Old School Arizona

[Madjag]

Sforza, love the stories.....Negril has to be one of the....well you know. It has a special place in my heart as well. One of my daughters is named Jamaica.

My parents took me to JA in 1968. We stayed at Tower Isle in Ochie which later became "Couples", a place much like Hedonism. I saw Byron Lee and the Dragonaires there and got drunk for my first time on rum and coke. Remember Overproof rum? Killer stuff....

Could Mr. Big be the guy who started the outdoor music venue with the 10 foot concrete walls that was located just about where you mentioned? It was not on the seaside of the road but on the inland side. I saw the Cool Ruler, Gregory Isaacs, and wrote about how a gunman licked off a few shots because he was so happy. You know what a pistol costs in terms of jailtime down there....10 years. The outdoor venue was called "Central Park" and the owners name was Biggah (bigger). May-be.

Keep it going man. I love the vibe. I'll be in Brooklyn during Christams week having currie goat with my Rasta brother Ricky. He's from Kingston and knows dem way dere. Seen?

Peace,
MJ

 

[Sforza]

I am starting this thread to discuss the "old days" of herb and herb growing in Arizona.


Although Arizona didn't have as many growers as California, a lot of good weed was grown here, and vast quantities of good weed came through here from Mexico on it's way to other places.

Anybody else remember those days? Did you smoke any of the "Blue Afghani" grown in the Pinalenos near Safford in the late '70s? Or Madjag's Rim SK1, or the SK1 grown along the Gila at about the same time? Do you remember Arivaca, Paradise, Peppersauce and Rincon? Or maybe you were farther north, Young in the Anchas, Payson etc.

I had a friend in Pittsburgh who spent a couple years in Federal Prison for carrying pot over the border from Mexico to Nogales. This was around 1970, so he probably got caught in 1968 or 1969.

When he got out and smoked dope with us, he used to tell us about it. Of course he did not get caught the first time he did it. He told us about walking into Mexico, staying with his connection, then putting the pack on his back and walking back over the border, spending the night in a motel, and catching a bus out of town in the morning.

He talked about being paranoid about smelling the marijuana in the backpack and hoping no one else noticed.

One friend who did not get caught told me that he had a foot locker full of pot that he got from Mexico. He took the train from Arizona back to Pittsburgh and was aghast to see that there were a bunch of law enforcement on the train as he loaded his foot locker on board. But he toughed it out and made it with no problems.

Lou, the guy who got caught told me that after doing the trip without any problems a couple of times, they f'ed up by getting wasted at the motel, sleeping in, and missing the bus. So they decided to take a cab. As they were driving down the road in the cab, they passed a customs patrol car. The customs officer took one look at the guys in the cab and turned around and stopped the cab. When he had the cabbie open up the trunk, the jig was up.

I had the unfortunate experience of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with Lou. I was passing through town, from Philadelphia to Detroit. I stopped at the apartment where Lou and my pal lived and smoked a couple of joints. Just when I am ready to head on down the road, Lou asks me if I will take him and my friend to another apartment so that he can sell a pound of pot. I said sure and gave him a ride.

We get to the house and the would be buyer smokes a joint. But the weed is not that good and there are a lot of sticks in the week, so the buyer says that he does not want the week.

So now I have to give Lou and my friend a ride back to his apartment with Lou carrying the bag of dope. Just as we get into my car, the cops walk up and bust us.

It turns out that Lou had noticed a well known snitch on the street outside the apartment house of the buyer. So apparently the snitch saw Lou walking into the apartment carrying a brown paper bag big enough to hold a pound of week and dropped a dime.

When we came out of the house, the cops were waiting for us. At the arraignment, I was held over, since we were sitting in my car when we were busted. My pal was released since it was not his car and he was not holding any weed. Lou was also held over since the cop testified that Lou was carrying the bag of weed.

I got off since the cop could not pin the weed on both Lou and I and he clearly told the truth that he say Lou carrying the weed. Me, I had no idea what was in that bag. Since he was out on probation, Lou spent a couple years in Western Penn, which was a big old time nasty prison with big dark stone walls. He has some interesting tales to tell about guys tying shanks to their hands and stabbing other inmates to death while he was there.

I used to buy pounds of Mexican weed from another guy who had a big Cadillac sedan. He was a bit paranoid. First you would pay him. Then you would follow him in your car. He would drive over to Schenley Park in the dark and when he flashed his lights, that was the garbage can the weed was in. Seemed to me like he was more likely to get caught fooling around with garbage cans in dark in the park then just selling the stuff, but I never heard of him getting caught.

