You may find yourself on a foam “moon mat”
You may find yourself in a future hippie world
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
—to the tune of Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
“How did I get here?” indeed.
I love peace and quiet. So much so that a couple of years ago, my wife, Pam, and I, lifelong urbanites, pulled up stakes, sold the right-downtown-Toronto house we’d lived in for 22 years and moved to an ultra-rural property – 32 acres of mostly woods, complete with quiet creek and peaceful pond. “Unabomber,” my city friends mutter. I prefer “Thoreau,” but either way it’s true that, on any given day, I might interact with Pam, our two dogs, Rosie and Griz, and maybe a rabbit or an owl. Other folks, I’ll see maybe once a month.
I like this arrangement. Turns out I – once the most social of creatures – enjoy solitude. I get a lot of work done. And, well, it’s not that I agree with Jean-Paul Sartre when he wrote, “Hell is other people.” Or with my brother-in-law John (an antique dealer who interacts with the public a lot) who says, “People: not a fan.” I’d revise Sartre’s dictum to, “Hell is about 95 per cent of other people.” There are some good folks out there. And I am a fan. It’s just that, as Charles Bukowski said, when asked if he hated people, “No, but I seem to feel better when they’re not around.”
Meanwhile, I’m also an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type of guy. My idea of a great time is reading a book about, say, Winston Churchill by the fire. And before anyone suggests something to the effect of, “Well, Dave, obviously it all has to do with you getting older” – I’m 63 – let me say I’ve been this way most of my adult life. In my 20s, sure, a Thursday night might find me at a concert thrashing around in a mosh pit. Or, I might even have clambered onstage to toss myself onto the frightened faces below (I’m 6’5” and 250 pounds, or approximately one-eighth ton, on a good day) for a little “stage diving,” followed by “crowd surfing” (which usually ended up with all of us in a heap on the floor). But for the past three decades, I’ve preferred a quiet dinner party with a couple of friends – or an evening alone with a book – to anything loud, raucous or crowded.
Finally, I hate camping. I always have. Why would anyone want to travel long distances to live worse than they normally do. Why do people want to cower in a leaky tent when it rains, sleep in bags on the ground, be tormented by bugs, and, uh, do their business in the woods, when they have a perfectly good abode with indoor plumbing?
So how does a fellow like that wind up at a four-day electronic dance music (EDM) festival, camping in a tiny tent with his three huge sons, Nicholas, J.J. and Adam, all in their twenties? And what about being surrounded by hippie hordes during the day, and at night tossing and turning while the SOOMP-SOOMP-SOOMP of a punishing bass beat shakes the very ground under his sleeping bag until the breaka-breaka-dawn and beyond?
The answer, in a word: bonding. Pam and I are “empty nesters” now, so spending time with the boys means more to me than ever. Nick and J.J. (28 and 25, respectively) still live relatively nearby, and they’ll visit maybe once a month or every other month, but it always seems like shortly after they arrive, it’s, “Well, I should get going.” Adam, 22, is in university, and his trips home are even rarer. I miss the days when we were all living under the same roof.
So, when my middle son, J.J., who travels all over North America to go to these EDM festivals, invited me along to the Fire Lights Festival in Upstate New York last summer, I jumped at the chance. I was so honoured, apart from everything else, that he wanted me to tag along. God, the thought of me, when I was J.J.’s age, asking my old man to come with me to a rock concert, let alone a four-day festival – well, it would only happen in a topsy-turvy bizarro world where up is down, black is white, people say goodbye as they approach and hello as you part ways. When Nick and Adam said they wanted to come, too, it was on.
As the boys and I were packing the family pickup truck, I said to Pam, “According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’ I want you to hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts simultaneously in your cranial cavity: One, I know this will probably be a terrible, awful, punishing trip; two, I know in advance that I will have had a great time.”
