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11/21/96 ".....drugs....." the 1960's i was born, robert audera weeks, on may 20th 1960, at west point military academy. being born at the beginning of a decade makes it very easy to figure out where you were and when. i am old enough to remember the vietnam war, watergate, and woodstock being delivered to my conciousness by the console television in my parents' living room. i am too young to have a real clear memory of the kennedy assisination, but i do remember the day that dr. martin luther king died. the thing that i remember the most about these tumultuous times was the fear in my parents' faces as they watched their world drastically change all around them. i understood from a very young age what used to be called the "generation gap". i also understood that drugs were somehow a part of what would define my generation and the gap between my parents and myself. it seems that it was during these days of extreme social change that our country lost its innocence, and its citizens became jaded and cynical. one president shot, another disgraced, the shame of vietnam and subsequently the shame of our treatment of its veterans. we had lost faith in those whom we had chosen to lead us. the 1970's the 1970's were deadening, and decadent, epitomized by the rise of disco, designer jeans, studio 54, and cocaine. it was during these years that i came of age and discovered drugs and sexuality. these were the anything goes days, and it seemed that the objective was to get as f**ked up as possible. our new heroes were doing it, the ones that the media gave us to replace superman and the president were, why shouldn't we? i smoked a lot of pot in high school but it was all groovy, walk in the woods kinda stuff. sort of a cross between fast times at ridgemont high and an ll bean catalogue, if you can imagine that. i lost my virginity labor day 1978 on my first acid trip. if you do the math this makes me 18 at the time. until this point women had baffled me, i don't think that i even kissed a woman until i was 17. well, now i had 3 things in my life that i absolutely loved, acid, punk rock, and, i want to say sex here but it is a lot more than the physical act of sex that i am talking about here. i abhore the phrase "love making" but i think that you know what it is that i am trying to convey. when i found each of these things it was like finding a piece of me that had been missing my whole life. i found punk rock first. i remember the very first time that i heard patti smith, i felt like i had been saved. finally there was someone else who felt the same things that i felt, and somehow managed to put them into words and music. this was art, this wasn't media hype designed by major corporations and test marketed to target audiences. this was pure expression! my girlfriend at the time was named hope, a perfect name for her. i remember her gentleness, most of all. she introduced me to lsd, and then she introduced me to the world of human sexuality. i am grateful to her. the 1980's the 1980's brought us aids, the reagan and bush years, the commercialization of any type of original thought, the budget deficit, crack, and insider trading just to name a few... i spent 6 of those years living in harlem on 134th street. three of them with a very wonderful woman named kim whos picture appears quite a few times on this site. 134th street in harlem is an open air drug supermarket, in what was called the most corrupt precinct in nyc. you fill in the blanks...... the 1990's these rants are primarily an exercise for me, like i said elsewhere in this site my catharsis, a chance to exhale and a chance to come to grips with my past. i do not go around thinking about this stuff all of the time, but it is buried inside of me and it is good to bring it to the surface from time to time. the purpose of this particular rant was to explain why i don't do drugs or drink alcohol anymore and haven't for quite a long time, it's no big deal, it's just what i feel that these times call for. the world has changed and i with it. i would like you to get a feel for the person who put this site together and continues to work on it as a labor of love. it is easy for me to do the techno-stuff with frames and nice graphics, that's safe. but to let you all of the way in, should you chose to come, is scary. the real me is buried at the core of this site, not out front for some casual passerby. if you've come this far it is because you have chosen to do so.... today i want the wonder back in my life now, i want to see the world with the eyes of a young child, i want to walk outside and be amazed that the sky is blue....
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