Trippy Tales from the Gathering

We had so many funny, touching and wierd things happen to us during the Gathering. Here are just a few. If you can think of something we forgot (or misplaced), drop us a word

• Crazy Doug's Mosquito Repellent
  Hey, Doug. I hope you don't mind that I tell this story. It was SO cool that it was almost intimate and we really appreciated that you shared it with us. We couldn't resist passing it on...
  Along about roll call on Saturday morning, we met up with a really fine and colorful dude who was introduced to us as Crazy Doug. He was kind enough to tell us a bit about the Crystal Forest and Nelson Ledge, which is really something else. Be sure to check out the history by visiting the Nelson Ledge Website. He had a lot of really cool stories, but the one that stuck out in my mind the very most was his bat story.
  Doug had been on site for about 3 weeks, setting up for the Gathering. He said he worked some long hours and was marinatin' on a big rock, just chillin', when he felt a mosquito land on his forehead. This bummed him considerably because he really didn't want move, being still as he was. Just as this thought ran through his head, a big bat swooped gracefully across his head, snatching the mosquito right off of his skin. He said the bat brushed him, but not roughly. He told us he could hear the sonar beeps, and as the bat got closer to him, the beeps got faster. He said this same thing happened more than once, on various areas of his skin. He also commented on how these huge bats felt different than you would imagine, feeling more like a plushy toy. What an experience! We saw those bats the first night we were there and they are huge, some having wingspans of 10 or 12 inches. Cool.
• Tent Boy
  After-hours at the Gathering was so crazy, it's hard to describe. It's a wooded 250 acres of whoopin', hollarin', ICP-chantin' camp-sites, each equiped with their own decorative (but non-electrical!) personality. Everyone has a camp fire and the place has a strong resemblance to something out of The Lord Of The Rings- on steroids! Imagine, if you will, being emersed in this type of atmosphere and having a run-in with Tent Boy. Now, Tent Boy is a guy who took a small pup tent, cut a hole in the bottom of it, and used it to sneak up on camp-sites! He should have strapped a cam-corder on the front of it, too! You know this dude is going down in Gathering Legend!
• Inquiring Cops Wanna Know
  A Juggalo society is a polite society. That's the total truth. However, it seemed like local authorities were pretty uncertain about that. You would think that they were expecting a penatentary field day or some Al Qada family reunion, with all that cops they had around for the whole weekend. Even with their high expectations, there wasn't any gun play. The Juggalos totally minded their manners. The cops didn't know what to do with themselves. Turns out, they just got REAL bored and started poking around to see just what was going on in them thar woods. We had 2 different experiences with them, each reminding me a lot of the movie Super Troopers. The first time we experienced Warren's finest was on our first night. We were standing outside of our hotel room, having a smoke (we had a non-smoking room) and visiting with some Juggalos. It was late and we were probably being too loud, but there were mostly Juggalos in the Hotel who took turns doing the same thing we were doing: chatting, laughing and generally having a good time. Here came this cop car across the parking lot towards us. Personally, I was thinking that we were being too loud, but he got out of his car with his arms webbed out and asked if we had been fighting or if there were any guns. Of course there weren't and we all looked obviously confused. Guns were definately not the first thing on our minds at that point! That's about the time when the old lady a couple of doors down stuck her head out of her door. We had seen her before on that day. She and her poodle were both dressed alike in pretty pink frills. She was kinda creepy. -Her and her little dog! So, the cop went down to talk to her and, after a short word (which included something along the lines of "Well, what are YOU doing here then?) he came back to us. He said to us, under his breath, "Give it just a minute and I'll explain." Ok. We're definately down for that. The lady and her little dog got in a car and left. The cop proceeded to tell us that she's a lush and she freaked out on us talking out there. He was really cool, hanging around a few minutes and joking with us.
  The second time we encountered the cops was, agian, right outside our hotel room door, having that last smoke of the night when the Warren cops bee-lined through the parking lot to us. This time there were 2 cops in the car. Another car followed shortly behind them, I'm assuming it was their Field Sargent. They were trying to get us to let them borrow our VIP passes so that they could get into the Gathering. When we declined, telling them that we needed the passes to go to work in the morning, they wanted us to paint their faces! They were a hoot. They asked us a lot of questions about the Gathering, security, how everyone was getting along. We had nothing but awesomeness to say, because it was such an awesome event. These 2 cops stayed so long, we had to excuse ourselves to go to bed. The next morning, we rode in with another Juggalo who saw the 2 cops after we went to bed. He told us that the 2 cops came back to his room, watched the Juggalo Lingerie Contest on his video, ignored their radios and had a great time.
