Rainbow Dreaming

Subject: Rave Olympics

Date: Tue, 20 June, 2011 17:43:34 + 1000 (EST)

From: Rak Razam <shazaman@netspace.net.au>

To: It's a Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild World<W6W@piratenet.com>

We were about 50k's past Maree when we saw the first convoy of phreaks

heading out to the Earthdream party, a motley, rainbow caravan of dust

encrusted buses and camper vans, VW's and Bedfords, ferals, travellers

and urban hedonists pirating the airwaves with their digital mantras,

blanketing the quiet earth along the Oodnadatta Track and generally

funking shit up. The big vans and buses were crowned with giant

inflatable objects like bananas and mangoes and blazoned with

anti-uranium logos and activist stickers. We'd been getting reports on

the CB radio for days, up and down the coast from every direction -

these Psy-Trance Cowboys had been rustling the forgotten monuments of

the 20th Century from quiet country towns and tying them to the roofs of

their vehicles like scalps, plastic totems cannibalised from the Giant Ram,

the Giant Koala, the Giant Pineapple, the Giant Homogenised Icons of

White Middle Class Prosperity.

Now here they were all in a row like floats in a post-Apocalyptic

pagan love parade, cruising through the desert at high speed and kicking

up a storm. Yessir, they were riding their groove boxes onto the high

frontier, layered in bass and in search of a WAY COOL PLACE where

everybody can DO Their Own Thing.

"Fuck me gently with ze chainsaw," Bridges said from the back of the van

as we were overtaken by a double decker schoolbus with an inflatable

Godzilla on the roof and gaggle of stoned Germans hanging out the

windows waving. "Now there's something you don't see every day." She was

right. I'd never seen Germans so friendly before. Something was definitely up.

"See if you can get a shot of them on the handy-cam," I shouted over

the rattle of the van as we went over a pothole and everything lurched up

into the air. We had a cache of the latest Ultra-Tech in the back to

film the party - and the Gamez - and provide a continuous internet

uplink for the rest of the world. This was the twelfth Earthdream

Desert Dreaming Festival and the prelude to next year's global chakra

cleansing ritual cum raveageddon. Phine phreaks and klued in people of every

shape and hue were gathering together, nomad tekno adventures from all the

12 Trybes flowing into a rainbow mix snaking it's way through the red earth.

We'd brought the latest Mitsubishi micro-camera contact lenses but the

dust and the bumps along the Oonandatta Track wouldn't let me use

either. The idea was to provide digital downloads over sensechips to the

viewers at home - you would see, hear, smell, touch, and taste whatever

the live reporter is sensing. At the moment it was some A-grade skunk we'd

picked up 800ks back in Adelaide and a mild case of sunstroke from the

glare.

"Got 'zem," Bridges pronounced in her singsong Israeli-American

accent. "Lovely establishing shot with ze buses elongating across ze

horizon at dusk." I suppose you want to know what she looks like. I

would, and since we haven't got the equipment working properly yet, I'll

have to describe everything for you.

My assistant, Bridges, is like somebody's sassy little sister gone the

way of the urban disco feral. Enough piercings on her face to set off an

airport metal detector. Dredds wax perfect, dyed blue and red and black.

Big brown eves layered in cheap Killer Loop imitation sunglasses.

Handmade firestick and a bottle of Kerosene and Citronella by her side.

Indian pants from Chakra or Ishkar. Black puffy jacket with a Chinese

Dragon feng-shuing its way across the back. Dusty Monster Boots with six

inch moulded plastic heels. She's also the best damn camera woman this

side of the Nullarbor and can roll perfect joints while driving the van

and mixing MP3's on the Diamondback decks at the same time. Not only

that, but she's the only one who knows now to pilot the ultralight

glider. I'm all legs when it comes to flying.

"Start narration, take one - Earthdream 2011." I'm recording on my built

in throat mike that sends data pulses to our Apple Mac G12 laptop, auto

remixes credits and soundtrack over the footage Bridges is shooting and

transmits the final package via our satellite dish on the roof. We

broadcast pirate transmissions into the world datasphere and get a nice

little pay per view package from inphomation junkies all over the place.

"Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere and another edition of 'It's a Wild

Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild World'. I'm your host, Rak Razam, reporting

live from Lake Eyre in South Australia, where the 12th annual RAVE

OLYMPICS is getting into gear as part of the Earthdream Desert Dreaming

Festival. Contestants are hightailing it through the sunburnt earth of

the Australian Outback after a surreal Scavenger Hunt from coast to

coast, bringing with them fabulous kitsch items of yesteryear as decor

for the Gamez. As we pass the famous Mutoid Waste windmill flower

sculpture, gateway to the desert circus, geodesic DOMEZ the colour of

old Coca-Cola bottles litter the landscape, filtering out UV light. The

DOMEZ take advantage of the coolness of the earth to condense water from

the atmosphere at night to grow plants and shade the soil during the

day, thus encouraging further water collection. It's hoped that the

retention of water by this means will eventually, by transpiration,

create a changed local climate and encourage rainfall. Fluro-canvassed

teepees are also going up with heraldic flags billowing in the wind like

Tibetan prayers. Renegade soundsystems are banging out the latest

Neo-tekno tunes from car stereos and speakers as revellers and the Raverati

start shaking their juju and getting into the groovy."

I put the van on cruise control and let the automatic pilot system scan

the terrain in full 3D topography. It carefully threads our way around

the perimeter of the camping grounds, letting Bridges pan across and

film everything as we go. A beautiful feral family with bones through

their noses and clad in animal skins look up from their camp and smile

as we pass. They've got a fire going in the heat of the day and are

cooking what appears to be a giant turkey all stretched out and

ginormous. It has to be one of the new genegineered ostriches that run

wild in these part. I nudge Bridges and she turns from filming a group

of Swedes with blond angel dredds trailing down their backs to shoot the

bird on the spit.

"The black and red and yellow sunned Aboriginal flag is flying proudly

from the Keepers of Lake Eyre's Permanent Autonomous Zone headquarters

on the main track. The local Arabunna people welcome all travellers and

revellers who respect and revere the earth and thousands of people have

turned out in what appears to be the biggest Earthdream festival yet.

There's vans and buses and cars and tents all around, surrounded by

tacky, giant inflatable totems that everyone has brought, like Easter

island heads recycled for the Nu Skool Mythology. Colossal SCHWAA aliens

and Smurfs, Gorillas and Koalas, paper mache Avatars of every

description litter the desert like a feral Las Vegas - the perfect fluro

Apocalypse.

As regular viewers already know, the RAVE OLYMPICS is a cross between

extreme sports and anacid inspired dadaist tournament. Contestants have

been battling it out in the desert since the inaugural contests in 2000

designed to counterpoint the Spectacle of the mainstream Olympics,

beleaguered by bribery and drug scandals and gross economic

exploitation. Where the Greeks invented the Olympic Torch, the Ravers

have the inevitable Olympic Scoobie - a giant joint over a meter long

that's passed in relay from person to person in a long and mellow

opening ceremony. When everyone's toked on the peace pipe and unable to

move, the Gamez begin. Giant props have been cyberfitted from the old tv

show, 'It's a Knockout' with trampolines and slides, giant barrels and

fluro sackraces soundtracked with thumping industrial bush musik.

Contemporary events include Sumosuit Wrestling, Doof Twister,

Firewirling, Drum-Offs and the cream of the crop, Robo-Ostrich Racing.

The only rules to the Gamez are that they have to be FUN."

Bridges zooms in on a helium filled blimp, moulded in the shape of a

golden frog with black swirls, the totem of the Psycoroborree crew in

the Mini-Blimp Nerfjousting event. And cut. Perfect.

"What'd you think?"

"Just ze right touch of crass," Bridges replies.

