Tramp Party

So, smelling my way to work - from the overflowing drain in the yard past the bacon sarnies of the factory workers opposite, through the Olympic stadium where they are seemingly building the foundations with manure and onto the stinking canal, I smell the party before I see it.

Now, one of the benches along the Union Canal has been inhabited by two tramps for a while. Every morning I pass them, worried about waking them up with my bell as I alert the other cyclists to my presence in the tunnel. They hunch, coats zipped tightly over heads, sleeping upright - or more probably not sleeping upright. I wonder about the feeling they have when their situation dawns on them. When they stop dreaming and realise they are outside on a bench in North London.

Anyway, yesterday as I rode home there were three of them. All awake and drinking - seemingly in high spirits.

This morning, there were about seven, all smokes and jokes in the orange light. Safety in numbers.

Burning Bright: Episode Two

If you haven't read Burning Bright: Episode One - better do it now.

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

It was a day like any other. I left you at the foot of the slide. This blog is difficult. The revelations of what has occurred are difficult, and that is the reason for the unpredictable nature of publishing and the haphazard order of events. My notebook was lost, and I must simply record what chooses to re-emerge - a flawed method for a writer but one which will define - has defined - the product. The other fact is that I'm lazy and busy and love getting wasted, so often this part of my life is squeezed out. But really this is the most important, so if you're here, once again, I'm glad.

Tripping, semi-hard, we move from the foot of the slide of agony to The Temple via the first aid tent. The Temple Of Dreams - it's the place where you go to remember the dead. A three story temple carved from wood, shaped like a massive clove of garlic and resplendent in the vast loneliness of the playa.

The sun is blazing now. The time for acid has long since passed and yet i'm fucked. It seems inappropriate, vulgar. I've peaked too soon. Made some wrong decisions somewhere and sailed way off course. The wind of hedonism inflating my sails like an over-excited cock. Fuck. I'm sweating.

All that I promised myself falls by the wayside. Dissolves into blankness and wasted words. What I posted earlier - had been anticipating for months - turns out to be hot air: 'I want to record what I find here. I am a mirror.' What I suddenly see is that I need to selfishly absorb my experience rather than reflect.

Something said to me recently interests me on this subject: "I wonder why we can't really articulate some things. Is it because they're subjective truths? Built upon constructs that exist outside language/commonsense and instead in our own heads? Does that mean that those thoughts wouldn't have meaning for someone else? Or if they did have meaning, would they have value?"

I couldn't articulate my feelings of fear. And yet they felt like the absolute truth.

I was floored, blazed. At a fucking loss.

This feeling, the desperation for escape, was not a new one. I was thrown askant by my own ever-present desire to stretch myself beyond what was rational, sensible, when already I was situationally askant. I had not even fully acknowledged or allowed myself time to understand all that my surroundings meant. Maybe it's a security thing. Get fucked, dictate your environment with your own headspace. Transpose what you feel onto your surroundings. That's the universal language of the party. And one which is especially easy to converse in, to be fluent in, at Burning Man.

So, looking for a little bit of space - a smidgen of normality, something to grab onto, to get a purchase on - I went back to the Unnatural History Museum; ridiculous in hindsight as it is the place where i know or vaguely recognise everyone, and expectation when your tripping is not what you want. I sidestep in like a hesitant crab. Wearing a white catsuit with black polka dots, I'm wholly conspicuous. I should be strutting. The RV ends up being the curse of the day. Considering it an air-conditioned refuge, I flop down onto the cool bench, hoping to get some ´space´.

In this state I have already begun to recede from my friends. So many loves of my life all around me, and i can't bounce off anyone. A game of musical statues is being played out in the bar. All I can do is sit and watch. Totally fazed and flaking, I can barely lift my head to meet the gaze of my brother beside me.

Before this, in fact on the way to this place, way way way before, I had made a birthday card which referenced the rad tattoos and certain brilliance of a person I know and love, a person called DJA who needs to know about this and his own brilliance. Those are the ones, the ones who don't know, who need it pointing out. So, I call to him out to give him his birthday card, which is made up of ads from an old Time Magazine I found in San Fran airport whilst waiting for our shit-heap RV to collect us. 'It's not a matter of luck' is part of what is says. This boy, we have kind of found each other, and we realised we loved each other before we even knew what the other stood for. Squeezing the love into my friend till I can no longer breathe has been a trademark of our friendship. So, I made the card, gluing the love I have under Time Magazine cut outs. Smiling as I approached The Party and his birthday.

I'm carrying the card in my bag. Have been carrying it all night, waiting for the right moment to give it to him. I don't know if this is the moment or not. I may have missed it - but if so then I was not there to miss it. 'Dan. Can I have a word outside' I say solemnly. 'Oh I see' he says, expecting me to run and crush his ribs with a hug from a rugby distance. Not even pretending to be unsmiling, (which is hard because i smile all the time and must mean that something somewhere has gone seriously astray) I take the card from my bag. Crumpled and unstuck, I smooth it out and place it in his hands. He doesn't know what I'm giving to him, thinks it's some kind of postcard, and mortifyingly needs instruction. I open it up and show him the words. Watch him read the words, wait for the impact.

