30 Days of Hangover: Europe 2011

Hello my musical munchers, here is a tasty bit of Dog Days Volume Two for you to browse over. Chew it, nibble it, consume, CONSUME! I'll be selling the full thing on the State Lottery tour next month for £1. Come to one of these shows:

UK TOUR with THE STATE LOTTERY & EL MORGAN & BANGERS

SAT 2ND JUL - THE JAM, BRIGHTON
SUN 3RD JUL - EDGE OF THE WEDGE, PORTSMOUTH
MON 4TH JUL - THE CRICKETERS, KINGSTON
TUE 5TH JUL - PORTLAND ARMS, CAMBRIDGE
WED 6th JUL - PRINCE OF WALES, LEAMINGTON
THU 7TH JUL - THE VICTORIA INN, DERBY
FRI 8TH JUL - ROYAL PARK CELLARS, LEEDS
SAT 9TH JUL - PLUGGED INN, SUNDERLAND
SUN 10TH JUL - THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH, EDINBURGH
MON 11TH JUL - RETRO BAR, MANCHESTER
TUE 12TH JUL - THE CROFT, BRISTOL
WED 13TH JUL - MOZARTS, SWANSEA
THU 14TH JUL - CAVERN, EXETER

I'll be attempting to mill about the shows like a social fairy. You see I have entered a new phase of my life, that of the "great crust romantic". I am trying to force myself into enjoying being social, sexy in a non-creepy way, and crusty. It's a damn hard juggling act. Hope you like these two entries!

Thursday 26^th May

Budapest, Hungary

There are days on tour where you could happily stay in one place for ever and said a fond farewell to your previous existence. I didn’t want to leave Zagreb. Iva is a fine human being to spend time with and Croatia still has so much to offer but we’ve got other more pressing priorities – like driving all day long in Nibbler. Tonight we’re playing underneath “The Party Hostel” in Budapest which is a pretty exciting prospect. I imagine loads of sexy tourists going wild all night long with little or no morals.

I can’t remember the drive to Budapest so let’s assume it wasn’t any fun at all. Crossing the throbbing Danube at 6pm was euphoric. I think Bram Stoker summed it up nicely in Dracula that crossing that banging river feels like you’re crossing a border between the east and west. Things seem slightly spicier and more erotic across that body of water. I also love that feeling whilst on tour that nothing else in the world matters – the feeling of being free and punk, if that makes any sense.

After idling around the party hostel courtyard for a couple of hours drinking beers and smoking cigarettes (courtesy of Papa Roo), the rest of the bands turn up and we begin the proceedings. Tonight we have the displeasure of playing with some sexist Brazilian cunts called Strip No Altar. They are complete turkeys. Before one song their bassist announces,

“This song is about guns, violence, and drugs!”

They have Strip No Altar panties for sale and their album cover is two scantily clad women getting up to some typical “hetro fantasy” lesbian nonsense.

They have dubious lyrics such as:

“I just wanna smoke some crack, I just wanna find a big bed, so I can take my bitch there.”

When they sing the line about smoking crack their drummer pretends to smoke his drumstick...my God. I was a bit drunk and found them completely laughable so shouted for an encore, they didn’t need much encouragement and quickly played one of the sexist humdingers they played earlier in the set. Fuck! Andrew rightfully got really mad at me for spurring them on.

I forget the name of the other band, but I liked them. They sounded like ALL. Anyway, no food or no place to stay tonight and paid very little money. We organised to stay in this guy Peter’s spare apartment in the Gypsy district of town, so no erotic party hostel fantasy tonight. Peter makes sure that we understand it’s very basic accommodation – no shower, toilet flushed with a bucket of water, odd Gypsy neighbours etc. The building itself is incredible, it looks like something out of a WW2 movie – it’s so old and battered. There’s bullet holes in the front of the building from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and you can see a line where a bomb hit it. Despite its raggedy looks I thought it was quite charming. I sleep in the van for security. A poor choice – our parking space is right next to the hottest back alley piss spot in town and throughout the night I am rudely awoken by men relieving themselves against the wall. Haha, grim.

