But today I have a brand new thing to bitch about. Sorry did I say bitch, I mean curse and swear and dream dreams of bloody vengeance.
On whom are theses evil savage thoughts directed might you ask? Why on those dirty thieving debit card information pinching bastards who as of just a few hours ago were having a great time in Sacramento at my expense.

I have officially joined the burgeoning ranks of the officially skimmed debit cardholders. Beat them with large stick say I, – the skimmers – not the holders.

Yes, somewhere over in the sunny California some people I have never met, (and will probably never meet, which I must say makes me and my good hard arse kicking feet very sad) have enjoyed what the Lemon Tree Hotel, the Bonfare Market, the Mr Bubbles carwash, the Wal-Mart, various Shell Oil Gas stations and Britton’s Mini Mart in Sacramento have to offer those newly minted with other peoples bank accounts.  Bonfare Market in particular has enjoyed my long distance patronage no less than five times in the last two days. I hope they enjoyed it. I might have had a little sympathy for a some desperate thief but whoever has been stealing my money by using my stolen details obviously just had a really dirty car, and a serious jones for booze and fast food.

For there’s a McDonalds, on Lebel I believe, (I may be wrong, after all, all my address checking is taking place through a modem at the moment) that is currently almost forty dollars up, thanks to me and my debit card. Who can spend forty dollars at McDonalds and not pay the price? Well hopefully my wee card was doing its bit for heart disease. The thieves may be hard-hearted but I can hope that they are hard hearted in more than one way. Are you listening, Karma? Can you hear me? And please let some friendly bird do what comes naturally all over their newly shiny detailed ride. That would be great. Some friendly bird with very bad eating habits and a lot of roughage in their diets. Maybe a scavenger of McDonalds? Would that be possible?
I can’t tell you what they bought at Wal-Mart, I hope it was something dangerous with unclear instructions.
Anyway, being too annoyed to do anything else, I have taken a crash course in this new, exciting and completely unwelcome addition to life’s rich tapestry, and am sharing it while I am pissed enough to rant.

In the last year there has been an increase in the incident of ‘skimming’ card fraud in the USA in general and via gas pump stations in particular. Debit card skimming involves the unauthorized copying of electronic data from your debit card. Hidden equipment, such as pinhole cameras and card reading devices, are installed to obtain your passcode and card data. The stolen data is then encoded onto a counterfeit card, which is used to withdraw funds without your knowledge. Must I use the term bastard again? Oh yes, I must, I really must.

The small and often inconspicuous electronic devices used to steal your information can be pager sized, and concealed either inside or outside the gas pump. Once this device records your card details, thieves can retrieve them either at a later date by collecting the device or, as is increasingly the case, by simply using a wireless Internet connection to download your details onto their laptops.

Cameras, it would seem, are no longer a necessary tool for PIN pinchers, and that elusive creature, the lurking-stranger-sneakily-taking-note-of-your pin number bastard, may well be lurking in a room or car a few blocks away rather than just over your shoulder at the ATM.

So how to protect yourself?

According to Creditcard.com here’s what to do.

To prevent your credit or debit card from being skimmed at a gas station:

*Go in the store to process transactions and sign all credit card receipts, recommends Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services of Consumer Federation of America.

*Check your statement as soon as it arrives or online and report inconsistencies quickly. If you don’t report it fast enough, you can lose the opportunity to get your money back.

*If you do suspect skimming, call law enforcement immediately

*Under no circumstances provide anyone with your credit card PIN,
especially over the phone. Only provide personal information when you are sure you know to whom you are talking, and there is good reason to provide it. Your PIN is the key security feature, so never disclose it to anyone. If you suspect that someone knows your PIN, change it immediately.

* You should treat your card like it is cash and make sure you never lose sight of it.

* Shred old receipts and credit card bills. And be sure they are completely destroyed.

* Check your card statements regularly. Always report unauthorized or suspicious transactions to your financial institution immediately. If abroad check on-line to make sure that everything is as it should be.

*Use your hand or body to shield your passcode when you are conducting transactions at an automated teller machine (ATM) or at a point-of-sale terminal.

*Keep an eye on your banking card when conducting a transaction at the point-of-sale, and only allow your card to be swiped once.

* Check your transaction records against your financial statements regularly. If you detect any unusual activity, contact your financial institution immediately.

* If your debit card is lost, stolen or retained by an ATM, notify your financial institution immediately.

* When using an ATM, if you suspect anything unusual do not use the machine and report it to the financial institution immediately.

* Be alert. If someone is watching you or makes you feel uncomfortable, cancel the transaction and use a different machine.

So, there you have it, fellow bank details pinched, some ways to stop the thieving bastards having it large, and having it large at your expense.
I am now taking my feet to bed, to dream my dreams of vengeance, which of course will only ever be dreams.

It had been ten years since I last went to Beltane in Edinburgh but I had so many treasured, if somewhat blurred, memories of my times up Calton Hill, that it was impossible to believe that it had been that long.

My memories are those of colour. Swirling Celtic circles of colour, and light and fire. The sharp child hood haunted tang of wood-smoke and nose tickle of paraffin. The exhilarating conviction that I somehow stood for one night on some conjured bridge between the imagined past and the enduring present. Of being swept up and along some mighty temporal river, bridged and buoyed by the savage and beautiful performers on the Hill, celebrating the anticipated return of summer.

So what if the actual spectacle might be somewhat less than accurate in a historical sense? For me it was the Festival of Fire, it was the spirit of Beltane and always rang true in its archaic and anarchic blasting of horns, its heart beat thunder of drums and the shrill dancing rave whistles.

During Beltane, human beings gathered together under assorted skies, involved in that most human and transcendental of pursuits – storytelling – taking the yearly turning of the seasons, turning them into an ongoing narrative of death and renewal, and transporting them via joy, exuberance, delight and rapture from the specific to the universal, from cold science to hot flame of human imagination.

