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mushrooms, concerts and death
when graduated high school i was as naive as a fourth grader. that was 2002. by 2003 i was as cynical and road worn as a … truck driver? that is to say, i had done drugs once. i mean psychedelics. i mean mushrooms. at an allman brothers concert.
Myself and two friends show up at six to the parking lot of Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Upstate New York. Allmans tonight, Galactic is opening. I am there! Drink a few beers in the parking lot, talk to the guy next to us, seems cool. Gives us some of his homegrown and tells us he can “turn us on to some mushrooms”.
The level of anxiety I felt as I ate those foul fungal fiends was at an all time high. I had no idea what i was doing. luckily our neighbor did, i thought i ate way too much. i had no clue what was about to happen. a common theme in my life is ignorance is bliss and bliss is what i found.
before long i was definitely tripping, and it was decided that we should go inside. Anxiety was gone, smiles all around, just enjoying the experience. suddenly i was watching galactic and they were killing it! my buddy’s mom who was a huge allman’s fan came to say hi, luckily i kept it together while we exchanged pleasantries. it was hard to do, like i said, galactic was killing it and i had mrs. allman brothers trying to tell me how well her son was doing at college. (years earlier on a fishing trip with my buddy and his family mrs. allman brothers and i were mutually surprised to find that each of us was into the allmans - me being sixteen and her being forty six.)
My brother introduced me to Galactic’s ‘Coolin’ Off’ a few years earlier and I hadn’t seen them live until this moment and i was going NUTS! Dancing really hard and yelling, generally making a scene. A girl walks up to me with a big smile, hands me her ticket and says “want to go in?” I take the ticket and run inside. Going inside turns out not as cool as i thought it would be mostly because when I got in there Galactic wrapped up their set. We head out to the lawn to regroup and find ourselves some water.
Sitting up on the lawn I decided to go for a walk. Somewhere along the way I drop my flip flops and tell my buddies that I don’t need them anymore. No one stopped me, so i just left them on the lawn. Luckily just before Allman’s took the stage I reconsidered leaving my flip flops and ran back to get them. The show starts and rages on, and on, and on for an hour plus. I was pleased to see a lot of mushroom related psychedelics in the allman’s stage and light show. I was tripping significantly less now. My buddy was not, and may have been tripping significantly more than I was. he slaps my arm lazily and says, ”Don’t you see that?”
“Yeah man, it’s sweet. You doing okay?
“i don’t know man…”
“Oh well let me know if you need anything man… man?”
By that time my buddy was on the ground convulsing slightly. A good friend acts quickly and gets some water, I stand there slack jawed thinking i just witnessed the death of my friend. Moments later he’s back on his feet, shaken but alive. and hydrated. I learned two lessons that day (who says no good can come of drug use?) Lesson one is stay hydrated and lesson two is have a friend around who isn’t on drugs or at least smart enough to know what to when a kid goes down at a show.
