Repost from old blog, 3/15/2008It was the fall of 1998; I was a freshman in college. N–, my best friend from high school, invited me to come along with her and two other girls to someone’s house in Morgantown, West Virginia, to take ecstasy. I’d already done acid and mushrooms by then.

Kari* was driving, Lisey was riding shotgun, N– and I were in the back seat. I knew Lisey, but I’d never met Kari before. They were sort-of girlfriends. I was struck by the music Kari was playing. “It’s Belle and Sebastian,” she said, and had to repeat the name a few times cause I’d never heard of them before. The album was The Boy with the Arab Strap. “It’s their new album,” Kari said. “I liked their last one a lot, but I’m not too sure about this one.” I immediately fell in love with it; the music hit me deep in a rare way. Already it was feeling like a magical trip.

Night was falling as we reached Tom and Erin’s house, who were Lisey’s friends. They were ravers and were my first exposure to that scene. Everyone said that your first time taking ecstasy was your best. The stuff they sold us was said to be “molly”; close-to-pure MDMA. I’m inclined to think it actually was. It was in a capsule; a whitish powder. In retrospect it had the properties I came to associate with purer forms of ecstasy – a rolling, cresting sensation with intense peaks and vibrating valleys.

I’m shaking as I write this.

We stayed in the house the whole time. The lights were dim. They were playing techno music in the living room; pounding sounds and rainbow lights streaking across the walls. Often this was too intense for the four of us. We would end up on the couch in the next room over. Tom and Erin kept to themselves, letting us have our own experience. N– asked Lisey, “What’s the meaning of life?” “Show your teeth!” Lisey said.

More folks showed up; including an older queer guy who I was instantly voraciously curious about. He was a character, a big hulking guy wearing a feathered top hat. He had a thick West Virginia accent. I hadn’t met many queer people at this point. I was asking him a million questions. “Damn, hippie, you writin a book?” he said, and laughed.

Later I bonded with Kari. We were sitting on the couch together, apart from everyone else. “Sometimes I look at people and I wonder, are they really happy?” she said. This was just the sort of cynicism I could relate to. I knew then that she was a friend.

We started to come down. N– was feeling crappy. “What’s wrong guys?” Tom asked us. “We’re bummed cause we’re coming down,” N– said. “Well, there’s a remedy for that,” Tom said in a knowing way. He brought out a little green plastic snorter, and we did bumps of ecstasy mixed with ketamine. I don’t remember feeling much from that.

Nor do I remember sleeping over. I know we left in the morning. It was a sunny, pretty morning. I felt mellow and good; I think we all did. We stopped at a rest stop. “Who makes rest stops?” N– wondered. “The state, I guess,” I said. “Oh,” N– said. “States are nice.”

We laughed about that one the rest of the way home. “States are nice.” States are nice, because the rest stop is nice; because we can drink water at the rest stop and go to the bathroom and buy a snack, too.

I don’t want to put a negative slant on the experience, though it wasn’t all good; and my further experiences with ecstasy weren’t all good either. But the simple gratitude and empathy the drug often engendered are worth noting. “States are nice.” Why not?

*names changed

Repost from old blog, 3/20/08I was 16? 17? It was late fall and I was in my junior year of high school. My older brother, who I was close with at the time, had been smoking weed forever, and I’d been curious to try it. One weekend he arranged to get me high. After school on Friday I borrowed my parents’s car and drove into the city. He attended college there and lived in a cruddy little off-campus apartment with his roommate Chris.

He’d purchased some high-quality pot, beautiful green-white buds that he stored in a jar in the cupboard for my arrival. Also he’d bought some papers soaked in hash oil, but those came later.

The three of us – me, my brother, and Chris – piled into the bathroom and took hits out of a bowl, I think. I coughed a lot, to where I actually thought I was going to puke.

Afterwards we were standing in the kitchen; Chris was talking and I noticed things getting weird. Time seemed drawn out.

Chris had to pick up his girlfriend at the airport, so we all got into my parents’s car and drove there. I sat in the back. My jaw felt like it was opening on its own, some muscle memory opening my mouth, and I kept having to close it. I articulated this to them; Chris said he knew what I meant. We got to the airport and I went inside with Chris. I’d never been inside the Pittsburgh airport and it kind of blew my mind. It looked so futuristic and modern.

After this my memory is hazy. We went back to their apartment. My brother and I watched “A Thief in the Night” and smoked the hash-oil joints. I remember moments of the film sticking out at me like the most absurd and hilarious things I’d ever seen. We would rewind it and watch it over again and laugh our asses off. Then the movie was over, and it was like I hadn’t even seen it. Time was all fucked up. I didn’t want to smoke anymore. I wanted to be normal again.

Weed was never very good to me.

Only 24 hours to go on my Kickstarter project.  My backers have long since pledged enough money for me to buy illustrations for my book, but this is your last chance to buy yourself one of my collages or a book that I spooged in.  Just sayin.

What a piece of shit.  Is there anything more excruciating than the third act of a bad action movie?  Where you know exactly what’s going to happen, and who is going to win in the end, yet have to sit through an endless battle sequence anyway?

How it pains me to refer to action movies when discussing a film based on Alice in Wonderland, for christ’s sake,  a story that is meandering and exploratory – and not action oriented –  in a most pleasurable and singular way.  But this is a 2010 Disney movie and so we must have action,  a villain with a scarred face, and a lame female empowerment message to wrap it all up.  I’d rather not even mention the fact that it was directed by Tim Burton who used to make good movies, I think?  Not that this one didn’t have its redeeming qualities, but sometimes you have to take a stand.

There’s lots to hate here.  Dreary, cluttered CGI landscapes.  A pummeling music score so intent on enforcing a feeling of WONDER and AMAZEMENT that it never abates for more than a second or two.  Unattractive characters that don’t inspire even a passing interest.  Anne Hathaway embarrassing herself.

About an hour in my nine-year-old charge turned to me and said, “They’re stealing everything from other movies.”  She still liked it, but the path to cynicism is slow and sure.

Rebel Satori Press/Queer Mojo posted my bio information on their website. Exciting! I finally signed and sent off my contract for Backwoods this past week. Word on the street is that Michael will be finished with the illustrations by July. Whenever I stop to really consider that I managed to do this, I manage to blow my own mind.

I started a Tumblr blog. I’m pretty sure Tumblr is a tool of Satan, so it stands to reason that it’s pretty fun.

October Country, Donal Mosher

I mentioned my latent book fetish to some friends today and it made think of the fairly brilliant credit sequence for the movie Gentlemen Broncos.

Gentlemen Broncos Titles from Reuben Armstrong on Vimeo.

Note: I have not seen this movie, nor have ever seen a Jared/Jerusha Hess movie, nor do I ever want to. I know this is a purely speculative position, but I’ve read many reviews of their films and feel almost certain that I would hate – not merely dislike, but HATE – them. I could be wrong. Probably not.

Via Joe Gage

Via Homocomix, thanks Rob.