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USA Compression Partners, LP Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2017 Results; Provides 2018 Outlook
February 12, 2018 06:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--USA Compression Partners, LP (NYSE: USAC) ("USA Compression" or the "Partnership") announced today its financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2017. Net income was $4.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $4.8 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $3.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Net cash provided by operating activities was $39.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $33.0 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $9.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2016.
Adjusted EBITDA was $42.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $40.8 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $36.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Distributable Cash Flow was $33.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to $30.8 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $28.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2016.
"As it regards our fourth quarter performance, USA Compression ended the year with continued growth, with contract compression service revenues up more than 5% over the third quarter and average revenue generating horsepower increasing over 50,000 horsepower compared to the third quarter," said Eric D. Long, USA Compression's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Over the course of 2017, we continued to deploy units and now have approximately 240,000 more revenue-generating horsepower out in the field than we did a year ago. Our primary focus on infrastructure applications and our team's efforts at redeploying idle equipment has resulted in increased fleet utilization – approaching 95% by the end of 2017. Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow were also both up quarter-over-quarter."
"For 2018, we have made commitments to take delivery of approximately 150,000 horsepower throughout the year, the majority of which consist of very large horsepower units already committed to customers or under contract with customers," he said. "The improving performance resulted in leverage of 4.65x and improved total coverage for the quarter at 0.99x."
"In January, we announced a series of transactions which will result, among other things, in USA Compression acquiring the CDM Resource Management business from Energy Transfer Partners and Energy Transfer Equity acquiring USA Compression's general partner. We expect these transactions to be accretive to USA Compression's Distributable Cash Flow and continue to expect these transactions to close in the first half of 2018. We will provide additional information as we are able to," he concluded.
Average revenue generating horsepower was 1,602,365 for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to 1,548,656 for the third quarter of 2017 and 1,366,371 for the fourth quarter of 2016. Average revenue per revenue generating horsepower per month was $15.21 for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $15.13 for the third quarter of 2017 and $15.07 for the fourth quarter of 2016.
Revenues were $75.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $72.8 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $74.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Gross operating margin was $50.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $49.4 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $45.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Gross operating margin as a percentage of total revenues was 66.8% for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to 67.8% for the third quarter of 2017 and 60.2% for the fourth quarter of 2016. Operating income was $11.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2017, consistent with $11.5 million for the third quarter of 2017 and compared to $8.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2016.
Expansion capital expenditures were $50.6 million, maintenance capital expenditures were $2.2 million and cash interest expense, net was $6.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2017.
On January 18, 2018, the Partnership announced a cash distribution of $0.525 per unit on its common units. This fourth quarter distribution corresponds to an annualized distribution rate of $2.10 per unit. The distribution will be paid on February 14, 2018 to unitholders of record as of the close of business on February 2, 2018. USA Compression Holdings, LLC, the owner of approximately 40% of the Partnership's outstanding limited partner interests, elected not to reinvest any part of this distribution with respect to its units pursuant to the Partnership's Distribution Reinvestment Plan (the "DRIP"). For the fourth quarter of 2017, the Partnership's Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio was 0.99x and Cash Coverage Ratio was 1.00x.
Operational and Financial Data
Three Months Ended Year Ended
December 31, September 30, December 31, December 31,
Operational Data
Fleet Horsepower (at period end) 1,799,781 1,757,720 1,720,547 1,799,781 1,720,547
Revenue Generating Horsepower (at period end) 1,624,377 1,557,825 1,387,073 1,624,377 1,387,073
Average Revenue Generating Horsepower 1,602,365 1,548,656 1,366,371 1,505,657 1,377,966
Revenue Generating Compression Units (at period end) 2,830 2,793 2,552 2,830 2,552
Horsepower Utilization (at period end) (1) 94.8 % 94.2 % 87.1 % 94.8 % 87.1 %
Average Horsepower Utilization (for the period) (1) 94.7 % 94.1 % 87.4 % 92.0 % 87.4 %
Financial Data ($ in thousands, except per horsepower data)
Revenue $ 75,385 $ 72,791 $ 74,913 $ 280,222 $ 265,921
Average Revenue Per Revenue Generating Horsepower Per Month (2) $ 15.21 $ 15.13 $ 15.07 $ 15.07 $ 15.41
Net income $ 4,546 $ 4,789 $ 3,269 $ 11,440 $ 12,935
Operating income $ 11,527 $ 11,508 $ 8,894 $ 37,080 $ 34,408
Net cash provided by operating activities $ 39,343 $ 33,029 $ 9,101 $ 124,644 $ 103,697
Gross Operating Margin (3) $ 50,340 $ 49,350 $ 45,120 $ 187,631 $ 177,760
Gross Operating Margin Percentage 66.8% 67.8% 60.2% 67.0% 66.8%
Adjusted EBITDA (3) $ 42,111 $ 40,849 $ 36,461 $ 155,703 $ 146,648
Adjusted EBITDA Percentage 55.9% 56.1% 48.7% 55.6% 55.1%
Distributable Cash Flow (3) $ 33,223 $ 30,811 $ 28,703 $ 118,330 $ 118,329
(1) Horsepower utilization is calculated as (i) the sum of (a) revenue generating horsepower; (b) horsepower in the Partnership's fleet that is under contract but is not yet generating revenue; and (c) horsepower not yet in the Partnership's fleet that is under contract, not yet generating revenue and is subject to a purchase order, divided by (ii) total available horsepower less idle horsepower that is under repair.
Horsepower utilization based on revenue generating horsepower and fleet horsepower at each applicable period end was 90.3%, 88.6% and 80.6% for the quarters ended December 31, 2017, September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively, and 90.3% and 80.6% for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
Average horsepower utilization based on revenue generating horsepower and fleet horsepower was 90.0%, 88.4% and 79.4% for the quarters ended December 31, 2017, September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively, and 85.9% and 80.3% for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.
(2) Calculated as the average of the result of dividing the contractual monthly rate for all units at the end of each month in the period by the sum of the revenue generating horsepower at the end of each month in the period.
(3) Gross operating margin, Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow are all non-U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("Non-GAAP") financial measures. For the definition of each measure, see "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" below.
Liquidity and Credit Facility
As of December 31, 2017, the Partnership was in compliance with all covenants under its $1.1 billion revolving credit facility. As of December 31, 2017, the outstanding balance under the revolving credit facility, which matures in 2020, was $782.9 million.
Full-Year 2018 Outlook
USA Compression is providing its full-year 2018 guidance as follows:
Net income range of $30.0 million to $40.0 million;
A forward-looking estimate of net cash provided by operating activities is not provided because the items necessary to estimate net cash provided by operating activities, in particular the change in operating assets and liabilities, are not accessible or estimable at this time. The Partnership does not anticipate the changes in operating assets and liabilities to be material, but changes in accounts receivable, accounts payable, accrued liabilities and deferred revenue could be significant, such that the amount of net cash provided by operating activities would vary substantially from the amount of projected Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow;
Adjusted EBITDA range of $180.0 million to $190.0 million; and
Distributable Cash Flow range of $130.0 million to $140.0 million.
Please note this 2018 guidance does not include any effects from the USA Compression announcement made on January 16, 2018 to acquire the CDM Resource Management business from Energy Transfer Partners and Energy Transfer Equity acquiring USA Compression's general partner. The series of transactions, as discussed in the announcement, are expected to close during the first half of 2018, subject to closing conditions.
The Partnership will host a conference call today beginning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (10:00 a.m. Central Time) to discuss fourth quarter and full-year 2017 performance. The call will be broadcast live over the Internet. Investors may participate either by phone or audio webcast.
By Phone: Dial 800-281-7973 inside the U.S. and Canada at least 10 minutes before the call and ask for the USA Compression Partners Earnings Call. Investors outside the U.S. and Canada should dial 323-794-2093. The conference ID for both is 7346137.
A replay of the call will be available through February 23, 2018. Callers inside the U.S. and Canada may access the replay by dialing 888-203-1112. Investors outside the U.S. and Canada should dial 719-457-0820. The conference ID for both is 7346137.
