Tag: hippie

Behind The Music, Stonehenge Stock , 420 BC (intro)

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behin

Behind The Music, Stonehenge Stock , 420 BC
J.T. Hilltop

Woodstock is considered to be the first ever mass gathering of a rock an roll concert although many, myself included would argue it began at The Monterey Pop Festival during the summer of love. But recent discoveries by archeologist show that we are all wrong, the true first weekend of peace love and music was put on by the Pagans in the UK at a place called Stonehenge in 420 BC. Back then it wasn’t called rock and roll, it was called stone and stumble and it was part of their counter culture. Take this recently found papyrus music sheet with song lyric scribed for the popular Pagan harmonizing genius’s Crossbow, Whiskystills, and Nash-hash:
Stonehenge
I came upon a child in the fields
Whilst walking along the path
I enquired “where dost thou walk to”
And this is what he told me
I walk along to Maximus Yasgurwoods farm
To join in a stone and stumble band
Set our camp along the henge
To seteth thy soul free
(Chorus)
Thou art starburst
Thou art goldstone
And we gots to plant ourselves back in our garden

By the time we got to Stonehenge
We were a couple thousand strong
And everywhere was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw a sun god
Riding shotgun in the sky
And we all turned into whippoorwills
Above the nation
(Chorus)

This relic was found with other ancient artifacts including a lute played by Jimi Henbicks and a clown nose belonging to Wavy-Ravey leading scientists to believe that Stonehenge was indeed built as a stage for Stone and Stumble bands across the UK back in the day. WAY back in the day, 420BC, The Flintstone years, 10 million strong…. and growing. The Stoners Age when Bedrockpalooza and Occupy Rock Quarry were popular. Archeologists now believe that the Stonehenge ruins are all that’s left of an enormous soundstage which played to thousands of young partying Pagans, some who danced naked and took to frolicking openly, many while under the influence of barleycorn weed, a popular and tasty intoxicant when smoked. That weekend celebration of love, life, and music changed their world forever. Well actually it changed it only until the brutal Roman soldiers invaded the land of Pagans forcing them into chains of Christianity but before that devastating event the only event anyone spoke of was the three days of Love, Peace, and Music (and rain) on Maximus Yasgurwoods sheep farm known as Stonehenge Stock.

Stonehenge Stock was the brainstorm of childhood friends Ian Kellerlay and Declan Mc Intyre of Brea Scarra Off the coast of Scotland. They had the incredible insight to create a venue that could unite all the various music styling’s of the UK. With top acts like the blues singer Janus, Canned Campfire, Dublin Bay Dirtwater Revival, Countryside Joe McDougle and the fish, Worcestershire Zeppelin, The Ungracious Dead, Jefferson Chariot, The Immobile Stones, and The Salisbury Hill Stompers, nine music scenes in all would be represented. Each of the nine music scenes were represented by a giant stone indicative of its region. Represent!

The festival lasted three days and nights showcasing some 30 Stone and Stumble acts to almost 40,000 jubilant attendees. The crowd was so large the New English Chariot Thru-way was closed. Lotta freaks man! Tremendous efforts were made to feed the crowds, nearly 500 pounds of haggis was consumed. Breakfast in bed! Two children were born, a number of rug burns and other rug related casualties occurred, and one person died but all in all the festival was considered a huge success. Or disaster, depending which news media you listen to. This is Behind The Music, the truth behind Stonehenge Stock 420BC, The three part series presented by Be My Bud, the leaders in the legal marijuana industry
Tune in Next Friday for part I

In The Shadow Of The Moon…. Remembering The Dead

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In Loving Memory Of My First Grateful Dead Concert
J.T. Hilltop

Lets not get too technical here, maybe I should call it the potential memory of my first Grateful Dead concert because it was after all over 40 years ago, and I was perceptually challenged in a profound way during that era from the fumes of heated cannabis plants and the ingestion of an array of mind altering substances. But its worth a stumble down memory lane just the same so here to the best of my recollection is my most sincere if somewhat warped and faded reflection. This is my account of the surreal experience of the very first of many Grateful Dead shows.

My best bud Kevin and I went to A&S to the Ticketron booth and chipped in to purchase one general admission ticket to see the Grateful Dead at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Even though it was only $6.50 at the time to us that was a lot of money. Over twelve lunch periods of not eating to stash the fifty cents from Mom. Sounds like no big deal but let me tell you not eating lunch when you’re in high school while studying the effects of smoking biodegradable sativa plants resulting in a case of perpetual munchies is quite a sacrifice. Besides that, we needed whatever money we could store away to buy some good pot and maybe a hit or two of something for enhancement. We were planning to weed and speed throughout the concert.

With only one ticket it was time for us to become resourceful and put our high school education to some good use. We took our one ticket to the school library where they had a copy machine which was free for students. Using our deductive reasoning we hatched a plan to copy the back and front of our one ticket. We then took the two pages to art class where we carefully cut the ticket front and back using what looked like an ancient hand guillotine or torture device from the dark ages for a very precise cut. Two sides of this cloned ticket were duco-cemented together. Using the blue and yellow colored pencils we colored in the bogus ticket to make an exact replica. Now we each had a ticket and could use the cash we saved for some buzz.

Neither of us could drive at night because we only had Jr. operators licenses so on the evening of the show we had to hitch a ride to the Coliseum. I was well seasoned at traveling BMT (By My Thumb) and while I wasn’t quite as prolific as say Sissy Hankshaw I usually fared very well at copping rides. It was a different era and hitch hiking was pretty common. Our first ride came quick but was with an off duty cop which sent shivers of paranoia down our spines. He turned out to be really cool and just lectured us a little on behavior of teens, littering, (or was it loitering?) and mundane teen crap. The second ride took a bit longer than we hoped in snagging but it was a lucky hit. We caught a ride with a van load of Deadheads that brought us all the way to the Coliseum laughing and smoking pot the whole ride. Kevin had brought a dime chunk of Blond Lebanese hash and a pipe but he kept that in his pocket. I had a two finger baggie of Hawaiian Gold weed from which I rolled two fat doobies to share with our hosts. By the time we got to the parking lot we all were pretty buzzed, and that’s when Kevin handed me the surprise hit of blotter acid. We were primed and ready to rock and within an hour we would begin tripping. Thanking our ride we split and surfed the lot in search of any friends that may be at the show so we could share our get high.

