Hi, I was wondering if others had similar MDMA experiences to mine. In 1987, I was 16. The stuff had only been illegal for a few years, we all called "x", nobody (at least in the states) called it "e", and "Molly!?!?", no way! I was 16 and fell in with a crowd of folks who where between my age and 35.
It was alwAys pure white powder, and it seems, in retrospective, to have been uncut. One gram could knock 10-12 people on their asses, and it was on dead tour in pounds! I never thought there would come a time when one would have trouble finding the real deal.
I assume it was still so easy to aquire because it had been stockpiled like crazy and the precursors were still easy to get. I must have taken it 50-75 times in the late 80s, and it was always good.
I'll never forget the first time I got off on it, hugging a hippie girl in a 71 VW van, listening to REM, " life's rich pageant" I think, but I guess I'm a little fuzzy on that part.
Testing kits?!? Nobody needed them! You could score pure product at any dead concert with your eyes shut. $20 would get you and your hugging buddy a .25 gram that would "give your money's worth" as my friend Zoops said. The good old days.
This is the story of the first time I ever took MDMA, or ecstasy. It was in the Summer of 1992 (long version took me all afternoon until about 10pm on and off to type this):
This installment of “Zoopses Drug-Soaked Memories What Other Kind of Memories Does He Have” is brought to you by ---- Dibutylone. A very nice stimulating RC from China. Might be contaminated with radioactive materials or Ebola virus, but hey it’s nice stuff. And he's typing like a real live old-time drug fiend, while feverishly puffing away at a cigarette.
I love walking down drug memory lane. Only thing is I was drugged and don't remember much of it. Spent the years of 1989 to about the first half of 1993 while attending Virginia Polytechnic Institute ("VA Tech") in Blacksburg, VA, either tripping on acid or getting it out of my system before the next dose. So I pretty much had a constant at least residual level of LSD in my brain for those four years, during school months. Yes, four years. And I'm not "legally insane" from it or a mass murderer like Charles Manson.
The Summer of '89 was known as the "Acid Summer" by devoteés of the nascent acid house/techno/rave scene back then. Around the Washington DC area, starting Summer of 1992, there were raves going on pretty much every weekend. And a bigger rave scene in Baltimore. LOTS of acid was going around in the early 90's. You really can't get good acid anymore. At least this garbagehead can't. I'm sure there IS some going around someplace. Research chemicals have pretty much ensured that just about everything you find for sale that is represented as LSD or MDMA isn't actually what they say it is. "LSD" might be 25I-NBoMe, bromo-dragonfly, or DOC (a potent hallucinogenic amphetamine). These substances are potent enough to be put on blotter paper. Same with E, which Snout correctly pointed out was called "X" back then. "MDMA" might be 5- or 6-APB, just plain methamphetamine or a mixture of some hallucinogen and a stimulant. Nowadays, we call ecstasy "E." "Molly is what kids and the Black brothers call it.
I took my first dose of proper E in August of 1992, and then another time around October of that year. That second time will be described in another post sometime soon. Both times it was white powder with a strong smell/taste of black licorice. this is one way you can be more sure of whar you're buying is actually MDMA - that black licorice smell and taste,
The time I first took E, I had gone out to crawl the bars in DC around Dupont Circle with a buddy of mine and his girlfriend. We were with some gay friends of theirs. Those gay guys could party me under the table (and probably would have DONE something to me if they could get me alone down there). At the end of the night, around 1 or 2am, one of these guys, I think his name was "Dave," said his roommate had some "really good ecstasy" that he had brought back from New York and did we want to get some? Everybody was totally and enthusiastically down for it.
