The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Many readers will immediately dismiss this link as being "conspiracy theory," though I thought it was rather level-headed about the whole thing.

At its root is some very true and very powerful information that every human being should know before they are ever allowed to sit in front of a TeeVee or watch a movie.

Many readers here will know that my long and rather eclectic career began in the theater at the tender age of 12.  I played Christopher Robin is a semi-professional production of Winnie the Pooh.  That and my life-long fascination with Orson Welles started me down the circuitous path that (so far) brought me to Indonesia.

What precious few people realize about the entertainment business is that it has very deep roots in occult practices.  Oh yes, you read that right, and no I don't mean since the 1800s, I mean since the 1800s BC.

The theater is actually a descendant of, for all intents and purposes, a temple.  All the modern schools of acting and stagecraft and art are little more than window dressing on a mystical experience that has, or often has, a very profound effect on the minds and spirits of anyone who participates in it, regardless of which side of the stage you are on.

Originally, scripts were mystical intonations and spells designed to invoke the actual gods themselves, or a circus (in the original sense) of demons and spirits.  The purpose was to guide and inform us on the proper way to behave and how to solve our everyday problems.

When an actor dons a mask and costume, they are actually creating a vessel for a spirit to inhabit.  I have heard actors (and said it myself) a thousands times saying that they really didn't feel a role, until they saw themselves in full costume.  Suddenly, it was if they had become someone else.  The words and actions came from "somewhere" and they simply allowed the character to "come out."

When Thespis first assumed a role as a character, and not just as someone reciting words, he became the first actor - a vessel through which the gods and unseen world could speak.  He was no longer Thespis, but had assumed the words and manners of another being, and incorporate being until that point.

We often talk of actors "inhabiting a role" or "becoming a character," but we rarely stop to consider what we are actually saying.  We are, in fact, admitting that we pay someone to be possessed by a spirit for our entertainment and edification.  In this sense, stage fright is actually fear of letting go of one's self and allowing an incorporate being to inhabit our bodies.

You may, at this point, be thinking, "What hogwash," and "Superstitious balderdash," or words to that effect.  Yet, how many times have your heard something like, "So-and-so IS __________!" (insert your favorite movie character)

I have invited friends and family to shows that I was in, and at the end, they were genuinely perplexed.  "Where were you?" they would ask.  "I was the lead character," I would respond.  "GASP!  That was YOU?!"  Truly, on the nights when everything was "on," actors don't think or act as themselves, they feel remote from the event, as if they are watching someone else that kind of looks like them.

What is even more powerful than the actor's experience is the effect on the audience.  Regardless of what we think about going to a show or watching TeeVee, we are part of a spell that is teaching us to act and react in a certain way and in certain circumstances.  As the audience, you are being manipulated emotionally and intellectually at a level most of us hardly understand or think about.

As jaded and suspicious as I am about media, I know it works on me.  I cannot watch Titanic or Apollo 13, without crying at the end.  I have actually tried on several occasions.

This is remarkable because I know what is being done.  I don't watch movies like most people.  I don't see a drama, I see lighting, set and sound design, camera angles, microphone placements and music cues.  I analyze movies, I don't enjoy them the way the general public does.  And yet, when Rose tosses the Heart of the Sea into the ocean, or the parachutes open as the capsule floats down, tears are streaming down my face.  I know I am being manipulated.  I know how it is done.  I can and have done it to other people.  And yet...

Think back to when you were a kid, and be honest here.  When you played with dolls (or "action figures" if you prefer), did those bits of plastic - in your mind - have unique personalities?  Did they say things and act in ways that were NOT YOU?  Did they have to do or say certain things to be who they were?  If you answer "yes," then you were part of a magical spell.  If you answered "no," I am deeply suspicious of your honesty.

