Diggin' the Scippies

Wickerman!

We played the biggest festival of tour last night and it was totally a hit- despite the fact that the acoustic tent was retardedly placed right next to the techno tent, somehow we powered through the skull vibrating bass lines and managed to play what I thought was a great show. Some of this might have had to do with the fact that due to poor lighting we could not see the audience at all, they were just some black amorphous goo vaguely distinguishable from the white tent. They made themselves known though, because they were a drunken goo, real good and drunk. Very receptive as a result, signing along whether or not they knew the lyrics. The only unpleasant moment of the night was when I heard one of them shout to another about my brother"Tat wun's his sun, but oo's d'uther wun?" Other answers..."'Must be 'is luver." Gross. Eiw fucking eiw fucking gross.

The festival was full of Scottish hippies (Scippies) which are somehow different fro American hippies- a little more flamboyant I'd say, like they don't have anything to prove. They don't care if you think they're environmentally friendly or vegan or peaceloving or nuthin- it's all gravy. Druuunken gravy. "Do you want to eat some kava kava? I love sleeping bags. Man colors are fucking... great. Everything should be like, 15 more colors than it already is. Especially yellow. And other colors. Man. Colors Bro."

Scottish hippies might seem more silly because they are hard to understand, but I'm pretty sure I sensed a distinct giddiness lacking from US antiBush antiWar antiMeat antiCorporate hippies- these hippies had only one agenda and it was to get fucked up and listen to music. And also to make out. Scottish hippies make out on average 8 times as much as US hippies. My expert calculations took into consideration how many people I literally tripped over in the act of salivaswapping- it was 8. At least American hippies have the decency to take it inside.

Nudity is okay with most hippies but these hippies, as i mentioned before, had a fantastic flamboyance about them with shades of goth, raver, and transvestite from outerspace thrown in. Inspired outfits included: codpiece and tutu, kilt and dozens of glowing lightsticks, many shirtless guys with fancy easter bonnets, dreadlocks underneath a giant inflatable tophat, and my personal favorite, a naked guy in (and out) of a sleepingbag which he cut leg holes in but hadn't figured out a fastening system for.

It was a very civilized festival all in all, they even had a tent specifically designed for people who were having bad trips, all outfitted with soothing music and low lighting. There was a reggea tent, punk, hiphop, terrible atonal drumming spastic beatboxing bullshit, and stuff for little kids as well. I have never seen so many little kids at a festival- that's another defining Scippie characteristic... they don't grow up and become yuppies or corporate hacks, they all seem to just camp out together and continue to get super wasted and loll around in fields listening to music, except this time with baby carriages in tow. This was rather endearing actually, the whole family vibe inspiring me not to try to outrun my parents, as I would have done instantly in previous family festival outings, because there is nothing lamer than trying to flirt with some cute dreadlocked guy and having your dad come up to warn you about putting in your special earplugs because the music is really loud and you might get a headache.

Another endearing surprise in this little down in god knows where Scotland was the tiny parade we happened upon this morning. No warning, no occasion, seemingly no reason for it at all. Out our window suddenly there were marching bagpipers. The parade didn't seem to have a theme, just people who threw glitter and streamers onto their vans, tractors, and in two cases, dumpsters... there was a truck with a gorilla playing guitar, four little girls dressed as bingo balls, a man in drag who looked like Catherine the Great riding a rocketship made out of empty barrels, and one very perplexed looking family in a minivan who had accidentally been caught in the parade and now couldn't get out. Absolutely hilarious.







Tomorrow we are off to... Glasgow maybe? I don't know really, it's all a haze of silly accents and friendly smiles. I'll check back soon. Writing is going... sloooowly. I hate my writing. Then I sit down and write and things are okay, then I check my wordcount and hate my writing, then i write and things are great, then I want a sandwich, hate my writing, want a brownie, check my wordcount, eat a brownie, hate my writing, check the wordcount, check my email, check the news, take a walk, hate my writing, and then am surprised when I check my wordcount for the 400th time to see it has increased by 21 words, most of which are "I hate my writing." I love writing but I feel like I'm in this rut... I need to be planning in earnest and it's hard to feel settled enough to lay out all my ideas when we're in a different place every night. But that is an excuse. A huge one. I know it. Any advice out there folks? I'd love some. Hope all is well wherever you are.



xox
H

P.S. in an attempt to find something to do in the 5 hour car rides that won't make me nauseous, I picked up a crochet kit in a local craft shop, and succeeded in making a swell worm, and then something that kind of resembled a rectangle. here is my attempt at a circle. It would make a swell hat for a small child with an extremely deformed head. For now I'm using it as a saxophone mouthpiece condom.

