Goin' Out West

As I walked by the stingray sheriff, a cigarette fairy handed me a smoke.

In any other context, that sentence would be a sure sign of mental illness. At St. John's college in New Mexico, however, it is merely an accurate account of an average day. I've always been hesitant to write accounts of my daily activities, for fear of this blog becoming little more than an online journal. I left that sort of writing to Cam, and after visiting the smoky bastard I can see why he would want to.

St. John's college has been described by Cam already, so I'll spare you any talk of its curriculum or campus. What I will tell you about is Reality, a three day festival of psychotic bacchanalia that I can only hope awaits me in the afterlife.

The plane ride down was, as expected, long and dull. I noticed that the closer one travels to the midwest the more the landscape seems governed by cubism, as opposed to the northeast's impressionist sensibilities. I was shocked upon landing in Denver to find that the city itself didn't seem to exist, and that the airport was surrounded on all sides by empty farmland. The flat, artificially cultivated landscape has a strange effect on a man, crushing all spirits and giving one the impression of isolation.

Arriving in New Mexico, however, the landscape changed from dull to awe-inspiring. A vast stretch of desert lay outside the airport, terminating in a horizon made of soaring snow-topped mountains. An ominous rift of clouds hung over the peaks, something I learned was normal for the region.

After a short ride in a shuttle bus, sitting next to some sort of robed holy man, I arrived at the campus. Cam was waiting for me, visibly twitching in anticipation of the cigarettes I surely had brought with me. A quick tour of the campus commenced, followed by some illicit purchases and a blurred sort of night.

The next morning the fairies appeared. Fairies were students wearing fairy wings who wandered here and there dispensing cigarettes and other illicit substances to any who asked, free of charge. Already, it seemed, glorious things were afoot. I was introduced to Jake Faulkner, who Cam mentioned in a previous post. Jake, despite hailing from Los Angeles, had sculpted himself into a relic of times long gone, an artificial southern blues man with an affected drawl and a pompadour. He was the man in charge of the music for the festival, which I cannot praise enough in writing. Instead, I'll simply direct you to the music itself, which was the rhythm the festival followed.

Patrick Ferris, a man I passed a flask of bourbon and immediately became good friends with. He was the most personable of the bands playing, and was frequently seen wandering late at night with a six string in his arms, serenading the assorted students who were already to stoned to appreciate the thing.

Matt Taylor and His Laurels, a troupe who performed a series of heartbreaking folk anthems and assorted Americana. The audience seemed disappointed that the music wasn't rhythmic enough to bounce around to, and harassed the poor fuckers on stage. The band seemed to be in a foul mood for the rest of the festival, and did some serious damage to my flask whenever it was passed their way.

The 1921a, a pounding band whose genre I really can't put into words just now. They clearly took a lot of influences from Tom Waits, something that wasn't all that surprising once I learned that Jake produced their records. It was during their set when the bourbon hung heavy in my gut and the amphetamines began to tighten my veins and blur my vision, then I realized the gravity of what was going on.

For the first time in a while, I was really and truly surrendering myself to a good time. Sure, I've been known to have a drink with Cam and Barnes on a regular basis, but it can't be said that a drink constitutes complete revelry. Down there in New Mexico, I completely obliterated myself and surrendered myself to the spirit of the thing. The fact that I did so without a sex drive is notable as well, since most of my fondest memories generally feature my cock in a prominent role. I remember standing in a bathroom as the music pulsed outside, prodding the organ with a sense of grim surrender. The amount of chemicals in my bloodstream had rendered me almost a eunuch, and yet I felt more alive than ever.

The party went on, coming to a sort of apex when the campus's resident occultist decided that I was the physical avatar of Dionysus. He seemed disappointed when I never got around to participating in a traditional invocation of the god, but I had heard of his fondness for sex magic and thought it best to keep a safe distance.

The weekend ended and I slumped back on the shuttle. Even during the maddeningly long flight home, slipping in and out of sleep and rubbing my forehead, it was clear that something glorious had happened.

Oh, and before I finish, the stingray sheriff was just that. Someone had made a giant stingray from assorted bits of plaster and paper and painted a sheriff's badge on it, for no good goddamn reason at all.