Bright, and not yet early, or early, but not yet bright? I can’t be sure. This seems one of the great dilemmas of our time. Are we crazy? Or can we just not sleep tonight because there are so many voices, and faces, and people we haven’t seen in too long, and they seem to be really popping around in the unconscious, but after a couple of sleeping pills (prescribed of course) I found myself in the living room spinning records and reminiscing about a camp on the coast of South Carolina, (or maybe it was North Carolina) where homesickness gave me lime disease. In the world of the conscious unconsciousness, induced by strong benzodiazapenes, dream and reality mix, you are awake, and only the sudden silence as the records run their course, breaks you from your still keen statuary bliss. They need reloading.
The records are old and dusty and beautiful, a bit of Hollywood remakes of the “Music of the East” mixed with a classic exercise record… a bit of stretching and what not, and now for the overture: I spent a few minutes adjusting the minisculescentes, the little tweaks and tone, beat, switch grab the toe slide, etc, etc. So now the Platipus is licking all around the edges of the glorious sounds of Frank Chacksfield and his most astounding 1950’s record which takes us Inside the Mystic East. It is like a Broadway show of jazz inspired, cliché, Orient delights. Some choice songs off the album may give you an idea of the immaculate way in which they enhanced the Asian vibes: “Japanese Sandman,” “By an old Pagoda,” “On a little street in Singapore,” to name just a few. I’m feeling giddy.
Here is the dawning morning, sitting here draped in an old American flag and contemplating the future, sedated and elated, enjoying the gentle tug of war between ambien and cocaine. There are only crackles and pops on the phonographs. Excuse the author for one brief interlude. We are now back to square one. The breathing. Swedish yoga with a techno beat. The gentle voices, “chin down, inhale breathing in, exhale breathing out. Hold the pose, just breath. In, out, in, out.” Just breathing, just gently breathing, as we question the future, the choice between man and machine. Finding ourselves the slaves of our creations, watching as the scavengers lurk on all the highways. The rhythm is what is important. Some things are meant to help a man extend his vildormationalsticsam. At the potential expense of what he is familiar with, and what he cares about, when a man is called must he answer? Which pill must he swallow to put his body in the game. This is not what we call a sissy fight. This is the pedal hitting the metal, and we’ll be damned if we are not prepared with the weaponry of the future. Our weapons are the Owl, the Coyote, and the spirit of Peyote. All the little pioneering adventures we embarked on in the name of what we must do, are all moments when we come to terms with our innermost demons, these fun loving imps who most often live in our unconscious to keep us balanced, but then you see them, sprouting their little wings on to freedom.
We are the mothers of our own inventions. And some may be from pharmaceuticals, especially when we must write at all costs, so as to prevent total collapse. We need drums, noise, beauty, and bliss. The adventure as it should be. We have to keep expanding. Did we want to get sober, to clear away the mystery, and return to the fold of the great know: the secret world of happy, joyous, and free? Once you want to quit drinking, once you’ve really faced the fact that you can’t do it like normal folks. The need (you made it very clear for a long time that it was only a want) to drink almost everyday, even the ones designated as nondrinking days. The sauce is always near. But the important thing is to remember that it is all an illusion. The tasty beverages, in their bottles and carafes; ah how I love red wine. It has been my faithful lover, but even she may be turning on me, at least at the bars here in Aspen. The right amount of drugs at the right time can really induce that marvelous insanity on which we all thrive, because the little tastes we get from the little reflectors around us, temporarily allowing us to reach around the stubby imps, these little nuclei of chemicals, as they challenge our brains in conversation. But they become addictions. These are the illusions that offer us visions of delusion. The geniuses of our substances, they deliver us that very genius with one hand, yet with other hand they take away the capacity to profit from it. So the circles go round and round down here at the bars of society. With one hand it giveth, with the other it taketh it away. Once we reach the point where we actually want to be sober, trouble most certainly approaches. This state generally follows many heartfelt oaths to abstain for a while, a week maybe, a couple of days, many a negotiation with the mind and liver and then the sudden realization that a coke habit could really expand my spiritual development. Insanity is the mother of invention.
I’m stepping down to the porcelain bird plate to give another prostration before Charlie
[white lines].
The point I was trying to make is that coherence does not always come in the most straightly straight ways. Just make it conscious. Prescription medications are a keen and recommended way to keep one sane, and out of involuntary institutions (although you realize that we often think we might be happier on the inside where they take care of you and relieve your every stress with a pill or shot or hot plate of food).
Ah… That short little glimpse. The circle round the dime, it’s the purity that you seek. The truth without the lie. Pure god, not just the helpers on the path… we must question everything, including why we are afraid to say this, to go against the accepted norms of society.
Have to take a nap. The healthy life proceeds. Round and around we go. Still drinking, doing the drugs, oh don’t you know. Just moving forward. How fascinating. Following the path… what path? The path down this crazy road, toward some destiny.
