What's with the change?

What I learnt at Bonnaroo Part 2

5. Festival virgins are painful
stateofglow.com

At 4:30am in the staff camping, where you have been camped so close that the guy ropes overlap, it’s not cool to keep the whole campsite awake with your lame stories. Especially when General Admission are all sound asleep. Sure, I might be getting too old for this shit (in my psycho rant about some of us having to work in the morning, I may have dropped a I’ve been going to festivals for fifteen years which either made me sound awesome [unlikely] or just plain old).  Either way, I was a hero with our other, awesome neighbours, lessening the blow of going to work with 2 hours sleep under our belt. Lucky our shift comprised of sitting in the shade waiting for something to do. 
The festival virgins did indeed ‘show some fucking respect’ for the rest of the fest.

6. Paul McCartney rocks out

I’m a huge Beatles fan. As a kid I felt like I was born into the wrong generation. I don’t know what songs belong to which albums because my Beatles listening pleasure revolved around a few cassette tapes. 
Years ago on a 6hr death-ride in a speedboat along the Mekong in Laos where you couldn’t hear anyone over the motor or through your crash helmet, I passed the time (and settled my nerves) singing every Beatles song I could think of. 
So I was extremely excited to watch Sir Paul. And he delivered! In almost a 3 hr set, he astounded with his musical prowess, making me reassess my happy-go-lucky-bop-around-behind-a-microphone-while-strumming-a-guitar image of the Beatles. He joked around and told stories, name-dropping like no tomorrow. The ukulele intro to Something was a highlight and everyone lost their shit in the synchronised fireworks during Live and Let Die. Not a bad effort for a 70 year old.



7. Americans don’t know how to do the Timewarp

In the cinema tent (yes, we lined up for an hour), The Polyphonic Spree performed the songs from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was quite entertaining even for someone who doesn’t really know the movie (and it makes me a little queasy thinking of Newcastle's embarrassing theatre restaurant of a similar theme). I was pumped for the Timewarp- all those primary school discos had lead me to this moment. Imagine my horror (lame pun intended) when the crowd did not throw their arms in the air or hug themselves whilst shimmying. Further research (youtubing the film clip) has shown that there isn't really a specific dance to the chorus. Must be a weird Aussie thing.



8. You’re not cool unless you’re talking about the drugs you’re taking
By the last day there were 5 or so bags of butts

I’ll put it out there: I’m not cool enough to take drugs. It’s a combination of being a wuss, concern at how my normal silliness would react and just not feeling the need. Good for you if you’re cool enough. I’m sure it saves lots of money you would’ve spent on alcohol and lots of time not having to line up for the dunny. The difference between Bonnaroo and the other festivals I’ve been to across the world, is the amount of talk about it. Every second conversation was about how much acid someone brought or the rating out of ten for their weed. I’d be very interested to know how many of these people regularly get on it or just feeling like being awesome at a festival. It did give me a little satisfaction to hear the annoying festival virgin who had previously declared, “God bless America and Bonnaroo” (no, she wasn’t being ironic) complain about the bands she missed from her bad trip. I can be spiteful sometimes.


Backstage in a cart. Yew!
9. Musos just want to get laid

Volunteering is a pretty cool way to see a festival. You get to go for free and see behind the scenes. I got to work in the artist hospitality tent, first as door bitch rejecting all the free-loaders trying to sneak into the food tent, then serving food to the artists. After five nights sweating it out in a tent and six days in the sun bringing out my galaxy of freckles, the number of ‘How you doin’?’s was astounding. Sure, I thought I was rocking the boots/skirt combo, but I had more pickups in five hours than I’d had in five years. Musos!


10. I’m too old to do cartwheels
It’s always a good idea at the time. Vodka smuggled in and added to freshly squeezed lemonade is also a good encouragement. I can’t remember the last time I did a cartwheel but gee I did a good job (Must be all the yoga I have to do for my bad back). So I kept on doing them. I wasn't sore the next day; I felt it all the following week. So I still don't know why I attempted another in Milwaukee a few days later.. It’s all worth it though for the experience of cartwheeling to Bjork in Tennessee.

-EA

What I Learnt at Bonnaroo Part 1

June 23, 2013

It's a week later than all the other Bonnaroovians*, but I've finally had my 12 hour post-festival sleep. After 3500km and two weeks on the road, my crawl into bed was luxuriated by the air-conditioning kindly installed by the landlords during our absence.

What’s the best way to write about a four-day festival (turned into a marathonic seven days by volunteering)? I had a long time to think about it on the drive home and decided it was by sharing what I learnt (thereby creating a convenient segway into my recently published article A Monkey Could Do It: Lessons Learnt as a Temp).

Things aren't as they feel...
1. Tennessee in June is HOT
Der! Obvious, I know. And yes, you’d think growing up in Australia would be good preparation. But arriving on a farm and pitching a tent two days before a festival starts, with no shade or amusement is bloody hot. Before leaving Toronto, I learnt about a fantastic combined measure of heat and humidity (why doesn’t Australia have this?!). Humidex (a reverse of windchill factor) tells you how hot it feels, serving to qualify your moaning about the weather.


