"I did drugs because there was another world, and I wanted to live in it. Because I preferred this Other World to the one I happened to inhabit. Because I could exist in imaginary circumstances with greater ease that I could in real ones."
Jerry Stahl penned Permanent Midnight (which was published first in 1995, second edition in 2005) as a memoir that would serve as one of the most reliable and instructive routes to understanding the psychology of addiction and the nature of Hollywood TV studios during the late '80s and the beginning of the '90s.
The book is divided by seven chapters with humorous titles:
Part One: Low End Hollywood
Part Two: Mondo Porno
Part Three: Television Virgin
Part Four: Kiddieland
Part Five: TV I.V.
Part Six: Huggies ‘N’ Heroin
Part Seven: Toxic Exile
The prologue borders gory territory: "Here & Now" (Testicular cystectomy & diapers)," almost as drawn out of a vignette from The Cramps comic book.
Stahl made $5,000 per week writing for television series such as ALF, Moonlighting, Thirtysomething, and more, but he spent $6,000 per week on drugs. His began his career writing short stories (he won the Pushcart Prize) for adult magazines such as Beaver, Penthouse, and Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine, which would jokingly earn him a reputation as sex addict.
The book works as a cyclic Ebbinghaus learning and forgetting curve memory study, which will undoubtely withstand the test of modern classics. Profuse sweating, trembling, and mental slurring are typical expressions of the writer's deranged turmoil along his narrative — unexpected mood changes, bouts of nervous laughter, underdeveloped real feelings that lead him into uncontrollable seizures. Living inside Hollywood's Falstaffian underbelly, the possibility of making a decent life evaporated overnight. We even find echoes of Nathanael West's Day of the Locust Hollywood's hubris resonating here.
Jerry Stahl seemed to be perfectly conscious on the surface but was getting exhausted from the all drug abuse and emotional rage that tainted his clarity amidst increasing doses of heroin, cocaine, crack, Dilaudid, Dexedrine, Hycodan, and more.
We remain petrified and woozy during this rushed ride, watching as the author's fantasies expire, conviced that in Thomas Bowdler's hands this minatory manuscript would be relegated to a half-blank page. In the Velvet Underground's song "Heroin," Lou Reed wrote: "Heroin is my wife and is my life." The iconic tune is built on just two chords, D and G, that are repetitiously played faster and faster, anticipating an agonizing climax.
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