Who gathers?

My first gathering was 2002 in Peoria. It was at the civic center I think and this was the last gathering held in a city before it became an outdoor camping event. You can watch news footage of the terrified locals and painted up faces on YouTube. By the end of the event they had called in hundreds of police officers who were all just kind of standing on the sidewalk lol. Earlier the previous day a mini riot broke out when a cop tried to arrest a woman for flashing and it started this whole commotion and scuffle which lead to pepper balls and bean bags being shot everywhere and the whole building had to clear out. Ninjas were getting hit with plastic BBs! It was however amazing because there were a ton of Juggalos there and it was the unveiling of the 6th Jokers Card. The birth of the trash wars and the Bubba Sparxxx awards. It was real hype because Juggalos had basically taken over the town so they were popping up everywhere in the hotels and restaurants and the locals were hella confused like the carnival had literally showed up in town. Esham did a super dope set. I got to see Dark Lotus. This was all new. Esham had just dropped Tongues and Dark Lotus was popping.

Second gathering I went to was the next year in 2003 in Ohio. There was a bunch of stuff popping off. Wizard of the Hood had just come out so ninjas were bumping it all throughout the woods. KMK was there, JCW was in full effect. The Behind The Paint book had come out. There were events happening everywhere.

Third gathering I went to was 2016 (the 17th gathering) which other than being hot af was super dope. GWAR was there, they were air dropping rare ICP shirts from above and ninjas were climbing trees to get them. Esham did the most amazing set I've ever seen and it seemed like it was literally about 2 hours in the middle of the night with this huge projector behind him flashing images and cartoons and stuff. That night was also the last Dark Lotus performance. The Wizard of the Hood set was off the hook. ICP's set was amazing.

Last year was super fresh. The haunted house was hella fun my friend lost her glasses and we were looking for them and ended up just hanging out and talking with the spooky clown for a while lol. We went on the Ferris wheel with a random ninja who turned out to be a JCW referee! The Morton's List seminar was incredible, it had a full circle back to the beginnings type feel for real. After the seminar we were supposed to find someone who looked like they might have a golden ticket so that was going down. Honestly my friend and me should have won lol, in the end I heard it actually got found quickly but we were on some ultra ninja tactics to find the person who had this ticket. A bunch of people asked if it was me because I was rocking an old school Morton's List shirt. I was hugging random people. Getting into squirt gun fights randomly with people. We made friends with our campmates and they are now the homies from Scranton, PA. We spent a lot of time just kicking it. The vibes were real. It was a lot of fun.

There are so many memories within each gathering that it's difficult to unpack them all at once.