http://www.xenopharmacophilia.com/ee/fester1.htm
The Entheogen Explorer Exclusive interview with Uncle Fester
by: Rev. MeO
[NOTE: The following tales may or may not be true. Often tales which involve illegal substances are told in 1st person even though they did not occur as such. To my knowledge, no illegal activity has occured.]
PART 1/3
REV: To what extent were you trained in the arts of organic chemistry? Did you go to school, or were you lucky enough to happen upon a chemist who trained you?
FESTER: I went to Marquette U. In Milwaukee from 1977-1981, graduating with a double major in chem and biology. Those 70's were something, let me tell you. Smoke from the bongs could be smelled pouring down the stairwells of the dorms, all the way to the cafeteria.
About halfway through college, the idea came to mind that cooking my own chemicals would be far suppier to buying unknown products from dubious sources. Through my chem lab sources, I could walk home with glassware, and an occasional useful chemical. There was a chemical store down the street that would deal cash and carry with people who walked in off the streets. All sorts of chemicals. Times were much different then.
My various attempts at making various mind altering chemicals were filled with trial and error. I was reading the available "underground" publications of the time, and reading through the scientific literature at the University library. Neither one satisfied me. The "underground" press was laughably poor, and the scientific literature was often vague and sometimes in error. Many of their procedures were unpractical for clandestine application. I often told myself I could do better writing for that purpose.
After some practise, I became a pretty damn good cooker. Since the batch size was more than I could consume, before I knew it a lot of my friends were helping out with the consumption. They would pitch in by going to the chemical store to get chemicals.
Looking back, the methods we used weren't at all tailored for a low profile. We used lots of chemicals, and ignored the hardware store and OTC materials as sources of feedstock. I used ether as a solvent. One time while I was cooking, a friend stopped by and told me he could smell ether down the street. The whole thing was nuts.
In my books, those points are emphasized. Use OTC and hardware store feedstocks where possible. Use solvents that don't have a great smell. Keep a low profile, don't attract attention. I think it's fair to say that I'm the person responsible for making clandestine cooking what it is today, a burgeoning pastime.
REV: A psychedelic friend of mine recently said that the LSD you tell how to make is just standard "street crap", which lacks potentcy and authenticity. Are these recipes for true LSD-25?
FESTER: I'm the first person to admit that I've never made any acid myself. I wrote the book because the other books out there in the popular press just did such a god awful job in covering the topic. The methods given in the book are the standard ones, which were good enough for Dr. Hoffmann, Owsley, and other famous acid chefs. Some newer methods are also given. This is the genuine LSD-25.
The difference between street acid of today and the famous brews such as White Lightening is first of all the individual dosage is much smaller. Secondly, the purification isn't as good. Purity problems stem from unavailability of good feed materials such as ergotamine tartrate. Starting with ergot as the starting material requires a purification during the synthesis. If the hydrazide method is being used, the hydrazide crystallizes well to allow purification. If the lysergic acid methods are being used, purification of the lysergic acid using a cation exchange resin also allows a clean precursor to be used in the synthesis. To get the product LSD itself to crystallize is a much more difficult proposition.
I'm not first hand familiar with the purification methods being used in today's acid labs. I assume they do the above procedures, along with chromatography of the product. There may be a handling and storage problem between the acid labs and the folks who package the product onto blotter.
REV: We know that "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture" is in its millionth printing and revision, but are you anticipating the release of any new books?
FESTER: Yes, the meth book is now out in a revised fourth ed. The meth from ephedrine chapter has been updated to include news of the meth act of 1996. Also those wacky theories I had in there to explain why one generally gets a lower octane product from pseudoephedrine than ephedrine have been yanked out. Sometimes I fuck up, but the recipes are generally valid and quite workable. I also wanted Loompanice to pull out chapter 10, which has a recipe taken from a US patent for making substituted phetnylacetones from the allylbenzenes found in plant oils. The patent claims a 90% yield, but people using it are getting more like 5-10% yield. I wanted to replace it with three methods that work much better.
You asked what other new books I have coming out. Well that new "condom" method is in the book they are finally going to put on sale in Sept. "Advanced Techniques..." I wrote that book about a year ago, and they are finally getting around to selling it. Loompanics is a messed up place. It's also got a lot of new and hopefully really useful recipes, along with news, scame for getting chemicals, and a keep out of trouble section from Mr. X n the slam. People will like it, I'm sure. Right now, I'm writing "Ask Uncle Fester" which has even more new recipess along with answering the most often asked questions from the net.
