If you search the web, you won’t find any reference to Hempstock (at least I couldn’t) so I doubt that it still happens (if indeed it ever really did) but something did happen… there was a happening, on that drugged out Labor Day weekend in 1992 (or was it in 1989 or 90… 91?) Well, whatever and whenever it was, it still lies somewhere in the wild, tangled web of my often misplaced memory.

Let’s see how much of it I can access now, shall we?

Oh, but you will find a web reference to Weedstock. The official website (weedstock.com) is no longer there, but a Facebook site operated by the Delaware branch of NORML is, and it’s loaded with info about their annual event in support of marijuana law reform. The festival is held on Memorial Day weekend (or around that time) and back when my post-modern hippie (my term) friends told me about Hempstock, (held on Labor day) they said it was sponsored by the same people who did Weedstock.

On their Facebook page, you can see that Weedstock was in Townsend, Delaware this year, but what I experienced so many years ago, took place on First Nation land (probably HoChunk) just outside of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. My friends assured me that since we wouldn’t be on US soil, the cops couldn’t touch us and all we had to worry about was getting past em on the way in and out of the place.

My friends told me a lot of things.

I don’t know how much they knew about it all really. I believe my post-modern hippie friends were far more interested in the experimental-experiential, rather than socio-political aspects of these two events and that for them, the most important thing was that they functioned as way stations between the east and west coast Grateful Dead shows.

In fact, Wild Alice’s best friend Nicole had been touring with the west coast shows all summer and I happened to be at their place in Minneapolis picking up some weed when she called to announce that she had just dropped The Caveman off at his place and was on her way over.

“And she’s bringing a couple of dirty boys with her” said Alice smirking as Alice would do.

Alice and Nicole personified the post-modern hippie, in my humble opinion. They both had that flower-child/hell-spawn dichotomy going which created an aesthetic dissonance just way too attractive for their own good and had a habit of collecting guys without even trying so the dirty boys Nicole had picked up touring the west coast shows were no surprise at all.

But they were of interest.

Apparently, Von and Rahim had been touring with The Dead non-stop for eight or nine years. They appeared to be in their late twenties and I had no reason to doubt the validity of their claim. Everything they said and did confirmed that they were authentic examples of Deadhead culture as I had imagined it and I couldn’t avoid sliding into armchair psychologist mode as they both took seats on Alice and Nicole’s couch across from me and the nervous, business-like drug dealer who’d just sold Alice and I our respective supplies of attitude adjustment for the coming weekend.

Alice sparked a fatty and passed it to me before disappearing into another room with Nicole to get the details of some fight she and the Caveman were having, and us boys were left to attend to the business of catching one, on our own. For a while we sat in silence, checking each other out, holding our breath. The nervous drug dealer broke the silence.

Looking at Von he said, “So, you guys were at the LA shows right?” He took another hit as Von looked back with no indication he’d heard or understood. The Drug dealer continued undaunted, and spoke in that unavoidably strained voice you have when trying to talk while simultaneously trying to hold in a lungful of pot smoke (why do people do that?)

“So tell me, what are sheets going for in LA these days?”

Von remained silent for several moments. He looked both perplexed and slightly annoyed and then he accepted the joint from me, looked at the ceiling and said, “Man, I don’t pay for drugs” and the conversation was over. Rahim snickered a bit and I sat there marveling at the cultural gulf that I’d just witnessed open up between these two. This was going to be an interesting weekend.

Herbal mission accomplished, I left Alice’s place, crossed the river to Wisconsin and hooked up with my own crew getting ready for the Hempstock weekend. It was about a three and a half to four hour drive down to Black River Falls from my place in River Falls and the six of us who were going, had decided to travel in a small caravan of three cars. Not very energy efficient I know, but unlike Alice and Nicole (who were transporting a group of almost twenty in their two classic VW microbuses) Tom & Laurie, Big Tom, Mike and the previously mentioned Jack the Moocher, were a bit more post modern than hippie I suppose.

So, we were more like three pairs than a group of six. Tom & Laurie were an inseparable couple, Big Tom was pretty much my best friend of the group at that time and Mike was the only one of us who would have allowed Jack in his car. It wasn’t that anyone hated him or anything (well, maybe Big Tom hated him) we just all knew that Jack could never be trusted or better yet, could always be trusted to be Jack the Moocher.

