Throughout the history of man, certain indiviuals have defied everything that they were told was the truth and have questioned authority to the ends of the earth. Rebels like Christopher Columbus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Vladmir Lenin, Phil Anselmo and Maddox have been immortalized for their against-the-grain beliefs. This is the tale of two such individuals.
Charlie Robinson (a.k.a. Grand Master Bullshit) and Allen Thome (a.k.a. God) exhibited a Vulgar Display of Power from July 8th-11th 2004 at Lifest 2004. Now in case you've been living in a giant bunghole on Mars, Allen and I are hardcore atheists. We believe that religion is one of the most ridiculous "epidemics" plaguing our world today. In fact, you're even lucky I capitalized god a couple sentences ago. Consider that a typo.
But Lifest 2004 was a trip to say the least. It was so great that when I'm on my deathbed awaiting the shores of Valhalla, I'll be telling my grandchildren about how cool Lifest was. While reading this column, the words appearing in red will be mine (Charlie's). Words appearing in gray will be those of Allen. Also, you will have an opportunity to listen to actual audio recordings from Lifest that we captured on my voice recorder. Just click on the links for them and they should play (.wav format). Other voice recordings have been quoted.
In high school, I never understood why Magellan wanted to sail across the globe, why the Moors tried to conquer Spain, or what Lewis and Clark were thinking when they agreed to explore the land bought in the Louisiana Purchase. The thought of leaving one’s own comfortable home to risk life, limb, and testicles in an uncertain journey to questionable locations was beyond me.
It took a while for me to find the answers to those questions. After having gone to the brink of civilized shepherding and back, I started to open my eyes. Copernicus, Henry the Navigator, Alexander the Great, Adolf Hitler, and every other hero that ever ventured from what they know and trust all shared one common interest. That interest is to learn about, mock, and enslave different cultures.
There is no way to describe how I feel about Lifest. It is a Christian rock music festival that Sir Charles Robinson Esquire and I attended from July 8-11, 2004. It is the Woodstock of religious hippies and vacationing brainwash victims (Midwestern families).
I was scouring through the mail one fine day when I came across a pamphlet that was addressed to my step-sister Sara who doesn't live with us. It was an advertisement for Lifest 2004. Curious, I began to read it discovering that it was a music festival for Christians. It took place in Oshkosh, WI and lasted 4 days Thursday - Sunday. If you wanted to stay 4 days, you had the option of renting a campsite and staying there. Suddenly, it hit me. I instantly knew that it was something I had to attend. I realized how much fun it would be to go there with some atheist friends, party all weekend long, and piss off Christians to no end.
I was so excited to tell original BS Central writer Levon and future BS writer Allen about my idea that I think I had wood. They were instantly won over with my visions of us getting all fucked up before the Lifest basketball tourney, saying "fuck" really loud in a crowd, and making fun of shitty Christian bands.
The cost to celebrate god in this form would be $70 per person for a 4 day pass and $50 for the campsite. We were all more than willing to pay it to go on this endeavor.
I was eager to dig for information on it. One day I looked up Lifest on the internet and sure enough, I found their official homepage. As I went through the activities list, I found that a paintball tournament was one of the new features for this year. I yelped in excitement at the thought of annihilating Christians with a paintball gun (legally).
After even more research, I learned about the volunteer opportunities that actually reduced the attendance fee. Volunteering to help at Lifest slashed the price from $70 to $27. But that wasn't the best part. The best part was that you could choose which area to volunteer for. Browsing the list of volunteer areas, it became apparent to me what we HAD to volunteer for. This particular area was Security.
The next time I saw Allen and Levon, I excitedly described to them what lay in store for us at Lifest. The general consensus was that nothing short of our untimely deaths would keep us from going. But not only were we going, we were to be security guards in charge of busting heads if anything got out of hand. Our reservations were made, our information was mailed out, so all we had to do was wait.
July 4th 2004, my eighteenth birthday, was one of the most anxious nights of my short and relatively boring life (pictures in the Party Pictures section). Levon, Charlie, and I drank away any memories of an eventful birthday with the anticipation of our inebriated weekend among everyday morons gathering to jam with the Leper Messiah.
Thursday July 8th:When July 8th finally came around, I was more excited than when I sprouted my first armpit hairs. I rounded up the booze and camping supplies and arrived punctually at Charlie’s house one hour late. I hadn't talked to Levon in the week leading up to Lifest so I wasn't sure he knew when we were leaving. An hour before we were supposed to leave I saw him online and asked if he was going. He said he would come up there later and he would call me when he left. I had all of the camping shit ready in the garage so we packed it up in Allen's truck and prepared for our journey.
Needless to say, with all the years of imagining, hyperbolizing, and planning, Charlie and I were giddy enough to say the word “dude” a dozen times before we even got on the freeway. By four o’clock we had already completed our first of a plethora of roadies. The excitement and smoke in my car increased three fold, both were almost palpable. Slowly becoming more and more anxious with each and every mother fucking, god forbidden, ungratefully dawdling mile it was understood that we needed to do something to pass the time before our chests exploded. We talked about really important shit like Metallica and beer or something, Odds are it was at least one of those, I don’t recall.
