We arrive late afternoon Wednesday the 28^th, at somewhat of an august mid-point of Burning Man 2002. DisOrient looks phenomenal as we pull in off 255 and slot our RV into the 255 slot (if the Man itself is 0 degrees from our disorientation). Upon arrival, I do not notice the playa itself, the cracks, the dust. I see only what springs forth from it. Time runs wild from the moment the Fry Man and I pull in with Sidney.

She needs a playa name. There are many I’s in DisOrient, but my task is to try and feel my way through my me to our We. There are many eyes in DisOrient (along with the Eye, who guided us in). They catch their glimpses. This is an attempt to trace time, in a year where time was exchanged for pure degrees. Time is place. On the sea, how long is less important (and less knowable) than where are we…? I guess.

I is the part of me that is conscious of perceiving. Me is the part of me that things happen to, regardless of my abilities to perceive them, despite any awareness I may or may not have. Radical self reliance.

What I mean is, the Playa is a cracked mirror in which I peer to see myself. It questions me. I try my best to answer, but it is the questions that matter most. If Wilde were only alive to see us! Firmament!!

The playa serves mainly the gods; it is both a shore and a radiant sea. The playa absorbs us. We are all Ulysses (watch for the theme in 2004: I’ve never minded being a bit ahead of the half-circle curve)…:

As the sun departs the playa, we light up. We are lit. V-Rock takes the stage, and we can only marvel at how great the camp looks. DisOrient is a glory to behold. We may not have built it, but Fry’m and I sure can appreciate its beauty. We turn and face the strangers, we face each other, we efface ourselves.

Or try to. My time at Burning Man is about no time: about me. Not so much where I am, but where I am going… I like the pace, even as I get a little older… We are so fascinating; we will not grow out of it. We grow out of the playa, overcoming its arid adversity. We prove the world of the playa is not flat.

We make beauty on it, out of it. We are about beauty. We are on top of it. There are no hours, says the Eye, only ours. Firmament is up and at ‘em. It is our turn. We face the strange. Aaaah, the strangers…!

I love the rush of being in the deep end of the pool, head first. Our heads were in the sky to say goodbye to our old sun, but when we say hi to Leo (still Veo) and the Bass and Trouble and I meet Jeff (looking already for his playa name) and there’s Orion and PapaTone and J-Mac and of course the lovely ladies from the world of V-Rock, including the Cricket and Phaedre and drummer Ratbones and then all the goddesses, bless you for being with us (Athena, goddess of trouble, and the Card: Ikeda’s so so good)!!!

We dare to eat peaches. We stay up to greet the dawn. Thursday’s on: a big day for the folks in our RV.

The prettiest thing was the destiny of the Mad Tatter: that was fun for me, and a hand reaching down….

The fire is inside us. My dawn was spent with Trouble, on our first ride. We went out to the Temple of Joy–some of the first folks allowed in. We wrote on its bare walls, absorbed its elaborate beauty, its elaborations. It is so powerful, so much the Best Burning Man has to offer. It is already the Best Burn.

Little did I know it was the last time I would be near it until it was burned down. Bacchus is joy. We are.

We are proud to invite folks we meet to DisOrient. Thursday will now be Thinly-Veiled Moroccan night. Fry’m has cooked a Moroccan vegetable stew, and I am mixing elixir. Fresh berries and mint. Green tea. I will not leave camp until the ‘morrow, will not stray more than 100 feet from the dome all day and night. We believe in the world to come, where the music is live, everyone is festive and feasted, they have ample fluids, and we are there to share. We have Zuvuya (Star Child living next to us to sit in) and Hamsa Lila: we’re ready for folks we know and love, all the more stranger to come and stay a while.

We are ready to receive. Thursday was so awesome, so pretty, and in daylight you see how much beauty there is in people. As they will art out of the playa, they pull the best out of themselves. Everyone gives.

Eight Line Poem

I’ve never met a tactful cactus on the playa. We do not have the keys to the city. It is all a throwaway, but there will be no trace when we leave. Even the sun is respectful of our presence, like Goldilocks’ porridge, it is just right. I drink the green tea elixir as I mix it, I drink up the faces. Athena needs help bathing. Dachis watches. He peers out through his RV window. He will find a name before too long.