And of course there was also the whisky, both home made and store bought, the sweet fragrance of herbs of negotiable value, the happy cakes passed from campfire to campfire, and the various shadowy forms in the bushes engaged in their own brief ritual celebration. It was fantastic.

This year on Calton Hill, I saw an old man sitting weary on the one of the grey path stones, and before this sounds like a Nik Kershaw song, there was no river nearby, but the Firth of Forth in all its majesty did shine off to one side. He held in his aged hand a thick wooden walking stick, gnarled and splintered at the tip. His skin was parchment thin, with that strange delicate softness that always reminds me chamois leather. Even his kilt looked old, the buckles were worn, the hem was somewhat frayed. He looked at me looking at him, and smiled.

“Blessings on the Goddess.” he said, and turned his face back towards the Parthenon where the young and rowdy crowd waited impatiently for the darkness and the fires.
I gave him some whisky.

In the gathering gloom the faces of the crowd were pale shadows, the sky was that strange Scottish luminous seashell mix of blue and pink. The clouds were touched with gold, and over the Forth there hung a swathes of blackness as the rain clouds hovered, dour and muttering, waiting their turn at the celebration.

Against the dusky gloaming the yellow uniforms of the security guards were luminous, much clearer than the shadowy faces above them, as they stood still and unsmiling. The gorse flowered around the hill, throwing its yellow challenge into the night, outshining the vests of the guards.
.
There was an air of expectation as the bright sky faded, the fleeing light melting the painted faces of the Beltane performers into a facet of reality, a fey mixture of theatre and spirit. As it became impossible to make out faces in the gloom people became people shaped shadows, as each figure’s individuality melted away into the gloom, imagination came to the fore.

The Parthenon was dark, its Athenian bulk silhouetted against the rain threatening sky and my decanted Tobermory, sloshing in its coca-cola bottle cloak, is doing a grand job of keeping out the chill.

A concession stand sells beltane-burgers; next to it another temporary eatery offers more health conscious options. I suspect vegetarians or, God forbid, vegans, are in the mix

The darkness is stitched with fire fly camera flashes, shutter speed lightning flashes, illuminating the stoic, brooding outline of the centuries old unfinished replica of the Greek acropolis. The air smells of fuel, and of the toffee-honey-sweet yellow gorse flowers that bloom exuberantly all around the hill, the first riot wave of colour that greets you as you start to climb upwards from the grey stone streets of Edinburgh towards the luminous sky. Sharp thorns though, you gotta be careful.

In the crowd, demons are walking. Painted and gilded, red and blue figures are wandering amongst the parka-ed and be-jeaned. Skin and teeth gleam in the shadowy dusky darkened air. They are beautiful, these black-cloaked avatars, walking midway between imagination and porn. It is Beltane, and the doors between the worlds are starting to swing open, in each staid and modern person the fires are rising.

The drums start to beat with that ancient heart beat rhythm. It is a sound that beckons, and your body reacts instinctively to the pounding, you sway in time, and the sound of your own heart seems to grow louder. The two rhythms synchronise, or perhaps that is only your imagination. Who cares? If it is a dream then it is a good one.

Faces turn towards the stone columns. Dark figures are crouched at their base. Sparks can be seen as they call forth fire. They look very small next to the soaring stone. I am transfixed by the sight, and mentally willing the tinder to catch. It’s important and you don’t know why. With every firelorn strike of flint, the crowd sighs, a ripple of disappointment from thousands of throats. When it catches, the crowd roars. Fire lights up the darkness, turning the grey stone columns to blazing gold.

The vanguard of the May Queen appears, warrior women, like marble statues brought to life. Blinding white, their faces unreadable behind their concealing mask of chalky pigment, the deep crimson around their necks, and the green ivy twined in their hair seems to bleed colour into the red burnished fire-lit air. They are ideals of purity now manifest, the arterial red on white cloth like blood on snow; the green ivy leaves are life springing eternal. Layers of meaning, or just incredibly beautiful to watch. My perception shifts just slightly.

They bow, and she appears, as white-frost cold as her handmaiden guards but with glowing flowers trailing at her feet, and wrapped tight round her waist. On her dark head wreaths of green ivy and jewel-hued blossoms rise up skywards to form a crown. Her face is empty, a Grecian mask, and like those masks, the audience sees what they want to see in her carefully blank eyes. She is not human for this night, for this night she is the Lady of the Flowers, she is the May Queen, she is the forces of life and death, renewal and decay. Her consort, the Green Man, grown verdant and hoary with age, waits for her. The procession starts, slow walking around the hill towards the Fire Arch with its cleansing flames, the place of sacrifice and the Beltane Bonfire…that is where it starts to go wrong.

The path to the Fire Arch is lined with iron, metal barriers keep the crowds back as the May Queen walks slowly, the blue men thrashing their twig-bundle whips on the ground to clear the way but it is a crowd of observers that line the May Queen’s path, not celebrants.

The security guards in their fluorescent vests stand between the watching crowd and the impassive walking figures. A tall red-skinned demon, dread haired and shaggy legged, walks with one bare-breasted, they posture and gesture to the crowds, faces smile snarling, beckoning from some Otherworld.

“Tits!” a laughing face shouts, spraying lager. She glowers and turns to face the flames. The Otherworld retreats.

The procession is passing under the arch of flame; it’s hard to see what is happening. The drums are still beating, the twig bundle whips still slashing at the ground. No one in the crowd passes under the Beltane fires. The guards and the iron barriers make sure of that. People stand behind their metal fences and watch as the procession disappears into the night.

