My introduction to LSD was pivotal. I was living on Topanga Beach in a beach house that had a of revolving cast of housemates. One of those was a guy named Larry – aka Lifeguard Larry. Somehow I always got the room with the built-in bunk beds and my housemates always got the rooms they could customize. But my favorite room was the beach in front so it never occurred to me to move into the vacated bedroom.
Another on-again, off-again house-mate was George and at that stage of his varied career he was working as a graduate student at the UCLA School of Medicine where he was somehow able to acquire endless things of interest and value.
Those things included microscopes, cameras, scales for weighing drugs and the drugs themselves.
One day George arrived at the house with a what could be described as an attaché case except it was made of wood and about half the size of an attaché case. He summoned the three of us in the house at the time into Larry’s bedroom.
He opened it carefully to reveal rows of ampules full of a beautiful blue liquid cushioned in some sort of foam material. The wooden case was stamped with the words: SANDOZ LABORATORIES.
Like just about everyone I knew back then I smoked marijuana and had been since my teens. The same for amphetamines, which we all used for meeting deadlines in college and for weekend partying. So I was not concerned about trying something new that seemed quite interesting.
It’s hard to describe exactly what I experienced with that first dose of pure, unadulterated and legal LSD. I’d been told by George that it was supposed to be a deeply spiritual experience and the other three seemed very serious about the whole thing. But much to their disgust it made me laugh. Not hysterically, but so incessantly that they finally made me go to my bedroom so I could continue to laugh without bothering them so much.
Fast-forward several years and I was managing a surfboard shop in Woodland Hills, interviewing people like Sonny and Cher and The Byrd’s on the Sunset Strip and publishing the interviews in magazines like the KRLA BEAT.
Although Sonny and Cher eschewed drug use it was as normal in the Hollywood scene as bell-bottom trousers and beads.
Long/short my last interview was never published. It was at The Trip with Arthur Lee and LOVE, the group he fronted. The interview went well and Arthur invited me to join him and the group to cruise around the parties after the gig.
I enjoyed their final set and left with them in a long, black limousine with tinted windows, sitting in the back passing never ending joints around the smoke filled space and laughing at nothing in particular and everything in general.
We went to several parties where we stayed for a short time, smoked more joints and carried on to the next. Then came the party where I crashed and burned.
I’d heard about punch being laced with LSD at parties but never thought about it as I drank the delicious punch at this party. Besides, all the pot had left me hungry and thirsty. So I drank a lot.
It was the party sounds that gave me the first indication that I was becoming very, very stoned. It became a cacophony of noise that was not pleasant. So I sat down on a sofa and waited for my head to find itself.
I looked down to orient my vision with the floor … and watched the floor melt. Then it became the most beautiful swirls of changing colors and became infinitely deep. That was truly wonderful.
At some stage I became aware of the person sitting next to me. I looked and saw an amazingly beautiful young man with the most penetrating eyes I’d ever seen. He smiled and for the first time during a “trip” I was terrified. His eyes were completely dead and I came down with a bang.
I left the sofa as quickly as I could and as I headed for the door Arthur stopped me and said, “I see you meet our resident hitman.” I must have hesitated or mumbled and Arthur said, “You know … hitman … he kills people for money. He’s very rich.”
I made it to the street and it was raining lightly. Like most Southern Californians I’m not used to rain and joke that I’d melt. But I also dislike walking around in sodden clothes with wet hair and fogged up glasses. It was like my cozy little world had just had a bucket of water thrown over it and I thought why not add to it by crying.
Arthur found me sobbing, standing on the sidewalk near the limo and told the driver to take me back to where my car was parked near The Trip. “Go home, sleep it off. You’ll be fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I was shaken to my core. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t blame it on anyone else or anything I’d experienced. I just felt empty, hollow and hopeless. And the following day it was only worse.
I’d seen an article in the LA Times about people who’d had “bad trips” on LSD and decided I must be one of them. The article mentioned Dr Sidney Cohen, a psychiatrist at UCLA who was focusing on the effects of LSD. I phoned his office and he agreed to see me. I was sure I was insane and wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t here. I was slipping down into a deep, dark hole that had no bottom.
After a long and intense consultation he told me that I was not insane or even close. But that it was his opinion I needed to remove myself from what he called “the drug culture” and the “availability of drugs.” He asked if there was anyone in my family who could help me to do this.
I told him that I’d spent three semesters at Evansville College in Southern Indiana. Both my mother and father had graduated from the college. I explained that I’d been born in Evansville but only visited my father in summers since my mother and he had been divorced and separated since shortly after my first birthday. I also told him that I’d returned to California the week before completing my third semester because I had been homesick and hated being away from the beach.
He offered to phone my father and explain the situation and his recommendation that I leave the lifestyle that I had embraced. My father agreed on the condition that I’d live in their home, re-enroll in Evansville College and put myself in the care of a psychiatrist of his choosing. Dr Cohen told him I didn’t need psychiatric help but my father, who thought that anything to do with drugs was a sure sign of insanity, insisted.
