The Gathering of the Juggalos, Day 3

Friday, August 12th, 2011

Despite the very, very late night the night before, I still managed to be awake at 8:00am (after only about 2 1/2 hours of sleep!) so I'd have enough time to get showered and ready for the ICP seminar. Once I was up, I made my way over to the showers, and waited in about a half hour line before it was my turn. If I didn't need the shower beforehand, waiting in the sun for half an hour certainly made me need one! I also saw this girl get pulled out of the shower line for something suspicious by some people on a golf cart. All she had on was a towel, and when they came up, they asked if she wanted to go with them and take a shower backstage, and they weren't gonna ask her to do much in exchange. Surprisingly, the girl got on the golf cart and left, and the rest of us just stood there looking at each other, shocked.

Once it was my turn, I showered quickly, then made my way back to the camp. After a honey bun and some other various snacks for breakfast, I packed up some water, some snacks and my ICP photo prints that I wanted signed, and headed off for the seminar tent. I'd heard in advance that you needed to arrive at least two hours early for the ICP seminar, and that was spot on. The tent was already full when I arrived, but since I was by myself, I was lucky enough to find a single seat on a hay bale, a little to left of the stage and about halfway back. While everyone was waiting, people were throwing stuff around...full bottles, beer cans, bags of potato chips, even full garbage bags! Why why why is this fun to people?? The people sitting directly to my right took their cooler and filled it up with water, then refilled all the bottles that landed in their area so they would be throwing full bottles instead of empty ones.



And there was one guy up by the front holding a big sign that said "We need an island!" who ended up being the target of most of the flying objects. Luckily I managed to escape getting hit, though I did end up with a few wet spots on me.

2:00pm came and went, and by 2:45pm, ICP had made their grand arrival at the Seminar Tent. I'd been waiting for two hours and 45 minutes by that point, so I was very ready for them to get the show on the road!



The first thing they brought up was the news that they thought was the biggest and most important, which was that Vanilla Ice had been signed to Psychopathic. Everyone was excited, but later, when Violent J announced that there would be a new Dark Lotus album released before next year's Gathering, the whole tent erupted in cheers! That was definitely bigger, more exciting news than Vanilla Ice! They also announced a new autobiography that they were working on, as well as improvements to the radio station website and info about the extra discs that would be sold with the Mighty Death Pop. Everything sounded great all around, and it was cool to be there, in the "nucleus of the Juggalo universe" as Violent J put it, when everything was announced.





By the end of the seminar, it almost hurt to stand up hahaha But I made it :-) Knowing that the seminar had run late by about an hour, I knew that the ICP autograph signing was also going to be running at least an hour late.



So I made my way over to the autograph tent, and got at the end of a very, very long line at about 4:00pm. The people in front of me ended up being really cool...one was a very young couple from Chicago who had hitch hiked to the Gathering and had no ride home, and the other was a slightly older (but still considerably younger than me) couple from somewhere in Indiana. We all had a good time chatting, and tried to find amusing ways to pass the time. At one point a guy came by selling freeze pops for $.25, so of course everyone in the area bought them up, and he sold out in no time.



At one point, the line was moving so slowly that the two couples joined forces and made a small bonfire in the line haha Too funny.


Success!

At 6:00pm, Corporal Robinson popped out of the tent and said that ICP really wasn't supposed to be signing anything after 6:00 since Main Stage acts were starting, but that they didn't want to strand the people in line. So he instructed everyone to get out whatever they wanted to be signed, and Violent J and Shaggy would go down the line and quickly sign everyone's stuff. Luckily, people followed orders and everyone got to get their stuff signed quickly, then moved out of the way.


Shaggy approaches...


Violent J approaches...



When it was my turn, I handed over my photo of Shaggy from the January show, which he signed with my silver pen. I also managed to sneak a quick self portrait with him.



When it was Violent J's turn, again I handed over the photo I had of him, and snapped a self portrait. I'd wanted to really give him a heartfelt "thank you" for creating the whole Juggalo phenomenon, but since he was having to move by so fast, all I got to say was "Thank you for everything." But he locked eyes with me briefly and gave me a very sincere "Thank YOU" back, so I know that he knew what I meant.

By the time I had my autographs, I was exhausted and just wanted to chill out for a while. It was about 6:30pm by the time I got back to the camp site...a full six hours after I left! And I'd only done one seminar and one signing. Ugh.


Meanwhile, back at the camp...

Pamela and Nick were there when I arrived, which was cool since I barely saw them once the Gathering was underway. They did a lot of Second Stage acts, wrestling shows and other randomness like that, where I did all the stuff that required waiting in lines. Smart move on their part! Since we were all there, we decided to throw our hotdogs on the grill and have some dinner. Good thing that I like my hot dogs burned because we managed to burn the crap out of all the dogs we put on the grill haha. But they were a nice change from snack food. A little before 8:00pm, I got a text from Dennis saying that he'd finally arrived, and for me to come meet him at the gate. At that point, I headed out of camp, and grabbed my campground map so I could hopefully make my way out to him easily.