I feel a little confused. Present events are clashing with my memories of the past. Surely Beltane was not a spectator sport? It was an experience, a shared experience. I remember following the revived ancient ritual around a nightscape made strange and otherworldly by creatures that came from dreams. Demons touched flesh as fire lit up the darkness. Eyes grew wide, bodies swayed, drums heart-beated from the shadows. It was not religion; it was not theatre. It was definitely not being corralled by iron while the ritual passed through catcalls, and confusion. It was celebration. It was colour and shared emotion. It was energy passing from person to person, regardless of ritual knowledge. It was Fire.

Now the ritual performance seemed just that, performed. Staged. Enclosed and excluding. It was watched, not felt. There were no drums heart-beating from the shadows. No little glowing oasis campfires making circles of amber gold light on the dark hillside. No baying energy shining from the procession out into the darkness to heat quiet blood, burn away convention, ignite passions, and return to the May Queen Court, stoked higher and hotter by the crowd. Bottles were not passed from stranger to stranger; fragrant smoke did not mix with the burnt wood attar of Bel Fires. Faces did not blaze, touched by effulgent fingers of fire. Eyes did not shine, gazing into imagination. For me the doors between the worlds stayed firmly shut.

Everywhere fences of cold metal delineated, severing the circle of shared experience, like a music gig, when no body claps. No back and forth, no building of energy, no celebration of return of summer, no feeling of the turn of seasons. Drunks, with bottles of cider and heckling tongues, harangued. Yellow coats glistened in the rain. The procession wound through thronging drove of people, but they looked confused, rather than transported, the burger stand shone through the decidedly un-fragrant air.

All around me people milled, scurrying to catch a glimpse of the passing Beltane march. Skin covered man-stags fought confronted by silent, sneering faces, caught in a trap of iron bars. Archers moved in a stylised hunt, their chants falling tumbling onto deaf ears, falling into silence. The dead man deer on the ground twitched.

“Give us our money back,” one wag yelled. The circle of hunters ignored him, the crowd laughed. I fought the urge to punch him in the face.

“Fuck off off the Hill then,” I thought.

The drums still pounded in their rave cadence in the distance, so I climbed the hill again, pushing through assorted gap students, and howling neds, towards the circle of light. I saw the old man, still sitting on his stone.

To one side of him a stage was set square in the dip between the Acropolis and the small pine-bough bonfire waiting by the drop off.

A ripple of flame rushed down throw the dark crowds, the Red Men where invading the place of sacrifice, the forces of chaos were rushing to meet the forces of order. The White Women waited; the flowered May Queen a point of stillness in the formal protective rhythms of her handmaidens and the frenzied dance of the Red Men. The Green Man fell at her touch, to be revived and dance his joy of rebirth.

The Beltane Fire was lit, and the rain came down.

I had lost everyone that I had climbed the hill with, so at least some things stayed the same. The fire burned, the Red Men and Red Women threw themselves into orgy, the White Women were lured away from the bower of the May Queen by the promised of chaos; she lingered to entertain her newly youthful consort. Sparks lit the rain-drenched sky; the fire burned fighting the quenching water and people started to drift off, which was just as well. There was only about an hour to go before we would all be kicked off the hill anyway. This Beltane had a curfew.

There would be no washing in the May first dew for these half hearted revellers. The Bonfire would not burn throughout the night. This party would be taken indoors. Water fell from the heavens, and the fire started to go out.

I felt sad as I headed for Pivo, another first for the Beltane and me. There were hours still to go until dawn. I hoped that some of the Beltane Bestiary would be there to greet the sun. It used to be me, and hundreds of other Calton Hill warriors, but not this night. My personal flame was at low ebb, and a text told me that there was a pint waiting at the bottom of the Hill in the bohemian bar. I was done for this year.

What had made this Beltane so different? All the ingredients were there, well most of them and I actually was never really into the more extreme variety of mood changers. Whisky is usually my drug of choice. Cider at a pinch. Was it me then? Too old now, too much changed myself?
Was it the performance? But they looked amazing, as always, as they led the way to a different world, just for the one night. They danced through the old steps, they brought verve and shine and passion. They burned like fire under glass. And maybe that was the problem.

Fire is beautiful. It is wild. Fascinating. It’s as close to being a living thing, as a chemical reaction can get; not that humans are made up of chemical reactions, are we? It feeds, it breaths, it cast out heat. It whispers or roars. It provides solace and in its bright heart dreams are made corporeal. It lives on a knife-edge. It can light up the darkness or leave a trail of black, sooty choking destruction and the choice isn’t always yours. The spinning sides of the Beltane coin.

But for fire to burn it still needs three things: fuel, heat and oxygen. On the hill, the Society provided the heat, the crowds in theory had the fuel, but captured under a glass shield of increasingly strict security, the oxygen was in short supply.

And year by year as the restrictions increase, those who respect and value what the Beltane stands for are kept away either by their own aggrieved sensibilities, the change in the ethos of the crowd, or by refusing those iron bar fences. The May Queen’s pale sibylline face reflects not only yellow fire but the yellow shine of security vests, and the cameras flashes captures the distant form of the Beltane, not the summer quickening spirit. And as the glass walls separating the two worlds thicken each year, they are meeting to form an over-reaching, impregnable dome, and from within its bubble of glass-limited oxygen, how brightly can the Fire Festival be expected to burn?

The rain is falling in a curtain of chilled out silver beads. It fills the half-finished fish pond, with its patient Buddha and dearth of gold fish, in the back garden of my folks new house. It beads on the black, oily, otter-shiny coat of my parent’s Labrador pup, Max, as he stands oblivious to the heavens ongoing effort to drown Scotland with his bright candy-pink tongue hanging over the flashing white teeth that line his laughing mouth, tail wagging furiously.

That tail is dangerous. Whoops, there goes Buddha.

My own dog is lying at my feet as I type, staring morosely out the open kitchen door at the continuous wet outside. Dougal is a Louisiana dog, and not at all impressed by the way the rain has suddenly turned cold or the sudden loss of his flighty Chicago girlfriend Stella. He now shares his digs with a huge, clumsy, 90Ib, overgrown Labrador pup called Max, and he is not at all impressed by that either.

