There is a lane on the motorway marked by white lines, and I do my level best to guide my car northwards between them, with some success.
White lines, success, blue skies, smiley faces … I’m addicted.
Yet on final approach to Glasgow, an angry dark cloud descends. Thankfully, it doesn’t follow me into the underground car park.
I abandon selected belongings, condiments and general accoutrements, that I may or may never see again – if I’m lucky.
Upstairs is a city centre hotel, and a bedroom window overlooking the very best of Glaswegian brutalism.
From my 12th floor vantage point, I contemplate the block party scene with an air of superior authority – a one-man moral majority – while taking in a free cookie and a shit cup of tea.
Through the rain down the street is the Pot Still, a kettle black, and a Catholic man – who shows me the way to the next whisky bar.
(I don’t ask why … why would I … ?)
Inside: no-space blues, a split drink, a crowd waiting for some theatre, the silent mob.
And folk crawl up ladders just to get a snifter in this town, it’s surreal.
Chat and business and drivel and talk about climbing up the walls … I do all of this.
Should I worry about giving away too much, as people eat things and drink things literally right in front of me.
And all the while, I’m surrounded by police evidence which should probably have been destroyed a few decades ago.
This is a crime scene where no-one will ever know what crime took place.
Why have we all come here tonight is a rhetorical question. Who is the miserable man?
The vegans are all in the Flying Duck, downstairs, where it’s easy enough to take in a Scottish bevy.
At throwing out time (7pm, for those without a reservation) we gather around the back of the building, in spaced-out flocks that will quickly disperse if politely asked to. Place is not a duck. It doesn’t quack.
In mock despair, I follow imaginary signs to a gig in Stereo, held on a backstreet which keeps moving around the city centre the closer I get to it.
In the basement: Downtown Boys, punk polemics, a one hour lecture (with saxophone interludes). I hover over everybody for the duration, my own silent crowd of one, clinging to a Local Motive – waiting to be found out.
After the event, I find myself easily led by Braveheart Beefheart … who else?
Trout Mask Replica / barber shop hipster / a late-night Glasgae gander.
Animals, partying without reason.
(I don’t ask why)
An Outside World 