Slow day at work (longest threads related)
kitchenknight
4,922 Posts
Three day weekend here in Boston (thank you, Revolutionary War for giving us the regional Patriots Day holiday) and half the office is out. I've got nothing but busy work ahead of me until I bust out of here early at 3...So, I read the entire White Girls thread. oof.Anyway, there was a mention of a 13 pager Private Press thread. Anyone have a link? Anyone have a link to some of the other longer, maybe more entertaining threads I may have missed over the years? I got nothing but time today, so post 'em up and keep me reading.thanks.
Comments
Definately sleeping on this little piece of action.
C.
I read most of NZShadow's posts aloud when that one first came up...had me rolling.
Hell people, post a blog link if you got 'em. I'd rather read 13 pages on private-press nonsense, but I'll read about your boring lives if that's what it comes to.
http://68.40.188.159:7000/
Instead of sleeping on boring blogs, why not beein a DJ ?
awesome. thanks!
Yeah, this is pretty hot...
Now, anyone got anything to read while I listen to this?
I'll give you some politico reading, for those interested. www.shawnmccormack.blogspot.com. A friend of mine in law school has been doing some really insightful, entertaining writing on politics. A lot of constitutional stuff, some current events, etc.
Here's a story about a crazy bad acid trip I had at a show one time.
It's in third person because I was writing it as part of a novel.
He got to the show and parked his car. The parking lot was festive and colorful. It was the usual Grateful Dead parking lot scene. There were people playing Frisbee and others selling veggie burritos. He saw t-shirts and bongs for sale on the trunks of cars. Everyone seemed to be wearing bright tie-dyed shirts, including himself. He looked completely natural in that crowd of people. Anyone else would have assumed that he fit in and belonged there. However, he knew that he didn???t. Not really. He had been to many Dead shows in the past but this one just felt different as he walked alone up and down the aisles of cars. Everyone else seemed to be with a group of people. Everyone had friends that they were talking to, or playing with, or just standing next to. He didn???t.
He decided that it would be important to be high for the show. At that point he had not yet been to a Dead show without getting high on something. He would later learn that it wasn???t necessary for him to be high to enjoy the music and the people, but at this time in his life he hadn???t realized that yet. So he went looking for someone to buy some acid from. Well, being that this was basically a Dead show, it didn???t take him long to find somebody who would sell him some acid. He gave the guy his money, thanked him, and put the small square of paper on his tongue.
Have you ever taken acid? LSD? It???s strange because you really don???t feel anything for about an hour, but right when you put the little square of paper on your tongue you can feel this weird sort of chemical electricity pass through. It???s hard to describe. He always felt it most at the back sides of his tongue and those parts of his jaw that were near these areas.
Unfortunately he lost track of time while walking around the parking lot. He couldn???t remember how long ago it was that he had taken the acid, but he wasn???t feeling anything yet. And he got worried. He definitely didn???t want to experience the concert alone AND not high. ???Maybe it was a dud,??? he thought to himself. ???I better find someone to buy another hit from and take one more.??? And so he did, and then he did. But as you are probably already guessing, it hadn???t been an hour yet. And the first hit of acid was only just starting to kick in when he had just taken the second hit.
Now, just so you know, he had taken multiple hits of acid before. This wasn???t necessarily the problem. The problem was that acid trips are much like dreams: They take everything that is experientially and psychologically available to them and make connections between them. Dreams can be good and dreams can be bad. Dreams can teach you things about yourself that are very meaningful and wonderful and enlightening. And then again, dreams can scare the fucking shit out of you. It is the same process that creates both the dream about finding your true love and the horrible nightmare about the evil shadowy figure who is chasing you down to kill you with a knife. Same function, same activity. Dreams.
And acid trips are very similar. They can show you insightful things that change the way you think about yourself and the world. Wonderful things. They can also root around through all your fears and combine the worst of them into labyrinthine plots of terror. This is the main reason why environment is always a key aspect of taking hallucinogens. If your head is in a good place and you are with people you trust then chances are you will have an exciting and wonderful time.
He was alone among a crowd of strangers.
