Zoop 2 as seen through the eyes of my girlfriend

This is my ZoopII experience.

I will admit I had never really listened to the Mountain Goats prior to meeting Michael/Juggatard. I had heard of them/him years ago but the few people who had suggested it were desperately trying to be indie and obsessed with bright eyes & similar, being a metalhead I had little interest in primarily acoustic music. Having grown out of my RAWR METAL ONLY phase, Michael's impressive collection of tMG appealed to me and changed my opinion. The month leading up to and the the drive to ZoopII, tMG was all we listened to. Having spent nearly every summer of my life in upstate New York and attended hundreds of shows/events/etc, I believed it would be an average trip. As it were, seemed more like an adventure when it was over.

The ride up was stressful, and our directions lead us there on obscure routes. We arrived later in the day after it had begun to lightly rain, and set up. Upon successfully setting up the ridiculous tent that hadn't been touched since last year's camping trip we began attempting to relax after being cooped up in a car with a smelly, flaky hippie for over 6 hours. We walked around the farm and Michael told me all about his experiences and memories of ZoopI. Forgive me, I'm terrible with names and from this point on, anyone I met will be referred to as I remember them. Which probably isn't their name.
After a trip to the local deliverance-like town store [where they sold beer, tires, old cigarettes and light bulbs] we started drinking and organizing our belongings. Around this time I met Colin and his girl, both of which were super awesome and some other people, including a very serious guy with a porno mustache, a blond dude with a camera who didn't seem to like Michael much and of course, John himself if only for a brief moment. By this point, nearly all of the beer we brought from RI is gone and we're drinking the Pabst we got in hickville. I've made friends with the farm cat.

I don't remember much of Samson's performance, other then noticing Michael was getting hyped and the creepy hippie was trying to hook up with random guys.
Peter Peter Hughes, whom I regret to admit I had not heard of before, preformed an excellent set of music in the same vein as several of my favorite musicians. This when I noticed boy with the awesome hat, who offered me some lovely whiskey. I hadn't noticed he had offered Michael the bottle as well, and would have objected had I known. Michael can drink a good amount of beer, but following it with strong whiskey was probably not the best choice. He of course, was too drunk to realize that. Michael is drunk and the stinky hippie is nowhere to be found.
Not that I minded the last part.
After the awesome Mr Hughes performed, I spoke to John who is far more charismatic and genuine then I could have imagined. He too noticed Michael was drunk, and encouraged him to hold off for a bit. This is probably around the time I starting handing over our Pabst to John, with the intention of running out before "I'm-not-drunk!" Michael could find them.
I loved the set and was thrilled by the performance as a whole, as well as hearing a few songs I really enjoyed. I chose to skip the last song, in favor of some fresh air and sat outside on the deck rail. Not too long after, Michael found his way to me. I had been drinking, so I don't really remember when boy with the hat, camera guy or the strange Russian girl who slept in our tent showed up, but John soon came to join us as well, and I continued to shove beer into his lap.

I believe this is when things went from being typical, to really strange.

I had already been sitting outside at the fire when everyone began to gather around the fire. I was freezing cold and pretty drunk by this point, and content to be in New York amongst other happy/drunk people. When Michael wandered over, Colin had begun to play thus sparking a sing-a-long. Not too soon after John came out to correct Colin and played "How to Embrace a Swamp Creature", a favorite of mine. Having seen the video I didn't know was recorded then, I find it mildly amusing that Michael & I are pretty much the only people visible besides John.

After John retired and the group began to die down, I wandered back to the tent to sleep off the drunk, leaving Michael behind. Upon returning to my tent, I found the random Russian girl sleeping and listening to the nutcracker on repeat. I crawled up in my flimsy sleeping bag and tried to ignore the nutcracker hell and snoring hippie outside. Maybe a half hour or so after I fell asleep, Michael found his way back to the tent and collapsed beside me.
I went back to sleep, and a half hour later awoke to him getting up. Or so I thought. Still drunk and practically sleeping, he tried to stand up and was prevented from doing so by the tent. Completely unaware, he decided his sleeping bag and pillow were as good of a place as any to relieve himself, and began pissing everywhere.
Still in nutcracking bliss, I think the Russian girl was oblivious. I started yelling and trying to find my glasses. Almost immediately after he decides to lay right back down, and despite being nearly blind I grab the wet stuff and throw it outside. Sober, wet and really annoyed I grabbed my backpack, glasses and left him my own sleeping bag then headed back to the hippie's car, wanting desperately to change and sleep. Instead I froze my ass off for 6 hours until the sun rose using a dirty beach towel and the dirty hippie's sweater as blankets. Giving up on even trying to sleep, I fixed my makeup, rested my head against the window and tried to ignore the fact that I had forgotten my cigarettes in the tent and did not want to go outside, no matter how badly I needed nicotine. Not even 15 minutes later Michael arrived, having searched the farm looking for me, with very little memory of the night before after leaving the fire. So with less then an hour of sleep, I began day two of ZoopII.