Friday 27^th May

Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Before leaving the UK Andrew and I blacked out Nibbler’s windows with this stick on film. A tricky procedure that we messed up a couple of times before getting it stuck on bubble free. This morning I utilised these blacked out windows by jerking off in peace, knowing that the people who walked past Nibbler wouldn’t see lil’ monkey playing with himself. Haha, how pathetic (and creepy and illegal).

Micah the Finnish dude who played drums in the ALL band came and got the apartment keys from us as we sat in Nibbler finishing off our nutritious breakfast of crisps, cheese, horseradish sauce, bread and a suspiciously named “Orange Drink”. This meal doesn’t help the fact that we’re all greasy as fuck today and have got to spend the next eight hours making our slimy way to Romania. After sleeping in the van and eating breakfast in the van there’s nothing I like to do more than to spend all day in the van. 30⁰c and Romanian roads, what a fiendish combination! Once we cross the border it doesn’t take long for the Romanian road celebrities to make an appearance – Gypsies on horse and carts, stray dogs, storks in massive nests atop of telegraph pole, fucked up old men who look like Super Mario bumbling about the pavements, half built Gypsy mansions with metallic oriental style roofs, and roadsides littered with people selling bowls of berries.

To see us through this marathon journey we take sustenance from crisps and warm water served at van-temperature. I feel myself turning see thru. Once we arrive in Cluj there is an onslaught of beautiful girls roaming the streets, “full on, non-stop” as the popular phrase says on all the Romanian shop fronts. As we enter into a pesky traffic jam we see the prettiest girl we have collectively seen sat in the back seat of a taxi. Oh Taxi-Girl……your name doesn’t really do you any justice. Sorry for staring.

There’s a festival happening in Cluj to celebrate 800 years of the city so the whole place is rammed with people. This city is something else…so amazing. At the venue we meet the promoter Paul and Schlitz, a band we played several dates with in Romania last year. It’s nice to be so far from home and in the company of friends, plus Schlitz are a totally kick-ass punk rock band! For dinner we are brought a bag full of cheese and radish toasties, argh! They are pretty tasty but the bread and cheese diet is leaving me feeling like a human wreck hanging from a meat hook, I’ve gotta eat some vegetables. Roo and I venture out into the city and come across a green grocer which is still open at 9.30pm. A bit of greenery perks me up and we go and check out the festival which is happening in the square. Up on stage is a terrible Euro-pop duo singing a twatish song with lyrics that Roo interprets as “I’m so greasy all the time, I’m so greasy I want to cry.” They’re singing about being on tour! Once again the show is packed out with about 150 people and some very desirous girls are in attendance, if only I wasn’t so greasy that I want to cry!

The first band “Sk. Ank” (yes, you read that right) play for nearly an hour and cover Jimmy Eat World and Blink 182 in a horrible ska fashion. People go completely apeshit for them. Strip No Altar have followed us like a horrible eggy fart and are playing tonight as well. For fuck sake. They get up on stage and perform their worn out hedonistic diatribe. Grow up and fuck off. They sing about drinking loads of booze too but I have yet to see them drink anything besides water. They are the worst kind of sexist pussies who should be flogged and driven across the land. They perform their hit song “Boomerang”, the general gist of which is “women always return no matter how much of a prick you are”. Urgh. There is a little break in the music and their singer announces “Now I will show you why the ladies ALWAYS come back…” For a moment we all thought he was going to flop out his humongous wanger but no, he just played an uninspired guitar solo. Come on, get your dick out for the lads mate.

