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Tag Archives: addiction
Abstract Art, Dubai (Photo credit: Virtual BCM-Bobb & Company Marketing)
I had taken a dose of LSD that he couldn't handle in the Summer of 1998. The effects of the LSD went completely haywire. I was in a dark fantasy world of which had no control, nor escape. The people I saw contorted into minions… the very air I breathed seemed to be filled with acidic poison. The back of my brain felt like it was melting off of my head. I didn't know then that LSD physically made my brain hemorrhage. I only felt completely out of control. I remembered reading of Mephistopheles in the legend of Faust. Had I been overcome by some dark angel like him? Would I ever make it out of this state of mind, or was I doomed to wear a straightjacket in a little white room for the rest of my life?
The profound, dark thoughts seemed to overcome my mind like a swarm of wasps…
A year before, I was smoking weed every day and getting drunk on weekends. Two years before I was dabbling with pot and alcohol. Three years before it was just cigarettes and an occasional shot of alcohol. All that to say, what started as a mildly mischievous juvenile pursuit, had turned into an obvious problem.
There were reasons why I did the things I did, and reasons why I shouldn't have done them.
Analogously, there are reasons why we all do the things we do. Some of them are justified, and some are selfish. We're all products of the nature and nurture that we've been handed. In one sense we're all victims, and yet in another sense we're all completely responsible for our actions. Jerry Cantrell wrote words in song to his bandmate, Layne Staley in the song "No Excuses" in 1994;
Something hits me all so cold
Find me sitting by myself
No excuses that I know
Every addict finds themselves sitting alone with no excuses left at some point in their addiction… usually numerous times. Layne Staley died from a mixture of heroin and cocaine… Laboratory results determined the singer died April 5, 2002, according to a spokesperson for the King County medical examiner's office, the same day fellow grunge pioneer Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994. Staley was found dead two weeks later, surrounded by intravenous drug paraphernalia in his Seattle apartment. The death certificate reads Staley's death resulted from "an acute intoxication due to the combined effects of opiate (heroin) and cocaine." The death was classified as "accidental." (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1453818/staley-died-from-mix-heroin-cocaine.jhtml)
I was and am not a famous musician like Staley, though I've had delusions of grandeur wishing I would be, and my story did not end like Staley's, or so many other forgotten phantoms who never got national publicity for their overdose. (In 2010, there were 25 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S. (www.popsci.com)) My story of addiction ended with redemption. My story ended with a life completely enraptured with the presence, sacrifice, and teachings of Jesus Christ. It hasn't made life easier, or like some Ned Flanders, cornucopian, utopian day-dream. But it has made it clearer and more beautiful.
I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Eccl. 1:14)
But we must ask the question… are drugs a channel for spirituality? A lot of people would hear this question and easily dismiss it- of course drugs aren't "spiritual"! Other people would go to the other extreme and say "they are the only channel into the spiritual!" The fact is, drugs are spiritual. The real quandary is whether or not the spirituality they induce has a positive or negative effect. Do they uncover an insidious darkness or a utopian dream-world? Are they gateways into true consciousness and the other unused ninety-percent of our brains, or are they toxic poisons that cause irreparable damage to our sanity and physical health?
I was raised by parents who were basically agnostic, and they encouraged me all of my life to expand my horizons and search for enlightened creativity, individual expression, and freedom.
Much like my Father, whose spiritual search led him down a road of using drugs and playing in the Cleveland rock and roll scene of the 1970's. I spent a lot of my youth listening to the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and played music. I began to believe that experimenting with drugs would lead me to a higher plane of enlightenment, and give me greater creativity. I was writing songs at the age of 12, and began using drugs at the age of 14. I really did approach using them on a spiritual level, and felt that somehow they would give me a greater connection to the mystical.
But in the story that will follow, we will see how that journey ended up hitting some very serious dead-ends, and eventually I was at the end of my rope, and miraculously stumbled into a real, vibrant relationship with God that changed my life completely.
ALICE IN CHAINS: Quality Fan-Filmed Video Footage Of Chicago Concert (blabbermouth.net)
The Simpsons (thedistinctdot.com)
Heroin, Amphetamines Head List of Problem Drugs (thejakartaglobe.com)
first things first (myaddictionandrecovery.wordpress.com)
Filed under The Roots of a Miscreant Youth and tagged addiction, brain hemorrhage, dark fantasy world, dark thoughts, drugs, God, Jerry Cantrell, Jesus, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Led Zeppelin, life, life story, LSD, Lysergic acid diethylamide, memoir, mephistopheles, Ned Flanders, Pink Floyd, rock and roll, Rock n' Roll, Seattle, Spirituality, Staley, straightjacket, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Dead Drunk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My friend Edan and I somehow got caught up in the quest for cool rebellion. It was an electric summer for the music scene in 1993. Riding the coattails of gritty, raw bands like The Cult, the Pixies and Guns n' Roses, Nirvana's Nevermind had already wrecked the glam rock of the late eighties, and other bands were coming out of the wood work that rode Kurt Cobain's trail of mayhem, including Pearl Jam, Soul Asylum, Alice in Chains, Blind Melon and Soundgarden.
Edan and I were listening to all of this new music, and coming of age as well. Puberty was figuratively smacking us in the face. Girls were becoming more and more of an irresistible enigma, and we were starting to develop heroes apart from our parents and the basketball icon Michael Jordan.
Our heroes were found in the ringing loudness of cassette tapes, and a new invention that was starting become common in home sound systems- Compact Discs. Kurt Cobain sang of a world we deeply wanted to understand. We began to be fascinated with the idea of being intoxicated, because we knew all of these guys constantly were. And since I played music I somehow believed that intoxication would enhance my music, and in many ways that's what I cared about the most- playing and writing good music.
We started by rolling up green oak leaves and stealing my Dad's lighter. We'd go out into in my backyard and sit in an oak tree (where else???) and smoke oak leaves! We definitely didn't inhale, but we got the adrenaline rush that came with doing something we knew our parents would think was wrong (or maybe really, just stupid and weird!)
From there it moved on to smoking cinnamon sticks, which weren't very good at all. It was amazing how silly we were doing these things.
Then we got the hunger to begin trying something truly illegal, smoking cigarettes while we were still only 12 years old. We used to wait by the entrance of a grocery store in town. People would walk in and put their cigarettes in the ash tray outside, some of them still mostly full. We would take the cigarettes and smoke them! Man, looking back I'm glad we didn't get some sort of Hepatitis!
Edan's 13th birthday was coming up. It was the end of summer, the beginning of our 7th grade year in school. Nirvana's "In Utero" had just hit the CD racks in music stores, and we bought it up immediately. With this music as our background soundtrack, we decided to steal a bunch of booze from Edan's Dad. We stole a couple of beers, we took little plastic bottles and filled them with whiskey, then rum, and then vodka. I paid a 7th Grader about 3 bucks for a pack of cigarettes that was half empty (that would be a cheap price now, but then it was a rip-off!). So we had gathered up what we saw as the most trouble we could get ourselves into to prepare for Eric's 13th birthday bash.
Edan invited a number of his and my friends to the party. After an evening of walking around on the dirt of an undeveloped area of his neighborhood and smoking cigarettes in the cool Fall evening, we headed back to his house.
When his parents were asleep, we broke out all of the alcohol. I treaded carefully and drank little sips, pretending to be more and more intoxicated, when I was really faking it. One of our friends, Nathan, refused to participate in the drinking. He actually became the prophet of morality for the night. We made fun of him for standing out. I look back and realize it took a lot of courage to do. As a thirty-two-year old man who has been sober for thirteen years, I know that I would be the one to stand out now. Of course, I'd do it without condemning the people that are partying. But then, I was much different, and much more easily persuaded to follow my id.
The night went on, and everyone seemed to be faking it like they were drunk. We all winded down and Edan seemed to get crazier. I suppose he drank a whole lot more than most of us, because a lot of us were just scared to do it. Edan started getting violent and cynical. He came after a few of us physically. I remembered Nathan wrestling him and throwing him to the ground one time. I think the alcohol just got a hold of Edan in a way he couldn't handle (I mean, what 12 year old kid could?). The night ended with Edan hugging the toilet and vomiting for quite awhile.
We woke up the next morning and I was too naive to understand what had happened. I was seriously mad at Edan for acting that way and didn't realize how much the alcohol had taken hold of him. Regretfully I shunned Edan after that. It was another step in my quest for popularity, and I was willing to mow anyone down to get there. I turned other people against him and spread vicious rumors about him. And it wasn't until my eleventh grade year of High School that I came to tell him how sorry I was for that.
Junior High School is a cold, Darwinian arena where "survival of the fittest", or maybe "coolest" or "meanest" can be the only rule. Those who create the rumor mill and oppress the honest and vulnerable come to prominence. Those who forthrightly navigate their way through the wilderness of confusion get left behind in a trail of smoke. Some of these realities come alive in adulthood, where consumers subversively gnaw and tear at each other's souls, and bosses subversively undercut and demoralize their employees. Hopefully, we learn from these errors and seek to love our friends, neighbors and enemies, fueled by unconditional love from above. Yet it is the lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so the hearts of fools. (Prov. 15:7) Our very nature is to spread calamity, but rising above it is possible through surrender.
I didn't realize these things at the naive age of twelve. I would have many years of infamy before being driven towards true assertion.
