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Driving while stoned
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Driving while stoned Occasionally young people have been known to experiment with mind altering substances. It is not only young people who have done this, historically. We might not have the magnificent and beautiful poem "Kubla Khan" if not for Samuel Taylor Coleridge's dalliance with opium. Thomas de Quincy has left us a small mountain of fascinating literary entertainment in addition to his famous "Confessions of an English Opium Eater". We would probably have less of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald to trouble our souls and our sleep if not for drink, and we are also the richer for the pot and booze addled recollections of the Memory Babe Jack Kerouac. William S. Burroughs is not for everyone, but he was instrumental in forming my own philosophical and political thought with his books from "Junkie" and "Naked Lunch" to "The Place of Dead Roads". Young people consider this sort of thing to be avant garde and romantic and when they "discover" an old drunk or junky who managed to scratch out some half garbled message in coughed up blood or the little bubble that remains after a fix it is like waving a bottle of Ripple before a wino- they will do anything to partake of it. It is as the forbidden fruit to them. That their parents and elders warned them off only prods them to more frenzied pusuit of the stuff and staff of life and knowledge. My friend Bob K. and I were like that once. The lure of such suffering, such exploration, and the creativity it would spawn was too much for us. Bob's knowledge of both classically great and cutting edge literary work always amazed me, and I flatter myself that he saw me in a similar way, but we each felt that the other was more accomplished and more erudite and we fed off each other and encouraged each other to greater heights of understanding. And Bob could write! I was in love with the way he could bore to the essence of a subject and say so perfectly what we both were thinking. There is another way of looking at what we were doing. We were getting high. Sure, no one in the circle passing the joint knew what the fuck we were talking about, but then, they didn't understand anyone or anything else either. Of the six sharing a doobie four figured that we were full of shit. Bob and I knew better but we didn't condescend- we explained stuff. And then they knew we were full of shit, because it didn't mean a fucking thing to them. But we were given status as the intellectuals of our little group of Freaks. Stoners didn't emerge until later. The slang term stoner probably originated in the thirties in black slang, but it didn't come into general usage until it had been popularized in movies and comedy routines like Cheech and Chong. Back then, we were Freaks, and it was a badge. It identified us, and categorized us. It was a pejorative when employed by greasers (the Vitalis crowd- they worshipped Elvis and Merle Haggard and Hank Williams) and juicers (who worshipped Pabst Blue Ribbon). We called ourselves Freaks too, but with a capital F. When one Freak referred to another pothead as a Freak, it was understood that the word had a big F in front. My Brother! Like a long haired 1968 hippie version of Cornel West. This story was headed somewhere once. And it still is, I just haven't made up my mind where yet. What got me to reminiscing and recollecting was a post by mcmaniac containing some select pearls of wisdom, among them being the reaction one has when being stopped by the fuzz while drunk, or, in 1968 much worse, while stoned. You can check it out yourselves if you think I'm too drunk or stoned to remember it correctly. [post 3530692] . My immediate reaction was "Yeah. Been there, done that." As to "fuzz", yes, we called them that, and worse. They wished to chain our wrists closely and detain us in jail cells with criminals for igniting a plant and inhaling the smoke. What would Jesus do? We didn't do that. We usually lied. None of us wanted to end up like Jesus. Unless we happened to be stoned on acid and even on acid I didn't want to take that trip. See, the story is still headed somewhere, it's just that none of us knows where that is- except me. It has changed direction, as often happens when I am reminiscing and recollecting and writing. I got to thinking aout the many times I was stopped by Peace Officers (See? I have evolved.) while under the influence. But, one of the more weird things that happened to me while wasted did not involve my own interaction with any official of any kind. So that's the story that came out of what is left of my brain, and that's the one I want to tell. The other stories are still there so there's no need to get snippy about it, or morose as if I had reneged on an agreement, even though that's technically exactly what I did. One evening in winter I dropped a hit of acid with Bob. This wasn't an experimentation with a mind expanding drug- we were getting high. We walked the Kalamazoo Mall. It was one of the early malls in the country and it wouldn't impress anyone now. They had closed the streets in the downtown business district and paved it for walkers and you could wander up and down without the hassle of traffic and crossing streets, and they festooned the trees on the mall with lights at Christmastime. It was open and out in the weather and cold when it was cold outside and hot and sunny in summer. But there were no cars. So we played under the Christmas lights as will and we studied an historical mural in the bank that portrayed an Indian running along the Kalamazoo River. That mural really came alive for a couple of freaks stoned on acid. I bought a grape NeHi and my friend bought the orange one and we switched off sharing each other's drinks because when you took a swig of grape everthing turned purple and when you followed it with orange it all went to orange. Pretty fucking cool. But eventually it was time to go home. I lived in the country, down a meandering and wooded road that wound through fields and forest along a creek. And I noticed that all the road signs seemed to be a looooooong way off in the distance. There were a lot of signs, because there were a lot of curves. I knew this road