Magic mushrooms , LSD, marijuana, ecstasy, all doing the same thing. Putting us into a different state, a place where we might bend the corners of reality and just peer under its covers. Carlos Castanada tripping on Mescalin, distilled from the cactus plant, psychosylibin, was that the thing that moved him to see dead relatives and for distortions in the shape of things to become his new reality.. A journey, yes a journey. Magic mushrooms, picked from a forest a long time ago, in a  kitchen in Richmond, boiled on the stove smelling foul, like boiled socks.  A dim kitchen with an open fireplace that didn’t work and small white tiles covering every other surface. The mushrooms, mixed with several spoons of coffee to disguise the taste, a taste somewhere between vomit and dirt, but you do it for the effect, yet unknown.

Sitting in the front room watching television, waiting for the effects to kick in and they do. Strange things start happening, things seems to gain a halo, a reddish glow. Outside the stars have rings around them and fingers that want to stretch downand touch you. The smell of the Port Wine Magnolia is like a thousand blossom bombs released at once. Back inside Peter and his girlfriend are sitting on a couch, red emanations are glowing from their orifices; their nose and ears and eye sockets and what! Are they growing horns- whoa- too freaky!

I pick up the guitar and start playing – fucking fantastic! Wow what chords and amazing notes – I record in anticipation of a masterpiece. In the morning it’s just a jibble jabble of ploppy notes . Not all it’s cracked up to be. Pete keeps experimenting, probably developing a whole line of addiction down the track. I didn’t see him after that. Just living in a walk through hallway near the bathroom, you do when  you’re young, try these things, sometimes dangerous, something to alleviate the boredom, something to sink your teeth in. Marijuana several years later – Me, meditating. I perceive flames licking the inside of my body and my heart beating on a crucifix just like Jesus – am I sacrificing myself on the altar of another addiction. I think it all stopped then, no more of that sort of thing, just the narcotic of nicotine keeping me company though the next lonely years.