Subject: Rave Olympics

Date: Wed, 21st June, - 2011 12:00:05 + 1000 (EST)

From: Rak Razam <shazaman@netspace.net.au>

To: It's a Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild World<W6W@piratenet.com>

It was a dry wind and it crept across the desert at noon. It was a nice

28 degrees by the SONY palmpilot's built in thermostat. Winter in the

outback. Bridges and I have taken to the air for a better view of the

proceedings. I have a tequila hangover from hell. Bridges looks perfect,

as always, the curse of youth. Our ultralight is a converted golf green

lawnmower with two seats and a built-in 16 horsepower engine. A pink and

white striped parachute like those used in paragliding puffs out above

us for our wings. "Get a load of THAT," she says, pointing to a long flat

stretch of desert north of the main camp. The Barrelfull of Monkeys Crew

have rolled out the world's longest Twister set, over 100 metres of

plastic Twister mats sewn together into a patchwork tapestry of red,

yellow, green and blue dots. Like the dance till you drop contests in

the 1930's, contestants are doofing on the spot while twistering in the

world's most bizarre endurance test. Human pretzels twisted into absurd

contortions abound. I've got the Mitsubishi mini-cam contacts in over my

bloodshot eyes and am recording streaming footage of the activity down

below. Ravers in spring loaded kangaroo boots bound across the flat

desert terrain, bouncing a good three feet into the air.

To the north a crew of pale English travellers in sunhats are grappling

with giant plastic marbles around a circle as big as football field.

From the air I can see there's no sense of strategy; the eight foot

marbles are simply heaved by teams at other marbles that go ricocheting

into one another and across the flat terrain. "Take her down for a

closeup," I shout over the whine of the engine as we divebomb the

players. Bose speakers embedded in the doors turn on and broadcast

cheesy old movie soundtracks to cover the sound of the motor.

"Up. Down. Flying Around. Looping the Loop and Defying the Ground.

They're ALL so frightfully keen' those magnificent men in, magnificent

men in'magnificent men in their FLYYIIIING MA-CHINES."

The English all look up and cheer as we pass over. A giant marble

skittles across the desert from the opposing team like a tumbleweed and

bowls them mercilessly to the ground. The clouds hang low and lazy,

hugging the earth, the sky a deep blue like the colour of peoples' eyes

in the movie Dune. Bridges lights a joint and pulls the ultralight up

into the blue.

<Start narration>

"Day Two and it's the Winter Solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Thousands of tek-heds from all over the world have come together to

dance the longest night and feel the pulse of the earth here near her

heart chakra. Sunlight glints off solar panelled vans and buses and

catches on the metal blades of miniature windmill generators fixed to

the roofs. The earth is red and flat all around. The flies are

ubiquitous and you swallow at least three a day unless you shut your

mouth and open your eyes. Down below they're putting up the doof, tekno

style. Mutoid Waste madman Robin Cook is testing the old giant fire

blasters for the party tonight. They're four cyclical metal pillars

arranged around the perimeter of the dirt dancefloor as an elemental

anchor that let off belches of flame in perfect syncopation with the

bass. The infamous Tekno Ostrich Races are all set up in a protective

bioplex ring in the middle of the dancefloor, racing right under the

giant fire towers. The genegineered birds stand about eight feet tall

and look like mutant turkeys with attitude. They've got the graceful

curved neck of the pink flamingo but are let down by legs as thick as

wrestlers on Megasteroids. They remind me of a one night stand I'd

rather forget." Cut.

Bridges elbows me in the ribs as the ultralight veers to the left over

Lake Eyre. There's a crew of full on Israeli tek-heds dancing up a storm

by the edge of the water. They're dressed in full body wetsuits laced

with smart fabrics that automatically adjust body temperature and sweat.

Their big Monster Boots are fully motorised piezio-electrical walking

devices that use the kinetic energy of the walker to power the hardware

- which in this case includes water pumps that send moisture and urine

back up through micro filters, making it safe for redrinking.

"Zey are ze Calvin Kleins of the desert!" Bridges quips as we zoom in

low over their heads.

"Hmmph. More like futro drug dealers."

Zem bootz is made for dancing and that's just what zey'll do. One of

these days zem boots is gonna walk all over you. Bootz - start dancing! she

sings, tilting the ultralight to and fro.

"Are you stoned and flying again?"

"It's ze only way to travel," she retorts.

