RunawayJim.org

Low prices come at a cost to someone, somewhere. In the case of a gay couple from Michigan, it was the well-being of their twin sons.

Wal-Mart Bans Gay Couple for NOT Shoplifting

This is yet another reason why I have been boycotting Wal-Mart and have not stepped foot in one in several years, the one exception being my trip out west because I was 1 of 7 in an RV trying to save costs (if I had it my way, we would’ve gone elsewhere). This story puts me over the edge though. I will now never step foot in one again. They don’t deserve my business, nor do they deserve anyone else’s, as far as I’m concerned (that is, of course, unless you’re a gay-hating, homophobic redneck).

Of course, another big FUCK YOU should go to the Niles, MI police department who sided with Wal-Mart on the issue. Those officers should lose their badges, and if I were that couple, I’d be in court suing the town.

So join me in my boycott. Vote with your wallets. Boycott Wal-Mart.

I went to the GIBF this year for both sessions. While there seemed to be fewer booths at this one compared to the one last year (note: I did not go to the one in the spring), the quality of the breweries seemed to be a bit better. We had more smaller breweries present than in past years, though we also had some that weren’t present, most notably Smuttynose. I can’t help but wonder if their presence at Beervana had anything to do with them not coming to the GIBF. It’s probably a combination of that and the economy, considering the GIBF not only makes the breweries pay for a table but also donate the beer and their time. This is something that should not be done if you ever want to start a beer festival. Beervana, on the other hand, bought all the beer and simply requested that a brewer or brewery rep staff the tables. The breweries prefer this approach because they only have to donate their time. It also allows the festival organizers to hand pick the beers they are pouring at the festival.

Last year, I had only attended the afternoon session, which tends to be the quieter of the two sessions with more people who are really into the beer as opposed to people looking to pay $36 for an all you can drink party. I had heard some horror stories of the second session in the past. This time it seemed to be a bit more mellow. While there were a lot more people than the first session, and it was definitely crazier than the first session, there wasn’t a whole lot of screaming and chanting that I had expected. From an attendee’s standpoint, it seemed to go pretty smoothly, though they had a harder time forcing people out than we did at Beervana.

Some of my favorite brewery stops were Mayflower, Offshore, Gardner’s Ale House, Watch City Brewing, Blackstone Valley Brewing Supplies, and Ithaca. They all had a great selection of beer. Even the other breweries brought some unexpected beers. Victory, for example, had Wild Devil, Golden Monkey, Baltic Thunder, and Hop Wallop (in addition to Prima Pils). I was surprised they brought so many of their bigger beers. I would have expected Prima Pils and Hop Devil. I was surprised to see that Mayflower signed up for this as well. They hadn’t been there in the past. They even brought some of their Thanksgiving Ale with them, which was quite excellent. Even Providence’s own Trinity Brewhouse had four different whiskey barrel aged beers. So even though Heineken, Corona, and Presidente were all present, the quality of beer from the other breweries was much better than last year. Dogfish Head, whom I had heard would not be coming, ended up having a table (though without their RI rep). It was expected that they would only have 60 Minute IPA and a seasonal. They actually had 90 Minute IPA, Chicory Stout, Raison d’Etre, and Indian Brown Ale. While these aren’t their top offerings, they aren’t the usual suspects either.

All in all, it was a good fest. The layout was better, spacing the rows out a bit more, allowing for easier movement around the floor. They put the stage in the far corner this time rather than at the end of one of the rows of booths. This kept it a bit quieter, though they probably should have lowered the volume of the band and raised the volume for the award ceremony. Aside from that, it was great. I still don’t think it’s worth my money for admission, but if you want a decent introduction to some craft beer available in southern New England, it’s a pretty good place to familiarize yourself with it.

