Darwin Deez

Greg and I went to the official band after party in Townsville. We had been handed this kinda lame looking flyer during dinner at the festival, bad font, amateur imagery. As we suspected, the party was a total bust. Only about 13 people showed up (Groovin’ the Moo musicians), easily outnumbered by the security and bar staff of the outdated and enormous dance club. There was an unlimited tab, so we gulped down free drinks that we really didn’t need, while the owner of the club explained to us that a ghost named Charlie haunts the building, She escorted us up to the creepy fourth floor which the ghost allegedly inhabits.

We sat on the patio with this Australian band, Washington, who went into an impressively lengthy warning that we should not go swimming anywhere in Australia without the clearance of a local expert, and that the waters and wildlife are indeed every bit as dangerous as we could imagine. James Lavelle jokingly complained to us about how their band attracts audiences full of chin stroking intellectuals, and meanwhile Darwin Deez get the audiences full of girls.

In Brisbane, while we waited for our connecting flight to Adelaide, we saw on CNN.com that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Later that night, watching the hotel TV, our band saw the uncomfortable footage of frat-party-style crowds cheering and singing in front of the White House and in our home city of New York. Personally, I feel that September 11 was an ugly event for humans, and that this mission in Pakistan that killed Bin Laden is, despite any sort of justice that may have been delivered, another ugly event in the chain. Imagine a world without either of these events, and the causes that preceded them, and the aftermath that will follow them. It would be a better place to live. I find no good reason for partying and celebration to come from this ugly trajectory.

The newscaster lady said, “foreigners abroad are advised to limit all travel and to avoid mass gatherings of people.” The four of us were instantly struck by the irony of that statement, given that these three weeks of our existence are entirely centered on every-other-day plane flights bound for 15,000 person Groovin’ the Moo gatherings.

Darwin dragged himself off to bed after the newscast. “This only makes me feel nervous,” he said. “I wish that wouldn’t have happened.”