Sometimes Aaron is telling me stories about his or his friends escapades. I tell Aaron how exciting and fun they all sound and I wish I had been around to do all the things he has done. Funny thing, he then asks me stories about my past, college, partying, clubs, drugs etc and I realize I also had quite a past. As a matter of fact it was also very exciting, fun and filled with many experiences not a lot of people are lucky enough to have or had. As adults we are so concerned with the present and future we forget the good or try and forget the bad. These experiences help make us who we are today and are a part of us, I think back to college and actually a good 15 -20 years after college and remember all the shenanigans and trouble that we got into. I realize I was pretty lucky to grow up when I did. I am only sorry it took me so long to come out as a gay man and live a life true to myself.
When I went to college it was to a Big 10 University in the midwest. It was in a beautiful setting on two lakes, It was located in the state capital, but the town was very much centered on the students, In those days we all felt very protected by the school and it was a great place not only to learn but also to party and learn about drugs in a protected environment. Despite it being in the midwest and filled with frats and sororities it had the reputation of being very liberal and was a big destination for kids from the East Coast. It was the late 70’s and I think a lot of the world or at least the country was partying and having a good time with us.
I don’t think I would ever have called myself a big drug user but I was always ready to try anything. In high school I had smoked pot and drank but never been a huge fan of either, Pot made me paranoid and nothing worse than spending half the night with my head hanging over a toilet bowl puking. At school I discovered my drugs of choice, it was a combination of coke, (which I am sure everyone knows about) and the other was methaqualone. Methaqualone was a prescription drug which has been outlawed since about 1985 (If you are a younger reader you may know quaaludes from the movie Wolf of Wall Street), It was a sleeping pill but it made you feel so great you would have to be crazy to use it to sleep. First you got a little sleepy than after about 20 minutes you would get an intense euphoric high. Mix it with a drink or two and you would be bouncing off walls having the time of your life, To make sure the good times did not end you would add a line or two of coke.
My University was also famous for one other thing, having its own quaalude doctor. Ludes were becoming hard to get and I even had a brother and sister who would come from their schools in Michigan and Colorado to see him. It was a complete joke that the medical board could not get this doctor to stop prescribing, Every morning outside his door there would be lines of students waiting to see him.. Every month on the day we would be in line. We were always very nice to the receptionist as she held the keys to the palace. Being on her bad side was the kiss of death, Lucky I had a sweet smile.
On your first visit to the Doctor he would give you a script for 30 quaaludes. When you went back the next month you would tell him they worked great but you had a hard time getting up. This time he would give you the ludes and 30 hits of speed. The next time you went you would tell him the speed and ludes worked great but you were stressed with school. This time he would add 30 valium to the mix. This process went on and on until you were getting about 6 scripts every month of great drugs. Not only was this guy a certified medical doctor he was also a professor at the University, Until he died we were passing around quaaludes like candy.
In my previous Blog, “Mikes story” I talked abut coming out and it was not until about 20 years after college that I came out fully. Many of my friends had already had sex in high school but I was pretty naive. It was not until college that I finally had sex with girls and it was probably only because ludes and coke made it possible. It was nearly impossible to talk about sex without also talking about ludes and coke. They all went hand in hand back then.
In those days people never talked about sex parties or planned them. They just were. Many years later after talking to many people who were in schools at the same time I was I realized most of what we did was made possible by the quaaludes which really made all your inhibitions disappear. No one had to remember who they had sex with, where they had sex, how they had sex because everyone was luded. Everyone pretty much did whatever they wanted and no one really cared. Looking back it all seems a little jaded but that was how it was.
In the state I went to school you could drink at 18, So starting on Thursday evenings it was party time. Bar time was 12:45 AM, so at about 10:30 we would take our first lude and head to the bar we frequented. No one ever had more than 1 or 2 beers you didn’t need them. It was a joke that when the Doctor died drinking consumption went up 25%. At bar time if no one knew of any parties they just happened. At this time people probably had a line and another lude.
It was probably because we all knew one another that the question,”do you party?” never came up. I don’t know if we were ,”partying,” in the same way it is used today, but we were all having fun doing whatever we wanted and everyone loved quaaludes so it went without speaking that everyone was doing them. Like I said before sex, ludes, and coke, went hand in hand, People would be having sex anywhere they wanted, On the sink, which I saw fall from the wall, on the floor, couch, standing in a corner, wherever. Every week if people did not have boyfriends and girlfriends they would be switching around. Often you would be scared to open your eyes in the morning because you had no idea who you were with, where you were or what you got up to the evening before.