Now, hippies (as I’m sure you know) usually have a philosophy of sharing and my post-modern hippie friends were no exception. They left their doors open and never minded people dropping in. They would always give you a meal if you were hungry and let you crash on the couch if you needed to, but even the most big-hearted hippies (I think) would have drawn the line with a guy like Jack.

Jack was a moocher (to put it mildly) and a thief. He was one of those people who’d always show up (uninvited of course) at a party with nothing to contribute, yet he always consumed (if you didn’t stop him) far more than all those who had contributed. He would also just walk into a house known to have parties and start rummaging around for drugs and booze. In a small, Midwestern college town like River Falls, there was never a shortage of party houses and on any given afternoon, Jack could usually be found in one of them.

Anyway, Mike (a very big-hearted dude) was the only one of us going to Hempstock who would have even considered letting Jack the Moocher think he was part of our group, but since Jack disappeared shortly after our arrival, the rest of us quickly forgot how irritated we’d been that Mike had brought him. Another reason we all forgot about Jack, was our shock and confusion at being told at the entrance that the event was canceled!

“Canceled, how could it be canceled?” we all were saying as we drove up to the gate. It sure didn’t look canceled. The place was packed! Word was being passed down from car to car that although the event was canceled, people were still being allowed to camp on the site and the entrance fee was thus dropped from twenty five, to ten dollars. Apparently, several of the organizers had been busted that morning and there was a rumor that Wavy Gravy (who’d been one of the scheduled speakers) had also been busted. (I can’t confirm any of this by the way).

Of course it didn’t help that we’d all eaten a bunch of shrooms about a half hour before our arrival. We had purposely timed it so we’d be peaking just as we drove in as a kind of kick off high to an entire weekend of non-stop highs. I don’t know about you, but when I’m on any kind of hallucinogenic, I get real analytical and as we entered the site of what we’d been expecting to be a sponsored drug festival, I couldn’t get my mind off wondering what it meant that it was now canceled yet everyone who had come for it was still going to be there.

What it meant was that it would become a kind of city, a city of drugs. Without the organizations to focus everyone’s attention on positive social and political change, everyone’s attention just went wherever the drugs took it.

And my attention was trying to take it all in.

Although we were far from the last group of people to arrive at this canceled Hempstock drug city thing, it was obvious right away that the prime camping spots had already been taken and we had little choice about where to park. As we drove through the entrance there was a small wooded hill directly ahead, and a large stage slightly to our left (and facing that direction) with a very large open field in front of it.

To the right and a bit behind the hill, we could see a smallish pond and it seemed that most of the activity was back there and blocked from our view. Directly to our right and near the entrance were, of course, the campground facilities (toilets, showers, drinking water, etc.) office and a parking lot, which was almost completely full. Following the cars entering in front of us, we drove past all that and onto the open field in front of the stage. This was the last area to be settled and we were among the first to settle there so we ended up driving parallel to the road almost all the way to the woods at the end of it.

It seemed as if we were going to be quite a distance from almost everything but at least we had plenty of room to circle the wagons and set up. Besides, our detached view of the developing city fit right into my increasingly analytical trip and it wasn’t long before I set off with Big Tom on a preliminary reconnaissance mission. In our drug-assisted state of confusion, we needed maps and we needed names. We needed borders and labels to define our not so brave new world.

Walking back across the open field, the first thing I noticed was that the stage was a lot less active than one would expect from an event like this but of course, the event was canceled so… Anyway, there was a lot of activity everywhere else and as we passed the left side of the stage and started round the hill, the city this campground was becoming begun to take shape.

The first neighborhood Big Tom and I encountered was one that we didn’t really give a name to right away. The clearing behind the hill sloped up and formed a kind of valley between it and the surrounding forest. It was by far the most aesthetically pleasing spot for individual tents to set up and I even imagined some sort of unwritten building codes and ordinances to keep out the riffraff. It was very tidy and had an air of meditative serenity. I could swear that every time I passed though this valley, I never heard anything but Pink Floyd. Perhaps there was an ordinance to that effect.

