A Week-Long Guide to Inebriated Entertainment
by TJ Fink
[Ed. note: Here at Unreality, we don’t advocate drug abuse. We do, however, have a new hire in our research department with a darker past than his CV initially let on. Last week we confiscated a surprising amount of airplane glue from his desk, lent him a laptop, and told him to put those inner demons to good use. Sorry about that.]
Here’s the bad news: After breaking your back at Company X for six soul-sucking years, you’ve just been laid off. You’re jobless, lady-less, and officially in a bad way by the time you finally trudge home to your cramped apartment.
Here’s the good news: You were given a sweet eight-month severance package! At least you’ve got a little time to get back on your feet. But as you let out a disgruntled sigh and reach for the remote control, an epiphany strikes. You don’t want to be gruntled right now. Being on your feet is the last thing you need—hasn’t all this grief earned you a week of respite?
You need to mentally unplug for a while, but will need some help reaching for the cord. So you pick up the phone and call That Guy from That Party Who Knows a Friend Who Knows a Guy to place an order for…well, drugs, OK? We’re talking about drugs now. Once they’re procured (not only pizza gets delivered in NYC!), it’s time to lock your apartment door, pick a spot on the couch, pull up your favorite piss bucket, and kick off the most mind-erasing movie marathon ever: 7 drugs, 7 movies, 7 days. Here’s what you can expect.
Day #1: Alcohol
Inebriated Flick of Choice: Beerfest (2006)
OK, OK, seems pretty obvious. It’s right in the name: Beerfest. But there are lots of movies about alcohol abuse, and many of them are downright depressing, as if the abusers are on some sort of…depressant. Hell, Bad Santa’s supposed to be a comedy, but watching Billy Bob Thornton abuse his liver and berate children gets kind of sad after a while. You don’t need sad—you’re miserable enough as it is. You need an unrealistic narrative that celebrates intoxication at its best, with no negative consequences whatsoever (well, mostly) for its protagonists. Beerfest is that movie, and you’re going to have a kickass time polishing off that 24-pack of Miller High Life before the credits roll.
What you can expect: To get shitfaced, what else? But seriously, there’s only a 4% chance that you’ll wake up the next day without having broken something in your pad (oh that’s right, after beer #17 you sometimes turn into an angry drunk), and even worse odds that you’ll be wearing pants. All the appropriate hangover symptoms will kick in (dehydration, vomiting, uncontrollable erections, etc.). But once you’ve emptied your surprisingly-full piss bucket, you’re ready for Day #2. Well, not ready per se; your head is pounding, and you’re starting to think this self-imposed hiatus might not be such a great idea. Luckily, you’ve got just the thing…
Day #2: Cannabis
Inebriated Flicks of Choice: Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Now that’s the ticket. Weed’s a pain-reliever, right? Doesn’t it settle the stomach, too? You’ve got those two problems in spades, but not for long. You learned how to make a gravity bong from some chick on Yahoo! Answers the other week, and after a few puffs of something your dealer called “Dragonberry Cheese,” that hangover’s totally mellowed out, man. It’s movie time, but you don’t want to watch something that requires even an iota of thought. No, you need a movie you’ve seen a thousand times, one whose characters, themes, and plot points are as familiar as the back wall of your empty fridge. But it should still entertain you. Lord of the Rings should do it. Hell, Gandalf’s stoned pretty much the whole time, isn’t he?
What you can expect: To sleep through the closing scenes of all three movies. You know how it all ends anyway—they get the ring to the volcano, save Middle Earth, have a hobbit orgy at the top of Orthanc, blah blah blah—so it’s not hard to hand your consciousness over to the Dragon…berry. You’ll order Chinese food after Fellowship, and accidentally use the sesame chicken as a pillow shortly after. You’ll awake the next morning feeling refreshed (if a bit bloated), hangover-free, and substantially more retarded than you were 72 hours ago. That’s just the “Cheese” part doing its thing.
Note: You also could have gone with Pineapple Express, which is sort of like Beerfest for weed.