In college I also did MDA 2 or 3 times. There seems to be many names for it today. The one we did was the one that Freud used to bring his patients back to their childhood and bring out repressed memories. It really did just that. I remember one night about 8 of us spent most of the evening in bed in a mattress store that was having a 24 hour sale, so it was open all night, I have no idea how they could let 8 of us stay in there with customers coming in to make purchases. Maybe the 8 of us lying in a king sized loving each other looked like part of the advertising. To the of best my memory the other 2 times were also spent in bed with friends all being very cozy and talking about memories that would come up from our childhoods however I think everyone else would have been to fucked up to listen to the other.
A funny memory I have is going to the movies with friends. During the movie people would go off to the bathroom put a bench in front of the door and have sex. I have no idea how we got away with the things we did. In the five years I was away at school, (yes, due to my lack of motivation it took me an extra year,” I only got in trouble by the police once. I am not sure but I think it was for playing tennis nude in the street.
The first and only time I did acid was at college. It took me a few times to get off for some reason but when I did it was one of the best days of my life. On one of the first weekends in May the school would have a huge outdoor party to celebrate Spring, Beautiful weather, colored balloons floating in the air and colored banners waving in the wind, you could imagine the hallucinations and two lakes to play in. The only problem I had was that I had to waste quaaludes to bring me down. A great day to be in a safe environment where you felt nothing bad could touch you, Back then the campus police were there to protect you and make sure that you were safe not arrest you. I don’t know if everyone agrees with me but I think most kids are going to experiment and better they are able to do it where they are safe and looked out for.
I have no regrets about the good times I had in college, I do wish I made more of the great opportunity I had to learn. If I overdid the drugs it was probably because I was not ready to do deal with my problems and was running away from myself and my sexuality. I was very lucky to do all of my acting out in the protected environment of the University and get it out of my system. When I started working after I graduated I came in contact with a lot of guys who just started making some good money and I watched them spin out of control due to drugs and not being able to stop. Surprisingly enough I am still in contact with a lot of my friends from school and as much as we fucked around just about everyone has become successful and happy in their lives, We had also been so revealing with each other we can still tell one another anything without worrying about being judged.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s New York club life was reaching its peak. Studio 54 had just opened and was bringing with it the new age of disco. I was fortunate enough to go a few times and experience the club while it was at its greatest. One of my closest friends in college and even today is Naomi whose mother would take a group of us with her and always managed to get us all in. Studio was a club with no rules, once you were allowed in anything was okay. Again it seemed that ludes, coke and sex all went together. Sex was everywhere along with the smell of amyl nitrate, (Poppers.) Every type of person you could imagine was in the club. If you were somebody or had style you were in. Once you were in everyone was your friend. Joe Blow from the Bronx might be dancing with Bianca Jagger, Tim from the lower east side might be making out with Calvin Klein. The crowds of people wanting to get in was extraordinary. Some waited for hours hoping to be picked. Although it was not democratic the people were willing to try and wait,
One of the biggest differences I noticed over the years from the 80’s on was that the earlier clubs like Studio or Tunnel were very mixed gay and straight. Today the clubs seem much more segregated or have died altogether. Four years ago Aaron and I went to a sex party at a club in New York before we were really a couple. It just seemed so unexciting compared to 70s/80s. A bunch of men who were nude or wearing underwear and shoes walking around looking to have sex, I have always needed more, a sexy smile, beautiful eyes, a little bit of flirting, a dance, a secret touch to get me hot and horny. I loved dancing and having a hot guy dancing next to me, maybe we bump into each other a bit by “accident” while looking in each others eyes, a sexy smile appearing like an invitation, we start to dance with each other while our eyes remain glued to each others, until one of us grabs the others hand and drags the other off the floor into a dark corner somewhere where we would start kissing while grabbing each other feeling the other persons sweaty chest and hard cock and figure out how we could get off. This is where I want sex to start for me not bending over someone or bending myself over for someone I will probably have no connection with,
After Studio, Tunnel or Private Eyes we would be stumbling home about 5 or 6 in the morning and stop off at after hour clubs. I remember one I believe Madam Rosas where there was a steel door and after you were let in it was actually like a drug den. I was nobody special but somehow people always seemed to like my company and take me along and let me in wherever I wanted.