As one might expect, this upscale neighborhood (Tentwood or Floyd Hill were a few of the names with which we arbitrarily used to refer to it as the weekend progressed) was bordered by its antithesis and we had no trouble at all naming that. Nitro city. So called because of the concentration of nitrous-oxide (or hippie crack) tanks from which balloons were sold. This was also where the dumpsters for that side of the campground were located and (true to form) where the less fortunate picked through the garbage of the more, and begged handouts from anyone passing through.

Which is exactly what we did (passed on through, that is) and continued round the hill and soon, we found ourselves approaching the Artist’s Quarter encircling the pond. Here was the economic and cultural heart of Canceled Hempstock city. On the side nearest the hill, were most of the established vendors selling all manner of hemp products, jewelry and clothing, and there was even a restaurant or two. Alice would later tell me that that side of the pond was where the NORML and Rainbow buses would set up shop. She and Nicole and their dancing band of post-modern Deadheads were on the other side.

Alice and Nicole were in heaven. The cancellation of the event scared off so many real freaks, that it wasn’t difficult for their group to establish themselves and become the center of attention in the Artist’s Quarter. They had placed their two microbuses at slight angles to each other and stretched a canopy between them. Then, Von and Rahim had managed to find a huge log and organized the building of the biggest, baddest fire in the entire city. Sage hung from every available place and when The Dead wasn’t on the boom box, a drum circle would spontaneously begin.

It was a perfect place for a tripped-out-people-watching-analytical-fire-side-psychologist like myself, and I knew I’d be spending a lot of my time here, but first…

First, we had to go back and report to the others and see about topping off our buzz. So we continued around the pond, breezed passed the facilities (there was something of a culture developing there too but I’ll get to that later) and headed back across the now almost full field (which we were beginning to refer to as The Burbs) to our own little subdivision of Canceled Hempstock city.

The Burbs really was the perfect name for what developed out in that open field in front of and beyond the stage at Hempstock. It had the same haphazard, just build your group of dwellings here, look you could find amongst the collection of cul-de-sacs of any real city suburb. That plain was pockmarked with small groupings of cars, tarps and tents, all facing inward and forming a central common space. I suppose one might imagine that there was probably a lot more chance for communal interaction in The Burbs of Hempstock, than in any real burbs but as Big Tom and I walked through it to our own cul-de-sac, the commonality of these burbs to the burbs most of us had grown up in, became more than apparent.

They were not a single large group, nor a network of small groups. They neither identified with, communicated with, nor even seemed to acknowledge each other, and they were both attracted to, and repelled by the city. They were not neighborhoods or residential districts. They were not part of the city but they were not really outside of it either. They were burbs and we were burbanites. (God help us) This was where we lived.

And like any group of suburbanites, we each had our own ways of dealing with where we lived. Tom and Laurie embraced it and immediately started making our little corner of suburbia as homey as possible. They told us how to park our vehicles and directed the layout of the site.

A tarp was stretched between the open rear door of my 1987 Jeep Cherokee Laredo and Mike’s old and rather beat International Harvester Scout. This and Tom’s tent canopy provided some shade for the picnic table area and maximized the resonance from my stereo system. Tom’s mint condition, classic, VW Beetle was then parked length-ways to complete a semi-circle which opened towards the stage in doubtful anticipation of the canceled festival’s entertainment schedule.

Or should I say, nonexistent entertainment schedule.

Like I said before, the stage didn’t seem to be very active when I’d passed it earlier but in fact there were several people who were very active indeed (scrambling, in fact) trying to find some way to fill all that time that had been planned to be occupied on the large and fully equipped stage for the three days of Hempstock. The cancellation of the official festival had really thrown them for a loop but we didn’t become aware of these people until they found something.

And they did find… something.

Sometime around dusk that Friday evening we started hearing the telltale signs of sound stage activity. There were the usual burps and buzzes and testing, one, two three’s and by nightfall, it was obvious that a band was about to begin. They announced themselves as The Incredible Smoking Bongs (I shit you not) and they turned out to be just some local cover band that had put on that name for the show but they weren’t… bad.