By Webcast:
Connect to the webcast via the "Events" page of USA Compression's Investor Relations website at http://investors.usacompression.com. Please log in at least 10 minutes in advance to register and download any necessary software. A replay will be available shortly after the call.
About USA Compression Partners, LP
USA Compression Partners, LP is a growth-oriented Delaware limited partnership that is one of the nation's largest independent providers of compression services in terms of total compression fleet horsepower. The Partnership partners with a broad customer base composed of producers, processors, gatherers and transporters of natural gas and crude oil. The Partnership focuses on providing compression services to infrastructure applications primarily in high-volume gathering systems, processing facilities and transportation applications. More information is available at usacompression.com.
This news release includes the non-GAAP financial measures of Adjusted EBITDA, gross operating margin, Distributable Cash Flow, Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio and Cash Coverage Ratio.
Management views Adjusted EBITDA as one of its primary management tools, and the Partnership tracks this item on a monthly basis both as an absolute amount and as a percentage of revenue compared to the prior month, year-to-date, prior year and budget. The Partnership defines EBITDA as net income (loss) before net interest expense, depreciation and amortization expense, and income tax expense. The Partnership defines Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA plus impairment of compression equipment, impairment of goodwill, interest income on capital lease, unit-based compensation expense, severance charges, certain transaction fees, loss (gain) on disposition of assets and other. Adjusted EBITDA is used as a supplemental financial measure by management and external users of its financial statements, such as investors and commercial banks, to assess:
the financial performance of the Partnership's assets without regard to the impact of financing methods, capital structure or historical cost basis of the Partnership's assets;
the viability of capital expenditure projects and the overall rates of return on alternative investment opportunities;
the ability of the Partnership's assets to generate cash sufficient to make debt payments and to make distributions; and
the Partnership's operating performance as compared to those of other companies in its industry without regard to the impact of financing methods and capital structure.
Management believes that Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to investors because, when viewed with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP") results and the accompanying reconciliations, it provides a more complete understanding of the Partnership's performance than GAAP results alone. Management also believes that external users of its financial statements benefit from having access to the same financial measures that management uses in evaluating the results of the Partnership's business.
Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income (loss), operating income (loss), cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance or liquidity presented in accordance with GAAP as measures of operating performance and liquidity. Moreover, Adjusted EBITDA as presented may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.
Gross operating margin is defined as revenue less cost of operations, exclusive of depreciation and amortization expense. Management believes that gross operating margin is useful as a supplemental measure of the Partnership's operating profitability. Gross operating margin is impacted primarily by the pricing trends for service operations and cost of operations, including labor rates for service technicians, volume and per unit costs for lubricant oils, quantity and pricing of routine preventative maintenance on compression units and property tax rates on compression units. Gross operating margin should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, operating income (loss), its most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with GAAP. Moreover, gross operating margin as presented may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies. Because the Partnership capitalizes assets, depreciation and amortization of equipment is a necessary element of its costs. To compensate for the limitations of gross operating margin as a measure of the Partnership's performance, management believes that it is important to consider operating income (loss) determined under GAAP, as well as gross operating margin, to evaluate the Partnership's operating profitability. A reconciliation of gross operating margin to operating income is provided in this news release.
Distributable Cash Flow is defined as net income (loss) plus non-cash interest expense, non-cash income tax expense, depreciation and amortization expense, unit-based compensation expense, impairment of compression equipment, impairment of goodwill, certain transaction fees, severance charges, loss (gain) on disposition of assets, proceeds from insurance recovery and other, less maintenance capital expenditures.
Distributable Cash Flow should not be considered as an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income (loss), operating income (loss), cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with GAAP as measures of operating performance and liquidity. Moreover, our Distributable Cash Flow as presented may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.
Management believes Distributable Cash Flow is an important measure of operating performance because such measure allows management, investors and others to compare basic cash flows the Partnership generates (prior to any retained cash reserves established by the Partnership's general partner and the effect of the DRIP) to the cash distributions the Partnership expects to pay its unitholders.
Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio, a non-GAAP measure, is defined as Distributable Cash Flow less cash distributions to be paid to the Partnership's general partner and incentive distribution rights ("IDRs") in respect of such period, divided by distributions declared to limited partner unitholders in respect of such period. Cash Coverage Ratio is defined as Distributable Cash Flow less cash distributions to be paid to the Partnership's general partner and IDRs in respect of such period, divided by cash distributions expected to be paid to limited partner unitholders in respect of such period, after taking into account the non-cash impact of the DRIP. Management believes Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio and Cash Coverage Ratio are important measures of operating performance because they allow management, investors and others to gauge the Partnership's ability to pay cash distributions to limited partner unitholders using the cash flows the Partnership generates. The Partnership's Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio and Cash Coverage Ratio as presented may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies.
This news release also contains a forward-looking estimate of Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow projected to be generated by the Partnership in its 2018 fiscal year. A forward-looking estimate of net cash provided by operating activities and reconciliations of the forward-looking estimates of Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow to net cash provided by operating activities are not provided because the items necessary to estimate net cash provided by operating activities, in particular the change in operating assets and liabilities, are not accessible or estimable at this time. The Partnership does not anticipate the changes in operating assets and liabilities to be material, but changes in accounts receivable, accounts payable, accrued liabilities and deferred revenue could be significant, such that the amount of net cash provided by operating activities would vary substantially from the amount of projected Adjusted EBITDA and Distributable Cash Flow.
See "Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" for Adjusted EBITDA reconciled to net income (loss) and net cash provided by operating activities, and net income (loss) and net cash provided by operating activities reconciled to Distributable Cash Flow, Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio and Cash Coverage Ratio.
Some of the information in this news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology including "may," "believe," "expect," "intend," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," or other similar words, and include the Partnership's expectation of future performance contained herein, including as described under "Full-Year 2018 Outlook." These statements discuss future expectations, contain projections of results of operations or of financial condition, or state other "forward-looking" information. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which can be affected by assumptions used or by known risks or uncertainties. Consequently, no forward-looking statements can be guaranteed. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors noted below and other cautionary statements in this news release. The risk factors and other factors noted throughout this news release could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Known material factors that could cause the Partnership's actual results to differ materially from the results contemplated by such forward-looking statements are described in Part I, Item 1A ("Risk Factors") of the Partnership's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, which the Partnership expects to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission on or before the March 16, 2018 deadline, and include:
changes in general economic conditions and changes in economic conditions of the crude oil and natural gas industry specifically;
competitive conditions in the industry;
changes in the long-term supply of and demand for crude oil and natural gas;
our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions and to integrate acquired assets with our existing fleet, including the CDM Acquisition;
actions taken by the Partnership's customers, competitors and third-party operators;
the deterioration of the financial condition of our customers;
changes in the availability and cost of capital;
operating hazards, natural disasters, weather-related delays, casualty losses and other matters beyond the Partnership's control;
the effects of existing and future laws and governmental regulations;
the effects of future litigation;
the failure to consummate the CDM Acquisition; and
other factors discussed in the Partnership's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. Unless legally required, the Partnership undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Unpredictable or unknown factors not discussed herein also could have material adverse effects on forward-looking statements.
USA COMPRESSION PARTNERS, LP
(In thousands, except for per unit amounts — Unaudited)
Contract operations $ 72,151 $ 68,407 $ 59,605 $ 264,315 $ 246,950
Parts and service 3,234 4,384 15,308 15,907 18,971
Total revenues 75,385 72,791 74,913 280,222 265,921
Cost of operations, exclusive of depreciation and amortization 25,045 23,441 29,793 92,591 88,161
Gross operating margin 50,340 49,350 45,120 187,631 177,760
Other operating and administrative costs and expenses:
Selling, general and administrative 13,840 11,888 10,987 47,483 44,483
Depreciation and amortization 25,110 24,808 23,636 98,603 92,337
Loss (gain) on disposition of assets (300) 50 (23) (507) 772
Impairment of compression equipment 163 1,096 1,626 4,972 5,760
Total other operating and administrative costs and expenses 38,813 37,842 36,226 150,551 143,352
Operating income 11,527 11,508 8,894 37,080 34,408
Interest expense, net (6,896) (6,557) (5,611) (25,129) (21,087)
Other 5 3 5 27 35
Total other expense (6,891) (6,554) (5,606) (25,102) (21,052)
Net income before income tax expense 4,636 4,954 3,288 11,978 13,356
Income tax expense 90 165 19 538 421
Net income (loss) allocated to:
General partner's interest in net income $ 397 $ 399 $ 345 $ 1,493 $ 1,364
Common unitholders' interest in net income $ 4,149 $ 4,390 $ 2,924 $ 9,947 $ 14,282
Subordinated unitholders' interest in net loss $ (2,711)
Weighted average common units outstanding:
Basic 62,117 61,815 56,415 61,555 53,043
Diluted 62,526 62,084 56,739 61,835 53,344
Basic and diluted weighted average subordinated units outstanding 1,766
Basic and diluted net income per common unit $ 0.07 $ 0.07 $ 0.05 $ 0.16 $ 0.27
Basic and diluted net loss per subordinated unit $ (1.54)
Distributions declared per limited partner unit in respective periods $ 0.525 $ 0.525 $ 0.525 $ 2.10 $ 2.10
(In thousands — Unaudited)
Net cash used in investing activities (40,147) (32,484) (4,964) (105,231) (50,831)
Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities (72) 59 (4,079) (19,431) (52,808)
RECONCILIATION OF NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES
ADJUSTED EBITDA TO NET INCOME AND NET CASH PROVIDED BY OPERATING ACTIVITIES
The following table reconciles Adjusted EBITDA to net income and net cash provided by operating activities, its most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, for each of the periods presented:
Interest expense, net 6,896 6,557 5,611 25,129 21,087
EBITDA $ 36,642 $ 36,319 $ 32,535 $ 135,710 $ 126,780
Interest income on capital lease 372 399 407 1,610 1,492
Unit-based compensation expense (1) 3,548 2,813 1,892 11,708 10,373
Transaction expenses for acquisitions (2) 1,406 — (56) 1,406 894
Severance charges 22 172 80 314 577
Other 258 — — 490 —
Adjusted EBITDA $ 42,111 $ 40,849 $ 36,461 $ 155,703 $ 146,648
Income tax expense (90) (165) (19) (538) (421)
Interest income on capital lease (372) (399) (407) (1,610) (1,492)
Non-cash interest expense 545 547 547 2,186 2,108
Transaction expenses for acquisitions (1,406) — 56 (1,406) (894)
Severance charges (22) (172) (80) (314) (577)
Other (258) — — (490) —
Changes in operating assets and liabilities 5,731 (1,074) (21,846) (3,758) (20,588)
(1) For the quarters ended December 31, 2017, September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, unit-based compensation expense included $0.5 million, $0.6 million, and $0.6 million, respectively, of cash payments related to quarterly payments of distribution equivalent rights on outstanding phantom unit awards. For the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, unit-based compensation expense included $2.5 million and $2.8 million, respectively, of cash payments related to quarterly payments of distribution equivalent rights on outstanding phantom unit awards and $0.4 million and $0.1 million, respectively, related to the cash portion of any settlement of phantom unit awards upon vesting. The remainder of the unit-based compensation expense for each period presented in 2017 and 2016 was related to non-cash adjustments to the unit-based compensation liability.
(2) Represents certain transaction expenses related to potential acquisitions. The Partnership believes it is useful to investors to exclude these fees.
DISTRIBUTABLE CASH FLOW TO NET INCOME AND NET CASH PROVIDED BY OPERATING ACTIVITIES
(Dollars in thousands — Unaudited)
The following table reconciles Distributable Cash Flow to net income and net cash provided by operating activities, its most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, for each of the periods presented:
Plus: Non-cash interest expense 545 547 547 2,186 2,108
Plus: Non-cash income tax expense 90 59 31 278 239
Plus: Depreciation and amortization 25,110 24,808 23,636 98,603 92,337
Plus: Unit-based compensation expense (1) 3,548 2,813 1,892 11,708 10,373
Plus: Impairment of compression equipment 163 1,096 1,626 4,972 5,760
Plus: Transaction expenses for acquisitions (2) 1,406 — (56) 1,406 894
Plus: Severance charges 22 172 80 314 577
Plus: Other 258 — — 490 —
Plus: Loss (gain) on disposition of assets (300) 50 (23) (507) 772
Plus: Proceeds from insurance recovery — — — — 73
Less: Maintenance capital expenditures (3) (2,165) (3,523) (2,299) (12,560) (7,739)
Distributable Cash Flow $ 33,223 $ 30,811 $ 28,703 $ 118,330 $ 118,329
Plus: Maintenance capital expenditures 2,165 3,523 2,299 12,560 7,739
Plus: Change in working capital 5,731 (1,074) (21,846) (3,758) (20,588)
Less: Transaction expenses for acquisitions (1,406) — 56 (1,406) (894)
Less: Other (370) (231) (111) (1,082) (889)
Cash distributions to general partner and IDRs 754 753 723 3,007 2,866
Distributable Cash Flow attributable to limited partner interest $ 32,469 $ 30,058 $ 27,980 $ 115,323 $ 115,463
Distributions for Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio (4) $ 32,652 $ 32,559 $ 29,618 $ 129,657 $ 115,881
Distributions reinvested in the DRIP (5) $ 304 $ 2,920 $ 4,042 $ 16,592 $ 24,441
Distributions for Cash Coverage Ratio (6) $ 32,348 $ 29,639 $ 25,576 $ 113,065 $ 91,440
Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio (7) 0.99 0.92 0.94 0.89 1.00
Cash Coverage Ratio (8) 1.00 1.01 1.09 1.02 1.26
(3) Reflects actual maintenance capital expenditures for the period presented. Maintenance capital expenditures are capital expenditures made to maintain the operating capacity of the Partnership's assets and extend their useful lives, replace partially or fully depreciated assets or other capital expenditures that are incurred in maintaining the Partnership's existing business and related operating income.
(4) Represents distributions to the holders of the Partnership's common units, after giving effect to the weighted average common units outstanding due to our December 2016 equity offering for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 and the year ended December 31, 2016, as applicable, as of the record date for each period. Without giving effect to the weighted average common units outstanding due to our December 2016 equity offering for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 and the year ended December 31, 2016, actual distributions to holders of the Partnership's common units were $31.9 million and $118.1 million, respectively.
(5) Represents distributions to holders enrolled in the DRIP as of the record date for each period. The amount for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 is based on an estimate as of the record date.
(6) Represents cash distributions declared for common units not participating in the DRIP for each period, after giving effect to the weighted average common units outstanding due to our December 2016 equity offering for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 and the year ended December 31, 2016, as applicable.
(7) For the quarter ended December 31, 2016, the Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio based on actual units outstanding at the record date was 0.88x. For the year ended December 31, 2016, the Distributable Cash Flow Coverage Ratio based on actual units outstanding at the respective record dates was 0.98x.
(8) For the quarter ended December 31, 2016, the Cash Coverage Ratio based on actual units outstanding at the record date was 1.00x. For the year ended December 31, 2016, the Cash Coverage Ratio based on actual units outstanding at the respective record dates was 1.23x.
FULL-YEAR 2018 ADJUSTED EBITDA AND DISTRIBUTABLE CASH FLOW GUIDANCE RANGE
RECONCILIATION TO NET INCOME
Net income $30.0 million to $40.0 million
Plus: Interest expense $33.0 million
Plus: Depreciation and amortization $101.5 million
Plus: Income tax expense $0.5 million
EBITDA $165.0 million to $175.0 million
Plus: Interest income on capital lease $2.0 million
Plus: Unit-based compensation expense $13.0 million
Adjusted EBITDA $180.0 million to $190.0 million
Less: Cash interest expense $34.5 million
Less: Current income tax expense $0.5 million
Less: Maintenance capital expenditures $15.0 million
Distributable Cash Flow $130.0 million to $140.0 million
Matthew C. Liuzzi, 512-369-1624
ir@usacompression.com


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I just wasted 10 minutes of my life!
