Fear and Loathing in Abu Dhabi.

I don’t really talk much about my druggie days, mainly because I am not really into dignifying drug taking as some kind of path to enlightenment…it is usually a path to degradation and slow death.  

I mean, drugs work for some people in some situations...but it can be tricky to match the right drug with the right personality, brain chemistry, etc...

Which is why Burroughs, McKenna et al spent a lifetime experimenting.  It can take a lot of work. 

Not all druggies write great books…most shit their pants and pass out.  

Not very interesting.  

So...take drugs...don't take them...I'm not your mother, or a doctor...

'do what thou wilt', as the saying goes.  The only reason I even bring this up is because it makes me smile, and that's a good thing. 

Smiles...best drug on earth, I say.  

So...OK...like I said I don't generally talk about my drug taking days, but on this occasion, I will make one exception, because it made me laugh. 

We got talking about Burroughs and his ‘talking asshole’ routine last week, and it conjured up memories of my time in Abu Dhabi.  

I remember one night I was hopped up on some kind of strange chemicals…I guess it was goofballs, but who the hell would know for sure; anyway, I found myself in this little café not far from the airport, where they were showing…you guessed it…’Naked Lunch’.  

A shitty copy on video tape, the tracking all out of whack, etc...screened on a big white bedspread on the back of a camel, or something.  I don't remember the details.

Mighta been dobly, THX...who the hell knows, or cares.  

It was in Arabic.     

Now…I don’t remember much…but I was cranked so high, I could have sworn I was watching a David Attenborough documentary.   It was a severely truncated version of the Cronenberg classic, I remember that much…I checked later on, & this print was circulating in that part of the world at a heavily edited 49 minutes.  

Watching this thing in Arabic, with those crazy subtitles…

Man.  You can imagine. 

Anyway…this town is not the place to get yourself fucked up on any kind of shit at all.  I was young dumb and full of cum, ten foot tall and bulletproof, & I wasn’t afraid of anything. 

  

But if I had been caught…it would have been the Midnight Express.

Actually…I probably would have been executed. 

Anyway, as it was, I was escorted at gunpoint by two soldiers, back to the airport, & put on the next plane out of the Dhabi…remember that amazing mosaic work in the airport lobby?  MAN!!  

Really put a ZAP on my brain!  Like a DMT trip or something!!

Anyway...I guess it was for the best that I be exiled from the region.  I clearly had no idea what I was doing, and when you are traveling in the middle east, it is advisable to have all your wits about you, & all your contraband stowed away securely.  Let's face it...a country like that?  Even then, in the early 90's, it 'aint no Wally World.  I shudder now to think of it.  

But from the comfort of my armchair...I can laugh about it. 

  

(This all happened…I have proof.  You can check with my traveling mate.  We were both police officers at the time, and on a world tour with the Stones.

One of those is correct, and one bullshit. 

You get to pick. 

So anyway…it wasn’t until I arrived back in OZ that the heat came down; a drug dog stopped, and sat down in front of me at Melbourne Airport, all but pointing at me and blowing a whistle.

 

So...I was searched.  & I’m talking full cavity search, they got all spread cheeky on my ass.  

And I was CLEAN AS A WHISTLE!!

The customs guy asked me, ‘why do you think the dog stopped in front of you??’

& I can only assume, the dog had contacts in the Dhabi. 

hah!