From: "Gizmo" Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past - The Flaming Knives Part 2 of 4 (Yo Dude, Turn On The Stove) Date: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:48 PM The Flaming Knives Part 2 of 4 (Yo Dude, Turn On The Stove) Copyright Gizmo 2002 John Dambrosian arrived around 6 P.M. with the acid we asked him to get us. This was to be the first acid trip for me in about three years. The previous trip taken on New Years Eve, 1968 almost landed me in the psyche ward at Jacobi Hospital. A true case of badly manufactured LSD, burned out brain and flawed DNA. So after a headlong dive into and out of smack I was wary of taking LSD again. But all was well. This was my first experience with blotter acid. Prior to the 1970's acid was only available on different colored saccharin like tablets, on Aspirin, in liquid form etc. The blotters we got that night were really neat looking. The black geometrical design dyed into the 4 hit blotter sheet seemed to foreshadow the trip that lay ahead. We noticed something else too. Something we noticed consistently over the next couple of years. The blotters would glow if they were near a black light. We thought that perhaps it was the LSD contained therein that made it glow. Who knows? One of our favorite things to do was to take a full glass of water, sit it in front of a black light and drop a blotter onto the water. If you watched the glass you would see these bluish purple iridescent swirls gently cascading and mixing with the water until finally the water would have a pale blue tint to it in front of the black light. Well that night we split the tab into four quarters and took a hit, lit a joint, turned on some music and waited. It may seem incongruous but at that time the Northeast Bronx was alive with vibrant energy. As the evening rolled in we could feel the first flashes of psychedelic magic as it kicked in and blended seamlessly with the living room and made everything begin to vibrate and glow. The inner road ahead was somewhat familiar and we soon got lost in each others eyes. I've tried to describe some of my LSD trips in these adventures. I'm sure no words can ever do them justice. But over the next thirty minutes of so, time, space, emotion and thought lost their linear quality and ignited in an internal firework display that would engulf and soon obliterate any feeling of a separate self or I. The usual boundaries of our bodies melted away. And that was usually the key to a really cosmic trip. For it was natural to try to resist some of this. You felt like you were being catapulted into space. The paradox was the more you resisted the less enjoyable the trip could be. But having let go, you not only got really high but you were in for layer after layer, dimension after dimension of cosmic magic. A few hours later we wandered into our bedroom which was a magical space even when straight. The pictures on the wall, the many candles, the hanging drapes and tapestry across the ceiling and the quiet of the evening enhanced the inner fire that was igniting our neurons and senses. Making love blossomed into a realm of sensual delights. My girlfriend became a exotic seductive temptress that quickly morphed into the archetypical female. Now it was not just one woman I was fucking but all woman. And if I dared to open my eyes and look I could watch and delight over the fact that she was at turns blonde, brunette, black haired, taller, shorter, younger and older. It was like having every sexual fantasy fulfilled all at once. It was almost too much. As if the power of the moment, the LSD was not enough, now we had added the sexual energy at the base of our spines. After an hour or so we had to withdraw and just breathe. Just breathe. And even breathing was about to undergo a huge paradigm shift. "What the fuck is Gizmo talking about?" Well it was like this. Normally you breath and you never think about it. That is, of course unless you've just swallowed an Avocado pit or someone is trying to choke you to death. But who the fuck ever stops and pays any attention to breathing? Almost nobody. But we were. Hell we had no choice. Because back down in the living room and sitting across from each other in total silence we noticed that our breathing had become synchronized. We were breathing in tandem. Each breath was like breathing in the entire universe and each exhalation was like breathing it out again. To be more precise it became obvious that the universe was breathing into and out of us. We flashed on the seemingly obvious fact that this is what always goes on. We only think it's the other way. We became riveted by the sensation. We noticed that if we focused all our attention on it we could slow it down. Not just our breath, but the creation and recreation of the universe during each breath cycle. We also noticed that there was this point at the end of an exhalation but before the next inhalation took place when the world stopped. Literally. It was like everything everywhere including us were just at total rest. Then we would slowly allow our lungs to fill up again and everything started up again. Someone could probably make the argument that we were pushing the limits of sanity here. Well maybe, but what the fuck would they know? No, we had hit upon something. Not sure just what the fuck it was, but it was totally absorbing. As each breath was released and our lungs would simultaneously reach that momentary empty state that normally would only last for a split second we would fall into that split second and slip through the crack in the cosmos. Within that crack we had complete freedom and power. And that crack was no longer just a split second. No way. That split second was eons of time. You could 'stay there' and explore it. And when you inhaled again, or rather when IT inhaled into you and started the linear clock of man-made time again it you could hear a very audible thunderclap. CRACK. We tried experimenting with this while listening to music. The results were even more engaging. We could touch the music coming from our stereo system in multiple dimensions. And when we stopped our breath we would pass into a place from which all music originates from. We were able to see that to a sense there was no individual creativity that would let now one, now another person think of, create and produce his or her music. Rather there was a realm where all music, of all types, of all times and all dimensions existed. It's always there. It's always been there. It's just that now and again the right person with the right antenna, in right time, place and ability picks up on some of it out it comes into everyday world. That person may then become or already be popular for his or her ability to tune in. The hit makers of the pop scene. The Lennon's & McCartney's, the Becker's and Fagan's, the Moby's of the world. I can't convince anyone of this but there have been a number of times that I 'heard' a melody, a complete song along with all the vocals and instrumentation that had not ever been heard or played anywhere and it would get my attention. Having a strong musical orientation, it might be something I enjoyed hearing. Then, perhaps a year or so later I would hear that exact song on the radio. It was a 'brand new' song, just written and released by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (whoever.) Coincidence? Maybe. But it happened often. Someone, or some band in a better position to do something with the music they tuned into would get that music onto an album and 'release it.' It's like what they call channeling today. And I think right now I can do a bit of channeling of my own. Right now I'm channeling this nagging question that keeps looking for answer. "Hey Gizmo, when the fuck are you going to tell us about the flaming knives already?" To be continued