Lamma Mad Circus ~ Thu, Dec 31, 2015
Lots of swooshes and fearsome electronic bollockry ~ by Nick the Bookman
re. (POP!) .sdrawkcaB gnileeF confused. Yoda wise not I am. What's going on here? Ah, well. I sort of vanished suddenly at the end of Clockenflap and here I am now starting this new story. I don't know how the end of that story looked in print. What I wrote was ..."babblebabbletweet. Oops. Gotta run. Men in white coats with large nets approaching. Nah, it's OK. They're probably dogcatchers, but play it safe, I'm outahe
And that's how my version of the story stopped. There were a lot of errors in it for Lamma-Gung to edit, so he might have "fixed" this glitch as well thus leaving you all pondering how I did it. Or what it was that I did? Well, take your choice. It's magical realism. Literary lunacy, courtesy of Jasper Fforde. I hitched a ride on the TARDIS with Dr. Who. We transversed the Stargate. Robert Heinlein's "Zombies" pulled me up "By (their) bootstraps". A shortcut back from Peyote Church. Like Roky Ericson "I have always been here before". BO NINGEN vibed me to now. Go ask Professors Michio Kaku and Brian Cox and Green. Actually, I borrowed the ending from a great seventies story by Robert Silverberg. Called "Up/Down The Line" (can't remember which direction right now.) It deals with two-way time travel and the hero is pondering on the spacetime pickle he's created and wondering when the Time Lords are going to delete him from history and it could happen and why I wouldn't even kno
Anyway, we're about 8.3% of the way through this sad, mad glad year of 2016. Near the End of the Year Of The Goat and approaching the start of the Year Of The Monkey. Sad because of the Roll Call of the Departed. Since Xmas Lemmy has boarded his "Silver Machine" for eternity. Motorhead has cracked up. His drummer Phil "Animal" Taylor preceded him into the Vale Of Tears a month earlier. Lemmy was 70 and had aggressive cancer. The same day - 29/12/2015 - the Special's drummer John Bradbury became the latest resident of "Ghost Town". Natalie Cole joined her dad on New Years Day. She was 65. David Bowie released his final album "Black Star" on 8/1/2016 which was his 69th birthday. Two days later the "Starman" left us for good. "Lazarus" isn't coming back folks. There's "Panic in Detroit" and no more "Heroes. Cause of death was also cancer. The former David Jones has three singles in the UK Top 20. The same as the unspeakably crass Justin Beiber. Ain't no justice at all. "Black Star" also topped the US album charts. His only US no 1 placing.
The 69 year old actor Alan Rickman passed away from cancer on 14/1/2016 (detecting a trend here perhaps?) Yes, Severus Snape won't be bringing Hans Gruber back from the dead any time soon. He's "Truly, Deeply, Madly" missed. The next day, actor "Grizzly" Adams rassled his last wild bear. Cause of death unknown. Celine Dion's husband/manager passed away two days before Alan Rickman. And her brother accompanied Hans Gruber into the void on 14/1/2016. And most recently, on 18/1/2016, Glenn Frey of the Eagles checked out of the "Hotel California" for the last time. It's "Take It Easy" time for Glenn now. Ditto for Dale Griffin, former drummer with Mott the Hoople who's gone "All The Way To Memphis" and beyond. They were both 67.
Mad because a 15-year old Indian schoolboy has set a virtually impossible-to-break cricket record. Pranav Danawahde scored a "what-the-fuck!!" outrageous 1009 not out runs for his team K C Gandhi High School. Pranav's total included 59 sixes and 129 fours. He was congratulated via tweet by Sunil Gavaskar, the retired Indian cricketer who remains the most prolific Test batsman in history. His team declared on 1465 runs. The opposition was Arya Gurukil who were skittled out for a total of 31 runs. A close match it wasn't. Both teams were playing in the Bhandrai Cup Tournament which is officially sanctioned. Pranav's total demolished the 117 year old previous minor record of "628 runs - plus or minus 20 shall we say", Set by Arthur Collins in 1899. West Indian Brian Lara currently has the world record first class score of 501 n.o. against Durham County. And the International Test Record Score of 400 n.o. against England in the West Indies. Both dating from the last decade of the last century of the previous millennium. I guess more information can be gleaned from members of the Lamma Cricket Club. If you're interested.
