... Albert Hofmann - the creator/discoverer of LSD died, almost a month ago. but at least I find consolation in that he's had a very full life - he was 102 years old. he was reportedly a great chemist, made big pharma lotsa money in "straight" drugs. in addition to discovering the psycho-active effects of LSD, he was also the first person to synthesize psilocybin - the psychoactive substance naturally found in "magic" psilocybe mushrooms.
an icon of a man. i'd like to try to honour him next "Bicycle Day" and go for a ride with the local heads. weird, this year's "Bicycle Day" was 10 days before his death. i wonder - had his death been slow, if he knew he was dying, would he have opted to go out accompanied by his "Problem Child", like Aldous Huxley ..?
Friday, May 23, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
i thought i'd be able to handle death a little better.
guy from work got gunned down outside a local bar. i'd been to that bar a few times before, with him and other guys from the company. i immediately thought of his poor wife, with their baby boy. he's a little older than Lily. i think her family lives in alberta. maybe she'll be moving back.
i just remembered a time he told me about how once, when he was in elementary school, he didnt get on his bus to school but decided to ride his bike to school or something. when he'd gotten to school turned out there'd been a suicide bomber on the bus.
no one knows how the fight started, but it quickly turned into a huge fight between 2 groups of people. i dont think they even know if it was a random shot or specifically for him.
it caught me totally by surprise. i suppose it hit relatively close to home, but i wouldnt have thought that it would have affected me quite this much. i've been stunned half the day - since i found out.
this brought right to the surface this story i heard just the other day, about how a friend of a friend went to a restaurant with his wife, and while they were dining, an asian guy got in this guy's face, so the guy asked if he wants to take it outside. when they went around the corner, followed by the asian guy's friends, the asian guy pulled out a gun... didnt matter how big my friend's friend was anymore - got pistol whipped and the shit kicked out of by the asian guys, and told not to contact the police or they'd kill him. he might have been followed home... he didnt call the police. i dont know what i'd have done. obviously i'd want revenge, and the fuckers confined so they couldnt do it to others. but i'd value the fact that i'm alive, and the safety of my family. but i think i'd still try, just would request help with relocating. what if the police didnt think it to be important enough to warrant that kind of expenditure?
songs with mentions of guns piss me off now.
a few weeks ago i saw a guy i havent seen in a couple years. he told me another story that shocked me. we kinda knew this guy named Al - he was maybe in his late 50's, very calm, quiet but pleasant, and he was the safety guy on a couple sites. on one of them, his then maybe 30 year old son was cutting something with a hand-held grinder, the sleeve of his shirt caught in it, and having the trigger blocked, it chewed up his arm pretty good. he could sometimes be a bit of a jerk, but when i heard about that, i kinda felt bad for him. but maybe 2 years later he was recovering well, working again, and somehow managed to adopt a more friendly disposition. a few years later, he got attacked on the street somewhere by a group of guys, and they beat him into a coma. and this is where a piece of fact is missing - the reason why police showed up on the doorstep of the comatose guy's dad's. maybe he tried to go after the fuckers that beat his son, maybe somebody complained. but the guy's dad told the cops that he's going to hurt himself if they dont leave. they left. apparently only then digging up information that he was the registered owner of several fire arms. apparently then they werent so keen on walking back in there, so they set up a goddam stand-off, calling him out through bull horns. he wasnt coming out. they wanted to wait him out. in the middle of the night they heard a gunshot. when they finally went inside in the morning they found he'd killed himself.
a few weeks later his son came out of his coma.
i talked to a friend today with whom i was hanging out last night - he said his sister's friend just died - she'd thought it'd be a good idea to try and run from the cops with 2 of her roommates, one of whom the police were actually coming up after, and do it by jumping from balcony to balcony - they were on the 5th floor. she slipped. the fall split her head in half, shattered her spine, but the doctors managed to keep her from dying. still, after evaluating the situation, they told the parents that there's no way she's gonna recover from that, and recommended pulling the plug. they will never forget that nod.
