Daniel Hill
[Editor's note: Daniel Hill and Drew Ailes covered the 2013 Gathering of the Juggalos in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois.]
At the Gathering of the Juggalos, festivities run daily from noon until 5 a.m. That's when things get weird. After hours of drugs and partying and wicked clown love, Juggalos will begin displaying even more bizarre, hilarious behavior than they normally do. Here are some examples:
While wandering around the campgrounds taking photos of trash and whatnot, we came across the ladies behind the Tumblr Passed Out Juggalos, which features photos of unconscious Insane Clown Posse fans with girls' butts in their faces.
One, Kali, squatted over an unconscious man sleeping in a pile of mud near a campfire. He suddenly awoke and sent the girls scattering, giggling maniacally and searching for their next prey.
Kali of Passed Out Juggalos, demonstrating her technique on a non-passed out victim; Credit: Nate “Igor” Smith
Obviously, we tagged along with them. Before long, Kali and another girl began wrapping a guy who had fallen asleep in a chair with duct tape.
When we first came upon The Wheel, security was there, breaking up a crowd of people and telling them to move along. This was the only time we'd seen security stop anyone from doing anything, so we were intrigued.
The proprietors of the Wheel soon moved and set up shop again at a new location. “Spin the wheel!” they began shouting to nearby Juggalos that were still awake. “Spin the wheel; win a beer!”
The Wheel has written on it several potential outcomes, most of them absolutely horrible. The reason security had dispersed the crowd is because a man had just smacked another man in the face with a piece of poop in his hand. “You guys want to spin the wheel?” we were asked.
No thank you. But another brave soul gave a spin, likely unaware of what he was getting himself into.
It landed on some sort of punishment-to-be-named, and we were asked what the victim should be forced to do. “Uh, eat some bark off of that tree,” we replied, trying to find something that would satiate the bloodlust of the wheel's owners without ruining this poor kid's life too badly. This answer was initially deemed acceptable, but it was then decided that bark was too tame. “Put a rock in your ass and eat it,” one sadistic Juggalo suggested. This punishment was declined.
The Wheel; Credit: Nate “Igor” Smith
“Stand in the middle of that path, whip your dick out and start masturbating,” was the next suggestion. Our unfortunate soul, now aware that he was in over his head, declined that one as well.
We became bored and walked away, and the next day came across the owners of the Wheel again, and asked what ended up happening.
Apparently shortly after we left it was decided that the man would jump head first into a trash can, with his feet sticking out straight up in the air. The man complied, and then somebody hit the can with a golf cart and he went flying.
My colleague Drew and I spent a lot of time wondering how obvious it was to the Juggalos that we were outsiders. After Drew was playfully deemed a “faggot” by one, for example, he opted to change out of his skinny jeans and into a pair of swim trunks for the rest of our stay, which seemed to help. But when we were suddenly approached by a young lady wearing nothing but a t-shirt and her underwear, saying, “I don't want to be weird, but….” we were understandably apprehensive.
“Can you wash the mud off my ass?” she said, handing me a water bottle. “I sat on the ground and I don't want to walk around looking like I shit [myself].” She then turned around and stuck her butt out, waiting.
Drew and I are Honorable Men, with ladyfriends waiting for us at home, so we then performed the least-effective cleaning job you've ever seen, simply pouring water from bottles and refusing to touch anything, despite her confused suggestions that we use our hands to wipe off the offending brown.
As we were fumbling our way through this interaction, a Juggalo approached, intrigued.
Our new female friend explained the situation to him, and he promptly pushed us aside to take care of business. Drew and I walked away, wondering exactly what it means that, of all the people on the grounds, we were the ones that this girl chose to approach with this request. We may never be fully embraced by these people, but at least we aren't giving off a “sexual predator” vibe, I guess. That's gotta count for something.
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