Thursday, September 4, 2014

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's Super Stoopid!

In this second installment in the "Memoirs Of A Teen-Aged Idiot" series, I want to tell you about this one time, at band camp...

Just kidding. I didn't go to band camp. I have, however, made my fair share of stupid decisions.

Let's rewind back to 1993. I was still in the band I started out of high school, Little Dreamer, but we were on our second singer by this time. Johnny quit to go back to school and Anthony "Tree" Rollins (rest in peace) was singing with us. Tree was known by everyone for being in another, more popular, band at the time, Teezr (I think was how it was spelled). Teezr broke up in late 1991/early 92, leaving Tree free to "pursue other opportunities," and we snatched him up as soon as Johnny let us know of his intentions. Actually, now that I think about it, I believe it was Johnny who talked to Tree and convinced him to take the spot, thus providing his own replacement. What a saint!

Little Dreamer played the Rod Brasfield Festival in Smithville, Mississippi, in 1993. Smithville is located in Monroe County, which is a dry county. For all you northerners that have no clue what a dry county is, a dry county is one in which no alcohol is sold, or even publicly tolerated. Not a suitable place for a bunch of early 20's-aged rock'n'roll kids determined to raise some hell.

We sat behind the stage, in the bed of my 1970 GMC truck, with a cooler FULL of alcohol that we were consuming at a tremendously rapid pace. We were a 5 piece band by this time, and we came prepared: 3 cases of beer, 2 bottles of Purple Passion (for the womenfolk), a fifth of Everclear, and enough mixers to get the Everclear down. For those of you not in the know, Everclear is an aptly named clear liquor that clears your brain of all memories, leaving you nursing a Texas-sized hangover while desperately trying to recall the events of the previous evening, you know, a lot like Jäger, except it tastes a hell of a lot better!

We drunkenly took to the stage, blasted through our set, loaded our equipment, and went to Tree's girlfriends house a couple of miles away to "get serious about our drinking" (yes, that's how we referred to it).

We got to a friend's house and proceeded to get serious. I remember we were sitting at the table in the kitchen playing Quarters with the Everclear. Shit gets real QUICK like that. The other guitarist (who shall remain nameless) was more of a stoner than a drinker and was sitting to himself toking on his pipe. In my full-on drunken stupor, I proceeded to lecture him on the evils of Marijuana when, all of a sudden, I had this feeling of a hypocrite, telling him how bad the pot was for him having never tried it myself. Everclear gave me the confidence to say, "Fine then. Give me that damn pipe!" Everyone else split off into two different groups; the "angels" on my left shoulder telling me not to partake, and the "devils" on my right coaching me through the process, tell me to hold it in, don't let it go, not yet, etc. Remember, now, we had just finished off a bottle of Everclear.

For the next few minutes, I sat in probably my soberest state of the day waiting for the weed to kick in. Then, after about 10 minutes, I jumped at the front door, dropped to my knees, and started puking what was obviously all on my internal organs up. I must have puked for 45 minutes before the dry heaving started, which lasted for at least another hour! I had expelled every bit of food/liquid/stomach acid in my body onto her front door step, but I was still alive, though I would be sore as hell the next morning.

Once everyone was convinced I was going to live, they all decided it was time to go home and promptly left. Since Tree (and all the equipment) rode with me, he was going to drive me back to his house to unload equipment. I should be sober by then. But first, he and his lady wanted a little alone time in the bedroom.

I don't know about you, but I really don't want to sit around and listen to two people "bumpin' uglies" in the next room regardless of the state of mind I'm in, and this evening was no exception. I waited until I heard the first moan slip from the room and darted out of the house, cranked my truck, and was gone like the wind! I made it back to Tree's house in Bigbee, unloaded everyone's equipment by myself, and decided I was good enough to drive to Chris Wages's house in Pontotoc. So I start running the backroads from Amory to Pontotoc. This was around 2:00 AM.

I remember hearing a car horn blow. I opened my eyes to see that I was still driving and was about to hit a car head on on Palmetto Road. I quickly got back into my lane and admonished myself for falling asleep at the wheel. I must have went to sleep again, because I woke up in a ditch doing 60 MPH coming to an embankment for a driveway to a house, which I jumped like I was one of the Duke boys! 8 feet in the air I went, landing in the driveway with a thud, but upright. The battery turned over and shorted out, killing the engine, which brought me to a sudden stop. I saw the lights come on in the house that belonged to this particular drive and I asked the man at the door to borrow his phone. He said ok and I said thanks and called Chris to come pick me up. I walked back to my truck to assess the damage and think of a good lie to tell if anyone found out.

As I approached my truck, a noticed a crease on the hood that wasn't there before. Opening the hood to examine it was what led me to see that the battery was lying sideways. I sat it upright and turned the key over. It cranked!

Remember the cooler from earlier in the day? Well, it was never taken out of the back of my truck and it now lay in the middle of Palmetto Road. What were once full beer cans earlier in the day had become empty cans put back in the cooler and left for me to dispose of. 3 cases worth of beer cans, assorted bottles, and the like were littered all over the road, it was 2:00 in the morning, and I was drunk AND high, so I grabbed the empty cooler, threw it in the back of the truck, and hauled ass to Chris's house. I actually managed to make it all the way before passing out this time, to which we started drinking again. The following day would show me the scars of the previous night, but it took weeks for me to piece together the patches that would come back to me, scenes I have relived many times through the years.

So just remember, if you're drinking to forget, choose Everclear.

Oh, and don't drink and drive.

Or litter.

Or do drugs.

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