REV: What is this talk about using condoms instead of lab equipment? What condoms would be best?
FESTER: Let's talk about condoms. My day job is as an electroplating chemist. As such I set up electrochemical cells and do electrochemistry everyday. It is high time the good electric synthesis methods get introduced into clandestine chemistry. The equipment is very simple, a cup will do for reaction vessel, and the reagent is electricity. This is clandestine suitable to that max. One day while reading through an electrochem book, I started to read about electrocatalytic hydrogenation. This is where the hydrogen electrically generated at the surface of a hydrogenation catalyst serves to do convenient tabletop hydrogenations. No elaborate equipment required. This caught my interest. With all the heat that red P and iodine have acquired of late, hydrogenation is the synthetic method of choice now for making meth. The next question was how to adapt electrocatalytic hydrogenation to this task to make a gram or two of stash in a very sneaky manner. The first requirement is an easily available and disposable cell divider. The reaction solution can't come into contact with the anode, as it would be destroyed there. A kling-tite rubber, or other brand made from sheep guts serves this purpose quite well. Of course, it has to be washed clean in dishwater first. Then there is the reaction mixture. The reaction mixture used for hydrogenations using a catalyst doesn't work because it doesn't pass current well, not does it easily break down to hydrogen at the cathode. The acid solution is much too concentrated. What does work is to use very dilute sulfuric acid solution as the electrolyte. The palladium ingot is first anodized in the sulfuric acid solution to form a surface layer of palladium black, the active catalyst. Then a gram or two of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine of PPA is put into a test tube with about 7 ml of glacial acetic acid per gram of ephedrine. The mixture is heated to dissolve the ephedrine, and a couple drops of sulfuric acid is added to make the acetic acid ester of the ephedrine. The anodized palladium ingot is then made the cathode and the surface charged up with hydrogen electrically generated. After about 20 minutes of this, the ester reaction mixture is poured into the electric cell, and current passed with stirring for a few hours. The acetic acid ester of the ephedrine gets reduces to meth. It is extracted out of the reaction mixture by adding some lye and extracting in the usual manner. Passing HCl gas through the extract gives good yields of a very nice meth. The palladium ingot can be used over and over. This method will be very popular.
REV: How worried are you about anonymity and possible backlash from law enforcement because of your highly controversial books?
FESTER: My anonymity, that went down the tubes back in 1992. A couple of feds came into Loompanics headquarters with a subpoena demanding the identity of Uncle Fester. Yes, I'm aware of the backlash potential. I know that if they got their hands on me, the treatment that Hogshire got will be nothing compared to what they would like to do to me.
REV: Do you feel that the govt. would prefer you dead or behind bars?
FESTER: Dead or in jail would suit them just fine, but I think they would prefer dead because I could still write in the slam.
REV: Does that make you worried, or does it make you smile?
FESTER: That just makes me smile, the power of the pen and the press has just amazed me over the years. The printed word carries with it such weight. I can't believe all the lives I've reached out and touched over the years. To prevent what happened to Hogshire from being repeated with me, I lead a generally quiet and normal life. I'm a real family man, and there are no Bob Blacks to mess with my existence. I also avoid doing crazy and reckless things that would make putting me away easy.
REV: What did a little Uncle Fester want to be when growing up?
FESTER: Gladiator movies were hot back then, and I thought that was really cool. Then I find out that the games are no longer played down at the arenas, so pro wrestling was the next obvious choice. Too bad I stopped growing at 5 ft. 8 in., so went on to hit the books.
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PART 2/3
REV: Have you ever had the urge to run over to Shulgin's house, just to use all of his neat equipment and chemicals?
FESTER: It would be a pleasure to meet him, and fun to play around with a lot of fancy equipment and exotic chemicals. More useful to the field of clandestine chemistry, however, is learning to think like a Viet Cong. Low tech aces high tech. Simpler is better, and if you can get it at the hardware store, from industrial sources, or over the counter, it is gold.
I've done plenty of bio-assays during my years. About 20 years ago, I got the idea to write a book called "I Was A Taste Tester In A Meth Lab". That book eventually became the Secrets of Meth book. These bio-assays were mainly a quality control measure and research tool to judge quality of product produced by various production techniques. I've always loved crank, and don't mind acid either. I don't get to do that stuff anymore. That's been the price of fame.
