Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:58 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 1:15 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 3:57 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:34 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:35 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:13 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:20 am
Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:40 pm
Mon Feb 21, 2005 5:51 pm
Mon Feb 21, 2005 7:06 pm
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
A drug person can learn to handle such things as seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no one should be asked to deal with this trip.
You better take care of me, Lord. If you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.
There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time---and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit.
The possibility of physical and mental breakdown is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride
Jesus, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing - intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out. The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes. Flee.
We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel. There was only one road back to L.A. - Route 15. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway, into obscurity. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom.