Redwood Run Brain Fry
Jun. 15th, 2008 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleWell, the Redwood Run was a huge blast again this year. John, Paul, and Wayne came up from SF to stay here the night before, so we had a good pre-party and a nice, mellow start to our day on Friday. It's a delight to have this be a "local" event, in my own county, without having to face the ordeal of urban riding to get there.
It was smokin' hot, in every way. The first thing I did was head straight to the river, which was full of hot hairy bikers in various stages of dress. (A traditional biker habit. Personally, I don't so much "swim" as "hike underwater", so my own aquatic outfit consists of Carhartts and boots.) It was paradise. And, oh my god, the men on that run are just ridiculously sexy. More huge, hairy, stinky old neanderthals than you can shake a stick at. It's overwhelming - the testosterone haze makes me drunk with lust.
The RMC always makes its presence known - we wear our colors, we kiss in public, and everyone knows that we're the fags. It pleases me to no end that we can go to the most aggressively macho party in the state, mingle with real outlaws, and not catch any shit whatsoever. Nobody would dare. Collectively, we're a pretty scary looking bunch, but it's obvious that we're also respected for having big enough balls to be out there in the first place. And that feels great, like dishing out the biggest "fuck you" possible to every asshole that ever dumped on queers. In all the years we've been going, I've never heard even a catcall, though one guy at the Christian biker booth gestured in my direction and I'm pretty sure I heard the phrase "pagan devil" escape his lips. Heh. I bet that club has the most closet cases of any of them.
Unlike any previous year, we had guys hitting on us all the time. This is a new thing, and we were all taken by surprise. I really hated not taking the bait, because there were some lost and horny souls out there and I'd love to have made their dreams come true, but it was unexpected and a bit awkward. Generally speaking, the crowd has become more diverse - the number of black and asian bikers is notably higher, for instance - and the mood seems generally less tense, and that probably accounts for the change.
There were several interesting bands in the lineup, including "Creedence Clearwater Revisited", which gave a concert so rehearsed and formulaic that we concluded it must have been pre-recorded. Which seems like a slap in the face to a very committed audience. But one group I'd never heard of before - the Marshall Tucker Band - was so amazingly awesome that they made everyone else look like fools. I've never heard anything quite like it - hard driving rock with the kind of musical sophistication I'd expect from, say, Chopin. Lots of chromatic, rythmically diverse digressions, almost to the point of chaos, but still, it was tight. They were on top of every note. And boy, did they know how to work the crowd. The lead guy dropped a few bitchy comments about how strict the schedule was and how they had to end right on time, since it was obvious that most of the audience wanted them to play all night. But they were cleared off the stage after their 90-minute set, which then sat empty for an hour while the idiot prima-donna band that followed them got their thumbs out of their butts. I can't blame them, I wouldn't have wanted to follow that act either.
I suppose this is nothing new to those who caught it all the first time around, but having suffered the 80s as my musically formative period, I feel like I'm having to start all over again from scratch. And I know that those of you who love MTB must be outrageously jealous that I got to hear them for the very first time, with virgin ears. Hell, I'm even jealous of myself. It was one of the best musical experiences of my life.
This is not a sleep-friendly event. Leaving the party at 1 AM seems early, but even then it's only four hours 'till first light, when everyone starts firing up their Harleys and generally making sleep impossible. I hit the wall on Saturday night, drank too much whiskey, and got sick as a dog. Hands-and-knees, horking in the bushes kind of sick. I did make it back to my tent eventually, but dang, that was rough.
It always leaves me with the sense that this is somehow more than a big party; it feels like the center of the universe. The relentless noise and insanity make it trance-inducing, a dreamtime that touches people to their very core. It's certainly changed me in the five years since I first attended - it's taught me to stop looking for approval and start taking what I want for myself. It's taught me to be fearless while remaining prudent, to be graceful in conflict, and to show good humor in a hostile world. After a weekend like that, nothing seems impossible.
It was smokin' hot, in every way. The first thing I did was head straight to the river, which was full of hot hairy bikers in various stages of dress. (A traditional biker habit. Personally, I don't so much "swim" as "hike underwater", so my own aquatic outfit consists of Carhartts and boots.) It was paradise. And, oh my god, the men on that run are just ridiculously sexy. More huge, hairy, stinky old neanderthals than you can shake a stick at. It's overwhelming - the testosterone haze makes me drunk with lust.
The RMC always makes its presence known - we wear our colors, we kiss in public, and everyone knows that we're the fags. It pleases me to no end that we can go to the most aggressively macho party in the state, mingle with real outlaws, and not catch any shit whatsoever. Nobody would dare. Collectively, we're a pretty scary looking bunch, but it's obvious that we're also respected for having big enough balls to be out there in the first place. And that feels great, like dishing out the biggest "fuck you" possible to every asshole that ever dumped on queers. In all the years we've been going, I've never heard even a catcall, though one guy at the Christian biker booth gestured in my direction and I'm pretty sure I heard the phrase "pagan devil" escape his lips. Heh. I bet that club has the most closet cases of any of them.
Unlike any previous year, we had guys hitting on us all the time. This is a new thing, and we were all taken by surprise. I really hated not taking the bait, because there were some lost and horny souls out there and I'd love to have made their dreams come true, but it was unexpected and a bit awkward. Generally speaking, the crowd has become more diverse - the number of black and asian bikers is notably higher, for instance - and the mood seems generally less tense, and that probably accounts for the change.
There were several interesting bands in the lineup, including "Creedence Clearwater Revisited", which gave a concert so rehearsed and formulaic that we concluded it must have been pre-recorded. Which seems like a slap in the face to a very committed audience. But one group I'd never heard of before - the Marshall Tucker Band - was so amazingly awesome that they made everyone else look like fools. I've never heard anything quite like it - hard driving rock with the kind of musical sophistication I'd expect from, say, Chopin. Lots of chromatic, rythmically diverse digressions, almost to the point of chaos, but still, it was tight. They were on top of every note. And boy, did they know how to work the crowd. The lead guy dropped a few bitchy comments about how strict the schedule was and how they had to end right on time, since it was obvious that most of the audience wanted them to play all night. But they were cleared off the stage after their 90-minute set, which then sat empty for an hour while the idiot prima-donna band that followed them got their thumbs out of their butts. I can't blame them, I wouldn't have wanted to follow that act either.
I suppose this is nothing new to those who caught it all the first time around, but having suffered the 80s as my musically formative period, I feel like I'm having to start all over again from scratch. And I know that those of you who love MTB must be outrageously jealous that I got to hear them for the very first time, with virgin ears. Hell, I'm even jealous of myself. It was one of the best musical experiences of my life.
This is not a sleep-friendly event. Leaving the party at 1 AM seems early, but even then it's only four hours 'till first light, when everyone starts firing up their Harleys and generally making sleep impossible. I hit the wall on Saturday night, drank too much whiskey, and got sick as a dog. Hands-and-knees, horking in the bushes kind of sick. I did make it back to my tent eventually, but dang, that was rough.
It always leaves me with the sense that this is somehow more than a big party; it feels like the center of the universe. The relentless noise and insanity make it trance-inducing, a dreamtime that touches people to their very core. It's certainly changed me in the five years since I first attended - it's taught me to stop looking for approval and start taking what I want for myself. It's taught me to be fearless while remaining prudent, to be graceful in conflict, and to show good humor in a hostile world. After a weekend like that, nothing seems impossible.
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Date: 2008-06-16 02:26 am (UTC):D