Having found no one we smoked a bowl or two of Kevin’s hash and went inside, moving quickly so the attendant had no time to inspect our tickets. Once inside it was time to find a place as close to the stage as possible to hear The New Riders Of The Purple Sage. We didn’t work too hard on positioning yet because that struggle would come later when the Dead played. We lit our weed and our hash sharing it with all around us an got lots to smoke from them in return. N.R.P.S. played a great set and Jerry came on playing steel guitar for a few tunes. It was pretty awesome but that’s not what we came for. As their set came close to its end the LSD began its magic by transporting us to another planet both visually and mentally. When the set finally came to its close we were tripping proper and had some time to kill.

We went out to the corridors around the arena to do some people watching which is normally cool, but has a heightened sense of uber coolness at a Dead show. A group of totally tripped out people were doing a trippers version of interpretive dance, making strange gestures that if done anywhere else most assuredly would have gained them admission to the loony bin. People everywhere with unusually huge smiles stuck on their faces talking, sharing one type of get high or another. Whippets, bongs, chamber pipes, chillums, joints, one or two 12 inch joints rolled in an Esmeralda papers, pills, tabs, or chemical laced paper being put in mouths and swallowed. Conversations involving what the boys would play or what they played the evening before at The Fillmore abounded. A communal sense of intense excitement as we all became as one, one group of collective conscientiousness anticipating the start of the real show, what we all came for. After a half hour of watching and chatting with strangers, and some even stranger strangers, it was time to find our spiritual spot inside.

After fifteen minutes of strategic jostling, finding holes in the crowd and slipping in a shoulder or a leg to fill in a void and get closer to the stage we had our sweet spot. Just about center a bit to the right about 20 head lengths from the stage, great cosmic vibe and situated in between the massive speaker system. We staked claim to our territory by lighting some hash and proceeded to engage in copious amounts of smoking and toking, sharing it with all in our magic circle of Dead fans. As the lights dimmed drum beats broke through the crowd buzz and some guitar riffs filtered through the speakers. We were stoked now and the acid was in full flight. The universe was perfectly balance in that arena and everyone inside knew. The music began and it was a collective aura of Zen emanating from the crowd, nary a soul left unstoked nor untoked. I’m not gonna try and bullshit you about remembering the set list, so for the sake of my memorial account I will allow a collage of concerts speak to me as I generalize.

I was very fortunate to have caught the Dead while Pigpen was still with us and right at the onset he stole the show working us into a frenzy. The sound had a raw country edge to it with an accent of blues, Pigpen making his harmonica cry in emotional distress. The arena was dark with rolling flashes or colored lights, red, blue, yellow, purple all splattered about randomly reaching out into the crowds and moving around in huge oval patterns. The lights changed around us making our minds eyes congeal into a spin art of vision. Beach balls, balloons, Frisbees all hovered or soared overhead before moving on in some sort of cosmic endless search. The speaker system was blaring loud yet precise, I could hear and sense every note from every instrument. By the third or fourth song the mood had taken a slight turn as China Cat Sunflower began. Or maybe it was St. Stephan, either way the very moment Jerry hit the first notes my entire essence was sucked into another world. Of course the acid heightened my senses and I was tripping pretty heavy at that moment but Jerry’s guitar work infiltrated my soul and took over my body. Nothing else in the world existed, nothing but this magic pied pipers guitar solo. Jerry’s strings took on life, began breathing and pulsing, inter-twining its spiritually mesmerizing complexities with my hemoglobin and the music flowed freely through my circulatory being, now a part of my DNA leaving me feeling nothing short of ecstatic. Each note etched deeper and deeper into my soul and filled me with a sense of belonging, of completion as I became a small part of a living breathing concert with The Grateful Dead being the heart, pumping us life. I bobbed and writhed to the music along with thousands of other jubilant fans. I looked at Kevin and he was in his zone, oblivious to anything else, and a quick look around revealed a vast array of transfixed smiling faces all finding their very own space in time. The concert had been elevated from just another rock show to the ultimate rock concert.

They played about two hours and I never knew if we were in the middle of one song or at the end of another, and that was because they played songs within songs flowing back and forth as if in parallel dimensions. I can’t be 100% sure but I believe the last tune they played was the hippie anthem “Dancing In The Streets” with their own twist on it. They left the stage with everyone still pumped up an buzzed half out of our minds. The collective culture that pervaded took over our minds and our instincts kicked in as the entire crowd clapped, roared, whistled, and screamed begging for more more more!!!!! The level of our collective accolades escalated quickly to an almost ear shattering level, when the band returned. The screams of pure and genuine gratitude rumbled through my inner ears tickling the hammer and anvil, pounding on my eardrums, and trickling melodically down into my Eustachian tube forcing a good feeling over my soul and once again the band brought the music to life.

That was the first time I had ever heard the song “Morning Dew” and it was a gift of galactic proportions. What I found out later was the tune is about a post apocalyptic walk in the aftermath of rapture and the boys created the most haunting and mesmerizing sound I have ever encountered. It oozed apocalypse before I knew what the tune was about, again Jerry’s strings grabbing me and lifting me to another plane, an audio astral projection of the third, fourth, and fifth kind. It was followed up with a few more tunes as the band treated us to a lengthy encore fittingly ending with “And We Bid You Good-Night” It was an experience that even the most eloquent and descriptive words could barely hint at. One of the unifying chants of Deadheads is “There Is Nothing Like A Grateful Dead Concert” words to live by and I have chanted those words over and over ever since. I couldn’t possibly tell you which Dead show was my favorite but I can tell you this, after years and years of concert going when asked what my favorite show ever was I reply it’s a Grateful Dead concert, which one I’m not sure but definitely The Dead. I’m not an elitist, I love many other bands and artists, and many memorable shows including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Rolling Stones, and Neil Young, to name a few. I even took my son to some LollaPalooza Tours and a Warped Tour and I have always loved rock and roll and always will. I don’t get to nearly the amount of rock concerts I used to, but I go to as many as I can. Memorable recent shows include the Beach Boys reunion, Waters “The Wall” tour, an Phil Lesh an Friends, but in the end, as anyone who was lucky enough to have been to one Dead concert can attest, “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert”…..Peace

da boyz

No YOU Get Out And Vote!!

