First off, don’t worry. This isn’t a suicide note. Although I can hardly stomach the market right now, there’s no way I’d do that to my premium subscribers (as for the free accounts, yeah, help me tie this hangman’s noose, if it’s not too much trouble).
Instead, this post is intended to share some thoughts on how I spent my Saturday at a music festival called Cruel World, which is about as out of character for me as dressing up in a garter and high heels. Hanging out in Southern California (don’t like) with other human beings (don’t like) in the sun (don’t like) is just not my cup of tea. I’d much rather me in a dark room with a laptop.
All the same, I did go down, along with the twelve hours of driving required to get to and flee from the place. I am very much a child of the 1980s, and since the musical was ostensibly from that era, I was at least able to join a portion of the music to some degree. However, I’ve got to say, out of 100,000 people (literally), I was, in my estimation, the only person in the entire mob that wasn’t clinically psychotic.
If you haven’t figured it out from my prior 40,000 posts already, I tend to be extraordinarily judgmental, and at any large public gathering, my judge-o-meter goes absolutely haywire. The list of people I actually enjoy being with fits easily on a Post-It note and, in those cases, (such as Cruel World) where people are vastly different than your long-suffering narrator, it’s pretty damned agonizing. Still, like the alien I am, I do carefully observe all the goings-on around me if, for nothing else, anthropological reasons.
Generally speaking, the majority of people there were what I would call Aggressively Individualistic. In other words, for a variety of reasons, they are so desperate to stand out, stand apart, and be different, than they all try to out-do and out-weird in other in how they dress, how they behave, and how they interact. Here are some categories of humans I witnessed, and I can assure you that these characteristics are not mutually exclusive:
- Green Hairs: this isn’t to be taken literally. I’m talking about anyone who colors their hair. It could be pink, green, purple, or some crazy combination. This is particularly sad when taken on by those well out of their 20s (see Age-Deniers, below). The point, of course, is to try to be Different, and the harder they all try, the more the Same they all are.
- Gender Fluids: welcome to the bastion of the mentally ill. There were some seriously confused people milling about, including a surprising number of men-pretending-to-be-women arm-in-arm with women-pretending-to-be-men.
- Age-Deniers: Since the music was from the 80s, there were plenty of folks in their 50s (and older) at this thing. Your pal Tim has no trouble getting older. My hair is getting greyer by the day, and I don’t try to hide anything about my inevitable aging process. I’m not going to try to act, dress, or look like someone who was born decades after I was.
- Goth Girls: Fishnet stockings. Parasols. Black clothes. Everywhere. I am talking everywhere. There’s only one Goth Girl I like, and it’s from my pal Wes.
- Men Without Lives: Take a look at the guy in the picture above – – the one wearing hair berets and grinning like a chimp. I assure you he’s been looking forward to this event for months. Why? Because he’s got nothing else going on, sister.
- Faux Friendlies: These are the folks I had the most trouble with, because they would actually come up to me and start talking. Fist bumps. High fives. The whole hey-there-buddy schtick. No, thanks. I heard one guy say to another “We’re all friends here.” No, we’re not! Honest!
Mercifully, I have an occupation which allows me to work with just me, myself, and I, with occasionally opportunities to interact with folks I actually like, respect, or admire. As for a bunch of randos in SoCal, yeah, half a day is enough for me!
