Fools Dance – They’ll Never Know EP (12″)
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Thursday, 1 September 2011
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
We’re failing kids in drug education. How can we fix it?
Zoe Kellner aged 21
Last week at an open and lush Midtown East coffee shop, I met a stranger, a chance Twitter connection. This well-dressed, petite, dark-haired woman somehow recognized me when I was still half a block away, her clasped hands in front of her glimpsing into a wave. “I knew it was you,” she began warmly. Then, over black iced coffee, she told me everything. Alone in the cafe, this unexpected newfound friend, Robin, told me about drugs and her daughter. Four years ago she lost her only child, Zoe, to drug overdose. Zoe, a vibrant, beautiful 22-year-old college student, born and raised in New York who preferred West side to East. A young woman who fatally overdosed before entering treatment.
Read Zoe’s story, narrated by her mom. It took everything I had not to cry as her brave mother described the most tragic event of her life.
Today, August 31, is Overdose Awareness Day. And as much as we would like to think otherwise, to think it’s some other person or family, substance abuse and addiction hit us all. Similar to a plane accident, the conventional wisdom goes, “well, that won’t happen.” Well, yes, it could. It could happen to any of us. Zoe’s mom learned that:
I want to start the story when my daughter Zoe was in the 9th grade at a wonderful school in New York City. It is a lovely, nurturing, very sweet school, small, like a family, a community. She started in the first grade and went all the way through high school and graduated from there.
But in the 9th grade something happened that I can’t help thinking back to now.
One of Zoe’s classmates was very suddenly removed from school and sent out west to rehab. The next day, the school called a parent breakfast, because the kids were buzzing about what happened, and the parents didn’t really understand.
As I sat at this breakfast, and they explained what had happened to this young man, who was a good friend of Zoe’s, I thought to myself, “What am I doing here? This has nothing to do with me, because it’s so not Zoe.”
Fast forward. This young boy – now a young man — lives out in California, has a band, owns part of a restaurant, is smart and handsome and successful and thriving. Zoe is gone.
As parents, we don’t want to think our kids could get off track. In a million years, I never thought that I would be the parent who would lose a child to drugs. I never, ever, ever thought that could happen...
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Cassie Rodenberg @'Scientific American'
Rocker's Wife Warns About Drug Overdoses
I can't help but think back 40 years ago; to the time I got up close and personal with overdose. The Sunset Strip scene of 1966, 1967's "Summer of Love" and the Monterey Pop Festival were my rock 'n' roll training grounds. I was working in the A & R department of Liberty Records, and by 1968 I had moved in with and was soon married to rock icon John Densmore of the Doors.
A most fabulous lifestyle; all fun and no consequences. I often look back and wonder what the world would be like if we knew then what we know now.
I remember an intimate birthday dinner party for Jim Morrison before he went to Paris. We all laughed when another Doors wife and I rolled up the birthday present we had found for Jim - a Courvoisier cognac bottle decanter on wheels made to look like an antique war cannon. Today I might choose something different.
Even then there were whisperings about some of our favorite musicians; friends being "real" junkies - Tim Hardin, James Taylor? It was hard to believe. Then came the news - both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were dead.
But the real shock came when my own mother died at 47 of an overdose. Still I saw it as a fluke - expected, after all my mother had a long history of problems.
Then Jim. Jim Morrison! Even our own little rock circle didn't seem to know an overdose killed Jim. Today I have no doubt that it did - and that his life could have been saved.
Suddenly hearing about someone you knew from the music scene dying from overdose became commonplace. "Remember so-and-so, the drummer from so-and so?" "Yeah why?" "He OD'd." "Far out."
Only it wasn't really so far out, it was just sad. I developed a drug habit right along with my second husband, Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron. We took ODs in stride, happy to survive, part of the price, part of the game.
Who knew we would survive long enough to look back in sadness on the wasted lives and unsung songs, the unwritten poetry, the unpainted art.
My own life was saved twice by Narcan (naloxone), administered by the private paramedic some of us big shots kept on call. In 1984, my own baby sister died of a drug overdose. 1985 would find me checking into rehab at Cedars hospital, never to shoot heroin again.
As time marched on I would see my own son on life support, another overdose! OK today, though, and in recovery, thanks to medical intervention. But not so lucky were all the rocker parents who did lose their children. Oscar Scaggs, Jessica Rebennack, Andre Young Jr - so many kids of music legends lost. All lives that could have been saved, like mine, if we had known how to prevent a drug overdose from becoming fatal.
