Strangers With Candy

or

Flying Into Los Angeleeeez

or

Phishing in the Mountains (Part 1 of 2)

As a part of my ongoing quest to achieve a permanent state of enlightened bliss through drugs and music, I packed up last week and flew out to Colorado. PHiSH was opening up the second leg of their 2009 tour with a return to Red Rocks Amphitheater, the most spectacular outdoor venue in the country, to play 4 nights in a row.

For a lay-person to understand the significance of this event within the Phish community, it's necessary to provide a little bit of history.

Red Rocks was witness to several wildly celebrated Phish shows from years long passed, including their last run in 1996. It's the place where they busted out some of their older songs, dipping back into their epic 80's Gamehendge material. It's the place where fans started the nazi-esque "hood" chant. It's also the place where they were banned for 10 years after angry, ticketless hippies terrorized the nearby town of Morrison, throwing beer bottles and bongs at the local cops.

As one astute observer mentions in this news footage, "People are just dancin' and tryin' to have fun. We should be able to do whatever we want...just RAGE IT, man..."

Fuckin'A, dirty hippie girl from the 90's, fuckin'A.

The night before I left for Denver, I called up American Taxi to get a ride to the airport at 9:00 the next morning. The next morning at 9:05 I started getting worried and, despite my repeated calls and harassment of the dispatchers, my African driver didn't show up until 9:55. That gave him about 40 minutes to get me to the airport before I missed my 11:00 flight. I noticed a pillow on his passenger seat and suspected that he had tied one off the night before at a wild khat party. He began making excuses, claiming their systems were down and that his GPS wasn't working (it sure as hell did when he plugged it in). I saw bits of chewed up plant material stuck to his teeth and dismissed his excuses quickly, "I don't care what the hell's going on as long as you get me to the airport in time. I will not be checking luggage. Let's GO."

On the way to the airport I called United to check on the status of my flight. Through some minor miracle, it had been delayed for 35 minutes. I sat back in my seat and gave a deep sigh of relief, wondering if I was the only person who was a regular benefactor of a universe that seems to bend to accommodate my will.

Before packing up my carry-ons I had checked the TSA guidelines to see if people are allowed to bring food past security. For some reason, their website only tells you what NOT to bring. I had four special home made chocolate/butterscotch/peanut-butter treats that I wanted to bring along for the concerts but I was worried that they would just get thrown out at the checkpoint. It turns out that they don't give a damn about food...most food, anyway.

Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister Customs Man

-Arlo Guthrie

I took a seat at an airport cafeteria bar and bought a tuna sandwich to accompany my tall Sam Adams. The plan was to meet a fellow fan (we'll call him Wrecked) out in Denver. Wrecked was a person who I had never met or talked to up until about 2 days before I left. He had made late hotel reservations for over $150/night so I offered up my hotel room to share with him and a couple of his friends.

Minutes after receiving his email, Wrecked was permanently banned from the online Phish forum where I found him. He had repeatedly made light of the website's strict enforcement of the "no n-word" policy. I wondered to myself if I was making a terrible mistake. All I knew about Wrecked was that he was living in Chicago and that he had caught a Zambrano homerun a while back and freaked the fuck out. I reasoned that if anything went bad, I could track this fucker down.

At the airport bar, I sent him a text to let him know I'd be about half an hour later than expected. He had flown in to Denver the day before. I received the following reply.

From: Wrecked

10:57am

Its fucking freezing here

Hope you brought hoody n jeans

I already had heard that Denver was unseasonably cold, so I came fucking prepared for fucking freezing weather. I boarded my fucking flight, noticed a handful of other fuckers with Phish shirts on, and we took off for fucking Colorado.

More to come...