Drugs R Bad. R Good.

One of the joys of going to other countries, aside from all of that food culture architecture music history nonsense is being able to sample a new set of over the counter drugs which for whatever reason have not been deemed as illegal as they have in the united states. While I was in the Czech Republic making films, or rather, attempting to do what amounted to essentially trying to make a film whilst on a giant water raft careening down the side of a glacier as your crew of professors and actors gets too drunk to function and starts beating eachother with paddles and your camera and microphone requires batteries every 3.4 minutes so you must make heroic leaps off the raft and hitchhike into town and then crosscountry ski your way back to your now unmanned out of control raft as it caromes into rocky shards of further cultural incompetence and despise for your chilly american ass, (there continues to be no verb for this sentence about what I did in the Czech republic but I imagine my poor sentence structure has lost you so I'll start again."

Czech Republic, making films, (etcetcetcbitchbitchmoan) I acquired with my good friend and roommate KK (not to be mistaken with KVK, our Czech professor who set a table on fire trying to light absinthe) a good deal of some kind of codeine substance.

We were depressed and overheated and put upon in a rather dramatic way because we had to be here on a Yale program in Europe making films and they weren't woooorking they way that we wanted them to. Damn society. The injustice of it all. It was simply unbearable, we decided, as we sat on our american asses, and so we took lots of codeine and ate lots of chocolate and watched every bootleg DVD of sex and the city we could get our hands on. This sufficed for a few days until some sketchy kid missing a tooth (nice kid actually, little high risk perhaps but nice) found a source for Czech weed. And also Czech cocaine which I did not sample. It looked and smelled like baking powder. But I was wrong, it was not baking powder, because whoever sampled it promptly became victim to high velocity regugitation out our second story window, which apparently burned like magma and made you hallucinate some kind of hideous face demon, not so called because he had a hideous face but because he was attached to your face with all of his sticky dark hideousness. Nothing quite burns in your mind like watching vomit come out the gap in someone's teeth while they claw at their face. My guess is now maybe baking soda and, oh, I don't know, PCP.RatpoisonLSDFormaldehyde-tini cocktail.

Anyways I took this paracete-pamprin something stuff that they recommended in the gas station for menstrual cramps and step one... no more cramps. step two... slightly elated. step three... allegedly I am singing in a fancy restaurant with a napkin on my head because my sweatshirt hood did not constitute as a big enough hat, apparently I really wanted a big big hat. I probably should not have sampled this stuff on an empty stomach, but googling revealed that the opiates might ahve done me in either way. I dont remember being super happy or super sad, just very very pleasantly neutral and having a strong desire to be flat- flat against the floor, flat against the wall, flat against the napkin which served as my hat. I slept well for the first time in this godforsaken hotel because sam will not. WILL NOT stop playing guitar. And playing is one thing but practicing is another thing. And he's an amazing musician blah blah blah but SHUT THE FUCK UP I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOU PLAY THE SAME GODDAMN 5 CHORDS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND- see in my mind I just smacked him with a 2x4 but in my voice I told him to please go outside, and he reminded me in his sweetest little brother voice that I was typing until late last night and this should not be different. But it is. Because when I am typing I am typing. And when he is playing he is KILLING EVERY OUNCE OF JOY AND CREATIVITY THAT RESIDES IN MY BRAIN AS ALL THE ANGER MOLECULES BUST DOWN THEIR HAPPY LITTLE DOORS AND START BASHING THE JOY AND CREATIVITY AND SANITY WITH 2x4s. Neurological 2x4s. Metaphorical 2x4s, but 2x4s nonetheless. Umm... excuse me for a moment while I go get a fucking... while I go take a lovely stroll on the beach.

Where I will get a huge fucking 2x4.

xox
H