Max loves his new found best friend and spends hours gnawing and licking at Dougal’s face, whining and bowing, presenting his well–chewed rope-toy to my dog’s stoic, topaz, and long-suffering gaze.

“Play with me! Ahhh, go on, play with me!” Max seems to be saying, bouncing and dancing, throwing his big, soft body in earnest circles, thick powerful tail wind-milling and flailing, knocking all the tea cups off the table and battering into the walls and the tender legs of onlookers

“Go on, grab the rope and pull. It’ll be great! It’ll be brilliant! Goan, goan, goan…”

The Maxinator is a lovely, big, eedjit of a dog and it’s hard not to feel sorry for him when my beast can take no more and, with a sudden, southern snarl of total exasperation, rugby tackles hims, bowling him flat off his paws into the mud. The big dog falls on his back with a house-shaking thud, an ever-surprised yelp and a piteously shocked look in his eyes.

Dougal stands over him, stiff and snarling with exhausted malice, his teeth buried in the loose skin of his tormentor’s neck. Max freezes in terror until the wee red southern savage slowly unlocks his jaws and lets the big dog get back on his soft puppy feet.

Two seconds later the rope is back in Max’s mouth, he is whining and dancing in his pleading circles and Dougal is staring at the ceiling, shaking his head.

Goddammit, I can hear him say, if only I had a gun and an opposable thumb.

My dad is practicing fiddle whilst my mother is at work. He plays a slow air he knows I like, and as I listen to the fiddle’s mourning I look out the open kitchen door on to a cold and rain-watery Scottish day.

It has been raining since yesterday morning. Most people would describe the weather outside as grey, dismissing it out of hand as another overcast, alleged sunrise in the grim north, another typical Scottish summer day.

Graham Burn, the husband of one of my best and oldest friend in Edinburgh smiled into his coffee on my last visit to their basement castle apartment as we looked out from the welcome warmth of their large stone kitchen, and sought the courage to brave the endless sheets of water tumbling down over the elegantly shining, water-stoic city of Edinburgh.

The Festival was in full swing but the kitchen jwas just too very comfortable to leave. Not to mention dry.

“Scotland does grey very well,” he murmured almost to himself, dark and grey-eyed himself, coffee cup sending fragrant curls of steam into the fire warm air. “But grey is my favourite colour, so that’s ok.”

I don’t think of the cloudy skies of Scotland as grey…grey is just too small a word.

The Scottish skies are silver and palest steel. They are thin layers of mercury and platinum through which the sun shows ghostly pale but determined. The Scottish heavens gleam and glisten rather than shine and glow. They are washes of water colour, subtle blues, improbable ambers, heavy indigos.

It always brings to mind that old nugget of info about the Eskimos and their hundreds of words for ‘snow’. Likewise ‘grey’, used as an adjective to describe the skies of Scotland really just doesn’t cut it.

Only as the sun goes down, after a hard work day trying to punch through the drifting blankets of water draped softly over the green and sodden landscape, do the skies release their bright colours in the west, igniting the magnesium of the Caledonian firmament and throwing flames of red and gold across the clear darkening blue of the horizon in an exuberant last bow, before the sun slides exhausted and triumphant under the waves of the Irish sea on its way to the Caribbean, where I imagine cocktails and sunchairs are waiting.

Aye, it’s a plain kind of day, right enough.

I am rediscovering the joys of thick woolen socks, high boots and wooly hats. Waterproof jackets, gloves and hot chocolate. It’s the kind of research I really enjoy, especially with marshmallows.

It’s tough sometimes. After years of deciding only which colour wife-beater to team with my denim cut downs, or which pair of flip-flops to wear with a new cotton sundress, all this layering up is hard to get used to.

My fingers are always slightly cold, and my hair takes forever to dry in the cool, water-laden air. Whisky in my tea is appreciated now as never before, I cook thick stews and soups instead of salads and chicken and I can take up to twenty minutes to get out of the hot shower. It’s so nice and warm standing under the hot splash of water; it’s really so not once you are out and shivering in the chilly air.

My dad loves the hot spicy food of New Orleans so a small exclusive kitchen in Ayr is periodically busy with gumbos and red beans. Albert Alfonso’s hot sauce is taking a beating, but he has promised to bring more next time he visits.

Supply and demand, baby! And if demanding fails try begging.

The sound of Kermit Ruffins is drifting from the CD player, along with Lunasa, Steve Earle and the Zydepunks. I’m a fan of compilation CDs. Sometimes the mixes are a bit little bit strange but I like it that way. Music, like food is better with a lot of different flavours in the mix.

Even the air smells different here, thick with the salt-tang iodine of the sea, not the heady heaviness of fecund river mud perfumed with flowers.
If scents had a tint, if the air of a particular place could be a colour you could see, New Orleans air would be a dense, velvet-soft red, shot through with twisting veins of burnished gold. Ayrshire, on the other hand, would be a pellucid swirl of ice-blue, grass-green and white glittering salt underpinned with dark base of moist, grudging earth.

The Deep South of Louisiana, and the South-west of Scotland; such opposite parts of a internal spectrum. I’m in love with both.

My dad and I take the dogs to the beach almost every day, when it isn’t raining too much that is. My Ninth-Ward Crack-Hound has ruined Max’s training.
Obviously the glamour of a newly arrived Louisianan outlaw pooch supersedes all my father’s painstaking teachings and, at the moment, Max is in full teenage puppy rebellion.
No more fetching and carrying for him.
If he were human he would be painting his bedroom black, but since he is not he has picked up Dougal’s habit of going spontaneously deaf when told to do something that he doesn’t want to instead.

