Summer Camp “23: The Illuminated

Boomsickles. Oops we did it again. Mohamed has come to the mountain and Kamp Happiness has survived Summer Camp Music and Arts Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois by the skin of their chin whiskers. From Three Sisters Park, a 400-acre private park located along the Illinois River, just 17 miles North of Peoria, this year’s celebration was made up of a particularly colorful mosaic of fanciful characters. It was Polynesian street walkers selling candy bracelets out the back of the CarryAll 1500. It was Willie fans twirling at the Moonshine Stage and Kansas City kites at sunset. High expectations at the Illumination Stage and the low bar and eventual scum line including the chain mail scrotum pouch. Shut your eyes Marion. Don’t look at it. Bienvenidos a Summer Camp “23: The Iluminated. This is the growth that comes with transcendent experience. The end of the innocence and the beginning of something beautiful. Festival 1, Monday morning hippies 0.

It’s been a good run but this may be the last real party of your entire life. The fiesta engrata. The chickens have come home to roost, and why not. This is the heartbeat of the known festival universe. Welcome to the razor’s edge balancing act of responsible festival management and utterly savage social conduct. Who in their right mind would give Sledgehammer the code key into the museum with all the product? A radio? A facking golf cart? Don’t be squatting in the driveway Mr. Bitchell and don’t rest your  grapefruit in the corner of the tent on which we park.

Greetings from the vortex of the party season. Kamp Happiness has taken over the Wiggle Room VIP bungalow at the Half Way Inn. Sledgehammer and Nature Valley Pickleback scadoodled away from Hangout Fest before all the cops could get there to arrest everyone and arrived at Rockville in Daytona with just enough time left to sour the sauce. Kieth Richard and Ka’aoli’s advice rang true, ‘Walk before they make you run.”  and always make an about face before they toss you into an ambulance against your will. The Lemonade Merchant and Bonnie Blue showed up all the way from Buffalo and reminded the masses that there is no sleep on Wednesday. There never has been. It was around sunrise when he repeatedly tried to slam his hatchback door on his laser pointer causing the entire window to shatter into expensive, sparkly bits. Party initiated.

For the Spider Monkey, it was another overnight run from Deland to Chillicothe, but at least this time he hadn’t fallen victim to spider bites and bursitis. His lawyer would put him up for the night but he wouldn’t represent him in court, lest he was arrested in Polk County. Bad lawyers are like bad fire spinners, colorful and fun…but dangerous.

Water hazard? Is that really your main concern? Pedro takes hazard wherever she goes. You can’t stop it. You can only hope to contain it. Who was the crazy bartender who brought all the sprouts? They’re not just for pretty girls anymore and PTSD is not just for soldiers. Pedro knew the concerns should really center around the night terrors and experimental narcotics. She was not herself. Hadn’t been for a time. By the looks of the trading post inventory by the end of the day, it was obvious zero fucks had been given

The work schedule was unexpected to be sure. The Bucket would get home from work around sunrise each morning. He did not see that coming and it would take all his faculties and Puerto Rican drywall to survive the gauntlet. Friday morning the krewe was still at it, shaving rails on Bfly’s cajon. Every other night he arrived to find the camp quiet and the tent empty. House dark, pots cold. Where indeed was his girlfriend at sunrise? Likely sleeping in some other Mexican’s tent.

Speaking of the Firmament.  Lucy was reminded how Scamp is a snow globe of dust, glitter and India Pale Ale, shaken with repeated force. It’s about sitting on the road and letting the parade of endless gibberish pass by. There is a current of people constantly flowing by in what seemed to be repeating loops. Where were they all going? The Illumination Deep Eddy Bar? The forest is alive with animalia. The mandate appeared to be to cultivate an atmosphere where all people, including employees are encouraged to have fun. Teaching by example, whatever the cost.

A.I. had been in the news lately. Something about replicating the written word or visual art better than human folk. Sitting on the forest trail, witnessing the entire lurid spectacle, Sledgehammer considered the difficulty in replicating something so colorfully detailed. The fact was it was just too authentic. A little too colorfully detailed at the subatomic level. Could a robot really foresee the beauty of the scattered forest candles or the unhinged savagery of Orlando and Spider Man attacking each other’s flanks during the meat of the pin wars? One can only speculate.

Pedro and the Dust People. Do you believe in the power of a Twinkie? Apparently it’s not for everyone. For a brief time, they thought they were leaving them with their own bunkhouse. The bathroom was locked and the front door wouldn’t lock. Twinkie haters of the hardest order. Next thing, they were tossed to the Mexicans. Pedro was still the greasiest Mexican around and still failed to know where to draw the line. “Did he play Tweaker yet? Is he gonna play Tweaker? Wait! This is Tweaker?” They arrived at Keller Williams just in time for Tweaker, from there they hunted a water spigot where she could wash off for the first time in days. Her mustache had begun to slide down the grease on her filthy brown face.

