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Stardate 07182003
How I Discovered the Meaning of Life at Ozzfest 2003
It is now time to contend with the demon. Like a junkie needing a fix, I make my way cautiously to the office portion of the room I keep at my friend’s house in Malibu. The million dollar view of the ocean is costing me some housework and a pittance.
Never mind that I can’t afford the pittance. It’s ironic that at this point in my life, the binary finality is Malibu or Homeless. I’m down to my last 100 dollars. The demons are screaming at me. “WRITE! YOU FOOL! JUST WRITE!” My mind wanders to the last can of refried beans in the cupboard and a few dried shitake mushroom caps. Soba noodles in Shitake broth is Malibu Ramen for my Malibu Ghetto life.
My laptop dares me to begin the process, to sort out 21 bands and 14 hours, 50,000 people, scorching 100-plus heat and Ozzy Osbourne. Thank Goddess for Sharon. It is the morning after and my body aches, but it is the pleasant ache like the day after a good workout, or a strenuous hike over the Hawaiian mountain tops where every step is a gorgeous gift from some loving deity. My clothes are caked with dust. I drank nearly two gallons of water and pissed only twice. My ears are still ringing. I didn’t have the foresight to bring earplugs. I haven’t been to an arena concert in years and while I always bring earplugs to see bands play in small clubs and bars, I didn’t think I would need them at an outdoor arena concert. I was wrong.
The media access to the front of the stage put me right in front of the speakers that were designed to make the band sound just as good at the barrier as it was to the back of the lawn a good thousand feet away.
I CAN’T FUCKING HEAR YOU
To start with Ozzy or end with Ozzy, that is question. For all it begins and ends with Sharon Osbourne.
Ozzfest is her deal and she’s involved with every aspect of the tour. I would say she’s like the CEO of Ozzfest with a very hands-on approach. I saw her twice that day, once in the morning behind the Second Stage when I arrived and later that evening sitting off the side of the stage during Korn and Ozzy’s sets. She flashed the audience but just her bra. Several other girls obliged the cameras that were projecting to the audience on the giant overhead screen. I guess they figured out if they took off their tops they’d get on the big screen. I know it seems very testosterone-driven as if Metal was just for the boys but boobs just look better on the big screen than a sweaty, sticky, shriveled penis. An erect penis has the same aesthetic quality as a pair of boobs. There is some architecture involved, it asserts itself into the surrounding space to say, “I’m here, and I’m ready for action.”
“I Drink All Day and Stay Out of the Sun.” – Ryan Tooker, Lead Singer, Grade 8
I didn’t have official access to the cantina behind the main stage but Grade 8’s manager took me around for an interview and Ryan Tooker, lead singer, perhaps wanting good press, scored me lunch in the cafeteria of Rock and Roll High. The door guard wouldn’t let Ryan in with his shirt off (Even Ozzfest has rules) so he put his shirt back on just to get me in the door. The only way to describe the cantina is to imagine the Creature Cantina in Star Wars filled with people who not only look like they are in a rock/punk/metal band, but they ARE in a rock/punk/metal band. Like, ZZ Top at one table and Van Halen at another and Black Flag at another. The only debauchery however, was a lunch of turkey burgers with brownies for dessert. Just plain ol’ brownies. Ryan tells me the hardest part of the tour is “keeping the party under control.” Dude, at 20 you aren’t even old enough to drink. I told him that I want to see the very last show of the tour when everyone will be a sick, incoherent wreck.
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Tooker, as the youngest guy on the tour, calls the generational phenomena of the rock rebel, “The Revolving Door of Evil”– “As long as the older generation remembers to corrupt the younger one, we’ll be okay.”
Ozzy is off in some other part of the venue while the Korn management office and Marilyn Manson’s trailer were parked right outside the eatery. Marilyn stayed inside his trailer but his band-mates and two of the chicks in his show were wandering freely. Unshackled, if you will. Drawn in by the promise of nutrition. Sharon knows how to manage a tour.
The back of second stage looked like a gypsy caravan with lines of tour busses and RV’s holding the precious cargo of the second stage acts. If you didn’t want to walk all the way across the venue (Sharon was being driven around in a golf cart and even that took a few minutes to get from the Second Stage to the Main Stage) each band also had a fruit tray and a cold-cut tray delivered round to their busses. Nobody has ever offered me “cold-cuts” before. As in, “Hey, you want some cold-cuts?” I was afraid if I said yes, I’d get a slice of baloney hucked at me from across the bus. Nobody expects to have baloney hucked at them in a bus. Boloney-huckin’ motherfuckers in utero.