I start to feel pretty nauseous and physically broken shortly before we go onstage at 1AM and struggle my way through our set all higledy pigeldy. I am disappointed in my performance and feel annoyed at driving all this way only to suck. Andrew has enjoyed a bit of booze before playing and tells me that he thought I played pretty good, which is ok by me. Much merriment is had after the show and sure enough the 60% Romanian moonshine makes a welcomed appearance but I won’t be enjoying it as I’m driving tonight, alright! Seeing Schlitz again was so good, really friendly guys too. Their punk rock deliciousness is easily better than 90% of the bands we play with but of course they don’t get the recognition they deserve cuz they’re from the ass end of no where. Their bassist Dan was pretty drunk and he jokingly asked, “You’ve been here once before, so why the fuck have you come back? Didn’t you learn?!” Being a young person living in Romania must be pretty difficult, unemployment is rife and it’s difficult to get out. Gotta roll with the punches I guess. But what the fuck do I know? It might rule. Anyway, in my opinion Schlitz were the best band that played this night and I wish them all the best in the future.

Mass Fanzine Alert!

HAIL PUSSIES! Next month I am on tour with the State Lottery for two weeks. Currently I am on the dole and have 15 pence to my name. I am fucked. However I have reason to be very cheerful indeed - I have made two fanzines in time for the tour - Slime Capsule #1 and Dog Days #2. I'll be selling them from the merch stand in the hopes of having enough money to afford breakfast the next day. Here's a snippet from Slime Capsule called "The Beers in My Life". I assure you there more exciting things going on in the fanzine than this article, such as the Heavy Mental screenplay, Attack Vipers interview, a guide to stalking telepathically, reviews of music and books, plus some sweet comics from Oliver John Ward. In the mean time check out this turgid bullshit. Smell ya soon, humpers.

(Here's a picture of my Master Journalist Apprentice Wesley Moon who also features heavily in Slime Capsule. I hope you look forward to hearing of our CONSPIRACY BUSTING ADVENTURES!)

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The Beers in my Life

By Slater Wilcox

Like most people I thought beer was pretty disgusting when I first drank it, but I guess Courage Light 2.3% ale wasn’t a great starting point for a young boozer. I remember drinking a can of Stella in the top bunk at my friend Toby’s house when I was 15, it made me feel very sick indeed. In the night I heard that motherfucker drinking a pint of blackcurrant squash really loudly, taking massive audible gulps - “GRULP-GRULP”- and my stomach churned. I thought I might puke on him, luckily I kept it down and I guess I’ve been keeping it down ever since. I have had friends and relatives succumb to alcoholism but the good times with beers outweighs the negative. Henry Miller once wrote a book called “The Books in my Life” which documented every book which meant something to him or provided him with inspiration, following this highly intelligent and informative vein, Slater Wilcox documents…“The Beers in my Life”.

FIREBRAND Czech Lager, Cans (2004)

My first love. It bit me like a snake then left my life like a ghostly lover. I used to sit in my room in my first year with a twelve pack (if I was feeling wealthy) put on Alkaline Trio and sing at the top of my lungs. One night I cheated on Firebrand with white wine and ended up puking off the pier into the sea, then falling asleep on a bench. I stumbled home and did some synchronized puking with Roo into my toilet. That was probably my first case of “wine after beer, Oh dear”. Around 2004/2005 Firebrand became the choice beerdrink of my contemporaries on many a wild and lonely night. Sadly it went the way of the dinosaurs and became part of boozy myth and legend. I’ll never forget Castle Rock in 2006 when we bought the last out of date 24 pack of Firebrand ever from Threshers. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, I turned down a girl I should have passionately embraced cuz my mind was all fuckin’ twisted up over the last ever Firebrands. Firebrand was discontinued and I was heartbroken. The first time is the deepest, as those sentimental slopsters say.

Groschl 24 Pack, Bottles (2005)

Roo and I made literally no friends in our second year of university. I was 21 and a fucking social recluse. However we did drink ice cold bottles of grolsch every night whilst watching Dawson’s Creek and Scrubs. I can remember dangling empty bottles on strings out of our window and clinking them against the flat below’s windowpanes, just to piss them off. In a similarly daring “in-flat” adventure we even tried to drink 24 beers over the course of 24 episodes of Dawson’s Creek series 2 in one sitting. Of course, we ended up drinking about 12 beers in the course of two episodes and falling asleep on the sofa. Interesting fact: During the three years of university education, I had no sexual experiences at all.

