Part One: Port-a-John Porn -- The Preamble

I've probably set the scene too thoroughly, but whatever. This is the preamble for the Port-A-John Porn story to follow. Part two will be either tonight or tomorrow night. Check back.

* * *

Arts County Fair is a local rite of passage. It’s a spring concert that’s unleashed on the last day of classes for the University of British Columbia, one of the largest universities in the country.

This year was year 11, and though me and my friends have stopped attending, in the early days, we’d seen nearly every show in the first nine years.

GayBoy and I always went together. The most notable ACF for us? The spring of 1999.

The concert lineup wasn’t anything special, but they never really are at ACF. The student union body puts the concert on as a celebration at the end of the school year, the very last day. It’s a license for insanity, with some listenable tunes on the side.

And sometimes it’s the insanity that makes it all worth while.

* * *

I never needed to blow off steam like I did that spring. At the time, it seemed like my mother had had a close call with death but was going to recover from her cancer. I was upbeat but trashed and needed an outlet for my stress. She never would recover, but I didn’t know that then, whatever my suspicions might have been.

Like anyone would, I just needed a good party.

* * *

Enter GayBoy and his vodka-filled watermelon. (GayBoy has a fondness for injecting fruits with vodka for outdoor concerts. This was the penultimate: More than a mickey had gone into this bad boy. He uses a hypodermic syringe and painstakingly does the work over several hours.)

Also enter a few packages of Scooby Snacks. Back then, there was a brief craze here where Scooby Snacks were all that. They had Mexican magic mushrooms, guarana, and ephedrine. They were mushrooms for the rave crowd and the ephedrine gave you a little kick.

[Responsible writer note: They were fun for a while, but after a few instances of trying the cutesy-named Scooby Snacks, it all went wrong for me. The ephedrine did what they say it can do--my heart felt like it was going to explode. When you’re on highly hallucinogenic drugs, the last thing you need is to feel like heart-rupturing is a potentiality. Ephedrine sucks and is scary as shit when it goes wrong. Don’t bother.]

Fortunately, that day, everything went perfectly. We had fine dope. We had the Snacks. We had the vodka. We had mini-donuts and a beer garden. This was seasonal bliss: a fine early summer day that would soon result in sunstroke for these thousands of concert-goers.

* * *

Did I mention the insanity? The beer garden would be churning out hundreds and hundreds of kegs of beer to these students. By the end of the day, there’d be lost lunches puddling the perimeter of the stadium. There’d be guys relieving themselves against every wall they could fine, in order to avoid having to stand in the endless lines for the port-a-johns.

This day, though, the spectacle had gone insane by the third act, the legendary Odds. It was The Odds’ last performance as a band that day, and those of us who’d been along for the ride were glad they were here to say goodbye in their hometown.

(If you have no experience with the Odds, Heterosexual Man was a classic that was banned off nearly every radiostation, but MTV and MuchMusic couldn’t get enough of the video, which starred the Kids in the Hall. Total thumbs up for song and video.)

GayBoy and I had amped up our drugs before their set and we were very hallucinohappy by this stage of the gig.

* * *

By the end of the Odds, it was obvious that well over 50% of the stadium was having trouble controlling their alcohol on this crazy-warm sunstroke day. The vomiting was getting hard to take.

GayBoy and I weren’t ready to throw ourselves into the pit at the front of the stage, not yet. Econoline Crush, the next set, weren’t our favourites.

No, we’d hang back. Find a seat with a view. We made our way to the back of the stadium, where we found a spot to perch right next to the stadium’s seating, which was always inexplicably cordoned off for these concerts. We sat at the base of the massive roof’s pillars, and from there, we could see everything unfold.

Which was good, since we’d soon be treated to a full-on sex show.

The good stuff will be in the next posting. If you think it’s just going to be erotica, think again.