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“From Here I Go Crazy-Come Down On your…”
David A. Smith friend and poet wrote me a cool poem and sent me the only copy back on 11-21-10. Its been sitting on my coffee table but looks like personal correspondence so no one has been reading it. Thought I would share it here since I am home sick today and feeling restless. Head cold I think, with my scratchy throat turning into a cough and my sinuses starting to ache. I caught it early and have been aggressive with rest and fluids but i have been under a bit of strain for a time so i shouldn’t be surprised. We still largely reap what we sow in this world. I was starting to write i’m putting it in as a prose poem and ignoring the original line structure but looking at it looks significant so i will keep it. Enjoy and thanks Dave.
From Here I Go Crazy – Come Down Off your…
Found you on the floor in an empty apartment
dark it was in there – Could tell you were the
color blue barely in this dream. I asked you what was
wrong as I could tell you were drowning inside.
How you come to be here alone, empty I wondered
aloud, you told me a full apartment in the building turned
on you. Said they’d kill you. But here you were.
they there, closed door; open door here, thankfulness
in my heart. Did’nt question. care, ask how you
escaped; only what happened. The we were in the
mist of manic you state how Jesus has nothing on
you; better than Budda in your non-existent mind
your body of flesh immortal; Mohammad a neo-phyte
who need walk in your shoes, all this as espousing
philosophy
An interview for a human services class
Looking back over my posts I have really only posted about work. I use my blog not just for public education and edification but for my own researches to be able to put stuff together at home and access it at work. Some of it is pretty popular as well. I hope to put something together this weekend about my experiences with the low car challenge and just talk about something else besides work. My big take home is that I have been working too much and its starving the rest of my life of space. Eventually I will have to deal with that. With that being said a co-worker recently interviewed me for her class on Human Services and I decided to re-post it here. I considered putting in a little edit here and there and then decided to just let it be. Every summation of anything has some possible inaccuracies and I like the thing as a whole. My story is so long and complicated I was most interested in how someone else would wrap it up. Here it is:
For this assignment, I interviewed Michael Trapp, Senior Counselor for Phoenix Programs, Inc., in Columbia, Missouri. Mike has a masters degree in Sociology and holds a RASAC II certificate (Registered Associate Substance Abuse Counselor II.)
Mike has been in the human services field for approximately 20 years. He has worked in a variety of places including: domestic violence shelter, group homes for mental, physical, and/or developmentally disabled persons, activist for environmental issues, and was also a case worker for the project the began studies to legalize medicinal marijuana in California. Mike has worked with a variety of different people and problems during his career and wears quite a different hats within his personal and professional life. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after working in human services for 7 years and has also become an ordained minister.
Mike currently provides individual counseling, group education/counseling services, supervises clinical staff, provides mental health specialty services to a special needs population with issues of complexity. Mike says “we try to address all issues as primary because they are interconnected” As far as dealing with people with disabilities, “you don’t have to be an expert on that person’s disability, you just have to be willing to learn. They are experts on their situation, let them teach you.” Mike went on to say that it it good for human services workers to have some basic understanding of persons with disabilities because they will always be there, in every avenue that you could ever work in, they will be there and they will need help. “People feel validated if you know something about their disability, but being willing to learn is the next best thing, I always try to do a bit of homework prior to a session with someone with a disability so I have a basic understanding and it enables me to get a better understanding of where they are.”
One of the biggest challenges and needs is case management because they have specialized needs and services that are required to help them maintain their independence and it takes more effort and time to provide those services, but it’s very rewarding when you are able to help someone. Another challenge is being able to effectively communicate with those who are deaf. Deaf clients are more concrete and do not thing in the abstract, they are used to nodding and indicating that they understand as it is what we expect, however they generally don’t understand everything. In sessions, with interpreter present a deaf client will only pick up about 50% of the information. It isn’t the interpreters job to make sure the client understands, they are there to interpret. It is our job as human service providers to help them understand and to check in with them during the session or conversation to ensure that they understand what is going on. Deaf clients, and autistic clients as well, do not think in words, they think in pictures. So, when explaining something, it is better to paint a picture of what you are describing rather than try to explain that same thing with generalized words. Additionally, it is important to explain words and teach vocabulary when possible. You have to talk on the level of the client, without talking to them. Don’t talk above their head, as they won’t understand and you won’t be effective.
I asked Mike about his own dealing with being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and how it has affected his career. He said that he felt he was a really good counselor prior to “going insane” although, after he was able to come to terms and handle his disorder (and has since been able to self monitor and cope without the use of medications through different coping techniques and self realization techniques) that he became a better counselor! He admits that he did not freely disclose to his employers of his diagnosis as he didn’t want to be labeled or feared being written off if he became too emotional. However, he did reveal his diagnosis to clients as it helped validate him. He could honestly say that he understood the disorder and what a person was dealing with. He says that he is an expert on his own diagnosis and that even his doctors will admit that they don’t know as much as he does about the disorder. He lives it and feels it everyday, they only know what they have been taught. So, it is easier for clients to relate to him when they find out that he is dealing with a mental disorder as well.
