Hi y’all,
I have traveled so many times to Tee-hel-luride Fest. I’ve camped, condo’d, cramped, froze, soaked, stoned, Deerunked, laughed, cried, upstage, backstage, met incredible people front of and backstage, bunked, humped, hammed, honked, bonked and boinked, uptown and downtown, in bars, under the stars, up the stairs, under umbrellas and great big bikes. I’ve Illiumed, cow pastured, town parked, driveway camped, Werner Fielded, questioned authority, smoked, drank and ate remarkably fine food, wined, whined & Beer’d, hugged, kissed and boozed. I’ve photo’d, been photo’d tented, shower housed, caroused, experienced being a pottiratzi, hacked, sacked, thrown up, thrown down, befriended, farted, belched, biked, cabbed, bumped into Oprah, bused, bar’d, barred, skiied (ok not in summer), coffee’d, tea’d, breakfast burrito’d, restaurant’d, food booth’d, lemonade stand, cookied, copied, library internetted, wifi’d, been lucky, been alone and been with my irish honey wife, Avril.
Telluride and its festivarians have it all. Emotional and Tasty! Treats on the senses abound, musically and culinarily. A coupla times, whole foods gave out free fruit ( the watermelon was deelish) and last year, someone came through the campsites and gave out free CD’s, no questions asked! Another time, someone sold unique t-shirts and someone else was selling dingoballs made with a certain type of hemp product that made your hoola hoop go around a little smoother and sometimes a little faster. Then there’s the icecream vendor and you just want to keep it simple have’m whip up a little strawberry shake or chocolatte for crissake!
Funny how your food senses go crazy, one starts with best intentions! You pack it up, pack in, unpack and peak. Suddenly you find yourself wanderin and checking out the food lines. You start with a glass of Wine or one of dem beers mon. You peer at the counters, always appreciating the vendoree that puts out sample lookyloos. You glance at the Rustico Sign … pause … now what could that be? Bewildered and unaware that the outpost is an authentic italian stallion resplendent with field greens salad, creamy pasta with mushrooms, southern greens or a mix N match. But what your really eyeing is the huge bowl of strawberries and cream that is one of the cheapest eats at the fairefest…
O course your a bit hemped, got munchies and you REALLY want those berrys! You trudge on to see more: Killer Corn, Killier Flank Steak Sandwiches (watch out they Killer drip!) now corn dogs? curly fries? BURGERS? What? A Fish Sandwich? in Telluride! And did you know that if the junk food wagon master has the time, he or she will customize any order? Like a sunnyside up, egg on toast w/tomato and a bit of onion? YES SIREE And Hey Look: Sirichi everywhere! Fried rice, yakitoris, thai bowls, mexi mix up, teas, beveys. and PIZZA! Oh why do they have to have PIZZA? now what to EAT?! har har!
It’s cold in the mornings and just after the sun comes over the peaks, you have to doff all the extras you put on just to get to the PortaWC while you stretch your legs and drink extra cold water to cleanse the kidneys and clear your self induced fog. Deep down inside you absolutely love it cause your all cold and warm all at the same time! And low and behold why not? There’s 6 inches of snow outside yo tent! FREEK!
Evenings always have a dilemma: Should you go back and change, are you getting a little drunk? Did you take your vitamins? Blow your nose cause of all the dust you didn’t deal with? Should you go to town? Well, they do have nicer toilets to be sure and it sure would be nice to sit down without everyones mess starin you in the face and other olfactory orifices! What about the SunBurn you neglected, but EVERYONE told you about? What about those nifty powerful squirt guns you bought at $am’s Club to randomly gun down strangers you in turn beg you to ‘do it again!’, … and you do with a smile. What? What What? McCale?!!
How bout the handmade breakfast you make to take to those who valantly stand in line, their personal loyalty to the cause and set up your tawrp each and every day without complaint? You never worry about their choice for a snack you bring them cause they are so awfully grateful and a little dead that you thought of them and you are eternally grateful for their service as well. And that neighbor at the next tent compound who always makes too much breaky food and offers it up to all that will listen! CoMe get yo grub!!! Cause I got too MMMuuuuchhhh! And you go and now you have too much food in your cooler to ice down and probably end up taking it down valley and back to the fridge it originally came from 'cept now it ain’t frozen!
A visit to the back tent to see, talk story, squeeze and touch your favorite band artists and their gear… Bela Fleckenstein once told me that he would sign ANYTHING you bought of his or the band! So, you will sign my Hippo dood? Cool! Giving into the price of something at the gift shacks or going through the bargain baskets and finding your SIZE! Walking past the food vendors and seeing one line longer than the rest and wondering what is all the fuss. Filling your drinking water jugs at the public fountain in the fest grounds, topping off water guns and sprayers and realizing the temperature will always be about 57 degrees as it has been for the last 20 years. The absolute joy of a band member or celebrity who tells you that they are on the next flight out, they’ll see you again next year and would you like to take over their empty room for the next 3 DAYS? WoW! 5 Star showers for all your new best friends.