Red Stripe, Six Pack of Cans (2006)

Roo and I lived in a shop during our third year. We moved in with two hedgers who loved drugs. Before getting involved with any of that nonsense I used to frequent the corner shop two hundred yards from my house and buy six packs of Red Stripe for £5.99. I’d buy one at about 2pm then go back at 6pm feeling buzzed on beer and guilty that I was buying another one. I’m sure the clerk didn’t give a flying fuck. One day I drank a bunch of beers and jumped off the pier at 1pm then fell asleep on the beach. Another time I got wasted and on my nightly stroll invited six homeless people sleeping outside the Salvation Army back to my house to sleep in the warm. I was deeply hurt when they said no, but in hindsight I just probably looked like a twat. I stopped drinking Red Stripe when I ran out of money and started drinking Barn Stormer cider instead. A bad time in my life which shan’t be documented here.

Carlsberg Export (2009)

During my first tenure on the dole (which lasted 6 months) I developed a fixation with eight packs of Carlsberg export. Four deliciously brewed chums sitting there in Spar shop, tightly knit, shoulder to shoulder and ice cold! If I had one in my possession it meant the day was assured, everything would fall into place right up until I fell asleep. If not, the day might be a whirligig of disparity dipshitiness. Greg, the ex singer of Crocus, once came round to my house on one of the latter misery days when I couldn’t afford anything – I was playing Lego Batman in my dressing gown at 2.30pm in the dark when he gently knocked on the window. In a lugubrious movement, I drew the blinds and solemnly greeted him. The first thing he said as he looked about the room was “depression chamber”. You don’t know who’s been swimming naked until the tide goes out, and I definitely had my balls out at that time in my life.

Tuborg Bottled Lager (2010 – 2011)

Probably the reason I have such a bad attitude to work is because I have only ever worked fucking shit jobs. Beer delivery bitch, fishmonger, greengrocer/cardboard box crusher. It seems like I’m on a personal quest to get the most obscurely rubbish job possible. I first started getting into Tuborg whilst working at the fishmongers. It was so horrid there that I developed quite the drinking habit. After a long day of marine death mongering I would drive to the Texaco and buy 8 ice cold Tuborgs for £5. The best part about Tuborg is the ring pull tops which eliminate the tricky problem of opening beers whilst driving. So confident I became with my in-transit beer drinking skills that I even used to smash ‘em down when I started cycling back from work.

Battlefield: Los Angeles [non spoiler alert]

The hangover ran it's course. I felt insane. Where better to get some reconcilliation than another pit of despair Plymouth cinema sunday!

This time I had spent the day playing football and drinking beers on the steps of my friend's house. He had broken his collar bone at football but didn't want to go to the hospital for some odd reason. We came up with a plan to see True Grit without paying. We were going to check all the fire escapes and failing that - bum rush the entrance. It was sure fire and half cocked.

At that moment as we were just about to leave, my friend's step dad came and picked him up and carted him off to hospital at such a spanking pace that I hardly had time to realise I was alone again. Nevermind, I thought. I still wanted to go to the cinema.

By the time I got there I had sobered up a little and felt exhausted, I knew how this was going to turn out. True Grit wasn't on so I asked the kid on the desk about sci fi; he recommended Battlefield: Los Angeles. I paid my £8 and entered the screen, I had tried in vain to get in through the back of the cinema but only managed to get into the bowling alley next door, so gave up.

I watched 10 minutes of the most generic alien invasion bullshit and then fell asleep for the rest of the film. I awoke with a wet crotch and heard someone behind me say, "Well I guess that was the Alien's Achillies Heel." I can explain the wet crotch as I had dropped my drink in my lap whilst I slept, but for the life of me I don't know what the heck happened in that film.

Groundbreaking Feminist Sci Fi Weed Theory

Last night was to supposed be "Telepathic Date Night". It's an idea I had for SlimeCapsule. I figured that in times of great desperation it isn't entirely impossible to go in through the back door of a girl's mind to win her over. I bought a ten bag of weed, some atmospheric candles, printed out a 6X10 picture of my "date", and put on some binaural music. After the first joint I remembered Aliens was on TV at 9. I stood my date up. Sorry. Instead I watched Aliens stoned and came to the conclusion that it was the most radical feminist film ever made. I even wrote a review whilst high. Check it out! Spelling mistakes and poor grammar from the original note are included.

SCI FEM FI
Aliens - ultimate female empowerment

Men "discover" Ripley in cryo gen. Adam and Eve?

With great mistrust she helps men to fight Aliens. She gradually builds respect in male dominated environment. Turning point when face hugger is put in her bedroom. She refuses to "get pregnant". Leads to M/F contention. How will she come out of this?

GENDER EMPOWERMENT RIPLEY/ WORLD MOTHER/ HUMAN MOTHER

Effemination of Hicks after his injury. He looses his role of male protector to Ripley. He turns to drugs [he injects painkiller after he gets acid blood on his chest]. Doesn't speak for the rest of the film. MOTHER SUPERIOR.

RIPLEY VS QUEEN ALIEN - GENDER BETRAYAL. Mistrust of foreigners (aliens) indicitive of human beings?

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF DESTRUCTION. Alien>human>robot>alien. Very good theory.


So there you are: the worst piece of writing i've done for a while, and I even skipped out on a hot telepathic date for it. Idiot. SlimeCapsule is coming along marvellously by the way. Should be done in the next month!

Reality is Trivivial

Trying to get my mind round making another fanzine at the moment. It's not hard: filling fanzines with middle of the road crud is the standard. At the moment I'm trying to let go of my inhibitions and write what I really think about. It's a cleasing process I think. Once I get rid of the weirdness running thru my mind maybe I can lead a normal life. Maybe when I stop fantasising about the mean spirited Chinese lady at work, maybe when I stop going to watch rom coms by myself, maybe when I stop walking for miles into the middle of nowhere by myself because I can't wait for the end of the world. These feelings come and go.

Right now I've got a whole bunch of shit being typed but it's all thoroughly MIDDLE OF THE FLIPPIN' ROAD. A couple of years ago I briefly fell in love with a girl who worked in a butchers. She stunk.

The Pork Queen

Slater Wilcox

I have worked with some total shitheads in the past, real horrid cunts. The guy in the bakery with no front teeth and a moustache who used to mutter “kinky” every time a major babe walked past in boots. Then there was the guy in the warehouse who preferred to sleep with women on their periods as it “felt better”. The guy in the pub with a penchant for the “suck it and see” t shirts. And the guy in the lorry who yelled “NICE NIPPPLES” at a 50 year old lady on a cold day in St Austell.

I trollied the 20 cases of wine round the back of the butcher's shop. The door opened to the scent of raw meat and a very attractive Irish girl. It stank, but she was beautiful. I became delirious. I imagined her black hair smelling of pork as I spanked her with a 10oz rib eye steak. If she'd have taken her clothes off, I would have eaten them. However, my nose was dripping and the guy I worked with kept insisting that I was gay; I felt like I had the charisma of a clogged toilet. Nothing happened between me and the Pork Queen.

When did your name change from a noun into a charm?

Anyone seen "How do you know" the new Paul Rudd film? I did last Sunday night. Hungover and grotesque, feeling like a middle of the road rom com would be the only thing that would pull me through the grimy dullness, I decided to take the plunge and attend a slushy romantic film all on my lonesome. Sure enough the only other people there were new couples and fat, lonesome nerds who also loved Paul Rudd. It made me feel better, like I wasn't kook. The cinema is free from judgement and I find it immensely relaxing; a dark room where you can fullfil your darkest desires by watching a rom com by yourself. In watching this Paul Rudd film I finally understood why they chose to name another of his films "I love you, man." I goddamn love him, man.