Willie G – King of The Road
Behind the main stage, I made my one-day-stand rock and roll friend, Willie-G, the tech/repairman for Shadows Fall. I got a lesson in guitar repair from Willie and he pointed out what makes a good guitar and what makes a crappy guitar. “You see how this string is close to the edge of the fret? (the fret is the neck of the guitar) It’s too close so it can’t be played right. It keeps slipping over the edge. That’s a thousand dollar guitar and it sucks.” Shadows Fall has been touring the second stage headliners Cradle of Filth for the past year.
I’m not really a fan of metal and I went to Ozzfest in much the same way an adventurer heads out into the jungles of Peru – To see what there is to be seen, learn what there is to learn, do what there is to do, to meet who there is to meet. Cradle of Filth, I was told, is a “Satanic shock-rock band.” How very interesting.
The day after the concert, Cradle’s publicist got back to me to find out if I managed to find them for an interview. “Oh, I didn’t need to interview them, I got enough material,” I said. “Besides, I’d only ask them dumb questions like, “Are you Anton LeVay Satanic or Aleister Crowley Luciferian?” But the publicist said, “They aren’t really Satanists, they just like the theatrics.” That’s too bad, I thought I could help them educate the masses about the misconceptions people have about Satanists and find out more about why they are attracted to the Christian paradigm rather than simply exploring Pan-paganism as a spiritual and or religious path of personal liberation and artistic expression. That would be more Luciferian in the Crowley sense. Lucifer as the light bringer, analogous to Prometheus or Hermes or Siddharta or even The Christ, who ironically is a Luciferian figure.
But we didn’t get that far. But I wanted to get that far. I don’t want Rock and Roll to be “safe.” It is supposed to be the plaything of the Devil and we are supposed to be its lusty children abandoning ourselves to Dionysian ecstasy. Rock Stars are supposed to be pagan priests leading us down the path of hedonism and excess. Not that paganism is about hedonism and excess, but then again, you don’t live at a rock concert. But the band does.
Can You Spare A Twenty?
The second stage bands were waiting for their “tour support” one week into the tour. The record labels give a stipend to the band as part of their payment while they are on the road. The second stage bands were literally working for food. Ozzfest was just like a gypsy caravan in that they performed for their basic needs. The second stage anyway. Steve Albini wrote an excellent article about how much a band actually makes in The Problem With Music. This essay is a classic and appeared in The Baffler #5 and was featured in the Baffler compendium Commodify Your Dissent. I suggest, as the editors of The Baffler would, that you order your copy through a local, independent bookstore.
The main stage was a little more privileged and certainly wealthier. But there was no resentment among the second stage bands.
The bands got started half an hour early and missed NOTHINGFACE, UNLOCO and ENDO because getting out of Los Angeles on a Saturday morning was more complicated than I imagined.
The Second Stage Bands
Here’s a rundown of my thoughts on the second stage bands. Forgive the perfunctory nature. I just don’t have narrative to contain it all.
Sworn Enemy – I missed them too.
Grade 8 – thrashy, big drums, heavy bass line, Rage Against the Machine-like vocal stylings, without the stylings. I want to say “Grade 8 – not just our name, but also our demographic.” But Ryan did get me fed, so props to him.
Depswa- more about them in their own words later.
Revolution Smile – straight up skate metal with Hendrix-inspired guitar licks. Chart friendly. Covered Champagne Super Nova by OASIS.
Motograter - Visually exciting. Driving, melodic, dark metal with heavy bass. Lots of in your face screaming.
Memento – Fun metal. Hard enough to please but also soulful and heartfelt. Potential MIDNIGHT OIL influence.
Hotwire – Aggressive sonic assault. Crashy symbols, hard, fast, funky metal.
Twisted Method – No comment. Preoccupied by Grade 8 interview.
Killswitch Engage – Hard, dark, grindy, thrashy with throaty screaming.
Shadows Fall – Fast, almost approaching speedcore, dark, almost punk but with a bigger metal sound.
Voivod – Jason Newstead of Metallica picks up ye olde bass for this hard-rockin’ band. Was that the most generic bone-head marketing promo copy or what? I’m really into lead singer Denis Belanger’s tour diary .
Cradle of Filth – Not Satanic but definitely hard, dark and out for blood, but not real blood, just stage blood.