He made it to his seat just before the show started. As he stood there waiting for the music he realized that he was starting to feel very high. At this point, however, that was a good thing for him. It meant that the second hit hadn???t been a dud. As the music started he looked over to his right and just past the edge of the stage he could see a large full moon. It had just risen as the sun had set. With his expanded vision he thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and the fact that he noticed it right as the music was beginning seemed to him like an omen of good fortune.
Well, soon after the music started he noticed that a bunch of people were running down to a section closer to the stage to fill seats that were empty at the time. This seemed like a good idea to him, and in the spirit of taking chances and going with the flow, he decided to run down to that section too. Soon he was dancing to the music and utterly enjoying himself. All worries about being lonely faded as he listened to the sweet sound of the music. He was reminded of how beautiful he thought Jerry???s songs always were. They were the epitome of beauty???s characteristics: Fragile, hopeful, imperfect, and lovely. He thought that people who didn???t like the Grateful Dead because they thought Jerry was a bad singer were missing the point. Jerry???s broken imperfect voice were what made the songs seem so legitimately beautiful. It made them seem real.
As he danced, he even started to strike up a conversation with the guy that was dancing next to him. They talked between sets and tried to guess what song might come next. This is a favorite hobby of some deadheads. Then the first set ended and he and his friend sat down in the seats that were not theirs. They continued to talk about the set, trying to remember all of the songs Jerry played and write them down on little sheets of paper that they kept in their pocket so that they would remember them later (another hobby). And all the while he thought to himself how proud he was of himself for coming to the show alone. And how happy he was that he was making a new friend.
But something was very slowly starting to go wrong.
There???s no other way to put it really. As he talked to his new friend, he slowly became aware of people talking all around them. He couldn???t be sure but they seemed to be talking about all of the people who had rushed down during the first set and were now sitting in other people???s seats. He never heard anything definite, but he caught snippets here and there like, ???Yeah, they just all swarmed down here,??? and ???Don???t they realize that they are sitting in other people???s seats???? And these snippets slowly started to build and coalesce in the back of his mind as he was talking to his new friend. He wasn???t even really conscious of them. It was like they were building in secret, waiting to spring on him in a complete and terrifying form.
It happened like this???
One minute he was talking to his new friend, and the next minute he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the whole stadium was watching these two dumb guys who were so unaware that they didn???t realize that they were sitting in other people???s seats even though everyone else had decided not to sit around them so that there was a large empty circle of seats all around them. He knew this all at once. It was as if he suddenly became aware of the conversation snippets, the empty seats, and everyone???s attention all at the same exact time. And it immediately made him feel as if he were the first of two rabbits to notice that they were surrounded by wolves who were just about to pounce on them and eat them. And then, in his panic, he did a very cowardly thing: He ran.
He didn???t think about the other rabbit. He didn???t look back. He just bolted up in his seat and ran up the aisle as fast as he could. The next day, looking back on this particular moment, he wondered what went through the mind of the person who had been, but would no longer be, his new best friend. It must have seemed quite strange indeed.
As he ran up the aisle he chanced sidelong glances at people in the crowd and each one of them seemed to be pointing or laughing or remarking to his friend how stupid the two guys in those front seats had been. Right then his loneliness returned with a vengeance. Wait, not loneliness. Complete isolation. He ran up and out of the stadium and towards the concession stands looking desperately for a safe place to stop and regain control of the situation. But he couldn???t find anyplace. Every time he stopped for a minute to catch his breath he became painfully and fearfully aware of the people that were near him. Were they talking about him? Had they seen? How could he trust them? They too might pretend to be friendly and safe and then turn on him.
He didn???t know it at the time but he was starting to have a mild panic attack. His throat felt dry and ticklish, as if there were cat hairs in it. He felt incredibly thirsty. He had to drink something, and yet he could not figure out how to find something to drink. Eventually he noticed a guy holding a drink cup and he ran up and stammered out something about needing to drink because he was choking and could he please have just a sip of the drink that this guy was holding, all the while approaching but also backing away in hesitation because he wasn???t sure if this guy ???was in on it.??? Although confused (as you can imagine) by his behavior, the guy decided to let him drink some of his soda. He quickly drank about half of the cup, stuttered a thank you, and then ran off again in fear.