The sun sets lightly, and we are now ready to serve. At your service. There is no rush. The elixir fixes the day inside me. I roam our home, the dome, live the coming race, dance, entrance, even make several fine entrances. The Muga is a rosé wine from the Rioja in Spain with 30% Macabeo, the wine grape that grows in Morocco, so this is as authentic as one can get (and then Grenache goes down so smoothly). Everything is perfectly spicy, such a nice way to play. I am e and you are me and we are all together….

Friday was my day. My bargain with myself was to stay on Disorient until we made it through all the thin veils: Hamsa Lila really played well into the night (~4.20 am). I hung in until the dawn with weirdly amorphous amorous adventures (most inchoate). And that was my weight. Grossed up the Bass, said Mass, placed myself squarely in Eros’s hands for the best tomatoes ever. We was up on the Muffin (sure to be changing our ways). By this time, my big bonding was with Adeo, now Super Duck-E. He’s so tall and ducky and funny and filled with the greatest humor: all smiles. And his Cindy! We named her Swan, as will be her apparent in a moment. Went round to look for Buttercup; Halcyon said she was elsewhere (big orange back there), so I went to Pinky’s before getting my hair chopped. Shook my groove thang.

One dancer appealed to me in particular. Amazing amateur, tore me up not to talk to her. Nothing is ever boring here. Everything means something. The dust storm comes, whiting out the playa. At four feet of visibility–not much to see. Eros’s RV was bumping with its Mackie woofer intact: Life on Disorient as easy as could be. Reminiscing about how we got here… It’s a long way down from Oregon. Across…:

Two years ago, before Butter was the Bass, we arrived on a Wednesday night (Thursday morning) round 4 am-ish. Wham, we jumped on our bikes at Omars’ Otter Oasis and journeyed cross the playa to (Dis) Sleizure, (en route we stopped at the Man and the Bass found his name, ordained under big legs, still wings) where the dome was 60 feet in diameter, lit by 80 strobes. Leo was there to greet us in front of his MylaRV, and we marveled at the size of that lovely dome, where everyone would come and dance.

Sometime past dawn the Bass crashed in Leo’s as I rode back to Omars’ where I was raised. Praise Ha!

I slept the sleep of the gods, awoken in the afternoon only by Marcella’s glass of green food, freshly shook. I took many gulps and so greeted the day. It was ominous (if not omenous). Also numenous?

When the white out came that Thursday, it was also a flat out: wind gusts above 55 miles per hour (will someone pull that wind over for speeding?). When More of the Desert came back with his wife and daughter (Core) from the playa’s farther shores, he tore my heart out when he told me that the big dome of Oregon had come down. The wind flat out blew it down. With a tear in the corner of mine eye and a far gentler wind at my back I flew across the playa, there to find Leo and the Bass, awestruck by all the devastation. We put our arms on one another’s shoulder, Leo in the middle, and I thought about the awesome forces and too that there’s perhaps a tear in my boy’s eye, if not his soul. He asked: "Hubris?" and we stood in hushed awe. Sometimes there is nothing to say, so we let the question hang above the playa, listening wind blowing it into us, and away. We went inside the shattered dome. And there and then, Firmament came in his mind down from the dome and became our beacon, the circle of light that cannot be destroyed, the Ner Tamid of the Torah (Leviticus 6:2), the perpetually kindled fire, our own burn that can be seen clear across the playa. Firmament is now a journey of light, a route out and back.

We might retreat, entreated Leo, but neither Bass nor I was buying. You need more people, we said, more energy so that what we build will not be brought down by some passing winds. The rending of Oregon’s dome was the breach that gave way to the birth of DisOrient. We celebrate our lineage on Friday night when we visit our sister camp (kissing cousins?) for their massive fashion show. Go on!

Before that, I had to get all ready. When the white receded, it left lightning in the distant skies and one of the most sublime Friday sunsets (Beacon?). Few gentle drops of rain fell on me as I sat trying to stay still; Eros cut and bothered, fussed and fiddled. Buttercup came up to me then and we fudged and e’d indeed. One pill makes you larger… ‘Sup, Buttercup? Athena braided me and then it was time to cactus up @ Circe’s party, put on our finest frocks, freshly cut locks, no socks, not night o’ fox’’s, but fashion!

