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| Nick in his new bath pavilion |
40 MEMORABLE FUCKS
Actually some of My Forty Fucks are not sexual at all but what they have in common is a strong and instructive connection with The Mysterious Other -- in this particular list I define The Other to be a member of the opposite sex.
Sometimes on various mind-altering drugs. Sometimes completely straight.
Just for fun a while ago I made a list of (for me) Forty Memorable Fucks. Since then I have added more items, both through subsequent happenings plus reminiscences of ones I'd long forgotten.
It's more than forty now.
Are you the least bit interested in exploring what sexually astonishes you? I encourage you to put together your own list of memorable fucks. Since I was somewhat shy and ignorant in those days, your list will probably be much much longer than mine.
Here's one simple example of a (non-sexual) incident from my list. It may not mean that much to you but it seemed at the time profoundly important and insightful to me.
Your fuck memorable mileage may vary of course.
South of Esalen Institute in Big Sur a public campground is located near the beach at Lime Kiln Creek. There's also a restricted access private campground that extends into the hills and encompasses the actual lime kilns for paying customers only and (in our case) we were friends with the manager of the camp.
My future wife Betsy Rasumny and I car-camped at the private Lime Kiln park, spending a few days there, and decided to explore the premises on LSD. We wandered up to the famous lime kilns and viewed them in their ritualistic splendor.
Betsy was a dancer trained both in ballet and dance improv in New York City and at the late Ann Halprin's Dancer's Workshop in San Francisco. So I was surprised when we crossed Lime Kiln Creek barefoot (and probably naked as well) that she was stumbling over the smooth rocks that lay beneath the surface of the stream, while I (totally untrained in dance) had no problem in skillfully traversing this little Big Sur rivulet.
"Hey Betsy," I shouted. "I thought you were a dancer. What happened to your gracefulness?"
Betsy looked me straight in the eye and replied: "Nick dear, dance is not only about grace."
And in that moment I wordlessly realized that she with her seemingly clumsy movements was moving fully in the imperfect moment while I, who am accustomed to seeing life more as a problem to be solved rather than a miracle to be savored, was experiencing what was happening from a totally different perspective.
It's not that her way was better than mine. But her answer raised a question in my mind that persists to this day.
Betsy was expert in living in the present; Nick's monkey mind is usually somewhere else entirely .
Is being clumsily fully present better than being gracefully fully in charge?
In Esalen co-founder Mike Murphy's terms, what is the way to more deeply employ and enjoy "this life we are given?"
And could your own Five or Five Hundred Memorable Fucks become useful clues for learning to live more fully this strange miracle of waking each morning inside a needy animal body?
3 comments:
Well, okay Nick, this is good, especially taken in conjunction with your recent Color Lines poem. I've had a few memorable fucks, mostly, like you it would seem, mind fucks. My wallet was stolen probably a month ago and I lost the passcodes to my email, so, I thought you might like to see this thesis, if you haven't already; that's why I visited your blog. Well, hell, I visit your blog all of the time.
Human levitation by Simon B. Harvey-Wilson, Western Australian College of Advanced Education
Okay, so I've been living under this bridge in Los Angeles for almost 7 years now. There's all of these interesting lizards who live around me, desert lizards, and I have never, not one time in the last almost 7 years, seen them mate. But, goddamn, this last week has been a veritable fuck-fest!?! I swear, in the last 5 or 6 days I've probably seen more memorable fucks than you've seen in almost 90 years! It's something to witness too! The females institgate, but these males, boy, they have a process - flared hood, lots of huffing and puffing. I'm a bit envious.
". . . who am accustomed to seeing life more as a problem to be solved rather than a miracle to be savored . . . "
I, too, am so accustomed. The first time I dropped LSD was at a Dead show up in Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, June 19 - 23, 1988. I had just turned 19 and really had no idea. These folks kept saying, "Doses, doses?," when we passed but I didn't know what the f&^k! My friend, Ivan, an alcoholic punk rocker who grew up in Chicago, finally asked me if I wanted to drop acid. I asked how you did it and he told me, "It's no big deal. It comes on a little piece of paper, you slip it under your tongue and hold it there for awhile, and then swallow it." I said okay and he asked me for some money so I gave him $20. He left for a short time, came back and handed me a small piece of paper. I slipped it under my tongue and he just started laughing. He said, "Fuck it!," and slipped another piece in his mouth. Turns out I had ingested $20 worth of the stuff. Well, no shit, but I didn't know any better. Ivan and I tripped for well over 24 hours! It was crazy! I kept asking people if it was ever going to go away! "Am I going to be like this forever?" "No," they said, "It's just a drug. It'll wear off." Well, they lied.
