TRF: Basking in the glory of nothingness

I have no idea what is going to happen to Tijuana Rumble Fest, all I know is that it happened and it changed me forever. Yes, I am is in serious debt and no profits were made. But there was some success. There was never an accurate count of people that went to the festival, but a large percentage were Americans. A lot of locals made an appearance as well, the idea from the very beginning was to mix the two Californias in art and music again. Being one of the organizers was one of the most difficult tasks I’ve done in my life, that I can’t wait till I can simply be a writer and a concert goer instead of the one behind the scenes.

“I feel…. thin. Sort of stretched, like … butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday. And I don’t expect I shall return. In fact I mean not to.”

For some reason, I feel like Bilbo Baggins did when he let go of the one ring.

Was it worth it?

From the very beginning the only thing I asked for was to enjoy 100 Onces, and I did. Carlo Magaloni came up to me while rocking out to them and gave me a hug “esto es tu mero mole,” he said. That was my only moment when I thought “this was worth it.”

I’m not trying to be condescending to the other bands, but I was too busy with everything else that I can’t give you a full honest review of how you sounded. But from the comments I’ve heard, everyone was fantastic, except the sound engineer who gave us a lot of problems.

It was a true rumble of the egos. Not only between the bands who all wanted the prime spot after there was only one stage, but between the three stage managers, Chad Deal, David Villegas and myself. Managing and trying to please so many talented artists at the same time is next to impossible. I will never see a festival the same way I did before and I applaud all event organizers that somehow manage the unpredictable.

I’ve showered a handful of times since the fest. I still smell like TRF.

And now to add a paparazzi bullshit touch to my post:

50 Cent and Matisyahu just had an AMA on reddit. I’m sure they didn’t read my comments but here’s what happened.
50 Cent was on March 13 of 2009. Fiddy was arriving with his posse from a flight from who the fuck cares. I was reluctant to take his picture, but said fuck it, there’s nothing he can do. He came out of the elevator and pretended to attack me. I yelled out “don’t pull a Kanye on me!” He laughed and got in the limo repeating my joke. Kanye had just attacked a paparazzo friend and it was all over the news, hence the joke.

Matisyahu was a complete accident. It was January 18, 2010 and I was waiting for someone else (I saw Dita Von Teese, Edward Norton and Josh Groban). I saw Matisyahu and thought to myself “fuck yeah, that dude is the man,” I had my camera and snapped away. He was super awesome.