Psychedelics 

The Piedmont Park section of Atlanta was where I almost always lived. Back then it was the neighborhood where all the fringe folk lived: wannabe hippies, street people, The Children of God, Hari Krishnas.

The park itself was where the hustlers hung out. At night gay men had sex in the bushes. I was never up to that anymore than I could get myself to a bathhouse.

Up on Peachtree Street were all the drug addicts. I admired the skinny frames of the young speed freaks but their waxen skin was off-putting. I did methamphetamines once only. The illusions of clarity and infinity capability let me know that I'd met a drug that could easily enslave me. But I did enjoy the ready availability of acid. For a short time I spent an awful lot of time tripping.

Back in Savannah, my first best friend, Victor, had introduced me to drugs and liquor. Screwdrivers were the first thing I drank. I'd stupidly stuff myself with food and the food would end up on the street, Victor's car or one time along the side of building that I'd vomited on from the second floor.

For a time the only thing until I had the initiative to try other liquors. Almost always mixed with pot. Victor almost always had pot, smoking it from awakening until his pre-bedtime joint.

Marijuana never excited me much. Seemed to be mostly good for boosting psychedelics to me. With Victor and the friends built around doing drugs I tried whatever was at hand: hash, MDA, mescaline, peyote. I didn't like MDA. I remember getting off in a park. We were sitting on the grass and I kept jumping up because I thought the ground was dropping out from under me.

My best loved trip was the time I thought I was seeing a tear in reality opening before me. Chaos on the other side. I got a little scared. I've always treasured that silly metaphysical sort of hallucination.

The first records I ever bought were electronic music. Not the electronic around nowadays. Not even Switched on Bach. It was by academics. University produced music. I didn't enjoy it. Most likely didn't understand it. I played it once when doing some oddball psychedelic. Don't remember which. I had the subjective hallucination that I'd be translated to Mars. It seemed like the record was never going to do the merciful thing and end.

Another vivid hallucination that was in the borderland between visual and mood was where I felt that I was in a cathedral. But that same night I was also memorized by the sound of myself pissing.*

My heaviest time with LSD in Atlanta was when I did 10 - 15 hits over the course of a few days. My friends Victor and Ebba had told me to empty and clean their cats litter boxes while they were away. The house was a mess when they got back. Ebba was so mad that she ran out of the house. I went after her and apologized to her as translucent eyeballs stared at me from the sky. I'd done so much acid that it would blend into the next day. I had the glamorous job of architectural blueprint delivery-boy. While I walked in and out of corporate offices in downtown Atlanta I felt pleasantly zombified.

But I got all I could out of psychotropic drugs and quit.

Several years later I'd take some acid with Siobhan. Her first trip. She enjoyed it immensely. I was bored. Not even the Japanese tourists, camera of the neck to a person, made me laugh. That told me that I probably couldn't get much out of a trip again. In the old days I loved to feel the high coming on in a mall or grocery store. All those cans repeated over and over again. The depersonalized consumer mass-culture. We did do Thai sticks. Cannabis as as pure as it gets aside from has or THC. Cannabis is good with making love.

I did shoot-up a drug once. I got a junkie acquaintance to inject me with some THC. It was a good, strong high but taking it that way diminished the length of time that I was high. I mostly did it for the needle.

I never did heroin. Didn't know where to find it. I did know a bunch of junkies but was always wary of them. Didn't even try to get the one who was in love with me to find some for me. Cocaine was just showing up as drugs were beginning to bore me so I missed that. I'd've done anything.

If it knocked at the door and offered itself to me I'd do crack or ecstasy. But I'm not interested enough to seek it out.

Robitussin-DM was a popular prison high. I did that a few times under John's tutelage. The buzz was OK. Felt like it was a hallucinogen but sadly wasn't.

Awhile back I was smoking pot was to help me sleep.