(ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – Andrew Cooper/Sony Pictures)
If there’s anything you can say about Quentin Tarantino, it’s that he has a distinct style to his film making, script writing, and storytelling. Whether you like him or hate him, Tarantino’s films have introduced a generation of movie watchers to classic tropes from serialized television and movies of the past. While films like Kill Bill pay homage to cinema history while telling a compelling and gory story of revenge, Tarantino’s new flick seems to focus more on the former while outright ignoring the latter.
Tarantino’s signature cast of eccentric characters is on full display in Once Upon a Time, but what’s seemingly lacking is a meaningful plot worthy of the 2 and change hour run time. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio’s performances were stellar, but neither actor could stave off my disappointment as the final tile card appeared and the end credits began to roll. “What had I just watched?” was my first blush reaction, but that was slowly replaced with an inkling that Tarantino had just duped us all into watching the college film he’d always wanted to make, just with an all-star cast of Hollywood royalty.
Witty dialogue, beautiful set pieces, and a compelling sense of tension run throughout, but it’s hard to say a movie can be entirely positive without a point in the end. Once Upon a Time feels like an improvised bedtime story; there are a lot of threads to keep you interested, but the author may not have expected you to stay awake long enough to see the end.
Without spoiling things too much, the ending to Once Upon a Time is more of a satire of a Tarantino film than a love letter. It is the epitome of “angry man yells at clouds,” except this time pointed at young hippies, mostly women, and we are meant to celebrate in their gruesome, violent, and over-the-top-to-the-point-of-it-being-slap-stick murder at the hands of Pitt and Decaprio.
If Tarantino hadn’t done such a good job of setting up the climax, it probably wouldn’t have fallen so flat, but that’s what happens when a famed director gets too caught up in their own auteurship and charges moviegoers to pay $13 to bare witness to his genius.
I have a hard time imagining Tarantino not wanting this response. There’s something incredibly cocky about hiring Margot Robby for a Tarantino film only to show off her feet and entirely waste her talent on screen. There’s something gloriously obnoxious about being led by a thread through an almost 3-hour endeavor only to be told that none of the best parts mattered in the long run.
The worst part of Once Upon is that so many of the ignored or abandoned plot threads were more compelling than what we ended up with. The fate of Cliff’s wife alone was much more interesting than the half-assed violence sideshow that capped off Tarantino’s latest film.
All in all, Once Upon is about as Tarantino as you can get, right up to the “screw you” attitude with which it treats its audience. Yes, we understand that you love old school Hollywood, Mr. Tarantino, but we’d also love a compelling plot to go along with your masturbatory nostalgia trip.
While the move-in and first day of Bonnaroo 2019 were a total and utter fiasco, the festival wasn’t so bad once we were actually allowed onto the farm and given a good night’s rest. Nevertheless, Helsboro left a sour taste in my mouth that was hard to wash out. In moments like this, it’s important to remember Bonnaroo’s favorite corporate marketing slogan: “Radiate Positivity.”
And you know I made sure to radiate that positivity all over the damn place.
The best part of Bonnaroo, for me at least, is waking up early enough to catch a few of the early afternoon acts. The first on our list was Ida Mae, a small British blues outfit. Needless to say, they kicked ass. We ended up going to see what the Teskey Brothers were all about. Eventually, the heat from the Tennessee mid-day sun was too much and we returned to camp to refuel.
We inevitably returned to Centeroo to listen to AJR, a group of three brothers who make samey-sounding electronic pop music. They were really fun and energetic, even going so far as to cover both “The Office” theme and Smashmouth’s “Allstar.” Somebody once told me how to pander to a crowd of millennials.
Then, we moseyed on over to see the Avett Brothers for a hot second before catching GRIZ at the Which stage. Each time I see a DJ or EDM producer act, I play a game of guessing how the musician will occupy their time between pressing play and before turning off their laptop. Instead of throwing cakes, pretending to adjust knobs, or playing a traditional instrument badly, GRIZ competently played a little sax, while otherwise letting the other artists that he has collaborated with do most of the crowd work. All in all, it was good.
And then…
We saw Childish Gambino’s set at the What Stage.