Filed under The Roots of a Miscreant Youth and tagged addiction, Alcohol, Alcohol intoxication, alice in chains, beer, Blind Melon, bully, bullying, cigarettes, cinnamon sticks, Compact Disc, drinking, guns n roses, In Utero, Kurt Cobain, Legal drinking age, liquor, Middle school, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Pixies, rum, seventh grade, smoking, Soul Asylum, Soundgarden, The Cult, vodka, whiskey, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
English: Marlboro cigarettes pack (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Amidst the shunning of what used to be good friends, and rising popularity as a middle school musician (which in hindsight is completely ridiculous!), my own hunger for defying authority and a moral compass continued.
One time, a friend named Kalen and I hit our own personal jackpot. It was early on in my 7th Grade year and the frost of winter was settling into the October winds. Kalen and I figured out that a lady at a local gas station was sympathetic to young people taking on a nicotine habit. Word about this lady spread amongst the miscreants in our grade and above, and got to us. We went to the gas station and put together about $1.50 between us, because back in 1993 that was honestly the price for a pack of cigarettes!
After some pensiveness on both of our parts I opted to be the one to go in and ask her for cigarettes. My heart was probably beating at 165 beats per minute and my palms were sweating like a gooey sponge that has been left in the kitchen sink for weeks. I walked up to her and whispered in grave nervousness; "uh… uh… can can can I have a uh… pack of Marlboro Reds please?"
I couldn't believe what she did next. She whispered back; "Sure honey, just slide the money onto the counter and I'm going to slip the pack behind this rack. You go ahead and grab it, because there are cameras in here." I pocketed the pack in what I perceived to be some sort of great victory over fear. It was crazy though. This lady was selling me cigarettes, and I wasn't even far enough into puberty for my voice to change yet! In hindsight I realize that if I was in her shoes today, I would have never done what she did, and not only to avoid the punishment of the law, but out of principle alone!
So Kalen and I jumped on our bikes and rode victoriously to the baseball fields by our houses. We lived close to each other and this neighborhood park was a frequented hang-out spot for all sorts of vandalism, idleness and also some great times of playing baseball and football.
Nobody was around, and we nervously broke out the cigarettes. We both lit one up and puffed on it, feigning James Dean-like coolness and having no idea what we were doing. Kalen had to get home, so he left, and for some wild reason I stayed and had another by myself. I always had this weird independence about me that made me want to experience things in isolation. Maybe it was because I was an only child, or maybe it was just a strange curiosity deep within me to find myself alone with conscience annihilation and silence.
Whatever it was, I finished what I was doing and put the pack in my front jacket pocket, which made it stick out like 3 wallets stuffed into the pockets of tight disco pants. I biked home to face my Mother at the front door. I had no plan for a lie, and just thought I could walk in the door with my arms awkwardly covering my pelvic area where the pack of Marlboros was concealed so wonderfully.
Obviously my Mom cornered me and asked me what was in my pocket. I nervously replied; "Nothing!" And scurried into my room, frantically opening my closet door and shoving the pack into an old binocular case that my Grandfather had given me.
My Mom knocked on the door and I let her in, acting sheepishly innocent. She asked me why I smelled like smoke and if I had a pack of cigarettes, to which I of course replied "No!" with some measure of defensive anger. She went right for the jugular and opened the side of my closet where the pack was hidden. After a thorough investigation, which lasted about 10 seconds, she found the pack of Marlboros.
I had one thing to my advantage in all my hunger for mischief. I was a bad liar.
Filed under The Roots of a Miscreant Youth and tagged addiction, Cigarette, Cigarette pack, gas station, James Dean, Marlboro, Marlboro Reds, Philip Morris USA, selling cigarettes to minors, underage smoking, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
The First Time I Got High on Marijuana
Red Eyes 12-2012 (Photo credit: daver6sf@yahoo.com)
By the time I had entered into my 9th grade year, the first year of high school, I was more into music than ever. This was 1995, and it was officially becoming the "post-grunge" era. Hootie and the Blowfish were popular, though me and my ever growing band of marauders were anti-pop and therefore anti-Hootie. Silverchair, Greenday and Alanis Morrisette were big during this time. And bands like "Bush" were making it truly official that "grunge rock" had met it's end in commercialism.
At the beginning of the school year a TV series came on that changed the way I would look at music forever. The 3 remaining Beatles who were alive at the time- Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, came out with a series of shows about their music career called "Anthology". My parents and I watched these shows as they came on religiously. I was drawn in to the story and life of the Beatles, and most of all their later era of music. It wasn't long before I snatched up albums like "Rubber Soul", "Revolver", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and "Abbey Road".
In the story of the life of the Beatles, one of their most creative periods of songwriting began around 1965 when they released "Rubber Soul". There was a move away from the pop sound they had before and into a stranger, more speculative approach to songwriting. This was the era where they began using marijuana regularly.
I remember the time in the Anthology series where they talked of marijuana as something that seemed to enlighten them spiritually, making them more creative and philosophical. My Dad at the time seemed to agree with what they were saying, and I didn't know why. I didn't talk to my parents about it either, but a deep curiosity was birthed in me as I learned of the Beatles' creative crutch.
During this time I was making close friendships with a few friends, one named Mitchell and the other Duane. Mitchell played guitar often, but was beginning to become a virtuoso on bass- getting into prog rock by Rush and Frank Zappa, and Duane played drums and was heavily into Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix experience and Jimmy Chamberlain from the Smashing Pumpkins. I played guitar and sang, and we formed a band that we named "Mulberry Tree" to reflect the mixture of classic and grunge rock that made up our sound.
Because we wanted so much to be like the people we looked up to, the next step for us was to smoke marijuana. Duane was into it before all of us, because he had older friends than we did, and we were ready and willing to join him.
In the Fall of 1995, we had a group of friends over (a band they called "Aftermath") to play music at my house. My parents were out of town, and Duane had filled a Black and Mild Cigar with dope. These guys were not a part of the "popular crowd" by any means, but because of my 8th grade downfall from popularity I was making the effort to befriend people no matter what their social status was. We set up all of our equipment, including drums, and amps and guitars in my parent's garage.
Before we could finish setting up or even play one song, Duane pulled out the Black and Mild and convinced us we should light it up. I was beginning to become less careful and encouraged him to go for it. This was the 3rd time I had tried pot, and it hadn't really intoxicated me yet. Duane encouraged me to inhale it deep and hold it in. I did just that and coughed and coughed until I felt like my lungs were going to pop out of my mouth. I tried a few more hits just like that and then quit, letting Duane finish the rest. I think Mitchell may have tried one hit, but backed off.
So we had finished smoking, and I went back to setting up equipment. The last thing I remembered was being in my basement grabbing speakers and not being able to lift them. I began to freak out as numbness filled my body and clouded my mind.
The next thing I remember is laying on the ground, with all the boys from Aftermath laughing at me and mocking me, though one named Antony was actually pretty concerned for me. I was flipping out at this point, thinking that I was about to die. I kept repeating that over and over to everyone around me, "I'm gonna die!" And Duane once hovered over me as he made serpent rhythms with his hands and quoted Jim Morrison, saying "Don't worry man! Just ride the snake man, ride the snake!" Duane was as high as me but had been there before. At one point he sang the words of "Tomorrow Never Knows" by John Lennon and the Beatles, "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream… it is not dying, it is not dying…"
My next memory was playing music with my boys in Mulberry Tree. I probably didn't hit one correctly timed note on the guitar, and I was beside myself laughing and stumbling all about.
Later in the day I entered my first experience of "coming down". The high began to wear off and I was grateful to have felt such fear and yet survive it. Something within the experience in my mind became akin to why people ride rollercoasters, or bungee jump, or skydive, or steal something, or lie, or break in to someone's house, or have sex with someone they're not committed to. The thrill of the adrenaline… Knowing it was wrong but doing it anyways, and being afraid it would kill me, yet making it out on the other end, made me obsessed with the experience.
And somehow this feeling of "riding the edge"- something that felt like hanging over the edge of a cliff and then being pulled back- became an addiction. Also, all the anger I felt towards my parents, the terrible grades I was getting in school, and the social pressures just seemed to fade away for 4 hours. Later that night all those feelings magnified though. I slipped into a more depressive state, clinging to the sounds of Beatles records, playing the guitar, and writing down poetry to comfort myself.
After that experience, the school week passed by in an anti-climactic fashion. I talked to friends like Kaden about the experience, and it seemed to scare him. Other pot-head kids which I had once viewed as crazy with a higher level of juvenile mania. All of a sudden they became close acquaintances. I longed to get high again and ride the edge of the cliff once more.
The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly. (Prov. 15:14)
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged Abbey Road, addiction, Alanis Morrisette, Beatle, Black and Mild, Blunt, dope, Drug Addiction, first high, Frank Zappa, George Harrison, Greenday, High, Hootie and the Blowfish, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, marijuana, Mitch Mitchell, Paul McCartney, pot, Ringo Starr, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Silverchair, The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows, weed, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Chasing After the First High
don't get high on my supply without me. (Photo credit: Divine Harvester)
There was an entire scene that seemed to surround the new-found drug culture that Duane, Mitchell and I were about to be immersed in. It centered around a place in the town of Hudson, Ohio called Arabica Coffee. Coffee was becoming a popular fad and drug of choice amongst especially those in the middle class suburbs and urban centers in the mid-90's. Starbucks was starting to bust it's way out of Seattle and all over the country, and even those of us in high school began to taste of the European twist on this little brown bean. We drank it in the form of cappuccinos, lattes, mochas, and sometimes just straight regular coffee.