On our way up the THC reserve in my brain cleared for a moment and it dawned on me that I had a Satan fish on my rear hatch. For the dirty savages who do not know what a Satan fish is, it's a pussy Jesus fish put on upside down, thus the black backing is seen and the cross is also upside down. The entire weekend, not one Christian commented on it, and knowing the way Christians talk to anyone about anything from cheese wheels to Richard Simmons, I assume that no one saw it.
4:30 PM: We arrived in Oshkosh and came into view of Sunnyview Expo center. Christian encampments were immediately visible and we knew this was the real deal.
Our first plan was to fling plague-ridden corpses over the fences and onto the crowd at the first stage. That was a kick-ass plan, we were going to blame it on Al-Queda, but the corpses wouldn’t fit into the cooler, so we left them in my yard.
Our second plan was to check in at the YMCA to get our security guard info and 4-day wristbands. We pulled into the parking lot with our windows down blasting, appropriately, Metallica's Leper Messiah. As we walked up to the entrance, we saw this sign:
Now if that isn't the pinnacle of sexism... We walked into the YMCA, our eyes ablaze, and were directed to the security table. As we walked up to the old bitch behind the table, she said "Are you security?" Hearing that and knowing that I was, in fact, security nearly made me geek out right then and there.
Checking in was somewhat tedious because we had to explain to Stegosaurus that Levon would be staying at site H015 with us, but that he was coming up later. Mind you it wasn’t like we gave a shit. He hadn’t called yet and I used my godliness to predict that there was no way in hell he was taking the two hour drive from Big Bend to Oshkosh.
On our way out, we ended up conversing with a girl standing outside. She asked where we were from, to which I replied "Some place that isn't sexist!" She had no idea how to respond to it. At this point, we were still anticipating word from Levon.
Working our way through the encampments of Nazareth became a whole ‘nother world of boring when a youth group decided to stop their truck and trailer directly in our path. Unluckily for us I had used my last few rounds on Mini-Coopers the day before, so we were forced to wait. That’s another red mark in my mental file of youth groups.
They had a whole pile of shit to unload and we were sitting there waiting for them. As we were sitting there, Allen actually recognized one of the girls as our friend Brad's sister. She recognized him so her and 3 of her mouth-breathing friends came over to chat. As we chatted, she said that we should have influenced Brad to come along and camp with Jesus. She then stuck her head in the car and said "Were you guys smoking cuz I can smell it." As we scrambled for a response, another airheaded chick chimed in with: "Are you guys here for God or are you here for no reason??? This is God camp." What the hell bitch? Do you think we would come here for no reason? We had a damn good reason; we wanted to get fucked up and piss off Christians. But, Allen said that we were there for god so she shut up after that. So within 10 minutes of being there we were almost exposed as the Atheists that we are. Luckily we dodged it and moved on. That would be the last questioning we faced.
We parked at our campsite about 20 minutes later. It was a 10 x 10 square surrounded by 10 x 10 squares. Exciting
The security trailer detailed us on the fine points of head bashing and knee breaking crowd control. However, the hag running it had no clue how to break knees or bash heads. I just imagined how to do it while she was talking in my general direction. But in the end, my uneasiness about my job was quelled when I was informed that she loved me.
5:15 PM:The next order of business now that we had found the fortress was to walk to the security trailer and get checked in. Our first walk around the grounds was like looking into a backwards world where cars drove down the side of the roads while pedestrians occupied 2 full lanes of traffic. Whoever started that pattern needs to fall on a chainsaw. Now after all these years I finally know what CCD stands for. Christians Can’t Drive. Within a half hour of being there Charlie and I were already demonically laughing when a truck smacked some trailer. That’s what happens when you let people walk in the MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROAD. They’re called martyrs, use them.
Back at the campsite, we set up our tent. Our first attempt at putting the rain flap on resulted in it being on backwards. We adjusted it only to put the damn thing on upside-down. So, we did the best thing that we could. We said "fuck it" and hoped that it wouldn't rain. When we loaded our shit into the tent, our camp transformed into a mini-Sodom, complete with booze, buds, mixers, cigars, munchies, weapons, a grill, a table, a deck of cards, air mattresses and bed making supplies, coolers, and a seriously hot lantern.
6:45 PM: After we explored, we decided to get some dinner and groceries before Allen's security shift. But of course we couldn't do that without roadie #2 taking place. We drove around Oshkosh looking for a place to eat and decided on KFC. Behind it was a Chinese restaurant with an empty parking lot. We decided to roast the bowl there but it took us 5 different parking spots before we couldn't be seen through any windows. Unfortunately the KFC we picked happened to be the shittiest KFC ever.
Walking through the doors we were greeted by Oshkosh’s finest, a 14 year old mongoloid with hoop earrings and a gargantuan forehead. Despite her awkward appearance, I was assured that she was somewhat human as she spoke with a near 4-year-old level of word choice and sentence structure. As an added bonus she kept her grunting at a minimal. After the confusing ordeal of ordering, Charlie and I had to wait while Earl unclogged the grease trap and cleaned the beaver fur off of the grill. When we finally received our food and seated ourselves, it was brought to our attention that the seats at our scummy booth were entirely to close together, as Charlie’s knees severely assaulted my knees. No one could have warned us about this as we were the only two customers in the place. God damn was the food awesome though.
On the way back to the truck, we came across this:
Grease Interceptor? That sounds like the job description for the Texas Border Patrol. This thing obviously wasn't working either; my chicken was greasy as fuck.