I sat there soothing my dry, hungover mouth with ice cold fanta. Drinking 8.2% cider the night before had annihilated my brain and I had puked, been sick as a dog; my mind felt like a clogged gutter in Autumn, full of stinkin' brown slime. At first I couldn't get my head around what was actually happening in "How do you know". Nothing had made sense all day so how was I to understand the purest and simplest thing of them all - trashy american love [starring Paul Rudd]. The title of the movie reassured me that there was no simple answer to this fuckin' shit rom com.

It was only after 2/3 f my fanta that everything started to fall into place. That bitch [Reese Whitherspoon] loved that bitch [Paul Rudd]. Owen Wilson was there as just humorous filler, like a nervous fart in an exam; funny but distracting. Jack Nicholson shouted at Paul Rudd for a while, then Paul and Reese got on a bus, destination: Forever Love.

I left the cinema on that sub zero evening feeling like true love might exsist somewhere in this cruel world and that it wasn't just a construct of a multimillion dollar film industry made to pacify suckers for Paul Rudd. Never the less: I love you, man.

Bangers/Dirty Tactics Mordtour 2010 Titbit

This is a little snippet from the 15,000 word tour diary which I've been typing up since getting back from Europe. I've been writing it on floors, in beds, at desks, hungover, starving, coffee delirious and diarhhea stricken. Yet all this is nothing in comparison to the pain of recalling this bizarre tour. It was delightful in places, but alot of the time it was weird. I'll publish the whole thing in a zine soon, but until then check out these three days for a little taster, a little mouthful of poopie for ya. Sorry it's been a while by the way, I've been far too much of a professional vagrant for a blog.

Sunday 6th June
Hertsel, Dutch Belgium (De Choke Youth Centre)

Four hour drive to this venue in the middle of fucking no where seemed to take forever. There is a slow moving Sunday vibe in the air. The venue looks like a building out of Fight Club and my drums are set up underneath a drip, we are fed cheese salad sandwiches for dinner and instinct suggests tonight will suck a damp dogdong. About four people turn up and I get pretty loose on 8% beers. After the show I try to be polite to the strangely attractive androgynous promoter girl by kissing her on the cheeky, but they don’t do the kissing thing in the Dutch part of Belgium, so it became awkward and weird. She gets flustered and asks “What is happening here?!” Loosen up lady I’m just digging on your androgynous style.

We drive to Antwerp to sleep above a metal club called DE ROT. As soon as well pull up to the venue a cute, spacey girl called Flo comes and speaks to me. Something sexual was in the air and she asked if she could come up to the metal club. Before I could get to know her better, the van had to be moved. I did this then hurried back to De Rot to find Gary had stolen Flo away from me on his never ending quest to buy weed. I walked back to the van, slept in the van, and stayed mad at Gary until jerking off in the van.


Monday 7th June
Bremen, Germany

Awoke in a damp van next to a body of water in Antwerp. Some asshole on a tuba was jamming just outside the van and some freaky bitch was cruising around the waterfront on a pennyfarthing ringing a stupid little bell. Fucking Belgians. Antwerp looked exciting last night but no time to see the place or even take a piss – off to Bremen to play on a boat. Feeling haggard and delirious. Roo sits in the back playing pokemon for the duration of the ride, “De Choke would be a pokemon which shoots rotten beer out it’s dick.” Everyone’s feeling a little grizzled from the night before. The van ride extends to six hours. A lot of this time is dedicated to lewd fictious chat about what everyone did with Flo after I went back to the van including a “Jackson Pollock” an “Abraham Lincoln” and an impressive squirt off the balcony into Roo’s mouth, 40ft below. Chris attempted to justify this talk, “I’m only saying all this about her because…it’s all true.”

80% of Bremen was destroyed in WW2, prior to this it was one of the most prosperous cities in Germany. Thru solid bombing of the place we managed to transform it into one of the most porous cities. Now it’s an industrial diarrhea mess. Opposite the boat we’re playing is the Beck’s Brewery, just up from that is the Craft Cheese factory, and off in the red sunset is the outline of the Kellogg’s cereal plant. Two people are in the crowd, no one is feeling particularly inspired to play, so we make no effort and passively suck. Stayed at a hostel paid for by the venue and a man who looks like a genie buys me a beer.

