text:
Love and Chaos Part 7(B) Daniel 1

28th May 2021

U-Bahnhof Hönow, Berlin-Hellersdorf, Hönower Weiherkette, HEP [Bahnhof]
Hönow U-Bahn station, end of the U5 line. Google Images

Part Seven. Berlin. May 1995

Daniel Roth had waited a week before returning to the Czar Bar. He brought two workmates with him, for support, perhaps, but after they saw that they had come all that way just to sit in a squat bar with uncomfortable stools and a depressing lack of women, they left.

Boris, another Russian who lived in the same squat as Andrei and Olga, was working that night. Before long, Chris walked in, unshaven and unwashed. He walked past Daniel, not seeing him, and sat on the end seat, next to where Boris was leaning. They spoke a little, and Chris ordered a beer before seeing Daniel and ordering three vodkas.

“No, no fucking vodka ! Fucked me up, last time.”

Chris kept the smile to himself.

“Really ? How so ?”

Daniel didn’t answer, but hesitated a question of his own.

“I hope I, er didn’t do . . . anything too . . . I hope I wasn’t out of order, last week. Had a bit too much. Hadn’t eaten and it was a har . . . “

Chris waved it away and invited him over.

“All right, but no fucking vodka!”

“Enough, already, no vodka. Wimp!”

“You what ?”

“Just saying, one minute it’s all, ‘I’ll pick you up with one finger and throw you through the window’, the next it’s, ‘oh, please, no vodka’.”

Daniel looked at Chris without blinking and Chris began thinking he may have overstepped the mark.

Daniel then turned to Boris,

“Three vodkas.”

Chris laughed.

Predictably, these were the first of many. Chris was getting acclimatized and Boris drank without any apparent effect whatsoever.

Daniel, on his fifth vodka, kept apologising for his behaviour and Chris did nothing to allay his fears that he had behaved appallingly. Finally, more to stop Daniel repeat himself, he told him that nothing had happened. Daniel had sung, shouted, screamed, but so had everybody else.

“You’re just doing the ‘Newman Shuffle’,” he explained. “People come in here the first time, drink too much vodka and have a melt down. Then they come back, heads down, shuffle in to face the music. Bet that’s how you walked in, all hunched over.”

“Fuck off!”

“But you don’t realise; this is the Czar Bar. Everyone freaks out, it’s expected, it’s almost the law. And if you really do make scandal, so what ? The next night, it’ll be somebody else, and your indiscretion will be forgotten.”

“Ah, you like big words, hey ? What are you ? Fucking student ?”

“Not any more. But I ain’t the one walking ’round with fucking Emily Zola.”

Daniel laughed and ordered more vodkas, Chris smiling at how quickly he had slipped into the pattern of Czar Bar life. Chris’ comical attempt at Cockney could not pass without comment,

“No need to start dropping your accent. This ain’t England.”

Chris, as being the senior in terms of Berlin life, expounded,

“No, this is Berlin. Just be yourself. Or be who you want to be.”

That last sentence stuck with Daniel.

Before the night descended into vodka madness, Daniel was asking about places to go. He always seemed to go to the same bars in Wedding, with his workmates, and most of these were not so far removed from the East End pubs he has left behind. Picking up on this piece of personal history,

“Ah, gangsters, rippers and wide-boys; the charming myths about the East End,” said Chris.

“The only charming myth about the East End is the myth that the East End is charming.”

Chris liked that turn of phrase and commended Daniel on it, then enquired about his academic background, as Chris still had some vague thoughts about switching from Physics to Literature.

“No, Mate, left school with a boot up the arse and fuck all else. Always read, though. Just couldn’t see why I had to listen to some deadbeat dickhead, when I could learn much more from Tolstoy or Dickens or Shakespeare. I can add and subtract and all that bollocks, but I don’t need Calculus, so fuck Maths. Geography, I know the capitals and rivers and mountains, if not, I’ll look them up, or fucking go there. Chemistry, I know good speed from shit, so that’s covered. History ? I’ll go to a museum or read a book of my own choice, not have some fucking Marxist ideology shoved down my throat. Games ? P.E. ? Fuck that, stand around with your dick frozen off so some old perv can get his jollies looking at you ? It’s the East End, we know how to fucking run. Physics ? Fuck that . . . “

Chris laughed, adding,

“Fuck Physics. Actually . . . I did.”

As for going to new places, Chris had a suggestion. Arizona Al was playing another gig in Mitte on Saturday, and both he and Richard were going, out of obligation. Daniel was invited and Chris wrote down the instructions and made a suggestion where to meet. He also wrote Richard’s phone number down.

Daniel thanked him with a vodka, and was introduced to new people as the bar filled up.

Several hours later, Daniel Roth was shaken awake at Hönow station.

“Oh, fucking hell,” he exclaimed. “Not again.”

Love and Chaos Part 6(L) Daniel 1

25th May 2021

Fischladen - Samariterkiez - Rigaer Str. 83
A Friedrichshain convenience. Google Images

Part Six. Berlin. April 1995

Though he was pretty immune to odours, Jake sometimes found it necessary to open the door and air out the bar while they were setting up.

The day had shown the first signs of a summer that promised to be warm and loving, a reward for surviving the harsh unrelenting Berlin winter.

Jake was sweeping in the back, by the stage, and Chris was behind the bar, stacking empty beer bottles in crates and getting tonight’s beer ready, when four builders walked in, the first asking in a north-English accent,

“You open, Mate ?” then sitting down before getting an answer.

Chris looked over at Jake who nodded.

“Sure. What can I get you ?” he asked, stressing his own Midlands accent.

“Fuck me, another one,” said the second man in his thick Irish brogue.

“Lot of us about, Paddy,” answered the third man, a thin, wiry Brummie with flecks of white paint in his hair.

“What’ve ya got, Mate ?” asked the fourth man, Daniel Roth.

Chris brought up a selection of bottles; Becks, Flensburger, Veltins and the Czech Staropramen.

“Give us a Becks. What d’you fuckers want ?” asked the Northerner.

“Do you not have no Guinness ? Fuck me. Go on, then, I’ll have to have a Flensburger, won’t I,” from the Irishman. The Brummie also chose a Becks and Daniel took a Staropramen.

“Look at that poncey twat, always gotta be different,” was the Northerner’s reaction to Daniel’s order.

They joked around insulting each other for a couple of rounds, then decided to leave.

The Northerner came back from the toilet, laughing,

“You oughtter see what it’s got writ in there: ‘Where is your Vortex ?’ (1) Too fucking right. I’ve been in some shite-holes in my time but this … Ah, no offence, Mate.”

Chris waved the insult away, suddenly remembering exactly why he had left England.

After they left, Jake was about to close the door, when he stopped and picked up a book that was on the floor. He held it out to Chris,

“This yours ? Lassa …’L’Assa moee …’ by . . . Emily Zola.”

“No, not mine. Sure as hell ain’t gonna belong to those thick-as-shit navies.”

Just then, Daniel came back in, looking for his book.

“Emile. It’s Emile, not Emily. And I wouldn’t insult builders, if I were you,” he said, looking at Chris, who was starting to lose the colour in his face, ”because those guys will pick you up with one hand and throw you against that back wall, there. Yeah, the book’s mine. We’re not all troglodytes, you know ? You can ‘ave it when I’m finished, all right ?”

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks.”

“You closing up then ?” Daniel asked.

Jake laughed, dispelling the tension and explained the opening hours. Daniel laughed.

“Well, maybe I’ll shoot by, later. Yeah, I know those guys are as thick as shit, but, they’re my mates, right ? And that ‘Vortex’ … Wyndham Lewis ?”

Chris nodded. He had written it one drunken night, inspired by a lecture from Melanie about how the cranes of the Baustelles (building sites) resembled Vorticist paintings. Jake had never noticed the graffiti.

But then Jake woke up a little,

“Hey, I wouldn’t insult builders if I were you.”

“Yeah, but the good thing is half the time they don’t even know they’re being insulted.” Daniel laughed at his own comment, realising the amount of truth in it. “Right then. See ya later.”

Later was still very early, just after ten o’clock and the bar was almost empty. Daniel sat on the first stool, by the door, and took another Czech beer. Chris looked at Jake and by mutual consent, agreed it was vodka time, though for Jake, it was always vodka time.

Chris poured one for Daniel, as a way of burying the hatchet. They talked about what they were doing in Berlin, where they came from and how much better life was here. Chris asked him where he lived,

“Wedding,” replied Daniel. This was an industrial Bezirk north of the centre, not renowned for its beauty. Not renowned for anything in fact.

“It must have been the only place in the West where people actually jumped The Wall into East Berlin,” he joked of his new neighbourhood.

Daniel was very impressed by both Chris and Jake living in squats and running the bar. But he began to be less impressed by the people that slowly started coming in, all neighbours and locals.

One such was Robert, a wild, crazy-looking German who sat next to him and proclaimed, without apparent cause or reason,

“Shit on a stick!”

The phrase was repeated endlessly throughout the night. Another large, almost obese customer nursed a solitary beer for hours and engaged in an animated conversation with himself. Squatters brought their dogs in and they snarled and barked, making their owners bark and snarl even louder than their pets in a vain attempt to make them stop. Jake barked louder than anyone, when he saw a dog about to defecate.

Then there was Peter. He was the father of the bar, a man in his mid fifties, with long yet stylish white hair and beard. He was very tall and looked as if he could have been a movie star in far distant days. He had travelled, was possibly an ex-sailor, and had been in Berlin longer than anyone could remember. He took a beer, then rested against a wall, observing proceedings. His only contribution was to raise his bottle to his lips and blow sharply, creating a shrill, resonating note, said note descending in pitch as he drank the beer.

Chris kept an eye on Daniel. He wasn’t looking quite so at home now.

Then the French arrived.

Johan had a group of friends who had either been in the army with him, or had come over to enjoy a cheaper, freer life.

They bounded in, Johan, Claude and several others, singing and shouting, Johan screaming out for vodka. Chris included Daniel in the communal drinking, despite his protests,

“I’ve got to fucking work, tomorrow. Fucking . . . OK, but last one.”

“Oh, you’ll be OK.” Chris winked at Jake.

