Misguided: The Soundtrack To My Life

Chapter Two – California Dreamin’Music featured in this chapter:California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The PapasSan Francisco - Scott MckenzieWith A Little Help From My Friends – The BeatlesAcross The Universe – The BeatlesLucy in the Sky with Diamonds – The BeatlesTime - Pink FloydQuestion - The Moody BluesJesus Christ Superstar - Superstar (1971)All Things Must Pass - George HarrisonWhat Is Life - George HarrisonAwaiting On You All - George HarrisonChapter two of my memoir opens with this paragraph:In the summer of 1971, a couple months before my sixteenth birthday, I hitch-hiked with my classmate Dave to California, where I had my first LSD experience. I first got high with a little help from my new friend two years earlier at a junior high school dance. Dave brought a few cannabis joints and we smoked them behind a classroom building bordering the forest. There were a few of us gathered there, but when Dave lit a joint and passed it around a couple of them fled the scene of the crime. That was my initiation as a counterculture freak.Like chapter one, this chapter is also titled after a song, The Mamas & The Papas - California Dreamin’. Coincidentally, on that long hitch-hiking trip to California I describe in this chapter, we also “stopped into a church” that gave us a place to sleep for a night. It was a Catholic church, and I used my past as an altar boy to beg the priest to give us a place to stay for the night. He let us sleep in a storage room.California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The PapasStopped into a church I passed along the way Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees) And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray) You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold) He knows I’m gonna stay (knows I’m gonna stay) California dreamin’ (California dreamin’) On such a winter’s daySan Francisco - written by John Phillips of the The Mamas & The Papas, sung by Scott Mckenzie. This song was the publicity showcase of the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival, one of the best known anthems of the hippie movement.All across the nation Such a strange vibration People in motion There’s a whole generation With a new explanationAs that first paragraph of this chapter describes, I first got high with a little help from my friend.With A Little Help From My Friends – The Beatles, featuring Ringo Starr, the 2nd song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friendsI had my first LSD experiences on that California trip.The hallucinations on my first acid trip were pleasantly mild, mostly a cool fractal kaleidoscope of constantly shifting, swirling, pulsating patterns. Inanimate things seemed alive. At times it got a bit more intense, like when we were making faces in a mirror and Dave’s face seemed to melt like a surrealist painting by Salvador Dali. We tried playing pool, but the balls wouldn’t cooperate, so we went night swimming instead. Swimming underwater on LSD was such a sublime feeling of freedom I almost forgot to surface, until my brain alerted me to breathe. Floating on my back, staring at the stars, it felt like I was drifting across the universe.My second acid trip a few days later had an even more profound effect. Dave and I dropped a tab before heading to the Santa Clara County Fair with his relatives. The hallucinations began by the time we got to the fairground. With all the intense sensory input from the crowded, colourful sights and loud sounds of the midway amusements, it was an odd place to have a spiritual epiphany.I was sitting alone on a bench waiting for the others, when I became entranced by a large leafy tree that pulsated as if breathing. It suddenly started shaking and swaying like it was about to walk away at any moment. It seemed alive in a supernatural way. I thought I was seeing the life force in the tree and glimpsing another dimension, a spiritual world hidden from the physical one, which is how I interpreted the drug-induced experience for many years. That hallucination seemed to confirm my religious belief in the spirit world.Across The Universe – The BeatlesImages of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes They call me on and on across the universe Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universeLucy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles, the 3rd song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. That album obviously had a big influence on me.Picture yourself in a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies Cellophane flowers of yellow and green Towering over your headThe next two songs are very relevant to an experience I had after I returned home from California. While high on LSD sitting in a pub, I stared at the clock on the wall and hallucinated that I had grown old and wasted my entire life sitting in that bar.My last trip was the worst.It started at the Kingsway Hotel beer parlour. A year