I’ve really wanted to write about the time I moved to Oakland, California in a lengthy manic drug and alcohol fueled episode. It was all kinds of fucked up and life altering. My thought is that I'm going to have to do it in installments, so here is part one.
In February of 2010, I was living in the basement of one of my girlfriends parent’s houses in the Manomet village part of Plymouth, MA. Having spent the prior 5 years in the city of Boston, I was less than ecstatic to be back in the hometown that I set out to escape in late 2005. We were in the woods, at least a 10 minute drive from any kind of store or pocket of civilization. I’ve been a city boy since i moved to Boston in 2005, and I feel very isoloated when i’m in the middle of nowhere
Back then, I made it so that my house was where all my friends came and got at least buzzed every day, but I was into more nefarious activities than a daily six pack of magic hat. I remember my 2009 tax return being deposited into my checking account, and just blowing it on Percocet 30mg blue pills, and blow. I was getting speedballed with a friend of mine, who was a kind hearted stripper and a friend’s girlfriend. We would get super high and make out, obviously I wanted to fuck her, but honestly I think she enjoyed driving me crazy by withholding sex. We were both in pretty long term relationships, I don't know why we were making out for hours, but its indicative of the lack of respect and decency that was a staple of my behavior in my early to mid 20s.
Not only was I abusing pharmaceuticals, i was failing to take my prescribed Depakote mood stabilizers, so I was just going completely bats. I stayed up all night, most nights. My mentality was ripe for the insane chain of events that would follow.
My oldest friend (since sixth grade) had moved to the San Francisco bay area about a year prior, and seemed to be having a strong go of it, all I knew is that he had a medical cannabis card, and access to the best weed in the world. I was such a pot head in my 20s so just the simple fact of essentially legal weed was so cool. In February he came back to our little home town to visit his family and friends. He had all of this weed, weed tinctures and weed vape carts, and it was so impressive to me as i was still in my lengthy pothead phase. We got all drunk and coked out and i manically decided that I'd move to California. that's one of those things that you say you're going to do when you’re all coked out, you know like starting a business or a podcast. I was going to go for it, though.
I started telling everyone that I was moving to Oakland, everyone except my girlfriend of five years. I specifically remember her coming to me and saying “oh, you're moving to California? why have you told everyone but me?”. what a fucking jerk I was. I think it all came to a head when I got caught having my favorite side girl over the house while my girlfriend was at work as a night nurse. I’m not sure when I learned about basic human decency but I know I definitely hadn't learned it yet. That relationship was a whole spectrum of unhealthy but i guess it served whatever sick purposes we both had for a long time. At the time it felt more like she and i were roommates, and not really romantic partners.
There I was, in a full tilt manic episode with a screaming opiate and cocaine habit, deciding to move across the country to escape myself, but you know what they say: wherever you go, there you are.
I was able to do it because I worked for a multinational retail corporation (best buy) that had stores everywhere, so I organized a transfer from the Kingston, MA store to the store in the Emeryville section of Oakland. I also hit up my father for some financial backing which he kindly obliged.
The reasons that i moved to California were so stupid: I wanted to smoke weed, and the grateful dead were from San Francisco. it was as simple as that, plus I really missed my best friend Pat. I knew a lot of hippie tour kids who were getting fairly rich by mailing weed back east (this is prior to it’s legalization in MA and NY), and i wanted to do that. I never got my shit together to get a medical cannabis card, because I was eternally shitfaced or hung over, although I did attempt to traffic in LSD, which is definitely the narrative peak of this whole long story I am now attempting to get at.
Moving to California was an ill conceived shit show before i even got on the plane, and I will try to do the story justice in further installments of this piece. Hold on tight because it ends in an accidental heroic dose of crystalline LSD and months long psychosis…how fun!?
