I have been going non-stop for the last week. I feel
like a tweaker; minus the speed.

Friday
Looking for something to do I texted/phoned all my
buddies and got the sad sound of nothing. I was ready
to regign for the night in my sad friendless state
when a text came in from this girl i never thought i'd
hear from again. We'd met at medina (a cool morrocan
styled bar/club) about 2 months before through a
mutual friend. After about 2 weeks of being unable to
meet up (mis matched schedules) we lost contact.

Why sure, i'd love to go out with y'all! Thanks for
the invite!

A few pints later we head to the caves (where i saw
the ska show a coupla months ago) and i get one of the
most frightening introductions to a club ever - really
there was nothing wrong with it, but one of the
promoters was outside trying to lure people in, it
reeked of CLUB ELAN (eeew!), but he promised me a good
night (imagine that...) and he delivered (imagine
that!).

They had a brazillian (?) singer/band playing and it
was fantastic. The crowd was enjoying themselves and
the venue had just the right feel for the night
(although i'd prefer a bit more dancing room, watching
from the back was just fine).

Mad props to the departure lounge - i'll definately be
back.

Leaving the place at about 3.30 and trudging over to some random guy's flat for post clubbing joints was an excellent end to the evening as well. Finally got home at about 5.45ish only to have to be at work at 10 - crap!

Saturday – Unofficial Scottish Thanksgiving!

And what wouldn’t be a Turkey day without a good
argument over the death penalty? I know last year’s
argument really made the night fun and memorable, so
why not continue the tradition? One of my cousins
(Cameron) kind of likes to talk his mind a lot and he
tends to just spout things out, I do like the guy, but
I’m not used to his constant chatter. Where his
family seems to be used to it and varies between
ignoring the guy and giving him body language
indicating that he’s been heard; I get dragged into
these long conversations. He brings up the death
penalty (in the oh-so good way of “kill ‘em [the
criminals] all” or something similar), so I have to
get in the annual family dinner debacle of political
argumentation – FUN!

Before heading up for dinner, I had a long boring
morning at the video store. Yawn. Anyways, my aunt
and uncle had all of us over for a family dinner where
they made a huge meal. They placed Scottish and
American flags on the table and decorated the place to
make me feel more at home. It was weird because all
of that actually made me MORE homesick than I was
before. Good food, good company, good times.

After dinner headed to a party with (GASP) older
people (welcome to the story of my life in scotland –
everyone I meet is either under 20 or over 30, come on
post-college mid-twentysomethings, you’ve gotta be out
there!) and (Double GASP!) their kids. Bleagh. Being
exausted from the night before I headed to my cousin’s
place and crashed early.

Sunday (Ruddy Sunday…) – Sure I’ve got work at 7:45AM
tomorrow, let’s go clubbing!

Arrived back from fife pretty late in the day. got coffee with this girl i had met at departure lounge at the newly christmas decorated princes street gardens. had cool conversation trying to figure out what we had talked about and hadn't talked about in our inebreated state two days before. walked down princes street and homegirl links up arms with me, which is cool, if i know someone kinda well, if i've just met you...no thanks. a bit awkward ya know.

I got a text from this girl I met at the Timo
Maas party the week before saying she was going
clubbing tonight. Sure, sure, I was still exhausted
from Friday night’s festivities and the huge (veggie)
turkeyday meal had post dinner coma residuals making
me exausted, AAND I had work the next morning, but
FUCKIT! Lets go! Got some preclub drinks and worked
our way into this “queer-friendly” (meaning – the gays
are in force, but we don’t want to scare off the
straight folks) funky house night. In front of us
were this group of 3 skins. Aaaah the queer skins.
They make me laugh (they also make me want to jump
their bones, but only after laughing at them).

Left the night early, wish i could have stayed longer, the music was fan-freakin-tastic. Fun funky house, venue not so crowded that you couldn't move but not so empty that you felt alone. Will also be returning to this night (probably with a monday night off afterwards)

MONDAY - Mateo's new favorite band?!

7.45-4.30 - work - yawn

hopped on a train to Glasgow. this is kind of like making the trip from OC to LA, about an hour away and a completely different scene. hoofed it around glasgow for a while trying to get my bearings and find the venue where i was going to see (international) noise consperacy (sp) - king tut's wa wa hut. This is quite possibly one of the best venues i've been to in a while. imagine taking the cool local feel of chain and mixing it with the pulling power, bar and sound system of house of blues (anaheim or LA, your choice). had a few beers (red stripe - it's BEER! hooray beer!) and enjoyed the opening act - lead singer was entirely too much like SK's dave, actually the opening band reminded me of what swiftkick SHOULD be. enjoyed them, tossed my name on their mailing list while waiting for another beer and inc to come on. Meanwhile i got offered a punk fanzine - hooray! i'm on the equivalent of a road trip, a few beers deep, listening to loud music, boosting up my zine collection, seriously, could this night get any better? hell yeah it could, inc went on and possibly turned themselves into my new favorite band. i even bought a tshirt between them leaving and playing their encore. i have never done that for a band that i don't know super well (i did like their first album quite alot, but hadn't heard their other ablums, i don't like to have a t unless i know the band well). sadly i had to book it during their second encore song in order to make it to my train on time. ran through the streets of glasgow and caught up on some much needed sleep on the way back.


TUESDAY - WORK - SLEEP - BLISS!

WEDNESDAY - pot + mateo + new bar + beer 1 + beer 2 = confusion!
7.45 - 4.30 WORK
6.00 - 10.00 WORK

10.10-10.30 bus to disko bloodbath (queer indie punk night)
10.30-10.40 pot time
10.45 discover that instead of showing up 45 minutes past opening, i learn that i'm actually 15 minutes early FUCK!
10.50 explore what was one of my favorite bars before it has been refurbished and made all fancy.
11.00 pot mind exploration at the bar (ahhh the joy of not being stoned in a loong time)
11.15 finish beer 1 - realize that i'm in the worst seat in the house (everywhere else is full)
11.25 more thinking, movie ideas galore
11.40 finish beer 2 - decide to take a piss
11.41 stand up
11.42 fuck, more stoned than i remember
11.43 argh! stupid mirrored corridor & stairs to bathroom, mondo confusing
11.44 ooooh, there is a u-turn in these stairs, the mirror made it look straight
11.45 stumble past the (unbeknown to me) restaraunt downstairs, hope no one noticed too bad
11.46 enjoy the ever confusing quasi-unisex bathroom
11.47 GET THE FUCK OUT!

finally make it to DBB - no one i know is there, sadness. meet a cool girl and a guy studying (imagine, at a queer club) drama (his favorite singer - michelle branch - cool, but at an indie/punk club...ummm....right) music was okay. less electro than usual (hooray), more indie than ususal (okay), the usual dearth of punk (dissapointing, but i'm used to it)

got home MUCH later than planned - thursday work was bleagh...