The actual experience of Fire Lights was like tumbling down a rabbit hole into an alternate, Alice-in-Wonderland-like universe populated by what my son Nicholas dubbed “hippies from the future.” There was tie-dye as far as the eye could see; harem pants, weird masks and Mad Hatter hats; people with tails poking out of their backs, for unknown reasons; at least two people walking around in full-on rabbit suits; people on stilts; folks covered in tiny white lights like Christmas trees; and hacky sackers and Frisbee freestylists. And this part was straight out of the Lewis Carroll classic: The woods where the festival took place were dotted with giant plastic mushrooms for sitting on, and, here and there, you’d find apples and bananas on a plate on a tree stump with a sign that said, “TAKE ONE.” Meanwhile, on the paths criss-crossing the woods, festival veterans zipped by on weird motorized unicycles. It seems that all a hippie from the future had to do to propel oneself was lean forward.
Like their ’60s predecessors, these folks “let their freak flag fly.” Literally. Several of the tent compounds had hoisted flags proclaiming their loyalty to certain bands, causes, party principles and so forth. “Party” is used in the strictly non-political sense: The compound across from our tent had a flag simply proclaiming, “I will not die sober!” That’s one way they were different from the hippies (and more activist yippies) of yore. These kids were not political, except for vague angst over the environment, fate of the planet, etc., and a generalized disenchantment with mainstream society and culture. They would likely ascribe to Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock philosophy, “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
They were all about peace, love and understanding. Everyone I bumped into was so friendly and communal-minded. For example, on our first morning, a kid from the next campsite came over and handed J.J. an Egg McMuffin-type sandwich he’d made in his trailer, then made three more for the rest of us. And he didn’t want a thing for it. Everyone was like that: unsuspicious, open, friendly, initiating hey-how’s-it-going-where-you-from-this-your-first-festival? conversations with me. I soon realized I was the only person there who cared how old I was, except for a couple of kids who came up to the boys and told them how “great” it was that they brought their dad. “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” the counterculture generation once said. But these kids genuinely seemed unfazed. So I stopped caring myself around day two. It was very liberating.
The other thing I noticed was a distinct lack of zombie-like phone-staring among the folks at Fire Lights. These kids were interacting with one another in real time, in the real world (however twisted). Phone in pockets, they were talking to each other, dancing, grooving on the music together and even communing with nature.
At one point, it suddenly started to rain heavily and, as I scurried to the shelter of the tent, I passed a couple. Him: dreadlocked, wearing a long shamanistic robe, clutching a Biblical-looking six-foot staff. Her: barefoot, tie-dyed dress, flower in hair. Their faces upturned to the sky, arms held aloft, as if to say, “We welcome you, oh blessed rain, with open hearts.” I stopped for a second in the downpour to eyeball them, thinking, “You should be more like those two, Dave,” before scampering to the tent, which had been expertly set up for me. It turns out that Adam, J.J. and Nick (who are 6’5”, 6’5” and 6’9”, respectively, and ripped and buff, unlike their father) are crack campers – a real team, having done it together many times, always MacGyver-ing up awnings and whatnot. (And yes, I did draw blank stares when I used the word “MacGyver-ing” at one point.)
I realize I haven’t said much about the music. There were three scaffolded stages set up in the woods, each featuring a lineup of EDM artists. According to J.J., you don’t call them musicians because they’re not, really. They’re more mad-scientist/computer-whiz-type kids, in masks or pulled-up hoodies, standing alone or sometimes in tandem onstage, hunched over consoles of mixing boards and laptops, twiddling knobs, pushing buttons and holding down keys, making freaky sounds – all the while jumping from foot to foot, pointing to the sky, then pointing to the floor.
And you don’t call the sounds they produce songs, either. They create tracks. There’s no melody to speak of, except snatches here or there – maybe a snippet of classic ’70s rock, sampled and tape-looped. EDM is all about the bass. Lyrics, if there are any, are mumbled, muttered or half-rapped – maybe baby-talked or distorted by witness-protection-type software, and sometimes in another language, like German or Japanese.
