Okay, before I get into this I just have to relay something I saw today. I’m driving down the road to my house and I see this truck that says across the back Jesus Plastering. WTF? I thought Jesus was a carpenter! Who knew he did plastering too.

So, now that I’ve had a day off from retail hell, I’m back on the Millipore team building party thing.  As time passed, my department had a goal: We wanted to get the division VP (and our immediate boss), otherwise known here as SV, to one of our parties. We had a plan. We started leaving her anonymous voice mails and notes. We threatened to show up in her neighborhood if she didn’t show up at one of our parties. Of course, we’d show up as only we could. And she knew that.

I’m know there were parties after the Grand Kahuna party but, frankly, I can’t remember them in comparison. Let me tell you how this one started out: It started out with Bruce and I driving up to the Lewiston-Auburn area of Maine in search of  mushrooms. And I’m not talking about the fungi you cook with either. I’m talking mind altering mushrooms. Not peyote buttons, mind you. Those are disgusting. You actually hurl before you hallucinate on those babies. Only did those once. Never again. These were not as potent, but combine them with a little weed and tequila and you’ve got a pretty good buzz on hand.

Not much to do up there in Lewiston but drink, so we did that. We stopped in this little craphole of a bar and watched a rare afternoon Celtics game on television while we tried to find his friends who had access. After about five hours, we finally hit paydirt. Needless to say, we drove home and tested them out. Yeah, we were ready.

This was the infamous jello shot party. Everyone dressed in sixties garb (peace signs and paisley shirts everywhere) and several brought jello molds. The winner was the bed pan of yellow jello with tootsie roll pieces in it. I’m not quite clear on who brought that one, but it may have been Brian. Yeah. Disgusting. Sat it right in the middle of the food table for good measure.

By this time, there was a core group that arrived early at the Party Zone. The group consisted of my departments and my landlords. But an unusually large number of people showed for this one for some unexplained reason. A lot of people from work showed and a lot of our suppliers did too. Not only did my niece and her husband show (as they always did), but so did my nephews that were of legal age at the time. It took only about an hour or so for the party to ramp up. People were just crazy that night. The music was blaring and a “band” had already formed in the dining room. Then there was a knock on the door. All we heard was, “Oh my God!” and several of us ran to see what was up.

There stood our boss dressed in sixties garb, replete with the most incredible beehive hairdo you’d ever want to see. “I hear there’s some kind of party going on around here!” Then, she started laughing and so did we. Everyone was psyched. We weren’t the only people on her staff there. Many of her product and marketing managers were as well. The great thing about SV was that she didn’t cramp anybody’s style. People were just amazed and happy that she showed up. And she fit right in. A couple of hours after her arrival, she said, “Now I know what everybody’s talking about on Monday mornings and why they’re talking about it!”

The place was absolute craziness and those mushrooms went over big time. Then, the bell rang. It was late and nobody else was expected. My nephew had the intelligence to look out the window, then he turned around and looked at someone in the living room and said, “Get those bags off the table, man! It’s the police.” Some people reacted and got rid of the bags. The majority of the people just went back to partying. My nephew buzzed them in.

I’m dead sure they were expecting to see a bunch of teenagers raising hell and destroying the building. Instead, they found a bunch of thirty- and forty-year-olds acting like, well…assholes. It was loud and the windows were all open, so I’m sure the sound was spilling into the street. Somebody complained, but it wasn’t anyone in the building because they were all in my apartment partying. The police walked in and started looking around the apartment. I wish I could say that everyone stopped what they were doing, but they didn’t. In fact, SV had gathered a few people from my department into a corner and was leading them in a very cockeyed version of “Bringing in the Sheaves.” Their version was called “Bringing in the Sheep.” It was hysterical. She just smiled at the police as they walked around. Then they headed for the door again. They turned around on the way out.

“Do us a favor. Close the windows and turn on the air conditioning if it’s hot. We don’t want to have to come back here. And be sure the people who are drunk stay here. Okay?” They opened the door to leave. “By the way, have fun.” That was it. This particular party didn’t end until about five in the morning. There were several people camped out on my floor.

Like I said, there was never a party of this scope again. But I have to tell you, the police stationed a cruiser outside starting at midnight for each and every party to follow. I wonder why?