The drink didn???t really help. He still felt the dryness and the cat hairs. However, the panic started to recede. Actually it receded and transformed into a steady simmering paranoia. He continued to walk around in the grass quad in front of the concession stands because there seemed to be less people around in this area. That was good. As he walked he was talking to himself in his head. An endless monologue of fear and paranoia and just a bit of logic. Surely everyone in the stadium couldn???t be in on the cruel joke that was pulled on him. He was sure that the situation with the empty seats had indeed happened, but now he could see that everyone else in the stadium didn???t necessarily have to be part of it. If he could just find a small group of people to tell everything to, they would be able to help him. They could straighten him out. All he needed to find were some patient, good-hearted people.
He looked around. Sure he saw them. Sitting around in clumps on the grass, or standing in groups by the concession stands, but he just couldn???t approach them. What would he say? It was all too weird. They would think he was nuts or scary or just not worth the trouble. And then there was always the possibility that they were in on it after all. That they would point and laugh at him. No. He just couldn???t take the chance.
Finally he decided that he just couldn???t run anymore. He was exhausted. He walked to the very center of the grass area where all of these concrete paths lead to a concrete circle and he laid down on his back in the middle of this circle spread-eagled to the sky with his arms and legs completely stretched out wide and he said out loud, but not loudly, to all the people and even to God, ???Ok, if you want me that bad then just come and get me. I???m tired of running. Come on and do your worst.???
You see, his thinking was that if he could make himself as vulnerable as possible and somehow survive the consequences, then he would be ok. He would know that the world wasn???t trying to devour him, and he could slowly start to get a grip on the psychological train wreck that he was experiencing. So he laid there. And he laid there. And just as he thought that nothing was going to happen, and that he was going to be fine, he heard this growing thunder of cloppity-clop sounds, and just as he lifted his head and looked up, someone who had been running right toward him saw him look and suddenly veered off in another direction.
You can imagine what this did to his already strained paranoia.
He quickly jumped up and decided that anyplace was better than this concrete circle where he had just been foolish enough to have dared the world to come and get him. Even the stadium might be better than this. At least there would be music. Yeah, the music. Maybe the beauty of Jerry???s songs would help him.
He re-entered the stadium and tried to find his official seat near the back. He found a seat that was seemingly empty and close enough to his real seat. He very carefully settled in and tried to focus on the song that was playing. And it worked. Slowly but steadily he loosened up and started to dance to the music. He felt the fear start to dissolve away. He even talked a little bit to the woman beside him. Things went fairly well for a couple of songs until he happened to look around him and notice that in three of the four directions there were empty seats around him.
He was the rabbit again.
And with an angry cry of, ???Ah, come on you guys, that just isn???t cool!??? he got up and left. He just couldn???t be sure. Who was in on it? Was he making it up? He knew he didn???t make up everything. The original incident did indeed happen. Yet how much of what followed was true?
He decided to leave the concert all together and wait the acid trip out by sitting in his car. He knew he wouldn???t be ready to drive for some time, but surely he would feel safe alone in his car. Well, you don???t have to spend too much time realizing that finding his car in a full parking lot, in the state he was in, was not an easy task. But eventually he did indeed manage to find it. There was only one problem: once inside of his car he felt completely claustrophobic. It was too small. There was not enough air. He couldn???t possibly sit here for the next four or five hours. ???Ok,??? he thought to himself, ???I???ll just sit outside my car for the rest of the time.??? This didn???t work either. He felt too exposed. Too silly. He couldn???t help thinking of people saying, ???Why is that guy sitting near that car???? This was a silly and illogical fear, true. But that was the state he was in.
He tried his car again and when that didn???t work he got out again. Eventually he just ended up crouching down by his front tire, thankfully never realizing that this was actually even more suspicious looking than his other two options.
Not much time passed before he noticed some guy running by him in a direction perpendicular to the aisles of cars. Then another guy ran past in the very same direction. This sparked his curiosity, and also his latent fear, so he rose up to see where they were running to. He couldn???t see them anymore so then he decided to look back to see where they had been running from and he noticed several other people running towards him from the same direction and then running past and away in the same direction as the first two guys. He somehow decided that if everyone was running in this particular direction then it was probably an important thing for him to be running in that direction as well.
His decision making skills at this point were not at their most powerful.
