Bread, Brie and Ibogaine: An Evening with the Ibogaine Crowd

by Andrew Arnett

“Here, talk to this guy,” Dana Beal said to me, motioning to a gentleman by the name of Paul Frank . Then Dana walked off, disappearing into the vapor shop, leaving me with Paul.

“I took acid when it was legal,” Paul told me, “I took a lot of acid.”

“Back in the sixties,” I commented.

“Before 68,” he said “68 was when they banned it. I took my last LSD trip in 69. During that trip, I felt 95% myself, and I realized that LSD is completely random.”

“Random,” I said. “Like gambling. That reminds me of what Jim Morrison once said. He said that drugs were a bet with the mind. I can’t imagine a drug that is more like that than LSD.”

I picked through the offerings on the buffet table. There was a robust assortment of cold cuts, cheeses, cut vegetables and loathes of bread.

A musician strummed on a guitar in the garden patio, singing a song by Bad Company.

“I feel like making love . . . “

I cut a slice of multi grain, a portion of brie, and grabbed an olive.

“LSD is random,” Paul continued “in that its effects could enhance, degrade or, afterwards, you remain the same. And, there’s no way to predict which way it will go. After I had that realization, I quite LSD for good. ”

“Well,” I added “you can’t win against the house. Ultimately.”

“I quite while I was ahead.”

At that point, the singer was done strumming his songs. He left the stage and Dana Beal took the podium.

“Thank you all for coming,” Dana said. “We are, at this point, two thousand dollars away from realizing the first phase of Ibogaine for Afghanistan . . .”

“Abbie Hoffman was a complete asshole,” Paul said to me.

“Well, yeah that whole hippie trip,” I said, “was a big brain washing to marginalize the anti war movement. The majority of middle Americans were already against the Vietnam War.”

“You’re being too naive,” Paul said. “The Pentagon is a black magic symbol. At the demonstration, we circled the Pentagon. We were going to make it levitate. But Abbie Hoffman spoke to the officials at the Pentagon before the demonstration, and the officials told him that there was no way they were going to allow the main entrance of the Pentagon to be blocked by protest. It was for security reasons. Abbie knew all this, but he went ahead with the demonstration anyway.”

“Hoffman was a hell of a P.R. man,” I said.

“I saw a guy get cracked across the face by a rifle butt. His skull was split wide open. Abbie was an asshole.”

A new performer took the small stage. He started singing a song by The Moody Blues. I could see Dana inside the shop, holding court in a vapor cloud.

“I’ve got to go,” Paul told me. “It was a pleasure.”

We shook hands and he walked out into the streets.

A burly bearded man walked up to me, told me his name was Kingsly.

“I was in jail for ten years on marijuana charges,” he tells me. “We’re going up to Albany in November to change things, so that doesn’t happen to people anymore.”

“Really,” I said “Tell me more.”