The Gathering of the Vibes

A couple of weekends ago my not for profit org worked a huge music festival that took over our park and closed down our program for 5 days. We were waterfront security, seeing as we are a waterfront organization, and we basically sat under a tent with binoculars and watched for people boating, swimming or walking ashore into the festival illegally. As you might imagine, one of our other primary objectives as waterfront security was to prevent drunk and high people from drowning.

The Vibes festival is supposed to be a new version of Woodstock in honor of Jerry Garcia's death a few years back (aka it is a bunch of young people trying out the whole free-love thing and burnt out older people). It's the most hippie-tastic and ridiculous thing I have ever seen. In order to help you fully understand the experience, I have included a few pictures below.

I saw many strange and nonsensical chalkings about. This one was my favorite because there's not even a purpose.

This one is so you can see one of the most common sights at the festival: the hula hoop dancer. Now, don't be confused and think this is your run-of-the-mill hula hooping that any of us did as children. Oh no. These are HUGE hula hoops with fabric wrapped around them into patterns. And most of these people have no shoes and are extremely dirty because it is Sunday at this point, and they have been here since Wednesday without showering.

Anyway, they dance to the rhythm of the music while hula hooping. They stick their arms out, they move the hoop up and down, they do silly things with their legs. Whatever. Point is, they are dancing with the hoop and, apparently, having a spiritual experience. I was told that I they like when you watch them because it means that you are connecting on a deep level and meeting them in their spiritual hula hooping dancing experience.

Hula Hooping may be spiritual for you, Dexter the chicken who says moomoo, but for me, I can't stop staring at you because you keep hooping for hours! And because you are very dirty.