Let me tell you about a party I went to in North Hollywood in 1981…

We were told it was a FEAR party and that the band FEAR would be there that night.

Well…We never saw the band FEAR there that night but there was plenty of BEER and chaos and some FEAR in the end.

When we arrived the party was already in full swing. The little house in North Hollywood was packed with Punk Rockers. Many of the people were regulars at Godzilla’s Night Club in Sun Valley.

Lots of beers and liquor were going around but the party didn’t really get crazy until I pulled out a huge bottle of Ether I had bought at a local head shop called Lions Lair in the West San Fernando Valley.

My friends and I had been experimenting with Ether for some time so we knew what to expect…You’d pour some out into a rag and breathe in the Ether until you’d start hearing Wah Wah Wah…Like a cyclic hum in your head going over and over and over. Depending on how much you breathed in you could begin hallucinating and or totally pass out. Its was an extremely dangerous anesthetic because you could not measure the dose. Depending on the size of the bottle…A small bottle could get you loaded just as much but with the smaller bottle came a smaller nozzle so dosing was slower..A Large bottle, with a larger nozzle…would administer a quicker, stronger and larger dose.

So, I whip out this large bottle of Ether while I’m in the kitchen talking to a guy with a mowhawk I sorta knew from Godzilla’s and I say….” have you ever tried Ether?”

He looks confused, and he says no and when he does the friends I’m with start to laugh knowing whats about to happen.

He asks how it’s used so I tell him..go get yourself a rag and I’ll give ya a hit!

He disappeared and returned with some cloth in his hand and I began pouring everyone a dose….And Wah Wah Wah Wah..

Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah…

The guys eyes lit up and he was wowed by the Ether and only wanted more…

Next thing ya know the whole front room of the house is now high on Ether. Everyone is passing around wet rags soaked with Ether and people are losing their minds… Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah

The room started to look gray and smokey…You could hear echoes of laughter in between the droning sound of Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah…

All of a sudden there seemed to be a disturbance going on out in front of the house. People in the front room were now looking out the front window of the house and began shouting “the pigs are here”!

Everyone started running out of the house with a fury…Mass chaos filled my head still high with Ether as everyone shoved their way through doors and windows trying to escape from the pigs.

Once I was outside I met up with my friends standing in front of the house. I was still high as fuck from the Ether and I was completely confused as to what was going on because of the Ether but as I stood there a while I started to sober up.

As I start to sober up I see my friends looking at about six Punk Rockers on their knees handcuffed with Plastic Handcuffs in the front yard now being chastised by the Police.

Two Cops entered the house and as soon as they did you could hear violence exploding from within the front room of the house. During the scuffle someone dropped the bottle of Ether so the cops and anyone in that front room was now being exposed to Ether.

The Cops that were guarding the six arrestee’s on the front lawn were forced to enter the house to back up the two Cops that were now involved in full hand to hand combat with people inside the house.

Once those Cops entered the house all you could hear was shit breaking inside. The house seemed to shake and shutter on its foundation with everything going on inside.

While all that was going on a guy ran up with a pair of wire cutters and clipped all the plastic cuffs off of all the guys on the front lawn. They then all ran away promptly escaping the hands of Justice.

Next thing ya know, the Cops try to get the guy who they’d been fighting with inside the front of the house out and into custody. Its now taken five Cops to try to control the guy and he’s still fighting them…The Cops were high on Ether just as much as their suspect was at that point and after they finally handcuffed him on the front lawn they all stood around trying to catch their breath huffing and puffing and trying to balance themselves and keep from falling over.

My friends and I while standing around watching now realize that the guy the Cops were fighting with was the guy with the mowhawk in the kitchen we had been partying with.

Cop cars started rolling up the street and cops began flooding the whole neighborhood announcing from their loud speakers to leave the area immediately or face arrest.

Unfortunately I never saw the guy with the mowhawk again.