#one day i will draw handers normally i promise

[gvalesdraws]

deleted scene after Chantry's blow up

[ofacesandvolleys]

"A lot of people have to slow me down"

Tennis pro Alexander Zverev on his rapid rise to the number three in the world rankings, his relationship with Germany - and books by Stephen Hawking.

Interview by Gerald Kleffmann for Süddeutsche Zeitung on November 11, 2017

Alexander "Sascha" Zverev became the best German tennis professional at the age of 20. In the world rankings, the player from Hamburg comes in third, and this season he won tournaments in Montpellier, Munich, Rome, Washington and Montréal. Zverev will be competing at the ATP finals in London from Sunday, with the top eight players taking part in 2017.

SZ: Mr. Zverev, recently the German player Julia Görges revealed a secret: She likes to make tax returns and would have worked in this area if she hadn't become a tennis player. Sascha: Well, I don't like to do that (laughs). SZ: Your passion is the game "Escape Room", where you have to solve tasks to escape from a room. Sascha: Oh, yeah. That's what I love. Wherever I can play it, I'll make an appointment. I do it everywhere, in America, Australia, France. We are usually a group of players, but my Physio Hugo is often there, too. SZ: What fascinates you about this game? Sascha: Logical thinking. I like the fiddling, combining, the strategic approach. You come into a room first and you have to find things. For example, a red cross and a blue triangle and a black something. Then you'll have to connect everything together according to a specification. You have to work a lot with numbers, there's some math to it. Recently at the tournament in Vienna I played it five times with my fellow players.