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vote

Tuesday, the national day of elections, the day all the bullies on Facebook an Twitter or any other medium for their pulpit scream at me to get out and rock the vote. “You’re vote counts” “If you don’t vote then you can’t complain” Oh yea, they dip it in honey or drench it in sugar so its cloyingly sweet and well intentioned but it bullying just the same. Get off my back!

Its my right to vote. Its also my right not to vote and it my right to complain whether I voted or not. So the voters make up the rules? Bullshit, you think your vote is almighty and uber important? Your vote is a teeny weeny blip on the tally. When the last time someone one by one vote uncontested? Some states flip coins, some draw cards, some have run offs, but its never cut and dried in the event of a tie. But maybe you’re right, maybe my vote is the one vote that will decide the fate of an entire state. Obama was declared winner before all the voting was even done. Bet the west coast slackers didn’t feel like their vote counted, maybe they should have gotten off their assess and gone earlier!

So quit your goddamn bullying and get off your high horse and leave me alone, I am reasonably intelligent (seemingly more so with autocorrect) and I have a pretty good idea how the vote works. I know its today and I know where and how an if I choose to vote that’s my option, I won’t be bullied into thinking that if I don’t I have somehow messed up the whole system and fell short of my duty.

So I may vote, I may not. Either way if I am unhappy with the performance I will complain. I have endured weeks of irritating political commercials, robocalls that insult me by assuming I’m such an idiot that I haven’t got the wear with all to make up my own mind, and (ahem) friends on face book who apparently excelled in political science and economics in school although I don’t remember that back in the day and I seem to remember most of them at protests with me. Maybe that was before they got seduced by the almighty dollar, the corporate concept of Inc God We Trust, and having a little money has clouded their youthful idealistic dreams of living in a world that’s fair and just. Maybe we should go back to those idealistic values. Lets take a vote! ……PEACE

The Monarch Of The Universe

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mon of uni

Another never again moment. I’ve had way too many of them, late nights hugging the toilet bowl somehow empting more contents from my stomach than went in. How many times was I thinking I may have just thrown up my liver or pancreas? How may times have I said never again? Well at least this time I’m saying never again not because I’m puking up my internal organs from mixing every alcohol I could get my lips around. Nope not this time, this particular never again moment is because my hallucinations are over the top. Never again will JT take five hits of barrel acid, a favorite tripping substance for LSD users like myself. One is sufficient for a fantastic trip because barrel acid is pretty powerful, two is pushing it a bit closer to the edge and not normally recommended. Taking three hits is unusual and dangerously close to going over that edge but its not unheard of. But five?! That’s just fucking insane man, something that even the most seasoned tripper stacked with frequent flying miles wouldn’t do that on purpose. To be honest clinical insanity was what I feared most.
So how is it that I am laying in bed in a room I share with my brother tripping like McMurtreys cast of loonies in the cuckoos nest? Because in a moment of sheer marijuana driven panic I made an ill advised choice. My Mom came back unexpectedly and I had five hits of premium trip-worthy barrel acid on the table. I was looking longingly at my freshly acquired controlled substance contemplating who I would abuse them with when I heard the door open. In a rush of paranoia I grabbed all five and shoved them quickly in my mouth. Not in my pocket where they would have been safely stowed from sight but in my mouth! I heard her threatening heels clanking closer as she approached the kitchen and I did the only thing I could think of. I swallowed. Mom came in and glared at me, “What are you doing here in the kitchen? What are you up to now young man?” As I swallowed the tabs I nervously responded, “What do you mean up to? I ain’t doing nothing.” Mom believed that parenting was a responsibility in which she was obliged to constantly belittle me and correct my English. She was relentless at making me feel like shit, “You aren’t doing anything JT, and don’t lie to me I can tell when you’re up to something, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary.” I had recently smoked a joint blowing the smoke out my window and I almost chuckled thinking about Tweedy Pie and Sylvester but I needed to keep it together and switch the focus, “Okay, okay I’m not doing anything mother, just looking for a snack. Why are you back so early anyway?” she stared at me in an all too familiar way, deadpan suspicion “Yea well I forgot something and your dad is outside waiting. But if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on maybe I should just stay home.” Jesus Christ no! Just the thought of that made me shiver perceptibly. Time to use my ultimate teen weapon, the disdainful you never trust me sarcasm, “Yea sure Mom, I’m planning an mass murder, I was just in here choosing which of your knives will make the cleanest stab! Why is it you always think I‘m up to something? You never trust me.” I knew I sold it. Mom shook her head in mock disgust and started towards the door, “One of these days JT you’re gonna say something you’ll regret and someone will take you serious. For gods sake grow up. You stay out of trouble and we’ll see about lifting your grounding tomorrow. Go clean your room and then we can talk about trust!” As she walked out the door I sneered while under my breath I spoke bravely, “Yea fucking right, my groundation! What a fucking joke!”
I was pissed off because most everyone else I know is at the Civic Center at the Jethro Tull concert and I’m stuck here because I missed and assignment in social studies. Social Studies, another joke! Anyway this acid is gonna start coming on in a while so I need to prepare. Time to head up into my sanctuary away from this screwed up world. Up to my bedroom which I share with my older brother who just won’t move out so I can have it to myself. 22years old and still living home the damn loser. Not me man as soon as I turn eighteen I’m outta this shithole of a house. Fuck it, at least I will be tripping my brains out tonight. Little did I know how close to literal that would become.

