drugs

An open letter to Amy Winehouse, from Ernie.

I have been a major Tom Petty fan for years and years. I have — I think — every CD he’s recorded. I know all the words to every song. I’ve seen him live almost a dozen times. I am absolutely astonished that it took me fifteen years to catch that “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” was about marijuana.

Now that is an awesome headline! As my friend Kelly, who sent me the link, said, “Only in Florida …” This is one hell of a story to read. You can file this one as “Reason #419 Not to Get High on Crack and Fall Asleep Next to a Lake in Central Florida”. I love the line, “It was not clear why Apgar was in the lake.”

“A 45-year-old man was hospitalized after four sheriff’s deputies rescued him from the jaws of a nearly 12-foot alligator Wednesday, while he was naked and high on crack cocaine.”

I can tell you from personal experience that there are few things in life as scary as being confronted with an alligator in the dark. There were probably a half-dozen times while I was in college that I came within three or four feet of a gator while on my morning runs. Crew practice started at five a.m. and Lake Newnan is in the middle of a swamp. I remember one time my crewmates and I had to sit in the boat on the water for a good half hour while we waited for a nasty-looking gator to get bored with sunning himself on our dock …

ATHENS, Ga. — Five University of Georgia football players were suspended for two games Tuesday after they and a basketball player were charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

Football players Tim Jennings, Bryan McClendon, DeMario Minter, Mario Raley and Randall Swoopes, and basketball player Wayne Arnold — all freshmen — were booked and later released from the Clarke County jail.

Football coach Mark Richt suspended the five players for the first two games of next season. He also ordered them to perform 30 hours of community service and participate in additional physical activity.

Heh. The “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” guy got busted for marijuana possession.

A bleary-eyed notice from TeamBilly HQ:

No more Visine. Doc’s exact words: “Unless you’re an actor and need a quick fix, don’t use the stuff. Use artificial tears or something better. But not Visine.”

Apparently the quick fix you get from tetrahydrozaline works, but when it wears off you go right back to swollen eye blood vessels, and it becomes a vicious cycle. He used the word addictive, but not in the physiological sense.

Weird. I have three bottles of it in my car, two in my travel kit. Who knew?

Now … if only I could get someone to advise me about my dangerously spiraling Sudafed / Coca-Cola / Allegra / Vicks / Budweiser / Altoid habit …

There is an anti-drug billboard near my house with a picture of a bunch of kids playing basketball. Superimposed on the photo is the line, “After school my child likes to _______ .” Below that is some blather about questions being the anti-drug. “Know what your children like to do,” or something like that. Some comical soul used a very large marker to fill in the blank. The additional text?
“smoke weed”.

“Ten years ago I might not be sitting here today.” - from a commercial for America’s Pharmaceutical Companies

“You don’t see the severe acute consequences you get with alcohol or cocaine,” Dr. Budney said. “People don’t embarrass themselves. They don’t wreck the car. They don’t spend all their money on a binge.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not addictive. It can be insidious. It gets into your lifestyle and then you can’t get it out.”

I have a little drug cocktail now. It’s a combination of Flonase, Allegra, and the generic version of something called Duratuss. There’s no generic version of Allegra or Flonase, so it costs about $50 (after insurance) for the three for about a two-month supply. But it’s wonderful. Pharmaceuticals rock my world. I can - for the first time I think in my entire life - breathe. If you don’t have allergies you cannot possibly understand. This time of year is almost as bad as the spring - so much pollen, so many “things” floating around the skies. I used to be reduced to a detestable mouth-breather, but with this little combination of drugs I can live a normal life.

I really wish I could explain it to you. I’m not saying I was in some tragic, pathetic condition, and I’m not trying to compare my situation with those that I know suffer from far worse, but not being able to breathe easily is an enormous handicap. Boxes of tissue, rolls of toilet paper, constant sniffling and a wet, dog-like nose, dry mouth, coughing and hacking every morning (even without cigarettes), headaches, cold sores, cracked skin, itchy eyes … and now all of that is gone. It’s like I’m an entirely different person. Those silly commercials you see, they’re right. Only, even with their twenty-second mini-dramas highlighting individuals reveling in the joy of being freed from the bonds of nasal incapacitation, they cannot convey the true experience of it. It is amazing.
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Matthew Kaminer was one week away from freshman year finals at the University of Florida when he had a few drinks, then popped an innocent-looking pill handed to him by a friend.
The next day, he was dead.

This is why I read Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room:

• Sisters Go Bonkers on Plane after Boozing It Up: The twin sisters, who are models, went from shouting to fighting. They smoked in the bathroom and used perfume to mask the odor, says an affidavit. One said to another: “I’ve gotta get out of here, let me off this airplane, I’ve gotta smoke, open this door!” One of the sisters threw a phone and the other put a flight attendant in a headlock.
• Ex-Drug Dealer Says God Told Him to Be Peppy the Pepper: Kenny Carter says God told him to put on the vegetable suit and entertain shoppers at the Super Fresh store. “I was crying out in the middle of church: ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ And suddenly I heard an audible male voice that said: ‘You will be a vegetable.’ … I looked around, thought I was going crazy! I began to worship again. I said: ‘Lord, speak to me.’ And I heard it again: ‘You will be a vegetable.’”

Did I mention I was experimenting with heroin?

Pure comedy: An article on strip clubs in Tampa Bay at ESPN.com is titled Giants Told to Keep Their Noses Clean and is running under an ad for www.cokepartybowl.com.

There are more nude bars / strip clubs in Tampa Bay than in any other city I’ve ever been. No, I never visited any. Also, I strongly dislike Trent Dilfer.