Highway 1

I spent the second half of my 5th manic episode at Andrew and Wills’ house in Santa Rosa, CA. Their living/working quarters were part home, part recording studio. The place was always a mess, and my bed was a couch in the dingy garage.

I’ll never forget the state of the room that Andrew slept in. There were random art projects scattered about, some on the walls, some on the floor. His bed was a small futon. A flashing yellow road sign intermittently lit the room, and the room was partially flooded. However, he managed an event center, and I don’t recall him ever missing work. Sometimes he would share his Red Dog beer with me when he returned home from work.

People would come and go, some for business, some for pleasure. Several nights a week we would stay up late drinking, smoking, and playing music. I was manic and liked the setup. Andrew would get a little annoyed with Jesus related talk. One day I tried to make him loosen up by playing guitar and freestyling homosexual related lyrics to him. It didn’t help the matter. He was an extreme atheist, and I was a manic street preacher. Nevertheless, we managed to get along.

One night Andrew and I got the impulse to drive out to the beach. We wanted to play guitars around a fire. On the way out of the house Andrew grabbed some old acid that he had in the freezer. We made a pit stop on the way to the coast and acquired some free news papers to get the fire started with. At this point we dropped some acid, as well and a mixture of psych pills I happened to have on me.

By the time we got to the coast I was starting to feel the effects, and Andrew was passed out. The anti-psychotic that I still take to this day was strong enough to knock out a person on LSD. Impulsively I headed south on highway 1 for San Francisco. At that time in my life I was driving a nice mazda RX-7, and the cliffs and curvy roads sounded like a good time. It seemed like I was peeling out for an hour and a half straight.

Once in the city I gravitated to the Mission Dist. Andrew was still asleep. I woke him up and we headed for the BART station. By this time it was light out. We then hopped the toll gates and got onto the train to Oakland. Under the bay I used the BART like a surf board, standing in the door wells, crouched, and with my arms out. Andy sat and was drawing the scene in his sketch book. We took a short walk around Oakland and returned to SF. Somehow we make it back to Santa Rosa later that day.