7:20 PM: There was a Pick n' Save across from KFC so we went to get some food to grill out. Once we were halfway through the store carrying a bunch of shit, we realized that we should have grabbed a goddamn cart. We wandered aimlessly through the store for 20 minutes finding our items by random accident. After picking up burgers, brats, cheese, bacon, buns, shit to mix drinks with and a cooler, we were ready to head back. By complete accident, we ended up with this cooler:
7:40 PM: Back at the campsite, we were poised for a wild weekend. Allen's shift started in 20 minutes, so he prepared for it apropriately:
I check in right on time for main stage security. Normally something as pointless as checking in does not make into super fantastic action journalism pieces like this one, but they asked for my e-mail address. For those who don’t know, my e-mail address is Allen_is_god@yahoo.com. Forgetting that I was flying under Christian radar, I started to write it down, but before long I realized what I was doing and made up something else like blink182kewl4ever@hottie.com.
After checking in I rode in the golf cart on my way to the stage. I had a lot of time to think of the doom and destruction that laid ahead of me. I could hear the crowd, shouting like bloodthirsty warlords and heathens. I’ll admit I was nervous with the idea of being sent alone into a sea of creatures with no respect for human life. I met up with Roy after noticing him when he was dancing with people in the crowd. He instructed me, and I quote, “Just wander around the crowd and check for wristbands, but most of all have fun and enjoy the music.” Right, how was I supposed to do that when I was supposed to bash skulls? Furthermore, how am I to bash skulls without a nightstick or a bat of some kind. Bullshit. So I tried the second option, to enjoy the music, which proved impossible as the music consisted of an electrified punk version of “Play That Funky Music White Boy.” I was utterly astonished at how many bottom-heavy mothers and gimpy fathers were waving their hands in the air like a generation-challenged flower child. As I was wandering the crowd I stumbled across my 10th grade English teacher, who claimed that she didn’t expect to see me there. No shit?
800 PM:"I'm out here working security, it's pretty fucking gay. I'm supposed to just roam around, check for wristbands and have fun apparently. I just saw my English teacher, Mrs. Erdmann. This band really fuckin sucks. All they do is play really gay-ass white people music and shit."
8:06 PM:"There's bunch of people dancing around like shitheads. There's a crippled guy next me, fuck him.
It was 8:08 PM and I had witnessed enough excitement for one night. Then and there I proclaimed that I was busting out of there as my buzz was wearing off.
"I've been here for 8 fuckin minutes, this shit is lame. I think I'm getting outta here, I'm bored."
I meander around the outskirts of the grounds looking for a place to duck into and remove my security shirt. The shitty band had finished playing and I was vaguely interested by who was speaking later on. I heard the name Stephen Baldwin and I made a lunge into a Port-a-John to quick rub one out while the announcer repeated the word Baldwin.
8:14 PM:"Stephen Baldwin is about to come out. They couldn't even get Alec Baldwin."
It turns out that Stevie Baldwin was there to speak about his new skateboarding/BMXing video “On the Grounds.” My response, “Do you think that guy has ever seen a skateboard? Dumbass.” Fuck that. What the fuck does any Baldwin know about skateboarding? I wipe my ass with videos like that. I was further disappointed to find out that his stage appearance would not include beheading.
At 8:35 I made a desperate cry for help, “I need a drink.” The situation was becoming dire; I had already seen one man in a wheelchair, no doubt from a lengthy dry period. I wished it was Sunday so that I could get some of that free wine.
8:26 PM:"I'm still trying to find a way to get the fuck out of here. I gotta find a place I can take my shirt off. I'd go to the porta-potties but it's too busy."
Just before the clock struck 9:00 I found Roy walking back to the stage eating a pretzel. That’s right, he left his integral post at the stage to go get a fucking pretzel. I was fed up with trying to sneak away, and Roy’s pretzel shenanigans taught me that I could just walk out the front gate. So I did, fuck it, and when I was out of sight I removed my shirt, a gesture that symbolized how much of a joke that job was anyways.
8:57 PM:"I've done it. I slipped away. I'm no longer working gay-ass security. Charlie, I'm comin’ home motha’ fucka’!"
Walking back to Timbuktu I came across a couple minors who questioned me about my affiliation with skateboarding that they brilliantly pulled from my t-shirt. She pointed out several things to me in her campsite, like her bed, her mom’s car that she wants to drive, and a cornucopia of shit that I gave a shit about. She offered me some baked goods, I took a muffin and promised her that I’d use it. It did come in handy as a projectile to hurl at far off campsites.
9:07 PM:"I'm back at the campsite. I just called Charlie. Lettin him know I ditched them sorry fuckers. I was just talking to these bitches who were about 14. They gave me a fuckin corn muffin. I dont know where I put it."
With Allen on the beat for 4 1/2 hours, I was left to occupy time on my own. I wasted the first half hour the best way I knew how: by drinking Jack. After I downed a Jack and Coke, I went to inquire about the paintball tournament (not before chewing some gum). I found the paintball tent and asked when the tournament would be. 9 AM the next morning was NOT the response I was looking for. Even if I wasn't going to be hung over, there was still no way I would get up so damn early to pelt Christians with balls of goo. The tournament would have to be sacrificed like a goat in the old testament. I decided to go scope out the basketball court hoping that wouldn't screw me over as well (I would be later proved wrong). I was watching the faithful ballers go at it when my cell phone began to ring. The caller ID said 'Allen' and I became confused. "Guess where I am," Allen had to say. Heaven? Rebecca St. James' dressing room? "The campsite." I headed back immediately to see how he pulled it off. When I got there he filled me in and we made celebratory drinks. After a while I realized what Allen's ditching of security might lead to: "Allen has done his part to ruin the secured integrity of the entire festival. If al Qaeda decides to drop in, we're all pretty well fucked."
