Helter Skelter

 This will be a quick post; because everyone needs to be reminded, I am autistic and things that are probably obvious, sometimes escape me; especially if those things are tied to an emotion or feeling. As in this example of today's stupid realization that was probably obvious to everyone else.

When Motley Crue released Helter Skelter on Shout At The Devil, that, as much as the imagery, was likely shocking to our parents beyond the "Satanic Panic" crap. Parent's in 1984 would have been aware of The Manson Murders, and the brutality of those crimes. A parent seeing "Shout At The Devil" and it's pentagram cover would have been concerned already, but you throw in the fact that they covered a song most closely associated with those horrific murders, I can imagine that was a little too hard to pacify even those open-minded parents that dismissed the imagery as shock-value previously employed by The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and then Black Sabbath. They would remember that a bunch of murders happened that were particularly evil, those murderers wrote Helter Skelter in their victim's blood at the murder scenes. Also, they might be aware that The Church Of Satan opened a temple in the same San Francisco neighborhoods frequented by Manson. It would be a different thing if The Beatles recorded Helter Skelter post murders, but they indirectly inspired the murders, and now Motley Crue is covering that song that inspired murderers - which to me, takes your cover song to a whole different level of thought.

Am I wrong or too high?

Who are you? (A story about discovering a hole in my brain...)

 This morning provided yet another increasingly difficult hurdle of motivation to get dressed and drive to the office. I emerged from slumber having just spent several moments with Lisa Gerrard and (___). In that dystopian near-future, where I lived in the Appalachian area of either Kentucky or West Virginia; my residence was only loosely what I'd describe as a house. I lived at the base of a small cliff, not directly beneath it, but adjacent, across a small 2-lane road. Trump was still president, and I use "still" in a way suggesting that the idea that there would be anyone other than Trump after these many years was not something anyone thought about anymore, it was just what life was now. So much so, that as Trump spoke to a disenchanted group of 30 or so people on this cliff above me, I could hurl dirt clumps and small rocks in his direction, and no one could be bothered to be concerned. My job seemed to consist of some kind of rock/dirt manipulation to what extent I couldn't say, I didn't care for it, but somehow, the survival it provided left me in better shape than the people up on the cliff. Outside the road-facing side of my home, I plunged a spade into the earth to free grapefruit-sized rocks and clear a large enough area to grow vegetables. Under midday sun, it was uncomfortably hot, but I had little else to do... there was no longer an internet, or television, or even radio... which perhaps makes the following events rather ironic. Walking down from the road that lead to town, I was approach by a woman wearing a Sinead O Connor t-shirt (Lion and the Cobra UK Cover) and a long, white, cotton skirt. She was with a man wearing a plaid sweatshirt with suspenders and unusually fancy pants for the conditions. I recognized them immediately as Lisa Gerrard and (___). I should note, I don't recall if I knew his name in my dream, but more on this in a bit. He asked if I had any water, and I invited them both in, and gave them bottles of ice cold water, which he finished instantly, then asked for another. Lisa only sipped at her water. I offered them food, but they declined. My obvious first question was, "How in the hell are you here?!" Lisa shared that they were on tour on the West Coast when all abroad travel was shutdown, and they have been surviving by traveling however they can to play for whomever is able to see them. Gypsies, or traveling barkers were the only images my brain was able to muster. They had nothing with them, so I imagined, somewhere, a vehicle existed. He asked if they could rest a bit, and I graciously offered them my couches... to which he promptly obliged. Lisa seemed to prefer interaction, and we talked for a good while. She was comfortable, motherly, concerned about my narrative, and her energy was peaceful, and it was a feeling I'd believed no one carried any longer. Lisa opened cabinets and the fridge without hesitation, and she fed herself berries, raisins, and brewed tea, and we talked about music while she did my dishes. She seemed, happy(?) to have these normal tasks to do in an abnormal existence... I started to believe that I could maybe entice them to stay. But as the sky turned crimson, He awoke, and they departed, and I awoke.

It was a Dead Can Dance-like score in something I had watched earlier in the day that invited them to this miserable place, and the inescapable nightmare reality that crafted the rest; but I shared all of this to understand how I got to right now. Throughout my mental checklist of ideas for getting out of driving to work, I was unable to recall His name. "What a weird dream with Lisa and ..." - "why don't I know his name? I've always known his name, and I can't recall a time when I didn't know his name." I've spent the past 3 hours trying to pluck his name from my brain... it's not there. I can hear his voice, see his face, I can see the script in which his name is written on album covers, I can remember the names of every other male that Lisa Gerrard released an album with - but I cannot find the letters of his name; it's gone. As of now, I am refusing to look it up, because I need my brain to produce this information. 