They played the usual cover rock tunes but they also had gone out of their way to put together a short set of weed related and almost weed related songs. I’m sure they did Willin’ by Little Feat, Bob Dylan’s Everybody’s Got to Get Stoned and made an attempt on Smokin’ by Boston and Light Up by Stix but of course I could have been, should have been (of course I was!) in no condition to now be able to rely on memory for such details.

Cheesy as a lot of it was, we had a good time and even went up to dance a bit but it was a pretty rag tag show and didn’t last long enough at all (considering that most of us were definitely UP for the night). We settled back around our little fire in our little suburban spot and stared (for I don’t know how long) at the orange and blue flames licking the nice oak and cherry logs Big Tom had brought. Then Mike pulled out his guitar and I pulled out mine, we passed em around and had our own little suburban show.

When we stopped however, we noticed that the sound of acoustic guitars didn’t. Someone was playing on the stage again and that’s when Mike said “Brian, why don’t you go up there and play?” so, up I went.

The guys who’d been playing (and were kinda acting like they owned that stage) while not professional, were obviously much more experienced than I at that point in my music career, but no one complained when I handed everyone a joint and joined in on the session. It was cool and my bit went pretty well but everyone was tired so it didn’t last long. Before I left however, a guy who’d been running the sound board called me over and said “you wanna play tomorrow afternoon?” and I said “Sure” and that my friends, is how I got to play a two and a half hour set in the middle of the afternoon for maybe three or four thousand hung over pot heads.

The sound system was great and I loved every minute of it, and months later while playing an open mike at a vegetarian restaurant called The Rainbow Cafe in Minneapolis, some guy came up to me and said “Duuude, I saw you play at Hempstock” but that’s another story.

The Incredible Smoking Bongs were back again that Saturday night as the canceled Hempstock weekend continued it’s non-event-like development, and so were several other bands. In fact, someone had managed (I think) to put together a pretty professional show but by then, my post-modern hippie friends and I were no longer interested in any more (all too predictable) stage activity. My friends had had their fun and I’d had my ego sufficiently stroked so the entertainment quickly became just another part of the background of this little drug-themed settlement.

Yes of course, drug-themed. We can’t forget why we were there.

The cancellation of the official event, had not changed that aspect of this gathering one bit, and I was beginning to see how it had a way of making it even more so. By taking away the political focus of the sponsors and organizers, the simple, honest desire of us attendees to get high and stay high all weekend, seemed to me to be all the more apparent.

This perception was of course heightened by the fact that my analytical trip was now on LSD. The magic mushrooms had run out and I wanted to go through my own supplies (one nice big hit of green dragon bought from the nervous urban youth at Alice’s place) before I did much partaking of what could be had locally.

Oh and there was plenty to be had locally.

Downtown was teaming with trade. The pot and shroom vendors had their many varieties of primo weed and fun fungi, spread out like a smorgasbord. The sound of balloons being filled seemed to never stop in Nitro city and had now spread over to the parking lot and camp facilities area where there was getting to be a small trade in cocaine. Those so inclined (and who didn’t really fit into this crowd but where inevitably drawn to it) tended to hang by their vehicles.

That area had begun to take on a completely different look from the rest of the place. I started referring to it as the industrial park. Almost entirely made up of men, in black leather, standing alone or in small groups by small fires among their muscle cars and motorcycles. They looked around furtively, as if they were always ready for someone to jump them. I had no interest in their asshole drugs but I was struck by how they had so naturally found their place in our little city.

But, I digress.

Yes the theme, the culture of our little city, was one of drugs, and, as I just pointed out, the span of that culture was considerable. But, I was looking for depth. Depth was not something to be found in The Burbs. Duh! As I said before, The Burbs may have been where I lived (if by living someplace, you mean where you keep your stuff) but where I hung out was (and still is) where I found the most human diversity and subtlety of behavior. The spaces of ever-changing, muse-inspiring, creators of culture.

As far as I was concerned, the cultural heart of our little city was waaaaay over there, across the field, on the other side of the hill and the other side of the pond. It was where Alice, Nicole, and their band of drumming, dancing, post-modern deadheads, did what they do best. They hung out and when I say they hung out, I mean they HUNG OUT! Remember this was the Artist’s Quarter, so they made hanging out into an art form.

