Psytopia Still Not Yet As Cool As X-Day

Aug. 17, 2005

True, Psytopia is held at a posh resort in Jamaica where you get to live like a rich person, and X-Days are held at a campground where you have to sleep in a tent.

But X-Day has never been CANCELED. Even if the saucers didn't show, we at least held the DRILL.

Psytopia AS SUCH has been canceled, because the $ fell through at the last minute. And I do mean the VERY last minute! We almost left for the airport without reading the cancellation email.

Didn't I keep saying it sounded too good to be true? The people who bought $1000 tickets and flew to Jamaica will surely have a GREAT time at a SPLENDID resort, because their rooms are still reserved for them, but the Psytopia part of Psytopia is shut down totally.

I feel very sorry for the producer, and wrote him a letter saying I'm not upset and that surely it'll happen next year because it's such a great idea, and chin up, etc.

Then I immediately priced a Burning Man trip (about $2000 for the two of us, including a rented camper-van for a week, and a $650 plane ticket), but Philo and Wellman AREN'T GOING. Dr. Howll is. But the great thing about Psytopia was, it was ALL FREE for we the now-canceled bands, arteests and ranters.

We thought about spending only some plane ticket money, and flying to a place where we can PRETEND it's Jamaica or Amsterdam, and have Couchstock. (Dobbstown is out of the question, since it's hurricane season in Malaysia and three planes have already gone down.)

But in the end, we decided the Slackermansion and SubSITE need redecorating more than we need yet another festival. It's just that we were ALMOST ALL PACKED, and the act of UNPACKING now just seems so SAD. If we keep these bags packed, we'll be INSTANTLY READY for the next trip. ANY trip.

Talk about everything coming to a screeching halt. We got so much done in preparation for this trip, that just NOT HAVING TO DO ANYTHING for a while is like a vacation. I got AHEAD on Hours of Slack, bill paying, swag-mail-out, ALL that daily chore type crap -- for the next week we're FREE AND CLEAR! Starting last week, I'd been pulling my standard pre-trip last-minute all-nighter frenzy. I re-edited the psychedelic Dobbshead background projection video that I use behind my rant to distract and implant the audience (the music previously switched from instrumentals to bobsongs too soon), and made a new DVD of it. I got three MONTHS worth of Membership packs and ARISEs assembled. And then, just for the pure emergentile fuck of it, and to bone up on my lines, in the two days before the trip, I edited the two two-camera shoots of the Winterstar and Starwood devivals, AND made menus and put them on DVDs! And made DivX copies and RARred them! So there. And about that time I got the long sad email.

I was really looking forward to that warm ocean. Oh well. We have a beach nearby… SORT OF. And this DOES mean that I get to EDIT ALL THAT VIDEO, which is what I most have been wanting to do, really, if you get right down to it.

And Princess Wei is STILL off WORK, so it's not like I won't be in HEAVEN no matter what. This just means I won't have to share her for a WHOLE WEEK.

*************

That was yesterday. Since then we've seen the third Harry Potter movie on TV, and we went to the actual movie theater to see Willy Wonka, which is splendid. Tim Burton has finally made up for Planet of the Apes with this one. The score is so Elfmaniacal that one could almost suspect it of being a parody of Elfman scores. Johnny Depp creates yet another great comic character. What a stud. The art design is INSANE. I wasn't attached to the earlier film version and I like this one better. If anything it's much WEIRDER. I can't wait to see the Cinefex article on the special effects. It's a DAHLing movie, rally it tis.

There was NO ONE ELSE in the theater. I don't think there was anybody else in the whole multiplex.

Christopher Nolan's Batman movie is at 7… hmmm. And we haven't seen that Once Upon a Time in Mexico disk yet.

Our work is cut out for us!

I thought about making a fake "OUR TRIP TO/AT PSYTOPIA" photo gallery. Like, a blurry photo of an ashtray -- "THIS WAS OUR ROOM, MAN! IT HAD AN INCREDIBLE VIEW!" A blurry close-up of some striped fabric: "WEI WORE THIS WILD BATHING SUIT, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" Blurry photo of a blur. "WE BOUGHT THIS "TREAURE CHEST" FOR ONLY $50, TEN MINUTES AFTER WE GOT OFF THE PLANE, FROM A CRAZY DUDE NAMED RASTAFUS! MONEY WELL SPENT!" Photo of a grinning young man with long hair. "OUR NEW FRIEND REV. 420 THUNDERFUCK-BEARER!" Photo of a plate with food on it. "EVERYTHING IN THIS RESTAURANT WAS TOTALLY FREE, EVEN THE DRINKS!" Extreme close-up of Wei smiling. "WEI AND I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF THIS BEACH -- OR THOSE FREE DRINKS!" Blurry streaks of red lights -- some out-of-focus band. "OZRIC TENTACLES ROCKED! WE PARTIED WITH THEM BACKSTAGE RIGHT AFTER THIS SONG." Bad close-up of a gir's face. "YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE THIS DANCE CLUB. SHE WAS WEARING ONLY BODY PAINT AND A BOA CONSTRICTOR!"

But, I didn't.

I think the problem with Psytopia may have been that some of it it was set up based on gentleman's agreements, with little on paper to speak of in the way of contracts. A backer suddenly changed its mind, plus, 20 of the people who signed up never actually got around to PAYING up. Too small a margin for catastrophe, and no insurance against it.

And then there's the "X-DAY JAMAICA" notion which got to burbling in our heads. You must admit, it has a ring to it.