10:00 PM: When I packed for Lifest, I brought a plain white t-shirt and a marker with intentions of making my own Jesus-themed t-shirt. I laid the shirt out on my air mattress and began to draw. This is what I came up with:
By 10:15 we were both pretty intoxicated. Also at this point we still hadn't heard from Levon. We couldn't call him because he tried to skip his cell phone across Lake Michigan with minimal success. We gave up on him and assumed he was dead or in jail. We just drank in his honour then. By 10:24 I drank enough to fill my bladder, and I had this to say: Gotta Pee. After "draining the lizard" in some random place, I decided to bust into one of the mad rhymes of C-Racker Chicken Slapper (my rapper alter-ego): Mad Rapper. At 10:41 the paintball tournament bullshit crossed my mind and I spewed out a small rant: Too damn early. Allen was planning on doing a little skating after he "got some more Crunk in his system."
11:00 PM: With our roadie ability stopped by the closed gates, we decided to spark one in the tent. To prevent the smell from reaching our close-by neighbors, we blew hits into my sleeping bag. After a while, when you stuck your head in you were 2 times higher than when you went in.
11:45 PM: As our BAC rose, so did our mood. In a mere 8 hours, we already realized we were having a blast. While sitting outside at our table drinking, we engaged in several games of poker. A lush insect decided to land in my drink and gulp. I picked it out and set it on the table, assuming it drowned:
Several minutes later it began moving again so we had an incriminating trial for it (Beavis and Butthead style).
Midnight:
At midnight I decided it was time to head back to the stage to check out after my hard worked shift. I saw the same crippled guy that I noticed a few hours before, and I feared he would rat me out as cripples generally do.. Everyone had already cleared out from the main stage, and I headed to the trailer to check out. There I found Roy, the lady that loves me, and a handful of other officers of God. They didn’t suspect a god damn thing. That just goes to show how trusting Christians are. They never feel the need to keep tabs on people that they have working for them. They'd never suspect a "Christian" of fucking them over because they believe that Christians have the best morals within society.
While Allen was away, I went back to the basketball court. Although I couldn't walk straight, I was determined to get into a game. Since there was only 1 court, you had to shoot your way into the game. The 5 members of the winning team were automatically in the game. Between games a line formed at the free throw line for other hopefuls. The first 5 to make a free throw were in the game. My first attempt resulted in an air ball and the team was filled up before I could shoot again. I waited patiently for the next game only to fail horribly with another airball. Disgruntled, I gave up until sobriety was a little closer. I decided to go back to the campsite and drink to forget my problems.
2:00 AM - 4:30 AM We engaged in deep philosophical discussions about music, religion, astronomy, and life theory. I don’t know what was said, but I do know that we cursed ourselves for leaving the chess board behind and instead played about 50 games of poker.
1:30 AM: We had our first Lifest cookout, made official with our pre-cooked bacon readily available in the awesome Lifoam cooler. The bacon was especially good seeing as how Hormel only uses the most wicked swine sacrificed on a bed of evil, then smoked and cured on brimstone heated with the intensity of 20 burning homosexuals capped by a single witch.
I sum up our night here: I'm so drunk. Our close-by neighbors should have been able to perfectly hear what we were saying but they weren't hardcore enough to be up that late. Our air mattresses had been slowly deflating pretty much since we blew them up. We meant to reinflate them sometime before we went to bed but we never got around to it. In fact, we didn't get around to it for the rest of the weekend. Oops. We finally decided to pass out sometime after 4 AM. Little did we know what awaited us a mere 5 hours later...
Friday July 9th:
8:20 AM: Upon my rude asekening, I had this to say; "Note to self: the retard over there playing Nirvana is gay and needs to get his head bashed in." It smells like this asshead's teen spirit of the holy ghost was not aligned with the one and only holy book, the Lifest camping guide. According
to rule number one:
Above all, please be considerate of your neighbors.
Playing the same shitty song over and over in the wee hours of the morning does not fall into that category, asshead.
9:30 AM: When I returned to consciousness I thought I woke up in Hell. Our tent was a blazing oven of torture which made it impossible to sleep any more. As I sat up perpendicular to my sleeping bag, I began wishing I was dead. I had a badass headache and was dehydrated as a piece of beef jerky. I was definately in no condition to be pelting Christians with paintballs. We escaped the tent's fury to a somewhat nicer environment outside:
It was still too damn hot out so we ended up in Allen's truck with the air conditioner blasting.
11:10 AM: After cooling off, we decided to go on Roadie #3 and listen to Pink Floyd. It was still earlier than I would've woken up if it weren't so damn hot out but the pot woke me right up. On the way to KFC Thursday night, I spotted a street sign that said "Allen". We passed it again so I snapped a picture with this result:
This prompted us to sing a classic Allen Jackson song: Ladder to Heaven. We went to a gas station to freshen up and get some liquid to combat dehydration. While there, Allen decided we should look for a smoke shop. We asked the lady at the gas station if there was one around and she gave us directions to one. Our destination was the Paper Tiger which sounded easy enough to find. That is, easy enough to find if we didn't get shitty Woman Directions. We wandered around somewhat hopeless trying to find it for about 15 minutes. Along the way we saw a bunch of stupid lions, but no tigers:
What the hell am I???
