Child Of War

Yesterday morning, I walked my son Sammy to school to see him off on his fourth day of TK. As we walked along the sidewalk, zigzagging back and forth on the pavement, most likely following the trail of bread crumbs from our previous route and a total refusal to walk in a straight in line, my son asked me if he could tell me something After issuing my approval, he told me he loved me. He says these things often and I eat it up every time. Recent days have been especially hard with him, and I knew at some point later in the day, even after a truly warm moment shared between father and son, I would feel frustration rattle my bones. I would raise my voice and march down the hallway in a steel-toed blaze of authority in an attempt to get him to go to sleep. Later, he will wake up from a nightmare, or from the sensation of a wet sheet and underpants. But he would return to sleep quickly, and more importantly, safely.

Omran Daqneesh, the five year old Syrian boy whose photograph has been circulating on social media sites across the globe, did not have this kind of night. He may have shared a similar moment with his mother and father that day as I did with my son, but on the evening of August 17th, he was awoken by something far different than a wet mattress, the face of a scary clown, or a dog barking at a horse on TV. Omran's sleep was interrupted by the piercing sounds of war. He and his family were in their home in the Syrian city of Aleppo when an airstrike hit nearby, reducing their house to rubble, from which miraculously he and his family were rescued. The footage of the 5 year old being pulled from the remains and placed in an ambulance to await medical attention is both disturbing and heartbreaking.

It's an image I can't shake from my head, and quite frankly, shouldn't be allowed to. The footage is so telling of just what kind of chaos people like myself will never know or come close to understanding but what, tragically for some, experience on a daily basis, and judging by the calm glare in the little boy's eyes, have grown used to. It's painful to think that this sort of event would become par for the course in some areas around the world. But it seems to be that way. I can't remember the last time a single image moved me to tears, but this one did. It's as if you can detect the boy's innocence, housed in his tiny dust-ridden body, but see that it's forever been changed. The left side of his face is covered in blood, a curtain of red that almost makes his left eye vanish from sight.

A video clip of a CNN news anchor fighting back tears as she reports the story shows him as he lifts his tiny hand to his head to examine the dust and blood that cover it, and calmly return it to the seat as he patiently waits. It's upsetting to watch and it pains me to think that although I know something must to be done to battle the unrest, I have no fucking idea what that thing is, or how someone like me can help. It kept me in front of the computer tonight, staring at it. It made me write about it. I have no illusions in thinking this blog will have any impact whatsoever. I just couldn't and can't stop thinking about this poor young boy, his adorable face smeared in the ashes of conflict of which he has no grasp. 

This post follows one I shared last week that hinted at a certain level of optimism I feel despite recent tragedies that have occurred in the world, optimism that truthfully hasn't changed. What that shouldn't suggest, however, is that maintaining that optimism comes easy, especially when seeing footage like this. It's hard to fight the hate that can easily manifest itself and the disgust that can cut at your knees, begging you to succumb to it. Remaining positive is difficult. I do it for my family. And like millions of other people that his photograph has touched, I now do it for Omran. 

Everything Matters

There is a sound. A recurrent hum pummels my brain into submission. Awareness settles. My eyes strain from the gesture, not yet ready to reveal themselves to the day. Rays of light squeeze through the blinds like a flashlight cupped in the palm of a hand. I rise. I am standing half naked in the middle of my tiny studio apartment in Hollywood, California, practically sleeping upright as I plan my trek to the bathroom. The date is September 11th, 2001 and as far I can tell, feels like any other day of the week. I piss my innards out and wash my hands and face at the sink. I prepare my breakfast like only a bachelor can, with ideas at the forefront minus any preparation of actual food.

Following a quick shower, I brew some coffee, the reason motion is even possible this morning. I can't remember if I went out drinking the night before, but last I checked you needed friends to do that. Not always, but it helps. I had lived in Los Angeles for five months and at that stage knew 2 people, both of whom I hardly saw. I leave my apartment and descend the 4 floors to the garage parking where my 1993 Ford Escort assembles its 2 cylinders. I start the engine, a wheezing sound that counters any sort of vehicular rush, and drive further away from any likelihood of ever getting laid in this city. 

I stick to my normal itinerary. I worked at Shurgard Storage (acquired by Public Storage in 2006) managing one of their sites in Culver City, 20 miles from my apartment. As a fairly new resident of LA, my knowledge of some of the more convenient routes was still in its infancy. The arteries of this city are almost always clogged, regardless of the time of day, inciting a conscious decision to avoid the freeways at any cost. I approached light after light, shocked by the rare occasion of what felt like, by LA standards anyway, a car-less commute. I didn't know why, but this particular morning seemed different.