I take a deep toke (for the sensechip viewers at home, of course) and

marvel at the desert terrain all around. We're sitting in a sea of blue

that stretches out forever, red earth and thumping bass reverberating

from below. With the telescopic enhancements built into the Mitsubishi

lenses I can see the broad outline of the electric fence over 60ks to

the west. Aerial schematics downloaded from a pirate satellite flow into

the SONY palmpilot as well as full telemetry of the area. I'm back

on-line:

"I can see that the Pangea Mining Company and their private security

goons have the perimeter of the nuclear waste area, or the DUMP as it's

come to be called, sealed up tighter than a nun's proverbial. The

electric fence is twenty feet high and a concrete partition extends

under the earth another ten feet. It stretches over 100 square

kilometres and has to be one of the Seven Great Wonders of Corporate

Terrorism. Undisclosed tones of radioactive sludge are buried here, deep

in the Australian heartland, shitting on the sacred spots and burning

into Gaia's delicate biosphere."

Bridges gives me a look like I'm dangerously close to alienating our

sponsors, but fuck it, a journalist has to have some integrity, right?

And integrity's like virginity - you can only lose it once.

"New telemetry data's coming through, viewers. Switch to HYPERLINK mode

for live satellite feeds in infrared and eyespy frequencies for only

$1.95. Satellite images show deep thermal activity in the Forbidden Zone

around the DUMP. Looks like the Army's on manoeuvers again."

I cut the link and take another toke. The Military budget has blown

through the roof since the Republic of Australia started fortifying the

border from Indonesia and the flood of refugees.

"You know ze Vietcong used to play Nancy Sinatra tunes to ze G.I.'s in

ze field as a brainwashing technique. Ze same track over and over again

for days, echoing out over ze rice paddy fields and jungle till ze

G.I.'s snapped and broke zeir cover."

"What a coincidence they're permanently patrolling the area around the

DUMP," I muse.

"There's no such thing as coincidence," Bridges says, taking the joint

back off me.

Subject: Rave Olympics

Date: Wed 21st June, 2011 6:56:11+1000(EST)

From: Rak Razam <shazaman@netspace,net,au>

To: It's a Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild World <W6W@piratenet.com>

"It's four minutes to race time and some ultra smooth electro disco funk

is rippling out on a cloudless night. There's falling stars everywhere

and outside the ring thousands of full on doofers are getting down and

dirty to the beats. It's not quite a full moon, but state of the art

laser and holography techniques have lit up the sky anyway with moving

pixilated pictures. The giant , baktun glyphs of a Mayan calendar turn

lazily against the stars. Aboriginal Wandjina chalk men hundreds of feet

high groove like albino stick figures to the sound of a thumping 4/4

Psy-Trance beat. Even the ghosts are dancing. Indian, Mayan, Aborigine,

Hollywood - all the Old World kultures are represented on this swirling

maelstrom. Fluro string webwork hangs over the main dirt dancefloor in

sacred geometric patterns within patterns, fractaling inwards in a UV

mandala. The patterns are like phosphene imprints on the eyes that allow

viewers to find their own message and open up deeper connections. The DJ

arena is in a Cone of Silence like bubble made of aerogel plastic to

protect the decks from dust. The BPMs are tweaked to literally turn on

the crowd with their hypertrybal vibrational frequencies.

Surreal and absurd tekno sculptures transformed from urban junk litter

the landscape: gestalt car robots that rotate and move, Harmonic

Generator Coils that light up like the inside of an electric light bulb

but thousands of times as big and bright. When filmed at high speeds

they melt into a glowing double helix reminiscent of strands of DNA. The

tekno wizard himself , Robin Cook, sits at his giant Fire Organ with a

puckish grin on his face, playing the keyboard and creating musical

flame. As the fire rips up the tubes the organ lets out sound as tongues

of flame lick out. The tubes glow red and orange and then finally white

hot from the heat and have to be left a while to cool. Further out from

the centre, party shamen groove around four burning mechanical pillars

crowning the dirt dancefloor in more flames. Black light projectors

create hypnagogic patterns on the ground, flashing on and off in binary

streams. It's like a Christian Fundamentalists version of Hell crossed

with a tekno-pagan explosion.

Thousands of people are stomping on the earth, dressed in rainbow skins

and smiles. They've come in costume for a grande Masquerade and really

funked themselves out. Cybercrusties in the loudest SKINS known to

humankind dance alongside mutated performers in ultralight exoskeletons.

LCD threaded fabrics glitter and swirl animated GIF pictures across

countless bodies - the crowd has become a canvas. My brain wants to shut

down just looking at them. Oh, these wandering Sadhu fools, all of us in

different head spaces all the time, billions of possible permutations

fuelling the party, the look, the flavour, the KODAK MOMENTS."