So we drove, in our half drunken state, over to Dave's apartment in Georgetown. His roommate who had the X was asleep. He had to go into his room and wke him, which he didn't want to do at first. For a minute there, it wasn't looking like we were going to be able to "get our roll on." Everyone was like "oh shit you can't back out now, you better wake his ass up!" After some coaxing, Dave was eventually able to wake him up and the guy sold us all a bunch of small clear gelatin capsules, the same size that Benadryl comes in, except totally clear - not half pink and half clear. There were four of us, so we bought 2 to split between the four of us right then, half a cap each, which we were going to sniff. I bought two more for "later." They were $25 a piece. The whole capsule was stuffed full of a crystalline white powder. I assume that it was pure MDMA. We split up the four on a piece of glass and each did half a capsule. I reckon it was about 200-250mg in each one. A big dose. That half a cap I railed up got me pretty wired, but not full-on tripping or rolling. We were all tired before we sniffed the MDMA, and a little drunk, but afterwards, I remember feeling very awake but at the same time really dreamy. Almost like I could have slept, but not sleepy. It made everything seem like it was under water appearing.
They put the VHS cassette (this was 1992) of the movie "Heathers" in. The gay guys LOVED that scene at the funeral of the jock that one of the Heathers (played by Winona Ryder) and her boyfriend (played by Christian Slater), killed and made it look like he and his buddy were gay, simply by placing a bottle of Perrier near their dead bodies. Just seeing the bottle of Perrier everybody was like "Oh shit they were GAY!" It indeed is a very funny scene. The guy's father was all crying over his son's death, and cried out, "I love my dead GAY son!" (below video clip hahahahahah) I remember how funny they thought that was. I was kind of peaking off that half a cap at that point in the movie. A little bit later on, I went downstairs (this is still at one of the gay guy's apartment) to get some orange juice, which I was told was in the refrigerator - because drinking OJ with ecstasy is
de rigéuer everybody knows that.
I was pouring a glass of orange juice, smiling to myself and thinking "this shit is awesome, and it's only half a dose." Just then, they guy who's apartment it was came down to the kitchen and walked up behind me, started massaging my shoulders which felt EXTREMELY good to me. Then he kissed me on the back of my neck. WHICH FREAKED ME RIGHT THE FUCK OUT. I got very agitated with him and stammered out loudly, "hey man, I DON'T DO THAT STUFF!," followed by a half-hearted "sorry." Surprised, he stepped back, put both his hands up, and was like "you're not gay? Sorry I just thought you were because you were with N___ and A___ (my friend and his girl, who hung out almost exclusively with gay dudes) and were with us all night." Also I didn't have my girlfriend Suzie (sexy Suzie the sex freak) with me that night either. All those things together, with the MDMA, said to this guy that I was gay. That's the closest I've ever had to a homosexual experience. I have to admit it felt really good when he was rubbing my shoulders, but when he kissed my neck it freaked me out. If I was gay I would have gotten some dick for sure that night!
I just simply
wasn't ready to have my dick sucked by a dude or to fuck a dude in the ass, no matter dosed up on pure MDMA I was! Truth be told I
still am not ready. Don't think I'll ever be, really. A man simply does not hold the attraction for me the same way a woman does. I'm just not feelin' it.
So, after Heathers was over, I drove back home to my mom and stepdad's place in Mclean, VA, in my little 1990 Isuzu I-Mark hatchback. They were gone to Nags Head, NC for a beach vacation (it was August if you don't remember). When I got home, I proceeded to stash the two caps of E that I had paid $50 for in the freezer under some food. I think I was doing that because it was always customary to keep LSD in the freezer, which I now know is unnecessary (is it?). But when putting the caps under a box of food, somehow one of them cracked open, and some of the stuff spilled out onto my hand. Instead of grabbing a piece of paper and folding it up in that, I just downed that capsule, which was like 98% full still. Full dose for all practical intents and purposes.
...About 30 minutes later, I found myself skipping around the basement in that house, with a hot track by Fred Giannelli, a techno artist from days of yore, called "V for Vendetta." (see imbedded video below - play it it's very danceable) blasting loudly on my stereo system (still have that same system – it’s a Sansui model 661 made in 1975. It was my dad’s; he gave it to me in 1990 - it’s pretty nice for being over 40 years old. Only 20 watts per channel but DAMN! It sounds like at least 100 watts when you put “loudness” on. The Loudspeakers are Sansui model S-61U, rated at 175 watts, three way speakers – only stereo system I’ve ever had it’s all I’ve ever needed. Nowadays I have the computer hooked up to the “auxiliary” jack on that amp so I can play music from that). That Fred Giannelli track was MADE for dancing while rolling on E. The bassline is hypnotic as shit. I tried to dance with my cat Grady but she wasn't having it (God rest her gentle kittycat soul - we have another cat nowadays, a male, named Grady who is grey and looks just like her).