Manson, Korn and Ozzy played the main stage with support from Chevelle and Disturbed. I didn’t see either Chevelle or Disturbed because I had to hike a mile each way to my car. I had been backstage all day and without a photo pass, I couldn’t bring my camera into the venue. Guitarist Zakk Wylde played a wicked 15 minute solo and I thought his guitar would burst into flames.
Rednecks On Speed
The metal scene has changed a lot since the hair band days when my New Wave tribe were mortal enemies with the Rockers. There was something refreshing yet unsettling about Ozzfest. I needed Beavis and Butthead to show up and say, “Dude, he’s playing his guitar with his teeth. That rocks.” Or Millhouse uncontrollably screaming in fan-ecstasy, “HIS GUITAR IS TALKING!” to make it feel authentic. After watching two and a half seasons of THE OSBOURNES, I wasn’t sure if I was at a rock concert or watching a reality television show. There’s no doubt that the energy is still there and songs like “Iron Man” and “Crazy Train” are just classic, even if they are 20 years old and you know they’ve been performed thousands of times.
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I now know what happens when rednecks become enlightened and stop taking drugs – which used to be my perception of the whole world of metal – rednecks on speed. Some people in the audience acted as if they were watching an opera and waited for a song to finish before respectfully clapping. The people who paid the most to sit closest to the stage weren’t nearly as interested in the show as the people who bought lawn tickets. I wanted to get all the people on the lawn near the stage. I went to the concert alone so I had nobody to stand beside me shouting OZZY and making the sign of the Devil to make it fun. But I did it anyway. It took me twenty years, but I finally made it to an Ozzy concert and I didn’t feel like I was going to get my ass kicked for being gay.
While talking to Depswa, I asked what I should ask the band from one of their friends on the bus. “Ask him how many babes he’s bagged.” I looked that their female tour manager and I said, “I’m just not interested in that.” I then they started interviewing me about MY sex life when I then said, “I’m not here to talk about my boyfriends, I’m here to talk about yours.” And so instead they did an in-depth comparison between me and Squiggy from LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY . “The way you come across is like Squiggy,” said one of the band members. They also tell me that they live in Sun Valley which is a kind of no man’s land 15 miles north of Burbank. I ask him if Sun Valley is filled with wanton libertines and anarchists. “Just about. Tell him about tweaker neighbor who can’t walk right. This little guy, he’s totally tweaked out of his mind. He looks like he’s walking whichever way the wind blows and he lives in the trunk of his car.”
Trying to explain that I only do what I do because communicating the passion of metal to the world is an important job, the lead singer Jeremy Penick asks, “Are we metal?” DEPSWA is hard and thrashy but the vocals are melodic. I was forbidden from calling them “sweet”, though. They call themselves, “Melodic hard-rock metal. Don’t call us New Metal.” DEPSWA has been on tour for a year and before they got the nifty Ozzfest tour bus, they were traveling around in a van. “We were going straight up punk rock,” said bassist, Ryan Burchfield. Enjoy that air-conditioning while it lasts. After the tour is over, they’ll be back in the van, five sweet guys from Edge City who live next door to a bunch of cracked out tweakers. Viva Le Rock.
Hotwire – or as I like to call them, Hot Drummer
Hunter S. Thompson is a big influence on HOTWIRE’s lead singer, Rus Martin. “Hunter Thompson is a literary kind of person, how does that translate into rock?”, I ask. “I thought his drug addiction was the best thing in the world. He could be an author, someone that worked at ROLLING STONE and be involved in the scene that he was and still pull off stories that had substance.”
And now another reality check buzz-kill moment. Hunter Thompson can barely speak. It’s amazing that he managed to hold down a job. But those were the times. These days it’s all boring professionalism. Query letters and connections. Style guides and whitewashed publicity copy. ISN’T THIS BAND GREAT! ISN’T THIS GUY CUTE! GO! BUY! NOW!
ROLLING STONE, journalistically, sucks now. It sells records though, so don’t knock it if you are a band. And since suckage is what pays the bills in the arena-de-pop, if you are a writer, you shouldn’t pop a sugar-daddy that’s keeping you in furs.
Rus asks me why I moved to Los Angeles. I tell him because that is where the industry I want to work in is. “An artist that chooses that lives in area because of the scene, I believe, isn’t tuned into themselves as an artist,” he says.