well. I had driven it, ridden it on a bicycle and a motorcycle and I had walked it many times. I knew the distances on that road and it had been stretched out so that it took a half hour to go three hundred feet. I could read those distant signs perfectly, I just couldn't seem to get to them. There was an old mill pond about half way home, and you navigated that part in a series of S curves, going over a couple of bridges and around the two ponds. As I came around the first curve I saw light where there shouldn't have been light. It was out in the pond below the waterfall, shining up through the water and kind of aimed west. I said to myself what any stoned freak would say in that event…."Whooooaa! Cool!" I had no fucking idea what I was looking at. I finally got to the bank and stopped my Volkswagen on the side of the road to get out and get a better look. There were white lights and red lights and smaller yellow looking lights, all under the water and shimmering and rippling with the little waves. And then I was paralized, too transfixed to move. A thing, a creature, was slowly wading toward me, arms out at its sides and trailing pond lillies and pads and grasses, groaning and grunting as it came. I wasn't scared exactly. I was simply too mesmerized and dumbstruck and stoned to understand what I was seeing. And that creature circled around me and my car, opened my passenger door, and got in! Holy fucking shit! I bent down and peered through the still open driver's door and the beast was peeling lily pads and pond weed off its face and slinging them on the floor of my Volkswagen. It was joe Smith, the asshole who owned the local chevy dealership and he was hammered drunk. And the bastard had just helped himself to my car. The lights out in the pond were a new 1970 Chevy Impala sedan and Joe had missed the curve and plowed fifty feet out into the Coon Hollow mill pond. And he was now sitting in my car flinging pond shit and muck all over. Take me home, he says. By now I'm thinking "Fuck you, you juicer prick" but the damage was already done, and I WAS pretty fucked up myself, so I took the -of a-bitch home. He lived in a posh place on a lake near me, so I drove him there. The conversation was a bit stilted during the drive. He did point out that I was driving five miles an hour, which perhaps explained why it took me so long to reach all those road signs. Between the two of us, him three sheets to the wind and me still tripping mightily on that hit of acid we navigated our way to his house. I momentarily had visions of solidarity with someone from the other side. I was rescuing a drunk business man from a watery grave and delivering him to hearth and home safe and sound at three A.M. But when we got there the fuckstick fell out of the Beetle without so much as a kiss my ass and crawled across the lawn to his front door. I shoulda left the fucker in the goddamn pond. I guess if I was a better liar there would be a lyric poem or a meaningful life lesson in there somewhere. Samuel Taylor Coleridge could have spun this thing into something worth reading by people who don't get stoned, only to be discovered a hundred years later by people who do. Then weave a circle round him thrice Close your eyes with holy dread For he on honeydew hath fed And drunk the milk of paradise. Become a member now and get a free tote bag. |
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Interesting story, though I can't relate to it. The only times I've been drunk were with extreme emotional upheaval (loss of someone I had come to think of as a life partner) and pig-headedness (if alcohol at a karaokee holiday party was the only holiday bonus I was receiving, I was damned well going to get my due). I was always the designated driver. But I've always liked my brain cells just as they are. They get scrambled enough when you pull daredevil moves sober. 
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Well....they were as good as I've got to share. Sure, they were the good old days, but there was just as much petty bullshit then as there is now. Occasionally it's fun to look back at that. This was one of the things that gets me laughing, but there were ugly things too. There was polarization then too, and hatred for things people didn't understand. There was a war in Vietnam and more than half the population seemed to think that the best thing I could do with my young life would be to sacrifice it in a rice paddy to make the world safe for Honeywell and General Motors. Lest we forget...a lot of us said fuck that, and got high. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Interesting story, though I can't relate to it. The only times I've been drunk were with extreme emotional upheaval (loss of someone I had come to think of as a life partner) and pig-headedness (if alcohol at a karaokee holiday party was the only holiday bonus I was receiving, I was damned well going to get my due). I was always the designated driver. But I've always liked my brain cells just as they are. They get scrambled enough when you pull daredevil moves sober.  Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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That's pretty amusing. I have never done acid but the description sounds like so many of my other friends' experience that I have no doubt that you have described it aptly. Kitkat The observant make the best lovers, I may not do right, but I do write, I have bliss, joy, and happiness in my life, Kitkat Come check out my blog KItkat1415 check out this post by me Adventures In Body Grooming #39 April Topic Link: What Lies Beneath If April Showers Oh Bloody Hell What Kind Of Weather Turns Me On Bloggers Symposium 40
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That's pretty amusing. I have never done acid but the description sounds like so many of my other friends' experience that I have no doubt that you have described it aptly. Kitkat Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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OK, I do remember a few of those times like that, sort of, when I thought I was having a good time but wasn't really quite sure, it was a adventure and I didn't have to go anywhere but inside my own mind, thanks for reminding me, I forgot about those.
