Tag: bonnaroo

  • Bonnaroo 2018 – Day 0: Preparation & Travel

    Bonnaroo 2018 – Day 0: Preparation & Travel

    When I graduated college in 2014, I promised myself that I would be more accepting of new experiences and opportunities. I was going to say “yes” more and see what happened. Almost immediately after deciding to follow this path, my older brother walked upstairs and announced that we were going to Tennessee.

    IMG_20180605_132018
    Music is an essential part of life in Tennessee.

    Fast forward to 2017: I had already attended Bonnaroo twice by the time that I suggested the trip to my girlfriend. She was hesitant at first, given that we had only just started dating and the fact that it would be her first big road trip without her family, but soon warmed to the idea and began gathering things to bring with us.

    We planned to leave a few days early to visit family on Long Island and get a headstart on our caravan companions so that we could stop along the way. It didn’t take us long to realize that there wasn’t going to be much reason to stop through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia or the small slab of Georgia we snuck through. We made it to our destination in Tennessee in record time and ended up renting a motel room instead of sleeping in our Kia Sedona so that we could shower and chill before our 5-day stint in the tent-city music festival.

    IMG_20180606_102956

    Relaxing in Tennessee is undoubtedly one of my favorite parts of the Bonnaroo experience. Each year we coordinate travel plans with our group of around 8-10 people and converge on a small motel to prep for the festival and enjoy some of the luxuries that the surrounding area has to offer. While it’s easy to get dirty looks as a new-age hippy, nevermind a Yankee, in the South, Manchester has always been welcoming to us.

    Next week, I will go over what happened on Wednesday, the day before the festival officially starts. My goal is to have a post for each day of the festival and then one for our trip home.

    For those curious, here are a few items we brought with us that came in handy (I will be writing more about how to make music festivals as hassel free as possible soon!):

    • A Solar Shower: Although Live Nation has made Bonnaroo a much more hygienic experience in recent years, it’s always nice to have a solar shower with you in case you’re desperately in need of a warm shower.
    • A Reflective Tarp: Tennessee is HOT in the summer. We used a reflective tarp to help keep the sun from warming up our tent area and car too much during the hot days and offer protection from the inclement weather.
    • A Hammock: Although I thought I would have more opportunities to use it in Bonnaroo itself, I found the hammock really useful for finding a quiet place in the woods to relax. Thankfully, Bonnaroo already has plenty of hammocks set up throughout their campsite and festival grounds so this may not be as necessary as other items.
    • Lots of Bungies: While I hope our sleeping situation is better designed next year, we used lots of bungies to keep our supplies and luggage from falling on top of us while we slept on our mattress in the back of the van. Once we arrived, the bungies were great for setting up camp and keeping things from flying away.

    If you’d be interested in reading more about my experiences traveling and visiting music festivals, feel free to shoot me a comment to let me know.

  • On Anthony Bourdain

    On Anthony Bourdain

    When it comes to celebrity chef culture (or celebrity culture in general), you could say I’m pretty out of the loop. I grew up in Emeril Lagasse’s hometown and know Julia Child through cultural osmosis and public television, but god help me if I need to pronounce Guy Fieri’s incredibly fake last name.

    It wasn’t until a few years ago that I was turned on to Anthony Bourdain and his catalog of television shows and books. The rock and roll chef appealed to me immediately. He spoke with the conviction of a man wise beyond his years, but he also knew when to listen and let people from other cultures speak to his audience themselves. Anthony’s kindness, empathy, and ability to connect with people from across the globe through the lens of food made him stand out to me in a sea of unremarkable white people peddling comfort food to middle America. 

    IMG_20170721_170719

    Mr. Bourdain’s shows transported me around the world, all from the comfort of my couch, to meet new people and share in their experiences and culture. I’ve loved traveling as long as I can remember, but Parts Unknown gave me a renewed energy and enthusiasm for exploring places that I wouldn’t otherwise visit. Anthony Bourdain was also a large influence in me finally visiting Japan and fulfilling a dream I’d had since middle school. I went in with an open mind and an empty stomach and had a life-enriching experience exploring ramen shops in Itabashi and going bar hopping in Kobe.

    My introduction to Anthony Bourdain came around the same time that I was taking a more serious approach to my physical health. This meant giving up a lot of food/vices that I enjoyed regularly, including caffeine (goodbye coffee/chai tea), alcohol (rip beer), and now gluten (peace out nearly everything I used to eat). As someone who was already lactose intolerant in the first place, this felt like hell at first. Thanks to Anthony’s shows, I could enjoy all the flavors of the world despite my newfound dietary restrictions.

    IMG_20180606_194825When I heard about Anthony Bourdain’s passing, I was already two days into attending my third Bonnaroo music festival. It was my girlfriend’s first long road trip without her family and we were thoroughly enjoying having time off of work to travel. The news hit me completely off guard, especially given that I felt like I was at least partially living out the dream that Anthony helped inspire.

    Although Mr. Bourdain and I did not agree on all topics, his lust for travel and his listen-and-learn attitude have had a lasting impression on me. I don’t presume to know the man based solely on his television shows, but from what I gathered, Anthony stood strongly by his beliefs and was humble enough to recognize his own flaws. He genuinely wanted to learn from other people and let their food take center stage over his celebrity status or television production. I hope that someday I can achieve the same level of success and richness of life experience that he was able to manage during his time with us.