SZ: Do you have to compete in your leisure time as well? Sascha: Always. If there's no competition, I get bored. No matter what I do. Also on a day off I have to do something with competition. It's part of my personality. When I'm with my brother Mischa (ten years older, also tennis pro) it's always the case that we play for something. The winner then makes fun of the loser. SZ: Ambition is the engine of your sporting career. You made it to the ATP Finals in your fourth year as a pro. How do you assess your qualification? Sascha: For every player who makes it to the finals, it's like a small tribute. You're one of the top 8 players of the year, not just one for two or three weeks. For me it was also special to qualify as a third player after Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. SZ: You were supposed to start this week at the premiere of the Next Gen Finals of the under-21s in Milan. You skip it because of London - you have become too good in your age group. Why did you make such a development in 2017? Sascha: The development has a lot to do with the years before. In the three years before, I did off-season every time, only trained and worked a lot physically. I have to be ready to keep up with the best players and also to win against them. These basics have been seen this year. Of course I'm glad about my titles. But in tennis, you have to have a short memory. Whether you win or lose, if you win a tournament this week, you'll have to play another tournament next week. You can be happy for a day or two, but then you have to be ready again. I'm happy every time I get to play in a big tournament. I consider it an honour. SZ: You come from a tennis family, your Russian parents were top players in the former USSR, your brother Mischa is currently 32nd in the ATP ranking. And yet your family sometimes seems mysterious, partly because your father, who is also your coach, hardly speaks in public. Who are the Zverevs? Sascha: That's not so mysterious. My parents came to Germany from Russia in 1991. Because of the political situation. My father had played 13 years for Davis Cup. He played two or three tournaments abroad and was not allowed to travel for six months. That wasn't easy for him. While he had to stay at home, the others played in Grand Slams. It was no different with my mother. My mum gave birth to Mischa at the age of 20, and for her career it was difficult. In Russia my parents had a good standard of living, my father was quite famous. But in Germany, they started from scatch. They had an one-room apartment and worked for a tennis club every day. That's how it began. And now we are where we are. SZ: When you internalize what your parents Alexander senior and Irina gave up for their sons: What do you think about it? Sascha: I'm aware of what they have done for us. It absolutely helps me to stay on the ground. I know you have to go through something to get somewhere in life. That is why I want to use every opportunity to become better. I am infinitely grateful to my parents. Without my parents, I wouldn't be the player I am. No matter which coach I have, for me, my dad is one of the best coaches in the world anyway. He has two sons who play completely different games. I'm the fast baseline player, I try to play aggressively from the baseline. Mischa is a left-hander and goes to the net at every possibility. Our dad designed our game the way he thought it was right. We both became top 30 players from ranking position zero! SZ: Is he a typical tennis father? Sascha: Of course he can be strict. But he's more of a quiet man. He'd never start screaming. In tennis, parents sometimes have control over their children's life. They want control over their personal lives, over friends. He's very smart. He understands he's the tennis coach. And my personal life is my personal life. If he were to take part in everything I would go nuts someday, completely nuts. (laughs). He understands because he played tennis himself. That's why it works so well with all of us. SZ: Haven't you ever felt any pressure? Sascha: Not a bit. My father never said,"You've got to do this and that! You have to do this and that! He never forced me to play tennis. Instead he has to slow me down. A lot of people have to slow me down. Also Jez, my fitness coach. I'm someone who doesn't want to take a day off after a disappointing defeat. I'm not feeling well. I want to suppress that with work. My team often understands better than I do that my body needs a break. Even if I don't like to hear that. SZ: You're an emotional player. Some rackets must have been destroyed. Do these feelings sometimes get in your way or does this impulsiveness helps you? Sascha: I show my emotions automatically because I am completely in a match. I think that if you don't show any emotions in tennis, you also signal that it's not so important to you. I want the audience to see how much I want to win every match. I'm not going to tame my emotions. They're part of me. SZ: When you play against Grand Slam champions like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, you appear to believe in a chance. Is this fearlessness given to you or can you learn something like that? Sascha: It's a mixture of both. The first time I played Federer, I was nervous too. He was always my idol. I wanted to play against him all my life. But the second and third time it became easier for me. It is important to me to draw the right conclusions from experiences. They were always big matches against him. I played the semi-final of Halle against him in 2016. The final of Halle. Or the Montréal final. (2017) SZ: You almost humiliated Federer there at 6:3,6:4. Why aren't you intimidated by such moments? Sascha: I've been familiar with tennis courts since I was a kid. I have already travelled with my brother and got to know the facilities, the surroundings. I always wanted to play on the biggest courts. Even as a boy. That's what I enjoyed the most. I used to have the feeling and still have it: When I work hard in the gym and nobody sees how I work there, I want to show it on the court how much I have worked. And you can only do that on big courts. SZ: As the new number three in the world ranking, you are now directly behind Federer and Nadal. Apart from their athletic performance - what impresses you about them as personalities? Sascha: That both of them are normal people. Roger's nice to the players, he's not out of touch. He has a very good sense of humor. Not everyone always recognizes this, because Roger likes to make the same face. He's incredibly funny in private. Rafa as well. SZ: How important is it to be loved? Federer and Nadal are literally approaching love. Sascha: I want to be loved, of course - but by the people who know me. I want to be remembered later as a good person and not just as a good tennis player. Sometimes, in order to achieve my sporting goals, I have to make decisions that are not always easy for the media and fans to understand. However, these decisions are important for the long view ahead. SZ: That you skip the Davis Cup relegation in Portugal was a big topic: it has irritated some people. You promised months ago you want to play, and in the end it was said that your manager advised you not to play. Sascha: I just can't play every time. My season is long. But I have already said: I will play Davis Cup in Australia at the beginning of February, after the Australian Open. In Australia, I'm definitely going to play, whether I lose in Melbourne in the final or in the third round. And if we win, I'll definitely play the Davis Cup until the end. SZ: Like most top players, you have become a global player. You practice in Florida, live in Monte Carlo, travel around the world. How do you see yourself in this international cosmos? Sascha: I see myself and feel completely German. I love Germany, I love Hamburg. If I could be somewhere my whole life, it would be Hamburg. I grew up there. I do not hope that people don't see me as a German. I just can't be around that much. We play in January in Australia, then in the US, in Europe, again in the US, in Asia. We're never just in one place. I moved to Monte Carlo because of better training conditions in winter and because many other players are living there. There are a lot of extremely good training partners there, and many hard courts. My brother lived there before me, now we have apartments right next to each other. My parents also live there. Monte Carlo is a very good place for tennis. It was a tough decision, but it was also a smart decision. SZ: What is striking is that you sound more comfortable in English. When you won in Washington, you gave a very charming speech. In German, the people sometimes experienced minor irritations, according to the motto:"How did he mean that now?" Sascha: That's probably because I rarely give interviews in German because I'm rarely there. In tennis, English is the language. When I come back to Germany after a long time and play in Munich, for example, I am sometimes afraid of myself. Not that I'm forgetting the german language. But as an interview language, I'm more familiar with English. But I don't have a problem giving interviews in German. Or in Russian. SZ: How much Russian do you have in you? Sascha: We speak russian every day in the family. My parents don't want me to forget it. I also speak Russian with my brother. It's good for me that I can speak several languages, and I'm now trying to learn French as well. I have a French physio who doesn't stop talking, never, no matter what time it is. But back to Russian: Everything that has to do with my parents and my brother is very interesting to me. We help each other, I also give back advices and experiences to Mischa. I'm also interested in other things. SZ: Like what, for example? Sascha: What was before our world. What was before us. I'm very interested in space. How it came about. I'm a little crazy about these things (laughs). SZ: Tell us more about it! Sascha: I'm interested in what's behind our knowledge. That's why I read Stephen Hawking. I'm fascinated by how people like him think. I read a lot about these topics and watch documentaries. For most people on the tour this is boring, so it's hard to find someone to talk to about it. I am generally interested in science, in nature. I'm interested in how water creatures turned into terrestrial creatures. How the bodies changed, the breathing, how beings suddenly crawled ashore. But to make sure there is no false impression: I don't read three hours about it every day. It's just a whim. SZ: You've made many good decisions, and working with second coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, a Spaniard you brought in this year, is working well. Nevertheless, third parties often express themselves and give advice. Recently, former professional Henri Leconte said you should give yourself more time to be successful at Grand Slams. You've never reached a quarter-finals there before. Sascha: Of course, I hear some things from the outside, but that doesn't count for me. All that matters to me is what my team says. I'm also very honest with myself.  SZ: Leconte didn't mean it in a negative way. More in the sense that you're too hard on yourself. Sascha: I'll always be hard on myself. I will always be harder to myself than any other human being. I'll always try to show my best tennis. Being the best at things I have under control.