In the midst of Duane and I's descent into the abyss of depression and skepticism that naturally came along with the things we were doing, we began to find solace at Arabica coffee house. It was a place where we, as 14 year-old kids, could buy a coffee, and sit and smoke cigarettes inside. For some reason no one ever questioned us for doing this. This was also 1996, long before smoking in indoor establishments was made illegal in Ohio.
When I got high for the second time Duane had filled a cigarette with a little bit of weed, and we only had smoked a bit of it. For some reason this time was different than before. We found ourselves later back at Arabica coffee shop, too high to drink coffee or smoke cigarettes, and we kept feeling like jolts of electricity were surging through us, and also the strange feeling of feeling like we were being poked by a hundred needles at once. We must have looked like total goons sitting there with our heads down on the table, buried in our folded arms.
Duane had taken this same pot we had used, and filled up an entire cigarette with it to smoke it himself the next day in his bathroom at his parents' house. He described for us in detail how he was convinced that he would die all night. He was twiddling a little piece of drumstick wood in his fingers and became persuaded that if he were to drop this piece of wood, his heart would stop. We found out the next week from Duane's older friend that we had in fact been smoking ganja laced with PCP.
It was during some of these strange moments of being high and sitting around talking about weird philosophy and sharing poetry and song lyrics that I first met Harmony. Harmony was a striking sight of beauty to my 9th Grade eyes. She was a hippie girl who smoked, talked eccentric chatter and had long brown hair. Something within me was ignited and inspired. I began to write songs and poems describing the way I felt about her.
It wasn't long before Harmony and I were "going out", which was just an official term for considering each other to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I was such an odd kid, and during our 2 months of dating I couldn't even work up the nerve to kiss her. Somehow I had the audacity to put a lot of foreign unknown chemicals in my body, but not the confidence to make the move I so desperately wanted to make. I was a walking contradiction of sin and naïve conscience.
So Harmony and I broke up, because nothing was happening. I think I freaked her out because I was writing songs for her and hinting at being in love with her, yet surprised her by being so afraid to kiss her. But we became the closest of friends. We began to talk with each other every night on the phone. Sometimes I would be up until 2am and my parents would bust me on my phone (this was when we still had land lines- not cell phones!) We continued to be deeply close friends, sharing our love for classic rock like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, and pouring out our hearts to each other.
It was during this time that we also began to discover Pink Floyd. Duane, Mitchell and I watched the movie "The Wall", and began listening to albums like "Dark Side of the Moon", "Meddle" and "Wish You Were Here". Something in the morose, dark psychedelic sounds of the Floyd seemed to provide the soundtrack for our venture into cannabis use. The lyrics also spoke of a cynical, alienated view of the world. We identified with them and their songs began to influence our song writing.
My songs took a turn into the world of melancholy. They had a sombre tone. I also discovered guitar and vocal effects like flangers, phasers, reverbs and delays that gave my music the simulation of surrealism. These effects were also used by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, the later career of the Beatles, and more. My lyrics became even more philosophical in tone, at times entering into a dream like world apart from reality, and at other times expressing the ongoing isolation I felt within myself when standing in juxtaposition to society. I became more addicted to pain and sorrow, as I began to felt they were a catalyst for "true art".
The drugs began to consume my life. Duane, Mitchell and I were continually searching for a heavier and heavier high on marijuana. We bought pipes from older kids that could buy them legally at a head shop, and even obtained a plastic, purple bong which we used to fill with grape juice, smoking pot in it constantly. It just seemed that we couldn't get back to that first high we had, which felt so surreal, scary and surprising. We would smoke and smoke until we felt our lungs barely worked, and still the high was never the same.
It was as if a mysterious stranger had fed us a tremendous fabrication. We had felt as if we could be more like God or feel like gods ourselves, becoming completely entranced and absorbed into our own cerebral worlds. But the first experience of this "godlike" feeling was more intense and profound than all the others after, and it was seemingly impossible to re-create the original experience. This was the cycle of addiction that I began to understand was taking hold of me. I was searching for that first high and I would never get it again, but felt a vacuum within my spirit. It seemed that the quest would never meet its end, and it seemed to be plunging me into deeper despair and confusion. My grades at school continued to plummet, and my relationship with my parents became more strained. All that seemed to matter were drugs, our band, and my feelings for Harmony.
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged addiction, Beatles, Cannabis, chemical dependency, dope, Drug Addiction, High, Hudson Ohio, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, marijuana, Nirvana, PCP, Pink Floyd, pot, Smashing Pumpkins, starbucks, The Doors, weed, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Drunk and Arrested at Age 15
Hiatt type 2010 handcuffs. Circa 1990s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It was late July of 1996, and "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand" was #1 on the alternative rock charts. Not far behind was Stone Temple Pilots' "Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart", a modern psychedelic rocker, and Beck's "Where it's At"- an genius hybrid of minimalistic alt-rock and hip-hop done by the white grandson of a Vaudeville performer.
This had been an interesting summer. My parents, in the midst of their continual fighting about money, had certainly moved ahead financially. We bought a nicer house closer to the High School in Hudson, Ohio. It was actually within walking distance. One positive result of this was my removal from old surroundings. Some of the neighbors around me who perpetuated my drug habits were now absent from my every day life.
On top of this, our high school band, "Mulberry Tree", was facing some strain. Our drummer, Duane, had disappeared from our existence for the summer. We found later that he was hanging out with his older friends, and had really gotten the love bug for an older girl. I suppose I would have done the same thing were I in his shoes.
But in our youth, me and the bass player of Mulberry Tree, Mitchell, took it personally. We started writing our own music, which had more of a progressive-rock edge to it. We wrote 6 to 9 minute long opuses, which were deeply influenced by prog bands like Yes, Rush, early Genesis (with Peter Gabriel), Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and King Crimson. We were also certainly influenced by Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne.
Yet the removal of Duane and his older friends from our little rock star utopian dream world severed us from the ability to acquire marijuana. We began to experiment more often in the cedar lined shelves of our parents' liquor cabinets.
Mitchell would come over on Summer Evenings, after playing baseball all day, and we'd conjure up some form of liquor or beer. We'd fill ourselves with it to the point of buzzing or being intoxicated, and then we'd congregate in my basement, which now had a full drum set, guitars, a bass, amplifiers, a keyboard, PA speakers, and a little recording studio with equalizers and mini-speakers. It was every thing a young rocker would dream of. We'd record our original music, with me on drums, and rhythm guitars, and Mitchell would play bass and lead guitars. We'd mess around with over dubs and share doing the vocal tracks. We created some great material when the alcohol wasn't disabling us too much.
We ended up connecting with an older girl named Madeira in our circle of friends. Mitchell had a love interest in her, and I had a bit of one, but knew that it was only right to allow my friend to pursue his interest before mine. Our first connection with Madeira was at one of her parties. Her parents would leave town and her 21 year-old sister would buy enough beer to kill an army of kittens. She'd invite her sphere of influence into her den of high school freedom, and we'd partake of the spirits.
Now, I haven't touched a drop of alcohol for two years, and have never been legally drunk, because the only drinking I did past the age of twenty-one was a beer or glass of wine here or there. I was floored by Ephesians 5:18 that says; "do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." I want that fulfillment and joy that can come from sobriety and being filled with God's presence. But at the age of fourteen going on fifteen, I dug debauchery. The dictionary defines debauchery as "excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures". This was my M.O.
The first party we attended at Madeira's house began with Mitchell and I sharing a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and ended with both of us laying like fools on a bathroom floor, vomiting what seemed to be an endless ocean out of our insides, and professing of our bro-mance friendship love for one another. People say and do completely silly and regretful things under the influence of alcohol to be sure.
Later, Madeira had invited us to hang out with her and go bowling. She obtained a bottle of 40 proof (1/2 strength) whiskey and 2 bottles of Boone's sparkling wine for our voyage. We made it to the parking lot of Stonehedge Bowling Alley in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Madeira was 16 and drove us there. Mitchell had a learner's permit because he was 15, and I had no sort of driver's license because I had just turned 15. We certainly had no plans for a designated driver.
We decided to drink the alcohol before going in to bowl. Mitchell and I drank the whiskey, and Madeira drank the Boone's. Mitchell and I managed to finish the entire bottle, which was ½ strength but a large quanitity, especially for 15 year-olds! Madeira finished both of the bottles of Boone's. We stood outside and smoked cigarettes as the deeply inebriating effects began to destroy and flood our minds. Mitchell and Madeira ended up further away and I was on my own smoking. I saw them kiss. Madeira later got so sick that she started throwing up. We never made it into the bowling alley to bowl…
So we had a serious dilemma. Madeira was in no state of mind to drive. Mitchell had a learner's permit and half a bottle of rot-gut whiskey in him. I had the same amount as Mitchell and no license. We collaborated with great wisdom and intelligence to have Mitchell drive us home. "We'd take a back-road highway- Route 91, and avoid the Route 8 freeway. That way we'd stay away from potentially getting pulled over." So we thought…
Mitchell drove us home as Madeira laid down in the back on my lap. She was feeling terrible and not in the best place, but still my feelings for her were there… hidden underneath the surface. I looked out the window into the beautiful summer night sky. It was July 29th, 1996. The stars were out. What were we doing? Were we crazy? I held back my feelings for Madeira. I hoped that we wouldn't get in deep trouble. Things weren't looking good.
Mitchell drove through Cuyahoga Falls, then Stow, and then we were close to the border of Hudson, Ohio. All the way he kept turning around to us in a fit of adrenaline. He spoke loudly with a slur, "I think we're going to make it! Everything is gonna be ok!"
