Mike Doughty @ The Social, reading from his new book The Book of Drugs
Sometimes I go to concerts with Lisa just because she likes people. That’s why I went to see Mike Doughty the first time, way back when. I like him, but I don’t listen to him a lot, so she periodically has to remind me that ‘he’s the guy from Soul Coughing’ and then the pieces will click together again. Before tonight it never occurred to me that he might not want to be seen that way.
I cannot wait to read The Book of Drugs. I’m just going to go ahead and rec it to you, even though all I know of it are the passages he read to us this evening and his general unease with the period of time in his life that the book portrays. He talks about his checkered and sometimes painful past honestly and candidly, and more than that, he seems to have learned from it. He doesn’t regret the drugs or the hurtful relationships or the twists and turns in the road that brought him to where he is. He accepts them as parts of a whole life. I try to do this, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes I remember a thing that I did in the past and just shudder, because Christ, I used to be so stupid. But, to paraphrase Sirius Black, we’re all idiots at some point.
Standing there tonight I felt a bit like some sort of future deja vu was echoing back at me. I thought, when you’re in your thirties you’re going to think back on your twenties and conclude that they were hard, but when you’re in your forties you’re going to realize that it’s just life that is hard. Not groundbreaking stuff, but stuff that I need to remind myself of from time to time.
It’s comforting somehow, to grow older and reasonably more functional with the musicians of your youth.
KL! 
February 8, 2012 at 9:21 am
what a fun outing that sounds like. i love/loved soul coughing for no good reason through most of college – you know, after the fact. i always heard this gentleman was a rather smart man, but, i never read anything he put out!
great post. GRATE POAST!
February 27, 2012 at 9:15 pm
I still need to read the book, but I really like listening to him talk about, well, everything. He seems to have a similar outlook to my own, so I’m hoping the book will pretty much read like my future steadiness when I do get to it.
I’m uh, not even sure if that sentence made sense. And I’ve never even done any hard drugs and spent time in a band I hated!
February 8, 2012 at 10:04 am
Gotta disagree about the 20s/30s/40s thing, having been through them all. 20s kind of suck. You think you’re having fun but really it’s a lot like your teens except you have to pretend to have it all together because you’re “a grownup now”. In your 30s, you’re finally really a grownup, but that means making all these tough decisions about the future, marriage, kids, finances, serious stuff! That makes the 30s kind of suck in their own way, but it’s a powerful time too. (I screwed mine up royally, by the way – it happens. It’s fixable.) In your forties, you’ve theoretically got all that shit together, you’ve either settled into some sort of domestic bliss or made peace with enjoying your own company, either you’re rocking your career or you’ve figured out what you want to do instead and you’re taking steps in that direction… 40s kick ass. Can’t wait for my 50s.
February 27, 2012 at 9:23 pm
I tried to hard to pretend I had it together for about three years until I turned 25. Then 25 was just a doozy of a year that held into 26, which led to me kicking my boyfriend out because I couldn’t support two people if he wasn’t working, even though I’d tried for eight months. Now I just kind of figure I’ll never have it all together if my parents are any indication, which has its good and bad parts.
I think the idea that it’s fixable is key. I’m sure that I’ll look back at all of this in a way that’s much different to how I look forward to it. I just need to not forget that as long as I have more time, nothing’s really terminal. Things end, of course, but I have to remember that I get to choose how I handle that. Sometimes having taken Existentialism for my religion is a pain. 😉
But thank you. I genuinely appreciate your point of view, and you taking your time to stop by. ❤
February 27, 2012 at 9:29 pm
One of my spiritual gurus says, “You can’t get it wrong because you never get it done.” We’re eternal beings, always a work in progress. We can’t fail, because we’re not finished. A half-done painting isn’t a bad painting, it’s just *not finished yet!* It took me a long time to *get* that, but it sounds like you get it already. There’s always more time and nothing is ever terminal.