Let me preface this a bit by saying that this was my second time seeing Donald Glover perform at Bonnaroo. The first time was in 2015, I had only just begun listening to him casually after graduating from college, and he had, it seemed, begun experimenting more with singing rather than rapping. At the time, I shrugged, turned and walked away. In my mind, he was an amazing comedy writer, a great lyricist, a competent rapper, and an iffy singer in that order. Fast forward four years later and I was cautiously ready to rediscover Childish Gambino from a fresh perspective.
And then he completely knocked it out of the park.
I was stunned, confused, elated, and ready to jam to more after the set was done. Most of the songs involved him singing, prancing about the stage with his new beard and bare chest flexing all around. It was clear he was no longer an actor/comedian trying to make his music career work. I was no longer watching Donald Glover; Childish Gambino was in full effect.
Out of all of the shows I’ve seen at Bonnaroo, Gambino’s blew me away the most. Sure, Elton John, Lionel Richie, and Jack White are all undoubtedly rockstars of epic proportions, but there was something about Gambino’s performance that felt effortless, calculated, and polished. Maybe it was the contrast between my experiences at both shows, but I came out of Childish’s set muttering how blown away I was. That was the moment that I realized that Helsboro had been “worth it,” so to speak.
Although we knew that Phish were playing their first set for the week just after Childish, we made our way back to camp to wind down for the night. Here’s where I let you in on a little Bonnaroo secret: the sound is really good and, depending on your campsite and the stage that the artist is playing at, you will probably be able to hear their concert just fine from your campsite. This was especially true for us, as we were pretty close to Centeroo and could hear Phish, Brockhampton, and eventually, the GRIZ super jam juuuuustttttt fine. You can’t always be on the rail for every show at Bonnaroo, even if you wish you could. The fact is that you take what you can get and sometimes after walking around in the heat all day, it’s better to listen to a relaxing set from the comfort of your own camp.
Tips for How to Survive Bonnaroo Burnout Without Missing the Show
Prepare In Advance: If there’s a show you desperately want to be up close for, you’re going to have to get in line. And by line, I mean you’re going to have to start weasling your way to the front during the set prior to the one you want to see. People will already be rushing the stage after the first show ends, even if there’s a 45 minute wait until the next set. While I would rarely ever commit this much energy to a show I like, it does offer you respite from having to worry about the hustle and bustle of running from stage to stage. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the wait because you’re going to need it.
Enjoy From Camp: It may sound sacreligious for some to drive 1,100 miles to not see the show you came to see. The fact is, there’s a lot more to live music than seeing the artist. If you’re not on the rail for some of the bigger shows at the What stage, the main artist isn’t going to be much larger than a small speck on the stage all the way across a field of people. Sure, the screens help display what’s going on on-stage, but most of the time, you will not be able to see what’s happening. That being said, there will be moments when going back to camp and listening to the show will be the better option for you and your group, whether it’s just to refresh before a long night of raging or an excuse to get an early nightcap.
Skip Around: You’re not going to be able to see all the shows you want to see at Bonnaroo. You’re going to have to accept that fact. Part of the thrill is being able to stop in for a great show, turn around and walk a few hundred feet to find more amazing live music. Don’t get too caught up in seeing the whole set; dance around and see what you are able to see.
Cut Your Loses: Although you want to see the show, sometimes that’s just not possible. Obviously, you want to see as much as possible, but there may be an overlap with a show you just can’t miss or some other complication. In these cases, it’s best to recognize that you are seeing more live music in a week than most see in a year. You’ll catch them next time.
Stay tuned for next week when we go over what happened on the third day of Bonnaroo, including a review of Post Malone’s set, the Lonely Island’s first festival show, and much more.
Traditionally, my day 1 Bonnaroo blog usually consists of a sentence or two explaining that, while you may well have to wait upwards of 3+ hours to enter the Farm after arriving in Manchester TN, that’s pretty average for a music festival and it’s well worth the price of entry.
That being said, the first few days of Bonnaroo 2019 were marred by the worst possible festival arrival infrastructure, planning, and execution that I have ever seen. Although I hesitate to spend too much time focusing on the negative side of a festival based around the idea of positivity, I think it’s healthy to express just how dangerous and unprofessional the treatment of Bonnaroo attendees was prior to entering the festival. Here are just a few facts that may paint a clearer picture of what happened between arriving in Tennessee and entering the Bonnaroo music festival:
My caravan left the Manchester Walmart at approximately 2:30 PM, just a little after we usually leave every year. This is our caravan’s seventh year of traveling to the festival and my fourth year. We know what to usually expect when it comes to arriving at Bonnaroo.