As I arrived, I spotted a pair of construction workers frantically moving about and gathering their belongings. A section of the building had been under construction for the past few weeks so this was normal. I parked. As I exited the car, one of the men walked in my direction and with his hands raised full staff, shouted "America is under attack! The World Trade Center is in ruins!" I allowed the statement to settle. Before even pretending to grasp the concept, a second wave came. "Go home, man! We're too close to LAX. That may be a target!" With that, the men hopped in their trucks and took off, leaving the building and me in complete fucking darkness. I entered the main office in a now awkward attempt to begin my opening duties, his words hovering like a halo above my head.

What sort of attack could we be under? And by whom? Or what? Had Independence Day actually happened? Had aliens, mirroring a scene from some shitty Hollywood blockbuster, finally made their presence known? I needed answers. I called my friend (now wife) Josephine. After a few rings, she answered, the exhaustion in her "hello" immediately countered by a bombardment of questions. With no television in the office and smartphones still in the crawling stage, I had only this phone call to rely on. I waited as she shuffled around the bed searching for her remote, a button-press away as it was aired on nearly every channel. A moment passed, and she gasped "Oh my God..."

"What?" I yelled. I was anxious, like a child eagerly awaiting the unveiling of that first present on Christmas Day. Only underneath was something I could have never anticipated, or would ever have wanted to. She began to cry. By the time her and I spoke, the day had already seen the collapse of both towers, the Pentagon struck and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a field in Pennsylvania. It was unfathomable. And I still had yet to see a single image. She tried to describe it for me. The footage was everywhere and more than capable of guiding her illustration of the events but when tears become your primary source of ink, painting a picture for someone can be impossibly difficult.

She became more distressed when describing the "jumpers." The worst of the attack was now coming to light. I let her go, neither of us really knowing what else to say. The following phone call was to my friend Vince. (Replaying this in my head, I have no idea why my first instinct wasn't to call my parents). Judging by how he answered the phone, it was obvious he was still in the dark. But then again, we all were now. I waited for him to turn his TV on, and the expected reaction to come. "Holy shit" he cried out, almost as if he'd been up for hours, an acknowledgement of significance. My next call still wasn't to my parents. It was to my boss at the time to ask what next steps for us were. It turned out, as construction dude guessed, our days were ending, if only for work.

A Silent Commute

I was sealed to the radio in the car. I stayed on one station, which described the scene as "something out of a movie" and "the worst terrorist attack in United States history." He offered his own description of the poor souls who jumped from almost 100 stories up to escape the sweltering heat from the fires. Fires I still couldn't believe were from a Boeing 767 having been used as a missile to crash into a building. "What the fuck is happening?" I thought. As the reporter emphasized the horror of the events, I started to sob in my car. Thankfully, I was on my way home but I knew what I would be doing once I got there. As curious as I was, I still didn't know what I was going to see. And whatever it was, I knew I would be seeing it alone.

Massacre At A Hight School

Two years prior to the events of 9/11, I was siting in the living room of my apartment in San Diego. My girlfriend at the time had convinced me to move with her while she attended school and like a good boyfriend and feeling somewhat adventurous, I decided to make the trek from San Jose to Southern California. It was the first time either of us had abandoned our respective parental nests so it was a big deal for us to move to a completely different part of the state for the test. As I sat in front of the TV, I was awarded the first couple of images of what appeared to be a shooting at a high school in Colorado. 

Scores of students and faculty huddled with authorities as the voice of a news anchor reported that two gunmen had opened fire inside. It was the first mass shooting that I can remember having witnessed unfold on live TV. I called my friend Jenn back home. We spent the next few hours on the phone together watching the footage. I remember the shock that came over me as I listened to eye witness accounts of the bloodbath that took place inside, and also during live coverage of students lying bleeding on the hot cement, I shared my excitement that the release of the first installment of the Star Wars prequels was fast approaching.

On a sunny April 20th, 1999, two Columbine seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, took action against the torment they suffered from fellow classmates at the school. Armed with multiple firearms, knives and homemade pipe bombs, the two entered the school through the west entrance and for nearly 50 minutes, went on a murderous rampage, killing 12 students and one teacher. For months, this is what the media reported as the primary motivation behind the attack. Countless books since then have been written, documentaries produced and conspiracies theorized of the young men's true intentions. The bully theory was eventually refuted by a more confidently identified motive shared by journalist Dave Cullen in 2004.

We watched the madness unfurl. I lost focus on the reasons behind the attack, blinded by the simple fact that this was actually happening and to kids no less. It was terrifying to watch but as I sat in the confines of my apartment, I grew numb. I wasn't angry or confused. I didn't think about gun control or lofty politicians. When Michael Moore's 2002 documentary Bowling For Columbine was released, it invited other considerations into the mix - the media, the NRA, our country's fascination with gun violence, and war to name a few. It's not that I didn't take any of these things seriously. I just didn't immediately consider them when imagining why two high school kids would commit such a terrible act of brutality. Over the years to come, it would slowly become evident.

