Bailen Putos

Photo of the Day

You know what that smile is all about ...

Curry Shack!

This is our festival food booth that we've been doing this summer ...

Blogs I Like

Thanks to Tea for the tip to Sorry I Missed Your Party (http://www.sorryimissedyourparty.com/) which is basically just someone trolling Flickr for random photos and then heckling them. Kinda like the Vice fashion do's and don'ts but for all of life.

Of course Stuff White People Like (www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com) is super solid and very educational. Self awareness, baby! No matter how hard it hurts!

And don't forget to check in with I Can Haz Cheezeburger (http://icanhascheezburger.com/) ... check the "Ninja Cat" video from today.

And for you Bend peoples. The random ramblings of Bend's party master, Todd Cover (http://thebenditos.blogspot.com/)

Dirtdance: Hippies. Lasers. Etc.

Stomp stomp stomp ... the dust forms a palpable haze in the early evening air. Dirt covers everything with a fine layer. It's impossible to really feel clean. The line for the showers is so long that it's basically not an option. The opening jams of Spearhead's headline set waft across the valley. Welcome to Dirtdance 2008. Laytonville, California's ostensible Woodstock type thing. Mendocino County. 5000 of the stinkiest, dirtiest, hairyest sideways wasted hippies you've ever seen in one place gathered in the time honored tribal tradition of getting together, getting dressed up and promendading (or stumbling) down the thoroughfare.

Three stages and three discussion-workshop-yoga spaces ... tons of people peddling their material and immaterial wares. Random hippies pledging fealty to various Native American slash Rastafarian slash Hindu worldviews. Tons of feather, leather, hemp, and DMT. I had no idea there were so many hippies out there. And how so many of them look and act like they just walked out of 1969. And this being their big party, there wasn't an existential connundrum in the place. Everyone was feeling VALIDATED. And that's not a good thing.

It's funny how even counter-cultural "movements" will tend to fall into an orderly line ... and display all the inherent characteristics of any human culture (and certainly animal ones as well ... check out my tail feathers!). What makes (some) hippies so annoying is that they seem to think that they're different (or better) than everyone else. Different flavor perhaps, but that shit's still ice cream. They're just the rednecks of the left.

Whatever. We came we saw we conquered. We sold a ton of T-shirts for Rise Up and we got some quality heckling in. I checked out some bands ... some vendors ... and we blasted out before the rush. The Redwood Highway is as nice as ever. The redwood country is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

The main highlights of the festival included being able to walk between Vibesquad playing and Digable Planets and stopping for a hot fry bread drizzled in strawberry jam and honey on the way. One of the main let-downs was Digable Planets, though.

Certainly ... Digable is one of the best hip hop bands in all of recorded history (though it's rumored that the Babylonians could freestyle like crazy). But ... unfortunately ... it was somewhat clear that they hadn't really been playing many shows (or practicing at all) before this gig. Perhaps they were just having an off night, but they were pretty loose. Their dance moves were mad rusty and they were wearing some indexplicably lame outfits. Not exactly living up to the pedestal that I had them on ... but I realize that's mostly based solely on the fact that I just love their music and nothing more really. But I had envisioned them as some sort of uber-humans possessing ... nay ... dripping with such cool that it would make your eyes cross if you even tried to look at them. But ... apparently they're just people in the end. Their attempts at hype-the-crowd hip hop were lackluster and out of character and they just didn't have the fire that some of the younger acts had. Understandable I suppose.

I skipped the Saturday "Prayer for Peace" which happened in syncronicity with the other 260 Earthdance parties happening around the world on the same day. I failed to understand how that would affect the powers that be and I grumbled that those hippies are too lazy to write their representatives for the most part but just delight at synchronized prayer. No small coincidence that they're not calling the shots.


I spent the afternoon reading Chuck Klosterman's "IV" ... a collection of essays about pop culture which was pretty fucking delightful wherein he deconstructs facets of American life like our obsession with pirates (considering that actual pirates are not nice people) (Sept 19 = National Talk Like a Pirate Day) and what bands are overrated, underrated, accurately rated, and why that's all silly anyway.

There was some good music ... but it was difficult to enjoy it many times ... big crowds of foul smelling hairy hempsters were distracting. At one point in the "Temple of Electronica" dome ( Worst. Name. Ever. BTW) some random woman came barreling out of the crowd in front of me ... proceeded to give me a huge bear hug, then a kiss right on the face. Not sure what she was aiming at, but it was one of those awkward kisses where one person is kissing but the other person is not. Her girlfriend (and her boyfriend) were tugging on her arm saying "come have sex with us" ... she turned to me and almost apologetically informed me that she had to go have sex. "Yeah, knock yourself out."

The rastafarians were in full force and effect ... rocking their adopted cult-isms about Marcus Garvey and Babylon and so forth. Jah ... etc. Mixing Star of David iconography with red-gold-n-green and some emperor from Ethiopia. Needless to say this seemed as strange as ever for suburban white kids to be doing this. But I doubt many of them have really considered it. It's all just about belonging to something and songs about weed.

Like the woman who was standing before a makeshift shrine to Ganesh ... holding her baby and waving the baby's hand at Ganesh and saying "hi Ganesh" ... "hi Ganesh" ... "we love you Ganesh". I just happened to be there looking for an electrical hook up and I chuckled as I squeezed in front of her and plugged my phone into Ganesh's power strip.