• Juggalo Heart
  We painted a bazillion at the Gathering. We were set up at the edge of lake under a big tent, not 10 feet from the water's edge. It was most tranquil, but to get to us you had to brave a sandy hill which went down steeply toward the water. Our line was very long, sometimes 4 or 5 hours worth of waiting on that hill. On Saturday, there happened to appear 2 Juggalos and 1 Juggalette at the top of the hill in wheel chairs. They wanted their faces painted, but could no way get their chairs up or down the big hill. We were not in a position to take our equipment up to them, either. Instead, the Juggalos standing in line decided to deal with the situation. Several of them climbed the hill, picked the chairs up, carried them carefully back down the hill to the front of our line, let them get their makeup on, and then carried them back up to the top of the hill. Talk about the essence of gallant! It brought tears to our eyes! We were so proud of the Juggalos who helped with that one. Chivalry is NOT dead!
• Kicking Snails
  Instant Karma has a way of dealing with us all on occassion. When this happens, it's always good to take your lesson and run! Boredom has a way of making stupid stuff happen, and on this particular day the stupid boredom stuff just happened to cross paths with instant karma. Being so close to the water's edge, we got to enjoy the very friendly blue gills who would follow you around and the huge, ancient snails nesting right next to our face painting line. There was a kid who decided in his boredom to kick at the ancient snails. Instead of landing a nice, fat snail, he ended up kicking his new shoe off into the lake. He got his shoe back, along with a valuable lesson: Don't F*!c$ with Mother Nature!
• John's Mom
  While our line might have been 5 hours long (no exaggeration!), it was more like a 5-hour party!! By the second day, there was much music and everybody having a great time as they stood on that bitch-ass hill (to quote a juggalo) waiting to have their faces painted. One particular group of Juggalos brought their breath of fresh air right down into our tent and invited us back to their campsite that night for a good fire. So, that night we took our asses in our hands and plunged into the forest to find our boys. Now, this forest is quite a special place and, as many of you who camped there will attest, it changed itself around after the sun went down. I swear, we spent 2 full hours, lost in those woods and looking for our campsite! Of course, we didn't really mind because it was SUCH a magical experience! After those 2 hours, we finally found our boys and we settled in with them for a most excellent night. One of the Juggalos (John) told us that his Mom had been crocheting the Hatchetman on all kinds of stuff. We thought that was a pretty cool thing and told him we would sure like to see some of her work. The next day at the face painting tent, John showed up with his parents to have their faces painted. After painting John's face, we commented on his upstanding character to each other and the Juggalos. It so happened that his parents were sitting in on the whole conversation. They righteously have LOTS to be proud of in that young Juggalo! Later that day, John came back to our tent, bearing gifts from his Mother of crocheted Hatchetmen for the whole crew (including the massage therapists). Of all the souveniers we brought back, these we will cherish the very most! We went and found that wonderful lady in the woods and each gave her a hug of thanks. Then we took John and partied the night away with a huge bunch of flavaful Juggalos.
• A Word From Twiztidchick
  We received quite a lot of email from you guys. Some we plan to post, some we'll just keep between us. Here's one we promised to post:
  my husband and I after a night of sleeping in our car had to go get ice. we went to the party store down the road where we met Cathy a wonderful lady that after talking to us for a few asked if we could pick up t-shirts for her 2 daughters who didn't have tickets but would drive around every night and pick people up and take the walkers to the parking lot of $5 parking. Cathy gave us the money for the shirts and about 4 hours later we went back up to the store to drop them off. now at this point she had already learned that we were sleeping in the car. would you believe that this sweet lady had a pop-up camper in her yard and was cleaning it out for us to stay in? we spent the weekend with them and they took very good care of us. they fed us, offered to loan us money if we needed it ( we didn't) and her daughters gave us rides to and from the gathering each day. I can only say that our karma was running hi all week end and we have already said that if her daughters come to hollowicked they have a place to stay. this my friends is what juggalo family is all about and after reading your stories felt that i had to share mine.....I hope that you post this up on your site too. I still don't think that we have done enough to thank them.

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