My Brief Foray into the World of Drug Dealing

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On September 27, 2014, I went to see a concert in Glasgow. Normally, this wouldn’t really be blog worthy but I didn’t really go under normal circumstances.



First of all, the show I went to was a rap show. As many of you know very well, I have spent the majority of my life looking down my nose at rappers and those who enjoy such lowbrow rubbish. I would like to take this moment to issue a formal apology to the world for that. I’ve learned and I am sorry. While I still maintain that rap is largely derogatory towards women and overly glorifies material wealth, it has occurred to me that rap is not the only genre to do so and thus I’m a bit of a hypocrite for ignoring that flaw when enjoying music where people sing. But that’s not the point. This isn’t a blog to defend rap. You don’t give a toss about my feelings on rap. I’m going to get back to the point now. Which is that this is not the normal type of show that interests me. I got tickets to this one mostly on a whim. The rapper in question is George Watsky, who is a poet as well as a rapper. The tickets were inexpensive and I like his poetry and my friend in Canada, Payton, loves him and I love her so I figured why not.



Secondly, I went to this gig alone. I tried to find anyone interested in going, but it didn’t really feel right to go with someone who wasn’t Payton and no one seemed overly enthused so I didn’t push. Which meant going to and coming back from Glasgow alone. I don’t know if you know this, but Glasgow is known in Scotland as the city with the highest rate of stabbings. So it might not have been my most cautious move ever but I’m adventurous and I have an overinflated sense of security about my ability to defend myself against pointy, stabby things. Plus I was wearing my ‘if you try anything, I will kick your shins until they break’ boots, so I felt like I was in good hands. Or shoes.



So I was going to a rap show alone on a Saturday night in Glasgow. Which, now that I type it out, seems super sketchy. Actually, it gets worse because I’m going to go on to tell you that my phone died about ten minutes before the show started and thus had no way to communicate if I was being mugged or not. So yeah, definitely not my most sensible decision. But anyway.



I left Edinburgh shortly after midday so I could explore the city a bit and figure out exactly where the venue was. So I got there around three and decided to take a city tour, which was actually really fun. I chose to listen to the children’s version of the tour because those tend to focus on the most dramatic and bloody parts of history, which also tend to be the fun bits. It was awesome. I have a few photos of that but none of the gig itself, which is a shame. I also spent some time in my favourite place in Glasgow: the Museum of Modern Art (it’s free entry and normally quite interesting). So after getting my classically cultural fill of the city, it was time to enter the debauched world of the rap show. Which turns out to be not that debauched.



It was awesome. I might go so far as to say transforming. George Watsky puts on an amazing show. It was a small gig, but everyone was really excited to be there, which isn’t always the case. The opening act was a guy named Anderson Paak. I wouldn’t have remembered his name if it wasn’t for the fact that he got the crowd to repeat it after every song. He was good overall despite the annoying ‘say my name’ thing. But Watsky, man. He was something else. I liked some of his stuff before the show, but after- I’m a little obsessed. He was excellent. It was possibly the most fun I’ve had at a concert, which is definitely saying something. He did make the unfortunate mistake of bringing up the recent referendum to a crowd of mostly 'yes' voters (and me), which resulted in someone throwing a beer soaked tampon at him. Thankfully, beer was the only thing it was soaked in. But other than that, it was smooth sailing and good vibes.



After the show (and this is really where this starts being blog worthy), I made my way to the train station to catch the last train home. It was packed. I got one of the last two seats in my car at the very end of the train. It just so happened that my seat was beside and across from two luggage racks. As it turns out, people can use those racks as seats if they are struck with the notion to do so. Which is what two guys did when they tumbled into the car three minutes before the train left the station. Because my phone was dead, I wasn’t listening to music or playing a game or any other antisocial activity that I am inclined to partake in on such journeys. These young gentlemen noticed this and struck up a conversation with me. They seemed harmless enough, if a little drunk, so I talked to them. Looking back, it was one of the most surreal interactions of my life.



It began innocuously enough; one of them asked me how long the train would take. I responded that it would be roughly an hour. He then informed me that I was to be their entertainment for the duration, because that’s a long time. Making one of the most sensible decisions of the night, I scoffed and made it clear that I was under no such obligation. Of course, I used smaller words than that. Unperturbed, they asked my name but refused to believe me until they saw my ID. So we passed around our IDs, which seemed sketchy but I use my expired G1 that has my wrong details on it when I go out and I got it back without them taking pictures of it or anything so I don’t think they stole my identity. We chatted about random things for a while until they asked me what I was doing in Glasgow and I said that I was there for a gig. When I asked them the same question, they explained that they were drug runners and went to Glasgow to drop off a kilo of heroin and then kill some time so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Of course, I didn’t believe them because they had been trying to mess with me the entire ride and I’m not an idiot.



They went on to explain in detail the process they go through to get the heroin from one place to another. This involves getting off the train briefly to pick up the stuff and dropping it off at a drop point before laundering the money they make through a shop they know. It was detailed enough for me to believe they weren’t making it up without being so detailed as to be overly assuring. I’m 85 per cent positive they weren’t screwing with me. Mostly because they offered me a cut of the action which they definitely would have had to back up had I said yes. Apparently, I’d make a great mule because I’m foreign, a girl, and I’d look innocent if I wore a dress. They were willing to split the take three ways; meaning I would make roughly £284 per round trip. I am ashamed to say that it took me almost a minute of deliberation before I declined the offer. They didn’t seem to offended by my reluctance to go into business with them and one of them pointed out that it was probably for the best because this is how those ‘locked up abroad’ shows start. I hope that this blog doesn't lead to them getting busted.



With that, we moved on to other topics, including films and music. As it turns out, they use their ill-gotten wealth to fund their band. Appropriately, they’re part of a psychedelic rock band and surprisingly enough, they don’t entirely suck. I was told that if I liked their band on social media sites, they’d give me a free tshirt. Still waiting on that one.



You’d think that would be the weird part of the night, but at this point we were still 20 minutes away from Edinburgh and the conversation was slowing down somewhat. So naturally, they decided it was high time that the party was broadened to include other passengers on the train. And what better way to bring people the party than to fake interview them? They had a camera guy and an interviewer and you’d think that would be enough, but apparently every fake interview really needs a fake sound and lights man. Or girl. I’m not entirely sure why I went along with it but I followed them around for the last twenty minutes of the train, pretending to hold up a boom as the guy conducting the interviews asked ridiculous questions like ‘what’s your favourite crisp flavour?’ and ‘how do you feel about whiskey?’ while the camera guy pretended to film by waving his phone in a vaguely camera-esque fashion in the interviewees faces. It was actually quite entertaining.



Unfortunately, all train rides must end and our media team had to disband as they went off to a party and I went home. It wasn’t until I was walking out of the train station that it occurred to me that absolutely nothing about that train ride was normal. Up until that point, I had kind of just accepted that these are the things that happen to everyone on trains.



Just to top my night off, I got back to my flat to my flatmate being sick in the toilet. Because it wasn’t eventful enough.

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