Well I walked toward the spot marked "ticket booth" on the map, since that was apparently the only entrance to the grounds once the festival started. I made my way to that general area, but had to stop to ask a security guard for exact directions. Well, the directions he gave me stank, and led me directly back to the path where my camp was, which I knew was the complete opposite way. By the time I made it back to the area where I thought I was supposed to be, I got a call from Dennis saying that he was back by Main Stage at an entrance there, where the artists come in. Now I truly had no idea where he was, but I started to walk off in the general direction of Main stage, hoping to see an entrance there once I got there. Well, maybe five minutes later, he calls back, only to tell me that he was actually at the spot marked "ticket booth." Grrr!!! So I'd walked almost all the way out to the ticket booth, then back as far as the carnival rides, then had to walk all the way out to the ticket booth again. And did I mention that I was carrying my folding chair? And did I also mention that I could hear Kottonmouth Kings playing in the background he entire time? Finally, someone that Dennis knew who happened to be outside said that he'd come in and find me, and take me out to the gate so I could get Dennis in.

Finally I got to the gate, and managed to get him his wristband and charm, and we were on our way in. I was annoyed at him for giving me such bad directions, but what made me extra annoyed was that I had missed almost every second of KMK's set. I'm a brand new KMK fan, and was SO looking forward to seeing them perform, but I only got to see about ten minutes of their set because I was walking all over creation trying to find Dennis. Once we finally got to the Main Stage area, he still had everything he'd brought with him, including his pillow and a couple of blankets, all laying in a heap next to him. Turned out that he'd enlisted some guy to follow us in and carry some of his stuff since a bag of his had broken on the way in. I hadn't even noticed a guy following us all that way! haha

Once we enjoyed the final ten minutes of KMK's set, Dennis said that he wanted to drop his stuff off at the camp. That was fine with me, so I packed up my chair...



...and he grabbed everything of his, which was now draped all over him since he refused to let me carry anything but a single pair of shoes! We got as far as the lawn in front of Spazmatic before he said he needed a break, and collapsed into what looked like a heap of laundry. I sat with him for a minute, then said that I'd like to grab a bite to eat since I hadn't had much real food since I arrived. He said he'd wait for me, so I ran over and got in line at the gyro place. Once I had my chicken gyro, I went back over to Dennis and chilled for a minute while I ate my dinner. It was really good, but it was very messy, which of course proved to be an awkward conundrum. My hands always stayed filthy through the Gathering because there were NO sinks anywhere where you could wash your hands. I'd used Purell before I ate, but I still didn't feel clean at all. So I had all this yummy juice and sauce running all over my hands, but I didn't want to lick it off haha Napkins to the rescue.

When I was done with my gyro, I said that I wanted to go get a Faygo, so Dennis again offered to wait for me. I went up to Spazmatic and bought a Moon Mist, and made my way back over to Dennis. Once he was well rested, he hoisted all of his stuff up onto his shoulders and we made our way across the Drug Bridge and up to the camp. Dennis took a few minutes to arrange some of his stuff in the living room area of the tent (since my room was way too small to share...it barely fit my mattress and duffel bag sitting next to each other!). Since Dennis had just arrived, he was itching to get back to Main Stage, so once his stuff was dropped off, we quickly made our way back to the action.



When we arrived, we were just in time to see Ice Cube be announced. We stayed a fair distance back since neither of us felt the need to really be close for his performance. The only Ice Cube song I ever enjoyed was It Was a Good Day, which was of course his last and most impressive song. Dennis was so into it...it was so fun! The whole crowd was into it actually, and he got tons of Whoop Whoops when he was done. After his set, it was amazing to see all the people flood away from the Main Stage, completely not caring that ABK was about to perform. Just as well, since Dennis and I were both quite excited to see ABK again.

With the majority of the crowd gone, we were able to get fairly close to the front for ABK's performance. I didn't feel the need to fight to get to the front since I've already been up front at two of his shows, and I know that there will be more shows at the Muse in the future. So I was content to hang back and let others have the closer spots. During one particularly violent moment of moshing, someone rammed their foot into Dennis' shin, when resulted in a big gash, and a quick trip to the medic tent for him. The rest of the set was great, though I really prefer to see people in smaller venues.






Once he was done, I wandered out of the area, keeping a lookout for Dennis. Eventually I found him sitting down near the carnival rides...exactly where the text that he sent me (that I didn't see until afterward) told me he would be haha. I sat down next to him, and we ended up just sitting there enjoying the moment for the better part of an hour. We watched the rides, and enjoyed the absolutely gorgeous night air, knowing that we still had a couple of hours before anything else interesting was going to start.

At about 2:00am, we got up and meandered over to the Freakshow tent so we could catch the Kung Fu Vampire and Critical Bill shows. Quite possibly the only act that performed exactly on schedule for the entire Gathering was Kung Fu Vampire, who started at the very stroke of 2:15am.



This was the first time I'd seen them, and I loved their performance! I really, really hope I can see them at the Muse some day! I did find it odd though that the lead singer wasn't wearing his face paint, and was in some normal looking plaid shirt. It's got to be one of the bigger shows they do all year...you'd think they'd make sure to be in full paint and costumes. Oh well. Irregardless, I enjoyed the set much more than I thought I would. As the crowd subsided for a minute, I made my way up to the barricade.



Next up was Critical Bill, who I have grown to love since I saw them open for ABK last year. Their music is perfectly what I love, and rides that line between hard rock and hip hop. And their lead singer is smoking hot too...that never hurts haha. They actually came out on time as well, and did an awesome job at getting the crowd riled up.



Powerdise (the hot lead singer) came out into the audience to stir up a mosh pit, which actually ended up being quite a bit rougher than I anticipated. There was one dude who was maybe 13 or 14 years old just to my right who obviously didn't know how to mosh since THREE TIMES he rammed into me with his elbow sticking straight into my back. The first time, I figured he was just off balance. The second time, I gave him a dirty "Oww that really hurt" look, but the third time, I turned around and was like "Dude! Quit ramming your elbows into me! That HURTS!" The lady next to him, who looked like the parental chaperone of a school group, was like "It was an accident!" Yeah, tell that to the bruises on my back!

