The next morning, Venetians Blinds, Archibaldo and myself woke up in an unfamiliar environment. The room we had all crashed in the previous night was the place where some of the room-mates stored their various sculptures and paintings. A large canvas displaying a colourful bombardment of dots and splashes was stuck to one of the walls, right above the clapped-out window that had been slightly left open throughout the night, prompting the automatic radiator to blast out more heat than was necessary. In one corner, one could see a large, threatening metallic structure that could only be described as a hybrid between a Jack-in-the box and the Venus de Milo. The ceiling had been painted pink, with what looked like a disturbing portrait of the late Dennis Hopper in its centre.
We got up and went to the kitchen. Bobnar Lukewarm-Chop had gotten up before the rest of his crew and was cleaning up the battlefield, with a pot of coffee on the stove, ready to be poured. He looked haggard and in no shape to entertain, but kindly invited us to stop and have a cup with him. Archibaldo was quite hungover and gladly sat down. While Bobnar collected all the empty cans and disposed of them in a large plastic box, we all had a refill and then wondered what had happened to Shaggy the Camel. Bob did not have a clue: “I got quite drunk and I don't remember much.” We smiled. “Maybe he's upstairs with some dirty lady,” I ventured to suggest. Archibaldo smirked: “or with Stavros Justakis.” Bobnar looked up from the container and his frigid face seemed to frown, thinking the joke of bad taste. We thanked him for the party and went out to get some breakfast.
We had a few hours to kill before the gig, so we wandered around the neighbourhood looking for a nice place to chill out. Eventually, we found a charming organic café that struck me as friendly and quiet – old wooden floorboards, paintings on the walls and even a piano in one corner. But Archibaldo was not too sure about the place. “Hmm... Methinks it will be full of bobos and trendies and that it will be pricey.” But seen as we were all getting quite hungry, I managed to convince them to make a move.
We started off with some freshly-made organic orange juice that instantly hit our worn-out brains and almost immediately lifted the veil of alcohol and THC that had burdened our existence throughout the morning. Following that, we had a massive falafel stuffed with all sorts of vegetables. Venetian Blinds, in particular was tying into his food like a ravenous ogre. “Beats the usual coke and chips. Fuck, this is awesome.” We all scoffed our food in silence until a middle-aged lanky bloke approached us. “You guys are Danish, right?” “No,” answered Archibaldo. But he refused to believe him. “Ha, you Danes have so much humour. I can recognise Danes anytime, anywhere.” I looked up from my plate and stared at him. He was wearing big, thick black glasses and one of those old-fashioned caps that only granddads typically wear, but are nowadays rather fashionable amongst some segments of the younger populations. Although it was probably part of his style, he needed a shave, and his hair had also been deliberately left scruffy and untidy. Wrapped around his neck was colourful chequered scarf.
We kept on chewing away, wondering what would come next. “You guys are also musicians, right?” “No, I answered before swallowing a large mouthful of falafel. We're nihilists. We don't believe in art. Buzz off. ” The tone was rude, but he laughed nonetheless. “You sound like a funny lot. We should get together one day and jam. I'm always looking for musicians.” We ignored him and eat our food. “Well, I have to get going. I have to go and buy a new set of strings for my guitar.” He dug into his pocket and produced a small business card. “Here. Call me and we can improvise some jazz. Nice meeting you guys.” We all nodded, but it did not distract us from our falafels. He left and Archi muffled a burp with his napkin. “Your round tonight, Roady.” I finished chewing a mouthful and enquired what he was on about. “I told you we'd bump into one of them in this kind of place.” Venetian Blinds agreed. “Archi's right. I don't like getting my arse combed first thing in the afternoon.”
I ignored their taunts and changed the subject. “I trust you enjoyed your food. You want to be in good shape for tonight. What's the scene going to be like?” But Archi knew little about the venue: “Well, it's a bunch of people who had the idea of doing up a big warehouse and turning it into a club that does concerts and performance art and whatnot. I think it'll be reasonably trendy, but also reasonably interesting.” After last night's fiasco, I was convinced anything would do. “Do you think they'll give us free drinks on this one?”, asked Venetian Blinds. The moment he said that, I gazed at Archibaldo intently, waiting for a give-away. Whether he knew I was preying on his lies, however, I could not tell. “They said they would”, was his answer. He picked up his napkin and wiped his greasy chin.
