Giving thanks for my life, love and everything...

Well folks, I have just recently weathered a three week whirlwind that made some minor changes in my current course. October was particularly busy for me, which spilled over into the beginning of November. Now I feel like I'm down to Earth, and I'm left rearranging the pieces of my life that are out of order.

2011 is nearing completion, and it's been an amazing year. This, quite possibly, has been the most important year of my life. Today I stand at the threshold of having everything I've ever dreamed of. When I started skratching in my bedroom those 15 years ago, I would never in my wildest dreams have thought I would end up here in New Orleans. I most certainly could not have imagined that I would own my own business, or I would have an article in Offbeat Magazine. Not too bad for a college dropout from New Iberia, if I do say so myself. It seems as if these last two months have lasted two years. This is especially relevant because the last FIVE years seem to have passed in the blink of an eye. Its almost as if in an instant... SHAZAM... I went from a waiter and a hobby deejay, eeking out a meager existence in Lafayette to where I humbly sit before you right now typing this diatribe. As time is our most valuable commodity, the fact that it seems to be passing so slowly might just be the greatest gift of all.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, for the first time I'm seriously reflecting upon my life and where its headed. I truly am blessed to be living my life on my own terms. Whatever luck, combined with perseverance and wise choices, has put me in the best position to propel my life to heights previously unthinkable. Being securely in the driver's seat of your own life is an amazing position to be in. I am thankful for that. I am thankful for my mom. For the last 15 years of my life, our relationship has become something that I hold very close to my heart. As much as she would like to think she is different than her mother, she is very much the same in so many ways. She now occupies the space left by my grandmother's untimely death from brain cancer Thanksgiving Day 1993. That Thanksgiving was the last time I took time out to re-examine my life. At the tender age of 18 whilst in my first semester of college, I tried to find answers to some really hard questions about life, love, and everything. I decidedly came up with the answer 42.

Fast forward to today... I have so many things for which to be thankful. I am thankful for my continued good health. Without my health, I would have no life or not much of a quality of life. I am thankful for my friends. I don't have many good friends, but the ones that I hold close to my heart I sincerely cherish. I am thankful for all the gifts I have given by my creator, namely my creativity and good sense. I am thankful for my deejay career which was given an amazing boost by Yachtbounce, a genre I imagined with the help of some friends on Thanksgiving 2010. I am thankful for my business, Doggy Dog World, which after four + years is still here providing a much needed service to Midcity. I am thankful for my animals Taki, Joey and Doug. Their health and happiness brings me much joy, and I am blessed to have them in my life. I am thankful for being a homeowner. Although its not finished yet and I'm going through it with the contractors, it is a blessing. Lastly, I am thankful for a new, amazing presence in my life. I could have never predicted the turn of events that placed this person with me, and she has forever changed the way I look at myself, my life, and the world around me. I am forever grateful for her, and I am grateful to the forces that put us together.

All of this has me looking toward the future, my immediate future and my not so distant future.

Concerning my deejay career: I have not yet begun to really promote and market myself. I have always been of the opinion that I've got to be at a certain skill level to be worthy of promoting myself, and after 15 years and 10 years of battling the time has come. Its time for me to capitalize on my new-found "fame", and push my career to the next level. I will accomplish this by using all of the artistic talent at my disposal to become a tour de force in the US and the international stage. Using brand marketing techniques, I will expound on the reputation and quality of the Tony Skratchere brand, and maybe throw a few surprises in along the way. I am resolved to produce more music. I am resolved to better my deejaying in every way so to only cement the quality of my brand and further assure that I can continue to demand a professional wage from doing something that brings me so much enjoyment.

Concerning my business: Throughout the course of this four years, I kept my business afloat with little or no advertising or marketing besides word of mouth and sporadic fliers. I will soon be able to expand my services, and through some small improvements I will be able to change the dynamic of Doggy Dog World and enter into a new realm of business prosperity. Using many of the same techniques I will use to expand my deejay career, I will push my business to the next level and provide myself a better quality of life.