The cid was kicking in so I got settled in. What to do? First things first. I lit some patchouli incense and turned on my blacklight to make my psychedelic posters burst with colors and movement. I pranced over to my cheap stereo to choose an album. Being in a Jimi mood I put on Bold As Love, side A. It starts off with a funny UFO spoof then quickly kicks into a typical Jimi Hendrix guitar explosion. The album was awesome and premium tripping material. I laid back on my bed and began seeing some very strange visions. The ceiling was normally blank but because of the LSD I perceived it to be full of images, most of which were moving like a film strips. Popeye strangling Brutus, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote running in circles like a dog chasing its tail, and that sort of thing. High def hallucinations. After watching these assorted hallucinations awhile I had to keep reminding myself that they weren’t real. Then I focused on one in particular, Wimpy humping Olive Oyl and he was pumping away to the music. Popeye, Brutus, and an array of cartoon character I don’t remember were all watching and cheering them on. Olive was panting and moaning her skinny and boney legs way up in the air, and Wimpy had lost some weight and was unbelievably in time with the music, thrusting along with the chords. Other characters were clapping, Olive was screaming “Ohhhh Popppppeye!!!“ and Wimpy kept saying “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a good fucking today” still pumping as if dancing. I laughed out loud until I realized something strange. Not that the scene wasn’t already strange enough but this was scary strange. The music Wimpy was humping to was not the album I put on. As a matter of fact it was music I never heard of before, filled with really weird electronic sounds. I jumped up, the hallucinations disappeared and I ran to my stereo. The album was over and I had no clue how long ago it ended.
I shook my head trying to get straight and flip the album over. I stood to reassure myself, “Its just a trip JT, you’re tripping and everything’s okay. Only a trip, it’s the acid, none of this is real.” Feeling only slightly better I headed back to my bed but someone stopped the album. When I looked over it started again, then happened once more. I was certain my asshole brother had come home, knew I was tripping and thought it would be funny to goof on me. “hey cut it out man, that’s not funny!” No response. I looked around. No sign of Robert, no one anywhere, but the music was now playing normal. I turned to get back to my bed when one of my posters, an American Indian chief with tie dye colors all around him began moving. He was breathing and flexing his muscles, holding up a tomahawk. “Holy fuck! This isn’t fucking real man, it can’t be.”
The full force of the five hits of acid were hitting me now. I slinked back into bed and closed my eyes tight but they kept popping open. I had to keep reminding myself I was tripping so I wouldn’t flip out. Can’t sleep, no one to talk to, I gotta see myself through this. But right now I have to take a pee. Off to the bathroom. One of the things about tripping is it intensifies every feeling, whether its making love like never before, hearing music that pulls at your soul, or even pissing. Even better than that pee held in during a long road trip waiting for the next rest top. But there is another oddity when tripping, when you see am image of yourself and its distorted you need to focus and look away before you begin to freak out thinking its how you really look. As I turned from the toilet bowl I was confronted with a full length mirror that had a most frightening and imposing figure staring back at me.
Everything seemed to come to a halt, even time itself. I was staring at a foreboding image of myself painted like a warrior of some sort complete with a bizarre war paint. Split directly down the center of my face and body was a line, on the right side everything yellow except two stripes of dark brown war paint on my forehead angling upwards, a semi circle around my eye, and two more stripes on my cheek in a downward angle. My left side was a dark brown yang to the bright yellow yin. I must say I looked fierce. I stared for a few seconds trying to intellectualize the event and put it into perspective but my perspective had gone out for a walk in the woods and I wasn’t sure it would ever return. The war paint began breathing, or pulsating and changing colors. War paint of dark brown, bright yellow, and dayglo orange were spinning around my face. My cheeks were drooping, my nose twisted and my forehead protruded immensely. I was hideous, a worse image than finding a face full of pimples the day of a date. I issued a long drawn out “Ohhhh My God” and forced myself away from the image. Like I was a Piccaso portrait escaping from a Salvador Dali landscape Nothing was real, I had never come close to hallucinating this hard. I trembled and forced myself to head back to my sanctuary feeling like I was stepping on feathered mattresses repeating “that wasn’t you. That wasn’t you” as my Mantra.
“Shit man, I gotta get a hold of myself here and start enjoying this again. Where the fuck is Popeye and shit?” I thought I was alone but to my surprise I received an answer. “maybe I can help.” I looked about the room, no one here, only me. Oh Jesus now I’m hearing hallucinations. I walked over to the stereo thinking it may have come from the speakers. Nothing. I laid down and tried meditating when a butterfly fluttered in front of me and landed on my chest. I stared in confusion when out of nowhere it began to talk to me. That is to say it communicated to me, it didn’t actually move its lips and speak. It communicated in an unspoken language it called the language of the cosmos.
TBC