This is the sixth and final post in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

I’m gonna try to sum up my thoughts on the whole trip in this post. My pictures from the trip are linked at the end of the post. I’ve organized this post into a few major topics on which I’ll give my overall thoughts. Please keep in mind that this is the first Phish festival I have ever attended, though I did attempt to go to Coventry and never made it in. The only other music festival I have attended was the Newport Folk Festival (posts: Day 1, Day 2, Overall Thoughts).

This is a long post, so I’ve broken it up into sections and I put the break here to keep it from taking up the front page of my blog. My thoughts after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Festival 8: Overall Thoughts’

This is the fifth in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

I woke up around 6:30 am on Monday morning, November 2. We had all woken up around the same time. After a quick shower, I packed up all my stuff. We pulled all our stuff together and packed up the RV. We wanted to be on the road as soon as we could. It didn’t take us long to get the RV packed up again and head out. After a wrong turn, we were on our way back to Las Vegas.

The drive back to Vegas was a lot quicker than the drive to Indio. This was primarily because we didn’t have to stop for supplies, but also because it wasn’t dark and we didn’t have to worry about the California agriculture checkpoint going into the state. I guess Nevada doesn’t care if you bring out of state produce in.

It was pretty amazing driving back. I had never been in the desert and because it was dark, I couldn’t see anything on the drive out other than what I saw from the plane. I’ll just say I’m glad I don’t live in the desert. It’s boring. There aren’t any trees, it’s flat, and it’s dusty. We drive through a huge wind farm shortly after leaving Indio. We also had to drive over a mountain or something. Indio’s elevation is 13 feet below sea level. We drive over a mountain that was about 4,000 feet above sea level. I’ve driven over mountains before, but that was pretty neat. I had never had the elevation rise that much on a drive. In fact, the tallest mountains in the east are under 7,000 feet so you’re never really driving over 4,000 feet.

The only stop we made was in Primm, the first town we hit after crossing the border into Nevada. It’s a pretty lame town with a casino or two and a small amusement park. It looks like a tourist trap and reminded me a bit of South of the Border in South Carolina. I took some pictures and bought a drink to help rehydrate myself after spending a few days in the desert not drinking enough water. We weren’t far from Vegas at that point and just trucked on through.

Upon arrival in Las Vegas, I was dropped off with Matt and Max at a hotel to pick up a cab to the airport. After a short wait, we found a cab and made it to the airport. The trip was just about complete. Max and I were both flying Southwest and grabbed lunch and a recharge of our iPhones together while we waited for our flights. We then said our goodbyes and were on our way.

Shortly after landing in Providence, someone saw my new hat and asked what I thought of the festival. I was surprised to have someone on my flight from Vegas who was there. Nevermind the fact that RI is pretty small, but Vegas is about 5 hours from Indio. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be on my flight who was at the festival. We chatted a bit while we walked to the baggage claim. I found my bag, grabbed a taxi and headed home. The trip was officially over.

This is the fourth in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

Sunday started with me waking up suffering from dehydration. Apparently, you shouldn’t drink a lot, among other things, while in the desert if you’re not also drinking a lot of water. So I woke up with tunnel vision and was barely able to move. I honestly thought I was tripping, having never tripped before, but I hadn’t taken any hallucinogens. After drinking about a gallon of water in a 2 hour period, I managed to pull myself together and headed to the concert field with the others for the acoustic set at noon. We were a few rows back on the Fishman side of the stage, but it turned out that they had swapped the stage setup. So we still ended up Page side, where we had been for all the other sets.