Martin Weremu on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Elaine Blanchard on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Not enough gore but still liked it lots thanks
Momma Momma on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Cool beans.
ganny roy on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Can some1 write a synopsis of the movie… and rate it 1 to 10. 1 being worst 10 being best
I will come back to read and decide to watch or not to. Time is money.. hate to waste it.
FastLane FILMS on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Nice 🔥
Lusi Moran on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
LadyWarrior on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
How is jack talking… his lips don't move.
Christopher Caetano on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
DID NOT LIKE THIS MOVIE, IN MY OPINION IT UCKED !! 🙉🙊🙈
Helen Poornima on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
I have no nitrification at all ! Why ? Friends do u have ?!?!?! I misses a lot! I love you my dears ! 👸
Stephen McGraw on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Couldn`t they have found a better-looking Jack Frost?This one looks like a demented Jimmy Durante…….other than that,I give it a B Grade………
Simon McJohn on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
GREAT, I ENJOYED IT A LOT, MOVIE WELL DONE
Kim Walsh on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Why is Jack Frost wearing a coat??
Rajendra rathor on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Am watching exactly 7 hours after you
Ronnie Grice on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
I liked it, weak ending
本°Ɠ口口Ɲ°本 on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Enjoying my Saturday watching this.
Trent Coleman on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Anybody watch this movie and was it worth the watch?
Kojo Willington on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Am about to view
Alfredo Rodriguez on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
Todos son hombres!!🤔🤔🤔
No ah y mujeres en esta película!!!!
Frank Dee on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
I'm Mr. cold miser.🥶
Angelica on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
KYWAN WEBSTER on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm
COOL ❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶❄🥶!!!
Wrestling with Jay on January 24, 2023 at 2:31 pm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The following information is effective Jan. 1, 2019.
Section 1924 of the Social Security Act (U.S. Code Title 42, Chapter 7, Subchapter XIX, §1396r-5) allows special resource and income provisions for institutionalized persons with community spouses.
When one member of a couple enters an institution with the intention of remaining for 30 consecutive days, the couple may request an assessment of their combined resources. The purpose of this assessment is to determine a spousal protected resource amount or that portion of the couple's combined resources upon entry to a medical care facility reserved for the community spouse.
An assessment can be completed from the date of entry to a medical care facility to the date of application for Medicaid, even if there are no immediate plans to file an application for Medicaid. Calculation of the spousal protected resource amount occurs only once, as of the beginning of the first continuous period of institutionalization.
Evaluate the couple's combined resources, without regard to community and separate property laws or the spouses' respective ownership interests, as of the month of institutionalization.
one-half of the couple's combined countable resources, not to exceed the maximum resource standard, currently $126,420.
Give the couple a copy of the assessment that shows the protected resource amount. The spousal protected resource amount determined at assessment is constant and does not change during the initial eligibility period (i.e., the certification date to the first annual review), unless it was based on incomplete or inaccurate information. The couple may not request a fair hearing at assessment, but they may appeal the spousal protected resource amount when they file an application for Medicaid.
Case Example A: Upon nursing home entry, the couple's combined countable resources are $19,500.
$19,500 divided by 2 = $9,750 spousal share.
$25,284, the state minimum spousal resource standard.
Thus, the spousal protected resource amount is $25,284.
The couple files a Medicaid application at the time of entry.
At the first annual review of eligibility, only resources in the name of the institutionalized spouse are considered and compared to the $2,000 resource standard for an individual.
Case Example B: Upon nursing home entry, the couple's combined countable resources are $50,000.
$50,000 divided by 2 = $25,000 spousal share.
The couple files a Medicaid application 10 months later. The couple's combined resources are now $25,500 as of 12:01 a.m. on the first day of the month of application.
At the first annual eligibility review, only resources in the name of the institutionalized spouse are considered and compared to the $2,000 resource standard for an individual.
A. Income Eligibility — Test the income of only the institutionalized spouse against the individual income limit. The institutionalized person must be eligible using the individual income limit before the protected spousal needs allowance is determined.
B. Co-pay — The co-pay provisions apply to all eligible institutionalized recipients with community spouses. The co-pay calculation is the process of determining what portion of total monthly income the person must contribute toward the cost of their institutional care. From the eligible institutionalized person's income, first deduct the personal needs allowance to determine the amount available for diversion to the community spouse and dependent family members, before determining the co-pay. Add the community spouse's monthly income to the amount available for diversion, and use the community spousal needs allowance to reduce the co-pay. If there are any dependent family members, use the dependent allowance next to reduce the co-pay and use certain incurred medical expenses of the institutionalized person to reduce the co-pay.
1. Spousal Needs Allowance — An allowance of up to $3,160.50 per month is currently allowed for the community spouse. Deduct this amount from the couple's combined monthly income. If the community spouse's monthly income exceeds $3,160.50, there is no spousal needs allowance.
2. Dependent Allowance — A dependent is defined as the couple's child (minor or adult), parent, or sibling (including half siblings, stepsiblings and siblings acquired through adoption) of either spouse who was living in the person's home before the person's absence, who continues to reside with the community spouse, and who cannot self-support outside the home due to medical, social or other reasons. A college student who would be capable of self-support does not meet the definition of a dependent.
Determine the dependent allowance by calculating for each dependent the deficit remaining after subtracting the dependent's total income from $2,058.00, adding the deficits for all dependents, and dividing the total by three. Deduct this amount, too, from the couple's combined monthly income when determining the amount the person must contribute toward the cost of care.
* When determining the co-pay in a spousal impoverishment situation, there must be a community-based spouse before using a dependent allowance to reduce the co-pay of the eligible institutionalized person.


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text:
Iran & AQ: a safe haven or holding cell?
Thread: Iran & AQ: a safe haven or holding cell?
Listening to the "chatter"
A "radical" and former UK-based militant, Moazzam Begg, has a column on foreign fighters (subject of a thread) and within is this passage:
One of the leaders of Ahrar al-Sham is Abu Khalid al-Suri, an associate of mujahideen ideologue Mustafa Setmariam Nasser (aka Abu Musab al-Suri) who was arrested by Pakistani forces in 2005 and handed over to US authorities as part of the War on Terror. Through the US rendition programme Abu Musab al-Suri was sent to the Asad regime. Both men remained in Syrian custody until the former was released in 2011 while the latter's whereabouts remained a mystery.
Link:http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-wor...-war-on-terror
The Long War Journal reviews the AQ-Iranian relationship and concludes:
Al Qaeda's Iran-based network continues to operate despite the war in Syria.
Link:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...#ixzz2s5t4XOo3
No surprise: AQ order ISIS not to attack Iran
Catching up I found this Long War Journal report, dated May 12th 2014:
In a response to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri's latest attempt at reconciliation with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al Adnani made a startling admission: Al Qaeda has ordered its fighters and branches to refrain from attacking the Iranian state in order to preserve the terror group's network in the country.
Link:http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat...#ixzz32Aoe7X6g
David----this is not a surprise as both the Sunni/AQI and Shia insurgent groups in Iraq after 2008 were buying and selling HME among themselves as the Sunni's had developed into major explosive producers (tens of tons of HME) and they purchased on a number of times finished EFPs or EFP components from the Shia groups for use in their IED attacks against US Forces as the EFPs turned out to be one of the most feared IED types in Iraq.
A short update after the air attacks in Syria, which starts with:
A striking commonality between two al-Qaeda figures that made headlines this week is that they both lived in Iran. Muhsin al-Fadhli, targeted by a U.S. airstrike in Syria on Monday night, is a reported al-Qaeda figure who was reportedly placed under house arrest in Iran
Link:http://english.alarabiya.net/en/view...mplicated.html
Just me, I am curious that the cited report and the one it refers to are from Arab newspapers. A reminder to others Iran remains an untrustworthy partner against ISIS?
Small piece in the jigsaw
The first paragraph in an article on the AQ -v- ISIS contest which fits here, my emphais:
The latest edition of Dabiq, the flagship publication of the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS), includes an eviscerating, accusation-laden polemic against al-Qaeda's central leadership in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The article, titled, "Al-Qa'ida of Waziristan – A Testimony of Within," was written by Abu Jarir al-Shamali, an al-Qaeda commander who spent around seven years in an Iranian prison followed by three years in FATA, and defected to IS earlier this year (some media reports that al-Shamali actually spent the immediate post-9/11 years in Iraq rather than Iran)
Link:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...da-heats-11962
There's no way Iran will ever help fight al Qaeda.
More of an updated amalgam of plots, perhaps the "alliance that shall not be spoken of" needs some barbs inside The Beltway?
Link:http://m.weeklystandard.com/articles...html?nopager=1
From OBL's "treasure trove"
Within a longer WoTR article on how to use the newly released documents from Bin Laden's home in Abbottabad I spotted this:
The al Qaeda operatives holed up in Iran have always been a big black hole in understanding al Qaeda. Why did they go there? What were they up to? Was Iran in bed with al Qaeda? Check out this document in particular and others describing the Iran linkages with al Qaeda. It appears al Qaeda lost a lot of manpower to Iranian detention. It's possible that the reason for al Qaeda's weak showing in Libya post-Arab Spring was due to its losing many of its key former members of the Islamic Fighting Group to Iran's prisons. The entire Iran aspect in these documents is new stuff.
Follow the underlined link to the document (6 pg PDF in English):http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/con.../?singlepage=1
Still some AQC in prison
Via Twitter an update:
Hamzah bin Ladin's new audio confirms that Abu Basir Nasir al-Wuhayshi was the "deputy leader of Qa'idat al-Jihad". Also interesting: he mentions some of the Iran-based AQC leaders he studied under and speaks of them as still in prison. They were: Ahmad Hasan Abu al-Khayr, Abu Muhammad al-Misri, Sayf al-'Adl and Sulayman Abu Ghayth.
The author is 'alleyesonjihad', a French student.
Quick research found Sulayman Abu Ghayth has been in US custody since March 2013 (subject of posts here IRRC). Both Abu Muhammad al-Misri and Sayf al-'Adl have been reported to be in Iran via Wiki.
Did Iran Give Up the Khobar Towers Terrorist?
An Ali Soufan column on FP explaining how the long wanted suspect for the Kobar bombing in 1996, is now in Saudi custody; having flown from Iran to Lebanon and being arrested:http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/08/...zbollah-iran/?
Under-statement:
...the question of why Hezbollah allowed Mughassil to be plucked from its own backyard — without any retaliation or even a tangible response — may be even more fascinating.
(Later) Mughassil's capture and arrest should be a lesson to state-sponsored terrorists everywhere: They are being played as pawns and are only safe as long as they are useful.
Ah, but this could get "awkward" now... The Bin Laden Papers: al Qaeda's secret deals with Iran.
http://on.wsj.com/1UQwhbP via @WSJ
Mod's Note: article is behind a registration / paywall alas.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 09-15-2015 at 08:50 PM. Reason: MOved from Syria 2015 thread as fits here and Mods Note added.
Iran Frees five Al Qaeda Members for kidnapped diplomat
Anonymous intelligence sources led to this Sky News report; it starts with:
Iran has released five senior al Qaeda operatives from detention and will soon allow them to leave the country, prompting fears they will join other terrorists in Syria planning attacks on the West. According to intelligence sources, three of the five are members of al Qaeda's ruling committee the Shura Council.
They were released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Yemen earlier this year.
(Later) intelligence sources said, were believed to be still in Iran but there are fears that they will be allowed to leave - probably to refill positions inside al Qaeda's leadership structure that has been mauled by drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia.
Link:http://news.sky.com/story/1552303/te...-qaeda-members
Iran frees five AQ Members for kidnapped diplomat: Part 2
The NYT adds:
The Iranian government, in a statement on Thursday after the release was reported by Sky News earlier this week, denied that the five men had been freed....The release of the men could re-energize the militant group, providing an influx of vetted leaders at a crucial time, terrorism experts say.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/wo...-a-trade.html?
So six months ago this release happened or didn't, then a week ago the Khobar Towers suspect appears to have been "given up".
Last edited by davidbfpo; 09-18-2015 at 02:08 PM.
Could this be a move to counter ISIS?
The Long War Journal assesses the recent reports and concludes:
There is no question that Saif al Adel, Abu Mohammed al Masri and Abu Khayr al Masri are among al Qaeda's most senior leaders....the freed jihadists may serve another purpose. Jihadists on social media have circulated a rumor suggesting that al Qaeda plans on relaunching a new branch inside Iraq, in direct competition with the Islamic State. The al Qaeda leaders released from Iran are well-positioned to lead this effort....These men could argue the opposite, saying they, and al Qaeda, are Zarqawi's true heirs.
Link:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...-from-iran.php
Now if that assessment is correct the Iranian "release" makes sense in countering ISIS. Indeed a certain US general has mooted using AQ to counter ISIS; strange world sometimes.
CrowBat...back to our JaN discussion........could this be the inherent key....Iranian ties into JaN via AQ?????
Could the protective hand of the IRGC/Khamenei be over them and not so much the Russians?????
There is in fact some similarities between AQs jihadist view of revolutionary Islam and the "revolutionary Islam" preached and written about by Khomeini that both Shia and Sunni's can relate to.
Iran's Partnership with al-Qaeda and Unanswered Questions | The Syrian Intifada - by .@KyleWOrton
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/...red-questions/ …
(Mod's Note: This article is dated September 19, 2015)
Iran instrumentalizes al-Qaeda by facilitating travel of AQ members to #Syria -> weakening moderates
In 2011, Treasury reported Iran-Qaeda "secret deal".
In 2014, Treasury added these details: http://bit.ly/1QaIhQ4
(Mod's Note: This article by Kyle is dated March 24, 2014)
Sayf al-Adel was also recently freed by #Iran >> Iran's Partnership with al-Qaeda and Unanswered Questions
And if Sayf al-Adel has now made his way into Syria, no surprise: al-Qaeda has been operating networks feeding Nusra from Iran for years.
There are a number of comments indicating he is indeed in Syria with JaN.
Sayf al-Adel worked out the plan for the formation of a jihadist statelet with Abu Musab az-Zarqawi in 2002. In #Iran.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 02-27-2016 at 07:39 PM. Reason: Copied from Syria 2016 thread
AQ has collaborated with Iranian intel (Pasdaran/IRGC) for 20+ years.
There's a whole book if you're curious:
http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Terror-.../dp/B0044KMWPI …
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-02-2016 at 08:11 PM. Reason: Moved to the thread on this theme.
Bin Laden's treasure trove: what his letters say
Hat tip to Outlaw 09 spotting these passages, with my emphasis in bold:
The collection includes letters to subordinates in al-Qaeda, messages from followers willing to carry out suicide attacks, and screeds on issues including bin Laden's conviction that the United States and Iran were poised for an apocalyptic war. In one letter, bin Laden scolds one of his deputies for threatening attacks against Iran, saying, "As you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel and communication."
Members of bin Laden's family were held in Iran for years in a murky state of house arrest, leading to speculation that al-Qaeda and Tehran had formed a wary partnership. But U.S. intelligence officials said they have found no evidence in the Abbottabad files of any formal arrangement along those lines.
Link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...4ec_story.html
Another, Arabic source (in English) and hat tip to Outlaw 09:http://english.aawsat.com/2016/01/ar...ed-to-al-qaeda
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-04-2016 at 06:37 PM. Reason: Add 2nd link.
An article on SWJ: Iran: al-Qaeda's "Main Artery for Funds, Personnel and Communication." The Recently Released Osama bin Laden Letters
It has a number of references.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-13-2016 at 01:07 PM. Reason: Copied and edited for here.
Great summary from @JoelWing2 >> Iran#s Ties With Al Qaeda In Iraq's [#IS's] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
http://goo.gl/wNigNG
http://alqabas.com/7368/
New Latakia emir of Jabhat an-Nusra (al-Qaeda in #Syria), Iyad at-Tubasi (Abu Julaybib), is a brother-in-law of #IS founder Zarqawi.
Nusra's new coastal emir, Iyad at-Tubasi, fought alongside Zarqawi in AFG, and moved with Zarqawi to Iraq in 2002, before the invasion.
Some of this is undeniable: #Iran's had an operational cnx with al-Qaeda since 1996, a partnership even longer.
http://i24ne.ws/ZWOzL
Iyad at-Tubasi was wrong reported killed in DEC 2012, was said to have been replaced as Nusra's Deraa emir by Mustafa Abd al-Latif Saleh.
Mustafa Abd al-Latif Saleh is also from Zarqa, and arrived early in Iraq with Zarqawi (2003 latest), working on the Assad-overseen ratlines.
Both Iyad at-Tubasi and Mustafa Abd al-Latif Saleh were among the ISI advanced party that entered Syria in AUG 2011 to create Nusra.
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text:
Home Culture High Times Greats: Aldous Huxley
High Times Greats
High Times Greats: Aldous Huxley
Want to know what happens when the proper-Brit author of Brave New World doses himself with mescaline?
Aldous Huxley (AP/ Wide World)
Author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 and died on November 22, 1963—exactly 56 years ago today. In his memory, we're republishing Jay Stevens' article from the January, 1988 issue of High Times, originally titled "Door to Perception: Huxley Drops Mescaline," which was excerpted from Stevens' book, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream.
He was born Aldous Leonard Huxley on July 26, 1894, in the county of Surrey, England, the third son of Dr. Leonard Huxley, educator, editor and minor literary figure, and the grandson of T.H. Huxley, eminent biologist and one of the most famous men in Victorian England. Known as "Darwin's Bulldog," T.H. was the man who had demolished Bishop Wilberforce in the famous Oxford debates over Darwin's theory of evolution. He personified the scientific rationalist, and he eloquently argued its case in newspapers and magazines, and from lecterns throughout the English-speaking world. His collected essays, filling nine volumes, began appearing in the year of his third grandson's birth, and just a few months before his own death at age seventy.
"Clear, cold logic engines," were what T.H. demanded from his son and grandsons. As Aldous's older brother, Julian, once defined it, the Huxley tradition was one of "hard but high thinking, plain but fiery living, wide intellectual interest and constant intellectual achievement."
Huxley's mother, Julia, came from equally impressive stock. She was the niece of poet Matthew Arnold and granddaughter of the moralist and educator Dr. Thomas Arnold, one of the eminent Victorians later eviscerated by Lytton Strachey in the book of that name. Julia Huxley was an educator who founded Prior's Field, a girls' school just a few meadows away from Hillside School, where young Aldous received his first education.
He was, by all accounts, a brilliant, unathletic, aloof student, whose capacity for detachment unnerved his peers. "Aldous possessed the key to an inviolable inner fortress," said his cousin Gervas, who also attended Hillside. "Never can I remember his losing his control or giving way to violent emotion as most of us did." He "possessed some innate superiority and moved on a different level from us other children," according to his older brother, Julian. He was always thinking, measuring, comparing, assessing. Once his godmother, after observing him staring fixedly out a window, asked what on earth he was thinking about and received the single word skin in reply.
So he was an odd child, even a little scary. Some years later the English science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon published a book called Odd John, which was an attempt to imagine what an intellectual superman, a true Übermensch to use Nietzsche's much debated term, would really be like. The resulting portrait bears a striking resemblance to the adolescent Aldous Huxley, with the profound qualification that Odd John was never tested by personal tragedy the way Huxley was. Beginning with his entrance to Eton, Huxley's detachment was shattered by three tragedies. When he was fourteen his mother died. When he was sixteen he contracted a streptococcus infection that destroyed the cornea in his right eye and left the other clouded to the point of blindness. The condition was so serious that Huxley was forced to learn Braille, which he shrugged off with the wry joke that now he could read with impunity after lights out. He was also forced to give up his dream of studying biology, in preparation for a medical career. Adapting a typewriter with Braille keys, he began tapping out poems and stories.
Finally, two years after his blindness lifted and a year after matriculating at Balliol College, Oxford, in the same August that saw the beginning of World War One, Huxley's middle brother, Trev, committed suicide.
"There is, apart from the sheer grief of the loss, an added pain in the cynicism of the situation," Aldous wrote to cousin Gervas. "It is just the highest and best in Trev, his ideals, which have driven him to his death, while there are thousands who shelter their weakness from the same fate by a cynical, unidealistic outlook on life. Trev was not strong, but he had the courage to face life with ideals—and his ideals were too much for him."
This was not a mistake Aldous intended to make. At Oxford he buried his idealism under a cloak of aesthetic dandyism, affecting yellow ties and white socks, and instead of the usual classical reproduction above the fireplace, installing a poster of bare-breasted bathing beauties—French of course. He moved a piano into his room and began banging out American jazz. And he started spending weekends at Garsington, a manor house some six miles from Oxford that Phillip and Ottoline Morrell maintained as a country retreat for the Bloomsbury crowd. A typical Garsington houseparty mingled the likes of Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell, the Woolfs—Leonard and Virginia—with assorted other aristocrats of the artistic and intellectual beau monde. Young Huxley held his own amid this galaxy of wits, and was considered by them an intellectual comer and promising poet. When he published a chapbook of poems entitled The Defeat of Youth in 1918, tout Garsington joined in his praise.
Garsington was also where Huxley met his future wife, Maria Nys, a waifish Belgian war refugee who was one of Lady Ottoline's charges. Besides being more than a foot shorter than her future husband, Maria's temperament—intuitive, magical, sensuous—was the exact opposite of Aldous's clear cold logic engine. Igor Stravinsky once said of Maria: "knowing nothing, she understands everything." And one of things she understood was people. Maria had great psychological acuity, something her husband was almost totally without. Aldous called her his "personal relationship interpreter," and he used to quiz her thoroughly about the people they met at Garsington.
Their partnership—they began living together in 1919 and were married a few months later—produced one child, a boy, Matthew, and at least eight novels. The first of these, Chrome Yellow, was published in 1921, and was followed at two-year intervals by Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves, and Point, Counterpoint. Opening the boards of that first book, none of Huxley's friends could have been prepared for what they found inside. The gentle, abstracted poet of lines like
No dip and dart of swallows wakes the blank
Slumber of the canal: —a mirror dead
for lack of loveliness remembered
turned into an assassin when he wrote fiction. ("I have done an admirable short story," Huxley once wrote to his brother Julian's future wife. "So heartless and cruel that you would probably scream if you heard it: the concentrated venom is quite delicious.") Sure the writing sparkled and the plot unfolded with professional ease, but there was something acid and unsettling about the way the stories portrayed the emptiness, the artistic and moral pretences of the very friends who were now reading the book. The only thing that saved Huxley from the anger that later greeted Evelyn Waugh's similar lampoons was the fact that Huxley dissected his own pretensions with equal ferocity. He never stinted on himself.
Huxley dealt with his angst by moving frequently, living in Belgium, France, Spain, and Tunisia, and Italy, where his wife Maria and he became friends with D.H. Lawrence. As the Twenties drew to a close they semipermanently established themselves at a villa in Sanary, France, among the mix of artists and idle rich lucky enough to live on the Côte in the years immediately preceding the Crash of '29. From Marseilles to Antibes, the Midi was an expanded version of a Garsington weekend. It was familiar fauna, and one might have expected a continuation of what the London Times described as "the many-toned wit… the learning, the thought, the richness of character."
But Huxley gave his readers instead the anti-utopian Brave New World. Brave New World was Huxley's first stab at themes that would occupy him for the rest of his life: the gap between technology and human wisdom; the misapplication of evolution; the failure of education to create a whole man; the increasing centralization of power, with its elevation of ends over means. It was also his most savage book, consigning the human species to the trash heap, albeit a comfortable, pleasureful trash heap. In a world in which science allows you to customize the ultimate in bread and circuses, argued Huxley, the concept of coercion becomes meaningless. One of the brilliant elements of Brave New World, indeed the one that made the whole vision of state-controlled euphoria plausible, was the drug soma. In terms of pharmacological reality, soma was a combination of three different kinds of mind drugs: on one level it was a pleasant and entertaining hallucinogen, on another a tranquilizer like Librium or Valium, on a third a sleeping pill. There was nothing coercive about soma use: diehard individualists had the option of relocating to several offshore islands.
But soma was only a symptom of Huxley's larger theme, which was the machining of human nature. The genius that had allowed the smart monkey to tame the natural world was beginning to focus on itself. And unless something was done to alter the monkey's fundamental psyche, the consequence was going to be a scientific hell that called itself paradise.
Huxley's intellectual companion during these years, and perhaps his mentor, was a London literary boulevardier named Henry Fitz Gerald Heard—Gerald to his friends. In 1937, the two moved to America, eventually settling in Los Angeles, where they became a familiar presence on the local spiritual scene, studying Vedantic Hinduism at an ashram in Hollywood. The ashram was under the supervision of a canny, charismatic teacher, Swami Prabhavananda, who some years earlier had been ordered to Los Angeles by his teacher to fulfill the larger karma of introducing the inner disciplines of the East to the materialistic West. To leave not only his native land, but the contemplative solitude of the ashram, for Hollywood, California—it was not a task Prabhavananda had welcomed. But he had come and prospered, confirming the shrewdness of his teacher's foresight.
The ashram, in classic Southern California fashion, was shaped like a miniature Taj Mahal, and was surrounded by lemon trees and young girls meditating in saris. Prabhavananda was fond of tea parties, during which he would debate Huxley and later Alan Watts, on various doctrinal points. The swami counseled asceticism in all things, including sex.
"But Aldous, what if we don't like him? What if he wears a beard?" was Maria's comment when Huxley announced that he had invited an unknown chap named Humphrey Osmond, a psychiatrist no less, for a visit. The offer of room and board chez Huxley was a rare ticket; even Julian, when he was in town, stayed at a local hotel.
The possibility that Osmond might be a tedious bore hadn't occurred to Huxley, and after a few moments' thought he arrived at a simple solution. "We can always be out," he said.
Osmond, some three thousand miles away, was having similar fears. What if he couldn't play in Huxley's intellectual league? What if he came off as a tedious bore? "You can always arrange to stay late at the APA," his wife said.
He need not have worried. The thing Huxley prized most in a fellow conversationalist was intellectual breadth, and Osmond had plenty of that. Like Heard, he could turn on a conversational dime and launch into a disquisition on, say, scurvy, that was so vivid one would almost swear he had shipped with Da Gama when half of the gentleman's crew perished. Maria, watching Aldous warm to the younger man, confided to Osmond: "I knew you'd get along. You're both Englishmen."
Huxley accompanied Osmond to several APA sessions, which he found deadly dull, and amused himself by genuflecting whenever Freud's name was mentioned. The subject of mescaline didn't arise until two days before Osmond was to leave, and then it was Maria who broached the subject, having decided that the famous British reticence was going to prevent the two men from discussing what was certainly uppermost in Aldous's mind. Osmond admitted that he had brought some mescaline with him; while Huxley conceded that he had borrowed a tape recorder to preserve a record of the experiment.
The next day, May 4, 1953, Osmond dissolved some mescaline crystals in a glass of water and nervously handed it to Huxley. Outside it was one of those perfect LA mornings, blue and warm, with just a trace of smog hanging over the San Bernadino valley. What if the drug worked too well, Osmond thought to himself. Although Smythies and he had begun to appreciate that there was more to the mescaline experience than simple psychosis, that didn't diminish the possibility that the next six hours might be absolutely hellish. And Osmond didn't relish the possibility that he might become infamous as the man who drove Aldous Huxley crazy.
On the other hand, what if nothing happened? It was beginning to dawn on Humphrey that Huxley had some rather idiosyncratic notions about what he hoped to achieve in the mescaline state. Nowhere was this more explicit than in the letter Osmond had received confirming his invitation to stay with the Huxleys while at the APA. After the usual pleasantries, Aldous had launched into a critique of what he called the Sears & Roebuck culture:
"Under the current dispensation the vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of education, all the openness to inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than those enumerated in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue; is it too much to hope that a system of education may someday be devised which shall give results, in terms of human development, commensurate with the time, money, energy and action expended? In such a system of education it may be that mescaline or some other chemical substance may play a part by making it possible for young people to "taste and see" what they have learned at second hand, or directly but at a lower level of intensity, in the writings of the religious, or the works of poets, painters and musicians."
Osmond was using mescaline as a mimicker of madness; Huxley wanted to incorporate it into the curriculum.
The minutes passed slowly—too slowly for Huxley, who told Osmond he expected to enter what he called the Blakeian world of heroic perception. What actually happened was much more mundane. The lights danced. The inside of his eyelids dissolved into a complex of gray squares that occasionally gave birth to a blue sphere.
Then, ninety minutes into the experience, Huxley felt himself pass through a screen, at least that's what it seemed like, and suddenly he was seeing "what Adam had seen on the morning of creation." It was as though, born myopic, he had just put on his first pair of glasses. The colors, the shapes, the sensuous mysteriousness of his flannel trousers. Later Aldous would pun that he had seen "eternity in a flower, infinity in four chair legs, and the Absolute in the folds of a pair of flannel trousers."
He kept murmuring, "This is how one ought to see."
Mescaline, Huxley decided, intensified the visual at the expense of the temporal and spatial. There was a pronounced loss of will, which gradually expanded into a loss of ego. And as the ego relinquished its grip, all sorts of useless data, biologically speaking, began to seep into the mind.
From the house, with its suddenly cubist furniture, they wandered into the garden. For the first time Huxley felt the presence of paranoia, and beyond that, madness. "If you started the wrong way," he told Osmond, "everything that happened would be proof of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot."
"So you think you know where madness lies?" Osmond asked.
"And you couldn't control it?"
"No, I couldn't control it," Huxley said. "If one began with fear and hate as the major premise, one would have to go on to the conclusion."
But then the shadow passed. From the garden they moved to the street, where a large blue automobile touched off gales of laughter. Fat and self-satisfied, it seemed to Huxley that the car was a self-portrait of twentieth-century man; for the rest of the day he giggled whenever he saw one. Aldous was having a wonderful time. After years of theorizing that each of us carries a reserve of untapped vision and inspiration, he had suddenly stumbled across it at the advanced age of fifty-eight.
It was a little like that classic moment in children's literature when the hero walks outside one morning and discovers a door, where yesterday there was only blank wall. And beyond that door, a garden of infinite dimension, infinite adventure.
Huxley was jubilant.
Mescaline was "the most extraordinary and significant experience available to human beings this side of the Beatific Vision," he cabled his New York editor, Harold Raymond, adding that he was working on a long essay that would raise "all manner of questions in the fields of aesthetics, religion, theory of knowledge." He planned to call this essay The Doors of Perception, after Blake's observation that "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything will appear to man as it is, infinite."
Destined to become the most famous volume on the psychedelic bookshelf, Doors took Huxley a month to write, and when he was done he had a blow-by-blow account of that afternoon with Osmond—events like the Dharma body of the Buddha manifesting itself in the garden hedge—tempered by liberal speculation as to what it all might possibly mean in terms of human psychology.