[mhsn033]

Bob Willis Trophy: Malan, Slater & Duckett score tons on rain-affected day

Ben Slater has scored two centuries towards Lancashire to this level in 2020 – one for Leicestershire and the opposite for Nottinghamshire

Between the showers and the darkish clouds, there had been some stand-out performances on the first day of the third round of games in the Bob Willis Trophy.

For Nottinghamshire’s Ben Slater, it used to be a case of asking Lancashire “can I play you each week?” as he accomplished his 2d century of the competition and his 2d towards the Crimson Rose county this season.

Within the meantime, Somerset continued to display camouflage their credentials as favourites with but any other spectacular bowling performance to brush off Warwickshire for merely 121 at Edgbaston.

There used to be also a century from veteran England heart-disclose batsman Dawid Malan, who continued his promising commence to lifestyles with unique county Yorkshire.

Relive Saturday’s action in the Bob Willis Trophy

North Community

Irrespective of chastening losses to Derbyshire and Yorkshire in the first two rounds, Nottinghamshire appear to be in a extremely sturdy put of dwelling towards Lancashire.

The day belonged to returning left-hander Slater, who used to be back in action along with his guardian county after spending the first two rounds on mortgage at Leicestershire.

The 28-365 days-veteran scored 172 for the Foxes earlier this month towards Lancashire and followed up that first-class profession simplest along with his third Nottinghamshire ton on the outlet day at Trent Bridge.

Slater (111 no longer out) shared in a 178-trot partnership for the 2d wicket with Ben Duckett (116) as Nottinghamshire reached 268-2 sooner than injurious gentle and rain seen play abandoned midway thru the night session.

The crew’s high two Yorkshire and Derbyshire are up towards each other and the hosts look in merely form after shedding the toss and being set in at Headingley.

After shedding Tom Kohler-Cadmore in the 2d over of the day for a duck after which Jonny Bairstow (22) for but any other below-par rating, Malan compiled his first century in Yorkshire colours after 136 balls.

The 32-365 days-veteran, who left Middlesex last winter, had moved on to an unbeaten 145 by stumps as Yorkshire closed on 280-4.