I've told this part of the story before on here and at O-phile: Not long after dancing around the house, the sun started coming up. I wanted to go outside and look at the sunrise. Seemed like a "thing" one must do while on a psychedelic drug. I had read the psychedelic drug classic book
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley earlier that year, and in that edition of the book was a B&W photograph, taken in 1960-something showing the author, Mr. Huxley standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking Los Angeles, CA, ( I think it was LA) sort of raising his arm, pointing at the rising sun, and that image stuck in my head. The caption to the photo said, “Aldous Huxley the morning after having his ‘doors of perception’ cleansed with 400mg mescaline sulfate.”
I went outside on the front lawn in that quiet suburban neighborhood, just before six am, or thereabouts, and looked at the rising sun, just peeking over the horizon. I pointed at it like I had seen Aldous Huxley do in that old photo. I was wearing only my boxer shorts. I don't know why I had taken off all my clothes except for my boxer shorts.
At that moment, while I was out in the yard, in my drawers, shoeless and shirtless, the next door neighbor, Mr. John (yep, that was the family's last name), came outside to his driveway, about to get in his car and drive to work. Federal government employees in the DC area are notorious for going to work at around 5:30-6:00am.
Mr John saw me standing there like a weirdo in the front yard. I was probably mumbling something to myself about how my "doors of perception" were being opened by this fantastic substance. Having to have sensed something was amiss with me, he said, "hi Z___, are you o.k.?" Thusly roused from my reverie, I quickly came to my senses, looked over at him, realized what was going on. I said, "OH YEAH, I'M FINE!" and practically RAN back inside the house. My ecstasy-soaked brain had trouble modulating the volume of my voice so it came out as a loud shout.
When my ma and stepdad came back from the beach a week later, Mr John mentioned to my stepdad that he "saw Z___ out in the front yard early in the morning last week, and he shouted at me" ; he was worried that something was wrong and was I o.k.? I just sort of blew it off, and shrugged my shoulders when my mom asked me about that.
I don't remember what I did after that, but about 90 minutes later, I was still tripping hard when I decided to go to bed and lie down for a while, try to sleep. Upon closing my eyes, I had some closed-eye visualizations of bright neon red, blue, green and yellow and pink kaleidescopic shapes. Of course I couldn't sleep - big surprise.
I lay there for about an hour, then got up. Put some clothes on. It was now around 9am. I remembered I had to go to the bank to deposit a check my grandma had given me (good old moneybags grandma, RIP). Still kind of zooted, I had the presence of mind to put sunglasses on because I probably had the eyes of a crazed nocturnal lemur... and then I reached into the freezer and grabbed the other capsule of ecstasy. I thought I might as well take the other one too, since I obviously wasn't going to do it with my girlfriend at Lollapolooza in a couple weeks (the second one - 1992 - was a GREAT fucking lineup - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush. I especially enjoyed JAMC and Lush. Chili Peppers were of course cool too). I swallowed the second capsule. This dose was slightly bigger than the first, because the first one had cracked open and some of it had spilled out.
I drove to the bank and had no problems with interactions there. Wore the sunglasses inside the building. As I was pulling into the driveway of the house, the second dose was kicking in, fast.
I spent the whole rest of the day in the house listening to music, and looking at pictures in books. This was a few years before the internet (imagine the horror!), so that wasn't happening. I had a book called "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell, that had some cool pictures in it. I would look at it when I was tripping on acid.
