story

Marketer interested in crypto, tech, and sports

Okay I got a good story for you guys today. I am gonna tell you about the first and last time I ever took LSD... 🧵

It was in 2002 and I had just dropped out of college to go to art school so I was living in Richmond, VA getting my degree in photography & filmmaking. But I also ran a pretty popular website at that time called, no surprise, drivenbyboredom.com. I had started it the year before and it was a blog before blog was really a word. I had all sorts of random projects on there but it mostly existed to feature my photograph and writing. Nearly 25 years later it still does...

During that time (honestly for most of my life) I was getting into a lot of wild shit and taking a lot of bad photos of it. But mostly people were into the stories about that wild shit. My stories about doing drugs were my most popular. I was such a big Hunter Thompson fan as most dudes in their early 20s are, and while I didn't take drugs (or even drink) casually I would often experiment, try and push it to the limit and write about it. My first freelance job ever was writing for an extremely popular website that will remain nameless back in 2001. 

I honestly thought I had a chance to be a full time writer/blogger back then. Like look at this chart. I don't know if you can appreciate how big 20k daily viewers was back then less than six months after I started my site.

All of this vintage bragging is just to bring up the fact that I had fans. Not like fans I have now where people follow me on social media and occasionally buy shit from me, but like serious hardcore fans.  
One of those fans was a Canadian girl who told me I was her favorite writer. (She's actually a very well known celebrity photographer now and I once house sat for her in LA and I checked her mail and she had a package from Weird Al!)
Anyway, this girl offered to send me acid and for some insane reason I decided I would take it. I actually still have the envelope she sent me it in because I am a weird hoarder.

She sent me a bunch of acid, but instead of sharing it with my friends I just decided I should take it all at once and really see what this shit was about. Still, I wanted people to be there with me so I invited three of my closest friends to visit. My friend Sam lived 90 min away in DC but the other two, Jamie and Tom were at William & Mary only about 45 minutes from Richmond. I have known them all since I was 10 and I am still friends with them to this day. (Jamie & Sam pictured below).

I guess I have a slow metabolism but drugs always hit me slowly and last longer than they do for other people so I took the acid in the middle of the afternoon. By the time my friends showed up they were just starting to hit me and when they did they hit hard.

I didn't have any of the visuals that I had experienced with mushrooms but I was deeply fucked up. It wasn't party o'clock yet but I did want to see the outside world so I went to the 7-11 on my block and bought some toilet paper. I remember that I could just see the clerk breathing in a way that only makes sense if you are on a lot of drugs. IYKYK

As the evening progressed the drug didn't, but my friends started getting drunker and drunker. By 9pm I had been on drugs for six hours and my friends were wasted and we had to get out of my apartment for real. We ended up going to some house party that I barely remember other than looking up at the popcorn ceiling and see it start to move a bit. This was the only real visual I seen all night but I am 8 hours into the drug and honestly sick of tripping. 

Eventually around 2am we go back to my apartment. Somehow I am still fucked up and my friends are upsettingly drunk. Sam is just chilling because he is one of the most calm people I have ever met in my life but Jamie and Tom are belligerent and it is fucking with my head. I went into my bedroom just hid out there for a while. At some point Tom goes into my bathroom and somehow ripps my towel rack off the wall. I cannot handle that shit. They gotta go.

Looking back on it, kicking them out when they had a 45 minute drunk drive in the middle of the night was a terrible thing to do and it's honestly a miracle that they are still alive, but at the time it was the only thing that made sense to me. You do not want this man loose in your house when you have been tripping for 11 straight hours.

Once they leave it's just Sam left. He's just sitting on my couch, 12 drinks in, in the middle of the night, casually reading a book like he's at a coffee shop or something. I go and take a long shower and decide to eat some food before I go to bed.
I am in my kitchen in my underwear and a t-shirt cooking ramen on the stove when it finally happens. 12 hours after taking the acid I am suddenly peaking. I am watching the pot boil over and it is the most beautiful goddamn thing I have ever seen. I look over at sam and my old leather couch is giving him a backrub. I can't believe it. This shit is magical. 
Suddenly without warning there is a banging on my door....

I assume that Jamie and Tom are back. They shouldn't have been driving anyway but I was still pissed when I opened the door. But when I opened it, it wasn't them, but a stranger yelling "YOUR BUILDING IS ON FIRE! GET OUT!!!"
At that exact moment my window shatters. The flames had melted the glass and suddenly smoke is pouring into my apartment. I grab my camera, a photo album and I try and grab my computer but I can't get it unplugged quickly enough. 
I run outside, still in my underwear and see half of my building engulfed in flames. The windows to the left of the fire were my living room windows.