the mushroom tea. There was a big ol’ ‘shroom in the bottom of each mug, and we swallowed them. Trippy, dude. And that chick, her name was Tara, she gagged big-time on hers--chucked it right back up! It came shooting out of her mouth and hit the floor and I’ll be damned if Dave’s dog, a pit bull named AK, didn’t leap off the sofa and snarf that ‘shroom right down. No, I’m not kidding. And we’re all yelling, “No, AK, no!” but Dave said “That’s all right. AK used to trip ‘shrooms all the time in Eugene.”
Can you believe it? So now we’re tripping with a pit. I look at all the glass on the countertop in front of the torch. Jars with different length glass rods in them look like multicolored spaghetti: ruby, pink, amber-purple and lots of thin clear glass. “Just straight Pyrex,” Dave says. And the light coming in through the glass door starts shining on all the different-sized and colored rods, making rainbows, dude, the colors all shifting. Awesome! Now get this. Ted starts showing me the kiln. He lifts the lid and explains how it works, but all I can do is stare at these four pipes baking in there. Maybe it’s because I was tripping those ‘shrooms, I don’t know, but each one of the four pieces looked like a season.
Does that make any sense? I mean, one pipe looked like winter--all blue, white and cold; reminded me of Finland. Another flared with summer colors--yellow, orange, red; a pipe from Algiers or Morocco. The third was spring--bright greens shooting through this long glass tube. Costa Rica, baby, tropical rain forest pipe on a lily pad. And the fourth piece of course had your autumn colors: brown, black and gold. And I thought, “This guy’s a friggin’ genius, man.” And Dave keeps rapping about glass blowing, saying how it’s an ancient craft that goes back even before the Egyptians. You want history? They got it. Dude, glass blowing’s been around as long as ganja and astrology. Blowers even have their own patron saint, I kid you not. Saint Anthony Abate. Straight up. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it smart-ass; I can’t even spell it.
Then Ted really blows my mind. He whispers: “Dude, I think Dave’s girl just left him. Last night, Dave was out at the bar with some friends and Tammi came into the shop. We had a big talk. She told me Dave doesn’t ‘see’ her, but if she were a piece of glass he wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off her. Then, a minute ago when I was brewing the tea, I saw a yellow envelope on the kitchen table. Addressed to Dave. Sounds like she said adios with a Hallmark card, huh?”
Well, I’m listening to Ted tell me this stuff, and it’s blowing my mind because I saw a chick throw a suitcase in a car and drive off as I was getting there. So I whispered to Ted: “Redhead? Dreads like Dave’s?”
“Yep,” Ted says. “That’s Tammi, all right. Long-gone Tammi.”
Can you believe it, dude? His woman left without saying a word. Crazy. And he doesn’t have a clue!
So, we go back to the workbench where Dave was making a sweet bubbler for Stephen and Tara. I think they brought the mushrooms into town, dude, ‘cause they were from the Northwest--Vancouver, Eugene, somewhere like that. They said people trip ‘shrooms out there every day, dude. Can you imagine? Maybe they put ‘em in the water. Wanna trip? Take a drink. Now that’d be livin’! The electric community! I’m there, dude, that’s all I’m saying.
But anyway, this Stephen guy is telling Dave that since he’s a Sagittarius and Ted is an Aries that it’s natural they work with fire. Is that a trip? Fire signs working with fire. I don’t know what sign that Tara chick was, but I’ll tell you one thing: she was fire, dude. Hot, hOT, HOTTT!
So Stephen and Tara leave. Hell no they can’t hang with us. Can’t hang widda one-man gang, bro. Now we’re tripping balls. Shit’s meltin’ everywhere; visuals coming on like gangbusters, and Ted, he’s such a hoot, he looks at me and winks, then says to Dave, “So Bro, what have you and Tammi been up to?” And I look at Ted like, have you fucking lost your mind? ‘Cause I know my mind was lost, dude, out wandering in the forest of foggy mushroom mist. And Ted’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to help him tell Dave that his girl’s left him. Like what do I know about chicks? I know they’re trouble, that’s about it. And what they want from guys and what we want from them are two very different things, know what I’m saying, dude?
Then, check this out--Dave starts rapping about women. “Yeah, man,” he says, “Women. You just gotta treat ‘em right. Like the glass here, dude. You gotta talk to it, work with it, make love to it.”
And I’m thinking: “Buddy, what you don’t know.”
And Ted, he can’t leave well-enough alone because here he comes again, a woodpecker hittin’ the same damn hole time after time: “Dave … there’s something I gotta tell you.”
I wished there was something I could’ve thought to say--an interruption or something, but I stood there drawing blanks.
“Sure man,” Dave says, “what is it?”
“Well,” Ted began …
“Dude!” Dave suddenly shouted. “Would you look at this!”
The glass in the flame was a swirling cauldron of colors: peach, berry, orange, cherry; spinning yet all seemingly melting but yet, staying together, holding a molten shape. Pure poetry, man. And then Dave starts schooling Ted, ‘cause after all, he’s the apprentice, right? And Dave’s talking about this process called fuming, where you bleed in the color rod to the clear Pyrex shape you’re working with. Of course, it’s all with heat, all with the torch. Dave said it all works because glass traps fire’s heat, cooling it and keeping it for its own beauty. Is that cool or what?
So picture the planet Mars, all molten red. Now shrink it down to golf ball size--that’s what Dave had suspended in the flame. The shape was becoming a form. Then he did this etching stuff, where you take a piece of iron about the size of a pencil, and you start putting in swirls, curly-cues, swooshes– any design you want. For example, that astrologer dude was a Leo, so the piece Dave had made for him had the lion symbol; you know, the curly tail thing, all over the pipe. Talk about technique; if you push too hard the reamer goes right through the molten glass and you’ve ruined it. Touch and pressure are everything.
So this Dave is spinning and grinning, stylin’ and profilin’, and a guy shows up, Tim or something, and he says, “Hey, Dave, need any weed?
And Dave says, “Sure, need any ‘shrooms?
And this Tim guy says, “Is the pope Catholic?” And they both whip their bags out and trade: an ounce of kind buds for an ounce of ‘shrooms, plus Dave kicked him a piece. And I’m thinking, what a gig, you just sit there blowing glass all day and people bring you drugs.
Could you hang with that, bro?
So next thing you know we’re huffing again. Talk about smoking from a phat piece, you should see Dave’s personal bubbler. And this herb is killer: Willies, dude. I don’t think those guys even smoke schwag; I mean, why would you if you were surrounded by kind buds all day long?
Now Tim is talking about the band Tammi is in, and how they’re getting more gigs lately. He saw them play the other night.
“Dude,” he said to Dave. “Tammi’s good. She’s got a great voice.”
“Yeah,” Dave said, “that’s what I hear.”
“What! You mean you haven’t seen them?”
Dave’s shoulders sagged a little and a sigh escaped his lips like he’d explained this one before and was getting a little tired of it: “No,” he said, pausing. “It’s hard to leave the
