[Ed. Note: This will be one giant paragraph and maybe impossible to read. All I
can see is computer font and it won't recognize Enter and start a new paragraph.
I don't know computer code. If it gets straightened out I'll go back and edit. For now I'll indicate new paragraphs with [ ].
Your cooperation is appreciated. Have a nice day.]
[It's been years since I told the story of the time George from California and I ate a bunch of shrooms and went to the movies. The image in the post below of the futuristic movie theater really brought up that memory in a cool way, and it's still very vivid after all these years, especially considering how stupidly-hard we were tripping.]
[For some reason we decided to go to the movies tripping one night. We'd gotten a batch of shrooms that was way stronger than the last batch, although we didn't know it, so we ended up getting way more high than we meant to, which woud've been no problem if we'd been out in the woods or listening to music or shooting fireworks or something. At a slightly-lower dose it wouldn't have been a problem either, but we were full-blown tripping, and a few clicks past the point where it was smart to be in public. As utterly blasted as I was, George got even higher, to the point of almost getting out of control, and that would definitely come into play.]
[We mostly just smoked pot but we occasionally tried this or that, and since my metabolism was faster than George's I'd always get off about ten minutes sooner than he would. It became a thing where I'd tell him what to expect and such. It was fun. I remember sitting in the theater as I was starting to get off, and thinking "Uh-oh" at the very first twinge, and that was before they'd dimmed the lights. I knew we were going to be in for a very powerful experience and I was already beginning to doubt the wisdom in remaining in a movie theater or indeed in public anywhere. It was one of those trips that was a bit more than expected, where it yanks you out of reality by the skull and you shit your ego right out your butt. When George started asking me what it was going to be like I tried to be cool and not alarm him before he even started tripping, but he could tell by the look on my face that we were in for a ride.]
[It was pushing the boundaries to trip in a movie theater to some degree anyway, much less full-blown zoned, and the choice of movies put it over the top. It actually was a silent movie, and the name alone was brilliant. It was a movie that was meant to make you laugh and flip you out to begin with, but the addition of shrooms took it into another dimension. We were basically "unpaid extras" as it were. There were times when the movie broke the Forth Wall, and sometimes the actors would suddenly stare directly into the camera as if they were waiting for you personally to respond, which at times George did. To this day I'm convinced that they put things in that movie specifically for people who were tripping. It's not as big of a stretch as it may sound. Most everybody back then at least experimented with psychedelics. It was the culture.]
[The lights were still on in the theater but the movie had already pretty much started for me. The curtains were swaying and colored lights made patterns that were starting to dance on the walls and ceiling. The shrooms hadn't even halfway kicked-in yet but I already knew we were going to be about three times as high as we should be to be in a packed theater. I wouldn't have been faulted for suggesting we leave, and George would've taken my advice, but I wanted to at least see if we could stick it out for a while anyway, and there would've been no story if we'd left.]
[When George started to get off I could tell he was going to be even higher than I was, if that were possible. When he did psychedelics he'd basically let go, where I'd try to be a bit more in control. We both knew that if a trip was more powerful than we'd intended it was best just to relax and go with it...surf it...and never, ever try to fight it. The thing is with the level we were that night it's really best to be somewhere quiet, like the river or with a few close friends or whatever. It's difficult sometimes to deal with other people if you're tripping heavily although it just takes more concentration, but it can distract from the experience. There are three things to remember about tripping...setting, setting and setting. A strong mind helps, and if you have a lot of negative shit on your mind it's usually best not to trip at all. George didn't do anything strange but he'd really let go and turn off some filters and he didn't care who heard him.]
[The lights flickered three times and stayed on for a minute. I looked at George and he looked just kike a clown. I'm sure I looked hilarious to him too, but he really did look like a clown. His nose and cheeks were red and he was grinning so big he was practically laughing. His pupils were as big as saucers. To top it off he had a great Afro, and it was glowing. I took a deep breath. George was really starting to get off, and approach the level I already was. The lights dimmed and the opening credits started rolling. They were mind-bending, like a separate movie in itself. It was just the shrooms, but still they were really cool. It may have been filmed in Technicolor, but we were watching it in Shroomovision.]
[George's motto was "Know your limits...then exceed them," and he lived by that. I'd been that way too, long before I met George, but he certainly reinforced it in me a lot. Tripping heavily at the movies was no different. I knew though that if we were going to be able to stay I'd have to "babysit" George. I hate to use that word but I had to keep elbowing and shushing him and reminding him we were in a public place. I was basically having to try to keep George's shit together too, when I could just barely keep mine. He was talking out loud and getting fidgety, but we were maintaining. Still I knew it was a 50-50 chance at best that we'd be able to stay through the whole movie.]
[George was really getting off. Back then the big thing was rocking-chair seats. George was rocking in his seat and he was starting to push his leg into the seat in front of him, causing it to rock too, like an obnoxious kid on an airplane, and it got to where I'd have to elbow him to get him to stop. The people in front of us were very patient for a long time but they were miffed, and rightly so, but they cut us some slack. They were the first to figure out that we were obviously on something, and it didn't take very long. George was talking and laughing and rocking back and forth, as was the person in front of him. They'd have been totally justified in reaching back and punching him, but people mostly didn't behave like that.]
[The people in front of us remained amazingly cool about it, but I'll never forget what one guy sarcastically said when he realized what was going on. He said "Yeah, ha-ha, my grandmother thought she was a giraffe." He was fucking with us but George didn't care. They'd have moved to another spot but every seat was taken. Bless their hearts they had to put up with some shit that night. Back then movies were big parties and some heckling and such happened, but not like what we were doing. George began to narrate the story out loud. The irony there was that it was actually a silent movie. The whole place heard him. It didn't take long for pretty much everybody to figure out what was going on.]
[Nobody was angry or anything like that. As I mentioned in the post below it wasn't all that uncommon to go to the movies tripping, but generally nowhere near the level we were. As high and obnoxious as we were it was still doable, but then terror struck. I realized that I had two big fat joints in my shirt pocket. I'd forgotten to put them in the glove box. George and I strictly adhered to the "Never drive around with anything you can't eat" theory. That included baggies, pipes and such. We'd roll a few joints and always have water or something to drink in case we got pulled over and had to eat them, which luckily never happened. I'd twisted a couple of doobs for after the movie, and I'd left them in my damn pocket.]
[It was an oh-shit moment. I didn't freak out or think the cops were coming, although thoughts like that can be greatly magnified when you're tripping. Again the culture was different back then, and nobody would've called the cops unless we were threatening people or running around naked or something like that, but technically it was still very illegal. I had a soda, and so I calmed back down and decided that if anything happened I could eat the joints if I had to, although I really didn't want to. I tapped my pocket and gave George a "Hey-man-my-dumb-ass-walked-in-here-with-two-joints-in-my-pocket" look, but he really didn't care. He was in his own world, and I'll guarantee one of the most enthusiastic people in history to ever whatch that movie.]
[Another thing I'll never forget is getting busted by the usher. Back then they had ushers. They had little hats and uniforms and they'd find seats for you and escort you, and keep an eye on things and maybe shush unruly youngsters. That's what we were. The usher had already been keeping an eye on us since the beginning of the movie, but we weren't cursing or saying anything bad. It was obvious we were blasted out of our minds but we were definitely having a good time, and most people were cool with it, and lots of people joined in. It was a comedy after all, and if nothing else, George was hilarious.]
[There's one scene in the movie that took slapstick to a totally different level. During the movie they'd periodically show a car that belonged to a pest-control company. I'm pretty sure it was a VW Bug, but it had a giant bug on top as advertisement. It showed a guy sitting at an outdoor cafe, eating a bowl of soup. Maybe by now you can guess what happened. Yep, the car got into a wreck and the giant bug went sailing through the air for half a block and landed on top of his bowl of soup, and the table and everything else, pretty much turning everything to rubble right in front of him, without harming a hair on his head. It was the clasic "Oh, waiter...there's a fly in my soup" thing, only taken to the extreme. Even though everybody in the whole place knew what was going to happen, it hit George's funny bone so hard that he just lost it laughing. He was howling. I'm laughing as I type this.]
[I think that in cases of extreme tripping there's a true out-of-body aspect to it. I can still picture this perfectly, as if I were watching it from both my seat and from a few seats away. The usher had been keeping an eye on us and when that happened he came over and stopped at the end of our row, flashlight in hand. He was shining it right into our faces, just like a cop. How did we react? Were we casual about it? I'm afraid not. We sat completely frozen, bug-eyed, and stared straight ahead at the screen, just like two little kids. "Who, ME?" It was hilarious. He never said a word but he held the light in our faces for a good several seconds. We'd never done anything in our lives to warrant getting shushed by a movie usher, and believe it or not it was pretty heavy. We sat completely frozen, staring straight ahead and we didn't make a peep. It was totally out to lunch, and it was like it was part of the movie. Too much.]
[That scene is burned into my brain. The image of the usher standing there silently shining a flashlight right in our faces and we sitting there ramrod-straight and perfectly still, staring ahead at the screen in silence, like we hadn't done a thing, is priceless. You have to do some work to get memories like that, and we did. That's a good way to end this and I don't remember much after that anyway. I know that it was nice to climb into the VW Squareback, spark a stick and hit the river. We watched the sunrise and cracked-up about the usher all morning. That was a transformative experience and one I'm very grateful for, but boy howdy we were trippin' hard that evening. I'm really glad we were there. Thanks Mr. Brooks.
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