Updated 2 years ago
From the artists lofts in Jersey City to a nootropics startup in south Brooklyn, two threads converge.
The owner of the smart drug company mentioned in this story, Mike Donahue’s obituary can be found above. If you have the time, read that first, as it provides some ancillary (but not crucial) background information to this story.
“My friend Bill has been badly injured, we need help getting his brain back. Can you help?,” the woman on the line, Katherine, said in a vague Eastern European accent.
I had been working at a rough and tumble smart drug startup in Weehawken, New Jersey and had been answering the phones. We sold brain supplements. I went through lists of drugs that we sold that helped build brain tissue. She ordered a small sample, and I thought nothing of this call that would come back to haunt me.
I had been trying to turn the company around. The owner was AWOL half the time making crack and GHB, and had let orders pile up and orders go unshipped. He had been inspired by my writing about the power of nootropics and “brain machines,” light and sound devices that attune the brain. I saw myself of some sort of mad scientist urban shaman.
The company he had started was so disorganized that in a fit of paranoia he had hidden his mushroom stash in pills that had been lost in our supply, so I had to go through the past few weeks of orders and had people open capsules to see if any of them had fungi in it.
It was stressful. But I needed money.
I had been partying a lot the past few years in the psychedelic trance scene at various underground Russian events, one of which was at a massive building of artist lofts in nearby Jersey City. The building itself was massive, with expansive views of Downtown Manhattan across the Hudson. It reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in the Shining, many stories, and apartments had been meticulously decorated. There were impromptu art installations everywhere, and the lights were very dim.
You might think the place would be a cesspool of humanity, but miraculously there weren’t any prostitutes, crackheads or riff-raff anywhere. Everyone I saw there were artists. I met many great people, including a vaguely European couple with a child that lived in a wonderful penthouse on the top floor.
A lot of my Russian friends lived there, throwing trance music parties that went on into the wee hours, always at least by sunrise. People took things like ecstasy and LSD. As it was a living space, there were also dusty couches everywhere and a kitchen. They were great. The place was homey, like a little kibbutz.
New York at that time was awash with a lot of Russians, Russian-Israelis, and Israelis. Many of the Russians came from isolated scientist colonies and were well educated and intellectual. The Russian-Israelis, in particular, were particularly prone to wheeling, dealing and intrigue. And if they had made it to Israel, they had been in the military.
The kids that actually brought all the music, speakers, high-end compact disc players and DJs were various Russian collectives.
Here was a typical flyer:
“Monday, October 2, 2000
Come and help us re-invent the spirit of celebration begun on the shores of Goa, now cultivating in NY’s ONLY Underground Trance. Add you energies to the developing character of our international urban-gypsey electronic-hippie enclave.
Find a family of all night celebration, 11pm-11am, in a huge warehouse loft gallery, minutes from….
This time we have for you in our full-on Trance event, … bringing fresh talent to NYC from …, dj … warmly welcomed from Boston, our own well-loved Russian flavor with …, and … to keep that satisfied smile on. Best of all, we have you, coming to find unity on the floor and … will play that “late” morning set. Bring your hopes, bring you happiness, and commit to a night of progress. We come to celebrate life and cosmos!
We will try to add chai to the setup and stay copfree this time
… with fire.. … with chill space..
Please, contribute $15 at the door
Directions on the site”
Police harassment eventually got too hot and the parties moved elsewhere, under bridges, on boats, in converted churches… then 9/11 happened and the world changed forever.
In the aftermath, Lloyd Goldman of the World Trade Center bought the building and started the long process clearing everyone out. Nothing was rebuilt on the land, disappointing many yuppies who had bought condos in the area within “walking distance of an arts center.”
New York’s vibe completely went to shit. Gone was the nuclear strength LSD made from the infamous missile silo in Kansas. Gone was the carefree attitude that authorities had. The canary in the coalmine was carefree hippy parties.
It had been in this aftermath that I brought myself to work at Smi2le, the Weehawken smart drug company. After the call from Katherine about her injured friend, the company unraveled as the owner became increasingly erratic. I retreated to my house in Brooklyn and started another company, Nootrition.com. I stayed in contact with a lot of the clientele, and one of whom being Katherine.
