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Wednesday May 30, 07
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08:40 AM - Psychedelics and Sweets
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27 May 2007
SMARTIE PEOPLE ARE HAPPY PEOPLE - PSYCHEDELICS AND SWEETS
When I was a child in the 1960's I would love to buy multi-coloured sweets with names like 'Smarties' or 'Acid Drops'. I also had a toy kalidescope. At my junior school the walls were awash with sharply- defined primary colours. And then one day my brother brought home a copy of 'Sgt Pepper'. So I spent the summer days stuffing rainbow-coloured sugar into my mouth while viewing the world through a kalidescopic haze. All against the backwash of the Beatles absurd playground burlesque. Red and yellow and pink and green. Orange and purple and blue.
For a while it was lovely and sweet. Everything really was 'cool' in my corner of rural England. All you need is love. The true song of the sweet white soul-boy.
So when I grew up a bit and went out into the world, I got my eager hands on the real thing. But it was the dark 1970's and flower children like me were about to get a hammering from the pagan gods of rock and roll. A dark sinister Led Zeppeliny cloud fell on everything.
The Beatles left us Blossom's of Romance to fend for ourselves. We became the damaged children of pop.
So me and my friends took the bad acid and almost eveyone overnight wanted to be a rock and roll star - Jimmy page or Robert Plant. We started to treck around Glastonbury and Watchfield to get high on the vibe. We all got loved up and attempted to have sex. Hey hey mama, gonna make you move - gonna make you sweat -gonna make you groove.
Except me. I was a secret virgin and played the joker of the pack to disguise my innocence and fear. When we all moved into a squat in the big city of Oxford I had the saddest, most depressing room in the house. I bought a hideous fake bearskin blanket dyed with cheap acid colours. It was the colour of vomit - greens and orange and muted pink that looked like a shade of shit. I hung it up on the wall where I thought it looked cool. I thought it would get me a hippy boyfriend. It was the late 1970's and there was no way home anymore.
So when two American tourists came into the pub carrying guitars and asking where they could 'get some action around here' we all pounced on them and took them under our wing. I always find that these type of tourists - the ones that come to England looking for magic and rock and roll - they come in pairs. There's the pushy fat sad hairy guy from Kansas who throws his daddy's money around and ties to impress the girls with his guitar licks. Only they are cheap licks - just like his guitar. He's Dark Fat Piggy Boy. His friend is the quiet gentle one with hair the colour of sun-kissed rosewood and hips as slim as a girl's. You might say at this point " But he looks like Robert Plant". No he doesn't - he looks more like Lofty from Eastenders. To be kinder he is aiming for the John Lennon look of the time - combat trousers, army boots, hair like a lion's mane. And glasses. Yes - round glasses like Lennon's. And I fell badly for him - this was the boy of my dreams. White soul-boy who could sing like Aaron Neville. And all the hairy boys hated him.
So these two guys join our circle for a while and I get to chat to the nice guy. He seemed to like me - he didn't push himself forward like his fat friend - he let people come to him. They never did. He wore glasses. Not cool. You can't be a rock god and wear specs. Unless your name is Steven Morrissey and that story hadn't been told back then.
So just as I - the shy geeky acid fried flower child - was getting friendly with this shy Californian hippy boy, the fat one from Kansas butts him out of the way and takes me off to the bar. "She's mine boy - these rock and roll girls want a man, not a boy who thinks he can ha ha!!". This was to let everyone, especially the girls, know that Lofty was a virgin boy.
And hippy-boy got shoved back in his place. The Dark piggy boy plied me with nasty liquers and I developed a weird sick infatuation with him. I took him back to my horrible room with the evil acid blanket learing down at me and laughing. Because I just laid there on the bed and my body wouldn't open its virgin gates to this stranger. I was in a speed-induced psychosis at the time and probably very depressed. After five minutes of clumsy fumbling the hairy cock-rocking fat boy gave up and left. I skinned up a spliff and decided that I was going to die.
And when I went to the pub again all my cool friends were laughing at me. They would laugh at me anyway - I was the first girl in Oxford to wear black - hair, clothes, nail varnish, lipstick, but contrasted with shocking acid pink and purple. A goth/hippy - a dark punk. They laughed at me because fat boy had told them what had happened. He was mad "What the fuck's up with her? The weirdo chick I tried to screw last night - is she frigid? is she queer? does she think she's Emily fucking Bronte? (I was toying with Kate Bush's music at this time) Where do I go to get a decent fuck around hear?!!" Nice man. Really nice man. His lovely friend from California, the angel-headed hipster had vanished. Dark boy was on his own and felt cheated of his vacation entertainments.. I remember that when he kissed me with his fat slobbery lips, hard and urgent, his breath tasted of shit. I wanted it to taste of honey. If I had kissed the Californian hippy boy he would probably have tasted of poppies. Dark boy never ate Smarties. If he did his breath would be sweeter.
So after my humiliation by the cock-rockers I decided it would be better if I died. I drifted off from the rock and rollers and found myself alone. This was 1979. I sunk so low that I got in with some Andy Worhol fanatics. The Black drug beckoned. Only the music of Joy Division saved me. It was the beginning of the 1980's and the darkness fell over everything. The colours had gone out of life and I ended up with a sour metalic taste in my mouth. I got rid of the evil acid blanket - the vibes coming from it were really weirding me out. I gave it away to a charity shop - I hope it isn't hangin on someone's bedsitter wall. And yet I always wondered (and sometimes worried) about the golded hippy American boy I once spent an afternoon with long ago in a pub on the Cowley Rd. I sometimes believe he was a ghost and no one could see him except me. He still haunts my nights when I'm on too much speed. And he really could sing like Aaron Neville. And the dark piggy Led Zeppelin boy, I try not to think of. I like to keep my thoughts sweet and full of sunshine these days.
Smartie people are happy people, they smile all the time.
Because they're feeling fine.
Becacause its Smartie time.
Further listening: Crazy Love - Aaron Neville
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
Gimme Some Truth - John Lennon
Patsy Decline@2007
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Cheers!
I really truly loved reading your journal..
I also was raised by a wild flower child...
And By 1979. I had also met a boy... I was so young.. But I actually fell in love..
I remember waking up in the arms of this young boy and thinking.. I am going to be with him forever..
He was Beautiful boy..
which reminds me of John Lennon..
I was raised listening to The Beatles..
Rock & Roll..
You mentioned something that caught me and so I read your journal.. you said, "When I was a child in the 1960's I would love to buy multi-coloured sweets with names like 'Smarties' or 'Acid Drops'. I also had a toy kalidescope
It remineded me of how I would go buy Lemon heads..
and I also remember my sister loved Cherry Drops and cinnnnnamin Imperials...
Oh and Cup of Golds..
I was actually looking for one just about a week ago..
I bought M&M's instead...
Wow while still turned on with candy...
I also remember moving from Los Angeles To Long Beach...
That is when I felt I had to leave and that is when I found this Beautiful Boy....:)
Oh and Wow I would love to see your toy kalidescope!!
**Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds***
Live and Love to you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ButE5TzjoYw