Tim and Me VS. Bonnaroo

Alternate titles: : Pilgrims in an Unholy Land and What I remember.

We woke up in Nashville at 6:00. It was the fastest I've seen Tim gone from sleepy/confused to excited back to sleepy/confused, although I'm sure it happens quite often when he has female company over.

All the gas stations were crowded with hippies except (shocker!) BP. It sucks what happens in the gulf...but not as much as it sucks being behind a bunch of hippies at a gas station. We pull into BP, fill up, get coffee and 8 bags of ice, and leave before the hippies at the Shell can even pull their cards out of their hemp wallets.

We hit Bonnaroo traffic around 7:20 or so. To establish myself as Alpha male, I throw on my Lakers/Fletch jersey (despite being warned by a Miss Abbe Wright that wearing jerseys at Bonnaroo is silly and unbecoming). The guys behind us notice my jersey and say they love Fletch. They are not hippies; they have a super hot blonde friend with them. I decide Bonnaroo is going to be alright after all.

Tim: "The girl driver in front of us is kinda hot." I look ahead to see the back of a brunette's head as she looks out the window. In my mind she looks like Alanis Morisette without the Canadianess. She turns around and has a soul patch. She is a he, and he looks like a mixture between Milhouse from the Simpsons and Anthoney Keidis (the RHCP singer) I immediately make fun of Tim and refer to the guy as "Tim's girlfriend" despite the fact I had thought it was a girl, too. In hindsight, the fact that their car had "boobs" written across the back should have been a giveaway that there would not be many females in the car.

Me: "There needs to be a word to describe guys that look like girls from the back"

Tim: "There is, it's called being a hipster."

It was around this time that we ran into a group that would terrorize us throughout the weekend...a despicable group that we would refer to as our "nemesises."

You see, Tim's girlfriend had a few friends in his/her car and they were with the group in the car in front of them. While stuck in traffic, one guy from the boobs car walks out and tries to haul one of those giant orange parking things into the car. He has a Jay Leno chin and a Bob Marley shirt on. I hate Jay Leno and reggae. I decide he must accidentally get hit by my car.

Then I remember all the advice I received about Bonnaroo...and by all the advice I mean everyone basically saying "Dawson, as a hippy-hating Republican with a Darcy-like social superiority you can't be rude to the dumb liberals just because all the weed they've smoked has destroyed their brains and turned them into smelly, anti-corporationy sycophants who'd fellate Obama if giving the chance." (At least that's what I assume people told me....I was too busy thinking about cleavage, speedboats, rum and/or when the lightsaber will finally be invented). To fight the urge to be myself (i.e. awesome!) I decided to embrace my inner-Matthew McConaughey: relaxed, chill, and not likely to bitchslap a white guy who likes reggae.

[Side Note 1: Tim recommended I should just act like Paul Rudd's character Kunu in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and to drive that recommendation home we did a shit ton of Kunu-quoting; the most frequent being "the more you do, the less you do" , "aw man you've got coral in your leg" , "hey look man if you get your leg bitten off by a shark are you gonna quit surfing?" and the mother of all Kunu quotes "Okay Monster Man!" No lie..."monster man" was said an average of 28 times a day. And that's a true statistic.]

[Side Note 2: Speaking of the deity known as McConaughey, I promise to finally put in writing my Tao of McConaughey that I've been bragging about for two years. Unless I got tired of this blog, and then you all have to wait for the book.]

I took a deep breath and ignored Leno chin....then two other guys exited the car. One was the size of a VW Bug (which explained why the car was so low to the ground), wore a purple t-shirt that probaly could have clothed a family of six, and gym shorts (not because he went to the gym frequently but because elastic is the only way he can get those torso-sized legs through a pair of shorts). He walks past and cordially (to his only defense) offers us a toke (I think that's how you spell that word, I don't speak pothead) of his joint. I don't smoke but even if I did I wouldn't have taken a hit, because anything coming from his mouth probably reeked of KFC. With the purple shirt on this guy looked like the offspring of Barney the Dinosaur fucking Harry Knowles (google his image for a laugh/fright).

Jabba's friend was roughly half his weight...so he was still really fat. Also, he was topless and had dreadlocks....a trifecta of pure awfulness. He, too, was smoking weed in public. You could probably take a picture of these two guys and it would be an effective anti-drug poster. If there was a God he (yes, in my world God is a he...he's also asian) would have thrown a boulder on the car. The only good thing about them was watching them try to run and catch up with the car when traffic moved quickly.

Anyway, Tim and I spent a good three hours ripping these people from the privacy of our car. We kept bumping into them throughout the weekend; seeing them in a crowd was awful...it was like being the Jews in the basement at the beginning of "Inglorious Basterds" (am I going to hell for that comment? What? I'm already going? Okay). The best part is, Tim and I freaked out everytime we saw them and I'm sure everytime they saw us they were like "Hey, it's those guys that were in traffic behind us. They seem pretty nice."

After miles and miles of country back roads we finally got to the entrance. Pulling up, one of the Bonnaroo staff asked us if we had any illegal materials in our car. We both said no and realized we were probably the only people there that could have honestly said "no" to that question (who says being an alcoholic isn't honorable?).

