"In the world which is upside down, the true is a moment of the false."
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| rock and roll means fuck "In the world which is upside down, the true is a moment of the false." |
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Friday, January 03, 2003 my life is a mess. it really is. it's 4:40 am here local time. i am cold and wet and drunk and pretty "knackered" on really good hash. (more about that in a moment) i am also very, very muddy. i could go on about the horrific state my life has taken on in the past 72 or so hours, and i shall, but not right now. right now i want to give you a feel for what this place is. new year's eve is a good place to start. this a story involving patois fisherman poetry, breda royal lager, copious amounts of hashish, one very jet lagged and inebriated yank with bad hair and something known as "somerset mountain breakfast". first, the details. 10 hours from la to london. flight is late. i miss connection. i buy a ticket on british european for later that evening. (basically wiping me out money-wise for the whole of the trip.) but i'll get to guernsey that night, right? no. after about 4 delays, at about 11pm local time they tell us the flight has been cancelled and they are putting us up at hotel nearby. we'll leave on a special flight at 8 am the next morning. i figure this will get me in to guernsey just in time to catch a cab to the port and make the 10am ferry to sark. the flight leaves at 8:40 am and i make the ferry with (i'm not kidding) maybe 90 seconds to spare after one of the most harrowing cab rides i have ever experienced. (a note to those who one day may find themselves in a guernsey cab. don't challenge the driver to make the impossible happen unless you really dig rollercoasters. he'll do it and you'll think you are in a movie.) anyhoo, i arrive jet lagged as all hell in a major storm. the ferry ride was a hoot. there were some puking folks, but i felt so right at home. i grew up sailing and had seen much worse. i stood on the deck aft of the cabin and took pictures, rediscovering my sea legs and laughing the sort of laugh that makes others conspicuosly nervous. it was great. anyway, to new year's eve. i took a half hour nap and the it was time to hit the pubs (both of 'em, by golly!) we started at the mermaid where i collected my long promised complimentary pint o' guinness. the mermaid was hoppin' as it was, indeed, new year's eve. we had a few pints there and moved on to the more adult oriented bel-air pub for the actual stroke o' 12. the bel-air was packed to the gills. it's a place that can probably easily accommodate 60 people. there were three times that many at least. it was all good fun and, though i had no one to kiss for the fifth year in a row, i enjoyed it immensely. i thought this would be the end of the evening. ha! i was then invited to a rather exclusive (even on sark, kids.) get together at the home of the infamous "dominick". a manifest of other attendees is as follows: absolutely stunning 16-17 year old "sarkie" girls whose accent is so pronounced as to be completely indecipherable: 10 or so. typical "sarkie" blokes who are down with the crown and ja rule simultaneously: 10 or so. absolutely stunning legal-age but more than likely married "sarkie" girls: 6 or so. honest to god smugglers who can trace their smuggling ancestry back at least 400 years: 3 fisherman who smell like fish but can sing along to radiohead and travis songs: 3 or so. what any of the above had to talk about that was linguistically discernable or relevant to anything in the known universe: not fucking much. assorted ex-pats from australia, scotland, france, poland etc.: 8 or so. obligatory dreadlock dudes of differing nationalities: 2 incomprehensible scottish football hooligan brothers one of whom would eventually pass out and wet himself in full view of the rest of the party: 2 lesbian playwright couple producing a play in london's west end in march about a radical girl's imaginary love affair with mao in 1968: 1 horseback riding instructor from wales with electric lights in her very long hair: 1 aussie surfers who came to the island 2 years ago and never left: 1 absolutely nutty particle physicist from cambridge who looks like a "lord of the rings" character and who, amazingly enough, couldn't stop talking about the new film and who personally welcomed me to the island a minimum of a dozen times: 1 sons of english banking magnate billionaires who have the best hash of all: 1 poets published in the current editions of Granta, The Atlantic and Mcsweeney's: 1 pulitzer prize winning sark native rueters combat photographer 3 days out of afghanistan: 1 sark native, fellini-esque (the man could have come straight from the "la strada" set) fisherman, self proclaimed "stud of the island" and, from what i have heard, this not an idle boast, picker of many