Reason Writers Around Town: Nick Gillespie in the NY Post on Everybody Must Get Stoned: Rock Stars on Drugs

May 10, 2009

Reason's Nick Gillespie reviews RU Sirius/Ken Goffman's new book, Everybody Must Get Stoned: Rock Stars on Drugs, in The New York Post. A snippet:

In a "Just Say No" age where athletes, actors, politicians and other well-paid low-lifes are expected to be tee-totaling role models, musicians may be the last holdout. As R.U. Sirius (the nom de plume of Ken Goffman) writes: "Trying to show a link between rock stars and drugs is like trying to make a link between mouths and tooth decay—too obvious to bother." In this book, he documents the long-lived collaboration between peformers and all manner of mind-altering substances....

"It's not my intention," he writes, "to encourage or discourage consenting adults to use mind-altering drugs...Have fun with this book, but not too much fun, unless you want to end up like that doper Paul McCartney—a healthy, vital, talented billionaire who was knighted by the Queen of England."

Whole review here.

Comments

|5.10.09 @ 5:54PM|#

This dude back where I worked at the, uh, Styrofoam peanut factory, like, he converted the toilet into like a bong, and you just sort of put your face over the seat. It was pretty badass. I went in there, someone had done a Number Two, so I fish it out, load it up. Gotta do something to get through that shift. Later on, when I became an adult, I was thinkin', you know, "That's gross," but, man that bathroom was so awesome in high school.

MaterialMonkee|5.10.09 @ 6:18PM|#

some bill hicks quotes are in order me thinks


You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years - rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes

I loved when Bush came out and said, "We are losing the war against drugs." You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it

Stoner|5.10.09 @ 6:28PM|#

yeah, like

anon|5.10.09 @ 7:15PM|#

what was i going to write....?

Mad Max|5.10.09 @ 8:35PM|#

'Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years - rrreal fucking high on drugs.'

There's a fallacy in here somewhere, but I forget what it's called.

abstainer|5.10.09 @ 9:25PM|#

Affirming the consequent?

Brian Sorgatz|5.10.09 @ 9:34PM|#

It's fascinating that so many free-spirited rockers do drugs, but it's deliciously ironic that the squares of the CIA did so much to precipitate the psychedelic craze of the Sixties with their LSD experiments.

|5.10.09 @ 9:55PM|#

"Have fun with this book, but not too much fun, unless you want to end up like that doper Paul McCartney-a healthy, vital, talented billionaire who was knighted by the Queen of England."

But surely the drugs explain his poor choice in marriage...

Jason O.|5.10.09 @ 10:20PM|#

Talent helps, as well as a willingness to rip off Buck Owens's guitar style, The Everly Brothers harmonies and Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds.

|5.10.09 @ 10:26PM|#

Wonderful review.

You know what else I find fascinating with the public adoration of rock stars, their drug and sex addicted lives, and the routine crash and burn? It's the very hypocrisy that is inherent in the war on drugs, a hypocrisy that is plaguing this nation...

People would think nothing of a guy grabbing a brewski, and shotgunning it right in front of the American Flag at a police convention, with the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background and the F-15 roaring overhead, but if you replace the beer with a bong, all of a sudden, it's like you spanked baby Jesus...

I have a hard time finding anyone that isn't using a drug of some form. Maybe they're not blowing rockstar lines of yayo, but they have two pots of coffee and a handful of Prozac and Adderall, then have the audacity to tell someone else who wants to smoke a J (or even a cigarette these days), that they should be incarcerated? Please, people driving while talking on a cell phone kill more people than pot... It's ridiculous, BS, hypocrisy on the part of America. Shameful.

Adderall Abuser|5.10.09 @ 10:32PM|#

>"Please, people driving while talking on a cell phone kill more people than pot... It's ridiculous, BS, hypocrisy on the part of America. Shameful."

Fuck cell phones, hippopotamuses kill more people than smoking pot.

Brian Sorgatz|5.10.09 @ 10:51PM|#

Fuck cell phones, hippopotamuses kill more people than smoking pot.

Being a fictional character, Snidely Whiplash has killed the same number of people as smoking pot.

air jordan shoes|5.10.09 @ 11:38PM|#

Hi, interesting post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for writing. I'll probably be coming back to your blog. ...

juanita|5.10.09 @ 11:48PM|#

why do you think they call it dope?

|5.11.09 @ 12:50AM|#

One of my fav Bill Hicks quotes:

'People pay lip service to saving the planet, but they don't - they fail to make the big leap that if you want to save the planet, kill your fucking self. The planet will be saved without you. And what a delightful place it'll be. Welcome. It's a new thing I'm working on called "The Comedy of Hate." Join in.'

|5.11.09 @ 5:25AM|#

But surely the drugs explain his poor choice in marriage...

You don't have to be high to fuck a one-legged crazy chick, just adventurous. What do you think? Leg on or off? Switch it up all the time? Or did she have a special fucking leg she put on for just those occasions? Maybe a silicone leg with a few back-up vaginas up and down its length. Or maybe a reinforced model to hang her up from... leg, sling, and pleasure swing all in one. You think he wished it was the other leg that was gone, or maybe both so she could use him as a pogo stick?

Or maybe he didn't need the fake leg at all. Maybe she had a fuckhole drilled out in the stump for him. Paul could go down on it for hours while she farted up a storm as only a celebrity vegan can. Maybe the marriage wasn't a mistake at all, maybe he'd go through the whole divorce again just to stick his cock in that sweet, sweet legcunt and fuck the bone marrow out of her one more time.

Art-P.O.G.|5.11.09 @ 5:29AM|#

Maybe a silicone leg with a few back-up vaginas up and down its length

:O Really, you should get paid for writing this stuff. :D

..|5.11.09 @ 7:50AM|#

You're a sick prick, SugarFree.

jester|5.11.09 @ 8:19AM|#

Damn it, SugarFree, you beat me to that comment!

BakedPenguin|5.11.09 @ 8:19AM|#

Yeah SugarFree, you sicko. You should write about how horrible Mexicans are and NAFTA superhighways and shit.

Seriously, though, if you're right, maybe Mills had her leg designed by these guys.

|5.11.09 @ 8:45AM|#

You're a sick prick, SugarFree.

Sick? Maybe. It does cough up a lot of snot all the time.

Xeones|5.11.09 @ 8:55AM|#

The internet thanks you for that, SugarFree.

highnumber|5.11.09 @ 10:01AM|#

This occasion bears mentioning the greatest rock & roll memoir ever, if you want to read about drug use, debauchery, and deranged drummers:

Ian McLagan's All the Rage

Charlie Watts - not as strait-laced as he looks
Keith Moon - literally clinically insane
Tons more fun along the way. Great read.

|5.11.09 @ 10:38AM|#

I'm in a constant intellectual battle at work with people who get drunk every weekend but insist pot remain illegal and get all pissy when any politician suggests otherwise, because of course when a politician suggests it that means the powers that be are corrupt evil devil worshippers and we are all now at Hell's doorstep about to burn forever.

I'm outnumbered about 6 to 1.