J:
Way back before the first episode of J&B on the Rox was produced, Editor B would often sing the praises of Robitussin DM. He sang those praises so often, in fact, that I ended up learning the rap that he wrote about the stuff.
So one day, I decided to try the stuff. Not just a tablespoon, but a whole bottle.
It was a Sunday morning. We met at my house on Cottage Grove, and each tossed back a four-ounce bottle of the stuff. A little while later, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. I realized (or did I only imagine?) that I wasn't feeling any effects from the bottle I'd consumed; so we stopped off at a convenience store and bought another bottle, which we split.
Soon after that, I came to the realization that I was, in fact, feeling the effects — and plenty. I felt blissful, even euphoric, and very energetic. I also felt like I was more drunk than I'd ever been, though thankfully minus the nausea that typically accompanies drunkenness. I was spinning, but in a good way, if that's imagineable.
We dropped by a mutual friend's place, where we found him sitting on his front steps. We had our videocamera running as we walked up to him and greeted him. He asked what we were doing.
“Well, let me tell you...” we said in unison, and passed our bemused friend the videocamera as we launched into B's Robitussin Rap.
The video of this impromptu performance probably exists somewhere. But it should probably remain lost, because it stands in my memory as the most embarrassing snippet of video I ever participated in. It was a true travesty of human endeavor, and is only funny to the extent that it can be funny to watch severely fucked-up people trying to speak in complete sentences.
My tongue just didn't seem to want to keep up with my head. This sensation only got worse during the day. I remember, albeit vaguely, trying to bust out some rhymes in our friend's basement. He had a music studio down there, and I'd gone home to fetch B's drum machine and my journal of poetry and lyrics.
Even with the lyrics right in front of my face, I couldn't read them in time with the beat.
Oh, what a mess.
It was fun at the time. But my memory of the experience was clouded severely by what came later. To make a long story short, I spent four days wondering if I'd sustained some kind of brain-damage. I couldn't think clearly, couldn't form complete sentences when talking with friends, couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. And when I yawned or coughed, I would literally black out.
I don't know if the two are related, but this experience came around the time when I first started noticing a loss of short-term memory. One thing that I have noticed is that I can't take anything with Dextramethorphan in it anymore. If I accidentally do (and you'd be surprised what other over-the-counter meds this stuff is in), I have the same black-out problems, the same grogginess combined with a racing heart.
I've long wondered if I didn't damage myself that day.