 

[Sforza]

"We stayed at Tower Isle in Ochie which later became "Couples", a place much like Hedonism."

I had a Jamaican friend, Roy, who lived in Runaway Bay. We met on a flight from Montego Bay to Pittsburgh. He was going to meet his wife's family in Erie, PA. My friend and I were talking to him and the plane and just passing the time and he told us about some of the things that he had going on in Runaway Bay.

It was right before the holidays and there was one hell of a snow storm in Western Pennsylvania that night. I was staying at my friends house at the time and his father was picking us up at the airport. Roy's ride from Erie did not show up at the airport due to the snowstorm, so we took him home with us. Eventually Roy met up with his ride, but he appreciated that we had been willing to help him out when he was in a tight spot, in a strange city, late at night in a snow storm.

On a later trip down to Negril, Roy came and picked us up in Red Ground and took us to his house. It was a really nice house with a built in pool and all the amenities. Roy's wife was an older American woman from Erie who had quite a bit of money. Roy had a friend who made ganja oil. We hauled some that they fronted to us. One way we used was to fill up the aluminum tube of a spear gun with ganga oil. Then strap up the spear gun with a mask, snorkel, and fins, so that the gun itself did not seem abnormally heavy.

The ganja oil was pretty good, but it was nowhere near as good as some of the hash oil we were getting around the same time.

Ocho Rios is not far from Runaway Bay so we went to the falls at Ocho Rios for the first time with Roy. The water was nice and fresh and cool.

The first time we were in Jamaica, we spent most of our time in Negril, but just before we were ready to go home, we took a bus to Ocho Rios because we were told that it was worth checking out.

My buddy and I had hardly made it off the bus and were just starting to get out bearings when a couple of Jamaican girls pounced on us. They were both pretty good looking and we did not have anything planned so went along with their plans.

The girls took us to a little campground that had just had campfires and little thatched huts that were the size and shape of a little tent. You actually had to get down on your hands and knees to crawl in the doorway.

But the guy who was running the camp had some good ganga and the rent on the tiny hut was super cheap, so we spent the night there. Of course the girl and I had sex, but I don't think my buddy did have sex with the other girl. She was not as pretty as the one I had so it was understandable. So, after some good weed and sex, I drifted off to sleep content to be in a tropical paradise.

My sweet dreams were soon shattered as the cops were demanding that we come out of the hut. It was still dark and I thought we were getting robbed so I refused to come out, but things were sorted out shortly.

The cops took us to the police station and locked us up until it got light, but then they just deported us, by taking us to the Montego Bay airport, so it was not a big deal. But we were not able to see the falls on that first trip.

The guy that I was calling Mr. Big did not have a music place when I knew him, but he did have enough funds to do something like that if he had wanted to do so. I remember that he had a Jamaican sidekick called Blood who was supposed to be a killer. Blood was quiet and serious, so he made a good sidekick. It would not surprise me that he had killed at some point, but I have no knowledge of him actually doing so.

Names like Biggah and Blood are common in Jamaica so the folks that I knew probably are not the folks that had the music venue, but they might have been.

I stayed in a hotel off Times Square for a couple of months in the seventies. It was probably in the fall of 1978 since I remember the Yankees winning the world series and Bucky Dent having a very good series.

I used to get the Village Voice and check out the blues and jazz acts in town and go to the good ones. I remembered a memorable performance by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at a little hole in the wall. I also found out where reggae was being played and would go the clubs in Brooklyn were it was being played.

At one of these clubs I met a Jamaican I knew slightly from Negril. He invited me back to his crib for a smoke. To get up to his loft, we rode up in a freight elevator. He had a big place by New York standards, and we had a good time talking about the Island and having a smoke. That was about the extent of my contact with the Jamaican gangs of Brooklyn who you were working with around that same time.

Seen!

Except for the area right around the Kingston Sheraton, I did not know my way around Kingston at all. I did get to airport way too early on one trip and had some time to kill. This old Jamaican guy had a big old antique open top car that he offered to drive me around in. He claimed that his car was the one used in the first James Bond film, Dr. No, filmed in Jamaica.

I saw Dr. No in a small town theater when I was just starting to notice girls. Ursula Andress in her bikini had me sitting up and taking notice.

The guy drove me around Port Royal and environs for an hour or so and showed me a bit of the port.

The other time I spent some time in Kingston was when I flew down on Air Jamaica to Kingston from Philadelphia.

One of the stewardesses on that flight recognized me. She had spent some time partying in Negril and saw me and supposedly had met me. I did not remember meeting her but I met a lot of people, so it was entirely possible.

