Been there, done that -- good thing

Jackdaw gave me my first magic mushroom when I was in Europe last month.

My kids don't quite believe my claim that when I was a student, the great universities of America were free of fags, drugs and tattoos. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly. It turns out that in addition to myself, I knew quite a few people back then who would have been fags if they had had the balls. But I know I knew no druggies and no one had any ink.

I had my first recreational drug in the summer of 1967. Sgt. Pepper had come out a week or two before, and I had been admitted to the bar a month or so before that. A journalist friend decided it was time to introduce me to rock and roll and weed, all at once. They went well together. I followed certain sorts of cerebral rock for the next twenty years or so.moving from the Beatles to the Stones and beyond -- the Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, Talking Heads, Lou Reed. I was once present at the Fillmore East, quite stoned, when The Who smashed their instruments on stage, a just discovered shtick I hadn't yet heard about and which, in my inebriation, scared the shit out of me.

I never did it much, but I grew fond of the occasional joint. I suppose I resisted it for as long as I did from some concern that if I lost my self control, some hidden truths about my sexuality might slip out. Of course, no such luck. I associated the herb with a mental state where connections and interconnections became visible. I could find a logic in the light shows and an interlocked poetry in the most prosaic sets of words. Perhaps the best high I ever had I spent listening to Mozart's opera Cosi fan Tutti with the full score on my lap and different ice creams melting at my side. I could hear the different vocal and instrumental lines both separately and together and do so simultaneously, always keenly aware of the wit which permeated everything.

I only once did I go beyond weed. On a Caribbean trip with several dozen other adventurous Wall Street lawyer types, somebody gave me some peyote. I swallowed. Nothing happened. I decided that since nothing else was happening, it was finally time that I really learned to snorkel and went out to marvel at all the colorful little fishies. Turns out I was out there marveling for three uninterrupted hours. That night my sorely sunburned back was aware of the impact of the drug my mind had refused to acknowledge.


It was pleasant, but never amounted to much and I suspect it's been years since I last lit up one of those.

Jack I know has had a wonderful time with his mushrooms. Sam tried them too, with good reports, when he visited Jack earlier this year. I was interested to try. Unfortunately, I probably went about it the wrong way using the sorts of stimuli which had worked so well with weed. Also, because we had been rushing about so much, I had not been able to alter my diet to maximize the mushrooms' effects.

I was half way through a remarkable tour de force novel, Everything Is Illuminated and Jack had a DVD of the movie. Indeed, it was at Jack's recommendation that I was reading the book. (He had stopped reading, opting instead for the flick.) I'm pretty sure the film was not nearly as solid as the book, but it held me absolutely rapt. I could not take my eyes off the wide, clear TV screen, even though I was vaguely aware that strange things were happening to the furnishing and the light in the room at the side of the set. I couldn't move my eyes to check out the mystery at the edge. I also couldn't quite bring my mind to focus on the film. It had my full attention, but not my full intellect.

When it finished, Jack suggested I lie back on his sofa and close my eyes, a transformative suggestion. Stoned on marijuana, I looked for light shows. High on mushrooms, I discovered that I carried my light shows with me and that they were playing on on the inside of my eye lids. I did not sense the customary patterns behind the fireworks, but I also didn't need the patterns.

The trip ended after Jack played the cd of Sondheim's show, Into The Woods. This score doesn't mean much to Jack, but he knows I think it to be one of the consummate woks of genius of the 20th Century. To me, the difference between a very good and a great work of art is that while a good work remains satisfying even after many repetitions, a great work gets better each time around, as more is discovered within it. Jerry Robbins' ballets were usually very satisfying the first time around, and always fun to see again; Ballanchine's ballets continue to get better with each viewing. So it was with the Sondheim on schrooms -- but, then, that's true without the drugs too.

Perhaps the most surprising discovery was the absence of any sexual layer. There was always something sensuous about grass, if only the ice cream. There was no equivalent here. I thought perhaps this was because my still function super-ego had stayed busy reminding me that Jack and I were intimate friends, but not fuck buddies. However, Sam had been fucked by Jack, to his delight and distended discomfort. They had used each other's bodies in just about every way known to man. But Sam tells me that after Jack, in his capacity as dirty-older-man, fed him the fungus, the trip was intense but totally asexual.

If I'm every back that way, I suspect I will be eager for a return journey. This time, however, I'll take the first steps knowing what not to look for: a marijuana moment.