5PM – Before the flight – Newark

One of the restaurants down the way is playing Beck, and, sitting here on my laptop at the too-small charging table, I’d feel like the very epitome of cool if this was 1997. Alas, it is not. Hasn’t been for some time, in fact.

Still, we press on. I guess I beat the plane to the gate, which is fair enough since the flight doesn’t leave for another two and a half hours. The Patient Mrs., while en route, posited that she considers my clenched-brain anxious, gotta-get-to-the-airport, hurrying-up-so-I-can-hurry-up-and-wait pre-flight methodology a way in which I am able to make the transition from being here to being there, which in this case is Freak Valley 2023. That’s as good a reason as anything I can come up with while I do this every time if I can, why I book later flights so I can sit longer. It is not out of any great love for airport ambiance.

The sky is gray and yellowish, and today the smoke from Quebecois wildfires blocked out the sun for a while thickly enough that the air actually felt colder in the breeze. Living through that, it’s hard to internalize just how fucked it truly is, or we are, as a species. It smells like smoke outside. My eyes stung walking into the grocery store this morning so I wouldn’t leave The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan without yogurt. Someone on the security line or wherever the hell I was a bit ago commented that being outside for 20 minutes was the equivalent of smoking six cigarettes. I’ve never been a smoker as regards tobacco, but maybe if I was I wouldn’t be the kind of person who feels compelled to show up at the airport three hours early.

When the plane shows up — which the flight tracker thing says it will do 20-odd minutes late because of the apocalypse unfolding (again) in real-time outside the window — it will carry my lethargic ass to Frankfurt, Germany, where Alexander Fuchs, who is the kind of competent individual one such as myself who is the opposite truly appreciates knowing, will meet me with a car to go to Siegen. I’m staying in Hotel Bürger — hotel of the people! hotel of the bourgeoisie! — for the duration of the fest, and that’s a little further out and I won’t get to stay up late and chat with Rolf from Stickman and Désirée from Lay Bare and meet them again for breakfast in the morning, and that was great last year but I’m fairly certain that my addled brain can make still new memories, apparently it could last year, so while I’m nervous doing something new (always), I rest easier knowing I’m in the best hands possible with Alex. Alex won’t fuck up. I would never say the same about myself.

Getting into Germany, getting to the hotel, going to the fest — it’s not really tight. Not in any way that makes a remote difference or makes it less feasible, but there are known and unknown variables between here and there, and all the more with the end of the world happening outside. At the bank — after the grocery store; keep up — the woman said they were canceling flights out of Newark. Maybe those were to Montreal?

In any case, I don’t have, say, an entire day to wait around in front of the Freak Valley stage for stuff to start, so yeah, I’m a little on edge about it. Always when flying anyway, always when traveling, always at shows. Generally when staying home, too. My body goes fight-or-flight about doing the fucking dishes. So The Pecan’s thing in the car where she’ll ask “When are we going to get there?” in a kind of singsong, repeatedly, pretty much until you feel like your eyeballs are melting and not only do you no longer want to go where you’re going, but you’re (un)reasonably sure you’ll be dead before you get there? Yeah that’s rough too. “How long is five minutes?” Guess we’re about to find out, kid.

The next three days — Thursday, Friday, Saturday — are Freak Valley Festival 2023, in Netphen, Germany. I will be covering as much as I am able — not gonna promise to see everything, but you know I’ll try — while tending to things like hydration and the various aches and discomforts I bring with me: knees, back, feet, head, and so on. I am deeply appreciative of the chance to write about this festival, to go and take pictures and do all that kind of stuff. Last year was my first time. In 2023, I have the reassurance of prior experience to tell me it’ll be amazing, as I have to believe it will, or at this point I probably wouldn’t be going. Thanks Freak Valley. I hope to see you soon.

And thanks of course to The Patient Mrs. for keeping the kid for five frickin’ days so I can abscond and get my head right in the best way I know how. She will not have an easy time.

And thanks to you for reading. The only reason I get invited to do stuff like this — ever — is because you’re reading these words right now, and because of the support this site gets. I know this and appreciate it. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, so thank you. I will do my damnedest to have the work I do in the next few days live up to how honored I feel to be doing it in the first place.

Looks like the plane’s here. Fine. Guess I’ll get on it and fly to Germany for a thing. Oh, alright.

Thanks again.

Tags: Freak Valley 2023 coverage

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2023 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.