FRANKENBLOG

These are all my photos, the first, is a self portrait. my hair has gotten mighty long.

This is a dream I had last night.

I walk into some underground temple, it’s very dark, I can see giant pillars, and a huge Mayan temple far away. I’m hesitant to go forward though, because as I move into the main chamber, whispers fill my head. Hateful, black thoughts swirl in through my ears, and mingle with my thoughts. I realize that I am in grave danger, and that I need my friends to help me. I have a little bag with little wooden figures that look similar to chess pieces, although each one is unique. These little black wood figures are my friends, they have given me part of their souls, and so I can call on them for help anytime. I’m not sure how exactly I should turn them from wood, into my friends, but I guess when the time is right I’ll know.

I walk deeper into the temple’s outer cloister, still only just able to make out the faint outlines of the architecture around me. The angry, hateful whispers in my head get louder, and louder. A large, scraggly black wolf walks out from behind a massive pillar. It stares at me, and slowly begins to circle me. The whispers turn to raspy shouting, it echoes in my ears. The black dog means to hurt me, to stop me from reaching the temple. I throw my wooden friends to the ground, hoping something will happen, that they will become real, because I am very afraid, and don’t want to face it alone.

I walk quickly, but the dog moves with the speed of a shadow, silently moving from cover to cover. When he realizes that nothing is coming of me throwing my wooden dolls, he lunges. The little wooden effigies explode in light and flame, as the dog moves over them. It wasn’t what I expected to happen, but it really wasn’t what the dog was expecting. It squeals in blindness, and shock, and in that moment, I see my chance. I leap forward sinking my fingers into the greasy and matted black fur surrounding the creature’s neck. I fall to my knees, and choke the dog, the raspy yelling turns into furious screaming. Blood pours out of the dog’s mouth, so much that I become soaked in it. The dog twists, and struggles, but I have it in a death grip. I wait for the voices to stop, and I feel the body go limp. I release the dog’s neck, and carry its body around, to show everyone what I have accomplished, what a man I truly am. I consider wearing the carcass around my neck like an ancient African king would do after dispatching a lion.

I walk forward, to my temple, my goal, that is when I see a litter of little black wolf cubs, still to young to feed themselves. She was just protecting her young. The blackness, the hate, they were always inside me, living in my perceptions. I wasn’t there to gain something from the temple, I was there to destroy it.

I was at home, my home on the water. I was with my younger sister,and we were hanging out with friends. it was the darkest, and stormiest of nights, complete with lightning and rain. the streets began to flood. I had been drinking heavily, and decided that it wasn’t a big deal, despite my sister’s insistence that we were in big trouble. I stepped out onto the deck, to gauge the progress of the flood water, but to my dismay I found much more on that deck, I found three bodies, stabbed to death. One lying on top of the next, all with eyes wide, and a look of mingled surprise, and terror. I immediately look for my sister, and I find her, right where I left her, safe and sound. Despite the flood, now six, to seven feet above the street, I opt to leave this house, and whoever else is in it, before we end up like the others. I grab some wood to float on, and some fins, and we jump into the surprisingly comfortable water. The farther I swim from the house, the calmer the storm becomes. I begin to lose my bearings however, as there are no more buildings, trees, or hills in sight, I am now on the open ocean, at night. I am losing my mind, I must be, because none of this makes sense. Where is my house? What city am I from? What happened to my city? What ocean is this? I become frantic, trying to put the peices together, but as I lose control of my self, I start to see fins, and they don’t look like dolphin. I have to put my mental crisis on hold, because there is now a more important objective, to survive. I don’t swim fast, because, where is there to swim to? I put my sister on my back, and try to move forward without splashing, because I was always told that splashing is a great way to incite a shark attack. As I regain my composure, the fins dip back into the ink black water. You can’t imagine how quiet a still ocean is at night. It seemed that the potentially limitless space would absorb any sounds into it’s dark expanses. After swimming it a straight (?) line all night with my sister on my back, I saw a dull light on the horizon. I thought at first that I was hallucinating, but as I drew closer, I saw a great dark city, silhouetted in the moonlight. This city is called Bad, I later learned. There was a man, waiting for us at the shore, a very large man who’s boots were sunk neatly into the coal colored sand. “Greetings Daniel! How was your journey? Pleasant I hope. Though I am sorry about your sister’s friends, but we couldn’t think of another way to get you here. Welcome to Bad.” The large man actually had a very pleasant voice, despite the insane content of his speech. “Follow me.” He said. And amazingly, I didn’t question him, I had no idea where to start, I still had the unnerving sensation that my mind was unraveling, and it was taking all of my concentration to keep from going mad. The man took us through the night, through a large black city, lit by intense moonlight. The city was made up of hundreds of gargantuan industrial spires, and smokestacks, vomiting pitch. As I thought it, my sister said it: “I wonder what this city looks like in the daytime?” she said. “beware little one, The question you ask is forbbidden to be spoken aloud, but know this: When the sun rises on Bad, the world will shudder, and its last breath shall be had.” was the large man’s reply. “Armageddon” I muttered. “That’s why you two are so important!” he said cheerily “If only we had the others…Ok we’re here.”

