5/30/2003

Yesterday's come down is today's rush :  It's hard to describe your last day at work. So I won't try, except to say that it's like having a labotomy, and in the gaps where your brain used to be, someone has stuffed a load of endorphins, amphetamines, and happy pills. Certainly can't concentrate. Just ...Got. To make it... to. Pub. While whistling 'The Final Countdown'
posted by Garreth at 5:33 AM

5/29/2003

Jesus Loves You More If You Can Drive :  Things you can't do when you've left work:

• recover from a hangover on someone else's time
• take a sicky to drink lager and play Vice City while eating leftover curry
• work from home - a euphemism for snoozing, daytime television, and hanging out with people while sending the odd email to convince people that you are in fact helping deliver shareholder value and earning your crust
• steal post-it notes from an office without getting chased down the highstreet by the people who work there
• have an excuse not to drink lager for breakfast
• fill the company car with left-over pie wrappers and empty sandwich boxes while ragging it up and down the motorway hoping the speeding fines and penalty points will go on someone else's driving license.

"Are you going travelling?" :  Get stuffed - don't be so offensive. It's a bit like asking if you enjoy getting drunk and driving cars through school playgrounds - something that was socially acceptable to your parents' generation, but not to your own. Don't drink and drive (even if it is fun), and don't go travelling. Travelling is whack.

"But I thought you were going to Central America? Where are you going?"
All over. Anywhere. Everywhere. I'll follow people who look like they're having fun. Discretely from ten paces. I'll sit in sunglasses at the back of the bus as it crosses the border as I follow them to the place with the most fun to be had.

"Isn't that travelling?"
I'd rather be accused of stalking. It's just being. You should try it some time.
posted by Garreth at 5:47 PM

Cut and Run :  It's odd leaving a routine that you've had for a sixth of your life. Something you've been doing for three quarters of your working years. There's a mix of excitement, emptiness, confusion and the sense that time is moving at different speeds on an hourly basis as you approach omega. I'd engineered my last week in such a way that I didn't really have to do anything. It feels odd to be in an office full of busy people, with nothing much to do. No pressure. No real responsibility. Kind of nice.

Some people say that there's some kind of protestant work ethic that should make one feel guilty about being lazy, redundant. Maybe that's why we treat old and retired people badly in the UK. (Though I'm told that it's more likely to be because old people smell of wee). However, I can quite categorically say that spending three months drinking myself into a stupour in South East Asia last year has disabused me of the notion that doing nothing makes me feel bad. I think it's just a switch that needs flipping in me - I'm either flat out and busy, or quite happy to mooch around doing nothing useful. I'm in need of flipping at the moment. To come down from the frenetic activity that has characterised my work.

So I found something to keep me busy in the office. Something that I can measure the progress of. A goal. It also makes me look busy in the office, which is almost as important as being busy. I have started converting all of my compact discs into mp3s. It's tedious, but has a purpose. It isn't overly complicated, but I can see the pile of unrecorded music diminish. I have found my meaningless repetitive task - this will keep my mind off life's imponderables - a bit of drudgery to keep me busy. More grist to the mill.

However. I do plan to finish my worker-bee-like droning tomorrow. And then I leave the company I have worked for over the last five years. There's surely some drinking and lazing to do after that. Watch this space. Could it be the resurrection of the Loughborough Helicopter Display Team training I considered last year? Marine conservation in Honduras with Coral Cay? Maybe just living in a hedge near an off-licence in a small town in Leicestershire. Decisions, decisions. But no netdecisions.
posted by Garreth at 1:44 PM

5/27/2003

Quality Time :  It's quite opressive - I have only three days left to turn up at work with a hangover looking like I've been dragged backwards through a hedge. Going for an expresso and cognac just before midnight last night was the only way I could stay awake long enough to drink enough to achieve today's head-swimming arrival into the office. My head still feels like its filled with cotton wool.
posted by Garreth at 7:43 AM