Breaking news of 21/1/2016. The BBC announced today that US astroscientists have found "strong evidence" of a massive planet beyond Neptune. Located somewhere in the Kuiper Belt. Or possibly among the Oort Cloud clusters. Don't know more details, but I bet the conspiracy sites are going bonkers over this. Could it be Nibiru - the mythical/legendary planet with a vast elliptical orbit of some 3600 years? Described in the "Earth Chronicle" books by Zecharia Sitchen - a proponent of the "Aliens are among us" school of thought. Outed by David Icke as a possible reptile-human waveform hybrid being. Niburu could be linked to Velikovsky's catastrophe theories. Or be responsible for The Great Flood tales. Possibly caused by powerful gravitational attraction to Earth as it passed close by. Go ahead and panic. The end could be closer than we think. Certainly Niburu could have a cosmic impact way before the Sun goes nova and the outer corona engulfs and dessicates our Big Blue Marble. That's about 5 billion years from now, conservatively speaking. About the same time as the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies subsume each other in the black holes at their cores.
Well, time to start this story. It's a great DJ gig on Power Station Beach on New Year's Eve. Put together with help from Rob and Dave from the Million Words charity which is based inside the Lamma Grill. I saw Rob and Dave looking very tickety boo in the ticketing booth. Sales appeared good. You got entry by buying a wrist band. Money going to help the Million Words Charity, Quite a good crowd overall. Fine line up of DJs. Bonfires blazing away. Along with a burning dino-man sculpture(?) and jugglers and fire eaters. Led by a round up of Apostles called John Luke and Mark. Plus other unknown disciples. I've left the beach twice to see if Mari wants to come along. Her ticket/ strap is waiting. She's as snug as a bug in a rug in bed with Baby, but assents to me going off and "doing my thing'. As I return to the beach, I've lost track of the time. Halfway down the path from the tofu shop I hear the countdown " Five, four, three, two, loud blurry noises". It's midnight. I'm halfway down the path as 2016 breaks and rolls over us. No one is within 150 feet of me. In any direction. A moment of solitude which is strangely enjoyable. Doesn't last long.
I've gone back stage. There's a firmly built DJ booth. In front of it is a small dance floor/ Packed to the hilt with grinning gurning goons. Mouse FX (and his lovely wife) have taken us across the temporal frontier splitting 2015 from 2016. For the next eight hours, we can all sneer at the USA for being "behind the times". A situation that won't change soon. Mouse gets better every time I hear him. This is my third time. Once before at the Regga bash on PSB and once at the Secret Island Party. His brand of electro/canto/reggae with huge fuck off cluster bombs of dirty static erupting hither and yon. Loud exhortations of love and peace from him and her and to each other. The party is warming up. Especially as Jim is now at the controls. He does an inspired mix and match, the tension and speed beats not letting up for an instant. Deft sample drops include "I am the God of Hell Fire" (Crazy World of Arthur Brown) and "...Firestarter. Twisted Firestarter" (from the Prodigy natch.) I think he's spotted a trend that needs filling quite nicely. Jim hands off seamlessly to Hugo J Sharp (that's what my notes/copy of the Artistes List says. Hope you guys all played roughly at the same time I have you down as performing)
Hugo is doing a deep house meets prog trance vibe and very pleasant it is as well. I'm hunkered down behind the white sheet doubling as a video screen. Got a nice set on the sofa. The screen right in front of me. About 10 feet I'd say. At left and front (about half past ten on the clock face) is the DJ booth. Can see all the performers and watch their energetic and enjoyable styles. I haven't even noticed the Chinese gentlemen in matching (sort of) mufti garb and cameras wandering around. Bluntly asking people if they have any "Marijuana". Is this clumsy coppering? Very blatant cum subtle policing.? I know the police and their new I/C are up to speed on this party and are committed to making it work. They've approved of the fires on the beach. And aside from one point where some stray flames start a tiny conflagration in front of the stage, everything goes off well. The "conflagration" was in fact a couple of sputtery embers. Doused in sand within seconds. No trouble. The pyromaniacs are all well trained. No one got hurt, No one got arrested. Welcome to Lamma, Solid Kwan! Enjoy your stay as our new top police officer. Lamma is not a hardship posting. The community spirit approach always works best. I hadn't even realized that your predecessor, Camas Tung, had left. She was a good Officer In Charge as well. I met her when dealing with the aftermath of Linda's fiery demise.
