Caution: The Fourth Wave is Filled with Silicone

Well, well. That was my last Homegrown Music Festival. At least in that capacity.

In Duluth, once a year, during the first week of May, we throw a weeklong party celebrating the creativity of our citizens. There’s live music every night, all over town. Just shy of 200 bands play per year, and many are turned away. There are art shows, film festivals, and other weird shit goes on all week long. It’s mostly about the music, but let’s face it, it’s about the art and the drinking and the camaraderie, too. Historically, it’s been a fun week most years.

This year, I don’t really know what happened. I took the week off of work so as to soak in all the fun I could, as I knew my willingness to partake in the festivities would only continue to dwindle as my hair continued to gray and my energy continued to head south. I went out Tuesday night and had a lovely time. Listened to some experimental music and spent some time talking politics with the mayor. Had a total of two beers. “This is a just amount of beer on a Tuesday night when you are in your early thirties”, I figured. I skipped Wednesday night because I had other shit to do, and stayed home doing said other shit.

Thursday night, though, was a SHIT SHOW. Me and a small group of friends headed over the bridge to Wisconsin, where we drank and drank and drank until I no longer knew my own name, and told my friend Pista that I “piss myself all the time”, which really is not true, but I apparently thought she’d find that impressive or something. *NOTE: I did not piss myself that evening. The comment truly came from out of the blue. I don’t know why. I went to Wisconsin with the intentions of enjoying some bands. I am sure I did that. But I couldn’t tell you which ones or what they played because frankly, it’s all a blur to me after I spent ten minutes telling a girl twice my size that her outfit wasn’t befitting her age or size. Do you guys know that I’m a feminist in my real life and would never even have such a thought let alone express it? Jesus, I hate knowing me sometimes.

Anyway, dear reader, at some point I ended up at RT Quinlan’s Saloon with my head draped across the bar hollering at my ride to take me home before I puke. The next thing I knew, I had waltzed into my home, pointed at my husband and (reportedly) blurted out, “I love you, but I’m gonna go make myself throw up,” and then wound up naked on the bathroom floor with a toothbrush down the back of my throat for the next 3 hours, causing all sorts of capillaries to explode in my face and causing all kinds of bile to stain the sides of my just-scrubbed can.

Needless to say, I took Friday off.

Saturday, I went out. My husband’s band was playing that night, as was a couple of bands belonging to my favorite people. I spent the night in the company of upwards of 700-800 people (I think?)—700 to 800 sweaty, drunk, belligerent, smelly, farty, yeasty people. Did I mention I am 5’ 3” and a claustrophobic? Imagine the fun I had that night trying to navigate an over-capacity bar that is shaped like a long hallway. I had a boner in my buttcrack and beer breath in my nose at every given moment that night. Oh, and I stayed sober so I could drive. Oh, and did I mention I am a fucking misanthrope and am easily overstimulated? My head still hurts from all the people and the overload on my senses.

Anyway, the bands were great—all of ‘em. Even my friend Hot Dog’s band, which does rock ballads about never wanting to grow up, and which has only been rehearsing for a few weekends so far, was pretty spectacular. Mostly because Hot Dog tossed a caseload of pregnancy tests and kazoos to the crowd, and ended their set with a vaudeville number that included a top-of-the-line slide whistle. I’m not even joking. This really happened. The crowd was responsive and (according to my friends and husband who played) really fun to play to.

Oh yeah, and at one point, probably at my worst personally, when I was sandwiched between a heavyset bearded fellow who smelled like warm cheddar cheese and a woman whose life depended on getting ahead of me in line to get to the stage floor, this pretty dark-haired girl who I didn’t quite recognize stopped me and told me that she loves my Tumblr. I’m not certain who she was, but I assure you, dear reader, I was miserable at the time she stopped me, and then she said all the lovely things she said, and I felt my face contort into this ridiculous grin that probably didn’t leave my face for at least a couple of hours. Then I read in my friend Pista’s blog that her blog friend, Whiskey Marie, was up that very evening, and now I secretly hope it was her who stopped me. Because if it was, then holy shit, this was a real honor to be told this by such an entertaining and concise writer. It kinda looked like her photo booth photos on her blog, anyway, so I guess I can only hope.

But anyway, yeah. I can’t do that shit anymore. My brain is too old to manage that many people and places and things for that many days in a row. Next year, I’m going to see my husband’s set and maybe one other. And that’s it. The rest of the bands I can just see the rest of the year when nobody else is interested in seeing them play. At least then I won’t end up with someone’s dick in my crack and someone else’s elbow in my eye and yet someone else’s beer in my hair all while trying to bounce along to someone’s cover of a Ween song.

Back to work.