Q Report; Folk Fest 2012.
10-10-25 [Location Unknown]
Personal Journal
Agent K00 [Q].
I remember very little, but in vivid detail, the first Winnipeg Folk Festival I attended. 2010. It was more folk than some folk can handle. It was the last sane year before things got out of control. It was the folly pursuit to commune with Gods. It was the breath before the collapse. The calm before the storm.
Travelling under an assumed name I has snuck over the border with Americans set on defecting. Their plan was to find good looking wealthy Canadian masseurs in need of marriage. There is a transient population of 15,000 in attendance of the WFF, and so the odds of success were high, and spirits higher as we gathered the tools necessary for our dual works. Mine was a fact finding mission for the guild. Theirs marriage and leisure.
The Winnipeg Folk Festival is what Woodstock could still be, if not for the tragic extinguishing of goodwill and peace that it lit, brilliant and bold, for one magical summer in ’69. Any attempt to revive it since has met with ruin, murder, and despair. That brilliant flame birthed at Woodstock flew on western winds and embers settled just outside of Winnipeg. Every year, people of every age, creed, gender and nation come together. They consume vast quantities of food, music, and drugs. No one gets stabbed. No one freaks out. The sun shines bright and bold in Canada. The festival claimed to be organized by a non-profit board of directors, but Guild intelligence indicated otherwise.
The Guild sent me in ’10 to find out who was at the top. It was the year of the pyramid. The year of QuetzoQuaddle. The season of the witch. The strike team was a multi-cellular Agent list consisting of myself and several initiate press gangs that were branded with Guild insignia and dropped out of a bus after several hours with bags over their heads. Superiors in the Pentagon have disagreed with the morality of the technique, but cannot deny its efficacy. Only when you feed men to wolves can they find the necessity for a pack. The press gangs were to act as a cover, capturing as much Digital Archive as possible. The hope; to provide at least a terabyte of pirate material. If captured without documentation, Canadian officials could render swift judgment by means of uncomfortable deportation. It was also not uncommon to see summary life-expulsion from the festival, considered tantamount to eternal suffering for those who have attended for enough years.
Capture is not an option for a properly trained and prepared Guild Agent. Handcuffs are silly devices when compared to explosives and video games. Thumbs can be dislocated. Keys hidden. Agents with a sense of humor often ferret away a note in their but with whimsical sayings, simply to vex the authorities. Party favorites;
“You are a rapist.”
“Happy Birthday!”
“Sorry! Your princess is in another crack-hole.”
There was some crazy shit that went down in ’10. There was a zero gravity lightsaber duel for the title of Pirate King. I won. Obviously. A cover is never as effective as making a power play for control of a situation. James Bond subscribes to this tactic time and time again. Truth is stranger than fiction. When time is an issue, you have to buck authority and challenge convention to get a subversive element to expose itself. Light the fire and expose the head. It worked. Security escorted the master puppeteer to the zero gravity circus and we began our friendship.
At it turned out the entire festival was being controlled by Bob Dylan. This was not as shocking to people as some had projected. Bob was planning on defecting for some time, having reserved a list of rich masseurs he could call on for support. And after all, an investment in folk was an investment in the future. Bob probably owned more than half of Winnipeg through retail investments and business ventures. He was planning a retirement community for cool celebrities. A sort of Walden commune where they could all make art until they died. Then there was the space pyramid.
The Space Pyramid Scheme was a Prime Guild Initiative that failed only because of the globe collapsing. Bob was on board after a brief conversation about our mutual plans. The transcript went Level 3 Viral about the time money stopped working. Such is the intangible nature of existence. The following excerpt, provided through the future phone for personal edification, are some of the final quotes from Bob Dylan, and serve as a firm stony backdrop to the gelatinous havoc of FF 2012. It begins just after entering festival camping from Trail 1. The smell of fried deliciousness and sweet Canadian cannabis intermingled with the hanging smoke of pine camp fires nestled in the center of the camps. Bob himself was high on peyote and Herba-Matte-Poppymilk. I was surprisingly sober for having consumed a bag of mushrooms the size of a fist. Talking with Bob Dylan is like amusing the Devil. As we walked, Bob would spit blood and ash while chain smoking Lucky Strikes.
[Begin Transcript]
Q: So… can I call you Bobby Z?
BZ: Yeah. What do I call you again?
Q: I am QuetzoQuaddle. I am The Dragon Reborn. I am the Frog King of the Mississippi. I am Old King Creole, Last King of the Mayans!