I have known Mike for over 3 years and was shocked when he revealed his disorder to me over 2 years ago. My prior experiences with persons with bipolar disorder had tainted my view of the disorder and honestly scared me a bit. I have to say that I would have never known that Mike had bipolar disorder had he not told me. He has led quite an interesting life, is highly intelligent, a great role model, advocate, and a great friend. He treats clients with respect and dignity and goes the extra mile to help everyone he possibly can. He has changed my views of the bipolar disorder and continues to amaze and surprise me with his efforts and creativity. As I stated before, Mike wears many hats both personally and professionally, and I would have to say that he falls into all 4 categories of functions of human service providers; teacher/consultant, broker, activist, and counselor. I have personally witnessed him taking active rolls in all 4 categories, however if I had to pick the strongest, I would have to probably pick counselor, although it is a hard call with the way he encompasses all aspects of a clients needs by providing advocacy, support, resources, general assistance, counseling, teaching, etc. I feel I am really lucky to work with such a person!
Student 2: I am so glad that your opinion of him did not change when you found out that he had a disability. Many people would have begun to view him differently. (My response to student 2) My opinion of him did not change – although my opinion of what bipolar was all about did!
Student 3: Laura, your interview was inspiring and from what you have written , Micheal sounds very comfortable in his own skin in the profession.
Instructor: I love his advice for working with Deaf consumers! (My response to instructor) Thanks! I thought this was really important to share! He referred to it as if one were translating a foreign language and how so much gets lost in the translations as our words are not the same. I thought that was a great analogy!
Instructor: Yes, And I think it’s helpful to know that even with the use of a qualified interpreter, there still may be issues lost in translation. There are very real and significant communication barriers between the Deaf and hearing individuals. And, because of the historical discrimination and mistreatment, many Deaf people are very suspicious and distrusting of hearing people. They may feel that they are ‘missing’ something or being scammed/taken advantage of.
Student 4: He made some important statements about being in contact with pwd in almost all areas of life. Its good to have some idea of the different disabilities, but also be able to have an open mind about learning and listening to get an idea of the best help that can be given.
Student 5: Laura. It sounds as though mr. Trapp has his plate full, I have a lot of respect for any one who works with drug or alcohol rehab programs, addiction is a hard thing to quit.
Laura Cameron
going crazy part 10: The Captain’s Washroom
I awoke in a very strange space. A flight attendant brought me a duty free catalog and asked me “What do you want?” Again, I was struck by the momentousness of the question. What did I want? I went through the duty free catalog selecting presents and writing things down for my family and a few close friends. I had written down a number of things for Christa, whom I hadn’t thought about in some time and didn’t realize I still had feelings for. What do I want? echoed through my mind. I handed my list to the flight attendant.
“That’s quite a list sir. I’ll tally up the total and come back for payment.” I hadn’t realized there was payment expected. I had given all my money away weeks ago.
“You know that’s alright. I guess I was doing it as an exercise in what I want.Thanks all the same though, it was very enlightening.” She gave me a look of displeasure, quickly composed herself and left.
Filled with an incredible restlessness I could not just sit. I wondered if I could get some media on the screen. There were some buttons on the armrest and a screen in the seat ahead. I couldn’t make sense of the buttons. I pushed an up arrow and someone up ahead wearing earphones jumped in his seat. I wondered if my buttons controlled the volume on his ear set. I wondered if this were some elaborate puzzle or intelligence test. I decided I shouldn’t mess with it anymore.
There was also a counter on the armrest. It was at somewhere over 5 thousand. I wondered if it were an altimeter and I thought about the mile high club. I watched the numbers spin higher and higher and I wondered about a two mile high club, three mile high club, four mile high club, five…. There was so much I didn’t know about these people and what they were capable of. What they wanted from me.
I could no longer sit with this sense of powerlessness and impending doom. I got up and walked to the front of the plane. To the right there was a curtained alcove and a small restroom off to the side. I splashed water in my face. I was still so tired, even after that sleep. There were a set of colognes and I splashed some on. There was a jacket on a hook, a captain’s jacket. I tried it on, too narrow in the shoulders. I could not be the Captain. There was a red button. I returned to my seat.
I was sitting looking at the numbers go up on the armrest. I could not sit still. I felt something was calling me to do something. I thought now was the time. I returned to the Captain’s Washroom and pushed the red button, thinking to summon a stewardess to enroll me in whatever mile club we were at. I waited, nothing happened. I realized that was silly, things don’t work like that, and returned to my seat.
A flight attendant came, a stern older woman with curly blond hair. “We have had enough of this. You are going back to economy class and take your seat. If you get up again I will have the Captain turn this plane around. Do you hear me.”
“Yes, I understand”. I walked down the short flight of steps and pulled out my ticket. Row 23 seat “H”. I walked back feeling like everyone was looking at me, to row 23. There was no seat “H”. Where there should have been a seat there was a support beam. Strange. I wandered around until I found an empty seat and took it.
