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I would have posted a big entry with reports and photos from the last two days of the Jokkmokk winter market, but that post has been delayed since much of the happiness with the market was killed today. The reason: Disrespectful people and their bad behaivour.

After the grande finale yesterday night, the big and beautiful fireworks that declared that the market was over for this time, a lot of people from different places met in my studio to have a drink and get to know eachother. There were artists, a few musicians and some actors who had done various performances during the event. And it was really fun, I met a lot of nice people. I even had an inspiring discussion with Mikael Niemi (a great Swedish writer whose books I really love) who was one of the people who visited the studio yesterday night.

But I left the place early since I was extremely tired. I had only slept a few hours the night before, and since my father were living in the studio during the market, I left the responsibility for the people and the studio to him. He was my guest, invited to the studio since he is a really great guy and a big help to me when there are a lot of people around me during the days. Once I left, he took over my position as the host. It worked very well, and when most people left the place after a few hours, everything calmed down.

However, there were a few people left that were going to sleep in the studio that night, including two women who could not find any place to live during their visit to Jokkmokk. Since they knew my other guest, J:son, I let them sleep in the studio on the condition that they would stay calm and not disturb me or anyone of my guests at any time of the day. It worked well, my first impression of them was very positive. But once the other people left the studio, the women started acting very disrespectful. They verbally attacked both J:son and my father, screaming out insults and hateful opinions of a kind that noone would have accepted. But as the kind and friendly person that my father is, he didn't ask them to leave. Instead, he apologized for being the person he is, which made them go on with even worse insults (of which some were extremely offensive) - for several hours!

Unfortunally, I did not find out about this when it happened. My father called me during the night and told me that there were people acting bad in the studio, but that it was OK with him and that I should not worry about it. If he would have told me what really happened, I would have got back to the studio and asked the women to leave since they broke both the two conditions that I had given them. But my father know me very well, so he didn't tell me anything. Even in that situation, he was nice to these women…

Since the women were drunk, I could have accepted the whole thing as an alcohol-related mistake if they would have apologized and expressed regrets about their behaviour today. Alcohol can really bring out the worst sides of someones personality, and I believe that was what happened here. But they didn't apologize. And when my father walked 4 kilometers in -30c degrees cold to get them a car battery charger so they could start their car and travel home, they didn't even thank him for his help…

Now they have left, so my father and J:son will hopefully get a good nights sleep for this night - which is the last night they are staying in the studio. I do expect the women to contact both J:son and my father and apologize for their behaviour, and if they care at all about their own reputation they should also contact me. In any case, they will of course never be welcome back.

I am a friendly guy, and I don't get angry very often. But when someone acts disrespectful to a person that is close to me, I get mad. And whenever that happens, it feels really good to write about it. It helps me get the anger out of the head. I have written many entries like this, that have never been posted. And when I started writing this entry, I wasn't sure if I would post it either. Now I have decided to do it. But I may very well delete this post tomorrow when I have calmed down…

The big market post will be published tomorrow instead, if I can keep the inspiration and ideas for it alive until then!