Day 1--Friday
Kids:
So this is a story about kids. Some really fantastic kids named Miles, Mike, Marissa, Allie, Josh, Alicia, Joe, Daugherty. There were others too, and you were beautiful and I regret not remembering you well enough to call you out.
I don’t suppose it’s completely accurate to refer to them as kids, but as an old man, pushing 52, I can take a few liberties…and I figure I’ve been around long enough to refer to 24 year olds as kids.
Miles, Daugherty, Alicia, Josh, Allie, Mike (in red in the background), Marissa (in grey next to Mike) in the usual spot, slightly stage left, about halfway up the hill:
What I found over three days, was that these kids were terrific kids, and terrific adults…and frankly, what struck me even harder, was how entirely comfortable they were in their own skin, and how much more evolved they seemed to be (compared to me and my generation) at living and being and caring for each other.
The story is also first and foremost about fun, and the fun is young and free and unlike anything I experience in my other life as a late-term, anxiety riddled, baby-boomer. I have to thank this group all right up front for accepting and befriending me for three of the most memorable days I’ve spent in a long time…
A Stranger in a Strange Land:
Clearly, an old man among kids runs more than a few risks. He asserts himself and he becomes at best tedious and at worst an asshole. He tries to fit in, and he becomes at best ridiculous and at worst a poser.
I understood the risks early on—months ago actually-- when I planned to travel with my youngest son Damen, and his friends James, and Mason, for all three nights of the annual Dave Matthews Band Labor Day concerts performed over the spectacular Columbia River Gorge.
The Gorge at Sunset on Friday night. This is when it all begins. This is also my new cell phone wallpaper. Dave comes out and opens with “Big Eyed Fish”. If you are a Dave fan, you are alternately a bird, a fish, or most often a monkey.
The Yeats poem “Sailing to Byzantium” (a favorite) came to mind—the opening lines:
“That is no country for old men. The young in one another’s arms…”
(Poem: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1575/
Interpretation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_To_Byzantium )
“The young in one another’s arms… Mike and Marissa on the hill on Friday night”
Still, I had committed. At minimum I was there to chaperone Damen, James, and Mason (laughable in hindsight) and there was always the music…more on that later as well.
Miles was honest and cautionary right up front. “Look…I’m just going to be there with my friends. We may run into you once in awhile, and that’s okay. The place is huge. We may not be anywhere even near you.” I knew right there that I was on notice, and I knew I was expected to tread gently when I came close to that camp.
My strategy was simple. I would adopt the Jane Goodall approach to chimps. After all, this was Dave. To be a monkey is cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall
I’d approach carefully and above all try not to get in the way or insert myself awkwardly where I didn’t belong.
As it turns out, my whole attitude and expectation was ridiculous, and comparing what actually happened to any sort of anthropological observation of primates would be stupid and downright insulting to the kids (if calling them kids is not already too insulting).
It’s not like Haiti:
How does one describe the Gorge “campground”?
As we all walked back in the human river, in the dark, after Friday night’s performance (it’s a good mile plus walk at around midnight)
The mile + walk back and forth between camp and the amphitheater is part of the ritual and tradition. Joe (drinking kool-aid), Marissa, Mike, Miles, and Damen make the trek here.
I was struck by the sprawl of tents and RVs and I said off-hand: “This looks sort of like Haiti after the earthquake…” which was both insensitive and inaccurate as it turned out.
Mike was walking with me and immediately said: “No its not. It looks like it a little bit, but it doesn’t smell like it at all.” Mike is an EMT and I remembered hearing that he had actually gone to Haiti after the earthquake to donate his time and skills as an emergency service provider. Remember what I said earlier about these kids being better adults than we are.
Mike described a sobering picture of the local river in Haiti that sounded like a river in great pain. But with characteristic good nature, he allowed me to laugh off my mistake and suggest that the campground was just like Haiti…except for the smell, and the fact that everyone here was happy to bliss, full of Gyros and Sausages, generous and kind to each other to a fault (we were all Dave disciples after all…and that’s just how it rolls) and in various states of self-initiated mental adjustment.
We learned on night 1—Friday night—to take orienteering seriously. As we returned from the performance, there were 7 of us together and it was clear that none of our boy scout instincts had not been strong enough when we left camp earlier, and that the landmarks we relied upon (The F1 porta-potties) were themselves a proverbial needle in a haystack.
After 15 minutes of real wandering in the dark amidst RVs and tents that truly all looked identical…I think it was Marissa or Allie who finally found a bread crumb of some sort that led us to our spots.
After that, we all committed the route to memory as a sequence of markers:
- Enter the campsite at the General Store
- Proceed to the metal scaffolding where the portable showers were
- Look for the 12th man flag on top of the Washington State Cougars flag and veer right up that alley.
- Look for “The Who Flag” (a British Union Jack superimposed by the black logo of the band of Moon, Daltrey, and Townshend).
- (If you are too far left—look for the “Pearl Jam” trash can and cutover on that alley)
- Just up from the Who Flag are the F1 porta potties and then you’re home free.
“The Who” flag--our penultimate landmark, as seen through the windshield of my van on Saturday morning. As you can see, mornings tended to be a bit chilly and breezy?
But again I get ahead of myself, because I have completely skipped Friday night with Dave and his band, and it will simply not do to EVER skip any evening with Dave and his band.