Overall the festival was fine ... ish ... if that's your thing. The area was suffering from a 60 year high drought which meant that the river was not even flowing ... in fact, it was mostly dry ... which made the hot dusty days a bit of a bummer. The food and vendables were stupid overpriced ... which was also a bummer. One thing that baffles me about hippies is their ability to just fuck you on the price of things and not feel bad about it. I tried to buy some ice from the festival ice vendor ... and they wanted $12 for a 20lb bag. Of frozen water. That shit *retails* for about $4 at the supermarket. Tickets were $180. Food was similarly jacked up. And nobody thinks that's antisocial behavior. They talk the love but they act like your average Moroccan hawker (or Regal Cinema) most of the time. Selling $0.15 bottles of water for $2. One dude was selling cart-based solar power rigs ... integrated 120w panels with a battery and charge controller and inverter. That setup costs about $500 max. Or $3,900 from this guy. So ... you're basically profiteering on people's desire to buy renewable energy. AND you think you're soooo "conscious". I love it. And when you come to our booth ... where we're selling t-shirts for less than anyone else and routing the proceeds to humanitarian efforts and you're going to try to get "deals".

Now ... it's certainly no fair to stereotype an entire group of people based on some bad apples ... but ... yeah. I just needed to vent, I guess. Hippies are certainly not even in the bottom half of unpleasant people. They're pretty awesome, actually ... but ... it's hard to have your face stuck deep in that smelly armpit without making a face.

Anyway it was a good time in Mendocino. Mostly because rolling with Nolan is just classic every time right down to the broken down on the side of the road in the mystery RV at 6 in the morning. Hell yeah!
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Blogging

People (and by that I mean like three or two people) have been commenting that I haven't written anything lately ... which I don't get cuz I don't get why anyone would read any of this, but yeah. Summer's been really busy ... but looking forward to that slowing down quite a bit. Need some quiet time.

Quick update. We did a bunch of festivals and parties this summer ... in various capacities, but mostly for me, in our food vending mode, which has been really fun and rewarding. The season culminated in the ELEVATE festival which we helped produce in downtown Bend which turned out pretty nicely and has mad promise for better things in the future. Mid August we did a trip to visit Seattle and my folks. (Big shout to Fontecchio and Philippa!) Then Burning Man ... followed by a few days in the ALF in Reno. We got back from Reno on a Wednesday, spent Thursday packing and unpacking and went right to the Sisters Folk Fest. Then more packing and unpacking and then off the next Thursday to Earthdance. Stoked for some downtime now.

The Economy

Dunno if you guys are watching the economic news ... but ... shit's going *down*.  We're going to be washing our clothes in a river on a rock ... no fucking around.  Fannie/Freddie ... AIG ... Lehman Brothers ... some of the largest equity funds in the world ... the most monolithic companies in the entire world ... going DOWN.  Bankrupt.  And bailouts bailouts bailouts ... all by the taxpayer ... or through a process called "monetization" which is essentially just printing more dollar bills ... which has the effect to fold the debt into a devaluation of the currency as a whole.

And the entire time ... the fucking Republicans are talking about how they should have another four years in the White House.  How fucking ridiculous is that?!  Just can't believe it.  Proof positive of some really messed up shit about human nature.

The fucking problem with Republicans (one of them) is that they talk about markets ... but when markets fail, they're all about handing out huge bailout paychecks to the richest hugest companies.  They talk markets but are really just oligarchichal socialists.  They hate welfare for the poor but love welfare for the chosen few.

We just took on 70 billion in AIG's debt ... same for Fannie May and Freddie Mac ... Lehman is going down.  Merrill barely saved by Bank of America.  Large swaths of the American economy being bought by huge equity firms from the Middle East and Asia.  War in Iraq siphoning unfathomable dollars towards a totally negligible benefit ... plenty of argument that the war has made things only worse for American security and good will in the world ... and shit's in full tailspin.  Hurricanes ... wars ... economic freefall ... yeah ... shit's gonna get real interesting.

Do you realize that the United States doesn't actually have that money ... and isn't anywhere near being able to make that money without massive changes in the entire nature of our culture?  Our debt is building and building and building ... and who do you think holds that debt?  MMmmm hmmm ... 

Lehman Brothers weathered the Great Depression ... they weathered the crash of Wall Street ... but this current situation has them down and out.  Just for some sense of the scale of what's going on.

I'm stoked.  I have my popcorn and I'm dying to find out where this shit is heading.  And I'm comforted by the fact that we basically deserve EVERYTHING that we're getting.  The American bubble is bursting ... no question about that.  And you have half the population not blaming themselves, but rather thinking that this is the Rapture coming (and they're stoked!) or some sort of punishment for letting gays get married.  We're FUCKED!!!

Burn After Reading

Saw that new Cohen Brothers flick ... Burn After Reading ... and totally enjoyed it. Basically ... it's a cross between Cohen standards, A Simple Plan, Usual Suspects, and ... Three's Company.

You know how in Three's Company the plot often revolved around someone (Mr. Furley!) who overheard something and misunderstood it ... and wierd circumstances happen ... confounding and deepening the misunderstanding and mystery ... resulting in the characters having conversations where one person is talking about something and the other thinks they're talking about something else. Classic. Basically the same kinda plot. Funny shit. And ... as always with Cohen stuff ... the characters jump off the page and all the players turned in inspired performances.  Brad Pitt was excellent.  Malkovich was scary as fuck.  

Plus, great cinematography and some really powerful scenes. Thumbs up. Not their *best* work per se ... but plenty worthy.