She was really nice to me on the flight and when she found out that I was going to stay in Kingston for the night and then fly to Negril, she offered to put me up for the night.

We went to her house, which she shared with a Chinese Jamaican girl, and dropped off our luggage and freshened up. We went out to dinner and then to a club, but she was so worried about me getting myself killed that she made me paranoid.

I don't know if it was really that dangerous, but I do know that she thought it was. Bob Marley and Peter Tosh were both shot in Kingston, so maybe she knew what she was talking about.

One thing that I found remarkable was the burglar bars around every window and door in the house. Not only were there bars on every outside window and door, but when I woke up in the middle of the night and had to take a leak, I found that I was locked in her bedroom. I had to wake her up and get her to unlock the bars so that I could get to the bathroom in the hall. Each girl had bars securing their individual bedroom.

 

[Madjag]

Finding That Cosmic Flow

Finding That Cosmic Flow

What’s The Hurry When Death Awaits?

There’s an art to being patient. Going with the flow, the ability to sense when one needs to pause, pull-back, or merely slow one’s movement, requires letting go. It’s that part of life we each get a chance to confront and bring to awareness, through personal effort, or be stuck living on auto-pilot without consciousness of the subtle speeds within our lives. One way or another we get lessons again and again until we gain some degree of control…..and even that is tenuous.

Watching dogs meet and greet, play, play-fight, and perform dominance attempts through ritualistic humping is just crazy entertaining. My friend Kristafari stopped by this weekend and brought his 2-year old male purebred Boxer. While we toked some Barney’s Farm LSD and soared into the cerebral heights that this primarily-Sativa strain is known for providing, we had hours upon hours of dog entertainment right before our eyes. My 10-year old female Boxer-Hound mix and my 2-year old male German-style Rottweiler got to enjoy every aspect of the meet-and-greet ritual, wherever we were, be it in the living room or while hiking in a desert wash. It was loads of fun watching the 100 lb Rottie using his herding and mouthing moves while the 80 lb Boxer slipped and evaded, coming around to stand up straight and get in a few good punches.

Speaking of play…..for me it’s not how fast or intensely a smoke takes you somewhere that counts, it’s where it takes you that counts. Maybe that’s not 100% accurate, however after 45 years of sampling a wide array of highs I have come to believe that the destination is a bit more important than the ride.

Because of this realization, lately I’ve been examining the traditional methods of measuring a smoke’s potency, the standards that rate the least number of tokes (one-toke weed) and quickest speed of onset (rush) as the most desirable criteria. It’s called by many names but basically it’s the good old “POW!” standard. The PABLOS calls it SHAZAM….and relates it to speedy weed. I’ve also been looking at the terminology that’s used to describe the difference between “high and motivated” and “wasted and stoned”, between “cerebral” and “narcotic”. It’s an interesting rabbit hole that I’m sure many of you have been down at one time or another. It makes you think about what the whole experience has to offer. No why, just how.

I find that I value predictability more and more as I use herb for designing my daily experience. It’s not much fun to go to work or begin a home building project and find myself so smashed from one or two hits off the pipe that I can’t truly function for the first hour of my stone. Similarly it’s reassuring to know that when a good friend visits and I want to keep powering the friendly social buzz we’re sharing that I can keep adding one toke upon another for a long, happy ride…. a no-ceiling journey. It’s largely about dosage in this case and I value knowing a smoke well-enough to be able to predict its effect in a variety of situations and not get taken by surprise. I don’t think it’s control freak material either. Do you? And of course for that occasional astonishing jet ride and rush or a classic knockout buzz that quickly leads to a hypnotic dreamspace, I know which herb is the magic carpet, too. Selections and choices….what a great dream!

The PABLOS has a unique way of using words for this purpose, too. He frequently relates his smoke description to actions: running, splitting logs, planting in the garden, fixing the hot rod, or shooting his new compound bow. Just for fun I’d love to hear him evaluate a big bowl of dreamtime Indica….weed that makes you sit still and do nothing….hahaha….would it drive you crazy my friend?

​

I’m an active guy and can still put in the hours necessary to write my pieces, think about big questions, and later prune the fig tree and finish painting the screen porch addition that I built with the wife over the last few months. Never did get into running but I love bicycles and lived on a stingray with a banana seat and high handlebars as a kid. Now I commute to work 2-3 times a week on my mtn bike: 23 miles round trip, with 1200 vertical feet of climb in just the middle 4 miles. I cheat because I have a Bionx setup, a lithium battery and electromagnetic hub that assists my ride. Still, even with 21 speeds on my mountain bike and this cool setup powering my task, I’m all out in the lowest gear at the peak of the steepest climb. Going uphill to work takes an hour; flying downhill on the way home takes 35 minutes and is my treat. It’s a lot of coasting and blasting along at 25-30 mph. We aging Terranauts do these things to stay fit.

