Junkie cool?
Warren Kinsella, aging punk (all love, I count myself in this category), political commentator, scourge of the right-wing blogosphere, lawyer, punk journalist, father and generally bright guy, has a comment up on his site about drugs and the glamourization of drug addiction by the popular press as it relates to people like Courtney Love and Pete Doherty (ex of the Libertine's, a UK band).
I was thinking about my own experiences of watching drug addiction tear through people. First, let's be clear here, you wanna smoke some pot, drink till you fall down, take all manner of drugs and pass them through your system, that's your look out. I drink, not as much as I did when I was full of piss and vinegar, certainly not as much as before we had our son, but I drink. I'm not moralizing about drug use or addicts. I'm just agreeing with Kinsella here, drug addiction, be it to booze, heroin, coke or crack, is not some pretty, romantic, cool thing. It is a fucking mess.
Back in the 90s I worked at a co-op restaurant here in Montreal (about 5 minutes from where I live now). Due to some wired confluents of good poppy growing season, good smuggling network, bad/lax/unlucky policing and dealers working on the "hook them now have them as customers forever (or until they die)" theory heroin got so cheap that it was giving beer a run for it's money. I watched as pretty much one whole shift got into it. Now, these weren't friends for the most part, just people that I knew vaguely from Montreal's punk/art/alt scene but even I, as an outsider on their lives, could see the changes. They lost interest in their other friends, cleaning themselves, work, their art, music, basically they lost interest in life. Some of them got out, moving home to be with family, some moved to more remote parts of Canada where getting drugs wasn't as easy and where they didn't have to be around friends who were using. Others, well others I have no idea what happened to them.
If you are a regular reader of this blog (all 5 of you) you've read about my problems with junkie refuse in the parks where Lucas and I go to play. I've seen dealers smacking junkies and their street dealers around, I've seen used needles, I've seen baggies, I've seen guys looking for used needles on the ground to reuse. All of this to say that I can tell you that drug addiction is a sickness, pretty fucking gross and not at all romantic and glamorous.
I can remember in the 90s when Kate Moss and models like her were part of the whole Heroine Chic look. I'm really hoping that we aren't moving back to a period like that because, in my humble opinion, dying alone, stinky, emaciated and diseased with a needle in your arm doesn't sound all that cool to me.
posted by Cameron Campbell @ 2/04/2005 07:36:00 a.m.
6 Comments:
Or, for us aging hippies--Can you say "Jimmy Hendrix"? I like a drink now and then (rarely these days) and I smoked a little weed with just about everyone else in the world back in the day. But, somehow my idea of a good time is not being found dead in a hotel room somewhere.
Suellen
Sadly the place I'm talking about has been gone for years. I worked there as a dish pig for a bit and was a regular (to the point of being a bit addicted) for a while.
One thing that is fun about the whole press in action over here in Jolly-old is that you get a whole variety of things from the gutter to the Ya-ish high brow stuff. Currently there is a daily update on when Pete "My-Eyes-Have-Rolled-Back-In-My-Head-Like-The-Dials-On-A-Slot-Machine-In-Vegas" Doherty (strange coincidence that his girlfriend/future wife if the tabs are correct would be none-other-than Ms. Moss) will be bailled. All articles of him in the press show his eyes white, his mouth foaming, and him looking like he has peed himself or sweated in a horribly thorough and profuse manner. Mostly they are of the what a pathetic little weaner variety in theme. What I find amazing is that they often talk about how "Kate has pledged to save his life"...keeping in mind that she was holding her childs birthday party and Sadie Frost/Jude Law's kid nearly ODed on Ecstacy..but heh..the new virgin Kate - go girl!
It is really very tedious that celebrity even at its most worm-like gets attention. What burns me is that it is never interesting to see Heroin addiction - they are the most unentertaining of the drug addicts...no funny jittery talk, no mellow cofussion, just tedious grinding dirtying yourself and dragging everyone you love down. I thinking though - with all the naff 80s style coming back in it is more likely to start a coke revival than a heroin chic trend. So not to worry!
Marj, you need to check out the Kinsella comment that I'm riffing off of. It's quite funny, and not. You know?
Had a look...yup... The press in Britain are pretty much sickening! Here is a step-by-step process to how you manage to read anything but the Independant or the Guardian - Step 1: Take out interesting insert/CD/Magazine/ Supplement Step 2: Approach peddle of bin Step 3: Step on bin peddle Step 4: Insert "News"paper in bin and release peddle (do not even be tempted to read even the headlines or raging and ranting against freakish, nazi-like over-educated public-school clever clogg journos will insue).
Had a look...yup... The press in Britain are pretty much sickening! Here is a step-by-step process to how you manage to read anything but the Independant or the Guardian - Step 1: Take out interesting insert/CD/Magazine/ Supplement Step 2: Approach peddle of bin Step 3: Step on bin peddle Step 4: Insert "News"paper in bin and release peddle (do not even be tempted to read even the headlines or raging and ranting against freakish, nazi-like over-educated public-school clever clogg journos will insue).
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