mathcart
05-29-2007, 02:40 PM
Ok a little love for Mark is due for many reasons, but I'm gonna focus this homage to a great moment in humanity that I was a part of at the Sasquatch...
So the wind sucked on Sunday- its sort of become epic in how bad it got, but it was made worse by 2 factors. 1- the Saturday weather was not close to that bad and 2- it was fucking gorgous sunday morning, hot and sunny- meaning a lot of people came in to the venue around noon prepared for that kind of day, namely in shorts and tee shirts. So whats this all about? Well the Gorge has a policy of no re-entry , in other words, once your in, if you leave your totally SOL on getting back in. Again while we (my sas posse of me my sis and my 2 good friends- more on them in a minute) joked about how stupid and behind the times this was, I mean can you name a multiday festival that hasn't found its way to wristband technology? But again not an issue till sunday when we were caught with our pants down and were friggin freezin (and I'm from a place that actually gets cold- so it was for real).
At some point durring the LONG delay when nothing was happening we all agreed fuck this lets go see if we can treck back to our campsite and get some warm clothes and we headed up toward the main gate. When we got there we were told point blank the ploicy does not make any exceptions, no re-entry period. At this point my crew of pushy take no shit new yorkers flew into a rage. My sister got in the head ushers face and told him it was rediculous to be so inflexible when it seemed legitimately dangerous to continue their policy. We started working the crowd, which was begining to mass at the gate angry and cold. We started chants of "this is bullshit people, lets organize" and my personal favorites "four more layers" and "my taxes pay your salary" (im still laughing at those 2.
Anyway we were all up in the main ushers face speaking a little truth to power (which evidently sounds a lot like "this policy blows enormous donkey dick") when Money Mark and some people he was with were walking out going back to their hotel before the headlining set much later that night. We all saw him and this idiot usher who we had been working did his knee-jerk "theres no reentry sir" thing to money mark. My friend yelled incredulously, "your not gonna let Money Mark back in? Hes gonna be needed on the main stage, son!"
In a moment of utter humanity, as he could of been like fuck this I'm a VIP I don't care what happening to y'all (which I doubt he would, but I guess you never know) He stopped and talked to all of us "I hear your point" and said "I know these guys" (we had been at the rail at his set right in front of his keyboard- but I think it was just that he was trying to get the gorge guy off our back). Then he asked how many of us their were that he would go get us sweatshirts from his hotel. I was blown away and didn't say anything before my sister responded, who was at this point fuckin livid because the head usher guy had just told her after she offered to leave her id to get out, that that wasn't the issue because he could rescan our ticket if he wanted to, but wasn't going to. Needless to say she was pissed and when money mark asked us how many of us needed sweatshirts in a heated rage she turned her attention on him and yelled "3000".
Its funny now but we pulled her aside and said 4 please. My sister thanked him too and calmed down a bit afterwards. It turns out not to have mattered because of all the crowd rabble rousing we were doing(see previous description) eventually got their attention and they reversed the policy (about an hour after we showed up there). So we obviously bolted to get warm clothes so we we never found out if Mark came through (which I don't doubt). But I just wanted to point out what an exceptional gesture that was. Being a rightous person (in the good way) is all about making the decision to do the harder thing in any given moment. Mark could of easilly walked right by to his warm hotel, but he stopped listened to us and offered to help us out of a fucked up situation. That was awesome and we were all praising the gospel of Money Mark all the way back to our camp ground. Much love and oh by the way you fuckin killed it on satge.
So the wind sucked on Sunday- its sort of become epic in how bad it got, but it was made worse by 2 factors. 1- the Saturday weather was not close to that bad and 2- it was fucking gorgous sunday morning, hot and sunny- meaning a lot of people came in to the venue around noon prepared for that kind of day, namely in shorts and tee shirts. So whats this all about? Well the Gorge has a policy of no re-entry , in other words, once your in, if you leave your totally SOL on getting back in. Again while we (my sas posse of me my sis and my 2 good friends- more on them in a minute) joked about how stupid and behind the times this was, I mean can you name a multiday festival that hasn't found its way to wristband technology? But again not an issue till sunday when we were caught with our pants down and were friggin freezin (and I'm from a place that actually gets cold- so it was for real).
At some point durring the LONG delay when nothing was happening we all agreed fuck this lets go see if we can treck back to our campsite and get some warm clothes and we headed up toward the main gate. When we got there we were told point blank the ploicy does not make any exceptions, no re-entry period. At this point my crew of pushy take no shit new yorkers flew into a rage. My sister got in the head ushers face and told him it was rediculous to be so inflexible when it seemed legitimately dangerous to continue their policy. We started working the crowd, which was begining to mass at the gate angry and cold. We started chants of "this is bullshit people, lets organize" and my personal favorites "four more layers" and "my taxes pay your salary" (im still laughing at those 2.
Anyway we were all up in the main ushers face speaking a little truth to power (which evidently sounds a lot like "this policy blows enormous donkey dick") when Money Mark and some people he was with were walking out going back to their hotel before the headlining set much later that night. We all saw him and this idiot usher who we had been working did his knee-jerk "theres no reentry sir" thing to money mark. My friend yelled incredulously, "your not gonna let Money Mark back in? Hes gonna be needed on the main stage, son!"
In a moment of utter humanity, as he could of been like fuck this I'm a VIP I don't care what happening to y'all (which I doubt he would, but I guess you never know) He stopped and talked to all of us "I hear your point" and said "I know these guys" (we had been at the rail at his set right in front of his keyboard- but I think it was just that he was trying to get the gorge guy off our back). Then he asked how many of us their were that he would go get us sweatshirts from his hotel. I was blown away and didn't say anything before my sister responded, who was at this point fuckin livid because the head usher guy had just told her after she offered to leave her id to get out, that that wasn't the issue because he could rescan our ticket if he wanted to, but wasn't going to. Needless to say she was pissed and when money mark asked us how many of us needed sweatshirts in a heated rage she turned her attention on him and yelled "3000".
Its funny now but we pulled her aside and said 4 please. My sister thanked him too and calmed down a bit afterwards. It turns out not to have mattered because of all the crowd rabble rousing we were doing(see previous description) eventually got their attention and they reversed the policy (about an hour after we showed up there). So we obviously bolted to get warm clothes so we we never found out if Mark came through (which I don't doubt). But I just wanted to point out what an exceptional gesture that was. Being a rightous person (in the good way) is all about making the decision to do the harder thing in any given moment. Mark could of easilly walked right by to his warm hotel, but he stopped listened to us and offered to help us out of a fucked up situation. That was awesome and we were all praising the gospel of Money Mark all the way back to our camp ground. Much love and oh by the way you fuckin killed it on satge.