BZ: Right. Right, you said that, but I can’t call you that.
Q: Call me Q.
BZ: OK. You can call me Bobby Z I guess.
Q: Thank you.
BZ: This is our pyramid.
Q: So it is.
BZ: Well… we didn’t have much time.
Q: Sure. I see a sphinx.
BZ: Yeah, it’s a trading post.
Q: What can you trade there?
BZ: Anything. If it’s from the soul.
Q: Is the laser real?
BZ: I wonder that myself.
Q: Look! They are breeding glow in the dark plants! What glorious fauna!
BZ: What?
Q: Nothing. Nothing at all. Pope’s Hill is that way?
BZ: Yeah.
Q: And it is called that because the Pope blessed it once?
BZ: Yeah. He may also be buried under it.
Q: What are all those lights?
BZ: People.
Q: There’s thousands of them.
BZ: Several thousands.
Q: Sweet Jesus, everyone has a lightsaber!
BZ: I saw your duel on something.
Q: Something digital?
BZ: Yeah. Zero-Gravity lightsaber battle. That’s something you don’t see every day.
Q: Those people are on fire.
BZ: No, they are manipulating fire.
Q: Whoah. Wow. They are quite good.
[Sounds of coughing.]
Q: Bobby Z! What the hell is that!?
BZ: Uh… [cough]… it’s an invention… [cough]. Guy who won the Nobel Prize built it for me… forget his name… [cough]. Allows me to instantly condense and inhale anything… [cough].
Q: Anything?
BZ: Anything.
[Sounds of spitting.]
Q: What have you tried smoking?
BZ: Not tried Q, did. Everything man. I’ve smoked almost everything.
Q: What was that you just toked on?
BZ: The Good Stuff.
Q: The Good Stuff?
BZ: Jim Morrison.
Q: The Lizard King?
BZ: That’s the one.
Q: You are smoking him?
BZ: His remains, yes. Hair is best.
Q: Was this by your request, or his?
BZ: Life is strange.
Q: People are strange.
BZ: Look at that!
Q: Flame whip!
BZ: How does that work!?
Q: Bobby Z, could I smoke some Jim?
BZ: How could I refuse the Lizard King to the Frog King?
Q: How do I operate this contraption?
BZ: You push this button, suck on this end, and pray.
Q: All Hail QuetzoQuaddle and the New World Revolution. I regret nothing.
[Sounds of coughing and laughter.]
Q: Wowie.
BZ: Doors of Perception.
Q: My mouth tastes like long dead burning hair, and for the first time in my life I feel truly alive.
BZ: Embrace it brother! Embrace ME brother!
[Sounds of laughter/coughing/gagging.]
BZ: Are you really the Greatest Swordsman in the World?
Q: Until someone beats me.
[End Transcript.]
The Space Pyramid Scheme had the green light and seemed unstoppable. Powered by the positive energy of folk enthusiasts and backed by their King, how would anyone stop the endgame? The Exit Strategy? Why the Guild succeeded was because they sent emissaries and thieves instead of assassins and soldiers.
In ’10 we only suffered a 50% casualty rate. The Guild cells did their jobs and accomplished their mission. The Pirate Data hit broadband from off shore and things seemed to be well. As a result of the data explosion the WFF ’11 line up was unstoppable. Neil Young, Pete Seiger, Arlo Guthrie, Xavier Wainwright III, and the ultimate reveal of Bob Dylan World. In WFF ’11, we had a 90% casualty rate.
What was once a wholesome folk affair had been exposed wholesale to Conglomerated World Media. Under the cock withering firestorm of national media blitzes the WFF was blighted by no less than 2,000 attendees being murdered, raped, or eaten by lunatic strangers. WFF ’12 moved ahead, undaunted by the bloodbath, as Dylan prepared to launch his air coliseum over the festival. Tethered by a water/power umbilical 5’ thick, the festival main stage would float 10,000 feet into the air. The Rolling Stones were playing their Absolute Final Performance, though they didn’t know it at the time. Through broadcast rights and ticket sales the 150 cubic mile of land would be purchased for the construction of the space pyramid. It seemed like an end to a means. Bringing rock to folk. How could we have known?
