The first time I went to a Stern Grove concert, I was sober. Mostly because I was working, but also because I don’t really do recreational drugs now that I’m not in college. But a voice from the mystical beauty of the eucalyptus forest, deep into a grove in the middle of the city called to me from my heyday as a dabbler. It said: “You need to experience this on molly.”
Honestly it’s been so long that I didn’t even know where to look to find drugs, and I wouldn’t have been able to secure the goods if it weren’t for the fact that this Stern Grove concert was the same weekend as Burning Man.
So the Burners came through, and the pass-off was much different from what I remember in college. First, there was a whole thing with Signal. Apparently it’s not common practice to talk about the market price of molly over SMS or WhatsApp. But then after Signal wouldn’t let me connect my guy just SMS’d me politely, “Where do you live I can drop it off to you.” So San Francisco. In my day in Sacramento, we exchanged commodities for cash in dark alleys. Here, we have delivery people.
Normally you don’t want a drug dealer to know where you live but in San Francisco in 2024, your dealer — we’ll call him “John” — is a buttoned-up, 28-year-old friend-of-a-friend real estate agent, who golfs. He’s clean-cut, polite, and delivers to you for no extra charge, and with a fentanyl testing kit — because we party responsibly.
I also had some reverse sticker shock. John told me he would just give it to me for what he had gotten it for, which was $40. I assumed this was per pill, which would be $160 as we had a party of four. But $40 was the price for 4 people. I guess street drugs are inflation-proof?
Also a little shocking was the form it was in. I was expecting pills, as that’s what we always took in college when we “took molly.” But this was a dirty-looking substance that honestly resembled what I imagine methamphetamines to look like. It was brownish and crystally. What did I get myself into? Should I stay in Adult Land and have a glass of wine tomorrow instead? Nah. This is “drugs for journalism,” and journalists will do anything for a story.
The next day we packed our picnic bag with a Gus’s sandwich and cocktail mixer and did the deed on the way out the door. Good to go.
We got dropped at the south end of the park just as it started to hit us and were greeted by — no exaggeration — a 1,000-person line. This setback could put our trip in serious danger. Not like medically, but emotionally. I also realized around this time that I had maybe taken too much. Again, not a medical concern but you really have to control these things if you want to have the perfect trip.
After some intense deliberation, the group decided that my media pass (even though it was for only 2 people and was also general admission) was going to save us, so we called another Uber and had it take us from the south entrance to the north entrance in good faith that if we were in the same situation over there we would cancel the concert and go ride out of ecstasy trip in the spa at my apartment complex. At this point that sounded kind of nice. My friends were abnormally obsessing over the media pass and it was starting to affect my high.
The molly gods were with us. Miraculously, and for reasons no one seems to understand, there was not a soul in line at the north entrance. We walked right in, just as the molly was starting to really take its toll.
This concert was much more crowded than the Franc Moody one that I went to a few weeks back. Even at 1:00 there was no space on the flat part in front of the stage so we had to do a little hiking, which really was not what I wanted to be doing at this point in the trip. We found the flatest part that we could — only about a 60-degree angle. We posted up leaning on each other to minimize the sliding of our butts. I didn’t love this seating situation and I also decided there was no way for me to get to the bathroom under these conditions if I needed it. I wasn’t stable enough at this point to do that climb again.
Just as we settled in my editor called. I decided this was a good time to answer so I could tell him how much I love him. He laughed politely and then proceeded to tell me that the last article I had written that he was currently editing was shitty and unfinished. Major buzz kill. I needed to correct it so I decided to partake in some of the homemade lukewarm cocktail that my friends had brought. I realized at this moment that it’s crucial to have a cocktail on hand when taking molly.
This brought me to my ecstasy homeostasis. I was there. We had settled in, the molly was full force, and Steel Pulse was playing Your House. I could hear each musical instrument separately. I don’t know if that’s normal but I know I never experience music like this without drugs.
The four of us happened to be hanging out for the first time in many years since high school, when we used to listen to Steel Pulse and go to reggae festivals on molly so this actually caused a kind of synesthesia where all the memories, feelings, sounds, and tastes were forming a nostalgia that was greater than the sum of its parts. I haven’t listened to reggae since high school but now I remember why people like it — Because of molly.
This is an anonymous story for obvious reasons. We’re not advocating drug use, but if you do them — do them responsibly.
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