triumphant

it's hard to wrap my mind around the synchronicity of the past 12 hours. as i biked to work underneath angry summer clouds yesterday afternoon i had pretty much give up any hope of finding a late night ride to brattleboro for the end of the show. at that point it seemed implausible. but by 7:00, after a few phone calls to/from my newest friend i still hadn't met, i had a ride! it was actually going to happen! we closed up quick and early and i raced home after locking up the cafe, my mischief brew t-shirt drenched in sweat as i walked in the door. lisette came over with cassie to hang out and get to know each other a bit before we hit the interstate. diane entertained us and concocted some fuel for our trip north. after parting ways with cassie we hit the road with nonstop conversation about our mutual friend in boston over her perfect mix cd featuring every song i had listened to earlier in the day.

we pulled into brattleboro and i didn't have to climb through jen's window, as her second wind kicked in just before midnight. we successfully bumped into each other amidst legions of crusty traveler kids spilled out onto eliot street. the bar downstairs boomed, "it's gettin' hot in here so take off all yo' clothes..." little did the booty dancers, emerging for the night from woodwork, vermont, know that it was much hotter in the upstairs tinderbox and people actually were taking off all their clothes!

after the second to last band finished their set, i set out to search for erik petersen. mischief brew was scheduled to play next but he was nowhere to be found. i brought him a copy of the zine, big hands issue 5 1/2--"the chumbawamba issue" as a present. but the zine still remains in my bag.

jen and i returned from our pitstop at the weathervane and guy from brooklyn was getting ready to play announcing, "i'm not erik petersen but i'm gonna do the same thing he would've done...rock out!" or something. the point being, erik wasn't playing. halfway through the replacement headliner's set i confided to jen that, in fact, it was my fault and i would explain it after the show.

there's an punk rock legend that it is bad luck to listen to the band you're going to see the day of the show. i recklessly disregarded this legend and played erik's split with robert blake as i was sweeping the floors and washing dishes earlier in the evening. i even mentioned the risky significance of this act to my coworker. i fucked it all up. my apologies to the disaffected, dog-owning youth of brattleboro and their train-hopping friends from across the states who walked to the squat three doors down disappointed. it was all my fault.

somehow this almost made the experience even better, more romantic. of course, it would've been great to see erik and to sing along with his impassioned anthems with dozens of others who love his music as much as i do. but this was a blemished fairy tale, not a sterile disney-fied one. as we sat on the sidewalk at 2 am, i felt happy to be alive and endlessly entertained by the mingling of crusties from the show and sketchballs from the bar all sneering at the local cops doing laps around the block just waiting for something to happen, anything.

as i bought my bus ticket home, i thought about that bus that i couldn't afford 3 years ago. i thought about the empty feeling i had sitting in forbes library reading about the fest online, bittersweet knowledge of an experience so close by, but so far out of reach. i felt catalyzed, and excited about the fun, new people in my life and the growing potential of adventure summer 2008.