Trip

[Steelhead]

hb concludes that TRP (known as Trip in the acronym agot of the dc
underground) has a rather sophomoric understanding of the drug culture,
asserting that hard drugs (of the injectible genre) are absent from his
ouvre.

Hardly.

Seems there were quite a few needles being poked in quite a few veins in
GR. My pal Major Marvy gets a dose of sodium pen and boy does he get
transformed, right redbug?

LSD makes an interesting appearance in COL 49 as a tool of Dr. Hilarius,
the Nazi shrink.

Early on, Trip was dealing with drugs in a sophisticated and political way,
exploring which drugs were used as "controls" of the Firm and which as
sources of liberation and illumination.

Turns out of course that LSD, for example, was largely introduced in the
States by the CIA in its MKCULTURA program, backed by Nelson Rockefeller
and the Nazi scientists at Sandoz. Yet, in the hands of Kesey, Dylan,
Owsley and the Pranksters--LSD became a ticket to a counter-reality.
Leary--that pyscho-religious fascist and narc--is a more difficult
character, more similar in my mind to Hilarius and Madame Blavatsky.

Vineland's portrayal of Zoyd's trip on Yellow sunshine (was it?) during
Prairie's birth is one of the best recreations of an acid trip in
literature--if my own flashbacks are any guide.

Steely