The fact of the matter is that those who control the media are quite literally casting spells over the audience.  We are being told who to emulate and admire.  We are being told what we want out of life.  We are being shown how to behave and what is expected of us.  That's why the good guys get the girl and admiration, and the bad guys get rubbed out.  That's why stereotypes exist and how they form.  That's why we have memes and archetypes.  They are occult workings and you are the target.

Ask pretty much anyone who their heroes are, and I will lay good money that they will give you a list of media personalities or fictional characters.  That we even have heroes is a function of media telling us who to emulate, for whatever reasons the gatekeepers have.

Entertainment is a form of mind control, and even more profoundly, an occult magic.  It is manipulating reality in such a way that many people come to believe it is real. That is the definition of magic.  It bypasses our natural filters and goes straight to the parts of our minds that control how we perceive the world.

Still don't believe me?  Look at Pokemon Go.

People actually follow virtual cues to physical locations to collect things that don't exist!  It astounds me that nearly everyone I talk to, especially the players, don't see what is happening to them.  If, at the top of this article, you had any doubts whatsoever that the media are performing magic and mind control on a mass scale, then I rest my case on this one example.

Having been trained in media, having performed nearly every function on and off stage/before and behind the camera, I can attest that anyone consuming entertainment of any kind in any form is being manipulated.  It is an ancient and powerful ritual of incantations and actions that invoke very dark forces.  No matter how one tries to rationalize it, in the end it is true when viewed with an unprejudiced eye.

The US is just waking up from a two-week stupor of media manipulation called the political conventions.  Depending on you predispositions, one or the other of them have left their followers feeling more energetic and enthused, ready to fight the final battle.  This is a magical working.  Those viewers have been manipulated.  They are under a spell now.

And it is precisely why I haven't watched TeeVee in a decade.

Calling Pete Townshend

You can tell the really good music by the way it stays relevant across time.  More on that shortly.

Interesting bit of information: according to multiple sources, including Wikipedia, one of the primary ingredients of sarin is sodium fluoride, which if you live in countries where they routinely poison the population with fluoridated water, then you drink this crud daily.

It certainly helps to illuminate why the Touch Someone's Ass (TSA) brigade are so antsy about letting folks on planes with water.  Certainly, mixing up explosives in the head makes little or no sense, but apparently, mixing up a batch of sarin would require very little effort with a little American tap water.

Another bit of information: most Americans would happily send Congress to Syria just about now.

Which leads us to a little Far Side speculation on this fair Saturday morning.

Does it appear to you, as it does to us, that the antics of the Hidden Hand are becoming less effective?  If you squint just the right way, it seems they are losing their grip on the mass psyche.  The Boston Marathon bombing didn't seem to have the desired effect.  And now, the Syria sarin doesn't seem to be working as well as they had hoped.

It took a couple of weeks, but in the aftermath of the Boston bombing, folks kind of came out of a stupor and said, "Wait a minute!  Two and two aren't adding up here."

In the wake of the Syria sarin attack, it was almost immediate.  Folks just didn't buy it.  The BBC ran a photo of alleged victims and immediately someone saw that it was actually a photo of US victims in Iraq a decade before.  The Hidden Hand claimed it was the rebels and folks said, "Hey, aren't those rebels al Qaeda and didn't we just spend a decade and thousands of our youth fighting those bastards?"  Doctors Without Borders, who treated the victims, questioned the whole sarin thing.  And even Rush Limbaught, for gods' sakes, questioned the Party Line.

It would seem that a very healthy amount of skepticism is creeping into the public mind.  So much so, that Bammy had to tuck tail and run to Congress for permission - something that would have been inconceivable just a couple of years ago.

To his credit, Bammy does seem to be a little trigger-shy, but we can dismiss his Nobel-laureate peace-making and put it down to political expediency.  He probably sees the same thing we are.

It's taken the better part of two decades for people to wake up from the 9/11 spell we've been under, but it does seem that we are shaking it off and starting to realize what happened to us.  And none too soon.

