On May 1, 2009 – HG finally brought over that absinthe he was telling me about (and that I was dying to try) – suffice to say, I believe I had too much of the stuff; though it had a wonderful anaesthetizing quality – I felt like I was in a cocoon – like I had been bitten by a spider, and was in suspended animation – until my blood would be sucked out. And everything was just perfect…
The interesting thing about this absinthe – was that it was under the Marilyn Manson label (I think I had heard somewhere that he was interested in this process). And after a brief debate about whether M-squared was indeed the anti-christ; and if there was a god, or a devil – I took off on an interesting journey. Probably much of my altered state was wasted on sleep – and I probably shouldn’t have got behind the wheel to go to Son Austen’s soccer game the following day (at 8:00am)…but coming down from this stuff involved a tremendous amount of napping for me (I chalk it up to advancing age or that cocoon angle [was I metamorphosing?]).
So, even though I don’t care much for Marilyn’s music – I definitely have to acknowledge him as being creative and diversified. I guess he even dabbles in painting – in fact, the label of Mansinthe is a self portrait of Marilyn as an old man. Girlfriend Giti said that I looked like old man Marilyn while I was imbibing. Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
But what I wanted to do was to break on through to the other side. I brought out my melodica after HG brought out some pipes and attempted to merge with him. HG then brought out his diggeridoo and I tried to hang with the-two-of-them – I think I might be able to in the future, with some more practice with my lungs. I ended up working on my new piece on the piano…
Eventually, however, we had to listen and watch the guys who succeeded in “breaking on through to the other side” – so I made HG and Yanna watch sound stage performances of Jim and the boys doing “When the Music’s Over,” and, “The End.” HG and I remain in awe of Morrison. Not everyone knows the line of influence that may have culminated in Morrison. It went: Bing Crosby; Dean Martin; Elvis; and, Morrison. I watched most of the Peter Fonda hosted “Flower Power” infomercial about the music of the “60s” and was very disappointed that THE DOORS weren’t featured.
Coming down from absinthe is a lot like coming down from peyote…that impenetrable shield, that massive cushion you have — gets stripped away and you start feeling human and vulnerable again. I knew it was leaving my system when my rotator-cuff tendinitis started aching again – a chronic pain from swimming way-too-much butterfly in my youth. Can I sue my former coaches for overworking me? I always tell my wannabe-teacher, college students – that we live in the most litigious culture that has ever inhabited the earth: will we one day have the opportunity to kill all the lawyers, again? I certainly hope so.
Like Zelazny’s pattern, in The Amber Chronicles, or is it The Chronicles of Amber? – it’s tough to come back to the same place once you’ve walked the pattern. I definitely went out-of-sync on this one: I wonder where it will lead…