h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Alack. My shins are all a-bruise.
See, this weekend, well, last weekend, was the annual bacchanal known as the HFStival, put on by some radio station or other, locally (the Washington DC area), and the basic idea of this event is a brilliant one, which is this:
"Let's take a slew of drunk/stoned/high/irrepresibly violent individuals and see how many of them we can cram into an outdoor football stadium! Maybe some of them will be chicks! Maybe they'll show us their breasts!"
So they do, and make them drunker/more stoned/higher, and have lots (this year, twenty nine) alternative "modern rock" bands (Third Eye Blind -- the bassist of which got hit upside the head by a sneaker thrown from the crowd-- Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against The Machine, and others) play loud music at them, live, to make them even less repressed, where violence is concerned, and some strange fragment of my being decided it would be A Good Thing To Attend.
So l spent Sunday with eighty-six thousand other individuals, in the rain, in a stadium, rocking out with my bad self, yelling and jumping and getting hit on a lot.
lt was fun.
l think.
lt's hard to remember.
l do remember there was a lot of pot smoke. l did an awful lot of crowd-surfing, and l got very wet in the thunderous rain downpour, and l must've gotten kicked or slammed a whole lot in the pit, 'cause my legs are now covered with nineteen very respectable-looking bruises, which are currently mellowing to the yellowish-purple-green stage. 'S charming.

And yes, I showed everyone my breasts.

Ah yes, the alternative rock music festival. Every city has one, and Indianapolis, the closest actual city to me, is no exception. X103, an alt. rock station, puts on XFest every year, except much smaller, b/c Indy is small, as far as cities go at least. I attended my first one this year. Headlining were STP and Green Day, with 7 other bands also there.

However, I came out all right, because it's much less crammed, b/c they throw out the luxury of seats. Instead, you bring a blanket, and just crash on the grass, while pretending you can actually make out what's happening on stage. There probably would be more people showing breasts, except for the Gestapo security that mauls anyone who attempts it. They also give everyone a thorough frisking at the door, and occasionally moving into a body cavity search. Ok, that might have been embellished a tad...

Seeing as I'm male, I made no attempt to show anyone anything, as no one really cares that much to see a male body. In fact, if you ever notice, you'll see that many pictures of nearly naked women appear in men's magazines, but also that many pictures of nearly naked women also appear in women's magazines. I believe this is because the female body is considered an art form, whereas the male body is generally considered to be hairy and lumpy. I didn't make that up, but since I can't remember where I heard it, I'm going to act like I did. It might've been Dave Barry.

I went with my friend Lis, who also didn't make an attempt to show anything, I think because I was there and she knew she wouldn't be able to get away with it.

In an exciting turn of events, the people next to us, who were toking on a doobie throughout the entire concert, collapsed during STP's set. Luckily for them, Lis is a lifeguard, and they were successfully resucitated.

So I came away from my day rather healthy, but starving to death, since you have to sell your soul to be able to afford any food there. We lost the car too, so Lis started tracking it in the parking lot. Eventually I found it, just as Lis was saying she remembered we parked in the complete opposite direction.

Then Lis nearly passed out from hunger in my car, so I took us to a Wendy's post-haste. We then became sick b/c we ate so much unhealthy food so quickly and on empty stomachs. It was a very interesting drive home, and day altogether actually.

I plan to go back next year.