Location, Location, Location:
As it turned out, the expectation of separate campsites never materialized as Mike, Marissa, and Allie waited an extra half-hour for Miles, Damen, and me to arrive, so that we could all drive into the campground bumper to bumper and set up housekeeping in adjacent campsites.
Joe, Miles, and Damen enjoy the intimate proximity of our adjacent camping spaces. They refresh with an icy cold 7-up.
People who actually camp recreationally may find the Gorge “campsites” a bit congested…sort of like a big sloped grass parking lot interlaced with crushed rock paths shared by RVs, Cars, wandering vendors selling recipes with caveat emptor ingredient lists, and all manner of portable game configurations. You park side-by-side with enough room for your car, a tent, and a little bit of room to set up a canopy or a few portable tables and chairs. This is home for three days.
People here love Dave:
Before we go any further here, let’s understand a few basics about Dave Matthews and his band.
I was only 8 years old when Woodstock happened and only 10 when the Stones played Altamont Pass and injuries and mayhem followed. I never saw the Dead play live (oxymoron) and I only got barely into Phish and again never saw a live show. So I admit up front that I am far from Cameron Crowe as a rock-and-roll journalist and traveller. But even so, I will go out on a limb and speculate that none of those events could hold a candle—literal or figurative—to a Dave Matthews Band concert—particularly the three-night love-and-chill fest that happens every Labor Day at the Gorge.
Miles set me straight on this early on after we arrived and he swept his arm out at the sprawling campsite and said “…the thing is, they are all here because they love Dave”.
Truly—I cannot think of an individual other than Nelson Mandela who inspires such an enormous circulation of positive energy between himself and the bazillions of people who adore him as does Dave Matthews.
Here—thirty thousand people have paid roughly Three-hundred bucks apiece to watch and listen to him play for three consecutive nights. And the thing of it is, they all love him so much that he could get out on stage and open with “Puff, the magic Dragon” (in fact, a lot of the crowd indeed does open up with Puff, the magic Dragon—but that’s a different use of the term) and everyone would look around at each other and say—“hey, that’s pretty cool”—and then out would come the flip cameras and glow-sticks and we’d be off.
But the thing is, Dave doesn’t have to open with Puff—because he has a catalog of scores of the best songs that have ever been written, and most everyone in the crowd knows all the words to ALL OF THEM!
Sing along with Dave. When you listen to bootleg and download recordings, you can often hear the crowd singing along with every word to every tune.
I made it a regular question of the strangers/new friends that I met over the course of three days to ask them this: When Dave comes on to play, roughly what percentage of the songs in the set are familiar to you. Easily 80 percent of those that I asked answered the same thing: “All of them”.
So—the days of the week are used generically to refer to a given performance—in this case—Friday Night, Saturday Night, and Sunday Night.
Friday Night:
Allie, Marissa, Mike, Joe, Damen, and Miles assemble for a picture at the point of no return, along the walk from the campsite to the Gorge. From this point on beer is no longer free and instead costs 9 dollars.
Since all of the performances are wondrous, they are talked about in terms of subtle differences of character rather than in terms of “good” or “bad”. Friday night is generally known as exploratory and experimental as the band works their way into the energy of the weekend. Saturday characteristically is a high-energy free ride from the downbeat. Sunday then tends to stretch into long jams, giving Dave’s voice a bit of a rest and letting the band extend into twisted paths and permutations of playing off of each other.
For purposes of memory, here is the set list for Friday Night:
- Don't Drink the Water
- Squirm
- Proudest Monkey
- Satellite
- Seven
- Pantala Naga Pampa
- Rapunzel
- Sweet
- Out of My Hands
- Lying in the Hands of God
- Shotgun
- American Baby Intro
- American Baby
- Funny the Way It Is
- Stay or Leave
- Crush
- Shake Me Like a Monkey
- Tripping Billies
- A Whiter Shade of Pale
- Time Bomb
- Grey Street
I left the kids at their usual place on a blanket on the hill…
Allie and Miles throw down a blanket marking our spot on the grass while Marissa and Mike helpfully watch…
And first Damen, then I went on walkabout. (I never saw Damen for the rest of the evening until we fortuitously ran into each other before we all got hopelessly lost in the campground after the show).
For a critical musical ear, the sound gets much better as you weave toward the stage, and I spent the rest of the evening squeezing my way down the hill and into the pit by the stage.
Aside from a noteworthy version of “Rapunzel” it felt like the band was finding themselves, particularly on a meandering minor chord jam on “Lying in the Hands of God” where Jeff Coffin riffed up and down and around for quite awhile before catching fire at the end and delivering the goods. The thing is—they always delivered the goods.
The band hit stride with “Funny the way it is” and then took you on a heart and soul ride with “Stay or Leave”. Somewhere in and around there was a spectacular jam on “Crush”. All of the tunes were right in Dave’s lyrical pocket for irony, digging the experience at hand, and the painful choices associated with trying to love someone and commit to them—or not.
On our way home on Monday, Miles said: “I don’t really even remember Friday night right now. It kind of went by in a blur.”
I do remember Friday night. Friday night was flat out fabulous.
Day 2--Saturday
Reflection:
It is 8:13 Saturday morning. I’m in a sweaty fly-fishing T-shirt sitting in the passenger seat of my van.
