Tag Archives: drugs

No Squares in the Cocaine Room

28 Jul

imagesThe first 5 minutes at a house party where you don’t know anyone are crucial. You want to choose a smile that conveys a warm, non-threatening nature while maintaining a certain edge, which lets people know you are a mysterious sex machine. I often botch this look and produce an undesirable result, something in between medicated and the forced smile you use watching your friend in a terrible play. Despite my facial blunders, I still carry enough confidence from years of house partying to navigate with authority. You may catch me euro two stepping in the living room asking a girl what her go-to move is. Or maybe I’m in the kitchen, whipping up a terrible cocktail talking sport with the resident bro. I may even brazenly strike upstairs to use the host’s private bathroom. With all my bravado one might assume there is no party situation that fazes me. Wrong. One element of modern adult partying remains, which, can freeze, even the boldest attendee. The cocaine room.

bouncerThe door opens and shuts quickly. Pretty little creatures shuffle in and out giggling with wide eyes. You can only catch a glimpse for secrecy is paramount. Except that everyone in the fucking party knows what’s going on in that room! Yet you wouldn’t dare step foot inside without an invitation or an 8 ball. Like its exclusionary predecessors, the cocaine room creates jealousy, curiosity, and resentment and ultimately divides. Even if you don’t do drugs, you’re left to wonder what exactly is going on in there. Who is in there and why were they chosen? Clearly those with the cocaine are the prized guests, but what do you have to do, or wear or say to be one of the coke advisors that get the nod?

I’ve always found it fascinating that people, especially in the privacy of a home, are paranoid about people watching them do drugs. No one bats an eye at a dude chugging a beer, even if we know that will lead him down a dark path to becoming a drunk asshole. Often people have no problem telling you they are high once it’s in their system, but god forbid you should see them do a bump off the keys to their Honda.

seats takenI made the mistake of entering unannounced one time and it was the worst. It’s like a combination of the “seat’s taken” bus scene in Forrest Gump and the first day at your High School cafeteria. There were no Jennys with hearts of gold in this room, just attractive weirdoes who wanted me to leave.

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EDM Festival Tips From an Adult Who Shouldn’t Be There

5 Nov

edm showHide Your Crippling Self Awareness– You remember that dude at the party when you were growing up who you would periodically look at out of the corner of your eye and think, “What the hell is this guy doing here? He’s like, 40. Go home old man!” The average age for these things is I think 12 years old, so just know you are teetering on that brink. Don’t be afraid to embrace your age, and enjoy things the way you would, which means…

Don’t Wax your Chest– These festivals are populated by little ripped raver boys who apparently have a lifetime gym membership and supply of nair. Go ahead and take your shirt off, but you better be confident in those love handles and beer guts cause everyone else is on the Deadmau5 diet.

Don’t Wear a Costume– You’re already in one once you enter thru the gates. You’re an adult. By default you are one of the weirdest looking people there. No fuzzy boots, body paint, animal hat or pacifier can make your existence more enticing. Be comfortable in your Levis and hoody and marvel at the small Asian girls in booty shorts.

Don’t Dance Like Them– Goose stepping, jimmy hopping, bean bopping, ground stomping. I have no idea what the dance is called, but everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whatever it is, it’s for the kids. There is nothing less appealing than a grown man gasping for breath as he tries to herk and jerk his creaky frame to heavy bass. A two-step and some shooter Mcgavins will do just fine.

asian edmDo Hydrate and Stretch– Don’t let the youth dissuade you from being limber. They know nothing of failing arch support, slightly torn menisci and lower Lombard issues. Sip that water and stretch it out.

Do Smile and Be Happy– Whether you’ve popped the molly and sweated or not, there is generally a happy vibe and good community at these events. Be open and take the time to talk to a few people. They might give you a funny story; a high five, hug, massage or crazy ass kaleidoscope glasses that almost made me shit my pants. That scare was worth the ticket price alone.

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Baseball is Boring

19 Sep

baseball is boringThis summer Ryan Braun was suspended for the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED). The 2012 National League MVP is just another in a long line of ball players accused of trying to do the impossible, make the game of baseball exciting.