We pull up to a surprisingly out of place house, painted bright colors, and gilded in ornate trim. Though the colors were muted in the moonlight, I could still tell they were there, and I was reminded of a children’s story: Hansel and Gretel. We were ushered into a large living room, that was very bright, almost blinding to my night adjusted eyes. It was warm, and inviting, like a grandmothers house. As nice as it was, something was wrong with it, as if the books were all fake, and the furniture still had price tags on it. This environment was carefully crafted, created for the two of us. The “windows” were all lit from behind, and had pictures of bright blue skies, and lush green grass in them. We were showed our rooms, and I felt the same way, as if this were a set, and we were players. Somehow though, I didn’t have the strength, or place of mind to do anything about it, I just did what they told me. The large man closed the door to our room behind him, and I just went and laid down on my bed. I heard a crinkle, and felt under my pillow, there was a letter, addressed to me!

Dan,

I am writing you from Good, the north city, you and your sister must find your way here, it is of the utmost importance. Many of your friends made it here, and we need you as well. Take this phone, and use it at your leisure, this is all the help we can offer. Good luck.

Sincerely,
The Magistrate

I tore the letter to shreds. This action seemed to break the spell cast over me, as I now saw the room for what it was, without glamor. The room was dingy, and the beds looked like hospital issue, old and dusty, with large restraints, and surgical steel side tables. Then there was my sister, gazing far off into space. I went up and shook her, but nothing worked, she was deep under. I couldn’t carry her with me, so I decide to go to Good alone, and come back for her. I went downstairs to find the large man (now he looked extremely menacing, with a scarred and scabbed face) and escaped through the front door. The dark city was loud, much louder than I remember it on the way in. I had no bearings, but I knew I needed to get north. I decided which way to go, and jumped on the back of a freight train out of the city. I rode for what seemed like days, but time was funny here, it might have been years. When I awoke, I found the crack of the door to the freight car beaming with bright light, and I opened it. I saw the most beautiful light city, clean, and bright. Good, a bustling metropolis filled with people and cars. My phone that I had received in Bad beeped at me, and I looked down noticing that it was now in service. My rail car was going across a bridge over water. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t stop in Good, so I jumped into the water, for the second time this journey. When I reached the shore I called Britt, my ex wife, and sure enough she picked up. I asked her where she was, and she told me what district of Good she was in, and how I could get there. When I met her, she was overjoyed to see me, she said that “everyone” thought I was dead, or that they had “gotten in your head”

She explained the city, and it’s system of credit instead of cash, and she gave me a little map. I was told to just live my life, and to enjoy Good, and that there was no hope for my sister, as it was probably too late anyway. I couldn’t accept this, so I went and bought a sword, and began formulating a plan on how to get back to Bad to save her.

This is when I woke up.

Here are some photos Lex took in the middle of the night:

Now here are the images color corrected in photoshop:

Fun stuff.

Clear, and persistent visions. This is the best way I can describe the feeling of taking a mild hallucinogenic. Aleksander and I decided that for my birthday, he and I would go to Golden Gate park and take some mushrooms, something I had never done before, and Aleks had done once, in Indonesia.

We had a wonderful plan worked out, It was warm, sunny, and school was over with; we couldn’t have asked for better circumstances. The plan was, take the mushrooms, go get on the bus, and go into the park, by the time the mushrooms kicked in we would be sitting in the sun, laying in the grass.

I was told to boil them in water with three tea bags. I didn’t have tea so Aleks and I went to the store to buy some. We agreed that lemon spice tea would be best.