Focus on fashion. I do not know what the show’s story was, but I know this: Oregon brings out the best. Leo, Eros, the Card and the Muffin had sat themselves adjacent to one point of the starry stage, and Trouble, The Specialist (so Chewy still) and the Star Child and lover Leah (does she have a playa name), with Brando, we took frontish seats just around the point. An epic spectacle, life under the sea, princess taken to the surface, down comes that anchor, and with it the strife. Fire rears is wondrous head, and the demon makes them do it. When he loses his baton into the crowd it lands on Leah but before it can burn her, her Star man in a fell swoop (he swoops so well) snatches the torch and displays it so proudly to the thousand-fold crowd! Oregon has it going on. If shows were for sale, this would be one of (if not) the best-selling…. The majestry of their costumes. The music! The pageantry! The Muffin got to go up on stage to help the clowns warm up the crowd (we saw his wee-wee!). We have the seats with the clearest view. It is the freakiest show. We are Disorient. Bass reverberates through us with his spirit. Trouble, loud and clear. Veo and Eros and the Card and the Muffin, the Eye is here too, we can feel him peering through us, seeing it all. This is where we are really feeling it, Friday night, all filled with the promise…

There are sailors fighting as the lead demon entices the underwater dwellers to the surface. He hands me the fire as he demon-strates leaping up, bouncing over the fire and up, and back and up, with me holding the fire high above my head, part of the action, part of the show. There is life above. On his last bounce he steps on my fire baton fist, propelling his demon ass up to the platform as I turn and whirl and hand up his fire to him. No timidity, only the freedom to break free, to leave the depths for air…!

The fire glows through me. Through us all. We see. Fashion smashin’. When the show ends, we all dance on the stage. It is the best music I will hear. Music to our eyes and ear, to our hearts and fears.

We regroup outside Oregon’s massive dome and tumultuously try to ride around the city. Life everywhere. Trouble and I lose the Specialist and Star man and Fins and Brando; and do we ride.

We ride the city. Black Rock City is the most bountiful and beauteous place on the planet. The playa rides us. We bob and weave our bikes round the Esplanade, seeing everything hitting nothing. We are clean and fresh, thought loose and fancy free. We have few cares: we take all dares. We stare and stare.

There is the Church of Funk. Here is Asylum. New Day’s Eve! We have it all. We will never leave.

There is life on DisOrient. Here it is. Here we are. We are free floating. We are free. We are we & me.

Trouble and I bump up in his RV where he whips up a tuna fish sandwich: not my cup of meat. He needs a nap, quick touch of sleep to keep him on his toes later. So it goes. The final throes of Frydays.

I leave him be in his darkened RV, soothed to see my good friend Hickey has arrived for his first Burn. Man oh man he made good time, and I am his. We get our groove on in our RV, and before we explore the playa, I want him to know the wonders of DisOrient. A quick tour of the many homes that encircle the dome. We start with Trouble. Do we ever. We are prevented from entering by two big Rangers, not the Black Rock kind, but rather the BLM Federales. Have I done something to get MS truly in Trouble?

Crashing back to meet the playa, me lawyerly instincts take over. Like the dome coming down, I am lucid as we defend against the intruders. We cannot make them leave by force. They have invaded, and we must be patient. I am cold in my skirt and light silk robe. I will not be moved. There are too many eyes in DisOrient. We are under scrutiny. This is some crazy mutiny of our own bounty. This is you and it’s me. This is the way it was meant to be? 10 Federales, burly and armed, en garde! Fence us in.

The wall of DisOrient always looked so orange and glowy. They were about the entrances. Now they feel more akin to prison walls: an orange very eerie. I have fears. We’re waiting it out. We left our Constitution on the road with our Budget Rental insurance. While police music plays, I can but dance.

