Ten years ago I used to get high sitting in the car in the parking lot of the Cotton Club in Atlanta or behind the Engine Room in Athens waiting for a show to start. I remember one Stereolab show where I thought I was gonna die because the ecstasy I took wasn't comingling as well as I had hoped with the mescaline and Newcastle that I had also partaken of.
Now, I sometimes exceed 2 caplets of Aleve in an 8-12 hour period.
Ten years ago I used to get so drunk that I have literally woken up on a Monday afternoon not being able to remember anything since Friday afternoon. Once I fainted in Lowe's while looking for some lumber to build a CD rack because of alcohol poisoning. And another time I ate some bad shrooms and blacked out at the mall and my friends had to tote me out the back entrance.
Now, a couple of Red Sripes make me wanna take a nap.
Ten years ago I thought my dad was the biggest prick in the state.
Now he's dead and I don't even remember why I thought that. My mom remarried within a year of his death and then within six months of her second marriage, her new husband died, too. Now she's asleep in the guest bedroom of a house that I own with a wife I never saw coming.
Ten years ago I had a cat named Tartar Control. Tartar Control had hemorrhoids and I was supposed to rub some preparation H type stuff on his ass twice a day to help him out. One night he scratched me in the eye and I tied the hemorrhoid cream around his neck and dropped him off in the alley between 8th and 9th Avenue.
Now, I have three cats and a dog and if one of them scratched me in the eye I'd scream "MOTHERFUCK!" but wouldn't get rid of them for doing so.
Ten years ago I thought that Ride and the Stone Roses and the Charlatans and all those bands were the best thing to ever happen to music.
Now I realize that George Jones and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Brian Wilson took that honor when the Charlatans were still playing in a school recorder flute assembly.
Today I went to Wal-Mart and bought some bread and some doughnuts and some soy milk and that new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series CD and a Lionel Richie Greatest hits CD.
Tonight I was lying in bed next to my wife in Moore, Oklahoma and I muted Chappelle's Show because we had already seen that episode and I hit play on the CD player and we sang Stuck On You together...at least the verses we could remember.
She turned to me and said "Next thing you know you're gonna be buying a Daryl Hall and John Oates greatest hits CD" and I said "Whatever," and made that little sign with both of my hands in the shape of a W because that's how I roll.
The thing is, though, she's right.
I haven't been able to get fucking Possession Obsession out of my mind, either.