The people in Oshkosh do too many drugs because there were at least 3 more lions that we saw, each as insignificant. We finally arrived at the Paper Tiger after driving right past it a couple times. If we had proper directions that wouldn't have happened.
We found the Paper Tiger and noticed that they were also a pretty kick-ass bookstore. I read some anti-bush literature for a little while then went into the humidor to sample the cigars. Charlie and I were asked if we had any ID. I did, but Charlie forgot his at the campsite. I went back into the humidor, minding my own business. Some fire-breathing wench confused me for Charlie and tried to kick me out because I didn’t have ID, when I in fact did. Charlie found this very amusing; I did not. I choke slammed the bitch through the glass window into the street where 3 Mexicans continued to load her up into their van to sell on the black market. I purchased a cigar for later on that night:
Noon: After Roadie #4 on the return trip, I realized that I smelled like Moses' nutsack after wandering the desert for 40 years. My crusty ass needed a baptismal in the shower. It was the perfect opportunity to put on my newly created Jesus shirt:
On the way, I got my first evidence that Christians have a terrible sense of humor, described here: Sense of Humor Alert #1. While waiting in line I realized that Lifest was, in fact, trying to guilt people into behaving with specialized "What Would Jesus Do?" signs in the bathroom. The sign read something along the lines of "What would Jesus do? HE WOULDN'T MAKE A MESS. He would leave the bathroom the way it was when he came in." Then it was ended with something about washing feet that was completely irrelevant and didn't make sense. I found it ironic because I remembered one of those signs soaked in piss in the urinal the night before.
1:00 PM: After I was finished being cleansed by the holy shower water, I noticed the weather had cooled considerably, taking away some of my urges: "It's cooled down quite considerably now. Not like this morning when it was extremely hot. I've now lost the urge to rip all my clothes off and run down the road screaming 'THE END IS HERE!!!'. That's probably a good thing."
Charlie, now sporting his badass Jesus shirt was ready for another cookout, during which he carved 666 into his burger, which must have been sacrelicious (minus one point for the Simpsons joke rip-off). Our only cooking utensil was a lethal object used to hijack the plane that crashed over Harrisburg, PA on 9/11. I got it on eBay for cheap as dirt. Thanks, Aziz!
The historical knife did its job because we churned out some badass burgers:
After we gorged, the sky began to get cloudy. Realizing we still hadn't put the rain flap on, we went to work and got it on the third try.
1:40 PM: General Store.
2:00 PM: While leaving for our 5th roadie, we ended up behind a moronic Bush supporter who no doubt votes based on their "moral values":
Does anybody see something wrong with this picture? Pro Family?? How many aborted fetuses in the history of abortion were destined for a great family with open arms? Or how about a family that made sure their child always had what they needed? I'm not talking about spoiling them either, I'm talking about basic human needs. There are no suburban picket-fenced Christian families out there saying "Oh butternuts, we weren't planning on a 4th child. Let's just kill this one!" Saying George W. Bush is "pro-life" is one thing but to say he's "pro-family" is re-goddamn-diculous.
3:00 PM: The rain had returned so luckily our tent wasn't sans a rainflap. Since we were forced out of our tent at 9:30, a nap while it rained sounded in order. For the next 3 hours, Allen and I slipped into a delightful coma. It may have been one of the best naps ever taken.
6:30 PM: While we were sleeping, a whole convoy of dumbasses in mini vans showed up at the empty camp sites around us. But with 4 mini vans showing up, there was only one tent set up. This worked to our advantage because the wall of vans blocked off our neighbors from seeing any illegal activities taking place. When we woke up, we were well-rested and ready to get high. But first, I had to take a leak, which resulted in POOR SENSE OF HUMOR ALERT #2: I passed a small group of teens knocking a volleyball around on the way. One of them set the ball up into the air and another one of them said "You've heard of the Mad Hatter, well he's the MAD SETTER!!! HAHAHAHA!" I, however, was not laughing.
Not funny at all, but rather ironic, because the next day I made a trip to Fond du Lac and bought a pipe at a head shop named the Mad Hatter.
7:00 PM:Our next roadie led us to Taco Bell to eat, and I quote Charlie, “some of those good-ass tacos.” There we discussed what Jesus would do with a hooker, Charlie and I bounced ideas off of each other about the Jesus’ reactions to a hooker, some of which ended up being used in his Family Guy episode.
After being around Christians for 2 days, their sense of humor started to wear off on me. At Taco Bell, I spontaneously came up with this gem: A joke about Jesus.
7:55 PM: After getting back from South of the border, we decided to play some music. With the windows down and the stero cranked, we did some Runnin' With the Devil. It was a lot of fun because it didn't involve any actual running.
8:20 PM: With a renewed sense of determination, I headed back to the b-ball court while Allen did some skating. Upon arrival, I noticed that there was a team of 10 year olds playing which gave me an urge to get out there and serve them all. As luck would have it, I got invited to join the next team playing so I didn't even have to make a damn free throw. The 10 year old team won their game so we were next to play them. Within 5 minutes the game was over. They completely owned us by making their first 5 shots and that was it. God dammit.
