A couple of years ago I was on tour with a band called Hold Your Horse Is, and through a last minute cancellation, we ended up rolling into Scarborough to play a gig with another band called Everyone An Army. I kept in touch with their bassist Lee, having collaborated on some musical stuff together, and decided to head down to Barnsley and visit for a few days.
Here he is with some of his ladies:
I managed to miss my first train out of sheer exhaustion, and had to buy an entirely new ticket (for three times the price) as a result. For a few un-fleeting moments it looked like I wasn’t going to make it at all, but I’m glad I did… arriving just in time to crash this young lady’s party:
Despite a heated drunken exchange over the flaws/merits of Al Capone (with me making such sweeping statements such as the claim that the Chicago gangster was well respected in Glasgow), she loved me really…
I’m sure.
I met a fair few people with some very un-conventional jobs and ways of thinking, and it initially surprised me just how much this didn’t phase me in the slightest, until I realised how much we had in common, and how obvious it should have been that we would have gotten on like a house on fire. Despite what is often drummed into the offspring of the quasi-middle class by their parents (not by mine, I hasten to add), morality isn’t something that is a simple black or white; it’s important to hack your own way through the undergrowth and see what’s really important to you.
Here’s me and Jess.
Obviously there was a fair amount of alcohol consumed, and my memory is fairly intact, although I’m not entirely sure I can remember this particular moment in time…
There was some definite insanity later on such as waking up in different positions to when I went to sleep, and witnessing a man sleep-walk, then sleep-pish in the corner of a room, before announcing that his girlfriend was ‘clearly uncomfortable’ despite not being anywhere to be seen, and then claiming Lee’s bed when he got up to search for her.
With all debauchery aside, it was a nicely laid back trip, which was well worth the extra ticket I ended up having to get. I found some folk that I felt genuinely relaxed around, who shared some of my slightly more unusual perceptions of relationships and the world.
There’s nothing quite like travelling on a whim to meet people that you barely know and feeling properly comfortable; every time I do something like this it helps to reaffirm some of my faith in humanity.
On the second night Jess absent mindedly remarked that the world would be a much more wonderful place to be if everybody would be a bit more affectionate with one another, and I can’t help but agree.
