Trollhättan and back. With pictures!

It’s like this: A friend of mine organised this rather big festival indoors that started at three in the afternoon and kept on going until 01:00. (now, actually)

They had lotsa bands playing, some stalls, a mini ramp for skateboards. And a big warehouse they didn’t really manage to fill, (it would’ve taken a thousand people to get a crowd going, and there were 2-300 perhaps?) and it was really, really cold. Really cold. Very very cold. This being a aforementioned “big big warehouse.”

Lot of very nicely geared up teenagers, and of course I feel out of place. My friend is running around climbing stuff and doing all those things that need to get done when you pull something of this magnitude together, which leaves me fending for myself with whatever pitiful social skills that I have: Usually they consist of me lending my lighter to people who are standing outside of the locale, smoking with fingers so frostbitten that the glow from cigarettes is the only thing that’s keeping them from falling apart (á la terminator 2). It’s very cold.

I did rediscover that some of the people from the (brilliant) band bob hund had reformed as Sci-fi skane. And that was good. Apart from that, I was supposed to take some pictures. Since I wasn’t paid, I left it to my mood to dictate what I’d shoot, so it was few pictures, mostly taken from a distance, showing concrete walls, cigarette butts and the occasional first-aid person.

Another video online

I’ve added another video to the guiltyguiltyguilty.org page: Mark Melvin.

Since last week I haven’t really touched the page, just sort of leaning back and occasionally watching the traffic stats (not all that high yet), but I’ll prolly get around changing some of the texts – as it stands it’s focusing a bit too much on music- & film-piracy, instead of the more general question of “intellectual property – is it a useful concept?” sorta thing.

But for now – feed my ego and go and watch the new video.

2009 Update: The above mentioned site is now defunct. Go to monocultured.com for a mirror of the project.

Why I don’t run after trams

When I’ve crossed a road I often get the sensation that I’ve been run over. I have to look back over my shoulder to see if my mangled body isn’t lying in the street somewhere, with skidmarks leading up to and over it.

It’s a very odd feeling; Unfortunately, the only illustration of this is the scene from ghost where Sam runs after the guy who stabbed him, only to look back at his girlfriend leaning over his dead body.

What this leads up to is me telling you not to run for trams or busses or trains or whatever. My friend Þora had the great misfortune to combine running with Gothenburg, which at this time of year consists of ice, gravel and a blistering cold. She slipped, hit her head on the curb and briefly passed out.

She knocked her head quite badly in the fall, and we’re still waiting to see what the consequences will be (ie, surgery or no surgery). Right now she has a splitting headache, feels rather sad and annoyed about the state of things, and looks like she tried to read aloud the biography of Malcom X at a klan-rally.

I went over to the hospital to help her home, and next to the receptionist there, there were these pamphlets informing about scabs, blisters, ticks, incontinence, acne and thirty other odds and ends on the failing of the human body. The pamphlets about depression were the only ones that were out of stock.

When I ate happy-happy pills a while ago I did some research into how many people in Sweden are on these pills, and even though I can’t recall the number right now I was very surprised. It’s like one in every twenty persons or somesuch. What the hell is wrong with us? Is life in this gray country so miserable? Are more people concerned with taking pamphlets about depression rather than the common cold?

I’m imagining a gov run program in a couple of years time entitled “don’t worry, be happy.” The subtitle of this program would be if you really can’t be happy, take these pills and make sure you’re still contributing to society by staying in your depression-inducing workplace, and don’t kill yourself before you’ve payed off your student loans. Of course, such a program would be doomed to cause instant depression in at least half the population, spreading mental illness across the globe and ending civilization as we know it.

Film-festival. Beer. Olives

The film festival has begun and of course it was time to end my two days of sobriety by going to the opening at Järntorget.

Contrary to my friends opinions, I found that most people in there were very pretty. In a we-look-good-and-we-know-it sort of way. It was also very crowded, so I set about drinking myself into the mindset of a bowling pin – I wouldn’t mind wobbling about and being pushed as much, was the idea.

It’s a strange thing. The promises of sleezy and (on my part) slightly flabby sex turned out to be nothing more than another sweet lie told to me by my friend the alcohol in order that it could mingle with more of his beer friends in my gut.

Sanity preveiled though, and at two o’clock Anna, Mateusz, Anna and Olle (AMAO) took a cab home where Mateusz cooked late-night pasta and proceeded with kicking Olle in the proverbial nuts at Xbox.

Then sleep. Good old fashion lonely, cold, sleep. bu-hu. and so on.