First, let me preface this with my own experience: I smoked a lot of pot in college but for the most part have quit for the last 8 years or so. I'll still dabble at parties and when I've had a few too many drinks, but it's not a regular thing for me anymore. I've also tried a few other things which shall remain nameless, but for the most part I'm not a big drug guy anymore, I try to keep it straight.

I drink my fair share though, I work at a bar, it's kind of hard not to. Over the last few years, I've phased that out a bit as well. It's not so "fun" just getting drunk all the time after a while and I've kind of cut it back, though I'll still tear it up if the mood hits me.

As liberal as my tendencies are, I do believe that drugs can be very bad for our society. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the drug abuse problem here, it's been well covered a million other places, but in short, drug abuse can and does lead to and aid in crime, poverty, disease, and countless other socioeconomic problems.

Despite all of these problems, I think few can deny that there is a massive correlation between the drug and alchohol use and abuse that our society tends to shun and the plethora of art and pop culture that our society lauds and glorifies that is produced by so-called drug abusers and addicts that we're supposed to loathe.

Heroin is bad but Miles Davis is a legend. Coke is bad but George Carlin and Richard Pryor were the funniest guys of the 80s. Just Say No unless you're Chris Farley or James Belushi and you make us laugh. Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain.......Hell, intellectual darling Aaron Sorkin was in and out of rehab and was caught with shrooms, pot and crack -- yes, crack! -- inbetween seasons of the West Wing.

This is an issue and subject that has bothered me for a few years now, and my question is as follows:

Is it causation or correlation? Can drugs act to bring out a certain artistic genius in people? Or are the people who tend toward artistic genius simply more inclined to partake in drugs? If so, is it because they're running in circles and situations where drug use is more common? Or is it because they're so "crazy" (not in a bad way), so massively intelligent that they look to drugs as an answer for the chaos running through their minds?

Could Miles Davis have written Bitches Brew if he weren't on heroin? Did the heroin push him over the top and bring out the genius? Or was Miles' mind so overwhelmed by the genius that allowed him to write such a thing that he sought out the drugs as a release from the madness.

Was Richard Pryor able to perform because he was on coke? Or did the lifestyle that went along with being a famous comedian lead to him undertaking the coke-head lifestyle?

I could write a few more pages but I'll leave it at that until I see if anyone has any thoughts...

OK, actually a further question:

If Miles had never touched heroin, could he have written 30 masterpieces instead of 20, or whatever it was? Could Pryor have permanently changed the face of comedy? Where would rock be right now if Hendrix hadn't died from his problems?

Awesome stuff, but I don't have anything to add.

I'll read with interest, though.

Looking forward to Herm's take (amongst others).

My take:

There are just as many artists who were good because of their drug experiences as there were artists who were good in spite of their drug experiences. Miles Davis definitely suffered because of heroin. But Elliott Smith would never have gone anywhere at all.

I don't think it affects things one way or another. What I don't think a lot of people are willing to accept about artists is that their inspiration eventually just runs out. However, it's 100% true. No one can be completely brilliant for their entire life. Entirely too many people want to say that drugs ruined someone's artistic career, but the fact is that artistic careers (especially in music) don't last long. People run out of ideas.

Yeah, you can be Sly Stone and have drugs ruin your career. Or you can be Billy Joel and have your career ruined because people got tired of getting pedantically lectured by you in your songs. Or you can be Underworld and have a massive surge of creativity that probably would never have happened if it weren't for Ecstasy.

I think drugs make things interesting, but I don't believe that they have much effect on the creation of good art. However, they can have a seriously negative effect on the artists personally. That's not a contradiction. Consider Layne Staley, who was miserable because of his drug addiction and it eventually killed him, but that misery provided him with an incredible point of view that informed his music.

I really don't think drugs have much to do with anything but a person's self-need. When one notes a particular celebrity "using", keep in mind the personality of many in the limelight (and why they desired the limelight in the first place). Many entertainers are self-haters, manic depressives, meglomaniacs, hyperactives, social whores, and so on. The drugs are merely an extension of THAT, not necessarily their artistic endeavor. I know several people who are so entrenched in the entertainment world that "business life" and "personal life" have become one in the same. The fact is, they had no life before their music career, or acting career, or modeling career. No hobbies to fall back on. No network of friends outside of the business who have nothing to do with the business. When this happens, one loses perspective. It is at this time where they're the most vulnerable to social pressures.