5/21/2003

Tip of the day :  When leaving work, make sure you wander around the office grinning like a demented rock-smoker who has just mugged a grandmother on her way to deposit 50 years of hard won savings at the bank after being told it would be safer than keeping it under her mattress. Set your mobile phone ring-tone to play the fruits of Europe's finest hour - "The Final Countdown". Let's face it, I'd rather that the UK was a member of 1980's hair-band Europe than be a member of Europe - The Union. Where's the catchy music for the European Economic Union? Nowhere. Not even the Eurovision Song Contest could save it.
posted by Garreth at 7:27 AM

I don't normally go in for this sort of thing, but... :  when something makes me want to wet myself, I care too much not to share. Or this if you're after cartoon entertainment. Of course, my urge to share could be part of the crazy seretonin imbalance that accompanies only having 6.5 days left at work, before taking off to swan around the world some more. Starting with a Saturday night in Essex which could be fatal.
posted by Garreth at 6:32 AM

5/19/2003

MTV makes Beck want to smoke crack :  London Underground drive people to drink
posted by Garreth at 4:23 AM

5/18/2003

I'm not a violent person or axe-murderer, but everyone gets a little piqued when they are attacked with a baseball bat :  Meet for the Sheep   We'd arranged to see Sheep On Drugs at Fabric, in an area of London which has become a magnet for fashion victims and street crime - Old Street. To arrange a meeting place, there was the usual escalation of communication - first an email chain, then some SMS, but we had yet to resort to actual telephone conversation to arrange the details. The efficacy of electronic interaction had conveyed the plan - that w should meet at the Foundry - a pub with surely the worst site in the world. The poor web presence of the Foundry probably didn't lead to its demise, though when I arrived at its doors at the allotted hour, they were firmly closed. The doors didn't look like they would be open any time soon - the bar looked derelict. I was going to have to escalate to actual voice conversation with Zoe to rearrange our meeting.


Unstoppable force    I always think that people believe what they want to believe - whatever helps them at the time. Me, I often refuse to believe things about myself, as I don't want to lose my self-image as playing a super-hero in the movie of my own life. Table football would be one example. There's a table in the office, and despite numerous leagues and competitions which I have failed to win, I still think I'm the best person in the world at table football, and practically unbeatable. Douglas Adams wrote about an Electric Monk, who could simultaneously believe thirteen contradictory facts at once. The Electric Monk is not the super-hero I wish to play, but it is clear that anyone who loses games of a (pub) sport, but still believes himself to be unbeatable at that sport is clearly capable of great leaps of delusion if not faith.

Grip   Sometimes the evidence does beat down the canvas walls of my self-delusion, sometimes it doesn't. On a recent motorcross day with two friends, I was convinced I could not lose a race. After several races which saw me hurtle straight at an electricity pylon in lieu of turning the bike through the hairpin, go through crash barriers, and generally fail to beat anyone, I came to realise I wasn't the greatest. Though I think the veins on my forearms were possibly the greatest and most pumped, given my intense vice-like grip on the handlebars which accompanied my maniacal efforts to remain atop my bucking steed of steel. That was one example of evidence beating my delusion. One other point: when designing a motorcross track, try to avoid putting a 100ft steel pylon in the middle of it. If you have no other option, don't put a long straight and a tight bend just in front of it.

Pace Another example of my self-faith moving mountains would be at a barbecue at a friend's house. His bicycle had a speedo fitted, and I was absolutely sure that I could get a higher top speed than anyone else present. I upped the record from 19.5 to a massive 23.5 mph, with my legs pounding the pedals as I gritted my teeth and got into the zone. Call it mind over matter, call it compelling self assured confidence, call it what you like, but I won, and I knew I would. Mind you, I never enter the lottery unless I think I'm going to win. I don't hope I'm going to win. I know I'm going to win. Needless to say, I'm often surprised to find out I haven't won, that I'm wrong, and that I'm disappointed.

Now what does this have to do with Sheep On Drugs, Old Street, and closed pubs? Well it adds a bit of context - my vice-like grip, my deluded state of mind and confidence in my own abilities, and it demonstrates that I know how fast people can go on bicycles. This is very relevant for what happened as I stood outside the Foundry, about to call Zoe from my cell phone. I started to look up her number on my phone in a long-sighted, "hold the phone at arm's length" kind of way.