And, hanging out right there with them, tending to their fire (which was bigger than ever) were Von and Rahim. One of whom would interact with, and consequently cause me to gain a new respect for, our very own moocher… Jack (remember him?)

Like I said earlier, we didn’t much care for Jack so we didn’t mind at all the fact that he disappeared as soon as we’d arrived at the canceled drug festival/city that was Hempstock. He knew where we were and he knew that he could ride back to River Falls with Mike (or NOT) so on that Sunday morning, although we would be heading out sometime that afternoon, when I found him rummaging around in one of the coolers at our camp in The Burbs, my thoughts were anywhere but on the likes of Jack the Moocher.

This, to my surprise, was to soon change.

My first thoughts about Jack however, were no surprise at all. As I approached his hunched over figure above the open cooler, I was reminded of a large raccoon I’d caught stealing food that I’d been leaving out for a cat at home (but that’s another story) and my first impulse was to rush him and see what he was getting into. I spoke instead.

“What you looking for Jack?”

“Huh?” my question was answered as he raised his head to reveal the sandwich he was stuffing into his face. Turkey and Swiss on black pumpernickel.

“I believe Mike was saving that for today’s lunch.” I said as Jack quickly polished off the sandwich and washed it down with what was left of a can of beer. Beer. “Now where’d he get that?” I was just beginning to think as Jack opened his mouth to speak.

“What a beer? I can get you one.”

“Smooth” I thought. It was the crack of dawn and he still had the sense and skill to redirect my attention away from the fact that he’d just been caught red handed stealing from his friend. It worked too. After all, the deed was done. Mike and his oversized heart would forgive and forget and Big Tom would surly share one of his sandwiches, but what really got me was the fact that I was in that post-trip space where food and alcohol were beginning to become attractive again. A beer (which has the wonderful quality of being both alcohol AND food) would be just the thing.

“Sure Jack,” I said and he smiled that wry smile of the weasel that has once again weaseled successfully.

Jack then led me to a part of Hempstock I was surprised to have never seen before, especially since it was so large. It was a part of the open field in front of the stage but wasn’t so close as to interfere with the dancing area or so far to be part of The Burbs. One side of it bordered the entrance driveway, which separated the open field from the Industrial park, and it’s tents and cars formed a semi-circle facing the stage and defining a very large section of field for a very specific purpose, which became very obvious as I approached.

The Athletic Park, of course. And where else would one find a beer on the third day of such an event as this, but amongst the sports guys?

“These guys have enough beer to last another week”, Jack was saying as we entered the quiet and almost completely deserted sports arena. Evidence of the truth in that statement was everywhere. The decor was of discarded cans and bottles, from the piles of which poked up tents, cars and picnic tables. The only place free of this glass and aluminum artwork/desert was of course, the playing field. Like their beer drinking, these guys were quite serious about their sports. They had even taken the time to paint straight white lines.

Jack made a beeline for the beer. I followed.

Two motionless figures slumped half on and half off their half destroyed, folding lawn chairs, but for the most part, no one was in sight. Jack opened a cooler by a smoldering Webber and plucked a couple of cold ones. “Budweiser, Oh well” I thought, “Beggars can’t be choosers” and then immediately laughed at myself for how cliché my thoughts were becoming in this place.

Jack nodded, misinterpreting my laugh. “Yea, those guys are pretty trashed” he said nervously and handed me one of the beers. Then he leaned over one of the two prostrate figures, passed out before him. He rubbed his has together in delight and quickly snatched a cigarette protruding from the guy’s breast pocket. “But they’re still of use, eh?” and the weasel smile returned.

No doubt Jack was feeling pretty proud of himself at that point and probably thought that he’d made up for getting caught at his earlier infraction to where he could ask something in return because he now looked at me, shivered a bit and asked, “Do you know where there’s a fire?”

