Category Archives: drug use

20 Years of Me

Hello! And Happy New Year!

2024 is a special year for me, as it is my 20th anniversary of being a fake online hippy. That’s no small achievement, considering the last thing the world probably needs is a fake online hippy. Yet here I am.

I didn’t plan on becoming a fake online hippy, it just sort of happened, organically. I first used the name “northlondonhippy” on some online forums, unsurprisingly about drugs, and drug use. It wasn’t just about weed, although a lot of it was, but it was mainly about magic mushrooms. They were sort of legally available to buy in London until 2005.

When blogging first started getting popular, I was between jobs, so I started my first website, a Blogspot blog. And back in 2004, it really was a blog.

I had no idea what I was doing, much like now, only my writing in the beginning was really just stream of consciousness drivel. I even called it drivel for the first few years. I literally wrote about what I had for lunch, or how many joints I smoked. It was dull, but I posted frequently. And people read it anyway. I had followers, and fans. It was weird.

Around the same time I started posting online, I got a job with BBC News. I should have abandoned drug blogging then,, but I didn’t. I just quietly, and secretly kept going.

In 2006, I relaunched myself online with my own website, and URL. I tried to get more serious about my writing, and in some ways I did. I wasn’t as consistent, or regular in my posting habits, but I tried to have more to say. That first version of this website, was hacked to oblivion, and I lost a lot of my original content.

Things turned weird at work, and I got fucked off. So I did what any sensible human being would do, I secretly wrote a book while sitting in the BBC Newsroom. That book is called “Personal Use”, and I published it in October 2016. I wrote and published an actual book, I wasn’t just a blogger any more.

I was clueless how to promote the book, so for the first few months, I didn’t. I just gave copies of the eBook away to people on Twitter for free. And then I sent out three PR letters, and I included a signed, printed copy of the book, some chocolate, and a limited edition “Personal Use” mug. If you’ve got a mug, you’re lucky. There aren’t that many of them in the world.

I think it was the mug that did it, because one letter got a positive response. I was invited to the LBC studios, where I was interviewed by James O’Brien in January 2017, on his birthday. I hear that since Mr. O’Brien had me on his show as a guest, he’s become quite popular. Wish my radio debut had the same effect on me! To be fair, the interview did briefly increase my book sales exponentially, but it was fleeting.

I should have capitalised on this more, I should have used the momentum I had to build more of a profile. I knew I was risking my job, but I didn’t care. In fact, a part of me hoped I would be found out, as the publicity would have been useful. And then everything changed.

Mrs. Hippy had been unwell, and I didn’t really grasp how serious things were. When I did, I recommitted myself to my job, and backed off from trying to promote the book. Not long after that, my own health problems began. They’re the ones that led me to give up my job, and eventually dub myself “Epilepsy Hippy”.

When I gave up my job in Spring 2020, I outed myself as I became a full time hippy. I still didn’t realise how sick I was, and I hadn’t been diagnosed with epilepsy yet. I received a partial diagnosis around 18 months, and 10 tonic-clonic seizures later, but I didn’t receive a full diagnosis until just last month. It’s been a long, hard, confusing, frustrating, and nearly deadly 5 years, but I’m still here.

I think epilepsy is going to kill me. It’s come close a couple of times. I’m not coping with it well, and I’m struggling to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Not knowing if you’re going to drop dead tomorrow, tends to make long term planning a bit trickier.

My anniversary year will be as much about looking back, as it is looking forward. I’m going to get nostalgic, but I’m also going to try to push myself to do more, to be more. There’s got to be a reason why, after 20 years, I’m still a fake online hippy. Together, maybe we can figure it out.

So here’s to the last 20 years of my life pretending to be a hippy online for fun, and (no) profit. I promised myself when I gave up my job that I was going to concentrate on doing good, and having fun, and thanks to my poor health, I have failed at both. I’m going to pretend that my anniversary year is going to turn all that around. And my main aim for 2024 is a simple one, to not die, and to see in 2025. Anything I do beyond that, is a bonus.

So stay tuned, as I will be sporadically posting stuff as we approach the 18th of March, which is the actual anniversary of my first ever blog post. Who knows, perhaps after 20 years of being a fake, online hippy, I will finally become an unlikely, overnight success. And it would probably totally do my head in.

After a 30 year career as a journalist, working for some of the largest news organisations in the world, including Associated Press and Reuters, and 15 years as a duty news editor for BBC News, Doug – the northlondonhippy is now a full time hippy, and writer. And for the last few years, he’s been #EpilepsyHippy. His life was a whole lot more fun before gaining that new title. For real. 

Doug is also the author of “Personal Use by the northlondonhippy.”   “Personal Use” chronicles Doug’s years of experience with mind altering substances, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry, and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

You can also find Doug –  the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

And if you want even more, (and who wouldn’t?) you could always check out Hippy Highlights – which is the best of the best stuff on the site, and it’s all free to read. What are you waiting for?

The Problem(s) with British Medicinal Cannabis

by Doug – the northlondonhippy

This hippy opinion piece takes a deep dive into the dismal state of British Medicinal Cannabis.

The subject is divisive, and there’s bound to be an opinion in here that pisses off nearly everyone.

Introduction

Cannabis was legalised for medicinal use in the United Kingdom in 2018, under a ridiculously rigid, and poorly implemented regime for a substance that is quantifiably considered extremely safe. And it is all the medicinal users of cannabis, whether legally sourced, or reliant upon the legacy market, who have continued to pay the price for the mess that is legal cannabis in Britain today. 

The general standard of the products legally available isn’t great, nor is their continued availability. And the customer service side of this industry is even worse, from the initial tidal wave of bureaucracy, to chasing your regular, monthly prescription renewals. It’s been a disaster. 

Improvements are constantly promised, yet rarely ever seen, but the issues are even deeper, and more systemic than that. The entire set up is not fit for purpose, and needs to be overhauled from the ground up, using other country’s superior implementations as a guide. 

The First Elephant in the Room

It seems ridiculous that I even have to point this out, as I rarely see it mentioned, but to me it is the biggest, dumbest accommodation made, in the entire British legal cannabis system. And the way everyone just rolled over on it, continues to boggle my mind. That accommodation is this: 

Medicinal herbal cannabis has to be vaporised. This is a mandatory restriction, because if you smoke it, somehow it magically invalidates your prescription, and makes your consumption illegal. WTF?

Smoking cannabis is one of the oldest, and certainly most common forms of consumption in history. It may not be the most ideal, but certainly shouldn’t that decision remain with the consumer?

It’s fine if doctors want to endorse and encourage vaporisation as their preferred method for patients medicating. I own several vaporisers myself, and I love them. But at the end of the day, when I need to finally get some sleep, nothing hits me the same way as a neat joint (no tobacco) of pure Indica flower. 

I’m sure some of you naughty legal prescription holders out there still skin-up on the QT as well, but the fact is that you shouldn’t need to hide your preference for combustion. 

By all means recommend vapes, endorse them, subsidise them even, but don’t force them on everyone with some bizarre, performative, restrictive law. It makes a mockery of the entire system that is meant to legitimise the use of cannabis as an actual medication. Questioning, and denying the medicinal value of a perfectly valid method of consuming it, diminishes much of what you’re trying to achieve. 

When the guidance, and the laws were being drafted, did anyone even put up a fight? There are plenty of people who were involved in this process, who knew better, yet rolled over anyway.

Cali Legal Weed

The US State of California legalised cannabis in 1996 for medicinal use. The system was really simple, and far superior to ours. 

After an inexpensive visit to specialist doctor, who reviewed your medical history to see if you suffered from one of the many qualifying conditions that might benefit from cannabis, you were issued with a medical cannabis ID card. With that card, you could then visit your local, legal dispensary, where you could safely purchase your cannabis flower, from a knowledgeable bud tender, who had personally sampled every strain available, and could offer useful advice on your choices. You could even smell the aroma of the bud, before you buy, which is more crucial than you might realise when selecting the right strain for you. 

Dispensaries popped up all over the state, and the sky didn’t fall in. In fact, the system was so successful, that 20 years later, they extended legalisation to include all adult usage, medicinal or not. 

It’s not just California; more than half of all US states have now legalised weed. Many countries have relaxed their approach to cannabis, and many more are expected to follow in the near future. Sadly, Britain is not one of them.

British Legal Weed

To secure a legal prescription here in the United Kingdom, your only option at this point is to go private. The NHS still refuses to accept the undeniable benefits of medicinal cannabis use, but that is an argument best left for another day. I want to concentrate the system we have now.

As with going private for anything medical, private cannabis is expensive. There are consultation costs, prescription renewal costs (with some clinics), admin fees, delivery fees, and the cost of the actual medication itself. Oh. and don’t forget you need a proper herbal vaporiser, which is not an insignificant cost. 

You need deep pockets, and for many, those pockets need to be even deeper than what they might spend for the equivalent from the legacy market. Or if they previously grew their own, it would cost exponentially more. Going legal ain’t cheap!

I don’t currently have a prescription, but I do have more than one qualifying condition, so I am eligible. And I do have a Cancard,  but more on this a little later.

I monitor the state of our legal cannabis market via the many subreddits, and forums online dedicated to the subject. While I will acknowledge that people tend to post complaints in general, more than praise, the scales of the posts I see on medicinal cannabis tip heavily towards the negative. I’m sure there are some patients happy with the system, and if it works for you, that’s great. But I am even more certain, anecdotally anyway, that the majority are not happy, and would welcome significant improvements. 

I tried to get a prescription a couple of years ago, but I lacked proof of the years of therapy I had when I lived in the states, as well as the psychiatric drugs I was force fed. Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with a rare, hard to treat form of epilepsy. And I’ve had seizures while taking lots of different pharmaceutical drugs, so I definitely have proof now I qualify, should I wish to pursue the legal route again. But for me to consider it again, the system would need that overhaul I mentioned.

Even the initial process can seem daunting to some, and quite frankly, that is because it is a huge bureaucratic mountain for many to climb. 

You need to get a summary of your care, from your GP surgery. Not all surgeries are helpful. And you need to be able to prove that you have at least one qualifying condition, and that you’ve tried two prescription medications that failed to help with it. Plus if it is a mental health issue, you also need proof you have tried therapy as well. 

And that’s just to qualify for the initial consultation, though to be fair, if you make this far, it seems most people are prescribed. 

After your initial consultation, the real fun begins… Trying to get a hold of your medication of choice. Some clinics limit, or push you to products produced by their parent companies, and they all seem to want to push people towards oils first. 

The clinic that prescribes you, then has to send your prescription to a dispensing pharmacy. Until recently, that prescription had to be on paper, but now it can be sent electronically. Either way, there will still be a delay in dispatch, assuming they have what was prescribed available, and in stock. And how many times you have to contact them all to chase it, when something goes wrong. 

Most people have to try many strains before finding one that helps, as the doctors are not that knowledgeable about the products. 

There’s an open secret regarding doctors who prescribe medicinal cannabis; they’re really only in it for the money, and very few have any useful knowledge of cannabis, beyond the 2 hour online training course available to be able to prescribe it.

Yes, you read that right. For a doctor to be able to prescribe cannabis privately, for a fee, all they need to do is follow some simple guidelines, and maybe complete a short online training course. 

Don’t get me wrong, my personal view is that any doctor should be able to recommend cannabis in the same way they recommend aspirin. And you should be able to self-refer for cannabis, the same way you can purchase aspirin over the counter. Technically, cannabis is safer than aspirin

Who would you rather have helping you choose a strain for your condition? A fully trained doctor who spent 2 hours studying cannabis, and cannabis based products online, or a bud tender, that’s tried every product they’re selling? I know whose endorsement would matter more to me, and I bet I’m not the only one. 

Legal vs Legacy

In all of my 40+ years of consuming cannabis, I have never bought mouldy weed. I’ve never found insects in a bag of weed either, and I have hardly even seen a seed since the mid 1980s. And I’ve never had to wait 2-4 weeks for my medication. None of that is true for British medicinal cannabis. Everything I’ve mentioned has been an issue for patients at some point, especially the delays. 

The legacy market has been efficiently providing quality products for decades, and continues to do so, all around the country. How it does that is yet another discussion, for another day. 

The legacy market is unregulated, so it is obviously less than ideal, but it’s still a business, reliant upon repeat custom. Selling quality products insures punters come back, again and again. 

From my perspective, the legacy market still remains superior to our legal prescription market. The quality, and standard of products is consistent for me, the prices have remained steady for years, and the customer service has always been first rate. 

The legal market is stressful. The medicinal cannabis subreddits are full of people going through all sorts of unnecessary drama to receive their medication, if they receive it at all. 

Delays aren’t just common, they are expected, as is having your first (or second, or third) choice of medication unexpectedly unavailable for weeks, without explanation. And then when it does come back into stock, there’s a rush on it, and they quickly run out again.

And if the random availability wasn’t bad enough, the products themselves can vary. One batch of your favourite strain could hit just right, and then the next prescription for the same strain, does nothing for you. There is no consistency, and much of what is sold, is very dried out, lacking any aroma, or terpenes.

Whether you source it from the legacy, or legal markets, there is a superior third option for sourcing, but you’re not allowed to use it.

The Second Elephant in the Room

In many places, where cannabis is legal, growing your own at home is permitted. This is a no-brainer, as patients can produce their own high quality medication at home, much cheaper than they can buy it from either the legal, or the legacy market. 

Growing quality bud is a skill, but it is one that most people can master given the time, especially if they’re motivated. And who would be more motivated than someone suffering medically, who wants to keep their costs down, during a global financial crisis!? 

Growing your own should be at the very heart of our drug laws, especially medicinally. It should be a cornerstone of the policy, instead of leaving greedy corporations to produce substandard products. As far as elephants and rooms go, I’d say this is a massive one. 

To sort of paraphrase Moses, “Let my people GROW!”

AI Generated, 6 fingered Moses knows where it’s at!

One Last Room, One Last Elephant

Medicinal cannabis is a divisive subject, but it is especially divisive within itself. The amount of bickering I see within the cannabis community is depressing. 

Don’t we all want the same thing? We don’t want to see anyone arrested for possession, whether they have a prescription or not. We all want cannabis use to be seen as the positive, life enriching thing that it is, don’t we? We want it legal for all. 