Thanks to a thunderstorm that came as quickly as it went combined with a lack of planning and signage, we were redirected down the main highway that runs through town. Lanes got blocked up and the police were called in to solve the mess they had created.
We were all directed down the highway in the opposite direction until finally being directed down a back road, christened “Helsboro” (aka Hilsboro) by most of our caravan and Reddit at large.
There we sat in the breakdown lane of a country road with thousands of other eager festival goers. Tractor trailer trucks sped by as the minutes turned into hours and the day turned to night. We eventually started counting how many cars were going in the opposite direction had a “Bonnaroo Car Pass” on their window, indicating that they had been in line and decided to turn around for a different path into the festival.
After hours of waiting, some festival goers relieved themselves in nearby fields. Personally, I don’t blame them, given that they could either walk miles down the road to the nearest gas station or give up the place in line that they had already invested 5+ hours into. The whole situation was FUBAR for those who had paid hundreds of dollars for their tickets and driven potentially thousands of miles to attend, as well as the Manchester natives who wanted nothing to do with the festival.
Naturally, our caravan argued the merits of turning around and ignoring the directions of the Coffee County Police Department to try for a better chance at the main highway entrance. Eventually, around midnight, we decided that it had already been 10 hours and we were fed up with the lack of communication, the lack of phone service, and the lack of police presence on a dark, country road where thousands of festival goers were turning off their cars to conserve gas, therefore making the entire scene even more dangerous.
We turned around and joined a growing line of angry, sleep deprived, and hungry festival goers along the highway in an only slightly less dangerous predicament. Another 2 and a half to 3 hours later, we arrived at the Farm. It took us from 2:30 PM to 3:30 AM the next day to enter the music festival.
The “redirected” waiting patiently in traffic.
Imagine the frustration we all felt when, after twelve hours of waiting, we finally arrived back at the Walmart that we had originally left from that afternoon. Some in our caravan had arrived in Manchester from their 1,100 mile road trip only to sit in line for another thirteen hours. We couldn’t even be mad, that’s how exhausted we were.
What is normally a festive experience was instead a frustrating and depressing exercise in “claiming” our little plot of dirt in a field full of people. That was our reward for driving across the country, paying hundreds of dollars, taking a week off of work, and then waiting more than half a day in our cars; a campsite the size of my KIA Sedona. That’s how arriving at Bonnaroo 2019 felt.
To top it all off, the first thing I did after setting up camp was lock both my pair and my girlfriend’s spare keys in our van. $60 and an annoying ride on in a go-cart later, I was able to finally lay down to sleep at 5 AM. The sun was already coming up. The first day of Bonnaroo was officially screwed.
After waking up and attempting to salvage what was left of the first day of the festival, my girlfriend and I were able to see Donna Missals and a part of the Grand Ole Opry. Donna was simply amazing and was well worth crawling out of the funk that Helsboro had put me in to see at 1 PM in the Tennessee heat. After that, however, we decided that we were still too tired to do anything of note, so we went back to camp, relaxed, and eventually went to bed early. So much for a four-day music festival.
Tips for Dealing with a Situation that is Incredibly Screwed Up But Entirely Out of Your Control
Breath: It would be worthless for me to spend any time trying to prepare you for entering Bonnaroo if that is something you still think is a good idea after reading this blog post. Seven years of preparation could not save my caravan from the total fiasco that was arriving at Bonnaroo this year. If you intend on taking the plunge, all I can suggest is that you remember to breath. Breathing carefully can help keep you calm, lower your heart rate, and make it easier to deal with situations that are entirely out of your control.
Stay Safe: Despite the fact that Bonnaroo’s treatment of arriving attendees on Wednesday was unprofessional and downright dangerous, there are always precautions you can take to limit your risks while waiting 12+ hours in the breakdown lane. For example, don’t wander aimlessly across a dimly lit road after sundown while tractor trailers fly by.
Drink Plenty of Water: If you are in a situation where you don’t have proper access to food and water (maybe because you were redirected onto a country road and didn’t prep for Fyre festival), make sure to prioritize clean, potable water. Hydrate or dydrate.