My van looks like this:
The lone remaining seat in the back is occupied by beer.
This was my bedroom last night.
When you camp at the Gorge for Dave over Labor Day, night and sleep are not something that you anticipate or enjoy, they are just something you get through. It is midnight before you get back to your camp. And you are starving because Hot Dogs cost nine dollars and you are parched because water costs four dollars. You don’t want to know how much beer costs. Besides, when you get back to camp, finding beer isn’t exactly difficult to do.
But you don’t want beer. You want sleep. And the pulsing and throbbing sounds of Dub Reggae blasting from the monster speakers in the doors of the red Toyota two spots away may make that difficult.
No problem--camp rules—quiet time from 2 AM to 8 AM. At home I’m usually in bed by 10:30.
Three rows of cars ahead of me, the morning desert wind is blowing the “Who” flag sideways.
As far as I can see, there are cars, and tents, and beautiful young people with scraggly hair, cigarettes, and bags of ice.
A football is already wobbling back and forth a ways down to the right.
Why are we all here in this tie-dyed recreation of a refugee camp?
That’s right…we’re here because we love Dave. And indeed we do.
I do not dance. I am a tall and ungainly man with big-feet who used to have an okay hook shot, but I do not dance. Except at Dave—where I go off by myself in the midst of 30,000 understanding strangers who are flinging phosphorescent boomerangs, and I dance like a fool. (Actually, it’s more like hopping back and forth foot to foot). Nobody minds. They are too busy singing and dancing themselves.
So I dance like a monkey. Like the “Proudest Monkey” which Dave played last night? As though someone were “Shaking me like a Monkey” which Dave also played last night. Where else can you hear two Monkey songs in one evening—when you know the Monkey reference is about you--and about everyone else there. That is the point.
The coherence level among my 30,000 friends is variable, but despite having totally left the building in terms of rational acuity, this one fellow dancing next to me in the pit in front of the stage was able to nail every word, phrase, and cadence of “Shake me like a Monkey” as though he wrote the tune himself. No small feat as those who are familiar with the tune know.
I like a good high five, and almost no celebration is too small. At the show the previous night, I probably had a score of good high fives. The reason? Dave was playing whatever tune it was at the moment. It didn’t matter. Small victories were everywhere for everyone.
With one exception: Right about when my aforementioned friend completed a perfect chorus of “Shake me like a Monkey” I whirled around and came face to face with a friendly looking gal, and I hauled off to give her a big old high-five, and she ducked and cringed like I was a Sasquatch with a club. I felt so bad. It is against the karma of the place to cause suffering, and I had scared this poor woman out of her wits with my high-five. Oh well. Even the reach of Dave cannot fix everything I suppose.
Tent City and Cave B:
So this morning, Saturday, I wake up in the back of my van with first light of day, smashed up against my side door because the hill I’m parked on is at about a 20 degree angle, and I’ve simply rolled into the wall of my van in the course of the evening.
Don’t set your bed up at home on a slope sideways:
My head is throbbing (more beer than I am accustomed to happened yesterday) and I somehow find one of my three stashes of Ibuprofen and chew up a few pills.
I need to move. I need exercise. But there are no tennis courts in camp—surprise. So there is really only one thing to do.
Run.
The bright sun shining through the van windows wakes me at god knows how early (there is no shade at all in camp except the canopies you bring)
Miles, Allie, and Joe erect the canopy that would separate us from the Gorge Sun for three days:
The whole camp was still asleep…or passed out…
After marking my landmarks out and cutting left at the Pearl Jam trash can, I pass the mobile showers (still not a big line…note to self: shower later today) and spin downhill out of camp and onto the access road running through a vineyard.
It was windy like crazy up the hill, but down here it is already calmer and I can feel in my legs that this morning run is a good idea.
I have just barely enough charge on my phone to play tunes in airplane mode, so I dial up my collection and hit shuffle. I rarely listen to the tunes I collect as I am generally engaged in scavenging for new tunes to collect--but at an event such as Dave, I want to wallow in the best of what’s around (pun intended) and listen to the best of what I’ve got on disc—and see what spins up this morning.
At times like this, I feel almost new age, like the world is completely purposeful and harmonious—like everything happens for a reason including the songs that shuffle up to the surface of your playlist.
So this is the list that ended up covering the run. For reasons beyond description, it was a perfect list in a perfect order. (Youtube links included below)
Prayer for Spanish Harlem—Jackie Greene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITSGTPdeYZc
Can’t you See—Marshall Tucker Band
Superman—Lazlo Bane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQjFHxJ9IKs
Beautiful World—Colin Hay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe3RqgnXaT4
Hey Girl—O.A.R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKo9Sj1Ndr8&feature=related
Happiness—Alexis Jordan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23xW1kUtAY
Looking Forward—Crosby Stills Nash and Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzkL7R0-WTc
Wait for It—Jed Moffitt
http://www.jedmoffittmusic.com/audio/Wait_For_It_hifi.m3u
The General—Dispatch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3JjlkfX5Gk
Little Lion Man—Mumford and Sons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E
Champagne Supernova—Oasis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3C7DECI0jU
Sure, sure—Alexis Jordan right…candy pop right? What’s it doing at a Dave show. I’m just saying…that’s what came up, that’s what I listened to, and it worked. She sounds good. It’s a good tune. Besides…that’s what really came up, and it wouldn’t be honest for me to delete that tune just because it made it look like I listened to candy pop (which of course, I do).