By the time Richard arrived, desperately in need of alcohol, Daniel was swaying, smiling, singing, screaming. He was totally Czar-bared,

“Fuck you and your dry wall !”

“Eh, Jake, fucking hell, ‘ho is this man ?” asked Johan amused.

“Shit on a stick !” from Robert

“What’s wrong with continental breakfast ?” screamed out Peter, defying anyone to supply an answer.

Daniel, recalled back to life, laughed at Peter’s question and repeated it. Several times. It was at that point that Chris introduced him to Richard.

Picking up seamlessly on Chris’ lead, Richard insisted that the new friendship be cemented with a vodka. Daniel burst into song.

The whole bar, inspired by the French, took a vodka, Daniel almost drinking his shot before the communal toast and being restrained by Robert,

“Shit on your vodka!”

The madness continued. Daniel, in moments of lucidity, threatening to leave and get the last U-Bahn (long since gone) but he was now having longer periods of silence, head drooping, dropping, drooling, until he finally lay his head on the bar and slept.

Chris, who had been abstaining from the vodkas, had triumphed and he celebrated his victory by throwing crumpled cigarette boxes and old lemon peel at Daniel’s head, much to the amusement of Johan, bewilderment of Richard and apathy of everybody else.

After three-thirty, the bar began getting a little quieter, having been visited by a policemen who stood in the door and told them to keep the music down.

Another wonderful thing about Berlin. Here was a totally illegal bar in a squatted building and all the Police do is ask them to turn down the music. Having said that, a request from a German Policeman is pretty much an order, and was complied with. For a time..

Most of the French gone, the bar started to wind down. Richard was able to speak about his day, or rather his shift. He had worked with a new chef who was incredibly lazy, and some new bar staff who were incredibly boring. The novelty of being a Spüler had long worn off. But before Richard could complain further, Daniel woke up and staggered out of the door, no doubt determined to get the last U-Bahn.

Chris let out a celebratory cheer,

“Revenge !”

“Excuse me ?”

“Ah, never mind. Vodka ! Jake ? Vodka ?”

Jake stared uncomprehending. Wobbling around in the confined space behind the bar, he demanded of Chris,

“Do you have to ask ?”

The three drank and talked about the exit of Daniel.

“It’s amazing,” began Richard, “ people come in here, upright, homo erectus, sit at the bar, drink, drink again, and then, after the passage of time, they crawl out on all fours, to lie in a ball on the pavement, like single-cell pond life. It’s like watching evolution in reverse.”

His observation resulted in more vodka.

Richard left several hours later, making the mistake of going by S-Bahn. It involved a longer walk to the station, including a lengthy walk along the covered, elevated tunnel of Storkower Strasse, but was only a ten minute journey. The disadvantage was that if one slept, one was liable to find oneself in some distant suburb.

Richard woke up at Adlershof and took some time to adjust. He jumped off. Not only had he gone all the way to the northern terminus, he had come back on the same train and was now in south – east Berlin. The TV Tower, which should always be on his left, travelling home, was way off and to his right.

He knew that he didn’t have enough time to get home, get adequate sleep and return to work feeling anything close to well.

He worked yet another shift with a killer hangover.

However, it was more than Daniel Roth did. He didn’t make it into work. He had gotten on the first U-Bahn, but unfortunately the wrong one. He fell onto the train from Alexanderplatz, and was woken up by the guard at Hönow, in the east, the very distant east.

Chris, meanwhile, got his wages from Jake and merely had to fumble his way to the next door and up some stairs, where he fell into a deep and trouble free sleep.

(1) Vortex is the name of a household cleaning product in the UK

Love and Chaos Part 6(K) Richard 2

23rd May 2021

Wilkommen in der 78
A squatted house in Berlin’s Rigaer Strasse. Google Images

Part Six. Berlin. March 1995

“Ironic, isn’t it ?” asked Chris. “All that time Monika asked, told, me to move, now, after I dumped her, I’m leaving this flat.”

Richard was going to question some of the points, namely about Chris dumping Monika, but let it slide. He was helping Chris pack up, and trying to contain his excitement about having his own flat.

“After all, we can’t live together forever,” said Chris.

“Like Laurel and Hardy. Besides, they’d be no room for a horse in here. Be fun trying.”

“Think of the mess. You need to think things through.”

Richard laughed. They sorted out the books, not by ownership, but by who had read what.

Richard kept ‘The Soft Machine’ by William Burroughs and Chris took the short stories by Kafka. After devouring ‘The Trial’, Richard had toured the English language bookshops and second-hand stores for more of his work. They had collected a good sample of literature from these moments of serendipity. Chris eyed the library and exclaimed,

“Fucking hell. Just look at these titles: ‘Bleak House’. ‘Dead Souls’.”

Richard continued the list

“’Heart of Darkness’,’The End Of The Affair’, ‘The Plague’.”

“’Slaughterhouse 5′, ‘Death In The afternoon’”

“’Life Is Elsewhere’, ‘Memoirs From The House Of The Dead’, ‘Critique Of Pure Reason’. Hhmmm . . . must be your one.”

“Well I don’t want it.”

“Sure ? Could get you a lot of points, walking around museums, holding it ?”

Chris thought about museums full of impressionable young female students. He grabbed the book.

They walked to the U-Bahn station, Richard to go to work, Chris to get the adjacent S-Bahn to Storkower Strasse.

Some of the Czar Bar locals had asked Chris why he hadn’t move into a squat, especially as he was now an honourary squatter by dint of working in the Czar Bar. Jake’s squat became the model for how he imagined all such flats to look, but it was Johan who gave him a different perspective, as he too was a squatter, yet always managed to appear clean and respectable. At least by comparison.

The houses either side of the Czar Bar were squatted. There was an organized community with meetings, rules and (Chris later discovered) endless plenums and interminable meetings. Rooms were allocated to newcomers only after careful consultation. Free vodkas were a persuasive argument.

One night Johan was drinking and Chris working, when some men walked in and sat with Johan. They were Josef and Klaus, two men who had been living in the squat the longest and were the men to see about moving in. Johan told them about Chris needing a place to stay, how he had to go all the way back to Prenzlauer Berg after a whole night’s work (all of four S-Bahn stops) and, assisted by the aforementioned free vodka, they agreed to hold a plenum.

This word would come to haunt Chris, as every time there was a decision to made about absolutely anything … anything … someone would raise their hand and shout ‘plenum’, and everyone would have to gather around and hear the merits of whatever piece of nonsense was being discussed. But this first time, it gave him a chance of moving in, moving on.

Johan lived in Rigaer 77, and had a room in the Hinter Hof. The 77 squat also ran a bar of its own, the Temple du Merde, but it opened just on special occasions, and as the entrance was nothing more than a thin, rusted iron door, most people were oblivious of its existence.

It was in this building, not Jake’s, to the other side, into which Chris moved. He had a small room in the left-hand side of the Hof. The ground floor had ateliers, for the artists, and there was a constant coming and going and banging and shouting and screaming and smoking and drinking and generally a whole lot of nothing being accomplished, while a whole world of plans were being made.

Chris had the use of a kitchen, and there was a toilet on the floor below, but there was no bathroom. Yes, he was back in Rigaer Str.

Richard was eager to get home, to what was now his own flat.

Chris hadn’t always managed to pay his share of the rent, but as it was so cheap, it wasn’t a problem and anyway Chris had allowed Richard many nights of drinking, either free or, at most, a nominal charge.

Now he sat, listening to music and reading. He could sleep when he wanted and not worry about waking up, or being woken up by Chris.

It was quiet. Peaceful. Somewhat boring.

He was both tired, after work, but mentally active and knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Chris wasn’t working tonight, that he knew, but he would certainly be in the Czar Bar. And maybe Olga would be there.

He put his shoes and coat back on and headed to the bar.

Love and Chaos Part 6(J) Chris 2

22nd May 2021

City Getting Blander': Berlin Clears One of its Last Remaining Squats - DER  SPIEGEL
The famous Tacheles art center and bastion of squat. Google Images.

Part Six. Berlin. March 1995

Richard was happy to see Chris sitting at the end of the bar in Biberkopf. Happy, but not surprised. The previous Saturday, it had been Chris’ idea to go to some clubs in Mitte. The reason given was to have a break from the Czar Bar, but Richard knew that Chris was hoping to see Monika.

They had gone to several bars and clubs around Rosenthaler Platz but had just watched other people dance, rather than join in. Going out clubbing was going to be very different without the Gang.

Chris took an immediate dislike to a girl from New Zealand, whom he found loud and brash and not entirely pretty. She was dancing with a German theatre student (they surmised) who was wearing a white polo neck tucked into white jeans, held up with black braces. Chris took an instant dislike to him too.

The dreaded twosome began dancing, acting out some scenario that had her pretending to slap him, and him turning away in agony, with mechanical movements.

“Look the fuck at that. Robot dancing. Fucking hell, what is this, nineteen seventy-four ?”

“Do you think,” asked Richard, trying to salvage the evening, “that in some parallel universe, there are robots who go out, get lubricated, and start people dancing ?”

“Yes. I’m sure that’s exactly what happens.”

Richard felt his joke deserved better than that, but he knew the underlying cause. Chris was devastated over losing Monika. Considering the way the break up happened, there was little chance of a reconciliation.

Just over an hour after leaving the Mitte club, they were back in the Czar Bar, agreeing that they belonged here, with the squatters, punks, hard-core alcoholics, Tom Waits and Nick Cave, not with the would-be beautiful people and Euro Disco.

Having worked there with Jake, Chris was now well known and accepted. He knew nearly everyone by name, and gave Richard the low-down, who was worth knowing, who was best to avoid.

Tonight, it was Andrei and Olga working. Andrei resembled a Viking marauder, more than a Slav, with long blonde hair and a long blonde beard. He wasn’t especially tall, but made up for it by having an amazing girth. He was, quite simply, not a man to mess with. Occasionally some idiot with suicidal tendencies would venture his luck, but it was a short-lived enterprise. With Andrei it was one strike and you’re out. His girlfriend, Olga, was tall and slim, with blonde hair and a majestic bearing, looking like a Russian princess (Revolution notwithstanding). It was painfully easy to fall in love with her. So, of course, Richard did.