Home At Last

As I stormed my apartment door, the first thing I did was turn on the television. The image of a still standing North and South tower filled the screen, a marriage of smoke and fire swelling from within. I recalled the voice heard earlier describing the scene as something out of a movie and I understood completely. It didn't look real. The scope of the destruction was massive but these were not special effects. The sky behind the towers was a deep blue, not a bright green canvas that's often the cape of Hollywood trickery. This was happening. I turned to multiple channels, like a strobe light of the same event flickering before me, various stages of the attack playing over and over. I was at a standstill in the middle of my apartment.

The largest terrorist attack in our nation's history had not only occurred but was now playing like a broken record on the phonograph of 2001 media. The collapse of the buildings revealed another level of the chaos, followed by my finally seeing footage of the people left with no other option than to jump to their deaths. My hands swung like a gate over my mouth. This was the first 30 minutes of a 5 hour binge fest. I made more phone calls (one finally to my parents) and even went for a walk in a foolish attempt to clear my head. I sprung through the door and escaped onto a strangely quiet Hollywood Boulevard. There was no planned destination in mind, just a need to tear myself away from the news, a feeling that sadly mirrors many sentiments of today.

I passed by smoke shops, restaurants, and bars. You could almost feel the detachment among the patrons inside. Tourists strolled along the star lined sidewalk, pretending to enjoy themselves. I walked alone, a piece cut straight from the cloth of human connection. If I had already felt an unease engaging strangers in conversation, this only solidified its merit. I was busy anyway. More images of mass destruction awaited me. I would be returning to my apartment soon enough. 

Aftermath And Everything Else

That November, I had plans to visit family in San Jose for Thanksgiving. It was the first time I would be traveling by plane following the attacks so I had no idea what was ahead of me. I exited the taxi, landing perfectly at the end of the security line, which had spilled out onto the sidewalk as holiday travelers inched their way inside. Normally, this would be cause for complaint as to how much of a pain in the ass this was. But what I gathered from the crowd and almost universally so, was that safety, over anything else, outweighed a few extra minutes, or in this case hours, in line. I felt a strange sense of community with these people as all of us, regardless of the situation, were in the same boat, waiting for a plane to take us to see family and friends.

The scarring the terrorists left was still very much visible, like a network on the skin of each person that stood in that line. We all felt what had happened that day, some more than others, but it was the unity it forged that I came to recognize, be it in the form of how total strangers treated each other or the short-lived American Flag-attached-to-the- car-window-routine that flooded the scenery of my daily commute. The mood was strangely positive and in a world free of today's smartphone chokehold, people talked to one another. A woman and I struck up a conversation in line and after clearing the security check point, shared a few drinks together at the bar as we awaited our flights, an added bonus.

I boarded the plane and was taken aback with how comfortable I felt. Of course, it didn't come without a certain reticence or brief and shameful moment of racial profiling. But there was a union on board. Anger was unavoidable, sure. I wanted the bastards responsible, at least the ones still alive, to pay, to suffer for the lives they took. It's an emotion that rarely leads anywhere positive but I still feel it today with recent tragedies that have arisen that almost now seem repetitive. I remember seeing the faces of my family and friends when I arrived and how awash in pure joy I became. I couldn't wait to hug my parents or get shit-faced with my buddies. I wanted to share new music with friends and tell them about the awkward encounters I had with celebrities. 

I talked with friends about the attacks and what it felt like under a then Bush Presidency America. It was everywhere. But so was hope. America is a country that has aroused derision and a burning hate from radical groups both near and far but it is also a place where optimism can reign. When news broke of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, one of the most vicious attacks in US history, it seemed like the world was going to end. As a father of a one year old, I could barely watch the news. This was not Columbine, or 9/11. To me, this was worse. Not in the case of scope but rather how immediately relatable it felt. I saw the face of my son every time I thought of the poor parents whose child had been lost.

Bedrooms, toys, coloring books - all abandoned in those five horrifying minutes. Shrines of dreams, milestones, conversations between father and son, mother and daughter, erected from a memory. There would be no answer as to how one would cope with such a devastating loss. But people still came together, supporting the community and families of those affected. Social media became an avenue for people wanting to offer their own support, even with as simple a gesture as replacing a selfie, such as the Eiffel Tower Peace Sign created by French Artist Jean Jullien that riddled Facebook and Twitter profile pictures in honor of the victims of the Bataclan Theater attack in Paris. People spoke, if minimally so. 