My personal best for pull-ups, once-upon-a-time, was 13. That was on a sheet tied between two poles that were hanging from the balcony above. Had to jump up and grab on…the sheet would drop lower in a big U-shape making it extra hard to cheat on your pulls. I was in real hard body shape from being inside the big house for an extended period of time, eating low rations and having a surplus of hours to workout or play cards. My time wasn’t as long as Howard’s, Mr. Nice time, but it was still measured in years. It was one of those “learning experiences” we sometimes have as young men, the kind that provide a lot of time for looking within. A little death of sorts. Many of my co-participants were similarly pumping iron and working out in order to get buff for re-entry into their gang, group, hometown, cartel, family, or what have you. You had to do your time like a man, whatever that means. Like the movies, it was not. You’d have to be there to understand that the most important things were sometimes the least valuable and that time had no meaning until you were a “short-timer”. Then time came a rushing on and kept you even more pumped knowing that soon…..soon…..soon.

Nowadays I’m a bit far from that personal pull-up record, but I can still lift a 150 lb slab of flagstone off the truck and manage to push it around until it fits my patio’s design. Rock like that teaches me to plan ahead by making the sand as level as I can before first placement. I guess that’s a part of understanding the Flow, too. Don’t get ahead of yourself, but don’t be tardy either.

As I said earlier….go with the flow. It’s not easy, but it really is once you let go of shore and float downstream….. merrily, merrily……it really is a dream.

“Life’s a magic shadow show” – Advaita Vedanta saying

“Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to go out to sea and sink” – Suzuki Roshi

 

[wolfhoundaddy]

We're here for the ride.

Just like on the river, some times fast, slow, sometimes you catch an eddy and go round and round. When you come around a bend and aren't ready for that huge wave but it's right in front of you, whatareyougonnado? Yeah...close your mind, slowly lower your head, slightly squint your eyes, and enter time...one frame at a time.

Really! We can do that?

"Don't make me leave now,I wanna stay and play"

I hope to see a pack of furry friends when I part the vail. Each and every one. Been lots of them over the years. We often had 3-4 dogs at a time, since "78.

Peace

 

[Sforza]

Beautiful patio, Mag.

I have an atrium in my house that I like to keep green.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/userimages...522703d2be156122a687_998533.jpg?dl=1358138164

For all the ganga I have smoked, I can still remember a very few select times when someone broke out a little of their personal stash and the high was unlike anything else and was therefore memorable. Once in Negril, I was on the return trip up the beach toward Red Ground after having walked to the island and spent a few hours diving on the reef there. A white guy who I knew, but not real well, called me over to a little hut he was staying in on the beach. When I mean little, it was really little, about the size of a pup tent, but made of thatch. It was like a thatch igloo and one had to get down your knees to crawl through the little low arched entrance. My buddy said he had copped some really good weed and asked if I wanted to smoke some with him. I said sure. He dug up a little package out of the sand, cut up some gold buds on a piece of driftwood, and rolled up a small joint. It tasted nice, but nothing unusual. I got a fine buzz, but most all of the weed was good and at first the buzz was not that extraordinary. My benefactor said he had to get going right after we smoked so I thanked him and continued on my trek on up the beach back to Red Ground. The high continued to build, however, and after about fifteen minutes I realized what a tremendous high I was experiencing. It was fantastic, a true sativa, very cerebral and light, with almost no effect on my body or coordination. By the time I made it home, the high had mellowed but I was very happy to have experienced it. For all the ganga I smoked in Jamaica, that one little joint still stands out in my memory as being an extraordinary high.

Similarly, I had a similar experience in Colombia. My first trip to Colombia, we flew into Barranquilla, spent the night there, and then caught a bus to Rodadero Beach the next morning. It was not long after checking into the hotel that a young local offered to sell us some marijuana. It was so cheap that we were suspicious, but after the deal was done and we got our bundle up to our hotel room, we saw that we had about a quarter pound of what would have been primo Colombian Gold back in our hometown. In a country were even newbies could score such good weed, I never had any bad weed, but there was one time when I was visiting Cartagena that an American that lived in Cartagena with his beautiful Colombian wife told me that he had recently scored some great weed. I had smoked with him a time or two before. We were just casual acquaintances, but we were muy simpatico and got on well. This time he broke out some gold weed that did not look or smell any different than all the other weed that I had smoked, but the high was so very intense. As it turned out, after smoking, I again needed to walk up the beach, this time to get to my hotel, and again I was blown away by the soaring high that was so much better than all the other times I had smoked Colombia grass.