On the Wednesday before the music began, we laid in the pitiful shade of a golf umbrella and the car, heads practically under the exhaust in feels like 47C (116F). In a desperate effort to beat boredom and sunstroke, we hiked into town, stumbling upon the oasis of an air-conditioned O’Charleys restaurant and would you believe it, on Free Pie Wednesday (a dessert, not a meat pie). “Yay, the hippies have come to town!” our server said excitedly. It sure made me feel better about sitting unshowered in a restaurant with bed hair and dirty clothes.


Sun safe whilst advertising Peta Panned
on some questionable graffiti- did you see it?
2. Only the Australian sun must give you skin cancer
So much exposed skin at Bonnaroo! I wasn’t exactly wearing the collared long sleeve shirt the old man would approve of but I was definitely adhering to the rest of the Slip, Slop, Slap routine ingrained in us as kids. Perhaps it’s the ozone hole over Australia/New Zealand or those unlucky twenty-somethings dying of melanoma. Maybe I just know how crap a sunburn is at a festival. I’ll admit though that the tan I got even after regimental sunscreening is quite nice. It’s so good I was a little disappointed no-one commented on it on my return to the office today.




3. Americans and/or Bonnaroovians are extremely patient... unless it’s to charge an iPhone.
Bonnaroo: Welcome to the Line Ride. There was a line for everything: the cinema tent, the comedy tent, the water station. It took two hours to even get into the festival on the first day. It might just be that they squished 80 000 people into an area that would comfortably hold half that. But everyone cheered along the way, high-fiving as we snaked along the fencing like cattle. Amazingly, the only places that didn’t have lines were the bars. Perhaps selling the same beer for $4 in the campgrounds and $7 in the festival just rubs people the wrong way.

Yes, Bonnaroovians were patient- the crowd happily hung around for Empire of the Sun, forty minutes late and starting close to 3am. They were patient, unless it involved an iPhone. Call me old school, but I tried to charge my camera battery in the staff shower trailer (where the sulphur in the well water had it smelling as if a hundred people simultaneously farted). When I returned, it was unplugged with a sheepish and rather strong stomached iPhone user concentrating on his facebook profile. I considered explaining that I didn’t even have phone service but it seriously reeked in there.


4. Even a blood clot on the brain isn’t a good enough excuse to pull out.

FUCK MUMFORD. I wish I’d taken a photo of the spray paint across the Portaloos (just can’t make myself say Portapotty...). The rumours had been spreading around the grounds and it was eventually confirmed on Twitter (camping festivals in the modern age!). Mumford and Sons had to pull out because the bassist hadn’t recovered from emergency brain surgery to remove a blood clot. What a slacker. Lucky Jack Johnson was already hanging around the festival to cover. Also lucky that I am part of the 2% of the population that does not like their music (that’s putting it mildly). Since when were banjos cool?



TO BE CONTINUED...

* Bonnaroovian = a special term to describe attendees of Bonnaroo, making you feel part of one big inclusive group at the expense of excluding those who did not attend.

Bonnaroo Odyssey Starts Now!

June 9, 2013

Finally, some travel to be done- a two week road trip to Tennessee to work at Bonnaroo festival. Watch this space!


This monkey got published

June 5, 2013



I'm fairly excited to share my piece just published in The Hilt Magazine.

Click here to view A Monkey Could Do It.

And for my lovely followers who have signed up for email notifications, I'd really appreciate you clicking on the link to read it on the blog. It's formatted better and I miss out on your 'pageview'. They say it's quality not quantity but I say stuff 'em.

E.A.

From the Supermarket Aisles to the 25th Floor

View from the Boardroom (as I tidy the chairs)
June 1, 2013

The impeccable-timing fairy has finally worked in my favour, landing me a well-paid reception job. It's a three week assignment taking me right up to the day before our Bonnaroo festival road trip (yipee!)

There's a lot to like about working on the 25th floor. It could be the whole hour to have lunch (as opposed to a quick 10 minute bite en route to playground duty). Or maybe I just enjoy being part of something very ordinary- the 9-5 work day (well, 8:30-5 but let's not split hairs). In not-so-impeccable timing, the full time work coincides with my major assignments for the two courses I've been studying via correspondence from Sydney.

But hey, I'm a pretty good multi-tasker. Is sorting the dirty laundry whilst on the toilet taking things too far? What about moving a load from the washer to the dryer? It really is a conveniently placed toilet.

The 25th floor is a long way from the supermarket shelves I was supposed to be stocking. As it turned out, quitting that job was as cumbersome as starting. I'll admit that I dogged it and rang outside of business hours so I didn't have to talk directly to my manager. But being heard on the phone quitting your shelf-packing job doesn't really fit the image of commercial real estate.

As soon as I met my manager, I knew I was going to break her heart.I'm not sure how to describe someone as taking their job too seriously without sounding condescending or devaluing the job. But when you take a very strict training scheme to even more explicit heights, then it's probably a fair call. On an extensive store tour that included the door that I had quite obviously already been through and introductions to colleagues who sized me up as not being able to do the job as well as them, my manager and I had the following conversation:
'Do you smoke?'
'No.'
'I'll show you where to smoke anyway.'
'I may decide to take it up.'
I learnt early that jokes not only demean the training process, but my manager personally.

With six training shifts, I was essentially thrown in the shallow end. It was fortunate I suppose