Venetian Blinds paid the bill and went for a quick piss, while Archi and I walked out and found a nearby bench to sit on. We felt much better now. The late afternoon cold seemed a lot more bearable with a body full of falafel and a whole afternoon spent doing bugger all. Archibaldo gave Bruno Parmigiano a call to check if he had taken care of our gear after the previous night's gig. He had, and told us that he would not be able to make to our gig be tonight - because he was busy helping his girlfriend shave her legs – and also told us that the sound check would be around 6pm. Archi was happy that he did not have to take care of all his stuff – much less to carry it around in public transport.
Presently Venetian Blinds came back with a carrier bag full of cheap lager. “Hey, Roady, do we have time for a quickie?” Archibaldo saw the beers and gave us that look of the bloke who'd had one too many the night before. I looked at my watch. “Not really but I think we could all use one. Hey, by the way, shouldn't we try to contact Shaggy?” Archi gave it some thought, but said: “I wouldn't bother. He's sick and tired of seeing the Drunk Monks over and over again, so I suppose we'll see him tomorrow evening for the Jerusalem Artichokes gig”.
So we had a can of lager each and ended up arriving just on time for the sound-check. We got in through some kind of backyard and noticed that two rows of Christmas-trees bordered the pathway that led to the toilet block. The surface was tarmac, so they had planted the trees in large mounds of wood-chippings. We walked into the main building, which turned out to be massive. By the entrance was the bar, with the staff busy unloading crates of booze and filling the fridges with bottles of beer. In the centre of the building was a gigantic iron structure that must have been 30m-long and 20m high. Several staircases ran around it and led to several floors. “Makes a change from last night, doesn't it?”, said Venetian Blinds.
Presently, a smiling young bloke came up to us and introduced himself as Gunter Dritte-Reich, the organiser of the do and the sound engineer. “We can do the sound-check in half an hour, if that's ok with you. I need to get one or two things fixed before we start. If you want, you can have some sangria while you wait. You can have as much as you want. For other drinks, you'll get staff price, which is half price.” Gunter sounded friendly and helpful, yet there was something fishy about the way he dressed. An observant eye might have speculated that his clothes were deliberately worn and dirty and that he had paid good money to acquire them in that state.
In any case, he'd given us his go-ahead to get loaded on sangria, which was nearly all that mattered. Besides, it made us drink something a little different. The outrageously friendly and smiling bartender poured us a cup each and told us that there was plenty more to be had. We wandered off around the building to find out what was happening on those other floors. The massive structure, we were told, had been built there by the staff. It was made to look like some sort of big piece of industrial equipment, like a giant motor of some kind. In fact, the big piece of machinery was hollow and had several large rooms on three floors, where people could seek alternative entertainment. It was a very peculiar setting, which gave one, upon initial sight, a strange feeling of organised chaos, but that was soon tempered by the appearance and behaviour of the people partaking in the activities offered by the joint.
We walked up to the very top where there was some kind of performance going on. On a big 30 square-metre stage, a bizarrely-dressed and half-naked lanky bird was hanging sheets of plastic on what looked like an old shower booth. When she finished doing that she sat on a chair just by the edge of the stage and another bird dressed as a middle-aged executive pinned several red roses onto her costume. The half-naked bird got up and languorously moved towards us. Through her weird costume, you could only just make out her bush. She lay down and began rubbing what looked to us like dry tea leaves onto her long body. “Fuck me sideways, I said, sipping my sangria. Is this the final show on Earth? The one where we end being human?” The Drunk Monks agreed. It was quite a surreal and outstanding sight - one that was unintentionally entertaining.
The stage was partly made out of glass, so that you could see stuff happening on the floor below. A young arse-comber wearing a posh suit was sitting behind a desk and engaged in a conversation with a young couple facing him. A few metres away, other people were sitting on a row of chairs, waiting for their turn. I didn't get it, so I asked a bloke standing next to us what the concept was. “You should try it, he said. You request an appointment and then they call you and you talk about stuff.” I still didn't get it but tried to be smart. “I see. Is it intended as some kind satire of the modern world?”, I asked. He looked shocked. “What do you mean by satire?” “Never mind”, I answered smiling at him. He shrugged, raising his eyebrows in scorn.
