fluttered to stay open. Jocelyn held him in her arms like a child, hunched over him, speaking softly to him. The heroin that was coursing through his veins rushed to the centre of his head, shut him down and locked him up. He was as close to death as the living can be – and he liked it.
Lindsay, Steve, John, Jim and I were concerned. We convened at the side of the stage. I was having a happy trip; the colours were warm and bright. The scene at the other end of the room was cold and dark. I wanted to turn away and run but, at the same time, I felt I should help Geoff in some way.
“What's wrong with him?” John asked.
“It's smack,” Jim answered in a disgusted voice.
“Heroin?” said Steve. “Man, that's a bad trip.”
I felt like I had been punched in the solar plexus.
Gary Wanstall thought, 'wasn't heroin the very worst thing there was in the whole world?' The Rock wasn't sure.
I stole a glance at Geoff to assure myself that he was alright. He wasn't. He looked like a corpse. I started to panic but he rolled over and sat up. I felt a rush of relief as Jocelyn helped him to his feet. Geoff was alive but our rehearsal was over.
It was night and raining when we left. Jocelyn and her brother Jeff helped Geoff as he struggled to make his way up Davie Street into the darkness like the splendid Achilles carried on his shield by Ajax and Ulysses.
There was no question as to our commitment to The Seeds of Time, to each other. We were cohering as a group on levels that none of us could have imagined. We were writing songs together; the latest was One Hand Clapping (That’s The Sound Of), and all of us were investigating our spiritual selves.
I hadn’t given faith much thought since I was little and my Grandma, who was the sweetest person I have ever known, would play hymns on the old stand-up grand piano in the parlour of her house at Second and Trafalgar in Kitsilano. Even though I had attended Sunday school at the Anglican Church, hearing her sing those songs so softly and kindly inspired my first thoughts of God and spirituality. My Grandma was devoutly religious in a quiet way and had a loving belief in the Lord Jesus and His Dad. I had never really considered these things again, until now.
Jim introduced us to a friend of his named, Karl, who invited us to visit him and his wife, Rose, at their tiny basement apartment on Robson Street in the West End. Their place consisted of one room with a sofa, table and some chairs and a cooking area with a stove, fridge and sink in one corner. There was an alcove containing a mattress separated from the living area by a partition of colourful beads. There was also a bathroom but no bath. It was all illuminated by a bare white light-bulb hanging from the ceiling and several coloured lamps scattered around on the floor. Jim and the band and others, including as many girls as we could find, would cram in there and get off, smoking pot or hash or taking more LSD.
Stephen, one of the Addled Chromish Light Show artists; a tall, thin Ichabod Crane type of long-haired freak who was peaceful except that he considered himself a militant pseudo-intellectual, looked at me with very bruised stoned-out eyes and said, “no man is a camel.” Then he lit up a joint and fell back on some pillows.
Our host, Karl, was a slight wiry man in his early twenties with thin blond hair and a scraggly mustache and goatee. He looked like Karl Marx. Rose was native Canadian or perhaps of some mixed heritage – I've never understood that ignorant term, “half breed”; it seems to me, if you're blessed with the heredity of more than one pedigree you are really a “double-breed”. She was short, round and affable. She laughed at anything anybody said to her; it was almost as if she didn’t understand and had adopted this practice as a defense. It worked.
In our usual state of hallucinogenic euphoria we discussed such things as 'the white light', 'one' and 'God'. To be accurate, everyone else discussed these things while I listened. Like Rose, I had become very good at laughing, crying, pondering and nodding at the appropriate time. I did not actually speak or join in any of these discussions. It was because the people around me were, in my eyes, extraordinary. Jim was a philosopher/guru, Geoff a charismatic God-warrior, Steve so ultra-cool and astutely witty, Lindsay the intellectual genius and John the gifted musician. I felt like a hanger-on. I had nothing intelligent to say, nothing to contribute. Clearly, my best option was to shut-the-fuck-up.
Stephen, the militant pseudo-intellectual, leaned close to me so that his nose was only about three inches from mine. His pupils contracted to mere pinpricks, he proclaimed, “two seagulls an airport doth not make,” and passed out.
The previous year, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had blown our collective minds. Now we expanded our consciousness with Magical Mystery Tour and The Rolling Stones’ December ‘67 release of Their Satanic Majesties Request. We, er, they could spend the entire night dissecting John Lennon’s invitation to take us down to Strawberry Fields and how nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Jim would speculate on how everything is nothing and therefore nothing is real but that really means everything ... and so on.
Geoff, Steve and Lindsay would exchange knowing glances when Jagger sung of going from a hundred light years from home to two thousand light years from home. They seemed to know what it meant and John could play all the parts. These guys even found some hidden meaning in the Dave Clark Five’s pop hit Over And Over. When vocalist Mike Smithsang, “Well, I went to a dance just the other night, Everybody there was dead”, they all smiled because they thought he said 'Everybody there was there' and that the ‘there’ part that Mike was referring to was like 'the white light' or 'one' or 'God' or something like that.
“We're all 'there' ya know man,” Jim began one of his sermons, “its like far out, man – ya know, it's cool.”
Suddenly, he lunged at me with both fists but stopped short of hitting me in the face and spread both hands open so that all of his fingers were stretched wide in front of my acid-scarred eyes, “Free Flash!” He laughed. He was right, it was a flash.
Then he fell back and started to roll a joint. “People can cross-over ya know, they can be 'there' and they can be unreal and real all at the same time.”
Steve added, “I read that some cat, he like saw the white light, he was so high he actually saw the fuckin' light, man. It was really far out, man.”
“You could do that, you could touch the light. John could, Rocky could, Lyn could ...” He watched Lindsay suck a whole joint into his lungs. “... Lindsay definitely could ... We've got the power, we could make it happen.”
“Let's fuckin' do it, man ... I wanna see this white light,” said Geoff.
Jim thought for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Fuck around - I just blew my fuckin' mind.” He composed himself and said, “Tell ya what, when one of us offs his self, we'll all meet him at the Afterthought on July 1st.”
“Far fuckin' out!” Geoff exclaimed.
“Man, I'm there,” Steve whispered in awe
“That's what I said,” Jim said.
Lindsay joined in, “let's make it a pact.”
“It's a pact then!” Jim announced.
“Groovy,” Steve declared.
There was no blood exchanged but we did all clasp hands and proclaim that when any one of us died, no matter what year, the others would meet him at 8PM on July 1st at the Kits Theatre, site of The Afterthought.
I went with Steve to see The Yardbirds at the PNE Gardens. We dropped acid on the way out there. This was to be the end of The Yardbirds. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith had all quit and The Yardbirds was now a four-piece with Jimmy Page stealing the show. In my heightened sensory state they sounded incredible. Page did his whole violin-bow act, sawing on his Fender Telecaster and astounding everybody with his wizardry. Their performance of Over Under Sideways Down humbled me into a worshiping disciple.
I