Nice looking dogs, too.

I had a big male brindle boxer; called him Tiger. He did not like the mailman. One day he jumped right through the upper panel of a screen door to get at the mailman. Luckily, he did not bite the mailman or anyone else. Boxers are so ugly that they are cute.

Now I have a little female pitbull. She is an oldschool dog, not one of the new razor's edge/juan gotty style dogs.

I worked a job in Connecticut for a couple of years. It is a beautiful little state. Good people too. They are hard workers, but nice. I started competing in Marathons while I lived in Connecticut. To train, I would run down the hill from my house, down the road about half a mile, then jump into a little lake and swim across it and back to where I jumped in. Then I would run back up the hill and jump on my bike and ride the 18 miles to work. I kept clean clothes at work and there was a shower in the bathroom that I used. The hard part was that after a hard day at work when I was ready to go home, I would realize that the only way to get home was to ride my bike. If I wanted to get home sooner, which I did, I need to pedal harder. There were some nice woods that I rode through and a lot of hills. It was funny that either way, it seemed like I was pedaling more uphill than I was coasting downhill. I guess that is because it takes a lot longer to work one’s way up a hill than it does to zoom down it. There was a section of highway of about 8 miles that was over a two lane road that had quite a bit of traffic, even at six in the morning. I had about 8 inches between the while line on the edge of the road and the actual edge of the road that I kept the bike in and luckily no one ever hit me or tried to come close to me. My younger brother was riding his bike along a highway in Georgia and was hit by a car and killed. I never rode a bike on the road after that happened.

 

[Madjag]

Jamaica, Jamaica....Isle of View

Jamaica, Jamaica....Isle of View

In the Plantain Garden River near Bath fountain.....

 

[Madjag]

Yes.......

​

 

[Desert Hydro]

did you say ugly boxer?? this one is pushing the boundaries of ugly haha. but she makes up for it with personality. nice patio up there. we are gonna do something similar here. summers are shit.

 

[THE PABLOS]

You are a good dude...Madjag. I learn a lot from your posts. If we could all...get on similar waves...shit would be so much more chill. Glad you take the time to be my friend.

 

[Madjag]

Temple Nail and The Hashish Trail

Temple Nail and The Hashish Trail

After months and months of being pestered, I finally caved in and decided to visit my good friend George in Phoenix. It was the Winter of 1972-73…..February I believe. I travelled down from Denver partly for the adventure but mostly to get it over with, I mean, Arizona was all flat, Phoenix was dusty and dry, and the rest of the state looked like the sand dunes in Yuma anyway so I didn’t expect too long of a visit. At least I got the Phoenix part right…..

Isn’t that like life, though. We have strong preconceptions that shape our imagined world and totally determine our view until we break through and take a leap. My impression of Arizona being flat was retarded, actually. How could the Grand Canyon be so deep unless it began at a much higher elevation? Otherwise it would be 6,000 feet below sea level at the bottom! If it did start at higher elevation then that would require a lot of terrain and topographical relief, ergo it wouldn’t be all flat like Yuma. So my visit turned out to be one of those determining steps of a lifetime….what a trip it has been since then. I never left Arizona after that day and have spent over 40 years exploring its fabulous natural beauty.

I didn’t understand such simple topographical logic, I guess, because I had never given it any reasonable thought. That’s all. I had lived in Colorado for several years and certainly knew what topographical relief meant….try hiking to the top of a 12,000 ft or even a 14,000 ft peak and you’ll soon relate. Perhaps it was the days of my youth in the Midwest near Chicago that blinded me to a holistic view concerning the big picture in western USA geography. I might have still thought that a desert state meant terrain like the Sahara desert…..rolling dunes but few mountains or peaks. Regardless, as I flew in that February day on a nimble 727 and gazed down at the myriad of deep canyons and massive pine forests along the Mogollon Rim of central Arizona, I was blown away. I glued my face to the window for more. Our descent into Phoenix had begun near Hannagan’s Meadow in the White Mountains, the densely forested area that formed the northeastern edge of the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Our slow descent brought this crazy maze of cliffs and canyons closer and closer until I felt like we were skimming the tops of the peaks. The emptiness and sheer desolation of the endless miles of high, forested desert that flew past on that nature ride was totally spellbinding. I was hooked.

Once I landed at my friend George’s home in the old, densely-green section of central Phoenix, he took me on a 7 day haul-ass tour of his favorite AZ places, ending with a quick shot to the lava fields and craters of the Pinacates just south of the border in old Mexico.