Oh the wheels had been turning before but now, they were hummin’

As I said earlier, although I would periodically return to our little cul-de-sac in the burbs for supplies (mostly fatties and water) and to occasionally mellow out with Tom n Laurie, Mike and Big Tom, I spent the lion’s share of my time during that canceled Hempstock weekend down in the artist’s quarter among Alice and Nicole’s collection of post-modern hippies who drummed and danced around the big, bad fire that Von and Rahim had built.

Von and Rahim…

Ever since my first encounter with these two, I’d been thinking, “now here are a couple of first-rate moochers.” These guys had been living totally off the good graces of their fellow Deadheads for nearly a decade and so when Von had said that he didn’t pay for drugs, he meant it. He didn’t pay for ANYTHING and neither did Rahim. At the very most, they bartered for what they needed and at Hempstock, that fire was their capital.

The two lorded over their domain like a couple of kings, Gods of the fire. They stood on either side, each holding a long staff with which they would occasionally poke at or shift the burning logs. When they did this, a cloud of sparks would fly up, borne on the rising heat into the still night air, and momentarily illuminate their hairy, but now almost regal (in an aboriginal sort of way) faces.

Alice and Nicole and the rest, did their dancing and drumming in a semi-circle behind these two fire gods. They made a mostly motley group, and their twin microbuses draped with tie-dyed tarps and strings of sage, created the perfect backdrop for an entirely post-modern hippie scene. Passersby were helplessly drawn to it and either stood at a slight distance, as if afraid to disturb its purity, or joined the paying audience sitting cross-legged in another semi-circle opposite the stage.

Admission was of course, any drug. Beer (or any alcohol), cigarettes, dope, a nitrous balloon, anything was acceptable but no one was exempt from payment. I had a metal cigarette case, which I kept full of fat joints of ditch weed for just this purpose and every time either Von or Rahim would even look at me, I’d hand em one. They liked me. Most people would try to weasel (a mistake) and end up the focal point of all the moocher energy in attendance, which was considerable.

When Von and Rahim weren’t poking the fire, they were working the crowd and by the amount of drugs that got passed my way, it seemed that they were more than adequately successful. I was impressed. I was thinking that no one could possibly top this display of mooching ability but at that time I’d completely forgotten about Jack the Moocher.

That Sunday morning however, I was putting it all together. I was thinking about all the mooching I’d observed at Von and Rahim’s fire during the whole weekend, and trying to compare and contrast it with Jack’s accomplishments (of whish I’d just learned) among the sports guys. I was thinking that it was about even up. Where Von and Rahim excelled in volume and diversity, Jack made up for in ease and accessibility, and I decided that my determination of who should be awarded top mooch would be dependent on the coming encounter.

As Jack and I walked over to the fire, I downed my beer and tossed the can to avoid distraction. Jack had hardly touched his and it still sparkled with effervescence. He hadn’t even lit the cigarette yet. Jack was obviously expecting to relax by the fire and enjoy the rest of his breakfast in peace and I couldn’t stop wondering which drug would be more important to the equally experienced moochers with whom he was about to match wits. Which would they go for first?

The fire was smoldering as we approached but there was still plenty of heat coming from it and it wouldn’t take but a few pokes for either Von or Rahim to bring their cash cow back to life. The fire gods were barely stirring however and our arrival seemed to be the first of the morning.

“Looks like a nice fire.” Jack was saying, obviously unprepared for the coming mooch attempt.

Von looked up squinting but his eyes widened when he saw the potential booty before him. “Got another smoke?” he said, mistakenly leaving Jack with an out.

Jack shook his head. “Naw, I bummed this one” and began scanning the whole scene, bringing his full moocher and weasel powers up and online.

Von then made the desperate play for sympathy. Playing all his remaining cards at once. Despite the warmth of the fire, he shivered and wrapped his arms around himself and said in an uncharacteristically pathetic voice, “Man if I don’t get some alcohol in me soon, I’m gonna get the shakes real bad.”

I knew it was over when I saw that little weasel smile begin to creep across Jack’s face again. Von had failed to notice the activity back by the microbuses but Jack was all over that. Alice and Nicole were sparking a morning bowl.

“Wake-n-bake” he announced happily, and completely ignoring the surprised Von and just rising Rahim, Jack headed over to claim his prize. I had to admit, he deserved it.

The End