Or perhaps it didn’t happen like that it all and you used the quarter showers in the camp mud huts or contributed to charity showers at the high school down yonder. Speaking of camping, what about the festivarsamaritans that bring extra goop, equip and kitchen aid to come to your aid? There is a micro epcot center going on here and no one’s stoppin it!
Breezin through Security checkpoints cause everything you smuggled in is already from the deposit you made that morning and you and all your pals are all SET! Well is Saturday, isn’t it? Well, then since it is, its Bloody Mary Day! Cause in your pack are lemons, limes, snappy tom’s, wackytabasco, cups for the unintended, jumbo olives, pickled okra, and a dusting of peppa! And some of those secret ingredients that make your marys better than anyones!
And of course you’re sippin away your Bloody Sister Mary standing next to a lovely named Maria and you just are just ooozing to make her one, the kind she loves and coos and all that shit. Now looky here! Someone has just returned with trays of beers cause they were so overwhelmed by FestoHospoTality and they really aren’t as creative or generous or bright as you but are equally enthusiastic all at the same time and haven’t had the urge to randomly go out and make a kind gesture of buying your new favorite person(s) beers all around cause all the sudden you had money in your pocket … your’e in Telluride … right? And you SWELL up with pride, jut out your chest, prepare for the journey back from beer central and shake up the upper muscles to take back not 1 or 2 but 8 Beers in total snugged in a biodegradable carrytray and your now out 24 bucks and a tip!!
Now your shoulders don’t quite make as far as you told them to and some of the foam spills, not on the ground but down your arm and dripping and lipping off your elbow on to your gorgeous new capri’s that you bought in town cause your butt feels so good in them and well haha you know! You just like to show off just a bit cause well, you know, it is a fashion statement and everyone at the fest does it and some are really good at it and others well, heh heh, well … some of the others just don’t get it all!
Wha? What did I just step in? It felt like fries! eeeeiiwwww! Oh! It was just mud! ha ha hmmm… So now you’ve managed to field the beers and tasted some of the ones to lighten the load and all the sudden get sprayed by not one but three little terrorists who shoot you with cold water in all the sensitive spots and practically have an orgasm right there, in the middle of the crowd, cause it really felt so good! Now you are no longer sure where you are, lost! You never get lost! Oh! Um… lets see, there were here, I am sure of it and I brought all these beers and my arms are getting tired, all the tarps look the same, except they aren’t, oh yes, look at the flags! They are true landmarks! Trouble is, our group doesn’t have one, but the tarpbors next to the sprawl have one, now lets see what was it? Daffy Duck? no, OH what’s that character’s name? Shit! OH yeah! TAZ! Look ! There it is! Oh yes I am right back where I should be! There’s my pack with all my junque! But, where is everyone? Oh no! EVERYBODY TOOK OFF …! crap! Dudes? Guys? He-llo!
Then the jammer neighbors who pluck gently in the mornings, jam harder in the afternoons and even harder when those who didn’t go back in cause the wanted to see the outrageous camps that take days to set up and find rumballys to suck on and trade disney pins (just kiddin about that last one). One never is bothered to pitch in the right bin or purchase ice from the outhouses (whoops) i meant ice huts just around the corner cause its one extravegance you allow your food and beer in their coldspace to keep you coming back to the chillin Bloody Mary Mix, salsa and eggs, brewskis, lunch meats and choco fun in ziplocks. Weeks previous, you carefully start re-arranging the neighbor’s, mom’s and your freezer so that everything you have can be frozen solid so that you can beat last years record for buying icccccccccccccccccccccccceeee… don’t you just love ice and chocolate and the cutie at the tentsite next door? Yes, you do… fffffftttt! Ahhhhh
Stoppin by the Supermarche and pickin up a pint of that fancy creamy santey fe chicken soup to sup on. After that, (now that you have escaped the fest grounds) scouring bars to see how many Guinness taps you can count and drink from as many as possible while stopping and checking out peoples and their amazing amount of gear they drag along with themselves: Dogs, dreds, childs, tevas, gypsy garb, stink and just plain no make-up beauty. Are we supposed to be in town this long? Who did we want to see after dinner? Where’s my pocket schedule? You greet the same cops and marshall’s you have seen working their beat since your first visit back in ‘77… my we’re all getting older. Always the compulsory glance to see if your karma is in check at the free box, a long standing tradition. But I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of free box fashion shows until today! You make it back in to enter the box office side for the first time since you got there. (Hey Town Park and Warner Livin’ sure has its privileges! Ah the roar of the crowd and today you are wearing a doozy of a hat, for all the festivarians to see! You greet everyone as if you were Craig F. And a big howdy dew to you too! As you make it bake to the tarp it certainly is dark. Nice Whiff? Wonder if that came from Humbolt or that little farming area up in BC Canada??? Tarpin time till late now…
Tuning your car/condo radio to KOTO to catch the craic, the town breeze, and townfolk and celebrity DJ’s play the most amazing music ever heard, you wonder where they store it all and all of the sudden, you find yourself there and see the most amazing collection of music … its everywhere. Sometimes listening in, you’ll hear the thumping bass of my brother mike with his unique and personal string slap that always puts a little extra electrical impulse in your left or right hip to get the dancin rhythm that makes the rest of your body shake and rock and roll and make you think of the last time you had sushi, saki and a handroll. You peer into the last dollar bar, confidently strolling past the ID checker and soak up the atmosphere, smile and recognize that a few time one was here, truly on my last buck.