The Cure album that had just recently come out, "Wish," was very cool sounding to me. Especially the song "Friday I'm in Love," which I must have played about 20 times, over and over. I talked to my pet cat Grady for a while too. I felt like I had a psychick connection with her. She was communicating to me telepathically, but it was only a bunch of silly "cat stuff" like "I like to eat," “I want to kill small furry animals,” and "I like to be petted and rubbed." This may seem flaky, but I really
think I may have actually had a telepathic link to the animal that time. Other music that really appealed to me while tripping that day on ecstasy was the album "A Life with Brian" by a British band called "Flowered Up." They were from London but were more associated with the Manchester sound. There was a song on there called "Phobia," which sounded
phenomenal (video embedded below).
Happy Mondays, the album "Pills n Thrills n Bellyaches" was good that day too. Listening to it right now AAMOF.
By about 7pm that evening, I was pretty much at baseline again. That night a buddy of mine and I went out to a dance club called "Tracks" which was a legendary nightclub located on S. Capitol St. SE in Washington DC. The place finally closed after 15 years as the pre-imminent DC dance club in 1999 and was demolished to make room for an office building. My pal got really drunk, and we bought about 20 Vicodin 5/500 for $15 off a kid in the men’s bathroom (**yuck** too much APAP! I wouldn't be able to do
anything with that these days).
That hydrocodone was very nice for me to properly and finally come down off the E with. My friend puked out my car window on the drive home, because he was mixing the pills with alcohol.
…and that’s pretty much it. The first time I did ecstasy.
Sorry I so abruptly ended the story, but there really isn’t much else to say about it. One thing I remember very well from that day is the feeling of my bare feet had on the Chinese rug in my room. I could feel the rug in the palm of my hands when I curled my toes and sort of “grabbed” the pile of the rug with my foot. Only time I ever have had a
bona fide tactile hallucination.
I feel that I sort of wasted the experience that August day in 1992, because I didn't use it to sort out some of my personal "issues." But I wasn't AWARE of any of my fears and resentments back then at that young age, or I simply didn't have the resentments I do now back then either, so there you go.
But it was a VERY fun day, doing not much of anything. If I had been with someone else, it would have been like I was bonding very strongly with that person. In a way, I'm glad I was alone for that first time doing MDMA. The experience definitely changed me, permanently, albeit only slightly. For example, I still have a strong imprint of "Friday I'm in Love" in my mind. This was 24 years ago, but whenever I hear that song, I get a flashback to the feelings I felt that day - pure joy, or more aptly put, 'ecstasy' - about nothing. Wow. Just. Wow.
It's a perfect name for the drug. If I could have a lifetime supply of any drug, it would be heroin, or maybe oxymorphone. If I could pick any TWO drugs, the second one would be MDMA for sure. I didn't do any soul-searching that day, but if I had, I'm sure it would have been fruitful.
I hope I can find some MDMA of that quality again someday. If I do I'll be sure to try and sort out some of the many fears and resentments I've built up and polished and fed all these years of my life. Things have gotten so much more
complicated than they were when I was 22 years old. I thought I was a hell of a guy back then too. Now I know better. I'm kind of an asshole at times, and I am selfish, self-centered and self-absorbed too much of the time. I'd use the MDMA session to try to sort out some of these personality/character flaws/defects. Like WHY am I so self-centered? Why do I get resentful about certain things? Why do I have an obsession to alter my thought processes, moods, and emotions with chemicals from outside my body? Perhaps that's more like a job for an ibogaine trip.
Wow, I just thought that maybe ibogaine + MDMA might be a very powerful tool for mental health - to gain some insight on one's inner being. Throw some MXE or ketamine in the mix and you've got 20 years of psychotherapy in one day.
*******
Some other time I’ll tell the story about the second and last time I took MDMA which was a few months later at down in Blacksburg, VA after school was back in session. We had a rager at our apartment. Acid, pot, kegs of cheap beer and me on ecstasy. I sort of candy-flipped that time, as I took a tab of acid when I was coming down off the E. I remember having some almost transcendent sex with my girlfriend Suzie that night. Another time.