Once Critical Bill's set was over, the only thing still going on was the JCW Legends and Icons wrestling match. I'm NOT a wrestling fan, but I know how much love Psychopathic pours into their JCW efforts, so I figured that I owed it to them to at least peep it for a few minutes. I was really, really tired by the time we sat down, and I felt like just leaning over and falling asleep on Dennis' shoulder.



Once the first round started, I could tell that it was just not gonna be my thing at all. Wrestling is just too fake to me...even knowing that it's fake, it still seems too fake to me. I just can't get into it. We only lasted through one round before we decided to head back to camp and call it a night.

When we went back to camp, we took the shortcut through the middle of the woods so we could simultaneously avoid the huge hill in one direction and the far walk to the Drug Bridge in the other. It was pitch black, with the only light coming from the moon and the occasional passerby who had a flashlight. By the time we got back to Second Stage, it was light enough to make the rest of the trip without worry. Back at the camp, Dennis took it upon himself to give me a foot rub while I relaxed on my mattress, which made me quickly drift off to sleep.

The Gathering of the Juggalos, Day 4

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

At around 10:30am, I woke up drenched in my own sweat, and feeling like I was going to suffocate if I left my tent door closed for even one more second, despite the fact that I had my window unzipped. Pamela, Nick and Dennis were all already awake, and the first thing I wanted to do was head for the shower. Luckily when I got there, the line was fairly short, so I was in and out quickly. When I got back to camp, I changed clothes and got ready for the day while the guys were just chilling out for a while. At one point, someone came by selling apple pie and cherry moonshine, which of course caught our attention.



Nick ended up buying a jar of the apple pie moonshine, and Dennis and I got a jar of the cherry. The one sip of cherry that I took tasted really, really strong, but Nick later declared that the apple pie wasn't strong at all, and he drank the entire thing in one night. I didn't actually drink any of the cherry moonshine during the trip though.

By a little before 2:00pm, Dennis and I packed up some water and snacks, and headed over to the autograph tent for the Twiztid signing. The line was looooooong since there had been an ICP signing beforehand that ran late. One of the first things I did when we got in line was head for some food since I was pretty hungry. I left Dennis in line with my stuff, and I first made my way to Spazmatic for a drink.


The Spazmatic Hangout

Being Saturday afternoon, I was surprised to see that they were down to only cola and root beer for sale! Luckily the girl working there was able to find me a cold grape Faygo, so at least I didn't have to resort to drinking the cola! Blech! Afterward, I went over to the pizza stand for a bite, but the girl there explained that they were down to only one working oven. I'd wanted a stromboli, but since they weren't making them, she gave me two slices of pepperoni pizza for the price of one. That was nice of her!

When I got back to the Twiztid line (at least a good 20 minutes after I left), Dennis had barely moved an inch. Ugh!



But he did play the part of my personal umbrella holder as I ate, so I didn't have to eat with the sun beating down on me. The pizza was pretty good, all told, and two slices and a Faygo was the perfect size lunch. Once I was done, we ended up chatting with the people in line around us for a while, but mostly we just stood or sat there bored out of our minds. At some point, I decided that this would be a great time to try to sell the Four Lokos that I'd brought since so many people were walking by us. So I ran back to the camp (leaving Dennis to once again hold the spot in the stationary line) and packed up a bag full of Four Loko to bring back to the line. I also pulled up the sign I'd made and brought that as well.


What the...?

Once I arrived back at the line, I set Dennis on the task of selling as many of the Four Lokos as he could. We actually only ended up selling two of them, but hey, that was $20 I didn't have before! Once business died down and we'd actually managed to move slightly forward in the line (but still nowhere near the switchbacks under the trees), we noticed that the sky was starting to get really dark. Luckily I had enough data service to check the radar on my phone, and a big, nasty looking line of heavy rain was headed right our way. I once again told Dennis that I wanted to run back to camp and try to close up and protect as much as I could from the rain. I left my Four Lokos with him, and headed back to camp as fast as I could.

As soon as I arrived back at camp, it started to rain. And what started as a gentle little sprinkle very quickly became a full on downpour! I managed to pull all the chairs inside, close up the food tub, pick Dennis' bedding off the floor and zip up the living room of the tent before the downpour got too bad. Some water had dibbled in and gotten some of Dennis' stuff wet, but I saved what I could. I still needed to get some trash bags out of the trunk, so I grabbed them, and managed to get Pamela's purse bagged up as well since the left side of my trunk leaks, and it was sitting right where it gets wet. Luckily everything was fairly well protected. I bagged up my camera, phone and printed photos for the signing, then headed back out in the pouring rain.

By the time I reached the autograph line, I was soaked to the bone. But lucky for us, well over half the people in line had left when it was raining, so we were only about two switchbacks away from the front of the line! Of course this meant that everything was horrendously muddy, but we all managed to survive. By about 5:00pm, a group was let in, then the rest of us waited...and waited...and waited. Inside the tent, we could hear music and chanting that lasted for an entire hour, and everyone seemed to be having a blast. Then...TWIZTID LEFT. Just up and LEFT the signing!! I bet there weren't 100 people left in the line, and they stranded us! We'd waited through all the rain and the mud for a total of FOUR HOURS for NOTHING. We were pissed. And I mean PISSED. Everyone was booing and yelling obscenities at them as they happily rolled away on their golf cart.