Snatch   Feeling a hand reach over my shoulder and grab my phone, I assumed Zoe had arrived and wanted to signal that I shouldn't bother calling her. I started to look backwards over my right shoulder whence the arm wielding the hand had come.

As the shoulder bearing the arm bearing the hand passed to my right, on a body on a bicycle, I like to think I realised that none of these things belonged to Zoe. As the rogue hand attempted to ferry off my telephone, I like to think that my super speed reflexes and superhuman strength actually wrested the phone out of the insistent grip of the powerful man trying to steal my phone. He failed to make off with his prize, my phone - this much is true, but in reality, I was too shocked for several heartbeats to figure out I had foiled a robbery by clinging to my phone.

Maybe it was a flood of high performance secretions surging into my blood, stimulating me. Overclocking my brain, so that a mass of thoughts could present themselves on the internal television where my mind decides what to do. The internal television where I star as the superhero in the movie of my life. Hyperfast thinking - the vision of an eagle, focussing on the would-be robber receding down the road. Perhaps it was a trick of my heightened senses, but he appeared to be pulling the hood of his anonymous dark sweatshirt over his head in a slow and nonchalant fashion. As I think about it now, it was clear that he must have been doing this with one hand, which was perhaps why he was not pedaling very fast - he perhaps was not nonchalant at all.

It was about this time when I also realised that I could run far faster than he was cycling, and that he was not a powerful man at all, but a lanky youth who looked like he needed a good shoeing to dissuade him from his life of petty crime. A lifestyle choice on his part that had left him ill equipped for his new career of phone stealing, give that I had, with no prior training, hung on to my phone as he tried to whip it from my outstretched arm. This is probably a lie. Actually I thought, "Tw*t". I know this for sure, as this is exactly what I shouted at his back as he pedaled off. But I know I wanted to give him a paneling for his bungled efforts too.

Shoeing   With a well timed foot in the spokes of a mountain bike, it is quite easy to unseat even an experienced bike rider as your shoe wedges against the frame of the bike, bringing it to an abrupt stop. Even a badly timed foot has a similar effect. The shock of the rider who has flown over his handlebars before planting his chin on the tarmac is sufficient to stun him for enough time for you to regain your foot from the twisted bike wheel.

By the time you have walked to the ex-rider's prone and twisted body, there will probably be enough adrenaline in your body to dull the pain in your twisted foot. A foot that you can liberally use to dislodge some of the internal organs residing in the abdomen of the limp body from their protective tetherings. The noise of cracking ribs won't make it to your brain - the excitement of the situation will cause your heartbeat to rise, and the blood vessels behind the outer ear canal to dilate. The canal will be pinched by the engorged blood vessels. This will impede your sense of hearing to such an extent that you won't hear the approach of the cyclists accomplice from your rear.

The first you might know about this is the crack of a baseball bat on your shoulders. He perhaps was not brave enough to swing at your head. Perhaps he was smart enough not to aim at your neck and end up in the slammer for manslaughter. Either way, it will be the last decision he will make today with the baseball bat in his hand, as you whirl around and unleash a forceful kick to his kneecap, and in a fluid spinning move, you deliver an elbow to his temples, making him temporarily lose control of most of his motor functions. You might kick the bat from his useless hands as he crumples to the floor.

Vigilante   Of course, none of this actually happens. I stood rooted to the spot in shock, with my blood boiling. After shouting, "Tw*t" at my assailant, I failed to do anything for about ten seconds, which gave him ample time to cycle off slowly into a back alley. But the fantasy violence which unfolded in my head made me feel less aggrieved. I still play the super-hero on the television set in my head which is showing the movie of my life. I still have my phone. And I now have a much clearer plan of what to do if I am in the same situation again. Not that I plan to become a vigilante, holding cell phones attached to pieces of cheesewire in my hand on the grim streets of Old Street, yanking the hands from hooligans when they attempt to grab them. That would be going too far.
posted by Garreth at 5:40 AM

