A Quote From Tallulah Bankhead

"Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know - I've been using it for years."

Salutations, Andre

In his forthcoming book, eight time Grand Slam winner (and owner of the so-called "career slam" for winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open and US Open) Andre Agassi admits to using crystal meth "a lot" beginning in 1997, when his career was at its nadir. His story, which is being excerpted in The Times, contains the following confession of his first experience with the drug, which was supplied to him by his assistant, known as "Slim:"

"Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I've just crossed. There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I've never felt so alive, so hopeful - and I've never felt such energy."

I don't care to engage in speculation about what effect the drug use had on his career as a tennis superstar, good or bad. It also doesn't bother me in the least that Agassi admitted to lying to the men's governing body, the ATP, to escape a ban. We addicts know that lying goes part and parcel with drug use in a society that unjustly criminalizes a victimless personal choice. What I think is important about Agassi's words is the way in which he so beautifully describes the conflicting feelings and emotions that are implicit in the drug experience. Also, he doesn't meekly and dishonestly shy away - as so many "reformed" writer-addicts do - from telling his audience about the positive aspects of the meth experience.

I always admired Agassi as a player. He had the complete game, the total package whether serving, on the baseline or coming to the net. His fitness was second to none during his triumphant resurgence of the late 1990's and early 2000's. His demeanor (during that resurgence) was always gentlemanly and humble, which was a nice counterpoint to the bad boy image of his early career. But now I have a new, perhaps more important reason to respect him: his intellect and personal expression. Not many great athletes could make the important contribution to society that Agassi has in sharing his experience.

A Quote From Ernest Hemingway

"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."

- For Whom the Bell Tolls

Reno Renaissance

I finally made it out to Reno last weekend for a little gambling, drinking and general carousing with my brother. Although we usually stay at the Peppermill, which is on the outskirts, the town was packed and we had to make reservations at the Siena, which is located downtown on the Truckee River. (I can’t recommend the hotel due to the surliness of John, a bitter front desk assistant.) We took advantage of our location and spent a great deal of time walking around, bar hopping and checking out the many new businesses, civic parks and “Riverwalk” district. To say the least, the condition of the city is a revelation.

Old school Reno has always been a favorite of mine. I’ve enjoyed the brutal conditions of the downtown area for as long as I can remember: the bums, lowlifes, hustlers, prostitutes, dilapidated hotel-casinos, four hundred dollar a month apartments, neglected streets and destitute bars. It sometimes struck me as hard to believe the place could exist in such a condition. However every time the city fathers or some new investor or developer tried to clean the place up Reno resisted, sticking to its anachronistic, myopic ways. And in this respect it always remained real, that much could be counted on. Now it may have been, to many people, really awful, a terrible place to take a family or a woman you were interested in sleeping with. But it was real.

Things are changing in downtown Reno. My brother observed that the place has improved by thirty percent in the last five years. And I think this estimation is just about right. There are less seedy characters and run down dives, more renovated condominiums and hotels, a whole slew of improved drinking and dining options and civic spaces that actually do the town proud. Also, there is a heavy police presence, which seems to keep everything in line.

We had consumed six or seven drinks and were just beginning to feel our groove when my brother suggested we go into “Doc Holidays,” a bar on East Second Street that I had somehow never been inside. “You’ll find plenty of characters in there,” he informed me. “This place is super run-down.” Upon entering, however, he was shocked to see that the whole interior had been renovated. The joint was actually respectable. It had flat screen televisions, an internet jukebox, historic photographs, a pool table with clean, fresh felt and respectable patrons. He was dumbfounded. Chris, the bartender, informed us sadly, “Everything’s changing around here. Pretty soon there’ll be none of the old Reno left.”

And of course this is the catch. “Progress” requires giving up the thing you had in the past. The vast majority of people wouldn’t bat an eye at seeing downtown Reno give up its squalidness. But there are many of us who love Reno the way it was and mostly still is, because it’s a singularity and its authenticity is beyond question. But the times they are a changin’. So my advice to you is get on up to Reno for a weekend. Drink ninety-nine cent well drinks at the Sands Regency. Eat $3.99 steak and eggs at the Cal-Neva. Smoke cigarettes indoors and marvel at how nobody complains. Because it may not last that much longer, and once it’s gone, it is truly gone for good.

World’s Strangest Addictions: Funerals

Many people are repelled by funerals; most of us do everything we can to ward off the very thought of death in our day to day lives. Of course, when a loved one or good friend passes, we honor them by holding a funeral or at the very least a memorial service to deal with the reality, remember them – hopefully fondly – and ultimately move on. However, there are not many of us that would seek out funerals to attend. But there are a select few that do so compulsively.

My research has not yet revealed a clinical term for this strange addiction, but I have been able to retrieve at least one example of an individual “suffering” with this condition. Brazilian man Luis Squarisi, aged 42, from Batatais is said to have attended every single funeral that has occurred in his town for the last twenty years. He even quit his job in order to devote all of his time to this pursuit.

He told a Brazilian television station, "The first thing I do every morning is to turn on the radio to find out if anyone has died, if I don't hear it on the radio I call the hospitals and the local funeral home."

One would think that this behavior would be utterly disturbing to his fellow townsfolk. Interestingly, the opposite is true. Sao Vicente, a representative for the local funeral home said, "We don’t want him to go to therapy, everyone expects to see him at the funerals. If he stopped coming he would be missed and lots of people would be disappointed. He is famous already."

Secret Stash

Wendy hadn’t used crank in more than ten years. She quit at age twenty when she dropped to eighty-five pounds from her normal weight of one twenty-five. She didn’t go to rehab; she didn’t seek professional help. She did sweat profusely and continuously in bed for ten mostly sleepless nights and then didn’t leave the house for the succeeding month while she ate her way through her mother’s kitchen regaining some of the precious pounds that had melted away after years of drug use. But she came through it all right in the end, moved on and never touched the stuff again. Years later she gave birth to Gwen, her beautiful baby girl. To all of us around her, she was a completely new person. Once, she told me that it felt like the whole experience, all those years of partying and running around, seemed like nothing more than a hazy dream involving a totally different person.

She recently moved from Seattle to Portland after a bitter divorce and was unpacking some things that she had brought with her. Box after box was opened and unloaded. Some of the things inside were a decade old or more. Memories flooded back to her as she examined old pictures, nick knacks and possessions from a lifetime. In one box, she found an old purse that she had once dearly loved. As she was looking it over she felt a lump in one of the inner partitions. She looked inside and unzipped the compartment.

To her astonishment, she found a cellophane bag which contained ten bindles of speed. Some of the drug had gone bad: it was lumpy from moisture that had crept in over the years. A couple of the bindles, however, contained perfectly intact powder ready for an instantaneous snort, smoke or shot.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she related. “Obviously, the stuff came from when I was dealing. I often had that much dope, but was usually selling the majority of it so that I could do my couple of grams. I simply don’t know how I could have forgotten it. I must have been really high.”

No doubt. And I reflect with wonderment and curiosity at the strange story of those ten little bindles traveling with her wherever she went, by her side, unknown, unwitting companions, a tiny, powdery, illicit piece of her history, tangible even though the past from whence they came had dissipated into the ephemeral yesterday.

A Quote From Winston Churchill

“Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”