Apart from her beauty, she possessed two talents, highly prized. One was that she made the best Bloody Marys . . . ever. It was a remarkable sight to see giant, unwashed, street-fighting men sipping her concoction through a delicate straw.

The second talent was her voice. She would accompany herself on guitar, simple but effective picking, and out of her thin frame came the voice of an angel. An angel, however, with a distinct liking for tequila.

As there was barely a night without someone coming in with a guitar and playing, whether they were requested to or not, and as Olga loved the attention, so deserved, she often gave an impromptu concert .

This night, however, there was a little tension between her and her boyfriend. Richard sensed this, but Chris, drinking quickly and encouraging Richard to do same, was too busy with his own problems.

Then Jake arrived, making all attempts at conversation useless. He bombarded Chris and Richard with a detailed account of the awful food he had just eaten at a late night Imbiss. When he left to use the toilet, Chris said,

“What a fucking voice. Like a foghorn.”

“Yeah, Foghorn Leghorn.”

This unexpected, though remarkably apt comment, together with the beers and vodka, put them into a laughing fit, that continued as Jake returned. He naturally was curious as to the cause. Richard was in the mood for mischief.

“We were speaking about favourite cartoon characters. I used to love Foghorn Leghorn, but we can’t remember his catchphrase.”

Jake stepped up, puffing out his chest and strutting around,

“I say I saw a, saw a, I say, I saw a chicken”

It was too much. Richard was having difficulty breathing and Chris all but fell off his chair. Jake took this as a positive sign, and continued, with appropriate chicken and rooster movements.

Olga was looking at Richard and laughing, knowing he was the instigator.

“Hey, Olga gets it.”

“No, she’s from Moscow, she doesn’t know what the fuck a Foghorn Leghorn is,” Chris argued.

But after that, memories became hazy; there were snatches of Jake strutting around the bar, greeting bemused newcomers with the catchphrase and ordering drinks in the galline manner.

Richard woke up some time Sunday afternoon, having no idea how they had arrived home. He got into a panic and checked his possessions. Travel ticket, watch, wallet, even some money left. All was well with the world and what wasn’t could wait.

The next day Chris was at Richard’s work, joking with the bar staff. Matias was making the bar, a moustachioed bodybuilder type, who had a hands-on policy with regards to the female staff. Ully was being her pleasant self, obviously not too concerned with making large tips and a new girl, Jolande, was also working. Richard described her as that rarest of creatures, a German with a sense of humour.

Seeing that Chris was a friend of Richard’s, she made some jokes with him, and hid his beer when he went into the kitchen to say, “Hi,” to the chef.

Unfortunately, she was the world’s worst at keeping a joke, and couldn’t help bursting out laughing after only a few seconds. But she earned points for the effort.

Later, as she walked into the kitchen, Chris heard a high-pitch shriek, and saw Jolande running out, chased by Richard who, by the position of his hands, had just grabbed her sides.

“What are you doing to her ?” laughed Chris.

“Tickling her, of course,” was the reply, as natural as possible.

After Richard’s shift, they sat and drank together, Jolande joining them as she ate her meal. Chris appeared happy and relaxed, but was clearly looking more cheerful than he actually felt.

By tacit agreement, they took the night buses to the Czar Bar.

Micha and Serge had the bar, and they tended to close relatively early. They didn’t exactly draw the crowds either, playing continuous Death Metal. Though they changed the CD’s periodically, the noise remained the same.

Walking along Rigaer Str, in the early hours, the outdoor lamp of The Czar Bar was usually the only beacon, though hardly of hope, as there may well have hung a sign above the door, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter’. No one here gets out sober.

They opened the door, pushed aside the curtain and found two bar stools easily. The bar was mainly empty, the few drinkers dispersed to all corners.

After ordering two Becks and two vodkas, Chris got straight to the point.

“I have to win Monika back.”

He was expecting an evening of planning and scheming. He wasn’t prepared for Richard’s answer,

“Why ?”

It almost knocked Chris off his stool. When he finally spoke, it was defensive,

“I thought you liked Monika ?”

“I did. Do. But you and her together . . . I don’t think so.”

“Wow. Like . . . shit ! You mean it ?”

“Oh, yeah. Lovely girl, and you’re . . . OK, I suppose, but the two of you ? How many fights did you have ? How many times did you break up and get back together ? How many times did you come to me and ask what the fuck to do ?”

“You want individual figures or a combined total ?”

“C’mon. Every time you had to pay rent, it was problems.”

Chris knew only too well, as he had to walk to the flat of Ute’s friend, thus remaining in indirect contact with his ex-girlfriend.

“I know, it was a constant pain. And the work. When I left the Noodle Nuthouse, you hugged me, she almost cut my balls off. She wanted me to stay a Spüler. And then she hated that I was only a Spüler. Frauen !”

“What we need . . . is a new drink. The shots are gonna act too quickly.”

“I don’t think these bastards carry Pimms.”

“What we need is . . . “ Richard looked at the unimpressive, shabby collection of bottles. “Tequila. Tequila ? What goes with tequila ?”

“Cactus-smelling vomit. Wouldn’t mind a Run ‘n’ Coke.”

“Can’t see rum. Or Coke.”

“We’re gonna have to stick to beer and vodka, aren’t we ?”

“Looks like it,” agreed Richard.

There was a thud on the back door, then some keys desperate to find the lock. The door opened and something could be heard dragging itself in. Micha and Serge turned to each other and exchanged curses in Russian.

After some uncomfortable sounds, resembling a man being tossed from side to side in the corridors of a ship in a heavy storm, Jake appeared, somehow remaining upright in the entrance between vestibule and bar. He saw Chris and Richard and greeted them, hugging Chris from behind, but forgetting to let go.

Serge spoke in German, Jake answered and then stopped, as if suspended. He remained like this for some minutes, as the Russians started to close the bar, packing up the crates and chasing the drinkers out.

Richard began to leave, but Chris stopped him.

More talk between The Russians and Jake, then they left, shaking their heads and muttering. Jake screamed after them, half German, half English,

“Kein angst, alles klar (don’t worry, it’s all right) I’ll lock up. Ich habe der Schlüssel (I have the key.) You go to bed.” Then he turned to his two guests,

“You two guys need a drink ? ‘Cause I might have something in back. Don’t know, have to check. Have to check.”

Yet Jake remained standing and Chris had to lead him to the store room. Once inside, he made a series of pleasantly surprised sounds and returned, armed with beer bottles and a half bottle of Stolichnaya.

The remainder of the night was spent with Chris speaking about Monika, Richard speaking about Olga and Jake just speaking.

When Richard began working that night, he still had a hangover, which gradually faded, thanks to the endless coffees he drank. By the time his shift was over, he was in the mood for a drink, and, as luck would have it, Chris was helping Jake in the Czar Bar that night.

Love and Chaos Part 5(I) Chris 3

3rd May 2021

photo by Martin O’Shea 2021

Part Five. Berlin. Winter 1994

Chris emptied his Brief Kaste, threw away the Werbung (adverts) and took the envelope upstairs. He recognized the handwriting at once, and the British stamp only confirmed that here was another letter from Melanie.

He had promised Richard that he’d go to a travel agents with him, help book his ticket to London, but had just received some bad news from the studio: there would be no more work in the new year. The studio was closing down.

It had created a surreal atmosphere. Anyone who turned up got paid, but nobody was doing any work. People just sat around, drinking coffee and smoking. The room was full of uncertainty, worrying how rents would be paid, some wondering whether they would return to Berlin after their visits home for Christmas.

Chris kept this from Richard, but asked him if he knew what the situation was at Biberkopf, as he could take over the shifts while Richard was away.

The flight was booked with Chris insisting that Richard get back in time for New Year’s Eve, ‘Sylvester’, in Germany.

“You just wouldn’t believe it, it’s like a war zone, people throwing bangers, fireworks, everyone out drinking on the streets. You’ll love it. Hey, new year, new start. It’ll be OK, you know.’

“You sure about that ?”

“Yes. I am.” An optimistic answer from Chris who would start the new year unemployed. He knew that if he told Richard, then Richard would immediately give up the Biberkopf job, insist on giving it back to Chris and would therefore have an excuse to stay in London.

On Christmas Day, Chris fixed himself a breakfast of smoked salmon, day old rolls, some tangerines, and several cups of coffee.

Monika was at her sister’s, just outside Leipzig, Gabi back in Vienna. Silke was in Bavaria, Kai incommunicado and Andreas had somehow found the money to go to Turkey. Lorelei was staying in Berlin, but Chris was sensitive enough not to mention her, or to blatantly not mention her. Tommy was visiting family in Aachen, in the west of Germany and Gert had naturally disappeared somewhere.

In the early afternoon, Chris went for a walk, enjoying the freedom of being totally alone in his city. The roads were almost empty, only an occasional car passing by and beeping hello. The shops were all shut, even the Imbisses had closed, or so it seemed. A side street off Schönhauser Allee had two fluttering flags, showing that at least one fast food joint was open. Chris made a note of it, should he require a Christmas kebab.

With no direction or purpose, Chris turned into Danziger Str and thought he’d walk to Friedrichshain. He walked along this notoriously tedious road, smoking, strolling, feeling quite happy. For the moment. The shit was going to hit the fan, so he may as well enjoy this anomaly of peace and quiet.

In four days time, both Monika and Melanie would arrive in Berlin. Melanie was arriving early evening and expected to be met at Tegal airport. Monika was driving, probably arriving late evening. The next day, the 30th, Richard arrived back, same time flight as Melanie, but he could make his own way home. Chris could stay at Monika’s, leaving Richard with Melanie. That image made him laugh out loud.

Then, how would Monika react to Melanie ? Melanie to Monika ? How would Richard be ? Chris knew he was in a lot of pain, more than he could help him with, and just hoped that his break in London would give him the distance he needed.

After half an hour, he was at Rigaer Str and thought he’d try Café Kinski. It was locked, but there were people inside, so it was probably a private party. He walked on, past more squat bars, squat houses, negotiating the piles of dog shit on the street and the distinctive odours of shit and piss and vomit and sweat and fumes and fast food. He felt at home.

After walking along the Strasse he saw a light above the door of the Czar Bar. It was open.

Coming from the left, there was a large, single pane window, with the Cyrillic ‘bap’ (bar) painted along the lower edge. The window was usually crammed with junk, but it was still possible to see inside, see who was working.