Once we arrived at our parking/camping spot we sent up the tent (which I'm proud to say covered our area, a good portion of the people to our left's area and almost 3/4 of the people to our right's area; that may sound bad but I read in prison you need to immediately display your dominance....that and my tent is badass).

With our Four Seasons of a tent set up, Tim and I sat out on our front porch (yes, the tent has a front porch...also the tent's name is Cougar! Ha! I should probably set it up outside of Jimmy Porter's one night) and had a beer. Then we had another beer. Had another beer. Had a Long Island Iced Tea. Had another beer. Debated between another beer or a road beer, before settling on both, and then headed out into the wild world of Bonnaroo.

And this is what I recall.

• Lots of girls walked around topless the whole time. But none of them were attractive. That is so not Raven.
  
• Best live act: Jay-Z. I don't like rap and I was sober and it was freaking amazing. His two hour set went by in what felt like half an hour.
  
• 2nd best live acts : Local Natives, the National, Stevie Wonder.


• Best song: Weezer did a combination cover of MGMT's "Kids" and "Poker Face" by Gaga; it shouldn't have worked but it did.


• I discovered that one of my superpowers [the others being drunk-speed and Wolverine-style fast-healing (as displayed by my speedy recovery from the body injuries sustained as a result of Free Vodka Hour at Rock Bar)] is the ability to get through any crowd to the front of the stage. I'm the Michael Jordon of crowd-navigating. And I'm not a one weekend wonder in this department; I've showcased it at Downs after Dark and Forecastle Fest....hire me...it will cost you one beer an hour.
  
• I also discovered Tim has a slight fear of horses, which (in addition to being flat out hilarious) lead to this conversation

Me: "I wonder what it was like when the first human being decided to get on top of a horse."

Tim: "Yeah. 'Hey, there's a wild animal....let's go jump on it."

Me: "I kinda want a time machine just so I can go back in time and see that."

• Which led to this conversation, and by conversation I mean I talked out loud and Tim may or may not have been paying attention.

Me: "That would be a kickass show. Me going back in time and seeing stuff for the first time. Me going back and seeing the first time someone got on a horse. Or me going back and finding the first white guy to put his hair into dreadlocks."

Tim: "And then you punch him."

Me: "Hahaha. Me going back in time and punching people who do things for the first time. Best show ever."

• Since it takes me a long time to get drunk my weapon of choice over that weekend was the Long Island Iced Tea, which Tim and I agreed would make another cool go back in time episode to see how the first Long Island Iced Tea was invented. Because it had to have been a guy with vodka, rum, gin, tequila, and coke, wondering what to make before saying "ah fuck it" and throwing them all into one cup. I salute that man.


• This one time...at the beer tent, Tim bought two beers for me and him and I did the same accidentally. We double fisted them and then proceeded to drink in this manner the rest of Bonnaroo.


• Kings of Leon and Flaming Lips (covering Dark Side of the Moon - hell yeah!) were playing on the same night. While pregaming for Kings, Tim and I got in an argument about who the villian should be in the next Batman. We kept arguing and drinking when, from a distance, we heard Kings starting their set. We never did make it but I don't really regret it (accept for when I heard them do the cover for that Pixies song in "Fight Club" which sounded amazing). I can see Kings live whenever I want, but the times Tim and I can bullshit about movies while drinking in Tennessee is probably limited to seven times. And yes, we made if for Flaming Lips and they were awesome (aside from Wayne Coyne's cliche political rantings which he says verbatim at every Lips show I've seen; I guess all his creativeness just went to music and not political ranting).
• One day I survived off only Long Island Iced Teas and Gyros.


• We brought a box of Franzia and then forgot about it. The week after I remembered we had it the whole time and relayed me disappointment to Tim who said "miffmurray@gmail.com: we could lose a whole day to slaping a bag of chilled wine, walking around campgrounds." Next year, Bonnaroo, next year...


• The night of the Kid Cudi concert is arguably the greatest tragedy ever. I won't repeat what happened but it involved a blonde Canadian, a puddle, Tim and I almost dying, and Gyros. It's like the Hamlet of sad music festival stories.


• Bonnaroo ended with Dave Matthews Band. How awful is that? I have nothing against Mr. Matthews, his music was awesome to make out to in the back of cars in high school, but to end Bonnaroo?! That's like ending your honeymoon with a handjob. A long....drawn out....painful....hand job.

In conclusion, Bonnaroo shouldn't have been fun for me (I hate live music, humidity, hippies, and not showering three times a day) but I had an amazing time. I think getting out of your comfort zone every now and then can be therapeutic and fun (that's why Bear Grylls is always happy). Also, having Tim Murray and a GINORMOUS (that's an actual word that means big enough to fit two dead hookers into) cooler stocked with booze helps, too.

This February when they announce the lineup for Bonnaroo 2011 I'll start recruiting more people to go because it was amazing. And because Tim and I need to use our experience from this year's to make next year's even better.

Like after Tim pointed out we could have played slap the bag with the Franzia:

me: "WHY DIDNT WE THINK TO DO THAT! be one of the top ten regrets of my life"

tim: "hahahaaaa this was our bonnaroo trial run think of it that way"

me: "bonnaroo begins"

tim: "yes"

me: "next year: the dark weekend"

tim: "thats a bingo"

2011 Bonnaroo can't come fast enough.