GLASTONBURGLARY: Eavis and the Tow Rope.

...1992. I found myself at the very ragged and messy end of yet another long term boy/girl thing. We were supposed to go to Glastonbury together. She switched allegiance at the last minute to dreadlocks other than mine, lead astray by restless feet, and other occasionally private parts of her anatomy. So I went alone. I was like a coiled spring, a non-venomous but very entertaining asp. Good timing? Yeah, you feckin' betcha!! I spent four solid days in blazing temperatures surrounded by music with my mind bent very, very sideways indeed. Full of self-inflicted fuel for the wandering imagination, I perused the multifaceted diversions. Just a tangentially motivated grinning face disappearing into, nay willingly melding with, the mad, milling crowd. A loose animal at times. One remembers and utilises all of ones training at will, but when that isn't necessary, feral behavior is reverted to. Suffice to report, I gorged myself upon the gelatinous fruits of hidden Dutch laboratories.

Once the main festival was over, I had to fulfill my indentures by spending the next five days clearing up with, I think, Friends of the Earth. Me and the Earth got real friendly that week I can tell you. By Friday afternoon I was wearing only underwear and bin liners because it hadn't stopped raining since Monday afternoon. I'd run out of dry clothes. I lent somebody my last pair of dry socks. She was grateful. I spent my birthday there. An Aussie hippie I had befriended had found a sizable bag of billy the day before. Now everything tasted weird, and I didn't want to eat it anyway. The band I was in played in an edge-of-site cafe on Thursday night, which due to very serious noise abatement issues surrounding music licences and next years festival, was without doubt the quietest set a live amplified band has ever, EVER played. I found a few useful things, I lost a few excess pounds, and some that weren't so excessive. I walked as far in 8 days as I will probably ever walk in 8 days.

There are times when despite the inspiration and circumstances, you are in precisely the right place, even though you are not as you would usually be. Does this mean I am usually in the wrong place? Too philosophical, baby. Just know this. I feel, in fact I know, that week was a very good use of my time upon this goodly Earth.

For being a good boy and helping to clear up the mess 75,000 people left behind, they gave me all my pennies back. Just before I left the site, I lent Michael Eavis a tow rope so he could help somebody out of a ditch. What a host!! I left, car full of stragglers, wet tents and refugees, drove via Bristol to S.E London in my fecked up rusty Nissan 160sss Coupe with earsplitting grinding brake failure. You know the sort, pull up at the lights and babies within earshot (1000 yards) cry. Dogs howl, but their wailing is drowned by sheer metal-on-metal cacophony. This necessitated driving the breadth of "The Smoke" largely on gears and engine breaking, arriving in it's suburban dormitories at 3.30 a.m. Mum was so pleased to see me. After all it was my little sister's wedding that dawning day. I was 9 stone 2. That's 128 Lbs in American. I hadn't been that weight since I was 14 years old. I resembled Captain Black's happier alter ego. (You know, the guy that got taken over by the Mysterons in Captain Scarlet.) I needed dark glasses and eye shadow to lighten my eye sockets. The deepest, most bloodshot piss holes in any snow, ever!

Later that day, my sister got married. I was the only person who would dance to bangin' 'ardcore techno with her. We must've resembled Snoopy (in a wedding dress) and Woodstock (still speeding) when they used to wig out in Charlie Brown's back yard. Had I not spent the entire previous eight days off my gourd, the matrimonial proceedings would as usual have bored me pooless. As it was, they didn't. To credit my sister, her staying power means she is still married. Her anniversary is today.

I have two things to say to Mr. Eavis.
"Thanks for the party, see you again" and
"Where's my feckin' tow rope?"