More on that whirlwind trip later….first that initial day when I walked into George’s stash home near 40th Street and Indian School, a house surrounded by mature citrus trees and a virtual olive orchard. That day’s events form the heart of the matter and were my introduction to the state of Arizona….at or least the state of George’s crazy mind.

George was born and raised in Arizona and went to college in Colorado. It was there that we met and formed our odd friendship, a true brotherhood bond that carried us into strange worlds that involved drugs, remote desert locations, women, LPs, Mexican cartels, and more drugs. A Scottsdale boy through and through, I guess he was one of those guys who was always a joker and couldn’t pass up the chance to do you one if the opportunity arose. And for George the opportunity always seemed to arise…

Those early years of college in 1969 gave rise to exciting ways for augmenting a schoolboy’s income, which was basically nil unless you had a rich daddy. A part-time job was the only way out and George, like many young, creative guys during those hippie years, chose to sell weed, hash, coke, downers, and acid instead of flipping burgers. Because I was a bit more of an inner cosmos explorer than Geo, in addition to giving me wholesale prices on all of the above, he would gift me and a few close friends with samples of his latest stash of LSD. That’s right, we were his acid guinea pigs and tested every batch that was new and exciting! This included over the years Orange Barrel Sunshine, Purple Microdot, Grateful Dead Blotter, and the most astounding find, a small batch of Sandoz pharmaceutical acid, as liquid, dripped onto tiny Chiclet gum pieces. The Chiclet Acid was the stuff of dreams…..no, the stuff of waking hallucinations….hahahaha.

That particular LSD always managed to bend our space-time continuum whenever we tripped with its impressive purity, however one time it sent my friend Steve and me all the way to a plus four (+4) experience when we each did one of the few Chiclet pieces that had a visible drop completely covering one side and extending part way around to the opposite side of the gum. We estimated that dose to be in the neighborhood of 750-1000 mcg of the pure, pure, pure. It was dynamically cleaner, stronger, and had perfectly reliable effects every time you took it. Quality…..We instantly recognized the superiority of that acid over every other variety that we had ingested previously and I bought up every last bit that was available. 1200 hits was so totally outside of my normal realm for purchasing drugs at that time that I surely had to have been under the direction of its powerful hand. I just couldn’t let it get away. As it turned out I would never need any other brand of acid, nor would any of my good friends, nor would we ever want any other variety regardless of who had it. The Chiclet Acid was perfect.

Thank God, too…..and I’m sure you know what I mean by that. Some things only need to be experienced once.

I’ve color highlighted the characteristic effects of each increasing category in the scientific summary article that follows. Remember that the numerically higher experience categories also include the previous category’s effects. Remember also that these descriptions are just mere words trying to describe that which cannot be described. The highlighted qualities in these steps assigned to the various “highs” attainable from LSD seem to be part of the map and journey that I have experienced personally. If you recognize these stages and effects as well then we’re speaking the same exotic language…..I guess.

“Total loss of visual connection with reality” was the effect that really pegged category plus 4…….I only experienced it once and no other acid came close in eliciting that effect. My friend and I lost consciousness for approximately one hour. We were listening to “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers”, the 3rd Firesign Theater record album. I’m not sure how long the LP was stuck in the ending groove, scratching away repeatedly. Once I was back and able to rejoin the living, I crawled across the floor and turned off the turntable.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
From the Good Drugs Guide:
Basically, if you take LSD, you will experience some or none of the effects on the following scale:

baseline
How you feel before taking a drug.

off baseline
Very mild effect. Relaxation. Giggling. Like being stoned but with enhanced visual perception: colors may seem brighter, patterns recognition enhanced, colors and details more eye-grabbing.
Physically, a feeling of lightness and euphoria, and a slight tingling in the body. Energy. A sense of urgency. Music sounds better.

plus one (+1)
Stronger visual hallucinations. Radiant colors. Objects and surfaces appear to ripple or breathe. Colored patterns behind the eyes are vivid, more active. Moments of reflection and distractive thought patterns. Thoughts and thinking become enhanced. Creative urges. Euphoria. Connection with others, empathy. Ability to talk or interact with others however slightly impaired. Sense of time distorted or lost. Sexual arousal. "Flight of ideas" and "ambitious designs". You're tripping.

plus two (+2)
Very obvious visual effects. Curved or warped patterns. Familiar objects appear strange as surface details distract the eye. Imagination and 'mind's eye' images vivid, three dimensional. Geometric patterns behind closed eyes. Some confusion of the senses.

