That CD is amazing. Ceej agrees. We were trippin out to it this weekend, here in room 314 (Sean was elsewhere)—just us & Niandra & the crawling walls. So let me catch up:
Wednesday was tough. I didn’t feel like doing anything, but after work things got cooler. Derek & I found rain upon exiting the building. We had to run for it, down to the coverd bus stop between Belmont & the quad. Then back in my dorm Maybellene was online for once, so we talkt about the weather, tornadoes, short stories—her legends of Applestill, Sarabande and Salix. She is brilliant and has interesting ideas for writing, like storm scrying. I can’t wait until she moves to Tennessee, which she can do hopefully next year perhaps. She’ll be a really nice person to be around, to get high with and share ideas & theories.
Got all my classes sorted out for next semester on Thursday. I don’t have to take English at all, for the rest of college, thanks to my A.P. and Columbia State credits (which I still need to get transferd). Band practice that night; good weed from Jeremiah; he got a kick out of the story about Breakfast Girl, about how my hands were so shaky the coffee mug rattled against my teeth when I took a sip. It is pretty funny. I probably lookt terrified.
Friday was great: we had no school. Around 6pm we left for our show at the Muse. Asher & Johnny showed up—exchanged jokes with them & Tyler from Vesta Rose. Ceejay & I toked upstairs before our set, so we played sloppy but LOUD. There was a decent crowd there too. We smashed the stage at the end, Ceej seeming especially to vent his frustrations—he got arrested a week ago after leaving work for rolling thru a stop sign with less than a gram of bud on him. Total bullshit. Anyway, we helpt clean up; Sean left with Rachel; and we (me, Ceejay, Tyler & John) arranged to buy some acid for $7 a hit. Ceej & I both dropt three and made a beeline for campus. John & Tyler did the same and headed up to Clarksville & the dorms of Austin Peay. The effects came on FAST, before we even had a chance to smoke a bowl. Doubtful how far those two made it up 24 before it was Bat Country for them.
Obviously, it was strong—strong as the stuff we had the night before classes started, the night Katrina made landfall (see 8/30). The first thing I truly noticed was a feeling of deja-vu, as we watched TV it felt like I had seen those commercials in that order a thousand times already, and could almost predict which one was coming next. Even the fuzzy colors in the floor seemed super familiar. Then we landed on MTV2, and the show Wonder Showzen—which was so strange & surreal, I became convinced for a min that I was no longer watching the actual program but a completely independent & organic hallucination—that is, the drug was so strong it had obscured the literal faces & words on the screen and had overlaid something else on top of it, something altogether new, unlike anything I’d seen on other trips.
But no, that’s just how weird the show is. It fucks with you. Ceejay saw the same thing. I had a feeling Tyler & John were up in Clarksville watching it, too, and having the same reaction. At one point a boy came on screen & was whispering “Tyyyylleeerrrr…” and did a whole bit about being a perfect kid named Tyler. Bet that freakt em out. “Did you hear that?? Is this real?!”
Something that freakt us out: Greg the RA suddenly knockt on the bathroom door. I jumpt up to mute the TV. “Hey guys?” His voice sounded far away, reedy. “Yeah?” I replied, making no movement towards the door. “Is y’all’s heater working?” he askt. Ceej & I stared frozen at each other from across the room (he was sitting in Sean’s normal spot; he wasn’t on the nightly guest list & so, of course, he wasn’t suppost to be in the dorms). The heating unit is on the wall above Sean’s bed & isn’t controld by us. I knew there was no way we could tell, no way to pick out the hum from the rest of the white noise filling the air. Was it actually vibrating & radiating heat? Was it even cold in here? I said, “Honestly, I have no clue.” Greg paused a beat & said “Aight then,” and went back to his room. Crisis averted.
We went outside a couple of times. Noises came out of the sky, from the mood and clouds: spacey radiowaves embedded in the silence. We took a quick walk around the quad & Miller Hall across the street—things moved in the shadows (and all of it left tracers), things lookt pixelly & slow-moving. There was a good deal of time distortion, too. Spoken words sounded backwards; I felt like I could rewind & fast-forward thoughts. Sometimes I would get excited & then forget what I was excited about, and would almost flip out. I knew at once this must be near what psychosis feels like.
Thru it all we had the mighty Froosh’s buoyant guitar work & screechy voice emanating from Sean’s boom-box, recorded on an analog 4-track back when JF wasn’t much older than us now, before fame & addiction nearly killed him. We watched the lava lamp and giggled at the blobs that seemed to act out the music, which was, incredibly, designed for this very moment. And if you see me roamin’ the hillside, won’t you come along…
Ceejay fell asleep before I did. I stared at the television as the sky got bright while listening to Nick Drake on headphones. There’s this channel, a calibration station (I guess) for the cable provider, with a live graph of some kind. It reminds me of a seismometer.