These next posts could fill three dense volumes. I'm going to try to cover it in only a few chapters.
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In the mid-1980's I was a "girlfriend" kind of guy/kid. I always had a main squeeze--THE one (or so I reasoned to myself). And I hung around with other guys who declared publicly just WHO they wanted to be with. The problems began there, I guess. In the following accounts I will open up a part of my life that has been wholly hidden until now. It has all of the best ingredients: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll and Religion.
There are things that are key to remember when you are young and experimenting. I can tell you them now, but I was an idiot when I really needed them. Still...
Never, ever, EVER tell a girlfriend or wife you are cheating on them...while on psychedelics. Resist the temptation! You can do it! I had such a close relationship with one girlfriend in high school and college, that I was unable to NOT tell the truth.
But before the tragedy of that disaster, there was an incredible time that I have been bursting to tell for over 20 years. And now, by God, I'm going to tell it.
If we continue on from the last post...
I did LSD more and more frequently. I often found that I would be frustrated by the tolerance I'd build up in a week. That is one nice thing about acid: you simply cannot become habituated to it. It may rule your attention for a time, but the physiological reality is that you simply can't take acid the next night and expect to have a great trip, and THAT is reality. Even doing it once per week became boring. Once a month MIGHT be profitable. Still SOME effects were felt even when it was a "lesser" experience. I found a way - through dumb luck - to use it in two different senses.
I didn't realize it at the time but I was developing a strategy to give myself both the profound discoveries and the ability to use it in small-dose, more often, and in subtle ways...I wanted to experience everything I possibly could from the LSD-perspective. But taking too much wasn't going to work, and taking too little or taking it too close to a last time just made the experience frustratingly lacking.
Sometimes DC would just show up with both of our steady girlfriends at the time (who did not take LSD) and just walk into my bedroom, holding out a long finger with a tiny white square at the end. How could I resist?
We had some good times and some AMAZING times. And I eventually reached a peak point for that time in my life. It was a time where the slightest thing could bring down a very pretty house of cards. And I discovered a realm that is not well understood...that of the BAD TRIP.
Initially having a hard time on LSD was hard to differentiate from having a blast. Everything in the universe was turned inside out and painted with paisley, both figuratively and literally. It is difficult for a human being who has been shown all his/her life that the world "operates" according to rules, to discover that the human world is but a flimsy, sterile, cartoon reality with no substance, going in no particular direction. This is especially true when one is young and just getting indoctrinated into culture by elders and so-called "authorities." And how much more-so with an ILLEGAL substance that virtually no-one (even to this day) really understands?
Science can explore outer space, biology, weapon designs of the most appalling destructive nature. I'm sure a lot of valuable things have NOT been learned through science though. For sure, exploring the profound realms of consciousness or even self-hood, by psychedelic means, is still - so far - out of the question.
As I have mentioned before, DC and I were in a very popular band at that time. And we played frequently at a place call Checkerboard Club. It was a "chem-free," Pepsi only place. All the underage kids would just get drunk, stoned and start tripping before going out and then hang out there for most of the evening. The owner shut the place down at 11 pm, kicked everyone out (save the band, our girlfriends and some other hangers-on) and then rolled and smoked joints with us as we packed up. Bill! Long live Bill! I still see him sparking a fatty...
I nearly always drove DC and our girlfriends (KD and KS) home each night. We were living the life of adults (or so we thought) when we were only 16-17 years old. And...IT WAS HEAVEN!
On one of these lightly LSD-laced nights, as I drove up Route 9 toward the turn-off to KS's road, I noticed that the double lines were floating above the tar surface of the road. There was even a shadow under them as if the car's headlights illuminated the road paint. This was the night when the girls had a special "favor" for us (DC and I) as we drove along...but that favor shall remain a secret forever.
Sex became a way of exploring new territory, psychically. KD and I did everything under God's golden sun (and moon)--though she never took LSD as long as I was with her. Still, I remember one night that her parents were gone and I had just bought, what was called "album cover." Some genius had soaked an album cover in acid, let it dry and then scored it into small, half-inch squares. It was one of the cleanest and most enjoyable LSD experiences I have ever had. And KD and I made the most of it. The feeling of sex is like a brightly colored liquid of warm flesh and open minds, mixing. Every movement every dance of light is like a private opera where only two people are on stage...only two people in the whole world! Images and hypnagogic swirling of color is absolutely unsurpassed in non-psychedelic experience. The fragrance, temperature, moisture... It has to be experienced to be believed. And KD was a wonderful person who I loved very much and that night in the light of Max Headroom we covered all the bases, plus short stop. She and I had a good long run for high school (about 2 years). She was as into my life and I was into her life on so many levels, but we got tired of it for some reason.