Drag Corporations Online: When all else fails, air your grievances against global corporate entities loudly and publicly. The catharsis is almost worth putting up with their bullshit. It’s not and I would never wish it on anyone, but it almost feels worth it in the moment. Get your pitchforks and sharp wit ready.
To make a long story short, we did really enjoy Bonnaroo 2019 despite all that happened. You should always prepare for the unexpected when traveling to a music festival, but sometimes things are completely screwed and out of your control. In those moments, you just have to push through and remember what really brings us all together. I fully intend to spend the rest of this series thoroughly detailing our experiences and adventures on the Farm, but I would be remiss to gloss over the first day and half of Bonnaroo 2019 like it never happened.
Stay tuned for next week when we go over what happened on the second day of Bonnaroo, including a review of Childish Gambino’s set, my first experience seeing Phish, and much more.
If you would have told me that a Chinese mobile game would be my latest obsession only three months ago, I would have had a hard time believing you. Sure, I’ve dabbled in mobile gaming before, but I usually prefer to play puzzle games like Sudoku or Picross over more complex games. Then, Auto Chess caught my attention.
I just so happened to be browsing Twitter one fateful day when I read a Tweet about a popular DotA 2 mod turned mobile game. Players were arguing that Value and Riot Games shouldn’t be so quick to copy the hard work of devoted modders by releasing their own official Auto Chess game modes. Word through the grapevine was that anyone who respected the hard work of the mod community (e.g. me) should support the official version of Auto Chess released by Dragonest Co. Eager to try it out, I downloaded the app on my phone and dug in.
Not only is Auto Chess essentially an old Warcraft 3 map brought back to life on my smartphone sixteen years later, but it’s also a fantastically addictive mobile game to boot. Those two things are exactly what I need in my life right now, as weird as it sounds. One of my favorite aspects of the Warcraft 3 modding community that I sorely miss is the propensity towards designing games that essentially play themselves. This, combined with the theme of snowballing power creep brought me immediately back to playing custom maps on Battle.net.
Since the game was originally developed as a DotA 2 custom mode, each “chess” piece is based off a hero from Defense of the Ancients. If you’ve spent any time playing either DotA Allstars or DotA 2, you’ll feel right at home in Auto Chess. If you haven’t, don’t worry; the game is actually quite simple once you get the basics.
In Auto Chess, you select a chess piece from among a random selection of five different pieces each round. You place pieces on the board and at the start of every round the pieces you’ve played come to life to fight against either another player’s pieces or a selection of A.I. controlled “creeps.” Sometimes these creeps drop items which you can equip to specific chess pieces. Each chess piece has a role, similar to their DotA counterparts, and both a race and a class associated with them. These identifiers make up the core mechanic of Auto Chess, and essentially boil down to a game of mixing and matching colored symbols. Combining chess pieces of specific races or classes provides your whole team with special bonuses. You can also combine three or more of a specific type of chess piece to upgrade their rank and increase their stats.
If you can understand a gambling game about matching up three of a kind, you can play Auto Chess.
Some of my favorite aspects of Auto Chess are also tied directly to its design towards mobile. For example, I get a great sense of pride from performing well enough in Auto Chess that I can actively ignore my phone and know I still have a good chance of winning the match. It’s also handy to not have to constantly be paying attention to a mobile game since you are encouraged to play them on the go and are therefore more prone to being interrupted.
Let’s go back to that hypothetical that I started this all with and flip it around. If you went back to my high school self and told him that I would be playing what was essentially a Warcraft 3 custom map on my phone and having a blast, he would probably be ecstatic. This jenky little mobile game has stolen my heart at a point when I really needed a pick-me-up. Do I think I’ll be playing this game in 6 months? For my sake, I hope not. That being said, I’m having a ball right now and will enjoy the hell out of this ride while it lasts.
Another Bonnaroo is in the bag, I’ve made it home safe after driving the approximately 2,000 miles roundtrip, and I’m ready to start blogging about this year’s festival in as much detail as possible while the memories are still fresh. I’m hoping to publish one post a week for each day of Bonnaroo starting from the day we left home to the day we got back, similar to how I outlined my experiences at Bonnaroo last year. My goal is to provide tips, hints, and advice from my four years of experience attending Tennessee’s premier music festival, while also showing off some of the photos/footage I was able to capture during my time on the farm. In case you missed it, I’ve already posted about some of the preparation that I went through before shipping off a week and a half ago. Without further adieu, this is what happened during my road trip down to Manchester, TN.
As my fourth Bonnaroo, this year was supposed to run as smooth as butter. My girlfriend and I planned on reaching Tennessee around Tuesday afternoon, giving us enough time to relax in a nearby town, eat at our favorite local restaurant, and rest up for move-in day. Little did I know just how much rest we would need.
Just like last year, we stopped in New York to visit family before continuing on our way down the East Coast of the United States towards the land of country music and whiskey. The road was actually very kind to us on the trip down. We managed to sleep the night in Pennslyvania before making our way through Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
Unlike 2018, however, this time we came prepared. One of my main pre-Roo projects was to outfit my KIA Sedona with a mattress, curtains, and a propane stove, as well as my normal Bonnaroo luggage. The job was a bit shabbier than I had intended it to be, but at the end of the day, we found a way to cheaply and safely sleep in our vehicle.
In terms of lessons learned, I’d say I could have spent a bit more time trimming and sowing the curtains so that they were a bit easier to handle and we could have put a larger mattress in the back for added space and comfort. Since we stored most of our camping gear underneath the bed, the design of the back of the van did make it rather difficult to maneuver within the vehicle and access all of the items we had stored without stepping out. That being said, the restriction to have to get out of bed to grab a drink or snack was only ever an issue outside of the festival itself and could be easily fixed if we attempt a similar setup on a different road trip.
A windshield cover helped keep the van cool during the day and provide additional privacy. For the back window, we managed to cover it with a combination of spare pillows and a tarp. Finally, we took a small blanket and wrapped it around the headrests of the driver’s and passenger’s seats, obscuring the view from either of the front windows into the back of the vehicle. Cracking a few windows and hanging a rechargeable fan from the ceiling helped keep cool air circulating. Once everything was set up, we had what amounted to a cute capsule hotel in the back of our van.
Although I know a lot of people who tag team their way through the trip nonstop, I would always suggest that you get a good night’s rest whenever driving long distances. If you have enough drivers to make it safely without taking a break, go for it, but I always air on the side of comfort, safety, and relaxation when given the opportunity. There are enough rest areas and Walmart parking lots down Route 81 to stop and get a few Z’s in before getting back on the road.
Tom’s Travel Tips
Pack Light: For the sake of my own anxiety, I always air on the side of packing light and getting whatever else I need either on the road or once I arrive at my destination. We made sure to pack plenty of beverages, snacks, and toiletry supplies, but left our cooler empty and waited to purchase the lion’s share of our other pantry items when we stopped at the Walmart in Manchester.
Bring a Friend: Even if you prefer driving (like I do), it’s always good to bring a friend along for a long road trip. Not only will you appreciate the company, but it helps to have an extra person handy if you need someone to take over driving or if you need prefer to let someone else navigate.
BeFlexible: No road trip (or any kind of trip for that matter) will go perfectly according to plan. You need to make sure that you have the flexibility to adjust your plans if something comes up, whether that be by packing for redundancy or preparing yourself mentally to tackle any obstacle that may cross your path. Once you embrace going with the flow, everything else will work out just fine.
Share Your Location: Big Brother may be an unfortunate reality of our times, but it doesn’t come without its own set of perks. Google Maps allows you to share your GPS location with others, making it easy for a third party to watch over your progress and provide assistance remotely if need be. It even tracks the battery life on your phone.
Drive Safe: If you’re planning on driving down South to visit Bonnaroo, please drive safe. Not only are the roads packed with tractor trailer trucks and other road trippers, but the local police are looking for any reason to pull over unsuspecting festival goers on their way to the farm. Don’t give them any reason to harass you. Staying safe is the easiest way to ensure a stress-free trip.
We fully intended our trip down to Tennessee to be as uneventful as possible, and I think we successfully accomplished that at least. It wasn’t until we arrived that things started to get hairy. Stay tuned next week when I cover how the move-in day went, how to prepare for the worst, and what to do when the worst somehow gets even more tedious and frustrating.
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