Looking around the room, I noticed that whilst most people did not seem to be interested in what was happening on stage, a few were really into it, some even taking pictures. But a sizeable majority kept ordering drinks at the bar and nattering away. This was beyond us. Why, for fuck's sake, would anybody in their right mind desire to get charged an arm and a leg to get into a club, an ear and an eye to grab a few drinks and pretend they were really soaking up the scene? I shared my perplexity with Venetian Blinds, who'd just made a run to the bar and come back with three cups of sangria. “Hey, it beats me too, Roady. But it's also thanks to these people that we get paid and you get loaded.” He was being cynical, but Archibaldo missed that. “Fuck me, Venetian Blinds. Where's your integrity?” The latter kept on feigning to respect the crowd. As they got into an argument, my eyes suddenly caught sight of the most improbable arse-comber ever to set foot on the face of the Earth.
“Fuck we backwards, look at that!” They both turned around. He was probably in his mid-thirties, quite tall and very thin; he wore an immaculate duffel coat, long, pointed, polished, black shoes and John Lennon-type spectacles. It was not so much the way he intently followed the ongoing performance, gravely scrutinising each movement and making mental notes of them by pursing his lips and gently placing his finger on them, than the way he stood there motionless, erect as a lamppost, that gave away his arse-combing abilities. Not just his posture, but also his face, was transfixing. He looked like the average middle-aged accountant, a bored and ugly physics teacher and Bonno of U2 all rolled into one. He was a foul and fascinating caricature of the modern art critic who had celebrated receiving his PhD in journalism at Cambridge by having a harpoon inserted rectally. It had obviously been years since he had last given his arse a comb in the mirror; with his aura and his prestige, he could now afford to get other arse-combers to do the dirty work for him. And like the alchemist that changes lead into gold, he turned simple arse-combers into arse-combers of arse-combers. He combed arses for fun, he combed arses for breakfast, he combed arses underwater, in deep-space, at funerals and weddings, at birthday parties, conferences or poetry-readings. There was a good chance that he would still be combing arses when the final curtain would come down on the tragic story of the human race. Ladies and gentleman, I, your loyal and humble Roady, give you the meta-arse-comber.
Gunter Dritte-Reich interrupted our awe by telling us to come down for the sound-check. But I, for one, was starting to really enjoy the show and had no intention of coming out of this zoo. “You don't really need me, do you?” Archi laughed sarcastically. “Yes, we do. I'm sick and tired of doing the fucking sound-check. You can do my part for a change. That's what we pay you for. Low tide! I need more sangria!” Reluctantly I came down with them, but hoping that I'd probably come across the god of arse-combers again during the evening.
We realised all of a sudden that the stage was nowhere to be seen. We followed Gunter up a flight of stairs, opposite the massive iron structure we had just visited and there it was: a rather big platform where they had put the amps and drum-kit. To the left and a few metres away from our platform was another one they used when they had DJs. “A bit eccentric, isn't it?”, joked Gunter. We did not know what to think of it. When standing by the rail and looking down towards the audience - that would most likely not be able to see the band members - they looked so small it was almost like being on top of a cliff. We set up our gear, wondering what the reception would be like. In my backpack, I had smuggled about six cans of lager that I hid under the stage, thinking that they'd come in handy during the gig.
After the sound-check, Gunter told us that we had a few hours to kill before the concert. So, as you would, we drank more sangria and then we decided to stroll around for while. Maybe pick up some beers and grab some food. But then a vaguely familiar face came up to us. Upon closer inspection, I realised it was one of last night's hosts, Stavros Justakis. “Hello, there Stavros, said Archi politely. Didn't expect to see you here.” “Yeah, I knew you were playing again, so I didn't want to miss your gig. Erm... Is Shaggy the Camel with you?” It all became clear. “I'm afraid not, answered Venetian Blinds. We haven't heard from him all day.” You could instantly read disappointment on his face. “But I thought the Jerusalem Artichokes were playing tonight!” This was getting embarrassing. “No, I said. They are playing tomorrow evening. Tonight is the Drunk Monks. Shaggy doesn't play with them. Why don't you come over tomorrow evening?” But Stavros couldn't. “I'm flying back to Anthens tomorrow to visit my family and I'm hosting an art exhibition. Will you guys come back one day?” Achi briefly pondered, but told him we probably would. Maybe next year. Stavros wrote down his Facebook address, asked us to tell Shaggy to get in touch with him and wandered off.
