Bio-Vlog

“At my table I’m interviewing some of the first members of the Lamb’s Players theater troupe and they are, Lynn Hansen, Glen and Bernelle Hansen, and actor Randy Baker. Can you each share some of Richard’s early characteristics?” “Yes, Jon,” Lynn Hansen says, “in 1972 we just made the migration from Minnesota to California looking…

I slowly regain consciousness, and stumble my way to the apartment laundry room. I flop to the floor and lean up against a washing machine. My body battered and aching, I cry out, “God, please help me!”  Some stranger finds me in the laundry room. He has a soft kind voice. He places a hamburger…

As I am tromping across the grassy field I notice three blurry shadows. It is two guys and a girl sitting on the grass. In an act of weakness from my resolve to quit using drugs, I casually approach them and ask, “Do you have any stash?” Almost in unison, as though being cued, they…

When the heroin cocktail hits my heart I start convulsing and gasping for air. I can’t breathe! Terrified, I think, “I’m gonna die!”   My body is bouncing and flopping off the floor like a fish out of water. I lay there continuing to gasp, choke and cough, certain that this is the end. As I’m…

Everything comes to a nasty end when my partner, Doug, thinks I cheated him. Doug and our supplier, Big Tom, try to kill me with a hot-shot. Big Tom holds up a large “kit” (a homemade device for shooting-up) that has an extra-large eye-dropper attached to the rubber grape.  Doug takes it and says with…

I have been assigned to attend what is called Adaptive PE for the blind and partially-sighted students. It is here where I earn added respect from Doug when I showcase my talent for using my touch to crack the gym locks. I become quite proficient and am able to get away with stealing cash and…

“Hey Doug,” I say proud with my clever new idea, “Look what I came up with. This is an ingenious way to hide our stash of drugs… What I did is hollow out the bottom half of a deck of cards and then glue them together.” I turn the deck over and show him, “Then…

In the fall of 1968 I start high school. I am bored with all my classes except for two. I have an affinity for art and drama. Unfortunately, from a moral standpoint, these classes attract other non-conformists, outcasts, and druggies. What draws me to them is they don’t taunt or tease me about my vision…

After the LSD is out of my system, I feel somehow physically and subtly altered. Where I imagine my soul should be, instead there lives a feeling of emptiness, where fear slithers, coils and strikes like an evil serpent.  There is also another strange reaction from the acid, and that is something that is taking…

I took the Purple Haze and I’m nervously waiting. The powerful tab of LSD starts to take effect over the next hour. It is really bad! I’m lost! What vision I have is all twisted around with objects and colors flying everywhere, and everything sounds like a record playing faster and then slower. Nothing is…

“At my table, we have Lamb’s Players Actor Lynn Hansen and Richard’s sidekick since high school Jim Blowers. I’d like you both to open with your initial reminiscences when first meeting Richard.” Well, Jon,” Lynn says, “What I thought about Rick was mostly sad or dramatic. He would tell us that one of his friends…

I buy the acid. The Purple Haze feels so small and incidental. I hold it between my fingers, feeling how small it is, as I try to get up the courage to try some. I break off about a third of the tablet and swallow it with a gulp of water. I wait about ten…