I'm Way Too Old For Music Festivals And Way Too Young For Orgies

On Friday night, as off-brand as this sounds, I came across a tweet that I didn’t particularly enjoy. In fact, I fucking hated it.

Commanding others to spend three decades working in manual labor and construction, Twitter user @OnlyCae_ effectively sent me into full-on “Kyle mode.” And as a tried and true white collar tweet hater, I felt the need to offer an alternative lifestyle option, which only ended up motivating me to follow my own advice.

So on Saturday morning, my fellow mid-twenties friends and I impulsively bought tickets to Governor’s Ball, a very large and popular music festival on Randalls Island in New York City, off the coast of Manhattan. Up until then, visions of music festivals, to us, consisted of massive collections of college kids and other adults getting supremely fucked up on a combination of different substances, and maybe finding time for the music part as well.

The festival’s website advertised dozens of alcohol tents and 21+ sub-events; and with a star-studded lineup that consisted of Kacey Musgraves (30-year-old singer), Major Lazer (37, 40, and 41-year old EDM trio), Florence + the Machine (band in their 30s), and The 1975 (band formed 17 years ago), we were fully ready to put aside the stresses of adulthood and let loose with other thrill-seeking young professionals and post-grads.

Our imaginations couldn’t have been further from reality.

Upon arrival, I immediately felt like an overwhelmed chaperone of the largest and most chaotic 8th grade field trip of all time. My elite-level buzz instantaneously turned into a damning bout of stone cold sobriety as I realized the precise demographic I was going to be surrounded by for an entire day. Governor’s Ball, which would’ve been more aptly named Governor’s Grandchild or Governor’s Ballpit or Undropped Ball, boasted schools of fishnetted fetus legs and fields of crop topped toddler torsos running amuck while those of us who were old enough to rent a car or enter a bar or buy a cigar watched in confusion from afar.

I remember feeling temporarily refreshed to finally see a group of people around my age range, but then I realized they were merely dropping their children off to play and kissing them goodbye. “Love you too, mommy,” they reluctantly mumbled as they skipped off into an endless mass of debauchery with MD20–20 in their bottles of apple juice and MDMA in their bottles of Flintstone vitamins.

At the entrance to the festival we were greeted by a large memorial mural of Mac Miller, which was used as an Instagram backdrop for young kids who were slightly younger than K.I.D.S. and slightly older than sperm cells. “Yoo, my parents saw him perform when they were in college,” uttered one embryo to its friend group. “Yeah, classic rap is lowkey fire,” said another. For a moment, I felt like a decrepit senior citizen for being alive to experience Three Rivers Stadium and Club Zoo. I attempted to strike up a mildly humorous conversation with them about how I embarrassingly got my company sued for orchestrating a fake Lil Tay concert, but they were too young to know about Lil Tay.

Even the older, seasoned veterans of the Gov Ball festival scene made me feel uneasy. Haunting visions of Chris Hansen’s stern face plagued my mind as I waited in a tightly-packed line to use a porta-potty (for urination purposes only) amongst a squad of girls that would’ve made R. Kelly instinctively drop his drawers (for urination and other purposes).

In a sea of unruly teens—teeth fully braced up, puberty on rookie mode, acne on expert mode, and pupils on XL mode—there was only one thing helping me not feel completely out place.

My friend and coworker Jeff Vibbert, or “Vibbs” as many of you know him, was quite possibly the biggest fucking star of the whole festival, and I say that without a shred of hyperbole. With a hairless, mischievous face that screams “I skipped little league practice for this,” cool shades covering his possibly guilty eyes, and smooth hands double-fisting alcoholic beverages, he was a revered god to the core population of Gov Ball. “How did this lil’ dude finesse beer?” thought the boys of the crowd; “Let’s talk to him,” exclaimed the girls.

Fresh out the gates, a quartet of four loko-fueled fourth graders approached Vibbs and asked him, “what’s that?” while gesturing to a map.

“Oh, like the iPhone app?” said one while trying to pinch it to zoom in. “No, just like a regular ma-,” we attempted to explain, but they already scurried away from the ancient artifact despite their uncontrollable attraction to Jeffrey.

At the beer and wine tent, an older foursome of fourteen-year-old hooligans demanded that Vibbs tell them how he managed to score alcohol. “If they sold it to him, then we’ll definitely be straight,” reasoned the biggest one. “Can I borrow your fake, bruh?” inquired the smallest one.

But after finding out that he was actually a 27-year-old man with 20K+ Instagram followers, they settled for a group photo.

While a lot of little kids would be intimidated by random 250 pound D1 athletes, the duo of me and Vibbs didn’t seem to threaten or drive away any drug-seeking delinquents. Even as we stood in silence and chilled in solitude, we were persistently pressed by the most menacing middle schoolers in the NYC metropolitan area.

Variations of “Can I cop a tab?” and “Y’all got bags?” were confidently asked to us on an hourly basis. Ecstasy, LSD, and cocaine were the 2019 versions of the Scholastic Book Fair posters, zoo books, and gel pens to these elementary kids. Vibbs was the cool parent working the cash register and I was the creepy, little librarian making weird awkward contact with them. In other words, our attendance was a miscalculated mistake and we ultimately decided to prematurely leave.

Oh, and the part of this blog about how “I’m way too young for orgies”…that was mosty just for clickbait purposes. I don’t have the balls…or dick…or sex drive for a conventional orgy. I feel like (in the least cockiest manner) that the average orgy attendee is, at best, extremely fucking disgusting (not that I’m not) and cumming once or twice is more than a daily quota for me. That’s it. Have a blessed Tuesday, everyone.