For me, the real show was the “audience.” I put that word in quotes because they weren’t an audience in any traditional sense. They were more performative than the artists onstage. About every fourth person was blowing huge soap bubbles, juggling, fire-breathing or spinning “flow stars” (kind of like large, star-shaped beanbags) in the air; there were also people hula-hooping, twirling long ribbons around themselves or twirling themselves up and down ribbons suspended from the scaffolding (these were aerialists) and waving fire sticks around (a little too close to the wooden stages, I felt). These were flow artists, J.J. explained.
Concertgoers have changed since I was a kid, I realized. They’re no longer a passive entity content to simply stand and stare and hero-worship the rock gods and goddesses prancing and strutting onstage, maybe holding up their lighters for an encore. This new breed was all about expressing itself. You could say it’s because this is a “look at me” generation, not content simply to receive the offerings of artists, but to show themselves off in a narcissistic way. But it really didn’t feel like that – they weren’t even recording themselves for Instagram. I might be naïve, but it felt like self-expression for the sheer joy of self-expression.
Nick, Adam, J.J. and I all got into it, jumping around, sometimes with our arms around each other’s shoulders. I bought a flow star and tried to spin it above my head – but failed miserably. Who cared? The four of us had a lot of large laughs, especially the night we tried “Frick Frack Blackjack” in one of the tents, facing off against Mad Hatter dealers and betting with meaningless trinkets and tchotchkes – a game everyone around the table approached both seriously and not seriously. I literally lost the shirt off my back, a 1970s yellow frilled “tuxedo shirt” with ruffles, much admired by the younger folks. I put it up against a ship in a bottle, and lost. After that, I called it quits, Adam hung around, attempting to win that ship in a bottle by putting up a bunch of trinkets he found in the pickup truck, including his treasured duck-caller. “No way,” I said when he brought the ship back to the tent later that night. It now occupies a place of highest honour in my study. I love it.
Our, uh, circadian rhythms were a bit different. I’d try to turn in early-ish, say 10 p.m., as is my wont. The boys would come crawling in sometime after dawn, when the sun was just starting to turn the tent into an oven. But, I think the round-the-clock hours and excruciatingly loud music got to Adam and Nick. On the second evening, Adam was openly wishing it was a two-day festival, rather than four days – with Nick concurring. The road trip aspect of it was fun, and we all liked EDM music (me even more than the two of them), but it was probably best enjoyed in small doses, and this was not that.
Basically, the whole festival was a trip, man.
The smell of pot was constantly in the air. And a lot of people at the festival had tiny spoons hanging on necklaces from which they snorted the occasional “bumplestiltskin” of ketamine and/or cocaine. From what we could tell, LSD and mushrooms were also being consumed in huge quantities.
I somehow wound up with a bracelet with beads that spelled out GROUND SCORE – a well-known phrase at these events, referring to finding illicit substances at your feet. Licit ones, too, apparently. One afternoon, I spotted a pen in the grass and picked it up. A passerby laughed and said, “Ground score!”
We participated, a bit, in the general debauchery, I must confess. On finding out I was there with my three sons, one festivalgoer gave us four pieces of a magic-mushroom-laced chocolate bar. The boys and I gobbled them down together. But I’d checked the package, and what we took only amounted to a microdose, so I didn’t feel that bad.
Did I mention it was loud?
I knew it would be, going in. On the road, somewhere in Upstate New York (i.e., too late for anyone to bail), J.J. informed us we’d need two kinds of earplugs: one to wear at the concerts “so the music doesn’t damage your eardrums,” and another kind for back in the tent when you want to (try to) get some sleep. That’s how I learned about “moon mats,” which are basically foam mattresses with pop-out circles that can be used as earplugs – and were developed for the military for soldiers to plug their ears with during battle. These days, I think they’re mainly used at these types of festivals, providing a dual purpose: 1) They make the ground softer under your sleeping bag; 2) They attempt to block out the relentless SOOMP-SOOMP-SOOMP of the EDM bass, pumped through the woods by the largest banks of speakers I’ve ever seen, subwoofers the size of subcompact cars, at a volume I would describe as hovering somewhere between unreal and unholy.
