In all the confusion, I could barely find my way out of there. The stadium was packed with ravers, hippies, goths, punks, gangsters, jocks, and freaks of all size and shape. I was in the middle of a mass exodus, a sea of flesh flowing into every crack and crevice that a human body could fit. The running of the bulls in Pamplona, Italy were tame compared to this. As I meandered throughout the arena, I was suddenly aware that I was no longer touching the ground. The writhing flesh creature that encircled me was now supporting my weight from all sides. This was the closest to an orgy that you could possibly get without a disease. Well, maybe.
Dog help you if you fall. The same mass human organism that cradles you above the crowd and passes you from fimbrae to fimbrae can also stomp the life out of you with the collective weight of an elephant. This was the beauty of it, the sheer randomness and risk. The risk you take in life is similar to the collective flesh monster seen at concerts and most soccer (football) games. As a consequence of the pursuit of happiness, you have to either stand your ground, if you’re big enough, or become one with the most unpredictable force that mankind has ever had the dubious honor to profligate.
As the air filled with grunts and groans, complaints and cow calls, I finally saw my way clear to start wriggling my way through the crowd. As the crowds started to diffuse into the parking lot, the air got cooler, the people I was inadvertently dry humping were finally making their way to their vehicles.
I stopped for a brief moment to collect myself.
As the blood returned to my extremities, I got in my car and sparked up a clove. I rolled down the windows and let the cool breeze blow through. I had spent all day at the concert, listening to various groups perform, visiting the several political action tents (including the tattoo parlor), feasting on the various foods of foreign lands, and drinking and drinking and drinking. I was done.
It was a good day, though. I ended up in the lawn section with the other losers too poor to buy their way to a closer seat to the stage. Surprisingly, the people around seemed to be having a better time than the people down front.
I met all sorts of freaks there. One girl I had a conversation with was especially interesting. She said she had worked for a couple of years for some photographer somewhere in Hollywood. She was real sketchy on the details but the way she had described it led me to believe that there was something else she wanted me to know. Whatever it was, though, she never let on. Ooh, the mystery girl! She was a relatively short girl with light skin and deep purple hair. She was wearing tons of silver jewelry, crosses, beads, including a nose ring. She smelled of flowers and fruit and told me that her name was Brianna. Cool.
Oftentimes you converge on a gathering of restless souls, mingle, schmooze, revel, and generally establish your existence in the universe by having others validate your existence by communicating with you. This is all a long and drawn out way of saying that it feels good to party. At a party or a gathering of the tribes, you run across people who you have never met before, and most likely, never will see again. These transient souls who pass amongst us every day all have stories to tell. We all grew up from defenseless babies. We have all felt pain, fear, pleasure and love. Yet we are often fascinated by listening to and sharing experiences which elicit these emotions which are so familiar to us. It is the need to solve our human puzzle that we communicate freely with strangers, who, at times, act as unjudgemental shaman helping us to unravel the secrets of the universe.
“What the hell am I talking about?”, I said out loud, as I started the car and cautiously made my way home, keeping an eye out for “the man”...
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