Following this uncanny interaction, we set off to explore the surroundings of the venue. We grabbed some beers on the way and found a public park bench, from which we had a good view of a river and a massive, old-fashioned lit-up bridge. We cracked our tubes, Venetian Blinds rolled a doobie and Archibaldo also produced a quart of rum. “Anybody for a swig?”, he asked, after making a typical sound of satisfaction following his hit. But we both passed. Venetian Blinds was not partial to rum and I was beginning to get stomach cramps. We all had a toke, and Venetian Blinds became all poetical. “Dark city, in front of me, full of lights, and fantasy, enlighten me: why are we so sorry, for this fallacy?” Archibaldo burped loudly, prompting an old man walking his dog to look at us in disgrace. “Looks like that Nazi didn't like your poem...” But Venetian Blinds' rhymes remained in my head. We were in for another strange night. We were far away from the idle comfort of our homes in this massive metropolis that had us constantly questioning the boundaries of the culturally acceptable. This was the place were everything was happening, yes. But we kept wondering if we wanted to be part of it. Part of me longed to be somewhere like in a southern Portuguese village, where fifteen simple-minded people constitute a crowd, the few nights of the year when they have gigs and events going on.
We finished our lagers and I convinced them to go and get some food. My stomach was now hurting a fair bit and I concluded that I needed to get some fried rice down me. Gunter Dritte-Reich had told us there was a good Chinese take-away near the venue, so we headed that way - as we walked, I noticed Archi was already slightly zigzagging. When we finally got our food, the pain had become excruciating. I burnt myself, desperately trying to force hot rice and veggies down into my stomach to alleviate the pain. Even when we got back into the joint, I was still crying for mercy and was in no mood to drink fucking sangria – the cause, I suspect, of my ills. But the rest of the crew, especially Archi, kept hitting it hard. I had to drink coke.
We sat down at a table and presently a group of people that Archi seemed to know gathered around us. There were a few birds, who rambled about something I fail to remember (I was suffering too much to pay attention). But what I do remember is that they had come with a young trendy pussy called Gandalf. “Do you mean to say that your parents really called you Gandalf?”, asked Archibaldo, who was getting increasingly pottered. The poor guy nodded and fidgeted nervously. Venetian Blinds, sitting next to me, started sniggering. But Archi had another go at him: “Reminds me of that song by Johnny Cash. Maybe one day you'll beat the crap out of your father! Ha, ha!” Gandalf gave out a short sarcastic laugh and turned around to face one of his girl friends.
We killed time by drinking more – I reverted to staff-priced beer after my unfruitful experience with sangria – and I considered introducing Gandalf to the god of arse-combers. The staff gave us some sort of pub-quiz sheet we had to fill in. It listed a whole series of events that had occurred in the Western world since Antiquity and the idea, as we worked out, was to fill in some missing gaps by writing some really important events that we should choose. But this intellectual task did not seem to appeal to Archibaldo, who was downing his seventh sangria. “Balls to that history crap! They're all a bunch of communist liars!” This insightful analysis did not seem to go down well with Gandalf, who happened to be wearing a red t-shirt with the effigy of Che Guevarra. Venetian Blinds was now doubled up with laughter. “Yeah, you tell 'em Archi! Bloody Marxist swine!” The Drunk Monks drummer was not as buggered as Archi fucking baldo, but he fancied getting him started on some dodgy subject that would cause discomfort and controversy amongst any nearby arse-combers. Sadly, nobody cared to engage discussion with him.