A Hunting I Won’t Go

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dead-jerry-rifle

Any Time The Hunter Gets Captured By The game

If I had to hunt for my food I would starve. My whole family would starve because the closest I ever came to capturing a meal was the time I dropped a can of Pringles and chased it down a hill. Perhaps it’s a morality thing, I mean its not like I’m a flatulent oozing vegetarian I love a good steak, but I don’t need to see it slaughtered. I’m still haunted by the one time I had to chose my own lobster only to have it sentenced to death and served to me with a plastic bib on. Why a lobster would wear a plastic bib is anybody’s guess, but back to the point. At the time I couldn’t help thinking what a shit I was for pointing out an innocent lobster to have it sent mercilessly to its death to satisfy my eating urges. One of those things that just kind of stays with you from childhood through older childhood.
Basically I’m saying I’m anti-hunting. I get that some people feel the need to sneak up on and slaughter animals because they have antlers but personally I don’t get it. I‘m not just being a tree hugging liberal about it, although I have hugged my share of tree‘s, but I walked the walked before talking this talk. That’s right, this peacenik hippie freak has walked the wild hills of Loch Sheldrake NY, up in the Catskill mountains, with a loaded rifle in his hand and lived to tell about it. I had mentally prepared myself to use it before leaving, but by the end of the weekend I was mentally prepared to use it on the drunken rifle toting deer killers. How does a long haired hippie freak in a bright colored ski sweater end up hunting wild animals you ask? A trade off.
I had forged a friendship with a dude my age at work named George. George was an avid hunter, going into the hills stealthily in camouflage during bow and arrow season only to return a week later with heat seeking shotgun shells for the opening of gun hunting season. He had been soliciting me for a week to come and join him as I stood my ground until one day he proposed an offer hard to refuse. “JT seriously dude, hunting is the best thing ever. There is nothing like it.” Now that I took as a challenge. Being a confirmed Deadhead I knew for a fact the actual quote is “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert” and I let him know that in no uncertain terms. His response caught me off guard. “I tell you what, I’ll go to one of your Grateful Dead concerts if you come with me next week.” Hmmm, another challenge. I have brought four people already to their first Dead shows and have made for converts. If I go hunting next week it will force him to go to a show and he will also try weed for the first time. Irresistible offer. “Cool”
So it was set that next week I would travel up into the mountains with a loaded weapon in my hands and as a consolation prize turn a friend on to The Dead and get him stoned. For my part I went out and bought a few magazines, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield to get myself familiar with all the latest on hunting protocols. What I learned only made me think I was making a huge mistake. But a deals a deal so I called George to find out what to bring. “Just make sure you dress in bright clothes, warm and in layers, and don’t wear that deer musk cologne you use.” Got it! “Okay, and its not cologne, its patchouli oil. But okay, I won’t bring it. I’ll be ready.” I went through my clothes noting a black leather jacket would not be appropriate and opted for a bright red yellow and blue ski sweater and of course layers. Off we went.
The plan was to drive up Friday night and stay at a motel in town, get up early an hit out into the forest is search of some helpless animals to brutally slay. Back in the seventies drinking responsibly meant wearing a seatbelt while guzzling so we drank a few beers on the way up. By the time we got to the motel the only thing we were sporting was a slight buzz. But the bar at the motel took care of that. It was like some kind of frat party or something, a ton and a half of guys getting drunk and doing shots. Pool table, jukebox, all the comforts of a local dive bar. Guys kept coming over to buy George a drink, and when he introduced me bought one for me as well. I’m not a carpenter but I got hammered that night. 2AM and I still had 2 coasters in front of me so we did two shots of Jack Daniels and called it a night. Tomorrow is the big day, the first day of hunting season and I can only assume the only advantage the deer will have is all of us having killer hangovers.
When I finally shook off all the fog from last nights alcohol I realized that all the guys I was watching head out into the woods were the same guys that were so smashed last night. And every last one of them had a bright orange vest, bright orange skullcap, and at least three quarter of them had orange pants as well. Either this was a prison break or hunters wear a lot of orange. All except me of course, who was in the height of winter style with my fleece lined red Nordic ski hat and my bright multi color stylish ski sweater looking like Jean-Claude Killy leaving the slopes of the alps to join a group of murderous hungover Orangemen into the Catskills. That was when the paranoia began to settle in, and I had gone from fierce hunter to frightened sheep following the crowd in two seconds. George sensed my apprehension and led me to a spot halfway down a mountain, “You stay here JT and if you see a deer shoot it. I’ll be around seeing if I can spook one out” He left and I was alone wondering what I will do once I really do see a deer. I kept thinking about Bambi and I decided I better not look the animal in the eye or there I no way I’ll shoot. The opportunity never came up, although I did see a cute bear cub off in the distance, and I watched a group of beavers working in the stream. Dam they were good!
George came back and collected me for lunch. We went back to the bar at the motel to get some chili con carne and when we walked in half the crew from last night were there and drinking already. The paranoia quickly returned as I listened to them talk about a kill, a shot, or something called a “sound shot” George came over with the chili, “You okay JT?” “Yeah I’m okay, little cold and I wish I had something orange to wear. By the way George, that dude over there was talking about ‘nuthin but a sound shot‘. What’s a sound shot?” George looked a tad concerned, “When you don’t actually see the animal but you hear it making a sound.” I was floored. Holy shit, what if I was sounding like a deer? I ate my chili in silence but all I could think about was these drunken fools taking sound shots after lunch.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and I basically hid in the woods trying not to sound like a deer. Along with the other hunters we got drunk at night and they kept talking about how they will “sacrifice the animal” if they have a decent shot. Luckily the weather took a bad turn and it was snowing too hard to hunt effectively. George got off one shot but missed but I never even raised the rifle to my shoulder once. I was okay with that. I said I would try hunting, knew it was not for me but found out I was understating how wrong much it wasn‘t for me. To this day I have never killed another animal, and I never plan to kill one. I eat meat, I’ll even eat venison, although I think its bullshit they call them deer when they kill (or sacrifice) it but venison when they eat it, but I guess it eases their conscience after slaughtering an unarmed animal. I did take George to a Grateful Dead concert and got him stoned, and he had a great time but didn’t convert. He was and always will be a “Rolling Stones Guy” but as long as he digs it that’s cool. He did smoke weed with me a lot more after that so I did make a bit of progress. I lost touch with George, as is usually does life got in the way and we both moved on and I’m sure he still hunts and that’s okay, because I still indulge in my passions as well. I used to wonder what I would have done if I was face with the opportunity to shoot an animal, would I have taken the shot. But as time has passed I have come to realize there is no way I would have pulled the trigger. I’m proud of that fact but in the end if I couldn’t buy food I’d be dead and wouldn’t be here to write these twisted stories. It is what it is…..PEACE

Shock and Blow Me (up)