REV: Are you familiar with the now defunct CRSB (Chemical Resale of Santa Barbara) and Tom Kasper's recent troubles?
FESTER: Tom Kasper, what an interesting topic. Back before I unplugged myself from the net this past Spring, I was following that story.
REV: What are your thoughts on the company, and Tom? Possible govt. set-up?
FESTER: My take was that the guy was incredibly reckless. His behavior on the airplane confirmed that assessment to me, and I just think he wasn't all there, so to speak. As far as it being a great govt. set-up, I just know that whatever shipping company he used was quite "cooperative" with the heat. I wonder how good was his record keeping. I certainly wouldn't want to be getting chemicals from CRSB if I was up to anything "sinister". This brings us back to "Viet Cong thinking". When doing clandestine chemistry, the aim should be to avoid the use of "interesting" chemicals, from almost any source.
That is reason number one why this new electric method is going to be so popular. All that is required is a cup to do the extraction in, a rubber, a source of DC current with amp meter, pill extract, sulfuric acid and acetic acid, and an ingot of palladium (a one ounce bar of palladium...kind of looks like a strip of latinum on Star Trek DSN).
When the reaction is finished, the solution is made alkaline with Red Devil Lye, or other source of NaOH, and extracted with toluene paint thinner from the hardware store. Crystals of product are then obtained by bubbling dry HCl gas through the toluene extract. This is a simple and good method. Something I've come across in the literature lately is that a catalytic cathode of even higher activity than a palladium ingot can be made by electroplating a thin layer of palladium onto a graphite rod or bar. This would mean shorter electrolysis times, and higher yields. That variation will make it into a book eventually.
REV: Can anything "sinister" be done with the 50 mg. of l-desoxyephedrine [l- methamphetamine] contained in those Vicks Inhalers? Swallowing one "bullet" provides a minty burp and breath, as well as an altered state.
FESTER: In the latest printing of the meth book, I suggest taking these Vicks Inhalers and heating them with 30% HCl at about 110 C for a day or so to isomerize them to d, l- meth racemate in the same manner as ephedrine or pseudoephedrine can be racemized. It should work. I have received a report that bringing the solution to boil with 35% HC; causes the destruction of the product. This is an interesting result, since the formyl amide of meth gets boiled for hours with concentrated HCl at the end of the Leuckart reaction to yield meth. No destruction of the product occurs there. Perhaps the formic acid produced in the hydrolysis has a protective effect on the product, so adding some formic acid to the solution with Vicks Inhalers would similarly protect the product in that case. There should be a variation that works.
REV: Many people feel that meth is a terribly dangerous drug -- corrupting the youth of the nation -- what do you think? Do you think ALL drugs should be legalized for consenting adult use?
FESTER: Let's talk about legalization. Just the way you frame the question shows how messed up thinking has gotten out there as a result of official propaganda. When the officials lead out with "protecting the children", get ready to cover your ass, because you are about to receive a reaming! If they gave a damn about the children, they would see to it that they are properly educated instead of running those idiot factories they call the public schools. Raising and protecting the children is the responsibility of the parents. If they are out doing dope, they should get a boot in the ass from dad, a stern screaming at, and their wayward lives straightened out. Children shouldn't be doing dope, just like they shouldn't be having sex.
When we talk about adults, what has to be stressed is the concept of self- ownership. Damn it, I'm a free man, not the ward of the state. They have no right to regulate my body chemistry. With that right comes the responsibility to not overindulge. There should be no enabling of overindulgence with welfare, free "drug treatment" or any other horseshit. Overindulgence should carry a social stigma, but should be dealt with as a personal, family, and medical problem rather than the failed police state solutions we have been subjected to for the past decades.
REV: When was the last time you voted in a government election? Who did you vote for?
FESTER: I'm an economic nationalist, and a social libertarian. I think the borders of the country should mean something, and this third world flood must be stopped. That means both material and human. The fat cats who exploit slave labor in places like China to make obscene profits should be brought to heel. The remaining industrial base in the US should be protected and rebuilt. This multiculturalism crap we are being fed must also be stopped, or the country will be as crowded as China with no wild spaces left, and we'll have a situation that will make the former Yugoslavia look like a walk in the park. I ended up pulling the lever for Perot the last two times out because I'm so fed up with the status quo and business as usual.
