Juggal-Oh No, Not Again
Usually, I wait until the end of the day to start posting non-sports videos, but a friend posted this on my Facebook wall and I just couldn't not write about it.
The citizens of Cave-In Rock, IL will be boarding up their windows once again this year, as The Gathering of the Juggalos will be making its somewhat unwelcome return to their otherwise quiet town. For those of you who aren't familiar with The Gathering, it's a music festival created, booked and headlined by the Insane Clown Posse. If you really want to know more about it, Vice magazine published an incredibly in-depth report on the festival and Juggalo culture as a whole back in 2007. (It's still in my all-time Top Five Vice articles.)
Over the last couple of years, they've also started producing YouTube "infomercials" to advertise the event. The spots are remarkably long by YouTube standards, and look like something that my buddies and I would have done back in Grade 11 film production. I actually thought that the ad for the 2010 Gathering was the absolute pinnacle of weirdness, but I was wrong.
This year's spot is a remarkable 28 minutes long, 11 minutes longer last year's, and seems to be some sort of Star Wars parody. It also stars Vanilla Ice, who will be appearing at the Gathering. Amazingly, they've managed to ad 11 extra minutes to the infomercial, but they still haven't managed to correct the spelling errors that plagued last year's trailer. Not only did they misspell two artist's names — "Juvenile" and "DJ Quik" — they also managed to misspell "camaraderie" for the second straight year.
I understand why all the artists on ICP's Psychopatic Records will be appearing at the gathering. They can't get booked anywhere else. I understand why certain non-Psychopathic artists will be on the bill. Juggalos love both nu-metal and Tech N9ne. I'm totally on board with MC Hammer making an appearance, although he should know that he'll probably get the Tila Tequila treatment.
What I don't get is why guys like E-40, Brian Posehn and George Clinton agreed to fly out to East Jesus nowhere and perform in front of a bunch of people in make-up who will probably spend the whole set spraying them with Faygo. Do these guys owe a ton of money to the IRS and ex-wives, or did Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope just offer them a dump truck full of money? Honestly, there are enough good acts on this year's bill that I would consider going.
You know, if it weren't for all the damn Juggalos.