Dawid Malan has played 15 Checks for England, his most modern appearance coming in 2018

At Grace Motorway, a veteran Yorkshire opener used to be continuing his promising produce as Durham ended 176-3 towards Leicestershire.

Alex Lees (62 no longer out) reached his 2d half-century of the competition to switch alongside a gap-round century towards his veteran employers.

Lees and David Bedingham (96) placed on 159 for the third wicket sooner than the South African fell four fast of what would were his first Durham century.

Central Community

All over over again, Somerset’s all-out seam assault made gentle work of an opposition’s high disclose.

Irrespective of picking to bat first, Warwickshire had been fast in bother at 15-3 as Craig Overton (3-17) took his wicket tally to 17 for the competition.

Skipper Tom Abell (3-4) then mopped up the tail as the Bears simplest lasted 45.2 overs.

Somerset’s answer started handsomely with Eddie Byrom (30) and Tom Lammonby (33) inserting on 56 for the outlet wicket.

Abell (16 no longer out) handed 4,000 first-class profession runs and suggested his side to 80-2 sooner than injurious gentle and showers compelled an early produce.

A pause-begin day at Northampton seen Worcestershire fight to 93-5 towards Northamptonshire between the darkish clouds and rain.

Entirely Jack Haynes (38) and Brett D’Oliveira (24) had been ready to mount any kind of partnership, with Nathan Buck (3-31) the pick of the bowlers.

Chronic rain in Cardiff supposed there used to be no play doable on the outlet day between Glamorgan and Gloucestershire.

South Community

Entirely 57 balls had been doable on day one at a extremely wet Canterbury

Wet climate also sadly dominated lawsuits in the South Community, where all three fixtures had been severely affected.

Hove used to be where most play used to be doable as crew leaders Essex took on Sussex and had been ready to welcome back batsman Dan Lawrence from world duty and Ryan ten Doeschate from damage.

Sussex had been set in when play used to be in the slay ready to begin at 14: 30 BST, and opener Phil Salt recorded his third half-century of the campaign sooner than he used to be considered one of Jamie Porter’s two wickets.

Heavy rain after tea supposed no more play used to be doable following the 30 overs despatched down in the afternoon session as Sussex reached 93-2.

At Arundel, Hampshire had been reputedly settling-in smartly to their transient home as they welcomed winless Surrey.

Ian Holland (4-22) had the ball swinging round corners from the off as his four early wickets diminished Surrey to 36-5. England one-day opener Jason Roy used to be the fourth of these scalps as he equipped no stroke to a ball that nipped back originate air off and seen him traipse away leg sooner than for merely four.

Sussex loanee Laurie Evans then determined perhaps the most attention-grabbing produce of defence used to be assault as he fast made his draw to an unbeaten 39 sooner than rain in the slay seen the day abandoned with Surrey on 79-5.

Entirely 57 balls had been doable at Canterbury, where Kent set Middlesex into bat as they looked to fabricate on their victory towards Sussex.

Matt Milnes used to be ready to acquire a normal caught and bowled as at the initiating he appealed unsuccessfully for leg sooner than towards Max Holden sooner than turning round mid-pitch and taking a looping probability off bat and pad. Umpire Neil Bainton used to be then bigger than fully ecstatic to spice up his finger.

Very heavy downpours after lunch left the St Lawrence Ground taking a look more delight in the nearby River Stour than a cricket floor, meaning play used to be abandoned for the day at 15: 20 BST with Middlesex on 22-1.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2Y0yGGP via IFTTT

[gokul2181]

Have added new dimensions to my game, says Sumit Nagal | Tennis News

New Post has been published on https://jordarnews.in/have-added-new-dimensions-to-my-game-says-sumit-nagal-tennis-news/