Aug. 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day. Today we know that all life matters and things can change. Now that I am a cleverly preserved rock dowager, relying on my stories and memories for thrills, I've painfully watched a younger generation of rockers die of overdoses. Their numbers are legion, the sadness intolerable - they would have practiced their art for another 40 years like my lucky living peers have. Alive today, long gray hair, our leather pants bursting a little bit at the bum. We are still full of stories and music, all the promise that rocked life in the '60s. I want that young life and music to continue.
On Aug. 31 I will be taking my hippie sensibilities out of mothballs for a street protest in Hollywood to raise awareness that overdose is preventable, a medical emergency to be treated with urgency, dignity and without fear of arrest. If Jim Morrison were alive today he would have at least written about a poem about it and maybe joined me - gray hair, bursting leathers pants and all.
Via
A most fabulous lifestyle; all fun and no consequences. I often look back and wonder what the world would be like if we knew then what we know now.
I remember an intimate birthday dinner party for Jim Morrison before he went to Paris. We all laughed when another Doors wife and I rolled up the birthday present we had found for Jim - a Courvoisier cognac bottle decanter on wheels made to look like an antique war cannon. Today I might choose something different.
Even then there were whisperings about some of our favorite musicians; friends being "real" junkies - Tim Hardin, James Taylor? It was hard to believe. Then came the news - both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were dead.
But the real shock came when my own mother died at 47 of an overdose. Still I saw it as a fluke - expected, after all my mother had a long history of problems.
Then Jim. Jim Morrison! Even our own little rock circle didn't seem to know an overdose killed Jim. Today I have no doubt that it did - and that his life could have been saved.
Suddenly hearing about someone you knew from the music scene dying from overdose became commonplace. "Remember so-and-so, the drummer from so-and so?" "Yeah why?" "He OD'd." "Far out."
Only it wasn't really so far out, it was just sad. I developed a drug habit right along with my second husband, Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron. We took ODs in stride, happy to survive, part of the price, part of the game.
Who knew we would survive long enough to look back in sadness on the wasted lives and unsung songs, the unwritten poetry, the unpainted art.
My own life was saved twice by Narcan (naloxone), administered by the private paramedic some of us big shots kept on call. In 1984, my own baby sister died of a drug overdose. 1985 would find me checking into rehab at Cedars hospital, never to shoot heroin again.
As time marched on I would see my own son on life support, another overdose! OK today, though, and in recovery, thanks to medical intervention. But not so lucky were all the rocker parents who did lose their children. Oscar Scaggs, Jessica Rebennack, Andre Young Jr - so many kids of music legends lost. All lives that could have been saved, like mine, if we had known how to prevent a drug overdose from becoming fatal.
Aug. 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day. Today we know that all life matters and things can change. Now that I am a cleverly preserved rock dowager, relying on my stories and memories for thrills, I've painfully watched a younger generation of rockers die of overdoses. Their numbers are legion, the sadness intolerable - they would have practiced their art for another 40 years like my lucky living peers have. Alive today, long gray hair, our leather pants bursting a little bit at the bum. We are still full of stories and music, all the promise that rocked life in the '60s. I want that young life and music to continue.
On Aug. 31 I will be taking my hippie sensibilities out of mothballs for a street protest in Hollywood to raise awareness that overdose is preventable, a medical emergency to be treated with urgency, dignity and without fear of arrest. If Jim Morrison were alive today he would have at least written about a poem about it and maybe joined me - gray hair, bursting leathers pants and all.
Via
International Overdose Awareness Day
As in most cases of addiction, be it alcohol, smoking or drugs, the addict fights a life time battle to overcome their addiction. Brad got clean several times but in the end failed to resist the cravings. In cases of accidental overdose it will help if every drug addict, and the people who are close to him, carries naloxone to administer on the spot to overcome the effects. Further if "911 Good Samaritan" laws were in effect in every jurisdiction it would encourage friends to call immediately when early treatment is so critical. Brad overdosed more that once but friends and loved ones were there previously to get him help.
The addict must continually confront and try to overcome his cravings. if he can survive accidental overdoses he can live to fight another day.
Jim Nowell
@'Sublime'
Bradley Nowell’s Father Pens Letter On Eve Of International Overdose Awareness Day
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