I struck up a conversation with my seat mate, a very engaging older fellow and we talked intently about something until we landed. I had made it safely back to the United States. We poured out of the plane and we carried our conversation towards customs where we had to go our separate ways, for I was an American without a checked bag and had a different line to go to. The muscular flight attendant walked by pulling one of those black wheeled bags with a handle. “Thank you for your service,” I said.
going insane part 9: flying first class
I settled back into the luxurious seat and enjoyed an immense feeling of rest and safety. I had been telling myself for better than a week that i would sleep on the plane when i was safe, when i was out of this nation of peril, and now i was here. I was seated in the back, in the middle seat with empties on each side. There were only a scattering of other passengers throughout the rest of firstclass. Seeing all of the well dressed folks made me aware of my own appearance. Green cords, a matching flannel i had bought with Debbie at the Berkeley Ross especially for the trip, and the Vans Kirk had left at the CAN house after we had booted him for slinging acid out of the house. I had been wearing that outfit for about 2 weeks, no socks, tshirt or undies. I think i’d lost them when i came out of the isolation tank all freaked out by the womb without a heartbeat. I wasn’t drawing any bad vibes from my fellow travellers and figured they thought i was a rock star or something.
The flight attendant, a body builder type with the brown hair and mustache of a 70s porn star and the biceps of a lou ferrigno of the 80s asked if i need anything.
“Like what?”
“Oh something to drink, maybe?”
“That sounds good what have you got?”
“Water, champagne, orange juice…’
“That sounds good give me an orange juice and a champagne.”
“Very good sir, champagne and orange juice. I’ll have those out as soon as we get in the air.” Almost immediately the plane began to taxi up the runway and we gained speed and left the ground. I could feel our acceleration in a very visceral way and as we sped down the runway my feelings of relief increased, i had made it.
Once we leveled off the muscular flight attendant brought me two flutes one of orange juice and one of champagne. They were both so good and i felt more rejuvenated and more relaxed. They went down easy and I quickly finished. “Finished already, would you like another round.”
“That would be fine, but probably just one more mixed.”
“Very good, a mimosa.”
“Yes a mimosa. Thank you.” I drank it down when it arrived and reclined back in the comfortable seat. I looked out the window at the sun, such a strange angle to be seeing it and looked at the electronic map of our path going up and over the arctic and coming back down across greenland to minimize our flight over open water, i’d learned on the way over. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed i was flying over the world in the company of Lucifer. He pointed out the great expanse of the world below and said it was all mine if i should desire it. He was very beautiful and i felt relaxed in his presence, i felt he was sincere but part of me new i was in very dangerous ground. I told him no i did not desire the world. He told me i could save those masses of folks from all the pain and misery i had felt and they all feel in our brief and pitiful lives. I told him no i did not wish to save the world. He showed a flash of anger then. “Well alright then. There can be nothing but enmity between us. I will raise an army and you shall raise an army and we will finish this now.”
I saw in my minds eye myself walking through the streets of paris an unkempt mob behind me marching too some great and final confrontation, knowing many would die but that final victory would be mine. This reality was far more tempting. I felt my Michael self resonate to the call of battle and a final end to all of the destructive nonsense through one act of bitter destruction.
I said, “no, my friend not now. Let the truce abide awhile longer. Let someone else marshal the forces of good for i will not fight this fight. Not at this cost not even for the final victory will i pay that price.” I awoke with a sense of momentous loss. of a missed chance to put things right. of a sense of relief.
Going Crazy part 8
I walked to the ticket counter and got in the line. There was an older guy and we struck up a conversation which struck me as eerily significant. He seemed kind and I felt safe for the first time in a good long while. When I got to the counter I told them i would like a ticket to Detroit and gave them the confirmation number. She asked me where I would like to sit and i said i would like to sit next to the previous gentleman. She said he was flying to North Carolina or some such place and asked if I wanted to go there. I considered it for a moment, and said no i had better go to detroit.
I headed for the gate. I remember being tripped out by the signage with looking at the Dutch and English words and thinking of different interpretations. seeing hidden messages. everything had ominous overtones.
I got to a waiting area by the gate. i left my jacket on the row of plastic seats and went in the bathroom and washed my face. I rinsed my mouth out with water but didn’t drink any. I had gotten spooked about whether you could drink tap water in Europe and hadn’t been drinking for a long time. I had no thirst and at the time this had stopped concerning me and was just the way it was.
I came out and put my jacket back on and paced until it was time to go. But first questions. “Did you pack your own bags?”
I struggle with how to answer, “Um, I don’t have any bags, I lost them.”
“Did your items ever leave your sight since they were packed?”
“No?” pause “Oh wait. I wasn’t thinking of it as an item because I’m wearing it but I left my jacket on a bench while I was in the bathroom. I’m sorry I just wasn’t thinking.”
“OK sir, could you please come with me.”
“Oh sure”, I said. I followed him back into a small room and answered more questions to another guy. I told him I had lost my bags with my plane ticket and i didn’t know where. He asked me again and i told him i’d checked them into a locker and lost the key. Another guy looked through my jacket and I pulled out my pockets. They went ove”r my passport carefully took my hemp wallet looked at it and handed it back.
“OK sir, you can go catch your plane.” I stepped out of the room and into the already moving line to board. My heart was beating fast but i also felt in a groove falling out right into the line. As we entered the door of the plane being greeted by the flight attendant I thought I saw an attendant nod her head towards a small door with stairs up.