This particular fungus is really, very ugly. The effects of the mushroom are due to its poisonous nature. Looking at them your body has an instinctual reaction to their shape and color; the mushrooms say, “Don’t eat me little animal”.

So, boil, boil, boil. Both of us are nervous, and worry that I’m not preparing them correctly, so we get the scissors, and cut the mushrooms into tiny pieces, while they boil. The smell of the lemon spice tea it very strong, and we decide that that is a good thing, as the “shrooms” are supposed to taste like ass.

Three thirty rolls around, and we decide we need to start now, because the effects are supposed to last four to six hours. We fill my French press with hot tea, and mushrooms. The water has turned an opaque brown, not a scary brown, but a light caramel, not unlike coffee and a dash of cream. Two glasses are poured, and we cheers, then hesitantly raise our glasses to our mouths. When you are expecting one taste and you get another, it can be shocking, a bad example is when I was eight or so, in the Bahamas, my mom was making drinks for everyone, the drinks were cold and yellow, I thought they were lemonade, they were not. Anyway, back to my story, I was expecting a foul witches brew, and what I got was actually quite pleasant. Lemony and earthy, we both drank our tea with gusto. Halfway through, we became worried, it shouldn’t taste good, we thought, maybe we did something wrong. Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t, but we decided then and there to eat the boiled mushrooms as well. Aleks went first, and he actually chewed them! I couldn’t bear the thought, so I did my best to swallow the pieces like pills.

We were off, out into the world, analyzing our bodies every second, fixated on the thought of “Do I feel anything?” We are on our first block towards the bus, when Aleks says “Shit! My inhaler!” Okay, so now we have to walk four blocks uphill to his place, get the inhaler, and then go down eight blocks to catch the bus to the park. We make the bad decision to walk through the Tenderloin, the worst neighborhood in San Francisco. I haven’t begun to hallucinate yet, but I feel…off. I’ve broken the cardinal rule of hallucinogens: take them when you’re someplace safe, and comfortable. We walk past crack heads, drug dealers, and homeless crazy people. Baaaaaaadddd juju. As an aside, Aleks walked right into a large plume of crack smoke by accident, something he was very unhappy about.
We finally make it to the bus, and we talk, still not feeling the full extent of the drug, and I mention Aleks’ trip to Norway, for his brothers wedding (which he is leaving for the next morning). I suddenly see a look of surprise cross his face, and then a panic sweeps over him, “My I-20! Fuck!” turns out that he needs to pick up his forms for getting back into the country. He needs to pick these forms up from the school registration office across town (wrong way), and he needs to pick them up now.

So now we’re on a bus, heading east (wrong way), and we are both starting to feel it. Getting off that bus was a salvation, even if we were still in the middle of the city with loud cars and thousands of people, it was nice to be off the bus. We walk into the school, and hop in an elevator. “Four please.” I say to the girl by the numbers. She hits four, the doors close, and we go down. We are making a stop at the basement first apparently, a small turn of events that bothered Aleks and I more than just a little. Then we go up to two, the elevator stops, the doors open and the girl walks out. The doors close, and we go down. What!? This is very upsetting in our current state. We go back to one, the doors open, and we franticly push four, and door close.

We make it up to four (alive) and we both quite enjoy the muffled silence of a carpeted hallway. The art on the walls is also quite engaging (mind you, we still are not hallucinating). As I wait in the waiting room, as one is wont to do, the ticking of the four clocks (aligned to different time zones) has me on edge. I am ready to go, and apparently so is Aleks. We are now on our way to Haight and Asbury (cliché) so that Aleks can buy me a tee shirt for my birthday (Ha! Noble goal sir, but you’ll never make it!). We are now traversing via taxicab, and with the passing of every minute, the effect strengthens. We hop out of the cab, and again I am met with the sensation of being released from a box. As we walk we quickly realize that the Haight on a busy day, is just a little too intense for us. We go into the tee shirt shop, and look for sunglasses (Aleks has them, and I decide I need a pair) but no luck, and we are outta there. We decide that the best course of action is to make a B line to the park, and to not stop for anything or anyone.

