When Pigs Fly.

This swine flu deal has me totally upset because I've been having respiratory crud for several days. The show was agonizing because A and I both were feeling rather sinusey. It's probably just the same rampant allergies that everyone has been battling this spring. Even so, I feel like it's my duty to go to the mall or the movies and 'infect' as many people as possible.

Lately, I've been having a lot of dreams about SA, but the pollen that comes down from the hill country is a deal-breaker there, so if I do decide to move, I'd better get some allergy shots, or some ORNADE (even though that stuff wastes me for about eight hours). Zyrtec and Claratin don't seem to work for me, so I've been old-school and hitting the Benadryl pretty hard for the last couple of weeks. I'm just glad that I haven't been pulled over, because I'm really stoned while taking the 'dryl.

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Now playing: Pink Floyd - Pigs (Three Different Ones)

More Jacked Back Tales.

Apparently, "driving trucks is the worst thing that you can do for your back," according to the D.O. I totally did a number tossing a 250# tire into the pickup truck. Apparently, my outer muscles are way stronger than the core (my gooey center isn't as cool as I thought), and torsion my spine and ribs (wow). Then, I get spasms that roll right into the inflammation which causes those odd, shooting, nerve-pinchers. I was essentially beyond repair today, so I got a shot of something heavy (metallic taste in my mouth now), and more prescriptions (whoot), and excercises (sweet). If I can walk and sleep, I'll be happy with some pain. Neither of those items is going well currently.

So much for trying to ween myself out of the doctor's office, right? And weening from the prescription drugs, well, I wasn't tryin' to get off of them (lots cheaper than liquor, and with much the same effect).

Maybe I'm Hearing It Wrong.

I love the old, fat Elvis. Actually, I love his band. Here's my (maybe) mis-heard lyric at 55 seconds--"shove it up your nose." Am I totally high?



Maybe "shove it up your nose" is actually the lyric (at 52 seconds on this one)? The bass playing is devastating on many Elvis tracks, and this ain't an exception. I wish that I could pull off that stuff.

The Cocktail That Doesn't Work

And, I was totally not wanting to rock today, but I did make it to the writing session:

20 mg of that amazing cyclobenzaprine;
800 mg of the ibuprofen;
1160 mg of magnesium salicylate; and
440 mg of naproxen sodium

It did make me quite sleepy, however, my droogies, I still have the agonizing pain. I think that I require some opiates, friends. I swear that I'm not just thrill-seeking. I need to cool this crap out so that I can rest. I went to the booze barn this afternoon, just in case I will require alcohol therapy to pass out and get some sort of sub-standard sleep.

I hate this painful shit, really.
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Now playing: Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand

R.I.P. (late)

Thank you, Al. You helped me. Your discovery was helpful to me, and not hurtful in any way. This one has tremendous personal significance to me, friends; from the Houston Chronicle (go Texas!):

Albert Hofmann, 11 January 1006 – 29 April 2008

An Obituary by Dieter A. Hagenbach and Lucius Werthmüller

At the age of 102 years, Albert Hofmann died peacefully last Tuesday morning, 29th April, in his home near Basel, Switzerland. Still last weekend we talked to him, and he expressed his great joy about the blooming plants and the fresh green of the meadows and trees around his house. His vitality and his open mind conducted him until his last breath.

He is reputed to be one of the most important chemists of our times. He is the discoverer of LSD, which he considers, up to date, as both a "wonder drug" and a "problem child". In addition he did pioneering work as a researcher of other psychoactive substances as well as active agents of important medicinal plants and mushrooms. Under the spell of the consciousness-expanding potential of LSD the scientist turned increasingly into a philosopher of nature and a visionary critical of contemporary culture.

Until his death Albert Hofmann remained active. He communicated with colleagues and experts from all over the world, gave interviews, and showed great interest in the world's affairs, although he decided to retire from public life already a few years ago. Nevertheless he welcomed visitors at his home on the Rittimatte, and opened the door for late in the evening.

He managed to keep his almost childlike curiosity for the wonders of nature and creation. In his "paradise," as he would call his home, he enjoyed being close to nature, especially to plants. During one of our last visits he said to us with luminous eyes: "The Rittimatte is my second most important discovery." It was always a unique experience to stroll with him over his meadows and to share his enjoying the living nature all around.
Gratefully and lovingly we grieve for an outstanding scientist, an important philosopher, a dear and true friend, and our member of the board.

Albert Hofmann was born on January 1906 in the quiet small town of Baden, Switzerland, as the eldest one of four children. His father is a toolmaker in a factory where he meets Albert’s mother-to-be; when he falls seriously ill, Albert has to support the family. That’s why he decides for a commercial apprenticeship. At the same time he starts studying Latin and other languages, since he wants to take his A-levels, which he succeeds in at a private school, paid for by a godfather.