Having a prescription is meant to shield you from arrest, but it doesn’t, as there have been reports from all around the country of legal patients running into trouble with the law. That shouldn’t happen. Many people get prescriptions just to remain within the law, but what’s the point when the law doesn’t care?

Prescription or not, people should not be arrested for the possession of any drug. It’s not difficult. We’re all meant to be on the same side. Which is why I am even more confused by the hate for Cancard. 

Cancard is a scheme set up by another medicinal cannabis user who avoided a conviction in court by using a medicinal cannabis defence. This victory means everyone who uses cannabis, can use the same defence. Joining the card scheme means you qualify for a prescription, whether you have one, or not.

The patient’s name is Carly Barton, and a few years ago, she decided to stop using the legal cannabis market, and to grow her own instead. Good luck to her, she’s a trailblazer!

I have a Cancard myself, and have been a member of the scheme for several years. They offer police training, and in some parts of the country, that training has helped people like me avoid legal hassles, and in some cases, even keep their medication. 

Sadly, much like a legal prescription, there’s no guarantee a Cancard will prevent arrest, or prosecution. It will however, most certainly be a mitigating factor at some point. And that should result in an “NFA”, as in no further action will be taken, since a successful prosecution is unlikely, because of the medical defence. 

I don’t understand all the hate. Carly, and Cancard just want to prevent arrests, and have done in many cases. A legal prescription is meant to prevent arrest, and confiscation as well, but that doesn’t always work either. 

Can’t we all agree that NO ONE should be arrested, regardless of where they source their medication? 

And that’s the final elephant, in the final room. 

When the UK government legalised cannabis, even privately, that was a tacit admission that cannabis is medicinally beneficial. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it. 

Cannabis is cannabis, whether you grow your own, source it legally, or from the legacy market. If it keeps you healthy, and alive, that is all that matters. 

If these were your only two choices, which would you prefer? Would you rather be illegally alive, or legally dead? I’ve already made my choice. I’m still here. 

I’m actively trying not to die from a potentially fatal form of epilepsy, among other long term physical, and mental health maladies. If you take away my special private medication, and I croak, that shit is 100% on you. I’m still here because of weed. Lots of us are. 

Why can’t we be more like California, and have an actual grown-up, functional, beneficial medicinal cannabis system that’s affordable? 

Why are our politicians from both main parties, so out of step with the electorate, the medical community, and the rest of the world on the simple subject of cannabis? 

Why do we let our rabidly rightwing media dictate our health policy? That’s the real issue, but there isn’t a room big enough to contain that particular pachyderm. 

It’s your body, it’s my body. We all have the innate right to make our own significant health choices that we know benefit us. I know you know this already, but how do we convince everyone else? It shouldn’t be as hard as it has been, and continues to be. But I’m not giving up the fight, I’m still preaching the good word, till my very last breath. And I’m still breathing.

***

After a 30 year career as a journalist, working for some of the largest news organisations in the world, including Associated Press and Reuters, and 15 years as a duty news editor for BBC News, Doug – the northlondonhippy is now a full time hippy, and writer. And for the last few years, he’s been #EpilepsyHippy. His life was a whole lot more fun before gaining that new title. For real. 

Doug is also the author of “Personal Use by the northlondonhippy.” 

“Personal Use” chronicles Doug’s years of experience with mind altering substances, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry, and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

You can also find Doug –  the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

And if you want even more, (and who wouldn’t?) you could always check out Hippy Highlights – which is the best of the best stuff on the site, and it’s all free to read. What are you waiting for?

Recreational Use is a Myth

By Doug – the northlondonhippy

The hippy has been giving this a lot of thought, and recreational use of any drug is a myth. You’ll soon agree.

The first drug I ever properly used was alcohol. I started drinking at the age of 13, and I stopped at age 39. Drinking was a social experience, right from the start.  

Most people have some level of social anxiety. We don’t like to admit it, but the popularity of alcohol at social events, gives the game away. Alcohol makes it possible for people to be around other people for extended periods of time. It makes us gregarious, maybe even a little giggly too. 

Could you imagine a night down the pub, or in a club, or even a dinner party, without social lubrication of some sort? 

If booze ain’t your bag, perhaps you like cannabis? Or cocaine? Maybe you’re one of those sober types, who’s just naturally friendly and happy. Lucky you!

For most people, drug use, alcohol, or otherwise, is a social experience. We do it in groups, we do it to be social.

Now, imagine someone who drinks alone. I don’t have to imagine, as after 26 years of regular, social drinking, I hit a rough patch in life, and for 6 months in 2002, I drank alone daily. Snorted coke too, and mixed in the odd MDMA tab as well. I was not having a good time, I was using it all to escape a bad one. 

I was abusing booze, and drugs, and to me that makes my use medicinal. I was using it to lift my mood, and briefly escape my troubles. This use was negative; it wasn’t good for me in the long term. My use wasn’t social, and it certainly wasn’t recreational either. It may not have been the most healthy of self medication, but I was definitely self medicating.

I was lucky. I realised the hole I was in, and quickly, and quietly climbed my way out, all on my own. I realised what I was doing wasn’t in my best long term interests, so I gave up booze completely. Cocaine too. One day, I just stopped. I haven’t had either in over 20 years. It’s not some moral victory, it was a health choice for me, and one I was glad I made. 

Recreational drug use is a myth, meant to make you feel shameful guilt about indulging. 

After thinking about this for a very long time, I’ve reached the conclusion that all drug use (including alcohol) is either social, or medicinal, once you accept that all medicinal use isn’t always beneficial, or positive. 

When I first started smoking weed, it was within a social group. We all got high together. And then I bought a bag of weed for myself. I sparked up a joint on my own for the first time, and realised it made me feel better, physically, and mentally. Without it being explained to me, I naturally worked out how to self-medicate with cannabis. I didn’t realise it at the time; it took many years to truly comprehend that I was self-medicating.

I’ve smoked cannabis for over 40 years, and I can’t recall the last time I had some recreationally. I use it to feel better, to reduce my anxiety, and my depression, and have done since I started. I take enough to take the edge off, to allow me to function like a normal person.

I couldn’t have lived my life the way I have, worked all the jobs I’ve done, or even traveled to war zones, without the medicinal benefits of regular, daily cannabis use. 

I’m old now, and I take a load of prescribed pharmaceuticals every day. I don’t view cannabis any differently from the 10 prescription tablets I take daily. They all play their part in keeping me alive. Matter of fact, cannabis helps me with the side effects from the other medications I take, and I probably couldn’t tolerate them all without it.

The school of thought on psychedelics has evolved. People are understanding that their use is far more medicinal than it is recreational. You can do a lot of good for your mental health through the smart use of psychedelics. 

When I went through my shroom phase, back in the early oughts, I think I had the best mental health of my life. There was a loophole in UK law for a few years, that saw actual fresh magic mushrooms legally available to purchase online, and in Camden Market. It was a sad day, when the government sealed that loophole, and the sales ceased. 

Shrooms helped lift my chronic depression, and pulled me out of a different hole in 2003. I was able to get my life back on track, and I kept it there until epilepsy decided to take over 15 years later. 

And even with the epilepsy, my cannabis use has helped mitigate it somewhat. I know cannabis could be even more beneficial, if I could get the right balance of cannabinoids into my system consistently. I wish the NHS prescribed it. 

If someone goes home every night after work, and downs a bottle or two of wine on their own, or even with their partner, that use is not social, is it? It’s medicinal. Alcohol dependency is real. And it’s a medical issue, not a moral one.

Alcohol withdrawal is also real, and it is just as bad as coming off heroin. Alcohol can be lethal too, and has contributed to the deaths of more people that I’ve known over the years, than every other drug combined. It’s legal status obscures these facts. 

Drop an E at a club? Medicinal. You’re doing it to expand your consciousness. Drop it with a group, it’s social too. Sometimes, it can be both. They’re not mutually exclusive. 

Shooting smack in a back alley? Does that sound like fun? Does it sound recreational? Of course not! It’s definitely medicinal, and whatever you’re trying to escape from, I hope it helps you. Is it ideal? No, not even close. That’s why many good people want to open supervised injection facilities. Medicinal again. Open them everywhere!

Addiction and dependency are medical issues. Tobacco, heroin, cocaine, and alcohol are all physically addictive. 

I’m dependent upon cannabis, the same way I’m dependent upon my epilepsy medication, or blood pressure medication to keep me alive. I couldn’t live without any of them. It’s all medicinal use. 

Whatever your drug of choice, if you share the experience with a group, your use is social. If you use it on your own, or with a close partner, your use is medicinal, whether it is beneficial or not. 

Recreational drug use is a myth, and it’s used to guilt, shame, and punish us. Don’t fall for it. As if enjoyment of something should lessen it’s significance, or usefulness. Your use is either social, or medicinal. There is no in-between, and there should be no guilt, ever. Just be as healthy as you can, for as long as you can, no matter what you have to take to get by in this life.

* **

After a 30 year career as a journalist, working for some of the largest news organisations in the world, including Associated Press and Reuters, and 15 years as a duty news editor for BBC News, Doug – the northlondonhippy is now a full time hippy, and writer. And for the last few years, he’s been #EpilepsyHippy. His life was a whole lot more fun before gaining that new title. For real. 

Doug is also the author of “Personal Use by the northlondonhippy.” 

“Personal Use” chronicles Doug’s years of experience with mind altering substances, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry, and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

You can also find Doug –  the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

And if you want even more, (and who wouldn’t?) you could always check out Hippy Highlights – which is the best of the best stuff on the site, and it’s all free to read. What are you waiting for?

The Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Collection

All Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

These are a few of my favourite things

The Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Collection is a loosely connected series of the northlondonhippy’s most recent written pieces. It was all produced in a 5 week period.

Think of this new, inter-linked collection of material as the hippy’s second book. Effectively it is the sequel to his first book, Personal Use.

You can read all this brand new material for free right now.

December 2023 Update:

The hippy has added another piece to the collection, called “Now, Hear This”.

“Now, Hear This” was first published in November 2023, but the original idea was conceived back in March. It belongs here with the rest of the collection, and is now the introductory piece.

Now, Hear This

The hippy looks back at the roots of his lifetime love of modern music, through the songs he grew up with, and technology of the day that played it for him.  

His journey began when he was 2 years old, and it started with the Beatles, and a couple of years later, Motown and more. 

You’ll see, these memories turned out to be a lot more bittersweet than expected, as you read, and listen to “Now, Hear This”.

My Summer of Springsteen

During the Summer of 1982, when the hippy was still living on the Jersey Shore, he ran into Bruce Springsteen regularly. 

Bruce wasn’t just a local hero back then, he was already a major, international rock god. He’d released his first five classic albums, toured the world repeatedly, and only played the largest venues available. 

That summer, the hippy saw the Boss hanging out, and performing in small bars down the shore, nearly every weekend. Some nights, more than once. And Bruce saw the hippy, too.

These are his memories of “My Summer of Springsteen.

MTV Redux

Rock & Roll

In this four part series, the hippy takes you back to a fairly amazing period of his young adult life.

In the mid 1980s, the hippy was loosely associated with MTV Music Television as an intern, and then occasionally employed by them as a freelance production assistant. 

It’s also a tale of unrealised potential, and squandered opportunity, but it has taken the hippy a while to work all that out.


Part One – What? And Give Up Showbiz?
Part Two – Name Dropping
Part Three – Crappy New Year!
Part Four – The Death of the Dream

Time Aside – A Short Story

***Bonus Content***

Let’s pause the real life nostalgia briefly, and take a deep dive into some alternative personal history.

There’s no sex, drugs, or rock & roll in this one. “Time Aside” is a twisty tale of time travel, anti-natalism, and regret that’s rooted in the hippy’s real life back story.

It’s bonus content, so check it out! Or you could wait for the movie?

Tales from the Pre-Internet

Sex

Everyone thinks of dating apps, and websites when they think of meeting people online, but before the internet, in the 1980s, some folks were already playing around online. People were meeting up, and having naughty fun too. And the northlondonhippy was one of them.

The hippy refers to this period of time as the “Pre-Internet” in his recent series called MTV Redux. Thinking about that time was the inspiration for this series. 

In the three part series, “Consenting Online Adults”the hippy overshares about many of his experiences. 

And in Bonus Part Four, the hippy shares an additional tale from the Pre-Internet that deserves to stand on its own. This piece will leave you with one big question, but in Part Four – “I’ll Never Tell”.

Consenting Online Adults

Part One – The Prologue (1975-1983)

Part Two – Connecting (1980-1987)

Part Three – All Good Things (1985-1997)

Bonus – Part Four – I’ll Never Tell (1986)

Historic Hippy

Here’s a short selection from the hippy’s archive, if you want to know more…

I was a Background Artist on the BBC 10 O’Clock News – That’s who he was for the longest time

Piecing It All Together – This is why he is not that guy any more. TLDR: Epilepsy

Countdown to the End of the World – This is what the hippy would like to be doing next, if he had a choice.

Doing Some Good

The Ceasefire Initiative

While we’ve got your attention…

The Ceasefire Initiative – It’s just a small, simple idea to begin the process of finally putting an end to the pointless, useless “war on drugs”. We’re not seeking donations, just your support.

Follow us on Twitter: @ceasefire4good

#ceasefire4good #ceasefire4ever

(All words © Copyright 2023-2024 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

My Summer of Springsteen

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

During the Summer of 1982, while I was still living on the Jersey Shore, I ran into Bruce Springsteen regularly. 

Bruce wasn’t just a local hero back then, he was a major, international rock god. He had already released his first five classic albums, toured the world repeatedly, and he only played the largest venues everywhere he went. 

That summer, I saw the Boss hanging out and performing in small bars “down the shore” nearly every weekend. Some nights, more than once. And he saw me, too.

These are my memories of “My Summer of Springsteen”.

The Fast Lane

It was the summer of 1982. I was still living at home with my parents about a mile inland from the Atlantic Ocean, in northern Ocean County. I had just completed my first year at Monmouth College. And I had a job in an office in Red Bank that summer. 

The drinking age in NJ was 18, but they raised it to 19, when I was 17 years old. It meant I had to wait an extra year to be able to hit a bar legally, and 1982 was that year. 

They checked ID really closely back then, especially in the summer when the tourists descended upon the area. Year-round Jersey shore residents called all the summer tourists, “bennies”. I bet they still do. Local legend says bennies are known for wearing socks with their sandals, and they are all terrible drivers. 

I was still hanging around with friends I knew from high school, and most of them preferred shitty bars with a top 40s DJ, no cover charge, and cheap drinks. I was into live music. 

That summer, I started going to the Fast Lane, a live music venue on 4th Avenue in Asbury Park. It’s gone now, but it used to be one of the biggest, busiest bars in town. 

I saw Billy Idol at the Fast Lane, Blue Angel too – They were Cyndi Lauper’s old band. 

It didn’t surprise me at all when Cyndi broke big, she was an incredible performer even back then before she was well known. I remember her coming into the audience, and spinning around like a whirling dervish while singing. It was quite a performance. 

Bon Jovi were the house band at the Fast Lane that summer, and I saw them open for headliners many times. They were good; tight too, but it wasn’t my sort of music. 

Front: Cyndi Lauper, Members of Bon Jovi, and Billy Idol. Back: Fast Lane entrance

One night in June 1982, I was at the Fast Lane with an old friend of mine from high school, who I will call JB. He was into dancing, and a couple of us dubbed him “Disco JB”, because he would often take over the dance floor like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”. The boy could move.

I don’t remember what band was playing that night, but what I do recall is that JB drove, which meant I could drink. And I did, like I meant it. 

At one point we were both at the bar, when right across from us, I saw someone ordering a drink, that I swore was Bruce Springsteen. It looked just like him, but JB disagreed. We argued about it, I got wound up. I finally went around the bar to settle the dispute. I was a bit drunk by now. 

I walked right up to the guy and said, “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but you’re Bruce aren’t you? My friend over there doesn’t think you are.”

Bruce laughed, and said yes, it’s me. I thanked him, apologised to him for disturbing him, and went back to my friend to settle the argument. JB admitted he was wrong. 

A short while later, Bruce was around the same side of the bar where I was, and we made eye contact. I spoke to him again, and said “I’m really sorry again for bothering you. I’m a huge fan, I have all your records, and I saw you last year at the Meadowlands, and the Spectrum. You’re my favourite!”

You get the idea, I gushed like a teenage fan meeting his hero, because that’s exactly what I was. The doubt I had from JB must have muffled this response in my first interaction, but the more I spoke, the more excited I got. It was Bruce Fucking Springsteen! And I was talking to him! He was the coolest guy in the room!

At the back of the length of the Fast Lane, was a large set of carpeted risers, that ran behind the bar, and opposite the main stage. Bruce asked me to sit down with him on them. So I did. 

He made small talk with me. He asked me my name, my age, where I was from, and what I did. Doug, 19, Point Boro, college student, and office worker. Also, a massive fan, and pissing myself with excitement because I was sitting here right now with Bruce Springsteen. I didn’t say that last part out loud. I tried to stay cool. I expect I failed.

Bruce excused himself, and said he’d be right back. I didn’t think he would return, but he did. And he brought me a Heineken. Bruce Springsteen bought me a beer! And it was imported, too!

He offered me the beer, I took it, and thanked him. Then he sat back down, and I asked him a few silly fan questions. I asked him about what I think of as his main guitar. It’s the one he’s holding on the cover of Born to Run, a natural coloured Fender Telecaster. I asked him what year it was made. He wasn’t sure, 1950-something, he said. 

He joked about needing a drink, because he’d had an argument on a phone call with his girlfriend, who was in LA. He said something about the distance.

After a while, Bruce and I said our goodbyes. JB didn’t want to stay out late, and since he was driving I didn’t have a choice, so we hit the road. 

I’ve reflected on this interaction with the Boss over the years. I realised that Bruce understood the importance of this moment for me… Or for any fan he encountered. 

Bruce knew it mattered. He could have brushed me off. He could have kept his distance after my first blundering contact. Hell, he could have had security remove me. But he didn’t. He treated me so kindly. He was so generous with his time. And he bought me a beer!

I don’t know if Bruce hit the stage that night, but he might have done. I wish I could have stayed to find out. I did save the empty beer bottle. He didn’t autograph it, or anything like that, but still I kept it for years anyway. 

I couldn’t believe I met Bruce Springsteen. I know I shouldn’t have been surprised, he had a reputation for hanging out in Asbury. I guess I never thought I would be that lucky. 

I had no idea how lucky I would really go on to be later that summer.

Springsteen Fever

My family moved to the Jersey shore when I was one year old, and the first place we lived there was Asbury Park. I grew up along the coast, it’s proper Springsteen country. Bruce grew up in the same general area. 

Before breaking big, Bruce started out in the seaside bars of Asbury Park. He was getting a lot of local press, long before he started receiving national, and then international acclaim.

In 1975, Bruce was on the covers of both Time Magazine, and Newsweek, at the same time. His star was rising, and has continued to rise, as it still does to this day. He soon became one of the biggest rockstars in the world, and he’s still selling out stadia over 40 years later. 

In high school, I was a massive Bruce Springsteen fan. He was a local hero, and arguably the biggest music star to come out of New Jersey. Frank Sinatra may have taken issue with that statement. Apologies to the Chairman of the Board!

I had all of Bruce’s early albums. And in my senior year I had an after school job at a record store in Point Pleasant Beach, when his fifth record, the double album, The River was released in 1980. It was his first new album to be released since I had become a hardcore fan. I was 17 years old. 

On the day of the release, I bought two copies, one on vinyl, and a second on cassette. I did get an employee discount, but still spent most of my wages there anyway. 

I couldn’t wait for my work day to finish, so I could hop in my car, and put the cassette into my tape deck. The cassette copy was meant only for my car. Cruising around the streets of the Jersey shore with loud music playing was a common, and popular pastime back then. 

When I got home, I played the LP too, over and over. It was sublime. From the radio-friendly hit single, Hungry Heart, to the deeply emotional title track, The River, every tune was an instant classic. I loved it.

Someone I knew had scored me an autographed photo of Bruce. It was a promotional pic from around the time of the release of Darkness on the Edge of Town , his fourth album. I still have the photo somewhere. I should find it. 

“Darkness” is my favourite Bruce album. As much as Born to Run put Bruce on the map, Darkness on the Edge of Town cemented his position as an amazing song writer. The music, lyrics, and subject matter were all taken to another level. There was a new expansiveness to this material. I wouldn’t say it was Bruce’s peak, but he was really hitting his stride. 

That said, and to answer a question I’m often asked, my favourite Springsteen song is Thunder Road. There is no finer example of a Bruce track. It’s perfection. From the gentle story of a man’s love for a woman, to their romantic escape, it’s a prayer, and a gospel to fleeing on the open road. And the song itself is beautifully structured, starting with the soft opening piano notes and gentle harmonica solo, and those first soulful lyrics. Then it builds more intensity as it barrels full speed towards that final, mournful saxophone solo ending. The song will bring tears to your eyes. Just me?

Many of Bruce’s songs, including Born to Run, are more about leaving New Jersey, than thriving there. That made it really awkward when NJ considered making it the official state song. 

But if you want a song from Bruce that celebrates the Jersey shore, I can think of no better tune than a track from Bruce’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle, called 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy). Just listening to it, and I can smell the sea air, and cotton candy along the boardwalk.

I think you’re getting the idea. I was a massive fan. So when I finally got to see Bruce live for the first time, it was an incredible thrill. 

The first time I saw Bruce, he was on The River Tour. I saw him in July 1981 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands. I think they just call it the Meadowlands Arena now. 

I had decent seats on the floor, maybe 15th row, centre. The show lasted easily 4 hours. I’ve seen hundreds of bands, and dozens of major headline acts, and I’ve never seen anyone with Bruce’s enthusiasm, or talent. 

Bruce is next level good. He’s magnetic, dynamic, and energetic, with a riveting stage presence. He wasn’t just Born to Run, he was born to perform! It was the best concert I’d ever seen, and was only bettered by other future performances from Bruce. 

A Springsteen concert is like a religious revival, and he powerfully delivers the evangelical gospel of rock and roll according to Bruce. It’s transcendent, and life changing. And I’m a believer!

I saw him again a week later, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. They tore it down more than a decade ago, but it used to be another indoor arena, like the Meadowlands. Only this time, I managed to get 4th row, centre floor seats from a ticket agency. Scalping tickets isn’t new, and it wasn’t cheap, I paid 180 bucks for the pair. These days, good seats for a Springsteen concert would be one hundred times that cost. I was really lucky.

That concert in Philly was even more enjoyable than my first one, because of my amazing proximity to the stage. The show was similar, but he changed up some of the set-list too. I was so close, I could see the sweat dripping off him during the encores. 

I didn’t think I would ever better that experience of being so close to my musical hero, while seeing him perform live. Little did I know that around a year later, I would. 

My Summer of Springsteen

After my first encounter with Bruce, I next saw him again at the Fast Lane. I didn’t even know he was there, until he appeared on stage with the headliners that night.

The band was the Stray Cats, a rockabilly trio that were hot in the early 80s. They were wicked good. Towards the end of their set, the lead singer, Brian Setzer said he had heard a rumour Bruce was in the audience, and he invited him up on stage.

I didn’t expect this, and there was a long pause as Bruce made his way through the crowd to join the band on stage. They did three numbers, all rock and roll classics. I only remember two of them, Long Tall Sally, and Be Bop A Lula.

I was a couple yards back from the stage, and there was Bruce, shredding a guitar, and singing his heart out with one of the hottest bands around. I was in heaven!

I saw Bruce a couple more times at the Fast Lane, with Beaver Brown mainly. They were an east coast band, that sound a lot like Bruce. Check out the film Eddie and the Cruisers, if you don’t believe me. The band did the soundtrack. 

The bar I saw Bruce in the most that summer was the The Stone Pony.

The Stone Pony

I never spoke to Bruce again, but I saw him pretty much every weekend after that performance with Stray Cats in the Fast Lane. 

And if he saw me, Bruce always acknowledged me. I doubt he remembered my name, but he knew my face. Whether it was a smile, or a nod, or even a little wave of his drink, if he saw me, he always let me know. 

It got to the point, where I worried Bruce might think I was stalking him. I mean, I was stalking him, but only to see him perform. After a while, I even tried to avoid being spotted by him. I know that sounds silly, especially when you discover something I finally realised: I wasn’t the only one looking to see Bruce every weekend.

I’m pretty sure Bruce was working on his sixth album, Nebraska that summer. The record is a collection of 4-track demos that Bruce had recorded at home in NJ, that he released instead of the full E-Street Band versions. 

Nebraska was a really special record because the production was so stripped down, and basic. Bruce released it in September 1982, after my summer of seeing him so much. It would make sense that he was putting the finishing touches on it around that time. He’d work on it during the week, then at the weekend, he would cut loose in the local bars.

I’d look at the listings for live events in the area every weekend, and I’d guess where Bruce might pop up. It wasn’t that hard. You just needed to keep an eye out for the best rock and roll music being performed on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night.

The band I saw him with the most that summer, was Cats (On A Smooth Surface), and Bruce would often join them at 2am, for their entire final set. They were the house band at the Pony. Once I worked out Bruce liked to perform with them, it made finding him a lot easier. 

They used to do all sorts of rock and roll standards together. Twist and Shout was nearly always played. The old Gary US Bonds song, “Quarter to Three” as well. 

Towards the end of the summer, and I’m guessing since it became a regular occurrence, Cats started doing a couple of Bruce’s own tracks with him. I am struggling to remember which ones. Something from Darkness? The Promised Land? Candy’s Room?

Gary US Bonds had a bit of a revival in the 1980s, thanks to Bruce producing a couple of records for him. To show his gratitude, Gary gave Bruce a car, named after the first record they worked on together: “Dedication”. 

The car was a ragtop, and had the word “Dedication” painted on the sides in huge letters. It was hard to miss. Bruce drove it a lot that summer, and you would often see it parked around town. I tried to find a photo of it online, but I came up dry. I know they exist, I’ve seen them before. 

I also used to sometimes hang out at the Inkwell Coffeehouse in Long Branch. It didn’t serve booze, so it could stay open all night, and it was a groovy spot to hit after the bars closed. It was a very cool venue, known for good food, and Dutch Coffees. I read it closed last year. I was in there one night during that summer, and seated at the table next to me, was Garry Talent, the bass player from the E-Street Band. 

It felt like every time I turned around, there was something, or someone Bruce related. Even when I wasn’t trying. 

Meeting Other Mega-Fans

I wasn’t the only one following Bruce around that summer. At the Pony, I’d always make sure to be up against the stage for the very last set of the night, so that when Bruce performed, I was just a couple of feet away from him.

I would see the same faces night after night, including a heavyset woman, who was often next to me at the front of the stage. One night, I remember her reaching out, and repeatedly touching Bruce’s boot with her index finger. She would then make eye contact with me in her delirious excitement, every time she did this. I would find out who she was, eventually. 

And I ran into a guy I knew casually from Monmouth College. We got chatting between sets, and we both discovered we were Springsteen fanatics. He said he had a bootleg video of some Springsteen concert, but he didn’t have a VCR. VCRs weren’t rare in the early 80s, but they weren’t super-common either.

I told him I had a VCR we could use, and I also had a copy of the “No Nukes” movie, which featured, at the time, a rare filmed performance from Bruce. Obviously, I’m biased, but Bruce’s set is the best thing in the film. There are many clips on YouTube including the trailer to the updated digital version. That’s what it was like for me, seeing him every weekend. 

I started hanging out less with my old high school friends, and I would often go to Asbury on my own. It meant less, or no drinking, but it also meant I could choose my own venues. But once I encountered that guy from college, I would often hang out with him, and the other hardcore Bruce fans he knew.

Obie

My new friends came to my parents place one Saturday afternoon to hang out, and watch the Springsteen videos. 

The video my friend had was a bootleg recording from an arena performance. Someone had sneakily recorded the video feed from the big screen, along with the mix from the stage audio. It was surprisingly good quality for a bootleg. 

They mentioned they knew Bruce’s personal assistant. I didn’t know he had one, but he did. Her name was Obie, and she was a local Jersey Shore legend, that I bet you’ve never heard of before. 

Obie was also Bruce’s biggest fan, and she is credited on many of his earliest albums like this: Homework: Obie. 

One night, after seeing Bruce at the Stone Pony, the Springsteen fans I knew invited me to join them at an all night diner after the show. It was the only time. 

When we arrived, the car I mentioned with “Dedication” painted on the side was parked outside, only it wasn’t Bruce driving it that night. It was Obie, his personal assistant. 

At the diner, the woman I saw touching Bruce’s shoes at the Pony was already sat down at the table. I was introduced to her. It was Obie. I got to sit next to her. 

(Little) Steven Van Zandt, Obie Dziedzic, and Bruce Springsteen

I’d be lying if I said I could remember much of the actual conversation. I know it was dominated by talk of Springsteen, and Obie’s infectious love of his music. She was unquestionably his biggest fan. I think she took an interest in me, only because I was new. 

I’d see Obie again in the bars that summer, and would say hi to her, but I can’t say I really knew her. I was sorry to see she passed away so young. RIP Obie. 

Big Man’s West

Big Man’s West was Clarence Clemons’ bar in Red Bank. It was a very cool venue, but it didn’t last very long. The local authority gave him a hard time throughout the period it was open. One of the restrictions they put on the bar, was it had to close at 1:30am. Most Jersey shore bars back then were open till 3am. 

I saw a few great shows there that summer. Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul were wicked good. And I saw Woodstock legend, Mr. Sheffield Steel himself, Joe Cocker perform there in front of a shockingly small crowd. 

Mr. Cocker was backed by a group of local musicians. Someone in the crowd told me it was mostly guys from Bon Jovi. I thought I recognised lead guitarist Richie Sambora. His guitar playing was amazing, but he spent most of the show, leaning way back against the piano with his eyes closed. I think he was wasted, but in a good way. It was a fantastic night. 

The act I saw the most at Big Man’s, was Clarence’s own band, Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers. It was a massive group, and it included a full horn section. 

Besides Clarence, the real draw was their lead singer, JT Bowen. His voice, and moves always reminded me of a skinnier version of James Brown. He was a performance dynamo. They put on quite a show.

I saw Bruce with them a few times, I think it was mostly on Sundays. There’s a reason I’m mentioning that. 

One of the bits Clarence’s band used to do was a 2-song medley that mixed two classic songs together: Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire”, with Springsteen’s “Fire”. The Pointer Sisters’ cover of “Fire” is probably the version you know, but Bruce wrote it. 

The Bruce song “Fire”, has a really classic baseline, that you would recognise, the same way Hendrix’s “Fire” has the memorable line “let me stand next to your fire”, and they combined the two in a way that was seamless. They used to do a ten minute version of it, with JT absolutely killing both tunes. Seeing Bruce join them, and singing it together with JT was life changing. It would give you chills. 

The other song I remember them doing is “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”, from Born to Run. Little Steven had arranged the horns on that one, it’s a famous story. Hearing it live with a full horn section for the first time is something I’ll never forget. 

Whenever I went to Big Man’s West, I saw Clarence, whether his band was performing or not. He was even hanging around the night I saw Joe Cocker. He was hard to miss. He was physically imposing, I think he briefly toyed with playing NFL football, after playing ball in college. I cried a little when I read that he passed away in 2011. RIP Big Man. 

Remember, I mentioned Big Man’s had to close early, at 1:30am? The one bonus to that is Bruce would finish jamming with Clarence’s band around that time on a Sunday night, then he would jump in his car, and drive to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. He would then join Cats for their last set at 2am.

And guess who would make the same drive? Yep, me. 

Summer’s End

Sunday nights became my favourite night of the week. I am pretty sure for three weekends in a row that August, I saw Bruce perform with Clarence Clemons’ band in Red Bank, followed by a second set with Cats at the Pony. Two sets in one night! Choose a superlative. Any you could think of would apply. It was superfuckingneatocool! I was in Springsteen heaven, it was a weekly Bruce-gasm. And all for a couple of bucks cover charge, and the cost of a beer. 

My old high school friends didn’t have much interest in the Asbury music scene. I ended up falling out with one of my best friends in the street outside the Stone Pony one weekend. 

My friend was driving, I was drinking. He wanted to go to some shitty bar near Shark River, called the Headliner for last orders. It wasn’t my scene; top 40s DJ music, and watered down drinks. It was a downmarket singles bar. 

We had a massive, screaming drunken row. I wanted to stay at the Pony, my ride didn’t. I stormed off in a huff. I was miles from my parents house. It was like 2am. There was no such thing as a mobile phone. I knew nothing about taxis. I was on my own.

Just had a look on Google Maps, the distance from the Pony to my parents’ old house in Point Pleasant is over 12 miles on foot. And it says that walk takes over 4 hours. At the time, I just knew it was far.

I probably managed the first five miles on drunken rage alone. At some point, mid-journey, I realised just how badly I fucked myself. It was somewhere between Belmar, and Bradley Beach that I stuck my thumb out, and tried hitchhiking. I wasn’t very successful. 

I managed another 5 miles or so, before a kind stranger picked me up. He drove me the last couple of miles, and dropped me off about 5 minutes walk from my final destination. 

It was nearly 7am before I finally made it home. I was exhausted, every muscle in my body was sore. I don’t think I have ever slept as long as I did that day. 

I only ever drove myself to Asbury after that, and I didn’t drink. Drinking is overrated anyway. I just wanted to see bands, and Bruce. 

The Last Show

I remember the last time I saw Bruce that summer. It was on a Sunday night at the Stone Pony. I’d like to be able to say it was Labour Day weekend, and maybe it was, but I can’t remember. 

I know the bar was packed out. Towards the end of the summer, word had spread that the Boss turned up at the Pony most Sunday nights. The place was heaving, and the crowd was wall to wall. 

I snaked my way up to the front of the stage for the last set of the night. Right next to me was the most stunning woman in the entire bar. I pretended not to notice. 

Bruce took the stage with Cats, and tore it up for an hour. It was a high energy set. 

That’s the thing about seeing Bruce up close that summer. He was the exact same performer I saw at the Meadowlands, and the Spectrum. He brought the same energy, talent, and showmanship to those small bars, that he brought to huge stages in front of thousands of people. It didn’t make a difference to him, he just loves doing what he does. And it showed, time after time.

I said earlier in this piece that Bruce was the coolest guy in the room, and whenever I saw him that was true. There was no one cooler. But when he was up on stage, blasting out rock and roll classics, or his own tunes, he wasn’t just the coolest guy in the room… He was also the happiest. And as much joy as he brought to the audience, he was always the most joyous in the house. Everyone should be lucky enough to love their job as much as Bruce Springsteen does. 

When the set finished, and the lights came up, the stunningly beautiful girl turned to me, and just blurted out, “That was amazing!”

She had long light brown hair, with blonde highlights, and long tanned legs. She was wearing a pair of frayed Levi cutoffs, sandals, a sheer, tight top, with visible tan lines. She looked like summer perfection. I don’t think there was a guy in the bar who hadn’t noticed her. She was so hot she sizzled. I can still picture her. 

I agreed with her, and said Bruce is great. She told me it was the first time she’d ever seen him, and she was only “down the shore” for the weekend. As I was talking to her, I could sense her attention was elsewhere. 

She was looking at something over my shoulder. I assumed she was checking out a better looking guy. There were definitely plenty of them. And I was right, she was looking at someone better looking, but I didn’t realise who it was at that point. 

I followed her gaze as she tracked someone moving through the crowd with her eyes. Then I felt a tap on my right shoulder, so I turned my head right, but no one was there. 

I then looked to my left, and there was Bruce. He had just passed behind me, and was still walking. He had his head turned around, looking right at me. He had tapped me on the shoulder. And then he smiled, and gave me a nod. 

Bruce knew exactly what he was doing. He saw me chatting to the best looking girl in the bar. He tried to give me a boost. Told you he was the coolest guy in the room!

The girl said, “Oh my god, do you know Bruce?”

“We’ve met”, is all I said. It was true. 

I wish I could tell you that I spent the night with this rock and roll goddess thanks to Bruce’s intervention, but I didn’t. She was laughably, unquestionably out of my league. She was only talking to me because she was so excited after seeing Bruce. It’s infectious, I knew the feeling. Her friends found her not long after that, and they all left.

Memories

I moved out of my parents’ place not long after that, and my visits to Asbury became more sporadic. I didn’t run into Bruce again. Big Man’s West closed. I started working full time. Life moved on, and so did I. A few years after this, I left the Jersey shore, and moved to the greater NYC area, with dreams of pursuing a career in the media, dancing in my head

I saw Bruce on the Born in the USA tour in ’85, at the Meadowlands again. Twice. He just kept getting better. It was his biggest album, and they were some of his best, and longest shows. 

In 1991, I moved to London. I saw Bruce again in 1992, at  Wembley Arena on the Human Touch/Lucky Town tour. It wasn’t a double album, it was two separate records. He didn’t have the E-Street Band with him on the tour. They didn’t perform on the records either. That was all new. 

I saw him again at the Brixton Academy in 1996, on the Ghost of Tom Joad tour. This time Bruce performed alone, and played only smaller venues like the Academy. It was a very stripped down, emotional show. Raw. 

The last time I saw Bruce live was at Emirates Stadium here in north London in 2008, on the Magic tour. He was back with the E-Street Band. Clarence was still alive, but Bruce’s original keyboardist, Danny Federici was ill, and only appeared on the first leg of the tour. He wasn’t with them when I saw the band, and he passed away around this time. RIP Mr. F. 

Iconic Image of Clarence & Bruce from Born to Run (1975)

It was great to see them all back together again. It was an amazing show, Mrs. Hippy was with me, and it was her first Springsteen concert. She was blown away too. 

I’m still a huge Springsteen fan. I bet you worked that out. I still love his music, and especially his classic albums, but I dig his newer stuff too. He’s continued to grow as an artist, and he has continued to be prolific in the 40 plus years since I was lucky enough to make his acquaintance. 

As a long-time live music fan, I’ve seen countless bands; small ones, big ones, local ones, national acts, and international too. And of all the performers I’ve seen, none have compared to Bruce Springsteen. The fact that he is a genuinely good guy, is just a bonus. 

Nothing in my life has ever even come close to matching the amazing time I had over 40 years ago. It was the best summer of my life. It was my summer of Springsteen. 

The End

If you enjoyed reading this piece, there’s plenty more where that came from! 

Next up in the “Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Collection” is MTV Redux. It’s about my time working for MTV Music Television in the mid 1980s, but it’s also about a whole lot more. 

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

Tales from the Pre-Internet – A Series

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

Everyone thinks of dating apps, and websites when they think of meeting people online, but before the internet, in the 1980s, some folks were already playing around online. People were meeting up, and having naughty fun too. And I was one of them.

I refer to this period of time as the “Pre-Internet” in my other recent series, MTV Redux. Thinking about those days was the inspiration for this series. 

In the three part piece, “Consenting Online Adults”, I’m going to overshare about many of my experiences from back in the day. 

And in Bonus Part Four, I have an additional tale from the Pre-Internet that deserves to stand on its own. You may or may not believe it. This piece will leave you with one question, but “I’ll Never Tell”.

Trigger warning – I talk very frankly about sex, and human sexuality. I have a lot of sex too. If that sort of things offends you, please click here.

Are we still cool? Please proceed: 

Consenting Online Adults

Part One – The Prologue (1975-1983)

Part Two – Connecting (1980-1987)

Part Three – All Good Things (1985-1997)

Bonus Sections:

Part Four – I’ll Never Tell (1986)

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

Consenting Online Adults – Part One

The Prologue (1975-1983)

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

Setting the Scene – My Real Sexual Education

I think I had my first formal sexual education lessons in the 6th grade, when I was 12 years old, and our PhysEd/Health teacher told us how babies were made. When a man loves a woman, blah, blah, blah. Ovum, sperm, zygote, blah, blah, blah. It didn’t teach me much.

Around the same time, my mother gave me a children’s book, called “How Babies Are Made”. It said the same kind of thing, “when a man loves a woman…” blah, blah, blah. It had cartoons, including a man, and woman in bed together under the covers. I learned even less from that book, than in class.

How Babies Are Made – This is the actual book cover!

My mother was uptight about sex. She was uptight about everything. She used to say that 25 should be the age for drinking, smoking, and sex. She didn’t exactly install a healthy attitude around any of it. There was a lot of shame.

My dad was only marginally better. When I was around 12 or so, he took me for my first real hair cut at a barbershop. Up till then, he was doing it with a pair of clippers at home. Now, he said I was old enough to have a proper cut. He took me along with him, when he was getting his hair cut. 

There were a few chairs, but only one barber, so my dad went first, and I sat in the waiting area. There were many magazines on the table, including “gentleman’s magazines”, and it was there I was allowed to read my first Playboy magazine. 

And by read, obviously I really mean that I looked at the photos. You may not know this, but the photos in Playboy Magazine were mostly of naked ladies. 

In the middle of the magazine, there was a foldout page, called the centrefold, which was a full length photograph of the Playmate of the Month. I glanced over at my dad, who saw me pull out the centrefold, and he just gave me a single nod of his head. 

Let’s look at this with our modern day eyes. At age 12, I was introduced to a world where women are objectified for male pleasure. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a Playboy, but it was the first time I was allowed, and encouraged to look. I was being indoctrinated. I had no idea of it at the time, it was just normal for the 70s. 

Around the same time, women’s rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment were having a moment. Women’s liberation was everywhere, so was Gloria Steinem, They all had their work cut out for them. Still do. 

Girlie magazines were a feature of my youth, and not just at the barbershop. When I was in high school, one of my classmates worked out when the local convenience stores disposed of the previous month’s unsold mags, and he used to dumpster dive to get them.  He did this monthly, for years, and would hand them out to all his friends. And not just Playboy, he would also get Penthouse, and Hustler magazines too. It is from these magazines that I got my real, yet less than ideal, sexual education.

It’s true

This system went on for years, my friend supplied me, and most of my high school with dirty mags every month. The magazines had the covers ripped off, but the magazines themselves were still intact. 

I’m far more verbal, than visual, and as much as I liked looking at the photos, what I found more interesting were the stories. 

Playboy was a bit dull, and the photos were airbrushed to within an inch of their lives. This was well before Photoshop existed. For me, the best things in Playboy were the in-depth interviews. I know that’s a cliche, but it was actually true.

Hustler magazine was really downmarket, I could see that even at age 15. The articles were puerile, and poorly written, and seemed to be aimed at the low IQ side of the market. And the photos! They wouldn’t have been out of place in a medical journal. I do remember the founder, Larry Flynt, fought many freedom of speech battles, and he mostly won them. 

Penthouse was somewhere in between the other two. The photos were a bit more explicit than Playboy, but not quite as gynaecological as Hustler, and the writing could be hit, and miss. 

However, one section of Penthouse really caught my imagination. 

Specifically, I really got into reading Penthouse Forum letters. They were allegedly real life tales from the magazine’s readers, of their own interesting, or noteworthy sexual exploits. 

The letters followed a very simple format. The stories usually started with a line like this: “I never thought something like this would ever happen to me, but…”, and almost always ended with “needless to say…”.

Here’s an made-up example of what I mean:

“I never thought I something like this would ever happen to me, but I was in the laundry room of my apartment building, when this beautiful woman came in to wash her clothing too. She loaded up the washing machine, and then stripped down to her bra, and panties, and put the clothes she was wearing into the washing machine with the rest of her stuff, and started the cycle. And then she turned to me, and said “see anything you like?” I was game, so then we had amazing, god-tier sex right there, on the floor. It was fantastic, and needless to say, I will be looking forward to laundry nights every week from now on!”

The stories were usually far more graphic than my example, and I assumed most of them were made up. Sometimes, I really wanted them to be true, as they gave me hope that one day, I would have my own Penthouse Forum worthy experiences.  And “needless to say”, I looked forward to that day, very much.

There were stories about threesomes, stories about wife-swapping, and loads of stories about amazing sex with random strangers. If you can imagine it happening sexually, I probably read a Penthouse letter about it. 

Apparently, grownups were having sex all the time with each other, and behind each other’s backs too. Pretty much, whenever grownups were alone, they were banging. Sex was happening everywhere, and I couldn’t wait to be old enough to play along. 

Very few people were actually having sex in my high school, and I’m not just saying that just because I wasn’t. Sure, it happened, I can think of two kids born out of wedlock to students in my school. 

Do people still say “out of wedlock” or am I showing my age here?

Most of my friends weren’t having sex either, though it did somewhat improve in our senior year. 

There wasn’t much random shagging, or even drunken shagging, I would say most of the teen sex I was aware of was more traditional, and within monogamous relationships. 

A friend of my dad’s gave me some advice about sex when I was a teenager, maybe 15 or 16. The guy would have been in his 40s, and he was married, with kids. And he was a doctor, technically, because chiropractors count too. 

My dad’s friend told me that he was very worldly, because he served in the Navy. He had travelled all over the high seas, so I should listen to him. 

This was his advice, based on the antics of a sailor he allegedly served with for a while. He said this guy had a simple view, “If you randomly approached 100 women, and asked them if they wanted to fuck, you were likely to get slapped 99 times. But on that 100th time, boy oh boy, you were in for the time of your life!” 

Yes, an adult really told me this. And meant it. Getting laid is simply a numbers game. Even if there is a touch of truth to it, it is a horrible thing to tell a teenager. I just didn’t know any of that at the time. It is problematic advice to be giving a young man, but I was given it just the same. 

And here’s the thing, that sort of attitude was prevalent way back then, and quite frankly, I expect it still exists today. Women existed simply to please men, and it was man’s obligation to find as much pleasure as possible. While the opposite was true for women, and every women’s duty was to protect, and maintain their virtue. None of that was healthy, or made any sense. 

I juggled that sort of advice, while also admiring strong women I saw in the media, and believing in gender equality. Put it this way, my biggest celebrity crush of the 70s, and 80s, was Jane Fonda. And to be honest, she’s 85 years old now, and I still would. And I can promise you, whether then or now, she wouldn’t, with me anyway. 

One of the articles I read in Penthouse was about the Hite Report, written by Shere Hite. It was a groundbreaking, in-depth study of female sexuality, that built on the work of Alfred Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson. People doubted the female orgasm even existed, and Ms. Hite wished to set the record straight. 

Imagine thinking female orgasms were a myth? Many people did back then, and shockingly, some people still do. I remember learning the term ‘pre-orgasmic woman”, and wanting to go on a mission to help them all. Not really, but it sure sounded like a fun way to spend my summer break.

Even before I was sexually active, I liked sex, and had a healthy, and positive interest in it. What I lacked was the confidence, self esteem, and social skills required to find a willing partner.

I’ll end this section with one of my weirder, early near-sexual experiences. At the time, I didn’t think it could possibly be real, but a week later, I learned I should have trusted my instincts. 

It’s a bit like a poorly written teen comedy film from the early-80s. I might have been played by Judge Reinhold. He would have nailed my awkwardness perfectly. 

I was at a party towards the end of my senior year of high school, being held at a friend’s house. His parents were divorced, and he lived with his mother. It was a nice place, with a built-in pool, that I expect his dad was still paying for. 

There was a lot of drinking going on, and everyone was reasonably drunk, but my friend stayed relatively sober, because it was his party. Plus at the end of the night, he needed to drive his girlfriend home. 

I stayed late to help clear up, as my friend drove his girlfriend home. My friend’s mother, and I were left alone. I was 18 years old. 

It was a pool party, so my friend’s mother was in a one-piece bathing suit, and I was just wearing a pair of trunks. Once we were finished clearing up the empties, we sat down together, and had some more drinks. I knew my friend would be gone for a while, because he wanted to have car sex with his girlfriend, before dropping her off. 

My friend’s mother was extremely attractive, something I obviously had noticed before. She was probably 38, or 39 at the time, and more than a little tipsy. 

I thought I was imagining things, as she seemed to be openly flirting with me. I genuinely couldn’t believe that it was possible. 

I was a healthy, normal teenage boy, and I had a healthy, normal reaction to her flirtatious behaviour, especially when she kept brushing my leg with her fingers. 

I popped a boner. I pitched a tent. I had the mother of all erections. 

There is no way in the world that she couldn’t have noticed my arousal. And I was starting to have very impure thoughts about my friend’s mother that I knew were wrong, even though they felt oh, so right. 

I heard my friend’s car pull into the driveway, and the front door opened, and that was enough of a boner killer to bring me back to earth. Nothing happened with his mother, and I tried to convince myself that it was all in my imagination. I’d just had too much to drink, and had read too many Penthouse letters. Stupid me!

Around a week later, I was back at my friend’s place one evening after a night out. We were going to have a swim, or something, before I went home, only we heard laughter in the back yard. 

We walked around the side of house to investigate, and found my friend’s mother on top of a guy in the swimming pool, kissing him deeply. Awkward. 

We were both even more shocked when we worked out who he was. He was a guy who graduated high school the previous year. That would have made him 19 years old at the time, only a year older than me. He mowed my friend’s mother’s lawn for her, that’s how she knew him. And I could clearly see, she was getting to know him a whole lot better. 

I wasn’t imagining things the week before. She really was getting sexual around me. If I was a bit more clever, that could have been me with her in the swimming pool. 

That said, my friend was fuming that his mother was fooling around with this guy. He vandalised the guy’s pick-up truck. He keyed it. That’s how pissed off he was about his mother’s swimming pool romp. 

On balance, his friendship was more valuable to me than the handjob from his mom, that might have been. My regret isn’t that I missed the opportunity, it’s that I missed recognising it. I promised myself, I wouldn’t let that happen again. 

Infidelity

When I was 18-19 years old, I worked in a small office. Most of my colleagues were only a little bit older, but all of them were married, with children. And all of them were prolific cheaters. 

At first, I thought of them as role models, but in time I realised they were just jerks. Or, to use a more appropriate slur from back then in Jersey, they were total fucking douche-bags. 

They cheated on their wives with other colleagues. They cheated on their wives with women they picked up in bars. They cheated on their wives, whenever, and wherever they could. And they didn’t hide the fact that they were married, they all wore wedding rings. And some of the women they slept with from the office, had even met their wives at company parties.

This was a total mind fuck for me. Infidelity was something I really only knew about from the media. It’s a popular trope on soap operas, or in dramas, but I never expected to see it happening in front of me so blatantly. It made me question everything I thought I knew about marriage, and relationships. 

These were working class guys, who went to vocational school. Their wives were stay-at-home moms, and they kept blasting out more kids. They were all 25, or under. They used to drink, and take drugs all the time too.

These were the people who first gave me cocaine. They used to start drinking before work, and pound beers all day. Lunch was in a bar, and mostly liquid too. And they smoked loads of weed. They taught me how to be a hardcore party boy, and on that score, I was an eager student. 

In my head, I nicknamed the three of them “the Kowalskis”, as in Stanley, from the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire”. I was pretentious, even back then, but I was also right. 

The company allowed me some flexibility in my hours, because they knew I was studying at Monmouth College at the time, but also because it suited them too. 

My supervisor came up with a great idea. She suggested I work later hours, so they could lengthen the the amount of the time the pricey equipment was used, so it was more productive throughout the day. It made good business sense for them, and made working around my classes even easier. 

So most days, I would start mid-afternoon, and work until late evening. I was usually done by between 11pm, and midnight. The company had a punch clock, and timecards, so my hours were tracked, and I was paid OT, if I did any. 

The thing about the late shift is I was usually the only person around the office after hours, except for the cleaners. And I was the only one around to answer the phone. 

I expect you can imagine who would often phone late in the evening. It was always my colleagues’ wives, looking for their husbands. I could hear the worry, and upset tones in their voices.

I was forced to cover, and lie for my colleagues. It was expected of me, like some sort of man, or “bro code”. 

It didn’t matter if I knew which local no-tell-motel they were using for their adventures, I certainly couldn’t tell their wives. And to be fair, I didn’t know what exactly which room they were in, so I could plausibly deny knowing their precise whereabouts. I wasn’t really comfortable with doing it, but I did it anyway. Did I even have a choice?

Remember, from reading Penthouse, I knew about things like open marriages, and partner swapping. In other words, there were more ethical ways of broadening your sexual horizons, than cheating on your wife. 

One day, when they were drunkenly bragging about their conquests in the bar, I said  a few things about divorce, and open marriages, and the hypocrisy of sleeping around. And it triggered all three of them.

They all said they would never, ever leave their wives, no matter what. They were adamant about it, and claimed they loved them.

Then, I suggested why not try swinging, if they wanted to sleep around. Why not have an open marriage, or do partner swapping. That was a step too far for all of them. 

The first one said, “No way would I let my wife be with another guy.”

And the second spluttered, “She is for me only, I don’t share!”

And the leader of the group said definitively, “If my wife ever fucked another guy, I’d kill her”. Well, that was settled. 

What’s good for the goose, ain’t good for the gander, eh?

I learned a few life lessons hanging around with these guys. The first was: Don’t get married young. It wasn’t something on my radar anyway, but spending time with them, hammered the point home. 

The second lesson wasn’t as significant, but it was still useful information. Most people, if given the chance, and think they can get away with it, will cheat. I would learn that it wasn’t always as black, and white as that, but it is still one of my takeaways at the time. 

Mainly I learned to disrespect marriage. It was a meaningless institution. It didn’t imply fidelity, or loyalty. Real commitment is better than marriage. Some religious mumbo-jumbo, and a piece of paper won’t magically change that.

And if someone doesn’t respect their own marriage, why should anyone else? Why should I?

In Part Two – Connecting, I finally get online, and the real fun begins!

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

Consenting Online Adults – Part Two

Connecting (1980-1987)

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

Going Online

Home computers were relatively rare in the early 1980s. I got my first Radio Shack (Tandy) TRS-80 in November 1980.

It couldn’t do much, you had to write programs in Basic, line by line from hobby magazines. And there was no easy way to save the programmes, except unreliable cassette tapes. I was still in high school. 

A couple of years later, I had my first apartment, and bought my second system, an Apple //c. That model was a cheaper, but less open, and expandable version of the classic Apple //e. It had a monochrome screen, with green text only, like the computers in the film, The Matrix. It could do a lot more than my first system, like word processing. I had a printer too, and used my new computer for writing college assignments. 

I also bought a modem. It was my first, a 1200 baud dial-up, which is super slow and worked with the Apple //c. It could take a minute for a page of text to load. Sorry, this is all a bit geeky.

There wasn’t much to connect to back then, mostly small bulletin board systems (BBS) that were locally based, and run. If you didn’t stay on local systems, the call charges could quickly add up. 

The other option was a national paid for service. CompuServe was the biggest back then. I did have a month’s free trial, but I couldn’t afford the charges after that. 

It was totally text based, no pictures, no video, and no audio, but you could get news wires, email, and quizzes. Basically it was just text based information, or entertainment. And it was a “walled garden”, meaning you could only connect, communicate with, or see things on the CompuServe system, and that included the email. If someone else subscribed to a different online service, they were completely cut off from other systems. There was no internet, or even interoperability, back in the early days. 

The big, new thing on CompuServe, or CIS as it was known, was something called the CB Simulator. If you saw it today, you would recognise it as an early type of chat room system. It was organised into channels, which worked like rooms. One channel was dedicated to “adult fun”. 

The other big thing to come out of CIS, and the CB Simulator, was “CompuSex” or “hot chatting”. There were articles in newspapers, and magazines about this new phenomenon, where random strangers were helping each other online… get off. Distance didn’t matter, you could have computer sex with anyone, anywhere. It was the future!

On that first night, I hot chatted with someone who claimed to be a girl around my age, from Hawaii. I have no idea if any of that was true, but we spent a couple of hours, typing one handed about our most explicit sexual desires, and what we would be doing to each other, if we were together. 

I wasn’t terribly experienced at this point, but I wasn’t a virgin either. What made me good at hot chatting, and what gave me such a vivid imagination, were all the Penthouse Forum letters that I had read over the years. 

I was oddly good at it. It was probably my earliest ongoing, creative writing. Take that Mrs. Smith’s 6th grade English class!

That was nearly all I did for that one month trial, I chatted to far away girls, in far away places, about our deepest desires. As a horny young guy, it was fun, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It never occurred to me to look for local people on CIS, that I could meet in real life in that first month. 

When the free trial ended, I turned to the bulletin boards. Most of the early systems were centred around hobbies, like computers, or cycling. One local BBS that I found was an adults-only hook-up site for swingers. Sex can be a hobby too.

The site was small, and only one person at a time could connect to it, so often the phone number was busy when you tried to access it. My persistence paid off, and I managed to create a profile, and have a look around.

Unsurprisingly, it was mainly single men, a very small number of couples, and no single women. Most of the men were older, like 40s or 50s older. I was 20 years old at this point, It would have been 1983.

I wasn’t registered on the system that long, when I received my first private message. It was from a couple. The writer actually said she was the female half of the couple, and she said they were looking for someone close to their ages for a threesome. 

I’d never considered a threesome with a couple. Whenever I had that particular fantasy, it was always me, and two women. I tried to keep an open mind, so I replied, and we exchanged a couple of messages. I think she could sense my reticence. She asked for my phone number. I gave it to her. 

A couple of nights later, my phone rang, and it was the female half of the couple, ringing from a pay phone. She said she had an argument with her husband, and she needed to get out for a while. Could she visit me, just to talk?

I arranged to meet her somewhere nearby, because my apartment was hard to find. She hopped in my car, and we drove back to my place. 

She was cute. She had dark brown hair, and was just wearing jeans, and a tee shirt. She was maybe a year or two older than me. 

Not long into the short journey, she told me definitively, that she wasn’t going to have sex with me that night. I can’t say I was planning on doing anything with her. I don’t know what I expected. I was going with the flow. 

We got back to my place, and I sparked up a joint, which we passed back, and forth as we chatted. She talked a lot about her marriage, and how unhappy she was, but she said they were determined to make it work, because of their baby. 

After a while, she moved closer to me, and kissed me. She said, just because we’re not going to have sex, doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun. I was in no position to disagree. 

We started making out, and it got intense. She started touching me in my special place. She offered me a BJ. She didn’t have to ask me twice. She kept her clothing on. 

After we were done, she said she had to return home, I drove her back to her car, and that was it. I didn’t hear from her again, but her husband phoned me a couple of nights later. 

He was friendly. He asked me if I enjoyed meeting his wife, and if I had a good time. He asked if I was up for a threesome. He also asked if he could blow me too, and he offered to visit me on his own that night. 

I declined. I told him I didn’t swing that way. He pushed it, he said I owed him since he let me fool around with his wife. He told me had sent her to see me the previous night, and it was all his idea. 

I was starting to put the pieces together. She was the bait, and he was trying to reel me in. Or did she pre-screen my peen? Ewww. Whatever. I knew I was in way over my head. 

I said thanks, made my excuses, and got off the phone. I didn’t hear from them again. 

If you think I learned my lesson about the swingers BBS system, you’d be wrong. Another couple’s account contacted me, but this time it was different. They weren’t looking for a threesome, the wife was looking for a lover on her own. I was one of the few men on the site that was close to her age. That’s why she contacted me. 

I remember her name, I remember her. I liked her. She told me her husband had gone off sex completely since she had her son, and she was very frustrated. 

They talked about wife swapping, but her husband wasn’t into the idea, he wanted a threesome with another guy. And she wasn’t interested in that. So they were at an impasse. 

They had signed up to the BBS, but they never did anything, so my new friend took it upon herself to use the account, to see if she could find some fun on her own. Most of the single guys on there were a lot older, I was closer to her age. She was only a couple of years older than me. 

We met, and we liked each other. We had a really good time together, sexually. It was actually the best time I’d ever had with anyone, up to that point. We met a second time, and it was even better. 

I knew she couldn’t be my girlfriend, what with having a husband, and a kid, and all, but I thought it might become a regular thing. I was living in fantasy land. And then she asked me a question, that reintroduced some reality. 

She asked if she could bring her young son with her on her next visit, because she couldn’t find anyone to watch him. She said he would be fine on his own, in his baby buggy, or whatever it is you transport babies around in, while we had our fun in the other room.

And that’s when the guilt hit me. I didn’t care how young, or well behaved her son was, I didn’t want to be the cause of him needing therapy one day. I didn’t want to give him some memory he’d have to bury away. I didn’t want to be in this situation, so I got out of it during that phone call. I ended it right there. 

To be honest, I wish I met her under different circumstances. I really liked her. She got married too young, so did the first woman I met. None of them were emotionally, or intellectually, prepared to be in a normal, adult relationship. And for that matter, it was the same for those creepy cheating guys I worked with around the same time.

I didn’t seem to know anyone around my age who was married, and happy about it. Or faithful. All of this left an impression, and a few scars. 

I Never Thought It Would Happen to Me

I was working in a different office in 1984, and a new work buddy of mine came to stay with me for a long weekend of debauchery at the Jersey Shore. I think it might have been Memorial Day. 

The plan was to hit the bars along the shore, and chase girls. The bars were heaving, but we were having terrible luck with the ladies. 

At one point, we were in a dodgy bar in Long Branch, and it was getting late. I was making eye contact with a really pretty girl on the other side of the bar, and was getting ready to make my approach, when her biker boyfriend came up behind her. When she stood up, I saw that she was around 8 or 9 months pregnant. He had on a Pagan jacket, which means if he turned up a minute or two later, I might have ended up stomped by the whole gang. It was that kind of night. 

We struck out everywhere, but I was in a never-say-die mood, so we kept going. We bounced between Asbury, and Long Branch, we drove along the ocean. 

I spotted a hitchhiker. She had long blonde hair, and a cocktail in her hand. I fucking love New Jersey!

I pulled over, and asked her where she was going? She said, “Wherever you are, baby”, and she climbed into the back seat. We went back to my place.

She was all over me as soon as we got to my mine, and we went into the bedroom. My friend watched TV on the sofa. 

I never thought it would happen to me, but… This was my Penthouse Forum letter moment. Random hot sex, with a random hot chick.  Completely consensual, no hypocrisy, no infidelity, and it was completely meaningless. It felt like a win. 

When we were finished, we went back to the living room, and she asked my friend if he wanted a go. He declined. I didn’t say it was classy. Then I drove her home, it wasn’t too far. We didn’t even know each other’s names.

Hobroken

I moved to Hoboken in north Jersey in the summer of 1985, as I was attending New York University, after commuting from the shore for a semester. It is a mile-square city, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, between the Lincoln, and Holland Tunnels. It was a great place to live. 

When I moved I also upgraded my computer again, to my third system. It was an Atari 1040ST, and it had a colour screen. Yes, the same Atari that makes video game consoles. They made decent desktops back in the day, too. And I had a 2400 baud modem for it. Still slow, but only half as slow as my previous 1200 baud model. 

I think they dropped their prices, because around this time, I properly subscribed to CompuServe (CIS), which was still the biggest online system. Later, I would sign up for a cheaper, competing system, called PeopleLink.

Back then, the open internet wasn’t easily available, all you could really use were private, paid-for closed systems, like CompuServe. There were others, but CIS was the big daddy.

I had two experiences early-on via CIS, that were wild, and I’m going to tell you about both of them. I was taken advantage of by a couple of older women. And I liked it. 

I got chatting to a woman in her late 30s from Brooklyn late one night, and things got intense quite quickly. 

She told me she was a big girl. Like really big, but she was also voraciously horny. She was into threesomes, she was into random hook ups too. And she hadn’t been with anyone in a while. She offered to jump in her car, drive across Manhattan, and through the Holland Tunnel, all the way to my front door. How could I refuse?

The agreement was this: I would be wearing nothing but a bathrobe when she arrived. As soon as she walked through my door, I was meant to not say a word, and just lead her into my bedroom, and then ravage her. I could handle that. 

She arrived, and I buzzed her in. She didn’t exaggerate, she was big, but she was also really sexy. She had thick, very long curly, dark hair, and glasses. Think sexy, and confident, like Lizzo, only white. 

I brought her into the bedroom, and gave her a passionate kiss. She said, “Oh, you’re good.” She was about to find out. 

Oral sex shouldn’t be a controversial subject, but like most things sexual, people are weird about it. I’m not. I dig oral sex, both ways. No shame, there’s nothing more enjoyable than taking a trip on the downtown train, or having someone return the favour. 

I gave my big, new friend more orgasms than she could count. 

She took good care of me too. Over and over. We went at it for hours, before she left. 

My experience with the big girl was wild. There were maybe two hours between our initial online contact, and our real world contact. It felt like the future!

Hey, I’m going to stop briefly to mention condoms. I haven’t brought them up until now, but I’ve always used them. 

AIDS was a big thing in the 80s, but before AIDS, there was another social disease that stayed with you for life that I was also trying to avoid. No, not herpes. Fatherhood. Just because I don’t spell it out, doesn’t mean I didn’t use condoms. I did. 

That’s Bananas!

Do you remember the film, Logan’s Run? It’s a really cool, classic sci-fi film, that’s more than a bit ageist. Aside from the dystopian story, there are two things that stood out to me when I first saw it in the cinema as a kid in 1976.

The first is a silly one, but I’m going to share it anyway. There’s a scene in the film when actress Jenny Agutter changes her clothing, and you catch a glimpse of her side boob. It was the first nudity I’d ever seen on-screen. I can still remember it. I’m sure I’m not the only former teenage boy with this very vivid memory.

As a further aside, at one point I lived in the same neighbourhood of London as Ms. Agutter. This is more than 25 years ago, but I passed her on the street, more than once. I never spoke to her. It would have been weird if I did. 

The other element I recalled from the film, is a throwaway moment, and plot device. At one point the main character, played by the actor, Michael York, is looking for a sexual partner, and browsing the availability of people. 

The “browsing” was done via some device that facilitated random people, materialising inside his flat, via some sort of Star Trek type transporter device. 

The main character, “Logan”, checked out people of both genders as they popped into his flat. He would then push the “next” button, and someone new would physically appear. He did this until he found someone he liked. It was like swiping left, or right, only on real life people. And he “swiped right” Jenny Agutter. I think that’s how they meet in the film. I haven’t seen it in a long time. 

The device in the film reminded me of a much higher tech version of finding people on CIS, and BBS’s. In the future, they would just materialise in your bedroom, ready to rock and roll. 

The second woman I met was even older than the first. She said she was divorced, and 42 years old. That’s a 20-year difference, for you math fans out there. 

After we chatted on CIS, she came over the next evening, with a plan to spend the night, so she could drink. She was petite, and had a short, bob-style hair cut, light brown coloured. 

She’d eaten before she arrived, so we got down to the drinking, and smoking. She was a chain smoker, and I wasn’t a slouch in that department back then either, and we had a couple of joints too. 

She was sexually aggressive, and not shy about it. She wrapped herself around me, and started kissing me hard. She kept telling me, “more tongue, more tongue!” That made me feel a bit inexperienced. Compared to her, I definitely was a beginner. But what I lacked in experience, I more than made up for with enthusiasm. 

She warned me her period might be about to start, but said it wasn’t anything to worry about. What did I know about periods? Very little. 

We adjourned to the bedroom. We made angry monkey love all night, in every way you can imagine. And maybe a few ways you can’t. 

The next morning, we said our goodbyes, and I went to change the sheets. Her period had started all right, and it finished too. All of it finished overnight, after our marathon romp. My bed looked like a murder scene. Nobody warned me about this. I told you I didn’t know much about periods. 

PeopleLink

The other system I was using was called PeopleLink. It was strictly a platform for chatting, and it had more of air of respectability about it than the free-for-all that was CIS’s CB Simulator. The online community there was more respectful, and behaved more in line with real life norms.

I hadn’t lived in Hoboken that long, and didn’t really know anyone in the area, beyond the other students on my course. And most of them were scattered all over the tri-state area. So I went to a PeopleLink meet-up event in Manhattan. 

Some of the people I met at the event, I had been chatting to online, respectfully, for a while. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t flirting, there was, but it wasn’t as explicit, or in your face as it was on CIS. 

There were other people I met that night, that I hadn’t chatted to before, but would go onto chat with later on. One guy I met at that event, would go on to change my life.

In the end, I met four women that night, that I would see again. 

The first one had nothing to do with PeopleLink, but her sister was a user, and one of the organisers of the event. She was really pretty, and probably about 10 years older than me. That was more of an issue for her, I was cool with it. 

I was kinda cute back then, but I wouldn’t say I was particularly good looking. I had very long curly brown hair, and a short trimmed beard. I dressed in jeans, tees, and I would have been wearing a tweed blazer at an event like that. Plus a pair of cool boots. 

I don’t remember this woman’s name, but I remember liking her, a lot. We had a little intoxicated snog towards the very end of the PeopleLink event, and I got her number. 

We went out, twice. The first time was dinner, and drinks, and some more kissing. Our second date was a live taping of a network sitcom, at a big studio in Manhattan. The TV show was Kate and Allie, and the tickets were via someone I knew at NYU. 

After the recording, we went for a drink, and she dumped me. She couldn’t get over the age-difference thing. So it goes. 

I stayed in touch with the three other women I met that night. My online chats with one of them progressed to being somewhat hot, and heavy, and we arranged for her to come over, and spend the night with me. 

She was in her early 30s I think, and didn’t mind my age at all. She was looking for something serious, and while I can’t say that was my priority, I was open to the possibility if it happened. 

She confessed to me she was a virgin, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t do “stuff”. She was waiting for “the right one”, before going all the way. Fair enough. Whatever, I’m cool. 

We were not compatible. Sexually. I’m just going to leave it at that. The night was weird, and she wasn’t for me. 

On to number three. This one should have been a Penthouse Forum letter. The set up will certainly put you in mind of one. Or a porn film. Then it all goes really wrong. 

The third woman was a flight attendant, or stewardess, as we called them in the olden days. She lived in the midwest, but travelled all the time, and was frequently around NYC. She could also “deadhead” to Newark Airport, pretty much any time, so the long distance wasn’t an issue. And she could be based anywhere for her job, so if we really hit it off…

She arranged a deadhead flight to spend a weekend with me, and I was going to pick her up at the airport in my car. It was only a 20-30 minute drive from my place in Hoboken.

