Take a gander at S. Kelly in this here photo. The boy drained a full bag of Molly.
Hark! The NFL playoffs are upon us in all their spandexican splendor. A select number of stadiums are going to be packed to the brim with goons and their full bladders. What a great opportunity to do psychotropic drugs.
After writing about a trip I took during Game Two of the World Series, a number of folks wanted to hear more about the psyche-sport known as Spectator Psychedelia. So I called up my old pal, S. Kelly Brawn of the Whitest Yids We Know, to refresh my memory of what makes taking hallucinogens at a Major League sporting event such a fun paradigm shift. We chatted and came up with this:
DEPTH / DEATH PERCEPTION
I had the hardest time judging distances and keeping morbid thoughts of destruction out of my head. At times, the players and field looked quaint, cute, and tiny, and I had warm, cozy feelings all over — sort of like looking into a tropical fish tank while wrapped in a blanky. Five minutes later, it felt like I was in row 1 at IMAX stark naked and legions of goons could pour out of the upper tiers at any minute and crush the rest of us to death, forcing us to bandage the women and children’s wounds with cotton candy and hot dog buns. You may end up bouncing your brain between some very dark and very light thoughts, so grab hold of something. No really, hang on to railings whenever you navigate stairs and ramps, or you may faceplant.
FOOD, BEER, PEE = LITTLE ADVENTURES
Whenever there is a break to re-up on beer and grub or take a leak, you get to leave your seat and go on a mini-adventure — a side quest, if you will. During these times, beer may have the tendency to glow brightly, cinder blocks might talk to you while you piss and you’ll talk back to them, and, as you move through the crowd, the people you pass will all share the same shape-shifting silly putty face. Maintain your shit by focusing on the task at hand: restroom, beer stand, food shack. Put everything on your charge card. If you deal only in cash, well then good luck counting your change.
CROWD DYNAMICS
I suggest reading up on herd behavior and crowd dynamics before you go to the big game because it will make your life easier and give you another thing to trip out on. When people amass to form a throng, crowd dynamics go into effect and the collective group starts to behave like a granular fluid. The hordes flow out and down every nook and cranny and bottleneck any bathroom door in sight. Herd mentality is a legit science. When people are moving somewhere en masse they literally act like a flock of sheep: If there is a 5% change in the direction of the crowd, everyone will follow that way; if there is any remote danger (say, a guy with dilated pupils throwing up Schafer and magic mushrooms), they will behave like a school of fish and scatter about. Put this knowledge to the test and pretend you’re the black sheep from the Out of Step cover. When the restroom door is bottlenecked, wait until someone squeezes their way out and take that newly opened space to get in. Then bee-line to the farthest toilet or urinal because the mob is looking for whatever potty is closest. It’s amazing how people will read each others cues and walk super slow or wait in lines when they don’t have to.
YOU’RE NOT ACTING WEIRD
Ahh Anxiety, we know thee well. This is the most important hurdle to leap when it comes to tripping in sporting venues, but it’s not nearly as big as you think. I myself tend to get super self-conscious around friends and acquaintances for fear of saying or doing something weird that may be taken out of context. However, S. Kelly came up with an interesting point: tripping at a sporting event actually reverses any self-consciousness because at a game, no one gives a fuck about you. Thousands and thousands of people paid money to behold a spectacle and are determined to pay attention to that and that only. Do you really think they give a shit about you wearing sunglasses, staring at your hands, and mumbling gibberish? It’s third down with seven yards to go in the fourth quarter with 2:13 on the clock and the Beagles need a touchdown. No one gives a fuck about you — especially if you get handicap accessible seating. Then you can spaz out as much as you want. So get over yourself and embrace a hand-clap ‘n color-coordinated mankind.
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In conclusion, remember this: Whatever stadium you’re at, whatever sport you’re watching, whatever drugs you’ve introduced to your system, there is always someone else there who looks, behaves, and pronounces words in a way far weirder than you ever will … and they’re stone cold sober. Good luck, have fun, and make sure you don’t take too much.
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HST pioneered this but I enjoy your synopsis for the everyman.
01.12.10 at 12:07 pm
I don’t like drugs and feel that they are destroying lives en masse. But I like this . . . en masse? Yea.
01.12.10 at 12:08 pm
You should take your drugs and THEN paint your face for the game. Imagine the images that you could come up with.
01.12.10 at 12:18 pm
I insist that whoever reads this and follows suit buy tickets on the main level. Buying seats in the nosebleed section where one may try to ‘hop’ down to the lower level can be catastrophic. Anyone whose ever sat in the Skydome should know exactly what I am warning about. Jesus Christ that’s bound to end badly. How goddamn high are those nosebleeds? At least a 30 or 40 foot drop. Yikes!!!
01.12.10 at 12:50 pm
psychedelics in publics places are great, BUT FOOTBAWLS?
That’s the type of crowd I least want to be around when I’m flipping.
01.12.10 at 1:06 pm
RACE WAR!!!!!!!!!!
