Warped… Over and Out
[Due to little time for editing I apologize for any mistakes in the following]
"That's exactly my next move!" This response to receiving one of Srila Prabhupada's books may not have been delivered with the greatest sincerity but Scott was definitely open to spiritual life. He had seen me holding a JSD, walked over and asked what it was. After making a financial sacrifice for it and chatting with me for a short while he resumed his march in the blazing afternoon sun across Pier 30 that juts out into the San Francisco Bay.
At that time I did not foresee my next move. The next few days had us driving a route that took us through Lake Tahoe, Boise (Idaho), Washington State, Bozeman (Montana), Salt Lake City, and Denver. If you know those places you'll know that that covers a fair amount of distance. By the time I got to Denver I realized that I am not a young man any more and so I decided to abort the Warped Tour and move elsewhere to be able to distribute in one place for the summer. Therefore this e-mail will be my final verbiage on any warped subject.
Back to San Francisco: We had just arrived in the Bay Area from Southern California. I must admit that Southern California was never my idea of a picnic. In fact it's more like a visit to the dentist as distributing books there can be like pulling teeth. I tell many of the kids who frequent Warped shows that essentially what they are doing as punks is very similar to what we are doing as monks — we are both rebelling against materialistic society. But for many who live in the South-West life seems to be one fad after another and for anyone living in the "heaven" known as Southern California, spiritual life with all it's austerities doesn't seem a viable alternative to sun, sea, surf, and whatever else you want from the beach. But where there's a will there's a way so if you are an empowered preacher you can break through and even convince the residents of heaven to take to a wholesome life of austerity for the Supreme Lord. Unfortunately, I am not one of those empowered preachers so I was happy to finally arrive in Northern California. I hope all the Southern Californian Vaisnavas will forgive me for not saying much about our trip there. To be fair though — there were a few good souls in and around LA.
The first obstacle we encountered at Pier 30 (San Fran) was the guy attending the Staff Parking Entrance. The passes we have to enter the show are normally all we need to enter the parking lot where the bands and production crew park. But our friend at the gate kept on asking for a parking permit. He kept questioning whether we had a permit for the L.A Coliseum. Our obvious answer was why would we need an LA Coliseum parking permit for San Francisco? Besides we didn't need a permit in LA so why here? But he kept insisting so we just decided to give ourselves and the guy a peaceful day and park outside.
On the Pier it was loud and hot but the people were nice, making up for my sunburn. I always ask where people are from as it's interesting for me to see what distance someone has traveled to receive Lord Caitanya's mercy. For example, AJ had come all the way from Hilo, Hawaii. Volcanic!
Our next stop was Lake Tahoe a couple of hundred miles east of San Francisco. The show was held at a ski resort in a beautiful natural area. This made for a different atmosphere than the last few Urban shows. Kids arrived early and as we had arrived early too we were able to wander around the parking lot and meet the local folk mainly from Sacramento and Reno (Nevada).
One young man was sitting on the hood of his car with his lady fiend sitting next to him in full lotus position. Caru Candra Prabhu, who teaches yoga in Asia and is expert in getting into virtually any posture, walked up to them and handed over a book to each of them. Caru thought that they must have been yogis in their last life and that they were now ready for Bhakti Yoga. He couldn't have been closer to the truth for they embraced the books and were, in the words of Caru, "Sweet as pie!" He left telling them that they can now learn the breathing and the Mantra to go with the yoga posture.
A few people asked me if I was presenting a religion to them. Most of them obviously asked that question in such a way that if I had confirmed their suspicions of religious friekosity, either by overtly posing as a evangelist or pretending I was not one, they would have dismissed me with a swift movement of the left hand. But I simply answered incredulously with, "I told you I'm a monk — of course it's religious! This answer was so shocking in it's obviousness that many accepted it and took a book or two without argument.