Chris peaked in and saw a figure in a fedora, twisting around, reaching for some glasses and a bottle of vodka. Tidings of comfort and joy.

The Czar bar was entered by walking up a step, into a sheltered vestibule, both sides plastered with flyers and stickers, flapping and peeling off. The door was solid, bottle green, also covered in small posters. Immediately inside was a thick black curtain, which had to be brushed aside.

The bar had changed a lot since Chris dragged an unimpressed Nuno and a repulsed Melanie here. A year ago. A lifetime ago.

There was now a more permanent looking bar, stretching from the door and curving around to the flipper (pinball) room. There were pallets below the bar, making a step up to the tall stools that were bolted down. Drunks may continue to fall, but the chairs would remain standing.

Above the bar, was a flat surface reaching to the ceiling, giving the bar the appearance of a kiosk. Behind the bar was the large dresser, now with more bottles and glasses, and a CD system, playing early Neil Young.

Around the room were placed round tables and along the walls, two old sofas. Chris looked into the far recess of the bar and saw that there was actually a stage, reached by four or five steps.

The room had also been painted; it was now a dull, deep orange, and with the main shutter down, and low wattage bulbs, it could easily have been late evening, not afternoon.

Chris took a seat at the bar, next to some Germans who looked half-way pissed already, but smiled at him warmly. He smiled back.

“Heeeeyyy, Chris, welcome back. Haven’t seen you around here for a while,” said Jake the Barman, extending a hand for a complex series of shakes.

“I was here last month.”

“You were ? Where was I ?”

Chris pointed to the end stool,

“Over there.”

“Oh, right, I wasn’t working, I’m only out of it when I’m not working, yeah, Yuri was work .. no, let me … Micha ? Hell, I don’t know, what the fuck does it matter, hey ? Oh, Merry Christmas, can I get you a Christmas cocktail ?”

“What’s in it ?”

“Vodka and … vodka.”

“OK, I’ll have a double.”

This made Jake laugh, and they drank together, Jake introducing him to everyone who came in. By evening, Chris was very tipsy, and the bar, which was also looking tipsy, was full. Tom Waits had at some point replaced Neil Young.

A small, well built man with a dark beard and moustache came in and rested both elbows on the bar, staring intensely at Jake.

“Jake. Vodka,” he barked in German. Jake was having difficulty controlling his eyes, which were scanning the room, back and forth, and he was also trying to dance along to the music, but he managed to open a new vodka, pick up three shot glasses in one hand and pour the vodka to the very top of the glasses without spilling a drop. He spoilt this achievement by licking the drips off the bottle.

“Claude … Chris. Chris. Claude,” said Jake, making the introductions. Claude turned the intense gaze on Chris, looking him right in the eyes from across the bar. Then he raised his glass, said, ‘Santé’, and downed it in one gulp. He let out a vodka sigh, shook his head, slapped himself once or twice and clicked his fingers.

“Jake. Noch drei mehr (three more).” Jake repeated the process, Claude repeated his ritual of sighing and slapping, then slammed down some money on the counter and left.

Chris had no recollection of leaving, or getting home, or indeed, buying his Christmas Döner, but did find the tell-tale tin foil in his dustbin, along with small chunks of meat and purple cabbage that he kept discovering around his flat over the next days.

On the 28th, Monika called, saying she couldn’t wait to see him. It was then that he told her about Melanie arriving.

The line went dead.

But not for long.

There followed a lengthy conversation with accusations and insinuations, despite all of Chris’ assertions that she was, and always had been, a friend and nothing more. Why should Monika know so many men, and Chris not be allowed any female friends ? Monika easily countered that by mentioning all the ladies of The Gang. Then Chris had a moment of inspired genius,

“All right, it’s for Richard. You know he’s heartbroken.” Monika went silent. Chris pressed on, amazed by his brilliance and enjoying the previously unknown sensation of being victor in an argument’

“And why ? I’m not blaming anyone, here, but, well, all I’m gonna say is that Lorelei is your friend. That’s all. I’ll say no more. If Melanie can help him, be a friend to him, then … yeah, it’s good she’s coming.”

He realized his ending was weak, and knew not to press his point, not to allow Monika too much of a chance for a killer comeback.

It ended with Monika telling him what a great friend he was to Richard and how much she really loved him.

He didn’t tell her about losing his job and not knowing how he would pay the rent in February.

On the 30th, Richard arrived back in Berlin. He knew that it would take some time before he felt better, or normal, or whatever was the correct word for recovering from a broken heart, but he was determined to get over Lorelei.

As he passed through passport control, he was greeted by Chris, making high-pitch whistle noises, pretending he was blowing into a party streamer. Next to him was Melanie. Chris, through an exaggerated smile said,

“Look … it’s Melanie !”

“So I see.’

Chris had taken precautions, making sure he had a half bottle of vodka with him for the journey back.

At the flat, they sorted out the sleeping arrangements. Monika wouldn’t be back until late, so she would come over tomorrow and they would all go out. It was all planned.

Richard had brought back some books, an old Sunday Times, some English crumpets, Marmite, and a couple of new CDs for the CD player that Ute had left in the flat.

“Hey … look.” He held up the ‘Reality Bites’ soundtrack and ‘Monster’ by REM.

Chris whooped and grabbed the soundtrack and played it. As soon as the first song, ‘My Sharona’ came on, Melanie began complaining,

“Oh, The Knack, so brainless,” and other disparaging remarks.

There was a definite vibe in the room, and Chris thought the best way to dispel it was to go out drinking. Richard wanted to change his shoes, and put on an old pair of boots. He withdrew his foot, rapidly, as it was obstructed by something. He reached in and pulled out what he presumed was an old piece of rotten cardboard, and threw it away, without giving it a second thought, this was Berlin, after all, but Chris was amazed, not to say perturbed that kebab meat was still turning up.

The celebrations for Sylvester began early, and even from the flat in the Hinterhof, with windows closed, they could hear intermittent explosions as soon as they woke.

Chris was up first, and went out, looking to find any shops, so as to have Sekt and possibly food when Monika arrived.

Melanie and Richard sat drinking coffee together. They compared this flat with it’s gas heater in the kitchen and bathroom, to the flat in Rigaer Str. They talked about that November, motor bike crashes and walking around Berlin in the snow. Richard remembered going all the way to the museum at Karlshort, where the Germans signed the unconditional surrender in may 1945, and finding it closed, but seeing a genuine Russian soldier walking along the road, a rather small specimen, with bright red, dripping nose and hat with ear flaps. Melanie brought up the fire and worried about Chris burning his hands,

“He has the most beautiful hands of any man, ever.”

Richard was also curious how Monika and Melanie would get on.

“I’m going to like Monika, I know,” she said, “we’ll probably go off together and have a good time, a good chat, and bitch all about Chris.”

Richard wasn’t so certain.

Around eight o’clock, there was a furious thumping on the door. Chris opened it, and from the main room, Richard and Melanie could hear him greet Monika, as well as hearing other female voices. Richard recognized Lorelei and took the next seconds to compose himself.

Then Monika, Gabi and Lorelei came in, all smiles and hugs. Melanie kept back, while they all hugged and kissed, then extended a hand to the three women. Richard put on the soundtrack CD, and as the opening drums and bass pounded out, Monika began jumping around and dancing, followed first by Chris, then Richard, then Gabi, then Lorelei.

There was a babel of languages as they tried to decide what to do. Chris had bought some Sekt and insisted the only way to start an evening was with a bottle of Sekt. Richard nodded sagely at this piece of received wisdom and Gabi backed him up. There only being four glasses, the men drank out of cups.

“OK, listen, we’ll go to Arizona Al’s, first. He’s at Eberswalder Str, we can walk there. Then … where’s the first party ?”

Monika answered him,

“Friedrichshain, near Simon Dach Str. There will be … seven of us, no ? Ja, seven, so we need two taxis.”

Then Gabi coughed suggestively. Monika picked up the hint.

“Ah, point, would anyone like a little … something … nice … hahaha ?” She put the back of one finger to one nostril and sniffed through the other one.

Chris lit up,

“Yeah, let’s go!”

“OK, anybody need the toilet first ? Richard ?” asked Monika.

“Are you sure ?”

“What am I ? Six years old ?”

Monika laughed and led Chris into the bathroom. Shortly afterwards, Chris quoting another line from ‘Pulp Fiction’, screamed,

“I say, Goddamn!”

Richard was next, and took the rolled up fifty Mark note, sniffing the trail of white powder off the toilet lid. Monika came back and asked Melanie, who just shook her head.

Finally, they were good to go.

Walking down Schönhauser Allee, Melanie began to fall behind the others and Richard, not wishing to leave her out, walked along with her, listening to her observations, while wishing he were part of that chain up ahead, as they all walked with linked arms, and Lorelei, in three-quarter length coat and black boots, was looking more beautiful than ever.

Love and Chaos Part 5(G) Tommy 2

22nd April 2021

Photo by Martin O’Shea 2021

Part Five. Berlin. Autumn 1994

“Yeah, I was in bed when The Wall came down. I’d been out the night before, didn’t get back until seven or eight, and just crashed the whole day.

“Finally got up late at night and went to make some coffee and what do you know ? Got no milk. So I’m thinking, ‘Scheisse ! Gotta go out.’ And I’m feeling like day-old shit, and I’m looking like shit and I smell like shit, but, you know, just go to the store and get some milk, no biggie.

“Now, I didn’t put the TV on, or the radio, I’m just focused on my little world which has a serious milk crises going on.

“I’m on the streets, and yeah, I hear all this noise and cars beeping and shouting, but I just think that a football team’s won, don’t really think too much about anything, but, as I get to the main road, it’s full of people, and flags and banners and these … I don’t know what, cars, there’s all these fucking Trabi’s (Trabants) and it’s true, they only came in two colours; sky blue or spermy white. Sorry, but it’s true, these fuckin’ cum-mobiles crawling along the street.

“Then I’m in the store and it’s usually pretty quiet, but tonight, it’s full, full of people picking up tins of soup, or bananas, and waving them around. But these people … it wasn’t like they were from another country, it was like they were from another planet.