When we crossed the border into Hudson, a cop car pulled out of the darkness. Flashing lights beamed in behind us. Mitchell began to freak out. "Oh no! Oh no oh no!!! What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?" He yelled. I responded, in my inebriated tone, "It's all good man, just tell him you're taking us home and Madeira has the flu man!"
Mitchell pulled over. The cop shone a flashlight in from behind us, making our adrenaline spike up. Mixed with the alcohol, the feeling was numbing and terrifying. The cop came up and addressed Mitchell, "Son, do you realize you were driving without your headlights on?" Mitchell flipped and started apologizing. He got out of the car and admitted he didn't have a real license.
Everything else seemed to flash before our eyes like a nightmare. Mitchell getting a sobriety test, then getting cuffed and put in the cop car. The cop pulling me and Madeira out of the car and cuffing both of us. Two back-up cops showing up and taking all of us separately… isolated from one another… They put me in the back of a cop car alone. I was drunk, only 15 years old for 9 days, and breaking curfew. An accomplice to under-age drunk driving. I don't remember all the details in the haze, but I was definitely weeping like a little child in the back of that cop car.
Later that night at the police station, our parents would come and pick us up. I was too drunk to remember any of the conversations. But I do remember when my Dad brought me home, and my Mom was waiting at the door. It was about 3 am. She didn't say a word to me, she just wound up and slapped me hard in the face. The numbness of the alcohol combated the physical pain. But the emotional pain and shame were magnified.
I went up and slipped into a drunken slumber. I would be grounded again for another month. I would be enrolled into Oriena House for substance abuse counseling. I would have to serve community service.
"Burden in My Hand" by Soundgarden would enter the soundwaves of the summer of August, 1996. I would write songs in my month of grounding that were reflecting on my own addiction and desperation. What would my Sophomore year of High School hold for me? Would it be a year of reformed salvation? Would it be a spiral into degradation? Time would tell, but the words of Soundgarden certainly reflected my current state.
Follow me into the desert
As thirsty as you are
Crack a smile and cut your mouth
And drown in alcohol
Cause down below the truth is lying
Beneath the riverbed
So quench yourself and drink the water
That flows below her head
Close your eyes and bow your head
I need a little sympathy
Cause fear is strong and love's for everyone
Who isn't me
So kill your health and kill yourself
And kill everything you love
And if you live you can fall to pieces
And suffer with my ghost
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged addiction, Alcohol, arrest, arrested, Beck, beer, Boone's, Bowling Alley, Burden in my hand, busted, Cuyahoga Falls, Drunk, Frank Zappa, God, Handcuffs, King Crimson, liquor, Mothers of Invention, Ohio, Ozzy Osbourne, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Soundgarden, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand, Stone Temple Pilots, Stonehedge, Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart, Where It's At, whiskey, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Don't Wave a Pipe in Front of a Frizzle-Fried Pot-Head!
Cover of Frizzle Fry
Despite the many antics of the summer of 1996, I could honestly say that I hadn't smoked pot at all the whole summer. Sure, there had been a fairly excessive amount of drinking, and an arrest, and my cigarette smoking habit had certainly not been abated. But it's almost as if I'd forgotten about the ol' Mary Jane.
We entered into 10th Grade. It was September of 1996. "Down" by 311 had just hit the charts, and the hard rock reggae sound they blasted into the airwaves was rivaled only by bands like Sublime.
I was still listening heavily to the Beatles. I got a hunger for 70's rock like never before as well. I was feeding myself on the sounds of early Deep Purple and Alice Cooper. The album "Frizzle Fry" by Primus also became a personal favorite.
Mitchell, Duane and I were reunited as our band Mulberry Tree took off again. Duane had profusely apologized for the previous summer, where he had disappeared into a haze of partying and chasing after an older girl. We began to write music and play as a band religiously as we once had before.
September once again introduced the annual nerve-wracking homecoming dance. Me and the boys of Mulberry Tree had hidden in a cave of rock n' roll throughout that entire month, and we had no female companionship to claim. Around this time we were beginning to be dragged into a strange party scene, led by the likes of one Kacey Jordan. Kacey loved to drink, she loved to smoke marijuana, and she loved to try and interlink people into a vast chain of social chaos. Her parents were constantly on business travel, so she had weekend parties more than anyone we had ever known. Again, I hadn't smoked pot for months, but began to get to know Kacey and her band of wily vagabonds. Kacey really dug Mitchell, and asked him to homecoming. He said yes, and she swore she would hook Duane and I up with blind dates for the dance. We agreed in our typical passive-aggressive fashion.
We were paired with two girls from the neighboring rival town of Stow, Ohio. Elysia was my date- a deeply sweet, intelligent hippie girl who had a strange mysticism about her of which I didn't understand. Duane was paired with a girl named Jaen, who was a senior in high school, and yet appeared to have more of a Middle-School-esque disposition. Jaen had a knack for mocking people in a chiding sort of fashion. I at times felt that she was going to punch me in the shoulder and yell "charlie horse!!" Or pull my hanes his way up high and yell "wedgie"!
We had a fun night at homecoming. Afterwards we ended up at an outdoor party with a bonfire. Elysia asked me the magic words, "Do you like to smoke the good green?" I had a moment where I thought, "no, no… I shouldn't do this…" But it was as if an unquenchable love for this little green female plant that produced psychotropic effects had taken hold of me. I couldn't resist. Elysia pulled out her rather large black and silver metal pipe. She packed it full of dope and we smoked it together.
The high that took hold of me after not smoking for months was intense. It was intense enough to flip me out a little bit. But from that moment it seemed there was no turning back.
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged 311, addiction, Alice Cooper, Beatle, Deep Purple, Down, Frizzle Fry, Homecoming, marijuana, pot head, pot pipe, Primus, Sublime, weed, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Vomit and Tears
Posted on August 7, 2013 by Benjamin Bradford White
Puking and Driving (Photo credit: Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline)
Fall was always my favorite time of year. The Fall of 1996 in northern Ohio was complete with sun-kissed luminescent leaves on trees like every color of a neon, ultra-violet rainbow. The chill in the air lent itself to thick button-up shirts and sporting my blue and black winter hat with flaps on the ears.
Sublime's "What I Got" and The Wallflowers "6th Avenue Heartache" were filling the ears of listeners during the autumn of '96. But I was still a classic rocker to the core. I carried around a big yellow Sony Walkman with Korg studio-headphones that looked like ear-muffs. I wore it in the hallways of school and filled my brain with Led Zeppelin 3 and The Beatles' 'Revolver', as well as Lenny Kravitz and Jimi Hendrix originals. By this time I had so many recordings I had made on my own that they became a regular part of my listening too.
I smoked pot weekly. It had become normal for me. In the midst of my creative pursuits I had a disdained disinterest in school, sports and the functional, healthy ways of life that I saw my peers embarking upon. I smoked Camel Lights, about 5-10 a day. I lit up in the bathroom sometimes, but mostly before and after school. The nicotine rages would kick in at the end of the school day if I hadn't had a cigarette, which is why I would sometimes sneak one in the lavatory. Lots of others in the school did this. The boys bathroom wasn't even allowed to have doors on the stalls because the teachers and hall monitors wanted to police the students constantly for puffing on cigarettes.
I also acquired a fascination for drinking hard liquor. I learned the wild ride of pumping a bunch of it into my system at once. I would mix it all of the time. I would drink Whiskey, Cognac, Rum, Gin, and Vodka in any order at any time. Straight shots, Screwdrivers, Rum and Cokes, you name it. My parents had a liquor cabinet, and I learned that they'd less likely catch me drinking if I combined a bunch of different liquors.
By this time I had been convinced to "go out" with Jaen, who was Duane's 'blind date' at the homecoming dance. It was odd, because Jaen was 17 years old, and I was only 15. I could tell she had never kissed anyone, because at one point we kissed and it was about as awkward as seeing a clown at a bus stop. I hung out often with Jaen and her group of friends, which included my blind date, the cool hippie-girl, now turned friend and party buddy Elysia. We would have parties, and find parties to go to. There would always be beer, liquor or dope. We began to learn the madness of mixing the three as well.
I was still in love with my ex-girlfriend and now best friend Harmony also. We talked all the time on school nights and weekends. We shared all that we went through with our relationships. Something inside of me always felt that I was dating people just to see if she would become jealous. She would definitely ask me questions about girls I was with, including Jaen. I would act like I really dug them, but I was just hoping that Harmony would admit her feelings for me. She began to give me little notes at school. I kept them all in a shoebox.
I loved to raid my parents' liquor cabinet before going out on social functions. By this time, Duane, our drummer from Mulberry Tree, could drive. He would drive me all over the place. If my parents happened to be at work at the time I would raid the liquor cabinet and fill myself with alcohol, then call Duane and have him come and pick me up. Sometimes we'd have plans, so I'd take some shots before and find myself falling all over the place, making a total fool of myself in front of our friends. It became a kind of image. People would say, "awww… Benny's at it again!" I became that guy. I was the intoxicated guy, the one that was drunk at 3pm, the one that was stoned at 8am in the morning at school. I lost weight rapidly. I eat Vivarin caffeine pills all the time to try to keep myself alert when I wasn't wasted. I dropped to 135 pounds, and earned the name "Skeletor" amongst my friends, because I always had dark circles under my eyes and was bone-thin skinny. I also had a huge puff of hair on top of my head, making me look like an oblong q-tip.
