Friend groups can really be a problem sometimes. Check that. Planning shit with your friend groups can be a problem sometimes.

I'll put this rant here, because the people involved aren't on this site. They haven't taken the advice or joined the movement that we have here, and so this blog post won't reach their ears (eyes.)

I submit for your approval, to the midnight society... Am I The Asshole?

OUTSIDE LANDS is coming up. This is an incredible music festival held in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco) every year. Like COACHELLA, it has a shit ton of bands, playing across a bunch of awesome stages, and is a perfect opportunity to get fucked up and see music.

Just so you understand some context COACHELLA has the distinct pleasure of being located by the middle of the fucking desert. To get into the festival you have to drive an hour and a half from Los Angeles to the middle of the desert. You have to park in a lot 3 miles from the festival. You have to jump on a bus to take you to the entrance. And then you have to walk through a literal mile of dirt and dust, past the hippy stoner tents and campers of the festival camp ground, breathing in farts, and feet and dirt, just to get to the security line that takes another hour to get through.

By way of comparison, OUTSIDE LANDS has the benefit of being in the middle of the city. It's located, for those of you who don't know, in Golden Gate Park and surrounded by urban sprawl in the same way that Central Park is surrounded by "I'm better than you because this city hasn't killed me yet" New Yorkers. OUTSIDE LANDS doesn't just have bands, a temperate climate, and thousands of millennials milling about taking selfies and giggling at each other's bikini tassels. It also has a comedy booth, where you can see amazing comedic talent like Anthony Jeselnik insulting you to your face.

And I have nothing against tassels in the general sense, so I should mention that I have horrible allergies, and have for my whole life. When, at the age of 16, after years of suffering, my mother took me to the allergist to see what I might need, they stabbed me with a bunch of grass covered needles, and my back blew up like a an over-cooked pizza filled with spider eggs (or so it felt.

Coachella is covered in horrible dust and dander, and straw, so I felt like I was going to die every day all by myself (even before taking mushrooms). But with the aid of "moment" enhancing drugs, it felt like I could die at any moment.

In short, it fucking sucks.

Last year at OL, me and a bunch of friends threw in together and rented an AirBnB. It seemed perfect to them because all of them got private rooms with their significant other, and a closing door they could f*ck behind.

For me, I got a love seat in the living room, with the other couch occupied by a pasty, overweight accountant friend of mine that refuses to admit he's wrong, and denies he's on the spectrum.

And he snores.

My solution to the "less than optimal" sleeping conditions was to get savagely drunk.

And that had it's consequences.

The first night that we were there, I convinced the Asperger's Accountant to go shot for shot with me, and so when we left the bar to walk back to the AirBnB, he was a little queasy (did I mention he has I.B.S.?) He ran to a set of bushes to throw up near what we thought was a lawn gnome and when he got there, the smooth marble of the statue began to turn, stand up and say, "What are you doing?!?"

It was a person, kneeling prostrate on the street, pants-less, with his ass in the air. And my friend almost threw up all over him.

It was like this, but a real person and not a gnome.

After running in shame and joy, laughter and camaraderie, we came upon a town house THAT LOOKED a lot like it was our AirBnB. What we found out front was a short, 50's middle eastern man who's van was running in the street.

For NO REASON AT ALL, when he walked up to his front door, I decided to try out my "never before attempted" 3 STOOGES impression, and followed him at close distance to his door.

What he had there, leaning against the inside of his door, was a silver/gray steel softball bat, with the handle taped black like it was a prop in an 80's Kung Fu movie.

He turned around and lifted it above his head and said, "Get the fuck away from me."

My problem was (and I admit I was drunk) that I was staying in the apartment above him, and what kind of person threatens a stranger, doing a FLAWLESS I MIGHT ADD 3 Stooges impression, with a bat?!?

Kiiiiind of like this, but older, shorter, and with bigger eye-brows that he used very effectively.

So I said, "You're not going to hit me with that bat." And he said, "Yes I am!" And it went on like that for a while.

After many crazy "back and forth's" (and a 60 year old Indian pediatrician that for some reason was out jogging at this hour) we discovered that he WASN'T going to hit me, and I, in fact was not in front of my rental. I was three blocks down from a place that, to this day I say, in my defense looked EXACTLY like the man with the bat's place. He let me leave, and I did so, overly confident in my decisions, having stared being hit in the face with a bat, and coming away "a handsome boy" (according to my mother in 1996.)

When I complained the next morning that my neck had a crick in it from sleeping on the love seat, NOT A SINGLE friend of mine had any sympathy at all for me, claiming "I deserved what I got."

Plenty of "music festival" things happened that weekend. Stephanie got too high off an edible and threw up into her beer cup without making a sound (and ruining our time.) Travis ate too many shrooms and was asked as loud as possible by 15 to 19 people at once during RADIOHEAD melting face, "Where are your FRIENDS?!?" before being dragged to the medical tent (and subsequently coming to and sneaking away before anyone with authority was able to ask any questions.) And my brother got into a fight with his girlfriend over taking some Ecstacy before Lionel Ritchie.

And yet, somehow I'm the asshole.

This year, I made a big stink about our policy of "whoever pays first get their own room" because as I've stated in recent posts, I'm freelance and not always cash fluid, but I was met with little sympathy.

And while I grant them, that after night two when everyone had gone to bed, and my ALT-J high hadn't completely worn off, I went outside and locked myself out. And that's on me. But did I call them and wake them up? No. Did I bang on the door? Yes. BUT, BUT... only after, I scaled a two story, decorative fence to GET to that front door because none of us had the key to the outside gate.

I'll grant them that.

But I'll be damned if I'm sleeping on a love seat this year.

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Thanks for reading!