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bomb

The images of humans burning from chemical waepons is disturbing to say the least. Being a man who’s core ethics were forged as a youth watching napalm burning children on TV in a war that I may one day have to either engage in, go to jail, or move to Canada its doubley disturbing. The horrors of the made for TV News war in Viet Nam left indelible impresions on all of us and hopefully from the brutality and inhumanity some very difficult lessons learned. As a colective force many youths joined in the hippie movement and voiced distain for violence and brutality and vowed to declare peace where others chose to declare war. The hippies have grown up and are now the “establishment” making decisions concerning the lives and deaths of other people. Are we facing yet another “conflict” of death and destruction in another country?
Where are we as a society now? We have warred in Kuwait, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afganistan and now face the decision whether or not to bomb another country, Syria. It sure would pad our resume pretty well and once again prove that we have the biggest dicks in the world. To be clear, those dicks are the ones who gleefully joined in protests against militaristic intervention when they were young, but have had a change of heart as they realize that war is a business. The leaders of the youth movements of the 60’s have largely become grumpy old bastards who can’t believe that kids today think they know everything. Kinda like their own Dads. And these dicks are now in charge of making decisions with potentially global implications. Unfortunately too many of the youths supporting peace movements and equality have become an old man and women network of haters of liberal pinko fags. Archie Bunker once a caricature of what was wrong with the older generation is now their role model.

Many Americans are against another war but the irony seems to evade a lot of them. George Carlin said “bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” (I think it was George) Past members of the SDS, weathermen, of just hippie protesters are now weighing if the right thing to do to a bully is to be a bigger bully. Certainly I would like to see some humanitarian groups take on this disgusting act of violence but the bigger guy beating up on the little bully isn’t what we were taught. Where is the UN in this and why aren’t they extremely vocal and building up support? If not keeping world peace then WTF is the purpose of the UN? Something needs to be done to assure other countries that this or any form of genocide should be condemned and any nation practicing it shunned but intentionally shifting the power structure of a civil war through a very destructive action which will surely result in numerous deaths is jut wrong. War is wrong!
War it seems to me is a matter of inches on a tape measure. Our Fathers must be awfully proud of how big our dicks have gotten. We have pulled out the measuring tape no less than four times since the Viet Nam war and each time we have proven that our dicks tower over the dicks of small countries. But as always we are a little afraid to measure our dicks against Russian dicks, or Chinese dicks (tiny chopstick jokes not withstanding) . I mean shit, what if some small country got some nuclear dick enhancer off the email offers and really added inches to their penises. I guess we could always bomb their dicks back own to size. If you think about it our dicks didn’t compare in any way shape form or size to dinosaur dicks an look where they ended up. Buried in the desert! Declare Peace…

Transcenental Medication

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anada

Philosophy? I Got Nuthin

Nothing is the absence of anything. Anything is something so nothing must be something if its anything. Wait, how can there be nothing if anything can be nothing making nothing something? If its something then there can be no true nothing because the minute you name it nothing it becomes something. Man this shit is so confusing. That makes it impossible to be nothing right? Then what in the hell is nothing? The search for nothing is how I began my journey of ultimate discovery to answer the ultimate philosophic conundrum, why is there something instead of nothing. This is where the scientific wedge splits apart the theory of creationists and the creationist concept argues how everything began. Both sides of the discussion agree that at first there was nothing but one side believes God created the world, and the other side claims an explosion occurred creating a ripple in the fabric of time creating matter. Phew, glad that’s cleared up! But wait, if there was nothing, where the hell did god come from or what caused the explosion. Where did the two colliding atoms come from? That only brings us back to nothing. Everyone agrees that before the universe existed there was…..nothing. Nothing is so powerful Jerry Seinfeld made a successful TV show about it. Sometimes nothing is everything. But I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to show for it so off I went on a spiritual journey to find nothing.
I think Socrates summed it up pretty good, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing” So for me to be truly wise that’s what I need to know. Nothing. Lots of people have nothing to say and say it all day long but I don’t want to get into politics here I want to concentrate on nothing. Some people spend years on such spiritual journeys and others find what they are looking for on a quick puddle jumper. My journey began with a needle. Many needles actually, it was during an intense session of meditation while receiving acupuncture that nothing first became clear. A clarification here, this wasn’t an actual journey, I never set out on a search of nothing but nothing has always been on my mind. In truth I believe the journey began with my first chemically induced trip. An LSD trip that is, the drug that enabled me to pursue practices such as astral projection and dimension diving. I don’t recommend LSD to anyone that would be unwise but it certainly did open my eyes and mind to things previously unseen. I learned many things during my years of hallucinogen experimentation, the most valuable being an ability to enter into a deep trancelike meditative state.
While under the influence of this mind bending drug I entered into meditations in which I successfully separated my mind from my physical being. I never astral projected to ethereal other worlds or experienced any alien abductions but I did find alternate states of my own self which sort of put my brain on hold as it rebooted leaving the cortex clear of bullshit clutter and effectively giving my occipital a lobe job, if only for a short time. I was a line cook at Windows On The World where orders came in as fast as a bumble bee’s in-flight sexual experience so meditating was extremely helpful, and I always “tranced out” a half hour before service helping me to reduce and often eliminate clutter leaving less room for mistakes in my orders. A very powerful tool meditating, and a practice I continued long after I stopped taking tabs of mind expanders.
It was very effective but restaurant work pace was so brutal it left me with many physical discomforts. So after a life of hard work in high pressure fast paced restaurants I developed a common condition amongst chefs, chronic back ache. I tried physical therapy, chiropractors, pain management therapy and an old favorite, opiates, self medication, and alcohol therapy but everything managed the pain only briefly. After years of frustrating attempt’s to control the pain I opted to go for acupuncture. My theory was the combination of pins, needles, and meditation would have a long lasting effect.
Brimming with optimistic vibes I went to see Dr. Khandro, a Tibetan acupuncturist at The Shambala Clinic in the basement of his Tibetan Holistic Center, or THC as its known around town. Dr. Khandro was a rather short man dressed more like a monk than a doctor, but he was Buddhist after all so I assumed that was the norm. When I addressed him as doctor he put up his hand, “In here I no doctor Khandro, I Kha. It is essential we break down any barrier set by title. For purpose of effective session we are equal in room here, onry Kha and JT. Prease, put on gown and come back in room with open mind.” I was given a full length smock to put on which was remarkably comfortable. I felt like I was living a chapter of the book Siddhartha but I did as I was told and returned with an open mind.
I sat in a chair awaiting Kha‘s return. With shaved head and beaming smile he walked back into the room and asked me to lay down on a table covered with a thin mattress. “You haff come to seek separation from your pain. I no eriminate pain, I separate pain from body and mind. It is important to have not only proper treatment with puncture but to have serene surrounding to make sure mind is clear.” He called to someone I had not yet met, “Shodra prease light some Santal incense and play some music for JT.” He placed his hands which were bigger than I expected over my head and squeezed lightly. “Mr. JT I canna feel much stress inside yaw head now. I prace punctures in pressure points and you lay back and relax” With that he began inserting small needles at different points on my head. First on the top of my cranium, then a colony of little pricks entered my temples. Each one gave a tiny pinch and after five minutes my head, forehead, and ears had morphed into reverse porcupine features. He continues pricking me on my shoulders, then put about a dozen in the bottom of each foot. I had never seen so many pricks in one place before. Strangely though, the pricks relaxed me. “Now JT, you lay back relax. Let your mind free you from pain. I will return to remove pricks when ready.”
Kha left the room and I felt sure that when he returned my pain would have been separated from my mind and body. All I had to do now was to relax completely and just make sure I don’t roll over and force the damn pricks deeper into my body. The Santal incense smelled awesome and filled the room with a pleasant light smoke, the lights were dim, and the music was like George Harrison or Ravi Shankar. Maybe both. I closed my eyes and began my regimen of meditation. There are many styles and methods of meditating and I damn near perfected mine. I concentrated on each part of my body beginning at the bottom of my feet moving upwards to each new part as soon as I felt it relax completely. It was about 20 minutes before I finally had every portion of my physical being relaxed and entered into total trance. Everything was soothing.
As I meditated I was separated from my physical self and transported into a stark white room with nothing in it at all. The floor, the ceiling, and three walls of blank, the fourth wall being a water-like curtain. I noticed the smallest blank spot in the center of the streaming curtain and proceeded to get up to inspect it. I was very curious what was on the other side and I tried to peek through. I could see nothing at all so I placed two fingers inside the blank spot and the feeling I got almost knocked me over. Not a physical feeling, but a sort of spiritual feeling. I was certain my fingers had just entered into another world or better yet another realm. I gently pulled at the opening and it separated easy allowing my entire hand, then my arm into this ether realm. The feeling was nothing I had ever felt before. I just knew something special was here in this bizarre minimalist space. I looked through the hole which by now had grown much larger. In that other realm was smoke, but not a noxious smoke, more like an almost friendly and enticing smoke. The thought of sticking my entire head through the hole pulled at me. Then Kha’s voice spoke, “Come in JT, you have found nothing.”
TBC