So, needless to say, once we left the line, we were tired and dirty, and just wanted to sit down for a while. We went back to the camp, and luckily most things were still fairly dry. It was only then that Dennis said "You remembered to zip up the window in your bedroom, right?" *dramatic pause*...D'OH!!! No, I had completely forgotten that I'd left my mesh window open that morning! I opened up my bedroom, and everything was wet. My bed, sheets, blanket, pillow, towels, dirty clothes and the bottom layer of clean clothes in my duffel bag. All the towels were soaked through, but luckily the pillow and towels were just a little moist, and I was able to get them kind of dried out over the next few days. I grabbed one of my clean towels and threw it onto the sunny top of the tent in hopes that it would dry out before I actually needed to dry off with it the next day. My Boondox photo print had also gotten slightly damp, so I sat down and blew it dry.

Since we were both still getting over our pissy moods from the Twiztid signing gone wrong, we just hung around the camp for a long time. I changed out of my wet clothes into dry ones, and even decided to brave the thought of wearing a tank top in public. Some of the lettes at the Gathering were much bigger than me and wearing much, much less, and everyone was totally cool with it, so I figured that no one would make fun of my flabby arms :-) Once we were both well rested and ready for some dinner, Dennis decided to introduce me to the wonder of the Stoner Boat. I'd heard everyone talk about them beforehand, and figured that I'd at least want to check out what was in a Stoner Boat to see if it was something I'd eat.

When we left, we took a look at the food stand by the showers, but he declared that those weren't *real* Stoner Boats, so we moved on to the main food area. We ended up at the place on the very end, which apparently sold the *real* Stoner Boats. It was pretty much just a big pile of stuff that I don't eat, the base of which was Philly steak. No way did I want to be sitting on every Port-a-potty in the campground for the rest of the trip, so I opted for the much more Julie friendly chicken strips and fries. He did get one though, and it ended up being a gooey pile of mess that he later said was unbelievably delicious hahaha Dennis also said that he wanted a Diet Coke, and was very happy to discover that one of the food stands sold it. He got a giant Diet Coke and treated me to a giant regular Coke, then we both grabbed a seat at a picnic table in a nearby seating area.

While we ate, we chatted with some of the people around us, and even shared in a large plate of twisty potato chips covered in ketchup (which were much tastier than I would have guessed!). There was also some guy in the area who was very emphatically selling his "liquid liquid liquid acid" over a megaphone haha. After a while, we just ended up engrossed in conversation, while listening to George Clinton in the background. Once he was done, we knew that we wanted to watch Blaze, so we ditched our trash (but kept the huge drinks) and made our way over to the Main stage area.



We arrived just in time to catch the start of Blaze's set, who was introduced by Charlie Sheen! It was pretty awesome to see him, but Dennis was WAY more excited than I was! I also thought it was funny that no one clued him in that Blaze is only one person, since he kept saying "they" and "them" when referring to him.


Since we were so far back, I didn't really get any good pics of Blaze

The set was great, though we didn't stress out about being up close. I'd just been at one of his shows and was up against the stage, so I figured I'd let someone else have the better spot. Tech N9ne was up next, but I've never really listened to any of his music, so when Dennis suggested riding a couple of carnival rides, I was all for it. First up was the Ferris wheel...wait, actually...first up was the trek through mud that was literally three inches deep across the center of the Main Stage field. In hind sight, I'm really surprised that people weren't playing in it since it would have made for great sliding around and wallowing. But everyone was just walking very, very carefully in hopes that they wouldn't fall.

When we finally made our way to the Ferris wheel, everything was just completely crusted in mud! The ramp up to the loading area was so slick that people were basically pulling themselves up with their arms. It reminded me of that obstacle on Double Dare where they covered the slide with whipped cream and you had to climb up it. Yeah, it was pretty much exactly like that, only dirtier. Dennis and I rode in separate cars, and Tech N9ne ended up taking the stage right as I was near the top of the wheel. It was awesome! At the end of the ride, the exit ramp was just as muddy and slick, but at least you could just brace yourself and slide down it with no struggle.


Tech N9ne took the stage right as I was at the top of the Ferris wheel


Dennis sneaks a peck on the Scrambler

Next up was the Scrambler, where we were able to ride together. I really hate riding Scramblers with other people since I feel like I'm squishing them, but he insisted that he was fine the whole time. Whew! Afterward, we stopped at the little food stand near the rides so Dennis could grab another drink, then we made our way up as far as we could for the Twiztid set. Charlie Sheen introduced them, which again made Dennis as happy as a little girl haha.

Twiztid's set was really great, and contained numerous uses of a big screen that was hanging behind them.











Everyone's favorite part was a skit where they were dressed as Batman and Robin, then came out on stage in the costumes to sing a couple of songs.



Everyone went wild! It was great! There was also a skit where Monoxide was rolling up a huge blunt, which they also walked out on stage with! It was like four feet long, and everyone was dying laughing! Much to the dismay of most of the crowd, as soon as they started to sing “So High,” it started to lightly rain just hard enough for no one to want to light up right then! It was pretty cool though, to have all the lights shining through the rain. It was a really cool moment.







Toward the end of their set, Violent J and Shaggy came out on stage and sang a song with them, which made the whole audience erupt into pandemonium!



Every camera in the audience went straight into the air, and you could barely see for all the arms haha

Once Twiztid was done, almost everyone in the entire place swarmed over to the wrestling stage for Bloodymania. I'm not a wrestling fan, but I'd heard that Bloodymania was the main event that shouldn't be missed as far as JCW goes, so I figured that I'd go check it out for a minute. Once again, I was practically dead on my feet, but I managed to drag myself over to the far side of the arena and grab a couple of seats up near the top.



