Like psychedelics and the novels of Frank Herbert, Flipside is really something you have to experience firsthand in order to understand and appreciate. Keeping this in mind will help while reading the following snippets of the mind/heart/body/soul altering time I had in the Pedernales Valley.

I spent my time fraternizing with clowns, poets, spacemen, tipsy gypsies, human unicorns, fire dancers, hippies, puppeteers, adventurers, sculptors, djs and tie-dye enthusiasts; listening to salacious haiku, watching blacklit croquet, attending tea parties and sock puppet poetry jams, sloshing through funhouses, bouncing on trampolines, whirling through balloon temples, eating beef jerky and dried fruit, lounging in space camp, tramping through the woods, communing with the stars, wading the creek, watching people and penguins do many, many things with fire, sunbathing topless, prancing around in pixie wings, hiking, hiking, hiking; questing for ice, learning belly dancing, relaxing in a genie bottle, meditating in a glowing labyrinth, receiving gifts from the universe, swimming naked in the moonlight, watching fireflies, absorbing hill country panoramas, watching my hair slowly weave itself into dreadlocks, writing and rearranging poetry, laughing, drinking, and dancing.

Dancing under flaming rainbow pyramids forming energy nexuses for dance floors, dancing amidst flame throwers and feathered men and fortune cookies in the street, dancing in glowing hexagonal globes, dancing in nefarious circuses, dancing in tents, dancing on trails, dancing in the creek. Dancing to dark psy trance, dancing to happy hardcore, dancing to drum and bass, dancing to dub stub, dancing to indian ambient, dancing to hard dance, dancing to bongo drums, dancing to wooden flutes, dancing to cricket chirps, dancing to the wind or the beat in my own head.

I did everything I hoped except attend naked tea.

And that is merely a fraction of the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, treats, delights, thoughts and thrills I experienced.

I found myself on the Flipside.

My recent seismic shift in situation will, with any luck, bring about a paradigm shift in mind. I am in need of metamorphosis. I went to see a movie by myself for the first time ever last night, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I feel refreshed and inspired. I am anxious to start painting my new room now. If it turns out well, I'll post pictures.

I'm going to start making a concentrated effort to focus more on art. I've been without it for so long, curled up inside myself with no outlet, not even wanting to create. I finally feel inspired, bursting with ideas, blooming in the autumn. I hope to get the paintings I did almost two years ago up sometime this month along with several new ones and maybe some mixed media pieces. A jack'o'lantern perhaps?

"I hate people at Halloween that don’t carve their pumpkin out, they’ll just like paint a face on it; you know what I’m talking about? But some people won’t even do that, they’ll paint a face, but it won’t even be on a pumpkin, it’ll be like on a piece of paper. But some people won’t even do that, they’ll take like a bunch of words and put that on a piece of paper, and it’ll be like an essay on Ben Franklin or some shit, you know? And then they’ll hand it in at school and it won’t even be Halloween! It’s like, pffft, nice jack-o-lantern, jackass!"

- Kyle Cease

I have a job that rocks. Peace out.

I had a great weekend visiting friends. I just wish someone would hire me so I could focus without guilt on making something.