For those of us who are duck-and-cover alumni, it seems completely incongruous that we should be cheering the Russian president, but there it is.  Putin, to his great credit, it not allowing the West to get away with its usual tricks, and the world is siding with him.  China, not surprisingly, sided with him, and that put a lot of financial pressure on the US.  Seems the Chinese hold a lot of US paper, and if the US doesn't behave itself, the Chinese can crash what's left of the US economy overnight.  That's a big brake on US belligerence.

The mass awakening may not (yet) be enough to actually change things, but it is quickly becoming enough to temper the head-long rush to war we've witnessed over the past 20 years.  We've gone from Bush II running around in trench-coat flashing world leaders with his "evidence" behind closed doors to the world sitting back and saying it's not enough for a few "leaders" to see - we all want to get a look at the "flash".

And no, we won't be fooled again (thanks Pete T.).

So where to from here?

Two possible outcomes are likely at this point.  The good one is that the Hidden Hand will see its power wane and slowly fade to insignificance.  The bad one is that something bigger than 9/11 is in the offing to put us further under the spell of fear.

It could be that the tide has turned.  As any practitioner of magic knows, once the audience sees through one of your tricks, it is nearly impossible to get it to suspend disbelief again.  The spell must be maintained in order to keep the rubes believing in your powers.  Once you lose that, then the audience is looking much harder for the 'trick', and they are far less willing to believe you have special abilities and moral superiority (magic requires an audience to grant moral superiority to a magician).

We may be at that point now with the Hidden Hand.  If the world continues to wake up to the illusion they have foisted on us for the past two decades, then eventually they will be required to slink back into the shadows of has-been status and the world will be a better place.

On the other hand, if a magician starts to lose his audience, then he must trot out a trick of such magnitude and power as to completely entrance the masses once again.  And here lies the danger.  The Hidden Hand is not likely to surrender its status of world ruler easily.  Now that the curtain is slipping, it is in a position of having to wave the magic wand and create an illusion of such magnitude that we will all be entranced once again.

It took a 'trick' the size and scope of 9/11 to put us all under their spell in the first place, so it will take a 'trick' that is orders of magnitude grander to put us all under once again.  In other words, we won't go down for a couple of skyscrapers again.  This time, it will take an entire city.  That will require a nuke (at least one), and it will require a boogieman that can credibly pull it off.

Lo and Behold! We have just such a boogieman.  Iran.  The Hidden Hand has spent 40 years building up Iran as its Ace-in-the-Hole.  Ever since the Iran hostage crisis (I was 40 miles from the border with Iran when that happened), that country has been carefully built up to be exactly the kind of thing they would need to pull of a major 'trick' of the kind needed just now.  The Muslim world has been carefully vilified in the Western mind.  Iran's so-called nuke program has been carefully positioned as a threat.  And Iran has been painted as a threat to Israel, which the Hidden Hand has implanted in the Western mind as an important emotional trigger.

So, now we need a Big Trick to put everyone under the spell.  The last biggie has worn off and the magicians are losing credibility.  It is time to pull out the Ace-in-the-Hole.

Likely scenario: in retaliation for Western support of the false flag attack in Syria, Iran pops off a nuke in Jerusalem.  The attack on such a city has very deep psychological triggers in billions of people across the globe.  Everyone will see this as fulfillment of prophesy and a direct attack against some god or another.  This will immediately polarize the world into Christian and Muslim, with both sides arming themselves to the teeth.  The deep emotional value of the target will prevent anyone from questioning, and if they do, they will be shouted down, even attacked for not lining up on the 'right' side of the issue.  No one will question whether the attack was really perpetrated by Iran.  It will be obvious, from years of implantation, that they did it.  Even the pope will not be able to call for peace at a time like that.

Do you remember what you felt in the immediate aftermath of 9/11?  Remember that burning need to retaliate?  Remember that overwhelming patriotism?  Remember how anyone who questioned the Party Line was shouted down and made to look like a fool?