As expected, the action was really, really lame. That, coupled with the fact that I was so exhausted and that nearly every single person in the area was smoking, which was making me choke, meant that I just wanted to head back to the tent for the night.

In between two rounds, we excused ourselves and made our way back to our camp. As we got to the end of the road our camp was on, we saw a large group of people gathered around trying to pull an SUV out of the ditch on the right side of the road.



Apparently the SUV had slid while going up the hill, and now both right side tires were in the ditch and it was almost on its side. Someone had a Suburban in front of it with a chain tied to the hitch, and an army of probably 15 or more Juggalos were all around and underneath the SUV trying to pull it out. After a few failed attempts, they were able to successfully get the SUV out, and it was able to drive away without much incident. Of course, everyone started to chant "Fam-uh-ly fam-uh-ly" as the SUV was pulled out, and everyone applauded. It was a great example of how Juggalos jump to the rescue when a fellow Juggalo needs a helping hand.

As Dennis and I stood there watching this scene unfold, we jokingly started to wonder why Moonshine wasn't there supervising the efforts, since he seemed to be in all the important places at just the right time. And what do you know...just before the SUV was pulled out, Moonshine popped around the corner! He said he was headed to the comedy tent to watch some wrestler comedians, but I was just too freaking exhausted to even think about going anywhere else. I'd only had about 7 hours of sleep total over the last two nights, so I was hitting the wall hard. He walked back to our camp with us, and I asked if it would be ok if he inflated my mattress a little more. That was no problem, so we all went up to his camp, which was WAY farther than I'd expected! Once that was done, Moonshine went off to the comedy tent while Dennis and I headed back to the tent for some Zzzs.

Since most of my stuff was still wet, I dried off what I could, and flipped my mattress over to the plain plastic side since it would dry faster than the felt side. The pillow was tolerable, as was the blanket, so I went ahead and laid down, hoping that I could sleep and wouldn't get sick from all the dampness. After a quick, relaxing foot rub, I had no trouble at all falling asleep.

The Gathering of the Juggalos, Day 5

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

On Sunday morning, I woke up around 10:00am after a horrible few hours of uncomfortable sleep. Since my sheets were wet, I was sleeping directly on the plastic mattress, which made it stick to me all night. That, coupled with the fact that it was still fairly warm, and that the slope we were on was still rolling me downhill all night...well, it didn't make for peaceful rest. But I dragged myself out of my room and over to the shower since I knew I wanted to get to the Boondox seminar with plenty of time to spare. The line for the shower was only a few people long, which was awesome. When I was done with my shower, I found Pamela waiting in the now much longer line, so I hung with her for a little while and caught up on what we each had done the previous day. I caught her up on the news from the ICP seminar, as well as how Twiztid bailed on their autograph session.

After throwing on some clothes and pulling back my hair, Dennis and I made our way over to the seminar tent. Along the way, I asked Dennis to hold my Boondox photo that I'd printed for him to sign so I could fix my bandana. We arrived at noon, with the seminar starting at about 1:30pm, so we knew we were gonna have quite a wait ahead of us. A few minutes after we sat down, I remembered my photo, and got it back from Dennis....only to find that it was completely crumpled up!!! OMG!!! I wanted to freaking strangle him!! I'd been treating my photos with kid gloves all weekend, and had even spent time the previous day blowing the Boondox photo dry when it got wet in the tent! Now I had huge creases in it, and I had no way to get another one printed before the signing that afternoon. I was PISSED, and Dennis later told me that he truly thought I was going to hurt him over it. He said that when we were walking in, he'd lost his balance and accidentally crumpled it around a water bottle. Not much I could do though, so I had to pretty quickly get used to the idea that my framed Boondox photo would have permanent creases in it.


Boondox, taking the stage



At about 1:40pm, Boondox arrived at the tent and the seminar began. He didn't do a whole lot of talking since it just doesn't seem like that's in his personality. But he did talk a little about his new album, and wanted the crowd to try to come up with a name for it. At first he liked "Second Life," then "Corn fed and Inbred," but the crowd favorite definitely seemed to be "Oops, I Fucked My Cousin"!! hahaha He kept saying it over and over as one of his favorites.



At some point, someone handed him a bottle of liquor that he said looked like baby poop...



...but that didn't stop him from taking a drink of it! He also played most of one of his new songs, which was great, and got a great reception from the crowd. After that, he took a bunch of questions...everything from "Can I have your baby?" to "Will there be a Yung Dirt solo album?" to "Will you play my ukulele?" He answered questions for at least a good half hour. He didn't play the ukulele though!


Me and Dennis, waiting for the Twiztid seminar

Once Boondox left, basically everyone in the whole tent stayed right where they were and waited for Twiztid to arrive. There was, once again, lots of stuff flying through the air, and one guy standing in the middle of the tent swinging a laundry detergent bottle like he was playing baseball! At about 3:15pm, Twiztid arrived, and of course the first thing that was mentioned was Madrox's significant weight loss. He didn't talk much about it himself, but Monoxide went on and on about how hard he'd worked, and how he'd done it because of his love for the Juggalos and the desire to be around as long as he can for them. Personally, I am more fond of phatso Madrox's physique, but I totally respect that he's lost weight to improve his health.


Twiztid in the seminar tent

.