Concerning my personal life: I will eventually move into my new house leaving my deejay studio in the space that my bedroom now occupies. My home will be my home, and my business will be my business. I will finally, after all these years, have dedicated spaces for all of my creative outlets. My living situation will finally be able to be compartmentalized and my workflow streamlined and redefined. No longer will everything be mashed together into one chaotic mess. I will finally have the space for my life to breathe and breed. This new house marks the beginning of a new life for me. Now my dreams of having the life I always wanted finally seem within reach. In this new chapter of my life I hope to soon start a family and find new joys in raising children with someone I love. Now is the time to become the person that I was born to be. All of the pieces are in place. I am in the driver's seat, and its all up to me assemble the pieces into the big picture that is my future.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2011 leading into the holiday season I can see the sun rising on the horizon of my life. I have always been a late bloomer, so things are working out just as I have envisioned them. I have made it thus far to a place where I answer to no one but myself. As this year comes to a close, I can only look back and take in all of the amazing things that I have witnessed. This has been a year of maturity, change, and most of all providence. I have seen myself go through real changes this year, and I feel as if this metamorphosis is only beginning. I welcome the changes to come, and I look forward to finally meeting this person that I am certain to become.

Love and blessings to all,

The Skratchman

The Tao of the Macaroni & Cheese Puzzle

I received a 108 piece double-sided macaroni puzzle for my birthday this year. It was a great gift because I hadn't done a puzzle in a number of years. This particular puzzle, despite its size and low number of pieces, was extremely difficult. As I emptied the box, spilled the contents on to my artboard, and began to flip and separate the pieces, I began to contemplate life and love through the eyes of a puzzle piece.

In essence life is like a puzzle. It begins in chaos. We are conceived and spend nine months in the puzzle box womb of our mothers. As we are born the contents of the box are unleashed and we spill onto the drawing table of the world. As we grow and learn, the border pieces of our lives begin to take shape. Sometime during adolescence, the border is completed and the framework of what our life is to become begins to take shape. What we are left with is the lifelong, arduous task of arranging the remaining pieces into something beautiful, picturesque or logical. Each day of our lives we are in some way completing this puzzle. Forever trying to find the right piece to fill the parts of our lives that are incomplete. If we are diligent and patient, the puzzle begins make sense. Once it begins to make sense, the process of completion becomes a simple organizational task.

This brings me to love. We as individuals are a lot like puzzle pieces. We all are looking for how we fit into the bigger picture. We are all like a puzzle pieces because while we all have similarities, no two puzzle pieces are exactly the same. Some of us are part of 5000 piece expert puzzles, some are part of a far smaller, easier to complete puzzle.

There are three types of puzzle pieces: corners, edges, and interior pieces. The corner pieces are the rarest of the pieces, these are the visionaries in our society. Next are the edges, they form the frame in which the rest of the pieces will eventually fall. These are the professionals, the artists, the scientists, the architects, the doctors, the teachers, the engineers, the athletes, the musicians, the actors, the entertainers. Lastly are the interior pieces, the most common of the three. These are the workers. Without these pieces there would be no picture. All of these pieces must all work together to complete the grand picture of life.

When looking for love, this is especially relevant. The interior pieces have it the easiest. There are four pieces that one can be perfectly connected... four great loves. The edge pieces have but three great loves, and the corner pieces only two great loves. We stumble throughout our lives trying to find these perfect matches. In the process we try lots of wrong pieces, trying to make this connection. Sometimes, pieces look as if they ALMOST fit. The piece is the same size, color, and shape, but it's just not the right piece. That piece belongs somewhere else in the puzzle. It's another's perfect match and no matter how much we try to force it, the puzzle cannot be completed with those two pieces connected in an imperfect way. We are all looking for our perfect match. If we quit in the middle of the search for the missing piece, we can never hope to see the full picture of life.

So to all of you who read this, go out today and buy a puzzle. Open the box, spill the contents onto your kitchen table, flip then separate the pieces, and go to work on completing the puzzle. While you do so, remember these words. Remember your great loves. Remember when you were a child and didn't have anything to figure out. Remember when you figured out who you were as a person. Remember when you put your own life on its current path.

I see my own life in this process. Over and over again I keep placing piece after piece onto the puzzle and the more I concentrate on slowly putting things together, the more the picture begins to take shape. Hell... if I ever feel like I've got it all figured out or if I get to the point of completion, I'll just break it up into its original form and do it all over again. To me life is about the journey not the destination.

The Skratchman

Birthday Weekend 2011 Wrap-Up...

As I opened my blog, I realized that it has been almost two months since my last post... WHEW! Unacceptable... So much has happened since August 30th. Each year around this time I make birthday "resolutions" not unlike New Years Resolutions except I tend to take these a little more seriously. Its all a product of my daily quest to be better than the day before.