Dougal’s joy at the wide, wild beaches and the empty fields of Ayrshire comes off him in waves. There is no happier dog in the world than my Dougal when he off the leash at Dunure, or Glen Trool. He can run like a small, ginger greyhound when he wants to, and he does, straight towards some folk who are heading towards the ruins of Dunure castle just a little bit further along the beach. Max takes off after him, both dogs spontaneously losing their ability to hear despite my loud swearing. The distant figures, canine and bipedal, have their silhouetted drama thankfully out of my only-human hearing range. It looks pretty heated. There is much waving of arms and throwing of stones.

My dog is a bit of an asshole and his newest untaught trick is running up to distant children, peeing on them and hightailing it away.
I am filled with deep shame for my dog’s delinquent behavior, I have no idea where he picked it up from, and it’s not funny.

Well, not to the kids who have just been unexpected showered with love anyway.
Nope, not funny.
Not even kinda sorta. Honest.
Wanker dog.

St Charles and the floats of Bacchus move slowly down the oak-shadowed, ancient route, glowing shimmering rainbows of manufactured fantasy.

The Krewes bombard the cheering crowds with glittering beads of all hues and the small translucent dots of colour are caught by eager grabbing hands. Faces gleam with smiles; stretched thin on some faces, heavy and sweet on others.The beads throw back the warm orange flames of the flambeaux; the convicts pause in their dance to catch up the silver quarters tossed by the bewitched onlookers.

The prized, long pearly strings sail briefly through the moist New Orleans air- free floating in history-only to be pulled excalibur-like beneath the waves of questing hands. They disappear in a white spumey flurry of triumphant laughs and disappointed shouts.

Green. Gold. Royal purple.

Enchanted children gaze with soft shining eyes, their faces glowing in the purple gloom, the familiar jarring brass of the bands slicing the smoky air, bright blasts of noise, shining sequined dancers writhing like fishes caught on a gaff of music.

I’m back in New Orleans, he thinks, back home after all this time

The years roll back as the excitement fills him anew. He could be ten again instead of forty as he breaths deep, the warm, moist air redolent with the stink of spilled beer, attar of bruised sweet flowers and the sour tang of sickness.

“Throw me something, mister,” he shouts, upturned face flashing in the illumination and the beads fall neatly into his upstretched hands and he laughs, the sound bright on the dark air, the sheer pleasure of the moment filling his soul.

There is sharp tug on the spoils of carnival in his hand. A smooth white hand, long black nail tipped, touches him. Slim talons grasp the dangling beads and hold fast and the pale skin shimmers with a thousand points of light, knuckles lucid with assured strength.

Glitter, he thinks. I remember the costumed girls and the fairy-tale shimmer of glitter on their smooth skins.

He turns, unwilling to relinquish his plastic treasures, but smiling. He is happy and eager to please.

The face upturned to his is neither young nor old. There are faint lines reaching frost-like from the corners of the dark eyes, but the skin shimmers, firm and thick as cream. Her smile is wide and scarlet, a disturbing carnal stain. Green sequins shine like reptile scales on the white temples. There is a drift of colour on the wet eyelids, a faint misting of silver. Small gilded horns reflect the red light of the flambeaux and the oily flames shine in the wise, wicked eyes. Little red fires that drown in the glee of Mardi Gras.

“Mine.”

The voice is soft, low and amused. The clawed hand tightens on the string of beads; teeth show in a flash of white.
Red on the mouth, with red feathers shivering on her shoulders, catching the warm breeze and quivering with secret exaltation.

Red flames. Red wings. Red smile.

Costumes and beads, blaring music, the synchronized high kicks of the be-glamoured children as the school bands march towards the wide boulevard of Canal St and the throngs that wait patiently for them.

He remembers …and smiles.

“Sure.”

He lets go his grip on the sparkling beads with a bow, and turns back towards the tree-lined spectacle, obscurely pleased by his random magnanimity, hand upstretched to catch more favours, smile shining, oblivious to the smell of beer and sickness.

He feels the hair on his neck prickle – she is behind him.

Cold hands slip around his waist like an icy eddy of water, raising drowning shivers of sensations as her soft body presses against him. Attar of jasmine and roses and black burned wood.

Mardi Gras, he grins into the dark as he leans back into her cool embrace, briefly clasping the wandering caressing hands, his head thrown back. If you can’t get laid at Mardi Gras…

A low laugh ripples behind him

“Catch me something, mister,” the soft voice of her entreats.

And he reaches again into the darkness for the bright baubles, his heart beating faster, collecting a dowry of colourful sorcery, eyes blind full of carnival.

The hands around his waist grip tighter and he can feel the feathers of her wings tickle the back of his arms as a sharp chin digs between his shoulder blades, replaced almost at once by the soft press of lips.Devious kisses burn a trail over his skin, hot through the thin cotton of his shirt. He leans back into something sharp which cuts through his shirt, breaking the skin and causes the thin, stinging blood to rise but he hardly feels it.

The old cry beats at him, the large garish shop beads destined to disgrace the necks of drunken tourist fall forgotten to the ground. The street is packed with jostling bodies, a sea of blurred faces with mouths opened wide to gulp down more booze and fill the humid air with bacchanalian cries.

The eyes of the revelers are vapid with unthinking frenzy and instinctive hunger, eyes staring like the glassy orbs of sacrificed animals, their throats bared to the killing knife of carnival.

The screams of frantic laughter hand in the air like torn streamers, gleeful and doomed to desperation. He staggers a little, suddenly dizzy
.

She is cool and scented and soft and welcoming.

He turns to face her with his treasures and a smile that wants him beckons with flytrap sweetness. Her eyes are bright and strange and savage. Her hands hold tight to his. They are cold. He studies her face.

Her skin is pale as wax, chalky and shimmering, each green gem floating like a bubble on milky water. The golden horns peek slyly from the dark tangle of hair; he can’t see the tying band he knows has to be there. He raises her hand to his mouth, playfully biting on the long black nails, wanting to hear her squeal and snatch back her disguise before his teeth do damage.