I was really looking forward to seeing her again. She was really cute, and more than a bit sexy. Who wouldn’t want a stewardess girlfriend? It would be like living in a sitcom. Imagine the high jinks!

I picked her up outside the terminal, I didn’t need to park up. She was extraordinarily drunk when I found her. She wasn’t quite to the point of falling down, but she was close. 

Turned out, the crew she flew with were friends of hers, and they  plied her with drinks during the entire trip for her ‘dirty weekend with her new man’. She gave me a really sloppy, lingering kiss. I told you it was like a sitcom.

We set off for my place, it wasn’t a long trip at all. At some point on the Pulaski Skyway, she asked me to pull over. There’s no shoulder on the Skyway. It’s an elevated highway, so there was no “pulling over”. 

Then she asked, “how do you roll down the (electric) window?”, but before I could answer, she threw up all over the inside of the passenger car door. 

Yep, she blew cookies. She chundered. You can choose your own euphemism, if you like.

We’d been together less than 20 minutes, and the mood was pretty much ruined. Though, on the plus side, it certainly sobered her up quickly. She couldn’t have been more apologetic if she tried. Or embarrassed. It was not the ideal way to start our long, sexy weekend.

When we got to my place, she had a shower, and brushed her teeth, while I attempted some damage control on the inside of my Toyota. 

When I got back upstairs, she was ready for more alcohol, and I could certainly use a drink at this point too. We shared a joint, and cuddled up on my sofa. And then she told me she was a virgin, but we could still do “stuff”.

At this point, virginity was becoming a running theme. I’ve run across so many women over the years, who prized their virginity, but still found ways to be sexually active. 

Call me old fashioned, that really always seemed to me like some serious hair splitting. It was real morality jiggery-pokery, and I struggled to understand how they made the math work in their heads.

We started fooling around on the sofa, and it didn’t take too long before we moved to the bedroom, to do more “stuff”. 

She had told me she liked whippets. They are little canisters of nitrous oxide, that you used to fill a balloon, and then you would inhale the gas, and get a very pleasant, and short-lived high. They’re fun in the bedroom, and for the most part fairly mild, and safe. You used to be able to get them in any head-shop in NYC, and they were cheap. 

And that’s how we spent the weekend. We drank, we smoked, we inhaled nitrous, and ordered takeaways. Hoboken had loads of great restaurants that delivered. I’m pretty sure we went into Manhattan and hung around too. And on the Sunday night, I brought her back to Newark Airport, and that was the last time I saw her. 

I had tried to clean the car as best I could, but it was still smelling funky on Sunday night. I had to get it professionally cleaned in the end. I never felt the same way about that car after that, and I ended up selling it around 6 months later to a guy I worked with at MTV. Sorry, Steve!

Now, for the final woman from the collection of four I gathered at that one PeopleLink meet-up. She was 15 years older than me, and we were together for around 6 months. I’m pretty sure I was her midlife crisis. 

I can remember her first name, but for the life of me, I can’t recall her surname.  I wish I could, I’d search for her online, and see what happened to her. She’d be 75 years old now. Yikes!

She had three kids, all daughters. The oldest was only a few years younger than me, and was at the time engaged to an aspiring airline pilot. She hated me. 

The youngest daughter was under 10. She could have been 6, she could have been 9, I don’t recall. She hated me, too.

The middle daughter was 16, or 17, and I’m fairly certain that she had a little crush on me. All of it was awkward. 

My older-woman GF worked in high finance, and had been involved with putting together the financing for some major Hollywood blockbusters. She drove a Maserati, and lived in a big house in a posh NJ town. She was often in the city. The first time I saw her after the event in Manhattan where we met was at my place. 

We had stayed in touch via PeopleLink, and we chatted occasionally. I wasn’t sure if she was into me, or if she was just friendly, until she suggested she drop by to visit me the next time she was in the neighbourhood. She ended up staying for a couple of days. Her intentions towards me were pretty clear by then. 

It was a real relationship. We even met each other’s parents. Technically, my time with her, counts as the third longest relationship I’ve ever had in my life. 

At the time, I was barely employed by MTV, and only attending some of my classes, before dropping out completely. I was hardly a prize boyfriend, but I don’t think anyone would have described me as her “toy boy” either. 

After around 6 months, she came to her senses, and dumped me. I didn’t take it well, but I didn’t put up a fight either. I never saw her again. 

If you think I was prolific with a computer, and modem, keep reading. In Part Three – All Good Things, I find even more ways to meet random strangers

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

Consenting Online Adults – Part Three

All Good Things (1985-1997)

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

I never thought it would happen to me, again

I was always an equal opportunity shagger, especially when meeting pre-internet strangers for pre-arranged sexual liaisons. I met women of all shapes and sizes, and all races and religions too. 

I didn’t discriminate. It was always a bonus if someone was conventionally attractive, but never a big deal if someone wasn’t. What was more important to me, was the vibe. And honesty. I can have a good time with anyone nice. So could you, if you really wanted to. Just sayin’.

OK, let’s be really honest. I was easy. I was a good time. I was a party boy. I liked to drink, smoke, snort, and fuck. I’ll let you in on a little secret: All of that is really my religion. Halle-fucking-lujah, and A-fucking-men to that! And shouldn’t that make it all tax-deductible?

I had one more weird success from PeopleLink. This time, I can remember her screen name, but not her real name. She lived somewhere in western NJ, that was accessible by train. She suggested I travel by rail, so I could drink heavily, and stay the night. Sounded good to me. I got one of the last trains heading in that direction.

Like I said, I was an equal opportunity shagger, and I was always up for a good time, but for the first time ever, someone misrepresented their looks to me. This had never happened to me before, but when I met the young lady, she was nothing at all like her description. 

She picked me up at the train station, and I was really confused when she called out my name. Like, I had no idea who she was for a moment, until my brain put together that she was my hostess. 

She wasn’t ugly, but she was a bit big. That wasn’t the issue, the issue was she wasn’t honest about it. I would have still come. It also explained why she told me to take the train. There wasn’t a return train until the morning. I was stuck there. 

She had some coke, and a big bottle of Jack Daniels, so we got down to it. It didn’t take too long before we were in her bed, playing around.

And then, I never thought it would happen to me again, but… her roommate got home, and she came into the bedroom. She saw the lines on the bedside table next to a half drunk bottle of JD, and her roomy riding a stranger. 

She asked if she could join the party too? I guessed, just based on how easily this happened, that this wasn’t their first rodeo sharing a guy. Giddayap!

It was another Penthouse Forum letter experience that was most unexpected, and surprisingly good fun. 

We woke up entangled, and played around some more. Then the roommate drove me back to the station, and gave me the longest kiss good bye. 

Chatlines

There’s an indescribable rush that comes with meeting a complete stranger for the first time, knowing you’re going to fool around with them. It didn’t always have to be full sex, but it sometimes did. Every encounter was different. Every woman I met was different, that was part of the thrill. 

And it wasn’t that I avoided relationships. I met girls, and dated them conventionally, but these traditional attempts didn’t work for me. I was too immature, not marriage or family minded, and most girls would work that out quickly, and move on. 

Right off the top of my head, I can think of three woman who dated, and played around with me in a really traditional way, that went on to get engaged, or married to someone else fairly soon afterward. 

In one case, this particular young woman went from rolling around on top of me on my sofa one weekend, only to announcing her engagement to someone else a week, and a half later. She window shopped, and didn’t think I was a good long term bet. She was right. I wasn’t a potential ring on anyone’s finger. 

I debated whether or not to include this section, but as I’ve told this story, I’ve realised my telephone adventures are just as important as the online ones. I thought I might be developing a sex addiction, but what I was really developing was a stranger addiction.

When I moved to Hoboken, the cable TV system had a local community channel, with text adverts. As cable TV was a novelty to me, I checked out all the channels, including this one. And one night when I did, I saw an ad for a brand new service that was being trialled in the area. It said it was a “party on the telephone”, and it was super cheap, like 1 cent a minute, cheap. So I gave it a try. 

When I phoned the number, I think there was a brief recorded greeting, and then you were thrown into chaos. It was like a conference call, only there were maybe 8 people trying to shout across each other, mostly guys. 

Occasionally you’d hear a girl’s voice, and then it would go quiet, and someone would try to find out where in the area she was. And then someone nearby would shout out his number, and presumably, she would phone the guy, and then maybe they would hook up. 

It was like the online chatrooms, only more chaotic. It was also more accessible, because the bar for entry was lower. You didn’t need a computer and modem, just a normal telephone.

Everyone knows what chatlines are now, but in 1985, it was a brand new concept. There was even an article in the local paper about the chatline test. 

Hudson County was the test market, and if it was successful, they were going to roll these phone lines out all around the country. I think it said they were a huge success in Brazil, where they originated, but I wouldn’t swear to that part. Mainly, it gave me a new source of local strangers.

I had many encounters with random women of all sorts because I shouted my number at them on a chatline. I did it enough, that I can’t recall all of them. Loneliness is more common than anyone wants to believe. 

I used to drink a lot back then, and I’d come home late at night, drunk, bored, and horny. So I’d go online with my modem, and I would go on the chatline too. 

There were a few things I had in my favour. I had my own place, and I was always willing to pay for a taxi to my front door, and back. I also always had weed, booze, and condoms. 

One of the first girls I met, was also one of the kinkiest. To be honest, even though I was a bit more experienced at this point, she was still way more advanced than me.  

She said she liked it a bit rough, and wanted to be used. That’s never been my thing, I am far more into the passionate, and sensual side of sexual play. But I’m open minded, and willing to experiment, so I agreed. 

She said she was going to wear a short skirt and tee-shirt., with no undies, or bra. And she said she didn’t have any money at all, and I would have to pay for the cab as soon as she arrived. I was cool with all of it. 

It was around 2am, and she was only about 10 minutes away. I went outside, and waited for her to arrive. 

I know what you might be thinking, that this story is going to take a dark turn. You’re right, but it’s not in the way you think. I didn’t get jumped, or mugged. Nothing like that. You’ll see. 

The cab pulled up, I paid the guy, and he drove off. My new friend was seriously hot. She undersold herself in her description on the phone. I was legitimately surprised. We went upstairs.

I had the lights low, and MTV on TV, and we sat down on my sofa, for a drink, and smoke. She sat down right next to me, really close. 

Her skirt brushed upwards as she sat down. She didn’t pull it back down, and her thighs were exposed. 

We started kissing, and she aggressively took my hand, and rammed it between her own legs, hard. I got the idea, and we moved to the bedroom. 

I definitely wasn’t rough enough for her. Let’s call it what it is: rape play. It’s a big turn off for me. She wanted it rougher than I was comfortable with, by country mile. We had some fun anyway, but I could tell it wasn’t what either one of us really wanted.

As she was getting dressed, she asked me to call her a taxi. Then she casually mentioned that she needed to get back, because she’d left her young children sleeping alone in her apartment. All three of them, and all under 5 years old. 

I felt myself take a sharp intake of breath. Wait, what?

She said they’d be fine, and that she’d done it before. and they don’t ever wake up. I was not cool with this, so I phoned for the cab, and told them we needed it as soon as possible. 

Yes, if I knew she was leaving her kids home alone, I wouldn’t have played this game with her. I’m not a monster. I could imagine seeing a story on the news about a tragic, fatal house fire, started because some young children were left alone in the middle of the night. It freaked me out. 

A couple of nights later, my phone rang, and when I picked it up, it was a voice I didn’t recognise, asking for me by name. She said she was a friend of rough sex mommy, and that’s how she got my number. She said her friend told her she would really like me, and that I was her type. Could she drop by?

What do you think? Of course she could. 

I had a quick shower, and didn’t bother getting fully dressed. Her friend arrived, and she was surprisingly hot, too. 

Think about it, hot girls are usually friends with other hot girls. Why hadn’t that occurred to me? Simple, because I was never that bothered. Like I said, good looks were only ever just a bonus. You can have fun with anyone. Well, I could anyway. 

She was a bit drunk when she arrived, and we literally just got down to it. We were far more compatible, and I had a more enjoyable time than I did with rough sex mommy. I didn’t have to pay for this one’s taxis either, but at the end of our time together, she did ask me to phone for one, and I did. 

It was only after she left, I realised I didn’t get her number. I would have been up for partying with her again, but she never called. 

One last memory, yet another virgin, this one in her mid twenties. We met twice, both times in public. 

The first time, we went to the cinema, and she was aggressively horny. She was all over me, like a second skin. She told me she would only have sex if she was in love with someone. 

On our second date, which was a drink, that was meant to be followed by a trip back to my place, she told me she loved me. She wanted me to tell her I loved her too, so we could have sex. 

I’m not sure if it mattered to her if I really did love her, just as long as I said the words, as she was that desperate for sex. But I didn’t say it, I wasn’t going to pretend to love someone, just to get laid. I was going to find someone else to party with instead. And she should have been grateful for that, but she wasn’t, and she left in a snit.

I could go on like this for pages, but I think it would be tedious, so I will just summarise. There were at least 6 more women that I met from the chatline that I can remember off the top of my head, and probably even more that I can’t. I was prolific, and I struggle to recall them all. 

At some point I got bored with it. I eventually started working full time, and socialising with colleagues, and my online, and telephone adventures became fewer, and further between. 

I probably conventionally dated more during this following period. I think I was getting bored with the randomness of it all. I was starting to think if someone cool came along, I’d be willing to consider a relationship. Maybe I was finally maturing emotionally?

Long story short, I did meet someone, and we were together for over 2 years. It was my second longest relationship, and I had met her at a wedding. It took me out of the game.

Loot & Chatlines

London

The girl I had the relationship with for a couple of years was British. I moved to London, in part to be with her, but also because a transfer through my job at the time became available. She is only a part of why I moved here in 1991. 

When she dumped me in late 1992. I was in a foreign city, I was alone, with only a few friends, and things at my job were getting rough. I turned back to sex, and strangers.

