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06.12.2002 - travel, rock show, zinesters

originally written 06.12.2002

08:30 - costa coffee in glasgow international airport, sipping good orange juice that i bought with the last of my gbps. my flight doesn't leave for another three hours, but i figure the earlier i get somewhere the less can go wrong. as much as i'd love to bop around the uk for a few more weeks, i need to make this flight back to the us. it's early morning, but it feels like midday. i've been up all night packing, cleaning up the flat, and shooting the shit with iain, marco, and pete. the sun's been up since 03:30. already i've taken three different modes of transportation and had my bags searched. orange juice and loud music (icky line) help me slow back down.

walked with iain around 04:30 to the 24 hour shop for probably the last time in my life. that must be where he got the porno mag that i found slipped into my backpack. amateur. that's nothing compared to the laxative prank. luckily i discovered the mag before i opened up my bag for security. i disposed of the mag by giving it to a young boy a la jason lee in chasing amy. that's a lie. it's actually in trashcan somewhere in edinburgh. and no, i didn't look at it before i threw it away.

so yeah, been up all night. played a little magic, did everybody's dishes and chit-chatted with marco to stay awake. later i watched a movie version of d.h. lawrence's short story the rocking horse winner. pretty crazy how they can turn a short story into a two hour long movie. needless to say, it didn't help much in terms of keeping me awake. once the sun came up, i knew i was golden. dumpster dove behind the tesco for a box for iain's cutlery, and in the dim morning light i realized once again, how foreign edinburgh really was. even off the main street one finds little alleys, closes, kirks, and any number of secret places. in the morning this revelation is even more exciting. in the hour after the clubs have closed but before the city wakes up the streets are silent and the secret cobbles seem yours alone - quiet, intimate.

the last few days in edinburgh have been rad. hectic but rad. yesterday i hoofed it around old town to procure various items for people. i hate shopping. i think i did ok though. after that, i met timothy for a meal at bann. the food wasn't as good as it has been, and i found the conversation a little akward since timothy had brought his older brother along. my problem. felt even more dumb in conversation when there were two of them there. still it was good to see him one last time before i headed back stateside. he's definitely one of the most interesting people that i met whilst in scotland, and the kind of kid that isn't exactly the norm at osu. made tentative plans to check out shows in philly in the fall, but who knows if that will happen.

rob left for his home near manchester yesterday. it was a strange goodbye. no embraces, no long remarks, just a quick "it was nice meeting you", and that was it. rob made the observation that he'd probably never see me again the other day. it was actually refreshing. it's nice to entertain the notion of maintaining friendships across continents, but it's hard enough staying in touch with people stateside. it's sad, but once you go off to uni, you really realize how fleeting most of your relationships are.

by far the coolest thing that happened recently was the show on monday night. getting ready for this show, along with the world cup, made research and exploring the city fall to the back burner. odd perhaps, but sometimes the most important things about a foreign place aren't the most obvious. it's strange that i had to travel across the atlantic to find people who were up for mucking around musically, but what's important is that i had a great time at el bourgo's first and only show. i had e-mailed timothy weeks ago to see if he wanted to play, and he said yeah. i thought it might be an odd situation because we didn't have a lot of time to hash out details, and after hearing we were doing kylie minogue covers, he seemed a bit nervous about playing his "sincere" tunes. turned out to be no problem at all. the biggest obstacle was, like most of the shows i've played, the equipment. it took forever to figure out how to rig up the tron's ghetto pa system, and marco was really freaking out. i just kept thinking that things were just going to end badly. marco's high strung, and with pete, you can't really tell if he's just really low key, or if he just doesn't care. so i thought that we were going to hit the infighting stage of our band early. luckily, the guy who usually sets up the sound was called, we plugged stuff in, and the instruments and vocals all sounded ok.

timothy played first, and he was just awesome. i confess, that my intent in inviting him to play wasn't only because i was excited to play his stuff, but also because i thought it would be good to have a sacrificial lamb. well, between his pounding on the classical guitar, the sincerity of his vocals, crazy kool keith-style shades, and anectdotes about scottish kids throwing shoes at him (complete with groundskeeper willy accents), the set was super cool. i was completely impressed.

we went on after timothy, and up on stage, i realized that between timothy's friends, marco's friends, and pete's friends, there were probably fifty people in the basement - i expected ten max. what made things more intimidating still was the fact that these people didn't stand cooly with their arms crossed in the corner. they wanted entertainment, they applauded emphatically, and talked amongst themselves when they were bored. the set whizzed by. i fucked up a few times, but was able to cover it for the most part. marco seemed more relaxed than when we were dealing with the pa (and he didn't even have to drink the bottle of buckfast that he had purchased). all in all, it was a huge success. our songs went over well. people laughed when we sang about iain and kendell nunn. rob even liked the one sincere song that i wrote. after our set, pete and friends played a few covers. it sounded good, but as they got drunk, things degenerated into extended versions of no woman no cry which, despite being an amazing song, loses it's pleasure after two dozen choruses. but yeah. it feels amazing to play a show again. it was an accomplishment. in like a month we wrote ten original songs and learned two covers and rehearsed them to an acceptable level of quality. i just keep thinking what we could have accomplished if we would have started in january. aesthetically, this project was far from my ideal band, but in terms of sheer fun and creative output, it was an amazing success. marco and pete, despite their musical talents were receptive to what i wanted to do, as well as forgiving when i messed up my guitar parts. it was sweet. i'm going to miss playing with them.