Why does it matter?

I suppose the short answer is fear. As a young adult in my twenties, I began to realize that much of my childhood was a blank to me. My only memories were one's that needed a photograph to precipitate recollection. I've never really been sure if this was trauma-induced blocking of memories, or if it was indicative of something medical. There's no known history of dementia in my family, but I also opted to a more chemical path in life, and that has always been the beast watching me from the forest that I am aware of, but never knowing when it will reveal it's form. Did my bad batch of heroin punch a fucking hole in my brain... poor whatshisname just severed from my synapses and floats in my cerebellum slowly decaying into non-existence. I will spend the rest of this day trying to put his name together, but it feels hopeless, and it's honestly, a bit anxiety-inducing. Because of this dream, I am cognizant of lost knowledge, and I think that's unusual - how often do you recognize what you have forgotten? Did the dream serve as some kind of surrogate narrative to that information leaving my consciousness? It truly feels bizarre, guess I should buy a shovel.

Heroin ("...she's funny that way...")

 Heroin is... similar to a vampire, in the sense, that it is absolutely romanticized and must be invited in; and once that vein is extended, you are an object of whim for the intruder. As a fifteen year old, with a brain not sustained by mediocrity or consumerism, I awaited her invitation with the same fervor as I would a Reese's Cup after an hour in the fridge. She wasn't a creature I sought out, I assumed she would find me if I was to be a host to her ways - the type of restraint I give all aspects of life sans matters of the heart.

My efforts here are not to beguile the curious with tragic fantasies of creative destruction. The journey has been far from anything noteworthy, interesting, or gratifying. A half-dozen overdoses over our 35-year on and off again marriage has dramatically sniped years of life barely worth living. There is no romantic palette by which I have given brush stroke to my genius or tethered my curious ways to a stranger's synapses. I am a shattered frame co-existing with an abusive partner in a day to day framed by regrets of an emerging day and hollowed-out joy until darkness invites me back to another round. Heroin is not my scapegoat, I made the choices that have brought me here, and honestly, she offered me no words taking me in one direction or another. As mentioned, she exists both independent and carrion to my life. 

Let's stroke those notions you have of burning brilliantly with this ravenous muse. Her fascinating ability to be all things, a yin and yang of unlocked treasures and cancerous ruin. She is the Faustian relationship that has given those that nursed at her silver teat such tragic rapport. I've always been taken by the fact that she can be purely white, with a consistency of powdered sugar (China White); and also a craggy, sticky, black base, as if snapped from the caves of Tartarus (Tar Heroin). I often thought in a cartoonish sense - an angel (China White) on one shoulder, and the devil (Tar Heroin) on the other. In between, me, with a complexion similar to the Mexican Heroin that nurtured my generation. China White arrived in Western society as opium, and quickly took bed with Nietzsche, Picasso, Breton, Baudelaire and countless other literary and artistic poster children. It was the Jazz Age muse of choice, and we fondly remember those that offered us such explosive glimpses into their creativity. Less frequently, we dwell on the near collapse of Chinese society, when in the 18th Century, they realized that Heroin was more famine than feast and instead married her away to the much more "forward-thinking" Westerners in exchange for financing their nation. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. The collective ash of those heroes inspired a new generation of left-brained luminaries that ushered in the Lysergic acid diethylamide generation that in an opium-prohibited existence, developed the tar heroin that was as incendiary as an oil sheen on placid surfaces. She slept in the beds of Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson - giving path to youthful minds looking to shatter the oppressive realities of endless wars and a political system that stood patriotically on the throats of wayward, directionless, dregs. Again, Heroin disappears into the night having burned her bedfellows to cinders, while also once again doing so in such an intoxicating manner that another generation can do nothing but seek her out to "fix her" and make her a palatable companion in their creative pursuits. Barely mentioned in the dossier of her autobiography is the countless, nameless deaths she ushered. Her affair extended secretly to the very people that maligned her name, brought to our shores, thousands of kilos at a time in exchange for weapons and wars abroad; sold to those wayward, wild-eyed youth. Arriving at my generation, us Gen-Xers, so much apathy and disdain. Our fuses were short by design... emerging into a society that can no longer survive on the income of one parent. I'm not even going to insult you with the list of our luminaries - because their existence is so enshrined with heroin-chic that it has permeated their identity. They are as much defined by heroin as anything they created, there is no separation from artist and muse; we've arrived at the climax of our journey where the vampire no longer lusts after you, she now simply devours and offers you back to the earth. Those finding balance in their relationship with her are few, and wear scars and decay as part of their existence. Perhaps Gen-X was the perfection of her craft; her masterpiece to consumption and creativity; brilliance burning to ash as an homage to disaffected spiritualism and nurtured-decay from birth to grave. Arriving today, the muse is tired, lazy, and only gives effort to feeding. She no longer needs a host to swathe and wax poetic to her ego, she simply lays waste without regard; her legacy defined in centuries of "brilliance", her path now is simply ruin. Heroin will use whatever device necessary to break you at the spine and smother the light from the moment of her kiss; there is no spell, no promises, no graves left for the revered.