I don't regret not posting for a while... I live my life very publicly on the intrawebz, and often times I have to live an entirely private life. These memories I have made in these two months are mine. You guys didn't get to share them with me. If you are friends with me on Facebook and/or follow me on twitter, you know I've been doing well. That's all you need to know. I have, in fact, been doing well... fantastic even...

There's no time like the present. AmIRite??? Well, this brings me to October 21st, 2011. My birthday fell on a Friday this year, which means next year my birthday will fall on a Sunday since next year is a Leap year... Am I angry that 2012 has gipped me out of a Saturday birthday next year?? What a silly question! I could never be angry at 2012. We don't even know each other.

This year I turned 28... again. Friday was my actual birthday, and I spent it exactly how I wanted to spend it. I spent the day anxiously awaiting updates from Stephannie on her drive in from Austin. I had just finished reading "Jitterbug Perfume" the day before after taking an increbibly long time getting started by reading about 20 pages per sitting for the last month or so, I blazed through the final 100 pages on the morning Thursday October, 20th. The final chapter was still emanating in my psyche, as I continued to contemplate the actual significance of the novel in my life right now. "Am I Alobar, and she Kudra?" What a beautiful question!

At six o'clock, I begin my drive to Lafayette down I-10. I took my time and arrived in Lafayette around 8:20. I took the University exit and proceeded to the Racetrack to begin my wait. I realized something upon my exit to Lafayette. Lafayette has it bad from a public perception standpoint as evidenced by the exits off of I-10. You have the General Mouton exit which is probably the least sketchy of the four. But the other three, Johnson St, Evangeline Thruway, and University all cross through the poorest parts of the city. If you're an outsider coming in, you would NEVER think that River Ranch and Broadmoor even existed. I hope the plans for the I-49 extension go directly on top of the Thruway. This would allow the city to add a few more desirable exits into the city (Willow, Congress, Johnson St. Pinhook, etc...) This is what I thought of whilst I was waiting for Steph to arrive. It was ultimately briefly summarized in my Facebook status of the evening: "Waiting for my lady at Racetrack on N. University... Dude, Lafayette is so f*cking sketchy." Sketchy indeed, sir. Sketchy indeed.

On Saturday, I did Herb Import's Roktober fest... ALWAYS SUPER FUN, and I got my Professor Farnsworth action figure. So I was cool.

The details of the weekend will remain private. All I will say is that it was one of the greatest birthday weekends of my life.

As I drove home on Sunday, I had a lot of time to reflect on my weekend, previous year, my plans for the next year, my immediate future, and my 5-year-plan. I came up with a nice list of realistic goals for myself:

1. Be a better deejay

2. Draw more

3. Grow the business

4. Buy more plants

5. Explore new recipes

6. Continue to exercise daily

7. Write more

These are all realistic, and only further expound on things I'm already doing and would like to do more of. This is the first year a very long time that I feel a very real sense of liberation. For the last few years I had been a rut... plain and simple. I lost my way. Now that I'm on this new path, each step that I take along this path feels like a first step. 2011 has been a great year so far. I can only see great things happening for 2012.

Sincerely,

The Skratchman

Lyrical Tuesday...

"The Hardest Button to Button" ~ The White Stripes

We started living in an old house
My ma gave birth and we were checking it out
It was a baby boy
So we bought him a toy
It was a ray gun
And it was 1981
We named him Baby
He had a toothache
He started crying
It sounded like an earthquake
It didnt last long
Because I stopped it
I grabbed a rag doll
And stuck some little pins in it
Now were a family
And were alright now
We got money and a little place
To fight now
We dont know you
And we dont owe you
But if you see us around
I got something else to show you
Now its easy when you dont know better
You think its sleazy?
Then put it in a short letter
We keep warm
But theres just something wrong when you
Just feel like youre the hardest little button
To button
I had opinions
That didnt matter
I had a brain
That felt like pancake batter
I got a backyard
With nothing in it
Except a stick
A dog
And a box with something in it
The hardest button to button(x7)
*background: The hardest button to button (x3)

Great song, even more phenomenal video by Michel Gondry... You all should check it out!!

Monologue #3 "Talking my way out of a DWI"

Age: 25

So my girlfriend and I had gone to a BBQ this particular evening. I mentioned in an earlier monologue that a few things go perfectly with BBQ. One of those things is beer. See kids, that's what we call in "the business" foreshadowing.