Sandy Hook provoked further debates of gun control, with many arguing for stricter gun legislation and background checks. The two sides battled it out and saw the bonfires doused with kerosene as even more shooting deaths occurred, the Charleston Church Massacre in South Carolina where 9 parishioners died and recently at a Nightclub in Orlando this past June, of which 49 people were killed. On the evening of July 14th, a new level of brutality arose when a 31 year old man drove a truck through a crowd at a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France, killing 85 people and injuring multiple others.

But again, people united. As silly as social media can be at times, allowing people of all kinds to stretch their maws at the podium, it has meant everything to some. It created an open forum for people to be heard. It welcomed groups coming together to rally against all types of issues such as social injustice, sexual assault, or a rogue band of DC fans petitioning to shut down the website Rotten Tomatoes for its negative reviews of the comic book giant's films.

The Black Lives Matter movement arrived like a meteor shower to spark awareness of police brutality and what it believed to be a rising tide of systemic racism in our country. It induced the movements All Lives Matter and later Blue Lives Matter in opposition to attacks on Police, most notably in Dallas last month where, following a reportedly peaceful protest, a lone sniper gunned down 5 officers.

We seem to be living in one of the darkest times imaginable. New attacks almost seem too consistent and unpredictable. I fear for the world my sons will grown up in. But even with its scars and social disfigurement, the world is still beautiful, inspiring and hopeful. The below image was taken while visiting New York City in 2013 for my brother Scott's full marathon.

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This was across the street from where the 9/11 Memorial stands. It speaks volumes of the vitality of a city that once looked like it was turned to ash. As my wife and I overlooked the craters where the towers once stood, now gorgeous reflecting pools, we read the names of the victims. People stood in silence. A single medal from the race rested atop a name engraved in one of the panels, a sign of remembrance that echoes today. I stare at this image and I think maybe I'm wrong, that this is precisely the world I would want my sons to grow up in. There will always be hostility that leads to violence, tragedy and unthinkable loss. But what follows is what they will remember. What follows is what will define them. What follows is what will matter. I want to believe this. I hope I do.

The Clock

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Artwork by Devonne Amos

All things rot. It's the nature of the beast, or the wretched animal that squeals in the early morning as the bones desperately attempt to justify their existence. It's a slow burn, a realization that gradually wraps its arm around you like a date pretending to stretch, only to flirt with the idea that you will no longer hold on to your youth - a greeting card to bid a fond farewell to the body you once had, once preserved and cared for.

This was hardly me. There was a time when I owned a somewhat decent shape but never once a frame that was carved from wood - maybe hard play dough at best. But as I've grown older, I've slowly come to terms with the reality of aging, the kind of twin shadow that accompanies each and every one of us, hiding in plain sight from everyone but the people around you - the ones who notice. You can see each other's, but not always your own. Then the day comes when you strain your back trying to put on a fucking shirt, or worse, sitting on the toilet.

It's a tough pill to swallow, and like a child, you embrace the lie that it's too big and foolishly try to spit it out. But it's forced upon you, the only other option being to wake up and occasionally oil the machine. Either you're at the controls yourself, or sitting in the green room while past lovers, a shitty job, and lost friendships influence the path you take. These experiences can write the story for you, or stand aside as you rise, watching as you take control and pierce them all with the very pen by which each chapter in your life is forged. Nevertheless, age is there. It never cowers. It comes for you every single day, until the day it no longer needs to. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. The one blinding realization that parenthood bestows upon you is that in all likelihood, and hopefully so, your children will outlive you.

Every day, I look at my two boys and wonder what they will grow up to be but more importantly, will I live to see it? This question lingers as I reach to grab a toy or a book to read to them and feel the bolts in my joints slightly begin to crack. When you're young, you seem to have an infinite amount of energy. Each passing year, as your focus shifts and priorities change, you start to see those years collect dust piles behind you, becoming a catalogue you occasionally glance through, old headlines that highlight the pride you once had in yourself, but almost now no longer exists. This may seem like a sad sap point of view but this is what it's come to. But this is not where it will end. There is a light in the distance, a reason to move. It's the two lives that grow before me every day, the descendants and dependents with whom I share my life. My family.

This is what I think about when I sit in a chair too long and my legs begin to hurt, or when I take my dog for long walks that tire me more easily than normal. It's gotten me to reevaluate my approach to life, my approach to discipline and the creative aspirations for which I aim. As my son Joseph braves his scans over the next few years, I ponder this. I don't see the difficult year during which he underwent his treatments as having belonged to my wife and I. The difficult year was his. He didn't have a choice. By some twisted fucking game of spin the bottle, he was selected to endure this. I have a choice, though. A choice to take care of myself, to alter my habits, to try harder.

I've befriended the excuses long enough. I write more than ever now but I don't exercise or eat well. And this needs to change. It's as if I'm brandishing some sort of universal mark, a badge of mortality that only becomes more apparent as I get older, like a tattoo of a face, a symbol or some quote written in a language I've never spoken that stretches as the years fall and the skin shouts of a battle that wages within us all, between the people we once were and the people we've become. Both versions will arrive at the end sooner or later. I suppose it's how gracefully we get there that matters.

As They Were

In January of this year, when the news broke of David Bowie's passing, at that moment, it felt as if no other musician in the world existed. Every corner you turned, headline you read, Facebook profile picture you saw, a tribute of some kind was being made. The catalogue of music the man left behind was astounding, the foundation on which his songs were created well beyond what some could fully comprehend, and in a way, are still unable to. There was a sophistication about Bowie's music that was far from ordinary, an approach that blurred the lines between art and sexuality. He was a man of many faces, and one. On April 21st, as my son and I were preparing to leave for the Giants game in San Francisco, it was reported by multiple news stations, social media outlets and emoji-ridden text messages from family and friends that Prince had died of unknown causes.

He was 57 years old and died at his recording studio in Minnesota. I was floored. Here were two of the most influential and iconic musical artists of our time lost in a span of months. It didn't seem real, or even possible. It felt out of place, like a deleted scene in a movie you realize after watching it, has no place in the order of things. Well, maybe not like that. But shocking, nonetheless. The impact on the music world was what everyone was talking about. Comforting as it was to see so many people pay tribute to them, what you were still left with in the end is how your own life is altered, and the lives you know their music touched so deeply, memories certain songs instantly propel to the surface, both heartache and victory afoot. You may not know every song. I sure as hell don't. But the ones I'm fond of are etched deep into experiences from my past and present. 

Music has that power. Those who know me well know I've had a love affair with music for quite some time. So when we lose an artist such as David Bowie, Prince, or for me in particular, Elliott Smith, it leaves a permanent mark, a scar you continually expose whenever you listen to one of their albums, or do something to which one of their songs became a soundtrack. I won't pretend to harbor expert knowledge of either musician's body of work. There are songs I'll admit I've probably never even heard. But it's their legacy that speaks the most to people, regardless of the collection of said catalogue one owns.

When I hear Bowie's China Girl or Prince's Purple Rain, I'm reminded of moments that were made special due to those very songs. I was young when Purple Rain was released and remember being kicked out of my parents' living room during Prince and Apollonia's sex scene. I was forced to listen to the music from the hallway and that's what stuck. I was a ten year old boy sitting in a darkened corridor as the glare from the television provided my only source of light, listening to this angelic voice sing about falling grapefruit juice. I had no idea what Purple Rain was. I just knew I wanted to hear about it constantly. Bowie's music became equally significant.

When friends would ask me who I thought the world's greatest band or musician was, I would always feel compelled to say The Beatles. Not because of their music, mind you, which of course is brilliant, but more so due to the entire genres of music they inspired, a category of which David Bowie is easily a part. I was in my twenties when I first heard Ziggy Stardust for the first time. From there, my collection of his music grew, songs I couldn't get out of my head, from Aladdin Sane's Saturday Night to Hunky Dory's Changes, Stardust's Five Years to the title track of Heroes. The list of songs is unending though to some need only be comprised of a select few.

This is how these artists have connected with people, their stories wired directly into the consciousness of millions. Everybody has had sex to a Prince song at one point in their life. Even if that's not true now, it will be someday. In an industry that on some levels has skinned originality alive, these were two of the most versatile and integrity driven talents. And now they're gone. On the day David Bowie's death was reported, musician and writer Carrie Brownstein wrote via her twitter account:

                   "It feels like we lost something elemental, as if an entire color is gone."

I knew exactly what she meant. One could argue that the landscape of popular music today has been reduced to a hue no longer rich with ingenuity. Original voices haven't disappeared completely. I just long for the screams of the silent innovators, and will forever miss the two that were taken from us far too early. The holes on our old bedroom walls where the tacks once held the posters of our favorite bands act like constellations of our past. Even filled, they still echo the nights we would lay on our beds, headphones on, and escape. David Bowie and Prince, among others, were the forces that took us there. And for that, I will forever be grateful.

Obvious Oblivion

I plummet down the steps, every jagged move guided by anxiety and a sharp pain in my back that slowly begins to resemble excitement. I hesitate to welcome what follows, what's waiting for me at the bottom. The ocean deceives me as it stretches across my entire field of view, its plastic fangs the result of decades of human activity that have only further contributed to the accumulated waste floating sporadically along the shore, an ever growing wart above nature's once glowing smile. As I finalize my descent, tiny grains of sand scorch the bottom of my feet, the sun's maddening embrace already hours in. I melt into the beach with every clumsy step I take. I look for comfort from my friends, two in particular who have joined me on this terrifying journey into the unknown. I am seventeen years old, and have just dropped acid for the first time. 

Where I would normally be sitting among my classmates, I am perched atop a rock facing the Santa Cruz shoreline. The water looks unhurried, the waves moving almost intermittently, a stop motion effect at the hand of God, or the pretty young woman who took our money this morning. The ghosts of my English class scatter about as I walk through visions like sheets hanging to dry of what my day would've been like if I had acted more responsibly. But this is high school, and unfortunately for me, responsibilities are far from the forefront of my priorities. I ask my friends how they feel, how the world around them is behaving. I get only violent bursts of laughter and some "holy shits", a reaction I understand perfectly. Two other friends, a couple, are there merely to enjoy a day of hooky at the beach while being endlessly entertained by the three assholes undergoing the effects of a highly dangerous drug, though one that appears to be loads of fun.  

As the high begins to peel my scalp further back, I notice my friend Gabe entering the ocean and dragging what looks to be a small but chubby shark. I realize later it's a boogie board. He rides the waves in, sound reduced to the hum of the sea and his girlfriend, a gorgeous young creature that my raw and perverted mind can barely register as human, cheers him on. 'What the fuck is happening?' I ask myself. My other two friends join in on the chants when I see Gabe disappear, engulfed in a blanket of foam. He rises after what feels like a decade and greets us with a newly shaped upper lip, compliments of the undertow pulling him face first into a rock. His girlfriend runs to him like a soldier returning from war and caresses his face.

I survey the platypus-like beak of my buddy and feel the anger burn through my veins. I turn to my enemy, the ocean, and prepare my revenge. It's only moments later that I find myself charging the water, punching wildly at the waves as I scream 'FUCK YOU!' at the top of my lungs. I am convinced very few people have ever looked this ridiculous. And it is only the beginning.

Research Abounds

Shortly after graduating from High School, a period known to some as the waiting room of adulthood, there were moments occasionally dipped in a substance of some kind. I'd like to say it was with nothing too heavy, but relative terms like that only exist to make you feel better about the choices you make. Broad scales for small minds, a willful imbalance of self-perception. As marijuana was of significant importance to some of the friends I hung around, and girls I wanted to see naked, steering toward it came naturally. The first time I tried it was different than some of the stories I had been told. I felt nothing. Whether it was product or user error, I walked away unsatisfied. And considering the first ever drug I experimented with was acid, marijuana had a lot to live up to. 

My friends seemed to get a kick out of it so I was eager to experience it for myself. I was mocked if it looked like I was doing it wrong, my novice ranking a source of comedy for some. I inhaled, awaiting a rush that never came. Until it did.  Aside from the onslaught of mass paranoia with which marijuana would eventually befall me, it did have its memorable moments. Where LSD inspired a more sensory high, a good bag of weed created a more phycological one. Whether I was sitting in the backseat of my friend Josh's Camaro spacing out to Dr. Dre's The Chronic while cruising down El Camino Real, or standing in the middle of a living room staring down the barrel of a four foot bong, it became a source of worry and discomfort for me. There was laughter, mind you. Quite a bit of it.

But down in the trenches of my brain, it was apparent that this was not going to be a love affair I would aim to keep. Whenever I smoked, I would feel completely out of my body, which I suppose is the whole point, though one a little too jagged for me. I was surprised at how perfectly functional so many of my friends appeared to be, whereas I would turn into a total fucking moron whenever I was high. The following rules were established as a result:

1. Never get high in the daytime.

2. Never get high around a lot of people, especially during large parties (Less than five is okay)

3. Never get high and talk to women and die before you have sex with one.

4. And finally, whatever you do, never get high again.

All of the above were broken with less than desirable results.

A Signal In The Grass

One memory I have was from a road trip I took years later with my friends Matt and Troy on our way to Lake Tahoe. With a storm on the forecast, we practiced our best judgment and, instead of taking a well equipped truck, decided to take my 1993 Ford Escort, a car that would often give the impression that it ran solely on AAA batteries. On the way, somewhere along Interstate 5, my buddy Matt decided to whip out some sort of weird, motorized pipe designed to enhance the strength of the user's hit. I drove while he activated it in the backseat of my car, an act, despite its close proximity, I could hear but not actually see. I watched as the mood of the weather drastically began to change, followed by the mushroom cloud of smoke that ejected from my friend's throat. After hacking himself inside out, Matt handed the pipe to my friend Troy. 

The process was repeated until the pipe was finally passed to me. I weighed the possibilities. 'What harm could it do?' The answer was obvious but I raised the pipe to my lips and proceeded to take one of the fattest fucking hits of my life, all while trying to steer us safely to our destination. My lungs were set ablaze and the lining of my throat felt like shrapnel of dead tissue had been flung like a pinball inside my mouth. As that became my one and only hit, I continued to drive us along Highway 50, now entering Placerville, CA. Floating along the road, paranoia immediately began to take hold. I slowed to a crawl at a green light, and sat there as the engine purred while various cars pulled around us, spouting obscenities at the asshole behind the wheel.