“So, I get my milk, but I have to queue to pay for it, and the queue just isn’t moving, everyone’s talking and shouting, and I’m thinking what the fuck’s this ? It was more like we had been invaded by them, and now we’re going have to spend all day queueing for bread and potatoes.

“OK, I know history can’t stop, just so as I can get some milk, but come on, wait until I’m sober.

“Then at home I put on the TV for background, and it’s on every channel. I was a part of history, the streets of Berlin, November ‘89, and just wished they’d all fuck off back over The Wall. Come back tomorrow.”

Richard took over directing the car, along Karl Marx Allee, then up into the western part of Rigaer Str.

Café Kinski was full and they got the only free table. Tommy held court, shouting loudly, easily projecting over Rage Against The Machine (Philipp was working and gave Richard a cursory nod).

There was an asymmetrical dynamic to the group, two girls and three boys and Anna appeared to be pulling towards Richard. Karin and Tommy had already staked their claims on each other.

However, Richard was in love with someone else, and stepped aside for Andreas, who wasn’t sure where he was with Silke, and within an hour, the two Germans had gone back with the two Danes. Richard had more beer, then made his way home, alone.

Two weeks later, he wished he had chased Anna, as one night of pleasure may have saved him months of pain.


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Stella Artois sends love letters to restaurants

Who: Stella Artois with DraftLine for creative, Vizeum for media and Veritas for PR.

What: An advertising-based extension of the beer brand’s year-long “Rally for Restaurants” program, “Love Artois,” that turned people’s positive reviews of their favourite restaurant into ads.

When & Where: Out-of-home ads ran in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal until May 9, with social running until this weekend (May 23).

Why: Stella Artois launched “Rally for Restaurants,” in Canada during the pandemic’s early days. It started as a gift card initiative, a way to inject revenue directly into the many businesses hit hard early in the crisis. But Stella Artois has found a handful of different ways to activate the program across Canada in the last year (like this, this and this).

“We see the support of restaurants and our broader business goals as one in the same,” said Mike Bascom, marketing director for Stella Artois at Labatt Breweries of Canada. “Our on-premise relationships and sales are a huge part of our business model, and without our loved local restaurants, Stella Artois in Canada wouldn’t be what is it today.”

The latest iteration was about sharing positive messages about beloved bars and restaurants on social media, and turning those messages into paid advertising.

How: Consumers can visit the Stella Artois site to write their feel-good review of their establishment of choice. That note is then inserted into a stylized “love letter” featuring a Stella Artois illustration that can be shared through social channels. Aside from visiting the site, people could also simply post a review using the #LoveArtois hashtag. Stella Artois chose some of the love letters to run as paid ads.

“Our goal is to invite Canadians to put their feelings into words, showing our favourite local spots just how much we appreciate them and miss dining in person,” said Bascom.

By late last week, they had more than 1,000 love letters mentioning #LoveArtois, and had spotlighted more than 50 restaurants in OOH ads.

Why outdoors when we’re supposed to be staying indoors: “We wanted to highlight restaurants in-person, and in a way, put them on a pedestal,” said Bascom. “OOH was the avenue to do that… The hospitality industry needs our help more than ever, so the OOH space is one way we can give back to our communities and spread the love in a big way.”

And we quote: “We want to see restaurants open their doors just as much as Canadians do, and we want to support them as much as we can along the way. Focusing our marketing dollars to do that is just another way to help us get back to enjoying a Stella Artois when restaurants re-open.” —Mike Bascom, marketing director for Stella Artois, Labatt Breweries of Canada

David Brown

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text:
The Spark

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.” — Karl Marx

In Temporary Shelter Refugees Manage Themselves

Mar 21, 2011

The U.N. announced that more than 810,000 Haitians still live in refugee camps. Some 125,000 temporary shelters were planned, but only 19,000 have been built!

The Haitian government has shown itself incapable of pressuring public, private and U.N. sources for the heavy equipment needed to clear and demolish ruins, because those are the institutions it serves! For the same reason, the government has been unable to take over private land and avoids expropriating it. The refugees living in tents looked for another place to live as soon as they could. They returned to their neighborhoods and cleared, collected and stacked up concrete blocks to provide more solid shelter.

On February 10th, a river south of the capital Port-au-Prince overflowed its banks with the first big rain of the year. Three days of rain led to more floods. The national road was washed out; several parts of the capital were flooded, as were at least three refugee camps.

Due to the absence of dredging, each time there’s a downpour the area floods. Whenever those living near the river demand public works, the government says it doesn’t have the resources to aid them.

Some people say they must take care of matters themselves, without waiting for institutional aid. They are right. The situation is urgent, since the hurricane season begins in June, which also brings the threat of cholera.


text:
Sammo Hung

  • Hung Ching-Pao
  • Hung Kam-Bo
  • Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
back to movies
Forgettable (Tuesday, October 26, 2010)
King Hu (Director, Writer, Editor) Han Ying-Chieh (Action Director) Poon Yiu-Kwan (Action Director) Hsu Feng Shih Jun
Greatest martial arts film of all time? (Tuesday, April 25, 2006)
Ann Hui (Director) Ching Siu-Tung (Action Director) Michelle Yeoh Sammo Hung Ken Lo
Good dramatic film for Michelle & Sammo (Tuesday, October 18, 2005)
A work of art (Sunday, April 14, 2002)
Astonishing or Confusing? (Wednesday, May 18, 2005)
Huang Feng (Director, Writer) Sammo Hung (Action Director) Golden Harvest (Production Company) Chang Yi Woo Gam Pai Ying
Simple but effective story of revenge (Sunday, June 6, 2021)
Sammo Hung (Director, Action Director) Chiu Cheung-Gwan (Action Director) Ti Lung Yeung Fan Cynthia Khan Ngai Sing
Jeng Cheong-Woh (Director) Yuen Wo-Ping (Action Director) Hsu Hsia (Action Director) Golden Harvest (Production Company)
Definitely one for martial arts fans to see (Wednesday, March 28, 2007)


text:
Zombie Ass: Toilet Of The Dead (2011)

Directed by
Almost justifies all the other zombie movies existence(s)
Reviewed by Simon on 2013-04-21

A group of Japanese youngsters go camping in the woods, where they are attacked by zombies who live in the toilet, and which are actually being controlled by (possibly alien) intestinal parasites. The end.

Noboru Iguchi certainly has one of the most fertile imaginations in modern cinema, and indeed in human history. Certainly one of the most twisted, anyway! ZOMBIE ASS: TOILET OF THE DEAD features many of his usual interests such as ass-kicking school girls and exploding heads, and blends them with some of the most gutter-dwelling toilet humour of our generation, and a fair amount of salubrious titillation. I suppose it was only a matter of time before his day job as director of such AV fare as BEAUTIFUL GIRL EXCRETION SCHOOL caught up with his hobby of directing gross-out gore fests, but to have hoped that the result should be such a wickedly creative and hilarious piece of stupidity would seem naively optimistic. Somehow he pulls it off though!

Few directors are able to so consistently put a smile on my face as Iguchi and his regular collaborator Yoshihiro Nishimura. ZOMBIE ASS is disgusting. It is stupid. It is juvenile, it is cheesy, it is cheap. It is not quite like anything you've seen before. It is genius. It is great!

Special Effects
  • Zombie Ass 042
  • Zombie Ass 013
  • Zombie Ass 003
  • Zombie Ass 035
  • Zombie Ass 010
  • Zombie Ass 002
  • Zombie Ass 055
  • Zombie Ass 071
  • Zombie Ass 016
  • Zombie Ass 073


text:
Category: Dishonesty of the U.S. Media

Washington Post Admits Wuhan Lab Leak Theory Was Dismissed Because it was Supported by Trump

At a Jan. 30, 2020 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican told colleagues: “This coronavirus is a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl for China. But […]


text:
I do so love having someone cough in my face…

… Especially from a human I created.

The last week has been a delight. My son has been sick. The fever, green stuff producing cough version of it. Couple that with snot everywhere courtesy of  both my humans, and it is no surprise that today as they revel in their returned full health status, I sit watching Netflix trying to work out which lung is trying to remove itself via my windpipe.

I am being dramatic. I do so enjoy being dramatic. But prior to single parent status I was in awe of how single parents parented at any time, let alone sick. Hats off to you all – this shit is hard!

With my father having just been told his cancer is ‘waking up’ again (such a lovely gentle way of describing something deadly), I was unable to get help to take a break. It is something underacknowledged in functioning couples with children – even when your partner is the normal version of useless you still have backup in some form. Not having any readily available sees you develop what I will flatter myself and call a superhuman strength. To back up this statement I will choose not to mention the sugar that has propped me up, or the alcohol that has taken the edge off when I needed a break from the never ending needs of children.

Going to bed alone has become a luxury I desire. Sleeping without a child pulling my hair or kicking me in the back is the best dream. Or time when I don’t wipe another person’s snot or spit off my face in an ongoing dance of cough/sneeze/wipe, cough/sneeze/wipe. Time that is mine and mine alone. It is all I want. I am really that low maintenance.

I right now am ruining this rare time alone (the children are with a carer that comes once a week for 6 hours) by watching The Legend of Tarzan. Why? Not a clue. I think I was thinking I needed something light but jeez, this is offensively awful. And yet I don’t turn off. I blame Margo Robbie – she has intoxicating eyes and I feel like I owe my countrywoman the decency of watching this shitfest through.

I think it is the left lung trying to make its escape. I’ll let you know how it gets on.

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The Appeal Podcast Episode 3: Turning Users Into Dealers and Overdoses into Murders

Guest Zachary A. Siegel is a journalist covering the opioid crisis.

Students learn to put together a Naloxone spray gun in a class on opioid overdose prevention held by non-profit Positive Health Project in New York City.
Illustration by Anagraph / Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty

The Appeal Podcast Episode 3: Turning Users Into Dealers and Overdoses into Murders

Guest Zachary A. Siegel is a journalist covering the opioid crisis.

Prosecutors and law enforcement agencies have been bringing murder charges against people who supply friends and family with drugs. As the opioid epidemic marches on, efforts to curb heroin and prescription drug abuse through increased arrests and harsh sentencing look just as misguided as earlier phases of the so-called “war on drugs” that began in the 1970s. Journalist Zachary A. Siegel joins us to explain the disturbing evolution of the drug war in the era of opioid abuse.

