c00kiemonster
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2005
- Messages
- 310
This was posted over on the tool website hope it counts as a trip report
http://www.toolband.com/news/index.html
So, what would we do to celebrate the anniversary of Camella’s birthday this year, Blair and Kat wondered over a Stella or two or three? Last year, the members of the Tool family had gathered… wait, was that last year? We better have another Stella and think about this one… There was the party at Lia’s, the trip to Joshua tree, we could’ve sworn there was another trip in there somewhere… Oh yeah, that’s right. Last year Camella toasted the beginning of another year meditating under a shower of cherry blossoms below the iridescent Kyoto sun, sipping sake with tiger fugu in her belly and fire in her eyes, and dropping silver coins into every vending machine she passed (or maybe that was Blair and Joe…) Well since the rest of us weren’t there last year to help her celebrate, this year we’d better come up with something really grand (or at least thematically bizarre.) Hell, it seemed like the shit was about to hit the fan – and by “shit” we mean that Foghorn Leghorn scenario that’s just a frequent flyer’s sneeze away. Hell, a lung-oyster on the hand-rail in any suburban mall could take out more people than the buffet on your average Caribbean cruise ship. Remember the Chinese saying (curse): May you live in interesting times…
In that it was on April 7th that LSD was synthesized by Dr. Albert Hofmann at Sandoz Labs in Basel, Switzerland, Blair decided to donate his acid collection to the cause…. what was left of it anyway. He had held on to the various tabs and blotters for long enough, he figured. What better an occasion to break out the stuff and test its shelf life than a Camella birthday bash. And speaking of a formidable shelf life, because the golden spongecake with the creamy filling known as the ‘Twinkie’ was invented on April 6th, boxes of that American icon would serve as cakes for our birthday girl and hostess (along with Twinkie the Kid’s sidekicks: Fruit Pie the Magician, Happy Ho Ho and King Ding Dong. Hey, we’d even invite Captain Cupcake, but absolutely no Sno-Balls at this party. The same goes for the devil’s dandruff.) And because April 8th is Buddha’s birthday in Japan, guests were asked to bring statues of the B-man as gifts. Although we realized she has so many already, we feel like maybe we did this once before… Oh well, you can never have too many Buddha bellies, right Camella?
So we loaded a shopping cart with “comfort food”, went in search of unique Buddhas and unlocked the box which contained the Keys to the Kingdom: acid with names like Orange Cupcakes, Black Stars, Pink Witches, and Blue Diamonds. Predictably, during the course of the evening’s kaleidoscope, everyone felt there was a deep connection between these three things: LSD, Twinkies, and Buddha. But what was it? Well, to be honest, we never did figure it out (except for Trana, that is), but we did give it the old college try…..
VOYAGE INTO THE KALEIDOSCOPE
Blair chose the “Black Sunshine” and tried to find the connection to the number 25. It was LSD-25, and we’re told that the average shelf-life of a Twinkie is 25 years. Also, he seemed to recall a few years ago when Twinkies weren’t being produced that someone had tried to auction off the billed last box of the snack cakes on eBay with a minimum bid of $2,500,000.00. But, try as he might, he couldn’t make the Buddha connection. Instead he went in search of rainforest cacti but found only burritos filled with silly putty. He sat before the one such burrito for days, clutching a bottle of swirling green and purple liquid with tiny pink fish swimming in squares inside, occasionally murmuring, “sin quesa, sin crema” and shivering ever so slightly. (Blame Hofmann.) Kat took “Strawberry Fields” and climbed a 25-year-old Jacaranda tree, from where she conducted an invisible orchestra all night long while plucking silver pears from passing clouds and tossing them to the dancing devils below. Only once did she pause to recite The Lady of Shalott to the crimson moon, who smiled and wiped away a tear, then she turned back to the band. Sasha did “Fractal Sun” and promptly demoted Captain Cupcake to Corporal. The dragons swam out of his shirt and into his beard as he barked orders at the corporal, who admirably (corporally?) completed 10,000 pushups before the first beer run was done. Camella, the Acid Queen, did a “Geisha Girl” (square of blotter acid, silly) but didn’t get off (again, on the blotter acid), so we gave her some “Leary Rainbow” which seemed to do the trick. She seamlessly transformed into an ambrosial, Shamanesque goddess and pirouetted through the sky and spoke in tongues, communicating with the non-human guests at the party (both living and beyond.) She even conversed with Adele’s admirer from Oaxaca, the one who got stuck in the vortex… Speaking of that mademoiselle from the icy north, it was about then that she made a grand entrance carrying her masterpiece: a life-size Buddha cake frosted with golden butter cream. (Blair and Kat scrambled to hide the twinkies.) As she opened her mouth to say, “Ta-da!” someone dropped a violet sugar cube in it and she rode off on a coal-black butterfly into an embroidered garden ‘neath a hot, golden tinseled sun, where Fruit Pie’s guts were pecked by comic book birds. Heather also dosed