Have added new dimensions to my game, says Sumit Nagal | Tennis News

BENGALURU: Sumit Nagal is itching for matches. Just as well. The India No. 1 has made the US Open’s direct entry list. Before he gets to New York for the Grand Slam starting on August 31, the 22-year-old will play an ATP Challenger on outdoor clay in Prague from August 17 to 23. Ranked 127th, Nagal has stayed locked at his training base in Peine, Germany, since early March, outside of playing in open or club-level tournaments. One of them was a month ago in Pinneberg, where he beat German pro Daniel Masur in the final; he made the semifinals of another in Basel. Nagal leaves next Thursday for Prague, from where he’ll head to New York to play the second major main draw of his career. “I’m excited,” Nagal said. “I have only made one Slam main draw so far. I know the situation is not the same, but I’m going to do the right things which are in my hand.” Nagal, who bowed to Roger Federer in the first-round last year, isn’t a fan of faster hardcourts, though he loves the vibe of New York City. The Indian, who featured in the qualifying draw of the Australian Open in January, promised to play freely before returning to Europe and his beloved clay. Nagal, who has worked on his German these last months, has also primed his stubborn play. “I’ve tried to add stuff to my game, new dimensions. I’ve worked on my serve,” he said. “My fitness work has been regular, the things that I normally do, speed, strength, endurance. I’ve also been doing yoga.” GUNNESWARAN HOPEFUL Prajnesh Gunneswaran, the India No. 2 and at 132 on the ATP rankings, is presently five places out of the direct entry list for the US Open. The left-hander, however, will take a chance and go to New York. It is unlikely that the tournament, which has done away with the qualifiers this year, will call for alternates in the midst of a pandemic to fill late openings in the field. The 30-year-old, who was at a career-best No. 75 last April before being laid low by a series of injuries, has been training this last month. The Chennai-based pro returned to the practice courts for about 10 days in June before the second lockdown. “I’ve used the time in July to sort out injury worries. I couldn’t do treatment, especially for the elbow earlier, because of the lockdown. All that has been sorted out now and I’m close to serving at my best,” the 6’2’’ Gunneswaran said. “I’m looking forward to playing again and playing my usual game. It’s been a while.” Gunneswaran is likely to travel to the US in late August, after which he’ll head to Europe for the French Open qualifiers. “I’m in no rush to play the Challengers,” he said, pointing at Covid-19. “I want to get into the big tournaments, play the qualifiers of Tour events. I could also do with some practice on clay.”

Source link

[foursprout-blog]

No Need To Die Twice: Why I’ll Never Do Ketamine Again

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/no-need-to-die-twice-why-ill-never-do-ketamine-again/

No Need To Die Twice: Why I’ll Never Do Ketamine Again

WATCHING THE AMBULANCE PULL AWAY from the curbside, I entered the dark club and asked the bouncer what was happening. “Some guy passed out in the bathroom. Overdosed on Special K.” 

“What the fuck is ‘special K?’ Isn’t that a cereal?”

“It’s an animal tranquilizer. He took too much and went into a K-hole.”

The term ‘K-hole’ was the most frightening slang I’d ever heard for a drug experience. Recreational drugs are supposed to induce euphoria and enlightenment, not shove you down a black hole and force an ambulance to haul away your drooling hulk.

It was at that moment that I knew I would have to try Special K.

ON A BLACK RAINY DECEMBER NIGHT a year later, a twinkly-eyed, goatee-wearing young man stopped me at a party and told me he enjoyed my writing. As we began talking, I pegged him as a “Dr. Buzz” type—my label for a white male who compensates for possible social awkwardness by knowing everything there is to know about illegal drugs. He was with a nerdy friend I’ll dub Mr. Spectacles.

Dr. Buzz revealed that he was on a paid sabbatical from work and, to pass the time, he’d been shooting ketamine hydrochloride—the medical name for Special K—into his ass muscles daily for the past eleven nights. He said that after doing ketamine, the “real” world seemed boring. He seemed bright and well-adjusted enough that I began to trust him. Touting the drug’s glories, he and his bespectacled chum offered to share some K with my female companion and me. I still suffered from the impression that ketamine was merely a tranquilizer that would induce a heavily stoned “body high” rather than the most terrifying psycho-death trip of my life. He cautioned that since K impaired motor skills, it was not a social drug and we’d have to ditch the party and repair to his quiet lair on the city’s far fringes. He promised we’d be lucid after an hour or two and that he’d drive us home.

Foolishly, we agreed.

WHEN WE REACHED HIS SAD, FLAT HOME, the lights were off and a man was already there sitting in darkness, bathed in droning electronic music. When Dr. Buzz flicked on the lights, the man’s eyes were so glassy, he appeared retarded. He had reverted back to Apeman and looked at Dr. Buzz with faint recognition.