Looking back, I remember enjoying the stories the best. Old timers passing the pipe and talking about the lunacy of festivals past with whimsy and fondness. I enjoyed that the most and it is what I will try to remember that instead of the nightmare of WFF ’12. The coliseum was filled to bursting. 50,000 embarked on that fantastic and doomed lighter than air stadium. There were obvious concerns. From scientists mostly. Clergy. Even Guild Agents, despite the closeness of one of our prime objectives. Mostly concern for the children. There were other worries after Keith Richard’s threat of blowing everyone sky high. Guy ManCock claimed he was misquoted during a mescaline binge.
The Devil is n the details. The Rolling Stones were not folk. They were rock. Luckily, most of the true folk had been driven back into the woods. The tents replaced with RV’s. The fires replaced with flat panel TVs. The folk returned to nature in ’12, and laughed at the heavens for the fools who dared to try taming her.
The real festival was, and had always been a shared communion. King and generous people from all over the world uniting in fellowship and music. Around stages and fires they shared their lives. A family affair where children could play without fear. Of course Bobby Z didn’t mean to kill all those people, he was just misguided by the promise of global escape. The Guild is not blameless in its part. The means to the end was too great. The betrayal to final.
The launch occurred, and the coliseum rose. Rock thundered at 10,000 feet above the Earth. Engineers had designed the vessel to the last rivet. Calculated to the exact pound. But acoustic tests had not accounted for the rock. All of their tests were measured by folk of years past. The rock was too much. The vibrations too much to handle. The Rolling Stones brought down the house with their driving beats and fissures formed in tanks. Carbon fiber supports buckled and bent. The footage from within the stadium was immediately repressed by every responsible nation, but the Guild maintains footage of the fall in its vaults.
Halfway into their second set the main ballasts lost integrity and the entire coliseum began to plummet. 50,000 drug crazed people in freefall. The band playing on as to Earth the heavens fell. Terminal velocity attained before impact and all the while The Stones rocking on. An Icarus swan dive into oblivion. I have seen the footage, and it is as grizzly as it is fantastic. Terrifying as the cold oblivion of the Titanic married to the horror of Altamont.
All killed on impact. The worst unnatural disaster ever. Bobby Z is still at large. The mass murdering promoter who betrayed his people as the deposed Folk King. It was the precursor to the end. The harbinger of the global collapse. The second day the music died. Learn you well those who remain; Only the real folk survive to tell the stories. Rock at risk of your eternal damnation.
Willfully Submitted,
Q.P. Quaddle
BSG Agent K00
Personal Journal
Agent K00 [Q].
I remember very little, but in vivid detail, the first Winnipeg Folk Festival I attended. 2010. It was more folk than some folk can handle. It was the last sane year before things got out of control. It was the folly pursuit to commune with Gods. It was the breath before the collapse. The calm before the storm.
Travelling under an assumed name I has snuck over the border with Americans set on defecting. Their plan was to find good looking wealthy Canadian masseurs in need of marriage. There is a transient population of 15,000 in attendance of the WFF, and so the odds of success were high, and spirits higher as we gathered the tools necessary for our dual works. Mine was a fact finding mission for the guild. Theirs marriage and leisure.
The Winnipeg Folk Festival is what Woodstock could still be, if not for the tragic extinguishing of goodwill and peace that it lit, brilliant and bold, for one magical summer in ’69. Any attempt to revive it since has met with ruin, murder, and despair. That brilliant flame birthed at Woodstock flew on western winds and embers settled just outside of Winnipeg. Every year, people of every age, creed, gender and nation come together. They consume vast quantities of food, music, and drugs. No one gets stabbed. No one freaks out. The sun shines bright and bold in Canada. The festival claimed to be organized by a non-profit board of directors, but Guild intelligence indicated otherwise.
The Guild sent me in ’10 to find out who was at the top. It was the year of the pyramid. The year of QuetzoQuaddle. The season of the witch. The strike team was a multi-cellular Agent list consisting of myself and several initiate press gangs that were branded with Guild insignia and dropped out of a bus after several hours with bags over their heads. Superiors in the Pentagon have disagreed with the morality of the technique, but cannot deny its efficacy. Only when you feed men to wolves can they find the necessity for a pack. The press gangs were to act as a cover, capturing as much Digital Archive as possible. The hope; to provide at least a terabyte of pirate material. If captured without documentation, Canadian officials could render swift judgment by means of uncomfortable deportation. It was also not uncommon to see summary life-expulsion from the festival, considered tantamount to eternal suffering for those who have attended for enough years.
Capture is not an option for a properly trained and prepared Guild Agent. Handcuffs are silly devices when compared to explosives and video games. Thumbs can be dislocated. Keys hidden. Agents with a sense of humor often ferret away a note in their but with whimsical sayings, simply to vex the authorities. Party favorites;
“You are a rapist.”