“If you want to sign a deal though, you have to go where the industry does business,” I counter. “If you want to be in Ozzfest, you have to meet some people.”
“Yeah, but being signed isn’t a measure of how good you are,” says Rus. “There are garage bands that are ten times better than half the musicians and bands that are out now. It’s definitely politics and it’s definitely finances and it’s definitely who knows who.”
“How do you get away with doing it the way you want to do it without a record exec coming along and saying, ‘We’ve seen the numbers. We know the kids are buying, we know what they like, we want you to adjust this hear and add this sound there because that will sell records,’” I ask.
Rus, who has by this time commandeered the interview which is fine because he’s an articulate, charismatic guy. “That’s the thing we’ve strayed from and we are still fighting. We made a record that says … identity for a record is the most important thing. We are on a major label. The reason we signed to a major label is to use them to get our sound out there. We don’t have the capabilities that they have to get ourselves out there. We are going to continue to write records we want to do. We don’t write records to please radio or MTV. When you get signed to a big label you have to remember that you are writing as a band and as what you started from instead of all the superficial things that are out there telling you what to do to sell records and get rich.”
Please find them and sign them! END THE TYRANNY OF SUCK!
After several shots of Jack Daniels that I was required to take to continue the interview, Martin solicited (solicited … who even says that?) my opinion on whether Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain. I wouldn’t give him my opinion. I have no way of knowing one way or the other and who knows where a drunken off-hand remark will turn up and what if I have to interview Courtney Love some day? Hey, Psycho-bitch, didja kill your husband so you could have all his gold? Are you a gold-diggin’ psycho bitch smack addict? Because those are the questions that you really want to ask. “I think that the Janis Joplin thing was like, the real Rock and Roll. That’s how Rock and Roll should be like,” Rus says.
I wish I could find my favorite mix CD. When I moved I packed it somewhere. I thought I would find it and I can’t find it. I think God is playing tricks on me again.
Marilyn Manson – Misunderstood, but Getting Clearer All The Time
The Manson stage show was fun more than being “dangerous” as Manson likes to constantly remind people. Or maybe I just thought it was fun because I’m a depraved lunatic who has to constantly retranslate himself to deal with the suits and the squares. There I go alienating a mainstream audience again. Heaven help me, I’ll never write for TV Guide. And if I ever do, you will know that the revolution has been successful.
During most of the show two girls wearing their pussy panties and booby bras were dancing around, playing piano and banging on drums. The girls weren’t actually naked, they wore foam rubber costumes that gave the illusion enough of two nearly naked chicks. At one point, on of the girls lay on her stomach and the other fisted her through the prosthetic ass. That hole was big enough to see from where I was sitting, about 100 feet from the stage.
What’s the next frontier? Even COSMPOLITAN is at a loss with their recent cover story, “Beyond Kama Sutra.” It’s times like these when you think to yourself, “LSD is going to make a comeback.” People want to be shocked out of their realities. I’m sure there are more gentle ways bring a little bit of divine surreality into your life but I’m not telling you what they are. That is a personal journey of discovery that I can not lead you down.
Marilyn Manson would be better served by his own show, at night, with his own opening bands because he is so iconic in much the same way Ozzy is. When you put Marilyn Manson on before Ozzy, that raises the expectations through the roof about what kind of concert experience Ozzy will facilitate. But it's Ozzy and when that man is 80 years old, they can wheel him out onto a stage and people will still go, "Oh my god, that's Ozzy Fucking Osbourne."
It's funny how when I was in high school, I would never have survived an Ozzy concert, I would've had my ass kicked several times over for being a queer punk kid. But now, you've got the Queerest Punk Kid on the planet opening up for Ozzy. How the world of hardcore has changed.
As for the Manson show, I dug it. He’s a groovy cat that did all the right things at the right time and I think his message has gotten more sophisticated and complex.
Take Drugs, Have Sex, Be Free
It used to be "take drugs, have kinky sex, go insane and you shall be free." And he's got some of that, but the whole meta-comment being made by the Dark Mickey segment where Marilyn Manson comes onstage as his version of Mickey Mouse (no copyright infringement, no lawsuits, no problem) brings up a lot of interesting associations. Disneyland as a faux, brightly packaged emotional experience as well as Disney as a symbol for the commodification of culture and the "Disney-fication" if you will, of even something that is supposed to be as contrarian as Marilyn Manson. It's like Manson is saying, "I'm a ride. I'm a piece of Candy." But the grotesque representation of that still says, "I'm dangerous, I'm subversive. I'm a little bit of poison." It is just getting harder, in general, to get financial support for subversive art from an increasingly socially conservative commercial entertainment promoter such as ClearChannel.