Tuesday 8th/ Wednesday 9th June
Hamburg, Germany/Oskarshamn, Sweden

Left the hostel at 8AM feeling that kind of stupid tired where you just wanna cry at being awake. Arrived in Hamburg which is the first city I’ve encountered in Europe which has that hot dust and seedy smell of kebab shops and vice in the streets. The air poisons my mind and I split away from the pack to buy a handjob off a 60 year old hooker at three in the afternoon. I liked the way she held herself, she looked homely and sexual to a degree I’ll never comprehend. The likelihood of a woman like this giving me a bucks fizzy in the “real world” was nigh on impossible. Alas, her sultry, erotic countess looks placed her far out of my bracket, so I left her in her window to finish reading her copy of Good Homes magazine. As I walked out of the red light district I bumped into the drummer of Pantera who was taking pictures of the outside of the hooker alley. It added to that surreal feeling of having gone up to a woman and asking “How much for a handjob?” Whilst making a wanking gesture. I felt like a real tool for about 2 hours after this.

Morale is low today and the thought of driving 12 hours to Sweden straight after the show makes it hard to enjoy tonight. No one comes to the show again, so that’s three in a row. I don’t wanna go home, but I would like to feel that what I’m doing is worth something to someone. Feeling bleak and despairing. 10pm, two people there – the show gets cancelled so we bail to Sweden. The venue is sympathetic and pays us 100 euros and gives everyone all the sauce they can drink. I sit in the van and wait to leave. It starts to pour down with rain. Carlin comes up to the van with vomit on his face; I refuse to let him in till he’s wiped it off. He doesn’t seem to care. We have a stockpile of whiskey, beers, and energy drinks to get us to Sweden. Everyone is loose and splashy. At the first services everyone needs to pee, but go thru the wrong door. An angry Indian man shouts at Chris, and then leads him down a back alley. I watched, intrigued as to what was happening. The man unlocks the door and enters; Chris holds back, shuts the doors and pisses all over it. What?

Overnight delirium drive up out of Germany, thru Denmark across 25 mile long bridges spanning vast grey stretches of water and across barren Sweden in the pale and milky early morning light. We get pulled over at the Malmo border. We look disheveled and insane. The van smells like pee, Gary’s asleep on the shelf, and there is booze all over the place. We try and hold it together.

“How many of you are there in the van?”

“Seven.”

“Seven? So why is there 120 empty beer bottles on the floor?!”

Drove another four hard hours along one straight road which is flanked on both sides by chilly looking lakes, desolate pine forests, and moose crossing signs. Bored and out of my mind tired, I stayed up the whole drive to keep Andrew, then Roo company whilst they drove. Arrived at Kalle’s house, drank a beer, and passed out. For some reason almost everyone in our troupe experiences sexy/aggressive dreams during the four hour nap before the show. Oskarshamn is in the middle of fucking nowhere, like most places in Sweden it takes hours to get between towns. Maybe this Scandinavian isolation would go someway to explaining the local girls nose for new blood. We go back to this guy’s house after the show and roll some of the most highly prized figures of Western sexual commerce - SWEDISH GIRLS. I met a cute blonde girl (of course) who smelt like wood and chewing tobacco. We chatted casually whilst she gradually backed me into a corner. Sensing I was an awkward nerd, she moved onto someone else. I met another one who was like a beautiful wild animal – spitting, burping, and crushing cans into her delicate forehead. We moved onto a bar and whilst I whittled the hours away talking to two boring dorks from a nuclear power plant, one of our party received footsy banana massage from Chewing Tobacco underneath the table. Back at the house I stood on the balcony looking out towards Finland feeling strange that we were in the artic circle, and we’ve still yet to go to Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

In the next part of the tour diary we encounter a Polish toilet so
damned vile that the stench of it broke my camera!