on a violet sugar cube, put on puppet show shoes and ran off into the electric pencil forest where painted tigers licking on sapphire lollypops rolled over in the orange moss and came back up covered in poppy seeds. (Blame Hofmann.) Cherries of tin police gave chase until rubbed out with a silver eraser, born of the same blood as the Coleman. Lips painted green came to the party alone, searching for the striped socks and Titian hair they once knew. Adam did a blotter tincture of Atom and stared for hours at his agate Pre-Deluge Art, waiting for any dero activity to manifest. He then retreated to the den and played scrabble with thirteen four-horned rams and a two headed piglet. (The piglet won.) Diablo did a half square of “Tail-Lights” and chased an imaginary car with his big balls swaying like a laden lemon-tree in the wind. (Diablo is a dog, hence the half hit… and the big balls…. Blame Hofmann!) When Diablo had enough of this, he listened to some Bob Dylan through headphones then took a dip in the midnight pool. Kevin Willis did “Blue Moons” and painted the bamboo garden black. Fork was in the bathroom. Joe ate a “Magenta Penny” and then another before Mr. Marvel gave him a tab of “Electric Mimosa” and tortoise jam on toast. He then sat and ate a dozen tinsel tacos, thirty-three grasshopper quesadillas, twenty-five Twinkies and half of Buddha’s belly. Robyn was given a “Microdot”, and sat in a corner plotting a world takeover by instigating the wee ones through subliminal communication, proliferation, and domination. Pete took notes. Travis took a sheet of “Gilded Angels” and disappeared for a month. Vince did the “Pink Robots” and rewired a ’64 Commodore, then took it to Mars and beyond with a mermaid by his side. Buzz opted to go the electric Kool Aid route (sans the warning label) and wondered if the reason Ho Ho was so happy had anything to do with King Ding Dong? Mackie drank some as well, and had visions of faeries frolicking in the hot tub. A busload of Swedish tourists arrived bearing Sno-Balls and were quickly sent away, only to return momentarily carrying vats of fondue laced with “Matterhorn” – which we gladly accepted. One Siljamonster ate “Paper Mushrooms” and dipped Kevin’s dill-bread into opal meat sauce (again!). Blame Hofmann. Feathered ice-cream cones melted into blue violins, and the glowing bamboo forest leapt from the BBQ and formed a chorus line on the roof, singing cabaret to Kat’s orchestra and tracing red trails though the lime green sky. Danny did a tab of “Orange Barrel” and when informed that Baghdad International Airport was still named Baghdad International Airport (by someone watching that reality show that’s still going), asked if we thought all the McSaddams in Baghdad had been renamed McDonalds since the “liberation”? Rynne took the “Crimson Sparkler” and channeled Bridget Bardot through the karaoke machine, under the white peacocks. Amanda took the “White Peacocks” and channeled Rynne. Dale Carey dropped some “Chocolate Chips” and told us that the reason “Twinkie the Kid” had red hearts on his blue scarf was for all the potential heart attacks that could be attributed to people who eat too many snack cakes chocked with… Joe stuffed a Ding Dong in his mouth and told him we all knew about the world-wide banana shortage during World War II. Blame Hofmann! The leaves fell from the ground to a tree. The wind backed up to get a better look. Scott dropped “Pink Chihuahua” in honor of Scooter, and Renee dropped “Black Dragon” in honor of Sasha’s beard. They walked away on the ceiling in search of Decadencia and a blanket inside the sun. Aloke washed down a square of “Ganesh” with his Tecate, and pulled out and imaginary mongoose from a box to attack an imaginary cobra that was attacking an imaginary him. The driveway melted into a chocolate waterfall. Joe dove in. Tool’s manager, Pete (whose birthday we were also celebrating) took “Brown Dots.” Guess what, it was still bad and he had a bummer, especially after realizing that Hitler was to blame for the invention of the Twinkie (Dale told him this), and that he had a fuzzy blue car and his wife’s car was a fuzzy pink color. We guess he never saw Woodstock. The sun rolled over to take a nap in the sun. A blender full of mango margaritas. Trana wisely picked the “White Owsley” and figured out the Buddha connection (although she wouldn’t tell us, and had forgotten by morning… several years later.) Flames rose up amidst orchids dangling from the mahogany sky. Lia dropped some antique (1969) “Orange Sunshine” and saw Maynard. Maynard did a blotter of “Saturn” and found Jesus (again.) Jesus was a PEZ dispenser. For those with ADD, let us repeat this: Jesus was a PEZ dispenser. Blame Hoffman! Party flies arrive to join the fun, they lounge on reclining chair clouds. Amber candy canes grew where the bamboo once stood, and the wee ones rushed to suck on them. Justin picked the “Purple Haze” (because of Jimi) but didn’t wait long enough. After six minutes, he thought it best to eat some “Purple Jesus” blotter (from an Alex grey painting) along with some of the “Brown Dots” (because he saw what it did to his manager.) After waiting another six minutes, he traded a dog treat for Diablo’s other half of the “Tail Lights.” Twenty-five minutes later, Justin chased a real car (later described by a witness as “powder blue and fuzzy”). A shower of iced animal crackers and metallic red sprinkles