fucked in the head
17.04.25
i am trying to be more in time but tonight has taught me that being and time are not for me. its not that the party bus wasnt interesting. it was part of the audible edge, so this wasnt the usual miley cyrus fare. instead of lady gaga and the black eyed peas, the dj was just playing field recordings from a meat packing facility: loud sounds of scraping, dragging and shooting cows in the head with a bolt gun. the bus driver was also a musical improviser. taking a psychogeographic approach to bus driving, her route followed the soundwave contours of the DJās audacity file, merging and turning arbitrarily and driving back and forth heirisson island again and again. in the bus you could not dance or stand or lean or sit; you had to do a mix of all four. it was what wesley willis would label a hellride. if iād read about this experience in a book, or heard it described by someone else, i would think it very cool and funny, but unfortunately, i am the only one who i am, and i was there.
some times you have to be too much for too long a time. i have never been so stuck in a physical body before. i wish i could be mist or dust or clouds. instead i am solid mass, taking up over 200,000 cubic centimeters of valuable physical space. on this bus, space is the highest commodity. the three young women i am wedged behind are very obviously uncomfortable. to give them room, i have to lean back at a 45 degree angle, stuck forever at losing at limbo. the bus holds no escape. the windows are locked, the sunroof is closed, the stop buttons are jammed, and the bus driver is in no hurry to let us off. her route is rhizomatic. we pass the bridge that lights up a third time and my adams apple begins to recoil back into my throat. this is how the sheep must feel when they get live-exported across the ocean, but instead of a chinese abattoir, our destination is a dj gig at the rechabite. there is no relief.
i have been being for way too long a time. i shouldnāt complain. i didnāt buy a ticket. i hopped on this bus at the very last minute. the one good grace was being wedged next to my friend matt acorn, who offered me a sip of liquor from his flask. the party bus has strict rules against drinking and smoking, but these prohibitions only ever last ten minutes. as soon as you hit the freeway, you are outside national jurisdiction. while the dj played sounds of a colourbond fence getting ripped apart in a hurricane, matt filled my ears with his southern river drawl, telling me, for whatever reason, about the lilliput stage at the big day out in 2008. i wasnt there. i didnt understand. then he started talking about his plan to buy 31 pairs of sunglasses for his primary school students, which apparently is said to encourage confidence and risk taking. i wanted to talk about this some more but he quickly shifted topic to the question of whether adam sandler is the marlon brando our times, to which i said let me think, and then he asked me what scene of the hobbit trilogy is most akin to this party bus, to which i said iāve never seen it, to which he said he hadnāt seen it either. mattās talk is an unkempt river. we used to go kayaking together round the maylands peninsula, and this style of conversation was pleasureable, but amidst the cramped conditions, strobing lights, and audible powerviolence, a conversation about the hobbit was too incongruous. still, i agreed that i would include a long digression about the film trilogy he hadnt even seen in my review, because i owed him something for distracting me from my suicidal ideation on the party bus.
the most controversial scene in the hobbit, and the only bit ive seen, is where bilbo baggins and his friends escape getting shot by orcs by jumping into wine barrels and riding down the avon descent. the scene is of a high octane nature with many moving parts, but the reason for its controversy is not bilboās use of an abelist slur - ābombur you spazā - but because it was filmed with a gopro. i for one donāt have a problem with this choice of technology. it was probably the easiest, most accessible and most affordable option at the time. what did people want them to do? get the fancy camera wet? encase it in glass? use cgi water? i know from experience that a go pro is the best way to film yourself going down a water slide. kayakers also use them because their hands are never free, whereas canoers can have the paddle in one hand, and a dslr in the other. the only reason why deliverance wasnt filmed with a gopro was because it came out in the seventies and go pros were invented in 2013.
and while i am writing this down, matt has moved to the back of the bus. he is now dancing with the others. it is severely perverse. the music is a hog being butchered and people are pretending its abba. i am having a terrible time, but i know i need to look like i am having a good time. if i keep leaning still like i am, people will think i am āfucked in the headā. i cant bear to be seen this way, so i start nodding my head. when i look around, i see some other people also nodding their heads in the same stiff-jointed way. we nod to each other in shared suffering, and i think, perhaps it is not us. perhaps everyone on this bus is just pretendingā¦ but these people at the back. they are pretending too much. they have gone overboard in their appearance of having a good time, tilting all their heads back at 90 degree angles, shaking them in what i assume is know as bacchanalian ecstacy. someone is pole dancing in a very dangerous manner. and two ladies in festival dresses and daisy-chain crowns have linked their hands with the poledancer, playing ring around the rosy as if they are at a vance joy concert in 2014. the dancers must be so worried about not appearing to look fucked in the head, that they have gone the extra mile- a mile the length of the earth, ending back right where they started: fucked.
but, could it be, that the dancers really are enjoying themselves? if they are being sincere, then this is actually even more fucked in the head. and could it be that the polite nodders who iād thought were not enjoying the music are actually enjoying the music? are they being mild mannered on purpose so as not appear to be fucked in the head? whatever way i look, it turns out that i am the odd one out, i am the one with the wrong reactions, i am the one who is fucked in the head.
but maybe, i realise, that being fucked in the head is not so much a state. its a spectrum.