A few hundred feet outside the camp entrance, the scenery changes. I’m greeted by cows, green pastures, grapes everywhere. It is beautiful and peaceful.
Up the road, I pass the general parking entrance, the VIP entrance, and a ways up further still there is this lovely line of tall green trees that extends perpendicular from the road all the way to the drop-off where lies the canyon and the big river.
The sign says “Cave B Winery”. My friend had just emailed me and mentioned staying at Cave B Resort somewhere out by the Gorge…and suddenly here it was. So I turned right down this immaculate road lined with picturesque apple orchards and immediately got the feeling that I had left Haiti and entered a mini re-creation of Napa Valley. The two worlds could not be any more different, and here they are connected by nothing more than a morning run.
As I ran down the road, I could look up and see the sprawling tent city up to the right:
That scene contrasts to this picture of one of the Cave B buildings from their website:
Now here is the thing…and believe it or not if you will. I’ve not stayed at Cave B, but I’ve spent plenty of nights in that kind of place. Undoubtedly it is relaxing and fine and the sheets are soft with a high thread-count and the wine is no doubt perfect.
But at that moment, I was so glad I was staying where I was and with whom I was in the tent city on the hill. At times in the early evening at the performances, I would catch a glimpse across the cyclone fence, of the folks having drinks out on the Cave B deck and I thought—that’s really nice, but don’t you wish you were in here where it’s really happening…
The General:
Continuing with the theme of “everything happens for a reason including your shuffled playlist”…as I finally hang a left on my run out of the Cave B compound…this song called “The General” comes up on my shuffle.
Now I have known about the band Dispatch for perhaps a month and a half. “The General” came up on a Pandora mix for Counting Crows I think.
I get better Dave tunes off of a Counting Crows mix than I do when I actually target Dave. I think that Dave is so unique that he’s a genre unto himself…sort of like Stevie Wonder or Hendrix. So when Pandora spins off of him, you get all sorts of strange stuff that is nothing like Dave and is often not very good.
I learned from Damen that Dispatch had their heyday a decade or so ago, had since disbanded, and subsequently reformed recently, and were going to actually open for Dave on Sunday night. Excellent…an opening act to look forward to for a change.
So as is often the case with listening to music while running, my concentration is higher and I listen more closely to the lyrics of “The General”
Well—to the degree that there is a point to this whole rambling blog, here it is: “The General” is the song of the trip—hands down.
I start listening and notice that the song tells a story about this old general who is leading his young men off to war. And they are getting up and getting ready to fight the big battle. But the General has been struggling with the choice to lead these kids into war, and he has an epiphany in the night and calls his young men together and says:
“I have seen the others
And I have discovered
That this fight is not worth fighting
And I have seen their mothers
And I will no other, to follow me where I'm going”
He basically says that we’ve got no business fighting these other people we call enemies, and he sends all the young men home before going to do his duty and going off to face the enemy alone to try to convince them not to fight. Before he sends his young soldiers off, he tells them:
“Take a shower, shine your shoes
You got no time to lose
You are young men, you must be living
Take a shower, shine your shoes
You got no time to lose
You are young men, you must be living
Go now you are forgiven”
Listen to “The General” on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3JjlkfX5Gk
On the studio recording, the tune carries on the beautiful tag refrain “Go now, you are forgiven” a few times before ending on a guitar riff. Live, on Sunday, up by the stage where we had a perfect view, the band went round and round with that refrain…
“Go now, you are forgiven
Go now you are forgiven…”
And the pit is just jammed with kids (and older kids) hopping and jumping round singing along—“Go now you are forgiven”
Take your showers and shine your shoes—you’re young and you must be livin—Allie clearly knows the words (video):
The “Go now you are forgiven” refrain on Sunday at the Gorge—featuring Allie in her bliss (look for the girl in the green hat) and Daugherty bouncing as per usual in a “Ronaldo” soccer jersey. Maybe a glimpse or two of Miles and Alicia as well (video):
Here are some other pictorial moments from one of the highlights of the weekend:
Allie is happy to see Dispatch I think. One of her favorite bands:
Dispatch—up close—Fun!
Daugherty and some old man in a Boeing tennis T-shirt and a goofy Nike visor:
Miles—holding a lifesize Daugherty blow-up doll. The whole effect is achieved with mirrors:
Miles, Alicia, and Daugherty—whirling to Dispatch…Allie in the background going “c’mon guys”:
Hearing that tune and those words at that particular time as I was rounding the Cave B corner and heading back up to tent city…to return and be with these beautiful young people who had allowed me to stay with them for this incredible three-day festival…the message from the experience couldn’t have hit me harder if an Angel came out of the sky and sang it to me.
OLD MEN HAVE NO BUSINESS SENDING YOUNG PEOPLE OFF TO FIGHT THEIR BATTLES FOR THEM JUST SO THEY CAN HAVE MORE STUFF!!!!!! WE DON’T NEED ALL THE STUFF!!!!!
It is criminal for us boomers to make any decisions that jeopardize these kids whether it’s sending them off to war, or fucking up the economy, or trashing the planet so that there isn’t enough good stuff and clean stuff to go around for them to use and share.