The Appeal is available on iTunesSoundcloud and LibSyn RSS. You can also check us out on Twitter.

Adam Johnson: Hi, welcome to The Appeal, a podcast on abolition, reform and everything in between. I’m your host Adam Johnson. Today’s topic is the criminalization of addiction and the opioid crisis as a pretext for more lawmaking and prosecution. Our guest is Zachary Siegel, a Guggenheim fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a contributor to The Appeal.

[Begin Clip]

Zachary Siegel: Drugs are like usually a container for like hysteria and fear. I mean we saw in that, I wasn’t around at this time, but we saw it in the crack cocaine crisis. I mean crack became a container to hold so much hysteria and xenophobia and urban plight and fear.

[End Clip]

Adam: Thanks for joining us Zachary.

Zachary Siegel: Thanks for having me.

Adam: You wrote a piece in The Appeal back in March titled, for those at home, “In an Upstate New York Community Wracked by Overdoses, Prosecutor Pursues Users in Homicides Cases.” It’s such a cliché but there are so many cities and small towns like this throughout the country. You focus specifically on how the heroin epidemic or pandemic or however you want to define it has been met by law enforcement officials and prosecutors in what you describe, I think very thoroughly, as a kind of haphazard and overly punitive manner which is something we’ve seen time and time and time again since the rise of the heroin epidemic, as it were, five some odd years ago when it really sort of came into the cultural zeitgeist as something we had to tackle. The thing I liked most about the piece was you put a human face on it. So I want to talk about that human face, Richard Gaworecki of Union, New York. Can you tell us about his situation and what you found in the reporting of his case and what this says about the broader approach to the war on drugs?

Zachary Siegel: So I never actually spoke to Gaworecki himself, but I spoke to one of his friends and also one attorney in Broome County and you know this town it’s pretty small and like everyone sort of knows everyone’s business. That’s really the sense I got after talking to a few people who live there and one of Richard Gaworecki’s friends is, he was a 27, 28 year old guy and there was just like a small group of friends from high school, they’re all in their late twenties now, but they were all using heroin together and in this sort of social network basically whoever has money that day is the person buying the drugs. Right? And then that will then turn into a transaction between friends. So like if I have ten bags of heroin well, ‘You get a couple, you get a couple and, you know, give me whatever you can now and just know that next time I need heroin, you’re going to be able to get me.’ And that’s just sort of how these relationships work. It’s a self-preservative and, and, and survival. And so in this friend group, one day the batch of heroin is maybe extra potent. Maybe there’s illicit fentanyl in it. And one member of this friend group, um, his name, Nicholas McKiernan, he fatally overdosed. And then, uh, at the scene, the police look at his phone and it’s very obvious that Richard Gaworecki sold him the heroin and so this is just one case and there’s many like it where a close friend or a romantic partner or a friend of a friend is basically charged with killing their friend. And um, yeah, like you said, it’s very punitive and it’s very harsh and I think it’s emblematic of this sort of just-do-something attitude about the overdose crisis, like it’s been going on for so long that at this point it’s like people just need to look as though they’re doing something and apparently charging friends with murdering their friends is that something in this case.

Adam: Let’s back up here and set the table. What is the broader heroin epidemic as it’s sort of generally understood from a macro scale and how have the Obama and Trump White Houses responded to it in general and how have states and local prosecutors responded to it in general?

Zachary Siegel: Yeah, I mean that’s actually like a really good question that few people really stop to think about. So in my reporting, I’ve actually stopped calling it an “opioid epidemic” for various reasons. One of those is in epidemiology there’s always a causative vector of any epidemic, so it’s like HIV or Ebola, the virus, when you come into contact with that, you get sick and you might die. With opioids however, almost every single American has taken one at one point in their life for surgery or their wisdom teeth or whatever and the majority of us don’t get addicted to it. The majority of us don’t seek out more after we get a prescription and the majority of us don’t overdose and die. And so to say that opioids are the causative vector in the epidemic just doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense in epidemiological terms. And so I just call it an “overdose crisis” because that’s what’s happening. People are overdosing and I think there’s so many reasons why and obviously very potent drugs are causing that overdose. But, um, I think broadly people really don’t understand that starting around 2012, the heroin in the United States began to be contaminated with illicitly manufactured fentanyl. And this stuff is super potent and it’s by and large seen as a poisoned by people like drug users don’t want this stuff in their drugs, but there it is and it’s killing people. And so, so many people are dying because so many users haven’t adapted to that new market. And so that’s like the big problem right now is fentanyl is killing more people than heroin. It’s killing more people than prescription painkillers. And so the, one of the major problems I see on like a federal health policy level is all the attention was pointed at pharmaceutical companies and their marketing and prescription painkillers and the CDC took it upon themselves to write prescribing guidelines in the hopes that doctors would ultimately prescribe way fewer opioids then they were. And since 2011 the amount of prescription painkillers out there has dramatically declined and the rate of prescribing among doctors has also declined since about 2011. But the overdose rates have exponentially risen since then. And that sort of, there’s a lot of debate about like, did reducing the supply of painkillers push people to the illegal market and cause more overdoses. Um, it’s, there’s so much like problems with proving causality in any one direction there, but um, that’s definitely one thing people think. And at this point that’s been like the major solution here is to reduce the reservoir of prescription painkillers and control the drug supply. That’s usually how America responds to any sort of drug problem. It’s, let’s get rid of the drugs. And so far that’s obviously not working and Trump is obsessed with his border wall and things that’ll keep drugs out and just is patently absurd on the face of it. Like that wall is not going to keep drugs from coming into the States.

Adam: Yeah. What’s interesting is how much he’s really tapped into this id, this kind of rural white id that the reason why there’s a drug problem, which I’m happy to sort of acknowledge that there is a drug problem, anyone who’s from the middle or a small town in different parts of the country knows, that we all know people who are addicted to heroin, people we went to school with so forth, is because he connects it to, you know, to MS-13 and to all these sort of, whatever the Fox News, racist Boogeyman is.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah. Drugs are like usually a container for like hysteria and fear. I mean we saw that in the, I wasn’t around at this time, but we saw it in the crack cocaine crisis.

Adam: Yeah.

Zachary Siegel: I mean crack became a container to hold so much hysteria and xenophobia and urban plight and fear.

Adam: Yeah. I think that what’s interesting is that his approach takes sort of some vague; he does this a lot, right? Where there’s a sort of a notion of something that’s real and then he warps it into this distorted right wing version that doesn’t do anyone any good. And so from your estimation, what has the kind of punitive, even more so than usual, because obviously Obama wasn’t really that much better in many ways, approach on a federal level, has it had on your sort of average heroin addict as it were or drug addict? Is it, are people looking at longer jail sentences? Are they looking at more severe punishment for simple, simple possession?

Zachary Siegel: Well I think it really is actually dependent on where you are and so geography is playing a really big role in this. So if you’re a drug user in like San Francisco or Chicago or the Bronx or like any of these big urban hotspots, not much has really changed. I mean there’s always been a sort of like weird policing in these hotspots where cops know that there’s an open air drug market and they sort of just let it carry on. Like the cops know they’re outmatched, they cannot police this, these open-air markets. And so they just kind of, as long as there’s not a lot of violence and they’re contained, they kind of just let them exist. And so the new phenomenon is rural like beat cops and you know, places like in Broome County, upstate New York, like a heroin crisis is new to them to some extent.

Adam: Right.

Zachary Siegel: And so their policing is, it looks quite different. And if you look in states like Pennsylvania or New Hampshire or places where there’s, you know, mostly like young white men using heroin, you actually see that a lot of the jails are filled with young white men and a lot of them are actually getting these very harsh sentences like drug-induced homicide or drug delivery resulting in death. I think in Pennsylvania, like the median age for who has this charge is like a 28-year-old white guy. And so that’s definitely like something interesting when we talk about the war on drugs and racist policing its like, well that’s definitely true, but it could also be true that young white guys are now getting really harsh sentences to.

Adam: Yeah. That’s why disparity conversations without a broader framework can be somewhat misleading.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah. And so I, I’ve heard from people like, like attorneys who, and public defenders, who are representing people who get charged with drug-induced homicide that, you know, and one of them like I can quote just saying like “We’re in Jeff Sessions’ world,” like that’s what this person said.

Adam: Yeah.

Zachary Siegel: And so now prosecutors and US attorneys and, and you know, they’re emboldened to, to crack down and be harsh and the like, let’s execute dealers rhetoric is, I mean, it sounds maybe farfetched to people, but that’s actually already sort of going on. Like in Florida, a young black teenager sold illicit fentanyl that killed I think like a white kid or a white woman, I don’t know, and um, he got charged with first degree murder and could potentially face the death penalty. And the like, sort of like medieval story here is that they might actually execute him with fentanyl.

Adam: Wow.

Zachary Siegel:  It’s such a sort of biblical story of punishment.

Adam: Right.

Zachary Siegel: And, and so, yeah, I think at the federal, like when the president says like, ‘Get tough on dealers,’ and the Department of Justice and Jeff Sessions take that up, I mean I think there’s a real effect on sort of the local prosecutors and DAs and things like that.

Adam: Yeah. Because I mean obviously the federal government doesn’t necessarily control it directly, but there is a broader signal that’s sent. Um, this is something that we see a lot of times when things change hands. It’s a sort of cultural attitude. I remember when Trump first came into office, people were like, ‘Oh, you know, ICE is not going to be that much different,’ and now ICE I think case after case after case have shown they’ve, they’re doing what they were doing before, but in a more, way more cowboy way, way more aggressive way and that, that there is certainly a measurable difference there. And I, and I know that, I mean you have someone like Jess Sessions who wants to keep marijuana a Schedule I drug and keep it illegal. Um, which is something that I think less than 30 percent of the population in general supports and that attitude is still very prevalent, that sort of punitive attitude. And that seems to be like they’re trying to now transfer that over with the criminalization becoming less popular. Almost like they’re trying to transfer over this whole addict as drug dealer/murderer. One of the numbers you gave was that the, the specific county that you discussed, Broome County, that of the 95 overdose deaths, 84 of them were being investigated as potential homicides.

Zachary Siegel: I found that shocking.