A few days later I was on a flight back to Evansville in the winter and while I was now removed from the drug culture of Hollywood I was about to be introduced to the emerging drug culture of Evansville by the four college students I met in the waiting room of our psychiatrist in Evansville as a new chapter of my puzzling life unfolded. We became close friends and dumped the psychiatrist.
The following attempts at poetry are one of the results of a mind in turmoil:
Check Your Baggage But Not Yourself
Bulbous Bob arrived today
in wintry Evansville,
My air plane flight was out of sight
because I took a pill,
The pill went down
and I went up
the plane was secondary,
The pill was mine
the trip was fine
the seat belt necessary,
What did I see
what could it be
in that hallucination,
Or was it then
I saw a hen
her egg in incubation,
Or was it there
I saw a bear
her cub in hibernation,
I saw in jade
this vision fade
and reappear in fear,
And saw instead
a vision red
I felt the end was near,
I saw a Buddha
sitting high
upon a ticking clock,
I saw a narc
kicked off the ark
stand crying at the dock,
I saw a rocket
in his pocket
takeoff like a shot,
A Texas ranch
an olive branch
the weapons he had bought,
I saw God’s Son
in Washington
His mission was to teach,
The President
and congressmen
to practice what they preach,
I saw a bird
release a turd
upon a sleeping man,
I saw a guy
in suit and tie
his sign said “Bomb the Ban”,
I saw a cat
devour a rat
in mild annihilation,
I saw a dog
piss on a log
and end civilization,
I tried to hide
the fear inside
I felt as I was landing,
And tried instead
to fill my head
with love and understanding,
Was it a dream
that I did scheme
while flying in that plane,
Or was it that
from where I sat
the World looked quite insane?
Could Be
All American,
read the label
Halloween,
in mink and sable
Come as you are,
once a year.
Sometimes
The funny fumes bend fancy scenes
around my finger pointing, waiting,
while music blends with movements known
before the dance of dreams.
Something
The magic it fades quickly now
there’s nothing left to see,
Time’s quickening smile
follows my thoughts
glances my way,
My half light flickers
against its light
thinking of thoughts to think,
The store rooms tremble,
Dust flits,
Nothing.
Take a Look
Glancing finally
on that piece of foil snatching light
from quick dancing near,
Resting finally
on word pictures played against
the roof lids of Martian canals moving,
Stopping quickly
at the marble, mired pedestals
of escaping memories
and filtering time,
And again.
The Night World
In apparent apathy
to its own mystery,
The night world stiffens
and shudders and shrieks,
It has no place to go
even though
it moves with day,
And then again
it may not wish to see
the other side of night.
Can You?
I caught me looking at myself
to see what I could see,
I caught me looking at myself
and saw myself in me,
I caught me looking at myself
and saw where I was at,
I caught me looking at myself
can you imagine that?
Perhaps
Perhaps it’s best I come here now
while reason still has wings
that flit against the self
as many times a time flick
as you might imagine, expect or allow.
Gnash times five,
It’s time to switch polarity,
Madison Avenue family,
Sit pretty,
Self pity,
Charge the coffin,
The television set is never too far,
Mixed drinks perplexing,
Dispose of the mint leaf
(Fig leaf?)
neatly,
The leash only loosens
a little.
Wind the clock
eat
sleep
small truths snuggle.
Mary Jane
My Mary Jane upon a reef
her golden hair turned softly there
about her bare white breasts.
My ego nods these brief refrains
of rhythm sucked my id contains
my head instead, remains and rests.
Heavy Winter
As winter fades in cold dull shades
of blue white crystal chalk,
Powdered, penetrating,
A dirge,
Swaying against real
in damned harmonious hypocrisy
of the two extremes
and where the meet.
A Buzz
Twinkling, tiny, tumbling glances
sneak beneath sand paper lids
and stop in front of filmy, floating eyes
water slick and warm and liquid,
And views from behind
the silly string of things happening,
Like they should happen that way,
Almost as if we have no control,
Almost,
Really.
Just Being Silly
Night turns into day
day turns into night,
White turns into black
black turns into white,
Somewhere in-between
colors can be seen.
Chief Sitting Stoned
Sitting here so stoned
I cannot feel my head
my nose keeps falling down
my ears are flipping flapping,
Words come so very hard
mind bending likened pretzels,
In careless wanting
crazy carefuls,
Time’s best friend
looks hard to stop,
Mary’s gotta big mouth,
Time to call it stop.
When I Couldn’t Care Less
It could rain me down with heavy objects
Yet I couldn’t care less —
now,
I’m blasted from orbit
into a groove bag of great amusement,
I laugh at myself
and what I write,
Or think I do,
And begin
always begin,
To wander my way back.
Know thyself
As idols silent in the dark
of temples buried ten gods past,
Philosophers know all of life
yet leave themselves be buried last.
A thinker’s mind that atrophies
as sacrifice to heaven’s pelf,
The mind of man creates a god
and man destroys himself.
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 