Lesley at Coachella. Photo by Laura Taylor
After reading how much our FOK friend Lesley Arfin hates outdoor festivals we challenged her to face her fear and go to the biggest Coachella ever. We even looked right into her eye-holes super hard and sang lyrics so read on to see what happened...
Palm Springs We Go Hard by Lesley Arfin
In 1994 I went to Lollapalooza. I was 14. I saw The Breeders, the Beastie Boys, Greenday, and probably like Blonde Redhead or Girls Against Boys on the side stage and pretended I liked them. I wore a thrift store dress and got a ride from some 11th grader named Larry. It was on Randall's Island which at the time I had no idea what that was and let's face it, I still kind of don't. The day ended with me wandering around by myself trying to find a ride back home, eventually taking the LIRR with some chick that I really looked up to. I feel asleep with my head in her lap, froze to death on the air conditioned train, and promised myself I would never go to another outdoor music festival again as long as I lived.
Cut to right now. Coachella is over and I just got back to LA after have been in the Palm Springs/Palm Desert/ Indio rock hurricane area known as Coachella. The genius behind me going on this trip is that about a week ago I wrote a whole blog entry about my top 10 least favorite things and #1 on the list was, you guessed it, outdoor music festivals. Everything in my life was going well until my good friends at Kanon Vodka decided they wanted to send me into the hole and watch me claw my way out. The next thing you know I'm making a million phone calls, booking last minute tickets, and emptying the entire contents of my wardrobe on my bed because what the fuck should i bring to Coachella? What should I wear? What shouldn't I wear? I have to go see bands play? Like I have to STAND and watch bands play (something I don't wanna do), I have to figure out where I'm gonna stay, how I'm gonna get a ride, and how self conscious I'm gonna feel in a bathing suit at the Kanon Vodka party. Oh and there's also the little situation known as getting PASSES.Okay, great. Awesome. Let's do this.
DAY ONE
The first day of Coachella had little/nothing to do with Coachella at all. It was kind of a semi-nightmare. I flew into LAX at 1230pm. Got picked up at the airport at around 145pm. Got into the Palm Springs area at...ready...wait for it...745pm. That's right. 7 hours. 7 hours of smoking cigarettes. 7 hours of sitting in traffic. 7 hours of trying to figure out not only directions, but alternate routes, on an iphone that I don't know how to use because I have a blackberry and my thumbs dont know how to work on an iphone. After searching for a Starbucks, only finding a Jamba Juice, 2 bags of chips, 1 banana, and a 1000 cigarettes later we finally made it. We met up with some boys and took them over to the Kanon house which had fresh watermelon juice and a fire pit made out of crystals that someone had definitely purchased from an in-flight magazine. Some heads went to see Jay Z but I had given a friend my VIP pass so she could go cuz she wanted it more. So I missed Jay Z which was a bummer but I was so assed out that the thought of getting back in the car immediately made my muscles lock up. But I heard it was awesome and Beyonce came out with him (shocker) and so yeah, that happened, or didn't happen, for me, and I was totally fine with it. I spent the night fucking around at the Kanon house, talking about music, which is all anyone talks about when they go to Coachella. I guess that would normally be the conversation I would deem as wack, but in this case it was actually really funny and innocent and it's been a long time since I got to tell someone that i liked Pink Floyd (which apparently isn't cool to like anymore. I didn't get the memo!) Eventually I went back to the hotel I was staying at with a bunch of people and pretended like I wasn't tired but I was fucking beat as shit, so the night was a wrap for me around 2am. Everyone was still being loud and drunk and funny and I totally had the hots for some kid, but my brain just could not connect to my mouth responsibly.
Read more by Lesley at Cafe Con Lesley
UPDATE: Read about Lesley Arfin vs Coachella - DAY TWO and DAY THREE.