In 1926, at the age of twenty, Albert Hofmann begins to study chemistry at the University of Zurich. Four years later he does his doctorate with distinction. Subsequently he works at the Sandoz pharmaceutical-chemical research laboratory in Basel, a company to which he proves his loyalty for more than four uninterrupted decades. (In 1996 Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy merged to become Novartis.) That’s where he mainly works with medicinal plants and mushrooms. He's specifically interested in alkaloids (nitrogen compounds) of ergot, a cereal fungus. In 1938 he isolates the basic component of all therapeutically essential ergot alkaloids, lysergic acid; he mixes it with a series of chemicals. He then tests the effects of the thus derived lysergic acid derivatives as circulatory and respiratory stimulant – among others LSD-25 (Lysergic acid diethylamide). Because the effects observed fell short of expectations, however, the pharmacologists at Sandoz quickly lose interest in it.

Five years later, following a "peculiar presentiment," Albert Hofmann devotes himself again to LSD-25. On 16 April 1943, while synthesizing, he is overcome by unusual sensations – "a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness," – which prompt him to interrupt his laboratory work. "At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

Three days later, on 19 April 1943, Hofmann sets out for the first voluntary LSD trip in the history of man. Because he cannot yet judge the enormous efficacy of the drug, he takes, at 4:20 pm, with 250 microgram a relatively high dose – and gets to know the hallucinogenic power of the substance with all its intensity.
With his discovery of LSD Albert Hofmann has caused a snowball effect, which turns into an avalanche in no time. It influences the late second millennium – at least in the Western world – to an extent, comparable only to the "pill". Consciousness researchers respectfully spoke of an "atom bomb of the mind."

To worldwide setting-in research Albert Hofmann makes essential contributions. So he is, in 1958, the first one to succeed in isolating the psychoactive substances psilocybin and psilocin from Mexican magic mushrooms (Psilocybe mexicana); in Ololiuqui, the seeds of a climbing plant, he finds substances related to LSD. He isolates and synthesizes substances of important medicinal plants in order to study their effects. His basic research blesses Sandoz with several successful remedies: Hydergine, an effective one in geriatrics, Dihydergot, a circulation- and blood-pressure stabilizing medicament, and Methergine, an active agent applied in gynecology. Hofmann stays with Sandoz until his retirement in 1971, last as head of the research department for natural medicines. From then on he devotes more and more of his time to writing and lecturing. He increasingly wins recognition for his scientific pioneering ventures: he is given honorary doctorates by the ETH Zurich, the Stockholm university, and the Berlin Free University; and he is called into the Nobel Prize Committee.

Here, outstanding contributions to research were honored – but Albert Hofmann's life's work comprises much more. From the start he took a favorable view of efforts by physicians and psychotherapists to include LSD into new approaches for the treatment of manifold chronic diseases. But LSD isn't only useful with special diagnoses – it's Hofmann's firm belief that the "psychedelic" potential of this "wonder drug" could be beneficial to all of us. In LSD-induced altered states of consciousness its discoverer doesn’t only see psychotic delusions of a chemically manipulated mind, but windows to a higher reality – true spiritual experiences during which a normally deeply buried potential of our mind, the heavenly element of creation, our unity with it reveals itself. "The one-sided belief in the scientific view of life is based on a far-reaching misunderstanding," Hofmann says in his book Insight – Outlook. "Certainly, everything it contains is real – but this represents just one half of reality; only its material, quantifiable part. It lacks all those spiritual dimensions which cannot be described in physical or chemical terms; and it’s exactly these which include the most important characteristics of all life."

It’s not the single consumer alone who profits from chemicals which help to understand these aspects of the world; for Hofmann it could help to heal deficits the Western world chronically suffers from: "Materialism, estrangement from nature (...), lack of professional fulfillment in a mechanized, lifeless world of employment, boredom and aimlessness in a rich, saturated society, the missing of a sense-making philosophical fundamentalness of life." Starting from experiences as LSD conveys them, we could "develop a new awareness of reality" which "could become the basis of a spirituality that's not founded on the dogmas of existing religions, but on insights into a higher and profounder sense" – on that we recognize, read, and understand "the revelations of the book which God's finger wrote." When such insights "become established in our collective consciousness, it could arise from that, that scientific research and the previous destroyers of nature – technology and industry – will serve the purpose of changing back our world into what it formerly was: into an earthly Garden of Eden."