While we are down sipping hundred dollar wine on the Cave B deck, paying with plastic, and silently owning our own private sunset for all the fun that is—they are up in tent city playing Cornhole and drinking Keystone beer from plastic flamingo bellies…and I will tell you this: They love each other and they are having the time of their lives.
And they are having more fun and sharing more with each other than you and I (Mr. and Ms. Boomer) are doing on our best days.
Speaking of Cornhole:
Since I mentioned it, Cornhole gets its own blog section…as does “Flabongo”…but more on that later.
Not to be mistaken for the incredible Dave anthem “Cornbread” (which he coincidentally just flat out killed on Saturday Night)
“It soars inside my soul because of you
All that innocence that you inspire
You know you are as heaven intended you
Open up your lovely flower”
Excuse me there, that is the chorus of “Cornbread”. I was distracted for a minute. Did I mention that Dave just killed that song?
Cornhole is a game…perhaps the king of games.
Somewhat reminiscent of Skee-ball, but a bit more…slanted perhaps…There are flat plywood boards painted and propped on an incline with a small hole cut in the center.
Home-made bean-bags stuffed, I presume, with un-popped popcorn kernels are the projectiles.
You try to basically huck the small bag of corn into the hole (hence “Cornhole”) from…a ways away. All manner of subtlety comes into play as one must consider strategy—overhand perhaps? Or underhand? If underhand, then lower like a chip shot or more of a high drop like a lob shot? Spin? Perhaps. A little English on the corn bag? Maybe. Which way is the wind blowing?
But the most important Cornhole questions, I learned quickly enough, are these:
Should you account for counterbalancing a cup in your hand? Full or empty?
Joe demonstrates the correct form for tossing the cornbag while holding a cup of ice tea. Allie and Damen take note:
Are there pretty girls walking by who may want to play?
Joe and Daugherty scan the horizon for potential teammates. Over here guys--by the table!:
How do you look with your shirt off?
Mike and Miles have been to the gym recently…this is not a look that I ever tried to match:
Joe and Allie compete in a hard-fought Cornhole match:
500:
500 is a game of cards, tricks, bids, points, and many arcane rules about fine points of order. It can be a terrifically fun game, which it was on Saturday morning with Marissa, Allie, Miles, and yours truly.
You play in teams and try to either win your bid or set the other team…usual stuff right.
I think Allie and I went into this as the underdogs, and so as not to prolong the suspense and to get it right out of the way up front…we won!!!
Not that it was important to me to beat Miles and Marissa who are the world-renowned strategic champs of 500 but…
We won!
Did I mention that Allie and I were victorious in this particular card game?
The most interesting aspect of the game for me was trying to get to know Allie and Marissa a bit better, and continuing on the theme that had emerged for me in “The General” run that morning, I asked…really all three of the kids there this question:
“So…as you launch off into your post-college life-adventure here, are you generally pretty optimistic about your outlook for your generation, or are you concerned that my generation has pretty much made a big mess of things that you are now stuck cleaning up?”
That was a pretty big softball right down the middle of the plate, and after a furtive glance at each other, all of them pretty much concurred.
As a rule, they felt like they were optimistic people and looking forward to life…but they definitely said that they thought that my generation had made a pretty big mess of things, and that we weren’t helping matters much.
And so I’m back to my original assertion which is this: These kids are beautiful, and they don’t want or need us for anything in particular. They welcome us into their midst if we don’t behave too badly. They have much to teach us about being and hanging and taking care of each other and passing time and what is important to do now vs. later. All they would ask is that we not leave things any more of a mess than we already have.
I think this is a fair and reasonable request.
I have no pictures of the 500 game, so I will substitute this picture from Friday of a game that I had with Damen of “Magic—the Gathering” wherein, we are each powerful wizards with 20 life. We cast creature spells, sorceries, interrupts and instants. The turn starts by drawing a card, then playing a land, then upkeep, then untap…well…you get the idea. It’s not for everyone.
“I attack with the Prismatic Banshee and the Skeletal Orb!!”
Daugherty:
It is unfair to single out any one of the kids, but I will anyway.
Let’s consider Daugherty:
I had heard rumor that Daugherty would make an appearance this year. Sunday only.
Allie and I went for a run Sunday morning…back out along the Cave B course. The run was a big leap of faith for me because Allie was obviously a real runner, despite her legendary brownie-only diet that I’d heard about. She’s exactly half my size and looks like she could run Mt. Kilimanjaro on a whim.
We took the now familiar Cave B apple orchard yellow-brick-road and wound a bit further down than I had the previous morning--to the fancy lodgings that seemed to be buried into the side of the cliffs. And we found Dave!
Well—not exactly Dave himself. We found three good natured gentlemen in yellow Gorge Security T-shirts that quickly pointed us in a different direction saying that there was a lovely public path up yonder around that willow over there.
So I guess Dave wasn’t camping incognito in tent city. I think we all understand.
Allie and Jed and the big Columbia River—from a path behind Cave B resort:
So as Allie and I are running back out the Cave B road, first we are able to catch a glimpse of Rashawn Ross (the trumpet player for Dave) being chauffeured somewhere (confirming that the band was indeed residing there).
