word of the weekend... MAS!

so many phans are posting so many great detailed reviews, i do not wish to over-clutter re-hashing the organic free-range awesomeness of the trip, but i must say for a honeymoon (my wife Heather and I got married January 9th on a mountain boulder jutting out over Hanging Rock state Park, NC) it was super uber ming boggolation! ...and i must over-clutter!

No hassels getting there, no dogs sniffing my butt at the aeropuerto in Mexico, and the moment we got on the bus to Barcelo it smelt like righteous heady'ness- nag' 'n ganj'.
no road blocks, no machine (ma'cheen') guns, no Bieber sightings, but apparently Taylor Switness was there checking out the venue (but OF COURSE not getting spun and flung).

FridaY we gathered around a very rotund Russian and his family as he hand-fed Larry Wood, the beautiful local sea turtle (about the size and weight of a manhole cover, i gave him a hug), who loved smashing bananas. this heavyweight Russky even managed to bring handfuls of dry cereal into the ocean so gulls and pelicans flooded in and created a surreal feeding frenzy which eventually included another turtle and schools of amberjack-looking pescado (that's mexican for "fish" . what a start to the weekend!

one of the down notes to our trip was we got a suite with twin double beds instead of the King bed we paid for. fortunately the cost was the same for either room, so we didnt have to hassell for a refund, we made the best of it and pushed the beds together, the resort sadly made no efforts of apology for this to date. other than that, the room was awesome! we watched jungle wild life frolic and play from our 3rd floor balcony, and played gin thursday night in the middle of a tropical rain storm, surreal....

another bummer (the main down note of the trip) was that our friends, the Reverend-Chef Andy (who married us) and his wife Cara, stayed at the Hard Rock and we could not spend the days with them at all basically, without day passes, that sold out to our resort. we met up each night on the LET TROY DANCE-side 1st 2 nights and further towards the shore/page-side-wave-side-rage-side Sunday night. it seemed that although CID and Phish were fairly spot-on in their execution and coordinations, the resorts could not keep up with the phandom, it sucked that many other peiople had the same scenario with their friends at alto-resortas.

yeah the cocktails were weak, but how much hard liquor do you need to freely pound to the face wrecklessy in the hot sun with 3 days of raging to fullfill? IF you were wise and ordered Don Julio and Grand Marnier in your margarita's, while tribally chanting the word "MAS", you got bangin' drinks todo el dia'! [ps- if you didnt bring a 32+oz thermos hand-held mug with you THIS time, bring one next, !mas importante!

food was subpar at the buffets, the fresh fruit was OUTSTANDING, MAS!!! but I didnt come there to feast on traditional edibles, substanince was found in fruit, liquids and a few recognizable proteins. certain foods didnt translate well in any language, but our dinner at the Brazillain restaurant Thursday, on the patio, mid-ocean storm, was pretty damn good, and inlcuded in the wristband. everywhere else was pretty much the worst "mexican" food i ever nibbled at. and i didnt brave too much of the seafood though there was plenty of apparently fresh amounts of it. to loosely quote Apocalypse Now, "You'll never have to prove your heroics in battle if you eat one of those shrimp"

Tulumn was an amazing experience, and to hear that some little dipshit (Bieber) disrespected those ruins by climbing on them the week earlier is really enraging. i hope he gets syphullus from a dolpin. Tulumn was beautiful, majestic, and to use the word again, surreal. The last stand of a mighty people, reclaimed in spirit by the Army of Phish! bring bananas next gtime, iguanas are 50/50 friendly, but they love a good plantane, will eat the peels as well!

musically the 1st sets tore my face off, dropped them in the sand, danced on them, then washed them off in salty ocean waters, before re-adjusting them back on. sounds painful if you do not understand that it's actually "a todos bien thing". the only set i didnt really dig full-on was the 2nd set night 3, but the Encore erupted! had that on my call list, along with Drowned, shine a light and a few others. i thought they may explore the Coasters 'Down in Mexico', which I think would be a perfect song for Phish to develop, but they didnt, and i grooved on. sorry to the guy i punched in the back of the head "dancing" friday night, (1st set), my bad! we talked about it since, but i want to make a public apology. Cities, Gin, Caspian, Theme, Shine a light, moon, Timber!!!! Camel walk opener!!?!?! incredible tunes!! wanted a maze, guyute, !mi amigo! !mi amigo!, (and 50 more) but i also wanted to win the $1.5 billion powerball the weds before we left for the trip, and i was ok when that missed as well. if we get everything we wanted in life we'd stop appreciating the sea turtles!

i'd like to call out a few rookies i didnt think would make the trip, but did, especially the pregnant woman who had to stand directly next to us Sunday night while we tried to rage around her, cautiously of course, and crowded. the fact that you were pregnant was one thing, 35 feet from the stage (that's what the BACK AREA is for), but the fact that you were on Facebook half of the show, and then sitting down in the middle of the dance floor for the other half, i must poo-poo your concert ettiquette and wish your child grows up to have more common sense than you do. PS- please tell your husband to not look so bored next show, it doesnt enhance anyones experience around them.

Mad Props to the heady pholks we met night after night on our purple tapestry who enhanced our experiences; Big Al from Chicago (now residing in Sonoma) and his people, Pa'TRICK' and his Rabbi, husband and their crew (which may have also included Brill for his 100th show), Kelly and John from Oregon, Patrick the t-shirt manufacturer who smoked Cohiba's, the Iguana-cage friend guy i talked to, Erin from the plane (you're welcome for the pen, thanks for the gummies!), the friendly lady who danced Moma' with me, the 'You Boys Like Mexico' t-shirt crew, and many, many others, THANKS! for enhancing our experience!!

overall it was a continually surreal experience. it was majestically-wound energy expanding exponentially that went MAAAAASSSS!!!!! all weekend long, and we cant wait to go back for our anniversary!

for all that could have gone wrong, and everything that went mind-blowingly well, i rate this a full diez/diez experience, and THANK YOU SO MUCH TO PHISH (and CID) FOR MAKING THIS DREAM COME TRUE!!! MAS! MAS!! MAS!!!