One day Duane had planned to come and pick me up, just to hang out at Arabica, our favorite coffee house, to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. I decided to hit my parent's liquor cabinet, since they weren't home. I drank an insane amount of liquor. I drank it all straight, mixing Gin with Rum and aged Cognac. I took a huge swig of pretty much whatever they had in the cabinet. I felt a twinge each time in my throat as it burned down my esophagus and into my guts. I certainly hadn't had much to eat. I probably drank the equivalent of 15 shots. Duane showed up in the driveway and I got in his car.
The alcohol quickly began to kick in as I lit a cigarette and smoked it out of Duane's window. I don't remember much of what happened, just that Duane was amused with how tanked I was. What transpired after wasn't amusing at all really…
The next thing I knew we were at the coffee shop. I tried to sit down but I kept having to put my head in my arms on the table. Everything was spinning out of control. I had been drunk plenty before, but this was another level. I got up and stumbled to the bathroom, running into every table and chair on the way, falling over on the ground, running into people. I got into the restroom and grabbed one of the 5 blurry toilets I saw spinning around in a kaleidoscopic whirlwind. I aimed my mouth into it and spewed out what seemed to be an endless flow of poisonous vomit. I don't remember much of what happened after that for a period of time…
The next thing I knew Duane and I were sitting on the pavement in some obscure area behind the Acme Plaza in the town of Hudson, Ohio. There was puke all around me. Duane had bought me a loaf of bread to eat, and some water. I was trying to eat and drink… everything went blank after that…
The next thing I remember, Duane and I were in my room. He had really gone out of his way to look out for me. I had gotten myself into a shower and changed my clothes on my own somehow,. The problem was, my old clothes stank like grandma's cough medicine and barf. I was laying in my bed and Duane was telling me he had to go. He had to take off before my parents' got home, in case I would get busted. Since I was obviously drunk, like an insane vagrant stumbling in the streets, it was apparent that I would be found out. I was as obviously impaired in my judgement as the princes of Zoan in Egypt were in the time of Isaiah the prophet in the five-hundreds, B.C. The Lord had mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they would make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. (Isa. 19:14) Like an ancient analogy coming to life, I was a drunken man staggering in his vomit to be sure.
My parents got home. I don't remember much of our conversation. But I do remember being at the dinner table. They told me if I did this again, they'd take away all my instruments and not let me play music. I started weeping and crying like an alcoholic. "Don' take away my moooosic man…", I whimpered. I was to be grounded yet again. Though they threatened to take away my music, they didn't, just friend privileges and freedom to go out on weeknights and weekends.
Many original songs would flow out of these struggles. I was earning the reputation as a seriously troubled kid. I certainly wouldn't cease smoking marijuana, drinking, and smoking. Though I learned to hide it better. For some reason I couldn't get enough. The life around me continued to shatter and crumble. All I cared about was the next buzz and the next song. The lyrics and melody of Smashing Pumpkins' "Muzzle" rang in my head like a soundtrack and anthem…
I fear that I'm ordinary, just like everyone
To lie here and die among the sorrows
Adrift among the days
For everything I ever said
And everything I've ever done is gone and dead
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way…
Have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?
It's for the girl I've loved all along
Can a taste of love be so wrong
And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever
But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the secrets in your spires
And I knew the emptiness of youth
And I knew the solitude of heart
And I knew the murmurs of the soul
And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world so hard to understand
Is the world you can't live without
And I knew the silence of the world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8bfBKVVv0Q
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged addiction, Alcohol intoxication, barf, Beatle, beer, caffeine pills, Camel, Distilled beverage, Gin, Hudson, Hudson Ohio, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Lenny Kravitz, liquor, marijuana, Muzzle, Ohio, pot, puke, Smashing Pumpkins, Sony Walkman, Sublime, Vivarin, vomit, Vomiting, Wallflowers, weed, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
The Post-Hippie Scene of Kent, Ohio
Main St Bridge – Kent (Photo credit: Todd Baker << technowannabe)
Kent, Ohio was made infamous by the 1970 May 4th shootings of 4 college students on campus, and Neil Young, backed by Crosby, Stills and Nash, coined the song "Ohio", which forever rang in the consciousness of Kent residents. Ever since then it was one of the premier hippie spots in the Cleveland/Akron area.
In the center of this hippie culture was Brady's Café. Brady's Café was right next to the Kent State University Campus, and was upheld by hippies who had been around Kent for a long time. It attracted a new generation of hippies… Gen-Xers and Slackers who listened to Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins, as well kats who were into the Grateful Dead, Phish, and the more widely accepted Dave Matthews Band.
Duane and I were drawn into the scene of Brady's, and were introduced to it by his older friend Brenden, who often sold us dope. At least once a month, a band called "The Black Hole Jokers" would play there. They were mostly a Grateful Dead cover band. I had my "initiation" into the Brady's scene at the ripe age of 15 when the Jokers were playing.
You can imagine the kind of scene a Grateful Dead cover band drew in. A synchronistic plethora of freaks, circus clowns, dopers, hippies, Frat Boys, Goths, Wiccans, Transexuals, Preppy Kids, Metal Heads, Harley Riders, Bisexuals, Satanists… you name it, were all there in their respective haze of choice to enjoy the surrogate psychedelic sounds. I was just a kid, and no doubt got stoned on weed that was stronger than what I was used to at Brady's. Now I was hanging with college kids and adults in the drug scene. At times, it was more than I could handle.
I spent many nights at Brady's sick from something or another. One night I was just ill and spitting up by the ledge on the outside of the café. It may have been that I had been taken hold of by some bad pipe greens that were laced with something nasty.
We literally used to buy drugs in the upper floor of Brady's from crazy dudes we didn't know. One dealer was named "Seff". He was a bi-sexual nymphomaniac, and a heroin addict. He would sell Duane and I weed, sitting right in the middle of the coffee shop on the upper floor. Looking back I realize I could've gotten into some weird situations that I didn't understand or know how to prepare for. Someone transcendent was looking out for me…
They turned Brady's into a Starbucks years later…
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged addiction, Brady's Cafe, crosby stills nash & young, Dave Matthews Band, drugs, Flaming Lips, Grateful Dead, Hippies, Kent, Kent State University, KSU, marijuana, Neil Young, Ohio, Sonic Youth, youth rebellion | Leave a comment
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Teenage Sadness
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the Winter and Spring of 1997 I have hazy memories of the subconscious of which I do not recall, nor understand. I sit here now in Conway, New Hampshire on my day off, sipping strong coffee and writing of these vague memories. My wife Sarah just reminded me of how great a memory I have, and how difficult it is for her to remember half the things in her past that I am able to conjure! However, I'm the type of person that struggles with letting things go and nostalgia, and always have to intentionally seek divine grace in matters of forgiveness.
But the Winter of 1997 is a fog to me. I'm certain I had gotten to the point during this time where marijuana had entirely engulfed my mind and existence. I slipped into a deep depression. I had a longing for the first love I had ever known, my ex-girlfriend and then best friend Harmony. I dreamed about her in vague daydreams, mystified by scattered thoughts, tears and the abyss of abeyance. I smoked my mind away and poured my broken heart into songs of longing. My parents had bought me an Ovation 12-string guitar with an electric pick-up. This guitar became my vehicle of inner expression. I would spend nights up until 3am alone… puffing and inhaling away on pack after pack of Camel Lights, and smoking pot in a pipe of my own that I had gotten through an older teenage dope-head. You see, dope pipes were sold in regular stores under the veil of being used for tobacco only. One would even have to sign a waiver stating that this was their intention, though it obviously wasn't.
This was a great era of music. The Winter of 1997 brought about a post-grunge era of deep expression fused with electronica. The popular alternative songs were a soundtrack for my unspoken, lonely misery. The Smashing Pumpkins had an anthem of woebegone called "Thirty-Three". When I listened to it again today through the eyes of my 15-year old self, it actually brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it lingers as a subconscious memory of the desperate love and despair I felt back then. The song croons with despondency the words:
"I know I'll make it, love can last forever,
Graceful swans of never topple to the earth.
And you can make it last, forever you
You can make it last, forever you
And for a moment I lose myself
Wrapped up in the pleasures of the world
I've journeyed here and there and back again
But in the same old haunts I still find my friends…"
This song was certainly an anthem that rang in my mind. Would Harmony and I ever be back together again? We would talk some nights until the late hours, sharing our heart and soul with each other, but she always seemed to have a love interest in someone else… I felt that she could truly "make it last forever…" This love that existed in my heart for her seemed infinite, though looking back I know it was just the piercing strength of my post-adolescent emotion that paralleled the longing within all of us to taste eternal love. We all try to find this love in every corner of our soul… For what can be known about God is plain to us, because God has shown it to us, and anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (Rom. 1:19; 1 John 4:8) I suppose the real question is; "What is real, sacrificial, true love?" I'm convinced that that question can be fully answered in 1 John 4:7-21, but that is a discussion for another forum.
"In the same old haunts I still found my friends." Mitchell played bass and Duane played drums in our band, Mulberry Tree. Our music seemed to get more and more powerful. It was as if we were living inside of our songs and performances as we worked harder on our sound. We were close friends and band-mates. I often shared my heartbreak and struggles with Duane, because he was an introspective poetry writer and cynic like me. I shared feelings with Mitchell as well, but tried much harder to appear manly to him, because he was an athlete as well as a rock n' roller.
Duane was definitely a great poetry writer. His poems consisted of dark corners in the spiritual realm. He was raised a Catholic and had become a self-proclaimed atheist. These shadows of anger came out in his poetry and his abstract drumming. Him and I would always spend time smoking cigarettes and pouring our thoughts out to each other. He inspired me to write poetry as well, and it helped me to deal with the emotions I was facing, as well as strengthen my song lyrics.