guy from work got gunned down outside a local bar. i'd been to that bar a few times before, with him and other guys from the company. i immediately thought of his poor wife, with their baby boy. he's a little older than Lily. i think her family lives in alberta. maybe she'll be moving back.
i just remembered a time he told me about how once, when he was in elementary school, he didnt get on his bus to school but decided to ride his bike to school or something. when he'd gotten to school turned out there'd been a suicide bomber on the bus.
no one knows how the fight started, but it quickly turned into a huge fight between 2 groups of people. i dont think they even know if it was a random shot or specifically for him.
it caught me totally by surprise. i suppose it hit relatively close to home, but i wouldnt have thought that it would have affected me quite this much. i've been stunned half the day - since i found out.
this brought right to the surface this story i heard just the other day, about how a friend of a friend went to a restaurant with his wife, and while they were dining, an asian guy got in this guy's face, so the guy asked if he wants to take it outside. when they went around the corner, followed by the asian guy's friends, the asian guy pulled out a gun... didnt matter how big my friend's friend was anymore - got pistol whipped and the shit kicked out of by the asian guys, and told not to contact the police or they'd kill him. he might have been followed home... he didnt call the police. i dont know what i'd have done. obviously i'd want revenge, and the fuckers confined so they couldnt do it to others. but i'd value the fact that i'm alive, and the safety of my family. but i think i'd still try, just would request help with relocating. what if the police didnt think it to be important enough to warrant that kind of expenditure?
songs with mentions of guns piss me off now.
a few weeks ago i saw a guy i havent seen in a couple years. he told me another story that shocked me. we kinda knew this guy named Al - he was maybe in his late 50's, very calm, quiet but pleasant, and he was the safety guy on a couple sites. on one of them, his then maybe 30 year old son was cutting something with a hand-held grinder, the sleeve of his shirt caught in it, and having the trigger blocked, it chewed up his arm pretty good. he could sometimes be a bit of a jerk, but when i heard about that, i kinda felt bad for him. but maybe 2 years later he was recovering well, working again, and somehow managed to adopt a more friendly disposition. a few years later, he got attacked on the street somewhere by a group of guys, and they beat him into a coma. and this is where a piece of fact is missing - the reason why police showed up on the doorstep of the comatose guy's dad's. maybe he tried to go after the fuckers that beat his son, maybe somebody complained. but the guy's dad told the cops that he's going to hurt himself if they dont leave. they left. apparently only then digging up information that he was the registered owner of several fire arms. apparently then they werent so keen on walking back in there, so they set up a goddam stand-off, calling him out through bull horns. he wasnt coming out. they wanted to wait him out. in the middle of the night they heard a gunshot. when they finally went inside in the morning they found he'd killed himself.
a few weeks later his son came out of his coma.
i talked to a friend today with whom i was hanging out last night - he said his sister's friend just died - she'd thought it'd be a good idea to try and run from the cops with 2 of her roommates, one of whom the police were actually coming up after, and do it by jumping from balcony to balcony - they were on the 5th floor. she slipped. the fall split her head in half, shattered her spine, but the doctors managed to keep her from dying. still, after evaluating the situation, they told the parents that there's no way she's gonna recover from that, and recommended pulling the plug. they will never forget that nod.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
i just realised that i only found out about compay segundo because of a haunting melody i'd heard a couple times in a cuba commercial. i wanted to hear what the rest of this amazing snippet of acoustic guitar music sounded like. after many searches on winMX (waaaaay back, eh? :)) off and on for months and months, i finally found it by chance, downloading anything that said "cuba" in the title. The actual title was "Pobre Corazon"...
"Cubano Chant" turned out pretty cool too, even though obviously a very western, white-washed style - but its good music - i love how each instrument does its own version of the song, in turn. i think.
"Cubano Chant" turned out pretty cool too, even though obviously a very western, white-washed style - but its good music - i love how each instrument does its own version of the song, in turn. i think.
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