04/06/12 — 2:01 GMT — Friday — Hotel

Got to the hotel a bit ago. Bumpy flight. Long and bumpy. I turned down every meal that was offered and the protein bar I’m eating now is the first thing I’ve eaten all day. It’s extra chewy.

It was the middle of the flight that was bumpy. The takeoff and the landing were alright — though Newark will always be Newark — you get kind of desensitized to it — but we were getting tossed around there pretty good for a minute. Of course, I was certain death was imminent, and was ready to go out with the ultimate in quiet human dignity: screaming, shitting my pants and masturbating at the same time.

It’s not even that I’m afraid of flying. Well, I’m terrified of it, but it’s a long list and there’s a lot of stuff on there before we get around to airplanes. More to the point, I just hate flying. The whole process. Paying too much money for service that everyone on all sides knows is totally shitty, being crammed in a too-tight space with strangers in some late-’70s deathtrap they’ve refurbished with new touch-screen tvs so United can call it new and publicize about their “brand new fleet” that they just spent half a billion dollars on. Motherfucker, if you have half a billion dollars, I’m already mad at you.

But I’ve got more than a week now before these things matter again, and the extra $90 I paid for leg room was totally worth it, so it could be worse. Nonetheless, I arrived at Heathrow a gargantuan smelly mess of a man. Had I been the customs agent, I probably would’ve made me turn it around and go back to Newark. “You want to come into England? Looking like that?” I wouldn’t even have been able to blame the dude. I was a wreck.

All the more so after 25 (count ’em) stops on the Tube to get to Kings Cross/St. Pancras from Terminal 4. I got here about two hours later than I said I’d be showing up, and only when I walked in did I learn that this is basically an apartment I’ve rented for the next four days. Seriously, I have a kitchen. I’d take a picture to prove it, but I’m too fucking tired.

But hey man, fatigue, delayed flights, long train rides, cabbies, irate property managers. You wanted to travel? You wanted to get out of your comfort zone for a little bit? Well, enjoy the discomfort. Shit, at least I speak the language here. I’m still debating whether or not to go to Berlin next week after Desertfest is over, in no small part because the only German words I can remember are “bitte” and “danke,” and the last, if I’m honest, is a little fuzzy. We’ll see.

Tomorrow, I can only assume I’m going to wake up ravenously hungry and, as I didn’t have any today at all, in desperate need of some caffeine. Nonetheless, I’ll try to get a report in before heading over to check in and check out the start of Desertfest, which, after all, is why I’m here. Until then, the Sungrazer record has ended and Øresund Space Collective is almost too peaceful for me to take it. I just for the first time heard the part where whoever it is asks “are we rolling?” during “Spirit Blues” — the album, streaming here, is a whole different experience on headphones — and though I feel like I could groove on this to infinity, I’ve hit the wall and it’s time for bed.

More to come.

Tags: Desertfest & Roadburn Adventure 2012, London, UK

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2012 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.