It was around this time that other girls really started coming into the picture. I figured as long as it was only me wanting them, I couldn't really get myself in trouble with KD. She sometimes knew that things were off...But for her part she was extremely loyal and to her own detriment, trusting me. Then there came a point around Christmas 1985, that these other girls became more insistent.
My only ego-reservations came from my personal religion. It will be well-understood once people make the connection between me and this blog, why I was so intensely interested in religion at that age. There is a special book (not the Bible), a book I was born "into"; into one of the families who read it. It claims to be a spiritual revelation about God and the universe, so there was also a kind-of sci-fi feel to the whole thing. Well, I did the unthinkable...I decided to read this whole very elaborate and highly complex book on acid. Over the year or so that I read this "revelation," I found that the teachings of this mostly-unknown book helped temper my ego and eventually was used to escape from...well...essentially...HELL.
But that is still a-ways off...
Eventually, one thing led to another and the fights and arguments caused by the lack of trust that was seeping into our relationship came to a head. I broke up with KD. We were very close and this was devastating to both of us. But it was truly only a high school romance, like the millions of others. KD and I were done though. There were a few encounters after that but the flame was out.
The band I was in was destabilizing. We were getting sick of each other. When we had first gotten together it was like a supernatural force took us forward, but by that spring of 1986 it was clear that we had musical and some personal issues to put up with among the five of us. I announced to the band that I wanted a divorce from them. Another guy, JG was also of a similar mind. We were all about to go off to college anyway and I had other ideas for what kind of band I wanted. So I can be blamed, but it probably would have happened at some point soon anyway.
In the meantime, there were dozens and dozens of parties and getting to know the folks from the neighboring towns--other musicians. I tried to use low-dose acid to create an interpersonal 'archetype' of myself. It's hard to explain... I wanted people to be intrigued by me, without allowing them to know me very well. It was a strategy to find other musicians without showing all my cards. And it worked beautifully. I got together with a couple guys (CK and SB) and a new act was established. And a social life was re-established.
Still, the music, the acid, the weed, a fake ID, and life was golden; like it has never been since. I had some brief romantic stretches. The one with MJ was very meaningful to me. For the most part, my former band-mates went on to much greater success than I have musically; some national too. I was the only one of us to get a Liberal Arts degree. They all went to Berkley in Boston. That is when the bifurcation took place. All this time I had been experimenting with my 4-track recorder, often stoned, and sometimes tripping. Writing poems and songs became a much bigger deal. And I found that I had something to say. These very early recording sessions turned out to be a life-long passion and love of mine. I am even now recording my life and times as a musical journal and have been since 1983.
During these in-between-bands days and before actually going off to college, I met the only woman (girl, at the time) who I ever connected with on what I consider to be a tangibly super-material level. I want to give her initials but she would be embarrassed and quite irritated to still be associated with me and this, since what I'm going to relate flies in the face of her current faith and persona.
But these things DID really happen as I'm going to tell in the next post. They were REAL and very, very obvious to both of us at the time. I think she is hoping that it (and I) will just go away. But I need to unburden myself from carrying it all these years; a series of events I have been unable to speak about (mostly out of respect for her). Ultimately though, I must tell the story wherever it may lead. These times - twenty three years ago - were the only times I have ever felt that I was contacted by super-material forces and beings. This contact was real and but strange because it was not DUE to the use of psychedelics. And the actual contacts themselves were drug-free. Still haven't gotten to that part yet.
When this new girlfriend and I took LSD for the first time, we KNEW we were meant to be together and would grow old with each other. Immediately we both had found what was still called a "soul-mate," in the 1980's. We realized with a kind of stunning clarity just how closely we both saw things. I introduced her to this "book" I mentioned earlier, and we began to explore it together, with several sessions on acid. The golden summit of my young life was about to appear out of the clouds. And it was wonderful. But, as we will see, no climber gets to stay on the summit forever.
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Sorry this was kind of a boring post. I needed to do a lead-in. The next one should make up for it, as I take you along with me to a world just outside of all of our everyday experiences...
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Remember to wear your soul on the outside.