Ahhh the park! We’ve made it. Now here is where the clichés reach epic proportions. The entrance to the park is a tunnel, outfitted with stalagmites to look like a cave. At the entrance to this cave there is a man dressed all in black, with a grim reaper hood, playing a black electric guitar. Wait, it gets better! We enter the cave, and there are tiny little grackles twittering around. Aleks asks “What the fuck!? Are there bats in here?” We both are laughing so hard we are crying. We exit the cave, and it opens into a large grass field. The sun is warm on our faces, and we try to contain our laughter, so that we can appreciate its majesty. Then to top off our funny little trip to the world of hallucinogenic clichés, there are hippies, playing the drums and doing…wait for it… magic! Swear to god, there is a bunch of hippies doing goddamn magic tricks in the park. Levitating wands, balls, and sticks dominate my attention.

The only time I really “trip” is when I look up at the sky for extended periods. The clouds form and swirl in unique and amazing ways. No I didn’t see “things” I just was able to focus on the beauty that was already there.

The best way I can describe being on mushrooms is this: You are told to look at something, a leaf for example. Something you’ve seen almost every day since you were born. Now try your best to remember when you were six, or seven, and you went into the woods in the middle of summer when the trees were in full bloom, and the leaves couldn’t be greener. You look around with awe and wonder, the dirt under your feet is something worth exploring, and each leaf, you notice, has a unique shape and texture. Each item in that forest is beautiful and new unto itself. You had no thoughts of money, or work. Stress is a word you don’t know. The only thing that is important to you now is the appreciation of the world around you. On mushrooms, you realize that a leaf isn’t just a leaf, it is rare, and unusual, a treasure. Each tree is gilded in green gold, and this treasure, hidden in plain sight is now visible to you, as it was when you were young. And just so you know, looking back I don’t think “Man I can’t believe that I thought that leaf was special when I was on drugs” I think, “ I can’t believe I’ve been ignoring the beauty of things for so long”

Okay, back to Aleks and I. We took a walk into the more secluded areas of the park, then climbed a hill off the path, and found a large tree with giant, low hanging branches, overlooking the HIV memorial. We sat in the tree, and I did my best to begin writing this post in my head. I didn’t want to lose the sensation. We didn’t talk a lot, we just sat and enjoyed our journey in our own way. It was starting to get dark, so we decided to head home. We were both REALLY hungry, and we needed some food. We both thought that we were done tripping, until we got into the cab, and the radio was tuned to the LONGEST advertisement about preventing teen suicide. It was so the opposite of what we wanted to hear that we just started laughing uncontrollably. We laughed all the way back to my place. When the cab stopped Aleks gave him the money, and before the, prior to this, silent, cabbie would give us the change he told this long winded story about how the other day he picked up two people who looked like the elderly couple from Rosemary’s Baby. Theatre people, he called them. I think he did this to try to freak us out.

We sat in my apartment, waiting for the pizza I ordered, and honestly, we got a little depressed. Gone was the majesty of the park, with its bright sun, and green leaves. Now we were back, in my (mildly) dirty, dark apartment, playing video games, and listening to music. We just enough left in our system that the pizza took 42 years to arrive. As soon as we got some food, and I turned on all the lights, and we watched Seinfeld, our little grey cloud cleared right up.

Aleks went home soon after that, and began to pack for his flight.

Overall, I would say that taking psilocybin mushrooms was one of the more enjoyable drug experiences I’ve had (not that I’ve had many (mom)) because I didn’t feel like the joy I felt exploring the park and looking at flowers, and leaves was artificially created by the drug. The drug only points things out for you to look at, and reminds you that things are beautiful, that life is beautiful.

-end-

This is the “dream” I had last night. It was an especially moving, and important dream for me.

I was walking through a forest at night. It wasn’t scary, it was beautiful, full moon. fireflies. I walked until I reached the water, a pond, filled with fish, and lily pads. The moon and the fireflies were reflected in the mirrored pool. A large house, all the lights on, stood at the center of this enchanting moat. I think now that the rooms in the house represent different chambers of my unconscious. I walked on a wooden walkway to get to the house. As I walked, it sank slowly into the water. The legs of my black suit became wet with the warm inviting waters. I saw a woman swimming, and something about her called out to me. I eased my way into the pond, and slowly swam up to her. The air was silent, no crickets, no one talking, no wind, no air at all. I knew none of this was real, but I didn’t care. She was maybe forty, slim face, very short hair, and two very kind, but at the same time, intense, blue eyes. I knew that she was naked, but I knew this from intuition alone, because I never for one second looked away from her face.