Never let it be said that business travel isn’t sometimes adventurous. It is especially adventurous when you’re somewhat fearless and have no idea WTF you are doing or where you are going. That would sum up my trip to Chicago for the Pittsburgh Conference. I’m not sure when this little event took place, late eighties maybe early nineties. The Pittsburgh Conference is an analytical instrumentation show. Prior to moving it to the McCormic Convention Center in Chicago every other year, it had always been held in New Orleans. At the time, I was the Marketing Services Manager for Millipore’s Analytical Division, and was attending the show to conduct a Press Breakfast and work the booth.

But first, we had to get there and that proved to be a challenge right from the get go. The guy who worked for me, Brian, and I left on a Saturday morning so that we could go to the convention center and supervise the booth assembly.  We only had forty feet of booth space, small for us in comparison to other shows, but it was a key market for both our HPLC sample prep filters and our lab water purification systems.

I know that we were flying right after some type of international terrorist event, so it was particularly touchy going through the gate. So, here we are standing in line and the woman in front of me sets off the alarms. I’m thinking. Okay, this will be simple. The problem was that she kept setting off the alarm. First, they had her remove all her jewelry, including her earrings. She still set off the alarm. Then, her belt. She still set off the alarm. Then, they asked her to remove her shoes. That’s when my alarm went off. Why?

Maybe because I had a quarter ounce of hooch in my shoe. I remember turning around to Brian, “Hey, I need to get the fuck out of this line.”

“Why?”

“Because I stuck the ganja in my shoe.”

“Yeah, in your sock, right?”

“No, in my shoe. I didn’t have time to put it in my sock.”

He was very comforting, “Oh, then you’re screwed.”

Yeah, thanks, Brian. What a pal. I was at the point of no return, however. The woman had finally cleared the security check. It was my turn. After all that sweating, I cleared it the first time. Don’t ask me why I didn’t set off alarms, but the best part of all was that Brian did. Yeah, sometimes I love payback, man.

The flight was pretty uneventful and it was, as unusual as it sounds, right on schedule. We got to Chicago and got settled into the hotel. Then, we headed over to the McCormick Convention Center to check on the progress of the booth assembly, and go through a dry run of the press briefing. The booth looked great so far. There were no problems there. But I have to tell you the worst thing about working with tekkies is that they just don’t get what kind of material to present to editors. These guys were writers, not chromatography scientists. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to drill that into their heads before the trade show. Now, I was at the trade show going through the dry run and they were editorializing again.

It started with the first guy. He started his portion of the presentation and made it so complicated I wanted to just tell him to STFU and let me do it. I remember telling him to stop, and then I told him if he went into this kind of an explanation half of the editors in the room would stand up and walk out. I remember saying, “Just tell them in layman’s terms what the products do and the benefit to the customer.”  That’s all they need to know. Every editor in the room would be given a package of detail, a copy of the presentation, and access to one-on-one discussions with the scientists in the room while they ate breakfast. Still, they insisted on cultivating what I like to call the deer-in-the-headlight effect.

After two hours of this torture, Brian and I headed out to dinner with Ed Black, the sales manager from Analytical Chemistry magazine. Ed was one of my best friends even though we were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. He was a true conservative from Georgia, now living in Connecticut. His wife Lynn was an airline stewardess, and she was just an awesome person. She was so funny and quick witted. We were close enough on the friendship scale that I’d go to Connecticut and spend the weekend. We had one rule: He and I never discussed politics. But that didn’t mean we didn’t jab each other good naturedly once in a while. We surely did.

I remember we got home in the early morning hours and we were wasted. Nevertheless, we had a free day Sunday. The only thing we had scheduled was a three o’clock review of the hospitality suite set up and a meeting with the convention center support staff. Brian and I made plans to go to this great flea market we saw in the local paper.

Our second close call: WTF were we thinking?

Brian and I ate breakfast and immediately hit the road. We hailed a cab and told the driver where we wanted to go. “Are you sure?” I guess I was kind of puzzled by his question.

“Yeah, we’re sure. Let’s go,” was my response.