I turned from the line climbed the stairs and sat down comfortably in the back of first class.
Going Crazy part 7
I took some of the change from the smokes and called the tarot reader. There were names of a couple on the answering machine, but not my guy, and i left a message for the guy that i would get back to him. I walked to the main train station and bought a ticket for Schipol. I got to thinking of a conversation i’d overheard about Dennis and his buddy getting stopped on the way out of Amsterdam a few days ago and getting busted for some small amount of drugs they had forgotten about. I began to wonder if they were set up which made me wonder if someone had hidden drugs in my gear. I started to look through my good old army backpack that had seen many miles over many years and realized it was too full of nooks and crannies for me to ever be sure someone hadn’t stashed something in there. I decided it was best to stash it for now and put it in a coin operated storage locker at the train station. I put the ticket in my pocket surreptitiously checked the schedule and slipped on the train just before it moved out hoping to shake any tales.
I arrived back at Schipol and checked the KLM desk. They had no record of my lost ticket and told me a new one would be $3,000. I was stunned and thanked them and walked to another part of the airport. I was unsure of my next move but thought i had better check in with my family as my “friends” were probably back in the states by now.
I purchased a phone card which was most of my remaining money and called my folks. I talked to my mom and my brother had just called having picked up my friends from the airport and myself not being there. He had told her they had said I was acting crazy and had gotten separated. He was pretty angry at them leaving me.
I told her they were trying to pressure me into smuggling drugs and had taken my plane ticket. I told her I had checked on it and it was $3,000 dollars for a new one. I had limited minutes and she told me she would check on a ticket and to call back in an hour. I told her i would.
I went to a smoking area and chain smoked cigarettes until I thought i was being watched and i wandered off. The lighter I realized I had taken from the mind spa when my lighter had died. I wondered if there was a transmitter in it. I decided I should go through my pockets and get rid of anything not essential. I had lots of stuff and i just started throwing it all away. I kept only my passport, some change, and my wallet which i went through carefully throwing away a lot of business cards and phone numbers of folks i had met during my stay. I didn’t know about any of them anymore. The hardest thing to toss was the ticket to get my backpack but there was no going back now.
I called my folks and my dad answered. He told me they had gotten me a ticket and all i needed to do was go to the ticket desk and give them a confirmation number. He asked me if i had a pencil. Damn I had thrown all of that stuff away. I started asking people walking by. I’m not even sure if they spoke english. My Dad stopped me after about 5 times. “Your just going to have to memorize it. Here, Here is how to do it. It starts with MPCH, that’ll be Mickey Please Call Home”. He went on to make up a mnemonic for the 15 digit code of random letters and numbers. He wove in birthdates and catch phrases and had me repeat it back to him twice. I told him I had it and they said they would meet me at the airport in Detroit.
going crazy part 6
The driver of the van that had immediately pulled over, apparently at my command, was a dumpy looking woman in her early 50s perhaps. She looked remarkably like my mom, shorter lighter hair but largely the same feel, gestalt if you will. She pulled back into traffic and asked where i was headed. I told her i didn’t know and preceded to explain that i’d inadvertently fallen in with an apparent gang of international drug smugglers and that i’d fled coercion into smuggling because i didn’t know what to do. She drove as i explained this listening intently with no apparent disbelief. She pulled off at an exit and parked next to a small park. She said it was foolish and dangerous to get involved with drug smugglers and i should be very careful. She said the Schipbol was dangerous, a frequent pathway for smugglers and heavily surveilled. She suggested i leave by Denmark I think it was, and she drew me a map of the easiest way to cross the border. I told her i had already ditched the drugs but she looked like she didn’t believe me. She was excited and concerned and looked near tears but happily so. She dug in her purse and pulled out a 50 guilder bill. She pushed it into my hands with the map which i remember as being on a cocktail napkin and made me promise not to spend it on drugs. i promised her i wouldn’t and impulsively added that i would use some of it to call my mom. i pulled out my backpack and walked across the park to find the train station she had mentioned on the map.
I was overcome by a tremendous weariness. I again recalled it must have been over 10 days. It was definitely in the middle of the second week I’d slept last and if we were to leave today it was day 21. I saw children playing and such and looked for an out of the way place to rest. I wouldn’t sleep, that wouldn’t be safe but i could not go on. I walked around some bushes, benches, perhaps a calliope and came to a bench out of the way. I sat my bag down and stretched out, I closed my eyes, the weariness overcame me.
I looked up to yet another blocky blond guy with a big forehead and a strong chin. This one looked a bit more rural, bibs perhaps, or jeans and a flannel, he was older but in the prime of life, muscled in a workingman kind of way and he was holding an axe. Not menacingly but prominently across his chest. He asked me what i was doing there? He appeared nervous but trying to hide it. I couldn’t decide if he were making conversation and just happened to have an axe or if he using it as a badge of authority to question my possible vagrancy. I looked over and saw the train stop, i couldn’t find, across the street and said i was waiting for a train. “Well be about it then” as the train rolled into view. It was definitely the homeless guy push off and i took it.