ok. off to find out what gate my flight departs from and who's winning the various world cup games.... (too bad about france. we gave a hearty nasal huh-huh-huh yesterday when we found out they got stomped by the danes).

sweden draw argentina. argentina's out. sweden's in. argentina and france are not going to be in the final 16. the pundits must be going crazy.

i am a bad person. i am sizing up the other passengers on the flight, and i'm disappointed that i don't see anybody interesting, or, should i say, i'm disappointed that i don't see anybody like me. there's not even the young male who skates. no precocious six year olds with maurice sendak or bookish pre-teens with harry potter. now it's not entirely my fault. i think i deserve to be a little cynical since i've never sat next to anybody who has deemed me conversation worthy (or vice versa) in any of my flying experiences. so, at this point, i'm hoping that i don't have to listen to the mindless chattering of the elderly folks around me for the entire flight (which, it turns out, i don't), and i'm hoping that nick hornby can write (which, it turns out, he can).

young child is being, well, a young child, which is to say loud and rambunctious. stewardess, no wait, that's wrong - flight attendent tells mother that she'll have to put the tray table (which is somehow acting as a play implement for the kid) up. but, assures the flight attendent, she'll bring some cookies for the child later. this is when the 20-something guy in the next row forward asks if he too can have some cookies. i'm convinced that this scene is out of a movie or a book or something. at the very least, the flight attendent had heard this one before. i'm glad i'm not too clever when it comes to being able to banter with fligth crews..

so this plane is tech. lcds in the backs of each seat rather than shared screens, control handsets that look like playstation controllers but require a far more advanced diagram to operate, and adjustable headreasts that seem remarkably like the special pillows that peter insisted would be the cure to my problems of sleeping on planes, if only i were to purchase one.

i must have dozed off because i somehow find myself clutching a pair of earplugs and an eyemask and not remembering the last minutes (hours?). i look out the window and see something that i've never seen before. white, whispy clouds and below, only blue.

16:00 in what i'll call "scotland time". i'm bored now. finished reading how to be good. i'll have to think on my reaction to it. it was an enjoyable read, but i'm not sure how much more. read through all of my thrasher as well. i'm starting to get bored with skate mags again. at least the pictures are pretty.

so plain blue beneath the clouds has given way to rocks and snow and ice. i have no idea where we are right now. could it be greenland, or canaduh? i'm hoping it means that we've crossed the atlantic and it won't be too long before i'm in jersey and heading for some good veg*n chinese. wakerly and dom said that the first thing they were going to do when they got back to the us was to hit up the taco bell. me, i think i'll up the ante and go for some mi mariachi, or el rodeo, or whatever that place is called. can't wait to get on the ground and have some fun.

listening to records ot kill the time. this the rocking horse winner record is ok. not sure if i really dig it though. it's really wussy. the band name is great though. i sort of like it now that i think about it. my first impression is keepsake with a female vocalist.

played magic against marco last night. it was sweet. he even gave me the black deck that i'm so fond of. damn i'm a nerd.

some kids have a new e-zine called ant zine. i don't hate it.

carnage, sunlight, foot in my mouth

end of the year (for me june has always had more significance than january in terms of the changing anum) means end of the year pranks. so it all goes back to pete bringing home a super soaker type water gun. so of course we got engaged in a flat water battle and i got toally soaked. but, in addition to that, rob made an offensive against the girls in flat 8. not to be outdone, the next morning, anais nonchalantly came into our flat, walked to the sink, filled a pint glass with water and dumped it on rob. today rob got her back by squirting her with the water gun while she was obliviously engaged in conversation. but the real point of all that buildup is that rob suspected that iain (who gets on with the girls upstairs exceptionally well) had tipped off the girls that rob was responsible for the initial aquasault on flat 8. so rob was out for vengence, and i think he always fancies a good prank anyway (he did after all go on and on about the amount of urine that was unknowingly consumed on his rugby tour over easter break). after iain shaved a penis into my head, i, of course, had to initiate some form of reprisal. rob made the suggestions of a technique often cited in prank lore, but never, at least in my or rob's case, executed: laxatives. so we made morning run to the mall to get laxatives, minor groceries, and nick hornby novels. to our chagrin, we found mainly wussy natural laxitives - not the kind of harsh chemicals that were sure to inflict carnage on our naive flatmate's bowels. back at the flat, i employed the crush-pills-with-one's-student-id technique i learned freshman year from watching (i'd totally have sex with dave mathews but i'm not gay) mike to crush the laxatives into a fine powder which we added to various beverages that iain was likely to consume. we put two 5 kg tablets in his cherry coke, and 5 tablets in his milk. he consumed the coke throughout the day, but not the milk. rob was really disappointed. i think he expected south park-esque explosive diarrea right away. well, by the time evening had come, iain was getting a lot more regular, and after he drank the milk i knew we were in for some fun. luckily, i think we got the dosage right so as to cause discomfort but not danger. i was a bit worried because you always hear the urban legeands designed to prevent such antics, but to be honest, the results are amusing but not spectacular. there's no spontaneous excrement. iain described the experience (unknowingly of course) as having controllable but watery shits. rob managed to convince him it was on account of bad kung pao chciken from the chinese dinner we had last night. to be honest, i feel quite bad and am having some sympathetic indigestion myself.