5/16/2003

Backwards time :  I rediscovered an old watch of mine whilst clearing out my attic. It has a mirrored cover over the face. The cover is mirrored on both sides, and flips up to reveal the face of the watch. The watch hands rotate anti-clockwise, and to gauge the time you have to flip open the cover and view the reflection of the face in the mirror. It's a nice watch. I've taken to wearing it again. The battery has long since given up the ghost and its juice. The watch hands don't rotate anti-clockwise any more. It is even harder to tell the time than it used to be, given that you have to be looking at the reflection of the face at exactly 10:50 to stand a chance of getting it right.

It's nice not knowing the time. It gives a sense of freedom. All we have is time and choice. I only have nine more days of work left. And lots of choice.

posted by Garreth at 4:02 AM

5/15/2003

Pf Art :  Working next to London's Tate Modern art gallery affords one the chance to indulge in a lunches with Ernst's Celebes. However, the potential for quality time with an exorbitantly priced sandwich (humous, carrot and wilted spinach don't you know) and a picture of an elephant is not realised on a weekday. Weekday art viewing is marred somewhat by schoolday crowds. Large groups of adolescents pushed to the brink of semenal explosion by raging hormones giggle and flirt their way through their teacher's stern-voiced attempt to educate them. The lecture is half baked - it must sometimes be soul-destroying to talk at the blank expressions of disinterest on the faces of recalcitrant pupils, knowing that ninety percent of what you say will be ignored by eighty percent of the audience.

This is my inspiration for my next performance art piece. A group of octagenarians in schoolboy outfits will spend all day stood by any painting with a hint of exposed female form. Their noses will be maybe a foot away from any nipple or ripple of flesh. No-one else will ever see the nudity portrayed during this piece of pensioner art. No buttocks will be observed, no pubic hairs in sight. Every few minutes, the group of pube-blocking elders would cackle and nudge each other and point at something rude. Timeless.
posted by Garreth at 9:46 AM

5/12/2003

Stag Don't :  The Stag Do. A great institution. If you're one of those people who think that single-sex team sports are just a big excuse for heterosexual men to get away from their wives and drink beer, then you probably think that the Stag Do is something that happens to get the same men away from the pretence of an excuse to get away from their wives and drink beer. And with no pretence, the Stag Do lends a special air of freedom. I like them very much, and have passed several months of my life living each weekend as if it was a Stag Do. Without even the pretence of being on a Stag Do, I saw myself as supremely liberated.

On Stag Dos, anything can happen. This one saw an assorted list of activities:

• A fist fight between two very good friends
• Taking very bad photos with a telephone
• drink induced coma
• The groom waking from his late afternoon coma to Goldilocks-like screams. He awoke in someone else's hotel room. He was woken up by the room's rightful guest screaming that a strange man had broken into her room and taken residence in her bed
• Hijacking some bread crates and a small trolley and forcing the groom to attempt head first street-luging on Tottenham Court Road
• Walking a fair distance to a strip club that was very shut
• Waking slumbering security staff in stairways of oversized nightclubs
• Demanding to be taken somewhere in a taxi, and quibbling about the price for some time with a patient driver without specifying any particular destination
• Demanding of minicab drivers to be taken to the best kebab shop in London. Then haggling down to any kebab shop in London. Then haggling back up to any kebab shop in London that was still open after being driven around for quite some time.
• Two broken ribs

5/08/2003

Have you ever entered a competition :  and thought that you wouldn't win? Like entering the lottery and expecting to lose?
posted by Garreth at 12:58 AM

5/07/2003

Baaaa baaa stag night - The Pleasure And Pain World Tour 2003 :  "Can I sit here and get drunk until my friend arrives and we order some food?"
"Of course you can - come and sit here so that we can watch you - it might be entertaining."
"Thanks."
"Here's a cocktail list."

Saturday evening started promisingly in the Camden Cantina. And though I love the bloated contentedness created by gorging on a meal packed with spices, fat and carbohydrates, this was not to be the highlight of the evening. I had heard some joyous news that morning that had altered my evening plans. The nice lady on the radio had informed me that Sheep On Drugs were headlining at the Camden Underworld that very evening.

