08.30.17 – 7:46PM Eastern US – Wednesday evening – T.F. Green Airport, Warwick, Rhode Island

Before I even start, I’d like to dedicate the next several days’ worth of posts in this series to the memory of my material grandmother, Florence Peterson, who passed away yesterday morning at the age of 102. She was among the strongest, fiercest individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and someone who absolutely refused to compromise, even when doing so probably would’ve made her own existence easier to stomach. I could go on, but the bottom line is I wouldn’t be here without her.

I owe thanks to my family up-front as well for sending me off across an ocean to rock and roll when where I should be is in New Jersey, being solemn. I do not deserve to have the wonderful people in my life that I do.

Also, I don’t deserve to be making this trip. I said that the other day, yes, but I stand by it. In about an hour and 20 minutes, I’ll be on a plane waiting to head to Dublin for Emerald Haze 2017, the inaugural edition of a festival for which I somehow wound up presenting the main stage, headlined on its first night by Church of the Cosmic Skull and on its second night by Sólstafir. This is utterly absurd to me. I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near this thing, let alone have The Obelisk’s logo stamped on the poster up around the city of Dublin. It may honestly be years before I wrap my brain around it, but I am incredibly grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to be in the position I’m in.

Perhaps then it’s a bit of unconscious penance that my voyage has started out so utterly amateur-hour. I’ve never flown out of Providence before, so there was an added bit of anxiety there, and apparently that manifested itself in my starting to pack more than 36 hours in advance and still — yes, still — leaving my laptop charger at home. They had a universal one at one of the airport stores for $60. Those things cost like $20 on Amazon, but it’s the by-the-balls premium, and that’s precisely how they had me. So it goes.

Couple that with the fact that I’ve already cut the trip short — I leave Dublin on Sunday instead of Wednesday, as was originally intended to give me some time to actually see the place outside of the festival — and the way-above-my-pay-grade notion of somehow coordinating reconvening with The Patient Mrs., who is in San Francisco for a work conference and also returning on Sunday, only without a car, before we head south to be with my family in New Jersey, and yeah, it’s all kind of a wreck in my brain. Dinner was a protein bar. Lunch was a shake. I must be traveling.

Unless I have the time zones wrong, which I’ve precious little doubt that I do, the flight will be about seven hours. It takes off at 9:10PM Eastern — allegedly — and thus puts me into Dublin at 08.25 GMT, which will be about 4:30AM to my brain. Should be interesting. I hope Ireland has a lot of coffee, because I’m afraid I’m going to need all of it.

The full schedule for Emerald Haze 2017 is posted here, and here are the posters for the two stages across the two days:

Once again, I can’t believe how lucky I am to be on my way to this thing. I’ve got plenty of writing to keep me busy as well for the next couple days, so keep an eye out into Friday for news, streams and the regular bit of whatnot, but fest coverage will probably start Saturday and continue through the weekend, so please stay tuned. I hope to see as much as I can see and write as much as I can write. If you get to follow along with any of it, please know you have my deepest appreciation.

Almost time to go.

Tags: Dublin, Emerald Haze, Emerald Haze 2017, Emerald Haze 2017 Trip, Ireland, Providence, Rhode Island

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2017 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.