"Fucking go!" Troy shouted. Startled, but barely grasping the moment, I accelerated gently and began to move the car forward, unaware of the curve in the lane up ahead. It didn't dawn on me that I had ended up in the parking lot of a liquor store and had somehow found my way to the rear of the building, stopping in what only mildly resembled a space. They both had had enough at that point and rightfully demanded that I surrender all driving duties for the rest of the evening. "Get the fuck out of the seat, Marc" was heard multiple times. I don't even know how I managed to move from one seat to another, let alone landing in the backseat of my own car. As Matt and Troy went inside the liquor store for snacks, I stayed in my seat, awaiting the dragon's breath I was convinced was destined to destroy my evening. 

With a new captain at the helm, we returned to our regularly scheduled programming. A slave now to the navigational prowess of my friend, the outside world became an arena of unpredictability. Snow began to fall, appearing like tiny stars in the blackness, dots of white hurling at the windshield as if Matt had somehow activated the Ford Escort's secret hyperdrive feature. 'Dude, slow down' I demanded. Matt assured me that he was driving the speed limit and for all I knew, he was. But it felt like at any given moment, we would skid out of control at the heels of the Hill Valley Courthouse. After a few more attempts to get Matt, anyone, to acknowledge my pleas, I noticed an odd shape squirming in the distance. Had we been moving at the speed of light which I initially concluded we were, this thing would've escaped my view entirely. But it was there, peeking out of the darkness, coming dangerously into focus.

When awareness finally hit, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. In a historic union of man and beast, a man and a werewolf were walking side by side on the shoulder of Highway 50. 'What the fuck is that!?' I yelped helplessly. "You're fucking trippin, Marc!" Troy snapped in anger. I wanted nothing more than to believe him. I wanted it to be a delusion, to know that this was all happening because of a simple error in judgement. But when Matt stopped mid-sentence to review the scene more carefully, bug-eyed and curious, I receded into a ball in the back seat of my car and squealed inside my stoned and altered head 'Oh shit, they see it too!' The world was ending, but not of nuclear war, global warming, or famine, but of a creature popular in American folklore and movies. And even if it turned out to be a woman walking her Labrador Retriever, which it did, it was still terrifying.

Lessons In Freefall

As I turned 18, house parties would become a regular lab for experimentation. My friends and I tested the waters frequently, only to aggravate the waves that came. More trips down the hallucinogenic highway were taken, one that even left me questioning the meaning of life as a female companion and I stood at the top of a slide while two men we didn't know watched eerily below. Contrary to what some have experienced, I never had a "bad trip" on acid. Even when others around me seemed to be in turmoil, it created a wall that would almost pose as a shield that I could occasionally poke through, but be able to take refuge behind when needed. This was all in my head, I'm sure. But I was always surprised by how enjoyable the experience was, considering how low I felt at that particular stage in my life.

I had feared that my current state of mind would somehow cause my bullshit to metastasize and ruin my high, or worse, someone else's. But it never did. One night at a friend's house, a few of us decided to drop a hit of acid each before watching Pink Floyd's The Wall, an act permanently stored in the global archives of obvious cliches. One of my earliest childhood buddies, not one to partake in this sort of activity, was among us, and having recently gone through a bad break up, was there primarily to rid himself of the mental anguish, if just for one evening. But it became apparent to him early on that the barrier between he and the evening's drug-taking coalition was too much for him to bear. He said his goodbyes and made his way out the door. Against my better, somewhat sober judgement, I followed him. 

I knew the climb would be nearing its peak, but I didn't want him to be alone. I thought, if anything, we could just bullshit in the car for a while, trip for a bit, and return at the tail end of the fun. But as we were turning the corner, under the spotlight of horrible fucking luck, we saw his ex-girlfriend crossing the street, her tiny hand sealed in the embrace of another man. Distraught, my friend sped off in a fiery rage, taking my high as hostage. We raced down the expressway, the streetlights above contorting into streaks of irradiated brilliance. His sobs were only a harsh reminder that anything at this point was a potential threat. As tough as he was, my buddy wasn't prepared for this. As he shared his thoughts with me on love and the current state of his ex-girlfriend's betrayal, swerving violently around fellow motorists, the drug's affect became impenetrable.