“Happy Birthday!”
“Sorry! Your princess is in another crack-hole.”
There was some crazy shit that went down in ’10. There was a zero gravity lightsaber duel for the title of Pirate King. I won. Obviously. A cover is never as effective as making a power play for control of a situation. James Bond subscribes to this tactic time and time again. Truth is stranger than fiction. When time is an issue, you have to buck authority and challenge convention to get a subversive element to expose itself. Light the fire and expose the head. It worked. Security escorted the master puppeteer to the zero gravity circus and we began our friendship.
At it turned out the entire festival was being controlled by Bob Dylan. This was not as shocking to people as some had projected. Bob was planning on defecting for some time, having reserved a list of rich masseurs he could call on for support. And after all, an investment in folk was an investment in the future. Bob probably owned more than half of Winnipeg through retail investments and business ventures. He was planning a retirement community for cool celebrities. A sort of Walden commune where they could all make art until they died. Then there was the space pyramid.
The Space Pyramid Scheme was a Prime Guild Initiative that failed only because of the globe collapsing. Bob was on board after a brief conversation about our mutual plans. The transcript went Level 3 Viral about the time money stopped working. Such is the intangible nature of existence. The following excerpt, provided through the future phone for personal edification, are some of the final quotes from Bob Dylan, and serve as a firm stony backdrop to the gelatinous havoc of FF 2012. It begins just after entering festival camping from Trail 1. The smell of fried deliciousness and sweet Canadian cannabis intermingled with the hanging smoke of pine camp fires nestled in the center of the camps. Bob himself was high on peyote and Herba-Matte-Poppymilk. I was surprisingly sober for having consumed a bag of mushrooms the size of a fist. Talking with Bob Dylan is like amusing the Devil. As we walked, Bob would spit blood and ash while chain smoking Lucky Strikes.
[Begin Transcript]
Q: So… can I call you Bobby Z?
BZ: Yeah. What do I call you again?
Q: I am QuetzoQuaddle. I am The Dragon Reborn. I am the Frog King of the Mississippi. I am Old King Creole, Last King of the Mayans!
BZ: Right. Right, you said that, but I can’t call you that.
Q: Call me Q.
BZ: OK. You can call me Bobby Z I guess.
Q: Thank you.
BZ: This is our pyramid.
Q: So it is.
BZ: Well… we didn’t have much time.
Q: Sure. I see a sphinx.
BZ: Yeah, it’s a trading post.
Q: What can you trade there?
BZ: Anything. If it’s from the soul.
Q: Is the laser real?
BZ: I wonder that myself.
Q: Look! They are breeding glow in the dark plants! What glorious fauna!
BZ: What?
Q: Nothing. Nothing at all. Pope’s Hill is that way?
BZ: Yeah.
Q: And it is called that because the Pope blessed it once?
BZ: Yeah. He may also be buried under it.
Q: What are all those lights?
BZ: People.
Q: There’s thousands of them.
BZ: Several thousands.
Q: Sweet Jesus, everyone has a lightsaber!
BZ: I saw your duel on something.
Q: Something digital?
BZ: Yeah. Zero-Gravity lightsaber battle. That’s something you don’t see every day.
Q: Those people are on fire.
BZ: No, they are manipulating fire.
Q: Whoah. Wow. They are quite good.
[Sounds of coughing.]
Q: Bobby Z! What the hell is that!?
BZ: Uh… [cough]… it’s an invention… [cough]. Guy who won the Nobel Prize built it for me… forget his name… [cough]. Allows me to instantly condense and inhale anything… [cough].
Q: Anything?
BZ: Anything.
[Sounds of spitting.]
Q: What have you tried smoking?
BZ: Not tried Q, did. Everything man. I’ve smoked almost everything.
Q: What was that you just toked on?
BZ: The Good Stuff.
Q: The Good Stuff?
BZ: Jim Morrison.
Q: The Lizard King?
BZ: That’s the one.
Q: You are smoking him?
BZ: His remains, yes. Hair is best.
Q: Was this by your request, or his?
BZ: Life is strange.
Q: People are strange.
BZ: Look at that!
Q: Flame whip!
BZ: How does that work!?
Q: Bobby Z, could I smoke some Jim?
BZ: How could I refuse the Lizard King to the Frog King?
Q: How do I operate this contraption?
