Some of Humboldt’s Lesser Known Festivals
Well, its festival season again. Of course you’re going to Summer Arts and Music Festival, The Gaia Festival, Reggae on the River, Blues on the Bay, The Oyster Festival, North Country Fair and Burning Man, but keep these lesser known festivals in mind for those off-weekends, when you’ve got a few hundred extra bucks and nothing better to do:
The Gopherville Gopher Festival- June 30-31 This two day festival at the Gopherville Community Center, celebrates all things gopher. From the “Garden Gopher Roundup” to the gopher cook-off, you’ll see live gophers in their natural habitat, hear their pitiful screams as they get brutally slaughtered en-mass, and taste their delicious succulence as the areas best chefs compete to become to become the this year’s “King of Barbecued Gophers.” Two stages feature the best in regional underground music and 35 gopher themed craft booths include everything from gopher fur hoodies, to gopher lawn sculptures, to beautiful gopher tooth jewelry. In “Pups World”, children can pet live gophers in a petting zoo, make gopher masks, or play in the 3 acre subterranean tunnel maze. $80 for adults, $35 for children under 12, tickets include overnight camping on site.
This year, two festivals that previously competed with each other for attendees, because they both happened on the same weekend, have combined forces to create a single event that’s sure to make a big impact on the North Coast. In 2011, the “Manilla Mid-Summer Meth-Fest” and Samoa’s “Smack Daze” will combine forces to create The Humboldt Hard-Drug Hoedown. This festival promises to bring hard drug dealers and users from all over the country to the one-and-only festival of its kind in the U.S. Held at the Samoa Speedway with camping at the Dunes Boat Ramp and Campground across the street. Deep in the tsunami hazard zone, this location is almost a two hour walk from the nearest high ground. We’ll all hope for the best for this new event. It all takes place the first full weekend in August, tickets for the first Humboldt Hard-Drug Hoedown are free.
Reggae of the Right- With massive corporate sponsorship, and a huge volunteer staff of Christian fundamentalists, this festival has grown to mega-proportions in recent years. While many among the volunteer staff find the billowing clouds of ganja smoke, open drug use and uninhibited sexual activity, embarrassing, they are all happy to see so many young people embracing the violently anti-gay, anti-woman message of reggae music. Reggae of the Right prides itself on bringing only the most violent misogynous, homophobic reggae artists from around the globe, including a number of fugitives. “For security reasons, we cannot release the lineup for this year’s festival” the website proclaims “But we go to great lengths to bring attendees the worlds most wanted reggae artists.” Da riddems are hot, the lyrics are hard to understand, and the vibes are Irie, so come out to Rio Dell for Reggae of the Right on July 10, 11 and 12. tickets cost just one roll of quarters (40 pieces of silver).
With all of the festivals going on in the area, you should probably spend every weekend this summer wandering around an open field, getting drunk and sunburned while listening to a band you never heard of play through an awful sounding PA in broad daylight. Really, what else are you gonna do with what’s left of your life?