so i'm going to have to eat some crow here. i tend to watch movies with iain quite a lot as he's a movie addict. the thing is though, he's one of the most unprejudiced people i have ever met, so he can even enjoy a cheesy british werewolf flick without criticizing it. so, tonight we just got some cheesy movies, both of which turned out to be completely entertaining. "zoolander", a comedy written, directed, and starring ben stiller was a film that came highly recommended by tim, but that i thought looked like normal hollywood drivel. it's one of those movies that is really good buck just has shitty trailers. the movie just ended up being a great satire of the fashion industry and is one of the most consistantly funny movies i've seen in awhile. we also watched "bring it on" which wasn't exactly good, but was at times so cheesy that one couldn't help but like it. for example the cheating college boyfriend saying "but you're not my sister" to his dorm room bed buddy, as well as the token street girl from "east compton" saying "you've been touched by an angel girl" cracked me up and caused both phrases to enter my vocabulary. the movie was fun, and it's good to see the punk rocker get some ass every once and awhile, even if it is on the silver screen. too bad it's still the cheerleader. though, sadly, i must confess, in my high school days i wasn't without secret affections towards the more intelligent and academically minded cheerleaders.

it's 4am and already starting to get light out. the sun doesn't set until after 10. it's cool, but completely destroys my sleep patterns.

06.08.2002 - mike, exams

so california mike goes back to the states this morning. he's this kid who goes to ucla and was in my computer security and distributed systems classes. he's intelligent, clever, nerdy and i had a good time just talking shit with him and his partner in crime, dom (chicago to la transplant). got a text message from him yesterday saying that he wanted to hook up before he left. that's always flattering because i sometimes don't know where i stand with people. especially when i can be a real bastard about returning phone calls. part of it has to do with the fact that most previous invitations had to do with going out to some club and i'm always a bit reluctant to go out with people if they're going to get absolutely wasted. it really shouldn't be an issue when my tolerance for drunken antics has increased 100 fold on account of my flatmates. perhaps it's that i just don't want to be disappointed when i find people who i regard as very intellgent and clever acting completely stupid. there was no reason for concern last night. we went to this chill club on lothian street called medina. it's a middle eastern themed joint and has these giant couch-like corners where you can just lounge about with your friends (or practically have sex as was the case with the strange couple going at it in the corner). the idea of a chill out club seems pretty foreign to america, or at least the middle america represented by columbus. in columbus, there seems to be two kinds of bars: bars with bad house music and patrons intent on date rape and scuzzy dive bars filled with punks and grad students that are only tolerable because they don't fall into the former category. so yeah, i'd say that even though it's not really my thing, edinburgh has a really good nightclub scene, especially in terms of having diverse offerings to appeal to tons of different going out tastes. but yeah, it was great to talk with mike and dom one last time. mike is just a generally gregarious guy who likes engaging people in conversation and isn't afraid to talk about his jukebox software in a night club. dom is more quite but really intelligent and interesting. anyway, they drank, i talked, and we made tentative plans to rendevous in august for a midwest adventure. it's always weird going out with other people's friends, and mike, being the gregarious guy he is, had lots, and it's even worse when they're really smart, clever people who can put you in your place. i was able to strike up a conversation with one girl who happened to be from westerville. she had gone to high school with kids i had met during my first year at osu. it truly is a small world after all (insert mental image of singing, smiling, ethnic children here). but yeah, we talked about columbus, siblings, school, etc. i always feel good about myself when i'm able to converse with strangers as i'm normally rather introverted. if there's one thing i've seemed to learn to do a bit better since i've been abroad, it's been the skill of talking to girls. the reason, i think, probably has more to do with the fact that i have a girlfriend, and that many of the girls i meet, also studying abroad, are similarly attached. so, i think that romantic tension that sometimes underlies conversations one has with members of opposite sex when a conversation gets rolling is largely nonexistant. so, conversation seems easy and natural as opposed to contrived and arduous.

i finished with exams today. destroyed human communications yesterday, and computer architecture went really well today (even though i'm pokey and didn't get to the last part of the second question before time expired).