OFF: drugs

[Jon Jarrett]

On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Arin Komins wrote:

> So I've never touched drugs (aside from the standard
> caffeine, etc.)
>
> I drink alcohol, but not to excess (being drunk is a nasty
> depressive experience for me.)
>
> But I've always wanted to.
>
> But.  I'm deathly afraid of addiction.  I've
> got an addictive personality, if there is such a thing
> (at least judging by my collector instincts).

        That echoes well with me. I'm continually surprising people by
_not_, despite my music collection, being the archetypal druggy - I get
quite bent occasionally by not eating or sleeping enough and then doing
too much caffeine but it's not really the same I'm sure. I _do_ drink
(whenever I can) but only in company. My father's an alcoholic and I'm
leery of going the same way. So I like other people to know vaguely how
much I'm drinking. As for yer other drugs, well, some day... Again my
father hasn't helped by being a marvellous example of what smoking can do
to you; though he's managed to escape all the diseases he has the most
awful cough and carries a scent of stale smoke with him wherever he goes,
ineradicably. So drugs you have to smoke don't recommend themsleves to
me. People only ever seem to offer them when I have a vicious cold and a
sore throat, too... So that day has never come.

        I've got no moral objections to drug use, and if I did I'd be a
hypocrite. I know too many people who know people dead from heroin to go
near it (I have a book by Geoff Nuttall from the 1960s called _Bomb
Culture_ which easily proclaims that *everyone* knows not to do heroin
now), but dope is fine with me. Acid is too, technically, except that I'm
quite attached to my brain and it's, what, one in 200 people who just
can't take it? Since I intend to make a living out of my brain I don't
want to find out I'm No. 200 the hard way.

        Oh, and Lemmy and Martin Ace both say you can't get the real stuff
any more and they ought to know :-)

        The argument about addictive personalities is also valid, I'd say
except that everyone on this list would probably raise their hand to music
addiction and very few seem to have drug problems - if any.

        Anyway, that's my AA piece said,and I'll step down now except to
say that whilst altered in my own minor way I occasionally listen to
stuff I know well and hear it completely differently, so I'm quite
prepared to accept that all this drug-rock is more impressive if you're
out of your head but I will simply refuse to accept any arguments that
that's the only way to listen to it.

        Oh, and I got into Hawkwind more or less the same way I got into
Blue Oyster Cult: knew the obvious hit singles from a very few hearings on
pop radio, got them together on a Best Rock album Ever type comp in 95,
found the version of `Reaper' on there had had the guitar break cut and
immediately went out to the record stall in Watford market. They had _Some
Enchanted Evening_, the S/T and _Agents of Fortune_. I got SEE because I
figured a song called `Godzilla' might be pretty cool and also because it
was clearly the one Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman were mentioning in
_Good Omens_ so I thought I'd have that. And I heard the version of
`Astronomy' on there and Understood :-)

        Then, next term at College, a friend trawling Usenet located
alt.music.blue-oyster-cult and informed me that there were two Cambridge
types on it, whose e-mail address he furnished me with. I mailed them
both, and one gave me an intelligent reply, and that was Carl
Anderson. Within two months I'd acquired my first Hawkwind as well, a comp
called _Spirit of the Age_, and Carl made a tape of _Space Ritual_ for me
for my birthday and there you are. Gone, completely gone. I think I was
signed onto BOC-L very shortly before that...

        Since then I count two converts to Hawkwind and three to Blue
Oyster Cult. One has to try, after all... Yours,
                                                 Jon


--
     Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)       jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
   =====================================================================
        "There's nothin' more dangerous than a wounded mosquito."