The lawmen are beating up the wrong guys: ching ching. No sale. But all’s well that ends well, and though some scenarios have me making bail with the Duck-E in Reno, we don’t need to go. They can’t make it stick, and our Amendments hold sufficient water to reduce the charges from the depths up to this misdemeaned surface, where it is all just money and there is no way to fight agin’ it. Blessed art thou!

We do not carry ID on the playa. We did not know we had to, to avoid that jackpot. What a lottery!

Anyway, it wasn’t the prettiest thing. Adeo had bail but there was no release from the futility. I ain’t got the power anymore. Such an unfortunate inversion. We’re Kooks, not crooks. Look around! Quick

Sand. Fell out of that quasi-KGB-Hole, hello pretty, clean livin’ & a nice Bounce. I would’ve explained what we ought to know if I’d known we’d need it. How refreshing was the misdemeanors’ foremost response: who’s got my buzz? It was hell, but we passed through, escaped the Quicksand. The G-men found everything except the G, as there was just too much gravity, and not enough anti–We anted up!

There was no getting around it: we got picked off, and picked on. But overcoming adversity is the raison d’etre of Burning Man. Larry Harvey on Baker Beach was doing just that when he burned his first ’86 Man. One burns to show that one has learned how to move on. To demonstrate that one can make peace with the demons, even if we cannot always defeat them. One burns for romance, for beauty, one burns for gravity, and the anti-, one burns to escape, to remember, to forget. We are romance. We are now one.

Now to dream of love: Last year, at 4.20 and Esplanade, DisOrient was the biggest thing I'd ever done. I tried to do away with my I, but it came looking for me; my eye found me out this year. Of the folks I met last year, many stayed with me, 'though I got closest to Trouble and the Eye. They became part of me: with them we were we. I traveled V-Rock style: Foxy and Roxy had me spinning in concentric orbits of satisfaction and desire, inception, creation, insemination, both overtures, and apertures. Few closures. I don't come to close (but when I do, it's nice-all the moreso for being such a rara avis of the novum variety). Of the people I did not get to know, but wanted to, to a large degree, they consisted in no particular order of Adeo, Elon and Justine (now Super Duck-E, Vig, and Renai: I got chided by Renai when I saw her again for the first time and was again blown away by the emanations of her radiance: "a playa warrior-that one is" I might've said at some point-or just wished to have...). An energy thing. I had no idea who these people were off the playa, or what they've done, are (were) doing, or yet will do... All I knew was, when DisOrient began to float, they helped out with that levitation, and its full-on appreciation. Creative juice flowed strong, strong in 2001. And they, too, will learn flat lessons about bodies, heavenly and otherwise, and what they are capable of, and our strength, me with them, we with each other, and the Duck-E came on Super and strong, he too: DisOrient to the core, all this we. We-we!

And we Swan. It occurred to me, the story of the Ugly Duckling. So simple, that we must learn to accept difference as beauty (or for you Derrideans, derisive and otherwise as it were, différance). And beauty as acceptance. But also beauty in defiance. Defiant acceptance, reliance on acceptance, also radical reliance, defiance of the weather. Of the whether... Even of the power? And you get it back.

We get it back. We are destiny. Drawn between light and dark. Drawn together. We are all Duck-E's, all Super, we all Swans: we are all Vigs, all Renais, we are the spirit of life that conceives and receives...

Dig?

Grok.

We are the potential of a super burning man. Living on. I’s and otherwise. Eyes and other wise. What we ought to know. What we do know. Let the bard go. Let the next Bardo. On we go. On is our preposition. It is only then we know it as Life On Disorient. We believe in we self. We self is a weird construction, as are we: and that’s what we are. Or were. Who we are when we face adversity matters:

Anybody can have it easy. Oui? To we! Imperatively!

We crossed Quicksand.

We were Kooks.

You staywed with us (sic, but never staid), guess you gonna wind up bein’ pretty Kookie too!

To Wit:

We could go on, ad infinitum. Nothing to see here. These are not the druids we’re looking for.

These are not the druids.

They were all these eyes, all these the Eye’s. We sees it all. E sees it all. ‘Ere we go. Ere we go. On.

There we were. We there were. Eyes were. The Eyes see; are. We. Again. Again.

And in style, without missing any beats, on we went with the party.

