Iggy Pop a.k.a. Jim Osterberg , Myself & the "Green Fairy"! Part 4
I begin to try to figure out where to go now as this house is like a smalll labrynth to my jet -lagged brain, but i soon hear my Aussie friends familiar voice, though now i also hear another yet unknown person to me, so i follow the voices til i get to the kitchen where i was greeted by her and introduced to her boyfriend, who i'll call "Todd" for now, who was here only for a pop in visit, works in synthetic organic chemistry from what i could gather.
Todd explained to me what exactly he does for a living and i was fully shocked at what this guy actually makes.
The company he works for is in Ohio- Aldrich Chemical Company,Inc. and they are, and i kid you not, allowed by the U.S.Federal Government to brew up L.S.D., Ecstacy, GHB, Mescaline, Psilocybin- which is the psycho active part of the "Magic Mushroom", Oxycodone and Meth- call them for your next Rave, this is all for use by guess who...... the Military, come on , why the hell does the U.S. Military require all these drugs?
No but seriously, "what the hell i asked him is done with all these drugs"?, he tells me they ALL go to the men and women of the American Military!.......no shit, i was not expecting to hear that the U.S. Military has far more drugs than all of The Grateful Dead's concerts combined!
He told me of his friend at Accustandard,Inc in Connecticut, and how he 's allowed to create EVERY drug on Schedule1 and 9 on Schedule 2, and the ONLY American company to legally produce opium!
He must have alot of friends i jokingly add, but this dude was too narcisstic and arrogant in his demeanor to even acknowledge my comment, so i asked my aussie friend "how long is he gonna be around"? ," he's leaving tonite", her reply is almost instantaneous, as she knows here boyfriend is not being cool to THIS guest, and she also remembers from "The Punisher" days, i know martial arts (Red Belt Tae Kwon Do) and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, and would tear her boyfriend up in 2 seconds flat!
I then begin to hear what sounds like the "Noh crew" breaking into song with the old favorite "Louie Louie", with it sounding more like "Rouie Rouie", but it 's not just them!
I ask her who's in there with them, she says "Oh, Jim's in there with them", so as Jim and the "Noh crew" have to be better to talk to then her boyfriend the Hammerhead I leave them.
I go see the singing, and as i turn into the room and see them all, i look at "Jim" say "g'day" the crew, "g'day" -it then dawns on me that this guy "Jim" looks remarkably like Iggy Pop, not ever seeing Mr.Pop in person it's hard to tell, so i did a u-turn and headed back toward where my friend had been, found her and asked "Ah....... is that Iggy Pop in there"?,she said that yes, yes it was Iggy, but he likes to be called "Jim", and not "Iggy", when he's not performing, she asked if i called him Iggy, and indeed I didn't so i played along with this charade,not even realising it, which was the cooler way more tactful than being a "Gumby" about Celebrity or Celebrities.
I ask her if he (Jim) his real name is like mine James, James Osterberg, but goes by Jim, come around often,"No,he's only up here for the party,he lives down in Miami,but he wanted to come by and see the "living treasures" from Japan", he's having a good time in there, we laugh, she laughed more than me and adds it could be the Absinthe!remembering that was what they were drinking when i looked in, they had these little ampules of a greenish colored brew which they all were gleefully imbibing on.
For those of you unfamiliar with this substance, a very brief history-very popular in France in 1840's, known as "Green fairy", and was THE drink of choice if you were a renegade Artist, Poet, Symbolist or decadents like Paul Gauguin, Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley, Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe,Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Manet and Rimbaud are only some of these famous "miscreants" who were very devoted consumers of this liquid narcotic.
It's an alcoholic brew containing the herbs Anise, imparting a licorice like flavour, and Wormwood, this is what really gets you bent,.............a buzz unlike any other!
Banned and is still illegal in the United States since about 1915!
So these guys are now getting blotto on Absinthe, in a truly phenomenal setting in L.A.!this should be hilarious as it wasn't even seven o'clock yet!
We automatically have the same idea, "lets go see these wildmen" walking along I ask where did they get the Absinthe from? "France", that's where they make it, they know the people who export from France", that's as far as i go as i'm not big on asking questions about things that aren't fully legal, the less you know can often be better than the opposite, I look at it like this, it's on a need to know basis, if you need too know, your told, and if you don't need to be told, your not! ,so I DON'T asked, keeps me out of any hassles though i'm not thinking that at the time, i could give two sht's that these guy's are pissed as newts on Absinthe, they looked like they were having a good time, why fuking stop'em!
So we head back to where they were located, but before we get there,"Jim" is heading towards us, big smile, he clearly is having fun, i'm only then introduced to "Jim","Hey good to meet you James, how's Australia man"? he asked, "Great......still there when i left!" i replied!
"Ya here for the Party"?he asks "yeh Jim, here for the Party" but i was never told about the "Party" before i left, and i don't mention this to him.
In life, there are not many time's when you get to take a different road, it's like in the Movie "Risky Business", (which i might add here was just like growing up in Westport,CT.in MANY ways as a teenager), with Mr.Cruise, and his character Joel finally getting what his buddy Miles had been telling him all along, that being primarily,
"Sometimes you just gotta say, What the Fu*k"!
How right he was!
Jim asks me as i put my dictaphone back into my pocket" Hey James, do you ever use your dictaphone"? "Sure" i replied back, then he's said "Why don't you use your finger"?he has a real good laugh at my expense as do i on that one, here i am having "Jim" entertain me with these one liners, what a funny funny guy!
He then tells me about a recent doco on Picasso he saw, he was really up on him, he says"In the history of Art there is before Picasso and after Picasso"!
That was pretty deep, his clear stance is not to be argued with, he's a grown man and if that's his opinion on Picasso, who the fu*k am i to say any different , i nod my head in tactit agreement with his statement, he continues to tell me more.
"He's got this film called "The Mystery of Picasso", and you can actually watch him paint on a glass pane, it's like Magic"he tells me."
Then he really blew me away by asking me about the Gumball 3000, and I'm wondering who could of told him about that (BAM!) and relating to me that in the last century in America, an area equal to all the arable land in Ohio, Indiana, Penn.was paved over, costing $US200 million a day to maintain"! That i had NO IDEA about, isn't that a scary thought i retorted, two words he said back "We're Fu*ked" , and smiled!
I leave that for now, i don't want Jim to have a meltdown infront of me, i'm not sure if he's got a short fuse or not, but i'm not about to find out either!
Now i gotta say, this was one of THE most surreal and thoroughly thought through conversations i had had in a LONG time, as "Jim" was by no means "a drug fuked mental midget",(unlike Todd!), he had no doubt ruminated upon these subjects and concepts at some length in the past, and clearly was engaged in this conversation as much as i now was, he mentions to me"did ya know during the first Gulf war,146 Americans died keeping the World safe and for Petroleum, while back here in the ole' U.S.A., 4,900 Americans were killed in the same time period in motor vehicle accidents""No Shit" i add, starting to sound like a broken record of ignorance, but Jim really knew his sht, i'm shocked more by that one i've gotta say!
Please have a look at Chapters 1-3 if you've enjoyed this and maybe through a bit of steem my way, cheers.