earlier, the legal drinking age in British Columbia dropped from 21 to 19. After I turned 16, I went to that pub with an uncle a couple times and the bartender didn’t check my ID, so I thought I could get away with it again without my uncle. It was more about bragging rights than drinking, because I couldn’t afford more than one or two beer. I dropped the half tab of LSD before I went in with two older looking classmates and, surprisingly, we all got served. The pub was packed with the usual crowd of mill workers, loggers, longshoremen and fishermen. As the acid began to take effect, I felt the stubble on my chin and I felt like I was growing old on the spot, turning into a grey-haired old-timer like some of those around me.While staring at a clock on the wall, I had this intense perception that time had slipped away, that I had wasted my entire life sitting in that bar. I panicked and headed for the exit, followed by my puzzled friends. Passing by the pool table, I pulled a cue off the wall rack and carelessly tossed it as I walked out the door. The guy it hit chased after me, lifted me in the air by my hair, and punched me in the mouth. For a moment, I was Alice Cooper hanging by a noose, an hallucination triggered by a calendar photo I recently saw of Cooper doing exactly that. As he punched me my friends began screaming, “he’s high on acid, don’t hit him”, so he dropped me and we took off.Time - Pink FloydTicking away the moments that make up a dull day You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.In that LSD anecdote I describe how I hallucinated that I was Alice Cooper hanging on a noose, an image from the calendar that was included in his 1971 album, Killer. This is that photo in the calendar:Another song from that era similar to Pink Floyd’s “Time” that made me question my life is the Moody Blues song “Question” I had the song memorized, and after I ‘joined’ the cult, I learned to play guitar and often played this song.Question - The Moody BluesWhy do we never get an answer When we’re knocking at the door With a thousand million questions About hate and death and war? I’m looking for someone to change my life. I’m looking for a miracle in my life.Also in chapter two, I mention the huge influence that George Harrison’s music and the musical Jesus Christ Superstar had on me.Since its release in 1970, I had listened to George Harrison’s highly spiritual triple album, All Things Must Pass, over and over again until I had memorized most of it, including the hit songs “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life”. Now, after my LSD experiences, contemplating the notion of the spirit world and the concept of time in relation to my mortality, the lyrics from that album meant more to me as I questioned the meaning and purpose of my life.That wasn’t the only spiritual music I was listening to. The rock opera album Jesus Christ Superstar was also released in 1970, and I memorized that entire album too. Singing aloud along with those albums when no one else was home rekindled the inspiration that singing hymns in church had once sparked. I was super excited to attend a theatrical production of Superstar that came to town towards the end of 1971, performed in the high school’s 1,000 seat auditorium. After the finale, in a reprise of the title song, audience members were invited on stage to sing along, and I didn’t hesitate to join them. Though I stopped attending church a few years earlier, I was still spiritually stimulated by the gospel and willing to publicly profess my faith. Soon, scripture-quoting strangers would take advantage of that and misguide my youthful search for meaning and purpose.Jesus Christ Superstar - Superstar (1971)Jesus Christ Who are you? What have you sacrificed? Jesus Christ Superstar Do you think you’re what they say you are?All Things Must Pass - George HarrisonAll things must pass None of life’s strings can last So I must be on my way And face another day Now the darkness only stays at night time In the morning it will fade away Daylight is good At arriving at the right time But it’s not always going To be this grey All things must pass All things must pass awayWhat Is Life - George HarrisonTell me, what is my life without your love Tell me, who am I without you, by my side? What I know, I can do If I give my love now to everyone like youI especially related to those two songs because of the political, environmental and personal tragedies I describe in my memoir that had a major influence on me, impressing on me the impermanence of life and causing me to question everything. But it was this next song that I related to when I was being recruited by the cult to drop out and serve God with them.Awaiting On You All - George HarrisonYou don’t need no church house And you don’t need no Temple You don’t need no rosary beads or them books to read To see that you have fallen If you open up your heart You will know what I mean This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perrybulwer344598.substack.com