Who’s got my buzz?! Brought to you by the savagest jazz, the meatiest beats.

www.partyharty.net/jag.html

Words and music by Biff Rose and Paul Williams

That’s what I’m talking about. Fill Your Heart — The Song

I’m talking about the love. Fry’m looking for some e while we’re looking to get our friends free.

But think about that: we got them free. Rather, we freed them. They freed themselves. Look ma, no bail!

We did it through love. Through all this filling in and on of our hearts. In DisOrient. On DisOrient.

That’s us not playing the game of time

That’s our power of our minds. It’s we. We are we. Forget your Mind.

Remember Ours.

And you’ll be Free–yea’

The imperative can be so darned conditional…

There are so many eyes in DisOrient. And only one the. One the eye. So many wes on DisOrient.

(Too many wees, perhaps, when plotted as a ratio, but heck, we’re working on that pretty hard too…!)

We can know it all. And we choose.

We never forget: Lovers never lose. Free as can be of thoughts unpure

(except maybe for the (sic))

And for the time being not the game…

No thoughts unkind and gentleness cleared our souls

Love cleaned our minds: washin’ the playa right off

As wine takes its drying taste right off one’s mouth after we ride

With a little dryness all it’s very own.

Usually.

Sometimes a tad too much sweetness.

But we get through it, to the place where through freedom

Happiness is happening.

Our dragons bled, got Trouble clear as a bell (great t-shirt: Got Trouble):

Spelled it out and now the new guy he’s the Seer. JD is we (Juris Doctor):

Cum Laude we might add, for we do it with honor.

With various honors…

JD is the Seer. And he was we.

We’re over the fear in our heads on Disorient. We are Life.

(are we?) we are!

We are not in over our heads (are we?):

It’s phun finding out! Phun finding you! Phun being we.

Us is phun! I put that in We’s Temple of Joy

And we smoked it…

That became The Burn. the Eye saw it. We all saw it.

Words and music by David Bowie

Andy Warhol appeared on

• Andy Warhol
• BBC Pick Of The Pops (349)
• Bowie At The Beeb
• Changes
• David Bowie BBC Sessions 1969-1972 [Sampler]
• Goth Oddity
• Hunky Dory
• Santa Monica '72
• The Best Of David Bowie

[< Hey! Is that where the idea for Being John Malcovich came from?

I love the women who call your cellphones (both of them) twice. And leave in four calls but one cogent message. Looking for tickets. The Great American offers a kind of Silver Screen: For we all shine on! >]

Anyway, we dressed each other up and down; not just for show. None for the money: two for the show.

And for so much more. Black Rock City right there to rescue us. We’re back in fashion. Back in style.

We look a scream, all of us!

But can we tell we apart et al. et al.

Tell you apart et al. et al. JewFly, why do I love you so? Why we love the love into our lives: we live!

We could tell you all. Come to tell you all. Peaches and scream. White peaches on oh what a team!

Gratitude from the depths of the ocean in our hearts, gratitude for tieing us up when we was fast asleep, and sending us on a pleasant cruise. And when we wakes up on the sea, satyrday given way to a sun day.

Sure to think of we and you. And we do. And we do. And we do.

Thought a lot about paint thought a lot about glue, thought a lot about me (eye did) and a lot about you.

Jolly for sure but nothing boring about it, what?/!

We will tell you apart et al. et al. …

We are the glue. We were there for you.

We were all so very there. Drinking it all in. Life on. Living on….

For the you and for the we of it. And on we go.

Having rallied that strongly and now deep into satyrday, recall taking it all the way out until the dawn, our RV, safe, sound, all of us we were in there at times, we were playing other games, writing other songs. We were voicing sand and glue. We were bigger than we were, they were: anyone ever was.

We were so many wes. We were so on it. So very much on. We brought a few more people on. We floated off the playa. Our floating world. Again. And on we went. On DisOrient we live and live again.

Here she comes, never the same, our same old painted ladies, so loverly, from the brow of their superb brains. Scratching our world. Sounds good, anyway. Many pieces, each art, each part of the puzzle.

