Advice

On crystal meth.

well, how do you feel about speed?

— sarah jane

It’s ugly, cheap, and dangerous. Long ago I realized it wasn’t a coincidence that the nights I didn’t feel safe were also the nights that people around me were doing speed.

Call me an elitist, but that shit is for bottom-barrel white trash, and I stay the fuck away from the types who do it. Sure, it will keep the party going all night long, but that comes at the terribly high price of being surrounded by tweaked-out losers who don’t know the difference between psychosis and euphoria. Plus, a meth habit will suck the soul out of a person faster than any chemical I’ve ever seen.

No, thank you.

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Advice

On maintaining.

Do you ever find that a million cigarettes and interminable hours of retarded conversation about absolutely nothing makes the next morning way worse than anything your DARE Officer said Coke would do to you?

I loved my big coke days, but it was the Nat Shermans and quantum physics conversations with avant-garde artists and sex workers that ended up making me quit.

How do you maintain?

After that Teddy Grahams vid, I think we’re the same age. Do you have super powers? What’s your secret?

— Stephen B.

Funny you should mention it, but I can’t smoke and do blow at the same time. When I do, the next morning I feel like someone scraped my sinuses with a charcoal briquette. I’ve learned my lesson there, so it’s either one or the other.

As for the quantum physics conversations with avant-garde artists and sex workers, let me ask you this: would you rather it be Oprah’s book club conversations with real estate brokers and housewives? Not to knock housewives (some of those bitches are ten times as freaky as an average sex worker), but are you really trying to suggest that the edge-dwelling deviants in this town are somehow boring? No sir, Stevie B. I’m not buying it.

Still, I respect the nature of your question. It’s not uncommon anymore to find out the girl sitting next to me at the club was born in the fucking 90s. I recognize that eventually, I’ll have to move over for that little bitch. When I do I’ll simply make a graceful shift into more private recreation. I have a few wild friends in their 40s, and I’ve seen how they do it. You get a little older, make a little money, and just move the party up the hill.

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Advice

On needles.

have you ever done heroin or shot anything up? was it strange?

— james earl jones

James Earl Jones? Hilarious. Now I can’t help but hear the voice of King Jaffe Joffer every time I read this question, and it cracks me up! And no, I’ve never done heroin. The only time I use needles is for B12 injections (vitamins only, never drugs.)

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Advice

On the ritual of cocaine.

Is coke really awesome? I smoke ALOT of weed, and that does it for me. I get FUCKED UP. but what’s with coke? I heard its just like, drinking 6 red bulls, that doesn’t sound too cool. Explain it to me. What’s the rush like?

The physical rush of cocaine is peripheral to the whole experience. It’s communal. There’s ritual to it. It’s social and decadent. The best part is that when you’re doing coke, you’re not around the kind of person who would consider drinking six red bulls to chase a high. If my goal was just to get fucked up in capital letters, I’d go huff paint in an alley.

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Best-Of Advice

On wisdom

Where/how did you get so wise? I don’t mean that ironically. In concrete terms, please.

Well, it sure as fuck wasn’t in church.

I’m not quite sure how to answer this really, because accepting the premise of the question makes me kind of a douche. Not that I’m one for false humility. I’ll admit that my IQ is probably higher than my credit score, but wisdom and intelligence aren’t the same thing.

Part of my charm comes from the fact that I grew up ugly and poor in the dirty south and now I’m cute as a fucking button on the west side of paradise. That contrast alone keeps me sharp. Plus, unlike the 85% of Americans who don’t even have a passport, I’ve seen a bit of the world.

But that’s the cheap answer. The real one is a bit more fucked up.

Whatever genuine wisdom I have comes from having faced my own mortality at an age when all my friends were preoccupied with sorority rush. I was forced to contemplate the very real likelihood of my own death without the benefit of having lived a full life, and I had to acknowledge some cold, sticky truths about the meaning of it all.

At first, all I did was freak myself out. Peering into an infinite regression is some scary stuff. Eventually though, I grew comfortable with my utter insignificance in an unimaginably vast universe, and I found that I had no need or desire to supplicate myself to a higher power. We are tiny specks of talking meat on a wet little ball in the middle of nowhere, and I’m perfectly okay with that. The pursuit of happiness is enough.

It’s a difficult concept to communicate, but all the athiest soldiers and godless cancer patients out there already know what I’m talking about. There is a freedom that comes from letting go, after you’re forced to completely jettison your ego. You can’t fake it, and if you’re lucky enough to live, it always stays with you.

All right, enough heavy shit. I’m off to the pool.

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