When Gunter finally got back to us and told us we were on in ten minutes, I realised that Archibaldo had had one too many. He got up and almost crashed on a small, shy-looking French bird sitting next to him. “Sorry, Baby! I didn't mean to make you cry! Ho, ho!” Venetian Blinds did not seem too worried about the situation. “He's handled worse, he told me. Come on, let’s go upstairs and get ready”. So we both did. But half-way up the stairs, we realised that Archi was lagging behind us, staggering towards the staircase. I became more concerned about his state. “Are you really sure he can handle this gig?”, I asked Venetian Blinds. Bad mistake. Archibaldo heard me say this and furiously stormed towards me. “You think I'm a fucking pooftah, eh, Roady? You think I have no cojones? Well, I'll show you and all those arse-combers!” His breath smelled like he'd been snogging a tramp's arse the previous night and smoked a packet of Benson's to conceal the pong. To prove his point, Archi decided to go up the stairs paying a tribute to John Cleese doing his silly walk. But as he reached the top, he turned around to face us in triumph and inexplicably fell over backwards. “Oy! I've fallen on my dirty bum! I'm going to have an ARSE-COMA! WHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHA! Geddit?! Know whaddamsaying?! ARSE-COMA! WHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHA! What a great pun!” He frantically slapped his thigh, convulsing with an uncontrollable fit of guffaws.
“Ok, do you need to see more?”, I asked Venetian Blinds annoyingly. He gave it a thought, while Archi was still laughing his head off. Meanwhile, I looked back downstairs, wondering if we were causing trouble. Surprisingly, the people either did not seem to mind or pretended not to notice. Was this kind of behaviour the average standards they got in this place? Were they so bored that they no longer found it amusing? It was all very puzzling.
“You know all the music, Roady”, said Venetian Blinds. I smelled something fishy. “What are you on about?”, I answered with suspicion. He hesitated, nervously licked his lips, but finally said: “You know... You could play. Nobody will notice.” Whatever next. “Nobody will notice?! You twisted fucker! Of course, they'll notice a fucking Roady playing!” But he was adamant. “No they won't. Look at them. They can't see you from down there. They won't know the difference. Besides, they care as much about the music as the wall-paper of the joint.”
I was still shocked by his proposal, but as I gave it some thought, I realised he had a point. People at the venue clearly did not give a flying badger's toss about who or what was playing on Saturday night. It was one of those cases when a marginally critical and cynical eye would see the whole fraud of the so-called 'alternative culture' – a vast masquerade where arse-combers put on their alternative clothing, their alternative smiles and their alternative conversations in order to claim that they saw the most full-on and different band since the evening before last.
So I ended up thinking, why not? If we were amongst pseuds and phonies, then we might as well join the party. “All right, I said. But I want half of his share as compensation. I'm a Roady, not a fucking musician.” After all they'd already ripped me off the previous night, when I'd had to fork out very mucho dinero from own pocket to buy myself and the rest of the crew drinks. “40 percent, said Venetian Blinds. I'm going to have enough trouble getting him to understand what happened and accept the facts, namely that some of his money went to the Roady for compensation.” He was not really in a position to negotiate, but I accepted nonetheless, just to show them that money was not important to me. “All right, you tight bastard. Let's do this, then.”
And this is how I got to fill in for Archibaldo of the Drunk Monks amidst a bunch of arse-combers. I made a mess of the first two songs, but got better after. It was far from perfect, but the crowd clapped and cheered politely, seemingly unaware that the joke was on them. We hardly paused between songs, because Archi was singing backstage:
“THEY CALL ME ARCHI, ARCHI, ARCHI!
I'M BUILT LIKE A DONKEY, DONKEY, DONKEY!
TAKE A LOOK AT MY WILLIE!
I'VE HAD YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR MISSUS AND YOUR AUNTIE!
WON'T YOU SHOW ME YOUR FANNY! BAAAAAAAARP!
We finished a shortened set and the sound-engineer put the music back on. Thank fuck. We put the gear away while Archibaldo sat on his chair sipping his rum. I cracked a tube. “I've never seen him in such a state, I told Venetian Blinds. He's completely lost the plot. Whatever happened to him?! How did he get so blasted?!” But he shrugged, opened a beer and said he did not mind. We still had to pick up Archi and help him down the stairs. He then staggered off and left us wondering what to do. So we got some beers at the bar and lingered.