I rode the train the way it was going. I looked at the map on the train and tried to determine where i changed lines. I pulled out my cocktail napkin map and realized it was like a 3rd grade geography assignment kind of map that marked like the borders of a few countries but didn’t have anything about train lines and such and i couldn’t remember what the mom-lady had said. I rode the train until things looked familiar and i was able to find the stop closest to the mind spa.
I walked to the door and rang the bell, unsure of what i was looking for, what i would do if no one answered the door or what i would do if someone did. Our host opened the door and looked mildly surprised to see me. I asked if he had heard from Debbie and he said he hadn’t. I told him we were separated and i had missed my plane and come there to see if she had called. he said she hadn’t but i could come in and work out what to do. I told him that was alright, I had friends i was going to stay with and thanks just the same. He seemed surprised but didn’t argue. Everything was pregnant with meaning. Every conversation, every thought had for seemingly forever but it did not lessen its impact.
I walked to a one of the restaurants that had a small necessities counter and bought a pack of cigarettes. Galouis blonds, I was smoking then. Happy to be using the exotic locally. I thought of my promise not to buy drugs and did it anyway. Oh i wanted one. That moment of elusive clarity, focus at least. I took the change to a payphone and flipped through the business cards i had collected over the last couple of weeks, there were about 10 but mostly Americans who wanted me to look them up in the states. I had gotten the number of a tarot card reader I had let come in and set up at the cannabis cup. We had talked pretty intensely and he had given me a reading fraught with meaning that i no longer recall. I do recall its eerie prescience as certain events unfolded over the coming weeks but the vast majority of what occurred is lost to me, was lost to me even then. Living in the moment at the cost of history, identity even. I not only embraced The Now, i was Lost In It. And I hadn’t even yet had the dream….
going crazy part 5
After a long night of restless wandering I returned to the mind spa. Everyone was up and rolling, cleaning up and packing. The first night we had arrived our host’s partner Rose had told us to “remember what it looks like” which in my then unspun mind was a simple admonition to clean the place up when we were done. Now i saw new implications of needing to remember what was here, what had transpired. I placed an Israel Regardie book on the shelf of metaphysical classics in thanks for the memories. Debbie seemed a little out of sorts as i put the last few of my things in my pack, doublechecked to make sure my ticket was still in my bag. I remember a couple of Aaron’s friends who hadn’t come over with us were there. I thought one of them might want to carry Debbie’s bag as they also only had one. I was remembering the Fishbone CDs left over from the show at the Melkveg. I was remembering Jennifer dipping CD sized sheets of hash into a large pot of boiling wax the night before. I was remembering that i’d brought Debbie’s bag over from the states. I felt very tired, that now i was ready to sleep, and told myself not yet. Its not yet safe. I’ll sleep on the plane when i know i’m safe. We left for the train station. Debbie was disgusted when i mentioned i was broke again. Jennifer asked what happened to the 100 guilders she had given me and i told her i spent it teaching an immigrant what “frivolous” meant. Debbie bought my ticket and we boarded the train to Schippol. I kept thinking about the 300 CDs, the CD sized sheets of hash, this whole extended dangerous practical joke i had fallen into, the vagaries of friendship – and who in fact where my friends? I had no clear plan but i knew i wasn’t rolling that bag through customs. My thoughts ran slowly through my sleep deprived befuddlement. As the train pulled into Shippol I pulled the roll away behind me, last in line, moving towards the door. I felt like i was walking through molasses. The doors closed before i could de-board the train with everyone else. Flooded with relief i waved to my dumbstruck friends as the train pulled away from the station. There was another passenger stuck behind me, seperated from her guy at the airport. She seemed nice and uninvolved in this mess. I thought i would ask her advice. We had decided, of course, to ride up to the next stop, change trains and return to the airport. On the ride I quickly explained i believed that i had fallen in with international drug smugglers and thought the bag i carried was filled with Hash and wondered on the ethics of checking. She considered my dilemma. She said, her guy would be at the airport when she returned however long it took because he loved her and would wait. If my friends were at the station i could trust them and if not then well….