Dr. Buzz and Mr. Spectacles had already burned down some liquid ketamine into butter-colored powder for needlephobes such as me and my girl. He cut out three huge lines for us—enough to make a sandwich.

“That seems like a lot,” I protested, sitting on a couch.

“No,” he insisted, carefully drawing two syringefuls of liquid K from a vial with which to ass-spike himself and Mr. Spectacles. “That’s a normal dose. You’ll have to do that much to feel the full effect. You can do two lines, and she can do one.”

He told us to snort it but to avoid trying to swallow it as if it were cocaine—just crush the crystals in our noses using our fingers. He said that within ten seconds, we’d feel a warmth in our feet that would rise through our bodies.

After snuffling my two monster rails, I handed the bill and mirror to my girlfriend, who inhaled her portion. I closed my eyes for a second and then looked over at her. She appeared to be already dead.

BOOM! Almost instantly I felt warmth and a savage disorientation. I began to feel sucked inside a hurricane’s slow-motion roar. The floor dropped out beneath me. Everything was TOO BRIGHT AND TOO LOUD. Wow…wow…wow…somebody turn this music off and turn the goddamned lights off…it’s too much…it’s too much…too much…too much…oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. 

The one-level house suddenly had an upper and a lower level. It wasn’t a house anymore—it was a spaceship casino. A deafening strobe effect pounded my head as if I was tied to the bottom of a subway car as it screamed through the Bronx. Faster than I could blink, images and sounds flew by like neon shrapnel. I was being munched alive by a giant digital machine, a computer- screen wonderworld where my identity was pulverized and pasted into a cold, endless tapestry. Pieces of myself were chopped up and spat back with epileptic speed.

I was being smashed down and torn apart and fused with “the one” against my will. I was separated from myself and could observe my identity stolen and broadcast on the Jumbotron screen of existence. Even my voice had become digitized and sounded as if I was speaking into an electric fan.

A crushed pile of plastic chips. Utterly synthetic. Bland virtual-reality mazescapes, the triumph of math over feeling. Dead flat cybernetic soullessness. Mechanical insect brain. The only emotion left was the most primitive one—fear.

I was a biology-class frog, my brain severed from my spinal column, pinned down in a steel tray, unable to move or feel.

Suddenly all was quiet and eternal. All the colors were burned to ash. Cold, dark space and emotionless planets. A dull grey orb surrounded by hissing blackness. Many things are deader than we’d imagined.

Rearing my woozy head, I realized where I was. I just saw shadows of other humans. No one was stirring. The music had stopped and the lights were off. A James Brown bobble-head doll on the table next to me reflected the middle-of-the-night moon rays and radiated cold, sadistic, voodoo death.

I squeezed my girl. I hovered over her as she stood downtown in the city where I met her…I saw where she fit in my life’s thread, all the events that led up to meeting her and winding up here, lost in a K-hole. We both huddled against a blizzard of blackness.

She said she had to leave. She had to go. Had to get out of there. She stood up and I reached after her. Don’t go. As bad as it is here, it’s worse out there. She took two steps and collapsed on the floor.

I stood up. I looked down at my feet, which seemed to be only three or four inches below my chin. On the floor beneath me was the unconscious Mr. Spectacles with a Mongoloid grin.

I began vomiting. On the couch. On the floor. On the doorknob while walking outside. On the rock garden. Power-puking until all I could taste was my own stomach acids and the rank chemical ketamine taste. My eyes were watering, my foggy breath shallow.

My girl and I sat out in the carport in thirty-five-degree December rain for a half-hour, feeling no cold. Every time I opened my eyes to focus, I saw three of everything swirling around kaleidoscopically.

She finally managed to call a cab. Vomit rose in my throat the whole way. At a stop light, I opened the door and sprayed gut juice onto the asphalt.

“Don’t do Special K,” I mumbled to the driver as he pulled up to my building.”

I FELT A SPOOKY MALAISE for the next week. Everything seemed dead or in the process of dying. Cheap computer-generated TV ads and my rattling kitchen-stove fan threatened to suck me back down into the K-hole.