Adam: Yeah.

Zachary Siegel: Like, and I’m just thinking, you know, how many of these overdoses were just a friend giving a friend a bag that turned out to be too potent? And I bet a lot of those cases are sort of like this Gaworecki case where a circle of friends are sort of just using and dealing to each other. And I, I don’t know the answer to that, but my hypothesis is like a lot of them because it’s very hard to actually catch the bigger dealers. That’s why we so often see like the lowest hanging fruit getting charge.

Adam: Yeah. The line between dealer and user is obviously not very clear all the time. Can you talk about how prosecutors are attempting to obscure that line and is there any kind of hard data that’s done that shows what percent of dealers are either addicts themselves are extremely small time in their, in their scope?

Zachary Siegel: To that last question, I think it’s really hard to tell like how many users are also dealers. I think like the world of drug addiction is really just shades of grays and, and really like on any given day a user is also a dealer or vice versa. And really the, the, like the true “dealers” quote unquote are people who supply like whole regions, right? And so like to catch the, you know, the major traffickers, that’s sort of what they call them, takes a lot of work, a lot of investigating, a lot of time and resources and usually collaboration with multiple agencies. And so those investigations are sometimes successful and they net some cash and they net some heroin but like never enough to cause like a drought or anything like that. And so the, the, yeah, it’s really hard to really tell like who’s who in drug using and drug dealing networks. But to the other question like how are prosecutors blurring that line? Um, so basically there’s just this, there’s been a trend over the last decade or so that overdose scenes are actually homicide scenes. And so what they do is, the first thing is they go for the phone and so people are often just like, by the way, technology has changed drug dealing, you know, it’s really like ordering an Uber or a Lyft. I mean you just text a dealer and they dispatch a driver and usually you just meet up with whoever’s there and you get your drugs. And so that’s like probably more of like an urban delivery system. And so in places like Broome County or more rural areas friends just text friends being like, ‘Hey, do you have bags of heroin?’ Like the language is not coded in any way.

Adam: Right.

Zachary Siegel: If you get this phone, you essentially have the whole story. And so without the phone they really can’t, um, you know, say you’re a dealer. But so what they will do is the overdose victim who’s now dead, they take that person’s phone and usually the “dealer” quote unquote, or that person’s friend, might not know that they’re dead and the cops start texting from that dead person’s phone-

Adam: Oh wow.

Zachary Siegel:  And then they’ll, basically what that does is prove that this person is a dealer. Like they didn’t just sell one time, they sold multiple times.

Adam: Oh wow.

Zachary Siegel: That’s one way at least they show that this person is a dealer.

Adam: It seems like there’s a general trend in a lot of the stuff we talk about in the show, which is that there’s this problem that society has that is a legitimate problem whether it’s trafficking are or you know drugs or even violence, guns and then there’s this response that’s just let’s just make something illegal and put someone in jail and it doesn’t even matter sometimes who exactly that is. Just somebody needs to go to jail. And I guess when you, when you see these small towns and the sheriffs are responding to the news reports, right? They’re responding to I’m sure they’re responding to earnest panic about drugs. I mean people forget like during the sixties when a lot of the harsh drug sentences were passed like drugs were an actual problem. Like in the eighties, drugs were a major problem. They tear families apart. Like they’re really, they’re very bad. Right? But we, it seems like the first arrow in the quiver we reach for is to just start making stuff more illegal. In the county that you, that you profile the DA, Steven Cornwell, he’s just constantly posturing about how much he’s keeping people safe and keeping the poison off the streets and it’s almost like you kind of understand why he’s doing this if he thinks it’s helping people, but it’s like no one factors in the 10, 20, 30 year prison sentences people are having to, having to face as part of this equation of suffering. And like it doesn’t factor in. Maybe this is sort of a, I don’t know, not in your wheelhouse, but like if you were to talk to someone, if someone is listening and they, let’s say they lost a daughter to drugs or they were negatively affected by drugs and they want to quote unquote “do something,” right? Because that’s always what we want in this culture is to do something. What can we do that isn’t that instinct? Just stop putting people in jail as your first response to everything? What should be the approach that we take to this? Something we can all admit as an actual problem. Now obviously there’s other countries that have done much better and much more humane alternatives. Can you give us some of the sort of more like maybe to be prescriptive here a little bit?

Zachary Siegel: Yeah, I mean, I, I’m, this is actually one area where like okay being prescriptive because there’s so much data and so much evaluations in, in real world settings that show like that all policies aren’t created equal. Some actually do work better than others. And I think right now in America we’re sort of reckoning with, um, like an internationalist perspective on what helping a drug crisis actually looks like. And just in Canada alone, there are, uh, several, they’re called supervised injection facilities or safe consumption sites. I mean people are trying to really tweak the language to make it sound more and more palatable but basically medical supervision for pretty entrenched drug users. So like people in San Francisco who’ve been maybe using heroin for years and years and years, um, give them a safe space to inject under medical supervision and start linking them up with healthcare and services that might actually steer them away from using drugs later down the road once they’re ready. So that’s definitely one thing that’s actually looks like it might come to fruition in America soon. There’s a lot of political, uh, mobility behind safe consumption spaces or supervised injection facilities, whatever you want to call them. I mean, so that’s like, you know, people call that ‘a public health approach’ and that also includes giving drug users a sterile injection instruments like needles and cookers and, and distributing naloxone, the overdose reversal drug, I mean these are all things that, you know, keep people alive and sort of the saying is like ‘you can’t recover if you’re dead.’ And so at this point with illicit fentanyl just really killing people at a rapid clip, it makes sense to implement policies that are really only concerned with keeping people alive. At like a baseline that’s what these policies do. And then once you realize, ‘Okay, now that we can keep people alive, what do they need? How do we get them help? What is it that might entice them to stop using drugs and maybe get into treatment?’ And really I think it’s like pretty obvious. We need like maybe a jobs program like I think like the biggest things to tackle this overdose crisis is not controlling drug supply and, and, and enforcement and interdiction. It’s like people probably need healthcare and a job and maybe they’ll feel much better about their place in society.

Adam: Yeah I know that there is some, some studies that have shown, yeah, I mean that addiction is not some fixed thing that we have from birth and we’re just addicts. That it is highly coordinated with, with being isolated and being cut off from relationships and that having a city or a town that has all the jobs leave and the centers of town degrade and you know that these things obviously will coordinate with drugs. And this is true in African American and white communities alike.

Adam: Right. I mean, I think there’s like in places like Broome County maybe, or wherever; I mean there might be just like a collective loss of like human dignity. It’s like how do you go home and say a robot is doing my job now and like what do you do when society just really doesn’t value your existence? I mean, that’s, that’s like a very harsh reality to confront and retreating into like drinking or doing drugs is a comfortable way to cope with that. And so that might be like one sort of cultural thing going on at, at, uh, at, in really a lot of these places.

Adam: So somebody by the name of Tana Ganeva, who was a former colleague of mine at AlterNet, she wrote a great piece in The Intercept about the way in which we, the changing racial aspects of the heroin issue, we won’t say epidemic.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah, I read that. It was really, really good.

Adam: Yeah. And one of the things that I think was interesting, and people may not know this, that amongst African Americans, uh, heroin overdoses have increased, they’ve tripled since 2010. Um, that it’s increasingly becoming an African American problem as well as a white problem. I mean you can’t talk about drugs without talking about race. Obviously, in this country, they’re wedded at birth. Can you talk about how the changing racial dynamics affect the political way we talk about it at all and what it means when we talk about how to come up with non punitive solutions?

Zachary Siegel: Yeah well I think to backtrack a little bit into sort of the early waves of the overdose crisis so it’s like come in three waves. So the first wave was prescription painkillers in the late nineties and the early aughts, and then heroin and now illicit fentanyl. And right away the first wave of prescription painkillers was really framed as innocent victims, innocent patients getting addicted by their doctors who were duped by greedy capitalist big pharma. Like that was really the narrative that took hold. And so right away there was a wave of sympathy for these like white middle class people with healthcare who got surgery for some reason.

Adam: Oh, I see. As opposed to like the “crack head” who is morally-

Zachary Siegel: Exactly. So like right away there was like a sympathy that was elicited this drug crisis in a way that there rarely was for other crises and like, not to pick apart that whole narrative because there’s some truth to it, but that’s just right off the bat something really interesting that really framed where we are now, which is, you know, young white people dying from heroin. And now what’s happening is because the heroin is tainted with illicit fentanyl communities like the Westside and Southside of Chicago, the Bronx, San Francisco, places where heroin has been endemic, where like it’s just been there since post Vietnam and never left, now we’re seeing this population starting to die off because they’ve been doing heroin for so long and now the heroin is more potent and again, behavior needs to adapt to face a sort of changing drug supply. And so now that the like, so-called ‘urban’ users are, are dying um, I haven’t really seen that get picked up too much and, or really changed the narrative overall. I think people like to say addiction doesn’t discriminate or that you know it’s an ‘equal opportunity disease’. Like I hear all these things like addiction is a thing that spans race, class, gender, like everyone is potentially a susceptible to it. And maybe that’s true to an extent, but really the people who are most susceptible to it are probably the people who are most marginalized and oppressed or people who lack financial opportunity or people who’ve experienced serious, serious trauma in their lives. And I just think we need to sort of do away with the like innocent white victim narrative to really confront what’s happening in communities where people are dying from overdoses and, and the reality is people are in pain whether it’s physical or emotional. And we need to ask why is there so much pain? Why do people demand this drug so much today? What’s going on?

Adam: Yeah. There’s kind of this frustration on the part of a lot of African American activists when they saw the kind of sudden response and moral outrage over the opioid crisis as a, as it’s described when there was only reactive or punitive kind of top down approach to the crack epidemic in the eighties and nineties, which was, you know, it was real and of course the response isn’t to have the same response, right? The response is to have an equal one. Um like-

Zachary Siegel: Right. Like will the public health policies that really do help people, will those be extended to people in the South and Westside of Chicago or Harlem? Like will that sympathy be extended to them? We’ll see.

