Memories Of A Small Tribe In Galway
Monday, February 11, 2008 at 12:22AM 
Along with a few other writers (DBC Pierre, Howard Marks, Sebastian Horsley etc) I was asked to contribute some of my few surviving tattered memories to the current issue of Hot Press. The issue is a wonderfully exploitative and tacky DRUGS!!! special, with a coke-smeared model on the cover who happens to look a bit like the young Irish lingerie model, Katie French, who died recently after her coke-fueled 24th birthday party.
As the memories I contributed were from the same place and time as the Toasted Heretic gigs we've been discussing in the forum, I thought I'd repeat them here...
My earliest experience of drugs was as a member of a small tribe in Galway.
We would collect magic mushrooms in the traditional manner, on the sacred golf-course of Knocknacarra. Every season, Joe Seal, a priest of the tribe, would make magic mushroom wine. My first trip, the young men of the tribe gathered in a holy place in Salthill and drank deeply of mushroom tea. A heck of a lot of mushroom tea. Then we went to the Warwick. The night lasted several years, and I sank into the floor several inches whenever I lay down, which was often. Then it started raining in the Warwick. Then tribes of pygmies wandered across the dance floor.
It was unnerving, and many of our tribe fled. (Days later, we discovered that a busload of dwarves on holiday were staying in the Warwick: and that the place was so packed the condensation had been pouring from the ceiling.)
Some of us ended up in Spar, where one of our number demanded that the shopkeeper slice his Mars Bar into many slices with the bacon slicer. However, his urgent request was not understood, and our tribesman fled. Soon many of the tribesmen were in flight, through space and time. Several walked a number of miles out of town. One slept in a field. Another was found at dawn, still walking, past Spiddal, and was brought home by the forces of law and order.
They were the best days of our lives, and they destroyed many of us. Over the next few years, some of us achieved enlightenment. Some of us died. Joe Seal died in India. A girl I liked killed herself. A girl I loved lost her mind and never found it again, and is still lost. Quite a few of us ended up in psychiatric hospitals, or with terrible depressions… We didn't know what we were doing, we didn't take it seriously enough. As Philip K. Dick said of his friends, and of mine,
"They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed - run over, maimed, destroyed - but they continued to play anyhow."
I have two very strong opinions on drugs. Those who are against drugs should take more of them: those who are for drugs should take less of them. Most societies make sure that their young people take dangerous drugs in controlled circumstances, very rarely, and with an experienced guide to make sure they come back with new knowledge of themselves, and of their relationship to the universe. We neck anything that's going, head down to Abrakebabra, and fight. Few achieve enlightenment in Abrakebabra.
A note on the images in this post:
The first is a fabulous fractal freakout called "This Is Your Brain On Drugs", by the artist Sven Geier, who also works in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The second image is of Yapa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi, visiting London from the island of Tanna, at the southern tip of the island nation of Vanuatu. It is from the acclaimed Channel 4 documentary, Meet The Natives.
The third image is a crop of a digital landscape called "Enlightenment", created using Terragen by the Arizona artist Pat Goltz.
Reader Comments (12)
Made any more revolutionary discoveries lately? Or failing that, brewed any more prehistoric beer? I think you were planning a spring brew, using meadowsweet, no?
For the benefit of non-Irish readers: Dec Moore and Billy Quinn turned Irish archaeology on its head last year. They made the news all over the world with their very persuasive theory (which explains a lot of otherwise mysterious Irish monuments), that Ireland had 4,500 microbreweries, and were thus World Beer Champions, in the Bronze Age... The clincher was making the actual beer, Bronze Age style, and drinking it... hang on, I'll search out some links...
Here they are in Spiegel Online
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,524436,00.html
The BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6941951.stm
Wired:
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/15-12/ps_ale
Here's what they were saying in India:
http://www.medindia.net/news/Worlds-Largest-Prehistoric-Brewery-Unearthed-in-Ireland-24932-1.htm
Anyway, you get the idea. Punk archaeology at its finest.
Hey Dec, I mentioned your cathedral-climbing past over in the forum last week:
http://www.juliangough.com/talk-talk-talk/post/336831
Fel free to disagree with my memories...
In my hazy recollection, Ski was already up there before me, but I could be wrong. I did experience a minor head injury around that time, which has affected my long term memory (but no-one believes me).
Hope I could get some books to read, but if your too busy, or just don't have the patience, I'll understand.
Yours,
Ariel.
Still miss Joe.
5000 pookies in one pot! A miracle any of us survived really.
So many stars have gone out since those happy nights.
No country for old men. The salmon falls, the mackerel crowded seas...
I have another memory of walking through Eyre Square one night, blitzed on pookies, as the Galway All-Ireland team came home in triumph. There were weird figures shouting and roaring high in every tree, crowds swaying and chanting and melting on every bus shelter in the square, searchlights blasting the sky above SuperMacs, and distorted Tannoy announcements in Martian. A curious sci-fi mixture of Tarzan and the Nuremberg rallies.
Of course our tolerence had built up over the preceding few months. Apart from Zulu for whom it was the first trip of the year. We spent the whole night trying to stop him swallowing his tongue while he merrilly fitted away in front of us.
I have a vague notion that we tried to watch Highlander and a bunch of pornographic cartoons on video. Remember watching the movie again about 5 years later and being terribly disappointed.
When I die and they lay me to rest and go to the place that's the best, it'll look like Salthill golf course on a breezy November evening in 1987.
i just happened upon your site while looking for Swinging Swine music.I went to UCG '85-'88, failed every exam i
sat in time honoured Galway style but spent most of my time having fun.I was overcome with waves of memories and emotions as i read your blogs and saw Joe Seals name.He was the centre of our gang all those years ago and when i heard of his death all those years ago i thought then as i do now that those who the Gods love die young as we grow old and are left with memories.He showed me how to make tea properly and as for his beautiful wine whaty can i say.Now i've found your site i'll become a regular visitor- i'll start with Jude.
Regards and keep up the good work.
Johnny.
never going to happen.I think i'll take up golf.
Regards Johnny.
Zulu, Joe Seal, golf course wine... strange days indeed.