How perfect the make-up is, he thinks, wondering in a careless way at the illusion.

She looks into his smile, holding his gaze, eyes predator steady, almost opaque, strangely amused. The hand is quiet in his mouth, relaxed and content, the shiny nails just touching his tongue. He bites down tasting salt, and a surprised yelp is forced from him as razor tips pierce the sensitive flesh. The copper taste of blood fills his mouth, and the smile on her face widens in pleasure.

She softy laughs as he tentatively touches his wounded mouth, his face uncertain.

Cold hands stroke his face, gentling, teasing, coaxing, tempting.

His gaze drops to her neck, her half-exposed breasts, swelling under a cobweb of fragmented light. Her perfume stings his nose.

His speculative eyes are caught by burnished beads that glimmer around her neck. More like gems than beads. Dozens, some blue fire in the dark, some strangely dull and blasted, strung on silver ropes. He is looks closer, studying the interplay of light and shadow in the strange gems. Like moonstones but not, opalescent but other.

Swamp indigo blue. Palmetto green. River red and violet. The Aurora set in ice.

She murmurs laughter, dark and bubbling. An image of bright white ice cracking to reveal black chill waters fills his mind, here and gone in a flash of apprehension.

Her eyes are the colour of ash, black pupils reflecting the fire, flames burning under ice, black lashes like spikes of wire in the clammy skin glisten beetle-like in the light. He can smell a wet musk of jasmine, burning wood and meat. The red lips part, suggestion of black movement inside. Red as blood on snow; her smile now feral.

He stares, mesmerized by that labial parting, and leans towards her. He doesn’t feel the sharp claws puncture his skin. Red blood-beads well to the surface and fall , tumbling through the air uncaught, to be consumed by the starving soil.

Freezing lips fasten on to his in an icy communion of want, and his thoughts explode, boiling and unraveling, spiraling into the darkness, screaming into the devouring silence, his eyes blinded by the blazing violence, searing his skull, fading, fading, fading going out into the maelstrom of light.

The parades are over. Carnival is over. The bars are starting to refill.

The convicts sweep the refuse away and blaring sirens replace the blaring music. The rotating yellow lights from the cop cars smear the ancient oaks with a sulphurous and rotting patina. The bars on St Charles are warm neon in the night, snatches of songs and strands of conversation strewn out into the night.

Blue beads on a silver chain are twirled by a taloned hand. On the chain one more bead is shining bright and blue; one less hangs dulled and blasted.

The figure walks alone under the Indian oak trees, horns glinting gold, red feathered wings shivering, feet tapping a cloven hoofed tattoo on the wet New Orleans sidewalk.

Tip…tappitty…tip…tap…tip.

Maelstrom
Category: Writing and Poetry

If you catch the train from the small, west coast fishing town of Ayr to Glasgow, that fast growing city drawn in black ink, you pass close along the Newton Shore.
Off Newton beach there sits the wreck of a coal boat that has been there for as long as I can remember. She sank within a stones throw of land and, as far as I know, everyone on board when she foundered made it out alive. The story runs that she was stolen by the mate when he was drunk, and his attempt to sale her home ended in comical disaster.

At high tide all you can see is the top of her mast, reaching upwards towards the sky through cold, murky water. She sways with the tide and when the water is low you can look down inside the seaweed and barnacle encrusted stairs to the empty hold below. There’s no coal in her now; the people of Ayr made salvage within days of the sinking.

The town of Ayr enjoys the warming effects of the Gulf Stream – those hot waters that feed the hurricanes off the Gulf Coast of America.It is relatively balmy… for Scotland, of course
We have palm trees that try very hard to grow in the more sheltered gardens along the coast. They alway look a little apologetic to me, a little out of place, bright green tropical leaves under lowering, silver, water-sodden skies. I like them though. They are brave.

It rarely freezes hard on the south-west coast, and the snows that block the passes for months up north around Glen Coe and Lochailort occasionally dust Arran white, but seldom linger long. The salt in the air and those warm, nurturing, storm-feeding, treacherous gulf waters keep them at bay.

Ayr is a soft Shire with a hard, bloody history. Rabbie Burns, our national poet, grew up there, wrote his poets, dallied with his women, became the toast of Edinburgh society and died young. William Wallace stares sternly from his lofty seat in the tower on Ayr High Street; Stirling Bridge and Falkirk are both close by. Auld Ayr is a town of farms and sheep, cows and llamas. I have heard tell of ostrich farms too.

The town harbour used to be crowded with fishing boats and loud with fishermen talking and laughing: the gulls screaming as they fought for the guts and the heads of todays catch, and the occasional unguarded cod or mackerel. My dad told me a story of an unfortunate fisherman who lost a finger on the cold slab of the gutting table, first to a clumsy, careless moment and then to an agile and opportunistic seagull. May God strike me down it’s not a true story, said my dad. I believe him.

The Smugglers Bar still opens at five in the morning, but it is the late drinkers. the town jakies and the lads just off the night-shift from the local supermarket that drink there now, and not the newly on-shore.

Expensive flats look over the empty bay, out towards the beautiful island of Arran, lying supine in the Sound. The crowded fish-market, and the early dawn ruckus is long gone. Seagulls still circle hopefully above the clean concrete and the ruined walls of the ancient Viking fort, and the high hill-hewn profile of Arran and the empty market place stare at each other across the choppy sea.

We don’t see the snows too much, we don’t freeze too hard or too often in winter, and the summer days are long and welcoming, but then winter comes and in January and February we are lashed by the fierce living gales which rage for days on end. When the gales arrive, people go down to the beach in their cars to watch the storm waters. The high roaring waves crash white, blue and cloudy jade-green on the storm wall, and sometimes they cover the parked cars in frothing blankets of salt-seawater.
It is an amazing sight, although I am sure it cannot be good for the car engines.

