In 2010 I Tweeted “Who wants to go to the Gathering of the Juggalos with me?” My editor at the Village Voice* responded and we ended up doing a cover story that changed both of our lives forever. Over a decade later I returned to my 12th Gathering of the Juggalos ready to shoot some more photos of my favorite insane clowns. This year I was hired to cover the festival by The Daily Beast and Brooklyn Vegan so before you read  the rest of this post, check those links out. 

I pretty much start off every post these days talking about my back injury, but this time it’s especially relevant. I hurt it one year ago at the Gathering of the Juggalos. This year I had no idea how I was going to make it through the festival but I had a plan. I would skip the first day (that’s why this update is Part 1, not Day 1) and I would only spend a few hours at the Gathering each day to rest my back. I almost didn’t make it, day 3 almost killed me, but I shot enough photos just on day 1 to make the trip worth it. 

I landed in Columbus Ohio around 1:30pm on Thursday, grabbed my rental car and headed to my hotel. By 3:30 I was headed to Thornville, Ohio and after getting my credentials I was on Juggalo Island by 4. One of the first photos I shot was maybe the best photo of the whole weekend and I despite being down there for only a few hours, I think I might have shot my best stuff on the first day. 

I mostly just shot a bunch of juggalo portraits but I did shoot a handful of bands as well. The first one was Green Jellÿ. I had no idea what to expect, I remember being blown away by the Three Little Pigs video when I was a kid, but I haven’t really thought about them since. But that shit was so wild and so much fun and the photos are absolutely chaotic. Back on the main stage they weren’t letting photographers upfront until 8pm for some reason so I didn’t shoot much of the early stuff this year. I did shoot literally one photo of Cybertronic Spree who dressed as Transformers and played a bunch of weird covers. I didn’t really understand what was happening but I wasn’t mad about it. I also shot a few photos of the Clue coverband that is an inside joke that would take too long to explain it to you. They only played one song. Finally I shot Steel Panther who are a parody of a hair metal band. We have a bunch of friends in common and I have wanted to see them for years so glad I got to see it. It’s such a wild commitment to be doing this joke band for decades, but it seems like it’s a lot of fun.

After I shot Steel Panther I decided to call it a day. I was exhausted from the flight and my back hurt and I knew the next day was going to be my big one so I wanted to get some rest. ICP was playing a deep track set that night, but I knew I would shoot them again on Saturday so I figured I could skip it. I also missed a late night set by Onyx who are incredible, but I have seen them a few times before so it made sense to bounce. In the end I was only there for about 4 hours, but I still got some great shots which you get to look at right now. 

But some housekeeping notes first… I totally screwed up and I haven’t fixed the gallery system on my website. That is an incredible bummer because I am now using Flickr for these galleries and apparently nudity is now against their TOS unless you have a pro account and I am not giving Flickr $60 a year. I will get this fixed, but not this week. So because of that all the nudity is going on Girls of Driven By Boredom and my OnlyFans. I am sorry about that, I wanted to give you guys some random juggalette nudity and then just paywall the really crazy shit, but here we are. I am sorry about that. So far on Girls of DBB we have one gallery of just random toples juggalettes including some outtakes that I wouldn’t normally post. On OnlyFans I have some video from the Wet Faygo Contest and the Miss Juggalette pageant, but more on those in Parts 2 and 3. There will be a lot more content on both sites in the next few days and my sites are pretty cheap.

Speaking of you giving me money, I also uploaded 5 new juggalo NFTs from this year. There are now 55 that have been uploaded over the last year. There will be under 100 images total and they start at just .1 ETH. My other NFTs have done a lot better than these, but I love them and I am not stopping any time soon. 

Okay, now it’s time to look at some juggalo photos.

Click here to see all the photos from my first day at the 2022 Gathering of the Juggalos.

*My editor at the Voice, Camille Dodero,  is featured heavily in the new Netflix true crime series The Most Hated Man on the Internet because of a Voice cover story she did on the subject of that documentary. I shot some photos for her story that also ended up in the documentary. 

 

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