Now imagine that feeling multiplied thousands of times over and spread throughout the world.  No one will be unaffected.  Jerusalem is a hot button for more than half the world's population.  It is so deeply rooted in the identity and thinking of so many people that they can not extract it from reality.  Even world religious leaders will be bound to call for blood or lose all credibility.  The mental wound would be of such a proportion that it would take a century or more to heal, and that means perpetual war.

Yup, the Hidden Hand's wet dream of perpetual war would become a reality.  Billions of people acting on pure fear and emotion without a single rational thought for generations.  It would be 30 or 40 years before anyone could even formulate a doubt, much less express it.  it would be another 50 years before enough people had doubts that it would affect the course of history.  In the meantime, the Hidden Hand would have established a grip on the world that will take centuries to undo, and by that time, they would own and control pretty much everything.  Unwinding the tentacles would be centuries again.  Hell, just unwinding A. G. Farben took the better part of a century, and that was one company in one country.  Imagine what it would take to unwind an octopus that sat in the heart of nearly every country on Earth and was every company on Earth, for all intents and purposes.

If I were a Hidden Hander, I would be preparing for this ultimate scenario.  But since I am a regular kind of guy, I am instead looking for signs that just such a thing is in the offing.  Certainly, all the pieces are in place for this End Game.  It would eradicate any last vestiges of opposition and rational thought.  It would solidify the mental and physical lock on the world that this group has been after for...well, centuries.

The only thing remaining is to set up the proper situation that would make it completely credible for Iran to nuke Jerusalem.  Everyone must be looking in the right direction for the 'trick' to work.  All magic tricks require absolute control over what the audience sees.

We know that the Hidden Hand has no problem sacrificing even its own in order to complete its tricks.  We know that they are willing to use spectacular death counts to ensure their tricks capture the imaginations of large numbers of people.  And we know that they are ruthlessly and myopically focused on world domination.  So it makes perfect sense that they would be thinking along these lines, even if the details of the actual event are slightly different.

They need an emotional hot button.  They need a Big Boogieman.  They need shock and fear to pull it off.  All the elements are here.

Here on the Far Side, we're ready for it.  Wherever the magician tells us to look, we will be looking the other way.  Our anthem remains:

There's nothing in the street

Looks any different to me

And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye

And the parting on the left

Is now the parting on the right

And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around me

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I'll get on my knees and pray

We don't get fooled again

Don't get fooled again

No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

The Game's A Foot

With all that is happening in the world at this moment, The Jakarta Post has covered its entire front page with reports on Indonesia's loss in the Suzuki Cup finals. Get this, Inodnesia wan the game 2-1 against Malaysia, but lost the trphy because the score wasn't high enough. Go figure. Of course, there is a deep rivalry between Malaysia and Indonesia that occasionally simmers over into outright blows, but I hardly see where a game rates full front page coverage.

Our Korean neighbors are threatening to blow each other up. Pakistan, Afganistan and Iraq are embroiled in war. Israel continues to terrorize it neighbors. Europe and America teeter on the verge of economic collapse. China and Russia are snuggling up to end dollar hegimony. And the only thing that rates as news today is a game.

Sorry, but I just don't get it.

I have tried my whole life to understand this whole pro-sports thing. What I inevitably come to believe is that the whole damn thing is a colossal waste of time, money and resources: massive stadia, black holes of electricity, huge salaries for non-productive people, transportaion to ship teams and their staff all over the globe, even specialties in sports medicine. And all of this why? To draw your eyeballs to some advertising.

It's obscene, really.

Now, I will admit a certain affinity for horse and car racing. There are multiple variables pitting man against himself and against his steed/machine, as well as against other teams. I like the sheer complexity of it. The odds against any one competitor winning are pretty exciting.

But the idea of two teams of more or less equal footing going head-to-head just doesn't rise to the level of real sport, to my mind (all previous soccer puns intended). It's just like American politics. It doesn't matter who wins the game, everyone loses.

