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There’s a guy who lived in Newburgh, New York, a town on the Hudson River. That would be in upsk8 NY and the 914 before Westchester stole it and left us with 845. He died on January 2nd this year. Somewhere nearby a lady died too. The obituaries in the coming days read “Died at home” for some other folks. Heroin stole their carbon. This is not cool. I find myself deeply distressed by the event. I have respect, Absolute Respect for Life. If there was only one mitochondia pumping somewhere deep inside your ear, and somehow a choice of life was communicated at the moment, I’d advocate for the jumper cables to get some others going. I know that one was a stretch, a bit dramatic, but seriously, I’ve got respect for the vessel as it’s animated by something—who knows what. But then also please note, a staunch respect for life does not preclude a general misanthropological hypothesis maintained ongoing, or a lack of support whatsoever for Roe v Wade. I digress. And another.. That happens with me, but is added to the years’ resolutions hammerlist, hanging by eighteen tacks, to correct.

For the dead man especially, some mourning is due him, by me. I do mourn for him. I’d known him somewhat for ten years and knew he had that particular affliction. I kept my distance. He was also a religious kind of kooky guy and trapped me into some four hour roundybout&loopdyloop attempt (his) at finding some convert (me) to save. That’s what helped him kick it, at the moment, and from time to time. That is always an interesting experience; each time—I have been solicited to meet God on several occasions throughout my life—sees it’s particular approach and ability to exploit weakened states. Fairly enough, with him it was just another summer night in the ‘burgh, and all conditions were par for the dialogue. We were on a friendly greeting basis after that, for a while. Then I got a poodle and sometime after that he got a schipperke, or maybe he got the schipperke first. Either way, that dog was mean and nasty. He was not about to play nice with little red girl. And then since the little man arrived, has been a steady cold war state between the packs, right up until whenever I saw him last time. I think it was just before Christmas.

Heroin seems to be the worst addiction there is going. Crack struck Newburgh, in a big way, in the 0’80s and suppose right into the 0nineties. But somehow it ended and I think maybe it had to do with heroin coming in the 0’90s. But I don’t know for sure. How did all those people stop doing crack? Did they just all die? The timeline of it all is vague; the phonebook of the dead wasn’t begun until around 0’00. But I do know heroin was introduced to my home town from Newburgh, by some kid who got it there and brought it to a party, and that was sometime in early 0’97 or 0’96. The kid’s dead now too. But not until after a bunch of kids died. The dance continues. I don’t have all their names, but I know quite a few of them were freshman and sophomores with my sister when I was a senior. I was living in San Francisco after college but a girlfriend would tell me on the phone these kids who died. Bad news. A lot of bad news. But these are just some isolated group of kids from some white, middle class upsk8 town. A drop in the bucket to the folks in the ‘burgh burnt out on crack. But yes, it is all relative. It’s hades in tragic for each person who falls down the hole.

I have never done heroin. But I appreciate a fight with addiction like any of the folks who do and those folks that are dead, did. But, compared to them, I am just a very lucky person. At fourteen, in so and so’s car sitting doubleshot with so in so in the front, and so and so’s in the back, if it was a ride on a horsy, and not puffpuffgive* on a skinny cigarette, I would not be here today. If one invite to the woods with a very certain so and so, and so and so’s to puff on some other type of glass pipe, I would not be here today. That one would have stolen my carbon a long, Long, LONG time ago. But that was a long time ago and I’ve always believed I was saved by my faerydrugmother. She swathed me in a sheath and I never saw anything harder than a tab for a long Long LONG time.

What I want to highlight is the operative event, that slides the door open to a ‘lucky’, functional addiction, versus a deadly, dysfunctional addiction (heroin). Like so many things that happen or don’t, timing is key. At the time I was fourteen, kids, or girls like me (I know I’m opening myself for a clobbering on this one)—kind of good, mostly good, an ‘artistic’ type and open to experiment—wasn’t introduced to crack and heroin. I think there’s really a stronger argument to make about timing. More what I want or can express is that kids will experiment. No matter how much you press and preach abstinence, it will happen. And if a kid’s best friend or friends, or the party, or something, somewhere, are shooting, sniffing, cooking, whatever-ing you do with heroin, that just trying—experimenting with heroin—is really all it seems to take. You’ll likely enjoy the feeling, unless you’re my sister and I like to think that would be the moment she busts out her whoop ass skills, but I wonder if she ever even had that moment. I don’t know. So. Granted your first time didn’t clobber you with some nasty brut horse like the one having its way with some folks in the ‘burgh these new year days, you’re probably going to like it. And it’ll probably be there again at the next party,—cause the kid went back to the ‘burgh and picked up some more—or just somewhere you’ll be hangin’out and preparing a pr’ack with a friend for a hike in the gunks, and they’ll have some. And you’ll do it then. Isn’t that some kind of bonding experience? Folks do that, drugs, eat, hike, with their friends. Ok. Granted these are limited scenarios. Kids from upsk8 NY. Limited?