Through the whole seminar, they basically acted like it was a comedy routine. I'd watched Twiztid seminars from previous years on YouTube so I knew that I should expect some quality entertainment, so I was definitely not disappointed! They talked quite a bit about Cryptic Collection 4, but really they just ran away with whatever the topic was and made it hilarious! Their seminar lasted the full hour, and they didn't quit cracking jokes the entire time. Despite having been unceremoniously ditched at their signing the day before, I still have mad love for Twiztid. They're incredible writers and performers, and I respect that they are so defiantly underground, despite having a sound that would do very well in the mainstream.

Once Madrox and Monoxide left, Dennis and I jumped up (well, as quickly as you can jump after sitting on a hay bale for like four hours!) and ran to the autograph tent in hopes that I could catch the Boondox and Potluck signing there. I wanted to get ahead of the crowd leaving the tent just in case a lot of people had the same idea. Apparently not many people cared because when I arrived, the line was very reasonable, and was moving continuously. Thank heavens, since I'd spent 6 1/2 hours in that line over the previous two afternoons!! They let in groups of about 6 or 8 people at a time, and the line never stopped for more than a few minutes at a time. That's how it should be...apparently everyone just has a lot more to say to ICP and Twiztid than they have to say to Boondox and Potluck :-)

When it was my turn at the front of the line, I quickly made my way through the Potluck guys since I've never listened to them, and found myself face to face with Boondox! His eyes...I've never seen eyes like his before. I swear they looked straight through me and burned a hole in my soul.



I handed him the photo I'd taken of him at the Memphis show, and asked him to sign it with my silver pen. He had a "wow" sort of reaction to the photo, and as he signed it, I very briefly thanked him for turning me from an ICP fan into a Juggalette. I'd listened to Cold Cruel World, and really identified with it since I've dealt with some depression in the past, so I took a moment to thank him for sharing himself in that song.



He graciously said thank you, and leaned forward over the table to get a photo with me. Awesome! When it was Dennis' turn to meet Boondox, he told him about how Lake of Fire inspired him to write a book, and how he wants to send a copy of the book to him once it's complete. Of course he was a little more long winded than that...



...so the photo I got looks like Boondox is trying to figure out how to kill Dennis while he's talking!

With that done, I gingerly placed the photo back into its envelope, and we headed back to camp so I could stash it inside the car until we left. Since Saliva was going to take to the Main Stage in just a little while, we didn't linger very long at the camp. We started to wander around to try and find some dinner, but we were out of luck basically everywhere we tried! Our first stop was the Greek place, where they were down to only pork chops and turkey legs, with a few of the sides. The next booth over was out of chicken strips, and the place on the very end was out of both chicken strips and burgers. And the line at the pizza place was LONG. Rats. We'd already spent too much time looking, so since Dennis wasn't getting anything for dinner, I asked if he could go up to the stage and stake out a close spot for us. With him holding our spot at the stage, I went back to the Greek place and got them to make me a plate of rice, veggies and bread. It was decent, though not really what I wanted, and I ate it as I made my way up to the stage.

Once I found him, I was one person back from the barricade, and slightly off to the left. I finished off my dinner, and right as I was done...



...Flava Flav came out to introduce Prozak. As soon as he took the stage, the crowd didn't seem overly into him. But maybe one or two songs into the set, his hype men started getting everyone pumped up, and started to mosh and stage dive.


Even the security guards were like "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

At one point, this really wired dude motioned to Dennis that he was going to stage dive and wanted him to catch him. I tried to get back as far as I could, and when the guy dove off the stage, he didn't jump far enough and rammed himself straight into the barricade! Everyone gasped, and I was very surprised that he didn't knock himself out with how hard he hit the barricade. Dennis pulled him up and lifted him up onto the crowd, and the guy went on as though nothing had happened!



He made his way back to the front, and after a while, I managed to get a photo of the two of them together.

At some point during Prozak's set, he announced that he was going to film a music video right then, and that he wanted the crowd to be extra enthusiastic. And OMG did the crowd go crazy! People were moshing like I've almost never seen before, and people were crowd surfing everywhere. People kept wanting Dennis to pick them up to crowd surf, and he ended up dumping three of them directly on top of me. Ouch! There was even one girl out in the mosh pit who was in a dress that looked like she'd come straight from Sunday school! And she was out there tearing it up with the rest of them!

Once Prozak was done, it was time for Saliva!!! I was truly excited beyond words to know that my favorite hard rock band was going to be playing at the Gathering. Beforehand, when ICP asked on Facebook who we wanted to see play at the Gathering, I didn't even mention Saliva because I didn't think there was any possibility at all that they would be open to playing there. But there I was...surrounded on all sides by hardcore Juggalos, about to watch Saliva! It was surreal to say the least! I tried to get someone directly at the barricade to trade spots with me, with the promise that I'd step back immediately after their set, but no one would budge. I've done that for people at shows, so I'm not sure why no one would do it for me, but whatever!

As soon as the guys from Saliva started to take the stage, it was pretty clear that I was the ONLY Saliva fan in my area. I saw Paul first, and he acted as though he recognized me, which didn't surprise me since I've seem him after so many of their shows. As soon as Dave walked out, he stopped directly in front of me on the stage, and noticed my Saliva t-shirt almost immediately. It was really cool that at least two of the guys knew that they had their most die hard Saliva fan there for that show. Even if the majority of the crowd didn't care, *I* cared!