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PART 3/3
REV: Do you think "entheogen people" or any people, think of you as some sort of speed freak? Do you care?
FESTER: How would they get that idea in their heads!? Actually, so long as they enjoy my books, learn from them, and so long as I continue to advance the field I've spent the past 13 years covering, they can imagine me with a third eye growing out of my forehead if they like. It's all cool by me.
REV: I definitely see why "thinking like a Viet Cong" would be beneficial in clandestine cooking, but with all of the chemical restrictions that are continually being placed, do you think that "they" will ever win and make clandestine drug labs a thing of the past?
FESTER: They have been pumping out the bull for something close to 30 years now that all they need is the power to control this or to outlaw that and this "problem" will disappear. The latest push is to regulate the retail sale of cold pills. This has already passed in California, and will probably spread. Walmart has rigged their cash registers so that no more than 3 packets of cold medicine can be sold at one time. I saw this coming a year ago when I wrote "Advanced Techniques", and counsel in that book that the ephedrine/pseudoephedrine routes are suitable for making a few grams at a time only with all the regulations coming down. The Fester Formula is ideally suited to this small scale, personal stash level of production.
For larger scale production, new methods are given using common industrial or hardware store chemicals. We'll see if they try to control that too. At some point the futility of this exercise is going to have to become apparent to everybody. One would think that the politicians who grandstand this issue to demonize the "dope fiends" to the point where they are now the new Jews being shipped off en mass to gulags would be held up to the ridicule they deserve. What is lacking in this issue is media that doesn't just toe the party line. Their gutlessness is really distressing.
REV: Couldn't it be dangerous promoting clandestine cooking as "to think like the Viet Cong"? With that, you are giving the government fodder wherein they can compare you to the Viet Cong, and claim that you indeed boast the same comparison.
FESTER: To directly go to the Viet Cong analogy, I don't know if smearing some group with the Viet Cong label carries much emotional punch anymore. Hell, Bill Clinton marched through the streets for the Viet Cong, and he got elected president! They even get somewhat sympathetic treatment in the movies now, I'm sure that if they think that some propaganda advantage can be gained by using the Viet Cong label, they will fling it. I have great doubts about how effective such a propaganda tactic would be.
REV: It is good to see that you make out pretty well with the book proceeds, and that's not the only book you've got out there! If Loompanics could somehow place your books into all college book stores, you'd be set - you could be a fat cat!
FESTER: [Yeah], if Loompanics...was somehow able to place my books into state owned (largely) college bookstores, I probably would be well on my way to being a fat cat. My books do make good companion reading to a chemistry curriculum.
REV: You say that children should neither use drugs nor have sex; but when did you first experiment with either? Is this a hypocritical dilemma? You put an age on when people officially become owners of their own bodies?
FESTER: Oh, that is a good question. Just as a starting point, I don't wear a big sign around my neck saying "Uncle Fester", and I have no idea how old they [his children] will be before they find out the content of daddy's literature. You just have to set the bar a little bit above the level that you will reasonably tolerate, because people have a way of living down to expectations.
Comparing sex and drugs, the long term consequences of sex can be a good deal more devastating than that of drugs. One can contract diseases such as hepatitis which will turn your liver to mush, or even the dreaded AIDS, although I doubt the ease which with it can be passed through standard heterosexual contact. A teenage pregnancy is just a ball buster, screwing up the lives of all three people involved. Resorting to the murder of the unborn innocent to make that problem disappear is such a shameful act that I am amazed it is accepted with such nonchalance. You can do some dope, and in the morning you wake up sober. The consequences of sex just linger on and on. I wonder why this point is never made.
As for my own history, I grew up in the 70's, and back then we had drive in movies. That was a great place to go and drink some underage beers (the drinking age was 18 then, and I started out at 16) and find some babes to hang out with. I lost my virginity at age 18, started smoking weed at 18, acid at 19, at meth at 21 when I began to learn the "cooking arts". A person attains full ownership of self when you turn legally adult at 18, and are out making a living on your own. That's not to say that your dad can't then step in and kick your butt if you are screwing up yourself and those around you by irresponsible actions such as wonton abuse of mind alterants.
REV: In the realm of clandestine cooking, do you feel that you have a good bit of competition from other authors (specifically the new breed - a guy by the name of "Strike", and another by the name of "Otto Snow")?
