THE MOST FUCKED UP THING I’VE EVER SEEN: Zs
Jul 06, 2010
The ballad of Dwight Frye, er, Hawkins. Or, Zen and the art of marijuana maintenance.
BY SAM HILLMER
If you're paying attention, there is normally something humorous going on when you're suffering. For example, there is something kind of funny about insanity. For the most part it's tragic, and when you start calculating the effect the whole business of being crazy is having on the families of the insane, that tragedy starts to grow exponentially, it can really get out of control. Sorrow can be intoxicating, and you can get addicted to it, so this quality of mental instability, of having a kind of humor to it, is important, it's like a built in eject button, that helps us be kind to ourselves when we're taking empathy too far.
Just for clarity, I'm not talking about laughing at crazy people, like someone on the subway is talking to themselves, and that seems funny to you, if that's you, you haven't taken the empathy vibe far enough.
Anyway...
I grew up with a guy named Dwight Hawkins (not his real name!). Me, him, and a couple of other fellows, started a band together in 7th grade, got in to skipping school, girls, whatever, the whole nine yards. Anyhow, Dwight got really into smoking weed and doing acid. He was like, the weed guy.
One night, him and another buddy of mine, now we're in 11th grade or so, decided to drop four hits of acid, smoke a bunch of weed, and drink whiskey all night. There were multiple kinds of acid involved, and you can probably guess what happened. It started because my friend Rick was wearing a Sex Pistols shirt that said "Sid Vicious is dead" on the back. Dwight got freaked and started saying he was dead. Blah, Blah, Blah... he "freaked out", or "had a bad trip"... etc...
Thing is, Dwight never returned. First he got really depressed, then he got into this schizophrenic vibe of finding all kinds of meaning in series of numbers that he'd see around, and eventually he just shut himself in. We all lost touch with him, he was impossible to talk to, and he wouldn't return calls. At one point, he was the middle man for a weed dealer, and the report I got was that he would sit in his living room with the shades drawn, and let the TV run with the sound off and the radio on, and order pizzas. Pretty dark.
BUT! There was a "Dwight returns" kind of thing that happened. We were all out of high school by now. Suddenly Dwight was getting in touch with everybody and sounded really lively. Apparently he had gotten into computers, and met a girl on line, and was doing well! By this point I was living in New York City, but when I heard from the guy, we agreed to meet the next time I visited DC.
The date came and I dropped by Dwight's spot. He was living with his parents. It was good to see him, and in many ways, he seemed like the old Dwight. There is this slightly manic quality that people who've come back from going a little bonkers tend to develop, like this nervous energy that results from feeling like the rug could be pulled out from under you at any moment, but other than that, he seemed pretty normal and appeared to be doing well. He confessed to getting back into weed, he said that he just couldn't go without it, but said that he was only using a little at a time and that it was a good vibe.
"Oh yeah" he said excitedly, "I've been growing!!!" Next, of course, he wanted to show me his plants. "Alright" I said, "let's seem 'em". I don't much care about the business of growing weed, it seems like taking things a little far, but, who cares, Dwight was pretty psyched on these plants, so I figured I might as well check them out.
We went into his room and opened the door to his closet revealing a row of plants and some sun lamps. Not a lot, maybe four plants. "Wow" I said, "theses are... uh... AMAZING!" It really was not that amazing. I noticed that there was a bucket sitting in front of them, it was directly in front of you when you opened the door. "What's the Bucket for?" I asked.
Now check this out...
Dwight replied, "Man, I love these plants so much, sometimes I just come, and sit in hear on this bucket, and stare at them, FOR HOURS!" "Hours?!" I said. "Yeah man, HOURS!"
"Um, ok..."
Now I am a practicing Buddhist, and I sit around for hours staring at the floor. If suffering is funny, I suppose trying to end it is even funnier, and that's good, just don't go crazy.
Sam Hillmer is joined in the Zs by Ben Greenberg, Ian Antonio and Tony Lowe. Their new album New Slaves is out now on The Social Registry. Check ‘em out at their MySpace page for tour dates, song samples and more.
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