Brian Markovitz

Today, Daniel chat’s with Brian Markovitz, aka “HappyCat” about all things related to psychedelia & love for The Grateful Dead. Brian is the founder & curator of Deadheadland, a fantastic virtual theme park known as the “Happeningest Place in the World,” based in San Rafael, CA.

Brian rants on Reagan’s War on Drugs & how it negatively shaped the culture of the 80’s & 90’s & how presently it seems that things are moving towards a much more positive direction concerning the acceptance of esp. psychedelics being used therapeutically.  He also shares tons of funny personal anecdotes from  his experiences with psychedelics over the years. 

Quotes:

Brian: Before I ever even smoked pot or tried psychedelics, I read as much as I could about the subject. I wanted to know what I was getting into!  In the 70’s, people around me were more into getting fucked up, taking quaaludes & such & I wanted to be more constructive with my relationship with substances. 

Brian: I was always really interested & fascinated with possible alternate dimensions & realities, so psychedelics seemed to me a great way to explore that curiosity. I wanted to learn about actual magic and what’s possible in the “real world” to experience this.

Brian: I was a student of pantomime & went to mime school actually, where the first rule of mime school is “we don’t talk about that!”

Brian: Psychedelic experiences for me have always been fun. My first few times doing acid I didn’t really have any mind blowing experiences, but doing mundane things with friends like throwing a frisbee, hackysacking, and listening to music were so much more fun & were enhanced by the LSD. 

Brian: In the 80’s, during the height of the bullshit drug wars, the “just say no era,” it was like you couldn’t even share you positive psychedelic experiences with people because it was like all drug use of any kind was lumped together as bad, as negative gateways. 

Brian: The first time I’d eaten mushrooms I kinda forgot that I’d eaten them & an hour later was staring at the side of a building saying to my friends “oh wow cool, they’re projecting cartoons on the side of this building!” And my friends started laughing loudly…it took me a while to figure out that I was the only one seeing the cartoons!  

Brian: I think that the big reason why Dead fans stick together is because of how the shared sense of psychedelics with the music takes us deeper into ourselves & makes us want to share it with other people, & this bonds us together. Like if alcohol for example was the common drug used then I doubt that the community would be as long lasting as it’s been.

Dan: Taking psychedelics & dancing to great music, it’s like we can circumvent shadow work & move right to the joy. Thy joy itself is healing & it chips away at our crap from the back end.