“Rose” I said, sadly.
“So, you remember my name?” She said with a smile.
“Why do you still look…like you? I look different now.”
“Because, before I died, this was the face, that I had when I was with you, it was the happiest I had ever been.”

Things came back to me slowly now. Rose and I were in love, more in love than any person has any right to be, and then she died. Later I died.

“Where are you? Who are you now? I still love you, even though when I’m awake I don’t know it. We need to find each oth-”
“We can’t” she says
“Why?! it’s so easy just tell me your name!”
“Tell me your name. You can’t, you won’t remember. You may be able to remember my old name, but who we are now…We have been given a gift! Destiny has allowed us to be together again, even if it’s just a dream, even if it’s just tonight.”
“I…I live in…”

She was right, I couldn’t remember anything.

We walked up to the house, and we sat inside, It was cozy, and warm. Safe.

I could see things going on in other rooms from our windows, some people were naked having parties, drinking, and having sex. Others were sitting solemnly, as if at a funeral. We began talking, about life, and about how much we missed each other. I knew early along that this was a dream, but I chose to, instead of flying or having sex, just to sit, and talk with the love of my lives, Rose.

She looked sad, tragically so. She began to speak:

“This life has been…hard. I wish that it was over, so that I could start a new one.”

She began to cry, and as she did, I cried with her.

“I think I’m going to be raped and killed tomorrow… I don’t know why I know, but…”

My sadness turned to fury, who could do this? Who could hurt my only true love. As my fury intensified, the house began to shake, I could hear rats in the walls, and there were men, warriors outside, trying to break down the walls. The other occupants of the house began wailing in pain in unison. As my anger is reaching a breaking point, a wolf runs in, and lunges at rose, but I grab it’s head, and snap it’s neck. With the dull thud of the dogs body against the floor, the shaking, screaming, and invading all stopped. It was silent again. She reached out, and took my hand, it was warm, safe.

“There is no machine that can stop the wheels of time. We both have to accept our fates, and be thankful that we are together now.”

We just sat after she said this, and we held each other. We said nothing, there was nothing more to be said, We just sat, her in my arms, and we looked out of the window, and onto the full moon. Then she said the thing I had been dreading since the second I realized that this was a dream:

“It’s time. You have to wake up now.”

“No! I won’t, I want to stay here with you, just for a bit longer, please.”

“It isn’t up to me.”

She was right, I could feel myself waking up, slowly, slowly, slowly feeling the bed, the warmth of my blanket.

“Goodbye Daniel. I love you, please don’t ever stop loving me, and maybe we will meet again.”

“I won’t, ever. Even if I don’t know anything else, I know I love you, and I always will.
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Then I woke up, tears streaming down my face.

Not much to say, just some cool pics of flowers. Enjoy.

Ha Ha!

This time Lex came over, and we had some fun with jumping, and taking pictures. Often times though, we would miscalculate the self timer, and either be starting to jump, or having just landed when the picture is taken. When we are all laughing, it’s because we all jumped about a second to soon, and the camera caught just as we all landed. The one where Mark is doing the Thriller, he was just starting to jump.

Funny stuff if you axe me.

-Dan

Mark, my good friend, had his friend, Danny (not me) Perez come visit for a while. We of course got along swimmingly, and proceeded to paint the town red. These are pictures from when we went to this club Ruby Skye. Lots of people aim their hate at this club, because they think it’s sorta pretentious, and you have to pay a hefty cover. Both of those points are true, but if you can get past them, it’s a pretty amazing club. Voted best sound system in the world, three years running. These speakers are nuts, they aren’t so loud your ears hurt, but the bass is unreal! They have these twelve foot woofers all over the club that literally make your clothes move independently from your body. There are Go-Go dancers, and strong reasonably priced shots (in the picture where I’m holding a rocks glass with red liquid in it, that’s one of their shots, a rocks glass full of the devils elixir).

Also this club is after hours friendly, so you can show up Saturday, and party until Monday.

-Dan

P.S. Danny gets beet red when he drinks, it’s bizarre, you’ll see. Also, those two Middle Eastern guys are Dris, and Nad’r, they work at the restaurant we’re always at. Cool guys, but Nad’r is WASTED!