My favorite part of the Manson show is when the big inflatable head of Marilyn Manson as Mickey Mouse deflates. It is poetic on so many levels and just a little bit eerie.
As long as Manson just looks like a scary clown, like a Halloween Thrill Ride, the suits don't seem to mind sending him out there, but if he were to actually provoke people to take action against conformity, mediocrity, sexual repression, and other forms of social control, be they religions, political or economic, I don't know if they'd be too anxious to get behind that.
It seems like when he first broke through, (remember that classic ROLLING STONE cover of Manson?) there was a lot more of that provocation and controversy. Even I thought they were farther beyond the fringe than say, Jane's Addiction and I was surprised they even had a record deal on a major label. It would be like Christian Death or Nurse with Wounds or Alien Sex Fiend or Throbbing Gristle getting a major record deal. Completely unheard of. But controversy sells.
It took them about halfway through their set to really commit to the show.
Coming out of a very aggressive goth/industrial scene where Manson gets short-changed a lot, I have to say that the band has great lyrics with dancey hardcore industrial beats. So while he draws inspiration from the same well as me and my friends, it's not his core audience. But Manson songs were being played in the goth/industrial clubs.
I think Marilyn Manson is a good role-model for kids and a reminder to his peers that for those of us who are so inclined to try to make a living on the bohemian, exploratory fringes on society, when we all of a sudden are contending with the mainstream, we are in a unique position to shape the expectations of the audience and open a door for previously ignored or feared forms of expression, ways of being, or ideas. “Hey, you, what do you see? Something beautiful, something free.” If that’s not a positive message, I don’t know what is.
This was a CLEAR CHANNEL event, mind you. If that means anything to you. When a company that conservative gets behind Ozzfest, you know it’s going to get castrated before it gets a chance to mate with your mind.
Ozzy kept saying, “C’mon, get wild, this is an Ozzy crowd.” But we all know that Ozzy is sober, and works out regularly to maintain his health. We all see what happened to Ozzy because of a life of hard partying. So we just wanna rock now.
The Cost of a Good Time
Although, there were lots of people surreptitiously smoking out and since tickets were 50 dollars on the cheap end and beer was $7.00 a pint – there just weren’t too many low-rent drunk assholes. And considering that teen employment is at the lowest level it’s been in 55 years, for those who DO have jobs, Ozzfest was like 20 hours of honest minimum wage labor. The economy didn’t stop 50,000 people from showing up though. The young couple in front of me didn’t even let a lack of a babysitter stop them. They brought along their newborn who couldn’t have born more than a month or two old. The father cradled her ears with a blanket and she slept through the whole show.
In spite of the heat, everyone seemed to be sucking down as much beer as they get a hold of. Alcohol dehydrates you and most people, if they were smart, were also drinking as much water as possible all day. I only saw one person who had collapsed from dehydration and heat exhaustion and he was being attended to by paramedics. The lines at the drinking fountains were always long and just like a rave, people were paying their 3 dollars for a bottle of water and refilling it.
Concerts are like airports, the vendors know they got you so they jack the price because you have no other options. Their operating costs might be higher, but I think they just stiff you because they can. 3 dollars for a bag of chips? 5 dollars for a bag of popcorn? The venue itself makes money renting the space to the tour, off the parking (the most profitable part of the business for venues) and concessions. You are at a day long event where there are no ins and outs, they know you will have to eat at least once and you’ll need to drink water – so they soak you and they soak you good.
Arena entertainment needs to be more blue-collar friendly, working-class friendly. Some bands realize that discretionary spending on entertainment is shrinking so there are fewer dollars
Ozzy, on the other hand, soaked the sweat- and dust-encrusted crowd with hundreds of gallons of water shot from water cannons at the top of the stage. Nobody seemed to mind
the free shower. I thought, water and electrical equipment wasn’t a good combination, but there were no accidental electrocutions on the stage because of ungrounded equipment.
My teen-age neighbor is practicing a cover version of 99 Red Balloons by Nena. I can hear him through the garage playing a Green Day song and then 99 Red Balloons and then picking up a guitar and singing a cover of that song. It’s not bad and I don’t mind the free entertainment.
And now he’s doing a cover of Modern English’s Melt with You.
