Did any southern Dudes attend this?

[MindAbiding]

I'm bummed I missed this, Dudes. Fuckin A.

http://m.dukechronicle.com/articles/2013/09/05/dude-abides-ncma

[BrotherShamus]

Damn I had not heard of this...bummer. On the other hand, I'm a little too far down south to make a trip up there at this time of year. Like a 12 hour drive

[wuliheron]

I'm in Chesapeake VA myself which is about the same distance.

[Masked Dude]

I live very close to there, but hadn't heard about it. Damn. I go to the NCMA a lot, but it's been just long enough I guess I missed the announcement.

[wuliheron]

Dudes should have a meet up at the hippy rainbow gathering if you ask me. The national gathering is on the 4th of July and it's always held in a different national forest every year. The "busnicks" show up in their converted school buses and whatnot and you'll see everything including naked hippy chicks running around looking jump the first guy's bones or whatever. They have their water truck and dumpster dive so food is free and they pass the "magic hat" for any cash they need. The freaks even have their own generators and stages for shows even thought the entire gathering is anarchistic with only traditions to help them organize. The gatherings can get up to 30,000 people and even the cops leave them alone not wanting to deal with 30,000 naked hippies running around the deep woods tripping their asses off. The forestry people struggle to keep their eyeballs from popping out while they inspect the camps.

No offense dudes, but my first rainbow gathering when I was living on the streets was pure magic and it's as close to what I would call a church or religion as it gets for me. Some street friends of mine dragged me out there protesting and we even accidently hitched a ride with the rather weird "Love People" which is a throwback spiritual commune group from the 60s. We went early because it's nice and cool in the forest and they always use street people to help build foot bridges and set up camps out of any scrap plastic and poles they can find. They kept us high and I actually enjoy chopping wood and fetching water. Anyway, a few days before the gathering officially started two guys came walking down the path with this enormous garbage bag thrown over their shoulder and said, "One of your wildest is about to come true!" They then proceeded to roll joints from that overstuffed hefty garbage bag full of primo pot for the next four hours straight just as fast as they could hand them out. People were stuffing them in their pockets and staggering around and it wasn't until everybody in the camp begged them to stop that they finally did. Calm and causal and quiet as always, the two then walked on down the path to the next camp out of 12.

I worked in "Earth Mother's" camp. She was just an ordinary 50 something woman with grandkids and looked like the type to vote for Reagan. She owned a diner in bumfuck Missouri though and brought all her pots and pans and loved to smoke pot. I spent all my time either chopping wood, fetching water, or spending 12 hours a day just trying to keep the 8 or so fire pits she cooked on going as hot as I could. I know a lot of hippy cooks on communes who can cook for hundreds of people faster than a jackrabbit, but that woman was amazing and I could never say no or even take a break without feeling like a wimp.

The most magical moment though was when an internationally famous violist came strolling path playing a medley of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" making even the most hardcore lowlife in camp break out in tears.

[wuliheron]

Dudes should have a meet up at the hippy rainbow gathering if you ask me. The national gathering is on the 4th of July and it's always held in a different national forest every year. The "busnicks" show up in their converted school buses and whatnot and you'll see everything including naked hippy chicks running around looking jump the first guy's bones or whatever. One year I saw the Hari Krishna's drag a baby elephant into the  Appalachian mountains. Anyway, they have their water truck and dumpster dive so food is free and they pass the "magic hat" for any cash they need. The freaks even have their own generators and stages for shows even thought the entire gathering is anarchistic with only traditions to help them organize. The gatherings can get up to 30,000 people and even the cops leave them alone not wanting to deal with 30,000 naked hippies running around the deep woods tripping their asses off. The forestry people struggle to keep their eyeballs from popping out while they inspect the camps.

No offense dudes, but my first rainbow gathering when I was living on the streets was pure magic and it's as close to what I would call a church or religion as it gets for me. Some street friends of mine dragged me out there protesting and we even accidently hitched a ride with the rather weird "Love People" which is a throwback spiritual commune group from the 60s. We went early because it's nice and cool in the forest and they always use street people to help build foot bridges and set up camps out of any scrap plastic and poles they can find. They kept us high and I actually enjoy chopping wood and fetching water. Anyway, a few days before the gathering officially started two guys came walking down the path with this enormous garbage bag thrown over their shoulder and said, "One of your wildest is about to come true!" They then proceeded to roll joints from that overstuffed hefty garbage bag full of primo pot for the next four hours straight just as fast as they could hand them out. People were stuffing them in their pockets and staggering around and it wasn't until everybody in the camp begged them to stop that they finally did. Calm and causal and quiet as always, the two then walked on down the path to the next camp out of 12.

I worked in "Earth Mother's" camp. She was just an ordinary 50 something woman with grandkids and looked like the type to vote for Reagan. She owned a diner in bumfuck Missouri though and brought all her pots and pans and loved to smoke pot. I spent all my time either chopping wood, fetching water, or spending 12 hours a day just trying to keep the 8 or so fire pits she cooked on going as hot as I could. I know a lot of hippy cooks on communes who can cook for hundreds of people faster than a jackrabbit, but that woman was amazing and I could never say no or even take a break without feeling like a wimp.

The most magical moment though was when an internationally famous violist came strolling path playing a medley of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" making even the most hardcore lowlife in camp break out in tears.

[MindAbiding]

Great story, Dude! You should write a book about your wanderings, interspersed with your philosophy of ignorance, man. Rich stuff!

[wuliheron]

I'm up to maybe 70 pages in my book on Ignorant Wisdom including now putting the finishing touches on a total potty humor treatment of the Tao Te Ching that's world class if I say so myself.

I always figured my life story is the kind of thing Hollywood wouldn't touch because the public is just not ready to go there. They'll watch movies about serial killers that eat their own babies rather than deal with the massive widespread culturally entrenched denial. According to the national science foundation one in five Americans still insists the sun revolves around the earth and I want nothing to do with those insane killers! Hitler was like that, foam at the mouth and even philosophers who contradicted him in the slightest risked death.

I remember going to watch "The Last Temptation of Christ" when it first came out at theaters. Bible thumpers where picketing it with signs saying "Jesus was not gay" when the movie never even suggests he was gay. In fact, he had two wives in the movie. Nope, best not to go there. The book I'm writing is full of jokes and poetry and lots of three syllable words that will put such people to sleep thankfully before they get even a clue about what I'm writing.

I enjoyed building the camps more than when the crowds came actually. Some of the street people who came out to help were hard core drug addicts and alcoholics trying to get away for their addictions. These days the rainbow gatherings keep an "alcohol camp" because people keep sneaking stuff in, but for hippies if it isn't LSD or pot or something proven to be nonaddictive and relatively harmless to your body they don't want it around. Every night as all these winos and drug addicts and rapists and murders and who knows what settled down in the forest to sleep you would the echoes of each camp yelling out, "We love you!" Something the mainstream like to say they support, but don't and, in the news, they always talked about doing massive raids on the camps and locking everybody up. It was the 80s and Reagan had emptied the mental institutions. I saw violently insane people fighting among themselves on the streets in the cities with rocks and two by fours and knives and whatever they could find. Once, two guys went at it over stale donuts from soup kitchen.

[High Priest Allen]

I'm up to maybe 70 pages in my book on Ignorant Wisdom including now putting the finishing touches on a total potty humor treatment of the Tao Te Ching that's world class if I say so myself.

How's that book comin'? Sounds like a great read.