By 9 PM we began to question our atheism. I still couldn't even hit the rim on the basketball court and Allen was having major problems skating. These aren't typical occurences for us. We speculated that god may be angry with us and was taking it out on our motor skills. But if anything, god should have been angry at what was taking place on the court. I heard a good amount of profanity coming from the players which proved that on the basketball court, it was strictly business. While standing by the basketball court, I was hit with POOR SENSE OF HUMOR ALERT #3: A girl walked up to me and told me that I "dropped my pocket". I gave her a look that was half puzzlement and half a look you give to someone you pity a lot (like a quadrapalegic with Downs Syndrome).
My primary form of transportation at Lifest was my skateboard. It was fast, loud, dangerous, and intimidating. Pansy God-lovers feared my spiteful wrath. I cruised in between people doing mach 10, blasting the sound of hard urethane wheels on concrete everywhere I went. Pedestrians stayed out of my way, except for a couple morons and strollers, which I got dangerously close to. But by the end of my second night there no one seemed scared of me anymore. I almost collided with dozens of people who weren’t watching where they were going and didn’t realize that it was no sweat off my nuts to run them over. An era died, and my power trip ended.
10:30 PM: We decided we'd had enough of physical activity and not enough alcohol. I mixed a Jack and Coke that was so strong it choked Charlie. Put that in your holy grail and slam it.
While sitting around drinking, we got to talking about how much Norm MacDonald rules. I happened to mention his Larry King impersonation and I came up with my own version.
I was taken by the urge to photograph a sign that I had seen earlier that day, a shaved ice stand named “Maui Wowi.” I guess we were just hoping that they had some buds to share with us. I also took quite a liking to telling inanimate objects to fuck off: Maui Wowi
10:45 PM: We headed out to take a picture of the Maui Wowie sign. Allen was pretty intoxicated by then and I was getting there. On the way, my Jesus shirt scored its first victim. A boy of about 14 walked past me and said "Jesus, loves you man!" in a voice that Ned Flanders would envy. Not quite knowing how to react, I gave him a fake smile and 2 thumbs up. After some time, we reached the promised land:
On the way back, I couldn't resist taking this picture, even though I was no more than 3 feet behind her:
She was too busy thinking about how great god was to realize I took it.
11:10 PM: After a 12-hour wait, I finally sparked my beautiful Don Tomas cigar and did my best Mafioso impression. I savored the smoke wearing my hat from work. Damn I look cool.
Soon after, the fireworks started. They were on the complete other side of the Expo Center so we started walking to get a better view. On the way, we walked past one of the stages where the sound crew was doing sound checks. I recognized the song the guitar tech was playing. Ironically, it happened to be "Whatever" by GODSMACK. Pure blasphemy. By the time we got close enough to view the fireworks, they ended. It was a most unimpressive display. I've made cooler explosions inside random mailboxes. On the way back to the tent, we had a little fun messing with people: Rockin Along. After that I got the great idea to go up to random people and ask them "Hey, aren't you Richard Simmons?" Despite our best efforts, we were unable to locate anyone that would admit to being Richard Simmons.
12:30 AM: Back at the tent, I burned the fuck out of my arm on the lantern because Allen decided to set it right behind me. This is how it looked the next day:
We then fired up the grill once again to make some brats: Brat Smokin. I was still wearing my trusty Jesus shirt at this point, and it was helping me strive to be more like the Savior:
12:45 AM: There is a question every man must ask himself at one time or another. This is that question.
1:45 AM: By this point I was wasted, and we wanted to play basketball. On the trek there we passed a campsite with about 4 couches in a circle. I was drunk enough that Charlie could convince me to ask them if Richard Simmons was among their party. Oddly enough, they responded that he was. Our long search, over at last.
At the court we were met with disappointment. We found a bunch of douchebags that wanted to play but there was no ball to be found so we left. We came across a giant shopping cart that was there for no apparent reason:
So it was back to the campsite, yet again, but on the way while I was babbling about the movie Problem Child I noticed a pretzel stand and decided that my blood sugar was low. It was 2 for 1 at the time we were there, so Charlie and I enjoyed our hard, dry, but cheap pretzels on the picnic tables in front of the stand. I overheard a fat man (who probably hunts 2 for 1 pretzels cross country) also babbling about the movie problem child. What a small, pointless world we live in.
2:20 AM: I took one cup of cheese with me because I intended on throwing it into some campsites or something stupid like that. We came across a young man about the same age as Charlie and I. He was of the gullible sort, and we asked him if he was Richard Simmons, he declined, and then asked why. We duped the young man into believing that Richard Simmons was actually supposed to be speaking at the festival. Both of us continued to distract him with talk of Sweat to the Oldies while I threw the cheese under the mask of 2:00 AM darkness. When the gullible stranger asked me, “What was that?” I simply replied “What was what?” End of story. We said goodbye and headed our separate ways. Charlie recorded the entire conversation. Listen carefully: "What was that?".
And now let's break for some blogging:
Today my mom yelled at me for being too punk rock. I said, “No bitch I don’t wanna clean my room!” My mom’s a slut and I when I cut myself it’s like pain releasing my body.
Music: Blink 182 – What’s my age again?
Feeling – saucy yet bloated
Thoughts – Why are boys so silly?
