Temper, temper...

What makes you so angry you just flip out? If you are human, you have flipped out once or twice or every day. It always seems, in retrospect, to be so foolish, so trivial, so ... damn-I-got-worked-up-over-that? kinda thing.
I think anger serves a purpose to our core identities, though. It defines our boundaries, as in- "That shit you said fucking pisses me off." Anger protects our physical selves when dealing with other hostile primates, as in- "You don't step off, I'm a gonna fuck you up" and when anger is directed inward it motivates us to improve ourselves lest we slide into sorrow and oblivion re: "Gawddamn I need to get off my fat ass and go have some fun."
But then there's that seething white hot confusion when the needle hits red and suddenly you're just along for the ride. I believe that people raised in the relatively stress-free, padded-corners sue-somebody-if-you-twist-your-ankle world of suburban white Christian Amerika have never experienced pure unblemished primeval rage. Most of the people that go into politics and law, the lemming-brained twits that actually enjoy sitting in meetings and drafting all the laws we live by, the marshmallowy bible-humping clones that determine how our basic animal nature should be "dealt with", probably have never even seen a schoolyard scrap.
There's a law here in Washington, infrequently mentioned in police reports, that dismisses certain situations as "mutual combat" wherein both parties do not wish to pursue the matter legally. Were that it so on a more frequent basis. Anger and conflict can be useful, fun and character building. Just seek diplomacy when guns come into play, 'cause damn... nothing sez lemming-brain like firearms. Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Prophet Darwin.

When Was Your Last LSD Trip?

It was my twenty-seventh birthday the final time I dropped acid. It had been seven years since I'd quit that crap, but it seemed the proper time and place to gobble a hit. The Oregon Country Fair had become a sort of "family" reunion by that point, an orgy of overcrowding, bad hippie music, smelly damn porta-johns and strange sequences of events for friends all over the West.
I'd been fired from the bakery in Seattle because I took a day off to attend mi amigo's funeral, so I borrowed a Honda Prelude from my cool, new, under-the-table construction boss and packed my StumpJumper and a month's worth of food stamps (converted to a portable sandwich shop) into what was essentially a two-seater. I stopped only once to wedge in a couple of hitchhikers from Portland.
The fair the next morning seemed just too crowded and expensive to my friends and I. Granted, we did eat about a gram of mushrooms each for breakfast, things were very colorful but kind of overwhelming. So we set up shop under a cluster of small pine trees and proceeded to sell beer, made-to-order sammiches and drugs to all comers just outside the gates of the fair. 'Twas a wonderful, profitable day in the sunshine with many poorly remembered deep conversations with complete strangers. As the shadows lengthened and the 'shrooms wore off, we decided those last few unsold tabs of acid could start the evening right. We packed our little mini-mart and discussed a plan of action for what we should already be doing when the drug took hold of us. Someone mentioned the Oregon Dunes for sunset and there was an instant consensus amongst Hoss, Dina and I that this was where we needed to get.
We consulted a map and a watch and discovered the Dunes were 68 miles away, and we had 80 minutes until sunset.
Those little Preludes sure can go, when everything is in high-def and you can actually hear the colors of the road through your fingertips. I kept the speedometer pegged for minutes on end through the most beautiful curvy mountain highway I'd ever seen.
We found a spot to park with ten minutes to spare, then scrambled over the dunes to see the most spectacular sunset lighting the endless stretch of the Pacific. The water was purple and sounded like Rachmaninoff. The sky was Vivaldi orange, yellow and red, with endless stretches of brightly glowing cloud.
Of course the clothes came off, and I sprinted straight north along the waterline until the daylight died with my junk happily flapping. The dune buggy people were gone for the day so I was alone but for my friends, who I believe were fucking up in the dunes somewhere as I ran full tilt into perfect synesthesia. One of the best hours of my life, despite the long, tiresome comedown later that night. The next weekend I accidentally cut my foot off, but that's a whole 'nother story.