Gem & Jam 2023: Desert Honeypot

The 15th annual Gem & Jam Festival descended upon Tuscon, Arizona February 3-5, 2023 and for the the first time since such records had been kept, the wranglitos made their way to the desert of the American west for a few days of music and camping festival fun. With headliners like String Cheese Incident, the Floozies, the emancipator and LSDream the event was also heavily-laden with visual artists and vendors. The great weather, friendly people, rocks, crystals and jewelry worked in tandem with the music, production and lot scene to provide a thrilling weekend of sleek, wookish fun. Welcome to Gem & Jam 2023: Desert Honeypot.

For a few weeks around the time of the festival, the city of Tuscon hosts an annual gem show that spills over into the camping lot of the festival. Entrepreneurs drag around their wook wagons full of Malachite wraps and assorted crystal gibberish for all the wheeler dealers to partake.

Bfly and Baitbucket had always been interested in attending Gem & Jam but Tuscon was over thirty hours drive from the mountains and a little further west than they usually operated. The witch of January had been stealing and the mountain festival season was shut down like a bad day care. Arizona made as much sense as anything. A certain festival inertia was gaining speed and the wranglers were not in a position to say no. Next month they would venture to Florida for the spring festival push but for now the dry heat of the Tularosa Valley would provide a respite from the mountain winter. When the wranglers got the call to cover Gem & Jam it was definitely on the “hard maybe” list but how could they say no? This was what Don Draper called “new money” and although they were ripe for adventure, they were so broke it would be hard to make the math work out. All they would need would be gas money there and back. The rest would fall like manna from heaven. And like the man said, “If you wait until you have enough money, you may never do it.”

He figured he could find another west coast wrangler to represent but he didn’t want to send someone else to take bad notes and out-of-focus photographs. That was his job.

Prologue:  His sclera was the kind of red usually reserved for pink eye or at the very least, exploding capillaries and they hadn’t even pulled out of the driveway yet. As he loaded festival paraphernalia into the hatchback, space limitations became apparent. There would be no Big Betty, no travel box for the trading post and no cooler. Not that that mattered, they had no money for food or beer anyway. This was going to be cutting it close.

They called him the Ethiopian because whenever someone said, “Pace yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” He would reply, “In Ethiopia it’s both. That’s why they win.” When it was all said and done, due to the financial situation and the distance from the home team, this was pretty harmless effort for Hobo Kamp standards. My kingdom for a citrine skull.

Around Memphis it became increasingly obvious that there was a serious ice problem. They came across multiple vehicles, mostly semi-trucks jackknifed into the muddy, icy slush. Things got pretty sporting navigating the brown ice downtown. What was earlier perceived as a serious lapse in civic responsibility turned out to be a giant ice storm that blasted western Tennessee all the way to north Texas. They had no idea at the time they were traveling through an aberration. Barely surviving the interstate through downtown Memphis they came to the I-40 bridge when Bfly screamed, “The bridge will be worse than the road! We can’t make it.” Baitbucket replied, “We can’t get to Arizona without going over the Mississippi River.” These are the hard facts.

The ice crowded in from both sides of the road until it peppered the last sliver of road causing the vehicle to slip and lurch. What the absolute hell? He was from Florida and knew little of driving on ice, but really all these saps sitting in the ditches thought they were themselves, capable drivers.

Vehicles scattered throughout the ditches on both sides of the road. And plenty of semi trucks, all jackknifed headfirst into the icey mush. And there was a pattern to the wrecks. Usually it was two trucks all wrapped together and usually with evidence of fire in the engine. There were no shoulders on which to escape, the exits were covered slick with brown ice and 18-wheelers stuck out of the ditches at curious angles.

Dammit Janet, did covid end all the public water fountains?

They spent the night in the front seat at a truck stop near the Oklahoma/Texas border. Wook romance of the first order. They woke to “Brown Sugar” from ZZ Top’s first album titled ZZ Top’s First Album. Wary of the ice bridges in Tejas, they took I-70 west, past the Velvet Taco and grain silos that resembled medieval cathedrals. Only the Longhorn state has school zones with a speed limit of fifty miles per hour.

After twenty-five hours of flat Earth driving, the  snow-capped mountains of New Mexico were a welcome sight. Cows and windmills were replaced by rock cliffs and saguaro cactus as the train sped westward.