Sheep On Drugs are a very highly thought of band in quite small circles. I hadn't seen the live since I was a stoodent, and their claim to chart-topping fame was their entry into the Top 40, straight in at number 39. Top Of The Pops, that wholesome carnival of glitter and pop, actually billed them as 'Sheep'. Clearly, suggesting that there were such things as 'Sheep on Drugs' was too dangerous for the British teenager. It didn't matter to the producers what the name actually meant. It could have been about real sheep, injected with amphetamines and covered in special flourescent paint. A herd of paintbrushes that could be used to lay the paint in amusing patterns by stoned border collies. The hills of Wales would come alive with secret messages from the dogs to the world, when viewed under ultraviolet light. Or it could have been that Sheep on Drugs was about the masses of herdlike ecstacy users who would act mindlessly under the influence of trance music. Whatever it was, the producers cropped the band name to 'Sheep'.

That Sheep on Drugs were quite this unpopular had its advantages - tickets were still available on the door. Even the band themselves were heard to remark, "F*cking hell, some people have actually turned up." before ripping into some of their golden tracks such as 'Catch 22', and '15 Minutes of Fame'. Half of the duo in the original line-up had gone. Lee, the tattoed guy with the custard blonde shock of hair was there. This time there were no hyperdermic needles sticking out of his forearm. The other guy, Duncan, did not appear - the skinhead bloke with the Hitler moustache. However, a remarkable woman in a rubber corset who has replaced the Hitler skinhead more than matched his charm. The last time I had seen Sheep on Drugs, said skinhead had tried to kick me in the head while I was at the front of the stage. The remarkable woman did nothing more offensive than play a single string on her bass guitar and moan into the microphone in a way that some of the pvc-sporting crowd described as "Quite erotic." Hence her moniker - the Queen of Sleaze.

Sheep On Drugs were utterly marvellous, and I shall be endeavouring to see them some more on Monday the 12th May, when they play at Cargo of all places, as part of their Pleasure and Pain World Tour.

The evening continued to get better in even more surprising ways - a friend phoned up at closing time, saying that he was in London on a stag do in London - quite unexpected given that he lives and works in Detroit. In no time, I was united with the stag party, and talking about life, love and methylated spirits with my friend, on the wrong side of a well funded drinks kitty.

posted by Garreth at 4:21 AM

Chained and abused :  I had been left, chained to the railings outside a fish and chip shop in Hammersmith. Master must love me. The chain is very strong. There is no way I can escape from the heavy duty clasp. Master must think I'm special. I wait patiently, and see others arrive to be chained too. It's a warm spring day, and though I would love to sprawl in the sun, my chain keeps me vertical. A kidnapper arrives, or is he a body snatcher? Someone who steals limbs and more, to sell to the Frankenstein of bicycles, who will then make the monster of all bikes. Yes a body-snatcher. A wheel-snatcher to be precise. The quick release wheel is released quickly. And the wheel-snatcher is off.

Master returns in the evening, looking foul tempered after a hard day dealing with the imbeciles that pass pass for his clients these days. Master drops his rucksack in dismay at seeing me, his trusty rusty bicycle rendered a mono-cycle. Expletives pour from his mouth, and then he notices something pinned to my make-shift mudguard that he so lovingly manufactured from duck tape and take-away containers. I hope he won't abandon me, and take away my lock - leave me at the hands and spanners of any passing body snatcher. In truth, the thought of this chills me to the crank, for I know that the price he paid for me was less than the price of the lock, and now I am considreably less use than the lock. Not only can I not be riden, I am a pain to move. The lock is in good order, and quite portable.

