So after this I’ll post about more important things. Like some really important topics I’ve been thinking about.

• The importance of raising your dog Jewish
• Why True Blood is okay to watch because it has boobs and vampires
• The importance of folding socks outwards so when you unfold them they are ready to wear
• My fear of balding before I have a really hot girlfriend who likes guys who can build computers AND sing the theme song to Duck Tales (oh Duck Tales, don’t you worry, I see how clever your title is now that I’m older…because they are tales of things WITH tails…)

On that note, this is my collection of songs that made me consider being drunk all the time at music festivals. If this is a job, someone please let me know where I send my cover letter, talking about synergy and how I’m a self-starter.

Lollapalooza 2009: Wait, HOW many dumplings do I get for $5??

Yeah. that’s a picture of me jumping. Why? Why not, I ask you…

• People love throwing water bottles around in the crowd like grenades without the top open. To this I say…please just open the bottle first. Things I like when it’s 100 degrees out and I’m hallucinating due to heat stroke: getting pelted with freezing cold water. Things I do not like when it’s 100 degrees out and I’m hallucinating due to heat stroke: getting pelted with a cold-ish object that just kind of hurts when it hits my head. Thanks, dude in the front row! You’ve already made your point that your spot at the show is better, now you have punched me in the face from a REALLY far ways away. Impressive, not gonna lie.

• Guys who bring a guitar into Lollapalooza should not be allowed to have friends. Really, guy? You brought a guitar into a MUSIC FESTIVAL? I’m pretty sure they hired 200 bands to do that. Do you also attend sporting events in full pads while wearing a helmet just in case they need you in there on 3rd down? This is not going to get you laid. Stop it.

• Neon colors/Neon Wayfarer Ray-Bans Are Trendy right now. Like, really trendy. Almost to the point where if you didn’t own a pair, people pointed at you and laughed at how stupid you were for not getting the attractive and fashion forward music follower memo. I own a pair, but they aren’t of any color…therefore, mine were fairly worthless. I was even feeling good about them going into the show. Once I got in, it’s like I was wearing mom jeans or something. So that was cool.

• People have no idea what decade it is anymore. It could be 1992 or 1987. Seriously, no idea. Girls are leading to most of this confusion, as they have literally just thrown out all guidelines on what to dress like anymore. It’s like hundreds of thousands of Lisa Turtle’s and Kelly Kapowski’s running around with headbands on and gold leggings that sparkle. With neon sunglasses. I’m so confused on whether or not I should be attracted to them or angry that we just gave up on creating any form of new way to dress. I mean, when people dress in “2000’s” style years from now, won’t it be confusing that they just dress in a potluck of 80’s and 90’s fashion? YOU DID THIS, AMERICAN APPAREL! Anybody agree with me on this? Bueller? (Nevermind, they were almost all attractive, so I’m fine with it.)

• Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of The Killers, is better looking than most girls. Seriously.

• Dudes with intense back hair refuse to wear shirts. I sincerely don’t get this trend. Look, man. I know it’s hot. I know you even appear to work out regularly, enough so that I have to kind of non-heterosexually qualify this statement for you briefly. But weren’t you hanging out on maybe the Wednesday before the show this weekend, got in the shower and thought, “Man, weather guy said it’s going to be 100 degrees this weekend. Should I shave the gorilla hair growing on my back in odd patches? Especially that awkward portion leading down towards my ass? Yeah. I’ll stick with it. Chicks LOVE that look.”

• The guys from Vampire Weekend have got to be feeling pretty good about things right now. They could pour water into a tin can while yelling random piglatin and I’m pretty sure 40,000 people would show up to hear it and then write about how they are the future of music. But seriously? Those guys are pretty amazing.

• People from the Midwest are genuinely the nicest people I’ve ever met. You could yell profanities at them while kicking them in the shins and they’d just smile and ask if you’d like a burrito, some beer or some of their marijuana. I went to this show with about 15 people I’ve never met before in my entire life, and I’m pretty sure they just acted like I was someone’s cousin and accosted me with awesome. Thank you, Grosse Pointers.

• The really attractive girls attend the sad-sap singer songwriter sets. It’s like finding a little field full of supermodels. Go here, but do not bring a guitar like the douche mentioned above. Just be a vulture, swoop in, and talk to any girl at all. You just won at life. You’re welcome.

• That guy who looks terrible and like he may pass out any minute in front of you? That’s definitely the guy tearing ass over and over again. Without question. He’s just not fooling anyone.

• The most annoying trend on the planet is the use of cell phone light as a replacement for lighters calling for encores. What are we going to do next, guys? Hold up our laptops and adjust our tape around our Urkel glasses? You’re killin’ me, smalls. (Bonus points if you understand that reference. Just in life, in general. Bonus Points.)

• If you ever go to Lollapalooza, go to the Chinese food tent and order the dumplings. Five dollars gets you one billion trillion dumplings. There is no way they were turning a profit. It’s like continuously walking up and paying five dollars for fourteen steaks. It just doesn’t seem cost efficient for them. However, my belly thanks you, Chinese food tent.

• Bud Lite Lime is okay for about 2 cans. That is all any human being can take of this beverage. They should sell it in grocery stores in 2-packs that say, “don’t worry, seriously, that’s all you’re gonna want…just by the cube of bud heavy, sir.”

