I was back in Australia after 13 years away, doing a 1 year contract
I was contacted by an old friend asking me if I wanted to come to a rave with him, some 3 day alternative head-fest held in the bush called the Rainbow Serpent Festival. Now it had been at least 13 years since I went to something like that, and about the same length of time since I'd last dropped acid. Aided by the nostalgia of my youth, the fact that my wife was away for 3 months for the first time in my marriage, and with ample trepidation, I agreed.
The problem with recreating your youth, is you're not young anymore and you have more to lose. He'd hired a VW campervan painted in faux hippie style, and immediately started rolling joints as soon as he picked me up from the airport. All I could think was "what a fucking cop-magnet this van is", but given the sheer volume of people, I'd estimate around 10,000 people from the cars, maybe they'd decided to leave the festival alone so as not to overwork themselves and we arrived without incident.
We met some friends in the campground/carpark, a bunch of alternative lifestylers older than me. One bloke had a vial of LSD, and I thought "When in Rome.." and we both took a couple of drops. Now my mate had been working for years in the mines, and had built himself what appeared to be the ultimate robot suit to cover his 6'5 frame. It had a double respirator connected to two tanks, LED lights that could be configured, and a green face mask they use in uranium mines. But it was all disassembled in pieces and he asked me to help him put it together.
I started to get that old familiar feeling of the acid kicking in, and would have preferred to be anywhere else, out dancing in front of the stages with half-naked girls with green hair and tribal tattoos for instance, then engaged in some complicated manual task. He, already under the influence, proved useless. He kept making mistakes, stopping for long periods and staring at all his costume pieces, or sitting laughing half-dressed as robot suddenly self-aware at the absurdity of it all. But he was insistent and helpless and a mate, and had planned and constructed this costume for months for reasons I could only guess at. So I stayed and did my best to help him. Many times we got close before he realised something was missing like his batttery pack and he'd strip off and start again. Friends who had already been for a dance arrived back and also tried to help. Perception of time can stretch and contract when you're on acid, but I'd estimate it took around 4 hours for him to get properly suited up, and it did look impressive, but by then I'd had enough. I abandoned him there and went off to dance by myself. I saw him once again in the night, in the field between the shitty portaloos and the stages. He was surrounded by a group of young Taiwanese ravers, laughing at him and taking pictures with their mobiles. I imagined it must be pretty disassociating behind the mask and rebreather, particularly on acid. Maybe that was what he wanted.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 25 Oct 2012, 15:06, Reply)