Do you remember where you were 21 years ago today? I do, but thats another story. My point is sometimes a date is meaningless, probably 300 plus out of the year. No anniversaries of any sort. At least none that stick out in your mind. So how do I know that in Oct of '89 I got lost in my parents kitchen? Easy, the S.F. earthquake at the start of the Giants/A's world series game. I was just east of Sac when it hit. A few days later I wound up in Milwaukee.
So one day I get in contact with my friend Dave Vick. I went to his place, hung out, smoked pot, and listened to the Dead. Before leaving he gave me five hits of acid. I took two, then two more, and thought "why hang onto one". Five hits in an hours time. So I hopped into my brothers mean green machine, and old Suburban, and headed to the house that I grew up in. The yellow submarine. My parents were out of town at the time, but my brother, oldest sister, and her now husband were there. Watching the baseball game that nite was like watching a video game. The nite ended and my sister and bro-in-law left. My brother crashed. As for myself...well. Alright, a few hours later I thought I should go crash. Now I just needed to navigate my way from one end of the house to the other. Easy. The only problem was getting from the family room to the dining room.
So here I am at the doorway of the family room and the dining part of the kitchen. I had to look off at a 45% angle to see the doorway of the cooking area of the kitchen and the dining room. Hand on the lite switch I have a direct route mapped out in my head. One strait line. Two or three steps into the kitchen I distracted myself. The room is beyond black. My pupils are wide open but no lite is coming in. I start feeling my way around, arms out stretched. Finally the curtians at the sliding door. I pull them back only to see a lightning storm. It wasn't really there...but it was. From there I could feel my way along the walls and cupboards. Dining room, lite switch. Hallway, turn on the lites, turn off the dining room lite. Ah, bedroom dead ahead. Lites on, then off in the hall.
As anyone who has tripped knows, you can't sleep on acid. Half an hour later I hear an alarm go off. 4:30 am, my brother the truck driver is getting up for work. Here is the really odd thing, the song that was playing when he turned on his stereo was ...My mind just went blank. It was Rod Stewart. A song Robbie Robertson also did. Help me out hear folks. ..AH... Phil Lesh did this song also...Broken Arrow
I still don't sleep much, even finished my laundry at 4 this am.
12 comments:
And yes, my art work is better than john lennons. did he do anything original?
love your stories, man.
T
So Todd, with that story having been written on the 23 of August, do you recall where you were on that date 21 years earlier?
I do indeed. I was at Angels Camp in Calaveras County watching the Dead and El Rayo X. Just two hits for me that day!
Pretty sure I navigated my way back to the car OK.
The prince of polyester.
As I'm typing this watching the Dead from the vault dvd 7/26 Anahiem
kichigai!
Bob ... I remember that show. And I remember being with a fellow blasted out of his skull who kept walking up on the security guard manning the elevator and screaming "I want to see the man at the top!" "This don't go to the top," the guard told him. "Well," he reconsidered, "then I want to see the man at the bottom!"
And for some reason that reminds me of the Reggae Sunsplash show at the Greek Theater in, what -- it was when Van Morrison's "Hymns to the Silence" came out, so '91 I'm guessing. If memory serves, I was there with you, my sister, Jason, maybe a couple other knuckleheads -- all dosed and just coming on, and a freaking fire breaks out in Griffith Park! They evacuated the whole place. Had to come back the next day and see the rest of the show. Now did I just dream that up?
Oddly enough I remember part of that.
But in '91 I was on heroin and...well, pretty much out of it. Could it have been 90 or even 89? I do remember a sun splash show at the Greek when Yellowman sang a song about vaginas. Got to go to work now. Maybe tonite I'll write about that. If I still have a job.
Speaking of Van,here is a freak moment for you. The first time I met you we were driving down Reseda Blvd in your orangish/rust colored Pontiac or something else (hows that for being exact?) and "Blue Money" came on the radio. Does anybody remember radios? do do you do, do do do you do when this is all over I'll be under clover.
Yeah, Yellowman extolling the virtues of vaginas -- that was the show. And close on the Pontiac -- actually a Chevy Citation, same immediately discontinued X-car design as the Pontiac Phoenix. Take five. Honey.
And not just a radio -- but AM radio only. Good times.
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