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OK, I do remember a few of those times like that, sort of, when I thought I was having a good time but wasn't really quite sure, it was a adventure and I didn't have to go anywhere but inside my own mind, thanks for reminding me, I forgot about those. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I didn't exactly dislike my brain cells the way they were- I was trying to teach them to dance...... I was in junior high and high school through much of Vietnam, with Nixon ending the draft about 8 or 9 months before I turned 18. Vietnam tore the country apart and it took years until even the most die hard proponents of the war came to see it as a lost cause. You have brought back a LOT of memories for me of a simpler time, but also one of the most dynamic periods in our history. Thank you.
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I too used to rewind my mind and rethread my head quite often. When people would call me a long haired hippy, I would explain that I was too young to have been a hippy. We were Freaks, who were the ones to follow the hippies. I was in junior high and high school through much of Vietnam, with Nixon ending the draft about 8 or 9 months before I turned 18. Vietnam tore the country apart and it took years until even the most die hard proponents of the war came to see it as a lost cause. You have brought back a LOT of memories for me of a simpler time, but also one of the most dynamic periods in our history. Thank you. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Clearly a trip well worth remembering... None of my experiences were quite as worth retelling. I enjoyed reading this though. Yes, I've dropped acid. Enough said. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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You know, it's fun to think back on that stuff sometimes but I'd never want to go back to it. We were kids, we didn't know shit and somehow we lived through it. I wouldn't necessarily change it, but I don't want to do it again! I agree how it is fun to look back on it every once in a while, but NO WAY I'd ever get back into that scene again. I look back sometimes and am amazed that I was able to survive some of the crazy shit we used to pull.
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That might be the ten years difference in our ages. When I got out of high school it was still pretty common to drive while drunk. I remember the shitstorm when the state started cracking down on drunk driving. In 1969 it was a bit of a social stigma to get busted for driving drunk, but the perps usually laughed it off amongst themselves- the penalties weren't all that harsh. As movingOn001 said, I'm surprised I survived some of the dumb shit I did. Some of my friends didn't. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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so that's how I came to be a freak! even now I call myself that, it just followed me through life and I liked it. [image] Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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11/25/2014 3:14 pm |
Excellent prose, Kzoo. Did I tell you I had dinner with Dr. Leary once?
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Excellent prose, Kzoo. Did I tell you I had dinner with Dr. Leary once? I do seem to recall that you mentioned that dinner once. That would be a fun post to read- dedicated to that dinner...hint, hint, hint. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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11/25/2014 8:18 pm |
Thank you, my friend! I do appreciate a compliment from a discriminating reader! I do seem to recall that you mentioned that dinner once. That would be a fun post to read- dedicated to that dinner...hint, hint, hint. I could perhaps write about that experience, sure.
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It's never too late to get yer freak on..... Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I guess it's politically incorrect these days to admit to enjoying drugs, but I don't regret the couple of times that I tried psychedelics. Very, very interesting experiences. Maybe someday I'll share my own funny story (not quite as funny as seeing lights in the pond and having it turn out to be a car that someone lost control of, though - that's classic ).  
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P.S. After reading this post "Take two - they're small" has taken on a whole new meaning!
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I guess it's politically incorrect these days to admit to enjoying drugs, but I don't regret the couple of times that I tried psychedelics. Very, very interesting experiences. Maybe someday I'll share my own funny story (not quite as funny as seeing lights in the pond and having it turn out to be a car that someone lost control of, though - that's classic ).Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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P.S. After reading this post "Take two - they're small" has taken on a whole new meaning! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I'm certain that in addition to getting high, the communal act of young people breaking the law and doing something socially unacceptable to our parents generation was a powerful draw. We had been lied to about the dangers of pot and sex so it then followed that they had lied about nearly everything else too. In fact, they knew NOTHING! We were kids and in that era when we left the nest we did it with style. And a lid of reefer. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I already liked you and now I like you more! Freaks of the world unite! [image] I have a couple of copies of those around here. An old friend of mine turned me on to them. They were best enjoyed after smoking at least two joints. I think the funniest one was when Fat Freddie and his Cat were going camping and Fat Freddie's cat got into Fat Freddie's van. They were on the road and Fat Freddie's Cat had to take a dump. He looked around the van and saw that Fat Freddie had forgotten to bring along the litter box. The last pane had Fat Freddie's Cat sitting there with a very smug and satisfied look on his face and thinking, "Boy is Fat Freddie going to be surprised when he opens his sleeping bag!" (That sounds like something my old cat would have done)  Do you remember the Zippy the Pinhead and Billy Bicycle Seat comics? They may have been done by the same artists who drew the Freak Brothers, but I don't remember for sure. Some of them were pretty funny too.Thanks for reviving yet more old memories!
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I don't remember Billy Bicycle Seat but I read Zippy! One of my favorites was Cheech Wizard. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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