very special "mushrooms" and reciter of extemporaneous poetry about the sea, the island and the wonders of his own cock, in traditional sark french/english patois: 1 very drunk, jet lagged and enchanted yank with only the roughest idea of where on the island he was at 6 am (i knew i was north of where i needed to go, but i had no torch and even fewer functioning brain cells.) and who was quite literally out of his cotton pickin' mind: 1 whew. it was quite an assortment of amazing weirdos. so, anyway, i arrived at dom's house not really knowing what to expect, expecting nothing really. i was blown away. this was one of the most eclectic crowds i had ever mingled amongst. at first i was amazed by the amount of alchohol that was present. sarkies freakin' DRINK and they make no bones about it. after some interrogation, it was revealed to the crowd at large that i had yet to spend my first night on sark and the fact that i was spending my first night, new year's or not, at a "dom" party made me somewhat of a "legend". this was said to me with all sincerity and requisite awe by more than one person. i was then struck by the number of people rolling their own smokes. everyone is laying out two rizla's and breaking up cigarrettes to put in them which i found quite odd. then i notice that they all have these little chunks of clay that they are burning and breaking up to put in their creations. it took a bit for me to realize that they were spreading hash amongst the silk cut and dunhill tobacco. cool, i thought. then they just kept rolling them. at any given time, there were 8 or 9 of these beasts flowing around the room downstairs where i spent most of my time. there were an equal number upstairs. it was nuts. the youngest guest was probably 15 and the oldest was probably 60, yet when the stereo upstairs was finally put in to action, the first thing played (and played over and over again) was the new david gray cd. everyone knew the words and sang along. everyone. it was surreal and it in some ways validated my own flirtation with david gray a few weeks back (meet me on the other side...). it was crazy. as the party started to thin at about 4 or so, we realized that the hooch was almost gone. just as the panic was about to reach an untenable state, the crazy phyisicist from cambridge arrived. he had in tow a 4 liter jug of homemade apple cider from back home that he lovingly referred to as "somerset mountain breakfast". this stuff was amazing, it looked terrible, smelled worse, but tasted wonderful and was obsecenely potent. we drank this stuff for hours. at about 6:30 or so, i realized that i needed to get home. it was pissing rain at the time and i had no torch. i also had only a cursory knowledge of where i was. there are no cars here, therefore there are no streetlights. there are real no lights of any kind as the natives are fanatical about conservation. they recycle everything and collect rainwater to wash the dishes. anyhoo, i, in an disgustingly innebriated and physically and emotionally drained state, decided to make a go of it and hit the road. i got loads of advice as to the route to take and such and i really tried to absorb it all. i knew i needed to head south, but when it's raining in sark in the cottony-blacky-black dark you quite literally can't see a hand in front of your face. kieran showed me to the road and gave me the smallest torch on the island. it wasn't much more than what some people have to illuminate where the key goes in the ignition of their vehicle. i went anyway. it was dark and windy as all get out. i walked in to more than one hedgerow and stomped through more than one muddy-ass puddle. i walked along the road with a hand on the hedge just to keep some orientation. i got pretty close to where i needed to be, but took the wrong turn at the wrong crossroads and ended up past the signeurie and, from what i am told, about 20 meters from my certain death. i came about 10 seconds or so from walking right off a particularly vicious cliff. given the back home events of the past couple of days, this wouldn't be the worst of all possible outcomes. regardless, i didn't make the plunge and i doubled back to the appropriate cross roads and stumbled far enough to reach the house. i am glad that i entered the right house as no one locks doors here and i could have very easily pulled a robert downey junior. anyway i got home about a quarter past 7. i then realized that it was not yet 12 in california and decided to call the ex. i did so with my recently purchased (at heathrow) calling card. my calling card sucked and cut me off like three times. so, then i went to bed and thus began another day in sark. new year's day is another story, almost as kooky, and one for which you will have to wait. it's 7 am here and i need to hit the hay. cheers. posted by downtown | 8:56 AM |
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