Last year the storm-walls, which had held back the seas for so many years, were smashed to pieces. The battering waves picked up the huge stones which made the walls, and threw them across the shore lining fields. They broke windows in houses, they smashed cars, they put the fear of God into the house-holders along the beach, and now the old wall is gone and the sea can reach far inland.
Awesome, the casual damage inflicted by the sea water…in the true sense of the word.

Not too far from the sunken coal boat there stands the Lighthouse.
It’s not big, the Lighthouse, it’s not fancy and nobody mans it now, but it still throws its warning light into the roiling blackness of the January and February storms.
Sometimes, from the train window en-route to Glasgow, you can barely see it through the gleaming, iron-grey waters that batter and bash at its white-washed walls, storm winds blasting hard enough to toss salt water on the train window, over half a mile inland.

The storm-waves look like they are made from molten lead or mercury. They are silver and black, shredded by the wind into pale shining storm-caps. We call the storm-caps ‘white horses’ and herd after herd of these horses gallop landwards to leap over what is left of the storm wall, and break themselves against the cars, smashing against the stone houses and the cool, stoic, watchful fortress of the Lighthouse.

It makes the hair rise on your neck, the sound of that ocean.
Heard from the warmth of the train cabin it is faint, but still so full of casual, indifferent power. The crash, and the roar and whispering voices.

And still the Lighthouse stands.

And still the white horses keep coming…

MAELSTROM

We awake.
Five score fathoms down and coldly gleaming.
We stir.
And the cold, sullen waters recoil around us.
The weight of midnight oceans, heavy on our shoulders.
Chill fingers caress sleep flanks.
We slowly turn and twist, unquiet in our dreams.

All around us…
Enveloping. Cocooning. Secret velvet darkness.
The teeming Void.
Black depths. Never lit by dawn.
The inside of a dreamers eyes, studded with nightmare creatures. Monstrosities all aglow with unearthly light.
Impenetrable murk.
Luminous sequins.
Voracious appetites.
Slowly waltzing in an eternal dance of predatory death. Life eating life as we
slumber,
our ears pressed to the pulse of the world.

Distant thunder.
The sound invades our dreams.
Slow, deliberate hearts begin to beat,
to the rhythm of the tides.
Beat.
Ancient eyes turn towards the surface. Yearning.
Beat.
Beat.
Listen….

The Maelstrom calls us.
Rise! Rise!
Dance on the raging waves!
Fling the paean skywards.
And lead the storm to shore!
Limbs brace against the shadowy bed. Muscles coil under pale silk hides.
Push!
Upwards.
Scattering of stones, buried in a soft, silt shroud. Soaring into the eternal blackness.
Above and below us.
icy water and we, pale comets suspended in inner space.
Upwards.
Gathering speed.
Inky waters. The darkness gradually emptying and
filling with light, gilding sea-stained skin with dapples of gold and verdigris.
Incandescent in the gloom.
The Sound.
Siren sea-song. Rushing. Sibilance.
Murmuring past our ears as the light grows stronger. Brighter.
Stabbing and blinding us as we near the surface.
Roiling waters. Speeding our ascent.
Faster!
Amniotic waters fill with green light,
Faster!
The rumble of thunder.
Faster!
Crashing. Billowing waves.
They break
against each other, smashing into a million lightning-lit splinters.
Electric white,
Neon blue,
Luminously radiant
We no longer gleam,
We shine
and the sea catches fire around us as we explode through the surface.
Punching skywards
in a germination of frothing white foam. A flowering as fragile as ice held up to light.
Hard as the heart of evolution.
Surging around us, the Sea is
the flawed oily colour of archiac glass
hidden deep-drowned in sunken ships far below.
Rain falling
Sheet,
after sheet,
after sheet,
striking the heaving obsidian surface.
Perfect crystal beads
glittering momentarily in the storm light before
vanishing forever
amid the roar and the tumult of the elements.

Lightning flashes from cloud to cloud
charging the air. Electricity raises the fine hairs on our icy bodies.
Maddening us with
a thousand prickling kisses.

We are
the epicentre,
of a swirling whirlpool of shrieking wind and furious ocean
and we dance the razor edge between
the lashing waters and the crackling skies.
We turn our heads to the wind, baring our fangs.

The storm has us and hold us tight in a lovers embrace,
Backs arch
against the driving force of the living gale.
The wind
tears our manes into pale banners,
that catch the wounded light of the bruised heavens.
Illumination
sliding over our skins and carving our forms in
crashing water.
Promethial fire courses through our viens; ichor, countless aeons old.
We throw back our heads and scream
the battle-cry skywards.

Before
the first sea-born abandoned the oceans
we were.
The skies silent,
the desolate keening of the wind moving over still waters.
The stars blaze from the firmament and ours the only eyes to see them.
The aurora undimmed by land-locked light.
Now
Bitter eyes turn towards the coming shore.
There.

The Light-House.
Standing defiant on it’s salt-wave-battered, glistening rock.
Thread-bare beam, thin and brave,
swings
through raging storm, cutting a swathe through the deluge.

Our eyes reflect the illumination,
glowing
ember red in the darkness.

The Light-House.
Futile.
Fragile.
Guardian of the alien storm-tossed lives.
The indomitable Light-House, throwing it’s life-line into the raging storm.
Battling the roaring waters.
Defying lashing rain.
Refusing to abandon those held in thrall far out to sea.
Guiding them home.

We lash the sea to greater fury.
Dark waters
gather and surge,
wave after wave,
bearing us landward
as our fury rises and mists our minds blood-red.

We are here as we have always been and we remember.
We do not forgive, we do not forget.
We await our chance and we are always watching.

We live in the Seasons. The Encircling Waters of the World.
The synaptic voltage of the the Thunderbolt.
The Heart of the Maelstrom.

