Nuclear Obliteration? AWESOME!!

One time we all ate Alien Turdz. Up on Spaceout Mountain. There were like 10 of us. It was a springtime Saturday in 1995. The first real warm day that spring.

Tons of people climb Spaceout Mountain. Especially on Saturday. But that one sun drenched spring Saturday everyone was lucky. Since miraculously no one besides us boisterously tripping space cases climbed Spaceout Mountain that day. A lucky break like I said because anyone who did — Sober People especially — would albeit inadvertently have Seen Too Much.

So we’d have to kill them.

Stupid Sober People.

I drooled. Giggled. Giggled & drooled. Giggled at the puddle of drool that collected on the ground beneath my chin; specifically at the colony of fairies that sprung to life from that drool puddle.

Drool fairies.

There were drool fairies because I was spun.

Spun.

How spun?

Hard Spun.

Spun kookie.

Drool streamed merrily from my mouth.

“Blah blah blah.” Someone said. “Bla bl-blah bla sunglasses.”

The fairies rode the drool stream like a waterslide.

Someone nudged me.

It was Superstar Brown.

I want to write some words here to describe my friend Superstar Brown; deliver to my readers some clue about the benevolent enormity of his character.

His last name really is Brown. What else can I say about him?

I call him Superstar Brown.

“A little to the left!” He insisted.

I continually drooled.

Superstar Brown literally shook me from my inattentive yet blissful stupor.

Drool flew everywhere.

I laughed uproariously.

“Did you hear me?” He asked, seemingly excited about something.

“Oh shit yes!” I assured him. “Something about blah blah whatever SUNGLASSES!”

I wanted to stare at the ground and drool some more but Superstar Brown wouldn’t let me.

“Not whatever sunglasses. WEARING SUNGLASSES. Look!” He commanded. And pointed to the sky. “A little to the left.”

With my eyes I followed his gesture. He held his hands palm open toward the western horizon & nodded just slightly toward the south.

I stared. Drooled. And just about shit my pants.

“A little to the left??” I asked amazedly.

It was little to the left. Unmifrikkinstakably.

“A little to the left.” Superstar Brown assured me.

I attentively wiped some drool off my chin. Blinked. Blinked. Blinked again. Plainly I could not believe my eyes.

Superstar Brown beamed; pleased to no end.

“You see him!” My friend triumphantly exclaimed.

I nodded alertly.

“Wearing sunglasses.” I declared.

The sun had begun to set. It made the clouds all crimson & electrically groovy. We were on planet Earth.

Planet Earth is awesome dudes. Too bad we’re about to smolder it & her inhabitants like the ass hit of $20 rock in Superstar Brown’s crack pipe. Shit we may nuke Iran tonight. Or else we’d have to invade them the old fashioned way. You know, with troops.

The United States of America plans to invade Iran.

Begs the question:

With what Army?

Um-K!

So instead we nuke ’em. Nuke ’em tonight? Maybe even!

We might nuke Iran tonight.

When I grew up Ronald Reagan was president. As a child I feared him tremendously. I thought he would start a nuclear war. Maybe that very night! I attempted to wrap my formative brain around the notion. Find some way to make it OK. There was none. Sweatily anxiety-barbed chills crawled out of the marrow in my spine. I could not sleep.

Then my mom would have a terrifically awful time of it when she had to wake me up for school in the morning. We’d get in huge fights because I wanted to stay in bed. I would throw temper tantrums. My mom would tremble tearfully and often had full blown on-the-spot nervous breakdowns.

And sometimes I would want there to be nuclear war before school started the next day. Because I rarely did my homework. And if there was nuclear war I would not have to go to school & get scolded.

Guess there’s always an Upside.

But mostly I’ve spent my life in revulsion of the nuclear obliteration possibility.

Until very recently.

We all saw it. A little to the left? Not sure what it meant exactly. Left of what? Dunno. The middle of the sky maybe? Maybe. But no matter. What counts is the sunglasses.

I saw them. Saw what Superstar Brown meant. 15 years later I am still plumb giddy — I mean pleased as a dosed bowl of punch — about it.

It was Jerry Garcia. Well it was a cloud. But a cloud which I recognized immediately as Jerry. As though the cloud were sculpted to his likeness. I mean this cloud looked so much like Jerry Garcia it must have been. A work of art! Truly.

Me & Superstar Brown high-5’d elatedly.

“Mo-frikkin SUNGLASSSES — wearing ’em!!“

I was stunned. Stunned as if the sky suddenly turned yellow & the sun went electrical blue. It was strange but I coped; with the aid of a few billion rawly rip-blasted lung loads of laughter.

Is it a Drug Hallucination if everyone sees the same thing?

There’s no such thing as hallucinations; just things seen more readily when you’re tripping.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote that shortly before he died allegedly.

Certainly one may not refute the good doctor’s logic. What is a hallucination? Something you see. Like green leafs on a tree. Which actually are not green. Rather, tree leaves reflect waves of sunlight which travel within a particular range of velocities; velocities that in turn are absorbed by our eyeballs; velocities which sing to the tune of green. Put simply: green is not a color. It is a speed.

There’s no such thing as green. But some greens — like an alien’s phantom green hue — are seen more readily when you’re tripping.

I am madly tempted to twist this argument in high gear all the way around the steered-with one knee Bend — and propose thus: There Is No Such Thing As Reality.

No such thing as Reality. Then what is there?

Actuality.

In all actuality Reality is a farce. Because by its nature Reality is something we are stuck with. It can not be altered and it automatically sucks.

The Reality is that you have to buy the ticket if you want to take the ride.

Actually we can ride for free.

Ride is a Verb. Actuality is a noun. Reality is a noun. Actualize is a verb. Ride is a noun. Ride & Actuality can morph from noun to verb & Go. Ride. Actualize. Go.

Reality makes no such adjustment on its own behalf. Reality does not become a verb. Reality does not exist because it does not have the power to Go.

Jerry Garcia was actually up there in the sky above Spaceout Mountain the one time we all got faced on Alien Turdz. That is to say that we all saw him. First Superstar Brown. Then he showed me.

“Motherfucker’s wearing SUNGLASSES!!” I shouted ecstatically.

“I was not shitting you.” Superstar Brown said.

“Sunglasses!”

It was different from seeing Jerry Garcia play his guitar onstage. In part because he had no hands. Just his head. From the chin up. I swear it was Jerry. I swear! Plus I never heard Superstar Brown say it was Jerry. All I knew was something a little to the left & sunglasses. But the second I saw that fucker I knew exactly what Superstar Brown wanted me to see. Or should I say who he wanted me to see. Jerry I tell you! Or perhaps it was actually a cloud that turned into some dude who coincidentally looked just like Jerry Garcia.

Maybe whoever it was did it just to fuck with us because he knew we were tripping on shrooms.

Either way the cloud, in all verifiable actuality, was very cool — cool like a ZZ Top song — because it sported a spiffy pair of sunglasses.

This I know beyond certainty: Jerry was alive that day; he did not die until several months after we all saw him up in the sky.

It was the last time Superstar Brown saw the beloved Fat Man.

And you know what? Even if we made it all up — it still qualifies as a bona fide Jerry Garcia actualization.

Actual is conceptually very nifty.

What is a cloud in actuality?

Clouded actuality.

In actuality what is a cloud?

Awesome. Like an open container of billion proof make believe. Clouds are awesome dudes.

YEAH! Can ya smoke ’em?

If you chow down enough Alien Turdz I bet you — you can probably pull a cloud clear down from the Blue & smoke the fucker for breakfast. That’s why Alien Turdz — which actually are a kind of mushroom that grows on Pluto only — are way bitch ass awesome too.

Mushrooms from Pluto & clouds on planet Earth. Man. Clouds. Mushrooms. 2 of the finest things in the cosmos don’t you think? You do! Smoking clouds for breakfast after you chow Alien Turdz is cooler than an alien chick with 3 phantom green boobs.

Mushrooms. Clouds. WooHOO!!

Mushrooms. Clouds? Mushroom clouds. Hey…that’s what happens when you’re nuked!!

Mushroom clouds the size of the Empire State Building. Right? Mushrooms. Clouds. Both good. Mushroom clouds: HUGE! Sounds to me like more of a good thing!!

Hey. Ya know? They also say drugs are like these terrible things. We know that’s an obscene lie. So when They say nuclear fallout is a terrible thing — why the fuck should we believe Them?

Now all of the sudden I can’t stop thinking about how super excellent it’ll be to get obliterated atomically!!

Clouds. Mushrooms. Brilliant.

And that is why I support Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapon technology.

So they can Bring It On motherfuckers!

I mean we could nuke Iran tonight. We will maybe. But if they can’t nuke us back well come on Georgie: What’s in it for me??

Yeah — and one more thing! Missile defense? But…what if it works? Say you shoot an incoming nuke out of the sky.

How will I get My Rocks Off then you bastards?

I tell you it’s a trampling violation of my damn Civil Liberties.

Which proves my point once again: You got to fight for your right to Party.

thank God for cops.

I dosed up some acid one night last summer. I was in Brooklyn. Funny story that goes along with it: I’d completely forgotten that I even had the stuff. The cops found it for me.

I had just wandered — absolutely innocently — through the city housing projects in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. The projects just happened to be in between where I was and where I was going. But when I turned the corner I encountered two plain clothes NYPD detectives who assumed a white boy like me must have been in the Projects for drug related purposes.

“Whatcha got?!” They demanded.

“Nothing.” I said.

My smart ass was sorely tempted to follow my response up with a question, along the lines of:

“Why — do they got some Good Shit in there??”

But I held my tongue. A wise move? Perhaps. Though it went against my Policy; to fuck with the police in any way possible as long as I got nothing on me. Still, I felt vulnerable — being a country boy homeless in New York City — and smartly fearful of the NYPD. So I asked for directions to Van Brunt street and left it at that.

They gave me directions but shook me down first. An almost empty bottle of Sweet Breath “mouth drops” was uncovered while they ripped through my bag. The cops thought nothing of it but — wearing my best poker face — I was all thinking, like:

“Woo HOO!!“

For once! There’s actually a cop around when you need one.

A couple hours later — near sundown — I was kicked back on the grass in this bad ass little waterfront park in the same neighborhood. Digging this view:

Awesome dudes.

The red ball of sunfire sank low over & then directly behind Lady Liberty’s torch.

Way awesome. I popped the top off my Sweet Breath vial. Poured in some water. Swished it around to dislodge whatever dose molecules were clung stubbornly to its’ side. Deposited the contents into my mouth & swigged them down the hatch.

It was a powerful brain whack. I tell you that.

Too powerful — for most people. That’s why the stuff is parceled out in hits maybe a tenth of the size of the one I estimably took.

A powerful brain whack; especially for a good old boy from Vermont — way out of his element wandering the night away on the streets of Brooklyn. Homeless. Utterly penniless. Unable to afford those distractions — ie BEER!! — so critically essential to the Drug Cosmonaut who needs, in cases of Brain Emergency, to reliably return to Earth.

The escape hatch as it were.

I had none of these things. Not even a cigarette. And anyone who smokes them knows how crucial they are when you’re tripping.

I am a daredevil. What can I say?

One thing I did have was a Friend. That helps incalculably. A friendless man may be forever lost. But Absynth Eve was with me. We were living in her car. Actually it wasn’t her car. It was an inadvertantly stolen Toyota Prius hybrid — but that’s another story.

Absynth Eve is about my best friend on all planet Earth. But it happened that on that night — she declined to trip with me — Absynth Eve was so entirely sick of the very sight of her best friend that I, for most of the night, was shall we say excused from her stolen hybrid car.

You’ll unavoidably have that when you live with your best friend in her car.