I got to know Katherine. I discovered that she was an Eastern European actress who was a regular for years on one of television’s most acclaimed shows in history. She still needed help, and I thought what a great opportunity it would be to practice my own brand of urban shamanism. I had also been making ayahuasca and having rituals with my friends. I was trying to cover both cutting-edge nootropics and old school shamanistic ritualistic plant-based medicine.
I invited her and her injured friend over, and I would see how I could help him, as I had a whole lab full of various nootropics (Smart drugs) imported from China in a rented doctor’s office on the first floor of my high rise.
I was way out in south Brooklyn. They eventually arrived, she was middle-aged, blonde, with the kind of eyes that immediately told me she had seen horrible trauma. With her was her friend Bill. Bill was tall, grey-haired with glasses, avuncular, gregarious.
“Hi, I’m Bill!” he said, smiling I invited them in.
As they sat down and I got them tea, I noticed that Bill was a little off. He was being led around by Katherine. As I came back with the tea, Bill looked at me with the face of seeing someone new.
“Hi, I’m Bill!” he said again, in the exact same way and the same exact smile.
WTF, I thought. Puzzled, I looked at Katherine questioningly.
Sighing, she began her story.
“Bill was a big time record producer with clients such as Tina Turner. At some point, we moved into the Jersey City lofts.”
My ears perked up.
“We made a home there. At first, the neighbors seemed nice, but there was also a loud group of Russian thugs that had raves and drugs and prostitutes.”
Bill looked around, a little confused, like he didn’t know where he was.
My heart sank and I put my head in my hands.
“Even on 9/11 they were up on the roof with their cell phones looking at the World Trade Center. I think they might have been involved with planning it. It was getting crazy.”
I realized that she had some interesting ideas and a strange perception of my friends. I kept looking at Bill, who wasn’t following the conversation at all.
She told me one night she and Bill got into a brutal physical altercation with one of the Russians. All of them were bloody, missing hair, with broken bones after it was all over.
“After we went to the hospital, Bill can’t form long term memories. He remembers about the past few minutes and that’s it. Everything else is a blur.”
I wanted to crawl in a corner and die.
“I’m trying to help Bill to get his brain back. Can you help?”
All my past faith in nootropics and brain machines shriveled down to the size of the head of a pin. And I wondered, it’s been five years… how many people has she called? How many fly-by-night smart drug operators and underground practitioners? But I tried anyway, what else could I do? I gave her a bag of assorted nootropics, and also a Cranial Electrical Stimulation (CES) device from Canada that sent current through the brain when each node was attached to the ears. I thought briefly of making him ayahuasca, but I quickly ruled it out.
She took them, thanked me, and she and Bill left.
After they left, I did some digging. I knew the Russians well, and I never knew of any violence whatsoever in their community. I am skeptical of conspiracy theories. So I ruled out 9/11.
It had been all over the papers in New York. Katherine had been on was the biggest show on cable TV, and, it is not exaggerating to say that probably most cops and D.A.’s in Jersey watched it.
The Russian had been tried twice with jury trials, without a lawyer, with her having a corporate lawyer from the well-known media company. Both cases were dismissed.
When three people fight with no witnesses, and only two have memories of it, the survivors will both have their own sides and versions of the story, and I decided not to take sides and focus on helping Bill. It was far too late (and pointless) to try to assign blame.
Katherine was having a very difficult time because she loved Bill, and also had to pretty much be his 24 hour a day caretaker, while being evicted, and unable to work.
I met her and Bill again a few times, we did things like go to the park and walk around. Bill was always happy and smiling. Like a child. He had been reduced to the very kernel of who he was. All the outer layers of nuance and complexity had been sandblasted away.
When the chips are down, all your fake friends fade away because it’s just not convenient anymore. The one who changes your bedpan is the one who loves you. And there was no better friend to Bill than Katherine, who apparently sacrificed her life for him to give him whatever sense of dignity she could muster, all completely by herself.
The smart drugs and electrical devices didn’t work.
Katherine brought back the cranial electrical device in a plastic bag.
In loving memory of William “Bill” Putt
(1946-2012