Researching ketamine on the Internet, I discovered that the recommended powder dose is a small “bump” rather than the twin peaks I inhaled. One study determined that users experience memory loss and “mild schizophrenia” for days after ingesting it. I also learned that Special K can induce seizures and cause severe brain damage in epileptics and left-handers.

I’m left-handed and mildly epileptic.

Thanks, Dr. Buzz.

KETAMINE WAS INVENTED IN 1962 as a safer alternative to PCP, the drug of bloodthirsty psycho legend. Its molecular structure is almost identical to that of its scarier older brother.

Ketamine was employed as an anesthetic during the Vietnam War and is still being used on house pets and children worldwide. Its painkilling properties are so powerful, it’s used in burn trauma and for post-amputation stump pain.

Along with PCP, DXM, and nitrous oxide, ketamine belongs to a class of drugs called “dissociatives,” so named because the user experiences a clear split between ego and body. Physicians refer to such a hallucinogenic near-death state as an “emergence reaction.”

Some people find the blotting out of self to be euphoric, an erasure of all self-consciousness; others, like me, find it nightmarish and run screaming back into themselves.

After media horror stories of its use as a “date-rape drug,” the Feds finally declared ketamine illegal in 1999. You can still buy it over the counter in Mexico, which is where Dr. Buzz procured his stash.

Ketamine’s most ardent spokesman was the neurophysiologist John Lilly who invented the isolation tank in the 1950s. The films Day of the Dolphin and Altered States are based on Lilly’s writings and experiences. Lilly is perhaps best known for his extensive studies trying to decipher dolphin communication patterns. What’s not as well-known is that he was a lifelong K addict rumored at one point to be injecting himself with ketamine once an hour twenty times daily for the better part of a year.

After enough time surfing the K-hole with dolphins (he never gave K to dolphins but claimed he once dosed one with acid), Lilly started believing that the gentle cetaceans were intermediary entities between humans and the space-alien agents of the “Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO).” In the 1970s, he went so far as to warn President Gerald Ford that the dolphins could save us from ECCO. Lilly once told a reporter:

Dolphins have personalities and are valuable people.…But what about their spiritual life? Can they get out of their bodies and travel?…I suspect that they’re all ready to talk and carry on with us if we are not so blind. So we open up pathways to them with ketamine, LSD, swimming with them, falling in love with them, and them falling in love with us. 

In short, John Lilly was insane, and ketamine probably played a role in his cognitive unspooling. He spent his life in and out of the funny farm.

Marcia Moore, a wealthy heiress and astrologer, was another ketamine cheerleader. She wrote a 1978 book called Journeys into the Bright World, which included this eager endorsement of falling down the K-hole:

If captains of industry, leaders of nations could partake of this love medicine the whole planet might be converted into the Garden Of Eden… 

On a frigid night early in 1979, Moore climbed into a tree, injected ketamine, dozed off, and froze to death.

The creepiest endorsement of ketamine, and the one which came closest to emulating my experience, is by David Woodard, described as a “requiem composer and a Dream Machine fabricator.” His essay “The Ketamine Necromance” includes this psychotic passage:

Although ketamine is a drug administered and experienced by living beings, the necromantic communications facilitated by its use tend to benefit the dead, offering their spirits a tantalizing portal through which they may experience the world of the warmblooded. Perhaps the dead are desperately clustering around an elusive window they have been chasing down for five or six thousand years of gnashing, burning, excruciating torment. Perhaps one of them would manage to claw his way into the ketamine user’s fleshy, nubile brain for a 56- minute respite. Such communication seems a match of spirits—at times fencing, at others playing mah-jongg or a game of decapitate the endless row of tractor drivers or amputate the handicapped. In a ketamine experience, you are likely to become a subatomic particle sniffing at the ominous butt of nuclear war, the pinnacle of NDE-driven necromantic glory and the greatest hope of all dead spirits that are not enjoying themselves. 

I SAW DR. BUZZ AT A CLUB about a month later, at a point when he’d been shooting Special K in his ass every night for seven straight weeks. He asked me if I wanted to do it again.

No more Ku Klux Ketamine for me.

Despite all the psychonautical jibberjabber about ketamine’s satori-inducing potential, or its application as a pharmaceutical biofeedback machine, or even its use in helping the dolphins save the Earth from ECCO, all it taught me is this:

I don’t want to die.