Baitbucket was already stoned on pistachio wine by the time they got to the white sands of the Tularosa Pecos Valley. These were the stomping grounds of William Bunny and Pat Garrett and as they came through the jagged pass above Las Cruces and the Chihuahuan Desert the sounds and smells of the American west began to take over. If they’d had any pesos, there would have been no keeping them from a plate of street tacos but they were broke like the Liberty Bell.

Rookie Mistakes pt. 1:

These were part of the stretching exercises that inevitably come with a first time festival. Unbeknownst to them, there was a difference between car camping and GA camping. A wee bit of unplanned chaos can be quelled by a simple walk through the lot. When in doubt, chill. It sometimes takes a while to figure things out and they desperately needed to get their bearings straight. Lord knows Bfly liked to camp next to her vehicle. They found wooks of their ilk in the GA camping area and after a few easy trips to get the Kamp Happiness pavilion up and running they were open for business.

jueves…

They had showed up with virtually no money, but Baitbucket was used to that. He was usually thirty-five cents away from having a quarter. There were burners everywhere using burner vocabulary. He didn’t feel like a MOOP but he was far from home. It was a calm and placid evening. He would be able to wait until morning to stake down the FloydFest groundscored canopy. It was as if he’d never been out west. He’d obviously forgotten how the daily sandstorm would flatten his camp in Green River, Utah. He woke up at three in the morning with the wind flattening the tent around their heads. Their groundscored canopy had long since rolled into the neighbor’s camp and was presently attached to their tent and slowly dragging it toward the Pacific Ocean.

The ubiquitous nature of the wook…

Once an attempt has been made to define the wook, the error is implicit. There’s simply too many variants and no one is above the moniker. Ye too have bummed a cigarette. They were the kind of wooks who knew they weren’t going to be showering for a few days. Their degree of inclusion invited everyone into the Hobo Kamp for light frivolity and questionable choices. Many of the patrons seemed to have rocks instead of money. Some hauled backpacks and shuffled on shoes worn from the long road. This were the friendliest version of the animal.

One boneless senior with extra cheese please.

Sell? Trade? Jamaican dry rubs? They would have to find the gas money to get home or after a few weeks in the desert with no money, they would become matter out of place. At that point they still had a cardboard box of crystals and fossils that they might be able to turn into money. Baitbucket knew he needed to be careful. Bfly was getting sideways and already going for the jugular and not the clown type. Not a deal-breaker but a red flag to be sure.

Shakedown. No shoes, no problem. This was an impressive lot. With a west-coast feel, it was a free-for-all of renegade vendors, street hustlers with everything from fried food to Amazonite wraps. It reminded Baitbucket of the Dead & Co. lot in Salt Lake City. It was also rich with dogs and kids, always a good sign at a show. The family feel was right and hippy love was certainly in the air. This was a place where a man with a plan could get something done. Everything was close to each other so the walk to and from the venue was easy breezy and convenient to travel back and forth as needed.

The Honeypot came down from the mountain and was anointed “Keeper of the Crystal Flame”. He still hadn’t traded his dreadlocks for contraband but was trying to exchange some fluff for a Caribbean Jerk. He’d been an ugly baby and put up for adoption when he was very young, but here he was standing next to his MaMa and PaPa. The prodigal son had come home. If they were going to hide from him again, they might have to leave the country.

As they hammered down the tent stakes with a can of Great Value Beef Stew, Bucket was attacked from behind by someone else’s runaway canopy. At this point, they decided not to decorate Kamp Happiness with the usual menagerie of gibberish. After the winds of Thursday night the feeling was every tapestry and plastic flower would end up in the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, the winds never returned and the rest of the weekend showcased mild days and cool nights.

viernes…

One working memory card for three cameras? Par for the course and again they would have to share. On the way to Dogs in a Pile, Bfly lost her media bracelet and couldn’t get into the media tent. Her phone was dead and would remain that way for the entire festival. #thuglife

Baitbucket’s phone was dead and he spent his last twenty dollars on chocolates. Hard, medium or light experiences were the choices. Bfly chose medium. “Share with a friend. Enjoy your experience.” He enjoyed the Poranquí set while Bfly enjoyed a unicorn parade at the Funk Hunters before the rendezvous at the art tent. Everyone was absolutely chill and the vibe of this festival was cultivated over time to be fun and relaaaxed.

sabado…

The crowd started the day with bananas and potato chips in an effort to replace their potassium and sodium. As afternoon approached, they were getting into some serious rock trading. He was hoping to trade some of the larger pieces for gas money but that was still evading him. She was already wearing latex surgical gloves for when things got messy and it would happen, this was a Floozies night. Ain’t no shame in the get down.