I didn't expect him to burst into tears. And this moment is what started my flow, the realisation that what I saw in that moment, I'm not sure anyone sees in me.

Walking back to the tent together, and I'm happy but I'm still acting. And I have to get away away away. So bizarrely instead of doing so I sit down alone. And resume the flaking.

"Isn't that the most stylish woman you've ever seen?" I hear the American twang before I clock the owner of the voice - a large hippy with big teeth and a tie-dye dress. "Can I come over?" He says.

I nod. I forget that I actually probably do look awesome. White catsuit, captains hat, mirrored aviators.

He sits down. Then suddenly looks at me hard. "Sweetheart when did you last drink any water?" "Um...I don't know." I say, suddenly panicky, looking down to the perpetual Bloody Mary in my hand. "Energy levels dipping - you need water." He quickly uncaps his rustic water carrier and hands it to me. I drink. And realise that the fact of me tiredly sitting alone may be attributed in part to dehydration.

"You OK doll?" I smile and nod.
"Brian" he says, showing me his teeth and taking me in his big arms. "Or Lawn Boy"

The love this man shows me is what begins to pull me out of the horror of this hesitancy. He takes me to his stall, Cereal Thrillers and introduces me to his accomplice: Lord Thunderpants. They have been talking about Bunny Love as if it's a contraband. "We have a tiny bit left, i only save it for special people - and i have some cinnamon crunch which i'm going to mix in." By this stage i'm feeling more myself, laughing, not so deranged. Lawn Boy presents me with a bowl of the finest cereal I have eaten - so decadent it is almost a desert. My lady Laurey is beside me and a queue has formed at the cereal bar. Holding our bowls, we proudly begin to munch, and laugh. Laughing so hard that Bunny Love is spraying out of our mouths. Lawn Boy keeps trying to take our picture, and the more he tries the more we laugh.

Emboldened by Bunny Love, we leave the confines of the Unnatural History Museum, and strike out into the desert, in the clothes from the night before, with the acid trails still very much around and hearts torn by the pangs of inner discord. We search with a thirst for freshness.

For some reason I'm crying again and the voice in my head keeps saying the line which i write often, a line from the mouth of Polonius: 'Above all, to thine own self be true'. I feel deeply that i'm not being true to myself. And i can't pinpoint in which capacity - but from the current perspective it feels that it may be in many capacities. (The background to this is that I am in America for a mere 16 days and have flung myself from my desk to the desert, from the city mindset into one where the only rule - or doctrine - is to open your mind, your heart and live as freely as your were born to. It has inevitably been a journey of contradictions - and will continue to be thus when i am flung back, raw and rife with dreams, to my desk in 8 days time). So, self-truth, living honestly, following your heart as it were, is something important and difficult. And something i felt i was not doing.

Walking down 3:30 and D, arm in arm, is a princess in a green dress and a cat in a captains hat. Trying to articulate the state of my heart and we are perfectly interrupted by a man carrying an ice cold water cannon. "Do you want some of this?" Delighted, we spin on our toes, arms aloft as the man sprays us deliciously. We thank him for the lightening touch - for now we are once again laughing - and continue on our way. Pausing, (for it is midday and only maddogs and Englishmen people the desert), we peer in all directions for shade. A voice:

"What do you need?" This message characterises the vibe. What do you need and can I help you find it?

"Shade! Water!" we cry.

"Well come on in."

Tip-toeing into the camp we are greeted by a group of 5 or 6, gathered under a parachute. They give us water. And seats. And ask what our story is. My story is beginning to feel less important.

I'm a cat but i have no ears. The man goes into his tent for a second - a lovely tent with a clothes rail and from my seat i can glimpse masses of silken clothes and finery. He emerges with a pair of leopard print ears. I am so touched by this gift. Thanks spills from my mouth. He shrugs like it's nothing. But it's not. We refuel, and decide a toilet stop is necessary. One of the gents offers to accompany us, so we go, arm in arm, to the Porta-potties. Forgetting to get our bearings, (for we really are appallingly bad at navigation) we trot down roads, turning this way and that, to the bathroom. We all go into separate cubicles, and after a time emerge. But the man is not there. We don't remember his name so we cannot simply shout 'where are you kind sir?' And we realise suddenly that we don't know the way back. Looking at each other with round eyes, we shrug and continue. Arm in arm, light on our feet. A wind begins to blow. The dust devils begin to swirl. One path ends, another begins.

This is to be continued.

Burning Bright: Episode One

‘I am no longer a virgin’ he bellows, and looks at me, the bearded man, his face is serious, composed. And with that, in aggressive celebration of his new status, he swings the crowbar like a baseball bat and strikes the gong with an almighty Goliath-like grunt. I feel the reverberation in the soles of my feet as the chime rings out across the dry lake bed.

Welcome home. I have just crossed the boundary which separates the rest of the world from Burning Man. Everyone keeps welcoming me home and asking if I’m a virgin. ‘Say yes’ their faces say. And they take me in their arms and whisper things into my ear, squeezing me like a long lost sibling. Am I home?

