by JOHNSON CUMMINS

If you’re between the ages of 13 and 17, chances are you’re counting down the days until the Vans Warped Tour pulls into Parc Jean-Drapeau on Sunday. I must admit, I’ve never paid to go to one, but I did work at a couple. The last time I worked there, my job was to collect all the flotsam, which was mainly the water bottles these fucking kids were throwing at the bands (maybe these brats aren’t so bad after all). This would’ve been all well and good if not for the fact that there were water cannons in front of the stage, cooling off the kids and creating ankle-deep mud and man-made marshes all over the dirt floor of Parc Jean-Drapeau, making my job a living hell.

My former band the Doughboys were also playing on the bill that year, so I hatched a plan by which I could finally see them from the other side of the stage while seeing to my sanitation-service responsibilities. When they hit the stage, I decided to pick up the empty water bottles floating near the front left of the stage, in the biggest lagoon that everyone in the crowd had avoided. Doughboys singer John Kastner, never one to pass up a good chuckle, decided to dedicate a song to his former bandmate—me—and thousands of people followed his gaze to find me wading around in the muck they had all avoided. Looking like a cross between the Creature From the Black Lagoon and a dog that has just been shown a card trick, I’m wading around in a morass of discarded shoes, piss bottles (!), water-logged shirts, broken Frisbees and sunglasses and, you guessed it, the ever-present empty water bottles, with sun-dried mud clinging to my sunburnt skin and a dazed, delirious look from heatstroke and too much beer.

Now here’s the kicker: for reasons unknown, I guess a Doughboys über-fan felt sorry for this ex-star of stage and screen, now reduced to picking up piss bottles. This kind soul bravely wandered right into the middle of the muck and asked me if I would autograph her Warped ticket stub. In complete delirium, I dropped my garbage bag in the water and quickly scrawled my name. I handed it back to her and, with the eyes of a thousand kids with mouths agape still on me, I switched back into my automaton state and asked if this doe-eyed girl was done with her water bottle. After taking this final potential projectile from her, I lugged my garbage bag back to the sanctuary behind the shaded tour buses and hid there for the rest of the day. Needless to say, I haven’t been back to a Warped Tour since.

To the rest of you punters braving Warped this year, don’t forget your sunscreen and, as you stuff your dick into the mouth of an empty Evian bottle in an attempt to avoid the long line-ups at the porta-potties, think of me.

LIKE I SHINE… jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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