Another Thought-Provoking Guest Post By Daniel Rossi
Have you ever wished that you could go to Coachella just to say you did? I certainly haven’t, but I’m sure a good percentage of you have. This next eight minutes is dedicated to you. Six if you are educated.
Recently, you may have been around someone who appeared to be more unshaven than normal and had some unfortunately awkward sun burn lines. Chances are you have been spending some time with a person who attended Coachella.
Every year it amazes me that waves of youths (and probably a few who still wish they were youths) flock to the desert to engage in a weekend of musical foolery. What doesn’t amaze me is that Jack Daniels, tanning oil, and tank top sales skyrocket in the weeks leading up to the, as I call it in my own head, “Super bowl for Hipsters”.
Post Coachella Disorder
While minding my own business last week, I scrambled upon something I deemed to be disturbing. It was someone who diagnosed themselves with what they called PCD or “Post Coachella Disorder”.
Now I may be guilty of making fun of people who have gone to Coachella, but if you diagnose yourself with some sort of post traumatic stress disorder for having withdrawals from a concert in the middle of the desert, the world reserves every right to make fun of you.
It has been put on the record by many via social media that the integration back into normal society after a weekend of Coachella mania is not an easy one. I would argue that these same people were never actually part of what is considered to be normal society.
Side Note: One thing needs to be understood here: I don’t exactly know what goes on at Coachella. I’m obviously never going to go but I can only assume that it would be something like if Woodstock and a John Mayer concert had a child and it was raised on a strict vegan diet. After a time, said child got its first pair of Beats by Dre headphones, thought they were a DJ, started making music, snorting glitter, and the rest is history. Let that marinade for a minute.
Reasons I Did Not Attend Coachella
If the statements given above are not enough reason for me not to want to go already, 100 degree heat would be the icing on the mustache-shaped cake. But seriously, 100 degree heat? Me in the middle of the desert is basically the equivalent of putting an egg in a frying pan, the only question is whether I’m coming out scrambled or over easy. I prefer scrambled. Ladies, make a mental note.
Another reason I will not ever be attending Coachella is because I don’t own enough pairs of TOMS. It would be a true conundrum if I didn’t have several pairs on hand to be ready to transition seemlessly from Radiohead red TOMS to AVICII aqua TOMS to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg fuzzy black TOMS, etc.
To this point, I have said nothing about the actual music that takes place during this music festival. That might be because this year’s biggest hype was ironically about a dead rapper’s holographic performance. To me that says one of two things: Either the music was terrible or you really enjoy holographic performances with recordings playing in the background. If that’s the case, you might be pathetic. Side note: There were many claims by witnesses that it was actually the real Tupac performing and NOT a hologram. Those people make me hate the idea even more than I actually already did, which Side Note to the Side Note: I didn’t know that was possible.
The Vision
In summary, when I did ask a friend who actually made the pilgrimage this year to comment, he shot me this gem of a text, “I guess the one way to describe Coachella is that it’s a collection of open minded individuals brought together by the beauty of music.” I don’t know, I guess I don’t see how that is all that different than the way that I was envisioning it.
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