Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

I dropped a couple of hits of acid with my morning muffins, so I was tripping full blast by the time the show started in the mid afternoon. I found a seat on the floor with my friends and sat out in the sunshine listening to music. I watched the Indigo Girls open up the afternoon, which was cool. I’ve never been into their music very much, but today it was absolutely awesome. Their melodic harmonies and the familiarity of some of their songs was reassuring while tripping and being in the fellowship of an entire stadium filled with good vibes. People wanting to be happy is addictive.

The Grateful Dead have a lot of good people open for them; last year in Vegas they played with Sting, which may have been another influence in me wanting to get here so badly.

The stage was pretty much set up like any other any other stadium concert I’ve been to except there were giant tye-dye flags waving everywhere. I timed my acid so that I was in another world by the time the show started, but I got really nervous during the break between the Indigo Girls and the Dead because this strange cynical clown walked up to us and started performing magic tricks. Now there was no way for him not to notice that everyone in my immediate vicinity had huge eyes and idiotic grins on our faces, plus he kept saying how he performed for free and didn’t want any money which I know is usually what people say right before they ask for money in some fashion or another. I’ve never liked clowns to begin with and this guy started creeping me out like the clown from “It.” He was being really sarcastic while he was doing these dumb slight of hand tricks and I started thinking he was distracting us while the undercover cops were on their way to arrest us. I looked around and thought I saw a guy in the rafters above the stage with binoculars and I got extremely paranoid. I was tripping really hard by this point in case I forgot to mention that. He finally did get around to bumming some money and left us in peace, which made me a hell of a lot happier.

When the Grateful Dead finally came out to play after the tense session with the clown and many minutes of anticipation I was prepared for anything. I had been listening to non-stop Dead music for the past week (except for small gangster rap breaks) so I was prepared for the laid back country sound they began to play. Truthfully, I believed a lot of the hype that surrounds them and I was expecting to see some maniacal frenzied energy that only a band synonymous with helping pioneer my generation’s counter-culture could produce. I was surprised though. They came out and just began to weave a musical tapestry as if they were already in the middle of playing and giving words to everything around us. I began to see that underneath the bright colors and weariness that goes with this hard life on the road there is a true happiness. These old men who look as if they’ve been on the road wayyyy too long attract these people to them because they love what they are doing. That’s why they encourage people to tape the shows, not because they need to force their music on somebody else, not because they need to continually increase their popularity, it’s because the material aspect just doesn’t matter. It’s a way of showing the audience respect by conveying “we’re sorry we have to sell tickets to see us, but you don’t have to buy our albums and we won’t sell you any high priced t-shirt souvenirs that insult your intelligence, just have a good time and take that with you.” A hidden lesson that maybe the music of life isn’t theirs to package and sell? I don’t know. I see that there are a lot of problems with having a hedonistic lifestyle like this, too many drugs and corruption confuses the message, but sometimes I wouldn’t ever take it to the point where I join the dancing cult devoted to the Grateful Dead’s music. I saw some people today who twirl continuously, around and round, through every show the Dead play, living from message to message in a bizarre hippy aerobic cult.

I just wanted to put down that I got the impression there are a lot of things we miss by not being open to accepting what isn’t necessarily taught. This life is good so celebrate the good vibe all around. Of course the music was flawless but I enjoyed stumbling upon this new philosophy most of all. It’s given me a lot to mull over and think about, especially as it pertains to everything I thought I valued the most. I can sense that seeds have been planted in my mind that may change the course of my life forever. I’m going to go see if I can find Jenifer and frolic.

“And who will save your soul?”

Given the chance to relive any mortal moment again like in the play “Our Town”, I know that today would be one of the days I would choose. I know for a fact now that I have never loved a woman as much as I love Jenifer Lansing and I know now it’s an indisputable fact that she loves me equally as much. Jenifer Lansing loves me and I pledge before my God and any and all other minor deities who happen to hear my thoughts and prayers in passing that she will be given all the consideration and devotion as befits my wife.

Today has been the most bizarre emotional roller coaster that I’ve ever ridden, so I should start at the beginning which is a very good place to begin.

Last night, I slept as close to Jenifer as two layers of mummy bags will allow in cold weather. There was definitely some electricity between us but we kept our hormones in check and bonded closer mentally. I was on one side of her and Kristoff was on the other. Nothing dishonorable occurred; we were all exhausted from the events of the first show day and snuggling beneath the tarp. I definitely was just playing it cool around her (I hope) because (1) any decision for her to make concerning us being together must be done with complete freedom and (2) I didn’t want to piss Kristoff off by making him think I was muscling in on “his” girl and possibly provoke an anger response which might make Jenifer choose me. Actually I was tempted to attempt the second option but that dumb southern mentality I have of “dancing with the one that brung ya” kicked in.

There were a lot of various tensions going on in my mind when I entered the stadium for the second and final show in Eugene, OR. Of course I was tripping, not as hard as yesterday in case any evil looking clowns decided to show up, but hard enough. The show was great; Jerry came out on stage and I cheered like a veteran when he gave his winning smile and started jamming. He really does resemble a big teddy bear much like the Grateful Dead icons depict. Everything was cool. Sitting in the sunshine with my girl, my long hair flowing down my back and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts made from an American Flag. We were totally digging the show when this guy sitting soft of next to us said “Isn’t your name Jenifer?”

I could tell right away it was bad by the look she got on her face. When she turned to see him her dead eyes and relaxed muscles only communicated “I can’t believe this is happening” over and over.

I shouldn’t probably mention that the first time Jenifer ever had sex she was date raped. One of our earliest discussions was about losing our virginity so I knew about the “evil first guy.” I knew how much this guy had traumatized her—as much as a male can ever understand being raped—and I knew how it led to a bunch of different insecurities and doubts in her life, as well as a revulsion that occurs whenever she hears the G-N-R “Appetite For Destruction” album because it was playing at the time of the incident. She never went into the graphic details, and I had assumed she only told me about it out of respect, but I secretly hoped I could ever get my hands on the guy. I would beat him into a bloody pulp for hurting her. This was a confrontation I never expected to happen because he supposedly moved to Washington shortly after it happened. Even though Jenifer, being young and confused, never reported the rape to any authority figure it did happen.