When the driver had gotten us to our requested drop off point, he turned around and said to me, “Are you sure you want to be here? I’m not sure I should leave you here.”

We looked around. It looked perfectly fine to us. I replied, “Yeah, we’re good.”

I paid the driver and he drove off. We started heading down the street toward where the flea market was supposed to be when we saw this gang across the street with baseball bats. Yeah, that was comforting. The fact that they were looking at us was also comforting.

So, Brian and I started walking. “Can you see that they are walking with us across the street?”

“Yeah, Brian, I can see that.”

“You know, we’re dead meat.”

At that point, we started looking for somewhere safe to hide. Brian first suggested the church. I thought that might be a bad idea. Aside from the fact that I hadn’t been in a church for about a hundred years and was afraid of it collapsing, it didn’t seem like there was any action going on there and the doors might be locked. So, we started looking for any open stores we could find. We were sure we’d be safe there. Brian found, of all places, a hat shop. We talked about it for a few minutes, then the two of us broke into a hell-bent run and managed to get ourselves into the shop safely. We explained to the shop keeper what was going on and he started laughing.

“This isn’t a good place for you two. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. This may be an ordinary flea market, but this is not a safe part of town. The gangs don’t bother the shopkeepers, but they like to victimize visitors to the city.”

He was a really nice guy. He called a cab for us and told him to pick us up at the back of his shop. As fate would have it, the driver was the same guy who had dropped us off. When he saw us, he laughed.

“I told you, man, that I couldn’t figure out why you wanted to get out here. I don’t even like driving in here.”

We sat in the back seat and, once we were safely out of there, Brian and I started laughing. “How many days are we here for?”

I looked at him. “We’re here through Wednesday, why?”

“I can’t wait to see what other kind of trouble we can get ourselves into,” he responded.

I’m willing to state that I was once a certified party animal. I still can be under the right circumstances.  When I am in that particular frame of mind, I am very adventurous. It’s not like that is something I like to do every single day or night (anymore), but I was up for it in my younger days. And that included experimenting with mind-altering substances.

People who know me won’t be surprised by this: I am absolutely psyched about the fact that Massachusetts has decriminalized marijuana. And I support Barney Frank’s nationwide effort to legalize marijuana. Why? Give me a break. I’ve been in the business world for nearly 30 years. I’ve been out for lunches with both clients and suppliers. I have had drinks at lunch to the point where returning to work would be a joke. Many of my compatriots choose to go home from work and have a martini (or several, in fact). Me? I prefer to go home and smoke a fatty (or two), and I’m not alone in this sentiment. It’s as simple as that. Anybody remember Prohibition????? Legalize it. That’s what Bob Marley would say. Just frackin’ legalize it. NORML has it right.

The true believers in the drug war have no problem spreading the bull that marijuana is a gateway drug. It leads to bigger and better things (read: addiction to stronger drugs) because people become bored with the high and need continuously stronger highs to be satisfied. I’m here to tell you that is pure bullshit. I’m the living testament. If you do not have an addictive personality, there’s never a need to progress past the ganja.  If you do have an addictive personality, drug addiction may be just one of your problems. Hear me?

Pushing the envelope ever so slightly…

Okay, so I did push the envelope just ever so slightly. Forget the heroin and that garbage. I was never adventurous enough for that stuff. I could never in a million years understand how anyone could derive pleasure from something you simply cannot live without. It ceases to be pleasure at that point. I never entertained touching the stuff and I never did, even though several old friends did. I went as far as coke, and that was more than far enough for me.

I went on a coke bender for about six months. I was young (probably in my mid-to-late twenties) and working in high tech advertising and public relations at that time. Had I been a different type of person, this is the one drug I could easily have succumbed to. No question. This stuff was amazing if you were partying and dancing. There was no limit to the energy it generated. We used it freely in the bathrooms of the gay bars, and it was readily available. Two of my neighbors — a Boston jeweler and his beeeotch wife — had it whenever we wanted it, and there was no question that this crap dictated when that was.

