Gordon-
I can very much relate to your analogy of the playground...I too, spent most of my childhood (read, "early development-formative years") without someone hovering over me telling me "you can't do that", or that I "shouldn't." I am quite sure that my creativity was not stifled in the least bit, only to later on in life have people try to quash my playing styles, merely because they couldn't understand how to do certain things themselves.
I was playing in a full-time rock 'n' roll band touring in the mid-to-late 80's, and our drummer was quite an accomplished musician. He had all the necessary degrees from university, deeming him worthy of instructing 6th thru 9th year students. One day, as we were travelling, our conversation led to time signatures of odd meter, and he was trying to explain the theory of why it sounded a certain way, and himself being quite amused at my saying, "I'm not that interested in why it sounds that way, but only that it works."
He offered to have me come in to his classroom and basically be "on display" of some sort of mutant-musician who actually "feels" the groove of a song, rather than counting meticulously for the proper placement of each note, whilst risking the potential for playing the notes, rather than the spaces in between. He also found it quite interesting that I referred to certain dynamics of a song in colors...
Once, while working up some songs in a different band, the other guitar player was trying to follow a particular progression I was playing, and looked at me quite puzzled as to the fingering I was holding for a certain chord, and asked me, "What in the world do you call that positioning?!!" I told him I was self-taught and wasn't quite sure myself, but compared his book & lesson training to "store bought" tomatoes, and mine was more like "home-grown". And of course, most would say that the "home-grown" garden variety is usually better in a lot of ways. :-)
My apologies for the reminiscence of "days gone by"...but I found your description of your experience very similar, and just wanted to say that I concur. Who says it "has to be that way"?!!
Cheers-
Terry
Oh...and I'm not quite sure, but I think I heard a fraction of "Midnight Mescaline Moonlight" in an advertisement for one of our radio station's Severe Weather promos. I'll have to try and get a recording of it, and compare.
The first moment I heard it, I was pretty sure it was, but how did they get it? That would be an interesting story. I'll try calling the station to see if I can track the production person down.