10: The casualties

I recently attended the funeral of a very dear friend of mine, who was in fact the dad of one of my female mates. He employed me for several years and was more than just my boss, he was a true mate. When i first met him i was an impressionable 18 years old and he was the dad i never had but wanted. He smoked weed, went raving, took pills, powders and potions and was the polar opposite of my real dad. His name was Skip, obviously not his real name, he was called skip due to a very strange stutter and when at school his mates said he sounded like Skippy the bush kangaroo, and it stayed with him through his life, even being called it at his funeral. He taught me a massive amount of life skills and i looked up to him. He was 63 when he died from a sudden brain hemorrhage and was still out partying most weekends. A true legend and sorely missed. R.I.P me old pal.

Now, i know i called this post ‘The casualties’ but it isn’t all doom and gloom over dead pals, there are some people who fall into this category on merit due to strange things they have been up to. I can honestly say, hand on heart my head has never gone whilst off it on drugs but several of my mates lost the plot proper, and this is where i embarrass (but not naming) them….

HEAD’S GONE….

I was dj’ing at a club in Coventry (i will come to the full story later in this blog) and while i was waiting for my 2nd set (i played twice that night) me and my mates watched one of the lads walking around a pool table, and pretending to plane it, even stopping to wipe the imaginary shavings away every now and then. my mate approached him to ask what he was doing and was told to fuck off, this coffee table needs to be finished before he clocks off. 2 hours he was at it for! 2 hours of us laughing at winding him up with comments like “you missed a bit” and “time for lunch fella!” i hope it looked lovely in his mind, bless him.

One of my brothers mates was somewhat of a coke enthusiast and when Ketamine first came out he was offered a line by one of the lads. Jonny big balls wasn’t happy with the poxy line he thought he was getting and insisted on a bigger line. He was advised this was a bad idea but he was adamant so a whopper he got. After spending quite a while spazzing out on the floor with arms akimbo the lads left him to enjoy rolling around on the floor like he was having a fit. In the morning my bro came downstairs and found him lay on the floor with soaking wet jeans from pissing himself and his hand on his lap. My bro woke him and he lifted his hand up, which looked like he had spent all night in the bath and humbly made his way home. A lesson was learned that day; he never touched Ket again. Idiot.

ACID…….

Lysergic acid diethlamide, as it’s known to boffins was my drug of choice in 1991, and if you have never taken it I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO! Ok, probably not great advice but fuck you, i ain’t Zammo Maguire. Acid is the most surreal experience you will ever have, and i fucking loved it. One of the downsides to LSD is bad trips. There’s no trips like bad trips, trust me. Like i said on an earlier post, i thought my jaw was broken on my first trip. We had gone around to my house after a night in town on the piss and we all had a purple om acid tab. Very strong and mind bending for the uninitiated. My mate came to me and asked if his eyes were bloodshot. Mischievous me said “er…yeah and there is blood coming from the corner of your eyes pal!” he disappeared home and the next day told me he had spent all night crying into a mirror scared stiff that he was going to go blind! oopsy. That night i had a double dove and he told me i had green gunk coming out my eyes. Nice try dick head, i’m not falling for that! Next morning i woke up and my eyelids had crusted together, it turned out i had conjunctivitis. He wasn’t lying after all haha!