But players who use steroids are cheaters! They undermine and corrupt the sanctity of American’s purest pastime. This kind of behavior is inexcusable and unbecoming of a professional athlete. It also happens to be the only reason I don’t click over to “Bar Rescue” during Sportscenter’s Top 10. It’s time to re-evaluate America’s beloved sport and the way it’s played. These players should not be punished; they should be applauded and revered for trying to make baseball watchable.

old baseballThe sport may have been moderately entertaining in the 1800’s when it competed against other American past times like; tilling the fields, dying young, and hating the Irish, but now we have actual sports where athletes are required to be in motion and you know, generally do cool, athletic looking things. Surely we can’t still be watching questionably out of shape men swing a stick once every couple minutes. But we do. We still love it. Baseball is that friend who you don’t really like, but he’s been around forever, and his parents know your parents and they run into each other occasionally at the farmers market and trade stories about you both and so without ever really trying to keep in contact, you know every fucking detail about this kid’s life. This is baseball. Too engrained in our personal histories to be told its boring and stupid. Too proud of its lore and statistics to let anyone tell it they don’t care. Most likely your grandpa, dad or uncle dragged you to a game when you were little, put a hat on you, made you eat shitty ice cream with a wooden stick and that was it, you were never allowed to speak ill of it again.

rookieIn the summer of 1994 I played my first and last season of baseball. Angels in the Outfield and Rookie of the Year had come out recently so naturally I had to find out if I had a missile for an arm. That season I was hit by no less than 14 pitches got severe sunburns in centerfield waiting for fly balls that never came, and ultimately went 0-11 with the Berkeley Frank Lee Jewelers (great jeweler). So yes, I am biased, but I also love sports. I love to play and watch them. I want to love baseball like I love the others, but I can’t. The games are long and often uneventful, seasons are like most SNL sketches with promising premises that linger and grow stale and ultimately become unwatchable, players hold our eyes hostage as they chew tobacco, scratch their crotches and rearrange various elbow and shin pads as if what they do is dangerous. Don’t even remind me of how the old managers put on saggy uniforms and try to convey secret messages to their team by throwing up gang signs. But only so many people can hit a curveball! Well, there are only so many people who can solve a rubix cube, but you don’t see that shit televised 6 months out of the year.

arnoldThere is a simple solution to all this madness. Rather than getting all fussy every few months when another high profile player is caught using substances, lets give all the players drugs. I’m not talking about little league deer antler spray either, I want super strains of whatever Arnold was on during the ’74 Mr. Universe competition. I want a mutant league of baseball where players check into spring training camp with a head diameter of no less than golden era Barry Bonds. I want home runs hit every other at bat to roust me from my slumber and wipe the drool and flaming hot cheetos from my mouth. We want super fast outfielders that back flip to catch fly balls at the warning track, and hock loogies up to the second deck. We need pitchers who can throw 200 mph fastballs and not get Tommy John surgery, and hitters who look like “The Rock” from Fast 6. America needs managers to take PED’s so when they insist on wearing their droopy uniforms only some people laugh. America needs baseball to grow up and get with the times. Students take aderol to study harder and get better grades, adults drink coffee to stay awake and make money, rappers pop molly and sweat to sell more records. Lets face it; drugs are just as engrained in American culture as baseball is. If ballplayers are cool with small balls, then they should be able to play in the bigs however they want.

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I went to Phish and Kind of Had Fun

14 Aug

phishPhish is many things to many people. No wait; Phish is a couple things to a select group of white people. They seem to be either a quirky group of talented musicians who have jammed and improvised their way to cult status, or they are an aging group of cornball rockers who write lyrics about lasagna and shit. While I can’t disprove the first statement, the latter must not be overlooked in understanding their popularity. They are huge dorks, and not in the Zooey Deschanel “adorkable” New Girl kind of way. The only cool thing about them is Ben and Jerry’s kind of named a flavor after them in 1997, yet last week the Hollywood Bowl was packed to see these goobers jam face and melt minds the only way four old hippies from Vermont can.

While trying to find my seat, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. I never listened to jam bands in college, but I did live in the dorms freshmen year and experienced the uncomfortable wardrobe choices that were somehow deemed acceptable. If you ever wondered what happened to the guy who wore baggy cargo shorts, airwalks and was always pretty high, worry not my friend, he is 35 now and he’s at the Phish show. The female fishies were slightly more put together, but still nothing you would want to holler at. If you look past the faded tie-dye and dank weasels, however, there is a palpable energy and enthusiasm that doesn’t always exist at other shows. Whether it was someone’s 106th time, or first like mine, everyone was anxious to see what was going to happen.