Camp has taken over the love of condos and now the love of condos has returned. I have a friend, john cowan’s biggest fan JumpinJaney, that vows never to camp again and only wishes condo karma. Lately, I have been feelin kind of the same way.
Telluride Festivals take on a life of their own. One you want to own, but can’t take with you, except in memory and photos and in cups, and tan feet and the music your ears/brain have absorbed and the love you take in and give all at the same time.
Your notes and bits o tid here, helped me remind my of the best and worst times of some 18 or 19 festivals. As I always say, I always want to visit Telluride, but never want to live there for more than a few weeks at a time. Its a pleasure to meet the locals, the survivors and those that make the annual pilgrimage with so few regrets year after year. Last year, I thought that it would be the last time for a while. So many acts that I am used to seeing won’t be back this year. Then I start thinkin about being grateful for Ferg’s Vision, scooping up the possibility of a festival’s charms and holding it, nurturing it and playing with it to produce a lovely offspring…
We’ll all miss Tim O this year, but at least it will give him time to change course and find new musicians to play and compose with and discover old and new talents and be more remarkable than ever. I am grateful for all the musicians that have made the trip, the list seems endless and wish I had the time to list them all down and write for another few hours. Easily I think of Strength In Numbers (The Gospel of Tride Instrumentals), Johnny Cash wheezing through his harmonica, Jr.Brown rocking the house, Willie Nelson actually with Blue eyes crying in the downpour,
Now if I was to think of all the muscians that have I have seen, or had break, fastlunch or dinner with and made me come back year after year it would start with a list o pals a mile long, here I’ll give you lil examp:
Sam&Tim&Edgar&Emmy&Tim&RedKnuckles&Yonder&Salmon&Bela&Del&Mike&JT&Robby&Ronny&CaseyD&KaseyC&allthebands
thatmademecry&BlindBoysFromAlabama&JerryFlux&AlltheAllisons&Prine&SinginTony/SilentRice&Sutton&Rowanandallhisairforces&Slade&DrBanjo&
Rowan’snewhotchicks&bonnie&Mollie&Nick&Thieles&thefussofPastorMus&myfirsttimediscoveryofNewGrassRevival&seeingthem
liveforthefirsttimewithinthreemonths&OlVas&HotRize&Grisman&Narell&Skyline&RobErKeen&subdudes&rarelyherd&GitarEaton
&LooseTies&Barenburg&NashvilleBluegrassBand&Stubob&Iris&Sawtelle&mikebub&guyclark&Lyle&fairfieldfour&railroadearth&
theFlecks&Waifs&boomchicks&WendyWass&oldcrow& so so many, many tothers…Wow, a custom made festival devoted to the music I love!
I’m going! I’m going! Pulled the tix off of craigslist (brilliant!) and ebay, now everyone that wants one has one! Yupee!
But lo and behold, 10 months go by and friends from near and far like Rosco the Bluegrass MetroSexual (who I taught to camp), BanjoRicky,
Tride Scotty, GitarMeesha and the lovelies Sarahbelle & IrishAv start up the Festival love making process and the excitement of the journey
beckons … once again. time to buy a new tent and some cangas and some mantles (will I ever give up coleman?) Nah! Some chocolates and
stop by trader joes, and wally mart in cortez (hey they are always giving away something)! and bustmove! Its Field time … again
I’m sure you can all relate in one way or tother and if you ain’t never been, you have now!
See you there, seems I’m always … there.
All the best,
Chow!
Dewey j Bub