Yesterday, Jakarta, a city of roughly 12 million people, came to a halt. In Senayan, traffic was in gridlock as 80,000 people tried to get into the stadium. In my neighborhood, kids went around doing a lion dance and collecting money to pay for a large screen projector in the park across from my house so the entire neighborhood could gather for the game. By start time, the streets were dead and the play-by-play could be heard echoing all across the area interspersed with cheers and groans. Normally, it takes a natual disaster to achieve the same result.

All across the city, people gathered at the warung (small shops and restaurants) to watch the event. As my lady and I trundled to a local hotel by bajaj to meet some friends, I hardly missed a word of the call, as TVs blared out every five meters. The streets were dead in a city that has legendary traffic problems, day and night. The driver could hardly wait to drop us and return to the game. The hotel where we met was apparently full with well-heeled Indonesians who has come in to attend the event. There was even talk of riots should Indonesia win the Cup.

In short, nearly every man, woman and child has their self-image, national pride and hopes tied up in -- a game. A the really absurd part is that Indonesia won the game, but lost the Cup because of some occult, alchemical formula that uses advanced linear physics and quaternion geometry to determine the winner.

Go figure.

I son't suppose anyone thought about how many people could be clothed, housed and fed for what was spent on the Suzuki Cup, or the Super Bowl for that matter, or the World Series, or Formula One, or any other major sporting event you care to pick. The important thing is that absolutely nothing was created from all this effort and expense. It was literally a complete waste of time and effort. It achieved nothing. It produced nothing. It changed nothing.

Yet, the banner headline in The Jakarta Post reads, "Malaysia Win Makes History." Oh really? So absolutely nothing changed the direction of global human history?

The original Olympics I can understand. Here men demonstrated their prowess at skills that were vital in warfare: jumping, running, throwing spears and rocks. But I fail to see the relevance of those things today, since modern warfare simply involves dropping massive amounts of incendiary devices on non-combatant populations. Ostensibly, the modern Olympics were to foster world peace and understanding, but if that's the case, they have failed miserably. Surely, there must be some value to dressing teen-age girls in skimpy outfits, covering them with talc and making them contort themselves on global TV.

I can see the value of high school athletics. The boys are dripping with hormones and need some sort of outlet that at least purports to have some benefit to health and diverts them from more nefarious pursuits. However, by college age, they should have learned some amount of self-control and be able to pursue more productive, if not intellectual causes.

Most of what I have seen is that sports are simply a vehicle for overweight, beer-guzzling, middle-aged losers to invest their low self-images in their avatars so that they can derive some amount of self-importance by doing nothing more than vegetating on the couch.

Certainly, Nero knew the value of 'bread and circuses.' By keeping the citizenry distracted with meaningless eye-candy, they wouldn't interfere with the affairs of state, which were to rob and plunder every individual that could be physically located somewhere. In the same way a baby can be entertained for hours by a mobile or twinkling lights, most adults can be derailed by spectacle and pagentry. It's the most valuable tool of the magician, to distract an audience in one direction, while the deception occurs in the other. As any deceiver will tell you, it's not what you see, but what you think you see that matters.

Pro sports are nothing more than magic tricks. If entire popuations can be made to look in one direction at one time, then the opportunities are endless for what can be done in other directions. If you find it hard to imagine how this works, there is a simple game you can do with a couple of friends on a lazy afternoon.

Go to some public area with a large number of people. You and your friends take up a position that is fairly visible and start staring up at some random point. It helps if you all talk excitedly about some imaginary thing happening 'up there.' Within minutes, you will have a substantial crowd around, all looking up at the same spot and trying to figure out what is so interesting. You can even walk away after a few minutes and just sit and watch the fun. I've actually been able to get fairly large, self-sustaining crowds together for as long as an hour with this trick.

If I were a pick-pocket, I'd be pretty rich by now.