<Pause transmission>

And that's only scratching the surface of it. Bridges is dressed in her

Cyber-Sinderella outfit - black mesh tank top, evening gloves and veil

with thin strips of silver polymer strapped strategically round her body

like surgical gauze. She's datamining the crowd, interviewing a few

choice jewels while I get ready for the race. I pull her away from a

Maori warrior with full tribal tattoos etched across his body and

spilling up over his face. He smiles, revealing a set of metal teeth

like the villain in Moonraker.

"CACTUS?" Bridges repeats with a sly grin.

"Of course. When in Rome and all that. A full blown power lunch with

Mescalito is de rigeur for all desert journeys," I explain.

"The viewers at home expect only the finest experiences, Bridges," I

chastise. The Cactus has been on the boil all through the day since

dawn. It's viscous green-grey texture looks like snail roadkill mixed

with bitter phlegm and the taste is even worse - if you can get it down.

I did - barely, and the taste of Satan's ballsweat dogs my every breath.

"Just swallow this and chase if down with some lemonade," I say, handing

her a two litre water bottle half filled with green cactus discharge and

distilled juice "But you must be quick because I can already feel it

coming on."

"Shame I've got no lemonade," she says and winks, chugging down the

juice. Her eyes ping open as a shudder visibly moves over her body.

"Oooh, zis is very, how you say, hot shit stuff!" She takes a big swig of

tequila from her hip flask and starts to sway a little.

"C'mon, I've got a race to call and you've got some cheating to do. The

fastest land mammals after the cheetah are waiting and you don't want to

make an ostrich mad. Those beaks are deadly, y'know."

The OSTRICHES are lined up and being groomed on the inside of the

bioplex ring that separates the dancefloor from the race track. The big

birds move like catwalk models, poised and taking delicate steps,

bobbing their long necks up and down as they go. They've all got phutro

names like a cross between racing dogs and Psy-Trance DJ's:

1>Tron's Revenge

2>Frequency of Bliss

3>Tryptamine Meditation Ensemble

4>Ambient Head

5>Chakra Flowers in Spring

6>Oscillating Wavefront

7>Feral Cheryl

8>White Noise

9>Eden Hashish Centre

Human jockeys have been phased out to make way for hyperadvanced robo

Furbies - modified versions of the robotic kidz toy that talks and moves

and has a memory cache of 100GB. They look like hairy gremlins strapped

in their miniature saddles, gripping the reins with tiny motorised

hands. These lil'critters can be programmed to perform small chores

around the home and some smartarse has modified them to ride Ostriches.

They're remote controlled by contestants outside the ring, making it the

perfect sport for lazy, drug addled ravers. Bridges and I have cooked up

a little personality algorithm for our Robo-jockey based on 80's

testosterone movies. Basically, it reprograms them to think like Rambo,

Indiana Jones and the Terminator all rolled into one. It'll be the

perfect denouement to the Rave Olympics, but part of me worries that it

won't be long before they can do everything we used to, and on that day

humankind will be obsolete, replaced by a Japanese Tamabloodygimmick.

Fuck me, I'm getting maudlin.

The ostriches are doing the once round as their numbers are called and

they're weighed in. "Look closely at the ones that poop," I tell

Bridges. "They'll be lighter in the race and have an advantage over the

rest of the flock." As we watch, a few of the giant birds gingerly

release their droppings as they walk along. A gorgeous transsexual done

up as Madonna in her Sex phase comes and cleans it up with a little

broom and shovel.

"Her tits are better zen mine," Bridges pouts as I drag her to the DJ

booth where I'm calling the race from.

Everything's shimmering like the horizon at noon as the cactus comes on

strong. Just looking at the names of the birds makes me feel like I'm

tripping. Bridges is controlling her robo-jockey on ostrich number 7,

Feral Cheryl. We're filming on the handy-cam and cross linking with the

Furbie throughout the race. "Be a love and roll me a joint," I ask her

as the fire organ belts out a fiery clarion call and it's all happening,

hold onto your sanity, here we go!