The band came out and Trey managed to talk everyone into sitting down (the power of Trey). They played a bunch of mellow songs and then busted out “The Curtain With”. This was the highlight of the set for me. The intricate composition played perfectly on acoustic instruments couldn’t have been easy. At one point (I don’t really remember when, having not listened to it over again), Mike asked if we were sitting because we wanted to or because we were told to. They played with some more mellow songs, and then Trey started up a rocking “Wilson”. The crowd was going nuts. During the break before the end of the song, he said how someone asked him to suggest that people sit down, but that he had ADHD and couldn’t sit anymore. They finished “Wilson” and immediately started “McGrupp”, another intricate song. This ended the set, but they came back for an encore (though it’s not officially listed as that because this was only the first set of the show) and played “Driver”, “Talk”, and “Secret Smile” before finishing up. It was a long set, but it was nice and relaxing. They really need to play more acoustic sets like that. It really shows off some of their abilities better than the electric sets. They also have a ton of music that is far more suited for acoustic sets. I think this was the highlight of the weekend for me.

We now had a lot of time to do hang out before the sets that night. I stopped by a Dry Goods tent to pick up a hat. For some reason, they have switched all their shirts from Gildan brand to American Apparel. While I understand the quality, softness, and ethics behind the brand, American Apparel only makes fitted shirts. They don’t fit people with broad shoulders, like myself. Even if I didn’t have a gut, I couldn’t wear them because of the shoulder issue. The sleeves are also tighter on someone built like me. So I bought a hat, mainly because they actually had a Festival 8 hat. I had wanted a poster, but they were selling for $50 and I really didn’t think they were worth that much. We then headed back to the RV and hung out there while we waited for the night sets. During this time, Nick, Laura, and Steve recorded an episode of This Week on Lot while we were all there, chiming in when we wanted.

We made it back for the night sets just in time. They were just starting “AC/DC Bag” as we were walking in. The first set had a lot of firsts for me that I had always wanted to hear live since I first started seeing them in 1997 – “Rift”, “Reba”, “Guelah Papyrus”, “The Wedge”, and “Undermind”. I was especially excited for “Undermind” as it’s my favorite song off that album and they had really funked it up the couple times they played it since returning. They finished the set with a strong “Split Open and Melt”. The setbreak was extra long. It felt like it was over an hour before they actually came back (during a normal show, they’re about 30-45 min, and the previous two nights, they were about 45 min). Because of my lack of sleep, I was extra tired and just wanted them to come back and finish up.

They finally came back for their last set. They started out strong with “Tweezer” segued into “Maze”. They followed this with a very strong “Free” and then “Sugar Shack”, one of the few songs off the new album that I had yet to hear up until that point. In fact, I think the only songs from the new album that were not played this weekend were “I Been Around” and “Twenty Years Later”, the only two I have not seen live now. The last big hurrah of the set started with “Mike’s Song”, which segued into “2001″ segued into “Light” segued into “Slave to the Traffic Light” to close what I consider the strongest set of the weekend (acoustic set aside). They came back for the final encore of the weekend with “Grind”. They then started up “Esther” the one Phish song I have been dying to hear live since I first heard the song. They ended the weekend with a very strong “Tweezer Reprise”. This set is of note because they played “Mike’s Song” without a “Weekapaug Groove”, something that is rarely done and something that makes stats junkies wet their pants.

Everyone headed back to their campsites glowing after that set. We decided to come up with a plan to get our stuff together and get going in the morning, but we were going to party it up a bit. I don’t know if everyone partied or not because I fell asleep sitting upright on the couch in the RV. I woke up, kicked Matt in the head and wondered where I was. I laid down at that point and passed out for the night.

This is the third in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

Luckily, I had gotten about 9 hours of sleep on Friday night. Halloween was here. Nick, again, made bacon and eggs. We took it easy during the day and headed to the venue for a massive Phish Twibe tweetup that had been planned. After Laura chased down an over-zealous cleaning person who stole our sign, we were ready to go. We had about 25 or so people show up for what would be the biggest Twibe meetup we had ever had. I met the following people aside from those I had met the previous day:

• Jen (@2dogphish)
• Valerie (@musicloverchick) and her husband (forgot his name, but he’s not on Twitter)
• Rachel (@Rachlmoyle) and John (@zippyhybrid)
• Neil (@neillybop and @CoventryMusic) and Jules (@discosis1)
• Jenni (@heyitsmejenni)
• Mike (@Inner_Chi)
• @GeyLuigi (who changed his Twitter name yesterday, not sure what it is now)
• Jason (@fourfootflood)
• Matt (@motorbikematt)
• Adam (@sethadam1), though we had seen him the previous night at the show.

