FFJD Special LA Correspondent: Surviving Coachella

It’s that time of year again, when throngs of music nerds descend upond the deserts of Indio California, for a three day music festival. There is one goal, and one goal only to the Coachella music festival: out-indie everyone else. You love this obscure band? I loved them 10 months ago. You think that headband is cool around your forehead? Try it around your left ear. Yeah, that’s right. Thankfully we have our LA FFJD correspondent, with strict instructions on how to be cool at Coachella. (But not actually look like you’re trying, which you’re not right? Right? Let’s see what our LA Correspondent recommends:

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Things to pack for Coachella:

1. Nothing says trendy more than having a baby. Everybody’s doing it. Like, every woman who is repopulating the earth due to instinctual Darwinian pressures. But no one’s like, actually, having their OWN baby. Pauper. So be sure to remember to bring your surrogate to all the raging fetes. And remember to announce that you’re expecting! You’re going to get so many “You’re not even showing!”-s.
2. Drugs. Coke, pot, heroin, meth and ketamine are OVER. Bring something new and fresh – like lines of steevia or binge drinking ionized H2O.
3. Dogs in bags are over. Bring along something unique and cold-blooded, like you! Leash up an African Fat-Tailed Gecko or the Bronx Zoo Cobra.
4. Soy free, dairy free, hemp enriched, faro grain, air. Low cal sugar free if available. They have some at Urth Café.
5. Extra percussion. You never know when a drum circle’s going to get started.
6. Your DJ. Wait, you don’t have one? Hahahaha, OH-KAY.

Things to say at Coachella:

1. “I play the hammer dulcimer for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti”
2. “This is my general admission bracelet, my vip beer tent bracelet, my bracelet made out of recycled admission bracelets from past years, and my hospital bracelet for when I suffered from exhaustion.”
3. “Oh yeah, I know the actual Coachella. We worked together in Jackson Hole. I’m staying with some buddies in his Yurt in Old Deli, next month. Should be killer.”
4. “Are you going to that steam egg party tonight? I heard they’re going to pipe in a really retro scent.”
5. “I’m over electrotribal beats. I’m listening to older stuff – like polytheistic meditation bowl echo chants.”
6. “So if we get split up, let’s meet by the gluten-free, vegetarian Chicken Tika food tent.”

Things to wear at Coachella:

1. Oblong is the new defined shape. The bigger and more ambiguous the category of apparel, the better. Is it an indoor/outdoor fedora? Bloomers? California King fitted sheet? Who knows, who cares, you look so cool!
2. Tribal wears. The older the tribe, the better. Right now, it’s all about the Haus of 12 Tribes of Israel.
3. Fair-trade vegan non-pasteurized organic organza. (Pasteurized is OK, and optimally it should be Kosher.)
4. Enough with those clip-in feather hair extensions. Put in the entire bird. Like a tropical parrot or toucan. Whichever you can find on short notice.
5. Knee-high boots. I’m the only person I know who doesn’t have cankles, sodon’t even try any other variant.

Things to do at Coachella:

1. Be severely underweight. Really skinny is the new skinny.
2. Look dead on the inside. Nothing attracts people’s attention more than you not having their attention.
3. Not going to the actual event you paid for. The whole point of getting tickets to Coachella is to participate in the events surrounding Coachella. Does anyone really go to the bar mitzvah service? No. They go that night and get a wax mold of their hand, put colored sand in a bottle with googly eyes glued to the glass, dance the electric slide in a glow necklace and oversized pair of socks, and take a picture of themselves in front of a fake Hollywood sign.
4. Bop. If you do decide to go to a concert, don’t spaz. Sure they might be your favorite band, but be cool, man. There’s no other way to dance to Arcade Fire than to just bop. A slight bounce in the knees. A subtle nod upwards of the chin. You’re cool BUT NOT TOO COOL, which therein makes you cooler. Cool?
5. Be a model and or celebrity’s child. I don’t know, just figure it out.
6. Reserve your niche Coachella-specific tumblr or twitter account name NOW.
7. Who can forget “Hats at Coachella?” I mean, I can – and did, until I wrote this post.
8. Look sexually ambiguous. It triples your chance at a hook up – guys, girls,
9. people who look like both.

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Email meredith@theffjd.com!

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