"Okay, they're moving in and we're all ready for a start. They're at the

post'ready'there's the light - and they're OFF! Tron's Revenge is away

well followed by Ambient Head and White Noise, with Chakra Flowers in

Spring on the inside track close behind. In fifth place is Eden

Hashish Centre and Oscillating Wavefront, with Feral Cheryl and

Frequency of Bliss three lengths back and Tryptamine Meditation Ensemble

coming up the rear. Ambient Head has taken the lead by half a length

from Tron's Revenge at the turn of the field as White Noise, Chakra

Flowers in Spring and Oscillating Wavefront battle it out in the centre.

Across the track is Eden Hashish Centre skittling past Feral Cheryl and

Frequency of Bliss is back on the inside followed by Tryptamine

Meditation Ensemble."

There's nothing finer than watching a flock of 8-foot-high, 350 pound

flightless birds being piloted by small robot jockeys while on

mescaline. Colours shift and swirl as angles distort and everything

takes on a strange kind of surreal logic. Robin Cook's going OFF on the

fire organ, playing some thumping deep bass that's being picked up by

radio receivers and broadcast over the local area. People are listening

to the race and the doof as far away as Port Augusta. I tap into the

Mitsubishi lenses for a second to see what the viewers at home are

seeing and am bombarded with cyber edged speed line manga visuals

breakbeating and slipping all over the place. Optic nerves pinch and

zoom as the digital camera in the Furby's eyes relay the race from a

bird's eye view roadrunnering across the simmering desert terrain,

kicking up clouds of dust as they pass under the fire pillars on the

edge of the dancefloor. Roadrunner the coyote's after you. Roadrunner.

When he catches you you're through.

"Tron's Revenge is coming down the straight and behind him Chakra

Flowers in Spring. Two lengths back is Ambient Head followed closely by

White Noise and *LOOK OUT* here comes Frequency of Bliss up the side -

she's zarting fre and fro and look out for the beak on that one, she's

plenty mad today! And Oscillating Wavefront and Tryptamine Meditation

Ensemble are fighting it out in the middle as they go round for the

final lap. Eden Hashish Centre is trying to get up the side and two

lengths away at the rear is Feral Cheryl, who seems to be having trouble

with her rider. The Furby is out of it's saddle and it looks like 'oh

my God it's jumped onto the tail of Eden Hashish Centre and is clawing

it's way towards the other jockey!"

I chance a quick look at Bridges who has one eyebrow cocked and a grin

bigger than Texas plastered across her face. The fire organ's squeeching

and squelching out ultra low hertz sounds that travel up my spine and

explode somewhere in the back of my head. The crowd is cheering wildly

and dancing around the ring.

"And as they travel down the straight Chakra Flowers in Spring has taken

the lead with 300 metres to go, with Tron's Revenge half a length behind

and White Noise in third place. Getting a run on the inside is Frequency

of Bliss in front by two thirds a length from Ambient Head and

Oscillating Wavefront. Something's happening with the robo-Furbies as

Feral Cheryl's rider has knocked off Eden Hashish Centre's jockey and

the bird's running wildly across the field. Oooh, look out, she's

collided with Tryptamine Meditation Ensemble and both birds are down!

The rogue Furby is jumping birds and dispatching their riders to a fast

death under monster ostrich feet. It's ruffling feathers and holding on

for dear life to Oscillating Wavefront and the panicky bird is speeding

forward, past Ambient Head and Frequency of Bliss, past White Noise and

Tron's Revenge. The two Furbies are wrestling at the reins of

Oscillating Wavefront and slamming the bird into Chakra Flowers in

Spring. She's not happy about it and her beak is flying out and savagely

pecking the unsaddled Furbie. Jesuspaghetti! he's loose and flying

through the air. Chakra Flowers in Spring is going to hang on and win!"

What happened next is pure post modern psyber-haiku. It appears that at

a certain frequency of sound transmitted over radio, precisely

duplicated by the fire organ belching out it's flame music, Furbies

explode. Who was to know? The lil'killer robot burst into flames and

showered metal and fur all over the finish line, the other jockeys

disintegrating in their saddles one by one like a string of firecrackers

in the night.

Betcha glad you choose the REMOTE VIEWING option, huh viewers?

