Thanksgiving, Altered States of Consciousness & Django Reinhardt

 

I'm heading out to Los Altos, California to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with my children, grandchildren (with their significant others), and little Babs, my great-granddaughter.  I will start blogging again on December 4th.

In my short seven decades on this "Blue Marble", I've had quite a few memorable Thanksgivings, but one that really stands out took place on the Thanksgiving weekend of 1967.

In 1967, I was twenty-years-old, in my third year at Caltech in Pasadena, California, and majoring in Applied Mathematics.

On Thanksgiving Day, I had dinner in Caltech’s dinning hall with Jennifer and her roommate Sandy.  We weren’t close friends, but we had smoked weed (we called it "Grass" back then) a few times.  Both of them had a "hipper than thou" attitude, but they were always friendly enough, and the campus was empty due to the holiday, so why not? 

After dinner, the conversation turned to contraception.  I gave them the name and address of a nearby woman doctor who prescribed "The Pill" to unmarried women, and a pharmacy that didn’t ask questions (who’s hipper now, bitches?).  "The Pill" in 1967 was illegal for unmarried women and would remain so until 1972.

On our table was a copy of the psychedelic newspaper, The San Francisco Oracle.  After reading a few articles, I said to Jennifer, "Acid sounds very interesting" to which she replied, "Let’s do some tomorrow!" Sandy smiled and nodded her head in agreement.  Jennifer and Sandy had dropped acid a few times before, but I was a newbie to the Psychedelic drug scene.  I had smoked weed for the first time only a few months earlier in July, during summer break back home in Brooklyn with Denise "The Grease" (the beginning of a lifelong love affair with "The devil's cabbage").  Jennifer got up, walked across the dinning hall, sat at another table for a few minutes, came back, opened her hand, and showed us three sugar cubes, that had a spherical blue stain in the middle.  We made arraignments to meet at their place after lunch the next day.

That evening, I was trying to solve a differential equation, but I couldn’t concentrate due to the anxiety I was feeling about dropping acid.  Would I think I could fly, and jump off of Jennifer and Sandy’s roof?…What kind of hallucinations would I have, and what would I see?…What about those bum trips?…Flashbacks?  The media was reporting stories on chromosomal damage and genetic mutations, and I wanted to have children at some point in my life!  There was also a rumor going around, that you could be declared legally insane if you took LSD more than five times.  But then I thought about how everything they told us about weed in high school was complete and utter nonsense.  I also knew that LSD was wildly popular in certain intellectual circles, and that was a "club" I wanted to join.

The next day, while walking to Jennifer and Sandy’s place, I was more than apprehensive.  It was raining, and I had a few records under my arm, that I was trying to keep dry.  When I arrived, Sandy was making some kind of herbal tea, and on their kitchen table incense was burning.  Jennifer walked into the kitchen and handed out the sugar cubes.  We let the sugar cubes dissolve in our mouths, smoked a joint, and then sat there as if we were waiting for a bus or something, chain-smoking cigarettes.

Twenty minutes or so later, The Doors first album was playing, the room looked exactly the same and yet somehow different, everything had a glossy sheen that it didn’t have thirty minutes ago.  Sandy was rolling a joint and started to giggle, which caused all of us to laugh. I felt hyper aware, and in amazement I watched rain drops rolling down the kitchen window. The Doors sounded incredible, and I wished I had a piano to play.

Tim Buckley’s album "Goodbye and Hello" was playing, and Sandy goes very quiet and was staring across the room.  Jennifer and I looked at each other and start laughing.  I lit a cigarette, and it felt like the cigarette was smoking me.  There was an exposed brick wall in the living room that I couldn't stop staring at, it almost looked like it was breathing and there were all these little colored lights dancing around between myself and the wall.  I felt euphoric, and thought back to the article I read in The San Francisco Oracle regarding "The Cosmic Joke" and I started laughing hysterically.  I wondered if this was enlightenment or if I was having grandiose delusions, or maybe both, and thought, who knows, I was having too much fun to care.

It was now 7PM, we’d been tripping for six hours, I was still very high, but it was not as intense.  I decided to leave, so I thanked, and said goodbye to Jennifer and Sandy.  Walking home across campus, my mind was racing, and I knew my psyche had taken a quantum leap.  I thought about my abstract algebra class that was so confusing, but now I saw it in a different light, "I can do this!" I thought to myself.  As I was walking, there was a large puddle from the day’s rain.  As I stepped to avoid it, I saw the reflection of the moon in it.  It looked beautiful, a light breeze made it ripple, and I started laughing.  As I bent over to take a closer look, I heard a voice behind me say, "Are you OK?" I turned around and standing there was an athletic looking guy with blonde curly shoulder-length hair, who looked concerned, "I’m fine" I said, still giggling. "I thought you were crying" he said, followed by "What’s so funny, anyway?" I told him, "The universe is what’s so funny!".  He gave me a knowing look, smiled, and said, "Last Saturday the universe was a funny place for me too. Take care, and happy trails" and walked away.  When I got home, I listened to Albert Ayler's 'Spiritual Unity', then played my old beat up piano, smoked joints, and chain-smoked cigarettes thinking about the day's events.

The following Monday at lunchtime, I was back in the in Caltech dinning hall waiting to be served, when a voice said, "How funny is the universe today?" It was the guy from Friday night, I told him, "It's still funny, but not as funny as it was last Friday".  He laughed and said, "Probably not as beautiful either, right?" I smiled.  He then said, "I’m Jerry, and you are?" I told him. "I'm Barbara, but everyone calls me Babs" "Would you like to join me, Babs?" Jerry asked.  We had lunch, blew off our afternoon classes, made each other laugh while having the most wonderful conversation.  

Of the many things Jerry and I spoke about, music was a big topic of conversation.  Jerry had an eclectic taste in music, which was similar to mine.  When the subject of guitarists was broached, I remember asking Jerry if he ever heard Django Reinhardt (not many young people were listening to Django in the late 60s), he had, and we both agreed that Django was the most incredible guitarist ever.

Little did we know that afternoon, we would marry, have children, would be making each other laugh, and our conversation would flourish for the next forty-five years…

So here's a little Django, and by little I mean the motherlode of Django Reinhardt from those fine folks over at Frémeaux & Associés.

Enjoy, my friends!

Part One
https://workupload.com/file/GUFg9jDnGKc

Part Two
https://workupload.com/file/qqNuKhWcSGG

Part Three
https://workupload.com/file/NFp6FVE77t5

Part Four
https://workupload.com/file/JL6D79uUaNA