Then the next car drives by and pulls to the right of the road and a stick figure pops horizontally out of the passenger window and yells: “Allie!”
I look at Allie and ask “Daugherty?” and she nods, and we’re off up to greet them.
After brief introductions, we learn from Daugherty, who is in the car with Alicia and I think it was Josh, that they will be meeting us up at the campsite soon. They had tried to patronize Cave B for wine tasting (of course) but were turned away.
No description of Daugherty will do him justice. And some of my best Daugherty stories I cannot tell in a public blog.
It would be inaccurate to call Daugherty the life of the party. The party was already fecund with life before Sunday.
It’s just that when Daugherty shows up, it’s like the party goes on steroids. He’s like Tigger in Winnie-the-Pooh. He bounces. He struts and preens like a spider monkey (Dave would write a song about that). His physique like Baryshnikov. Remember the scene from the opening of “White Nights”?
Catch the opening scene from White Nights on YouTube—see Daugherty’s older brother from Russia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8w3XDmcKXA
All weekend long he posed and twisted and climbed people and tackled people…mostly female people…
I always ask Daugherty the same question when I see him: “Are you in love?” And he usually smiles and says something like: “Working on it, Jevon” or “Working on it, Jared” or “Working on it, Jeff”…
I will speculate right here that I believe he is currently in love, and I will say no more on the subject.
When we went down close to the stage to see Dispatch…Daugherty disappeared after about 30 seconds, and then a minute or two later, I see him inside the barricaded special admission section, and he is walking along chatting it up with a guy in a yellow Gorge security T-shirt.
My first reaction is: “Oh look, Daugherty is making friends with the staff?” (After ten minutes with Daugherty, you feel like you’ve been lifelong friends.) Then Miles shakes his head and says: “He’s just about to get himself kicked out of here.” And we both look at each other with the same terrible thought:
Daugherty can’t get kicked out…we’d all miss him too much.
Miles, Allie, Josh, and Alicia, with Daugherty in full…full…whatever you call what it is he’s doing…
Daugherty with Damen, James, and Mason—who Daugherty called “RJ”. None of us ever knew what RJ was short for. I had asked Daugherty earlier if he’d be so kind as to go get those three young guys hooked up. Daugherty came up to me with a serious face and said, “um, hey Jess, like you’ve gotta tell me what arena we’re talking about here…” He looked generally concerned…like what I was asking him was possible but wasn’t sure I really wanted what I was asking for. I said “no, no…Daugherty…not that…I just mean can you maybe go just get them out of their own world and maybe over here into the volleyball game?” Daugherty looked relieved and immediately sprang down the hill like a gazelle and inserted himself into the world of the 16 year-olds.
Daugherty climbing on someone on the Volleyball lawn:
Daugherty, Josh, Alicia, and Miles (Marissa behind them in green…Marissa was as serene as a Buddha during the shows) before some of us split off for the Dispatch adventure:
Flabongo:
The Flabongo is an extremely rare and endangered species. Ornithologists suspect that the Washington variety (which is the most rare) perhaps originated with the more familiar and populous plastic garden flamingo of Southern California.
Theories about the migration north focus on the recession of the polar caps in the last great ice age and the possible breaking off of a small sub-group of birds that made their way up to the Eastern Washington plain.
In any case, the only recent sightings have been at the Gorge campground in George, Washington. No authentic photographs of the bird are known to exist, but there are verbal accounts of recent sightings, often in pairs, often appearing out of nowhere in the heat of the middle of the day.
Flabongos are distinguished from their Southern California counterparts by the characteristic truncated beak and the distinct markings on the belly.
Volleyball:
I will always remember Joe going up to reject a spike with authority, and then I slapped him a high-five and said “Joe…that was the truth!” He loved that.
Here’s what’s important to know about Volleyball in tent-city:
It is prime opportunity for the boys to show off. And they look good…let me tell you. They look hot to me, and I don’t even roll that way. These boys have been to the gym. Miles, Mike, Joe, Josh, all of them cutting a fine figure that Rodin would have loved to sculpt in his prime—although, if he did it at the Gorge, I think the statue might be called “The Drinker” as opposed to “The Thinker”.
Muscular boys jumping and searching the horizon:
The Thinker as a monkey:
The other thing to note about Volleyball in our camp was this:
Teams fluctuate. I mean. There was some serious volleyball talent out there, but your team could be going great, and then all of a sudden you look around and you’re playing with 3 rather than 6 players. What happened was always the same. Sure enough, some pretty girl has walked by and fully half of the players (generally male) have quit and wandered off the court.
A skill that is not taught enough in modern volleyball is the ability to serve, set, and hit with only one hand. This is necessary, because as a player progresses in Gorge volleyball, he will, as in Cornhole, eventually need to learn to play while holding a cup or a bottle.
The other thing to note about Volleyball in our camp was this:
The girls have serious skills. It became clear early on that I wanted to be on Allie’s and Marissa’s team. Trade’s involving those two were a bad idea. They set great. They paid attention. And they didn’t do the disappear and wander off thing, so I could count on them hanging in with me for the whole game.
Which would have been important had we kept score…but we never did.
Marissa and Allie—in my opinion—the most reliable volleyball players in camp. I would draft them number 1 and number 2 if I was putting together a Gorge all-star team:
Saturday Night:
What can be said about the Saturday night performance? Superlatives fail. All the shows are spectacular. How do you critique? Who even wants to?