We arrived at the airport and there was her guy, happy to see her and in a hurry to catch the flight. My “friends” were no where in sight. I pulled off my backpack to check the ticket for the time and gate. No ticket. I had seen it that morning, double checking it was in the flap it had rested through this whole ordeal, now it was gone. I checked the flight listings and went to the appropriate gate. We had been cutting it close and the flight was departed, no one was in sight. I was stunned, exhausted, not thinking clearly. I needed some air and went outside and sat on a bench to collect my thoughts. There was this rhythmic pounding of a huge piledriver at a nearby construction site. I felt drawn there. I had been thinking about the hypnotic quality of techno music and the risk involved in opening your mind to hypnotic suggestions enclosed in the “music”. I felt drawn there, i felt like our host would be waiting for some kind of final confrontation. As i walked towards the pounding i realized this was insane. He would not be there, trespassing on a construction site would only draw attention to me with possibly a huge amount of hash in my possession. I sat down more to think. I opened the large duffel and pulled out a cloth shopping bag with some of Debbie’s souveniers contained within. I consciously did not check the CDs. I felt it was safer not to know. I zipped the duffel back up, left it next to the bench and walked away. I saw an exit sign leading to a highway. I thought i would return to the known of hitchhiking. I saw i was on an on-ramp heading east. Home was to the West. Or was it, East would get me there too, it would just take a little longer. I felt ready for the journey. I felt beyond want, beyond fear, beyond even need. I walked as the 4 lanes of traffic, those funny little European cars whizzed by. I found a lighter in my pocket, from the Mind Spa. I wondered if this was how they tracked my movements? My sinuses were clogged, i felt like i could barely breathe, i felt exhausted. I thought if only my sinuses hadn’t been clogged i could have done progressive relaxation and shut off this barrage of thought and rested and i wouldn’t be so damn tired. I thought it would be over by now but here i was a stranger in a strange land still. I thought i didn’t know what was happening to me. Had I been drugged, hypnotized, had my mind blown by mindblowers. Had i touched the face of god? I felt powerful as i breathed air into my lungs. I felt i had to be a powerful magician to have survived or maybe i was an angel? I was uncertain, and i felt there was power in this uncertainty, that if i knew it would all crumble into dust. I realized i loved the unknown and did not fear it. I said quietly, “I whisper when i want to hypnotize and I shout when I want something”. I didn’t know if i was listened to by a microphone planted by mindfuckers or the god who made the universe or if i was being listened to at all but I was angry. Angry at my exhaustion, my clogged sinuses, my fear of pursuit as a drug smuggler though i had done nothing. I shouted, my spirit self grew to scrape the clouds, i found myself ten thousand feet tall and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that at this moment i wielded all the power of the universe. I shouted. “If i don’t get a ride right now! I will destroy Phillip Morris”. Bamn, instantly a van in the far left lane cuts through 4 lanes of heavy traffic. “Would you like a ride?” the driver asked.
going crazy part 4
So my last night in Amsterdam, I hadn’t slept in 10 days, and Jennifer had given me a 100 guilders with the instructions to spend it on something frivolous. I left the mind spa immediately; I had been out of tobacco for a while and had been chain smoking like a fiend so my first order of business was to try to scare up a pack of smokes. Not so easily done in Europe where everything kind of closes at 6:00. I started walking, it was chilly and drizzling and I didn’t have a jacket. I had “People Are Strange” running through my head, probably because I’d had a couple of drinks earlier at The Doors, which is a bit of a franchise over there. It’d comforted me to know that somewhere Jim Morrison is always still crooning. I thought, I felt intensely, so intensely I can still summon up the feeling vividly now 12 years later, I was “strange” to be out late without a jacket and sure enough a face came out of the rain. I heard someone speak, a voice speaking a strange language behind me, but I felt like he was talking to me. I thought it could be the language of the angels and I could almost understand it. I turned and there was a Rastafarian standing at the edge of a street lamp so the glow backlit him like a halo. He had a holy look about him. He asked what I wanted and I told him I thought he had spoken to me. He asked me if I spoke some language I’d never heard of and I told him I didn’t but I thought he was talking to me. He asked, “What are you looking for?” which I felt had tremendous implications but was too much to respond too so, so after a pregnant pause, I told him I wanted a pack of cigarettes.
He said follow me and led me off into a part of The City I’d never been through several long and dark alleys and I started to get a bit anxious about where he was taking me and was of course hopelessly lost, but I pushed it out of my mind thinking he could be an angel and not wanting to be ungrateful, untrustworthy. Ultimately we arrived at an after-hours club with loud music blaring and a young white crowd apparently having a good time. He told me I could get cigarettes in there. I asked him if I could buy him a drink and he shook his head sadly and said they wouldn’t serve him there and walked across the square. I was immensely saddened by this and I stood by the doorway for a bit torn between the pull of nicotine and justice. I wandered a little down the sidewalk and saw a series of 7 playing cards laying face up on the sidewalk and read them as a tarot spread. The cards showed a perilous journey whose ultimate destination is confusion. As I pondered this the Rastafarian came back and asked why I didn’t go inside. I told him that I was not going to go somewhere where they wouldn’t let him in.
He seemed pleased with this response and he walked me across the square and introduced me to an African immigrant and told me that he could help me. In his broken English the immigrant offered to find me a prostitute and some cocaine. I told him that that wasn’t what I was looking for. I told him that I had 100 guilders that I was to spend on something frivolous and that I wanted cigarettes. He led me on a long walk and as we walked I attempted to explain what frivolous means. “You know something spontaneous needed. Something fun we don’t need.” We talked a little about our lives and the state of race relations in Amsterdam and I felt we quickly developed a sort of camaraderie that transcended our different backgrounds and agendas. Once we were accosted by a gang of blacks and my new friend stepped forward and told them I was with him and he was helping me find a good time. Once we were accosted by white policemen and I stepped forward and explained he was with me and he was giving me a tour. We talked about how this was a model of how relationships should be, mostly walking side by side but sometimes one than the other stepping forward as the situation warranted. We walked through the seedier part of the Red Light district than what I’d walked through with my friends touristing. It had made me uncomfortable seeing the women displayed in large glass windows like puppies at the mall pet store. This was grittier but more real and we bought beers and loose cigarettes from some of the whores and hung out for chit chat. We walked about a good part of the night most of what is a blur although I remember a short ride in an unregistered taxi which I was scolded for as an exorbient waste of money and smoking crack in some alley. I was so spun I couldn’t even feel it.