I finished off a sixer of tall cans and smoked a liberal amount of pot before my girlfriend and I started to feel a little frisky and decided to go back to the apartment and get busy. We said our goodbyes to our people and started to head home.

I was driving a red Honda Civic 2-door standard (or coupe, if you will) at the time. Being a broke ass irresponsible 25 year old to say that the car had been poorly maintained was being extremely modest. The brakes were in dire need of being changed and were making this fantastic scraping metal grinding on metal sound. Some of y'all know of the sound in which I'm referring. The car had an expired inspection sticker. I had an expired license and no current proof of insurance, and I'm unsure whether or not I had current registration. I was a ticking time bomb.

I had grown very adept at down-shifting to stop at red lights unless I had to stop abruptly, and then I was treated to the amazing screaming and grinding of the brakes laboring to stop the car. I hated that sound so I tried my hardest no to have to stop like short. It was pretty awful, but I was a dumb kid who thought I was indestructible. I didn't have a care in the world. It was my life and fuck you for telling me how to live it.

I always took back roads to avoid seeing the police whenever possible. On this particular route I would have to go through one single red light. ONE SINGLE RED LIGHT. We zigged and zagged through the neighborhood streets as we neared the red light. The light turned yellow as we were about 20 feet away from it. There were two choices: slam on the brakes and endure the awful screeching sound or run the light. I chose the latter.

Unbeknownst to us there was a city police officer camped out in the adjacent parking lot staking out the intersection for speeders, reckless drivers, and runners of red lights. We ran the light. He saw us and promptly pulled out. I was fucked. Luckily my adrenal gland was up to the task of sobering me up so I could chat with the nice police officer.

"ACT SICK!!!" I said to my girlfriend as the cop was approaching the driver's side door.

"OK!!!" she shouted.

"I got this... don't worry." I calmly replied as I composed myself for the impending encounter with the Lafayette PD.

I rolled down my window and before the cop could begin his "license, registration, proof of insurance" routine I began talking.

"I'm soooo sorry sir. My brakes are failing, and I'm having to downshift to stop. My girlfriend and I are coming back from dinner. I think she ate some bad fish. I'm trying to hurry home so she doesn't throw up in the car." I replied with this mix of truth and half-truths.

He looks over at her and she gives her best Meryl Streep impression. And the Oscar goes to...

He looked thoroughly convinced.

"Did you have anything to drink at dinner?" He asks.

"No sir, not tonight. I have to get up early in the morning for work, and I don't like drinking if I've got to work in the morning." (lie)

"Well, what's that??" he asked pointing to the 12 oz. beer can in my cup holder.

"OH SHIT!" I thought to myself.

"Oh, that??! That's an ashtray (which it was)." I replied.

Someone had left an empty beer can in my car after a night at the bar last week and there it remained as my ashtray. I picked up the can and gave it to him. He could clearly see that there was absolutely no liquid in this can and unless I was a 5 pack a day smoker it was impossible for that beer can to have been from anytime in the recent past.

"Someone left that in my car last weekend, and I've been using it as an ashtray ever since." I said. "Please don't give me a ticket for having an open container... just pretend its a Coke can."

He looked somewhat convinced.

"Can I see your license?" he asked.

"OH FUCK!" I said to myself as I smiled and began reaching into my wallet for my expired license all the time hoping he wouldn't notice the expired inspection sticker. I was also repeating in my mind "Move on" trying to use Jedi mind tricks to rid myself of my current nuisance.

"Here you go, sir." I said as I handed him my license. He looked it over.

"You know this is expired, right?" he stated.

"WHAT?!! Reaaaallly??" I exclaimed channeling Bill Murray in my best half-serious/half-joking tone.

"Yessir, its December and it expired in October." he says.

"NO WAY!! I thought that was next year." I said continuing to channel Bill Murray.

"I tell you what, I know your girlfriend is sick but if she has a valid drivers license I'll let you go as long as she drives the car home." Apparently he believed us and didn't want to take me in, due to the massive amount of paperwork involved in such a simple traffic stop.

She pulls out her license, hands it to the officer, and he surveys it.

"Little lady, you OK to drive?? How's your stomach?" he asks in his most concerned tone.

"Oh, yessir. I'm a little sick, but I'm SURE it won't effect my driving." she says.

