8 minute read
A&E 50 THINGS WE LOVE
Weekly vibe maker
“It’s fun, and basically free, it’s open, it’s outside, and there’s nothing like rhythm.” So summarizes Michael Teller, organizer of Palm Beach County’s drum circles for the past decade or so. And there’s no regional drum circle more popular than the Wednesday night bash at Old School Square, a raucous tradition that can attract up to 250 attendees drumming, dancing or just enjoying the positive vibes. Teller starts each rhythm on his set of dundun drums, and his fellow-musicians endeavor to follow along, or perhaps go in their own direction. Some bring other forms of percussion, such as washboards and tambourines, and some play wind instruments like flutes and didgeridoos. It’s a place where grooves are born and friendships are struck. Cardio has never been this fun.
Best comeback
Its plans quickly scuttled in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pan- demic, the second Beatles on the Beach festival finally took its bow in December, with founder Daniel Hartwell managing to rebook most of the previously scheduled talent—including headlining Monkee Micky Dolenz. Framed by the 100-foot Christmas Tree, the holiday ambience only enhanced its genial “come together” atmosphere: On the closing night of the two-day event, Delray locals, including drum circlers, joined a professional Beatles tribute band and a full symphony orchestra, sending us home in style.
What Delray is missing
Not since the dissolution of the Theatre at Arts Garage, circa 2017, has Delray Beach had a professional theatre company to call its own. Yes, we have the historic Delray Beach Playhouse, which has been producing handsome community theatre for more than 65 years strong, and has been presenting one-person shows from touring performers. But as a destination where new and established plays are mounted with award-winning talent, one needs to venture to Boca or West Palm Beach. It’s high time a producing company set up a shingle in Delray Beach. As far as a performance space suited for such a venture? It’s a fair question, and one we don’t have an answer for, at least until the Crest Theatre roars back to life.
More Things We Love To Do
COCO MARKET: In addition to the monthly art walk in the Andre Design District, the wellness-inspired Coco Market is another growing event held at Veterans Park the first Sunday of the month.
CRAFTED ON THE AVE: This market at the Libby Wesley Plaza the first Saturday of the month, from 1 to 5 p.m., is organized by the CRA and highlights micro-businesses that create handmade products/art.
SPADY MUSEUM WEST SETTLERS WALKING TOUR: In addition to its longtime Ride and Remember Trolley Tours, Spady is now offering walking tours to explore one of Delray’s most historic African-American neighborhoods. spadymarketplace.org/historical-tour.
Special event
Just six weeks after a reckless driver drove straight through public-relations professional Gary Schweikhart’s home office, burying him in the rubble and destroying portions of his house, he was back— not behind a stage, per his usual bailiwick, but in front of one. After emergency surgeries and two weeks in rehab, Schweikhart was not only communicative but characteristically jokey as he addressed an audience of supporters at Arts Garage (arranged largely by Rich Pollack and Julie Mullen), in a special program titled “He DID Survive.” A-list South Florida stars took to the stage, including Avery Sommers, Deborah Silver, Rob Russell, Jill and Rich Switzer, Phil Hinton and Anthony Nunziata, all of whom donated their time and talent to what would become the feel-good event of the year.
Holiday event
The lighting of the 100-foot Christmas tree in Delray at Old School Square has long been a trademark family event for the city, with a surprise appearance by Santa, of course, and a “campus” that includes a carousel, Santa’s workshop and more. This massive and glorious tree is a Delray landmark and the official opening of the holiday season.
Written by Tyler Childress
nxiety, depression and doubt had been pushing him closer to the edge for years. Then the final nudge came. For Ross (he declined to use his last name), the devastating end of a long-term relationship was what throttled his descent through the darkest depths of despair, and if he wanted to claw his way back out, he knew he would have to try something radically different than the talk therapy he had grown cynical of and the strenuous weightlifting and CrossFit regimen that served as more of a distraction than a solution. With nowhere else to turn, he took the suggestion of a concerned friend and began researching ketamine, a popular anesthetic with a notorious reputation as a party drug that is now being medically accepted as a treatment for combating everything from anxiety to PTSD.
Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962 and approved as an anesthetic by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1970. The drug proved to be an effective anesthetic, and was even used by Vietnam War soldiers to treat battlefield injuries, but it soon became infamous when its dissociative and hallucinogenic effects made ketamine a popular rave drug throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. In 1999, ketamine was listed as a Schedule III substance under the U.S. Controlled Substance Act. The following year, researchers began examining the drug’s benefits as a treatment for depression.
The Ketamine Experience
After doing his research, and after all else had failed him, Ross was eager to give ketamine a shot He found a local clinic which provided intravenous ketamine sessions, and after being evaluated and meeting with a physician’s assistant, he was ready for his first session.
Ross expected an experience similar to ones he had in the past with other psychedelic substances such as psilocybin mushrooms. In that way, he was disappointed. “It’s pretty subtle; it’s not a psychedelic trip,” says Ross. “You feel very in control, but it did stimulate [my] mind in a way that I wasn’t used to.”
