Gone Warped… back in six weeks! (1)
Dear Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! In an attempt to send you some reports from my travels on this years Warped Tour I have used an old mailing list so if you do not want to receive these please, please, please reply personally to this e-mail and I will immediately take you off that list. I haven't distributed books or written about it for a while so I am very rusty on both counts plus the tour is very hectic. I welcome critique and chastisement from anyone should you be able to find the time.
Hoping you're all well, I beg to remain…
Your Servant
Aisvarya Dasa
When the dust cloud settled three of us stood and stared in disbelief at the van's right rear wheel that had snugly buried itself and the shredded mortal remains of the tire that had adorned it into the soft Californian desert sand. Krsna always tests our will to remain enthused in His preaching mission.
Kaustubha Prabhu had driven his TSKP van from Dallas to Phoenix to meet Carucandra Prabhu, Caitanya Simha Prabhu, and myself for a journey to both heaven and hell following the Warped Tour for six weeks around the USA. For Kaustubha this was the second tire to explode in three days of desert driving. This time it had happened at 75 mph on the outside lane of a very busy freeway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and as the locals were too busy to slow down and let us park off to the right of the road on the hard shoulder, we had to pull over onto the median and sink into the hot desert sand. So there we were, three exhausted figures in the desert trying to figure out what to do. It wasn't until we had spent 20 minutes digging away sand, planting a jack under the van, and hopelessly trying to get the axle high enough to change the tire that we realized that we had a AAA (Automobile Association of America) card and that there was a roadside phone about 20 feet away.
I truly hope that our missing the obvious presence of that phone was not due to the good ol' fashioned Hare Krsna spaced-out devotee factor but that it was owing to all the hectic schedules we had just undergone. The first show of this year's Warped Tour was in Phoenix, Arizona. Due to the goodwill of Promoter and main-man, Kevin Lyman, we are again distributing books legally at these shows. Over the years Kevin has been the reason for many a soul receiving Srila Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya's mercy in the form of books and prasadam. As he himself has a healthy taste for cookie prasadam he has become very friendly to the devotees and happily gives us back stage passes to distribute freely at the shows every year. So many people have been benefited by Kevin's benevolence that if I had anything but a grade-one Sheffield-Steel-plated heart I would faint. But since I'm not at all devotional I can obliviously blunder my way on show-to-show and try to have some fun. Again, when the Production Crew received a new batch of cookies from us their hearts melted. They live on badly made bhoga for the six weeks the tour lasts so they are so thankful to receive a care package from Govinda once every so often. I'm not exaggerating here!
Caitanya Simha (I will refer to him as the "Simster" from now on) was on fire in the blazing Arizona sun. Due to an unforeseen mishap he had missed his plane from Dallas to Phoenix, caught the next one, and then played Airport tag with the rest of us as we had driven to the show without him, driven back to the airport to try to find him again – passing him on the way as he was trying to catch up with us on a public bus – and eventually emotionally reunited with him back at the concert's parking lot.
If you are unfamiliar with the Warped Tour I wish you the best of luck at trying to form a mental picture of it. The best I can do is suggest that you just try to imagine a huge stadium, racetrack, parking lot, or club with thousands of young people converging on it from all directions at all hours and spending a maximum of eight and a half hours walking from a stage to a vender to a toilet to another stage to a half-pipe (skateboarding platform) to a motorbike ramp to another stage, etc, in a decent attempt to ram their tympanic membrane (eardrum) into their scull or suffer a cerebral meltdown from the pizza-oven like temperatures. Kevin told me that this year's shows are much larger than before so needless to say they are very crowded. Before the gates open many young concertgoers are dropped-off by their parents in order to fulfill their desire of becoming an anarchist for the day. Others turn up at a specific hour to see their favorite hard-core or punk band. Even though I was once a subscriber to this type of music I must now admit that I have turned into an old codger and cannot fully appreciate the subtle intricacies and artistic value of whacking out the same three distorted chords on a guitar since 1977. But these kids think they are here to rebel against a materialistic society that has lost all sense and purpose so these concerts are in many ways a valuable opportunity to inject Vedic knowledge into a receptive generation.
Phoenix was hot at over 100°F. Las Vegas was a little cooler if you consider 97°F to be cool. As I was not going to write anything about this tour I didn't take any notes so I have little recollection of individual incidents but I must admit that I met a few interesting people including one young local lady whose German ex-boyfriend is a big fan of the Higher Taste. Even though she has an impersonalist concept of God she was open to new ideas and accepted that there is a good possibility that God is unlimited and can also have a form. But like Kevin, it was the philosophy of the stomach that won her over and she insisted on taking a Higher Taste along with her Isopanisad and Nectar of Instruction.
If I may take the liberty of generalizing, generally San Diegans are the toughest of people to sell a spiritual book to. But here in Las Vegas the most receptive person I met was from Pacific Beach, San Diego. It's fun to give someone a book with a four-armed Personality printed on the cover and see their faces change from a nonchalant "oh-someone's-handing-me-another-advertising-freebee" look – to a sudden and surprised, inquisitive gaze at the piece of transcendence in their hand. My friend from near the border was so interested that I felt dull in the presence of his enthusiasm. Needless to say I'm sure you know the outcome.
After the Las Vegas show Simster left us for a week, as he had to go back to University in Dallas and take his finals. So three of us were left momentarily suspended in the desert on our way to some r and r in Santa Barbara and then the California shows.
After the tow truck had arrived and pulled the van out of the sand everything was fine and hunky-dory again. Even though this was a very minor incident it did serve to remind me of all the trials and tribulations I had undergone with the old San Diego TSKP van three years ago. In fact we had broken down literally 5 miles away from the same spot four years ago. My thoughts were that sometimes we take devotional service for granted. The good times roll and we ride the crest of the wave of ecstasy. But we all know that we make the most advancement out of how we act in the face of adversity or personal difficulty. And the few times I have dragged my mind screaming out of the quagmire of my material attachments and got a good taste of my insincerity and corrupted nature – those were the times when I actually ended up thinking clearly. I am always in awe of the activities of great souls like H.H. Indradyumna Maharaja who keep going at times when any normal mortal would have long ago called it a day.
Let's see if I can keep this going.
Begging your prayers and blessings…
Your Servant
Aisvarya Dasa