So he started running along with all of these other people who he could now tell were running towards this fence. And that???s when it occurred to him that they weren???t all running towards something but running away from something. Then he saw the motorcycles parked against the fence. He had another one of those moments when he knew everything at once. There obviously were a large group of bikers who were herding all of these deadheads towards the fence where they would be trapped. The bikers were then going to beat them up.
Of all the mistaken and misguided thoughts that he had that night, this one was perhaps the easiest for him to see as wrong and over-the-top. His dad had ridden a Harley for years and had a bunch of friends who were bikers. He has lived with some of them and hung out with many of them and at any other time he would have known that bikers don???t just herd people up for no reason and beat them up. But at that point, on that night, it all seemed to make perfect sense. They were being herded by bikers who were going to thrash on them.
That???s when he decided that he should stop running and walk right back to his car. Anything was better than the thought of being beaten up by bikers, and if he kept running that is exactly what would happen to him. This completely erroneous thought at least got him back to his car.
At this point he was wishing that he could call his friend Andy to drive down to Irvine and pick him up. Andy would do it if he was home. Andy was very experienced with LSD. He would know the right things to do. Plus, Andy would be able to be rational. Something he knew he himself was incapable of right now. Unfortunately, there wasn???t a phone anywhere around. He supposed that there would be one in the concert grounds, but he just couldn???t face going back in there. Even to be rescued.
He knew what he had to do. Even though he knew he was still flying on acid he had to get in his car and drive out of the parking lot to the nearest pay phone. He thought that he could probably hold it together long enough to do that. It wouldn???t be far. Just the closest gas station. And then everything would be fine. The big problem as he saw it was the cops that always hung out at the exits looking to bust people who shouldn???t be driving. Ironically, this situation was exactly why they thought it was necessary to do this. But he would just have to risk it.
He started his car up, backed out, and slowly started driving up the aisles to the exit. Luck was on his side; he didn???t see any cops waiting at the exit. Maybe they were going to come later, when the show was over. In any case, he was free to leave. Unfortunately he couldn???t find a gas station anywhere near the onramp to the freeway. Maybe it would be ok to get on the freeway and just drive to the first exit and look for a gas station and phone there. It seemed a risk worth taking. Actually, he didn???t feel like he had a choice.
He was pretty much convinced that if he didn???t get help soon he would die.
Thoughts like this get you to do stupid things. He got on the freeway and started driving. However, every time he came up on an exit he was unable and unwilling to pull off because he couldn???t tell if there was a gas station or not, and he didn???t want to start driving around dark streets and get lost. At least on the freeway he knew that he was pointed in the right direction. And he seemed to be driving ok. At this stage the acid trip was mostly psychological and not visual. Head lights and street lights became smears of color, but he found that if he just concentrated on looking at the road most of these effects were reduced.
So he ended up driving further and further, never allowing himself to exit the freeway for fear of getting lost. Then he noticed bright blinking lights up ahead. Also, the road seemed to narrow down to one lane. There were pylons set out. ???Shit!??? he thought, ???The cops have set up a check point to catch people driving home from the show.??? Panic started to set in again. He knew there was no way he would be able to pass a check point, and there weren???t any exits left to avoid it. So he did the only thing he could do. He drove on.
Luckily for him it turned out that it wasn???t a check point, it was road construction. This was a mixed blessing, however, because they were using lots of blinking lights and blow torches and arc welders and the intensity of the lights danced in front of his vision and made it very difficult to see anything. Everything was a great big mess of light and color that lasted about a mile and then stopped.
And then there was just him and the road again.
He continued to drive, getting closer and closer to home. Actually, he still had at least an hour of driving to go. At this point he had resigned himself to not being able to get off the freeway. He had passed Irvine and was now somewhere in south Los Angeles and the thought of getting off the freeway now did not seem an option. Sure, he could see gas stations by the side of the road, but he suddenly wasn???t sure if the neighborhoods would be safe and he certainly wasn???t in the right state of mind to go adventuring.
Of course, he was already on one of the largest adventures of his life.