Baby, you dusty. By day two literally everyone was clogged up from the bank of dust. Pores and nostrils were clogged and hair stayed salon fresh. Like most large festivals, with that many cattle in a herd migrating hither and yon, it’s going to make dust or mud. Take your medicine. Last year the direction to Kamp Happiness included going down to the muddiest camp and taking a left, then head straight for the Stealie.

Lucy’d gotten five hours of sleep in five days. She’d crossed the bridge. Jumped the shark and as of late Friday night was no longer making any sense. The two hour strategic disco nap on Saturday would be enough to get her through the weekend. This would matter in that the bar always got busier as the night went on. The Illumination Stage became an absolute zoo around two in the morning but just before sunrise it really started to come unhinged. Don’t look now but there had been some well-documented burbling from the admitted drunk and criminal reprobate. Again skating the knife’s edge between good taste and bad choices.

Willie Nelson filled up the Moonshine Stage while Sexbruise? partied like it was the eighties. Everybody do cocaine. The Boss took him to Keaton the crazy Filipino who gifted her the sacred oculus. She could be heard screaming “fugazi!” while purchasing black market Grateful Dead gold from the heathens.

Do not suggest you are a germaphobe if you are willing to spend four days living in a blanket of dust and a rising storm surge of behavioral modifiers. At some point the dirt vanishes and all that is left is beauty. He had no idea he was going to be part of the Daisy chain for all the product. The end? Speaking through the lens of ignorance Lucy couldn’t see the end. Really? The Last Supper?

Promises were made that if he returned to camp with everyone sleeping again he would light their tents on and drive over everything with the golf cart. Obviously these were serious stakes. Emotionalities were running hot.

Sledghammer under the radar. There are a populace of men who are able to live and thrive in this world without a driver’s license. Even with warrants in five states it must be sporting to board a plane using an expired passport. Bonnie Blue couldn’t make heads or tails of it and had started sleeping with a sharpened stick.

At some point while Kevin played cajon disco in the middle of the path, the gestapo dropped the heavy hand in an effort to shut down the renegade vending like a bad day care. For $250 a piece, the pin merchants banded together and cornered the market on the corner of Shakedown Street and Happiness Avenue. Everybody bring it down a notch. This is a party, not a safari.

Incindiaries and Dirt Whores. They worked from early afternoon until sunrise the next morning. There were scattered visions of girls dancing with balloons and Filipino prostitutes wearing nothing but Mardi Gras beads and smiles. Lucy tattooed Pedro’s phone number on her wrist in case she got arrested again. She was known to get salty with the Mexican but she might be the only one who would throw her bail in case of emergency.

Sunrise Sunday morning and Sledghammer searched for Pedro and Bflhy. They could be anywhere. He’d check the Red Barn and the bunk house before managing a short shift at the Circle K? Trading Post. It wouldn’t be long before he’d get wrangled into joining a posse heading to the annual kickball game. Instead he found a cavalcade of whimsy as the two teams and spectators greeted the day with some high-level kickball. The sacrifice and commitment of the athletes for rising at such an hour for exercise should be applauded. Next year the wook wranglers are hoping to get hired as play-by-play, color and side-line announcers.

The Iceman Disappeareth: And what had happened to the other wrangler press representative? He was last seen leaving Maryland in a stolen Xterra. Obviously jail. That would make sense. A man can’t run forever. The good news was that arrests inside of  Summer Camp were few and far between. Thanks Chillicothe.

And who was the young man who fell into the tent? Face and knees bloodied up? “Bruh, did someone kick your ass or did you kick your own ass? Pickleback figured it had to be Sledgehammer. Maybe it was the ribbon dancer with the bloody nose. These are certainly colorful times that we live in.

Spider and Orlando get married. The squeaking sound from the golf cart was the parking brake they constantly forgot to release. The sound could be heard through the forest where the trail contained many colorful characters. There was Christian and the swizzle stick, Trap house rules-Don’t forget rent/kickback for the hosts.

The Lemon Merchant looked at his possessions toward the end of the festival and lamented, “I should have just tossed everything into an industrial size fan.”

Visit the Summer Camp website and like their social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Spotify. Welcome to the machine. Check out some of the other deposits from the Summer Camp cache such as The Amalgamation and Restricted Access.

Seated in the dust with friends, old and new The Illumination arrives and all the dirt is gone. Replaced by a feeling of sparkling clean, delicious fellowship. It remained a summer camp in the truest sense of the word. Camping together, making new friends and team building are all aspects of a sleepover camp and one that typifies this and other camping festivals. Welcome to the petri dish. It’s something they all have in common. Forget it, the dirt won’t come off. And to Brian, the lighting guy who hung the Jolly Roger up with his lights in the forest…

See you next year.