After a few minutes, Archi re-appeared, keen to tell us about an adventure he'd had outside amongst the Christmas-trees. We were not particularly interested and tried to ignore him the best we could. We were saved by Gandalf, of all people, who came to congratulate the Drunk Monks for their performance. “You guys play some amazing music. Do you have a Myspace account? I'd love to show it to some friends of mine.” He turned to Archibaldo, praised him for his virtuosity, but then looked puzzled “That's funny. You looked a lot taller on stage.” Before I could say anything, Archi immediately saw the open window. “That's 'cos I was standing on a stage. It always makes me look taller.” Gandalf then noticed that Archi was by no means sober and found it surprising that he'd been able to play that way. “Well, it takes practise, brother,” was the answer he got What a dishonest and yellow bastard.
Later on, a slightly plump and rather drunken Asian bird called Pamela Chuh came up to us and marvelled at our different hairstyles. Immediately, Archi began making comments about the shape of her eyes that were giving him a hard-on. Although, she was slightly too drunk to understand him, I decided to take matters into my own hands and grabbed Archi by the arm. “All right, Archi. Let's go outside for a bit. Show me what you saw behind those Christmas-trees.” He seemed pleased. “Ahhh... Roady, Roady. My faithful Roady. You're my brother. I fucking love you!” He put his right arm around me and kissed me on the left cheek. The doorman looked suspiciously as we walked out into the courtyard.
We staggered towards the row of Christmas-trees and got behind one of them. “What we doing here, Roady?, gargled Archibaldo. “You'll see”, I answered and punched him hard in the stomach. He bent over and collapsed onto a mound of wet wood-chipping. He huffed and puffed for a few minutes, until he looked at me and managed to wheeze: “What you do that for?” He was still busy catching his breath when it started to come out, purple chunks of rice, in massive salvoes. “Come back inside when your stomach is pumped, you shithead.” And I left him puking his guts out.
When I got back inside, the staff was clearing stuff up and most people had been asked to leave the joint because they were closing. Venetian Blinds was caught in the interaction with Pamela, who was now playing with his beard. “Pamela wants to know if there's a party where we're going”, said Venetian Blinds. We probably should have checked with Bruno Parmigiano, whose sister's place we were crashing at, but I said it was fine by me. At least, we'd be bringing back enough drunks to get some sort of momentum when we'd arrive there. Noticing I'd come inside on my own, he asked me: “Where's Nazibaldo?” I told him he was busy hunting for pine-needles in haystacks, which did not make sense to him, but all the same he was glad that our clown was out of sight. Looking around me I noticed that some members of the staff were smoking pot, now they'd closed the venue for the night.
We loaded our gear into a taxi and fucked off, not caring to partake in the after party. Archibaldo had killed the best part of his drunkenness, but he looked and felt like pig shit and moaned and burped in the back of the car, while Pamela Chuh kept on nattering away and wondering if there'd be many people at the party, while Venetian Blinds tried to fondle her ample breasts, and while I attempted to engage conversation with the driver. “Busy night, tonight, eh?” “Hmm...”, was all I got for answer. I did not pursue our dialogue, because I noticed that he kept nervously looking at Archi in his mirror, probably because he was concerned that he might gob on the back-seat. So I sat back and enjoyed the ride.
When we arrived at Bruno's place, it was probably around two in the morning. He'd had to wake up to open the door. His sister and girlfriend were asleep, which meant that we could not have a party. “Never mind!” said Venetain Blinds, who stormed into one of the bedrooms, dragging Pamela Chuh with him. I felt betrayed, but I was getting rather tired. I still had Archi on my hands, whose breath still smelled like he'd been kissing a hobo's arse the previous night - with a spicy after-aroma of vomit. Luckily, there was another spare bedroom. Inside, I found Shaggy the Camel snoring heavily on a sofa. The only other bed was a spare mattress Bruno had put there for us to use. So got Archi onto it and crashed right next to him, turning him over so that he faced the other side, because I genuinely thought that I'd die from the noxious fumes emanating from his mouth. Although he kept farting in my direction, although I could clearly hear the pounding going on next door, and although Shaggy's snoring was loud enough to wake the neighbours, I somehow managed to settle down and reflect on the past evening. I was weary, drunk, stoned, and vaguely pissed-off that the Drunk Monks had behaved like such a pigs, but at least, in some respect, I'd had my hour of glory on stage. I smiled and soon after, I was asleep.
Copyright by Roady, 2011
