend looked dm in the eye, blissed out from the day of extraordinary real authentic hippieness and said 'you live a good life here'.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It always confuses me when the Pom Daddy posts on the weekend. Methinks he should have been Albatross plucking and wound up here. And as El Dingo once said, what about frickin paragraph breaks?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Damn hippies.

[Drunk Monk]

work here is chaos because our mag deadline is right at the same time as our tournament. my boss just had a gradndaughter this weekend and in some perverse need of attention, has ordered the reconstruction of our office. so beyond dealing with the tournament and the deadlines, i'm writing to the sound of power tools and the smell of drywall dust. she saw me and said i looked 'beautiful' referring to the nice strawberry moon tan i earned over friday and saturday, as i chased trippers in that crazy new age hippiefest that is harmony.

don't hate me because i'm beautiful.

[thatguy]

My daughter worked the fest all weekend, but managed to come down to $anta ¢ruz for my son's high school graduation. She sounded like she was having a fun time...

--tg

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Strawberry Moon Tan? Are you sure you aren't still coming down? Or going up? Have you checked Gigi's eyeglass prescription lately? Yes, I'm a hater, player.

[Drunk Monk]

shoot, i wish i had known. it would have been fun to meet your daughter. who knows? maybe that's who i was skanking next to in the dancehall...

what does she do for harmony? will she be at other festivals like snwmf this weekend?

6/7 was the strawberry moon. i work nite krew, so when i get tan, it's a moon tan. it's something i learned from morticia addams.

bottom line for music - check out:
balkan beat box
zepperella
sierra leone refugee all stars (but i've fawned over them elsewhere here)

[thatguy]

She works for Green Mary on the recycling crew. Not sure which ones she's doing this summer.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I know some of the Green Mary people. I once had to talk one of their crew out of a garbage bin at Reggae (was it Rising or on the River? I can't remember). Wait, now that I think of it, I'm not sure if that was Green Mary specifically. Should I just yell Kopf a lot and see if any girls look?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Yes, I think you should yell "COP!" as loudly and as often as you can at those hippy-fests. Please?

[Drunk Monk]

There's some honor among thieves. We've always had code words for potential cops since no one wants to bring the attention of the cops down on themselves.

I can tell you some of the old ones: "five oh" "six up" "i smell yeti"