Day #3: Adderall
Inebriated Flick of Choice: Donnie Darko (2001)
After all this quality rest, you’re feeling a bit guilty about pumping your petulant body with all those pesticides. You need a little reminder of how smart you used to be. So now it’s time for Adderall, which provides the dual benefit (if you remember correctly from college) of keeping you awake and, more importantly, turning you into a temporary genius. You’re ready to watch something more cerebral, and that’s where Donnie Darko comes in. You only heard about it from your hipster neighbor down the hall, who alleged that it was “so meta, man. So totally meta.” Whatever that meant. But during your second round of 20mg, your brain yearns for meaningful stimulation…! Besides, the hipster lent you his DVD, and nobody else on your floor will open their doors to you, for some reason.
What you can expect: To guess every major plot point just before it happens. Those amphetamine salts get the ol’ synapses firing, yessiree. But there’s no way you’ll guess the ending, let alone understand it (at first). Luckily, in your brain’s current state you have a hunger for knowledge (and little else, actually, since Adderall inhibits the appetite). After you return the DVD and engage the hipster in 48 minutes of intelligent-sounding drivel, you’ll spend the next six hours Googling questions like “Did Donnie really time-travel?” “What did Grandma Death whisper in his ear again?” “Is there really a tangent universe?” and “Oh my god am I grinding my teeth?” You’ll smoke some leftover weed to settle down, probably.
One of the best columns I’ve read at Unreality. Keep this TJ Fink fellow around awhile. I love that most of the obvious choices were avoided. Gonna have to try at least Day 2, but the theatrical or extended versions?
Well done. Well, well done. Well. Done.
This is pretty awesome. I would say that memento might be a better choice for adderall. That or maybe Scott Pilgrim because it’s so fast paced.
Too funny, some good, if unexpected choices. I was expecting half baked to pop up somewhere in there (you know where).
I’d say your right about LSD, no way an entire flick is getting watched. Same with mushrooms. But if I had to choose I’d probably go with Enter the Void, or maybe Tron Legacy. Just pure eye candy. The visuals in both movies would have you pretty well transfixed. Not that I’d know.
No mention of Pauly Shore or Bio-Dome….What kind of drug filled world does he live in?!
I don’t know about this article. Kinda changes my perception of this whole site. We’ve all probably experimented with some type of drugs in our lifetime, hence some of our interests, but haven’t most of us moved on from that point? Paul you’re going to be married, what are you doing telling the kiddies to watch movies while on ADHD medication? This is a step backwards when we all should be taking a step forward.
Also, yes you CAN watch an entire movie while on LSD, and it makes it VERY interesting. But that’s beside the point, and I’m not advocating that. One of the biggest regrets of my life.
@Tim “We’ve all probably experimented with some type of drugs in our lifetime, hence some of our interests, but haven’t most of us moved on from that point?”
Not everyone is a maturing, aging, viewer on this site. This site goes after all age ranges, and although your experimental drug phase is in the past, it does not mean there aren’t others (much younger than yourself), who can find a lot enjoyment out of this article.
And for one article to have enough influence to change “your perception of an entire site”, is just………….wow.
@Marvin the Macabre and @andrew
Extended, if you want to make a real day of it. Half Baked was an obvious knee-jerk reaction for me too, but I decided to go in a slightly different direction…
@MattChi
Many thanks!
@porgins
It was actually a toss-up between Donnie Darko and Memento when I sat down to write this. Excellent instincts, sir/ma’am.
LSD or DMT is definitely the film Enter The Void…holy shit is that the most intense movie of all time.
Watch the movie “Altered States” while doing psychedelics.
any. muppets. movie.
LSD = Pink Floyd’s The Wall
Not only did I sit through the whole movie but I watched it twice in a row. Honestly, the final credits started to roll and I was like “I have to see that again”. So, I rewound the movie (yes, it was on VHS) and watched the whole thing over again. Amazing. I will never forget that night.
Oh, and don’t do drugs. Or something. I guess.