May Strailer Tark Mwo - 08.05.03

It never rains on Beltane. It hasn't rained on a
Beltane in eight years. So with us thinking this as
we huddled in our soggy tents, threatened with
their nylon being torn asunder by the horizontal
downpour; it only made us lament all the more that
not only had we been kicked off Calton Hill and out
of Edinburgh, but now we were about to forced out
half naked (or more) into the exact sort of weather
we were there to celebrate the end of.

Three hundred people trying like hell to find some
bargaining leverage with the world at large to
please just give us a little window of calm in an
obscure Scottish moor so well known for its wind
that they built a windfarm on it.

I don't believe in the magic of ritual, but I
definitely do believe in magic of intention, and
ritual as a focusing of intent.

I.e. a robotic arm randomly plotting runes and
lighting candles ain't gonna do much, but the
person who built the arm's desire for it do
something will.

It cleared up as we were putting on costumes and
body paint, and by the time we filed out the rain
had stopped and even the wind had died away to
pretty much nothing. It was still cold, but I mean
hey, come on, this is Scotland.

For two months now I and the twenty five or so
other performers in this year's Beltane fire point
have been doing very little else than rehearse,
busk, sink piss and be generally sociable.
Personally I've not really had a life outside it.

I'll hopefully have some pics to send out some time
soon, but so you have some idea what it all is I'll
take through the basics.

There are seven main areas in the procession,
starting and ending in the Bower and visited in a
circle in the order of: the fiery gates (to the
underworld), air, earth, water, fire, redmen, back
through the gates, bonfire.

The procession is formed around the may queen and
the green man, being respectively the queen of the
underworld (in the faerie sense, not hell) and the
year itself, who's rebirth the entire thing is
about. They are protected by the white women and
trailed by processional drummers, and by each of
the points who join on the end after they've been
visited, done a little show and presented the may
queen with a gift for blessing.

After us, fire, the procession gets attacked by the
red men who covort around pretty much naked and
playing silly buggers, are repelled by the white
women, then we carry on to where the green man gets
dismembered and reborn, then to the lighting of the
bonfire. Then back to the bower for the final
acceptance of the gifts and the redmen to seduce
the white women and we have a wee dance around for
the rest of the weekend. A redman bit my nipple,
and though I certainly didn't want him to shove his
tongue down my throat like he did to a mate of mine
and everyone else, I did feel a little rejected
that he didn't.

Fire point's performance was to stage a battle
between 'fire from above' and 'fire from below'. I
was a satyr and banner bearer for those below,
wearing pants made at great length from an
illegally purchased fur coat (you're not allowed to
sell fur in this country) which I got cheap from a
charity shop, wielding a two meter tall flaming war
standard and hitting people with it.

I also was one of two to approach the may queen to
get the fire to light the other fire performers. We
were the second bonfire.

Beltane dates back so far its not really known, or
important, when it started. And apart from the
brief period between 1840 and fifteen years ago
when it was banned by the church for presenting an
alternative argument, it has been performed every
single year since.

This spins me right out. We're not just doing a
version of this thing, we're actually doing it.
When in three thousand bc some dude in a sheepskin
thought hmm wonder what Beltane'll be like in five
thousand years, this is it. Us.

Loose.

There are three main points to all this. For one
it's the ceremonial inauguration of summer. Also,
on the night before Beltane all the druids would go
around the country making sure that every single
flame in the land was extinguished, and from the
Beltane bonfires every single flame was then relit.
We had a guy rubbing two sticks together, and every
fire we used for the performance was taken from
this. And finally the two bonfires were set next to
each other and farmers would drive all their cattle
between to purify them.

So that's that.

My costume came out pretty good, I the pants with a
little bob tail, hoofs, dappled marks painted on my
back and shoulders and little horns that
unfortunately wouldn't stay stuck. I was offered
some superglue, but that was only ever a good idea
in retrospect.

Getting all painted up was a little uncomfortable,
with me wearing fur and being so close to that much
red paint and animal rights advocates.





But as I say, outside of all this I haven't really
been up to much, so the theme for the rest of this
mailer is Random bits of fun and interest from the
last few months.

Ikea is the funnest place on earth.

I went there with my flatmate looking for her cheap
bed. For a start everything's huge and set up high,
so its like being a kid in some giant's
labyrinthine home. We were throwing floor rugs like
Frisbees and sword fighting with rolled up cane
mats.

Then I got into the storage space for the beds.
Basically a huge jungle gym of scaffolding strewn
randomly with mattresses. Sprinting along, hurling
myself unexpectedly sideways into a soft spot,
hiding from staff, climbing up through stories and
stories of kitset home furnishings.