The first place I found random hook-ups, was a weekly classified listings magazine, called “Loot” that had personal ads. I met a few people that way, including the ex-wife of a musician from a major British classic rock band. I dated, and slept with her for a couple of months. She was into non-monogamy, but she liked to talk about it too much. What she got up to when we weren’t together wasn’t my concern. I wasn’t jealous, it just didn’t turn me on. 

In that initial period after my big break-up, my meetings from Loot helped build my confidence, and they sustained me sexually. They helped me meet people outside of my social circle too. 

Some were random hook-ups, other meetings were more like conventional dates, and some were a combination of the two.

Chatlines existed in London the 90s, but were for the most part were advertised on commercial TV late at night, and stupidly expensive. Then one launched in London in the mid 90s, that I found via an advert in TimeOut magazine. It was dirt cheap, and run on a local number. Late one night when I was drunk, I gave it a try.

This new, cheap chatline was different from the chaotic one I used back in New Jersey. This was a one-on one-chat line, and you were connected to only one person at a time. Either one of you could press a key, to end the connection and move on to the next person, or you could keep talking. 

At the start of the call, you would press 1 if you were male, or 2 if you were female. That way the system knew who to pair with who. 

Occasionally, you would be connected to a guy, trying his luck. No judgement, but there are separate lines for gay, and bi guys. These guys had a specific kink for straight guys. Again, no shame, and clearly they must have had some luck, or they wouldn’t be there. You just press a key, and move on. 

The main part of the game on this system seemed to be geographical suitability. That was especially true if you were looking for a quick meeting on the spot, but less so if you were arranging something for a future date. I was living fairly centrally at the time. 

I had a lot of luck on this system. Again, more than I can ever remember. I had late night visitors, and I had normal dates from it too. I took it as it came, I had a great time.

Here’s a fun one. At one point I was unsuccessfully pursuing the flatmate of a colleague of mine. She wanted to be “just friends”. It was annoying, because I really liked her. We used to spend a lot of time together. It was like being back in high school. 

My not-girlfriend constantly gave me mixed signals though, whenever we were alone. She was friendly, and flirty, but she made it clear she wasn’t attracted to me, and didn’t want to be my girlfriend. I never pressured her for sex, but she knew I was into her. 

I met a girl from the phone line, and we had a normal date, that turned into a sleep over at my place. She was really, really nice, and it turned out she worked in the same industry as my not-girlfriend. And randomly, I worked out that they knew each other, and had a business meeting together the previous week. 

When I next saw my not-girlfriend, I asked her if she knew my new telephone friend. I was right, she did. When my not-girlfriend asked how I knew her, I told her I was dating her, I thought my not-girlfriend was going to explode. For someone that said they weren’t attracted to me, and didn’t want to be my girlfriend, she sure seemed jealous. Go figure. 

I mostly wasn’t online during this period in my life. I went a few years without a computer. I wouldn’t get one again until the late 90s, when the internet really started to take off. 

The phone line was fun, and I used it for a couple of years. I only stopped, because I met my current partner, conventionally. We’ve been together for 26 years, and we’re still going strong. 

When I met Mrs. Hippy, I was seeing three different girls I met from the phone line, all non-exclusively. Within a week of meeting the future Mrs. H, I ended things with all of them. All were non-exclusive, and on-going for various lengths of time. 

One of them was sort of my girlfriend for a bit, and then sort of not my girlfriend. She was a good time, in the same way I was. She liked to party hard. 

Little, by little, it felt like more of her stuff was ending up at my place after each visit. First it was a toothbrush, and then some undies. Then before I knew it, a week’s worth of work clothes. It was stealthy. 

She told me she lived with her ex-boyfriend, but couldn’t move out because they owned their flat together, and the market crash meant they couldn’t sell yet. He had a somewhat different view of their relationship, and when I found that out, I ended it. Thing is, I found out the hard way, by running into him. Not literally, but close enough.

Six months later, she phoned me late one night when I was drunk, and horny. She was wasted too. She missed me. We had really good sex. I missed her too. She visited. We hooked up on and off after that.

The other two were far less involved, and all just sex only. One was a motorcycle courier, and she used to turn up at my place during the day if she was in the area in her leathers, like Catwoman.

The other was a kinky Norwegian nanny, who pushed for things I wasn’t willing to do, like choking her. Sorry, not for me. 

It was easy to end it with all three of them. And my decision has stood the test of time. 

Between 1983 and 1997, I had a lot of wild, crazy, booze fuelled fun. That’s about 14 years. I more than got it all out of my system. I’ve now spent nearly double that time in a monogamous relationship. I just had to find the right woman, and I did. I can’t help it if the audition process was extensive, and unduly time consuming. 

I lacked confidence, I had low self esteem, and I used to drink heavily. I also really liked recreational sex. It’s no surprise I explored, and enjoyed whatever fun I could find. I’m not ashamed of any of it. I wasn’t grown up enough for a real relationship until I was in my thirties. Until then, I was just a good time. 

I wish people weren’t so uptight about sex. It seems like things have slid backwards a bit in society, when it comes to sexual freedom now, compared to the 70s, 80s, and 90s. And it shouldn’t be that way. 

There are so many more avenues to meet people now, than there were back then. And today, there is far less stigma. Everyone is on Tinder, or knows someone who is on Tinder, or one of the many other dating apps. 

The problem seems to be that it isn’t as easy to genuinely connect with anyone. Instead of making meeting up with friendly, sexy strangers more likely, it’s somehow pushed people further apart. It doesn’t make sense. 

It feels like it was easier, back in my day. Everyone was drunk, and horny, and willing to take risks just to have a good time. 

My days of pursuing recreational sex with strangers are long over, but that doesn’t mean the rest of you can’t keep that flame burning. 

There should be no shame in having a good time, as often as possible. So, what are you waiting for? Get out there! Forty years from now, you will still have the memories. It might even make for a good story.

And if I can leave you with one final thought from the last 40 or so years of my sex and love life, it’s this: Good sex is about a lot more than just physical attraction. And real, genuine, lasting love is about more than just sex. 

The End

But wait, there’s more! 

I have a bonus, extra story to share with you. You will really want to read this one. I should warn you now, that it will leave you with one big question, but in Part Four – I’ll Never Tell.

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)

Tales from the Pre-Internet – Bonus – Part Four

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

I’ll Never Tell (1986)

Of the many encounters I had from the pre-internet in the 1980s, this is by far the weirdest. You might not believe it, but I swear to you it’s true. 

One of the first things Lisa told me about herself during our first online conversation is that she is constantly mistaken for a very famous actress while out in public. She said she looked so much like this actress, the intrusions from members of the public were constant, and she didn’t like going out because of it.

We’d been chatting, and flirting on CompuServe, the largest online community in America at the time. Being online was still quite a niche pastime in the mid 80s, but I had been online for a couple of years at this point, and had met lots of people. My new friend was a little newer to this sort of thing. 

She sounded great, she lived in Manhattan, and was around my age. She told me her job was boring, and not worth talking about, even when I pressed her for more info. She seemed sweet, and she seemed into me. 

I’m a better writer, than I am a conversationalist, so for me chatting online was a bonus, and I usually made a decent impression. Around this time (late 1986 I think, November or December), I was still studying film & TV at New York University, while getting occasional freelance work from MTV. She liked that. 

The actress she said she looked exactly like was particularly popular in the 1980s. One film she was in, one of her earlier roles, caught my attention when I screened it on HBO. I had a little crush on the actress, so the fact that she said she was her double, intrigued me. This actress also starred in one of the most popular, and trendiest films of the middle of the decade.

Remember, the pre-internet was text-based only. There was no photo swapping, or video calls. The height of intimacy at this point, short of meeting, was to exchange landline numbers, which we eventually did.  We spoke for hours, about everything, and anything. We really clicked. 

She wanted to meet me, but she didn’t want to meet in a bar, or restaurant, as she said we would be constantly interrupted by people mistaking her for that famous actress. She didn’t want to invite me to her place. And she didn’t want to come to my place all the way in Hoboken either.  It was a bit of quandary, because after chatting online, and on the telephone for a few weeks, I really wanted to meet her too. 

I came up with a solution. Someone I knew had a ground floor, studio apartment in the West Village, just off Bleeker Street. He worked during the day, so I asked if I could use his place for an afternoon coffee date. He agreed, loaned me his spare keys, and I arranged for her to meet me there a few days later. 

I arrived a bit early, with some coffee, and some fresh cookies. His place was fairly tidy, and presentable. As it was a studio, it had a futon, which was in the upright, sofa position. Everything was respectable. 

I had some weed with me too, because back then I always had weed with me. She knew I smoked regularly, and she said she occasionally did too, so it was all cool. 

I was nervous while I was waiting, so I sparked up a J, as I was sitting on the futon. She was right on time, the intercom rang, and I buzzed her in through the front door. 

I met her in the hallway, and I was immediately taken aback. She was stunning. And she didn’t just look like this famous actress. I was immediately 99% sure that she was that famous actress. Internally, I attempted to convince myself I was imagining things, but deep down I knew I wasn’t. It was actually her. 

I tried to hide it, but I’m sure she picked up on my stunned reaction. I invited her inside my friend’s apartment. 

When we spoke on the telephone, I also thought I was imagining things, when I realised she sounded a bit like this famous actress. I didn’t mention it, since it seemed like such a sore subject. If anything, I disregarded it, and laughed at myself for thinking something so silly. Clearly it wasn’t so silly after all.

When she didn’t hug me as we first met, I already knew it was going badly. She had said on the telephone that as soon as we were together, she was going to “hug the stuffing out of me”. She said it more than once, but when the opportunity presented itself, there was no hug. 

I could tell she was disappointed with my looks. She didn’t really try to hide it. The warm, kind person from the online chats, and telephone, didn’t seem to arrive with her. She was cold. I adjourned to the kitchen to make a couple of coffees, and put the cookies on a plate.

While in the kitchen, I thought about my options. At this point, I was certain I had an extremely famous, popular, and drop-dead gorgeous actress waiting for a coffee in the other room. I also knew she was pretending not to be this famous actress, and had been playing at this weird ruse since our first online conversation.

And I also knew I fancied the hell out of her. If you asked me for a list of “dream celebrity girlfriends of the 1980s”, she would have been in the top three. 

I was not intellectually, nor emotionally equipped to navigate this awkward situation. I was so out of my depth, it was laughable. And I could tell now that she met me, that she was just not that into me.

I returned to the main room, with a couple of coffees, and the cookies. She had turned on the television, it was some bullshit on Oprah Winfrey, I don’t remember the topic. She was completely invested in whatever it was, to the point of ignoring me while she sipped her coffee, and nibbled a cookie. 

I tried to make conversation, but she literally shushed me, so she could listen to Oprah. It wasn’t just going badly; our intimate, romantic coffee date was a total disaster. She made me feel like a total piece of shit with her rudeness. 

She finished her coffee, said it was nice to meet me, but it wasn’t going to work out, and she said she was going to go on her way. I didn’t try to stop her, I was kind of lost for words. 

As she was walking out the door, I said something along the lines of, “Be honest you’re [name of famous actress], aren’t you? You might as well admit it. You don’t just look like her, you are her!”

She turned back, looked me sternly in my eyes, and shouted, “No! And don’t you dare tell anyone that I am, either!”. And with that, she was out the front door, and out of my life. Her “don’t you dare” admonishment only further convinced me of her identity. Don’t. You. Dare. 

And that was that, it ended in romantic disappointment for both of us. I didn’t end up with a famous celebrity girlfriend, or even a look-a-like. I didn’t end up with anyone after this encounter, just a hard knock to my already fairly fragile self-esteem. I never contacted her again, and obviously she didn’t stay in touch with me. 

It didn’t deter me from meeting other people from the pre-internet, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth. I have not thought about this incident in like, forever. I tried to put it out of my mind. 

This actress still works, though she is not as prolific as she once was. For years after we met, whenever I would see her in something, I would remember our meeting. Over the years, that started to fade, and I hadn’t thought about this encounter in a very long time. It’s only because I’ve been poking around in my memories of this period in my life, that this one floated up to the surface. I told you it was a weird story.

I know what you want to know. I know what anyone who reads this would want to know. It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? You want to know who the famous actress is. It’s only natural to want to know such a basic fact. 

This happened over 35 years ago, I certainly don’t hold a grudge. I’m way above, and beyond that now. That would be the only reason to name, and shame her today. I’m not going to do it. I’ll never tell. Her identity stays a secret. I’m taking it with me to the grave. I hope she had a good life. I think I did alright myself. 

The only person I have ever shared this story with until now, was the guy who loaned me his studio flat for the meeting. He was skeptical at first, but in the end he believed me. What convinced him was her entitled attitude when we met. 

But to me, that’s not the convincing detail, though it doesn’t hurt. For me, if I was hearing this story, what would convince me is the amount of effort she put into building the foundation of her lie. It started during our first online chat, when we exchanged written physical descriptions. I don’t think I was the first person to play this game with her. I don’t think I was the first one to lose that game, either. 

If I’m playing amateur shrink, I’d say she struggled with her early fame, and thought anyone attracted to her, was attracted by her celebrity, and success. She wanted to meet as a nobody, and have someone fall in love with her for her personality. I was definitely sliding in that direction, right up until we met. She adored my personality, until she saw me, and then she didn’t like my looks. That’s how it goes sometimes with blind dates. 

Over the years, my 99% certainty has notched up to 100%. Yes, I am certain, and sure it was her. It was my most intimate brush with celebrity, and we didn’t even make physical contact. I used to wonder what my life would have been like, if our meeting went differently, but that’s a fool’s errand. It was what it was. 

You can believe me, or not believe me, it’s up to you, but I hope you enjoyed this odd tale from the pre-internet.

The End

If you enjoyed that, why not check out the rest of the series. Parts 1, 2, and 3 if you haven’t already.

Or you could read my four part series about working at MTV in the mid 80s, called MTV Redux.

It’s all part of my “Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Collection” – a series of loosely connected pieces, all written in a 5 week period.

There’s even a bonus short story, that might blow your mind.

And if you’ve already read MTV Redux, why not check out Hippy Highlights – a curated list of pieces designed to entertain, inform, and amuse you. So many choices!

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)