FESTER: I know Strike through correspondence, and have read his book Total Synthesis. I even hosted a web page at his site for a few months. I like Strike, and enjoyed reading his book. It's nice to have somebody else out there writing books on the topic that aren't total drivel.
That's not to say that I agree with everything he writes. In particular, the way he endorses the use of mercury in drug synthesis is alarming to me. The waste generated is intractable and dangerous just to share room space with. Using organ- mercurials to manufacture drugs is also just asking for disastrous mass poisoning events. The typical clandestine cooker will not have access to the nice fancy equipment required to assure that no mercury shows up in the product. Low skill levels further increase this danger. The use of mercury should be condemned.
Be that as it may, Strike has advanced the field, and I say there is plenty of room for both of us. The competition will benefit the reading public, and give me ammo to use on my publisher to needle them into allowing continued updating of my books to maintain the lead in the market. Advanced Techniques, and the new book...will assure that I retain the lead in the field for some time to come. Otto Snow, I have never heard of, nor seen anything about these new books.
REV: When you talk about the borders of this country, you, of course, are speaking of the in-coming flood of those dirty French-Canadians, right? Hehe.
FESTER: That sort of sneering reply is standard from the multiculturalists, and is calculated to bully into silence those who oppose their agenda rather than have to engage in a meaningful debate. The aim of radical leftists has always been to destroy this country, which they hate, and this multicultural movement is the perfect vehicle to accomplish that. To make this work, they have allied themselves with he fat cats who own the political prostitutes. The fat cats just love this tidal wave because they desire slaves. Labor follows the law of supply and demand, just like everything else. The fat cats live in gated communities, and send their kids to school at private academies, and so are immune to the pernicious effects of this flood for the time being. The rest of us aren't so isolated.
Let's talk about immigration in general. If you want to try to make the case that this country is underpopulated, go right ahead. If you want to make the case that there is something wrong with the previously largely European ethnic makeup of this country, and that it needs to be re-made in a third world image, go right ahead. I'd be interested in hearing these arguments. What we've had previously worked just fine. It was a united country. Hillary likes to say "it takes a village to raise a child". It takes an ethnically homogenous population to make a village. Cats run with cats, and dogs run with dogs. That's the way it has always been. I believe tribalism is genetically "hard wired" into the human mind by evolution, and can't be removed.
As to the French Canadians, they aren't storming the gates by the millions because they haven't swept over their corner of the earth like a swarm of locusts and stripped it bare, so they aren't looking for new land to repeat the process on. This is a horribly destructive process, and must be stopped.
REV: What country would be nice to visit, hang out and cook in?
FESTER: A trip to Holland would be a great adventure, but I hear they are knuckling under to foreign (mostly US and EU) pressure to change the laws which have worked just fine for them. As for any other countries, you certainly would want to pick a destination where the water is safe to drink, and disease isn't a constant companion. That rules out most of the world.
REV: Have you ever had the chance to chat with other well-known underground cookers, such as Owsley?
FESTER: I've never met, nor corresponded with any celebrity cookers.
REV: Care to share any particularly insightful psychedelic trips? Perhaps tales of bad trips?
FESTER: I've never had a bad trip, they've all been fun. As for profound insights, I've never had any of them while tripping either. It's been more like a roller coaster ride than anything else for me. Then again, I'm not a particularly spiritual person, so that's probably to be expected. I tend towards the analytical.
REV: Why do you think the USA is the only country in the world with a major crack cocaine epidemic?
FESTER: Actually, the USA didn't have a crack epidemic, it was a phenomena confined almost entirely to the black ghettos. Whether the CIA was to blame, or it was just a marketing phenomena, I can't really say. I do know from first hand experience that smoking free base cocaine was quite popular in black ghetto areas starting in the late 70's and into the early 80's. I used to hang out with some of those guys while I was in college. Crack took all the work out of free basing coke, as it was already based and ready to go. In that respect, it was quite convenient.
REV: And lastly, what type of music does Uncle Fester like?
FESTER: I like heavy metal, and I like it loud and rude! Bands like WASP, Danzig, Metallica, and so forth. I always used to watch the Headbanger's Ball when it was on MTV. The local college radio stations used to play some great stuff. Then the administrations of those colleges became embarrassed by the antics that went on. Now they pipe in NPR, and play weenie jazz. The Headbanger's Ball is history too, so I have no idea what new stuff is any good. My CD collection is rapidly getting old. It's a good thing they last forever, unlike the vinyl records they replaced.