Then we got home and had to have a twenty minute
play fight because we'd had too much sugar.

I got grabbed by a police officer. Everyone should
get grabbed by a police officer at some point in
their lives.

It was during the best of the antiwar things (the
best because I got grabbed by a police officer), we
were being herded into a side street and they tried
to form a line in front to contain us but we
charged them.

I was at the front, walking up to this row of
officers and not really sure what would happen when
I got there, when a guy to my right made a sudden
dash to get past and the police closest ran to
tackle him, creating an opening right in front of
me that I was free to stroll casually through.

We ran on ahead, but when the line tightened enough
to stop those who hadn't got through we went back
to surround the police. A middle aged man tried to
get past and I moved to pull him through, then
thought whoops, that's going a bit far, and backed
off, and that's when the officer grabbed me. But
since I'd already stopped doing anything he let me
go again.

It wasn't a riot and no one got hurt or arrested.
That came a week later. There was a little incident
with a dozen or so protestors throwing traffic
cones at mounted police and getting taken into
custody. Of course there was a rousing round of
solidarity and let them go pigs! and such forth,
but I mean come one, if you throw a bollard at a
cop you're going to get nicked and you should've
known better.

Marching is fun. We owned those streets baby.
Briefly. One of the chants was someone would yell
GEORGE BUSH! And everyone else would holler
TERRORIST!

TO-NY-BLAIR!

TE-RROR-IST!

SHA-RON!

TE-RROR-IST!

John Howard! (That was me)

Confused silence.

No one here knows who he is.

We walking away from besieging the American embassy
and an older woman in a pink fluffy sweater was
watching us from her balcony and someone
screamed 'Pink fluffy sweaters for peace!' and I
went WOOOHOOOO! And we all cheered and she smiled
and someone else yelled 'For president!'
and 'Speech!' It was funny.



There's two stories, cautionary tales really, of
just how completely wrong traveling can go that I
seem to have forgotten to tell you about.

The first was when I was in Ireland. I'd gone to
Dublin for some reason, it'd taken me about four
hours to hitch across from Galway. Remember that
bit coz it's important. Hitching back a few days
later I didn't get out onto the road until about
one pm, but that isn't too bad and was earlier than
I'd left Galway.

What followed was maybe the worst patch of black
luck I've hit so far in my life. Not so much for
severity as consistency.

Every single ride took me the better part of an
hour to get, and every single one took me the
smallest possible distance. I was about a third of
the way when it got dark. Did I mention this was
one of the very few times that I'd decided not to
travel with my tent and sleeping bag?

Not only were the rides short, but they'd always
drop me on the near side of a town, so I'd then
have to walk to the other side. At ten thirty the
hitching finally closed out for good, people
couldn't even see me in the dark and I still had
thirty six kilometers to Galway. It was freezing
and misty. I stood for maybe two more hours before
deciding I had to walk the rest of the way. I
figured it would take seven hours.

Frigid and already exausted, having to stop every
few minutes to let trucks thunder past in the thick
mist, I was seriously considering getting into a
farm and curling up against one of the spotlights
illuminating the house but knowing I couldn't and
was just going to have walk.

Then there was the Opel Vectra car yard in the
middle of nowhere. I jumped the fence and started
trying door handles. Finally I found a car behind
the office with locked doors but open boot. I
managed to unclip and push down the back seat,
reach through and unlock a rear door, open that and
open the driver's door, reach over and unlock the
passenger door, climb in, wrap up warm and freeze
my ass off anyway for three hours of non sleep
fully expecting to wake to a rap on the window and
having to explain how all this was somehow ok.

I wanted to set the alarm on my cellphone to wake
me at dawn, but the battery had gone flat. But
waking up was no problem. First light I scrambled
out, locked all the doors, left the seat reclined
just to confuse people and jogged out to the road
all stealthy like, trying to pull off the corduroy
shorts I'd over my jeans for warmth.

Got picked up pretty quickly and dropped at the
near side of Galway, had to walk for an hour or
more back to the hostel and collapsed into bed
exactly seventeen hours after leaving Dublin.

The second was leaving Spain the second time, I was
flying out of Barcelona for London to come back to
Edinburgh.

The first time I left Barcelona I flew with
EasyJet, who fly from the airport just on the edge
of town and easy to get to. This time I was going
with Ryan Air.

I was flying out at half three. At half ten I was
wandering around the city and dropped into the
tourist info center to make sure I was flying from
the same airport.

Nope.

Ryan Air say they fly out of Barcelona, but it's
not actually what you might call true. It's really
from a small town about two hours plus away. There
are buses, but they leave Barcelona every four
hours, and the next one would get me there too
late. If I missed this flight I was going to have
to pay a fortune to get another at that short
notice, I'd been incredibly lucky to get the flight
I did.