BZ: You push this button, suck on this end, and pray.
Q: All Hail QuetzoQuaddle and the New World Revolution. I regret nothing.
[Sounds of coughing and laughter.]
Q: Wowie.
BZ: Doors of Perception.
Q: My mouth tastes like long dead burning hair, and for the first time in my life I feel truly alive.
BZ: Embrace it brother! Embrace ME brother!
[Sounds of laughter/coughing/gagging.]
BZ: Are you really the Greatest Swordsman in the World?
Q: Until someone beats me.
[End Transcript.]
The Space Pyramid Scheme had the green light and seemed unstoppable. Powered by the positive energy of folk enthusiasts and backed by their King, how would anyone stop the endgame? The Exit Strategy? Why the Guild succeeded was because they sent emissaries and thieves instead of assassins and soldiers.
In ’10 we only suffered a 50% casualty rate. The Guild cells did their jobs and accomplished their mission. The Pirate Data hit broadband from off shore and things seemed to be well. As a result of the data explosion the WFF ’11 line up was unstoppable. Neil Young, Pete Seiger, Arlo Guthrie, Xavier Wainwright III, and the ultimate reveal of Bob Dylan World. In WFF ’11, we had a 90% casualty rate.
What was once a wholesome folk affair had been exposed wholesale to Conglomerated World Media. Under the cock withering firestorm of national media blitzes the WFF was blighted by no less than 2,000 attendees being murdered, raped, or eaten by lunatic strangers. WFF ’12 moved ahead, undaunted by the bloodbath, as Dylan prepared to launch his air coliseum over the festival. Tethered by a water/power umbilical 5’ thick, the festival main stage would float 10,000 feet into the air. The Rolling Stones were playing their Absolute Final Performance, though they didn’t know it at the time. Through broadcast rights and ticket sales the 150 cubic mile of land would be purchased for the construction of the space pyramid. It seemed like an end to a means. Bringing rock to folk. How could we have known?
Looking back, I remember enjoying the stories the best. Old timers passing the pipe and talking about the lunacy of festivals past with whimsy and fondness. I enjoyed that the most and it is what I will try to remember that instead of the nightmare of WFF ’12. The coliseum was filled to bursting. 50,000 embarked on that fantastic and doomed lighter than air stadium. There were obvious concerns. From scientists mostly. Clergy. Even Guild Agents, despite the closeness of one of our prime objectives. Mostly concern for the children. There were other worries after Keith Richard’s threat of blowing everyone sky high. Guy ManCock claimed he was misquoted during a mescaline binge.
The Devil is n the details. The Rolling Stones were not folk. They were rock. Luckily, most of the true folk had been driven back into the woods. The tents replaced with RV’s. The fires replaced with flat panel TVs. The folk returned to nature in ’12, and laughed at the heavens for the fools who dared to try taming her.
The real festival was, and had always been a shared communion. King and generous people from all over the world uniting in fellowship and music. Around stages and fires they shared their lives. A family affair where children could play without fear. Of course Bobby Z didn’t mean to kill all those people, he was just misguided by the promise of global escape. The Guild is not blameless in its part. The means to the end was too great. The betrayal to final.
The launch occurred, and the coliseum rose. Rock thundered at 10,000 feet above the Earth. Engineers had designed the vessel to the last rivet. Calculated to the exact pound. But acoustic tests had not accounted for the rock. All of their tests were measured by folk of years past. The rock was too much. The vibrations too much to handle. The Rolling Stones brought down the house with their driving beats and fissures formed in tanks. Carbon fiber supports buckled and bent. The footage from within the stadium was immediately repressed by every responsible nation, but the Guild maintains footage of the fall in its vaults.
Halfway into their second set the main ballasts lost integrity and the entire coliseum began to plummet. 50,000 drug crazed people in freefall. The band playing on as to Earth the heavens fell. Terminal velocity attained before impact and all the while The Stones rocking on. An Icarus swan dive into oblivion. I have seen the footage, and it is as grizzly as it is fantastic. Terrifying as the cold oblivion of the Titanic married to the horror of Altamont.
All killed on impact. The worst unnatural disaster ever. Bobby Z is still at large. The mass murdering promoter who betrayed his people as the deposed Folk King. It was the precursor to the end. The harbinger of the global collapse. The second day the music died. Learn you well those who remain; Only the real folk survive to tell the stories. Rock at risk of your eternal damnation.
Willfully Submitted,
Q.P. Quaddle
BSG Agent K00
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