Adam: And these, you know, there’s so many of these cities and towns that have just been completely left for dead. I mean they’re total sacrifices zones and the rates there are so high. Let’s say for the sake of argument we live in a civilized country where we actually try to solve problems instead of throwing everyone in jail. There would be a public health response to this; we would treat it as a public health issue. The issue of people getting addicted to opium via legal painkillers, as you mentioned, did sort of help create the white victim image that was popularized but we definitely don’t want to dismiss that altogether. That actually is a problem. Can we talk about the prevalence of opium, legal opium in prescriptions? I know that one statistic I heard said that there are more people addicted to prescription pills, painkillers than people who are addicted to cocaine, crack and heroin combined, which of course doesn’t surprise me. Um, and if you just look at the sheer amount of numbers of painkillers out there, now there have been, that has gone down, but can we talk about how much that actually does serve as a gateway drug? I mean, anecdotally, I know people in my circles who that’s absolutely been the case. Uh, but obviously that’s just anecdotal.

Zachary Siegel: Right. I mean there’s definitely something going on there. Like, I don’t want to dismiss the fact that opioids are actually addictive drugs and if you get a wisdom tooth pulled, you don’t need a 30-day supply of these things. You might need two days tops or you might just be fine with ibuprofen. So what I think what was going on with the overprescribing was people would be sent home after having like very minor surgery or like a very minor injury with like way more of these drugs than they really needed to go home with. And then, you know, I think one of the big problems was if you give so many people this drug then you’re giving so many people who have all sorts of baggage and other problems access to a drug that will make them feel really, really good. And maybe I think that was part of the problem here is like if you have any sort of mental health condition, if you have like depression or anxiety and all of a sudden you take an opiate and you feel really good, sort of like its really interesting. You’re like, ‘Oh my God. Like I finally feel okay. I finally feel at home in my own skin,’ and then clearly that drug a doctor prescribed to you is being used in the wrong way and like, how is the doctor supposed to know that you were going to react like that? Right. So that was definitely like one thing going on with the over prescribing and it’s definitely real that like Purdue Pharma had false and misleading marketing and it’s definitely true that, you know, this drug was way, way, way overused and prescribed to tons of people who didn’t probably need it. But then there’s also a population of patients who are on chronic opioid therapy who do need these drugs and are relatively stable on them. And as a result of the prescription pendulum swinging from this very liberal position to now a very restrictive one, now they’re being, um, they’re sort of bearing the brunt of that policy now. And so whenever I talk about prescription painkillers, I just want to make sure that people do know that these drugs are used everyday in hospitals and by people in pain and that they’re like a medical necessity. But we need to strike a balance in how many we give people and when we give it to them and, and things like that. So it’s a really complicated issue of like understanding what addiction is and what epidemiology is and how we study like drug epidemics. I mean it’s like when I first started to report on this, I had no idea how many layers there was to this thing.

Adam: Yeah. Because if I’m of a certain disposition or, or wealth and I’m an addict, I go to some rehab center, but if you know the other 80 percent who don’t have those resources, they’re invariably just going to end up in jail at some point either for quote unquote “dealing” and getting someone killed or for just possession alone, which is why the whole like addiction is colorblind or addiction is not, it’s kind of a BS talking point.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah. Politicians love to say that. Like Chris Christie, he says that all the time.

Adam: Well yeah. Are there any states or cities or DAs even or god forbid, police sheriffs approaching this a little differently in this country that you think is maybe not perfect or something you would promote necessarily, but it’s less punitive that we can kind of look at and say, ‘Okay, well that’s, that’s a better way to do things?’

Zachary Siegel: Uh, yeah, yeah, definitely. There are people out there who really, really like beat cops to police chiefs to DAs. Like there are people out there who really do want to sort of treat people with addiction, not as criminals, but as human beings and like reflect their dignity back to them. And I was actually shocked, so I was at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for this like couple day symposium and one of the panels was about the opioid crisis and this police chief from Burlington, Vermont, Brandon del Pozo, um, anyway, so he’s a police chief in Burlington, Vermont and he said to the crowd, ‘I would prescribe buprenorphine outside of my police station if I could.’ And so this a drug that, it’s referred to as like medication assisted treatment, but basically if people who are addicted to opioids have access to drugs like methadone and buprenorphine, the risk of overdosing, the risk of dying, the risk of relapsing, is all dramatically reduced, like huge, hugely, like by 50 percent or more. And it’s, basically if we get this drug out there and more available than it is right now, we’ll see overdose rates start to go down. So yeah.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit about that? For people who aren’t familiar, what are the programs that exists to reduce overdoses and to kind of help out people who are addicts in a way that is non punitive, can you talk about those programs and what they are and what these other medications are?

Zachary Siegel: Yeah. Yeah. So a really good example I like to use is what happened in France. So France in like the late nineties and early two thousands they were having like a really, really bad HIV and heroin crisis. And what they did was institute what’s called a low threshold model for accessing medication treatments. And so basically any doctor could prescribe these drugs to just about anyone who wanted them on demand. So basically these two drugs were like methadone and buprenorphine and so both of these drugs are what are called opioid agonists or half agonists. So that means they actually activate the receptor, which means to some extent there’s, there might be possible euphoria if you don’t really have a tolerance, but if you do have a tolerance for opioids, that means your receptors are basically like satiated, like they don’t crave the drug because they are active. And so the, when you’re in withdrawal, your opioid receptors are just like so thirsty for opioids that they make you feel like complete crap without it. And so access to these drugs, um, reduces the risk of overdosing and relapsing. And so any program that makes this drug easier to obtain would see favorable results. And like Vermont, again, they have a pretty innovative model to get people access to these drugs. And we can talk more about that but like basically we need to fold addiction treatment into primary healthcare. Like for some reason, if I have addiction, I can’t go to my regular doctor and be like, can you treat me? Because they’ll be like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ So then you have to Google best rehab or something like that and then you get sent to like South Florida and could be potentially preyed upon. I mean there’s a whole sort of fraud and, and, and huckster, snake oil salesman facet to addiction treatment that bafflingly is thriving right now. But um, basically, yeah, we need to actually treat this like a chronic medical condition.

Adam: Yeah. It’s the whole we need to treat drugs as a, as a health crisis, not a criminal one. You know, it’s interesting to me, I feel like that’s kind of been the consensus now for going on 20 years and yet we still have the same laws and no democrat wants to be on record as opposed to anything except for the most token cannabis reform.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah.

Adam: It is shocking how much capture that the war on drug ethos still has on our political class when you consider, I mean obviously that’s because certain power structures want it and it’s deeply racist, but even granting that, given that the radical swings in public approval, you think there would be some kind of lax on that, but there isn’t.

Zachary Siegel: There’s so much fanfare around Larry Krasner in Philly, I mean, this guy, he came out and straight up said criminalizing crack cocaine was a big mistake. And to even get a politician to say that, I don’t even know. I don’t know many people who have said that, uh, like maybe in retrospect people will be like, ‘Oh yeah, like we definitely shouldn’t have had crack cocaine carry a one hundred to one sentence compared to powder cocaine. Maybe that was bad.’ But like, it even just saying like the most patently obvious, uh, thing is hard. Like for politicians when it comes to drugs because they’re so afraid to appear soft on crime or whatever.

Adam: Right. If somebody is listening and they themselves are struggling with heroin addiction or know someone who is, what are some of the best tools and resources they can use? Based on the sheer numbers it’s likely that many of the listeners will have that in their lives and I want to try to be a little bit constructive here.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah, I think it really depends where you are. But if, if I, like I’ll just say I’ll just talk about myself because I don’t want to like tell other people what to do. Like I’m not a doctor and I don’t want to prescribe like medical advice, but like-

Adam: Of course not.

Zachary Siegel: If I today had an opioid addiction and I really wanted to stop and there was genuine motivation within me that like what I’m doing is really, really bad and I’m hurting the people I love and I really need to get help. I would probably find an addiction psychiatrist near me who could give me an assessment. And a psychiatrist board certified in addiction can prescribe medications like buprenorphine, probably not methadone, you’d have to go find a clinic and those are pretty hard to find and there’s usually a weight list and it’s very bureaucratic and, and like, uh, not the best constructed system. But I would just find a psychiatrist who takes Medicaid or takes my insurance, whatever, and just get assessed. Like see a medical professional who can tell you what is going on with you and help you decide the best course of treatment. You probably don’t need to pay $20,000 to fly down to Florida and live inside a fancy residential treatment center that has a chef and a masseuse by the beach. Like I don’t know any other condition where like that’s the draw for treatment, but we sell treatment like a vacation resort and I would avoid those places at all costs because they’re, its not delivering medicine or healthcare. It’s like this weird faux treatment that, um, I don’t think does people much good. That’s my personal opinion about that kind of thing. But if, if I’m struggling, I would honestly just find someone who could, a medical professional with, with prescribing privileges, like a real doctor-

Adam: Right.

Zachary Siegel:  To try and help me figure out what’s wrong with me and what treatments would work.

Adam: Yeah.

Zachary Siegel: And I think that’s the first thing that I would do if I really needed, um, if I was really ready to like stop using and get treatment. But in the interim, if I’m using and I’m, I’m in, I’m not interested in quitting and are not ready to give it up, it sounds weird, but I would just tell people in my social network like, hey, you should probably carry naloxone because I’m using heroin and I might overdose and you might be the one nearest me who could revive me. Like, it’s so counterintuitive because heroin use is so secretive and no one likes to tell other people that they’re doing it. But if you really want to stay alive, you can’t be using it alone and in secret.

Adam: Zach, thank you so much.

Zachary Siegel: Yeah, thanks for having me on. This was, this was fun.

Adam: That was Zachary Siegel, a Guggenheim fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a contributor to The Appeal. I’m your host Adam Johnson. This is The Appeal Podcast. It is produced by Florence Barrau-Adams with executive producer Sarah Leonard. Thank you so much for listening. We’ll catch you next week.


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
[AUSIA] Finding Kailey Results

Bonjour ACP!

Today we logged on for a top secret mission to find that Kailey went missing. The agents took care of business fast with a search and rescue around the island. She was found in the Pizza Parlor eating all the pizza…… Fantastic job everyone!

MAX: 34

Thank you to everyone that came. Be sure to attend the big battle later! Keep marching on.

ACP Field Marshal

3 Responses

  1. first, vc was fun!!

  2. I came fun vibes ngl

  3. I CAMEEE super fun

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