He offered multiple times to take me back to the house in an attempt to salvage what was left of my high. But I declined. It was one of the strangest circumstances I had ever experienced with a friend, but one I knew I was not willing to change. We sat in his car in front of his parents' house and bullshitted, laughed even. As The Smiths' Louder Than Bombs muttered from the speakers, there were tears, proclamations of suicide, and passing cars that stretched like taffy before me, alterations of light and sound that promised no understanding of reality, and no end. But it was worth it. We advanced a bridge that only hours earlier seemed destined to burn. With geography an ally, I was able to walk the five houses down the street to get to my own. Balance slowly returned. But most importantly, my friend was still here.

And The Wall Comes Down

As these experiences further solidified their influence, different avenues were explored. Powders entered the mix shortly into my early twenties, though only briefly. When I reflect on the logic used to justify some of the choices I made, it almost always revolved around a friendship, be it platonic, or other. Sometimes I did it just to fit in, to replace the piece in a group that had been temporarily vacated, or severed. Sliding a hollowed out pen or rolled up dollar bill along the crease on a sheet of foil wasn't something I did to try to be cool. These were moments shared with people that were important to me, in which things like music, relationships, parents, religion, and goals would command the topics of conversations we would have. They're not moments I'm particularly proud of, or ones I know I'll ever repeat, but they're experiences that served a purpose in my life, no matter how stupid or careless, and even helped to foster a creative impulse on which I would eventually rely. 

That's not to say that I believe only drugs can offer a gateway to creativity. There have been many people throughout history who have created wonders without the crutch or assistance of drugs. But it did, at least for me, influence a different interpretation of ideas I had at the time. And it's those very ideas that inspire me to write today. It's been 7 years since I last experimented with anything other than alcohol. This took place on a camping trip to Cherry Lake, a spot in the Stanislaus National Forest that my friends and I would visit each summer. It happened as these things often do with someone getting the bright idea to bring a bag of mushrooms to the woods because why not? Curiosity drags a fingernail across your skin and you ask yourself, "would it be so bad?" I turn to my wife, and in addition to her blessing, ask that she keep our dog Lenny from turning into a dragon and swallowing me whole.

This was one of the few times I had ever tried mushrooms and with it being so long since its debut, felt the anxiety surging through me. Even though I was operating far outside my comfort zone, I was huddled under the warmth of nature with some of my closest friends. The typical swell of laughter began, spurned from anything remotely funny. Colors bled from the night sky and simple noises became a language all their own. As the night began to dwindle, a buddy and I, two of the last remaining, entered a discussion about the Star Wars prequels, more specifically the end of Revenge of the Sith when Darth Vader's suit is finally revealed. I had always hated that goddamn scene, and felt, due to the current alteration of reality, that there was no time like the present to offer my own thoughts on what should've been.

As any of you who have seen Revenge of the Sith are aware, Obi-Wan defeats Anakin Skywalker during their duel on Mustafar, critically injuring him and pretty much leaving his former padawan to die. Skywalker is eventually found by his master, Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine) and taken away. In an attempt to harness the power of the recently appointed Darth Vader, a suit is designed to keep the young apprentice functioning. Tragically, that's where the interesting part ends. Darth Vader, still charred and horribly dismembered, is basically rebuilt and stuffed like a sausage into his suit, a moment we've been anticipating the entire movie but are not asked in any way to give a shit about. This lazy reveal infuriated me in the theater. It seemed rushed and unrewarding. I felt the character deserved better, deserved this:

In The Empire Strikes Back, after Luke escapes the wampa attack, he falls victim to an impending snow storm. Maimed and disoriented, he lay there as his friend Han Solo finds him, and very cleverly saves his life, albeit at the loss of a poor tauntaun. Back at the Rebel Base, Luke is submerged in some sort of cylindrical tank filled with bacta, a liquid used to accelerate the healing process (I had to look it up). In ROTS, rather than immediately jumping into Anakin’s new suit, I imagined him watching curiously from the confines of a similar tank as the suit itself is prepared. Through the glass, he watches the construction of his new limbs, the mechanical details in which he will be kept alive, witnessing the final stages of his transformation to the dark side. This is what I would have wanted to see, and it was a vision that came to me during a mushroom-induced episode in the woods.

As the spate of memories surfaced during the writing of this blog, I started to think about the day these stories will be shared with my sons. My wife and I know they are going to tread their own paths at times, making some decisions without the benefit of parental support. I did these things because I was curious of the result, of the effect. I don't pretend to be an authority on the subject. I've never suffered an addiction to drugs, regardless of addictive tendencies I may have experienced with certain things in my life. But it's never been to the point where I felt a problem was near, nor to my recollection, has anyone close to me. 

I am aware that drug addiction is a powerful and life-damaging issue with which many people in the world struggle, and I would hate to think that this in any way belittles the pain so many families have befallen. As with my others, this blog is mainly designed as a way for me to share personal stories, a sort of tearing at old wounds for the sake of creativity. There is no condoning of the above shared. There is only what is shared, and what will continue to be.