Hello Lambpoonies!
This questionable bit of exposition and autobiography is a series I call An Ignorant Abroad, or The Traveling Cynic. I suppose it is a travel journal. I hope you enjoy it.
I have a fairly extensive list of shameful acts I’ve affixed my name to over the last forty years of life. This is relevant to travel, I promise. The Traveling Cynic isn’t just a title. It’s a character quirk and/or fatal flaw.
One such action was representative of the usual juvenile nonsense I would get up to as a fledgling monster. I tagged a building with permanent marker, got caught black-handed, and ended up screaming at about fifty furious people with the gall to call me out.
They started the shouting, yelling, and general nastiness. I merely returned the favor. My night was going swimmingly up until that point. Until getting caught.
Tagging is a phrase street filth use to refer to scrawling graffiti on buildings the artist most certainly does not own. This happened during a Phobia show in my hometown of Spokane, Washington.
Phobia is a grindcore musical act, if one wishes to charitably classify the wonderful racket they conjure as music. They’re also anarchists, or so I seem to recall. It’s impossible to understand their lyrics and brain damage is probably a serious threat.
But they rock a house without any doubt. Even a House of God if they have to.
It was somewhat surreal to me at sixteen years dumb to see Phobia playing on a stage overlooked by a crucifix. The venue that evening was the local Knights of Columbus.
So, I tagged the thing. A crime which, according to the court of public opinion hastily assembled at the time, warranted the death penalty. The things they screamed at me were so awful, so vile, and so imaginatively depraved I immediately forgot all of them.
I’m sure they were quite creative. But the temperature of the place was getting a bit high as I laughed and pointed and insulted them all right back.
In the interest of keeping both the peace and my skin, I gave my best shot to date at conflict resolution and mitigation. I hollered at the top of my lungs, “Suck my cock!”
This appeared to stump and shock them all into a sullen and flabbergasted silence. I took the opportunity to make an intoxicated and dignified exit. I also gave them all a fake name, some of whom knew damned well it wasn’t my real name.
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