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By Root 733 0

One of the things that really got me interested in Zero Defex in the first place was their anti-drug stance. They had a song called “The Drug Song” whose chorus went, “Your drugs suck, don’t push them on me!” Tommy Strange, our guitarist, used to drink beer though. Our drummer might have joined him sometimes. Jimi Imij didn’t use any drugs at the time, as far as I could tell, and neither did I. We were aghast when the Meat Puppets came through town with bags full of pot. Hippies! Sell-outs!9

A lot of people in our scene were into Straight Edge, a movement spearheaded by the Washington, D.C., band, Minor Threat, and their singer Ian MacKaye. Straight Edgers didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, and claimed to renounce meaningless sex as well. They liked to draw big X’s on their hands with Magic Marker, an imitation of the mark minors got at “all-ages” shows held at bars. I admired the Straight Edgers and although I also did-n’t do the things they didn’t do, I wasn’t into joining movements and never called myself Straight Edge (plus, when I refrained from meaningless sex in those days, it was because I didn’t have any other choice).

In spite of my anti-drug stance, though, my interest in trying out the psychedelic experience remained. When Zero Defex broke up and I got into the burgeoning garage/ psychedelic revival scene, I virtually lost myself in the new ’60s. The music, clothes, and trends of the ’80s were repulsive, and everything from the ’60s seemed so much cooler.

Ram Dass’s book Be Here Now became my bible. I used to carry that thing with me wherever I went. But in spite of the book’s wonderfully profound title, Be Here Now is also a huge, flashing neon advertisement for drugs. Just like Zig Zag Zen will no doubt be for kids today, Be Here Now was, for me, just what I needed to legitimize my desire to get zonked out of my skull and pretend it was a religious experience. Now all I had to do was get my hands on the goods.

In the spring of 1984, Bill, the rhythm guitar player with The F-Models and one of the guys with whom I was sharing a horrible old house near the Kent State campus, got hold of some acid blotter and shared it with me. It was pretty much your standard acid trip. The rug moved. Time became distorted. When I waved my hand in front of my face I saw a whole trail of hands waving there just like those pictures of Hindu gods.

I did have one insight on drugs—though it made no difference whatsoever in anything about my life or anyone else’s. I was alone in what had once been the house’s living room, but which now just had a rotten old couch and a black-and-white TV set no one ever watched. As I sat there the thought suddenly occurred to me, “This is it.” This, what I was living through right then and there—not the drug-induced state, mind you, but my plain old existence as a twenty-year-old white male human being on planet Earth was all there was for me. I was shocked and frightened by the prospect and did everything I could to put it out of my mind as quickly as possible. I turned on the TV and tuned it to a nonbroadcasting channel to watch the static, an activity I’d heard was supposed to be pretty groovy when you’re on acid. And it was groovy, man. I saw all kinds of things happening in that static.

I took two more trips that summer and they were neither very good nor very bad, but they never delivered anything close to the beatific vision Ram Dass had promised. The next one, though, was a nightmare of epic proportions.

This guy Donnel, an Irish grad student who also lived at the house with Bill and me, had procured some acid from a somewhat shady source (as if there is any other kind…but this source was particularly iffy). The blotter was purple and Donnel had been warned that it was very strong. I figured I could handle it. What I didn’t know was that Donnel chased his hit with a full quart of whiskey and then, deciding one extra-strong hit of dodgy purple blotter might not be enough for the night, had swallowed another one as well.

This stuff was definitely strong and very speedy. We were