Imagine standing in the same spot you were when someone smoked you on crack the first time. This time, it’s heroin. Who is that person? What is their experience? Why’d they take? Why do they keep doing it? I’ll stick to kids, because I’ve had a bone about this a long time. I had no idea what was going on in my home town; I was always sort of, mostly on the outside, well, from some ‘inside’ circle anyway, but outside on a couple big ones. A girlfriend at home told me about a string of deaths. We’d have calls bullshiting on art and some hottie and what plans are just beginning to think and how and when and where they’ll happen. (goodness work and creating has been done hence) I was living in SF when these deaths were going on. They were concepts mostly, except for. I didn’t realize and I didn’t see and I wasn’t at those parties. Other people were. Not everybody did it. But seems a lot of folks who did, got hooked, and a lot of folks of those, died. I have always maintained an image of myself in a long live friendly blue ovloV, with some megaphone, or on the telephone, or in Mr. Reese’s office figuring out how to impress upon the parents in my dummass hometown there is something badbadbad happening. Heroin. Without being a rat. I am not that. Never have been. Never will be. And there is some nasty rat junkie skank on my doorstep getting my neighbors hooked, leaving metal pipes placed with lighters in too obvious a way to not be left there on purpose. Is that like fishing? But I won’t rat. But he better not keep asking me for money at the subway entrance when he’s not on duty or drugged out at the shanties building up near my building. I am not a rat. But would this problem please go away? Soon enough I am leaving here. Pismo baby!

But no. It won’t. We liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and Afghanistan in turn resumed producing their top grossing agricultural export. And we’re going to see waves and waves of heroin coming through until it stops producing. And will they? Didn’t we all see American Gangster? You think that film was a dramatic historical retelling brilliantly acted by Denzel and Russell? How ultimately did Denzel get that first shipment through, and then every other? Oh, the opportunities abound nowadays.

I won’t go on a tirade of our government. We can all think about this one in the privasee of our homes and get your own goshdog poodles to soapbox to. It is 02008 and I am voting in a primary—yes, the republican one. And I’m voting in November, likely not republican but for either a black guy or a white lady, or a black guy and a white lady, or some fellakuti named Al with a black guy—now that is the winning ticket. I’ll also keep fingers crossed for a tribunal and some folks’ days of reckoning.

But in the spirit of current political hopefuls, there is a lot of talk of change and trying new things, and thinking outside the box. Ooh, how 0’97 Halsey Minor of them. Pizza party in the break room Friday at lunch. Woo hoo. No but seriously, getting back on whatever track this is I am on. There are some drug questions here. The political, military, entrepreneurial questions. The kid question. The kid question somehow seems accessible to me. I have actually been asked by kids. Teenage kids soon to experiment. I was cool to them, actually I adored these kids, and they asked me for a lowdown. I think they were prone and nurtured to keep it cleaner, and I’ve seen them since and they don’t seem like heroin users. You never know. But this was a special bunch of kids, for sure. And now they are adults, so hopefully if their parents read this I won’t be in trouble. But they asked me and I respected the question and respected them with my response. Essentially this.. If you’re going to do drugs, or you’re about to begin experimenting, which you may be because you’re asking this question,.. Let me backstory a bit. This was quite a moment actually. It was September 16, 2001 at the Built to Spill concert in New York City. If you weren’t there, you missed out on music that soothed a lot of souls that night. I still sooth in the memory of it sometimes. A group of fifteen or sixteen year old high school kids waited outside the bathroom, or they were just there, but they were conspiring about something. Drugs perhaps. Timing. When I walked out, they crowded me and asked. If you’re going to try something, stick to the lesser of the evils. The least evil possible, always. Heroin is not something you can experiment with. You have no idea what it is, or what it’s going to do to you. Which means, it could kill you the first time. Cocaine is lame. I suppose people do it and don’t get addicted, or they do. But it’s pretty shitty and lame and can also kill you. Crack is whack. E is not really E, it’s something made up to act like it, and not worth it. But a decade ago I didn’t turn down when it was real and it was as safe a situation possible, considering. Weird, trendy designer drugs. Mmm? I don’t go there. Not a good idea. Who knows what the frakk is in it. Psychedelics, acid, if it’s good & clean & they didn’t do anything stupid with it, but I never experienced that, and you can handle the visuals and not go into the headspace of it, can be a lot of fun. No random people in the group, anyone you think can’t handle it. Could be ok. Honestly, I would do it again. I’m not speaking to the kids anymore on this. It would be a lot of fun to do it again. But the perfect days of it, you can’t recreate. And until I conjure the recipes of it, I can’t legitimately write it even. And you can’t just find any old person for the art of it. So frakk it. I probably won’t again. Poo. Ok. Back to being an adult, or a younger adult than I am now, but either time, I’m pretty good at being an adult, upstanding and all. Mushrooms. Cosmic Earth Journey with a finish of tears and a box on a booger at the head of a volcano chased into by a lunar moth. Then lastly that we covered, and this was all more like Q&A style, Mary Jane. If it’s grown well and they don’t lace it, and you don’t buy the “purple haze” from the neighborhood kids, something good, something green, something a little crystalline, maybe orange hairs, or fine little white ones, you should be okay. Try it. Don’t do it too much. And don’t ever think it can never be an addiction. It can. It is for many. But then, I look immediately to alcohol. It’s prohibition ended seventy-five years ago this year. But not for Mary Jane. She’s still in lock down doing time and all her brothers and sisters doing time for her. Major waste of public resources.

I’ve been tapping on keys too long. I’m exhausted. Is this what it’s going to take to fall asleep from now on. I hope you haven’t read this.

G’nite..

*Pardon the historical inaccuracy. The expression was not in use at the time. It was all Metallica and whatever metal they played that went well with crapola Bud beer. I recall a little rap and hip hop was in diapers, thus slang according to music?

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