Distortion rather than deterioration of mental processes. Some awareness of background brain functioning: such as balance systems or auditory visual perception. Deep store memory becomes accessible. Images or experiences may rise to the fore. Music is powerful and can affect mood. Sense of time lost. Occasional trance states. Paranoia and distortions of body image possible.

Physical symptoms may include: stiffness, cramp, and muscular tension. Nausea, fever, feeling of illness. You're loaded.

plus three (+3)
Lying down. Difficult to interact with other people and 'consensus reality' in general. You should really be somewhere safe.

Very strong hallucinations such as objects morphing into other objects. Tracers, lingering after-images, and visual echoes.

Intense depersonalization. Category enscramblement. The barriers between you and the universe begin to break down. Connection with everything around you. Experiencing contradictory feelings simultaneously. Some loss of reality. Time meaningless. Senses blend into one. Sensations of being born. Multiple splitting of the ego. Powerful awareness of mental processes and senses. Lengthy trances often featuring highly symbolic, often mythical visions when eyes are closed. Powerful, and sometimes brutal psycho-physical reactions described by users as reliving their own birth. Direct experience of group or collective consciousness, ancestral memories, recall of past-lives, and other mystical experiences. Ecstasy.

Music extremely powerful, perhaps overwhelming. Emotionally sensitivity increased (often massively). Crying or laughing, or both simultaneously.
Tremors, twitches, twisting movements, sweating, chills, hot flushes - all common. You're essentially out of it.

plus four (+4)
A very rare experience. Total loss of visual connection with reality. The senses cease to function in the normal way. Total loss of self. Transcendental experiences of cosmic unity, merging with space, other objects, or the universe. Out of body experience. Ecstasy. "Entity contact". The loss of reality becomes so severe that it defies explanation. Pure white light. Difficult to put into words.

Sources:
LSD Psychotherapy, Stanislav Grof, M.D (Hunter House 1980)

The Varieties Of Psychedelic Experience, Robert Masters Ph.D & Jean Houston Ph.D (Park Street Press, 2000)

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25), A clinical-psychological study Savage C. , Amer. J. Psychiat., 1952; 108:896
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As I said, George was the essence of the Coyote found in some Native American literature, the ultimate Trickster. We sampled his selections as he brought them to market on the Hill in Boulder, that bizarre spot in that bright town where street people hung out and sold their wares. The sidewalk in front of the Brillig Works bookstore was Geo’s favorite and the place to find anything your heart desired in the alternative drug world. During his two years there, on and off, he saw it all.

Now that you know George’s nature and some of my psychedelic experiences, flash forward two years to me walking into his home, dropping my Kelty backpack, and getting caught up on the current events in his life. It was a laugh-filled homecoming reunion that soon went ballistic, though, as a knock on the door quickly interrupted our enjoyment of the latest Oaxacan super bud. Geo had deep Mexi ties and seemed to always have 2 or 3 strains of what was known then as “grower’s stash”. It was high weed, herb that stimulated the senses and motivated the body. Colombo varieties at that same time like Santa Marta Gold were equally potent and cerebral and highly sought after by George and other wholesalers of fine smoke, however the mass onslaught of most Colombian strains that kicked your ass and put you down for a few hours, reminiscent of today’s Indicas, took over the South American export market, squeezing out the rarified Andean landraces known to be “up” weed. Jungle weed prevailed in the commercial market.

Our friend Larry opened the door without being asked in, walked through to the kitchen, and sat down opposite George. Few words were exchanged as they stared at each other, neither of them too happy, no smiles apparent. I could see the daggers flying, the tension between two guys I thought were life-long friends. What’s up?

At the moment Larry entered George was talking while simultaneously clipping his toenails. He showed me the black toenail on his big toe as he set down his clippers and peeled it loose by hand. The dried blood virtually spanned the entire nail clipping. It had finally weakened its attachment enough that he could get it free. Dropping weights on your tennis shoe while pumpin’ iron does that.

What seemed like an hour was probably only 20 minutes as neither of them spoke a word but George just continued to talk to me about all kinds of things. Larry just sat there, a mere 4 feet away across the table, watching, frowning, and listening. As Geo spoke he also scraped the dried blood from his defunct nail and a tiny black pile began forming on the kitchen table in front of him. That’s when I heard the words “Temple Nail Hash” float by my consciousness. Temple Nail? He must have meant Temple Ball, the connoiseur, hand-rubbed charas from Nepal and northern India, right? I didn’t quite follow what George had said about it, but what I saw next was this side of insane.

George slowly but surely filled his small glass pipe with the dried blood and reached out to Larry with the pipe as an obvious peace offering. The first words of many minutes were spoken between them as Geo said, ”Care for some Temple Nail?” Without any hesitation Larry took the pipe, hit it hard with the Bic, and took a long, steady toke…..