Another festival with a full moon. Baitbucket was using Tamiami’s camera which was old but took fantastic photographs. He still had cashew butter on his fingers and had trouble working the buttons. In between mouth harp solos, their neighbors, Tasha and Veronica broke out the health food and kept the camp alive Saturday afternoon. The closest they would come to a shower was the LSDream Sound Bath. The sunset colors over the western mountains reminded him he was back in the beautiful fold of the desert. Baitbucket managed to groundscore two gently used, unmatched earplugs that fit snug. Things were looking up.

domingo…

His left leg was bloated and swollen and its structural integrity appeared to be collapsing. Likely it had been caused by a scorpion sting. The damned things had to be everywhere here in the desert. Had there been some mention of a man named Forest and a tin of San Pedro chocolate? Surely that had been a lucid dream. San Pedro scorpion chocolate? Hard to be sure. Somewhere in there they ventured to the fire spinners and enjoyed the Dirtwire set as their minds began to wander.

The neighbors, who must have been dentists or pastry chefs were asked to return their tank but were out of balloons. The consensus was to store the rest of the gas inside Tyler Cornrows’ inflatable mattress. It worked like a charm and while he had gone down on a firm bed, he woke up lying on a deflated jellyfish. The party had rolled over him like a category five. Considering the sight of waking up to some wide-eyed madman huffing laughing gas from his mattress tube, he figured it was better he slept through it.

They would come around with their wook wagons full of crystals and wraps. Coffee with cream and Michigan drywall. To the north, Mount Lemon protruded from the desert floor, covered with snow. The scene devolved to the point they were trading crystals for cheap beers and the machine appeared to be working just fine. Billy drove up in a go-cart powered by a Dewalt battery just to offer the camp free Natural Lights or Boomerangs as they were known in Plant City. Baitbucket traded his piece of Tampa Bay calcium carbonate for two pieces of Ethiopian opal which had been sold in freezer bags of water as they needed to be submerged for eight months. He was certainly unfamiliar with this kind of hippy rock noise.

The String Cheese Incident came on Sunday night for two sets under the full moon with one of the coolest looking stage presentations on record. Bfly had traded a piece of rose quartz for a patriotic Four Loko and was ready for some Sunday night Cheese. Since Saturday night at Hulaween, she had become a more serious kind of groupie. The Cheese never disappoints and they all danced together under the blanket of stars.

Visit the Gem & Jam website and like their social media channels on Facebook, Instragram and Twitter. Their AI is some of the friendliest around. Not trying to undermine, subvert or assimilate.

epilogue…

It was a typical slow exit strategy Monday morning as they picked up their butts and shards of silly fun. There had been an ugly rumor in some Virginia circles that Kamp Happiness didn’t tidy up their camp upon departure and anybody with a clue knew that was a genuine fool’s paradise. They left behind only cloven hoof prints. Listening to Lyle Lovett they slipped back through west Texas as Baitbucket drove and napped simultaneously. By Texarkana they were cranking Chrissie Hynde as she quipped about the brass in her pocket. The ice was gone and with the temperature returning to a balmy delight, the road east was clear. Even Memphis looked like a different planet, one whose distance from the sun had been ever nudged closer. On the way back Bfly received the deposit from her tax refund and they were able to find the gas to make it back up the mountain. Everything always works out, as usual. Why so serious?

Thanks to the ladies at Gem & Jam for allowing the wranglers to be part of the fun and thanks to all the photographers who contributed. Keep your pistols drawn as the festivaus moves south for Okeechobee, Grassroots at Virginia Key, Suwannee Spring Reunion, Resonate and more. Gem & Jam represented the beginning of the party season and now it’s open for business.

namaste y’all…