Mitchell was a great bassist and songwriter to be sure, but he had another aspect of his personality. He was the type of guy that thrived in the world of sports and athletic vigor. It was quite amazing, really. He could spend a weekend with us smoking dope and drinking, and then go right back to lifting weights, eating creatine, and beating the garbage out of other huge dudes his size on the wrestling mat. As his muscles grew, so did his appeal with the high school ladies.
Harmony began to gain an interest in Mitchell. I couldn't have been more devastated at the thought. But I loved both of my friends so much, and I was put in the middle. One night Harmony and I were talking and she asked me the fatal question, "So… Can you ask Mitchell if he likes me or not? He's SOOOO hot!!"
I would call Mitchell not long after and ask him. Of course he liked her back, because she was obviously the most beautiful girl in the world to me. He made sure to ask me, "Is it ok though Ben? Is it alright that I ask her out? I mean, I know you like her and stuff." To which I bluffed, "No, no man. I don't like her anymore bro. Go for it buddy! What more could I ask for than two of my best friends to get together?" I couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth. Was I insane? How could I bear this all to happen?
And yet it was inevitable that Harmony and Mitchell would become a thing. My songs would delve into so deep a sorrow that they became anthems of hard rock anger. The way I really felt was akin to Gwen Stefani of No Doubt in their #1 hit "Don't Speak":
We used to be together
Everyday together always
I really feel
That I'm losing my best friend
I can't believe
This could be the end
It looks as though you're letting go
And if it's real
Well I don't want to know
As a way of escape I delved into marijuana use in a whole new way, and pretended that I was happy for my friends getting together. But there had to be a way for me to get back at Harmony somehow… She had friends! That's right! She had friends that were good looking. Maybe if I dated one of them I could make her jealous. She had a curly haired friend named Laila who I thought was attractive. I began my ploy to see if we could get together. And of course I would use Harmony as my "middle-woman" to orchestrate the whole fiasco.
Maybe I should have listened to the lyrics in the song "Discotheque" from U2's "Pop" album to set me straight. I realize now that they could have spoken truth to me when they claimed a universal reality:
You're looking for the one
But you know you're somewhere else instead
You want to be the song
Be the song that you hear in your head
(You want heaven in your heart)
(Heaven in your heart)
(The sun, the moon, and the stars)
As much as this longing in my heart has been abated upon this earth as I look at my life now, I realize that back then it seemed to be so desperately far from me that I didn't know what to do with myself.
Filed under Ascent to Delerium and tagged 12-string guitar, addiction, Camel, Discotheque, dope head, drugs, God, Gwen Stefani, hazy memories, inner expression, Joni Mitchell, lonely misery, marijuana, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Poetry, Smashing Pumpkins, smoking pot, Thirty-Three, U2, vague memories, youth rebellion | Leave a comment


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Not only does the reserve provide a natural setting, but also presents new golfing challenges. The combination of the mangrove reserve, green golf course, and expenses of sandy waste areas make Tower Links Golf Club an unforgettable experience for all who come to test their skills.
The natural topography of Ras Al Khaimah which consists of 65 kilometers of sun-kissed sandy beaches, the Al Hajar Mountain range, the vast desert plains in the central region and the green belt in the southern region, have added to the success of Ras Al Khaimah as a destination of choice.
The Par 72, 18 hole course, open since 2004, features a driving range, putting & chipping greens as well as a specific teaching tee. The course which measures some 7199 yards from the Professional tees caters to golfers of all standards, as all holes feature 4 tee boxes to provide golfers of varying abilities the chance to enjoy their round.
If you are not a golfer then you need not worry, the Club features a Spa where you can relieve the stresses of life or sculpt that body back into shape. We also cater for your taste buds with the wonderful Links Restaurant and Hole 19 Cafe serving succulent Middle Eastern, Asian and Mediterranean dishes which can be enjoyed whilst overlooking the wonderful green oasis of the golf course.
If sports is more your taste, then you can catch all of the live action from around the globe in the Bunker Lounge on one of the several big screens. The Bunker Lounge also features an authentic darts arena and pool table where you can test your skills against your friends whilst enjoying sumptuous bar snacks and beverages.


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Charm packs of 20 rotary cut cotton patchwork fabric squares in plain black. The squares are cut including a 1/4 inch seam allowance, the size quoted is the finished size after sewing, measured along one side only - see the bottom image for details of how the squares are measured.


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unCommon Coast to Coast - MyUncommonApps College & Career Consulting
unCommon Coast to Coast
College Counseling, Testing, Uncategorized
From coast to coast, there's action on the college front. Here's what's going on:
Go West, College Counselors!
No trip to the West Coast would be complete without checking out some colleges, right? So in the early morning chill on Monday, I journeyed to Stanford, where I walked around the Main Quad when only the athletes were up and training.
Stanford in the morning light
The university has a spectacular Spanish-style campus to match its reputation. It also has the nicest pool (Avery Aquatic Center) I've seen at a college, and with the Olympic stars it educates (e.g., Katie Ledecky), that's no surprise.
But who's getting in? Stanford admitted a mere 4.69 percent of its applicants to the Class of 2020. The admissions office says it focuses on "academic excellence, intellectual vitality and personal context" and that it places no weight whatsoever on demonstrated interest (i.e., repeatedly showing love and interest for Stanford). Its supplemental essay questions weren't nearly as difficult as others this year. Parents whose children are not recruited athletes should know that the road to Palo Alto will be far more than bumpy. Still, it's worth a trip to campus when in the area.
After going to Stanford, I stopped in at a much smaller institution, Santa Clara University, which refers to itself as "the Jesuit university in Silicon Valley." It's no coincidence that SCU graduates are engineers and entrepreneurs in the making, and the school is getting increased interest from East Coast students having the appropriate goals. Santa Clara's accepted-student scores are strong (GPA 3.7; ACT 27-32).
Santa Clara University: Combining looks from the past with tech for the future
Or Take the Train to NYC
In contrast, students who want or need to stay close to home have some very viable alternatives with very different images. This week, the New York Times published "America's Great Working-Class Colleges." The author explained the strength these colleges (e.g., Baruch, Pace) have in propelling individuals forward, stating, "They remain deeply impressive institutions that continue to push many Americans into the middle class and beyond — many more, in fact, than elite colleges that receive far more attention." We learn that if lower-income students attend elite colleges, their earnings can be about as much as their affluent peers. Still, their access to elite colleges is not great. According to John Friedman of Brown, one of the study's authors, "Because the elite colleges aren't fulfilling that responsibility, working-class colleges have become vastly larger engines of social mobility."
Testing: It's Time to Register (at Home)
In many of these posts, I explain that standardized testing, while not as crucial in the admissions process as it once was, is nevertheless important. What's more, a good test result may result in merit aid. Since it's mid-January, juniors should be signing up for their first SAT and ACT. If they had a good PSAT result, they should take the SAT on March 11; otherwise, May 6 allows time for prep. The April 8 ACT date is good for all juniors except those going to Iceland, in which case June 10 is the target date. Testing resources include:
SAT: College Board blue book, SAT App and Khan Academy
ACT: ACT red book, ACT Online Prep and ACT Kaplan Online Prep Live
I've been receiving mail for summer programs. Are they worth it?
Great question! I, too, am receiving many pieces of mail about summer programs. The current stack includes: Stevens Pre-College; GW Pre-College, credit and noncredit; Youth and Teens at Parsons, Mannes, and Lang; and Wash U Middle and High School Summer Experiences. But colleges really understand that most families don't have the cash for these costly programs, and they can't give students any preferential treatment for attending them. In a Washington Post article, Ray Ravaglia, former associate dean for precollegiate studies at Stanford, wrote:
"I saw parents laboring under two fundamental misconceptions – 'truths' garnered from other parents and popular wisdom that drove decisions they believed would help their children "get in," but which, instead served only to accelerate the anxiety treadmill . . . The reason such programs are so common is not because colleges are worried about empty heads, they are worried about empty beds."
That, however, is not to say that some education locally can't be extremely valuable. I remember my son's trek to New York to attend day classes, first at Parsons and later at NYU and Columbia. He learned to commute by himself, find out about career options, and travel around town with students from an array of backgrounds. Or try programs now run by Ravaglia at The School of the New York Times. Some feature Alan Katzman, founder of Social Assurity! (I wrote about Social Assurity in a recent forbes.com post.)
Speaking of solicitations, my child's getting lots of mail from colleges. Are they serious about her?
Colleges get names should students choose to opt-in to College Board's Student Search Service before taking a test (e.g., PSAT). According to College Board, all solicitors are accredited colleges and universities or nonprofit educational entities. Your student might even hear from Harvard, but don't mistake it for genuine interest. Harvard can afford the mailing costs.
Have a good weekend. Email me and let me know about your college travels.
Big Wins and Small Victories in the College Process
To Happy Endings!
It's a Matter of Money (and Maybe Location, Too)!
unCommon Fall Searches: Colleges, Financial Aid, Scholarships and Validation
For College Applicants, It's Off to the Races

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


What do your eyes tell you when you look in the mirror? If you're like most people, eyelid rejuvenation is the key to turning back the clock on the most visible part of your face to show signs of aging: your eyes.
Or a combination of these techniques.
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Lower eyelids can either look "baggy" or "hollowed." Baggy lower eyelids are caused by weakened elasticity that causes fat to protrude and create bags. Eyelid rejuvenation for bagginess under the eyes is performed by making tiny incisions along or just underneath your lash line, removing the fat deposits, and suturing the incision with dissolvable thread.
