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My First Comfest...
... I could barely contain my excitement!Following on from my previous entry, I've spent the past week in tornado country. Luckily there haven't been anymore
actual tornados, but the weather has still been pretty pants at times. However, the show must go on as they say.
Obviously, my thursday was pretty much identical to my wednesday (just minus the tornado). I got up, I watched Wimbledon, and then frazzled my nerves a bit whilst watching the Spain - Russia semi-final. Yay Spain! In the evening Joanna's mum took us out for dinner and then we headed to another bar to meet up with some people.
ComFest
On Friday ComFest started. I knew before I came here that I would be here for the ComFest weekend. I also had no idea what the hell it was. Ever since I first met Joanna and Marlis I had heard them talk of this mythical
ComFest... Now I was going to experience it for myself. All I knew was that Mike Perkins (see previous blog) was going to be performing on Saturday. And if I'm being honest, Mike Perkins was one of the main reasons I decided to come back to Columbus... (it's ok, Joanna knows this, and
Yes... it's a corndog...
...now what exactly am I supposed to do with it?! fully understands...).
As this was going to be my first ComFest, Joanna decided that I needed to be prepared, in order to fully appreciate it... if such a thing is possible. This preparation consisted of her handing me the programme and telling me to read the introduction out loud whilst she drove the car. It was a long introduction, entitled
Be the Change You Wish To See in the World it spoke of the ethos and values of ComFest; a community festival dating back to 1968. Whilst Joanna was tearing up as I finished, my cynical British-ness was less moved. But I had to agree that it does show a side to Americans that isn't often reported back home.
So on Friday I was all ready to experience my first American Hippy Festival. Joanna was heading down early as she was volunteering at the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) stand. However, as she was going to be coming back home before heading back out in the evening, I decided to stay in and watch the tennis...
Around 5pm, melting in the humidity we made our way to Goodale Park. The weathermen had been predicting thunderstorms, so we brought a couple
of bin-liners and an umbrella, just to be on the safe side. We managed to find a parking space relatively nearby and headed into the park. After consulting the program, we headed to one of the many stages over the park, laid down Joanna's tablecloth that she had bought in Tanzania and started people watching. This became the main trend of the evening. We met up with different people, and moved the tablecloth from one stage to another. We randomly bumped into Marlis' ex-boyfriend, who had come down from Boston just for ComFest, which was quite strange, as I had never thought I'd see him again... and I think the feeling had been mutual! Random event number 2 was bumping into Mike Perkins and his English girlfriend when we were queueing for the porta-loos (called porta-pottys here!) and they were sticking poster-ads to the toilet doors...
A major part of ComFest is all the stalls and stands selling just about everything possible. One stand also had a sign proclaiming "Ohio #1 for Crop Circles"... which is a blatant lie, as everyone know that the South West has the best crop circles in the World... a fact proven by the 2
paltry fotos that this stand had to show. I contemplated taking a foto to ridicule, but never got round to it... Apart from all these stalls, were all the food stands. Ranging from Vegan brownies to smoked turkey legs, a slighty drunk Joanna took me on an American Food Tour. The highlight (for want of a better word) of this tour was the CornDog. I had let slip in Tenerife that I had never eaten a corndog. And unfortunately for me, this was one thing that Joanna decided to remember.... And so I got to taste my first (and only) corndog. Apparently it has little to do with corn. It is a hotdog, on a stick that has been coated in cornmeal and deep-fried... Americans really know how to do food! Still I tasted it, and there is photographic evidence to prove it, but it should come as no surprise that I opted for a slice of pizza!
Saturday started bright and early, and I was surprised to see Joanna awake earlier than me and looking so sprightly, given the state she was in when I dropped her at a bar before heading back home as I was sober
and exhausted. However, her hang-over kicked in soon enough... pretty much as we were driving to down-town Columbus to meet her brother and his girlfriend for the Gay Pride Parade. Columbus has always had a pretty large gay community, and the Pride event has always been held on the Comfest weekend. As we were arriving, it looked like the weather was going to rain on the parade (literally). However, just as Joanna was nursing her hangover with coffee and spicy fries, the sun came out in time to welcome the parade openers: 3 harleys being ridden by 4 men and 2 women in extremely pink tshirts... This was my first Pride parade, and it's fair to say that I was a little bit shocked at some of the participants, for example the Catholic priests... and there were other things I could have easily lived without seeing, such as an extremely butch woman flashing her saggy boobs from beneath a leather waist-coat... but overall it was so much fun, it was hard not to be carried along with all the gaiety (no pun intended).
Once the parade was over, we headed back to the appartment to freshen up before heading back
for ComFest. Just as we arrived and met up with Sarah, we decided against her cousin's invitation to go to her place for a few drinks. 5 mins later the heavens opened. It didn't rain, it poured, and there were once again flash floods everywhere. We ended up taking shelter in the beer tent, but still managed to get soaked. After about 45 mins we decided to risk making our way to a nearby bar to meet up with some friends who had already saught shelter. It proved to be a good move. Not only were we able to dry off - for me and Joanna this involved wrapping ourselves in the tablecloth at the table. But as we were pondering heading back, once the rain had eased off, the barman came up to us, with a 16" pepperoni pizza and asked if we wanted it... Free Pizza?! There was no way we were going to turn that down!! I still don't know how the guy ended up with an extra pizza, but we definitely weren't complaining!
After devouring the pizza we did indeed head back to ComFest, and were fortunate that the rain held off for the rest of
Joanna in pain...
..after swiping my burning hot pizza for a bite and burning her mouth as the melted cheese dribbled down her chin the night. However, the ground was soaked, and in parts was still flooded... Not that we let it stop us. Somehow, no-one slipped over and any mud on clothes was there deliberately... We wandered from stage to stage, meeting up with people. I got to catch up with Leah, who was Joanna's room-mate last time I was in Columbus. However, the piece de resistance was Mike Perkins at the Gazebo stage at 10:10. Randomly, we once again bumped into his girlfriend as we were making our way to the stage. After his awesome, but all too short set, that was ComFest over for saturday. And indeed, that was the end of my ComFest.
ComFest did continue on Sunday, but as it clashed with the Euro 2008 final, I gave up an afternoon of being rained on in a muddy field for a nerve-wracking 90 mins in front of the TV followed by a whole plethora of emotions ranging from anxiety to tears of joy as Spain beat the Germans to end 44 years of drought with a goal by Torres. Tho a comment on the BBC website did make me laugh, as the columnist noted that in 2010, for
the World Cup in S. Africa, it will be 44 years since England last won a major international trophy. Somehow, neither the columnist nor myself can see England emulating Spain by winning....
Anyhoo, Monday was pretty much a wash-out. Joanna was back in class and the weather was horrible, so I spent most of the day watching Wimbledon (I'm still pretty amazed that the weather has been so good there this year) and watching the live feed of the celebrations in Madrid on Marca.com as the Spanish team returned home to a heroes welcome. In the evening Joanna and I just had a girly evening in watching movies on HBOonDemand and I cooked, after Joanna took her pick from my recipe scrapbook. We watched the most random film "Best in Show", about dog-shows. Soudnds weird... and it was, but still worth a watch if you get the chance!
And today... well today I'm supposed to be attempting to sort all my stuff out, ready to move on tomorrow... Michigan here I come!
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