Of course, there are many within this arena who fit the example, but chose NOT to utilize narcotics as part of their daily life. Again, this has much to do, in my opinion, with the personality type, and not their artistic quest.

I think drugs make things interesting, but I don't believe that they have much effect on the creation of good art. However, they can have a seriously negative effect on the artists personally. That's not a contradiction. Consider Layne Staley, who was miserable because of his drug addiction and it eventually killed him, but that misery provided him with an incredible point of view that informed his music.

Also, Kurt Cobain?

Also, Kurt Cobain?
This may sound weird, but I don't really see Cobain as someone who wrote very often specifically about his drug problems. He wrote about fucked-up life experiences, but his focus was more on family and childhood, and I don't really see him as a "drug" songwriter like Layne Staley was.

Maybe one factor is the artist lifestyle provides a bigger window of opportunity to be a functioning addict. When you have to get up in the morning, shave and show up at a day job it's a lot harder to get away with being stoned every day and not have it fall apart.

Creative types are more likely to set their own schedules or work alone. If they do work with others, the really established ones will have people bending over backwards to enable them even if they are a little messed up. Also, your "customers" aren't off-put that much by it. If anything a little train wreckery can add an aura of intrigue and make people want your work more.

Well, there's something to be said for that. As an artist, no one ever holds you accountable for being on drugs, and you know that probably no one ever will. Most of us have to shape our shit up when we get out of college. It's like being in college for the rest of your life.

don't do drugs
http://tk2.stb.s-msn.com/i/D4/441AC67EFAB3EBB39BDCFCC1790B.jpg

wow....I really add nothing to this board

I believe that over history we've seen a lot of incredible work come out of some severely messed up people. Their chaos and problems and the darkness within fueled some of their amazing creativity. Drugs can feed into that. I don't think it's necessarily the source of where they get their genius but for many it feeds that part of them, it fuels those fires. And I think for some the messes that they create from their drug use also add to the general chaos in their lives which, again, can translate back into their work.

First, let me preface this with my own experience: I smoked a lot of pot in college but for the most part have quit for the last 8 years or so. I'll still dabble at parties and when I've had a few too many drinks, but it's not a regular thing for me anymore. I've also tried a few other things which shall remain nameless, but for the most part I'm not a big drug guy anymore, I try to keep it straight.

I drink my fair share though, I work at a bar, it's kind of hard not to. Over the last few years, I've phased that out a bit as well. It's not so "fun" just getting drunk all the time after a while and I've kind of cut it back, though I'll still tear it up if the mood hits me.

As liberal as my tendencies are, I do believe that drugs can be very bad for our society. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the drug abuse problem here, it's been well covered a million other places, but in short, drug abuse can and does lead to and aid in crime, poverty, disease, and countless other socioeconomic problems.

Despite all of these problems, I think few can deny that there is a massive correlation between the drug and alchohol use and abuse that our society tends to shun and the plethora of art and pop culture that our society lauds and glorifies that is produced by so-called drug abusers and addicts that we're supposed to loathe.

Heroin is bad but Miles Davis is a legend. Coke is bad but George Carlin and Richard Pryor were the funniest guys of the 80s. Just Say No unless you're Chris Farley or James Belushi and you make us laugh. Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain.......Hell, intellectual darling Aaron Sorkin was in and out of rehab and was caught with shrooms, pot and crack -- yes, crack! -- inbetween seasons of the West Wing.

This is an issue and subject that has bothered me for a few years now, and my question is as follows:

Is it causation or correlation? Can drugs act to bring out a certain artistic genius in people? Or are the people who tend toward artistic genius simply more inclined to partake in drugs? If so, is it because they're running in circles and situations where drug use is more common? Or is it because they're so "crazy" (not in a bad way), so massively intelligent that they look to drugs as an answer for the chaos running through their minds?

Could Miles Davis have written Bitches Brew if he weren't on heroin? Did the heroin push him over the top and bring out the genius? Or was Miles' mind so overwhelmed by the genius that allowed him to write such a thing that he sought out the drugs as a release from the madness.

Was Richard Pryor able to perform because he was on coke? Or did the lifestyle that went along with being a famous comedian lead to him undertaking the coke-head lifestyle?

I could write a few more pages but I'll leave it at that until I see if anyone has any thoughts...