A typical scene at these shows is the multicolored hair thing. Name a color and you'll find someone at a Warped Concert with that color hair — of that there is no doubt. So Caru walked up to a typical scene of four youngsters each with a different color adorning their tops — fluorescent green, pink, blue, and jet-black were the shades of the day. Each received a book and Hairy Krishna. (Ok, I'll stop with the very bad puns)
I walked up to the two meanest looking men at the show. They must have had a combined weight of a ton, wore wrap-around shades with mean macho looks to go with them. Tattoos adorned their bodies and they rode in a big mean lookin' truck. My experience is that the meaner a person looks the softer they are inside. All it takes is that you press the right buttons. My two grizzly bear friends were tattoo artists and the moment they realized that I wasn't a threat to them their faces changed from Tyrannosaurus Rexes to puppy-dawgs. I showed them the Karma picture (the man with a cow's head about to kill the cow with a man's head with an axe) and told them that I know at least three people who have this tattooed on them. One of them looked up at me with big eyes and said that he had seen it too. They both took one! I hope they read.
Phil had also seen the Karma picture before and as I stumbled across him he asked me if I had the book with that picture in it. Fortunately I had just run out of "Journey of Self Discovery's" so he agreed to take a "Quest for Enlightenment" instead. I told him that I was about to make the endless trek back to the van to fill my bag with more books and that if I saw him again I would make a swap with him so that he could have his karma picture. When I wrote the phrase "Fortunately I had just run out of JSDs" a couple of sentences ago it was not a misspelling because later on, inside, among several million people, Krsna led me right up to Phil again (for some reason he was wearing Mardi Gras necklaces [???]) and when I offered the swap he said that he had left the "Quest" in his car so all he could do was offer to buy the JSD too. He told me, "Nothing happens by chance."
Caru was tired in the lot. He leaned up against a car to take a little rest but the owner was nearby and began yelling at him, "What are you doing on my car?" But our angry friend was inquisitive too and added, "What are you selling?" Caru showed him the books and our friend then told him that he could do yoga with his belly. "Look at it", he told Caru as he pulled a "Nauli". A Nauli is when you pull all the organs in your belly up inside your ribcage. Caru told him that he would love one of these books because they show the perfection of nauli. Our friend took two.
Anyone ever heard of Ananda Marga? Well, Caru walked up to one beer drinker and showed him a book or two. An unexpected "Haribol" reverberated through the bottle and your-man, who's into Ananda Marga, bought some good reasons to travel that blissful road with singular vision.
After one lady told Caru that she liked the book he had handed her, she cheaply turned to her-man and asked him to give the monk a dollar. Luckily for her-man he took too long fiddling around in his wallet for that elusive one-dollar bill because when his lady became impatient and lunged for it he got so mad with her that after yanking her hand out of his livelihood, gave Caru four bills instead.
Sometimes people are so spaced out I wonder what they think when they get back to their car after a show and find a Krsna Book sitting there? In America women seem to have amazing mystic powers that make the greatest yogi in the Himalayas seem like a side act. I'm not known to be the slowest driver on earth but in my time I have on numerous occasions been overtaken by ladies driving huge 4,000lb SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) at way over the speed limit on windy roads while at the same time using their rear-view mirror to pluck eyelashes, put on eyeliner, fix their hair, or smother themselves in lipstick. For me it's the most miraculous thing that freeways in America are not littered with broken SUVs and cosmetics. So there's Caru passing two books to two ladies who are extremely busy putting on makeup. The fact that some stranger was at their car window handing them books and saying something to them went completely unnoticed and the books were promptly but unconsciously taken out of Caru's hand and placed out of his reach. Caru then assessed the situation and deeply pondered for a moment on how to get those books back as these ladies were obviously way too preoccupied to notice or interact with the world beyond their mirrors. Caru had no choice but to loudly use the final resort – "Give a donation!!!" Without blinking, incase they smudged something, both ladies pulled out donations and handed them to Caru along with the books. Out of compassion Caru gave them back the books and said to no one in particular, "Enjoy the books".
In the evening the wind started howlin' and the whole place turned into a dust bowl – as when there's no snow there's a lot of dust on the ski slopes. It was time to leave and our next stop was to be near a city called Boise in a land known for its famous potatoes – Idaho. They're so proud of it they even advertise it on their car license plates.