You know what happened next. Larry started coughing painfully, almost gagging from the afterburn of vaporized blood in his throat and lungs. To this of course George began laughing hilariously to the point of almost crying. How he stayed in his chair without falling off was amazing considering how massively he was heaving from laughter.

I have to admit, I was laughing too. And hard. And long. I mean Larry knew the rules: if you get caught in the trick it’s your own fault. This was totally true when I think about how Larry sat there watching the entire toenail process on the table; the scraping, the cleaning off the last dried blood dregs, the pile of reddish-black powder. Also….Temple Nail? Come on…….

I wanted to stay and see how it all turned out but I thought it best to split and take a walk around the verdant neighborhood. Way too much energy between those clowns for me to deal with at that point. Besides, Salt River Project had just flood irrigated the area and all the yards, with their slightly-excavated and below-grade yards, had been flooded with 3-4 inches of fresh water. Once a month was all it took, even less in the winter, to deep water these old-school yards full of citrus and olive trees and keep them healthy and productive. It was really quite amazing. No daily or weekly watering, no discovering plants that you missed and had dried out or died entirely, and better deep rooting for desert survival of non-native plants. I enjoyed my Oaxacan buzz while I hiked around the neighborhood and learned more about this weird, artificial desert oasis called Phoenix.

When I returned from my science excursion Larry had already left. George filled me in on why Larry had showed up in such a tense mood in the first place. It seemed that Larry had not called or visited Geo in over 6 months. That day, out of the blue, he came over to settle a score with George. They were best of friends, too, so Larry’s absence meant something big.

Massive big actually: the last time Larry had been over, just like this time, he had sat down at the very same table and watched George snort the last line of some outstanding Cola. As Geo smiled and commented on it purity and wonderful stimulating effects Larry leaned forward and said, “Are you going to give me a line, too?” George told him that it was the very last of his stash but that he could have a line of another variety if he wanted. Larry nodded in affirmation and George set to chopping up some more powder. He slid the mirror across the kitchen table slowly as if he was hoping Larry would repent and withdraw his request. Larry merely grabbed the rolled up $100 bill on the mirror and snorted that line with gusto, smiling as he felt it working its way into his soon-to-be-awakened consciousness.

Two days later, when Larry awoke on the couch at George’s house, he was stunned at the enormity of what had just happened, though it didn’t “just” happen at all and he had no idea at that moment that two days had passed in a psychedelic fog. Yep, uh huh, it sure was….pharmaceutical acid, probably 8-10 adult doses. Larry had just spent two days paralyzed on George’s living room couch, sailing through the Universe (his words later), with people walking looking on with strange amusement and curiosity. He had pooped his pants, peed his Jockeys, and gone where no man had gone before. To top it all off, he couldn’t think or talk coherently for another few days and was unusually hungry. Wonder why. All thanks to his good buddy, George….

Everyone knows…..that it’s just not cool to spike someone. Years later even George felt the axe when his friend Stevo from Redway, California gave him an expense paid vacation in Psychedelic Land free of charge. George didn’t laugh either, but his journey changed the whole scene between those friends when he gave Stevo back a mighty taste too. Endless retribution. Do you think that’s what Albert Hoffman had in mind when he gave birth to LSD in his Sandoz lab back in 1938? Hahaha….what people do for fun.

Well that’s my long story about a simple event. It was my welcoming party to Arizona and the source of endless discussions, and amusement, in the years to come. Larry and George eventually made up in spite of George’s one-sided tricks at Larry’s expense. Larry had a big heart and could handle everything Geo threw at him. I lucked out over the following years because Georg never tried to spike me…..must have been because he knew that I had been one of his test pilots a few years earlier and had somehow earned a special position in his book. Good thing, too, because as nice as I am I live by another old western saying, “Mess with the bull and you get the horns”. Yahoo!!!

 

[Madjag]

You too my friend.....

You too my friend.....

You are a good dude...Madjag. I learn a lot from your posts. If we could all...get on similar waves...shit would be so much more chill. Glad you take the time to be my friend.

Which is which is which.......
​

 

[Madjag]

Learn

Learn

 

[Madjag]

Change

Change

​

 

[Madjag]

Expect

Expect

 

[Madjag]

Transcend

Transcend

​

 

[Madjag]

Realize

Realize

 

[Madjag]

Overstand

Overstand

 

[Madjag]

WTF??

WTF??

 

[Madjag]

Wow - Mom.....God - Dog

Wow - Mom.....God - Dog