Haunted Substratum of the Wangdoodle

I ate the blotter acid as soon as I took the exit off the highway, figuring as I did to arrive at my destination just as it was kicking in. This plan would have worked fine, too, if I hadnt gotten lost.

This was back in the reckless Avatar days. Rehearsal had been cancelled for the weekend. Leland and Scott Schneider were already bathing in the holy waters of Lake Oconee, tents erected and sleeping bags unrolled. A gaggle of young females was rumored to be joining them.

Now, truth be told, I was never much of a ladies man. I was too weird, too geeky, and too unsure of myself around the opposite sex, which translated into an exaggerated craziness and bravado in their presence, especially during my days in the band. (Only later did I learn the enlightened art of not giving a shit) To ensure that I was at my worst, I intended to arrive at the campsite powered by a fresh head of steam that comes at the onset of an acid trip. Even more truth be told, I cared very little about impressing or horrifying others with this brand of behavior. My study at the time was lunacy, and psychedelics were my particular form of adventure.

"Aint no Heaven, aint no burnin' Hell" sings John Lee Hooker, stomping his hoof in an old man shoe on the oil streaked Chicago pavement.

Once off the highway I took a quick left onto a dirt road and rolled into the wilderness of Georgia woods that surrounds Lake Oconee. These roads wind and split and fork off in all directions, which caused me to once drive my car straight into the lake on a famous drunken evening a year earlier.

If I had followed the proper sequence I would have arrived at the campsite within half an hour of exiting the highway. More than an hour later I was still driving, looking for the right turns and taking the wrong ones, all the while that sinking-into-myself-all-warm-and-slant faced-smiling was rising up into my expanding balloon head. The sun was setting, the shadows growing, thunder rumbled in the distance. The air was nitric and sweaty, palpitating with every heart beat. The woods became dense and vast as a Tolkien trilogy, fathomless with age and mystery, secretive, hiding dark powers ready to spring when least expected. The trees could communicate and were speaking to each other about me. Every branch, glimpse of star, caress of wind, and twist of road became a symbol of sub-conscious terrain, always seething under the thin membrane surface, bottomless bubbling cauldron of imagery, world of dreams and dark moonlit forest caves

birds sent shrieking in flocks from laughter of ancestral ghosts running down trails giving miscues that lead to outcroppings and ledges
visions of greater unity in riotous patterns of discord
...whew, I was so lost that I couldnt even find my way back to the highway, let alone the campsite.

Oing Crunk Scree
shovels scraping concrete
panning across my brain
sound hallucinations echoing in the Sistine Chapel of my head

I heard and felt them, and knew my ears had nothing to do with it
the sound was generated internally and bypassed the senses
The argument had been going on for awhile
a chaos of voices fluttering about me
I was contending with them, yet began to win
as I realized they were all me, and already obeyed my command
My car sat still on a dark dirt road....how long?
The impenetrable blackness was crawling and alive
pierced by sudden stroboscopic flashes
crackling in the air

a presence stalked in the darkness
predatory, my dangerous friend
an old black man was leaning against my car
staring thru my open window on the passenger side
talking to me

Every time the lightning flashed he became a skeleton
in the glare
transparent in his paper thin skin
a grinning skull underneath his hat
I was not frightened, but felt a portal to a dangerous power within him

Swirl of imagery /
storm breaks, trees dance violently
grinning face, empty staring eyes
red car, black pits, lightning
I drove the voices away

* * *

I awoke to a grey morning
drops melt pure rainbow color on my windshield
reds and blues and purples in liquefaction, my mind melting

The voices were back, speaking thru me in intense hillbilly accents
"Hyuh, Hyee, Oimk, Gee Gaw, Hyaar, git, git, git"

These were the Wangdoodle, the spirits of the deep Georgia woods that caused so many people to speak with heavy redneck accents. They are wild, mischievous, bestial spirits that appear, whenever they manifest themselves physically, as gangly, hairy, bearded old men in overalls and straw hats who drink heavily. They haunt the trees, rivers, weeds, vines, stumps, and metaphysical tar paper shacks of the sub-conscious substratum, and rise in folks who's conscious, rational minds do not present much of a barrier. They caught me in a weakened, unguarded moment, filling my head with their hick Wangdoodle speech. I quickly drove them away, started my car, and advanced down the dirt road.

Sun rising
Sky clearing
Clouds in tatters blowing away
Chaos & Harmony
Discord & Re-Unity

all had been scrubbed clean by the storms
and gleamed anew in electrifying colors

With ease I found my proper turns and arrived at the campsite. Everyone was still asleep, so I snuck quietly by their tents and went down to the water's edge. The lake was covered in a thick fog, which glowed pink from the sunrise, alive with bird song and croaking amphibious opera.

Spying a large exposed rock far out in the middle of the lake, I slipped into the water and swam towards it.

"She comes out like a white shadow" sings Peter Gabriel, whispering "sometimes".

Fool that I was, I could have gotten a cramp and drowned. No one knew I was out there. I reached the rock and stretched out upon it like a lizard to sun myself.

My cathedral
forest and clouds in the revealed mirror surface
pillars of tree trunks
hush of reverence that precedes the approaching onslaught
of the Kingdom of Noize.

A large motor boat approaches
I see Leland and Scott
coming to pick me up for a day of water skiing.

- Werbinox