Ultimately 100 guilders will not take you very far especially if your guide is a crackhead and we found ourselves at the train station. After ascertaining that I really didn’t have anymore money my friend left to run a short errand and did not return.
I was still driven by this incredible restlessness and a cop had rousted me and told me to move on. I didn’t have a key to the mind spa at this point and didn’t want to wake everyone up and started wandering the streets. I was overcome by a great weariness and began to count the days since last I’d slept. I began to see the extent of how much I was spun, it had been upwards of 10 or 11 days, I was not sure, I sat in a bus shelter and pondered what had transpired, I was so exhausted. I thought of this new gift of gab I’d acquired and remembered how I’d talked our way from the cops earlier. I thought about ecstasy and what was its nature, not just the drug but that peculiar feeling of grandiose rapture that it so expertly duplicated but that I thought I’d had felt before. I wondered what the connection was. I tried to recapture that feeling and that voice of persuasive charm even though I was just speaking thoughts in my head,that I’d used in the furious tabling session, 450 guilders in 45 minutes, money was now meaningless, raised virtually at will, functionally unnecessary. I began to see that I’d been able to tap into that energy before when speaking to large crowds. When you have that rapt attention of many, and you are speaking to each like they are an individual. I thought of The Voice as described in Dune or the Jedi mind trick, “These aren’t the droids your looking for”. I remembered the terror before stepping onto the podium during my speaking engagements as an activist. That raw terror, and then a deep breath, and a plunge into The Word. I saw that the heart of ecstasy was overcoming fear and I began to remember how that felt in my body. I stretched out on the small bench, devised to keep the homeless from an easy rest, and began to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth slowly and deeply casting my focus on the feeling of air going by my septum. I relaxed all the muscles in my tired and battered body pushed way too hard for way too long. As I reached a state of total relaxation I felt my palms become moist like before addressing a large crowd. Ignited by the oxygen I was again burning brightly. The boundless energy returned and my exhaustion was no more. I was beyond the collapse and could return to the mind spa to face my future. Later I encapsulated this idea into a formula: fear + oxygen = ecstasy.
going crazy part 3
I had been spending the most time with Aaron. Aaron was in crisis. He had at first turned down Debbie’s invitation to return to Amsterdam as his business was pressing. He was a co-owner of a new marijuana dispensary and had a small grow operation in Marin keeping him busy. After he learned I was going he decided he could go. That fact later became important in my delusional system. Last year Aaron was the newbie this year I was.
Shortly after we arrived Aaron had learned his partner had declared him corrupt and taken control of the business and his grow operation saying they were company assets. His partner also called High Times and told them they were employing a swindler and wanting to avoid controversy they fired him before he started. Aaron was obsessed and went on and on about his troubles back home. As he was largely my guide to the city I was the recipient of his angst and tried my best to listen and provide guidance. I remember we had a long talk about “energy vampires” those who take and take without giving. There is a reason you never invite a vampire into your home.
Aaron and I had purchased some “organic ecstasy” from our host at the mind spa. That night we did a gram, sometime later we did another. Being crazy for me is a lot like being on ecstasy. That same sparkling of perception and words unbidden uncensored easy on the tongue. We stayed up all night mostly talking about Aaron’s situation. That day I worked the door at some Cannabis Cup event and did whatever we did, go to dinner smoke cannabis its all really a blur and truly I have little idea of what happened when or even what really happened and what was delusion. Keep that in mind throughout this narrative have the names have not been changed under the assumption that time and the statute of limitations protect the guilty, if there be any.
That night I was again hanging out with Aaron and he raved on in his obsessions and wanted to do the rest of the ecstasy. I didn’t want to do any because it was late and I hadn’t slept. Aaron said he would do it all (4 grams I believe and it was more intense than any I had ever done) if I didn’t do it with him. One of the bad things about ecstasy is the tripping dose and the fatal dose are just too damn close. So I did a gram and later another and again we stayed up all night talking about Aaron’s obsessions. Taking ecstasy was probably the last rational decision, poor though it was, that I made for months. On night three I did not need to take ecstasy to stay up all night nor did I sleep again in Amsterdam though it must have been another 8 or 9 days before I left.
I can’t really describe what I was feeling through this time. I had this rush of ideas, incredible confidence and energy to the point of laughable grandiosity and I was putting things together at an incredible rate. I was so intensely in the moment that a coherent narrative is impossible. Perhaps insanity at its core is the lack of a coherent personal narrative. Stan Davis my first sociology professor at good old Monroe County Community College called insanity a worldview of one. But that is insufficient as I often could easily explain my charged world view to folks and take them along with me to what I now believed. Because with the delusions of grandeur came an incredible charisma.