I think that those who were there on Saturday night will remember that the band came out and hit it with everything that they had from the downbeat of “Big Eyed Fish”.
Dave tunes can all be analyzed I suppose. But again, who really wants to analyze it when you could be listening to it one more time? The meanings are obvious after you listen to each song a few thousand times.
“A big eyed fish swimming in the sea…how he dreamed he wants to be a bird”. But one day, after thinking it might be a good idea to catch a big wave up onto the beach, the fish dies and Dave suggests that: ”...a fishes’ dream should stay in the sea…”
Ah…there’s no reason to explain. If you want to understand it you do…if you don’t it doesn’t matter.
“Bartender please…I’m on bended knee…”
As the searcher seeks the wine they gave Jesus that set him free after three days in the ground.
And Dave never gives it away as to whether finding the wine would be a good idea or not. But one can generally suppose with Dave that, if he were in the business of counseling, which he’s not, he might suggest that as with a fish being better off remaining a fish…a monkey might consider the virtues of just being a good monkey.
Beyond that, you get into all manner of magic pills, and wishing to be something you’re not…and you risk becoming a “greedy little pig” (which tune he regrettably didn’t have time to play this time around.
But about “Bartender” (which by the way, they absolutely killed for like fifteen minutes) we do know that this woman found the lyrics important.
Important enough to print herself a permanent sticky note on the underside of her arm:
The Saturday Night set-list:
- Big Eyed Fish
- Bartender
- One Sweet World
- You Might Die Trying
- #27
- Write a Song
- Spaceman
- Cornbread
- #40
- Dive In
- #41
- The Maker
- Cortez the Killer
- So Much to Say
- Anyone Seen the Bridge
- Too Much
- Jimi Thing
- You & Me
- Stay (Wasting Time)
Encore:
- Some Devil
- (Don't Fear) The Reaper
- Two Step
Day 3--Sunday
Brie:
Despite my rant about the bourgeoisie failings of Cave B, you can’t totally take the winery out of the boy.
So Sunday mid-day, when the sun started to really get after it and the shifting shadow of the canopy was all we had for shelter we had an hour of some good congregation and camp dining. Daugherty, Alicia, and Josh had arrived, accompanied by a retinue of other beautiful kids that I’d love to remember but can’t. And there was a pretty good sized crew…all scavenging around the public table.
I had the sense that supplies were starting to run a bit low. In fact, the day previous, I made a run into town and was requested to pick up “Hot Dogs or other type of Sausage…” along with as many bags of ice as I could carry.
It turns out that “Hot Dogs or other type of Sausage” were not as easy a target as one might suppose. The main gas-and-go operation there in town didn’t have anything you could stick in a bun, and they pointed me at this small Mexican market off to the left by the Espresso stand. (I picked up a couple of big mochas for me and for Damen who was with me. This roughing it stuff…for all my high-talk about peace love and communal good times…has its limitations, and I wanted my coffee).
The Mexican market was not exactly a how-to lesson in merchandising, but I eventually found a cooler in the back that had some, for lack of a better term…cured meat. Unfortunately, there were three big hungry looking people standing in front of the cooler in question, and one was holding what appeared to be the last package of regular hot dogs.
I said a little prayer which went unanswered, as after a long debate, the guy decided to keep the pack of dogs. So when it was finally my turn, all that remained in the cooler were these things called “Hot Links”
I didn’t feel so good about the ingredients list, but eventually I decided to snag a couple of packs as they seemed to qualify as “…other type of Sausage”. Beyond that, I don’t really want to know about what, as Dan Aykroyd said in Dragnet, makes its way into an industrial sausage press.
In any case, “Hot Links” seemed to be popular back at camp. As is often the case in cooking, hunger is the best sauce.
So when I looked through our cooler on Sunday morning, I realize that our Costco run was holding up pretty well, so I set up shop with an over turned box draped with a clean (I think) dish towel, and one of the removable seats from my van (which doubled nicely as camp chairs) in the shade…cooler to the right, an assortment of paper plates and plastic cutlery, and a nice long sharp knife.
What kind of strange food is this that does not come in a wrapper, can, or bottle?
I’d seen quite enough of what was available on the table…won’t go into that in detail here…lets just say that I got an artistic impulse and I arranged some of what was there into a composition that I called
“Still life--with hatchet, cake, cards, vodka, and chili sauce”
As an alternative, I started sending up plates of sliced apples, wedges of brie cheese, and some great red grapes—along with most of a bottle of cabernet-merlot.
It wasn’t long until I started hearing comments (mostly female) of “is that brie cheese?” It was a bit of a drift from the true spirit of tent-city camping, but I think the kids forgave me the indiscretion…at least the food seemed to disappear.
Damen, James, and Mason digging on the cheese and grapes and flatbread:
Alicia—and a bit of Fuji apple:
I followed the brie and flatbread up with a chaser of open-faced sandwiches—Old Mill wheat bread with roast beef, sharp cheddar, roma tomatoes, and a bit of Dijon mustard, sliced in quarters.
These also were not unpopular.