Subject: Rave Olympics

Date: Wed 21st June, 2011 23:11:11 + 1000(EST)

From: Rak Razam <shazaman@netspace.net.au>

To: It's a Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild Wild World<W6W@piratenet.com>

"It's going OFF!!! Bridges says, smiling and smiling and smiling.

"Ain't that the truth." We're tripping round the desert doof hanging

onto the slender thread of sanity. Everything's raw and dusty like the

party itself. We're 80ks from the nearest town and having the best damn

time of anyone in a 1,000 square kilometre radius. We're building a

Harmonic Wave Beacon, y'know. Orchestrating all the dancers into a

whirling dervish of altered states of mind like the Sufis do. Turning on

the chakra pathways up the spine through sight sound and dance. Building

ze DOOF. The Psy-Folk Funk Quartet are sampling in tambourines and

Dylanesque whisky breakbeats to the musical proceedings. We're grooving

down by the central bonfire, surrounded by thousands of ravers, dancing.

And dancing. And dancing.

I guess there's no other way to tell it but like it is, Y'hear!

"For the sake of the viewers at home on your live satellite feed I'm

switching to autopoetic lapis MODE. For only $2.95, you too can upload

the sensory datafeed in full immersive VRscope" I babble, letting the

lyrics melt into the transmission>

boom boom ! booming right back AT CHA boom boom

booming right back atcha! Right back right back right back atcha!

boom

boom

atcha

right back right back right back

atcha

right

right

back

back

right back right back

right back

atcha

Booming right back right back right back atcha. Everything smearing

together - music and love and light - higher phreakquencies of

vibrational NRG are bouncing building beaming right back atcha in the

doof, boom booming boom booming

grooving red desert dust under feet beat booming right back right back

atcha, its all coming down, drowning in it, what finer place than right

here in the middle of nowhere with Bridges and the Psy-Folk Funk Quartet

cooing the light phunktastic, bouncing beatbox'd funking groovy red

devils, smiles all around, splashing in the dust and there's all these

kids in furs and skins going off, rolling around in big tractor inner

tyres, and there's a big black bundle of dog padding alongside with a

plastic boomerang in his jaws, just moseying along so fine if you

please, and its all like a dream, like doof a vu, a frozen moment and I

wonder if its all as simple as this, as feeling good and dancing to a

wicked bass and having the right people around you, all in the same head

space, all in no-time>

right back atcha

and a booming

beatbox'd bass phades in and out and into another Old Skool track, white

men turn up the treble, <boomin> black men turn up the bass <right back

atcha>. Rhythms and lyrics overlap and I smile the same smile that's

flitting from face to face, blossoming through the crowd, becoming a

Psy-Trance phase space.

Man, I'm TRIPPING.

Programming code is flooding the central processing centres of the

brain, I'm MeLTinG>>> There's a Coca-Cola sky and everything's inverted

like a Photoshop filter as the rainbow serpent rises through us. The

beat goes off the scale as it boomboxes right back atcha and everyone's

caught in a karmic feedback loop, rising and inverting, fractaling

inwards. Boundaries shifting melting overlapping. Twister mats scattered

across the sand as far as the eye can see, desert doofers phunking it up

like there's no tomorrow!

And the drummers are drumming and the twirlers are twirling their

firesticks in the early dawn light as the longest night comes to a

close. People are juggling flaming bowling pins and grooving to the beat

and the twirlers are going off into hyperdrive> double sticks crossing,

lightsabring the air, the smell of citronella and magik quicksilvering

through. Open mouths and smiles fall through the crowd like dominoes, a

hard 4/4 Psy-Trance beat boomboxin bass through the earth and all the

way up your spine, tingling kundalini. THE TWIRLERS SHALL TWIRL AND THE

DRUMMERS SHALL DRUM and the MUSIC MAKERS shall make music, and

the DREAMERS shall dream. And the Doozers dooze, always building. Moving, doing,

never getting to the end. And the journeymen shed their skins and settle

into the trip.

The Trybes are coming home, the rainbow serpent is rousing to the bass.

Everybody's sparkling.

*****

* originally published in Alternative Australia: celebrating cultural diversity

Edited by Alan Dearling, ISBN 0952331640, out April 2000 at alternative bookstores.

"crammed full with tribal wisdom, feral attitude and hippy shit..."