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july 2, 2001.Ohhhh, this house is wonderful. I feel like I've just been welcomed back to the 20th century. We have just returned from our folk festival tired, dirty beyond belief, cramped, sore, nauseous & sunburnt. Was it worth it? God, yes. The drive down to Canso on Friday afternoon was so close to perfect that it made my heart ache. There was a sharp, clean, cool breeze chasing clouds as we busted east down side roads and highways, ever deeper into the heart of Eastern Nova Scotia. The road swooped in and out of rolling green hills, full forests, deep blue waters, mellow houses and crisp white steepl'd churches. It was landscape beauty in its raw, unadulterated form, and I never got tired of pointing & gawking. The ride was a good 5 hours, and by the time we reached Canso, it became apparent that Annapolis Valley weather (hot & sultry) was no predictor of Coastal weather. I was wearing brief jean shorts and a little t-shirt, perfect for the Valley heat wave. Somehow I had never thought to keep tabs on local weather, and we'd both packed lots of summer clothes. Biiiig mistake. It's not that we didn't end up wearing our t-shirts - it's just that we ended up wearing them 2 at a time under long-sleeved sweaters (one apiece, and we'd packed them more as a nod to my anal retentiveness than anything else). But before we even left the van, we needed to find a place to park for the weekend. All of the Stan Fest campgrounds were already full to the gills, of course. We were directed to a nearby trailer, where a local named Steve was more than happy to show us a parking space in his backyard for $25. At the time we were just happy to find a place to park our carcasses, but as the weekend developed, we discovered the inevitable downsides to what my classmate Stan calls 'Steve's No-Bed, No-Breakfast.' Steve was not only in the 'campground' business; he was also selling beer at $2 a bottle. At about four in the morning on the first night, we were awakened by the frightening sounds of an intoxicated argument 10 feet from our camp that seemed to center around 'getting the beer he fucking paid for.' I have never in my life heard a fight more vicious or drunken, and I was terrified that they were going to start smashing stuff. (Stuff as in my stuff; I couldn't care less about anybody else's at that point.)
(In tribute to the Kids, I referred to the Boy as "my lovely wee man" for the rest of the weekend. After all, we were living in our trailer. Who were we to call anyone else white trash?) At the time the argument seemed to go on forever, but fortunately they all soon drifted towards a camp fire on the other side of us. Burning shit seemed to calm the group down. In a way it kind of reminded me of the parties I used to go to in highschool: no matter how much we all enjoyed hanging out together, there was always some fucking problem. As soon as I got to university and discovered parties that didn't end in hushed whispers and hurt feelings, I never looked back. Anyway. I don't want to give the impression that we were beset by trouble & storm as soon as we arrived. Most of our weekend, especially the Friday parts, were spent in a happy glow that was only slightly dimmed by the cold, cold weather and our white trash accommodations. Once we had established our living arrangements (immediately dubbed Camp Carpetbagger), we set about barbequing our supper sausages. The joy of cooking in the great outdoors was a pleasant surprise to me; I suppose that I'm fated to rediscover this every time it happens. When our dinner was safely stowed ('food goes in here'), we wandered over to the festival grounds. One of the benefits of establishing Camp Carpetbagger in Steve's No-Bed, No-Breakfast was that we didn't have to go far to get to the action. And since there were no facilities at Steve's, nearby event porta-potties were absolutely necessary. (The porta-potty part of this weekend will be rather under-reported I fear: they were there, we used them, and I wasn't too revolted. The organizers were generally on top of things and there were very few absolutely disgusting examples of the genre. Of course, I stayed far away from the rows nearest the beer gardens - why tempt fate?)
Within an hour of our arrival, we went to work at the vehicle gate. Last month we made arrangements to trade 11 hours of volunteer work for admission, and I still think that this was an incredibly sweet deal (especially because there's two of us on one budget). For the first 3 hour shift we bounced around nervously, listening to the music rolling off the nearby main stage. At this point we weren't there for the music, exactly. Neither of us have ever really had a big interest in folk music per se; we were kinda there for the experience more than anything else. We were also interested because my classmate Stan was one of the main organizers of the festival, and had been a part of its founding 5 years ago. Stan's a great guy and a very talented folkie in his own right, so I figured that I'd have a decent time at anything he was involved with.
By the time our shift ended, we were too tired & lazy to join the audience. We were also shockingly cold - it went down to zero that night, as it would every night thereafter. We went back to Camp Carpetbagger and tried to inflate the air-mattress, which was a no-go. Instead, we piled all of our blankets on top of our shivering bodies and tried to sleep with the seat mounts poking into our backs. We did surprisingly well until the White Trash Blow Out of 2001, which you already know about. When that petered out we fell into a dreamless sleep, safe and snug in our van.
The next morning was grey and gusty beyond belief. I'm a slow waker, so I stayed behind in the van as the Boy went off in search of coffee. He wanted to take a wander around, but his plans were cut short by the rain that suddenly made everything windy, cold and damp. Still, it wasn't a depressing rain, if that makes any sense to you. We put on yesterday's long clothing, which signaled the beginning of a weekend-long spell of funk & general uncleanliness. Usually this didn't bother me too much - after all, I wasn't there to pick up - but I was made uncomfortably aware of my drab camp clothes at our first stop of the morning: the Fox Island Stage, where the Jive Kings were playing to a captive audience. We had missed their main stage set the night before and I was shocked by their skill. There was something amazingly primal about sitting in an ocean gale while a swing band blazed through standards and originals with inimitable style (the lost-at-sea song "Tugboat" was an especially appropriate number). I wished for a black velvet dress, shining blonde curls and Chanel No. 5; as it was I had to settle for an oversize dirty sweatshirt, a buckethat that said Acadia Education and a not-yet-unpleasant smell of unwashed girl. Sigh.
Lunch was another round of barbequed sausages, and then we were off to catch Stan's set. He was brilliant (as usual), and when it was over we dashed off to another security shift. This was the pattern of our weekend: dashing form stage to stage when we were free, working a good portion of each day to pay back our tickets and eating and sleeping whenever there was a space left over. Our meals were mostly what we had brought in the van, but we did end up sampling the local fare when our hibachi ran out of propane. I brought too much food; I know that now. But at the time I was glad that we brought so many things to nibble on, as I was almost constantly hungry (sea air, I suppose). The most valuable items were apples and gorp: the first cleared out the cobwebs every morning and the second kept us going all day long without proper seats or resting times. to be continued...
this time 3 years ago: hello taco boy, goodbye heart |
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this month's design features icons from lindkvist and the bucaneer font from sassy fonts. yay! |
There was one woman in particular who kept screeching and screeching that the others should 'smoke some fucking pot and mellow the fuck out.' All I could think of was the Kids In The Hall: Mark McKinney plays a white trash female character that is simultaneously amusing and terrifying in her vulgarity. Cross that character with an East Coast accent (think Mary Walsh if you must) and you have this voice. I never saw her face, and I wondered about her identity whenever I passed an obvious local.
Nothing we heard that night really energized us. There was an interesting set by an Inuit lady named 