Lovers gonna love & Haters gonna hate–Savers gonna Save but Liberals liberate

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Those goddamn liberals are gonna ruin our country. What? Wait, let think this through a minute in terms I hope even the oldest whitest 50’s value clinging paranoid can understand. Words. Terrorist, one who inflicts terror, as a means to control. Terrorist would like to ruin the country, that’s clear enough. But how could a liberal ruin a country. Liberals seek to liberate, to create a power balance in which all share equal value and opportunity in a society. Kinda like Jesus did. Jesus was a liberal, at least according to the lame-stream media of his time, The daily scriptures. Was he trying to ruin the Fertile Crescent? In the dictionary liberal is defined as favorable to progress or reform. Favorable, not destructive. Terrorist-terror, Liberal-liberate. Women’s lib didn’t ruin the country it made it better, with many powerful women adding greatly to our society. Liberate the oppressed, that’s basic. Liberals believe in freedom and not just to other liberals but to all. Even conservatives.
Ah yes, conservatives. The very ones who use the word liberal to project an image of peace loving, tree hugging, environment caring, do nothings who would ruin the country by striving for racial equality, gender equality, a clean global eco-system and worst of all, world peace. What does the dictionary say about this odd group of take it or leave it change resisting conservatives? Conservative, disposed to preserving existing conditions or institutions, to limit change. Who would want to limit change? Obviously if one likes the way things are they wouldn’t want anything to change, wouldn’t want to liberate anyone. Not like that long haired liberal from Nazareth, someone different. Oh yea, King Herod. Lets face it, Herry had his choice of women, lived in a huge palace and was surrounded by wealth and power. Who wouldn’t want things to remain the same if that’s how life is for you? Conservatives conserve and that’s what they do. What they are best at conserving is money and power, and they prefer to conserve it all for themselves. They resist change because that would mean others may have equal value or opportunity and well, they want to conserve it all for themselves.
Not too long ago liberal was a derogatory term spat out with distain. Stinking liberals, bleeding heart liberals. In ’73 I had to choose which party to register as in order to vote, which made no sense to me at all. Why does everyone else have to know what party I believe in. But I dutifully followed the rules and marked my self down as a member of the liberal party partially out of spite to my staunch republican Dad and partially out of my own pure rebellious nature. When my conservative father found out we elevated our “disagreements” from my hair length to my disgracing of the family by becoming a liberal. I was warned it would follow me around like bad body odor. I wore that stench proudly in 1973, and I wear it proudly today. Politically I am liberal but I don’t define myself or others through a religious or political microscope because that’s what we believe not what we are. If you’re and atheist or a bible waving Christian that’s fine, but if you’re an asshole its not because of what you believe, but HOW you believe. Don’t force your beliefs on anyone else, enjoy them for yourself, allow other to enjoy their. The same in politics, if you’re a tea bagging homophobe its not because you’re a republican, you’re just an asshole. You can believe in the republican party without discriminating or fearing people unlike yourself. My Dad was staunch republican as I said, but I will credit him with having the sense to breakdown the stereo-types without sacrificing his core beliefs. It took time and a lot of nudging from me but in the end he understood we are not defined by our unconventional appearance, lifestyle, or religious practice. In name we are all human, and if you feel you must judge, judge not by political or religious beliefs, but by deeds and actions. I believe mine are worthy of any religious or political movement, but more importantly could be accepted as beneficial to humanity.