I think I’m missing 1 or 2 people. I can’t remember who they were, unfortunately. It was great to meet some of these folks I had been tweeting with for a long time. We spent some time chatting for a bit and then we went our separate ways and headed to the first set, which started at 3:00 pm. Here’s a pic of the tweetup.

Photo by @motorbikematt

The first daytime set of the weekend was stronger musically than the first night. They played a bunch of fan favorites, including the highlight (for me) of “Runaway Jim” – the first one I’ve seen since before the first hiatus (which started in October 2000). They ended the set with a great “Run Like an Antelope”. The set ended and we headed out to do our own thing for a couple hours before the Halloween set. We had found out, upon entering the venue, that the band would be playing Exile on Main Street from the Rolling Stones. They had handed us “Phishbills” (that looked like Broadway Playbills), which showed the album cover and had a story about the album and some fun stuff inside.

Upon return, we found the wooden towers to have their flames lit and the jumbotrons had a video mashup of music and footage from the 99 albums and artists that were on the website Phish had put together to determine the album they would play.

Eclectic Method Goes Phish from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

This was followed by vintage footage of the Rolling Stones from the 70’s and then Phish came on with horns and backup singers. Phish killed the album, playing it perfectly (though some of the vocals could’ve been better, but no one sounds like Mick Jagger). The horns and backup vocals added an awesome dimension to the music. They performed the best “Loving Cup” ever during this set and probably added a couple new songs to their repertoire as well, particular “Torn and Frayed”. Being a long album, the set was pretty long. After the break, they came back with “Backwards Down the Number Line” off their latest album. This kicked off a great set. That was followed by an awesome “Fluffhead” and a rocking “Ghost”. They slowed it down briefly with “When the Circus Comes” and ended the set with a great “You Enjoy Myself” that had a great vocal jam which included the lighting of torches at the top of the towers. We were sitting in the back of the audience to give us a lot of room to dance and enjoy ourselves, right near the towers. When they went up, we could feel the heat and the sound scared us a bit.

The band came back with the horns and backup singers to encore with the best “Suzy Greenberg” they’ve ever done. It included a reprise jam after pausing. The horns and backup vocalists added a kind of gospel feel to it. Thus ended an awesome night of music.

Following the music, Nick and I hung out with a few beers and found a great band playing in our camping area. We hung out there, chatted with some people, and found Noah and Seth (@seisenstein) there. After hanging out there for a while, I went back to Annie and Greg’s trailer and hung out with the folks there, met Glowstick Man, left some voicemails for This Week on Lot (419-NOWOOKS), and wandered around until sunrise when I went to bed.

This is the second in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

The first full day of the festival was Friday, October 30. The band was scheduled to play 2 sets of music, a full concert, starting at 7:30 pm. I woke up around 8:30 am along with the rest of the crew. A few of them had gone out to meet up with some people. Nick and I decided to check out the farmers market they had on site. Unfortunately, unlike most farmers markets, this one was a bit pricey. We both bought some strawberries and picked up a water bottle that we could use for free refills throughout the site. We then headed back to the RV for breakfast that consisted of bacon and eggs and our strawberries.

While hanging outside the RV, a guy we had never seen before came out of Max’s tent. We thought he had been wook’d (in this case, having a random wook decide to crash in your tent). Luckily, it was a friend of his.

