Category: Drugs

2024: A Spaced Odyssey

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
“Uhhhh … what was the question again?”

I am not a senile old fool.

Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply taking a cheap political shot, hoping to stop me from serving another term as Your Humble Narrator here at whatever the hell it is that we, or you, or I am doing at this whatchamacallit, the thing. The … bog? You know.

Now, it’s true that I may occasionally stare blankly at my iPhone, the way that monkey did at the glossy black rectangle in that movie — c’mon, you know the one — because the nice lady on the phone asked me for my phone number and I’m trying to look it up in Settings without hanging up on her because hey, I never call myself. Do you?

Hello? Hello?

Shit.

But I can assure you that while I’m pawing helplessly at that glossy black rectangle I no longer make the plaintive hooting sound. Like the monkey. The one in the movie. You know, where the bone turns into a spaceship and Siri or Alexa or Elon is trying to kill everyone and the young guy in the spaceship turns into an old guy in a Home who can’t remember his phone number? Is it HAL9000? No?

I do? I’m making it right now? I’m sure you’re mistaken. Whoever you are. Ook ook ook.

And sometimes I may forget who the president is, but only because I’m pretty sure it’s not the Red Skull or Pumpkinhead or Dick Tater, whatever the crazy orange fella’s called, the one who looks like a giant circus peanut with beady little eyes like a big fat rat with a mouth like an asshole and is always in the news because he keeps doing stupid shit and getting caught at it but nobody seems to be able to put him in jail and somehow they all think the other fella is the problem because he can’t remember who the King of the Moon is or the name of that movie with the monkey who can’t remember his phone number or how to find it in that big black iPhone that the Space Baby left somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, where the bones turn into Great Red Sharks driven through Bat Country by Hunter S. Thompson to Las Vegas, where an infinite number of monkeys are writing “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’24.”

Anyway, whoever’s president now seems to be a little quieter and more laid back and I don’t have to think about him all the goddamn time and I kind of like that because it’s restful and I seem to need a lot of naps lately. Like right now.

This Bud’s for you

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

We should be so lucky.

Ho hum. I see some deep-pockets blowhard strolled in and out of court again yesterday, without consequences, as per usual. Not even a mug shot.

Shit, I’ve done more time than this blabbering plastic sack of fast-food farts, a serial liar who cheats at golf and would sell his idiot children to the Saudis, if he could find one dumb and mean enough to buy them for sex toys and/or dog food.

And I didn’t have to lip off to the cops, DAs, or judges to get jugged, either.

No, that would’ve been one of my bros, the dude who told the graying Colfax beat cop with the rookie partner: “You can’t arrest us for walking out of a bar with a beer.”

Ho, ho. Wrong again.

This regrettable incident took place in the Glory Days, when my friends and I were basically ambulatory recruiting posters for the War On Drugs. We’d have let the feds put our faces on a “Know Your Enemy” flyer if they paid us in cocaine and Stoli.

None of us was wealthy. We had no well-connected allies. We had dedicated ourselves to scaling new heights of impairment and then tumbling down the other side into a crusty rental house that used to be part of a Glendale nursery. For plants. Not children.

And thus we learned how to talk to cops. Be polite. Rely upon the short, simple words you can still pronounce without drooling. Don’t let the nice flatfoot see the devils raging behind your blood-red eyeballs.

And never, under any circumstances, tell a cop, “You can’t arrest us for [insert your offense here].”

My friend forgot this cardinal rule — only for a moment — but that’s all it takes. Loose lips sink ships, especially when the crew is hammered. And so we all got a fun ride in the drunk wagon and a night to remember in the Denver calaboose, where we met some fascinating people.

One was a duster (crazed on PCP), and he was quickly awarded the entire drunk tank for his earsplitting arguments with people or Things who were not there. We more numerous but much less scary drunks got packed into two-man cells so we could enjoy the floor show from a safe distance.

Another was a glum-looking permed and pastel-leisure-suited gent who had gotten popped for soliciting a hooker who turned out to be a vice cop. He could see his apartment from our cell, but not his wife inside it. He was not looking forward to seeing her in his new digs.

We got sprung in the morning without charges. Go and sin no more, you silly little shits, they told us. But goddamn it, we did our time.

If only we’d been riot-inciting former presidents of the United States whose Florida resort’s crappers were overflowing with national secrets instead of addled stoners getting sideways with a Colfax cop.

We’d have been back in the Satire Lounge before closing time.

McShrooms

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Roll another one. …

The Suits have come for your ’shrooms.

Jesus H. Don Juan and St. Castaneda preserve us! Is nothing sacred? Is there anything global capitalism will not besmirch with its grabby little hands?

Coming soon to a strip mall near you: a chain trippery called Mescalito’s. Try the gluten-free non-GMO vegan Peyote Burger with a side of Zoom ’Shrooms and a Cabron Lite® CBD lager!

Sorry, we haven’t had a drive-through window since a VW van full of hippies got caught in an M.C. Escher-King Crimson feedback loop at our Taos location and wound up circling the joint like hairy zopilotes until they ran out of gas.

So much for being a Trippist monk, growing your own revelations.

Oh, well. I guess even Mother Church has to buy the wafers and wine from someone.

In other news that makes you wonder who’s taking what:

• What’s this shit? The state of California has slammed the lid on San Francisco’s plans for a $1.7 million public toilet in Noe Valley. Is that a steep price for a one-holer? Does the pope shit in the woods? Noe thank you, please. Apparently there are some crappers down which not even California will flush the taxpayers’ dollars.

• Holy shit! Is Pootie-poot really contemplating a false-flag “dirty bomb” attack that would justify his use of nuclear weapons to pull his nicely roasted lil’ chestnuts out of the fire in Ukraine? If we’re going headfirst down that glow-in-the-dark loo, I’m gonna need some ’shrooms, stat.

Microdozing

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

“Like, wow. Like, bow wow.”

It could’ve been an acid flashback, or maybe a contact high.

But after getting pretty deeply into “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan, I started to have some truly bizarre dreams, especially in the morning, just before officially waking up.

My favorite so far: I was the new guy at some newspaper and an artsy bunch was trying to arrange coverage for some event. I was asking who, what, when, where, and why, and also whether the artsy bunch might be able to provide, like, y’know, some art, an’ shit, when an old hand snickered and nodded toward the photo department.

“I beg your pardon,” I told the artsy bunch. “I’m new here, and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes until I find out how big their feet are.”

Particularly bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

The tumbleweeds are not exactly tumbling. More like launching
into low-Earth orbit.

My, but the airborne particulates is fierce around here.

The terra is not too firma lately. It gets up and flits around The Duck! City at 50 or 60 miles per hour, and the pollen goes along for the ride. Together they do drive-bys on everyone’s eyeballs and snotlockers. Snurk, hyyyunk, auuughhhh, honk, gaaack, ptui, etc. I may be compelled to take drugs.

No, not that drug, though I may be alone in that regard. I hear New Mexico’s mota dealers moved a few millions in product the first few days recreational weed was legal here. Makes my youthful adventures in retailing look like a lemonade stand on a dead-end street.

But I’ll stick to my fake beer and Claritin-D, thanks all the same. Get back to me when you legalize microdosing of psilocybin, mescaline, and the ol’ L-S-Dizzy. I don’t know that I want to throw open the doors of perception, as in days of yore, but I wouldn’t mind a little peek through the windows now and then.