Deflation and dark circles under the eyes, though not always a sign of aging, are a common complaint of both men and women who come to our OC offices. Confidence-building eyelid rejuvenation is available for under-eye hollows near your upper cheekbones through the use of injectable fillers such as Restalyne or Juvederm. By filling in these grooves beneath your eyes, you can essentially flatten the concave area and restore your eyes to a fresher, alert, and less tired look.
While there are many eye rejuvenation possibilities available, the best method for determining the procedure that's right for you is during a consultation at our office. Call us today to schedule an appointment, and we'll look forward to helping you reach your beauty goals.


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Bion Announces Letter of Intent for Commercial-Scale Third Generation Project
April 30, 2021 Bion
April 30, 2021. New York. New York. Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc. (OTC QB: BNET), a developer of patented livestock waste treatment technology coupled with a business model focused on the production of branded sustainable meat and dairy products, announced it has executed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Lamb Farms, Inc., a large dairy operator in upstate New York.
The LOI is expected to lead to an agreement within 60 to 90 days to develop a Bion third generation (3G) treatment platform at Lamb Farms' Oakfield, NY, dairy facility. The project will initially treat the waste from the 2,000-head milking herd at that location. Lamb Farms is already a leader in advanced husbandry and sustainability; the Oakfield site has an anaerobic digester in place that will significantly speed up the timeline for system installation and startup. It is also one of a select number of facilities in the country that currently upgrades its methane to pipeline condition, allowing clean carbon dioxide to be recycled from the biogas waste stream to produce ammonium bicarbonate.
The Oakfield, NY, location is approximately 30 miles from Buflovak, Bion's prime engineering/ technology provider, so that any challenges associated with scaling up the platform can be conveniently and quickly dealt with. The established herd at Oakfield, with a digester in place, will allow Bion to install the platform relatively quickly and jumpstart production of ammonium bicarbonate for growth trials.
As a part of this project, a demonstration 'beef barn' would be constructed on-site that houses and produces a mix of sustainable and sustainable/ organic beef cattle. The beef installation will allow Bion to demonstrate proof of concept of its beef opportunity, while also pursuing certification of a verified sustainable brand through the USDA's Process Verified Program (PVP).
The USDA PVP is the gold standard for food certification and is used today to verify a wide range of branding claims, such as 'No Antibiotics Ever', Cage Free (eggs), etc. Bion's sustainable beef (and other livestock/ dairy products) can use the PVP to demonstrate to the consumer a substantially lower carbon, nutrient, water, and pathogen footprint, resulting from Bion's treatment and resource recovery. Bion was previously successful having its 2G technology platform evaluated and accepted, pending final audits, by the USDA PVP in 2016.
Craig Scott, Bion's director of communications, stated, "We are pleased to move forward toward the first commercial 3G project, especially in a situation that allows us to treat the waste from more than one species. The 3G platform offers us an opportunity to solve the problems associated with large scale livestock production, while communicating those improvements to the consumer in a clear, concise, and USDA-certified, sustainable brand. We are looking forward to entering the market with that message."
Lamb Farms is a family dairy operation that was founded with 110 cows in 1966 in Oakfield, NY. Today, Lamb Farms' operations have grown to include six locations, a milking herd of more than 7,000 cows, and crop farming that provides feed for the cows, as well as cash crops. Lamb Farms focuses on three key areas for business success: Wholesome Milk; Comfy Cows; Sustainable Farming.
Bion's patented third-generation technology was designed to substantially reduce the environmental impacts of large-scale livestock production and deliver a USDA-certified sustainable product to the consumer. The platform simultaneously recovers high-value coproducts and renewable energy that increase revenues. Bion's 3G tech platform can provide a pathway to true economic and environmental sustainability with 'win-win' benefits for at least a premium sector of the $200 billion livestock industry, the environment, and the consumer. For more information, see Bion's website, www.biontech.com.
This material includes forward-looking statements based on management's current reasonable business expectations. In this document, the words 'will (be)', 'can (be)', 'expected' and similar expressions identify certain forward-looking statements. These statements are made in reliance on the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Section 27A of the Securities act of 1933, as amended. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could result in actual results differing materially from expected outcomes.


Joe Burk was the son of an apple grower in southern New Jersey near Philadelphia. His initial interest in rowing stemmed from a teen-age trip to the IRA.
"I happened to read about how well California had done in crew. I had never been to Poughkeepsie, scarcely knew where it was, but I found that I could take the train to New York and get on the New York Central to Poughkeepsie.
"I arrived there and didn't have any place to stay because every good place was already filled up, so I asked some bum on the street, and he told me of an old, brokendown hotel where I could eat and sleep.
"It was 1929, and California was the big-shot crew then. I wanted to see the time trials they were having, so I took the ferry boat across the river and went to the California boathouse.
"There was nobody around except the manager, and he showed me the shells and so forth. I found it all very interesting, and when the race came off, he and I dragged a railroad tie up against the side of the building, climbed up and watched the race from the roof.
"Unfortunately, California didn't win that year.
When Joe got to the University of Pennsylvania that fall, he almost missed his rowing destiny.
"I had been captain of my high school football team, and football was the big thing. I hadn't given any thought to the fact that they rowed in the fall in those days, and when I got to Penn, I found out that rowing started the same time that football practice did, so I thought that was the end of rowing for me.
According to Allen Rosenberg, "Joe was the epitome of a sportsman at Penn. He won two letters in football and crew, two blankets with a P on them. To have excelled in both in the same year is extraordinary."860 Joe tells me he actually won three letters in crew by the time he graduated in 1934, and Joe's son, Roger, tells me that Rusty actually had George Pocock make an oar with an extra-large blade for him to row with.
Joe: "At the time that I graduated in 1934, Penn planned to enter the Olympic Trials of 1936. To keep in shape in the meantime, I joined the Penn A.C., who had won the European Championship eights in 1930.
"They were coached by Frank Muller, Jack Kelly's sculling coach at the Olympics in the '20s, and he required all of his crew to have had sculling experience, so I was teamed with a young fellow, Tony Gallagher. He was a strong, young kid with no previous rowing experience. We made a good combination in the double and were undefeated.
So, as Joe trained more and more in his single, he had as a foundation the fundamentals he had learned from Rusty Callow, and he also had as a sculling coach the man who had guided John B. Kelly to three Olympic Gold Medals. In addition, he began a regular correspondence with George Pocock that would last forty years.
But Joe Burk was also a free thinker. He approached his sculling with an open mind. He ended up developing a technique that built on but diverged completely from the 1st Generation Conibear Stroke he had rowed at Penn under Coach Rusty Callow.
Mendenhall: "He proceeded through trial and error rather than any prescribed lesson plan or time-tested technique. The experiment was rooted in Joe's growing conviction that the traditional, orthodox sculling stroke was inefficient and tiring.
"Though it was always seen as a continuous, unbroken cycle, the traditional stroke, even when racing flat out at a rating in the low to middle 30s, experienced some considerable alternation in speed.
"The shell always achieved its maximum speed at the finish of the stroke, and the recovery part of the cycle represented almost twice as much time as the drive through the water. Thus the sculler was traditionally obliged to pick up the boat up again every stroke at the catch.
"By contrast, Joe's eventual goal became clear: to keep the run on the shell virtually constant, with no variation in speed at either end of the stroke and most especially with no check or dousing at either the catch or the finish.
His contemporaries termed his technique "unique" and "innovative." In other words, they didn't know what to make of it. Nothing like it had been seen on Boathouse Row for half a century.
But it had been seen before.
Barney and his brother, John, were painted by Thomas Eakins rowing their "short, jerky" stroke on the Schuylkill River in the early 1870s. Their forearm development foreshadowed that of Joe Burk.
For years after Joe bought his first Pocock single, he and George exchanged letters regularly, discussing equipment, training and technique.
"G.C. Bourne's A Textbook of Oarsmanship (1925), already the most thorough, scientific analysis of the conventional wisdom, insisted on at least a 1:3 ratio of pullthrough to recovery as fundamental to all good rowing!
"George Pocock came to recognize the possibility of the short stroke and high rating combined with Joe's training methods.
Upon his retirement, Joe wrote: "George Pocock of Seattle not only fashioned and constructed those sleek, slithering sticks of gold that were such a joy to scull, but also helped me no end in the art of sculling them.
"At times I am afraid George must have felt that he was running a correspondence course in the art of sculling, so many questions did I shoot at him by mail. It was he who convinced me that a short stroke would fulfill my requirements. His fame as a builder of racing shells has spread worldwide, but like Paul Revere's prowess as a silversmith, his ability as a sculling coach has been outshone by his other brilliance.
"Most scullers' rate was about 28 strokes per minute, while mine was 40-42.
"Everyone else allowed one hand to precede the other, so they didn't overlap. I wanted to have them coming into my body at the same time. It required one rigger to be 3 1/2 inches higher than the other! Very unusual! However, it was very comfortable.
"[The technique] was not very fast, but sufficiently fast to win any race that was longer than a quarter-mile or half-mile."870 Sufficiently fast to win any race? Joe Burk is a very modest man.
At the 1936 Olympic Trials, his Penn graduate eight placed second to the University of Washington, and in his single, he placed second to U.S Champion Dan Barrow, who had rowed 7-seat in the Penn A.C. 1930 European Champion "Big Eight."871 That was the last race Joe lost for four years.
Joe won the 1937 U.S. and Canadian Championships, and then won them again every year through 1940.