Even if nothing is happening 'up there,' people will wait just for the hope of seeing something happen. It's why so many people watch auto racing. Maybe there'll be a horrific crash. It's why horror movies are so popular. it's why magic works and tight-rope walkers get crowds, and lion tamers are so fascinating. Someone MIGHT get mangled!

It's why we use words like 'trounce,' 'annihilate,' 'vanquish,' and related hyperbole to describe the outcome of pro-sport contests. We are really wanting someone to get seriously hurt, even if only in a mental way. It's the whole purpose of the 'bread and circuses,' to watch the christians get eaten, the gladiators to get hacked to pieces and the slaves to be trampled.

Meanwhile, in the other direction, someone is robbing you blind.

Christmas In Byzantium

I think it's safe to say mine in the only house for quite a distance around with Christmas lights up. I think it's also safe to say that I am one of the few people in the world with a Christmas India Apple tree. I will concede that there might be a few other wreaths on doors near-by.

Now make no mistake, I am fully aware that Christmas is NOT a christian holiday. It is an ancient pagan festival of light celebrating the re-birth of the Sun (not the birth of the Son). So I am not trying to make some perverse religious statement here in the largest Muslim nation on Earth.

I just like Christmas decorations.

There's something mystical, at least to me, about decorating for Christmas. From my earliest childhood, I always loved the whole season. It was usually cool, if not cold (Houston is not all that different from Jakarta weather-wise), and Dad would have a fire in the fireplace at the least puff of cool air, most ly because he liked to burn everything in the house. If it hadn't been for my mother, he would have torn up the floorboards to burn. In fact, Christmas morning was his pyromanic orgy as he burned every box and scrap of warpping. It was quite funny actually.

There was also the smell of the Christmas tree. I love that smell. It is the reason I crave to live in the alpine region of mountains. I used to sit in the living room at night with only the light of the Christmas tree and just inhale deeply for hours. I loved going to the tree lots and I tried to hang out near the area where they trimmed the trunks, because the smell was intoxicating when the chainsaw heated the pine sap. I worked for a while as a butcher and it was popular in the prep area to mix pine needles with cinnamon and let it smolder all day.

Intoxicating.

Entangled with all this, of course, was the magic of having some fat man shimmy down the chimney once a year and unload a pile of goodies, free of charge. I got my first rifle from Santa and a chemistry set that gave me hours of fun making stink bombs. I got new books and cool toys, and all I had to do was behave all year.\

I also remember the first year I was aware of the truth. Since i was the oldest of six kids, it was recruited at the tender age of 8 to help Dad assemble all the toys on Christmas Eve. That was also the year I got my .22 Browning, so it was a coming-of-age moment, I suppose.

For a couple of years, I had a Christmas cactus. I had this enormous cactus with several fleshy arms and spines that were, in a word, formidable. I would wrap it with lights and hang ornaments off the spines. Those years, most of my ornaments were Texas-themed and I had an old pair of Tony Lama boots that I put at the base as a finishing touch.

You can find spruce trees here. There are farms in the mountains south of the city. They can be bought at stores and malls in areas thick with foreigners, but they are outrageously expensive. Even if I could afford one, I don't have any ornaments here. All I have is a single string of lights, a wicker woven wreath and a porceline Santa vase. That is the extent of my holiday display.

After I got old and had kids, we repeated the old pattern: Christmas tree shopping, presents under the tree, explaining how Santa could get into the house without a chimney. I promulgated the myth, and it really was fun to see the kids, when they were small, run into the living room in absolute awe at the booty that was piled up for them.

All of that is gone now. I have a certain twinge of longing for those days. Here, things are quite different. For one, it's never cold. It is always high of 85 and low of 75, with an 80% chance of rain, day in, day out, 365 days a year, year after year. It never snows. Santa never comes. There are no chimneys. And I am the only set of lights in the whole neighborhood, with an India apple tree.

Kinda cool, actually.