I remember being in New York with my family over one Thanksgiving. We were invited to a party for all the show business people left in New York for the holiday, When we were leaving the party we were going down in the elevator and one of the biggest sex symbols of the day put the moves on me. When we got down to the lobby my aunt was furious that I was too dumb to take advantage of the situation. I was still hiding my sexuality. If I had been straight I would have plunged right in. Another time I remember being at my friend Naomi’s apartment in New York. I am not sure what the party was for but I remember for hours being in the back stairway doing coke with one of the biggest disco stars of the day. I finally told her I had to go home or I would overdose. I am not sure where all the coke was coming from, the supply seemed endless. To this day I don’t know how she managed to do so much, Unfortunately she is not around anymore but her songs are still played.
Growing up I spent many summers in Los Angeles. LA lacked the big clubs that New York had. There were a few reasons for this. At the time LA was still very much a small town with a much smaller population than New York, it lacked the diversity and creativity that New York had and lastly it was an industry town. By industry town I mean music, film and TV. Everyone had to be on the set early and bar time was early. In New York we would eat dinner at 11 and hit the clubs at 1 AM. in LA at 1:00 AM everyone was home in bed. I believe bars and clubs had to be closed by 12:45. The clubs were much less mixed in LA. Compared to New York it was very conservative. Most of the straight clubs were small compared to New York and as I said LA was a small town and most the people who went to the clubs knew each other or were in the industry. There were also a lot of music bars where you could see great up musicians, The one great gay disco was Studio One, but it paled compared to the clubs in New York. If you were gay and in the industry it was harder to be out in LA. If you were a gay actor you pretty much had to stay hidden from the press. It was okay for people in the business to know your sexual orientation but not middle America.
The private parties at peoples homes was where the real fun was and people really let loose gay and straight. I was about 18 or 20 when I went to my first full pledged Hollywood party. I still have the invitation, It was a party a famous Hollywood producer Allan Carr was having for Mick Jagger. Carr was an over the top person and his parties were too. The whole party seemed like a set. Mermaids and mermen in the pool. Drinks and food passed out by half naked wannabe actors. Drugs were out like party favors for everyone. I remember walking into one room where a full fledged orgy was going on and I getting chased around the room by a very famous musician. Had I not been so insecure I probably would have jumped in. The room was filled with many faces I recognized from music, tv and movies. Funnily enough about 5 years later I ran into this same musician in Paris and I was totally shocked when he remembered me. Somehow I got on a list for parties at the old Playboy mansion. These were always fun much more straight and the drugs were there but did not flow, Hefner was not a fan of drugs.
Two of the pick up bars I remember most are The Eagle in New York and Spike in LA. I probably started going in the early 90’s.They are both pretty famous, I never had much luck in either, Maybe I was missing quaaludes, but I don’t think so. It seemed no one was out for a good time they were only out for sex. Everyone either posed or circled. I always found it easier to find sex when I was having fun and not looking, I think that is why the parties in college were so much fun, We were just there to have good time and the sex was secondary.
Two summers ago a friend who makes magic mushrooms gave me some to try. I had never done them and as I said earlier I will usually try anything once. I mentioned to my friend Naomi that I had them and she was thrilled. She loves them, We were at her lake house in CT and I decided to give them a go. We had 3 doses. One for me, one for her and one for her son who is about 25. They were great, Naomi said she had never had such good ones. It was a beautiful day and hallucinations galore. It reminded me of the acid I took in college. After about 4 hours of incredible hallucinations I was quite happy when I started to come down and just felt at peace watching one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. The funniest part of the day was that Naomi’s mother Tilly who is in her 80’s watched us and made sure we were ok the whole time. Tilly is the one who thirty years ago used to take us all to Studio 54. She also used to chase us around the club asking for ludes, She was not happy that we did not have enough mushrooms for her. I love her spirit and her desire to keep trying new things.
So I can say the 70's and 80's really did live up to all the hype. Sex, drugs and everything in between, it was a non stop party. All in all I am pretty happy I grew up when I did and feel very lucky to have done all that I have done. There really is a lot more to my life than parties and drugs but that will be written about later. Today especially this past year Aaron and I have become quite the homebodies although we have quite a bit planned now that lockdown is ending.