The disembodied hand reached silently for the strange unpackaged food as the opened bottle of cab-merlot boils in the heat of the sun…
A rare flabongo sighting:
Daugherty and Miles smiling at the delightfulness of fresh roma tomatoes. Mike and Joe in the background engaged in a Cornhole strategy session.
Enough with this Blog:
If you are still with me, I think you get the general idea. I can’t really separate Friday from Saturday from Sunday anyway.
Because “The General” evolved and stretched over three days, as did Daugherty, and Cornhole, and the music, and everything else.
By the time we plopped down on the hillside for Sunday night, we had all lost track of any care or concern we may have brought to this place, and we were pretty much blissed out.
Contentment reigned on the hill on Sunday night as we waited for Dave to come finish us off:
Oh, that’s right…there were still a couple of things that needed to be remembered:
Glow-sticks:
They are about 6 inches long and they connect with little connectors on each end…with about the suction and strength of a nicely fitting Lego.
There are many uses for a Glow-stick…your imagination is the limit:
On Sunday night, in a fitting goodbye, a glow-stick chain was constructed that was nearly as long as the amphitheater was wide. This chain was passed overhead, all the way up the hill, then back down, and then around the perimeter until it reached Dave’s attention and he said:
“Make it Longer!”
Seek-Up:
The last remaining Dave energy is leaving my system. It is already Thursday back here west of the Cascades, so the memory of the extraordinary weekend drifts into an elastic and hazy, fuzzy, story…and this blog must end, but at the very end, it should be noted that Miles and I have a theory that the answer to any problem you might have might be found in the lyrics of “Seek-up”. Here is the bridge, leading into the chorus. Take a look again, take a look again, take a look again…and I think you’ll see what I mean:
“Forget about the reasons and
The treasons we are seeking
Forget about the notion that your emotions can be
Wept away, kept at bay
Forget about being guilty, i am innocent instead
For soon we will all find our lives swept away
You seek up an emotion
And our cup is overflowing
You seek up an emotion,
Sometimes your well is dry
You seek up a big monster
For him to fight your wars for you
But when he finds his way to you, the devil's not going….ha, ha”
Here is how we reacted to hearing the opening chaos jam that led into “Seek Up”:
Sunday Night:
…Which everyone unanimously declared the best of the weekend. Of course this was the last set in our minds and in our ears as we left. We felt quite privileged to have all finally heard “Say Goodbye” played live.
When we finally realized that it would be “Say Goodbye” there was considerable high-fiving and good cheer among the gang. “Say Goodbye” dates clear back to the “Crash” album from 1996, and we’ve all long since memorized this tune, lived it, dreamed it, internalized it down into our bones, wished it was us, played it to death, and largely forgotten about it unless is surprisingly comes up on our radios or mixes as a rare surprise these days.
But for some reason, we’ve never heard Dave actually sing it…until tonight.
“Say Goodbye” alone (well that and the incredible version of “Watchtower” also) give Sunday the unofficial prize for the most memorable collection of music for the weekend.
“Tonight let's be lovers,
say you will
And hear me call
soft-spoken whispering love
A thing or two I have to say here
Tonight let's go all the way then
Love I'll see you,
Just for this evening
Let's strip down,
trip out at this
One evening starts with a kiss
Run away…
And tomorrow
back to being friends
Lovers...love...lovers
Just for tonight, one night...love you
And tomorrow say goodbye…
And tomorrow say goodbye…
And tomorrow say goodbye…”
The set-list:
- Everyday
- Seek Up
- Why I Am
- Alligator Pie
- Crash Into Me
- Say Goodbye
- Digging a Ditch
- Warehouse
- Raven
- Gravedigger
- Lie in Our Graves
- Loving Wings
- Good Times Bad Times
- Blackjack
- Granny
- All Along The Watchtower
Encore:
- Baby Blue
- Lie in Our Graves
- Halloween
- Thank You (for letting me be myself again)
Epilog—Tennis:
So, on the drive home, I am chatting with Miles as we head up toward the pass from Cle Elum, and “The General” comes up on the tune mix playing on the radio.
And I start telling Miles how much that song has affected me…and in truth, how much the whole weekend has affected me. And I thank him to the point that he is a little bit embarrassed I think.
Continuing to get carried away, I start telling him about the lyrics to “The General” and about the old general and how he called his young troops together before fighting the final battle and…
And Miles just smiles at me and says:
“Uh…Dad…I already know the words.”
Sure he does. As does Allie, and Daugherty and Josh and all the rest of them. No major epiphany for them this weekend. They live it. They make it. They just do it and dig it. I’m the one who came away changed.
I barely hit the driveway at home before I’m changed into tennis gear. In fact I’m twenty minutes late to a Labor Day match that I’d committed to play a week earlier.
There is no good way to transition from the amazing tent-city world I’ve been, to the regular world I am returning to. But if I have to choose any type of transition, it would be through a good game of doubles.
So I drive off to Klahanie courts and my friends Alex, John, and Joey, and we start our battle.
Alex and I are playing together first, and we are doing pretty well, but when it’s Alex’ turn to serve he has a bit of trouble and tosses off a couple of double faults, and he curses at himself and says “Hey Jed, sorry about that…I’ve just got to get accustomed to serving outside.”
And I realize that it is all I can do to stop myself from starting to dance and to sing to Alex:
“Go now, you are forgiven…go now, you are forgiven…”