I wandered the streets alone. Far, far gone out of my skull on no less than 10 solidly potent hits of LSD.

It was the kind of trip that distinguishes the casually suicidal — we who may occasionally consider taking our own lives for pragmatic reasons — from someone who truly wants to scale a 5-story building then jump off head-first and die.

I obviously fall into the former category. But I guess maybe I wasn’t sure — and it’s good to know. For that reason the Trip ranks among my more productive drug experiences.

For most of the night I amused myself by looking for hundred dollar bills on the ground. No $20’s, please. Um-k? I’m too broke to find a twenty dollar bill! Hundreds only.

And I was amused. What the hell? Here’s what life is to me: I make stories. I listen to stories. And I tell stories. Now obviously I hoped to tell you guys the one about the time when I found that loose Hundie floating down the street in Brooklyn. But I tend not to have that kind of luck.

But again: what the hell?

Hunter S. Thompson about once wrote something smart about his Hero:

Muhammad Ali was not a lucky man. He was Fast. Very fast.

I slurped in a gigantically pulsated breath of New York City air. Scanned the pavement. Shrugged my shoulders & sighed.

And wished I had a frikkin cigarette!!

I tried to bum one from strangers all night — to utterly no avail. Until morning, when I passed a man who’d just stirred from his slumber. He was still halfway under his blanket. Outside a church, where he’d slept on a cardboard box.

He was rolling a cigarette out of a pouch of Top Menthol tobacco. Cosmically fine luck; Top Menthol happens to be my 2nd  (after the more costly American Spirit menthol) favorite brand. In fact I am smoking one right now, out of the pouch that Absynth Eve just sported me $1.26 to buy from Wal Mart.

Trouble was he did not want to give one to me. Why should he? $1.26 is literally a lot of money to a homeless man. I asked. He shook his head no. But took a closer look at me, and by my grungy appearance he concluded that I was homeless.

Then he let me roll two.

2. Shelter

I’ve addressed homelessness in this blog, but largely in passing. And wonder sometimes whether that’s a mistake. Maybe I should hit the topic more play-by-play directly. Because most days when you’re homeless being homeless is all that happens.

Gets to the point where there’s not much else to write about.

Thing is though I don’t want to write about it. I’ve sick to shit of it. It hurts. Plus I’m kind of ashamed of it. I needn’t be. Should I be? Ashamed of what? Shame is a toxic emotion which feeds on itself. So…shamed by shame? Fuck if I know. I’m not a god damn therapist.

I am a human being. And human beings need, have always needed, to provide for ourselves certain things in order to survive. Water, shelter & food specifically. And – this is instructive – in that order. Anyone who has been in a survival situation (or watched one on TV) knows that that is how one’s basic needs line up in order of priority.

1. Water.

2. Shelter.

3. Food.

It feels a bit counter-intuitive that shelter should come before food. After all lack of food – though it may take weeks or sometimes months – will kill a man. But, then, one cold night can kill a human in one cold night. So there you go.

What is shelter? In the wild shelter is adequate protection from the elements. And from both known & unknown predators. On a camping trip in summertime in Vermont a tent provides adequate shelter. But is the tent really necessary? On a dry night…yes and no.

On a dry night a person can sleep in relative comfort on the ground in the woods with no tent. For about one night. A short night! The night will end quickly. Whether it’s mosquitoes (which even in Vermont can transmit strange diseases), or the brightly rising sun, or random passing hikers who look at you oddly…something inevitably will disturb your slumber by reminding you that your shelter scenario is inadequate.

Waking up in the morning after camping with a blanket but no tent on a warm dry night might feel to you like when you get too drunk to drive home so you sack out on a friend’s couch instead. What’s the very, very first thing that pops into your pounding head when you wake up to realize the inadequacy of your shelter arrangement?

Well, if you truly were drunk the night before…you probably want water more than anything. But that’s more of a desperately choked gasp than a literal thought. The first thing you actually think?

I want to go home.