Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

Well tomorrow is Oasis and Black Rebel Motorcycle club at Finsbury Park. It starts at 4PM. When I bought the tix I thought "oh good, it will sunny and warm in July". Ha ha ha.

Tomorrow is rainy with a high of 17 degrees. I will need to bring a sweater.

Next week is Witnness Guinness festival in Dublin. I just got tix. Chems, Spiritualized, beta band, the hives, Mercury Rev, etc. And that's just the first day of it!

Rock on summer 02

Ingrid and I woke up at 11:00. Today was the Oasis concert in north London at Finsbury Park.
Although it was July, it was cold and rainy as usual. We walked to the venue and all the pubs were too full of people so we went to a small restaurant and had a few bottles of wine and some food. The restaurant was full of people and the staff seemed overwhelmed like they had never seen so many people before. One of the cooks had to run to the store every 10 minutes to get more food which slowed things down even more. The first of two bottles of wine was gone before our food got there.

After lunch we stood outside Finsbury Park entrance and drank 500 ml cans of Stella. They wouldn't let us bring the cans inside so we chatted as we watched the English kids coming into the concert. Some teenaged boys who already puking and their mates talked about how exciting it was to see Black Rebel Motorcyle Club. They noticed my American accent and engaged us in conversation. I told them I was from Seattle. They asked me if I had been to San Francisco to see BRMC before. I told them San Francisco was a 12 hour drive from Seattle. They seemed surprised and said it looked closer on a map.
The kids didn't look so good. Apparently, they were still at it from the night before. The concert cost 30 pounds per ticket and that plus the beer probably cost them a whole months allowance for them. They told me they were taking pills since 11 a.m. the day before. I asked them if they had any more. They smiled. I bought two off them and gave one to Ingrid. She smiled and ate it. My belly was already full from pounding the beers but I easily found room for the pill.

Not needing much inspiration to get well pissed, but inspired by the young ones, we pounded the rest of our beers and headed into the concert. We headed straight for the Carling tent and bought two more beers each and then headed towards the main stage. st band came on... I have no idea who they were but the sucked. It started raining and then it started pouring. The ground transformed from green to brown and people were slipping everywhere, even on the giant interwoven rubber mats. Finally the first band was finished. Painful. Ingrid told me to get more beer and so I brought back four more. A new band came out. They sounded like the Doors and the lead singer looked like a James Douglas Morrisson in his fat bearded Parisian mode. I had no idea who was playing. I asked a group of kids similar to the ones we talked to first - young and wasted.

The kids were engaged in desecrating the drunken “corpse� of one of their mates who was half naked and passed out on his back in a big puddle of muddy water. The put a sign on him that read “Will suck for food� and then they opened his fly and stuck an empty beer bottle in his pants. Next they started writing on him. Some passers dropped change on him. Some of the coins were even whole pounds. I suddenly remembered that I had taken a pill but reckoned it was a dud because I didn't feel any different.

I asked the kids who was playing. “I don't know,� said one of them, “I am just here to see Oasis.�

Ingrid told me it was a Swedish band called “Soundtrack of Our Lives�. I had heard of them but never heard them. I was happy. They weren't too good, but they were much better than the first band. Still, they were destined to be always a supporting act and never a main one. Finally they stopped and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club came on and started kicking ass. The sun came out and a rainbow appeared out of nowhere. It was Ingrid's turn to get more beer. As soon as she left I felt my pill kick in and with the sun and the rainbow I felt like I could do anything in the universe.

Ingrid came back with more beer and we found a place where we could sit down and still see the band. I kissed her. And then I proposed. I asked her to marry me in Sweden in October. She said yes. I told here I loved her. She told me she loved me. I told her how special she was and that I couldn't imagine ever find a better person for me.

If you know me it may sound hypocritical for me to be proposing marriage. I have been proposed to 3 times and turned them all down. But fuck it I love the girl. When we go on a date she calls me and says “meet me down the pubâ€?. She's like a good mate except with long hair, a pussy, and tits. And so what if I always say death before marriage... I still believe in that but with added second half... now its “death before marriage...and marriage before America.â€? That's right, instant EU citizenship. Fuck you, America. And unlike Eminem I am not joking. Give it back to the Indians. Maintenant, moi je suis Européan.

