Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Smoking Heads Tried To Kill Me

My friend Phil is a pot head. He didn't always have rent but he always had pot. And he always knew great music.

David Byrne was appearing in Central Park. He had gone solo after being lead singer of Talking Heads, one of the great bands of the 80's. So Phil suggested we go see him and even without the Heads we went. After a few songs it was clear Byrne should have kept his day band.

It was summer and New York heat can melt the Polar Caps in about an hour. After a while we all drifted off to a corner of the park where there was shade and seats and it was only 93 degrees. Sadly, not enough to melt away cellulite but close!

Phil passed around a ceramic cigarette filled with weed. Those things looked so real a cop would have had to look though a magnifying glass to tell if it was fake or not. I took one hit. I'm not a big pot smoker. I find that unless you have a Good Humor truck or 25 pizzas at your disposal, smoking weed is really dumb.

One hit and my shoulders fell off.

I took off my Chanel clip-on earrings and put them in my purse. I felt something coming that was not going to be good for the House of Chanel.

“Phil, what’s in this pot?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t fuck with me, there’s something else in here, PCP maybe?”
Nothing Soro, relax.”
“Heroin?”
Nothing.”

I stood up and immediately sat back down. Crash landed onto a cement ledge, rocketing my uterus north to my brain. My legs had been lost in a terrible standing accident. I was so high God was seated on my left.

“Phil, I think I’m going to pass out.”

I was going to black out in Central Park. Where I would be tagged by graffiti artists and bashed on the head by homophobes.

Phil yanked me to my feet.

“You’re walking this off.”

In what alternate universe can you walk off marijuana? If you’re going back and forth to the refrigerator, MAYBE. But suddenly I was marching with my friends single file through the crowds in Central Park and feeling worse and worse. Not to mention appearing as if we'd lost a wedding reception and were looking for its conga line.

“Phil, I’m going to black out.”
“Keep walking.”
“Seriously, Phil, I’m not going to make it.”
“Yes you are, just keep walking.”
“Look, there’s a cop, let’s ask him for help. Oh shit, he's getting away. He could have helped me! He could have taken me to the hospital.”
“We’ll find another one” Phil said calmly.
“You're turning yellow.”
“Soro, I’m Chinese, of course you’re seeing yellow.”

At the time that actually made sense to me.

“Oh my God, everything’s turning white; I’m going down.” And with that Phil jerked me forward and as quickly as the bad crazy thing had descended upon me, it cleared. I stopped walking. I was okay.

“Holy crap,” Phil said.
“Tell me about it.”
“How scary was that?”
“Very, very scary. I could have DIED.”
“Not that,” he said, “you wanted to stop a cop and ask him to help you when you're stoned?”
“Yeah and you didn’t even listen to …….oh.”

Everyone laughed. Fucking drug addict friends. 

If you don't know Talking Heads, this will give you a pretty good idea of why they were so cool.







14 comments:

  1. The first time I ever got baked was on my way to Ozzy's 'Bark at the Moon' concert and - unlike you - the only things I remember are bits and pieces of things like eating 2 entire big bags of Doritos, trying to make out with someone at the concert that I fell down the stairs at and - most importantly - not a single fucking song and the concert lasting roughly 12 seconds. Good times. Good times.

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  2. That happened to me once. Fortunately I was at a friend's apartment so there was no drama. Then a week later it happened to my friend with the apartment...only this time we were standing in line at MacDonalds. He went weak in the knees and his eyes rolled back in his head. The place was packed so I didn't want him to collapse on the spot. Too much explaining to do. I duck-walked him out to the parking lot where he passed out on the trunk of his car. Somehow I poured him into the passenger seat and drove him home. By the time we got there he was fine, although I have to say that his wife was less than amused.

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  3. All the potheads are coming out to testify. As wacked as our stories sound? Not as wacked as the people who never smoked pot. Not only does the world look rosier (for about an hour) and you get to forget your problems (for about an hour) but you get to eat food YOU WOULD NEVER EAT UNLESS YOU WERE HIGH!

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  4. I liked that David byrne solo album. Seriously, this is a funny post.

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  5. Oh my god Suzy Soro.

    You make me laugh.

    I don't know what it is, I can't figure it out, but the thought of you getting high and passing out..

    Call me a sicko but that made me bust out laughing.

    Thank you....

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  6. I never had any bad effects from smoking pot for years. A friend and I stayed totally baked for 3 or 5 days (I think that's how long it was). Afterward he told me that during that episode whenever he sat on a certain big pillow on my living room floor, he felt like he floated up to the ceiling. I told him that when he asked for a beer, I had to hand it UP to him even though he was sitting on the pillow. Although I could have just been flat on my back on the floor.

    I quit smoking pot when I quit smoking cigarettes, because I found out that marijuana was a gateway drug to tobacco.

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  7. That is hilarious Suzy. You always make me laugh and you are always very funny. I'm kinda jealous.

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  8. Japolina and Empress, thanks.

    Jami, you make me laugh, AS YOU USUALLY DO.

    Mooooog and Jonah, thanks for sharing.

    Humor Smith, you're too kind...

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  9. I sent a link to this post to Phil and he sent me this email in reply:

    Cut to a few months later: Rondell is having his housewarming party in his West Village loft. I open the door to a packed party. Suzy spots me immediately and points her finger at me. "YOU! Stay away from me!". Then addresses the people standing next to her, "Phil has weed that made me think I was gonna die!". I turned my face away and slithered into the crowd. 30 minutes later I'm in the kitchen when Don M comes up to me, "I heard you got pot that kills people. Got any?"

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  10. Great post, Suzy. Killer line: "I was so high God was seated on my left". Sitting at work laughing my ass off at that one.

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  11. Anonymous6:10 PM

    i dont get it.

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  12. Don't feel bad about the cop thing. I was on the first 1 in 911 before my friend Walter snatched the phone from me the first time I got high. I can remember spilling water on my kitchen floor and thinking, "If I don't mop this up and see it here tomorrow, I'll know all of this really happened." By the way, that's my favorite Talking Heads song next to Road to Nowhere. Which is very apropos, since I heard it while picturing you guys walking single file. Great post.

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  13. Stan, thanks and Jayne, we'd make a pair.

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  14. funny.... love the Talking Heads... good times, right?

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