Make no mistake haters, it was a show. It was a downright spectacle of trippy lights, good vibes, glitter, and glow sticks. I’ll admit I got swept up in the hype and dare I say…gulp.had fun. One phish head behind me kept muttering, “Tour!” either as some kind of rallying cry, or a reminder that Phish was indeed on tour. He made his allegiance well known when during an improvised light sequence he shouted, “2001!” indicating this wasn’t his first Tour! Another wide-eyed bro was in awe at every pluck of Trey’s guitar strings. He would frequently turn to others around him and high five and shake his head in disbelief. He later told me he has seen Phish over 50 times and that I should have been there for Tahoe night two when they jammed a 36-minute tweezer. I later confirmed this was a 36-minute rendition of a song about the device used to remove splinters. This sounds like my personal hell, but it was in the words of many others, “face-melting.”

This is where my love affair ends. I appreciate different tastes in music and always try to keep an open mind, but I just can’t get down with the Phish sound. They are by all accounts competent musicians. I’ve even heard that Trey is actually a ‘pretty sick guitarist,’ but to me their music is indiscernible nonsense. After the show a friend asked me which songs I liked. I had to think very hard before I remembered that none of the songs had hooks or any real beginning or end. I vaguely recall one song being about pumpkins and destiny and another one where someone had a knife. Other than that I was pretty much staring at the lights and watching the freaks flip their shit.

I came into the experience ready to enjoy Phish ironically, from an outsider’s holier than thou pulpit. I was ready to smile at the weirdos, not with them. Many of us believe our musical tastes are far too sophisticated for this granola goobcore (yes I just coined that impressively accurate phrase), and we might be right, but for one night I was let in to a special community. Phish is a phenomenon, but the band will always play second fiddle to the legion of strange whites that follow them around the country. It’s hard not to love something that is loved so intensely by those around you. I won’t be going back anytime soon, but I can think of several reasons why you should give it a try. Tour!

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Spring Break Throwback: Willits Edition

11 Apr

...and also lots of weed

While most College Seniors are planning their epic trip to Cabo, I was convinced to spend four wild days in Willits. For those unfamiliar, Willits is a small town in Northern California that is notable for being small and full of weed (to be fair this can aptly describe any town north of the Bay Area, CA). I like to compare it to the shire from Lord of the Rings, but instead of Hobbits, its inhabitants include ganja farmers and Woody Harrelson type dealers.
With the appropriate iPod playlist at the ready, two friends and I hopped in the whip and reggae free-styled our way up state. We arrived at our destination in high spirits, and pretty much kept those spirits for the next four days. It’s difficult to be a Debbie downer when you’re a guest on a weed farm. The next 96 hours were admittedly a blur, but I remember four things that were way more awesome than anything I could have done in Cabo.

Shooting AK-47: Shooting an AK is like playing a video game. I honestly felt like I was just pressing R2 the entire time. I stood on top of a bluff overlooking the Eel River, and shot the crap out of boulders while laughing softly. It’s creepy how powerful you feel with one of those tucked under your armpit. I pretended I was a Russian guard who finally got the best of Bond and Natalia in the Stacks. It was glorious.

Rafting down the Eel River: Looking back this was pretty sketch. My friend and I literally took turns blowing air into a tiny children’s raft that clearly wasn’t meant for two grown men. With our compromised lung capacity, we failed to properly inflate the raft, but that didn’t stop us. Like a couple of veteran Oregon trailers with no Indians in sight, we chose to cock the raft and float it. We started sinking immediately, the currents were wild and the water freezing, but somehow we navigated that river for 5 minutes with our friends Cyborg dog paddling by our side. Just one of those “I can’t believe this is working moments.”

Racing Through the Woods: Weedy McGee (farm owner) wanted to show us how beautiful the sunset was from the ridge. We were losing light quick, so clearly a dirt bike/ATV race was in order. I was tripping the hardest so I sat bitch on the ATV. Unbeknownst to me, Weedy McGee was born on a dirt bike because he smashed through the woods like Bigfoot on a bender. My friend valiantly tried to keep up, but we hit a steep uphill and ended up flipping the ATV and had to use our Zeus like quads to flip it behind us. Normally, a near fatal ATV crash would stop me in my tracks, but we had a sunset to catch and Weedy McGee was right, it was beautiful.

Playing Every Instrument Ever: Apparently when you run a weed farm you get lonely, and when you get lonely you buy every instrument imaginable. I played no less than 32 instruments in a circular room for 9 hours. I thought I was the shit. Gamelans, Djembes, Obos, it didn’t matter, I awkwardly played them all, high as shit in a dimly lit room.

I have never been back to Willits, and I will never go again. I want to keep my epic senior spring break enshrined in its proper haze of AK’s and questionable river rafting. So if you are off to some sun burnt slosh fest this spring break, kudos my friend, but everyone should have their Willits. Get weird.

Let's avoid being this guy

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