Let me apologize for personifying Heroin as a female. As a heterosexual male, it's the manner in which I define it, as a partner with whom I've had my longest, consistent relationship. I'm not intending to draw parallels between women and heroin; just that in the context of my living with heroin, it's been a marriage with binding contracts. 

Now that I have romanticized this muse, and given you the narrowest of representations of her star pupils, let's talk reality. The exchange of "goods" is barely a fair one. It is you that extended the invitation, and you are not without generous resume of her talents. Perhaps, as with most resumes, it's flourish is in the accomplishments, and much thinner in the details. I am not going to lie to you, the snap of your flesh followed by a flood of warmth and the sudden thrust out of your self is beyond what words can define. Depending on your circumstance, that mere moment alone is inescapable, and beckons for a lifetime. And I mean a lifetime - it is a scar that you will wear until your last breath. No amount of methadone, detoxing, life-changing will grant you a reprieve from that sensation. Each and every return to that embrace erodes and begs you to give your full potential to wrap yourself as tightly in that embrace. Your body rots slowly, the only offering such a partner can accept, and if you give her carte blanche, she can be your entire life and meet your every need; because she will be the only thing that matters to you. She is not dissuaded by your love-bombing, cursing of her name, your willingness to do ANYTHING to return to her embrace. Unconditional love. Your best hope of keeping her out of your home is to build as many barriers as you are humanly capable between she and you. Those are the people that will take her full wraith by the efforts you and her will take to reunite. The stack of bodies must be hearty, resilient, worthy, patient beyond human endurance; this is your safe room. The gravity of their love and the risk of their loss is your only weapon in defending yourself from your abusive ex.

This may seem counter-intuitive to your New Jack City education, but the best dealer is the one who also has relationship with your partner. This is especially critical today; it can be the only barometer by which you can trust the product you are about to imbue. As previously mentioned, the consistency, color, presentation of heroin is a full-spectrum and it's impossible to know how pure it is. The poppy that produced the original batch of heroin is sold to an "organization" who then "cut" that heroin and mix it with other "substances" in order to turn one kilo of heroin into two or three kilos. This is how you make profit as the "organization". Now, multiply that process of cutting by however many cooks exist between you and that first batch or pure heroin, likely at least 3 generations, unless you are celebrity - but as we know, need over caution usually results in cutting corners. Hoffman, Michael K Williams are reminders, that today, the landscape gives no reprieve to status. This generation's heroin is cut (mixed) with fentanyl and any host of insane chemical concoctions. Substances so powerful that even minute exposure can arrest the heart in seconds, or eat away your flesh in some type of Romero/Savini fever dream. Buying blind is extremely dangerous now, and getting heroin that won't outright kill you is not a proposition with odds in your favor. Addiction to fentanyl happens so much more regularly and quickly than any iteration of heroin through the ages; it's the best possible outcome of an encounter with the drug that has been cut with fentanyl or other chemicals. If you are chasing some romantic ideals of ghosts or liberated creativity, the odds are infinitesimal that you will find your muse - she is taking your breath without an afterthought. You will be among staggering statistics and left nameless in your brief journey.

Still possibly mesmerized by the prospect? Allow me, if you will, to describe the sensation that arrives with heroin cut with a chemical. The warm rush of leaving your body is slightly altered. Upon popping the tourniquet holding your journey at bay, the blast through your veins is a white-hot fire that feels like your veins are fuses burning to ash, and you have only a moment to wonder if the second this invader hits your brain, if it won't explode as if a firework. The pain is unbearable until that contact when your brain floods with chemicals and the flash of brilliant white is the last cohesive certainty you will have that you are about to die. As I said, you may not die, you may only have a lifetime dependence on cocktails of heroin and household chemicals, or your skin might start decaying and sloughing off from your body. The only relief from this reality is a reintroduction to the incendiary torture you just endured. 