The flaky hippie tells me it is imperative that we leave after the show, for some ridiculous reason he hadn't disclosed previously. I have to tell strange Russian girl [who won't make eye contact with me anymore, probably was awake] that we can't stay again, like we originally had said we would and should we have to find someone else to crash with. I'm pretty sure at this point, she hates us. She said something in Russian, walked away and I never saw her again.
Hippie is being flaky and complains of a headache all morning. I tell him to sleep all damn day if it means he'll be ready to drive all night. At this point I'm slightly irritable, and the vegan jerky which I consumed pounds of in my drunken haze was tearing my stomach apart. So, I had the breakfast of champions. Warm, flat beer and a cigarette.
We relax near the tent for a bit and clean up, packing up whatever we wouldn't need. Hippie continues to be an annoying drag and I decide not to drink again.
An epic adventure lasting us a few hours resulted from wandering in the woods stoned and following a stream wanting to find a river/lake to swim in. By this point I'm mildly hallucinating from dehydration, exhaustion and lack of sleep/food [& am convinced something in the forest wants to eat me]. By the time we get back to the farm, the hippie has gone from annoying to risking a fist sandwich and we ditch him. Wanting to swim even more, we go into the Watkin's Glenn town with the intention of exploring the local "gorge" with Colin and his girl.
Having been upstate countless times, I had been looking forward to a river, dam, or lake and was highly disappointed to find a man-made hiking trail of stacked stale rocks which resembled a sewer drain more then a swimming area. At some point Colin went off to get a tattoo. I'm further into my exhausted haze and the people working in the tattoo shop make me nervous, having more fingers then teeth, overalls and a thick hick slang [they too may want to eat me]. By this time I'm out of cigarettes and smoking potent pure tobacco, which gives me a head rush every time.
I convince Michael to get ice cream, and we sat in the creepy town while Silent Hill-like alarms went off on seemingly 15 minute intervals, driving into my head like a rusty nail.
At some point we found Colin and headed back to the farm. With the hippie nowhere in sight, we sat in on the Q&A, where I discovered John was a metalhead and gained new admiration for him.

Before John began the request set, the hippie was passed out in his tent with his feet protruding. I then proceeded to dump all my empty cans from the night before into his tent. I'm not sure why, probably because he was "That guy" who wasn't enjoying Zoop and generally being a jackass to us the entire time [partly because I was pretty delusional at this point]. The entire show was excellent, and I loved every second of it. After California Song, Michael and I said our thank yous and good byes to everyone.
An hour or so later we were on the road headed home. Michael had already passed out in the backseat, and I faded in and out in the passenger seat. The stinky, lame hippie was driving.
I'm going to stop here and briefly explain that I had lost my license almost 6 months prior to ZoopII, and hadn't driven since then. It was intended that Michael would trade off with the hippie half way.
45 minutes into the drive, I felt the car drift off the road and vibrate loudly on the grooved embankment. For a brief second I felt the headlight brush the guardrail and immediately woke up and demanded he stop the car. I love Michael dearly, but you couldn't wake him if the car was on fire and upside down. Once he's asleep, he's dead to the world.
So I got behind the wheel and attempted to ignore an oncoming anxiety attack. In order to prevent myself from falling asleep in my extreme state of delusion and exhaustion, I blasted the only cd we had, a 20+ song burn mix of old, rare or live tMGs songs. I had not eaten, slept or drank anything besides beer in two days, and had run out of cigarettes/tobacco before we left. Unable to locate our directions or map, I drove 6 hours in the dark by memory alone, convinced I was driving a spaceship down the Mass turnpike.

All in all, ZoopII was probably the most metal experience of my life.