It's like being a big fish in a small pond. I am the only one like me here. At home, people have to put up Chevy Chase displays to get anyone to notice their effort. I just put up a single string of lights and the kids in the 'hood "ooh" and "ahh."

The malls are just like America now. They have miles of Christmas displays now, but there is not a hint of religion in any of it. Just piles of fake presents under fake trees surrounded by automatons acting joyful about...something. Mostly the displays are just annoying. They always stick them in the middle of high-traffic areas so you have to walk out of your way to get around them.

What's even funnier is the music. The malls are full of Christmas carols on the Musak systems, but they are painfully free of any of the traditional religious tunes, and instead, you walk around in a flop sweat in the heat to the tune of "Winter Wonderland." To 99% of Indonesians, concepts like 'winter' and 'snow' are about as foreign as it gets. In fact, one way I can get my classes to settle down and listen is to tell them what it is like when it snows.

I tell them about the different kinds of flakes. I tell them how quiet it gets when it snows. I tell them about the crunch under your feet. I tell them about snow forts and snowball fights and building snowmen, and they listen with rapt attention, trying desperately to imagine what those things are like.

Hell, if all this global warming continues, they may get first-hand experience right here in Jakarta!

When I was a kid, I was told that Santa flew all around the world bringing toys to kids everywhere. I was even told about how kids in other lands celebrated Christmas. Come to think of it, no one ever talked about Christmas in Indonesia, because Santa doesn't come here.

Truth is so much more interesting than the fables of childhood, but there's so much less magic to it. Maybe that's why people like fables. They just want the magic that they felt when they were kids. At least I can create a little magic with a string of lights and tales of snowmen.

Are you worried that your Christmas will be slim this year? Well, now you know it could be worse...there could be no Christmas at all.

Keep the magic.

The Freedom of the Road

As I recall, it was the late summer of '79. As fast as they put a diploma in my hand, I blew the town. Houston was not big enough for both me and my dad, and he didn't appear to be going anywhere. So I did the honors.

First stop was Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had been there once before when I was about 7 or 8. It was a magical time, because it was snowing when we landed in Albuquerque. It was Easter time and everyone was remarking that it never snowed that late. We stayed at La Fonda on the square. Even now, I can recollect the scene out the hotel window of the snow falling on the Plaza in Santa Fe. Magic.

So when I was thinking of somewhere to run away to, that place just came to my head and my dachshund Lucy and I hit the road. Not long after I got there, I met George. He was a piece of work. Rich LA family with a ranch north of the city. He was there for college, complete with Saab 900 Turbo and a care-package from his buddies back home that would make a DEA agent blush. Shrooms, coke, sinse, uppers, downers...you name it. We struck it off right away and spent a lot of time charming chicks and making runs to the ski basin in the Saab. We had some magic moments.

There was the time we packed up a couple fine coeds, some beer and care-package contents, and a TV George and I had bought that ran off a car cigarette lighter. We smoked it up to a very cool place I had spied with a view that looked clear out to Albuquerque. It was early fall and the air was crisp, and the aspen trees had started turning. At one point, we sped through a tunnel of gold, with the silvery fall light spun through like gossamer, and the stark white trunks of the trees lining both sides of the road. I was standing in the seat with my upper body out the sun roof. The wind combed my long hair and parted my ample beard. I kind of looked like the illegitimate son of Billy Gibbons and a biker moll.

We spent the night at the overlook watching Saturday Night Live, tripping our heads off and macking on Shoshana and Lucia. Magic.

George was always going on about LA this and back home that, so one night we were sitting around bored out of our minds, full of pizza that we got free from another buddy after closing time. I looked at George and said, "You wanna go to LA?" Within hours, we were speeding down the highway at 115 mph, heading west. The next afternoon, LA rose out of the horizon like the Emerald City, and there I was with Scarecrow and Toto, and Glenda had just made it snow, in a manner of speaking.