The "Maybe, Just Oncers" - I see you. Let's suspend reality for a moment, in that your first foray with heroin won't include fentanyl or some kind of horse tranquilizer. Can you do it, experience it, and stop? Yes, you could. Let's for argument's sake, take your guilty pleasure, whatever it is, some kind of sexual kink, a food, a beverage, an experience - and I asked you if you could only do that once and never again despite it being prevalent in your life, despite it begging and promising you one more time will be just like the first, and it will feel as good and it will be fine? Again, if you are this person, you likely don't have that dealer we talked about, so you are buying blind and your odds of dodging a bullet are exponentially decreasing each time - but if you can do that and live your life without revisiting that sensation, you are somehow stronger than millions of people who felt the same inner-confidence. 

You might be asking, "what's the aftermath of a perfect pairing with heroin feels like?" That first time, your day after isn't going to feel great. You are likely to spend a good part of your day vomiting and with chills; equivalent to your worst hangover. Again, this is if you got a clean cut of heroin. You and I are living in a utopia right now where reality is suspended. Each subsequent visitations with the drug will give you less euphoria and more sickness; sometimes lasting for days (the sickness that is). There is a fix for that, but I'm afraid it's an ouroboros kind of journey from here on out. Let's assume you transgress from mental addiction to physical addiction. That journey (again, under utopian rules), is three to four passages through the looking glass. I can't speak to smoking or oral consumption of heroin - I know only that's it's effects are lessened and have tempered duration; I don't know if it's any less an addictive path. The OxyContin epidemic would suggest it is not a suitable loophole. What does physical addiction feel like? Assuming again, you've escaped any number or tagalongs in this idealist reality we've constructed, such as AIDS, Hepatitis, Necrosis - you're day to day will feel like a never-ending flu. No appetite, scattered thoughts, unbearable stomach pains that radiate into organs you've never had a "sensation" from before, a diminished mood, and depression. Yes, there is relief from this, and yes, that is more heroin. Okay, so what does withdrawal feel like? All of the above, but that first 72 hours are dialed up to about a 10. Hallucinations, fever, your stomach will churn with a ferocity that feels like an alien has taken up residence and is trying to escape, you can feel your heart pounding with an intensity you're confident it's not meant to sustain, all the while your adamant that the pain will only ever end if you shoot up again. Postponing this withdrawal agony is a much better alternative to the agony itself. Being a lover of a good possession-film, I would describe my experiences with withdrawal as heroin being this tan-colored entity that has taken my veins and wrapped them tightly around all of my organs to the point that only a trickle of blood-flow is possible, but every nerve-ending is writhing in complete despair. The process of withdrawal is an invisible force pulling at those cancerous, miles-long tethers suffocating your organs to free your body of it's demon. Tolerable, it is not in any regard, but it's a passage you must transgress to survive without heroin. With any chaotic surrender to addiction, like cancer, you are never really free of it's embrace. Your brain has been rewired to accept it's invitation, and despite all you have endured, it's that guilty pleasure you deserve, and your contract with heroin clearly states that it's a relationship you will have in perpetuity, until in death do you part. 

This is my journey; I could say, fortunate; utopian maybe. I am after all, sitting here writing this. However, in the subsequent collapse of that world, I remain with an addiction that forages for fixes among a forest of lethality; bargaining with strangers to take heed with my mere existence in exchange for $20. For the most part, it's been a barter I've avoided for the better part of twenty-ish years, absolving myself of want in exchange for family. Now without such confines, I find the wander into the forest unforgiving. Lying in a hospital bed after nearly dying from fentanyl poisoning; toxicity coursing like a welder's flame through my veins; I wonder if any reason of rejection is an invitation to try and die. Is it romantic to have barely lived the life I was given? Will I be simply nameless to the unobserved? Have I lived a legacy worthy of artists I embraced; no, of course not. I am simply a flawed human being that did what millions of others have done with an arrogance that belongs to equally flawed humans that survived erasure from history because somehow they mattered more than you and I. When I go home, hopefully later today, god-willing, I will do so vexxed by humility, in a vessel torn to shreds, with no thought of my stupidity or carelessness - but of a desire to find that utopian-revisit to my vampire. She has not yet consumed my flesh, and for an addict, that's confirmation of an open-invitation to her embrace. The love she offers is toxic, but the greater pain is to be without her.