Waiting room of the soul..


(This is an old post from around the 20th of May. It originally appeared the day after I got refused entry from England. A few days later I ended up in quite a lot of trouble in Turkey, more posts on this to come, and my family had to take it down for fear of it influencing events. In the interests of keeping this blog as a record of my travels this year, I'm reposting it so that the chronology remains true. On another note it now seems desperately ironic that the English wouldn't let me in for fear of me being a trouble-maker, given the horrible eruptions of their fragile society and the pissed off underclass in the last few weeks. Serves em right.)


How come I end up where I started?/How come I end up where I went wrong?/Won't take my eyes off the ball again/First You reel me out and then you cut the string.
- from '15 Step' by Radiohead

What do a stubby Saudi Arabian, a muscular lanky Brazilian, an overweight American and me all have in common?
Well at the moment we're all sitting in the holding room of the Heathrow Airport immigration detention centre, pending our removal from a green country we'll never see. 

Pictures of cute puppies and penguins adorn the walls of this cell, under stagnant flouro lights shining off chemically blasted marble floors. I have been locked in here for 8.5 hours already and I'll be in here for another 11 before I get the boot back to Turkey from whence I came. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it. Probably shouldn't have stayed up all last night in Istanbul, and made this trip without any sleep, but when the beers are cold and the company fine, who could say no?
puppies,+women+015.JPG.jpg
Turkey was a mixed experience - a funny hybrid of east and west and without the charms of either. Bus loads of fat, white-haired, pastel tourists getting their summer fix of mild exoticism. After I crossed the border from Iran I shot down through the vast foodbowl of Anatolia or Eastern Turkey, encountering a real live Kurdish guerrilla freedom fighter, and also getting stuck hitching in the rain. 

Then I met my super wonderful friend Beeeskins in Antalya. We squatted a beautiful old overgrown junkie house in Antalya for one night an then promptly got the boot from some confused coppers the next day. Following which we worked for two days in exchange for food and board, clearing out a horribly overgrown garden on a small hobby farm making olive oil. Bit of a hack and slash job between furious rain squalls. Drinking captain Morgans rum by the fire at night. Lopsided drunken leering house made from lovely aged pine and egg white sand gravel mix walls. Staying indoors was pretty lush, getting stoned and making home job tattoos. 

Speaking of tattoos yesterday in Istanbul I heckled a cute young turk w nice tatts walking his dog, who came over to join us. We promptly became firm friends, So much so that he insisted that I give him a tattoo right there and then in the park. After rigging up a stick an poke tattoo instrument, and some 2000 dots later I left him with a fine piece of Melbourne style art- a black and orange chainsaw with a ribbon wrapped around it saying "tattoos make friends. " They sure do... Meanwhile Beee cut hair from a park bench. DIY or die!

Flash back to London and it seems unreal that I've just been denied entry to a country which preaches the western ideology of justice, multiculturalism and tolerance. My political convictions apparently give them ground to refuse me leave to enter. It doesn't help that student protest is a hot topic here in the UK as people protest about funding cuts, or that I'm a political voice with "positions" or "views" as they called them. What a load of rubbish, this system of absolute power over immigration, built from fear and hysterical protectionism. Not to mention the egotistical desire to assert the inviobility of one's territory. Especially for a country that shares a continent with the near borderless region of the European Union. Perhaps it's a reaction to their fading position in the new world order. The idea of a commonwealth citizen being refused entry to the theoretical seat of the empires government is one that shows how thin is the veneer of an inclusive arrangement between Australia and England. Allow me to just take this opportunity then to say Fuck You to the Queen of England, and that the sooner Australia is a republic the better. Ugly and irrelevant old bitch. 

But I think that's enough sourness for now. This morning I really learnt the true meaning of an escape into dreaming. As I was shaken awake from a deep exhausted sleep on my row of typical green-vinyl cushioned plastic seats, a rush of unfamiliar sensations reminded me abruptly of my situation. I'm now on my way back to Istanbul. Apart from laying a month or two of my plans for England to waste, this isn't the end of the world. Instead I now get the opportunity to explore eastern Europe, maybe Georgia, definitely Greece and Italy. Beeeskins is still in Istanbul, and there's a whole world of adventure to be had out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm still wildly pissed off at being slapped in the face by the global system of soft-cocked bureaucratic job apologists yet again. But in order to LIVE TO WIN one must turn setbacks into opportunities, and bide ones time for vengeance *evil laugh*. Catch you round folks,
Over this shit,An outta this world.
Love from MITCH

Ps. Theres some sweet new photos on my flickr page of the tatts I mentioned above, check em out! Dangerous territory me tattooing, once I start I can't stop! Uh oh..
Www.live-to-win.blogspot.com
Www.flickr.com/captainruin

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