deep january 1993

There are a million places I could start this story. I'll start it at the bar at Shawnee Peak, where I once spent a tremendous amount of time. I was in my first week of learning to snowboard, and well, the first week or two you really take a beating. I was also probably hung-over as well, as I often was those days (I love my friends from back then but we were all a bunch of raging alcoholics). Some kind of a news report came on TV about raves. There was something in it about smart drinks and I pronounced to the bartender that I could really use a smart drink. I was somewhat familiar with smart drinks and raves because Madeleine and Phil had been going to raves in San Francisco, but the news story was a real primer in raving. It was interesting because in 1977 I had seen a news story about the punk rock scene and a week later I was the drummer in Tapeworm. I had seen ads for acidhouse night at Kris Clark's Zoots night club but with my acidhead days long behind me it hadn't interested me. It turned out, however, that Kris was throwing a full on rave that Saturday night and I knew I had to be there. I had met Chandra the previous summer through her friend Erin whose older brother Shawn was my roommate that summer. They had had another friend Becky who happened to answer my ad for a roommate in the Bridgton News after Shawn moved out. Chandra, who technically lived with her Mom started spending every night with us and it was really, really fun. Erin was going to college in Orono. I had this somewhat rave inspired Shriekback CD called Sacred City and Chandra was hooked on it. I also had Jah Wobble's Rising Above Bedlam which featured Sinead O'Conner on the incredible track Visions of You and Chandra loved it. Pretty hip for a young girl from Bridgton. I tried to round up a crowd to go but somehow it wound up being just Chandra and I. My old friend Amy was friends with Kris Clark (his wife Cindy worked with Amy at the Pepperclub) and we were supposed to meet Amy and her friend Sabine at Amy's apartment and head over together. We arrived at the magnificent old Fore Street warehouse (Portland Yacht Services) to see crowds and police and hearing the thump-thumping through the walls and seeing the lights through the windows. As we headed in I quickly realized we most certainly weren't in Bridgton anymore. I had lived in the country so long I was quickly soaking up the crowds and the culture. And the Music! I really had no idea how incredibly cool the music was going to be. Back then it was all about the music and the people and even though Kris had a star-studded line-up the DJs weren't up under the spotlights or anything. Unlike a rock concert the focus was never on the stage and the crowd evolved into a huge circle. I was at the party all of like five minutes when Amy introduced me to Kris. I felt like I was home again. I looked up and there was Chandra under the lights dancing like an egyptian goddess with flashbulbs and cameras all around her (the above picture captures that moment forever and was delivered to me by Kris the day of Deep '96). It was an amazing night and my life really changed that night. I realized what a rut my Bridgton lifestyle had become for me and vowed to reawaken and change. Was it the smart drinks? I don't think so, the girl who ran Kris' bar before me, Lee, made terrible drinks that tasted awful, although she did use the Durk and Sandy products I later used. It was the VIBE! Parties back then had this incredible almost religious revival type fervor to them. We really felt like we could change the world. And do you know what? My world changed. I remember sitting on Forest Avenue with Chandra waiting for a freight train to cross and the clicketty clack of the train became an extension of the party as we congratulated each other for pulling it off. Two days later I was in a tree at Gyger's Orchard pruning an apple tree when I came up with the Excellent Drinks name and idea (Lee's drinks were really bad after all) and walked right out of the orchard to call Madeleine about getting Smart Powders. I decided to quit drinking and after a raging bender with my brother-in-law Rick and my crazy British friend Ben, I went on the wagon (this lasted 3 1/2 years until Michele and I drank champagne together to celebrate our love). In search of more I went to Zoots the next weekend for the first time and Kris introduced me to Dale Charles who sold me two tapes which I spent the rest of the Winter snowboarding madly to. The next morning I tried to call Chandra and one of her roommates asked me to come over and that it was important. One of my drinking buddies and good friend Greg Hagerman had been killed in a drunk-driving caused crash the night before and Chandra was pretty much in shock. It turned out that Greg had just a few days before sworn his eternal allegiance to Chandra, proclaiming that he would always be there for her. I tried to comfort Chandra as best as could, talking about reincarnation and ever-lasting souls. We went to Shawnee Peak to the deck where Greg and I used to cook barbeques together. At some point as we drove through the country, Chandra turned to me and asked if we could promise to make sure our souls were together forever. Somehow, it seemed appropriate even though we were not lovers and hadn't even known each other that long. The promise was made and as best as I can tell has been kept. We returned to the farmhouse and played Visions of You with a profound new significance. Between quitting drinking and snowboarding obsessively, the weight melted off me that winter. I had just started the X painting above the day before Deep and began painting many of those smaller paintings somewhat effortlessly. I started making T-Shirts from many of my paintings. The Winter of 1993 was an incredibly magical time for me and it all started with Deep.