An amazing and kinda funny story about a synth repairman and an accidental LSD trip

The 1960s counterculture had a great impact on society that lasts to this day, and some remnants are felt this year, literally. Eliot Curtis, the Broadcast Operations Manager for KPIX Television, felt that. He was recently tasked with the restoration of a vintage Buchla Model 100 modular synthesizer - an instrument that had been sitting in a cool, dark room at Cal State University East Bay since the 1960s. Curtis opened a red-paneled module on the Buchla, at which point he saw “a crust or a crystalline residue on it.” Curtis sprayed a cleaning solvent on the area and attempted to dislodge the crystal with his finger. After 45 minutes, Curtis was overcome with a strange tingling sensation, followed by a nine-hour trip. The substance found on the instrument was later tested and identified as LSD, local San Francisco CBS outlet KPIX reports. The instrument’s inventor - the late Don Buchla of Berkeley - was heavily enmeshed in 1960s counterculture, and the legend has it that Buchla dipped a particular panel of those early electronic instruments in LSD, so that “the person using it could lick it to get some inspiration”. With Curtis everything ended up fine - he dosed at home, in front of his wife Holly, who said “I think it’s super wild. I think this whole situation is a nice chapter in the history of the counter culture”.