For me, sleep was but a dream in the midst of a waking nightmare. Sorry if I sound a tad…Shakespearean. But at times, I felt like Macbeth: Drug-fuelled festival denizens hath murdered sleep, and Dave shall sleep no more.
And yet as predicted, I had a great time.
Actually, there was one weird outcome: Fire Lights changed my life in a profound and unexpected way. According to the brochure, there was a (free!) workshop series called “Sound and Breath Journey with Ice Bath” happening during the festival. I rolled my eyes, especially at the word “journey,” but the boys seemed psyched so I went along. The long-haired, bearded sound-and-breath leader, Joseph – in a flowing robe with a mandala-type symbol on the back and his naked, Buddha-like belly sticking out – led us through a series of breathing exercises (“Fully in, and let it go, fully in, and let it go”) while his helpers hit gongs, ran their fingers along the rims of “singing bowls” and tinged little triangles above our heads.
While this is the type of thing I’d normally mock, smirk and snicker down my sleeves at, I noticed after the first session, I felt pretty good. After the second session, I felt pretty great. I eschewed the ice bath portion of the workshop, but the boys did it, sitting for two minutes in a tub full of very cold water with ice cubes floating on top. They reported feeling “awesome.” I told Joseph, “You may have just changed my life.” I meant it. He silently gave me a hug.
“AS TO BONDING WITH THE BOYS: I’ve never been all that sure if I was a good dad or bad dad when they were growing up.”
Now, I am a total devotee of “breath work” and “cold immersion.” The ultimate guru in this realm is a Dutch madman (and I mean that as a compliment) named Wim Hof, a.k.a. “The Iceman,” who is perhaps best known for climbing to the “death zone” of Mount Everest in only his shorts. I’ve now read his book The Wim Hof Method twice, and taken his 10-week online course. I am his disciple. Most winter days, Pam and I go down to the pond on our property, break the ice with a pickaxe, and jump into the freezing cold water. Folks around us think we’re nuts, and they may have a point, but all I can say is, it works for me. It’s going to make me happier, healthier and stronger, I can feel it.
Go ahead and laugh. I would have mocked me too a few months ago. If I wrote a book about it, I’d call it From Eye-Rolling to Acolyte: My Breathwork and Cold Plunge Journey. Yeah, I use words like “journey” now. Maybe I’ll never ascend Everest in my shorts, but it’s just possible I’m becoming a bit of a hippie from the future myself.
As to bonding with the boys: I’ve never been all that sure if I was a good dad or bad dad when they were growing up. When they were little, I was a stay-at-home Dad, so I spent a lot of time with them. But…I was also a writer. “Preoccupied” I would describe myself. “Self-absorbed” some might say, including Pam, in the heat of a disputation, which is fair enough, since all my work has been ultra-autobiographical by nature.
Yet somehow, despite my many shortcomings, flaws, failings and deficiencies, my boys have turned into the souls of consideration and thoughtfulness. What they are, I decided at Fire Lights, are gentlemen: always my fondest hope for how they would turn out. Nick, my oldest, for example, would carry a folding chair to each stage we went to, so that his father might be able to sit. At one point, it was raining and all three boys negotiated a spot for me to sit under an awning, while they stood in the rain, getting soaked.
I realized, at a certain point, they were looking after me and always would. The moment someone in a lab coat says my name and the word “cancer” in the same sentence, there’ll just be a Dave Eddie-shaped hole in the wall, and me running down the street going, “Why? Why? Why?” But these boys will come to my aid, come out to my rural redoubt, my Fortress of Solitude, and help me get through whatever. I know that in my bones, now more than ever.
Since the festival, I’ve felt closer to all three of them, and them to me, I believe. There’s just that little extra level of warmth when, say, they answer the phone or we hug each other hello and goodbye. If it’s not too dumb a way of putting it, we became more foxhole buddyish. We added that extra layer or shading to our relationship, having been through this experience together. They had my back at all times. I was impervious to harm, flanked by three strong soldiers. I truly understood the lyric in the song Warpath by Canadian Indigenous rapper Drezus, “Blessed is the man with sons who walk beside him.”