Saturday, July 10th: Another fine hung-over morning was upon us and guess what? It was REALLY FUCKING HOT again. We again found comfort in Allen's truck by blasting the air conditioning.
12:20 PM: While in the bathroom, I found myself enjoying the experience like Beavis would.
12:40 PM: We embarked on Roadie #6 while blasting Metallica's "Leper Messiah". I sang along as we sped past Christians who were wondering what that awful noise was.
I discovered that I needed to find a bank to procure more cash as I had left my ATM card behind. My bank, Guaranty Bank, claims to have over 1300 chains nationwide, which is bullshit because I only know of seven. After calling the assistance line, which proved to be an adventure in it’s own respect, I found that the nearest one was 50 miles away. I can’t even begin to describe how pissed off I was. I yelled at a few old people on the way back, and that seemed to help me cope.
1:25 PM: On the way to the pizza stand, I laid out my plans for the day: "Wow I can't believe we've been on 6 roadies (it was actually 7). That's crazy. I'm on my way to get some pizza now so I can get some food in my stomach before my first security shift. I'm gonna take some ephedryn, that'll get me all hyped up for it. Then I have to work a second consecutive security shift right after that. We'll see what happens with that, I'll see if I can get out of it somehow so we can party with the ladies." After getting my pizza, I passed a rather annoying reunion scene.
3:15 PM: Grand Master Bullshit reports for duty at the security trailer. After a short instructional lecture, I hopped on a golf cart with my "leader" and headed for the stage I would be guarding. For the next 4 1/2 hours I provided a running commentary to the voice recorder. For purposes of brevity, I will be quoting most of the sound bytes.
3:30 PM: "So I'm standing back here by The Edge main stage. Basically my job is to, uh, sit here and make sure nobody comes in. This is the supposed 'metal stage' where all the hardcore hooligans hang out so if things get out of hand I might be called on to bust some heads. If things get busy around here I'm supposed to 'direct traffic', but there's nobody around here."
When I arrived at my post, I was given a kickass chair to sit in. It was one of those folding camping chairs and it had 2 armrests and a headrest: "This is a pretty sweet chair that I'm sitting in, it's really comfortable. I might have to take a nap later." So all I did basically was sit there in complete relaxation and do nothing. I decided that working security wasn't so bad after all...
3:38 PM: "I just completely failed at my first real security issue. I just kinda watched a guy walk by that didn't have the right wristband on, but somebody got him though so it's OK. There's a band right behind me."
3:43 PM: "Some little bastard just tried to get in here. He tried using the 'I'm with him' bit but I totally denied him."
3:46 PM: "The band started, they pretty much suck balls. I'm wishing I had a pen with me so I could write Richard Simmons on my nametag."
4:20 PM: "It's 4:20 now, I'm still sittin here, wishing I had a bowl. The ephedrine is starting to kick in, this band still sucks ass. I should let somebody backstage so they can kill the band. They had an intro that sounded kinda like 5 Minutes Alone but then it was just pure suckage after that. They didn't even give me anything cool to beat people up with like a nightstick or a gun. How am I supposed to have an unfair advantage over people? I don't know but I'm having fun sitting here. The sun is starting to set and it's gonna be right in my fuckin face in about an hour (it was blocked by the roof where I was sitting at the time)."
4:39 PM: "I'm out here directing traffic now, except there's no traffic to direct. That bastard-ass motherfucker running this stole my chair, I need to find it. God's beating me with his rays of anger from the sun, it's so damn hot."
4:55 PM: "People keep trying to enter here despite the fact that it's not an entrance. It's clearly a backstage area filled with... well, the back of the stage. These morons keep making me get up and tell them to go the right way. It's starting to get annoying."
5:04 PM: I'm starting to get pissed.
5:14 PM: "My entire security guard position could be replaced by a sign that says 'ENTRANCE ~~~~>'
5:37 PM: "You know those video games where you have to sneak around and kill Nazi Security Guards? That's probably so easy because this is boring and nobody cares."
5:43 PM: Fence Security.
5:49 PM: I was asked to clear people out of the bleachers in between bands. The clanging sound you hear is masses of people getting up and moving: Clearout.
6:38 PM: "I'm walkin around in the crowd now. I'm on crowd control to make sure nobody gets crazy in here. Any mosh pits, any silly string, anything naughty like that, I need to shut it down. Everybody ran in here when we opened the gates like a bunch of crazy fucks. I'm surprised nobody was trampled, that would've been pretty cool.
6:49 PM: The next band started and it was terrible.
6:51 PM: Not only did they suck, they ripped off part of a Metallica song. Listen closely.
7:13 PM: "I ditched security for a while to take a much-needed piss. The shift is almost over then I have another one to go. I'm sure the railings will still be there if people are sitting on them while I'm gone so I don't really care.
Charlie had to work back-to-back security shifts that day. I shared the second shift with him. During his first shift I went to the bank 70 miles away near my home and also met up with my girlfriend, Charlie’s girlfriend, and our friends Lacey and Tony. I had a couple of ex-coworkers living in Oshkosh that Charlie’s girlfriend Tanya were friends with. We decided that all of us would meet there to party later on that night. We successfully completed 3 roadies on the hour and a half drive back to Oshkosh, stopping at the said head shop and buying some pieces of paraphernalia.