He won the Diamond Sculls at Henley in 1938 and 1939. He amassed 37 consecutive victories in all, and won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete during 1939.
He won the 1940 Olympic Trials and would have been the overwhelming favorite at the 1940 Olympics in Helsinki, had they not been cancelled because of the outbreak of World War II.
How did Time Magazine describe his 1938 Diamond Sculls victory? "Britons who thronged the banks of the Thames last week for England's No. 1 rowing carnival, the annual Henley Regatta, saw an amazing performance.
"For four days they gaped at a redhaired American sculler, Joseph William Burk, who decisively outrowed his opponents over the mile and 5/16 course, day after day in the elimination heats of the Diamond Sculls, the most famed race in the world for individual scullers.
"'He does everything wrong,' muttered experts and dubs alike. Rowing an extremely high stroke (36 to 45 a minute, compared to an average sculler's 28 to 32), Joe Burk, who weighs 195 lb. and has arms like piano legs, propels his shell with an unorthodox short jerk of his arms and a quick kick of his legs, sits up almost straight at the end of each stroke.
"This freak style he developed two years ago on New Jersey's Rancocas Creek, hard by his father's fruit farm, after rowing in orthodox fashion on the University of Pennsylvania crew.
"He can row for miles at 40, and can maintain a speed of 12 miles an hour over a mile and a quarter course. Last year, after running away with the U.S. and Canadian sculling championships with machine-like ease, oarsmen dubbed him the "rowing robot," and marveled at the power of his arms. "But his brawny arms are nothing compared to his perseverance. In preparing for the Henley Regatta, throughout last winter and summer, the Jersey farm boy rowed 3,000 miles on the narrow, winding Rancocas, with a stopwatch strapped between his toes.
"Last week, 23-year-old Joe Burk was well rewarded. In the final of the Diamond Sculls, dipping his oars 45 times a minute, he streaked through the water as if he had an outboard motor attached to his 26-lb. shell, not only winning the coveted race but doing it in 8 min. 2 sec. - eight seconds faster than the Henley record set in 1905.
To put Joe's time into perspective, he broke a 33-year-old course record, and it only took another 27 years for it to be eclipsed.873 Diamond Sculls winners didn't begin to consistently row under Joe's time until the late 1980s, half a century after Joe.
How does Joe describe his achievement?
There have been a number of dominating scullers in rowing history, but the only man before or since who approached Joe Burk's innovative brilliance and athletic dominance was Ned Hanlan himself!
Fred Plaisted, the professional sculler who toured Europe with Jim Ten Eyck and actually rowed against Ned Hanlan in 1876, lived long enough to befriend Joe Burk.
'Yess mister, we have lots of that kind. This country is full of them, but we call them tramps. Everyone works in America.
Fred Plaisted was 90 years old when Joe Burk won the Diamond Sculls in 1939, and I imagine that the wood-chopping president to which he was referring was Abraham Lincoln, whom he would have remembered well!
In fact, newsreel footage 877 reveals that Burk did not cut the front end of the pullthrough at all.
Joe Burk rowed that 1938 Henley final with a generous +30 degree body angle forward. His position at the catch was reminiscent of Ellis Ward's 1901 Penn Henley crew and Richard Glendon's 1920 Annapolis crew.
Much of his height was in his trunk, and he compressed his upper body tightly enough onto his thighs that his shins tilted past vertical.
His head followed an elegant arc up and away from the catch, and his shoulder lift and body swing were smooth and pleasing to the eye.
Burk's layback was limited to only -5 degrees, despite the fact that Callow had coached him at Penn to lay back -40 degrees or more, but his body swing as a whole was by no means radical. As we shall soon see, his concurrent usage of the legs, back and arms to a relatively upright finish mirrored the evolutionary direction of the 2nd Generation Conibear technique of Al Ulbrickson and Tom Bolles beginning in the early 1930s and reaching its height after World War II.
The Washington crew that beat Joe's Penn eight in the 1936 Olympic Trials had body swing from +25 to -25 degrees, considerably less than the norm of the time.
No. Limiting body swing was not Joe Burk's greatest innovation.
What seemed to set Burk apart was his rhythm, ratio and pacing, his ability to row an entire race evenly at a 1-to-1 ratio and not slow down.
He rowed the entire 1938 Henley final at close to 40 strokes per minute, certainly unique for a single sculler, but there truly is nothing new under the sun, and there had been precedents for Joe's high ratings.
Three years after high schooler Joe Burk had taken a train to watch them in Poughkeepsie, the California crew had won the 1932 Olympic eights by rowing the last 1,800 meters of the 2,000 meter course at 40 or above. They had to do so to match the Italians.
The New York Times: "At no time over the 2,000 meters were the blue-shirted men lower than 39 or 40 strokes to the minute, and toward the end their minimum was 42.
Interestingly, the last time Joe Burk ever raced in an eight was at the 1936 Trials, and his Penn graduate boat rowed the entire 2,000 meters at 40. They led for 1,600 meters before being rowed down. Perhaps it was here that Joe got the idea that he could make it those last 400 meters with just a bit more training.
No, Joe Burk's true innovation was imagination!
At the 1939 Henley Regatta, Joe deviated from his race plan, and he nearly regretted it.
"A funny thing happened my second year in the Diamond Sculls during the final against Roger Verey from Poland. He had twice won the European Championships and was really quite a good sculler.
"With the way I rowed, I just learned from long experience never to worry about what happened at the beginning of a race because I knew that I could keep just about the same speed all the way through.
"So in my race with Verey, he went out and took a lead, and I caught up, oh, about halfway down the course.
"There was a strong cross-wind that day, especially there at the halfway point. I knew that my stern post was pointed right at the start float, but I hadn't thought about the fact that the wind was blowing me over.
"All of a sudden, Bang! I hit against an upright on the log boom.
"Luckily, I didn't capsize. My oar was turned up square at the time, and it was knocked out of my hands. I grabbed ahold of it, but by that time, Verey was back ahead of me.
"I thought, 'Boy! I'm really going to have to work now!' and I forgot all about pacing and just rowed as hard as I could.
"I finally caught up to him, maybe a quarter-mile from the finish. I started to go by him, but it was just about all I could do to keep moving.
"I knew he would look over at me, so as I began to go by, I turned my head and smiled at him as though there was nothing to it.
Just as with the West German Ratzeburg Technique twenty years later, the body mechanics of Burk's rowing technique was mainstream Schubschlag concurrent, but, as Adam would do again in the 1950s, Joe took the rating up, maintaining his smooth power application at a 1-to-1 ratio between pullthrough and recovery.
Interestingly, at Henley in 1938, British journalists saw a similarity between Burk and Steve Fairbairn: "He has invented a sort of Jesus Style of sculling [i.e. body swing insufficient to qualify as Orthodox]. He limits his swing strictly backwards and forwards, and within the narrow and highly efficient arc, he sculls with superb precision at 40 all over the course.
"His boat runs well with scarcely any hesitation or bounce . . . apart from the general crispness of his blade work, the strength of his wrist work at the finish is worth watching. . . .
"If he wins, he will have many imitators.
"It has been said that there never has been a man capable of sculling in Burk's style, but then no sculler of pretensions has ever been allowed by his advisers to try.
"Though it must need good wrists and a sound mind, there is some reason to suppose that this, in fact, is the least exhausting and most efficient way of propelling a sculling boat. No energy is wasted on pinching a boat, and the body is never in an exhausting position which hampers breathing . . . He is, in fact, the best balanced sculler ever seen.
There was good reason that British journalists and Time Magazine were impressed with Burk's wrists. As Burk protege Harry Parker recalls, "He had massive forearms. When I was sculling with him, I remember that was the first feature that you would notice.
"One of the hallmarks of Joe's sculling was breaking the arms early and bending them continuously through the stroke, which, as he admits, put a tremendous strain on him, and it took quite a while for him to develop that strength.
I asked Joe what it was like to row the Burk Technique.
Joe: "When I first attempted it, I could go only a short distance before fatigue set in. So, I decided to scull every stroke in this manner.
According to historian Mendenhall, "The outings began with short stretches to warm up with and then longer pieces at racing stroke, 36 the first year, then up to 38.
In Burk's words, "I gradually adjusted to it. However, I sculled at that high rate with the same technique throughout the entire workout. When it became rather easy, I increased the rate and worked on that, over and over again.
Joe's son, Roger Burk, remembers the Pocock singles his father rowed. "Dad's first boat was a tear-drop design, with a rather flat bottom. It seemed best suited to planing over the water surface rather than knifing through it.
"Apparently, it was ideally suited to Dad's high-stroking, even-power technique. In fact, one can argue that he developed the technique because of the boat.
"Anyway, George didn't like Dad's technique, preferring the more traditional, and stopped building boats with that design.
Joe had very little lasting influence on the history of sculling technique for two reasons. First, while he was active, his success was largely attributed to his phenomenal athletic ability instead of to his technique, which no one else believed they could match and which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Second, World War II intervened, and when the sport resumed after the war, Joe had become a dimly-remembered legend instead of a role model. It was only as a coach that he would leave his mark on the next generation.
During World War II, Joe commanded PT-320 in the Pacific, sinking at least 26 enemy barges and winning the Navy Cross and the Silver and Bronze Stars for heroism in action.
863 Newspaper clipping collection of Bernard Biglin, John Biglin's great grandson.
873 Joe's record was finally broken in 1965 by 1964 U.S. Olympic sculler Don Spero.
879 Newspaper clipping, collection of Bernard Biglin, John Biglin's great grandson.


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