The show at Idaho was plain… so plain it was painful. I'm not going to make it sound better than it was because it seems like many people in that part of the world wouldn't know a deep thought if they sat on it. Still a few people were exceptions to this rule and worthy of mention, including Wayne who knew about the temple in Boise and was all for some deep thinking.
I also met Levidicus (Levi [or Jeans] to his friends). Levi is a Mexican Irish Catholic who was all for a Journey of Self Discovery. And as we're on the subject of names, there was also Gaylan Fridley who's another Irishman with some inclination towards thought.
Idaho: Please forgive me for any offenses.
The Gorge is an Amphitheatre that lies next to a natural gorge in the middle of Washington State. Because of its remoteness many people camp overnight when they go to see a show there.
We parked backstage and distributed to the incoming crowd driving in from Seattle, Spokane, Oregon, Western Montana, Northern Idaho, and even Canada. When I went inside I had to pass Vince who is about 50 years old with a potbelly and works for crowd control. Vince was guarding a gate at the time and asked me if they were cookbooks I was carrying through. It just happened that I had a bunch of Higher Tastes with me. I showed him one and we struck up a pleasant conversation about life the universe and cuisine. He happily took one and Krsna arranged that at various times throughout the day we would meet again and chat.
The Higher Taste was in demand as I also met Laura who had become a Vegetarian from reading that book a year ago. She's now in the process of convincing her friend who bought one from me after Laura explained it to her. In the mean time Caru gave a "Perfection of Yoga" and a "Higher Taste" to a lady who exclaimed, "I'm just starting yoga and I've just become a vegetarian".
The Warped Tour doesn't bring it's own security so sometimes we have to explain to an occasional fervent local security person that we are traveling with the tour. Caru met one such lady and she began vehemently radioing her superiors for information and instructions regarding the intruder. It just turned out that the superior she contacted was Bhakta Vince, my gastronomic friend at the gate, who had become purified by Srila Prabhupada's mercy. Vince just quietened her down and told her, "Let him go. He's a free man. He can do whatever he wants here."
Chris was looking at me with an almost-recollecting type look. The moment he saw the "Journey of Self Discovery" I was handing to him everything connected. "Now I remember who you are! You sold me that book in Camden last year." I always wonder if people actually read these books so I asked him if he had had a chance to read that one. He told me he did and he liked it but his mum had read it after him and liked it even more than he did.
Rolling on over to Bozeman, Montana: As you can imagine not many here had seen the books before. Just as speaking the basic philosophy of Krsna Consciousness to someone new is always very enlivening no matter how many times you have done it – in the same way distributing books in a place where few have seen them before is also very refreshing. We had kids chasing us across the parking lot to get more books. People were coming in from small Montana towns and cities with names like Billings, Rapid Falls, and Butte. If you ask the locals whether they pronounce Butte "Byoot" or "Butt" they'll tell you that it depends on the kind of day they're having.
Last but not least, we arrived in Salt Lake City just a few days after the new temple opened there. I was surprised to hear how many of the local people knew about it. Even the local Mormons are completely favorable about having a beautiful Hare Krishna Temple on their turf. One young man, Brandon, came over to me, bought a set of books, and discussed a little philosophy. He was slightly drunk and was chewing American pan (chewing baccy) but deep down he had respect for Vedic philosophy. He ended up thanking me for "Expanding my horizons."
On that note I end. I was never the most eloquent or learned of speakers but I must admit that recollecting and writing about all these incidents on book distribution has helped me to see things from a deeper perspective and has also served to make me want to go out and introduce more people to this wonderful life that Srila Prabhupada has so kindly given us. Due to my many offenses Krsna has pulled the plug on my traveling and is forcing me to deeply focus on Him and His dear devotees in a proper way rather than continue to obliviously and superficially work only to enjoy the results of service to Him. So my prayer is that through humble respect and service we can all continue to expand our horizons unlimitedly.
Your insignificant Servant
Aisvarya Dasa
