The Adnostic

I had never been to a big multi-day music festival. I had always wanted to go to Coachella or Street Scene but it always seemed like too much of a hassle and I never had a wingman to go with me. But this year and this event were a little different. After telling Felicity about a friend of mine who just moved to Seattle, she suggested that I go to Bumbershoot. I looked at Dave and he looked at me and it was settled. We were going to be spending our Labor Day weekend at a music and arts festival in the great state of Washington.

Day 1 - Saturday

Right off the bat we had a major decision to make. Go see the legendary Blondie or hear Chuck Palahniuk do a reading. Dave was voting for Chuck. He had no emotional attachment to the great Deborah Harry, but I did. This was a very difficult decision for me. I love Blondie, but Chuck is fucked up and I love fucked up. All my friends were saying Blondie, but in the end I went with Fucked Up Chuck.

Before he even started reading one of his four stories, all of which had to do with pubescent and prepubescent sexual experimentation, Chuck buttered us up by throwing at least three dozen little sample bottles of Wild Turkey into the audience. After that, he read to us the most graphic and empathetically painful story about masturbating while slightly high, which devolved into something horrible involving wax and a urethra. Then he told a story that was so much worse. I won't go into it, because if I did, you would never eat calamari again.

After he was done, and Dave and I were close to puking, Chuck pulled out foam replicas of severed body parts and started throwing them to eager fans. This is what makes a reading with Chucky P. one of the most memorable experiences you'll ever have.

After that we went off to the Backyard Stage to wait for Of Montreal to play after Rouge Wave and meet up with Dave's friends, Nick and Crystal. Rouge Wave was okay, Of Montreal was more fun but neither was particularly captivating. We left early to get some dinner and decided against staying around for Lady Sovereign in favor of saving our strength for Zero 7 the next night.