It got to the point where we would be out all night. The bars would close at about two in the morning, then sometimes we’d stop and have breakfast, usually at Carroll’s Diner in Medford. After breakfast, we’d head home. It was common practice for me to jump in the shower as soon as I got home (usually about five in the morning), then do a line and immediately leave for work…without sleep. By noon, I’d be suffering like a dog and I’d swear I would never do it again. But I did. In fact, I’d usually somehow make it through the day. Then, I’d come home and crash for a few hours. By about nine or ten, it would be time to go out and do it all again.

Like I said, this went on for about six months. Then, I came to that magic moment when I immediately halted my use of coke. We were all wiped out after a week of partying, so we decided lay low for a night. I was alone at home listening to Bonnie Raitt. I decided to use what I had left in my latest stash. I did two lines. The effect wasn’t the same as when I was out with a bunch of people partying. I got into this introspective mode. This was immediately followed by the notion that I was having a heart attack from using coke. Of course, I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. The long and short of this story is that I swore I’d never touch the stuff again, and I didn’t. That was the end of it. Although we all didn’t stop at the same time, my friends pretty much did the same. It was too damned expensive anyway.

Partying at the bars wasn’t adversely affected because we had POPPERS! Yes, people, amyl nitrate immediately took over the job coke was doing. It was cheaper. There are no addictive issues and the effect is about the same in a bar situation, albeit lasting a much shorter period of time.

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends…

Of course, there were other little experiments along life’s pathway. One summer a work friend of mine, Ellie, asked if I wanted to try blotter acid. Oh, yeah. We decided to go for it. I was really young when I did this. I was probably about 22 or 23. We took a day off, and believe me when I tell you it was a glorious summer day. I drove over to her house in Peabody about nine in the morning. The plan was for us to go to the beach in Gloucester and do it there. We never made it.

I wish I could tell you exactly what kind of trip I took, but I can’t. All I can tell you is that it wasn’t unpleasant. I had been hearing about how LSD trips can go bust if you have a “bad” trip, but that was not my experience. What I remember vividly, however, is what Ellie did. We were sitting on her porch when we took the hits. Time passed, but I really have no idea how much time passed before we started feeling the effects of the stuff. When it did hit, I was feeling very three dimensional and what I was looking at was very surreal. I can tell you one thing for sure. Nobody was driving to Gloucester on this shit.

I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye, and it was Ellie. We had been sitting on her porch, but she got up with a purpose in mind. I watched her walk down to the sidewalk, then over to a Volkswagen Beetle (she had no idea who owned the car) that was parked on the street roughly between her house and the neighbor’s house. Suddenly, she was trying to pick it up and move it. I am not kidding. I actually watched her for a few minutes before asking her just what she thought she was doing. I remember exactly what she said, “This stupid car is ruining the painting. The bumper is in my painting.” Sure it was.

This is one old memory. I do not remember much detail about this day except that it was just plain out there. We did some more blotter acid and just hung out listening to music. I know I was safely back in my apartment for dinner, none the worse for wear. And that was the only time I did blotter acid. Ah, but there were other little forays into mindbending.

My friends and I went to see the movie Network with Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway and made the mistake of taking THC before going into the theater. By the time Peter Finch got to, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna’ take anymore!” I can assure you that was the last place we wanted to be. We made a beeline out of that theater, laughing like hell all the way. We never did finish watching the movie. Another time, Greg, Jack and I met up somwhere and decided to go back to my place in Melrose to cook dinner. On the way home from Boston, we took purple microdot (mescaline). I have no idea where we got it, but it was just peaking by the time we got to Garniss Market to buy some food to cook. We never bought any food and we never cooked dinner.

I have no idea what I was looking at, but I happened to be going up the cereal aisle when something on the Captain Crunch box made me take a laughing fit to beat all laughing fits. I was sitting on the floor in the store laughing like hell. Greg and Jack found me and literally carried me out to the car. We spent most of the night laughing. All I know is that we all woke up on the living room floor sometime in the morning. As I recall, I never went to work that day. Since I pretty much felt as though I’d been hit by a train, I called in sick and spent the day sleeping.

There have certainly been other magic moments during this phase of my life, but you get the idea here. Here’s something to think about: While law enforcement has been preoccupied with stopping the flow of recreational drugs, the nation’s pharmaceutical companies have created a nation of zombies addicted to prescription drugs. Wacky, isn’t it?