Phish and Being

IT was sunday night, and the middle of our winter break from school. My friend, B and I
were sitting around, feeling bored and decided that if we were going to trip (which we
had been planning for a while), this would be the best time. It was around 5:30 and we
each had half an 8th.

We were sitting in B’s room, waiting for the shrooms to start taking effect, talking quite
loudly about what we were expecting from the trip, when someone started banging on the
door. B started hiding all the shit we used to grind the shrooms, figuring his mom had
come home early from her vacation and had heard us talking. (His mom is this incredibly
paranoid, annoying, and a very anti-drug type 'o' gal).

The person burst into the room, screaming and hollering, and we saw it was only "Greedy
French Bastard" who is a friend of B. “Greedy” had come to borrow B's pipe and rolling
papers, so we threw them at him and told him to get his Greedy little ass out of there.

“Greedy” left, and the whole episode had made me gitty. After knocking over B's candle
holder (and royaly pissing him off), I decided to sit and read until the Mushrooms came
on. I picked up a book called “The Journey to Self Discovery”. After reading and
thinking about this one sentence where the book relates all religions to a car engine for
about a 1/2 hour, the trip started coming on.

I looked over at B, and he had this Sassy Madonna type expression on his face.
Immediately I started laughing my ass off and he joined in, making Michael Jackson
Screams every once in a while. I looked at this poster Of a fractal, which started rotating
and sucking me in towards it. I turned away and noticed that the walls around me were
breathing and flexing.

I walked out of his room and into the living room. I suggested we watch this Simpsons
episode he taped. It's the one where Homer eats a whole bunch of Guatemalian Insanity
Peppers and trips. Chief Wiggum, the one that brewed the chili with the insanity peppers
in it, keeps taunting Homer as he walks towards him. I watched the Chief's mouth and
movements. They were so clumsy and hilarious I couldn't believe it. (This episode is
great for tripping, if you can get a hold of it, DO IT!)

We shut off the Simpsons and decided to walk downtown to visit a friends house, Ali and
Krishna (he looked exactly like Krishna). It's dark now, and the light we are getting for
seeing, is coming from these street lamps, which gives a really strange, yet beautiful
effect. I stepped out the door and looked at the snow on the walkway. It was flowing
down the steps and into a big pool of liquid snow in the driveway. Everything looked
really far away. This dog was barking about five feet from me, which at the time seemed
50 feet, and sounded 100 feet away from me.

Walking across a bridge, I excused B for a moment while I “fell into myself”.

We reached downtown and started started walking down this back ally behind a bar. A
man passed us and I said hi to him. He looked at me, and his beard was flowing into itself
like whirlpools. Soon it started engulfing his face, making him look like Chewbaka. I
started laughing, and, realizing that was a stupid idea, ran to B, who was about 50 feet in
front of me. I looked back, still laughing, and the guy gave me the finger. It was so
hilarious I had to stop and hold my sides.

I wobbled, and stepped into this huge puddle of water. Cursing, I grabbed my foot, but it
was completely dry. I looked down and the puddle was gone. On the way to "Ali and
Krishna's house" I must have stepped in what I thought was about 4 more puddles, and to
my misfortune, one was real. I stepped right into it, thinking it wasn't real and became a
very unhappy guy. I couldn't really feel the wetness, and it actually felt kind a cool, so I
ignored it.

We had to walk by the police station to get to the house, so we tried to look as normal as
possible and walked by it. There was a cop standing outside, getting into his vehicle and
B said hi. I thought of the Bearded guy and started laughing really hard again. The cop
looked at me, and I made some comment about B saying something funny earlier, but
then became distracted by the cops car. The paint was engulfing the windows, and soon
the entire car was white. It was amazing.

The cop told us to "Stay out of Trouble" and "Have a nice night". He got into his all white
car and left.

We reached Ali and Krishna's house. They were watching Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas, so we decided to stay a while. There was this pattern in the movie, and soon, it
flowed out of the TV and engulfed the entire room. Everything was flowing, and I never
wanted it to stop, but Ali and Joe had to go up to the college. We left and walked home,
this time avoiding downtown and taking the bike path.

The trees were so incredible. The branches were all flowing into each other and being
really cool. I suggest highly. Trip in nature.

We got home and put in Fantasia. While B was watching this, I began to feel really
weird. I felt as if my whole presence was at peace with eveything around me and I had
reached purity. I looked at B, and he had the most innocent look on his face. his shirt
looked like the couch, and all I could see of him was his head. I told him "good, you are
"being"". By this sense I meant, he wasn't doing anything, eccept being. He was just
there, and that was all there was to him. I can't really explain it. I then realized that all my
other friends were really selfish and materialistic, and I needed to teach them how to Be.
Everything I said rymed, and I was making poems and phrases like: "Stop it with your
bullshit materiality, set yourself free, and BE." and "You've got to be, like a flea, in a
tree, by the sea." It was so funny, but in a way, a lot of the stuff I was saying made sense.

I called up a friend, R, to persuay him to stop being so materialistic. Apparently I pissed
him off, because he told me to shut up, and hung up.

I went back into the living room and told B I was going to BE in the bathroom corner. In
the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror. I kept changing from myself, into a lion,
into a middle aged man with a beard. It was really cool.

Fantasia was over, so I asked B if he wanted to listen to music in his room. He followed
me in and we put on Phish. "Slave to the Traffic Light" was playing. The christmas lights
were on. So was the Blacklight. His room was really relaxing. Phish was, as allways,
doing its thing, and everything was so peaceful. I must have sat there for an hour,
watching all this amazing stuff happen, then I started coming down. I talked to Bunji for
a while, and then we did the dishes. I was fully down and tired so I went to bed.

-Electric Noodle