Of course, with a group like us, it wouldn’t be that simple. After our first roadie into the town of Hartford to pick up Lacey we were stopped at a red light next to some middle class, midlife crisis-ridden, Midwestern midget fucker. I heard him say something arbitrary like “Green means go.” So I sped up to about 15 over to sideswipe his civic driving ass off of the road, when out pulled a cop behind me. When he pulled me over, my rear hatch window popped open. All of this happened approximately 15 minutes after smoking two bowls. So, with my natural aversion to policeman, I was sweating bullets. Luckily, he bought some story about how we wanted to catch up to the guy next to us to hear what he said to us, and I got away clean. Congratulations, Officer Sucker, you let five hardcore criminals go to a party and smoke more “evil” marijuana.
When I returned, Charlie had just finished his first shift, and I had to get ready to start my last shift of the event. Charlie and I both had general security shifts from 8:30 pm until 12:30 AM. Of course, if we were to party with the ladies, we had to ditch our shifts like I had done our first day there.
7:30 PM: After my shift I went to the campsite to see how Allen fared in my absence. We met up and headed for the security trailer for our 2nd shift. I went in first and they assigned me to gate 2 by the road to help with traffic. I overheard them say another person was being sent to gate 2 to help and sure enough, it was Allen.
We were told that we could not direct traffic, we just had to tell the people crossing the street to be careful and to look both ways. A sign that says “traffic does not stop” would have been sufficient, or should I say, would have been sufficient if Christians could read. I witnessed a handful of people almost walk directly into traffic with their heads placed firmly in their asses, just when I thought nothing could surprise me. Charlie and I made that gate work though. The cars would stop anyways because they’re stupid, so Charlie and I indeed had to direct traffic by waving them across to avoid a jam, when it was clear, we allowed everyone to cross. It sounds like a simple task but of course everyone was too stupid to know what to do before we arrived on the scene.
9:30 PM: I was getting calls about every 15 minutes that we needed to hurry up and get to the party.
We started plotting a way to escape. I went over and asked our shift leader if I could go take a piss. Allen asked him if he could join me and we were off.
Our deed drew inspiration from the What Would Jesus Do signs, but instead it was what would Levon do? Levon would say “Fuck this, I’m getting drunk with chicks.”
We had to concoct a story explain our abscence from the gate. Basically it went like this: "We were on our way back from the bathroom when [insert generic name here] asked us if we could go help out by the main stage and that's where we were the rest of the time." We got in Allen's truck and headed to the party, still in our security shirts: Driving by.
Tony probably got drunk off of this one beer
12:10 AM: We left the party and prepared to tell our genius story. On the way back to the security trailer, I made some ugly bitch's day: Allen: "Charlie just made some ugly bitch's day better, I guess she wasn't getting any so I was like 'give her a hug' so he put his arm around her and said 'that was disgusting'. If only people knew, they would have no self-esteem." Charlie: "And it was only because I'm still on duty as a security guard. I need to make sure everyone's OK."
12:35 AM: After rehearsing our story several times over, we were prepared to tell it flawlessly.
Upon reaching the security trailer we passed the fag on the bike who was supervising the shift that Charlie and I deserted. We shared glances while passing each other, but nothing was said.
Once we reached the security trailer to check out, it was COMPLETELY UNEVENTFUL. We didn't even have to tell our story because they were too stupid to notice. We barely got out of the security trailer before we burst out laughing.
12:50 AM: We decided to get trashed and grill out to celebrate our victory over the Christian system. It was as if we were the angry lions in the arena in Rome, we knew we would come out on top. The rest of the night was spent drinking and discussing our experience at Lifest. We were to pack up and leave the next morning.
3:50 AM: The night (or early morning) was coming to a close for us but there was one thing I had left to do: Hail Satan. With that we passed out knowing that we completely owned Lifest 2004.
Sunday, July 11th: The morning was hellish once again and I was badly sunburned. We arose and headed out for Roadie # 8 to motivate us to pack up.
On the way out we passed old Gate 2, the hazy memories of the night before rushed back to us as several more people almost got ran over because they weren’t paying attention.
We packed up the tent and loaded up Allen's truck. We didn't take everything with us, however. Over the course of the weekend, the package our hamburgers were in wasn't sealed. This allowed water to get to the burgers, and any water that was in the cooler turned a nice shade of E-Coli Pink. Rather than tempt fate and salvage what was in our Lifoam cooler, we threw a bunch of garbage in it and left it sitting at our campsite for some Christian person to find. With that, we bid Lifest, the Sunnyview Expo Center, and all of our Christian friends goodbye. What a weekend.
In our time at Lifest we learned a significant amount of information on the way Christians operate. Namely, what they are suckers for, what drives them, how they use lords and devils to get inferior people to do whatever they want, down to the most inane things as what they eat and how the maintain a public bathroom. We were definitely adventurers in this situation. When BSCentral arrived we had no clue what to expect, but we adapted, worked within the system, and quickly learned what we needed to do in order to be accepted and perform our studies under the radar. So where do we go from here? Lifest served to concrete our beliefs as well as our opinions on the way Christians are. We can now say that many of our premonitions and theories on Christians are more factual, with case after case of evidence to back us up. Our experience at Lifest no doubt gives the atheist and deist movement that much more validity, fuel for our fire. We now consider Christianity to be one less enemy now that we know that there is no threat in their beliefs to what Charlie and I believe. And so it was, that we are no longer little girls. We are little women.
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