"Well, it looks like you're driving HIM home." he made sure to accent 'him' as to make sure I knew he was doing me a huge solid. "First thing Monday morning I wanna see you going down to the DMV and renewing your license." He said as I was getting into the passenger seat.

"Yessir! Thank you sir!! Thank you so much, I'll also get my brakes checked too while I'm taking care of things I should have taken care of long ago." I said.

My girlfriend jumped into the drivers seat, drove for about 3 or 4 blocks before we switched places. She couldn't drive stick, nor did she understand how I was downshifting to stop the car so the brakes wouldn't make that noise.

We finally made it home and the mix of adrenaline mixed with the cockiness of my escape from the clutches of the law led to some of the best sex of my entire life. THAT WAS A GOOD NIGHT!!! I guess I'm just a lucky dude.

Monologue #2 "How I became a deejay that night on XTC"

Age: 22

So I went to LSU for like one semester. I don't think I went to one of my classes... not one. I wasn't cut out for college. I was way too immature, and all I wanted to do was get wasted and chase girls. Well, I was fresh out of rehab because my mom caught me selling drugs. I told her that I had a drug problem and I was doing it to support my drug habit which was bullshit and a BIG MISTAKE. So after rehab, she moved me out to Baton rouge, enrolled me in LSU and had me live with my cousin Mark who was prone to going on long trips... AWESOME.

At that point I had become a fervent music collector. I had a handful of records and and overstuffed 100 CD wallet full of all different genres of music.

I used to go buy music every week at Paradise Records with my check from my awesome catering job. Those guys had a great music selection and a pretty decent vinyl section. I would pick up a few select albums and/or pieces of vinyl every week.

Well one night I was partying at a small electronic music club impressing the female patrons with my B-Boy moves until I saw this girl. her name was Angela, and she used to date my homeboy Jeremy years prior. I always thought she was hot and I saw this as my opportunity to finally hook up with her.

She ended up knowing someone who had some "good" XTC pills, and she wanted to know if I wanted to get some. She also wanted to know if I had a place to go and get cozy. I just got paid so I had a pocket full of cash. My cousin Mark was out of town, and I had the house to myself. Check and check.

Somehow using her powers of female eternal hotness, she convinced me to buy her XTC so we could roll together. I bought four (4) two for me and two for her for a grand total of $100. It was a mere drop in the bucket for me a reckless college student with an awesome low-responsibility job. In hindsight, I had NO IDEA what I was in for.

We pop the pills on the ride home and I remember her telling me to chew them up so they would hit me quicker. The taste was absolutely awful... just terrible. I to a swig of my water to try to kill the taste. That wasn't happening.

We get back to my house and I immediately rush to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Proper oral hygiene is important, especially after you've eaten a Schedule I narcotic or if you're chilling with a lady.

I step outside the bathroom and I start to get the rubber legs. So I labor into my bedroom and plop down on my waterbed (I was a classy dude). Angela was already on the bed so I put on some reggae and went to get us some water. On the way back to the bedroom I started to hallucinate. I had never hallucinated on XTC before so I asked her what was up.

"These are MDA pills. You'll hallucinate. There's no speed in them to counteract the hallucinations. All the sexy, none of the speed." were I believe her exact words.

"OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!" I replied.

We then started to talk and rub on each other as the drug started to take a hold of us. Eventually we quit talking, got lost in the music and just began to writhe around on the bed breathing in each other breath. It was pretty hot in a spiritual drug-induced sort of way.

We were doing OK until, I started to feel queasy. I had always heard that really good X will make your seratonin levels rise until they overload and then you will vomit and feel AMAZING. I had never experienced this phenomenon, but I was pretty sure I was about to experience it for the first time. There was a weird mix of fear and anticipation as I rolled out of the bed on a direct trip to the bathroom. I got two or three steps outside of the bedroom before the projectile vomiting started. I finished and quickly grabbed a towel to clean it all up. It never felt more amazing cleaning up puke ever before or since.

After I re-brushed my teeth, I jumped back into bed and she and I got lost in a long sexy embrace as I put Dj Krush's "Meiso" album on repeat. Be became one body. There were no words being exchanges except for "Oh GOD!!" and low audible moans. It was pretty fantastic. This continued for a long time, very long in fact. I switched CDs three or four more times to continue to set the mood. We continued this until daylight when the effects of the drug were beginning to wane. I mustered up the courage to drive her home because I had a catering job at 10am.