What it all meant, Huxley thought, was that Bergson and the English philosopher C.D. Broad had been correct when they suggested that the brain operated as a vast reducing valve, "shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful." Like the Freudian ego, this reducing valve was constantly beset by the raging tides of Mind at Large, which was what Huxley called Jung's archetypal unconscious plus Freud's pathological unconscious plus Myer's treasure house plus all the other unconsciousnesses yet to be named. And like Freud's ego, this reducing valve was not watertight: its seal was susceptible to pressure.
"As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve," he wrote, "all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. In some cases there may be extra-sensory perceptions. Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence…. In the final stage of egolessness there is an 'obscure knowledge' that All is in all—that All is actually each." Which was why bookjackets gleamed with godliness and an innocuous canvas chair in the garden "looked like the Last Judgement."
There was nothing unique about Mind at Large: the smart money had been vacationing there for millennia—the number of hit or miss techniques could've filled a small booklet. But suddenly, with mescaline, mankind had lucked upon a technology. For the first time a science of the Other World was possible. Perhaps.
The Doors of Perception was published in the spring of 1954 to generally perplexed reviews. Had anyone else written a book recommending mescaline as "an experience of estimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual," declared The Reporter's Marvin Barrett, it would have been dismissed "as the woolgathering of a misguided crackpot. But coming…from one of the current masters of English prose, a man of immense erudition and intellect who usually demonstrates a high moral seriousness, they deserve more careful scrutiny." Barrett called around until he found some Lab Madness researchers who were using mescaline as a psychotomimetic. They were "less enthusiastic than Dr. Huxley and the Indians," he reported. "In controlled experiments they have found that mescaline more often than not produces symptoms unpleasantly similar to those of schizophrenia."
The critical response to Doors was almost an echo of the British Medical Journal's condemnation of Havelock Ellis for his enthusiastic endorsement of peyote. In effect, Huxley's knuckles were rapped, and another black mark was added to the "whatever happened to Aldous" column. "How odd it is that writers like Belloc and Chesterton may sing the praises of alcohol (which is responsible for about two-thirds of the car accidents and three-quarters of the crimes of violence) and be regarded as good Christians and noble fellows," Huxley complained, "whereas anyone who ventures to suggest that there may be other and less harmful short cuts to self transcendence is treated as a dangerous drug fiend and wicked perverter of weak-minded humanity."
But Doors sold, slowly but steadily. Someone was reading it.
Maria died in February 1955. During her last hours, "with tears streaming down his face and his quiet voice not breaking," Aldous read to her from the Bardo Thodol, interweaving the ancient Tibetan text with lyrical descriptions of their shared past. With Lawrence in Italy. Summers at Sanary. The weekends at Garsington when they had first met while the rest of the world was falling apart on the Somme. Their trips to the California desert. The white snowcapped mountains of the Sierras. "Go toward the light," Aldous kept murmuring. "Those last three hours were the most anguishing and moving of my life," Matthew Huxley later wrote to his wife; while for Gerald they were proof that Aldous had indeed come back through the Door a changed man; that he was able to cope with Maria's death so calmly was wholly attributable, Gerald felt, to the wisdom he had gained from mescaline.
The fall of 1960 was an equivocal time for Aldous Huxley. His lectures on visionary experience were jammed. And not just by students. The public ones at night caused traffic problems more appropriate for the Harvard-Yale game. Huston Smith, who taught religion at MIT, considered it the crowning moment of Huxley's career as a public philosopher. Huxley was less sanguine. For twenty-five years, ever since he had joined Gerald Heard in support of Dick Shepperton's Peace Union, he had been chipping away at his loathing for the public soapbox; in the last twenty years he had addressed everyone from rotarians to nuclear scientists; so by the time he reached MIT he was in top oratorical form. But he found he had little to say. "It's a bit embarrassing," he confided to Huston Smith, "to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kind.'"
It was the sort of gentle resignation one might expect from a man who had recently been diagnosed as having cancer of the throat.
Health problems, which he blamed on his stringbean lack of robustness, had always been a complication in Huxley's life; his letters are peppered with self-mocking references to his hypochondria, his blindness, his lack of stamina. But cancer was Maria's disease, there was a finality to it, which may be why Aldous told no one except Humphrey Osmond, whom he swore to secrecy.
With death on his mind, Huxley redoubled his efforts on his recalcitrant utopian novel, which now bore the working title Island. Every morning he wrestled with the literary problem of how to portray a psychedelic utopia without boring the reader. "It may be that the job is one which cannot be accomplished with complete success," he confessed to his son. "In point of fact, it hadn't been accomplished in the past. For most Utopian books have been exceedingly didactic and expository. I am trying to lighten up the exposition by putting it into dialogue form, which I make as lively as possible. But meanwhile I am always haunted by the feeling that, if only I had enough talent, I could somehow poeticize and dramatize all this intellectual material."
It was a losing battle. Despite his best efforts, Island was becoming a thinly fictionalized anthology of final thoughts on topics that had occupied Huxley for forty years: on education, psychology, metaphysics; on the place of art and creativity in life, and the role of psychedelics in exploring the mind's potential. To dramatize this last theme, he had invented a new mind drug, which he called moksha, "the reality revealer, the truth and beauty pill."
The crab, in remission since 1960, had come creeping back, and by autumn it was touch and go. Huxley checked into a Los Anbgeles hospital and tried to ignore the disease that was ravaging his throat. He was unable to write because of the pain but he did have a dictaphone and in lucid moments he worked on an essay on Shakespeare. Although his condition was obviously grave, he refused to acknowledge the possibility of death. Did he know he was dying? It was a question his second wife, Laura, couldn't answer:
"We read the entire manual of Dr. Leary based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He could have, even jokingly, said: "Don't forget to remind me when the time comes." His comment instead was directed only to the problem of "reentry" after a psychedelic session. It is true he sometimes said things like, 'If I get out of this,' in connection with his new ideas of writing, and wondered when and if he would have the strength to work. He was mentally very active and it seemed that some new levels of his mind were stirring."
But on the morning of November twenty-second, 1963, a Friday, it became clear the gap between living and dying was closing. Realizing that Aldous might not survive the day, Laura sent a telegram to his son, Matthew, urging him to come at once. At ten in the morning, an almost inaudible Aldous asked for paper and scribbled "If I go," and then some directions about his will. It was his first admission that he might die. Soon after he murmured, "Who is eating out of my bowl?" When Laura asked what he meant he dismissed it as a private joke. "At this point there is so little to share," he told her, a statement that she interpreted as meaning no questions. Around noon he asked for the pad of paper and scribbled
"LSD—try it
intermuscular
In a letter circulated among Aldous's friends, Laura Huxley described what followed: "You know very well the uneasiness in the medical mind about this drug. But no 'authority,' not even an army of authorities, could have stopped me then. I went into Aldous's room with the vial of LSD and prepared a syringe. The doctor asked me if I wanted him to give the shot—maybe because he saw that my hands were trembling. His asking me that made me conscious of my hands, and I said, 'No, I must do this.'"
An hour later she gave Huxley a second 100mm. Then she began to talk, bending close to his ear, whispering, "light and free you let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going toward the light. Willingly and consciously you are going, willing and consciously, and you are doing this beautifully; you are doing this so beautifully—you are going toward the light—you are going toward the light—you are going toward a greater love…. You are going toward Maria's love with my love. You are going toward the best, the greatest love, and it is easy, it is so easy, and you are doing it so beautifully."
All struggle ceased. The breathing became slower and slower and slower, until, "like a piece of music just finishing so gently in sempre piu piano, dolcamente at twenty past five in the afternoon, Aldous Huxley died.
And it was only then that Laura Huxley really had the time to fathom the other great tragedy of the day, the assassination of the President in Dallas.
hallucinogens
The Magazine Of High Society
Wilhelmina Ashenhurst says:
Such a good article. I have had " this timeless moment" for so long and have been rereading.
it as the libraries have been closed.
I also read "island " a long time ago and now I must read " a brave new world " I am almost 77 and would love to have a mescaline experience and who knows doctors are now giving people who are depressed, sessions with LSD
Thank you so much for this article.
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