We are in Black Rock City – the biggest township in the Nevada County at this very moment - a few miles north of Gerlach. We are in the desert. All 50,000 of us. Ludicrous but true. There is nothing here but humans and their endeavours. And dust. Lots of fine white dust.

Getting here involved a very long journey. Mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. The planning of our operation has taken months and many meetings, memos and hours of research. We have purchased or hired a troop of Recreational Vehicles. We named ours Brian after the East 17 legend who ran himself over in his own car.

Travelling 4000 miles to attend a party is pretty dedicated. Hitching to Glastonbury pales when I think of the 3 days it took to reach the desert. Cajoling and urging Brian the whole way. In Reno we very nearly killed him when we purchased 36 gallons of water. (‘You can always rely on a murderer for a fancy prose style.')

Rewind rewind. To survive in the desert for one week you need to prepare. Things to help us survive include: a dozen tins of Stagg classic chilli, enough tequila to sink a band of Mexicans, four bumper bags of nachos, a family tub of salsa, a dozen avocados, a hundred limes, several bottles of acid, a couple of ounces of cocaine, some disappointing MDMA, 36 gallons of water (16 of which were returned after Brian's grumbling). Add two sets of nipple tassles, a catsuit, a fake moustache, 2 captain's hats, a sailor, a stolen art car, some factor 50 sunblock. Strip away your ego and apply a pair of goggles, a dust mask, ice and a slice and shake vigorously.

It will surprise many people to learn that my desert experience was not all laughs and plain sailing and actually involved a fair amount of tears and revelations. About which more later.

The Burn is lots of things to lots of people. Is it just a big party? Yes and no.

The lesson I learned on acid which made me question - and then flee, looking for what I knew to be myself and finding myself to be not where I thought I was at all but some other place (and in fact some other being entirely) - was written on the toilet wall. I found it on Monday. And found it again today in my notebook which, for reasons too complex to explain here, has not been opened until today.

‘It is the self within ourselves that we have to sacrifice. It is our own heart that has to be torn out of the false being and offered to the light.’
Pyramid Of Fire: The Lost Aztec Codex.

So, what of it? Why am I revealing the uncomfortable depth of my trip for you to cringe at? I went to record what I found – and this is what has been indelibly etched into my heart - the feelings I encountered meant more than all that I saw.

It’s strange, the way it went. We went en mass (20 of us or more) from London, our trip engineered to be a group experience. Walkie talkies purchased, a channel selected which would crackle undetected just below the frequency occupied by the American authorities.

We sing down the airwaves to each other, high and delighted that we have made it to the fucking DESERT. And it is actually mind-blowing, the effort and the spectacle. Any idea which has ever been conceived can be made real and tangible here. It is the place where your fantasies can become reality – if you have the money to make it so. It’s like a big canon that blows dollars into the winds and scatters them about the Nevada desert. So very beautiful, this playground for the privileged.

For those that have never been; the city is organised into a big horse shoe. This is bisected with roads – all of which carry a number – so you can always find your way home. Everyone has their own ‘address’. We are at 9:25 and G.

The day that everyone finally arrived was Tuesday. This also happened to be the birthday of one dear friend. We all already had preconceptions about how we wanted the day to pan out. What we imagined it would be. Lesson One: Take it as it comes. Predict nothing. Anticipate nothing. The only thing that’s real is what you see and feel. Many philosophies preach this; live only in the moment – your mind is desperate to escape the present – when really that’s all you have.

So, the birthday party and I decided for better or worse to take a bit of acid.

("Are we on the same page, hallucinogenically?" D.J.A)

It was wrong in many ways – the wrong time, pitch black – a load of our friends had just arrived, we were waiting waiting for the art car to be repaired to take us to deep playa where we would have this birthday party.

'Not so rashly, not so rashly' is what my heart plainly said, and I blithely ignored her, closing my ears to the truth and all the while smiling into the crowded desert darkness. Expectantly I held out my hand for the droplets to fall and transport me to a place of joy that I had previously imagined. Held up my face to the sky to look for the direction, for something to happen next. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t find the place. I couldn’t find the joy. It never existed in the first place. Do you see?

So this is what happened. I followed the newly arrived friends, all of us on bikes having abandoned the broken art car, cycling into the sunrise, in search.

The slide of doom loomed up ahead, 224 casualties in one day so said the people at the medical tent. A big piece of plastic with an Astroturf landing strip designed to burn the skin from your behind as you skidded at high speed down to your audience.

In summary, we had only just really arrived in the desert, were still acclimatising and excitable, hadn’t settled into the way of things here. Were still forcing ourselves to guzzle water but mainly alternating beer with Bloody Mary’s as our hydration of choice.

And as things escalated from sliding to group sliding to surfing each other down the monstrosity, the one-up-man ship ended in a gigantic fall and a suspected back break of one of our crew. And we gathered, terrified at the foot of the thing to ascertain just how bad it was.

It was superficial. And then, and then, and then.

This is to be continued.

To read Part Two click here.