Saliva opened their set with Black Sheep, which I thought was quite appropriate, considering the crowd they were playing for! I started dancing around, screaming and just generally going crazy, making sure to repeatedly bump into all the people who had refused to trade spots with me at the barricade haha. They played Ladies and Gentlemen, Click Click Boom, Badass, Superstar, Doperide and quite a few of their other hardest hits. I was very glad to see that they adjusted their set list for this show, because if they had gone into something softer like Rest in Pieces or How Could You, the crowd would have revolted and pelted them with any and everything they had! Speaking of, they did get a little bit of stuff thrown at them, but not very much, and I didn't hear any booing. Anything that landed on the stage would just get kicked out of the way, and they would keep on rocking.












Josey apparently sees titties for the first time at the Gathering




They really killed it in my opinion, and played with heart as though they were headlining. At one point, Dave threw a guitar pick right at me, and apparently my claws came out because everyone around me just let it fall to the ground so I could pick it up, instead of trying to grab it for themselves! haha At the end of the set, Dave started to throw his drumsticks into the crowd, and Dennis almost caught one he threw in my direction, but he couldn't grab it fast enough. Darn!

Once Saliva left the stage and I saw guys start to break down their equipment, I yelled for one of them to get a set list for me, which they did! I was completely over the moon excited to get that set list since I have others that say "Saliva Evansville" and "Saliva Nashville" so now I also have "Saliva Gathering of the Juggalos"! My plan is to see if I can get the band members to sign it so I can frame it. My set list was the only one from the day that survived, and I kind of doubt that they'll ever play another Gathering, so it's most likely a one-of-a-kind! Definitely my favorite souvenir from the Gathering!!

As I waited for Boondox to take the stage, I reveled in the fact that my favorite rock band was opening up for my favorite underground performer, and that I'd almost certainly never be in that situation again. I also noticed that there were a LOT more things getting thrown around the crowd, and a lot of it was coming really close to me. Since I didn't want to get hit with anything from behind, I turned around so I could see where all the flying stuff was coming from. And just then... ****WHACK**** Something hit me square in the left eye! I grabbed my eye with my left hand, and felt whatever it was that had hit me tumble to the ground. The crowd started to loudly chant "YOU F***ED UP! YOU F***ED UP!" and every doomsday thought ran through my mind. The pain was so intense that my first thought was "Did I just get blinded in my left eye?? How on earth will I explain this??" After another second or two, the pain subsided enough that I was able to take my hand off of my eye, and Dennis gasped at what it looked like. My hand was covered in blood, and I knew that I needed some medical attention ASAP.

I started to make my way off to the medic tent that was to the left of the stage, all the while yelling "Out of the way! I'm bleeding!" so people would get out of my way. As we got out of the crush of the main crowd, a mini ambulance golf cart was sitting there, and I was told to get in the back and they would drive me to the medic tent. No way did I want to call attention to myself, and look like a little baby getting a ride to the tent, so I told them no...I was gonna walk myself there. As I walked, I asked Dennis if he'd seen what it was that had hit me, and he said he had. It was a turkey leg!! A half eaten, dirty, hairy, disgusting Bitch Beater!!! Oh my God!! Of all the random things to take me out!! Not a water bottle. Not a beer can. Not a 2 liter of Faygo. A Bitch Beater!! Only I would have that kind of luck.

When we arrived at the medic tent, they immediately rinsed out my eye, and gave me some ice and gauze to put on it. I washed the blood and disgustingness off of my hand, and immediately tried to come up with what I would tell my friends at home! I'd told them all that I'd just gone camping...which was true...but I'd left out the whole music festival part of the story for fear that someone would worry about me. I couldn't just say that I'd gotten hit with a freaking turkey leg since who encounters flying turkey legs during normal camping trips? I ultimately decided that I would tell people that I'd gotten hit in the eye with a tent pole as I was taking down the tent. Yeah, that's the ticket.


There it is...my flying turkey leg injury.

As soon as my eye was cleaned and as patched up as it could be, I decided that I needed to get right back out there or else I was gonna miss Boondox! There was no way that I was gonna be at the Gathering and miss my Skarcrow's performance! So with my eye covered in gauze, and a baggie of ice being held on top of it, we made our way back out to the edge of the crowd right as Flava Flav was introducing Boondox. To read the story, it may seem like this process took a long time, but from the time I sat down at the tent to the time Boondox went on was only 12 minutes. Thinking back, this is really a testament to just how down I really am. I didn't even think twice about it at the time...I didn't want to ride in the little cart, I didn't want to whine and be mad about it, and I didn't want to go back to my camp to sulk. I just wanted to get patched up, and get straight back out to see Boondox. I knew that the turkey leg wasn't thrown at me on purpose. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, much like many, many others I'd seen get hit with stuff over the course of the weekend. It wasn't personal, and I didn't take it as such. So I sucked it up, dealt with it like the lette I am, and moved on.



Despite only being able to watch Boondox's set with my right eye, I enjoyed it quite a bit.



It was such a HUGE bummer that I'd been so close, and had been so excited to see him up close again, then to have that taken away. But what could I do?



As we stood there on the edge of the crowd to watch Boondox perform, this guy next to us was dancing all around, and just acting like he was on top of the world! He kept hugging Dennis and calling him the "Big King" and called me the queen numerous times. He was too funny! Boondox's set was really great, but honestly I don't remember much of it since my eye was really hurting, and I was worried about just how bad it was going to be the next day.

When Boondox was done, I said that I wanted to go back to the camp and chill out for a little while since I'd had a fairly traumatic evening, and didn't really care about Paris, Mystikal or Xhibit. I stopped back by the medic tent as we left, and asked if I could get some fresh ice and gauze, and antibiotic ointment for my eye as well (since Dennis had so graphically told me about how dirty and hairy the Bitch Beater was that hit me!!). The same EMT was there, and he said that in all the years that the Gathering had been at Hog Rock, he'd never seen someone get hit in the eye with a turkey leg. Once he gave me a gob of ointment, I went over to the ambulance and got my first look at my eye in its mirror. It was nasty. I had a cut maybe a quarter of an inch long that went just under my lower eyelid, then another small cut on the water line of my lower eyelid.