But master reads the note. It tells a tale of a thief. Of public outrage at the daylight robbery of my wheel. It talks of heroes, members of the general public, giving chase to the villain, and of police and happy endings. My bacon is saved. Master perks up, and drags me to the police station. He locks me up outside, and returns with my missing wheel. I can tell he is happy, once he makes me whole again. I can tell by the hearty way he thrashes the living daylights out of my pedals on his way home, urging me to go faster. I can tell that his faith in humanity and the police has been restored by the vigilante's act, and the arrest that followed. Master must love me. That's why he abuses me so.

posted by Garreth at 2:47 AM

Strange things that you find in your attic when you're moving house. :  Super-sized padded post bags that look like they have been put aside by a kidnapper. Their grisly purpose to bear the still warm body parts of the hostage as she is posted gradually back to her media-baron father. A hard-nosed unmoveable man, who sacrifices his lovely daughter to ward off future kidnap threats on his beloved son. As he stands in his large office, holding a glass of whisky, trying not to think of his daughter being dismembered.

Letters from an ex-partner declaring undying eternal love for you. Letters that were curiously never sent, but left to fester in a hand bag.

Carburettor balancers designed to allow you to maintain the same flow of air into each cylinder of a multi-cylinder engine. Used once in the last decade with little success.

posted by Garreth at 2:46 AM

5/02/2003

The first rule about Office Club. :  In my dim and distant but mildy entertaining past, I once held the much cherished position of 'hot dog vendor to the drunken masses'. This was in Sydney, and my shift would normally start at about 9pm. And I would stand vigilantly behind my mobile hot dog cart and watch the world stagger by until 4am. It was about this time in the morning that I would be rescued from the grim attrition of the streets by the hardnosed Chinese entrepreneur for whom I worked. At this point, the stream of rowdy lager-soaked clients had diminished, and the reheated offal tubes were past their best. There's a theory that says that the fresher hotdog could be sold to the more discerning and sober punter, while the early morning burnt offerings were best delivered in disguise to the more inebriate customer. The disguise would not hold up in the cold light of day to close scrutiny no doubt, for it consisted solely of a thin veneer of unrealistic ketchup and ultrabright mustard, with whatever onions could be saved from the grabbing hands of the earlier hordes.

After a settling in period, I was given a cherished daytime shift - serving relatively sober fans on their ways to and from sporting events in Sydney's stadia. The danger here came from rival hotdog cart operators. Everything was fine in the flurry of over demand, when each hot dogger could sell the gristle pockets as fast as he could wrap them in bread. But when the flow of eager sports and pork fans dried up, the competition would hot up. Oh yes, it was every man for himself. It was the sort of time when you suddenly realise that most of the competition were burly men, no stranger to threatening each other both physically and verbally. The only thing that stopped the cauldron of competition from boiling over was the threat of mutually assured destruction: we were each armed with bread knives to slice open the rolls. These were our trump card, our weapon of messy destruction. None of us would have got far, trying to carve up a bigger share of the prospective buyers by slicing our oponents. Not in broad daylight. I'm a very non-violent person, so I was pleased that I could retire at the end of the shift from the field of battle, outside the field of football, with no blood on my hands (save for all of the vermin slayed and ground up to provide the lumpy substance of the meaty sandwiches)

The day shift must have seen me rise in the estimation of my Chinese handler. I knew how to take care of myself. Or more usefully, I knew how to take care of the hot dog cart and its associated profits. I wasnow granted some of the more dangerous and demented streets each night. I was dropped off into the heart of Sydney's red light district. The tenuous shield that kept the marauding hoardes from my hard won cash was my non-violent response to the threats I received. And the hand on the handle of the bread knife in case of extreme situations. People threatening to throw the hot dog cart across the street became mainstream, whether or not I was to be thrown across with it. As with animals, it was important to try to hide fear, and maintain a firm and calm manner in the face of groups of large slobbering youths. This was the last job where I was surrounded by violence and physical threats. Or so I thought until last week.

