Good at Drugs

by KKUURRTT

The last American music festival. Psychedelics, nose drugs, and house music. Except this time something feels different. Not sure what? End of the world? Drug-induced conspiracy? Nah.

An adventure in the mind of an adventurous mind. Tripping, rolling, and dissociating through the musical and/or pharmacological ropes course that is a three day music festival.

231 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2021

About the author

KKUURRTT is glad you read his thing.

Reviews

[Ren Risi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, funny read - a sensual, psychedelic send-up of music festival culture, an overstimulated tilt-a-whirl of shitty people seeking some semblance of connection. Think “OverheardLA” on acid, coke and ketamine.

[Nathaniel Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good at Drugs feels like an anachronistic flashback to an era where Vice News was funny and good and not sponsored by Saudi Arabian state-sanctioned blood money. This story follows protagonist (antagonist?) Roland through a multi-day music festival in California, a fool with encyclopedic wisdom. It's punchy, snappy, and most importantly interesting in the way that books about drugs usually aren't. Usually books about drugs feel like someone else's dream (in the words of Built to Spill: 'No one wants to hear / what you dreamt about / unless you dreamt about / them'). KKUURRTT avoids this pitfall and weaves a masterful, odyssey-like narrative where the constant tension of balancing drugs and fun becomes a tale more gripping than any spy thriller. I liked the increasingly comedic levels of debauchery and bleakness, which were not done in an over-the-top attention-seeking 'Bret Easton Ellis' way, I thought, but with a more subtle nihilism that leaves the reader uncomfortable in the aftermath as any bad trip (I read this at the same time as Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes and honestly feel the conclusion of Good at Drugs is more haunting than the former which involves a salaryman being conscripted to live the rest of his life at the bottom of a sand hole. K-holes seem way worse to me than sand holes).

[Tex Gresham · Rating 5 out of 5]

iitt''ss vveerryy ggoooodd

[Sheldon Birnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun.

[Graham Irvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i’ve never tried ketamine but kurt makes it sound fun

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever been to a rave and loved it - read this.

If you've ever been to a rave and hated it - read this.

I have done both and imo this book is an accurate depiction of people losing their way over partying too hard.

It's breaking the fourth wall in funny and creative ways, I really liked the writing. But for following along some guyTM on a festival it could've been even a tad shorter. From the premise of the book I was also expecting more regarding the plot.

But all in all this really captured the vibe and made me feel the anxiety at times but also made me laugh at others. Life itself.

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real trickster, this kkuurrtt - footnotes, fourth wall breaking, bringing us all in on inside jokes - this book is like a relief in the way it knows to have fun. Good at drugs parties, not just with the drugs, but with the reader.

Round up 5 star

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Usually if a book is shit I talk a lot of trash about it. If a book is good I talk a lot of whatever the opposite of trash is. I actually got another copy of Good at Drugs to give to one of my friends because talking opposite of trash wouldn't do justice to the experience

[OSLO Zeimantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

"i will be back"
terminator voice.
X2
I have the entire book in my head cause i was there, am there, and sort of leaving there. BUT, its, well there is a sticker that came with the book. Its on my phone. I carry my phone a lot. People see it and stare. The books for me paints a wide pallet of colors, both real due to personal experience, and vividly real to read like hallucinations described that you see and feel.
MEGA, nostalgia. The kind you don't wanna talk about.... until maybe the "grateful" "dead" are all dead. Also, the bands were unknown to me (not the drug references... hahah.... down to the kits and spoons. Legit real drug culture from an era gone, SIGH ... the good kinda sigh). I Felt to be in an episode of the Simpsons, or X-Files, sneaking some old kind pleasure, people still have, and I know will only grow. I am a veteran of the war on drugs. Most who would say they aren't are.

the sticker tho. Might have to change it to "hugs...."
( to many times in a hospital have I seen some eyes get glued. I walk the walk. Nurse. )

laugh
people looked at me weird with the book
good
saying 8/10

[Carlos Gameiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny guy!

[Julian Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

KKUURRTT? Good at drugs. But also? What I’ve realized? Good at books. 🧐

what a whirlwind. dense, hysterical, mind-altering. felt
so original and new while also indebted to some of the Pynchon-y postmodernist epics. I guess that’s what they call metamodernism, but i’ve always kinda called bullshit
on that term. but this is the closest thing i’ve read to that: felt distinctly of-our-times and of-all-the-times-before. the prose is so rich. within a scene, it moves from being so accurate to what being too think-y on uppers feels like, to what flying off a heroic dose of acid feels like. kurt’s fucking hilarious. Good at Drugs is a feat.

[Tanner Armatis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this mfer like two years ago and I'vee been trippin ever since.
The depictions of drug use compared with the music in the festival make for an engaging temporal story (and the prose drips with voice!) KKUURRTT doin it like no one else does

[Ross Felton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really captures the heady, sweaty, dizzying swirl of the festival world. Great fun. I was shaking my first at Dr. Mongoose the whole time

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author perfectly describes inebriated experiences, emotions, and psychology. I have read this book several times since finding it.