I can't think of William S. Burroughs without thinking of that Moxy Fruvous song

So here's a story about one of my kids and why I have mixed feelings about the gonzo journalists of the 1960s:

Once upon a time I had this totally sweet kid in my office and he told me to speak to his friend who had OD-ed at school the past year about planning for college. So, I called in the other kid and found myself with this this totally cool and erudite and hip-seemin' kid in my office and we were all talking about his hopes and dreams for the future (of which he has many) and then he was all, "hey, yeah, also last year I got really into reading Timothy Leary."

Well, let me tell you, being a product of the DARE generation, my drug-dar was already up so when he Timothy-Leary name dropped, I was ontop of that. Because, here's the thing: I kind of get it. I more than kind of get it, I feel it. I understand what's sexy about Leary it's the same thing that's painfully sexy about Burroughs and Ginsburg - I understand that pull towards a shattering of the self, fully expressed only throught the further shattering of the conciousness. I also undersatnd that, kidding aside, I am a product of the DARE generation - my ideas about drugs are culturally influenced in the extreme.

But I also understand that this kid is sixfuckingteen and he's already ODed and LSD is not something you play around with when you could be dedicating the rest of your life to bad flashbacks. Yeah, I'm supremely uncool, I get that. Go forth and talk about how I'm a huge Square or whatever the appropriate terminology is but I just get in a panic every time I think about this beautiful mind getting into bad, drug-related trouble. I knew the kids who were druggies in high school and I knew a fair number who were druggies in college. Most of the high schoolers probably didn't know I knew (I did, SoRo crowd. I knew you more than I knew my fellow theater kids, if you'd believe it) and no, none of them died horrible fiery deaths. Really, I have no anecdotal proof that DugzRBad, but I know substance-related coping mechanisms in general are bad, and I know ODing is bad, and I know LSD scares the shit out of me at the end of the day.

And that's my life. I am not very cool. But, you know, who was pretending on that one, really?