June 23 show
Dancing On A Hillside: The Grateful Dead At Alpine Valley
I've dropped a lot of acid since then. On New Year's Eve, 91/92, I ate three paper tabs preparing to go to a punk rock festival in San Diego. I knew as soon as that acid hit my tongue that I was in for a ride. It was so freshly dipped and so saturated, it was like licking a puddle. I could taste it and within probably 30 seconds I was balls out flying. I never made it to the festival, walking around downtown instead. I saw this prism of light way up in the sky and started walking towards it. I came to this dead end wall. The wall had these weird looking designs painted in all neon colors on it and it seemed that they were directing me down the hill, so down I went. At the bottom of the hill was a dark opening in the wall - it was the entrance to the Horton Plaza parking garage. I went in and walked around and around, like a helix, getting closer and closer to that prism of light. When I got to the top of the parking garage, I could see a lattice of light going straight up to that prism and I became convinced that I could climb it. But for some reason I had it stuck in my mind that I had to go through a battle before I could accesss the lattice, and I had to go into this battle completely open and honest, like I came into this world. So I started taking off my clothes. I had a pair of Dr. Martins on, double knotted laces, and I couldn't get my trousers over the shoes nor could I figure out how to untie the laces. It was a good thing too! The security guard came motoring up on his golf cart while I was trying to get my trousers off and like an idiot he approached me. I punched him and sent him flying. He ran away and called the higher authorities. In the interim I just waddled around Horton Plaza with my trousers around my ankles. I saw the Nordstom's store and the lettering on the front looked futuristic, and I knew the battle was going to take place right there. So I stood there in front of the store windows, flaring my hood and huffing and puffing. It didn't take long and about a dozen San Diego County sheriff's deputies surrounded me. I threw the first punch but they threw the last! Like I said, it's a good thing I couldn't get my trousers off or, back then, I would've probably handled twelve of em;-) I remember getting hog-tied and thrown in the back of a cruiser. The last thing I remember was having a thermometer stuck in my mouth which tasted like mint. Then I felt a sting in my ass and passed out from the thorazine they hit me with. I woke up some time later, buck naked and face-down on a concrete block, 4" X 1/4" leather straps around my wrists and ankles. I thought, "Man, what the fuck did you do this time?" They kept me for three days of observation. Miraculously, I did not get charged with any crime. I was released and went back downtown to get my truck. It had been broken into but they left the seat and battery so I got in, started up, and headed up I-5. I wasn't on I-5 more than 10 minutes and the motor in my truck blew up - a piston clean throught the valve cover! I said, "Well, happy fucking new year."
Two weeks later I ran into this Rainbow freak I knew, Sky, down on Midnight beach and we dropped acid again. Sometimes I regret things but other times I don't. I don't really think life is a problem to be solved, I think it's more of a challenge to be endured. Sky was a really cool dude, a really young guy from Connecticut. He took off right after he graduated from high school and started chasing the dead and what not. He hooked up with this girl and they got all fucked up in meth. It was a sad ordeal, really. The last time I saw him was at the Pink Floyd show at the Oakland Coliseum in 1994 and he looked pretty tuff. He had left the girl in Santa Cruz and rode to the show with some UC students. He was looking for a place for R & R. He told me his family had disowned him so he couldn't go there. I bought him a bus ticket back to Santa Cruz and told him to balls up and go get the fucking girl. I often wonder how things turned out for him.
My only regret is, I wish I would've gone to a good high school and applied myself, learning the math and physics better. Well, that's not true. I wish I would've started practicing yoga, meditation and pranayama when I was 3 or 4 years old! Youth is often wasted on the young.
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