I Will Not Be Going to the Gathering of the Juggalos This Year

There comes a point before and during every trip to the Gathering of the Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse’s infamous annual festival of arts and culture, when I take a long, hard look in the mirror, literally and metaphorically, and ask myself why I Gather.

I’m painfully shy and suffer from debilitating self-consciousness and self-awareness. People and social interaction terrify me and the Gathering invariably involves an enormous amount of travel, work, expense and all-around hassle. 

I don’t do it for the money, because there isn’t any! Most of the times I’ve traveled to the Gathering I’ve either lost money covering it for folks like High Times or The A.V Club or just barely broken even. 

It would be so much easier to just stay home in air-conditioned comfort. Then I remind myself that the reason that I go to the Gathering of the Juggalos every year is because I have a deep spiritual and emotional connection to the Gathering and its clown-painted denizens. 

I go to the Gathering because no matter what happens I make memories that will last a lifetime. I experience things that I will never forget, things that have changed me on a profound level. 

I just did a podcast interview with Vox’s Switched on Pop about the Gathering and it reminded me of all of the incredible memories I’ve had involving Insane Clown Posse and the Gathering of the Juggalos, from the wild early days in Cave-in-Rock when attractions included The Drug Bridge and helicopter rides to a 2016 Gathering where I was so moved by the whole spectacle that I literally wept at the conclusion of Insane Clown Posse’s climactic performance. 

I go to the Gathering because it’s fucking worth it. It’s worth the hassle. It’s worth the expense. It’s worth falling behind on non-ICP-related work. It’s worth all that you put into it because the more you put into it, the more you get out of it, and at this point I have put everything into being a Juggalo and Gathering annually. 

This year, however, when I asked myself why I was doing this the old answers didn’t quit suffice because this is no ordinary year. I was hoping that this would be the first post-COVID year for the Gathering, and consequently a very special moment for the festival and all of the festival goers but now it very much seems like COVID hasn’t gone anywhere, and has mutated into something even more dangerous and unpredictable because of the Delta Variant. 

That’s why I have made the very painful but correct and responsible decision to cancel my trip to the Gathering of the Juggalos and the Indiegogo campaign that would have funded it. If you contributed to the campaign you will either not be charged or have your money refunded. 

I had a great time seeing Phish, my first concert since Insane Clown Posse at the 2020 Juggalo Days in Los Angeles but my gut told me that we aren’t anywhere near done with the Coronavirus. 

I’m also at a particularly important crossroads in my personal life. Over the course of the past month my wife and I unexpectedly sold our old home in Chamblee Tucker and moved to a home in Alpharetta, Georgia and my boys have just started their new schools. 

So I feel like home is where I need to be right now, with my family and working on this website and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Joy of Trash. I’m nearly done with both but there’s a fair amount of work left to go and I want to do the best possible job with both projects. 

Unfortunately that means skipping the Gathering until this awful pandemic is decisively a thing of the past and I can go to a multi-day festival in the middle of nowhere with thousands of people without worrying about getting sick or infecting my family. 

So I must regrettably forego this most joyous and transcendent of yearly rituals for what are, for better or worse, very solid reasons. 

I will see you next year in Shangri-La, friends! 

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