We reach the Light-House screaming
and,
rearing,
We smash our hooves against it!

]]> http://thistle2000.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/maelstrom/feed/ 0 thistle2000 http://thistle2000.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/going-back-to-the-new-new-orleans/ http://thistle2000.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/going-back-to-the-new-new-orleans/#comments Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:56:22 +0000 Sharon Armstrong http://thistle2000.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/going-back-to-the-new-new-orleans/ ]]>

Greensboro had been quite the experience, that’s for sure.

In the space of just two months I have been pulled over by the police twice.

Not a bad average really.

To their credit, they were really nice and kinda embarressed and that’s what I get for shooting photographs downtown anyway.

I have been mauled by a potentially rabid squirrel and, I’m here to warn you, if you ever have to go to the ER with a savage squirrel story and a sore finger, all you will get is a hefty dose of ridicule and an ungodly number of anti-rabies inoculations. My backside will never be the same again.
Thank Christ I have plenty of padding down there or it could have been bad.
No, scratch that. It might have been worse but it was never going to be anything but bad.

I did make the doctors laugh though. And my editor. And, now I come to think about it, my mum, my friends, strangers in the ER and just about everybody else I know. Not a trace of bloody sympathy.

Evil lurking squirrels. Who knew? Sheesh!

I met and played with some seriously good musicians, who were kind enough to invite me into their homes.

I am a bit shaky on how many times I visited Vance Archer’s house and inflicted my guitar playing on the poor man – much wine was involved I seem to remember, but I could be wrong.

I will always remember how much fun I had though, and the welcome they gave a transplanted and homesick Scot.
Thank you, Vance, and I promise to try and actually learn those guitar scales.
And about those dark, looping and unmarked night roads in North Carolina!
What is going on there?
I have been hopelessly lost more times than I can possibly count. At least a million.
Which, it must be said, has totally failed to improve either my navigational skills or my panic-control techniques.
There were times when I thought it was all over and I was going to have to move into vacant sheds.

Where the hell is Wendover St?
It has to be here somewhere!
Keep driving! It will be all right! Honest!
Ah feck, there goes the exit again!!!!
Whimper. Sob. Whimper.

Doesn’t bode well for getting to Chicago in time for Christmas really, and isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
Friends and family. Kith and kin.
The people that I used to see in New Orleans every day.
I go online and get the old mapquest up and running; I have a long way to go and many miles in which to get lost.

My friends in Chicago have been up there since the Hurricane.

Note the capitalization; The Hurricane.

It’s odd, but when New Orleanians refer to the tempest visited such devastation onthe Big Easy, you can actually hear those big letters and the anger and wealth of things left unsaid.

A whole world ecapsulated in a two words; Katrina was an upper-case uppercut.

She will always be The Storm.

The Big One.

The Hurricane.

A strange new lexicon born August 2005.

I thought about moving to Chicago after the Storm. I thought about moving many places because the new New Orleans can tire you out and not in a good way.

People used to find it hard to leave New Orleans; now it’s hard to stay.

She breaks your heart in sudden and unexpected ways.

You have to keep your guard up; there is very little room for nostalgia. It is too sad.

You adjust to what the locals call the New Normal;some normal that means third-world hardships in a first world country.

It’s so quiet when the contractors go home and the silence envelops the empty streets.

Those damn blue tarps mock the myth of rebuilding, and New Orleans is no longer the city that care forgot.

She is forgotten by those in positions of trust.

I have traveled to Chicago and Dallas, Savannah and DC, Asheville and New York City. I went back home to Scotland and visited Greensboro, home of the savage squirrels.

Getting work, visiting friends, getting away from New Orleans for a month, a week, or even just a day or two and every single time I came back home to the Big Easy my heart leapt into my throat.

On one hand I am happy because I do know what it means to miss New Orleans.
Me and a thousand others.
When I hit that first sign that says New Orleans and points to I -10, I start to grin.
I don’t know how to explain it. It defies all logic and past experience.

As I pass over that verdant bayou, over all that impending water that surrounds that beautiful, unique town, and I hit the city limits, every single time I expect things to be better than they were. That there will be signs that things are going to be all right despite everything.

Uptown looks pretty much the same although that bloody waterline on the houses and fences and underpass is still there and my heart lifts a little. The knot in my stomach eases just a bit.

I bounce over the the huge potholes, past the ruined homes that line the I-10 and keep going past brightly coloured, intricately carved and irreparably ruined shotgun house, heading towards that small serendipitious crescent of land that defied those rising dark, oil stained waters.
The High Ground – where the new New Orleanians hold fast.

They stare outwards towards the rest of America with a strange defiant mix of steadfast, cynical stoicism and irrepressable gallows optimism. Their boat might be sinking but it’ll go down on their tems and and while they are waiting, might as well have a drink.

Lift the glass and toast the passing of our fragile, indomidable city.

The familiar streets still look like they have been lifted and shaken by some huge, clumsy hand. Vines bear flowering testament to the passage of time as they bloom on the roofs of burnt-out houses. Signs in empty, gutted shops mockingly offer cut-rate deals and fresh seafood. It’s over a year now since the Storm and the empty shops are on the rise.
The streets are lined with garbage. The doors of the houses stand open to the elements. Every now and again you spot someone on their porch, waiting.

My heart beats faster. I turn up the music in my car, WWOZ, baby, and I look straight ahead because I don’t want to see the ruin of New Orleans.

The houses, crumbling beneath bright flowering trees, are still marked with those ubiquitous numbered crosshatches. New Orleans is bowed down under her shroud of flowers.

How do people put up with this? What gets them through it? Where do they get the courage to stay? What makes them smile?

There is a Port-A-Loo on Mazant that has something to say in lieu of TV coverage.

One side reads “Bush Shit”, the other ” A throne for King George.”

Funny.