We swung by a couple of George's buddies' houses and ended up with some blue dragon blotter. That night we sat on the cliffs watching fog roll in from the sea and smog roll out from the city. They met over the beach like a silent scene from "Braveheart", and fought it out for hours as we spun through the Book of Mysteries, climbing into our own navels and sliding out through our mouths. Magic.

The next day, we beat a path up the coast highway to San Luis Obispo, and to his family's ranch. We were greeted by the Mexican maid and George's two Rottweilers. To her credit, Lucy the dachshund held her own. We broke up a foot-long bud of sinse he had snagged from a bud earlier and we bonged a bit before taking the vintage WWII jeep out on the ranch to do a little 4-wheeling. We were listening to Lee Rittenauer and Dixie Dregs, and climbing the jeep up a steep hill until we had a commanding view of the entire valley. Magic.

George's folks hardly seemed to bat an eye that he had just quit college after three months and had shown up at home with an out-of-work roadie in tow. We stayed there a week before beating it back to the city, this time to the home of a famous movie star's son up in the Hollywood Hills.

The guy was so happy to see George that he took his radio phone (cell phones hadn't been invented yet) out to the pool and within an hour, the buffet was covered with a king's feast and the coffee table was wall-to-wall fantasy land. There was a serving platter of Peruvian marching powder, yellows, blacks, reds, and my choice...shrooms. That night I sat in the hot tub looking over LA lights like electric fireflies while mushroom visions formed in the clouds and minor starlettes kept me entertained. A well-known band showed up and gigged until dawn. Magic.

Two days later, we were in a 24-foot sailboat in LA harbor. I was at the tiller and the guys were rolling and tugging like there was no tomorrow. I lost my hat to a stray gust. It was my lucky hat. I wore it wherever I traveled. Bummed me out, but I got over it pretty quick. Later, when we docked, some guy walked up and handed me my hat. He had been not far behind us and had fished it up. A lucky hat, I tell ya. Magic.

After a while, I started to feel the need to work again. I had met a couple of bands that were starting tours soon and I managed to get on the crew of one.

The tour was kicking off in Miami and I had about six weeks to get there. I would just about make it on time using my personal travel agent: my thumb. I packed my bag, rolled up my blanket and pulled on my lucky hat, and George spun me out to the edge of town on I-10. I worked hard to get out of California since the hawks cruised the highways looking for young hitchhikers to pick up. If you didn't put out, they dumped you within a mile or two. Took me two days of that crap to get to Arizona.

In Arizona, I met Geronimo's grandson sitting on the side of the road. He looked about nine years older than God and had a bullet lodged in his side from WWII that he was only too happy to show off. He never put his thumb out. When he was ready for a ride, he just put the idea out to the Universe and someone would stop. I was dubious.

We spent the night on the side of the road talking and drinking whiskey. The next morning, he looked at me and said, "OK, I'm ready." Almost the next car along stopped and gave him a ride. Magic.

I gave it a shot. A guy in an old Dodge van pulled up and asked me if I knew anything about mechanics of motors. I offered that I could use a wrench in a pinch, so he gave me a ride to TorC, New Mexico from Flagstaff.

All I had to do was keep the old rattle trap running, which I managed. We broke down just over the state line late at night. I was doing my best in the dark when some guy appeared out of nowhere and started praying over the engine to exorcise the demons. The van started up and we were on our way again. Magic.

I said goodbye at TorC and told the Universe I was ready for another good ride. A semi pulled over and the passenger door swung open. I looked up into the cab and the driver asked, "Can you roll a decent joint?" I allowed that I could do a fair job in a rain storm, blindfolded, using newspaper.

I was in charge of rolling, changing tapes in the stereo and keeping the coffee cup full.

I must have done a fair job because he let me off about a mile from my folks' house in Houston two days later.

I made it to Miami with three days to spare, which was good since I made a few extra duckies doing a load check.

Never have figured out what happened to that hat.