The Adventures of Me: High Sierra Music Festival, 2012

High Sierra Music Festival is a 5 day drinking binge decorated with so many colors and patterns you feel like you're on drugs just by watching the people who definitely are. It takes place in Quincy, California, a place which is deceptive in that it has mountains and trees yet is somehow scaldingly hot nonetheless. My friend Kelly grew up there, my friend Emmy works near there, and so I found myself driving 9 hours without any idea what I was getting myself into. The following are a few highlights, low points, and general observations.

1) Dear Bands: I am all about the coordinated dance routines that you teach us. That is fantastic, and it limits some of the dangerous elbow flailing and therefore minimizes the risk of black eyes (my eyes are elbow height). However, for the love of god, please keep in mind your audience when designing these dances: under no circumstances should a dance routine at a hippie music fest involve everyone in the crowd lifting their arms over their heads simultaneously and then wafting back and forth. This is a surefire way of overwhelming people unto unconsciousness via overpowering body odor.

2) A woman gave a man a free organic banana, but told him that it was only free if he ate it while making eye contact with a stranger. Said gentleman was dressed in a jean vest sans shirt, a pair of leopard print booty shorts/underwear (hard to tell which), a bandana, and high-top converse. I later found out he played the trumpet for the MarchFourth Marching Band. At the time, however, he was just some dude staring me deep in the eyes, deep throating a banana while posing in a way that emphasized what he had in his animal print speedo. And yet, this was not the strangest thing that happened to me while there.

3) If Crayola came out with a crayon color based on my current lack of tan, that color would be Raw Marshmallow. To all those who suffered itchy eyes and painful, blurry vision after spotting me in shorts, please go directly to the first aid tent to get treated for snow blindness.

4) A man told me that eating Palm Oil isn't vegan, because they killed orangutangs in order to clear cut the forest to grow the necessary vegetation to make it. I didn't have the heart to tell him that all agriculture kills animals in much the same habitat-reducing ways, or that I was not a vegan and therefore didn't give a shit. He also told me to check out the last five minutes of the Blue Fin Tuna Sea Sheppard episode because he's in it, and I decided not to tell him that I thought dolphins and whales should be killed until they got their shit together and started making weapons (I do not encourage laziness).

5) Apparently there are alternative physical therapists as well! I met a gentleman wearing a lovely burro necklace who works in Nevada helping people learn how to stand properly, and guiding them into appropriate motion... which I think was hippie speak for "I tell people to stand up straight, and they pay me for it."