To see two grown men in office jobs square up to each other has to be seen to be believed. The small chubby authority raising his voice. The shaven-headed eastender stepping into the personal space of the chubby fellow, while pointing his finger at his chest. People in the open-plan office distracted momentarily from the hypnotising dance of text that jauntily adorns their email addictions. It was a relief not to be involved in this unfolding of office violence. And a relief that no ketchup was at stake, and no bread knives to hand.
posted by Garreth at 7:11 AM

The song that changed my life :  I had planned to see the Sisters Of Mercy, a band as ridiculous as their website suggests. They were appearing at London's Kentish Town Forum over two nights - a rare outing for the aging goth outfit, who had long since past their heyday of 1985. It was a duty to myself, to see how they had stood the test of time, and possibly the decay of their royalties and limelight. I thought I might enjoy it, and wondered if they would play a song that was very special to me. It is a song that I forbade myself to listen to. The first time I heard it in 1988. I decided then that I would not allow myself to hear it, except after a significantly life-changing event. This was a song that I believed was literally too good to listen to, and haven't heard since that first time.

In some quasi-mystical way, I thought that if this song were played at the gig I was going to, then this would be a sign that something was fundamentally changed in my life. If it sounds a little wacky, the backdrop to these thought processes was an evening in which I was preparing to vacate my flat - my residence on-and-off during the last three and a half years. That in itself might be considered a fundamental change. But this change was not isolated. It was coupled with the discovery and eating of some psychotropic substances from the dark recesses of my attic. I found them while clearing out the aforesaid attic - an attic full of memories, forgotten possessions and as it happened, mind-bending pharmaceuticals.

So it was with some trepidation that I was about to venture off to Kentish Town. I was donning my glad rags when I got a phonecall from a friend who was returning from a holiday in Spain, and who agreed to accompany me to the gig. We thus arrived togethr some time later, with the requisite lack of ticketsf for such a gig. We promptly purchased two from a helpful pair of touts, for a little over face value. Bargain. Or not very popular, we mused. It turned out to be a well populated affair. Balding goths, old goths. Some were mere characatures of the old giffers with greying, thinning hair, who dye their remaining strands jet black with the subtlety of George Bush. But they were all terribly polite. It was easy to get from the bar to pretty much front of stage, without any well-placed elbows to the mid-section, or knees to the back of the thigh.

They played a few obscure songs that only real fans could possibly enjoy (and in fact the ones I asked didn't actually enjoy them) and too few crowd pleasers. At this point, my friend and I both pointed out that we had never sat on any shoulders at such a gig, and flailed our arms about hoping to form a ghostly silhouette in the pall of smoke that hung over the black clad crowd. Nor had we sat on shoulders with our arms outstretched to the sides with long pointy fingers extended in a gesture of complete devotion as the last beats of the drum machine from a favourite song blasted into the pale faces of the fans. Put simply, a shoulder ride was in order.

Being heavier, and not that confident that the gaggle of goths would maintain their polite airs and graces if a ginger Englishman was to fall on their heads, I was the first to lift. I was hugely surprised that I managed to lift my friend straight up, without the expected topple, stagger, or burst kneecap. I won't say it was particularly comfortable for either of us, but my friend got a good view and managed to obscure the views of the patient people behind us. When he dismounted, I suddenly felt my spine expand, as if I was steadily growing taller. This feeling could have been the remnants of the previously ingested psychotropics, but it was quite remarkable, and to be heartily recommended.

Even without being told the merits of taking a 170 pound man off your shoulders after their perching there for several minutes, my friend wanted in on the action, and to lift me up for my turn. The propulsion into the upper atmosphere of the smoke was not a smooth one this time, partly because the lifting started while I was still getting my leg over so to speak. I grabbed a few sympathetic and tall people for support while sitting virtually halfway down my friend's back which was now horizontal, as he tried to stand up. It was like riding an angry bull for about 30 seconds, as he tried to drag my legs forwards over his shoulders and erect himself. Eventually, after much thrashing on his part and much clawing of strangers' extremities on my part, I was above the heads of the people who were smirking at our "two beasts with no back" performance. Which was frankly far more entertaining than the performance by the Sisters Of Mercy. Was being aloft someone's shoulders a life changing experience? Probably. I certainly had a new empathy for contracted spines. But they didn't play my special song, so now I have to decide for myself whether I am undergoing any life-changing experiences.
posted by Garreth at 7:08 AM