Ooh, Ooh that song....

I'm sure you have heard of Acid Flashback's before...if not I wikipedia'd it for you. LSD Flashbacks

It has been 16 years since I last dropped Acid, and more that 10 since I had a full blown flashback, but I did have quite a few.

Sometimes however, if I am alone, and I am listening to music, and a certain song comes on, I can get totally lost in it, remembering a time when I heard that song while I was tripping. The feeling can be so intense that I almost could swear I see the trails again, and I get that bitter, creepy feeling in the back of my throat. It's fleeting, but it is a reminder of how powerful that drug was.

This is just a bit of the music, starting with the most obvious:

The Wall - Pink Floyd. Who didn't trip out to this album, or movie?

For me, the biggest impact came from Side 3. If we put this album on right at the beginning of a trip, by the time Side 3 came on, you would be totally fucked. The echoes of Is There Anybody Out There would go right through you, and Vera always sent chills down my spine. When Bring The Boys Back Home was finally over, you would be grateful to hear Comfortably Numb so that you could sit back, relax and quiet your mind. I don't think we ever really played Side 4, we'd be too freaked out by then to flip the record over.

That Smell - Lynyrd Skynyrd. Funny story. Well, I thought it was.

I was sitting in my car inside an old graveyard in Oakville. My boyfriend Scott was in the front seat with me, and this guy Manny was in the back. We were all pretty high at this point, which was why we were parked, I was unable to drive.

We were listening to the radio and the song "That Smell" by Skynyrd came on. Manny starting giggling uncontrollably, it was an evil sort of giggle, like something you'd hear in a horror movie. It kind of freaked Scott and I out.

Scott was saying, "Manny, geez cool it. What the fuck is so funny?", but Manny just kept right on giggling. Especially when the chorus came on.

"Ooh, ooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you."

We finally decided that Manny was laughing at the irony of the song, sitting in a graveyard...the smell of death surrounds you....So we did what anyone in our situation would do, we laughed right along with him.

But Manny kept shaking his head, trying to tell us we were wrong. That wasn't what he was laughing at.

Some time later...god knows how long, time had no meaning then...Manny said out of the blue, "Something really reeks back here" And he started laughing again.

Scott, shaking his head, got out of the car and pulled the front seat back to see if he could figure out what the hell the problem was.

Under the seat someone had left an empty chocolate milk carton, which at this point was was really ripe. Scott threw it over the fence and got back in the car.

Manny, who was still in the back seat, right where Scott had pulled the carton from, had stopped laughing and was staring right at Scott with this blank look.

"Is that better?" Scott asked.

"Hey...the smell is gone" he said, "Whadidya do?"

Scott and I just looked a each other and cracked up in our own fit of giggles.

We never let Manny live that one down.....

......Maybe you had to be there.

White Punks on Dope - The Tubes

We knew this guy Pat, who was the biggest burnout I had ever met, then or now. He was in his 40's, far too old to be hanging out with 17 year olds. But he liked to party with us, and he was amusing to have around, so we let him.

He was a drunk, unemployed, homeless man, with dirty hair, dirty clothes, and a dirty mind. He had a glass eye that was always crusty, which he sometimes took out, rinsed in a glass of water, and stuck it back in, right in front of us.

He seemed to take a liking to me, often making comments about how he'd like to do pretty disgusting things to me. The guys never left me alone when he was around.

Pat loved this song. Every time he'd wander into one of our parties, he'd beg us to put it on.

One of those nights there were a few of us sitting around tripping out and Pat started jumping around the place, pumping his fist in the air, singing along....

"We're white punks on dope
Mom & Dad live in Hollywood
Hang myself when I get enough rope
I can't clean up, though I know I should
White punks on dope
White punks on dope"

He'd get right in your face while singing, rancid, whisky soaked breath, crusty glazed eye looking right at you.

It was pretty freaky, we did not really know how to take it. Thankfully as soon as the song was over he slumped down, took a swig of beer from a bottle someone was using as an ashtray, said, "Hmmm...kinda skunky.." and passed out.

If you ever wonder where I got my motivation to quit dope....Pat really helped.

Bike - Pink Floyd. Another Funny Story.

Scott and I had these friends Jim and Cleatus, who were every bit as much stoners as we were, if not more.

Jim had an old barn in his parents backyard that he could hang out in. Jim had decorated it in his own style, with posters and flags, and this bright red, HUGE, about 10 feet in diameter, Pentagram painted on the floor.

One night, a rather chilly night, we were back there listening to music, tripping on acid, and smoking whatever. We were all pretty high, someone had thrown in an old Floyd cassette, when the song "Bike" came on.

From somewhere in the back of the barn, Cleatus produced a little white tricycle and started riding it around in a circle around the Pentagram.

You'd have to know Cleatus to understand how funny this was. Cleat was the straight guy, the serious one, the one who never called attention to himself. True, he was a bit of a burnout, but he was just this unassuming guy.

He wasn't that tall and had this long, almost to his ass, straight blonde hair. Have you ever seen the band Killer Dwarfs? He kinda reminded me of one of them. His head was usually kept down, with his hair falling in front of his eyes.

So there was this guy, normally too shy to even talk, legs too big for a tricycle, riding around like an idiot, swaying his head back and forth, hair flying everywhere, shit-eating grin on his face, singing the words to this song...

"I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings
And things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it."

Fucking hilarious.

Okay....maybe you had to be there too.