Folked Over at the Duncan Folk Fest: Ripped Off Again!

PEJ News - janine bandcroft - today i've decided the best thing i can do is practice non-attachment (mostly because there's no one to kick the shit out of, but if you find them, send them my way... )  aaaaahhhhooohoohoohmmmmmmm. luckily they didn't get my wallet or keys, and i had chosen to leave my computer at home. but everything else except my hammock and what was inside it, and my shoes, remained. 

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ripped off again, naturally

janine bandcroft

PEJ News
July 22, 2006

i've been ripped off again, and this time at the folk festival.  i hate it when my illusions are shattered.

i lost my phone book, and my day book, and my camera (the only thing really of value to anyone else), and my toothbrush and everything else that i took camping to the islands folk fest near duncan. clothes & food (though i had decided to do the master cleanse for ease and economics over the weekend so they've got a bunch of maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper) and, worst of all, my frisbee.

this is particularly saddening.  it was a very special frisbee - i attained it in the early 90s when in austin texas.  my friend and i were at a birthday party celebration for marcus garvey.  do you know who marcus garvey is?  i didn't either.  and no surprise - he was a learned black man.  i learned he was a philosopher who influenced martin luther king jr. and malcolm x and the like.  he was around in the early part of the 20th century, if memory serves, and i paid ten dollars for a very sturdy frisbee with a large blue peace sign on it.

i've told that story to many people, who've admired that frisbee over the years.  it served me well, my marcus garvey peace frisbee - just this past weekend, at the vancouver folk festival, i used it as a plate when the kitchen tried to force styrofoam on us (because, apparently, the dishwasher broke).  i played a good round with some young lads out in centre field, dodging the soccer players and festival wanderers.  and i held it high above my head and danced when the new lost city ramblers sang "you're going to miss me when i'm gone," blissfully unaware of the recent horrors being bestowed upon
the latest victims of the american/israeli/chinese money/military machine.  (and for you theif/stalker/pervert types, no i wasn't naked and no, i wasn't on the mainstage).

today i've decided the best thing i can do is practise non-attachment (mostly because there's no one to kick the shit out of, but i you find them, send them my way ...)  ooooooooaaaaahhhhhhmmmmmmm. luckily they didn't get my wallet or keys, and i had chosen to leave my computer at home.  but everything else except my hammock and what was inside it, and my shoes, remained.  it all happened within 2 or 4 hours - i set up camp, wandered around the festival, returned to the camp a couple of times and the stuff was all gone just before the main stage started for the evening.  imagine my surprise.

so i told the first security person i could find, way up beyond the camping area (their jobs are to protect the festival but there's no presence either camp, that i know of) and then i told a couple other security people, and the information tent where the lost and found is, and the volunteer tent, and a musician near the mainstage (since i couldn't find the mc), and a couple of friends i crossed paths with, and thankfully joan was packing up the wilderness committee tent early for the night because she had food poisoning from a chicken burger (though i'm not thankful for that) so i got a ride back to victoria and was in the door by 9 o'clock with what remained of my possessions.  this isn't supposed to be how a folk festival should end.

angry paragraph:  why do beer tents change environments so much? i'll bet there are yahoos who jump onto the free shuttle bus from duncan and head for the folk fest.  and if there wasn't a beer tent they wouldn't bother going at all.  festivals attract a certain crowd, beer tents attract certain others.  i sometimes drink beer, but i'm a happy drunk. not everybody is, and folk festivals ought to be places where children learn what life could be like if people were to use their imaginations and work cooperatively.  they can see stupid angry sentimental drunken people anytime.  with a beer tent on site, shouldn't there be security for the entire grounds?  it would make more jobs for volunteers.  just one or two people hanging out in the camping areas would make all the difference.  and those folk would have the opportunity of the life-altering experience that festivals are. 

but the people around duncan are used to theft, i suppose.  they have to look at that awful mountain, well, on sunny days they can see it.  you know the one i mean, the one that's been so artistically sheared.  a few clumps of trees here, and few clumps there, and the rest a designer clearcut.  if that's not theft, i'm not sure what is.  why do they let it happen?

and that's the second time i've had stuff stolen at that folk fest. last time was 4 or 5 years ago.  i put my waist belt to the side while i danced, and when i went to pick it up it was gone.  that time i did lose my wallet and keys.  i guess i'm just not meant to be at providence farm.

so this morning i went to the moss street market for food for david white's life celebration tomorrow (he died, i hear, from having a heart attack after eating a bad oyster from fairway's) and then downtown to scan the thriftstores for replacement products.  i saw glenn and alwin having their morning coffee outside the yates' st. market and stopped to share my woeful tale.  they had much sympathy, as have others, one guy who stopped to talk to them said it's a real drag when they take your backpack and that's all you own.  he said he's tempted to put a sign on his saying that he's homeless and please just leave his stuff alone because that's all he owns in the entire world. 

i totally understand.  when i pack to go to festivals, i take everything i'd need, basically, to travel around the world. it's a big drag to lose all that.so we counted our blessings.  in some places they bulldoze your entire house!  and we're not in lebanon.  and nobody raped me in my hammock.  it could always be worse.


janine bandcroft has been encouraged by government towards anarchy.

the victoria street newz ( http://www.communitypipe.org/streetnewz )
and the 'winds of change' radio hour ( http://cfuv.uvic.ca or
http://PEJ.org ) and a weekly peace, earth, and justice events
e-bulletin are her creative, non-violent, acts of resistance. 

janine does her best to honour a vow of poverty and simplicity, living
gently upon the earth.

[ed.'s post script: As many of you know, Janine publishes the Victoria Street Newz street newspaper. At great cost in time, effort, and dollars, she's maintained the paper for more than two years, providing much needed information to Victoria, and much needed financial assistance to the vendors. The lost camera represents an essential element in the production of the news, as is obvious, and I appeal to those fans of the paper, and her other community media work, to consider contributing to the nascent "Keep Street Newz Visible" campaign. If you wish to help, cheques written to victoria street newz will be deposited in the bread and roses collective account and distributed by a board of directors back to the victoria street newz (which is currently the b & r collectives' sole project.  the b & r collective is (person)dated to "relieve poverty and advance educational opportunities for socially disadvantaged and/or economically marginalized people.")  the bread and roses account is at vancity.com - #484824, branch 42.  the street newz mailing address is 1027 pandora avenue, victoria bc, v8v 3p6. - lex]