After checking out what was in our little area, we took a pedi-cab over to another campsite to meet up with the rest of our crew and some other friends from Twitter at Annie and Greg’s trailer (@stringcheesemom and @gratefuldad5600). We met up with TJ (@tenacioustij) and Kat (@ChinaKatSunflwr) there along with Noah (@noah_s) and Kelli (@kt913). We chatted for a while and then decided to head back. On our way, Matt, Nick and I decided to check out the concert venue. The field was still closed off as final preparations were being made to the art installations, but we checked out the other vendors and I tried the FOAM, a pilsner brewed by Sierra Nevada just for the festival (it all sold out that one day). We also checked out the ferris wheel they had on site. The views of the festival grounds were awesome, as was the site itself in the middle of the desert surrounded by mountains. We then headed back to the RV to prepare for the concert that night.

The band came on about 15-20 minutes late and opened up with “Party Time”, a very fitting start to the festival. The highlights of this show for me were a rocking “Chalkdust Torture”, a great “NICU”, Page’s “Beauty of a Broken Heart”, an awesome “Wolfman’s Brother” segued into “Piper” segued into “Joy”, and the Burble that came out during “Harry Hood”. The Burble was a jelly bean shaped object with many white balloons that had lights inside of them that changed color to the music. It came out during the jam.

After the show, we went back to the RV and hung out for a while. I passed out around midnight and apparently, people were having a power hour about 3 feet from my head. I snored through the whole thing.

This is the first in a 6 part series on my trip to Indio, CA for Phish’s Festival 8 at the Empire Polo Grounds. I’m only separating them out because it would be one long post to put it all together. They’ll be posted immediately as I finish them. I’ll link to my pictures from the festival in my final post. My other posts about Festival 8 can be found using the fest8 tag.

My trip to Indio began relatively early in the morning on Thursday, October 29. I woke up at my normal time so that I could catch a plane that left Providence at 10:00 am. My trip was with all people I had met on Twitter, some who I had also met in real life at Phish shows over the summer and for drinks in Providence. I received an offer via Twitter from Mike Sheridan (@TrafficMike) to give me a ride to the airport. I took him up on the offer. I figured the worst that could happen is he’d kill me (luckily, that didn’t happen, nor did I think it would). I arrived at the airport and had two of the most uneventful flights in and out of Philadelphia, known for long delays.

During my layover in Philly, I met up with @PosterDan from Twitter who had been there for many hours as his flight through Denver had been canceled due to Denver getting about 3 feet of snow. We sat in a bar, had lunch and some beer, and chatted a bit about Phish and his crazy travel plans. It came time for us to depart and I went and waited at my gate. My flight was on time and I made it to Vegas.

I was the first of three to arrive at the Vegas airport that afternoon. I grabbed my bags and found a bar and waited for the others. There was a delayed flight and I had to wait a bit longer, so Max (@mberde) and I sat and had a beer together while waiting for Ian (@coffeewithian). When it came time for Ian to show up, we headed down to the baggage claim and each lost a couple dollars in the slots that were right there (they probably have a pretty poor payout anyway). Once we all met up, we grabbed a cab to the Thomas and Mack Center to meet up with the waiting RV and the other four people from our crew (Nick, @Grill_Meister, Steve, @UNOlker, Laura, @MountainLaura, and Matt, @mdubno) and we were on our way. After a few stops along the way to pick up supplies and grab a burger at In-N-Out Burger, we made it to the festival site at 3:00 am. At this point in time, I had been awake for about 23 hours.

When we arrived at the site, security had no clue what they were doing. At the first entrance we tried to enter, we were told the RV lots there were full and we had to go to a back entrance. Nick needed a ticket and asked about the box office. He was assured it’d be open. We followed the directions and entered the back entrance. Upon arrival there, we were told the box office was closed. The guy gave us no indication of what we could do until we suggested he use his walkie-talkie to call over to the other entrance and see if it was open, as we were told that they’d be open 24 hours. He did just that and sent us on our way, through a fairly odd route through the middle of the site. We arrived back at the entrance from which we had been turned away. While the kid there was talking to another driver, we pulled in and made our way to the box office and gates. The “search” of our RV was very quick and we were on our way back to the back entrance and pulled right into our home for the next few days. We met up with some other friends that were there and I ended up staying up until the sun started to rise, probably around 6:00 am. I had now been awake for about 27 hours. I went to sleep for about 2 hours when the sunlight reflecting off the rear view mirror woke me up.

