M y "Leary-like experiment" was a dumb shit idea and nearly a tragedy (depending on whose viewpoint you take, but that's another column). I abused my body with a potentially lethal substance. How is that Hunter S. Thompson can drink and eat a drug store, but I can't take 11 shots of espresso? It's not fair, and lends credulity to the notion that we live in a fallen universe.

My hard-assed, horn-rimmed editor wants me back on the beat in a week. Some of you are actually reading my column, but it hasn't gone to my head, or been translated into more zeros in my passbook. Popularity aside, I'm not sure I'll be ready for action in a week; the mere smell of my roommate's insipid American-style coffee is more than enough to send me into major convulsions. As Saint Clint of Carmel would say, "a man's got know his limitations."

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Similar substance-associated convulsions took place in the aftermath of a particularly riotous party that I attended in Berkeley in the early 70's. It was this experience that forever changed my sensibilities concerning mint.

I was only 17 years old at the time, and my best friend was a 30 year-old business administration teacher at my high school. As my mentor, it was his responsibility to guide me into adulthood. Part of that process was instruction converging the cross-currents of parties where most of the participants were twice my age.

The hosts thought I was funny and "vital," and proceeded to feed me a series of "Grasshoppers," a strange concoction of crème de menthe, crème de cocoa, and several other deadly poisons. I had a wonderful time until I got home and was treated to my own private version of a night at Marriot's. I drove the porcelain bus deep in to the night, and for the next six months could not so much as smell anything with mint in it without the impending threat of global gastrointestinal war.

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The good news is that the doctors are not talking permanent brain damage, and Brenda visited me in the hospital yesterday.

The bad news is that she said I was a "Putz", and threatened to have her boyfriend rearrange my notes if I reported any sort of association with her in any way shape or form.

Speaking of notes, some thoughtful Cost Plus-patron put them in my coat picket after I fell stone cold unconscious into a huge wicker basket full of wooden kitchen utensils.

At the hospital, another kind soul, took the liberty of pinning them to my hospital gown. I woke up two days later and looked at my watch, expecting it to tell me my name and purpose in the universe. It said 9:14.

* * * * * * * *

"Substance abuse" is a new phase. It usually refers to drug abuse, but the term opens up the possibility of seeing other types of self-abuse in a similar light. Eating too much could be substance abuse, so could drinking too much (coffee, or alcohol), or watching too much Big Time Wrestling on the television.

I knew a girl in high school named Patty. We worked together slamming fast food out little windows and doors as fast as we could; taking the money, making change and throwing the bags into the cars. We all had nicknames for each other. I called Patty, "Ms. Rexall," because she did so many drugs. I did a lot of drugs too. I never remember using the term "substance abuse." I do remember "doing drugs," and I remember Ms. Rexall doing more than I did.

I used to kid her while we were working together taking the money and throwing the food, "Yep, there's Ms. Rexall! Anybody need a fix? Just tap a vein."

She thought I was funny, I think.

One day, Ms. Rexall told me about the best drugs she had ever done. "After I did them," she assured me, "I couldn't walk, or talk, or think, or stand, or eat, or…" Well you get the point.

She used her paychecks to buy simulated death and self-forgetting. At the time I couldn't help but think that there was a less expensive and more permanent way of achieving the same end. It was not long after that conversation that I stopped "doing drugs."

One day, in late August, they found her car parked on the gravel along Port Chicago highway. From now on, it wouldn't cost her a thing - she couldn't walk, or talk, or think, or stand, or eat… well, you get the point.

* * * * * * * *

They used to say of the Israelites that they were a "stiff-necked people". Five hundred years from now, when someone writes our cultural anthropology, we will be called a "fickle people," or perhaps a "fashionable people."

In the 60's, the counter-culture said drugs were the way to enlightenment and truth with a capitol "T"; while the established orders were trying to keep things exciting with an undeclared war.

Twenty years later, San Francisco business executives snort cocaine and an assortment of designer drugs, while a few miles away at the Cow Palace the members of the most influential rock band in the world, U-2, thrash about on stage, with Bono and the boys pounding out a passionate rendition of "Bad," a song depicting the horrors of drug-addiction and the hope of deliverance.

My, how things have changed.

* * * * * * * *

I have learned my lesson. If I ever fully recover from this incident (and the doctors say I will), I promise to never again abuse my body in such a way. In the meantime I am going to work at healing up and getting out of there so I can investigate that new bridge on Carlson, and see for myself if the Brady girls really work at La Boulangerie.

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