Oh My Goose, this is chapter five already, and only two out of the three wishes I had when I was fourteen have been fulfilled? Now that first wish messed up my study, let's see how the second messed up my life.

This was incredible, the inexperienced me now had a steady DJ job once a month in my favorite club. What was even better was that apparently people like new and fresh because in a couple of months I was everybody´s favorite Eighties DJ. But those Eighties parties were only a side gig for the club.

They were known for being an alternative rock, Dance, and metal club so did I start on the wrong side of the spectrum being hired as an eighties DJ?

Well, time would tell I guess, but at least I had a way in. At least I was the top dog of the Eighties parties and that triggered me to be asked for student parties.

At the same time, I was asked to work behind the bar. Slowly my life started revolving around this club, especially when I got fired from my other job. They had to pay me 3 months of wages and that same night I signed the agreement I got more hours at the club.

ClubLife

These last couple of years were already evolving around going out every single night of the week. But now I did no longer have to pay to be in the club.

If I wasn´t working I would get more drinks from the locals and the staff than would be good for me if I would accept all, and if I was working I got offered even more free drinks.

LP - Cheers (Drink to That) Just FYI LP wrote the song for RiRi

Unlike my mom and my grandfather I lacked the gene for loving alcohol, I mean I liked the stuff but it was not my drug of choice, and up until today that has remained as such. Probably because it´s a drug I can easily turn away from ...unlike some other substances.

The club itself was not the problem, and neither was most of the staff. Yes, they smoked and drank, but other than that it was a pretty clean bunch.

The customers, well not so much. But I guess it was a sign of the times as nowadays (from what I read and hear) doing coke in the club is just as normal as it was for us to light up a cigarette in the club.

It must have been my generation that inspired the modern behavior.

Those Friday nights, after the Coffeeshop closed at 23:00 we needed a place to hang out. The cub would not be filled till 01:00 so went to my place first. It must have been eight or ten people that came over every Friday, I brought the weed, some girls brought the booze and Pim would bring the powder.

At first, it was like half a gram for a bunch of guys and a wide-hipped Latina, but a bunch of that bunch soon felt they needed more. You don´t notice it at first, not even if you take a second glance. It takes time for these habits to grow, and I was in the midst of it all. My place, my Coffeeshop and later my club...well you know what I mean.

Friends will not be Friends

That group, which really was a tight-knit group started falling apart after a year or two. The cracks started to show after a Lowlands festival.

One of the guys had met a girl, she had indulged in some chemicals but it seemed her brain couldn´t handle it. She ended up having schizo and paranoid episodes. The guy she was with was really one of the nicest guys I knew. He stuck with the girl, turned his back on the group, and well something broke. I never saw him again. At that time I did not really care, but looking back I wish we still were friends.

The rest of us carried on regardless. Damn those days, we had some crazy moments.

The Beautiful South - Good As Gold

We would drive to the edge of a little lake in the middle of nowhere and dance to the music coming from the car speakers. One night we were so hyper, we played this game where you would run down the steep edge and stop before you reached the waterline. That went okay the first time, and probably a couple more still I ended up soaking wet and needed to sit on my best friend's lap to not get stains upholstery.

Talking about wet and my best friend. This guy had the weirdest magic mushroom experience I can recollect and I can remember several.

So this is what happened, I spilled water on the wide-hipped Latina and he was sitting at the other side of the room. Just when the water hit her arm he stood up and said: "wtf where did that water come from.?" Now I saw that the water was on this girl on her arm and her cleavage, but how could he have felt the water dropping on a girl that was sitting at least 7 feet away from him?

Then again that same guy was pretty far gone, he thought he had a whole conversation with the Latina during our walk back home. We were almost home when she called out to me to come and join her because this "guy didn´t say poo for these last thirty minutes!"

I remember those nights vividly, but those were the last cool nights. Both the Latina, her housemate, and the guy that didn´t say poo slowly started to change.

They went out less frequently, I would notice more powder-related accessories and sometimes even empty rappers spread across their places. Then slowly stories about money problems started to surface.

Meanwhile, I saw another good friend slipping away

Rolling Stones - Slipping Away

We used to spend morning afters at his place smoking and snoring.
For me that was more than enough, but Tom took it a step further and started smoking the powder.

In no time he became a shadow of his cool Mick Jagger-like former self, and not much later disappeared. Literally, I never saw him again. It felt like a final warning.

I had several warnings before, the one I mentioned about the girl suffocating in her own vomit due to an overdose but also this guy....

Thelonious Monster - Bob Forrest going mad onstage @ Pinkpop 1993

Seeing this performance by Bob Forrest happening right in front of me and watching the footage later was not as big a warning as seeing my friend slipping away and disappearing.

The latter definitely made me rethink my lifestyle. Most of us experiment a bit, my experimenting went beyond a bit. Guess I was lucky that Alcohol, Cigarettes, and powder never gave me a kick I did not want to live without, those drugs just didn´t work for me.

The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work

Yes, drugs were definitely part of the DJ lifestyle. I saw them screw up several lives around me but not mine.

If the drugs were not the Dark-side of my wish to become a DJ then what was?