01.12.10 at 1:18 pm
When I was 17 I was at Sam Boyd Stadium in Vegas, baked on the heaviest acid I had ever encountered. My attempts to move from the field to the interior of the stadium were repeatedly failing. I couldn’t find the tunnel, and kept ending up way up high in the stands. I would spot the tunnel, then move down a row, excusing myself all the way. Each time I would get to the end and realize I was in the wrong spot, looking down on the lucky folks who had made it. At one point I spotted a group of cute girls sitting in the latest row I had shuffled down. I turned to them, panicked, and with eyes as black as night asked, “How do I get to the underneath?”. I suppose my odd phrasing and frenetic look was pretty funny, because they all began to laugh and point at me (I think). Mike’s right, play it cool.
01.12.10 at 1:21 pm
I can’t stand pro-active tripping. If you want a cultural spectacle while on psychadelics, all you have to do is go to the quikee mart for a pack of smokes. Seriously, good psychadelics are pretty easy to please. No need to spend hundreds of dollars to have the absolute worst of Americana shoved down your hole. Bad trips are nothing to sneeze at. Please. Be careful when considering this, kids.
01.12.10 at 1:39 pm
dock ellis started this.
why is football the worst of americana? tripping at vanessa’s studio apartment sounds way more horrifying.
01.12.10 at 2:22 pm
This rules. Next I want to see Mike smoke DMT at a soccer riot.
01.12.10 at 2:47 pm
Dock Ellis started this by accident. As far is I know, he never deliberately dropped before a game. Personally, I don’t like pro football, and I don’t know any real football fan who does. It’s to the football world what Thomas Kincaid is to art, what pro wrestling is to folk wrestling. I’d much rather watch a hard fought pee-wee game. Guess I just have trouble rooting for cynical corporate franchises that rely on me being so naive that I attach some regional loyalty to their bogus attempts at playing a great game. I believe the whole thing is fixed. Don’t have much patience for organizations that tolerate/deify the likes of Mike Vick and Chris Henry either. It’s the personification of evil as a trite, incredibly boring concept.
This essay reminds me of when Bill Hicks made fun of the guy who said: “I took ’shrooms then went to Astro World and had a really bad time.” His response? “Youuuuuu’re a moron.”
And no, I don’t live in a studio apartment. I just moved into a house.
01.12.10 at 2:52 pm
This reminds me of the time me and my friends took massive amounts of white blotter and went to a monster truck show. It was amazing. Every time the trucks took to the air, 5000 flash bulbs would go off simultaneously, stimulating me beyond my wildest expectations. The engine sounds vibrated me deeply, and the rednecks…. oh the rednecks. The acid turned those white trash morons up to 11, and I just couldn’t stop laughing. “You never heard SHIT about ‘built Chevy tough…”
01.12.10 at 3:40 pm
I work in the sports industry.
I took 4 tabs of LSD for this past years MLB All Star Game in St. Louis. The American Flag was the biggest flag I had ever seen in my entire life. The B-2 Bomber that flew over the stadium was the COOLEST thing I have ever seen on any drugs. It was huge, yet silent, and it left a long thin black trail across the sky for far too long. Obama threw out the first pitch so the police and the Secret Service added a fun sense of paranoia that was as exciting as it was scary (what if they had to shoot their sniper rifles? Would the out-out-of-his gourd guy in section 232 be their target?) Some of my favorite parts were the electricity of the entire crowd cheering, the flashbulbs rocked my face and of course wandering around the stadium mid-inning. Baseball is a great game for side quests, because it is a slower sport, and rarely do you miss something so wild that it would have exploded any neurons. While their may be a lot of people there who look, sound and act crazier than you. It is always a great feeling to look at a stadium of 50,000 people and know that you are the most whacked-out person in the building. If I wasn’t I want to meet whoever did me better.
01.12.10 at 3:44 pm
side quests lol
01.12.10 at 3:51 pm
loozer boozer did it right. fuck yeah monster truck rally! CAR EATING METAL DRAGONS!!!!!
seriously though, tripping balls surrounded by a colony of 20,000 thick necks might just be the last straw for me. one way tick to the loony bin!
vermont is the milk to my psychedelic honey
01.12.10 at 3:52 pm
Evangelical -FUCKING- church!!!!!!
Pasty sweaty wierdos, ex coke-heads and perverts…
That would fucking blow your mind, and then they’d start speaking in tongues.
TRRRIIIIIIIIPY.
01.12.10 at 5:20 pm
mushrooms+ monster truck rally= the best drug experience of my life.
01.12.10 at 5:41 pm
Hey Vanessa, what did Chris Henry do to you? Smoke weed? I’m sure you’re glad he’s dead now.
01.13.10 at 1:26 am
that sounds so intense it might even be traumatic
01.13.10 at 1:32 am
yeah…fuck off about Chris Henry. Chris Henry was a bad motor finger. a middle motor finger. pointed at vane$$a. i mean, nigga was so pimp he decides to point two pistols in the air in a packed club wearing his own jersey while stoned on henny and kush. who dey, nigga!
01.13.10 at 2:06 am
NFLgebra
Saints > X
X = your bitch ass team
01.13.10 at 12:19 pm
public psyching is a pretty top notch way to spend a daytrip, although beware of events where other people are doing the same thing. last stadium show i was at i was lolling my head a bit and some chick rolling balls thought i was dying?
they called the emts on me, and before i knew it was rolled out on a FUCKING. GURNEY. and kicked me to the streets of DETROIT at midnight
01.13.10 at 10:49 pm
GO BEARS
01.14.10 at 1:44 am