The Tao of Shit.

Yes, I did enjoy myself at the weekend. Is that such a crime? I had a lot of fun but as with every single time I start to enjoy myself it has to be ruined. It's like if I smile the entire universe starts to shake and the only way to redress the balance is by shitting on me from a great height. Why was I born such a beautiful martyr?

I enjoyed The Fall and that's where I made my mistake. Not all of All Tomorrow's Parties was for me but I loved The Fall. Mark E. Smith's arrogant way of walking around the stage twiddling the knobs of audio equipment that had nothing to do with him and occasionally pushing the keyboard player out of the way so he could punch the keyboard really appealed to me. The music was excellent but Mark E. Smith's way of roaming around the stage, bored and looking for something to do, while waiting for the time when he can just walk off is what makes a quality Fall show. After the encore the entire audience left the room. That's when grumpy Mark decided to come back on and, as a result, caused a mad rush of 40-something unfit blobs in Frenz Experiment t-shirts nearly killing themselves to get to the front. He knew what he was doing. And well done him.

I enjoyed that and so must pay the price. That's when one of Minehead's fattest seagulls shat on me.

It was a huge shit. A really massive, runny, long, white, grey-flecked shit right on my shoulder that ran it's natural course right down the front and back of my jacket. My emotions just bottle-necked. I was grossed out, angry, thought it was funny, disgusted, impressed by the accuracy, depressed that I'll have to clean it and happy that this beautiful animal is so free that it can just shit wherever it likes in public without even noticing. Surely that is something that man has always dreamt of. To soar high above the rooftops, the mountains, the clouds. Casually shitting everywhere without even blinking an eyelid. When will evolution catch up with man's vision of perfection?

So I got shat on, as I was saying, and it made me feel a series of conflicting emotions. My friends could only muster the one emotion however: joy. Sheer joy at me being shat on. The pointing, the laughing, the constant photography...my predicament only seemed to make their weekend more enjoyable. Who would have thought that a simple, horrific stream of excrement on a shoulder could bring so much happiness into the lives of indie people who seem to live their lives being misunderstood and emotionally beaten? Probably for the first time in their limited edition 7" plastic lives they are smiling and happy and laughing and alive. It's like halfway through the film Awakenings but with more runny, runny shit. There I am with all this liquid poo running down my front and back, so white that I consider I'd been ejaculated on by a seagull and not merely scatalogically targeted by one, and all I can see is joy. These mentally ill, whiny, indie fans with their Emily The Strange notepads full of their empty thoughts and their Belle & Sebastian brooches are all smiling and laughing and happy and I am their Patch Adams but with a lot less runny, runny shit.

I paid the price for my joy but maybe it all evened out. I mean, in my job, when am I likely to see such laughter again?

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