Chapter 11 (pg 16-18)

Making a living as an artist is a tenuous business. Sometimes it’s great, if you make a sale or get a grant you’re living the high life, then it could be months or years till your next paycheck. One day you’re on top of the world, the next you’re shit. That’s a real hustle. When you’re in the drug game, at least you know you’re getting paid.

People have always and will always use substances to alter their perceptions, that’s never going to change. Being human is a condition that requires a little anesthesia.

For me, it’s really just about bringing people together with what they want, customer service with a smile.

In the bars and clubs, in the galleries, parties, on the scene it’s all the same. Everybody wants to be somebody, we all want to feel good and we’ll do what we can to get what we want and to justify our choices.

On the weekends Joe Sixpack might go out with a few buds and let off some steam, sink a few cold ones to cool the inferno of anxiety and stress that burns inside. Whereas Joe Blow might blast an eightball in a night. It’s not all that different.

Of course the mainstream representations of information about substance use are all hysterical propaganda, complete fiction and fantasy. Nothing is as it’s presented, there is always an agenda. People are driven by passions, but these passions are more often than not, prescribed by social programming, tastes dictated by culture and class.

There is a unwritten code (legislatively, I guess, some of them are written.) Hard drugs, soft drugs, club drugs, pharmaceuticals and psychedelics, say no, say yes, say maybe. Drugs are separated into categories, to be used, to be avoided, to manipulate and spread disinformation. Hard drugs, class A, Schedule-1 are those substances with a “high potential for abuse and no medical value.”¹⁴ Generally the rule is Crack, No. Heroin, No. Meth, No. Anything with needles, No way. …only garbage people do these things and they should be avoided at all costs.

But everyone is free to pop the occasional pill and smoking weed is almost required.

Whereas powdered yays, (NOT ready rock, that’s a different story) a class A1 narcotic, considered to be a “hard drug” is basically party favors, it’s all over the place, people think nothing of it. Sniff a little powder and your synapses are flooded with dopamine stimulating receptor neurons creating a feeling of euphoria, it can boost self-confidence, it makes some people think they’re charming and they can get a little talkative. But, as long as it’s powder, you don’t see people wigged out naked in the streets peeling off their skin, trying to eat someone’s face. For the most part you’d hardly even notice. To be honest it just feels like drinking 10 cups of coffee. But some people really like their coffee.

So by all means snort your brains out, do what thou wilt, party on, as long as it fits with the program, as long as you follow the script. You have to be a good time, you’ve got to party, you have to be fun. As long as you’re cool, as long as you have enough money, you can get away with anything. Being white helps a lot too.

Before tasting the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, those guys were innocent. They knew no shame, they had everything they needed and lived in a blissfully ignorant animal state of perfection, beyond good and evil, like a friendly neighbourhood Übermensch. God said: “Don’t do it…”¹⁵ The first prohibition, that didn’t work out. Prohibition is for suckers.

Prohibition is the criminalization of behaviour, which leads to the persecution of specific segments of the population. People are turned into criminals so their mistreatment can be normalized. These rules are arbitrary lines drawn in the sand by authorities and institutions, subjective value judgments based on socio-economic, racial, moral preferences.

Personally, I never touch the stuff. It’s just not for me. Everyone knows, you don’t fuck with your own supply. I focus on other interests. The quickening, the divine spark, the lightning strike of inspiration, the electric thrill of life’s blood pumping as Frankenstein’s hand goes up the skirts of the Pieta, a fallen Prometheus draped over her knees, lapping up tears off her tits, like a pup. This is what I want. Anything that “curdles the blood, and quickens the beatings of the heart.”¹⁶

In my ambition I accept the responsibility to share access to fire with others, what they do with it is their choice. I reserve judgment, let people make their own decisions.

In my naïve optimism I think they should have that right – maybe I still believe in people.

So I’m bad… I’ve always been bad anyway. I don’t know why. I have an abject personality. That’s what they tell me. It’s as if I am a poison. Some would say repellent. Non-compliant and objectionable. Anti-social. I am not like THEM, I wear this as a badge of honour.

They want me to be bad, ok, I’ll be the bad guy. I will be the other to their same. I’m the enemy. “Fuck you pay me.”¹⁷