Mostly he spent the time swinging back and forth between watching the road while worrying about his throat, which still felt like it had cat hair in it and was closing up on him so that he couldn???t breath or swallow, and thinking of his childhood and his relationship with his mother and father. The world works in mysterious ways. That night as he drove north on the 405 freeway in a complete and total panic, wondering how long he had before his throat was going to completely seize up and suffocate him, he made some vital psychological discoveries about his childhood. He was able to view things that his parents had done with a new clarity. He was able to feel forgiveness for things that he had previously not been able to understand.
These moments of forgiveness and understanding alternated with his moments of panic and worry and soon he realized that he was actually nearing Westwood and the Mulholland Pass. And it was at this exact moment that he noticed that his lower jaw and neck were growing completely numb. Later, after days had passed, he would figure out that he must have been hyperventilating, the panic finally working into his breathing patterns. And as he approached the pass he felt the numbness spread down his chest and through his arms all the way to his hands and fingers. As you can imagine, this only increased his panic and heightened the hyperventilation.
Soon he couldn???t feel the steering wheel and wasn???t even sure that he was still breathing except for the fact that he still seemed to be driving so he must be breathing somehow. Sure. He was hyperventilating. He was actually breathing too much. He was worried though about not being able to feel the steering wheel so he decided to wrap his arms around the wheel up to his elbows and drive that way, shifting his whole torso left and right to steer.
And as he went up Mulholland Pass the numbness grew and grew until at one point he thought to himself, ???I???m going to die before I make the top.??? At the same time, in the far back corner of his mind, another voice told him that if he did make the top alive he would probably be ok. And so it went. The endless climb up the pass, waiting to see if he would live or die.
The numbness had reached his stomach by the time he drove over the top of the pass, and as he started to drive down into the San Fernando Valley and saw the lights of all the homes and buildings he felt a wave of relief spread through him. This relief grabbed the numbness and slowly took it away. He felt his chest again and his arms and hands. By the time he was pulling off the freeway at his exit most of his neck and jaw were back too. He felt much better as he pulled into his parking space but knew that the crucial deciding factor would be if his roommate Andy was still awake so that he could sit with him the rest of the night and talk him down. He may have lost the numbness but he could still sense the panic and paranoia waiting around the corner, waiting to spring on him again in his first quiet moment.
He quickly walked to his front door, and as he grabbed the doorknob he felt the last traces of numbness dissipate. He heard the TV on which was a good sign. As he opened the door he saw Andy on the couch. Andy sat up as if to start asking him questions about the show. Suddenly it became imperative to tell Andy exactly what he needed. He had waited all night to tell someone his experiences and check them against reality. He couldn???t act normal yet. He couldn???t just sit there and pretend nothing had happened.
As he stared at Andy and closed the door behind him he held out his hand as if to tell Andy to wait. ???Andy,??? he said in a shaky voice, ???I am in the middle of the most horrifying bad trip I have ever had and I need you to help me and sit with me and talk me down.???
Andy saw the look on his face and immediately knew that he was speaking the truth. Andy followed him into the kitchen and waited quietly while he drank some water. Then they both sat down at the kitchen table. Andy didn???t say anything, just waited, ready to help.
Over the next five or six hours he attempted to tell the story of his night to Andy. By the time he was done the sun was just starting to rise and light began to creep into the kitchen window near their table. It wasn???t an easy story to tell. In the time it took him to drive home it had become all jumbled up in his mind, and the order of events seemed hazy. Everything seemed connected to everything else. Everything seemed equally important to tell at the same time to fully understand the story, and so every time he started in on one aspect of the night he felt compelled to jump ahead or back in time to relate something else that was connected and important.
In this hopscotch fashion the whole story eventually came out. He started with the first incident of the ring of empty seats and the laughter, but then jumped back to how he was feeling when he arrived in the parking lot. The parking lot made him think of his run toward the fence and the bikers, but then it seemed essential to discuss his throat and how he couldn???t find anyone to talk to. And so it went. Piece by piece he tried to tell Andy the whole story, and piece by piece Andy tried to figure out exactly what had happened. By the end, the pieces added up to a story and the story made some kind of sense.
if youre bored
Jesus, man...those tornado picks are crazy. Nature is not to be fucked with.
if you haven't seen it yet.
the archive could kill the rest of your day. in a good way
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't checked three times earlier today for the usual Friday update...like I said, slow day.