We heard the Eye and the Bass and Veo went deep into the dawn in our RV, and Fry’m finally had to ask Why & Bye and High & Dry and no women no cry, and wee were we and on we went into the night.

A million pair of eyes

And told them why we saw

We lost your train of thought, we found it again, we made paintings all our own, that once if not only once, and now and again, and on into the dawn. We met. We kept meeting. We took it late. Read the Eye’s log. We take it late. We take comfort in the day, and shelter, that we might deeper explore the night. We sees. When troubles rose, we were never scared together, only scared alone. And on and on.

We wrote it on the dome. We took back our unity. We held our family. We were every nation’s refugee.

And we be.

Don’t leave us with their sanity. Let’s be home again with our own. On.

And that was quite some dawn.

And We were so turned on. ‘Cause we were so turned on.

Could we? We could not do better. It gets cold toward the dawn. We stayed warm. With each other.

And satyrday was more of that. More of that. More we, more eyes, more me and more we. Again we was stung for two of the 136 (make that eight: ~six percent, if anyone’s counting), to wit, to wit, to wit.

Fortunately not ad infinitum. That’s what the playa is about, you win some, you lose some, you win so much more, and on you go, and on we go, radically. Queens galore, but Bitchiness down to a dull roar.

There’s not much more you can say about the inchoate. It don’t go through like that. Signals get crossed: wires. Wires become trip wires. Live becomes spun, spin is in again. We’re still on, and we win again.

It could’ve been me, I thought, but not a lot. Not a lot. They’d showed what they were made of, and so did we. We could’ve tried harder, caressed more, kissed more, couldn’t’ve missed more. If we tried…?

And it was a new Satyrday all over again, and Circe’s sister Lacey (the Flute) made amazing vegetarian cuisine with most awesome Angja (Talent) and her daughter, Rainbow née Azara, and it was on, it was.

The day flew. I stayed around. We were ready to play defence. Super Duck-E and the Swan stepped up and hosted our day, most graciously, it was all as it was supposed to be, romancing, Seering, not fearing, invincible, Vig and Renai, and what’s that you say you say? you: the taste of you all. It could have been

We. Flute, and Jason her man now Nigh, drawing, drawing, ever closer, ever tighter, ever on. Tastes so.

And that’s the way you greet yet another afternoon DisOriented new day. You meet people, and discuss the whether and the were and the were- and the times and all the other games we like to play. Accepting everything as the way it should be, overcoming adversity, again and again & then doing it all over again.

And good as we were, we can do better than that. Better is what we’re all about, are we not? we indulge.

What a day, what a day. What good attitude on Trouble and the Seer! And Whim Kim. Such positivity.

Vibes flowing heavily. Super Duck-E’s RV with miss Swan. Phun, Phun Phun! Thoughts of the Mad Tatter. Thoughts of Angja, who is Talent Extraordinaire, and Azara (Rainbow) and such beauty for us to connoisseur as we steadied and readied and flowed and eddied and puddle all sippudled and fuddled and befuddled and cuddled and muddled and how we came through it all. Dig and you say and all the way through to a new preposition: That being on, becoming one, wecoming, coming on, coming round.

And one more time again. Dinner was scrumptious as the sun descended and still I would not leave camp but then off for a bit of the ole’ golf with chew dog, and a nice bottle and water and a few tees

If you please. I was playa solid player. Spot on. Took it down town. Something about the battles the night before, the right bottles, the hitting of the throttles. Swishy in we satin and tat. We will do better.

Back for a bite made Circe-sister a tad confused after no sleep whatsoever as I mentioned the handful of wines she was stashing on our behalf. Off we went, on DisOrient, as close as we all got around getting

Ready for the burn. Would that I could have seen me Wizard with flaming scimitars within the circle.

Course, I’d not being going very far: got me all dolled up, had the PR with me, other Purple Rain wizard from Buttercup. The Specialist (Cheweeeee) and Brando and we out on the Playa in front of Firmament and our camp, keeping an eye on all kinds of things. Intense energy as the fire goes up from afar, roaarr!

The dinner that night was so sating, and when the burn was down D- people returned. We had de-fenced the main section of the wall, opening ourselves up to the waves of floating world. So awesome!

Spent time dancing on our stage and hanging with Rainbow and Talent and her Mom (her daughter’s grandma: three generations of explosive women all in one place, en fuego, way to go). We immolated, concentrated, ready for a rager, more than once by our own not so Pacific ocean of sea humanities. And

We were so turned on. We were lit, split, fit, to wit: many hits. Bit down and galloped toward some conclusions. A steady hum of energy, and again one could feel the levitation, the on of it all. The and.

Captain PT Nemo came round, and it was Prime Time. 3.33 am. Super Duck-E had told me of the Good Ship Nautilus. Apparently, Nemo had a vision on DisOrient l’année derniere ‘bout oh exactly this time, of DisOrient floating above the Playa, across the playa, DisOrient on the move. His vision manifested itself in the form of a Muni Bus, which he outfitted and made see worthy. He was looking for liquidity, and we exchanged him his own story for a few drops. Omar and Mars, two of my favorite folks ever to grace the playa, were over, and Omar made the Captain a read-for-prime-time player.

Indeed, Nemo picked up about 44 of us DisOrienters, including Omar and Mars, and off they went: without we! But Chew-we being the specialist got off the bus and ran back, told the rest of us to wait outside Firmament, the bus would be back for us! Oh yeah...So with a cooler filled with cold goodnesses we awaited the good DSV Nautilus (Deep Space Vehicle?). It made it scheduled 4.20 pick up of a DJ, and then swung back round for the rest of B-us. We renamed the Captain G.O. (for Good Omen). He:

"You will travel through a land of marvels. Your mind will be in a continual state of astonishment and stupefication. It will be difficult for you to get bored with the continual spectacle that will pass before your eyes." Yes. We’s on it. There was no need to Beware, there was no need for wariness or weari-.

They gathered we and off we went to find a fire. Super Duck-E and his beauteous Swan asked me if I would help them get married, left then and there. She invited me to be her Maid of Honor. Duck-E, not to be outdone, said it would be super if I would be his best man, and so we were the wedding party (with whim Kim & it was so simple). Bass was ready to play preacher man, and we got as far as the kiss when it occurred to me that on a vessel at sea, only the captain has the authority to wed two to one another.

We stopped the proceedings as we dashed to the fore, tapped the G.O. and PT was so ready. He did perform, committing Swan to her Duck-E, Super to his Swan, we pronounced them Man and Swan.

We had quite the reception back on DisOrient to greet their dawn. We were invincible, forged in a crucible of fire and passion, the Card and Eros’s lovely sister (we call her Desi) and her friend Harvest.

It was some morning. The burn was over, the sun rose up, and there were no surprises left for a few moments there was solely satisfaction, tears in Fry’m’s eyes, the Eye and the Bass, Veo and we, Jay-go.

Like to cement fix that moment, film our standing cinema, dress we friends up for the show, see you as we really are. We went out on a pleasant cruise, and we wakes up on the sea of we: Andy Warhols all.

There were many cracks in our world, and oh my how the universe will sigh sometimes. The Specialist pulled tendons in his fingers so there would be no gowf rematch, and the day was spent preparing for the Temple of Joy to fire. Finally got to hang with Rangers Panda and Photon, such soothing influences, Jay-Go’s parents. (I now find out that Ranger Photon is Neuron: in the blink of an eye!). Neuron said:

Well, my playa knob may be off, but Neuron, wherever you may be, trust me, we’re still turning. We’ve good target memories. Rachael, who is AB Alpha to me (@ Burn, baby): and Nurse Bad & the Beacon!

Just want to exclaim how big and calming and a port-of-call were clan Ishkabibble. Their spirit carried many a day, but Sunday was their time to shine. They cooked and smiled, they hatched and spotted, wept and played, crept and sprayed, they were the way to be and their energy saved me day! So big!!!

Beacon, man you guy is the coolest! Freed of gravity, we is on the art car, and we will never have to say we are sorry, because we are getting on. Just fine, so dandy, so light and we made it man, we made it!

Finally free of our prison of surveillance, Jay-Go having taken we o’er the top, Hickey and we flew across the Playa to OOO for a l’il love. We caught some Zuvuya, Zander, Janover & Trav. So very hot.