Dennis also got the gauze on the cut on his shin freshened while we were there.

As we walked back to the camp, we crossed the Drug Bridge, where a guy was yelling that he was giving out free hugs. When he saw me with my bag of ice over my gauze covered eye, he said "Aww, you look like you need a hug." So I said that I did, got my hug, and told him that I'd gotten hit in the eye with a flying Bitch Beater. That made everyone laugh, and agree that I really did need a hug! hahaha Once we made it back to the camp, we hung out in our chairs for a while, just chatting to pass the time. At one point, a guy who needed two AA batteries came by, so I was glad that I had a couple of extras to share with him. We also took a moment to make a couple of plates of nachos for dinner since we had all the fixin's but hadn't made them yet. We piled up the chips and covered them in chili and cheese sauce, and it ended up being really good! Of course it would have been better had it been warm, but it was definitely more satisfying than all the other snack food we'd packed. It was funny how, in hind sight, Pamela and I both agreed that we'd barely take any food of our own next time. By Saturday, I didn't want to eat anything out of the stash we'd brought, so next time I'd just plan on bringing breakfast and buying the rest of the meals.

Once we could hear that Xhibit was done with his set, we made our way back up to Main Stage to finish out the Gathering with the ICP set. Dennis warned that I needed to make sure everything was locked up since tent thieves go around during the ICP set sometimes. Anything that I had that was worth stealing was either on me, or locked up in my car, so I wasn't too worried. If someone needed my flashlight or my tiki torch oil that badly, let them have it! haha Once at Main Stage, as if by some divine punking, I got smacked in the right side of my neck by a mini flashlight that came flying out of nowhere! OUCH! It hurt really bad, but luckily it didn't break the skin, and I got a nice little flashlight out of it haha

We started out on the left, but quickly moved forward and to the right since we saw that people weren't jostling around too badly as far back as we were. The very last thing that I needed was to get injured any worse than I already was! We ended up basically right next to the lighting rig in the middle of the field, which still gave us a great view without being close enough to get Faygo in my open eye wound! haha In fact, it wasn't just Faygo that was being thrown. It was beer, glow sticks, baby oil, flour, and tons of unidentified stuff that I didn't want landing all over me!

When ICP finally took the stage, the atmosphere was truly magical! Everyone was happy, people were dancing and crowd surfing, and the performance was larger than life! As they sang, of course the Faygo was flying everywhere, and not just from ICP and their helper clowns, but from everyone in the audience as well! They sang quite a few of what I'd consider their best songs, with a lot of them being new to me since the only other show of theirs I'd been to was an Old Shit Tour show last January. It's almost hard to describe the way the performance felt...it was truly the culmination of an awesome event, full of awesome people, with awesome music. For just a little while, nothing else existed in the whole world except for Hog Rock. Everyone was there for the same reason, having a blast, and all enjoying themselves together. It was an amazing feeling of being a small part of something bigger than myself, and something I'm so glad that I chose to embrace.








During ICP's Bang Pow Boom finale, someone came out with a Faygo sprayer that was pretty much just a big fire hose attached to a tanker of Faygo root beer. It sprayed back and forth, soaking hundreds of people up near the front. It lasted for the entire length of the finale, plus some.



There were lots of fireworks during the finale as well, which really gave an over the top feeling to the moment. Everyone who was anyone within the genre came out on stage and started heaving Faygo bottles into the crowd, and it was sheer pandemonium for a solid ten minutes! It was just awesome! A huge part of me wanted to be right up there in the action, getting soaked and jostled around! But another part of me didn't want to risk injuring my eye any worse, and definitely didn't want to be left all sticky and fighting for a shower afterward! But next year, if we have an RV, or even a private shower, trust that I'll be up there getting soaked!









Once the music died down, the stage fell dark and the field lights came on. Even after the music stopped and the stage was empty, the Faygo sprayer kept going for probably three or four more minutes! Everyone just kind of milled around amid the Faygo bottles and beer cans, soaking in the last few minutes of what was an awesome Gathering. Dennis and I walked forward a ways, into the part of the field that was really, really soaked through with Faygo. People had started to push the crushed bottles into huge piles, so Dennis and I each grabbed one as a souvenir. As we looked, we noticed a lot of different flavors of Faygo had been sprayed, and to the best of my knowledge, ICP only sprays Diet Faygo so as not to gum up their equipment. So I chose a diet root beer bottle for my souvenir, since most likely it came from Psychopathic and not someone in the crowd. It was caked with mud and smelled awful, but I didn't care! Dennis chose one for himself, and once we'd soaked in as much as we could, we made our way back to the camp one last time.

When we arrived, Pamela and Nick were already in the tent and asleep, so I wasn't sure if they'd skipped ICP, or had just gotten out ahead of the crowd. I was really exhausted...after the last three nights of never getting more than about 3 hours of sleep a night, and none of it being restful sleep, I really was just ready to go home by that point. I really wish that someone had perfected teleportation already because I'd have teleported that entire camp to my back yard to be cleaned up the next day! I didn't want to pack up a darn thing that night, so I just quickly retired to my mattress to see if I could get a few hours of sleep. Dennis obliged in rubbing my feet one last time, but I was so tired that I fell asleep really quickly.