I was reminded last night of my early impressions of cokeheads that saved me from ever going down that disgusting road.  Since this is a music industry related blog and since crack is the focus of a variety of increasingly tired rap subgenres, I figure it's right on topic!

Back in my early twenties, when I was starting to hang out in party circles, I knew a great little household of folks who experimented with various hard drugs to a degree that I only discovered in later years when one of their former members started telling me tales of driving to Durham, NC from Raleigh to buy heroin off the street in black neighborhoods.  These kids were all white, by the way.

But one member of their group, a flamboyant young man who has never been able to hold an extended conversation that didn't focus on himself, was quite visibly a cokehead.  The ungrounded egocentric behavior of this young man fits the profile to a tee but an anecdote from his brother has always stuck with me as a symbol of that depraved set.

I was told that early one morning, this guy came home while it was still dark outside and, because of the shared domicile, he didn't turn on the lights as he came in and stumbled to his bed.  The next day they discovered one of the kittens from a recent litter squashed to death in the entryway.  Homie stepped on him, killed him and didn't even have a clue.

And that's how I think of cokeheads.  As egocentric, clueless, f*ckups who'll squash a kitten without even knowing what they've done.  Which is one of many reasons why, if I find out you're a cokehead, that's the end of that, loser.

I just thank my lucky stars I didn't go to San Francisco until I was 29.  By the time I got out there, all my peers were either in 12 step programs or fully committed to their addictions.  Neither path looked the least bit fun to me though it did raise the final temptations on that front.

I've made so many other mistakes but that's one area where I never faltered.  I'd tell you the tale of how I almost bought my first gun near the end of those years in San Francisco but that comes under the category of "crazy things men will do for women when they're in love" so I'll save that for another day!