We formed a visual circuit, on DisOrient, where we became part of the light, we paid our attention and reaped the rewards thereof. I encouraged Neuron and Panda to make the Temple of Joy burn brighter.

Went out for that on mine own, found the Nautilus with Nemo and crew thereon (Kelly now Keel and Tack). "Permission to come aboard?" (I want to be the coolest, too!) "Is it just you?" Nemo mutters.

"It is! Just me." Glad for once about that. A long, drawn out, extended pause. We’d asked.

"So how do I get up there..?" we asks, wanting to be a leaping demon on the Nautilus. Floating B-us!

"It’s just you…"

"Just me."

"Just crew!" Oh, just crew. Next year, we’d be part of your crew, Captain. You are so GOOD. Omen!

Muga on the Nauti-B-us we burn with Temples of Joy as our grace fuels a thousand dreams. Amazing!

Find Reilly aka Lor and Misty and Trav and Susanna and every fibre of my being is being the best it can be, holding nothing back, saying little, drinking it all in. Fine syrah, and que sera, it’s ok: will be will be.

What…. If the Earth is the Lord’s, the Playa is DisOrient’s. It is ours and we share it (and wear it) well.

• The signature guitar riff for this song was lifted from a 16 year old Jimmy Page who "donated" it to David when they played together in The Manish Boys.

Power weird indeed. There would be no sleep for me Sunday. We invited Nemo into our world, railed him and his crew, gave them their marching (or is that rowing) orders, white powder waves of the sea.

Monday was not mine. I was the Eye’s alarm. Seer and Duck-E and me in a ceremony on the corner of DisOrient, to say goodbye to the little white lines of the playa most free way. Without relating all privations of the hard winters between burns, let me say they are worth it for the welcome we provide.

We may feel ourselves at times outcast from our societies and companies, but when we find our own, we feel it, even before we look down and see ourselves in the cracked lookingglass of the playa. We see we.

Seer and Super Duck-E and we said goodbye to the playa together on the corner of 255 and Esplanade as dawn was coming on: far out in red sky, far from the sad eyes, ours was a strange mad celebration….

Our we is still there, with us, on the playa, in our hearts until we meet again and welcome each other back. (Next week, right Bass?) We may have very good target memories, but there are no easy Byes.

Bye is literally be with ye. Our Bye-Byes are pluralized (is that the intransitive of plural-eyes?). And I will be with ye all. I will be with ye eye. Aye. And here’s to the Rhythm (so Posh): our power source.

And Sound! You da man! We made some of the best noise on the playa, day in and night on, and we made it well and we made it swell. Fences to take down, fences to mend. Next year we will play better.

We will do better, won’t we? Can we get some witnesses? To wit, we will float more, less gravity. To wit we will be anti-G, we will keep setting each other free. We will play like children, and love like us.

We will get out on the playa & tell the truth every day & keep making it a little hot for them, won’t we?

Hey, hey hey hey, ohh
Won't you come see about me
I'll be alone dancing
You know it baby

Tell me your troubles and doubts
Giving me everything
Inside and out

Love’s strange
so real in the dark
think of the tender things
that we were working on

Slow change
may pull us apart
wanta get back
into your heart baby

Don't you forget about me
don't don't don't don't
Don't you forget about me

Will you stand above me
Look my way
or never love me
Rain keeps falling
Rain keeps falling
Down down down

Would you recognize me
Call my name
or walk on by
Rain keeps falling
Rain keeps falling
down down down

Hey hey hey hey, oh

Don't you try to pretend
It’s my view we'll win in the end
I won't harm you
or touch your defenses
Vanity, insecurity

Don't you forget about me
I'll be alone
dancing, you know it baby

Going to take you apart
I'll put us back
Together at heart baby

Dont' you forget about me
Don't you
Don't you forget about me

As you walk on by
will you call my name
as you walk on by
will you call my name
when you walk away

Or will you walk away
Or will you walk on by
Are you going to call my name
Will you call my name

I think we're in love
lalalalalalalalala
lalalalalalala
lalalalalalalala
lalalalala

When you walk on by