So You Think You Can Go To An Outdoor Music Festival

Designed as a foodie fools paradise, stalls offering samples of the finest eats in NYC were surrounded by stages, featuring the song stylings of bands like The Roots and Hall & Oates. Yes, Hall & Oates. 

All was fantastical except for one, typical Brooklyn-style problem. We attempted this in middle age. With our kids. 

For us to pull it off for the long haul, there would have had to be 20k fewer folks, minimal. The line to show your ID just to get a wristband to buy booze was about 2 hours of 20-something hipsters long. Then, the line to put money on a card so you could traipse around sampling beer and wine flights was another 2 hours of 20-something hipsters long. This was a bit discouraging to two former slackers, the previous incarnation of hipsters, who had two shorties in tow. So a booze balm was out.

We made peace with that instantly, then spent about an hour waiting in one line for three lousy artisanal pizzas. Some grunt didn't hear me scream as he was opening a gate onto my four year old daughter. Fortunately she was more scared than hurt. Out of guilt, the purveyor responsible slid us a free lobster. Then, we stood in line for another half hour to score a lousy BLT and a couple of lemonades. 

All was yum and the people watching was fun but then....there was nothing for us to do but weave through hipsters. As slackers, a generation famed for not wanting to bother with bothersome things, we found this tedious. This is what the joint looked like at one p.m. 

Another two hours and the lawn would be a sea of Magic Hat and artisanal bacon vomit and...well...

as slackers this would require more effort than folks my age are capable of. So we took our kids to a park made expressly for them instead. 

Did I mention I'm listening to The Roots on Spotify?

Any of you brave The Great Googa Mooga with your kids? If so, how'd it go?

At least we spared ourselves a glimpse of these fanciful flourishes...