TAM TAMS!!$@*#$&(@#&$ (part 1)

Our clothes still weren't dry and our relationships still weren't mended. The patches we'd drunkenly sewn onto our friendships had become unstitched. Fernweh had resumed bullying Hades, and my patience with Squanch was running thin as I came to realize that her brain wasn't as fabulous as my penis had convinced me it was. Hades still wasn't functioning properly. The group had resumed its baseline aridity as our dehydrated eyes braced the glow of the morning. If only we could use the moisture in our clothes to hydrate ourselves...

Our clothes may not have been dry, but we were - and it was helpless to pretend that we hadn't fallen victim to alcoholism. The first sip of the evening prior had cast our problems into oblivion; passing the bottle between us had allowed us to pass our differences to another place. This morning was another story.

We grumbled and groaned, our hopes for ever having dry clothes crushed as we compacted our soggy shit into our packs like piles of seaweed. We walked for half an hour, took a subway back to Mt. Royal. Once there, were finally rewarded with something to brighten our days: a treasure trove.

Avenue Mt. Royaol was holding a street bazaar with a ton of hot food for sale - that meant that each garbage can was laden with oodles of crispy jewels, pertaining to whatever stalls were on the block. Me and Fernweh bounded from trashcan to trashcan, howling with glee as we pulled gleaming styrofoam chests from the bins. Our hands held high, we offered our newfound gifts to the heavens, dashing about while we stuffed our faces with samosas, french fries and kebabs. We were well fed that afternoon.

After our meals, Hades decided to trade the last few brain cells he had for even more mushrooms. That paved the way for an interesting evening. We picked them up from Beardo, the dude who we could always rely on to be sitting on the same bench in the same park with the same backpack filled with the same crappy mushrooms. After that made our way to the top of the street towards the mountain itself for motha fuckin' TAMTAMS!

Tamtams was a weekly festival that I'd heard much about, but everything I'd heard had still left me vastly unprepared for the degree of excellence that ensued. The heart of Tamtams  - a circle of more than 50 drummers beating instruments of massive variety - was some of the most powerful energy I'd ever witnessed. Big and small djembes, portable kit drums, dumbeks, and cowbells were all hammered in unity; God's voice made itself heard in the complexity of dozens of rhythms beat to the same tempo. A jolly brown woman blew a horn, stoic indians murmured chants. Entranced, Fern and I teetered towards the music, failing to keep our jaws shut for long enough to contribute any proper didgeridoo riffs to the magic.

Surrounding the circle was the rest of the mountain, its entirety dotted with hundreds (thousands?) of hippies passing joints, stumbling punks dropping beers, youthful grandparents with big smiles, babies taking their first steps towards happiness. Few times in my life have I had to ask whether or not I'd been dreaming - this was one of them. I skipped the mandatory pinch on the cheek but assumed that I was, indeed, dreaming.

I didn't know what to do. None of us did. This happened every Sunday? Wow - this shit was too incredible to believe - so, we did what any sensible idiots would do: began chomping mushrooms.