The Scream Of The Butterfly

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ping

Living in the Timothy Leary
Psychedelic ping pong theory
Turn on Tune In
All this shit makes me weary

The hard slam of the paddle
Causing gray matter rattle
Turn on Tune in
Your ass back in the saddle

The harder they hit the more you bounce back
Weathering every heart pounding attack
Turn on Tune in
Don’t come along if you don’t have the knack

Keep on with the game until it all ends
Booze pot and pills will help with the cleanse
Turn on Tune In
With a little help from my friends

So icy it chills right to the bone
The hurter the pain the louder the moan
Turn on Tune in
Why won’t you leave me alone

Lived my life like a ping pong ball, the harder they hit the harder and faster I bounced back, over and over. Over the net. Sometimes I tripped over the net, got knocked clear out of bounds, went over the line, but got up every time and I’m still in the game and ready to go. So keep on hitting me motherfucker as hard as you can but I will bounce back every time and look you straight in the eye. Even in the big sleep.

My Brush With Racism

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Movie-review-Malibu-s-Most-Wanted

It was the early 70’s and race relations were better than they had been in the 60’s yet still a bit strained. I was a hippie, which back then was code for stoner, and having grown up on Long Island I was a Jets fan. The area in which I lived was semi integrated at best with certain area’s known as “black” hangouts and others “white” hangouts. Emerson Boozer was a fullback for the New York Jets and had opened a bar in the next town over and Named it Em Boozers 32, which was his number. Having past it many time I was always curious if the man himself hung out at the pub like I don‘t know, maybe tosing the football around or something cool like that. One evening I decided to find out with the faint of possibly even seeing Broadway Joe Namath chilling there too.
The drinking age was 18 and so was I so I could legally go into a bar and get a cold beer which were my exact intentions on that moonless dark night. I pulled into the parking lot and could hear a boisterous crowd partying inside from all the way were I was. Friggen awesome man, my kind of place, lots of partying and music, slightly rowdy crowd, what could possibly go wrong? Of course it was what could bet be described as a little “seedy” and while I didn’t like stems and seeds, seedy was not a stranger to this hippie so off I ventured into Em Boozers 32 for an ice cold Budweiser.
As I opened the front door the decibel of revelry increased dramatically being driven by loud laughter, but as soon as I entered the bar became silent. Not a peaceful and serene happy calm silence, but a menacing pin dropping what the fuck kind of silence. Even the jukebox stared quietly in disbelief. I looked around and noticed that I was the only Caucasian in the entire pub. Instant paranoia shot up my spine and began dancing on my slightly weed numbed brain. What to do? Every single open eye was focused directly on me. That’s me in the mirror, that’s me in the spot -light, losing my composure.
I was shaking like tall skinny snowflake with vertigo but it was too late my legs had already made the decision to head to the bar and all I could do was follow. As I passed there were people sitting at tables, some dudes playing pool, and at the bar was an extremely large intimidating barkeep. With my optic nerves shivering wildly it was hard to focus clearly but it could’ve been Emerson himself, he was certainly big enough.
The silence morphed into whispering and not to sound narcissistic or anything but I was relatively certain the hushed conversations were all about me. But it was too late, my instincts had taken control which in retrospect was a good thing because if I just turned and ran I have no idea what may have occurred. So I walked up and with all the strength and determination I could muster up I walked directly to the imposing barkeep and in my most weak and pathetic voice stuttered , “B-B-Bud please” The barkeep glared at me, reached own under the bar and to my delight it was not a baseball bat or a shotgun but an ice cold bottle of Budweiser in his hand which he promptly placed in front of me asking, “You ant a glass with that….sir?” Noting a touch of sarcasm in his voice I defiantly mumbled in the same weak voice as before, “Um ,no thank you.”
I was beginning to regain my composure a bit and boldly I showed no fear or sign of uncomfortableness, looked directly at the imposing figure behind the bar and said “Cheers”. I lifted the bottle to my relatively steady lips and guzzled that beer like I was at a frat party with my fellow pledges urging me to swallow in a single gulp. I placed the now empty bottle on the bar, wiped my mouth with my sleeve and noticed the noise level had picked up from a whisper to a low murmur and now only about half of the open eyes were on me with many getting back to their own conversations. I turned toward the door and bravely and evenly walked slowly and methodically determined to make it look as though it had been my plan all along and I knew where I was. The second the door opened up I began to get a feeling of massive relief heading at warp speed to my car. As I turned the key I heard the noise level of the bar go back to what it was before except with an added amount of laughter which, perhaps egotistically, I’m guessing again was about yours truly.
I’m relatively certain they had much more of a laugh of it than I did and I imagined guys going home saying to their wives, “You shoulda seen the face on that white boy, he looked about ready to hit his pants. I never seen anyone drink a beer so damn fast. The boy sure could drink but what in the Hell was he thinking?” What the hell indeed, it just hadn’t occurred to me that I would feel unwelcome, and in the long run it wasn’t so much that I was unwelcome as it was unexpected. In the years since I have maintained my deep rooted belief in equality and stand by those convictions for everyone regaurle of looks or beliefs. In addition I spent more toime in those “black hangouts” and forged many great relationships based not on our differences but our commonalities (not the least of which was a love for good quality weed) But I have yet to meet anyone who claims to be at that bar on that dark moonless night I had my brush with racism and I’m sure anyone who was enjoying their evening at Em Boozers 32 that evening will never forget the time they were entertained for 45 seconds from shivering snowflake….PEACE