I went in 1981 (it was my senior year in college). A few nights before Mardi Gras I was watching a parade. The wind was blowing strong and a Hispanic-looking guy with a military haircut, on shore leave apparently, had his hat blown off into the street. He crossed the barricade to pick it up. The cops are very serious about not letting anyone into the street. They jumped on him. He said, “I just wanted my hat.” They threw him to the ground pounded him stomped him handcuffed him and dragged him off, all the time he was pitifully repeating “I just wanted my hat.”
On the evening of Mardi Gras, just before sunset, I stood on Bourbon Street in the milling crowd. On the second-floor balcony of a hotel overlooking the street stood a young lady, topless, showing off her breasts. But above her on the fourth floor balcony stood a fully clothed woman with long straight hair down to her knees. She had draped it gloriously over the side like Rapunzel. Everyone’s attention was on her! I mean, all women have tits, but hair like that is one in a million. Then some imbecile on the floor above her dripped beer on her head so she retreated inside.
At dinner I dropped some LSD but for some reason it took several hours to peak. Saw a bunch of guys walking around in bald wigs and orange bathrobes, on the back was written, “Krewe of Krishna.” As I walked alone through the dark streets (my hair was down to my shoulders), I felt a hand pull on my shoulder from behind. I turned around, and as soon as the guy saw my beard, he muttered something inaudible and slunk away into the darkness. I mean, even from behind you can tell the shape of a man’s or a woman’s shoulders, right? He must have been awfully drunk.
At midnight the revelry suddenly came to a stop and we boarded a packed streetcar to go back. As I stood waiting to go, I decided to practice a meditative exercise from Gareth Knight’s book Experience of the Inner Worlds: Breathe in to illuminate a light at the crown of your head. Breathing out, send the light through your feet down to the center of the earth, where there is an Intelligence. Breathing in, take it up to a high distant point of light. I went through that a few times and suddenly the LSD kicked in. The Intelligence at the center of the earth said to me, “Had enough practice? Now do you want to really do it?” WHOOOOOSSH!!! My consciousness was blown away by an enormous gusher of energy high up into the sky. Went through the cycle several more times with that entity’s energy added to mine, it was such a powerful trip.
On the way back to my sister’s place, we dropped off one of her college friends, a very beautiful young lady from Puerto Rico. She was telling me next year she planned to go to Rio for Carnaval. She sweetly kissed me good night and my po’ li’l heart was all a-pitter-patter.