Of course, one way to ensure that no one gets busted for marijuana in the future is to get our beach parties/festivals twinned with Uruguay. Is there an Embassy/Consulate/Charge d'Affaires in HK. I would hope so. Make the Island (or PSB at a pinch) an official Uruguayan diplomatic conclave. Voila, we can all smoke legal dope. Good for the health as well. And no paranoiac behavior outbreaks. Obviously this is whimsy (unless it really happens. Which I doubt). I'm using amusing musings
here. Having a laugh...
But, let's not forget HK was founded on the opium trade. Over the past 150 years. Plus HSBC is the world's biggest bank embroiled in laundering dirty drug money. Most of the money from this business is channeled through HK in one way or another. Just ask Lord Reverend Stephen Green, the former HSBC head honcho who fell from that shabby post to becoming one of David ("Call me Dave") Cameron's private advisors. Private Eye has named and shamed him on many occasions, but the shit keeps floating to the top. A new American administration might get around to him one day. Once they put all of FIFA's mangy top curs in the dog pound and hopefully remove Russia
as World Cup hosts for 2018.
On a slightly more serious note, I heard on the BBC that Colorado is really raking it in from legal marijuana sales. Apparently, the tax revenues are TWICE those of alcohol. And that's for only about 9 months of last year. There are rumbles and mutterings that The State Government might have a balanced budget before you can finish reading this sentence. When there's really big money to be made, the process sidesteps, supersedes and ignores traditional moral, ethical and legislative boundaries. Money talks. Always has. Always will. Cash is king. Cashless might want to be, but the credit/debt system is unworkable. Other valutas will take its place. Haven't heard anything of the revenues from the other four legal US States and the District of Columbia though I bet they're watching Colorado with misty glazed eyes...
Hugo has done quite a spell binding set. With a few hiccups and Meatball has taken over. The punk/noise factor is upped. Lots of swooshes and fearsome electronic bollockry. I'm lost in the repeating film show. Sitting in the "sweet spot". The repeating looped animations are mindfuckingly awesome. Downloaded from the net I'm told. Parksie has claimed credit for doing them. So has Oz. And about three other anonymous souls. There are distorted depictions of "Fantasia" at one point. Exploding against a modified trip through 2001's Star Gate, Wire frame neon parallelograms flutter and twist and recede down a tumble tunnel of splotches, glows and retina burn out visuals.. The sound from the mighty DJ Collective is beautifully synced at times. By accident? There are no accidents if you believe the dark doomsaying muckgrubby netizens in their electronic hidey holes. I think it's accidental. Coincidentally so. I had this dream thread running through my brain at that time and now its recurring...
A quick moment to say hi to Anne, David and Trevor who plied me with unspeakably delicious fruitaholic concoctions. My lips are still tingling. Awesome blue wig, Anne. Haven't seen you around for a while. Hope you weren't just passing through. But if you were you picked the right New Year's Eve to be at. Hope you'll get to read this dispatch from the wildmindlands. I was trying to stay around and hear Jay play. But, you know, time overruns and he gets on the decks shortly before dawn. About the time I left. Sorry I haven't named all the DJs and the hardworkers behind the scenes. Rest assured, Your presence, performance and organizational/providing skills were up to snuff.
Sorry, this isn't the story I was trying to write about three weeks ago. It's shape-shifted on me into journofiction and it's taken some time to wrestle into shape. Perhaps a Nick Guide will be useful. The raves for the organisers and performers are sincere in their admiration and pleasure. The plausible stuff is pretty much accurate. The weird shit should be obvious and is just "amusing musings". Unlikely to happen outside of the literary sphere of dreams. Upcoming events include a Big Gig at Open Space this Sunday 24/1/2026. Jim versus Nipper. Some backwards trumpeter called "repsaC" and an unknown guest on electronic voodoo shit. Is that right. I'll guess I'll find out then. Plus strange rumblings in the blogojungle about an upcoming "Dickstock 2016". Up the hill where the memorial bash was held. Meanwhile, here's a fond farewell from Yoda who still not well speak ntb
Photos and more about Lamma's first Mad Circus...