Filler
Better Living(?) Through Chemistry
By Pete Hunt
What would "Behind the Music" be without drugs? Rick James rambling incoherently about his post-"Super Freak" musical endeavors and Tony Orlando's favorite stripper stories? "Behind the Music" is only interesting when it showcases the seamy underbelly of the music world, where backstage buffets are trays of multi-colored pills, and the underage groupies are so out of it even Ronny Woods gets laid. Honestly, nobody cares about the current Go-Go's reunion tour. They tune in to hear about Belinda Carlisle giving hand-jobs for coke.
Random Guy in Denny's Restroom: Hey, aren't you in a band or something?
Belinda Carlisle: Yeah, actually I'm lead singer for the Go-Go's. You know, "Our Lips are Sealed," "Vacation," "We Got the Beat…"
Random Guy in Denny's Restroom: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, here's a twenty, can you hurry it up a little, my breakfast is getting cold.
"Behind the Music" marathons aren't the only place you can see drug abusers. From the Deadhead standing outside of Sweet Potato Pie to the Volkswagen van hotboxing on 23rd and Hilyard, drugs are everywhere in Eugene, especially in winter. As the temperature outside drops, more and more students get stuck inside on Saturday nights. It's really no wonder that drug consumption increases. Some people just find a hobby to keep them occupied, but having a minor painkiller addiction is certainly no worse than being a World War II model airplane enthusiast. Get a life, man.
Here is a guide to spotting and identifying the more typical drug abusers on campus and understanding their paranoid behavior:
Cocaine
Yeah, cocaine was a little bigger in the '70s and '80s, but even today you can whip out an eightball and be the life of the party. Cocaine has become synonymous with a life of glamour, self-indulgence and hedonistic behavior. If the ultimate image of cocaine use isn't Studio 54, then it would have to be that bad guy doing lines of coke off the hooker's tits in Robocop. That's what it's all about, man.The best spot to find a cocaine user is in the backroom of an elite party with a lot of law and political science majors. Usually the word will spread that somebody has a vile of coke, and you'll notice a small group of social climbers migrating upstairs. Excuse yourself from the party to go find a bathroom, but then take the third left rather than the first right. You'll "accidentally" stumble into a bedroom, where you'll see wild-eyed young men and women hunched over a mirror with Kleenex stuffed in their nostrils. Further investigation may reveal prostitutes passed out in the bathroom and "White Lion" blasting on the stereo.
Hallucinogens (LSD, Acid, Mushrooms, Nyquil mixed with Vicks Vap-O-Rub)
Eugene has had a long obsession with mind-altering substances dating back to Ken Kesey's flower-powered Winnebego and the Dead tour of 1971. Hallucinogens are like a free bus pass--your chance to see the world from the comfort of your own home. In reality you may be huddled in the corner of your bathroom in a cold sweat after dropping an eighth of mushrooms, but in your mind you'll be sightseeing on Mars with Timothy Leery.A lot of people have bad trips on shrooms that leave them traumatized. Televised game shows can be particularly disturbing and reality-bending. "Did Alex Trebek just wink at me? Why is his face morphing into a dog? How can those contestants comprehend broken canine language? Oh God, now he's lit himself on fire. Extinguish him, you soulless bastards. Don't just stand there as his charcoaled flesh flakes of his burning corpse." The secret to getting over a bad trip is to brew up a pot of coffee, smoke some grass, put on a porn and pray to God that the walls stop pulsating.
Ecstasy
Once again the media has totally misinterpreted a new drug craze. Despite what "Time" magazine says, nobody is going to abandoned warehouses to get jiggy with the Fatboy Slim remix of "Who Let the Dogs Out." Raves are really just '70s-style orgies, a place where club kids can pop some pills, wave around their Day-Glo sticks, and form a mound of half-naked flesh on the dance floor. "E" is basically just a cheap alternative to the Spanish fly as a means to get horny and semi-coherent chicks back to your pad.The best spot to find "E" users in town is at dance clubs like Diablo's. That's where the rave crowd hangs, dressed like anime characters wearing Teletubbies shirts with pacifiers hanging around their necks. You'll find the same groups looking rather down in class on Monday because they drained all the serotonin out of their brain over the weekend.
Crystal methamphetamine
Does your roommate methodically take apart and reassemble his stereo all weekend long? If he's not obsessive compulsive, then he's probably a meth-head. Meth was popular in clubs in the early '80s, but now it's really just a step above paint thinner on the drug pyramid. It's also one of the most unsanitary drugs on the market.Dealers make this stuff in old bathtubs using homemade chemicals stored in oil cans. Who wants to get high off of antifreeze? At least you can burn the germs off crack.
Heroin
"Sweet brown sugar, why do you taste so good?"Heroin may be the ultimate high, but the user pays the ultimate price. Keith Richards used to be a sex symbol, now look at him. Once you've got a good heroin addiction going, you're on your own. Rehabs will just give you a nicotine patch and send you on your way.
Heroin users are usually fairly easy to spot due to the track lines running up and down their arms. They may try and tell you they're diabetic, but diabetics don't look wide-eyed at the static on channel 13 for three hours. You can almost always find a heroin addict in the hazardous material bins outside of Sacred Heart looking for old needles, or making brief appearances as lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots.
Marijuana
If you can't spot a marijuana user on your own, then maybe you need to enroll at LCC. Everybody in Eugene smokes weed, but only the older crowd smokes "dope." My parents once asked me if I was smoking dope, and I thought they were talking about crack or something. "Good Lord, no," I said. "I would never touch the stuff." They seemed happy with that answer until they found the hooka sitting on top of the Playboys in my closet.Eugene is a drug town, and the University of Oregon is most certainly a drug school. Drug use is what sets us apart from Corvallis, where bongs are only used to funnel beer down an unconscious sorority girl's throat. If you don't use drugs yet, then you must be going to Northwest Christian College. And even those guys will pack you a bowl. So get with it amigo. Pick up a pipe, sterilize a needle, or fake an injury and get some Vicadin. Do what it takes to live la vida alta.
Pete Hunt, a junior majoring in Journalism, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator