I’m pretty neutral about the subject of um….recreational use of a ….uh….a not-so-legal-except-for-medicinal-purposes-but only in some states….um…. substance….yeah. I know some recreational users who can function quite well, sometimes even better than people who have never touched the stuff. But—then again, I know quite a few recreational users who broke the stupidity scale in terms of functioning.

There was a time when I was the one standing on this  stupid scale….

The other day I was scanning pictures from my old sketchbooks and saw a bunch of drawings that made me go, “the fuck is this?” And then I realized I was a a bit of a mess when I did them.   Here are 10 drawings plucked right out of my once out of place mind.

10.  Think first…

After feeding the side effects with Chinese food, I saw the reflection of a satisfied man in the mirror and decided to draw him. The drawing ended up looking like a disgruntled man giving me a lecture on why I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing. It’s like even though I looked satisfied, my brain felt violated enough to subconsciously draw me looking disheveled and annoyed. The only thing missing that could make this a more accurate description of my inner thoughts was if the statement ” Think first, before drawing yourself under the influence” was followed by “asshole!”

9. Noah’s ark had an orgy.

There are five chameleons in this drawing and they are all  camouflaged. I’m actually quite embarrassed about this picture…I mean seriously—gaudy colors…. shit composition…It’s like I never went to art school. Besides the chameleons, there are two dinosaurs on here, two cats, four birds (including one bow-tied penguin), one fish, one rabbit, one giraffe, and one dead artist–who looks like he fell to his death while wearing a shirt that says “Out of my head!”

8. Dave Chappelle and Punky Brewster

This is the consequence of web surfing while under the influence. Hey, it could have been worse…with all the fucked up shit all over the internet, this could have been a cow humping a lady-boy prostitute in a kiddie pool full of poop…and two girls playing with a cup in the background. Anyways, the Chappelle’s show was on TV so I googled his name— and in an internet search game of word association, without knowing I somehow ended up looking at a picture of Soleil Moon Frye, the girl who was Punky Brewster. Then I played another game, it’s called image association…the shadow of Soleil’s hair made her look like Brandon Lee’s The Crow…and crows are black, which is the complete contrast of white, hence the white dove. This all felt significantly mind blowing at the time.

7.  Coke….get it?

Me and another person…who will remain nameless….were cracking up at the idea of some guy snorting coke out of a coke bottle. The idea amazed us. “Why haven’t this been done before?!” So I drew it before I forgot about it. I wanted to make people think! It’s a a guy snorting coke out of a coke bottle! Think about it! That shit’s meta. That shit’s deep! Unfortunately, the only way this could be any form of compelling was if the rest of the world was as spaced out as we were.

6. My drawing is speaking to me.

Coincidences are fuel for Paranoia. When I finished drawing this horrible portrait of my left hand, I blessed the thing by sprinkling it with ink. To my horror, the ink dripped into the word, “Hi.” That was enough to convince me that the drawing was trying to send me a message. I contemplated about this for hours even coming to a point where I was telling myself, “Vic calm down…you’re not going insane…this is just an accident. Your drawing is NOT trying to communicate with you.” But just in case, I splashed ink on several more pieces of paper looking for messages. There was a lot of letters with mostly vertical lines and a ton of dots….the message I got was I needed to buy more ink and paper.

5. The fuck is this mess?

I haven’t a got a clue how to describe my train of thoughts when I was doing this. I can’t even make out half the shit that’s on here. Is that the Grim Reaper with a birthday cake? A half-mad half-retarded cow?  A fucked up super Mario shaking his fist? The only thing I could remember about this drawing was that the scarecrow on the top left was wearing a t-shirt that says “BOOM” except the “M” is crossed out so it would say “BOO” instead….because you know, because he’s a scarec–whatever– Anyways, the figure with his hands on his head is the before mentioned person who will remain nameless, whose gesture suggest that he’s got a mad headache. Probably because I was explaining to him what this drawing meant. It’s giving me a headache just thinking about it.

4. Explain this  Stream of Consciousness

This was usually the shit I come up with when I was fucked up. Just a jumble of things that pops in my head and hope that my attention span holds long enough for me to finish what I’m drawing and move on to the next image.

3. The drawing that had nothing to do with the events happening at the time of its making.

Freak outs are terrible. So when this girl I was “recreationing” with started freaking out and demanded to know how to get rid of the “funny feeling” ASAP–I felt compelled to lie–as I tend to do when I’m starting to freak out as well. I said, “Uh…eating food…that should help get rid of it.” When that didn’t work…. I told her to sleep it off. So I had a twitching girl on my bed trying her absolute hardest to sleep and hopeful that when she wakes up, she’ll be her old self again and ready to punch me in the face for getting her involved in this stuff. Anyways, while she was shivering in a fetal position, I was on the floor of my room drawing that little gem you see up there. By the time I was done, I noticed she was sitting up and wasn’t feeling funny anymore. She was too lethargic to punch me in the face by then.

2. When the wacky happy stuff tries its hardest to contain anger.

Now I’m a pretty chill dude. The only times I can remember myself exploding in a fit of anger was back in High School when teen angst ruled and somehow it made sense for me to think like I knew everything and everyone else was stupid therefore ARRRGHHH!!!!. Anyways, I was under the influence and particularly angry  for reasons that are now laughable when I did this.

1.  he he he he….

“I was giggling the whole time I was drawing this.” That statement pretty much sums it up right there. For some reason, a naked dude with a Pompadour shaking his pointer-finger-dick is making me giggle. What’s wrong with me? Oh right….

For the record, I don’t do recreational substances anymore….I’ve actually got the qualifications of a straight edge minus the Hardcore Punk part. Also…. I can’t find the time or the money for it. Besides, I’m working jobs where multi-tasking and attention is a must and for some reason, those two factors are non-existent when I’ve got a hint of that stuff in the system. Also, I can see how this can be an improv-killer…I really don’t know how some people can be habitual users and still  have the reaction time, memorization skills,  and focus when building coherent scenes. Props to those who can.