Dashed back to the hostel, picked up my gear, made
it for the nearest tube station. The turnstiles ate
my ticket so I hurdled the bastard (with twenty
four kilos of pack), and managed to get to the main
train station. I grabbed a number and was waiting
for a ticket vendor to find out what train to get
to the right airport, then did some quick
calculations based on the ticket number in my hand
and the rate people were being served and sprinted
off to find an information booth.

Something about the Barcelona train station is very
disorienting, and I ended up doing a couple of laps
before finding the info booth. Waited in line.
Sorry, we don't have information for intercity
trains. Found another info place, didn't speak
English but I made do with Spanish (Christ it's
hard when your rushed) but eventually was able to
find that I was going to have to pay a supplement
(I didn't need a ticket because I had the Interail
pass).

Stood in line for too many minutes, didn't speak
English, got the supplement and the only train that
was going to get me there in time (maybe) was
leaving in three minutes. Made for the train.

Automatic gate that you put your ticket into to get
to the trains. But I didn't have a ticket because I
had an Interail pass. No guards in sight to let me
through.

Guy comes up and asks me if this is the way to via
una. Sure thing mate. It probably was, and I really
needed him to go through that gate so I could
charge in after him, hoping there were still no
guards around. The thing slammed closed on my pack
but I somehow managed to get myself free,
controlled fall down the stairs and come to rest
inside the train just as it took off.

Pulling into the little town (I made very sure it
was the right little town) I had no idea where the
airport was or how to get there. There were no
trains. There were buses but not at that time. I
knew there wouldn't be.

This was near the start of my life settling itself
into the theme where everything I try to do is a
monumental struggle, but just randomly clicks into
place at the last minute. I quite like the clicking
bit, but I could really do without the hassle. So
of course there were no buses. There could've just
as easily been buses, but once your life gets an
idea into its head it gets very predictable and
unimaginative.

I decided to get a taxi but there were no taxis.

There was a taxi ramp, in fact there were two, on
either side of the train station, but they were
both devoid of taxis and for some reason I wasn't
allowed to phone one. All I could do was wait. In
the queue. Occasionally taxis would drive into the
car park, then turn around and go the other way.
They were far between and only about one in four
would pick up one of the initial four people
waiting in front of me.

I now had about half an hour to get my flight, and
still had no idea how long it would take to drive
there or how much it would cost. Not that the
latter mattered a shit to me at that point.

This had been going on for a while by that point,
this slog and click thing and it was at that point
that my bemused interest completely gave out. This
stops now, I told my life, I've had it. No more.
Not fun so stop.

Click.

Taxi pulls up. Quanto tiempo por aeropeurto? Trenty
minuto. Oh thank you sweet merciful Christ. Quanto
costo? I don't think I even heard the answer, I was
already hurling packs into the boot. It was
probably quite cheap.

I was the last person in the line for check in,
they closed it immediately after I went through.



Michael John AUSTIN (aka SLATTERY-COOKSON) has
pleaded guilty to theifing off with my $4,000
(shadey laptop deal, long story) and has been
ordered to repay me at $6 a week for the next
thirteen years.

But screw it, that's ok coz I did get the money
back in the end. Or, I will have, by the time I'm
thirty seven, if he pays. But that's ok, I'm past
caring.

But Daniel, you ask, what are you doing for money?
I get asked that a lot. Do you have a job yet?

No.

And I've been trying too. So far I've approached
every single animation and multimedia company in
Edinburgh, and a couple in Glasgow, but there's not
much work available. I've got one gig making web
sites for a guy here, but the money's sketchy, and
a large company in Glasgow is trying like hell to
find a way to hire me without me having a work
permit.

Please god don't make me get a real job. Not
hospitality. Anything but that. Not drinks and
coffee and kitchens. It wouldn't be so bad if the
standard pay wasn't around four pounds an hour and
I wasn't expected to be nice to people.

But I will if I have to. And in a few days I will
have to.

We have mice in my flat. I've been collecting their
little droppings to fertilise my herb garden.

It frustrates me that most other people aren't as
easily amused as me. At the moment one of the
things I really enjoy is skooshing down low in my
bed so all I can see out my window is sky, and it
feels like there's nothing outside but sky, going
on forever.

But try to tell someone about this and the amount
of simple joy it gives me and they just look at me
and say, yeah, that's great Daniel and I learn to
stay pretty much quiet on the matter.

Sigh.

Buddhist monks would understand me, but they make a
point of understanding pretty much anyone.



Daniel.