I love order and civilization. That is one of the reasons why I live here. I love the fact that you can go to a rock festival and everybody is so orderly and people are on their best behavior. I love the fact that you can put concert goers on a ferry and the boat is not going to capsize due to disorderly conduct or disorganization. The event is extremely well organized, the bands appear on time, all is lovely. Because I come from Mexico, where people have yet to understand the concept of forming an orderly line, I am always astounded at the civility of young Americans. These are the best behaved people in the world (at least in their own country).
So why are the organizers compelled to establish a host of rules that are insulting and ridiculous? To wit: Everybody gets carded for booze. 65 year-old weathered hippies have to show their id in order to get a freaking beer. Everybody gets a bracelet, like inmates in a mental institution, like newborn fucking babies in the incubator, just so that God forbid nobody who isn't 21 fucking years old (don't get me started on the minimum age) can get
a sip of beer. You'd think they are selling Absinthe with a heroin chaser, for crying out loud.
Still, my fellow Americans, meek and mild and I frankly wonder if not lobotomized, politely complain, almost in a whisper, "this is ridiculous", "this is so stupid". Nobody storms the barricades. But it gets worse. Soon after buying the beer, we realize we are penned in and are not allowed to leave the premises with our beers in order to enjoy them in the grounds at large, as we listen to the music and frolic in the grass. Hell no, we need to finish the beer inside the pen and then go back to our places. This, I have to say, IS TOO MUCH.
This is why we have a president who behaves like a toddler. Because we are treated like babies.
Adults are not allowed in this fucking paranoid puritanical fascistoid country to decide how many beers they want to have and where they want to have them. Because if you must know, the bracelet has a limited number of tabs (a generous 5) so that once the tabs are gone you cannot purchase more beer. Oh, and last call is at 8:30 pm. I have never seen anything like this. Not in the first world (Europe) and not in the third world (everywhere else). A fucking baby in a crib has more freedom. Where is the concept of personal responsibility? Next thing they're going to make you have your beers at home, before you even show up. FASCISTS.
Meanwhile, everybody's smoking pot like crazy, which is allright by me. Stick it to the Man, etc, etc.
Apparently, the Nuremberg Beer Laws are applied with a zealousness not accorded to the confiscation of doobies, which is luckily non-existent. Sheer absurdity, if you ask me.
I regret to inform you that the contact high is, sadly, a myth. But I respectfully submit that the alcohol policy of
All Points West is insane, stupid, inhuman and unreasonable. Card 80 year-old people with walkers, see if I care, but let people have their fun. Nobody goes there expressly to create mayhem. People are there to chill out and listen to music. We are paying not an inconsiderable sum to enjoy a music festival, not to be treated like retards who can't take care of themselves. Not to be treated like freaking adults.
I will continue because I am drowning in my own bile:
As I stood in the pen with all those meek and mild, young and old Americans, I really thought this country has gone to pot. What has happened here is a general lobotomy, with corporations and the government administering the shocks and the numbing pills in the guise of Nurse Ratched. Conformity has won. Blandness, marketing, complacency, overconsumption, too much TV, too much contentment. I know l sound like an old hippie, but man, it is beyond pathetic. It seems to be beyond repair.
We have a war going on and young Americans killed and maimed forever, and nobody utters a squeak. We have a bunch of criminals running the country, and nobody demands their execution, let alone their ouster.
The pen where I was forced to drink my beer, which has got to be the least satisfying beer I have ever had, was right behind the Statue of Liberty, who, fittingly, was turning her back on us.
By the way, Radiohead was great.
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