My current state representative, Joanne Giannini, has helped out our neighborhood greatly. She works with a neighborhood group with which I work (and also run their website). However, she has recently gone crazy with the fight against indoor prostitution. She has sponsored a bill to band indoor prostitution in Rhode Island, where it is currently legal only through a loophole. She wants the police to be able to arrest prostitutes and throw them in jail.

I don’t support prostitution. I don’t see a reason why anyone would want to pay for sex. However, I do support the right for people to pay for sex and for people to sell their bodies for sex. I understand that some people are forced into the business, some even brought here from overseas for the sole purpose of being used as prostitutes. I don’t support that. I don’t see a problem with people who are willingly doing this to continue to do so.

What the RI General Assembly should be doing is legitimizing the sex industry. Regulate where brothels are allowed through zoning laws. This will prevent them from opening in residential neighborhoods. Regulate the business with random visits by social workers and health inspectors. This will keep the business clean and allow the employees to come forward to someone other than a cop if they are being forced into prostitution.

Most of the prostitutes in Rhode Island are doing it because they need the money. They are supporting their families. In a state with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, it is horrifying to think that the General Assembly is so heartless to force hundreds more people into unemployment. And not only will they be forcing them into unemployment, they will be forcing them into a life of crime. Putting these people in jail will cost our state and communities more than leaving the law as it stands. However, if we regulate and tax the sex industry, we will be putting money in the state’s coffers… money that the state desperately needs.

Shame on your Rep Giannini. Shame on all the members of our General Assembly who are buying the garbage spewed by the likes of Donna Hughes, the URI Women’s Studies professor who has made the sex industry her #1 enemy. I will be voting against Rep Giannini (and possibly Senator Maryellen Goodwin, if she also votes in favor of this) in the next election, not because she has been a horrible representative, but because she is putting her own personal moral beliefs before the needs of the state, including the needs of my community.

I’m sitting here prepping some stuff for our as yet to be announced group costume (though if you follow me and the people I’m sharing the RV with, you can probably figure it out). I’ve got a lot going through my head for this weekend. Tomorrow is my last day of work until next Wednesday. I’m leaving Thursday morning for Indio, by way of Philly and Vegas. An awesome guy I follow on Twitter offered me a ride to the airport. I figured since this trip is all about Twitter, I’d take him up on the offer. You may have heard of him, or better yet… heard him. He’s Mike Sheridan of Traffic Net in Rhode Island. Yes, he’s a traffic reporter. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow him @TrafficMike. He’s saving me almost $30 in cab fare by doing this. So be nice to him.

Once I get to Vegas (the Philly stop is just a long layover), I’ll be meeting up with 6 other people I follow on Twitter. They’re all worth following: @UNOlker, @mdubno, @Grill_Meister, @coffeewithian, @mberde, and @MountainLaura. From Vegas we’ll be in the RV and on our way to Indio for the festival. The trip will be pretty epic. Based on what Phish has announced through their site and what I’ve heard through the grapevine, the band has quite a bit planned for us. If you’re interested, check out the following links.

Phish Festival 8 Official Site

Phish Festival 8 Halloween Cover Album Teaser [Jamtopia]

The Phish Festival 8 Poster Gallery [Jamtopia]

The site is supposed to have wifi available. Depending on how good it is or whether or not I can get an AT&T data connection through my iPhone for tethering, I’ll probably post a few updates from the site.

If you’re going to the festival, you should check out the past few episodes of This Week On Lot. They discuss the festival, rumors, and give tips on what to expect and bring with you.

Now back to preparations… like putting music on my iPhone for the flight.