Well okay I proposed and then BRMC ended and then we went to get more beer and I have a hard time remembering anything clearly after that. At the time I thought it was Oasis doing umpteen covers of the The Charlatans, but I couldn't see straight and it was actually the proper Charlatans not covering anybody. When they played “The Only One� or whatever that song is called, Ingrid wanted to go dance and we went to the front and I remember massive wall of people knocking against me and mud everywhere and limbs flailing everywhere and then people helping each other up and then 100 more people would slam into us. It was mental and furthermore beer bottles were constantly wizzing by our heads. I myself got hit in the head by two of them but luckily they were the plastic coke ones and not the glass Beck's ones. Everyone was in a drunken anarchic party mode. Shit. It was really fun. And then the mixture of alcohol and adrenaline got too much for me and I lost all sense of time. I must have been knocked over 3 times and each time I seemed to avert death by centimeters. But Ingrid came hobbling over to me and told me she had to get out of there because someone stepped on her foot and it hurt. I somehow summoned enough strength to pick her up and carry her to the First Aid tent where they bandaged her leg.

They said the ambulance couldn't go anywhere until the concert was over. I wanted to stay with Ingrid but they kicked me out of the medical tent and so I decided the only logical thing to do was to get more beer and enjoy the main act. Oasis were pretty good - the best band there that day- and that's including BRMC. I was surprised because I thought they were finished after their last couple of shit albums. I am a pessimist when it comes to the lifespan of rock and roll bands. But it now seemed Oasis were over their sappy rehab crap and back into rock and roll proper. Liam sounded better than ever singing Born on a Different Cloud and they jammed wonderful versions of all the traditional anthems that make the English feel happy to be English.

After the show we rode an ambulance to the worst hospital I have ever seen in Western Europe. Whittington in Archway. We got there around 11 PM. We didn't get seen until 9AM, after I complained 8 million times. We were covered with mud and it wasn't fun because Ingrid had a broken foot. A nice Irish nurse looked at the X-rays and said it was definitely a contusion. She apologized for the wait but said people had worse things wrong with them so they went first. One guy came in a 3AM and was full of stab wounds... and it took every doctor in the place to patch him up. I hope he makes it.

We made friends with most of the patients in the hospital and some of them bought me coffee to help sober me up. One guy's head was busted open and he was still in the waiting room because he was too in shock to complain about not being seen sooner. The strangest guy in there though was a kid in his early 20's with a bohemian goatee. I heard him tell the receptionist that he was feeling depressed and hadn't been sleeping well. And that he thought about killing himself. I thought they would tell him to go home and do it, but they didn't. They told him to take a seat and a doctor would see him in 6-8 hours. He sat down for the wait. What could be more depressing than that? It made me reflect back to when I had been so depressed at the same age. What advice could I give him? Go home and do it. There are real sick people here, I would say. People who want to live. Here's a knife. Slit your wrists open - and then you will be in the front of the line. But I didn't really say anything to him at all - because every time I looked at him I couldn't stop laughing.

The obvious lesson to learn is: don't get sick in England. The foot injury was a freak accident. It could have been me. It could have been anyone. The NHS (National Health Service) sucks. But at least it's free. I learned a long time ago when I visited the former Soviet Union that you get what you pay for. When we got home from the hospital I got a take-out breakfast at a local café for Ingrid and then we fell asleep. I wanted to shag her, my new fiance, but I was too tired to be on top and Ingrid couldn't very well ride me in her state. I wanted a beer but there weren't any left in the fridge. Plus I was pretty dehydrated so I chugged a bottle of Volvic and went to bed, totally knackered.

We woke up at 6PM. I went to store to buy Ingrid a couple days worth of frozen food because she couldn't cook anything for herself. She specifically requested frozen pepperoni pizza and beef lasagna. I wanted her to be healthy so I got a ceasar salad as well and some achovies. I picked up some cans of Carlsberg lager that was on sale as well. On the way home I looked in a jewelry store for an engagement ring. The only one I liked was 250 pounds, which is all the money I had in the world. The store was closed anyway. Shit. I am a hopeless romantic. I bought her flowers instead. When I got home we ate the food and watched the Pink Panther.

Suddenly Ingrid looks at me and says, “Hey, didn't you propose to me yesterday?�

“Yeah.�

“Well... do you still want to get married?�

“I don't know. I think I'm too scared. No, I'm terrified.�

“But then you can get EU citizenship and we can be together.�

“God I fucking hate America.�

“So do I. I love you, baby.�

“I love you too, baby.�

“Where do you want to live when we get married?�

“Italy or France. For the next ten years or so.�

“And then can we move to Stockholm and have a family?�

“Okay. Yeah. Whatever you want, baby.�

Congrats ooh, its a lovely story. Im glad you are happy.

Okay. I better get my ass to London before anything gets any worse. And how can ypou even think of asking some chick to marry you who ? haven't even meet yet? I knew true love would get you in the end. By The Way- This is the first love story Sloth ever wrote.

Nice on Sloth! I especially enjoyed the bit about the suicidal kid. How true. Oh, and congrats on the engagement! In Sweeden, eh?

i hear the new oasis rawks. i'm getting it today.