For each of the three infusions (administered over the course of a few weeks), Ross describes feeling his thoughts race and his mind scatter initially, before settling into a deep meditative state. From there, he was able to look at his life from a “macro perspective” and observe events and thought patterns through a wider lens. “There’s some things that it helped me shed some light on and look at a little bit differently,” he says. After each session, Ross felt no lingering side effects.
Ross’s shift in perception allowed him to see that in order to truly be a participant in his own life meant accepting the uncertainty and anxiety that came with it. Valuable though this insight was—and continues to be to him—ketamine wasn’t a magic bullet that wiped away his anxiety. But it did serve as a catalyst for change.
“Sometimes all you need is to shift your perspective a degree and then over the course of a year, two or three years that degree has these compounding effects,” Ross says. “For me, I find those degree shifts in perspective to be extremely helpful in the long run.”
Adoption In Medicine
Ketamine’s appeal as a therapeutic for treatment-resistant depression and anxiety is becoming more mainstream in the medical community. In 2020, the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced the FDA’s approval of Spravato, a form of ketamine that is more potent and can be absorbed through a nasal solution. Researchers at both Yale and Harvard have published studies revealing the efficacy of ketamine in treating depression. There are now more than a dozen clinics across South Florida that specialize in intravenous (IV) ketamine therapy.
Khali Reed is the co-founder of Ketamine Clinic South Florida, a clinic which provides ketamine infusions and therapy services to patients suffering from various mood disorders including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each room of the clinic is fitted with blood pressure and heart rate monitors, at which a camera is pointed to give a live feed of the subject’s vitals to clinicians. Occasional side effects of ketamine include hypertension and tachycardia (irregular heart rhythms), but these issues are quickly remedied by staff once spotted on the monitors.
Since opening its doors in 2019, Ketamine Clinic South Florida has treated more than 200 patients with ketamine therapy. “It [ketamine]’s more successful than other modalities right now,” Reed says, noting that 80 percent of those treated at the clinic no longer rely on antidepressants or other mood stabilizers after undergoing ketamine sessions in conjunction with other therapeutic services. Like Ross, Reed stresses that ketamine is not a panacea. “It’s not a cure; it’s patients who are willing to make the changes themselves, and that’s when we see amazing results.”
Reed herself has undergone ketamine sessions, believing that it’s important for providers to understand exactly what their patients will experience. “I just felt love,” says Reed, for her husband and daughter as she drifted through a serene meditative state. According to Reed, ketamine shouldn’t be viewed as a last-resort measure when all other treatments fail. “It [ketamine] should be the first line of treatment, because if you have depression, then something happened to you, and you need to find a root cause,” Reed says. “The medication is basically a Band-Aid, only treating symptoms and not the root.”
Despite showing great promise in treating mental illness, ketamine has a long way to go to becoming the go-to treatment for mental healthcare providers. The drug in its generic form has not been FDA-approved for treating depression or PTSD, it can only be prescribed off-label, which most insurance companies don’t cover. There is also a profit motive for pharmaceutical companies to favor their patented brands over a generic drug like ketamine, which anyone can produce. But for those suffering from mental illness, ketamine offers an alternative to the "Band-Aid" of traditional pharmaceuticals.
Ketamine functions essentially by putting a barrier between the frontal lobe of the brain, responsible for reasoning and executive function, and the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls emotional response. The patient is effectively dissociated from the negative emotions tied to a certain event and is able to process them logically. John Giordano, an expert in addiction and trauma treatment and part owner of the Ketamine Clinic South Florida, likens the effects of ketamine on the brain to a computer. “If you erase stuff on your computer, it’s not gone; it’s on your hard drive. It’s the same thing with trauma,” he says. “What ketamine does, it gets to the hard drive.”
TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT
Ketamine is just one of several psychedelic compounds currently being researched for their physical and psychological benefits. Drugs such as MDMA (aka ecstasy), LSD (acid) and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are making their way into the burgeoning industry of psychedelic medicine. The only obstacle is the lingering stigma surrounding them.
While psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, ayahuasca (a powerful psychedelic that instills vivid hallucinations) and mescaline have been used as religious sacraments by cultures dating as far back as 9,000 B.C., their use didn’t become controversial until the 1960s when the sacraments of old world religions became synonymous with the antiwar and anti-consumerist stances of the politically rebellious youth. Famed psychologist and psychonaut Timothy Leary gave his celebrated “turn on, tune in, drop out” speech to a crowd of tens of thousands of Flower Children during the 1967 Summer of Love, and Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters canvassed the nation in bright Day-Glo hosting LSD-spiked Kool-Aid parties. The hippie movement’s dissent to “traditional” America was palpable, and drew the ire of the federal government. While there was no way to criminalize the gatherings and ideology of the social phe-