With this message the genius chemist turns into a profound philosopher of nature and visionary critical of contemporary culture. The critical distance from the LSD euphoria of the hippie- and flower power-driven ones Albert Hofmann has never given up, however; that he has fathered a "problem child" he already emphasizes with the title of one of his most known works. He always underlines the risks of an uncontrolled intake. On the other hand he never tires of emphasizing what's the basic difference between LSD and most of the other drugs: even if used repeatedly, it doesn't make addictive; it doesn't reduce one's awareness; taken in a normal dose it’s absolutely non-toxic. The total demonizing of psychedelics, as pursued by the mass media, conservative politicians, and governments from the sixties onward, he never could understand; for him, there is no reason why mentally stable persons in the right set and setting shouldn't enjoy LSD. All the more disappointed Albert Hofmann was when, in the late sixties, he had to see it happen that the use of LSD was worldwide criminalized and prohibited – even for therapeutic and research purposes

The impetus for a change emanating from the impact of the international Symposium "LSD – Problem Child and Wonder Drug" in 2006 in Basel, at the occasion of his 100th birthday, quickened him to say that "after this conference my problem child has definitely turned into a wonder child," and he regarded this development as his most beautiful birthday present.

And after just shortly before his 102nd birthday, he enjoyed taking notice that the first LSD study with humans has received the permission from the Federal Office of Public Health in Bern, which he called the "fulfillment of my heart's desire."

His life has become an ideal for many for how we can reach a great age in mental and physical vigor by retaining a childlike curiosity.

Albert Hofmann repeatedly expressed his conviction, that his mystical experiences and his trips into other worlds of consciousness, which he experienced first spontaneously as a child and later during his experiments with psychedelic substances would be the best preparations for the last journey which everybody has to go on at the end of her or his life. He has retained his curiosity for himself for his last journey.

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Now playing: Coon Creek Girls - Banjo Pickin' Girl

For Linda Ruth...

or others that aren't so into the Poison video-o-rama....

My Brother, Dr. E-dogg, was totally into the Poison. Our father trasheed all of those records because of the 'sex on the beach' from the 'open up and say ahh' record. Anyhow....here's the shit from él señor de amor a la roca:

Actually...it's all about 'talk nerdy to me,' LINDA. Think that I require a lime-green B.C. Warlock, really:




Indeed, I require a Warlock (and lots of cocaine);...is that the RATT or Randall sound?!? Priceless '80s video (love the Newman-lookin' father):



Overcasters require more choreography; certainly for the videos. 'F'J.N. certainly has enough banjos to pull off nonsense such as this:



Classic...I require some crazy brunette groupie (I love 12-string anything):

The Green Fairy Rides

At least in the OTC pain relief aisle at the King Soopers, she does.

My opiates have run out, friends (I'd seriously kill for some oxycodone right about now). I've been checking out lots of pain relievers:

Japanese patches (from the hippy girlfriend);
OTC pills (that totally don't work);
and several others.

Absorbine Jr. appears to be some sort of absinthe plus. The ingredients:

Active ingredient
Natural menthol 1.27%
Inactive ingredients
absinthium oil, acetone, chloroxylenol, FD&C blue no. 1, FC&C yell no. 6, iodine, plant extracts of calendula, echinacea, and wormwood; potassium iodide, thymol, and water.

I'm tempted, for sure. I'm not an organic chemist, but I know all about what acetone will do to me, since I spent an entire summer stoned on acetone when I was 15.

The volume swell + bass chords middle section on this one still gets me off. G'n'R totally stole that one riff.
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Now playing: Rush - La Villa Strangiato (live 1981)

Unbelievable.

I totally smoked my ankle falling out of a truck today. I was actually reduced to tears. I called to get a rent a drunk (labor ready), but instead I got one of our employees.

Doesn't look so good compared to my right ankle:

Walking is not happening, even on 1600 mg of Advil and 650 mg of Oxycodon (only because it hurts). It's a good thing that I keep those crutches around. I'm convinced that it's The Kaptain's Kurse or something.

Something that I won't be doing (unless I get my hands on some weed and booze; Zappa rocks):
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Now playing: Frank Zappa - Dancin' Fool

Sad What Happens When Young People Really Fuck Themselves

Really, it is to me.

Britney Spears ordered to undergo drug testing | Entertainment | People | Reuters

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Now playing: Dr. Dre - Bitches Ain't Shit

A Mini-Vacation

After waking up in a puddle of blood (I was losing my mind), I went to the urologist (kaptain kiwi) this morning to further the investigation of my explosion. My 'treatment' is awesome--sit around in a bathtub for two days stoned on Percocet. I think that I can manage that. Dude said that he should've seen me last week instead of those quacks--looking for a new internist--one that's liberal with pain meds, and doesn't think that everything is an STD, and accepts my insurance.

Probably won't be doing any riding during my favorite season. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Now, I'm just like Mike Watt, except that his infection got all systemic and shit. He had nine weeks of recovery. It doesn't look like I'll be doing that schedule. I require rock.
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Now playing: The Louvin Brothers - Satan Is Real