I woke up SUPER early on Friday morning...maybe around 6 or 7am. It was very cloudy all morning...looked like rain, felt like rain. I puttered around picking up camp till Seth woke up. When he finally got up around 8:30am, it REALLY looked like rain, so we threw a tarp over the truck and ez up and battened down the hatches. It was sprinkling lightly as we worked, and as soon as we were done it came down. We enjoyed the dryness and warmth in the truck, until Seth got the end of the mattress all wet, and still we remained relatively comfortable. Eventually the rain stopped, and the sun peaked out. I don't particularly mind morning showers at fests, as the sun throughout the day usually dries everything out. It's evening rain that really sucks...cause soggy nights are no fun. cMind you, through all of this, we had no clue what time it was. I geared up with bunny ears, big pink glasses, and an orange faux-fur shall. On our way to breakfast I asked a vendor for the time...when she told me it was only quarter to 11am, I freaked out! I couldn't believe it was so early! I must've looked like a crazy spunyun but I was merely surprised!
We got [delicious] breakfast burritos and smoothies from the bicycle-blended-smoothie place and bumped into a couple of friends. I got a pair of [awesome] tie dye pants from our friend James of Beandawg Artworks (they vended at Pink Moon II). We headed back to camp and picked up some fliers to pass out. We wandered all across the venue, meeting cool people and promoting Pink Moon. It's amazing how much more receptive people are to me compared to Seth when we're "street teaming". People who refuse fliers from him have turned around and doubled back to take fliers from me. It's amazing what boobs will do! Seth and I split up at one point and met up back at camp after a couple of hours. We promptly curled up in the back of the truck. It was an epic nap! So epic, it felt like a night's sleep and threw off my internal clock for the rest of the weekend.
It was dusk when we woke up. We rubbed the sleep out of our eyes, chugged some red bull and got some dinner. We both were feeling incredibly groggy...each festival we go to on tour gets harder and harder. Especially when you're carrying an entire dragon on your back. Despite the fatigue, we felt good....we were super prepared for this fest...with plenty to drink and munch on, plenty of clean clothes, sheets and blankets and pillows, and some spending money. It felt nice to be so together. It was also kind of nice sans crew...Seth and I really got a chance to spend some time together at this fest, which almost never happens.
We bumped into a friend of ours, Kenny, running a kick-ass gem booth on the vending strip: East Coast Rocks. He helped us with our first dragon set of the evening. I took the back pack and three ribs and he grabbed the tail (Seth is always on Puff's head). I was red faced and sweaty by the time we got back to camp. Zick and Jennie and their friend Whitney stopped by to say hello, and after a good conversation, some festie-tag creation and a couple beers they helped us with our second dragon set for the beginning of Kyle Hollingsworth's set. It was such a relief to have a proper compliment of 5 dragoneers to run around with. It makes it so much easier to give Puff some life and animation.
On our way back to camp we came across a spun-yun laying in the middle of the unlit path screaming. There were two guys there attempting to control him. We stopped to help, cause this dude was out of control. Slowly we got the whole story, this super-spun dude had torn apart these staffers cabin, and when they returned to find the place in tatters discovered him hiding in the bathroom. He decked on of them, twice...and they were still trying to get him under control. They had no clue who he was. Captain Spunyun got himself tangled in an orange plastic fence and while Seth and staffers 1 & 2 kept an eye on him, I went to get the medics. They were two, rather small, rather young girls, so even once I'd brought them to the tangled spunyun the rest of us stayed to make sure everything went ok. Dude had gotten violent once and it didn't seem like the gals would be ok on their own. The six of us (me, Seth, EMT 1, EMT 2, Staffer 1 and Staffer 2) half guided half dragged this guy back to the first aid tent, where we proceeded to give him water, and try to calm him down. As we delt with him, EMT #1's (a.k.a. Amanda) boyfriend showed up with a few friends. The boyfriend, Mark has been an acquaintance/facebook friend of mine for a while now, and also happens to be an incredibly cool guy. Finding and truly befriending him was the karmic award for our good sumaritan-ness. There was now a solid group of between 6 and 8 people giving this off-the-wall spunyun defensive-circle-dance-party-therapy...keeping him chill and under control and with us by dancing around in a sort-of circle, and cutting him off at the pass any time he got too out of control or too far away. It was hysterical really, and an awesome experience. The people involved were mostly concerned, responsible, caring festie goers...with the exception of the two emt girls, who had to deal with this. Turns out this was their first ever festival, and both of them (nurses) were extremely straight edge. Mark (Amanda/EMT's boyfriend) kept tossing them hints on how to deal with the spun kid, and they did extremely well, still I felt bad for them. Eventually we decided to turn him lose on the crowd, hopefully to find his friends again. We danced him out to the middle of the crowd, and danced away. We all chilled by the first aide tent to be sure he didn't come back to harass the EMT/festie-first-timers. Good thing too, because not five minutes after we left him he'd spit in some dude's face, and was about to get a serious knuckle sandwich. We dragged him back, and kept an eye on him for a little longer till all of a sudden, his friend stumbled upon us. I grabbed this friend, Colin, who was almost as spun as spunyun, and told him to take his friend back to camp. They wandered off together and the rest of us convened to relax and unwind. We gathered in a close circle, immediately in front of the Headstash booth, funnily enough, and performed our unwinding rituals. We were all happy, light hearted, and glad to have been brought together (not to mention glad to be rid of dude). I was, I'll admit, very surprised there had not been some sort of "Official Barefoot Plan" to deal with something like this. It didn't seem practical for the only two, inexperienced-in-festival-land, tiny EMT girls to babysit this out of control spunyun all night. In fact, there seemed to be absolutely ZERO security at Barefoot, at all. Although that might seem cool...you need security at a festival, not to mess with people, but to keep everyone safe. A lot of crazy shit can go down during a fest, and the mere presence of some security can keep people in check.
Seth and I stumbled back to camp, unwound from the crazy spunyun experience, and went to bed.
Saturday morning was bright and sunny. We got breakfast from the best food vendor on lot: Shady Grove Wraps and hung up some posters. Most of the day was spent at camp cause it was too darn hot. Bunches of friends stopped by...Zick & friends, Mark from the trip sitters last night, and a some cool glow guys...including another Mark (who'd helped the dragon by guiding him through the crowd at All Good XV) who glow-painted Puff. They used this cool spray paint which glows when activated by lasers. At one point Sethro helped a small boy fly his kite (he is a kite expert after all). It was incredibly cute, and the kite got left behind, so Sethro gave me a quick lesson too!
Around dusk, once it began to cool off, Sethro donned the red dancing bear mascot and I the skeleton suit and we went on our last round of promotion. It went over pretty well!
Seth needed some time to recover after the nasty bear set, while I began packing up camp. After dark the glow guys came back, we grabbed Kenny, and we dragoned one last time. I took the tail this time (a dragon part I'd never done before) and we raged it. We chilled, rambling with the glow guys for awhile, threw the dragon in the back of the truck, and left. I was so glad to be going home...Barefoot was fun, but I was exhausted and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and getting the house an Pink Moon together. It took us about two hours to get home. We watched some tv before passing out around 4am.Barefoot was our last stop on tour before Pink Moon! We raged the dragon every night, and gave them an extra bear set. We got the word out on Pink Moon and met a ton of super cool people. It was a fun and rewarding weekend...but now it's time to put our noses to the grindstone and get Pink Moon up and running. It's going to be a great time, we've got a ton of good ideas, and we've met a bunch of great people willing to help. This party's gonna be crazy!
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