• Midwestern guys always wear boardshorts with underpants underneath them. Maybe this is because I’m from California, but let me go over this for you guys. It’s a swimsuit. Do you wear underpants under your swimsuit? No? Because that doesn’t make any sense? Okay. So now let’s take this knowledge bomb I just dropped on you and apply it to the rest of your life. Stop wearing underpants under your swimsuit. It’s one or the other.

• No matter how hard you try, they haven’t invented flying shoes and you cannot see 200 bands. It’s just literally impossible and really frustrating sometimes. It’s okay if you miss that one band that pitchfork said you have to see because they sound terrible and dress poorly. Just go see the band that you, ya know, like. Calm down, hipsters.

• Wear sunscreen when it’s 100 degrees out.

• If you drink 8 beers before 2pm, you’re going to be peeing a lot. A lot. You did this to yourself, Drew. You did this to yourself…

• If there is a band that looks like you should be on drugs and dance to them while light shows are going off and the sound is making you laugh uncontrollably out of happiness…go to that show. My biggest victory this year was dancing so white-boy-hard with three other people that we got HIPPIES to ask if they could join us. After I just wrote that down, I realized that I’m not sure this actually is a victory in any way. But it sure felt like one.

Moral of the story, it was an amazing weekend. Thanks to everyone that I got to spend time with. That’s the best vacation I’ve had in a while. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go shower for fourteen days straight.

And now, the best picture I took of one of the many awesome midwesterners I met who had passed out. No, seriously, this is before noon I think.

So, I’m usually against music festivals. Just kind of on principal. Not because I’m a “real music fan” or any pretentious crap like that. But because they are overwhelming and basically cause me to be Clark Griswald from the Vacation movies. Here is the train of thought going through anyone’s head at a music festival:

• MY GOD it’s hot/MY GOD it’s cold. I wish I brought my fucking jacket/I wish I didn’t bring my fucking jacket.
• Wait, how much is a beer? Oh, cool, 19 dollars? What are my selections? 3 oz Heineken or 4 oz ‘premium’ Heineken? Perfect. No, I mean, that’s fair.
• I have to pee. Where are the bathrooms? Oh, conveniently located through that corn maze? Wait, what? I have to go through an obstacle course? Did that guy just come out of there with puke on him? Why is he wearing a helmet?
• No, I don’t want to offset my carbon footprint for 13 dollars. Why are you accusing ME of being the asshole who has to offset his carbon footprint? Why don’t you have to also? No, that doesn’t seem sketchy at all that I just give you some money and that “saves the earth” entirely. Why are we fighting, ironic “at the earth destroying music festival in the park” carbon offset man? WHAT DOES THIS ALL EVEN MEAN?
• Yes! My favorite band is playing! They are just 1.2 miles away, through the brush field, beyond the cool-down tent, and the organic trade festival marketplace (where I should definitely BUY shit right now, since I have so much STORAGE for this while I’m at a music festival..?), and then it’s just over there on the 13th stage. The one with 50,000 people watching. I think we can catch one song, kinda sorta!
• Good thing I took drugs. It’d be one thing if I was in a large, chaotic park atmosphere where I can easily get lost while I can’t control my unreal paranoia…PHEW…hey is that a polar bear? Did you guys see that polar bear?!? RUN.

Soooo…now that I’ve whined for a bit (what’s new), I bought a ticket for Lollapalooza this year in Chicago. You know why? Because secretly, I kind of love every reason I just listed up there. The whole experience can be so gratifying in some backwards way.

Here’s the thing: my favorite stories in life are from the times when I went to something like this in some mass hysteria of a crowd. Because people like telling you about the time they saw Radiohead and they walked by their boss in the MIDDLE of the crowd the MINUTE the drugs were kicking in (totally hypothetical again). And they love to laugh about the time they saw the girl hula-hooping and wanted to make fun of the dirty hippie, but then thought she was kind of hot and instead tried to hook up with her. Or the time they crouched in the corner with their friend eating funnel cakes, laughing about how they only seem to sell funnel cakes at sporting events, mass drug taking events and dirty carnivals or theme parks. See? These are good memories.

And sure, you get these memories by spending an outlandish amount of money and getting dehydrated for like three days straight. It’s confusing, just like how the hypercolor t-shirt works. But isn’t that kind of why you love it? Because pretentious white music fans LOVE to complain while at the same time having the time of their lives. It’s like music festivals were made for the website stuff white people like. And I’m so fine being that cliché.

So when I saw the lineup this year, I peed my pants and bought a ticket without thinking about how I will get there or where I will stay (because i’m logical). Because it’s a great excuse to go fly to Chicago and kinda-sorta see seventy some bands. And watch people like this exist. And seriously, the amount of bands I like at this thing is just silly and makes me want to put on my rocket shoes, high five God and then go play skee-ball (because that game brings me pure joy…pure joy).

Since I apparently have too much free time on my hands, I have put together an absurd compilation of close to every band playing at the show this year. I left out people who I am afraid of (Tool), people who bother me when I realize that I would have liked them when I was in college (Asher Roth), and people who just should have thought a little harder before they made this their band name (Thenewno2. This band name is not okay). Otherwise, go ahead and blow your mind. I’ll be busy trying to draw up a map for how to get around the festival and then convince myself that this doesn’t make me a terrifying, anal-retentive individual. The festival IS four months away!

(I’m not really doing that, I’m eating pistachioes! HA! See how I tricked you? GOD I’m good)

The LollapaOHMYGODza Compilation: Because If You Aren’t Terrified of How Good This Lineup Is, You Are Tacky And I Hate You