Maybe.

I used to do, lets just say a lot of stuff. I cut most of it out maybe 6 years ago. If anything I'm like Vinny now in that at most I rarely hit a joint at a party or something, and I like my beer.

Now from 6 years ago to 15 years ago, I was really really into music. I was in bands, DJ'd, pretty much did it all aside from making it big. Now a lot of other things in life have taken up my time of late, but in the last couple months I've wondered if I can still call myself a musician, or if I have to call myself a past musician. Causation or correlation? I don't even know myself. I just know that my creativity died off with the drug use. I really want to make some good music again, but every time I've sat down over the last year to write something it just sucks and I drop it for a bit.

That's my 2c because it's my experience.

Damn it Glenn....expectations.

Something I want to address before the creative thing. Why are we only talking about "dude did drugs, dude had a hard time with it, dude was great but drugs did him in" guy? I did/do lots of drugs not because I don't want to do them. I love them. It's not that life isn't good, it's that they really do make life better. They make me laugh even more, they make me think in depth about lots of things I'd otherwise ignore, they've introduced me to my best times, my best friends, and my wife. They're been an interwoven theme through what I think most would consider a successful teen and adult progression. I have 3 degrees (suck it buckdow), I have a fine career, and a happy family. Narcotics have been with me all along. Paul McCartney did lots of drugs, seemed to work out wonderfully. Let's get over this stereotype, drugs do some bad things to people who misuse them just like guns and whores.

Like UxKa, my depth in answering the question will come from sharing my experiences. I got an English Writing degree while being the editor of my university's Student Writing Journal. I used to write a lot of comedy and short fiction, all blended with a really striking observational style that was sometimes compared to Seinfeld. That insight came from drugs. I just think about things, notice things, and have the ability to convey things differently when I'm high. I can say funny things when I'm straight, but not of that ilk.

I no longer write though. Well, I do, but not like that. I write on message boards. I never really enjoyed the writing, I liked people reading it and laughing. I get that more here. About 1/2 my posts here are stoned, and I couldn't pick them all out, but I could tag quite a few just from the change in my diction and pace of verbiage. I just have a different frame of mind. I can see how a musician or painter could get the same boost, just deviating his line of thought enough to find some art hidden in a place in his mind no one else had ever visited.

That said, crazies also used drugs to self medicate, and can make beautiful music, so I would presume there is a hybrid.

^^ Is that post stoned?

Why are we only talking about "dude did drugs, dude had a hard time with it, dude was great but drugs did him in" guy?

Herm, let me just say that I agree with most of what you posted, the only reason I used the examples I did is because they have been the most publicized examples and thus the most likely to engender a multi-opinionated discussion. That's also why I brought up Aaron Sorkin because he's generally not the stereotypical example of what one would see the "troubled, drug-addled artist" as being, and yet he was doing crack!

Maybe I'm alone, but before I googled him, I pictured Sorkin as being a straight-laced suit type that I never would have imagined imbibing much more than a couple scotch on the rocks.

^^ Is that post stoned?


Yes. This one at 6:20 is not.

Yeah... I love some old AIC, but Kobain was a much better musician.

WTF!? Post disappeared? LDB said Kobain didn't deserve to breathe Staley's air or something.

I smoke pot, but have slowed down my consumption. I dont like the way I feel the following day, I also think it takes away from achieving goals. I give credit to anyone who can maintain focus on life in general while being a regular pot smoker.

I can't believe this thread hasn't been derailed yet. One of the first in a long time around here.

Bradley Novell of Sublime. That fucker. They were on to something huge.

Or, they could've become the next SugarRay.

I can't believe this thread hasn't been derailed yet. One of the first in a long time around here.

Actually, I do have a tangent... at what age is it officially too late for drug experimentation if you haven't already?

47

47


Yeah, I read that shit in high times.

I smoke pot, but have slowed down my consumption. I dont like the way I feel the following day, I also think it takes away from achieving goals. I give credit to anyone who can maintain focus on life in general while being a regular pot smoker.


You need a good wife who thinks it's cute.

You need a good wife who thinks it's cute.

Words of true wisdom.

Yeah, I read that shit in high times.

That was in High Times? I just pulled that out of my ass.

That was in High Times? I just pulled that out of my ass.


kidding.

OK, that makes me feel better.