Prep work

What prepares us for life? Eating a good breakfast, a stop at Starbucks, Kool-Aid, Wonder Bread? Sadism, monochromism, elitism? Nonpartisan, exertion, Capri Sun?

Can you prepare for a decidedly indulgent weekend by bulking up on decadence? By being in solid physical shape? Or does debauchery take less of a toll on those who have less to lose? How much is too much to lose?

How do we prepare, then, for change? How does a man prepare for his daughter's departure into adulthood?

Two of my guy friends have daughters now who are the same age I was when I went off to college. Seeing these men struggle with this, the letting go, makes my head spin. 

My grandfather's third wife died the week before I was scheduled to leave for college, a time zone away. So my mom stayed behind while Dad drove me off to my freshman year. It was just us – and everything imaginable shoehorned into that 1978 Chevy Impala – on that 8-hour trip. Thank God it was a time before PCs, laptop or otherwise, and before microwaves were small enough to fit in dorm rooms.

I'm sure the drive felt to me like any other drive across Nebraska at age 17: Desolate and predictable and conducive to a good, long brain massage. I was thrilled to be leaving so much behind, and thrilled to be entrusted with so much uncertainty.

Did Dad and I talk along the way? I can't imagine that we did. What would we have said? We couldn't exactly talk about the weather, because it was laid out there in front of us in a thousand miles of horizon. Did we talk about money? Yeah, right. I'm sure it was a very, very silent trip. 

A trip punctuated, after about six hours, by the mountains in the distance, and the thrill of knowing that after a lifetime of dreaming it, I'd finally BE in Colorado.

We found the dorm and did all that check in stuff and unloaded the car and I shooed Dad away. I'm sure I hopped on my bike and rode around campus and around town and was spared the altitude sickness that badgers me as an adult. I found the convenience store across the street from the dorm and had my first-ever bagel with cream cheese and sprouts and felt scared and victorious at the same time.

I never stopped to think about what that drive home must have been like for my dad.

Dancing barefoot in the rain

(Originally posted 07.25.08; revised to fix goofy line breaks.)

Do people train for festivals? Can you prepare yourself for four days of madness by, say, jumping up and down non-stop for 30 minutes three times a week? Shouldn't we be dancing like maniacs in our living rooms every Saturday night for a couple of hours? Just so that when the festival finally comes, we can be cool about it. We won't sweat, we won't ache, we won't get sunburned. Our calf muscles will be resilient and our bladders extra durable.

But it's the brain that can really take it all in. The brain can hack it. Your brain WANTS all the music you can feed it. My experience pales next to that of people who were at the GrassRoots Festival all four days. But in the course of two days, I saw – listened to, experienced, connected with – a dozen bands. And my brain could have taken  – no, it CRAVED – more.

There was some goofy crap. The self-absorbed and poorly named Sutras, for example.

And that donkey stuff – Cyro Baptista and Beat the Donkey. Holy Moses! Such glorious chaos. It was Arcade Fire meets The Electric Company. 

The best shows? Let's just go with my favorite shows.

The sweetest shows are always the ones where the musicians are having a great time ... and they're marveling at the fact that YOU'RE having a great time as a byproduct of THEIR great time.

That's the way it was with Balfa Toujours and with Eilen Jewell. Both bands were so fun, so sweet, so engaging. I can't wait to see them again. Can't wait to see The Lee Boys again, too. What a deal: I got to stand next to three guys in three different bands playing three different styles of pedal steel guitar. Lorrrr-dee!

And then there's Walter Mouton and his Scott Playboys. Walter, who's nearing the end of his career, has played the festival since the beginning. He was talking up his New Year's Eve show, and after that, he'll be sittin' still down in Louisiana, letting people play for him.

But the sweetest thing: He's playin' Saturday night, 7:30 or so, and a little-bitty girl, probably about 3, is dancing like little kids do, with a sense of discovery and abandon, right in front of him as he's playing his accordion. And he's grinnin' like there's no tomorrow, like this is what it's all about: Making people happy and setting a new generation up to carry it on.

There was a point in that very same tent when I thought, where AM I? It was the oddest sense of deja visite. It was this spatial blend of North Carolina and Colorado and California and all my favorite places, right there in the Dance Tent.

The best times were when it looked like rain and nobody else was dancing, down front or anywhere. So here's a neat trick: You lift the nearest construction-zone barrel, the orange-and-white things they use to cordon off space so cars and people stay separated. You lift the puppy up every so slightly and tuck your extra shirt and your purse or backpack underneath, and they'll be dry and mighty when you're ready for them.

Why are people afraid to dance in the rain? You've got nothing to lose. I saw the crew put fresh straw down over the mud puddle toward the end of the Lucinda Williams' show, so I knew it was clean. It's just dirt and water and straw, folks. The manure doesn't get into the straw until later, OK? Why are people so uptight sometimes?

Next chance you get, find your sweetie or a reasonable facsimile thereof and dance in the rain. Barefoot makes it all the better. It just might could change your life.

Of course, I feel bad for the nice gentleman wearing white denim jeans who was standing next to the mud puddle we were dancing in. I tried REALLY hard not to splatter him, I swear I did.

One last observation:

Thousands of people at this thing. Some you'll see more than once or twice. Sometimes you'll wind up next to the same guy at the next show. It's kind of cute – ahh, you again!

So, on my Day 2, who do I stand in line for the shuttle bus with, and sit next to on the bus?

Rainey.

What a treat it was to get to visit with him again. We were both pretty tired out, but happy as pigs in shit.

This whole thing was possibly the most fun I've had in New York since moving to New York.

Even getting a sure-to-be-budget-altering speeding ticket 45 minutes into the drive home didn't faze me. I was so mellow about it, I wonder if the cop just figured I was hungover.

Alas, the new Sam Phillips album will always have a bit of that "busted" taint to it, I fear.

It was so nice to give my feet a good, long soak when I got home Sunday.

And the calves go "Mooooo."