I believe I continued to work security for the Cup. At one point I was able to work the CAN table. Part of our deal with High Times was we got a free table at the vendors area. We brought no product, the heart of CAN’s fundraising was selling pot stickers, t-shirts and hemp products but we produced nothing and our vendors and their competitors had tables so we just had literature. We had our glossy flyers for the medical marijuana initiative and we had copies of the initiative. We were a bit of rock stars for just passing the most significant piece of marijuana law in the world. Aaron had been desultorily working the table as he was not allowed to work which left it all to Debbie and myself. At one point I worked the table for 45 minutes. Within minutes there was a crowd around the table as I gave my rap. This is how we passed it this is what we passed. That was the essence of it. We had a basket that people through coins in. I only worked the table for 45 minutes because Debbie felt we were endangering our place by taking business from the other vendors. The ones who had products. As we excitedly counted our take it came to 450 guilders or about $300. I had done 3 fair days of tabling income without any products to sell in 45 minutes. That’s when I realized that money was valueless. I felt I could sing it up out of the aether at will, and perhaps I could.
Later perhaps that same day I took a break from working the door and walked through the exhibition booth where there was an open mic. Rappers were bustin out rhymes and I thought I had important revelations to share. I took the mic and explained that the economy ran on magic and that money meant nothing. I said wild eyed that we could actualize the idea behind “that insight book” that if you see someone doing the right thing than give them money so they can keep doing it and we could be freed from the shackles of shameless commerce. I made the challenge that I had a pocket full of money that I would try to give away and that it could not be done because by doing the right thing it would flood back to me. I of course quickly found it was no problem at all to give away all my money.
I left the stage and an older hippy gentleman took me aside and told me that while he heard the truth and compassion in my speech that there was madness in my eyes and that I needed rest. I almost cried from his gentle hand on my shoulder and the care in his words. A young woman approached me for my money for some feminist cause. We talked and found her organization’s needs exceeded what was in my pocket and I gave her enough for a phone call and my number in Berkeley and promised to work with her to raise that money with an infallible plan that rose in my mind. Debbie approached and told me to cool it I was making a fool of myself. I pointed out the young woman who had been touched by my words and she said she just wanted my money.
Back at the mind spa I was scolded for interrupting a poetry event for speechifying. I announced I could write poetry though I had never been able too before. I knocked out one on the pains of being me on the spot. Jennifer saved it and later sent it to me and it was pretty good. I may still have it somewhere. My friends challenged my growing grandiosity and my challenge of their sacred cows. I had always felt an air of hypocrisy and shameless commerce ran through the drug legalization crowd and with the death of my self-censor I no longer held back.
They challenged my unequaled genius with comparing me to my host who spoke three languages flawlessly. After they slept I broke out the German English dictionary and wrote a haiku. I don’t remember it in German but in English it went:
Sunrise War
Around dying Autumnal fires
Until sleep intervenes
I was having flashes of what I felt was genetic memory. At least one night I walked all night. I felt my body had walked about Europe for millennia. I had vague memories of marching with compatriots a squad of warriors sleeping around campfires in piles like puppies for warmth. I wanted to capture the old warriors sitting about the fire telling horror stories through the night as one by one they drift off to uneasy dreams.
At some point I had picked up a nasty huge swelling bruise and was walking with a heavy limp. My friends wanted me to go to a hospital. I knew enough that I was too crazy to go to a hospital and not risk admission in some foreign system. By then I was afraid my friends were out to get me. To push me into insanity. To force me to wager my soul in an unholy game of Risk with our host. To induct me into an international secret organization of drug dealers. I felt that if I slept someone would be whispering hypnotizing words into my ears and I would be lost, damned or both. I vowed I would not sleep again until I was safely out of this infernal city. The damaged foot was a problem. I laid in a special relaxation chair, leather, like something you would see in a dental office. I breathed into my nose and out of my mouth slowly and evenly concentrating on the air going by my septum. I clenched my fingers and toes and felt all of the incredible tension of my wire taut body. I released all of it and felt the incredible sense of total relaxation. I visualized the swelling leaving my foot and it becoming perfectly whole. Time passed I guess. I looked at my foot and the bruise was gone. I showed my friends my foot whole and restored and they were unimpressed. They still wanted me to go to the hospital as I was clearly mad thinking I could heal my foot. They asked if I had slept and I told them I had. Later I would lay down and close my eyes and pretend to sleep to try to allay their concerns but would also drop hints that I was only pretending.
One night fairly close to when we were supposed to leave I came in from a day of wandering and found Jennifer dipping CD sized sheets of hash into a pot of wax bubbling on the stove. We discussed in a roundabout fashion drug commerce and my possible participation in it. I had always made a very clear distinction that I was comfortable possessing and using drugs but not in their commerce. Sanctions are too great, the rewards too tenuous. Jennifer said at one point: “Act out of love and not fear”, a great line. I responded with: “Love of what and fear of what? Love of money is the root of all evil and fear of God is the beginning of wisdom”. She was unimpressed. She did give me a 100 guilders because I had given all of my money away. She told me not to give it away but to spend it on something “frivolous”.
next: going crazy part 4
first: going crazy part 1
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