Fear and Loathing at Bonnaroo

They (whoever they are) advertise Bonnaroo as an experience, and that it is. What was my first Bonnaroo trip contained some of the worst and greatest moments in recent memory, and I tend to have a lot of both.

Living in the middle ground is for the barely living. I, in good conscience, couldn’t cover an event like Bonnaroo without experiencing it in the way the average attendee would.

To avoid possible issues with things I may have ALLEGEDLY done, I will henceforth use the word cattywhompus. Cattywhompus is defined as disarray and seems more or less appropriate for the trip’s adventures. It quite simply would have been irresponsible not to be irresponsible.

I was somewhere outside of Centeroo when the cattywhompus began to take hold. My second full day of Bonnaroo was coming to a close and I was hot, hurtin’, and tired.

The best way to remedy it was picked up along the mile walk from camp to Centeroo. I decided that the Bonnaroo lifestyle would either kill you or turn you into a psychedelic Bear Grylls if you lived every day like it was Saturday in Manchester.

I looked down for a second and spotted the Thursday edition of the Bonnaroo Beacon, tattered and smeared with mud, and it pulls me back to the beginning of the trip I neglected to start from in the first place.

I arrived in Manchester, Tenn., at about 8 a.m. Thursday, well ahead of traffic. I start toward Bonnaroo.

I can actually almost see it. It was the closest I’d come to seeing Bonnaroo for more than 10 hours. This would be what they call a “low point.”

A cop was directing all traffic onto the interstate and away from Bonnaroo. The radio DJ would eventually politely explain that Manchester received so much rain the night before that it was slightly flooded; they were doing everything they could to make the Bonnaroo mud drivable. This polite update would not stop me from hating him.

Friday morning, I open my eyes at 7:30 to find them being punched in their little eye faces by light.

I am covered in sweat with a certain girl wrapped around me. This would come to be a watermark of the ‘Roo experience, as you simply cannot sleep past 8 a.m. because it gets so incredibly hot.

I could talk about the music but it was quite secondary to the experience.

I missed half the bands I cared about seeing, but wandered upon many more I’d never heard of because I was too hot and tired to walk across Centeroo. Bonnaroo was more about how much abuse you can take and still keep going while listening to whatever jam band or indie sensation you happen to be walking by on the way to find some way to cool off.

When in Rome you must do as the Romans, but at Bonnaroo you must cattywhomp and wander around. Just not during the day, or you might die; yes, cattywhompus did just evolve into a verb.

You take the good with the bad and that’s Bonnaroo, because the experiences you miss make way for the ones you never saw coming.

You will meet folks, cattywhomp with them, and never lay eyes on them again. You will walk eight miles a day. You will wander the humid Bonnaroo nights with an appreciation for all the lights you probably shouldn’t normally have.

It’s a coin toss. It’s an experience. For better or worse, it’s Bonnaroo, and I would probably do it all over again.

Maybe with a hotel room though. Nah. But maybe.

Oh yeah, and one last thing to take away from Bonnaroo: Stevie Wonder still got it. Just saying.

The Newhouse Brickhouse

College Football Gets Shook Up

Even though the college football season ended seven months ago, the action in the offseason has been just as intense.

Once a fairly organized system, the landscape of college football was up for grabs this summer.

Athletic directors, coaches, and supporters became major players in a poker game that would decide the setting of the sport for the years to come.

However, the talk of expansion came and went without any of the major players making a colossal move.

Still, there are conferences and schools that are better off by the deals that were made, and there are those looking for answers after being blindsided by the deals of the sport.

The former Big 12 follows underneath the blindsided category. At the end of the college football season, Big 12 powerhouse Texas and the rest of the conference seemed to be headed in a positive direction.

However, the arrow of fortune switched for the Big 12 as the Big 10 (which had 11 teams) came calling for a 12th member to join.

Nebraska was the first pin to drop in the college football domino effect. The Cornhuskers accepted the Big 10’s bid to join the conference and gave the conference the ability to create a championship game.

Nebraska benefited by joining a conference that was closer to the rest of the universities. Also, with Nebraska football on the rise, the Cornhuskers should be steady contenders in the weaker Big 10.

Colorado was the next chip to fall as they headed west to the Pac-10. Colorado always seemed distant in terms of location in the Big 12, and a fresh start could be what the Buffaloes need to be relevant again.

The Pac-10 also benefited by adding the Denver television market to its conference.

However, the biggest move in this historic conference expansion could be one that wasn’t made. With the Pac-10 looking to expand to 16 teams, the Big 12 looked to be on life support.

With all eyes on Texas, the Longhorns flirted with the Pac-10, but ultimately decided to stay in the 10-team Big 12. Texas’ refusal saved the Big 12 for now, but also reinforced the fact the Longhorns are powerful and elite enough to save an entire conference.

Conference expansion had other notable moves as well.