Last Tuesday, Vermont’s phavorite jam band, Phish, announced that they would play a special benefit concert for victims of Tropical Storm Irene. Unsurprisingly, the quartet’s announcement created tremors of excitement around Vermont and across the whole of Phish phandom. No sooner had word gotten out about the phoursome’s show then dedicated Phish phollowers the country over grabbed some hula hoops, a couple djembe drums, a few pallets of Cheetos and their best water bongs, hopped in their vanagons and hightailed it to Vermont.
They came phrom all over — New Jersey, Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, New Jersey — in the hope of nabbing one of the hottest tickets in town. The devoted called in sick to work so they could camp out on the sidewalk, despite the fact that the FlynnCenter box office asked them not to queue until Saturday when the tickets went on sale. When the box office opened at 10 a.m., the weary waiters rubbed the weed smoke phrom their eyes, threw off their drug rugs and stepped up to take their place in history — the show, after all, will be Phish’s phirst in its home state since 2004’s epic concert in Coventry, a big, sloppy mess if ever there was one.
By late Saturday, the show’s 10,000 tickets were sold out. All the die-hards walked away from the box office with a $75 ticket in hand (all the proceeds go to the band’s Waterwheel Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation, which will dole out the money to appropriate phlood relief efforts). But here’s what I want to know — what are all the out-of-state phans doing until Wednesday’s show at the Champlain Valley Exposition, besides making daisy chains, crafting hemp dog leashes, swapping bootlegs and hosting sing-alongs in City Hall Park? Here’s what they should be doing — volunteering.
I submit that if you’re coming to Vermont just phor the show, you need to phind yourself some gloves and a mask and pitch in. More than 700 residences were destroyed or significantly damaged when Irene rolled through. Sorry to harsh your mellow, but hundreds of people are homeless and without work and could really use a helping hand.
Phans might say that they’re already helping out by purchasing a ticket and dropping some cash on limited edition merch. I dig that, Moonbeam Sunflower. But before the money starts rolling in, there’s work that needs doing. And if you could phigure out a way to get your patchworked, Birkenstocked self all the way here, you can sure as hell phigure out a way to provide some assistance.
Not sure what you can do? Phair enough. Here are some ideas:
— You could phill your camper van with personal hygiene products, phirst aid items, cleaning and school supplies and food and take it to South Royalton. For a full list of this community’s needs, click here.
— How about taking down some walls and pulling up some flooring for the Kadrik family in Waterbury?
— Perhaps you could help muck out the Hancock Town Hall basement.
— Maybe you could help phix the phence at Turner Farm on Route 100 in the Mad River Valley.
There are many more projects that you could help with. Your best bet to phind volunteer opportunities is VTResponse. If you are willing and able, they will gladly set you up with something to do. Not able to swing a hammer, carry a bucket or throw things in a dumpster? Consider writing a check the American Red Cross of Vermont and the New Hampshire Valley, the United Way of Chittenden County, the Vermont Foodbank or any number of towns accepting financial donations. Remember to earmark your contribution for flood relief.
Vermont has been good to you, no? We gave you Phish and Ben & Jerry’s and phlannel and weed. That’s right — we invented phlannel. And weed. We might have even invented patchouli, white-people dreadlocks and barefoot dancing. So consider giving back. Then when you go back to New Jersey, you can tell all your phriends how you helped save Vermont. So heady, brah.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2011.
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PS. Lauren, you did a good job at the Strut show, especially next to that empty-headed fashion franken-dolt. Also I think you could be a good writer, so I encourage you to take the criticism and try to improve.
Ever hear the saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”?
Yeah, pretty poor form by everyone involved Seven Days. While we’ve all been busy naval gazing about how bad we have it in Vermont, lots of other, not too far away places were devastated by Tropical Storm Lee. It’s just unfortunate that they don’t have a semi-world famous band with legions of dedicated fans willing to help them out. Maybe you guys can pick up the slack down there?
I think it’s cute that you somehow finagled yourself a masters degree in journalism. The fact that you appear to be content, and even pleased to grunt out written diarrhea of this caliber is less cute though.
Hateful. Ungrateful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
A little research reveals this is kind of a standard article for her when she writes about a topic that she doesn’t support or admire. I get the humor, because it’s a consistent tone found in her other pieces, but I also think she’s being serious. And well, ok you got your point across, Laura Ober; you don’t like Phish. Mocking the situation your neighbors are in by compiling this post is a pretty extreme measure to take just to get a lot of comments/hits on your site. Of course you got a lot of hits with your rant. It was actually quite easy, so congrats, but at what cost?Also, stop trying so hard to be Pitchfork, k?
Wow, somebody needs a chill pill, easy there mother Teresa, to motivate people to help while insulting their contribution is a little… how should I say it… wrong!!? I can imagine all this people volunteering to do what you suggest, maybe under your direction? How arrogant of you to speak in that tome in behalf the people that suffer… I wonder what they would think. Shame on Seven days for publishing something like this, for allowing an angry person to vent frustration and negativity to people that are doing what they can…. not a Phish fan how about a Beatles fan? “You said you want a revolution oh yeah? you know? we all want to change the world…”
Wow. Somebody sounds like they got burned by a guy who happened to be a Phish fan. There has to be more to the author’s bitterness than just plain ol’ ignorance. Or not…Either way, I would hope the management of this rag will be a bit more careful to avoid publishing such ridiculous trash in the future. I won’t ever be checking in on this blog again. There are too many respectable sites out there much more deserving of my time.
That stereotyping is just f#¢€©d.
It’s not so much that it’s offensive as much as it is just bad journalism. The band is hoping to donate in excess of one million dollars to the victims of the flood–that really should have been the focus of your article, not a shameless soap box effort to ridicule people you don’t even know. It’s just not how a credible journalist should comport herself. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously as a journalist when you write fluff like this?