rained down upon us. Shelee took “Mad Hatter” and spent hours in search of a corn dog that held the answers to life’s greatest mysteries. She eventually gave up and retired to the hot tub where she sipped champagne with Mackie’s faeries. An orange bus floated by, filled with businessmen dressed in drag who tossed paper flowers and tin candies out the windows. A cloud of Purple Wheelchair billowed out the back. (Blame Hofmann.) Venus Kitty did the alchemist Owsley’s (?) “Pink Haze” (Blair’s personal favorite) and bit the head off of “Fruit Pie the Magician”. She then disappeared. The Swedish tourists sipped opaque martinis and white sparks exploded in the sky. An eruption of bluebirds. A chameleon DIDN’T change colors. For those with ADD, let us repeat this: a chameleon DIDN’T change colors. Chris picked “Skelton & Roses” and drank Tanqueray tonics, as did Mr. Hyde, even though there were no tacos in sight. Anna ate a “Turqoise Tealeaf” and floated off on a wave of champagne. Dale did “Liquid Sky” and Maureen “Groovy Lemon.” They climbed on the roof and took Vince’s Commodore for a spin, thinking it was the purple Charger back to life at last. Blame Hofmann… A blinding flash of yellow as the ground dissolves. The stars turned green and tumbled into the hot tub, tickling Shelee’s toes. The sky split in two and for a second we saw Travis. There was a woman with a perfect smile, but then you woke up. Breck lit a joint and the orange bus came back for him. Jeweled fire engines chased the sparks of his purple wheelchair. The gargoyle winked. Junior did a drop of “Liquid Sky” on a Golden Graham and pointed a cigar at a mirror ball. Bryan and Tracey shared a “Pink Pyro” and giggled at the Swedes dancing bare-bottomed inside the TV. Vince rode an orange wave down to the 7-11 for more Tecate but came back with dingle-berry juice and Irish vodka. Dan Doll dropped “Blue Cheer” and jumped off the roof, just missing the St. Patrick’s Day joy riders. Beards grew Justin and Sasha. Horse-head Jen dosed on “Pumpkin Pelt” and boot scooted from the balcony to the grassplot moon. KaRiN and Statik did “Magenta Sunshine” and brought forth a bouquet of shadows from the opalescent flame of hookaa. Aaron from Isis ate the “Blue Pine-apple” and tattooed eyes as he drove a school bus of furry fish to meet his leprechaun friends. Blame Hofmann! Children with Cheeto dust on their finger touched the melting walls. Henry had a Cherry Coke (not acid, but a real Cherry Coke, laced with vanilla whisky – he figured someone had to be ‘ground control.’ We wondered later if it really was just a Cherry Coke, as he wandered past whispering to Captain – sorry, Corporal – Cupcake, oblivious to our questionable presence…) Unfortunately he (also?) had a flashback from a previous acid trip and, without any copilots, a lot of planes crashed into the mountains. Fork was still in the bathroom. Cleopatra appeared in the fireplace and sang us a lullaby. Heather returned from the forest with a basket emerald gumdrops. Glitter bugs crawled up the red velvet curtain, escaping the moonbeams that search. Dawn did a “Pink Witch” and dyed Aloke’s hair blonde. Graves did some “Geisha Girl” and got off (fast.) Amber took “Heavenly Blue” and grew six inches as she danced under the hot midnight sun. The pool overflowed and a metallic tide washed over the garden. The prism of a golden Buddha smeared with chocolate. Scott and Renee returned from the sun and tried the “Peacock’s Tail,” then went for a drive and came back with three Ugandan Hairless Retrievers (the first of their breed to enter the US) and a real mongoose for Aloke. Blame Hofmann. A small crop formation appeared on the carpet. This was the “Tool Army” star. Someone dropped “Green Double Dome” but we can’t remember who. The carpet got up and left. Benny dropped a hit of “E. Pluribus Newman” and stood naked, watching as the swimming pool dove into him. Melanie did an anniversary square of “Hofmann” and went in search of swans. Kat dismounted her tree in a cloud of pink smoke and looked Melanie in the eye. “There are no swans here.” Justin asked if there was any more “space medicine” because he was so close to figuring out the Buddha connection. When we told him we were out, he went to see “Fruit Pie the Magician.” Once again, I told him we were out… Bluish arabesques of incense drank the last Corona. A pewter policeman cracked the silver Patron unknown. Monkeys with tambourine hats in the absinthe rain on matchbox streets. Across the lawn they danced side by side, past jubilant bush islands in a stream of sunshine. Black Star found. Red and Green cobwebs held captive by albino fruit flies. Polka dotted pine cones burst through daffodils made of glass dripping with honey and wine. Collapsing walls and spinning ceilings and quills quivered on the threshold of reality. The bathroom was in Fork….
Well, like we said, we never did figure out the deep connection between LSD, Twinkies, and Buddha, but if anyone out there with green eyes thinks they know, send us an email.
Over another Stella at the pub as we’re writing this all down before we forget, it suddenly hits us. What the - did we just have a flashback? Blame Hofmann!
DISCLAIMER: Don’t try this at home, even if you have a prized acid collection. That is, unless you have a really cool house like Camella’s that’s filled with oriental rugs, tapestries, and golden Buddhas.
http://www.toolband.com/news/index.html


