On my summer holiday island, there are moss, spiders, ferns and three meter wide, fifty meter tall Douglas Fir trees all around me. The campsite is quiet. After a beer and a flame-burnt sausage I’ll put everything except the tent into the trunk. If you don’t do that, bears will come sniffing around and tearing things up. When that happens, someone screams loud enough so that forms will need to be filled out, and the bear will be assassinated because it’s become fond of campsites. Be kind to bears. I remember throwing plums out the window of Dave’s Chevy at a big black bear when I was a boy. Thing came and put its paws up on the roof of the car and stuck its snout into get the rest of the plums, and maybe a bit of the boy. Terrifying.

Life is full of terrifying things. I poke the fire and fret, trying to stop nutting out about how long, difficult and fast this life is. There is a mid life crisis that comes like a big wave to destroy homes and upset the whole damned family. We always want what we don’t have, eh? I wonder if Bono wishes he were pot-bellied with an anonymous wife and kids and house in the suburbs. I wonder if he can find a campsite away from the hustle…oh, I guess he probably has his own island.

Summer’s over. Can my ageing colleagues and I manage to keep throwing Blues Dances for more than just divorcees and alcoholics, or will middle age turn us all puffy and dull like Phil Collins? If a modern working bluesman is still onstage in his forties, he shouldn’t just be playing to divorcees and alcoholics. He’s gotta be good enough to entertain the greater stinking public. There’ll be no time for the starving artist game as you get old. You have to pay for new teeth if you’ve been biting off bottle caps for twenty of years. Some of these men and women even eat glass, or bite the heads off serpents.

In the forest by the sea, with the bear shit (called ‘scat’) and beer, the valley echoes with the roar of a biker’s loud hog on the highway. Someone in the campground hoots, and turns up the classic rock in the truck, then turns it down as it puts everyone gently to sleep. Polite loogans. I can just hear some Eric Clapton as I drift off. That should keep the bears away.

I snore in the pup-tent and dream of a cruise ship somewhere where they play Desmond Decker and Toots and The Maytals, sailing me up to an island in the sky…

Now rush back to Big Island (where dear reader sits likely sits on the toilet and reads this paper). Now the author is in a little cave on a horse-hide on the pavement under a stage. A weird ska band plays over my head, fronted by an infamous gallant debaucher, and a company of freaks whom thousands of people crowd the streets to party with every labour-day weekend. Drunk, sarcastic young women lurch in an out of the den and some appear to be on drugs. The leading lady maintains grace, while others roll on the concrete. 50 year old men build and maintain a bizarre movie set around the stage and sound system. They climb on it and control it like stoned pirates and carry out the ritual. Broken glass, squashed tins, and empty coconuts fill the gutter. Riot Police and Modern Black sound systems for two square miles in any direction. Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues on Talbot road is swinging.

A Big Cigar has it’s effect, and my worries and thoughts rush in again. How long can the man up above keep making the girls dizzy, and whipping up the crowds before he caves in to mid-life responsibility? It appears he’s dodged it completely, the tricky bastard! Three generations are dancing to a Cuban Ska styled Rudy (a message to you). Genius. Natty Bo grins a gold tooth.

This pain in my knees won’t heal. My back is killing me from carrying one of my many blues-children in a sedan chair above the crowd while she waves her machine gun and Sandinista flag. My eye-site is getting blurry. The raging crowd outside is freaking me out. Should I try to find a nice lady and settle down? Who do I see around me, hmmm?

Angry English women singing “fuck you very muuuch” don’t do it for me. They will have bitter frown-lines, troubles with alcohol, and will be forgotten and ignored soon, no matter how much money they spend on maintaining their image. I wonder if that lady is going to suffer a mid life neurosis like this pathetic wretch in a hat. I wonder if her bladder will start failing soon. I wonder if she’s going to have to get up to pee twice in the night or wet the bed. That happens to some women. Or they pee when they laugh, especially cynical laughter.

It’s amusing when a new rock star arrives on this island with a ridiculous haircut, untrained shouty voice, catchy pop recipe, silly jeans and says, “I’m the toughest”. (Laroux? Sounds like Upside Down by Diana Ross) It’s a good tactic, to come in with brass knuckles and bite somebody on the cock. But there’s always an old guy with bloody trousers standing in the corner, who’s been there for decades, because he’s either got everyone working for him, or he’s tough as beef jerky, or both. You won’t get his cigarettes. He’s in for life.

Alcatraz. But just the day before, I lay in Loogan forest by the sea, dreaming of a paradise where grown men don’t wear t-shirts and Nikes, and young women don’t talk like old whores. Will I ever find paradise; a lush green island free of yahoos and Classic Rock stations, free of military coups, and free of sloppy drunks?

The police come and shut down the Cuban Revolution party. Reminiscing and smoking are all we can do until the crowd thins. Then I wander home to bed and out of danger. It’s a beautiful night with not too many fights to avoid on the way home. Wonder if anyone died at carnival this year.

I sleep finally, and in the morning, a Mambo wakes me up like a noble hard-on. I’m off to make millions, and buy my own island big enough for bears, peacocks, and my own damned camp-ground full of hand picked, well aged but vibrant blues heroes. Read the sign: no bikers, no hippies, no riot cops, no religion, no bling, no photographers, no cats, no begging, no liars, no rednecks, no models, no track suits, no glow-sticks…this will be my year. The kids can go hang themselves for fame. Long distance baby, you gotta stay on your feet if you want to live with bears or humans.

S.O.D

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