Ozzy – Man of The People
Ozzfest was like three generations of rock. Ozzy being the grandfather, Manson and Korn and Disturbed being more like my generation who looked to Ozzy to figure out how to do it and then all the guys in their early twenties who looked up to Manson and Korn. The web of musical influences and interests was pretty complex though. I heard bands talk about how they loved TOOL and SISTERS OF MERCY as often as everyone pointed to Ozzy. I like this Ozzy, the pro. The guy who wants to put on a good show and make his audience feel good and get wild. It was a very paternal, loving Ozzy. A perfect counterpoint to the composed Queen Sharon who sat holding some children while her husband tore it up. “I love you all, Bless you all.” Ozzy kept saying. He wasn’t separate from us. He was one of us.
But what do you when your dad tells you, “Go ahead, rebel?” Who’s the authority figure we are resisting? The pure pleasure of the music and the atmosphere was enough for me. It didn’t have to be about anything more than that. Just a rocking good time. And you know I always want everything to be about something.
Thank you Sharon for The Best Seat In the House
I got great seats. My line of sight was exactly eye level with whoever was on stage. So I got to actually watch the show without craning my neck or straining my eyes. Call the venue and find out which tickets will give you eye-level line of sight. In theatre, the primo seats are traditionally fifth-row center but arenas are all different. You can, depending on how much you want to spend, customize your experience. Glen Helen in San Bernardino, where I saw the show, even had box seats available in the orchestra section. You could get four or five of your friends together for a personal party with easy access in and out of your box. I’m telling you, if you want to be seen and make an event of the event, box seats were the way to go.
Unfortunately, most of the boxes were wasted on dowdy radio promotion winners when it could have been more like Fhlotsin Paradise in The Fifth Element if the audience, in their real lives, were able to be as self-expressive as their imagination allowed. But you know, The real world is always pressing in like an Iron Maiden, ready to bleed you dry of all your passion and creativity. At least there are some places, like concerts where you can live large and make yourself bigger than life.
The crowd looked fantastic, besides all the shirtless, muscular boys with their pants hanging off their asses, it was just a sea of black, like everyone had just shopped at Hot Topic (a sponsor) before the show. Lots of kohl eyeliner and facial piercings. It’s such a broad fan base between Cradle of Filth and Ozzy Osbourne but most people seemed to agree, Black is the official color of Ozzfest.
Korn and Corn(holing)
I’m not a huge fan of Korn although everyone at the concert seemed to know all the words to every Korn song. I did like their multi-media visuals projected on the screen behind them. I’ve seen that big screen used to project all kinds of images at concerts before and I knew that soon enough, in between the haunting, bizarre and grotesque video loops we’d get starving children and civilians being gunned down by their own militaries. I was not disappointed. Korn closed with the song Faget[?]. “I’m just a faggot,” screamed the lead singer Jonathon Davis. You could NEVER do that at a heavy metal concert in the `80s. Someone would find a way to kill you. It’s ironic enough that Rob Halford, lead singer of Judas Priest, eventually came out of the closet. He looked like a total leather queen in the `80s but his audience just didn’t recognize it because they were a dimension away from the queer leather subculture. Besides, if he came out then, his fans would have just killed him.
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There are some doors that shut so that you can never go back through them again. Ozzy is sober and Rob Halford is gay. That makes for a whole new kind of metal scene. Judas Priest has reunited with the openly gay Halford. The Pansy Division’s song Headbanger off the 7 inch mini-album FOR THOSE ABOUT TO SUCK COCK – WE SALUTE YOU, I predict, will start selling again. Kirk Hammett of Metallica plays lead guitar on "Headbanger," under the pseudonym Al Shatonia.
Next time – the train keeps rolling down the tracks. Outfest, the Northfork Premiere, Comic-Con, and whatever else I feel like jibber-jabbering about. I can’t even think of what else has even happened. This whole Ozzfest thing has sent me into spirals of inquiry from which I shall not soon emerge. One day wasn’t enough. I want to run away with the circus now. But it’s time for me to say goodbye. However, with 21 dates left, you can still say hello.
Oh, I’m also looking for media sponsors for a trip to Burning Man in the Black Rock City, Nevada. This year’s theme is “Beyond Belief” and as part of some spiritual thing that ties into this years theme, I’m begging, like the zen monks of old, to sustain my trip. E-mail me at Imperative of Cosmic Significance or click on the bowl if you want to drop some coin.
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