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Mike iLL

Been a sweet week. Ups and downs of course, but lots and lots of interesting, soulful people.

Last Sunday no, two Sundays ago I was walking around Portabelo Road here (a trendy spot in London) approaching people about this “punk/blues” music and this dude Jasz who I played a couple of tunes for on the street took me to a friend of his’ bar/organic restaurant and they invited me to perform. The music was well recieved; sold a CD for a nice (albeit cheap) ring which I sent home to my loved ones (girlfriend and her sister), and one guy gave me some hash. Also bcame friends with a woman who was waitressing there.

We ended up going to (beautiful) Cambridge together this past Saturday to a festival we’d heard about last week at the Kingston festival. We got one way tickets for the bus ‘cause even though it’s cheaper round trip we wanted to leave room for destiny to take our hand.

So almost imediately after we got there this kid comes up and wants to know if we have any tobacco to roll a hash splif with. Sure do (been smoking a lot of tobacco here up until yesterday). We smoke up with him, and a little while later this real working class dude comes by wanting to check out my guitar. We ended up hanging with him ‘till like five O’Clock the next morning. He was teaching me Cockney slang terms and all this stuff about the history of the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons and stuff - him being a modern embodiment of a Celtic warrior.

Then in the early evening I go into this tent in the ‘Green Area’ and this guy is in the middle of saying it’s an open stage for the next 35 minutes. So I run back and get the guitar and do a little performance - enabling me to easily sell a few CD’s and win the favor of a bunch of the folks running this little area.

So Bridget (the waitress) and Jeep (the Celt) and I end up going back to this tent later in the night and smoking lots of herb with a bunch of these folks ‘till the early morn’, then just crashing out right there in the big circus tent.

This one guy (who owns the tent itself) has a small kitchen in his truck and made tea for everybody in the morning (well, afternoon really), then a few of us took down the sound system and portable solar panels and windmill and packed up the truck. We got a ride back to London and helped unload the truck. Wow, what a trip.

This guy Colin is a fuckin’ nut. He builds all this shit from scratch (or trash) - windmills, solar panels, battery packs, a whole self sufficient sound/lighting system. Man, his place looks like something out of a Mad Max film. Carpeting of tangeled wires, piles of old computers, radios, car parts.. and you talk to him and he’s all 450 kiloHertz into 12 volts or we can do up to 48 volts, bla bla bla - like you have a clue what the fuck he’s talking about.

Of course I’m just acting like I follow. I do to some degree, and specifics realy aren’t that important.

After we got the truck unloaded (man, those battery packs weigh a lot - came from a sub-marine originally, by way of a dumpster) Bridget, two Nicks and I went back to cook some food on one of the Nicks boat: A 30-something by nine foot canal boat hooked up beautifully. Man, these people work hard - and not for the money either.

It’s all these like-minded individuals working toward a common goal of creative freedom, health, environment and fun. We smoked a lot of hash and herb (more hash than herb in this country) all weekend. Man what cool bunch of people.

Played a gig here in Portabello last night, and hooked up another for Sunday this afternoon. Really like the guy I booked the show with today. He’s a musician himself, really into Tom Waits and is very sincere. He’s paying me well too, and introduced me to this rapper who seems amazing.He’s a white guy called JC-001 who writes raps for George Clinton (Rythm ‘n’ Rhyme for example), and holds the worlds record for fast rapping.

I’m not sure how fast that is, will have to ask if I see him again on Sunday.

So yea, England’s getting the thumbs up from me. Daphne (my hostess - girl you rock) and her mom are telling me the girls are talking about me: Blue hair, blue eyes, tattoos on his skin and he sings about sex. Yeeeee haaaa. I miss my woman though. Hope all these weeks and weeks apart don’t ruin our magical love.

Thanks, Mike iLL |

8/06/2000