Does anybody find it odd that one of the Rolling Stones’ most successful albums, “Sticky Fingers,” is pretty much almost entirely about heroine obsession, with a thimble full of coke addiction thrown in for good measure? Well, to get right down to it, it’s actually an album about heroine obsession posing as an album about sex. “Sticky Fingers,” sounds like a clarion call to jerk off, but it’s actually referring to the residue left on one’s fingers if one touches black tar heroine.

Hmmm, let’s see, there’s the first track, “Brown Sugar,” which leads us to believe that Mick has a thing for women of color. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but to me Brown Sugar doesn’t exactly sound like something you bake cookies with, but rather, once again, some dark gooey black tar heroine.

Then there’s the whiney, jonesing, “Can You Hear Me Knocking,” a song that conjures up images of strung out Stones trying to get a fix from their drug dealer who doesn’t seem to understand the pressing urgency of the request. I think the popular little ditty goes something like, “Y’all got cocaine eyes, Yeah, you got speed-freak jive.”

In the tune, “Sway,” Jagger croons: “Did you ever wake up to find, A day that broke up your mind,
Destroyed your notion of circular time, It’s just that demon life has got you in its sway.” I’m pretty sure heroine destroys one’s notion of circular time and it has been described as a demon in literature of the William Blake variety.

“Sister Morphine,” which Jagger wrote with ex-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull is almost too obvious to mention. But I do love the hokey line refering to, “Cousin Cocaine.” “This shot will be my last,” I think not.

Not really because the next track, “Dead Flowers,” which sounds like a cute little scathing attack on a high fallutin’ hipster comes out with the line, “I’ll be in my basement room,
With a needle and a spoon, And another girl to take my pain away.” As we at Rolling Stones University understand, in Jagger-ese, a girl can also be a drug. The two are indistinguishable as sources of intense pleasure and addiction.

Several years later, as if to make absolute sure the audience was clear on the subject matter, the band came out with the album, “Some Girls.” That one made over $12 million in record sales. I guess heroine is an acquired taste.

August 24, 2005

Photo: A retro Rodney Bingenheimer and members of the seminal New York glam punk band, The Mumps

Apologies for the dearth of entries this month. Mercury Retrograde demolished my computer for several days. If you think drugs alter your perception, try being a millennium DSL-addicted writer sans machine. That’s what I call, “ghost in the machine,” or “spirits in the material world,” to use Police jargon. You’ve heard of soldiers going off to war, losing a leg and having the “phantom limb.” Well, it was the technological version of that–my fingers inexplicably going for that mouse that wasn’t there, feeling as if I could click someone “off,” or hit the “back” button and repeat a moment.

Amidst all of this, I went to West Hollywood IHOP–which I call gay ghetto IHOP because the whole time you have the sinking suspicion that the cute b-boy queen in the kitchen is doing dubious sexual things to your food. It is, of course in Hollywood terms also known as one of Rodney Bingenheime’s offices. You know, “The Mayor of the Sunset Strip,” psychedelic underground garage punk’s patron saint? Like clockwork–a sort of hipster version of Nicholson’s character in “As Good As It Gets,” only nice–he goes to this one of three hot spots daily. Office hours are: Denny’s at 1:00PM, IHOP at 5:00PM and Canter’s at 11:00PM.

We chatted about the old days of LA Punk and The Germs, while he at his pilgrim-hour dinner. One of the dishes shall forever be thought of, in my mind, as Rodney’s Banana Surprise. The surprise is two-fold: 1/ The unlikely plate-buddy of garlic bread and 2/ The banana sits in its own peel which has been pulled back on one side to reveal a row of neatly cut up banana. “Do they do that just for you?” I asked Rodney. He smiled sheeplishly, “Yeah.” It was sort of endearing, like something your mother does to dote on you, except imagine that your mother is a gay Latino guy with peach fuzz. He ordered a nice healthy fish dinner, which didn’t look bad. “The food is really good here,” Rodney told me, “It’s Hollywood’s best kept secret.” It looks like Hollywood has loose lips because word of that secret eaterie seems to have slipped out on the street.
Urban eccentricity makes for good dinner companions. After all, if food can’t be entertaining, or at least the subject of a BLOG entry, what has the world come to?

P.S. The garlic bread at IHOP is pretty kicking. But don’t tell anyone or the place will be swamped.

Lately, I can’t help but notice that something rather fascinating has happened to my perception of reality. At first I thought it might be due to lack of sleep or some other physiological functioning but now I’m quite convinced that it’s an evolutionary adaptation. In the same way that computer software gets upgraded, I believe that human beings’ consciousness (if one can handle it and be open and aware of it) also gets upgraded.

So the new Human Consciousness 2.0 is interesting because it’s not necessarily about speed and excessive data intake. It’s more about slowing down, viewing/sensing/experiencing things in an amorphous, energetic manner, and NOT focusing on the details and the labels. Suddenly, I’m more conscious than ever before of energies. At times I get a sense that my visual landscape is ersatz (perhaps that’s why focusing on the details no longer seems germane). I simply sense the energy beneath it all and words even–these tools of my trade–fail to describe it in its entirety.

I had a conversation today with someone about energy. We decided that most people think the concept is a load of bullshit. But those of us who are sensetive to it use it, mold it like clay–imbue it with our creativity. We understand that all the cliches (”we’re all connected,” “all of this is just maya”) are actually based in Truth. We act as Energy Alchemists. And as we sense the movements, the constantly evolving and devolving energy landscape, we begin to understand that we can move this energy around–from person to person–from consciousness to consciousness.

Anyone who has ever tried creative visualization can relate to the above. You sit back–in a sensory deprived environment–close your eyes, breathe deeply, get yourself into a rhythm until you’re completly relaxed. Then you imagine the feeling of having whatever it is you desire–for example, a great job, a house that’s right for you, a partner–and you actually experience the energy behind these notions moving toward you. You engage in several sessions and before you know it that which you had envisioned is in front of you. You may not recognize it by sight. It may not resemble what you had visualized at all. You recognize it by its energetic field–a field which affects your very energy. If none of this resonates at all, go back to your TV, plop down on the couch with a bag of chips and come back to this in a couple of years when you’re emotionally ready, have taken psychedelics or had a major breakdown or breakthrough of some sort.

In a strange nexus of the Universe known as Pasadena, I cavort with bows, arrows and the men who wield them on a late Sunday afternoon accompanied by partner in crime Jena.us. Archery is a retro, dignified, survivalist hobby…But it’s those mighty stylin’ Thor-like leather arm guards that piqued our interest. However, make no mistake it’s not for the faint of heart…or the faintly metrosexual.