When I got back from dropping her off, I set my alarm for 9:30am so I could be at work on time. I changed into my work clothes, watched the clock and pretended to rest until my alarm sounded. Luckily I felt normal enough to think I could go to work. I headed out the door with my CD case and headed to work. I get about half-way to the job before I realize that I left my CD case on the top of the car when I left for work. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!

That morning (Saturday) was an LSU home game so there was no hope. I just lost $1000s of dollars of music due to one night of drug fueled passion.

While at work I made the conscious decision that I would only buy vinyl from now on. I would never leave my vinyl on the roof of the car. Vinyl would stay at home and become tapes as I would just tape my records for listening in the car. It seemed like a workable plan. That decision directly contributed to my decision to dedicate my life to being a DJ.

When I got home from work, I tried calling Angela to see if she wanted to hang out again. She gave me the wrong number... figures.

Monologue #1 "Hello, Mescaline! Nice to meet you???"

Age: 19

Growing up in a small town in Louisiana there was a shortage places for reckless youth to go and get our "all night party" on. Bars closed at 2am, and weren't very friendly to psychedelic drug use. There was ONE all night club about 45 minutes from home. It was called "The Outer Limits", and they stayed open until 6am (maybe later but we never stayed past dawn). It was a techno music "rave your ass off" kinda place, and for us on the weekends it was home.

So I get picked up by my friends Kyle and Beau. We always asked beau to score the drugs because he "had people". What we were into back then was pot and acid. Beer and liquor had its place and that place was house parties and BBQs. We were out to get twisted and boogie down. There was no time for getting drunk.

So Beau reaches into his pocket and pulls out three pennies with foil taped onto them. That's how the acid always came packaged. We would always drop the acid as we were leaving. That way by the time we got to the club it would just start to kick in and we could effortlessly merge with the party crowd. We smoke a bowl on the way to the club and appropriately listen to Lords of Acid as the soundtrack to our current voyage.

We arrive at the club and aren't feeling a thing. We get into the spot and sorta wait around for something to happen... nothing.

"BEAU! YOU GOT US SOME BUNK ACID!!!" Kyle exclaims. "Go find us some more."

We were mildly annoyed, but we each lost out on $5 so who cares? Whatever. He comes back about 15 minutes later with some acid with a picture of Felix the Cat on it. It looked pretty legit, so we all dropped at the same time.

By the time it hit my tongue, I immediately began to trip. That was odd... very odd. We all immediately headed to the dancefloor and got busy for what I think was around 30 minutes. We all sorta stumbled off the dancefloor at the same time and looked at each other. We all seemingly had the same crazed looks on our faces.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!" we all shouted in concert over the pumping electronic music.

"What in the hell is happening?!" I asked.

"I don't know. Fuck it. Let's party!!" replied Kyle.

We then headed back to the dancefloor and got lost in the music for hours until it neared 5am as we all collected ourselves in a corner somewhere.

"I don't know who's driving home, 'cuz I'm fucked up." said Kyle.

That had become the customary sign that it was time to make our way home. Whenever Kyle was too fucked up, it was ALWAYS time to go. I looked around and there was plasma shooting through everything. All solid forms were turning into liquid. I could see all of my friend's skulls through the skin on their faces. So, of course, no one bothered to draw straws, play paper rock scissors or cast a vote as to who was driving home. I was automatically assigned with this task as I had many, many times in the past.

I was always the most level-headed and "together" of all my friends plus I was an ace at driving style video games, so I was always the natural choice. I strap myself into Kyle's metallic blue Honda Civic hatchback, pop a quarter into the slot and begin the long journey home. I was done with electronic music at this point so the obvious choice was punk. I believe for this trip it was Bad Religion's "Recipe for Hate" album. This severely altered everyone's trips. Now instead of plasma, everything became weird H.R. Geiger-esque bio-mechanical forms. We were laughing like mental patients the entire trip. We stopped at a red light next to a gentleman and his "old lady" on a Harley Davidson motorcycle made out of bones and steel.

"HEY MAN, NICE HOG... AND I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR BIKE!!!!!!!!" I screamed out the window.

That did it. We laughed until we cried all the way home. The next evening when we all woke up, I called Beau to ask him what in the hell happened to us. He made a couple of calls and and he found out that that first "acid" we dropped turned out to be mescaline. That explained it all.

Hello mescaline... It was very nice to meet you!?!?