by Willam Belli
SKIP THIS PART, MOM
I’m just putting this here because no one has ever started a story with “Oh my god, this one time I was having the funnest salad.” No, bitch. Get high. At least once in your life.
If you don’t have rolling papers or want to risk catching Alzheimer’s by puff-puff passing outta a tin can, try ripping out a page in the Bible. Consider it like a holy ghost kinda smoke.
I like to use blunt papers or cut up a Swisher Sweet or Philly. You can lightly moisten it with a spray bottle if it’s too brittle.
Like a baby Tostito Scoop, but for drugs.
This is why I could never transition, ’cause I know if I did, I’d definitely have some ho-length acrylics on 24/7 and couldn’t roll blunts as tight as I do. I dunno how Latrice does it. (Hi, Latrice!)
This is also a great reason to keep a fireplace lighter on hand because nothing says crackhead like burned thumbnails. Fuck flying. If I could chose a superpower it would be a Bic finger. Imagine being able to light your bong just by pointing at it. Nothing says I don’t have custody of my kids more so than a yellowy singed acrylic thumbnail corner. Also, don’t leave a pinky nail long for your bumps. Just use a key, Einstein. Drug habits should never dictate grooming.
I try to vape mostly but will treat myself to a blunt when necessary. I swore off smoking as a habit when my Baltimore PD uncle was diagnosed with throat cancer. He survived and now uses a machine to assist with speaking. And he’s still a policeman. They call him Robocop. (Hi, Uncle Scott!)
I’m lucky to live in LA, but most people I know are at the mercy of a dealer. They want indica, but Candyman shows up and only has sativa. You’re still gonna take it. It’s like chicken nuggets instead of chicken tenders. Whatever. Not what you wanted, but you’ll take it because he’s there and you don’t want to think about being not lit for another minute. But if you have the option, I say start with sativa and end with indica. Like starting with a cocktail and have wine with dinner. You don’t wanna slam Jäger all night then switch to a Pinot. (See chart for what you may like.)
If you pass someone a pipe or a vape, tell them how to smoke it. Don’t make them fumble and ask “Do I press anything?” Yeah, bitch. My right nipple. If someone tries to light a weed pipe from below, do not meth-shame them. Party over here, party over there. It’s all the same. Nobody is trying to hurt anyone. I see people do crystal meth in Australia the way I see people do coke over here. It’s more social. I’ve also seen way fewer than twenty-eight to thirty-two teeth per mouth there, so go figure.
In order to have a good time, it’s often necessary to give up a part of oneself. I’m not talking about surrendering to the music or any diatribe like that. I’m talking about vomiting. One night, after watching my friend throw up into a plant at a club, she told me, “Sometimes, ya gotta throw up to blow up.” She said it helps the roll kick back in when you’re partying. I believed her and gave her a mint. If that doesn’t help kick-start your kiki, sobering up a little might be a good idea. It may even be time to leave the party. Especially if you’ve taken your shoes off or you’ve started crying while sitting on the floor of a club. That’s the nightlife equivalent of tapping out.
For a smooth exit, hit the head and splash some water on your face. Blow your nose and literally clear your head. Check for eye boogers. Now, if you think you can keep it together, do a lap around the club, find where the air vent is in the ceiling, and push whatever fat girl is dancing under it outta the way. You can also lunge toward her like you’re gonna spew again, but be careful ’cause some people like that (it’s called a Roman shower). Either way, the vent is yours now. Feel that refreshing air wash over you. Dance a little on your own. Try to keep the beat so you don’t look like you’re just wandering around the club, looking for a place to fart. Don’t fall, or security will kick you out. It’s also why you never wanna throw up in the bathroom unless it’s a single hitter. Some asshole will feel the need to come out and act like you’re giving birth to a prom toilet baby in there by telling everyone.
If your friends pass out, make sure they’re on their stomach so they won’t asphyxiate on their own vomit. You’re welcome.
Best Boss Ever. 2015 VMAs.
Not all subscribe to the “throw up to blow up” theory. If you do get kicked out, make sure you don’t yell at anyone. Everyone there is just doing their job. Screaming “Only Jog can gudge me, asshole” will only make you look idiotic and your soberer friends will make fun of you later. Handle your ejection with as much dignity as possible. Even if you have only one shoe ’cause you threw the other one at that bitch who was looking at you weird and that’s why you got tossed onto the sidewalk. That’s the club’s shoe now. You should just go. Losing some footwear is the closest you’ll ever get to this being a Cinderella story, though. Remember, there will be more parties and more weekends. If you get bounced, do not try to get back in. At this point, you’re what’s considered a liability to the club and it’s no-can-do. Miley Cyrus said, “Going out doesn’t make you a bad person, just like going to church doesn’t make you a good one.”
I know we all have that one toe that kills by the end of stiletto-wearing night, but never take your shoes off in a club. Aim for 2015 Britney, not 2007 Shitney. Who do you want to be after two a.m.? The bitch who eats shit she wouldn’t eat sober? The bitch who stays up till five trying to still have fun and then sleeps till two the next day? The bitch who puts things in her mouth from boys she won’t even call when the sun’s up? I try to be the person my dog would want me to be. I don’t want him to feel bad about pooping inside because Daddy is passed out and can’t walk him. Even if I’m still in the outfit from the night before, I’m gonna do my duty so he doesn’t do his doodie in the house.
L to R: A dirty dog and their pet Warner.
YOU MIGHT HAVE A PROBLEM IF…
I was struck by a drunk driver on the sidewalk while bike riding when I was thirteen years old. Drinking and driving is terrible. That’s why I only drive stoned. If you want to get twisted at a party, I encourage you to smoke pot and not drink. You should never plan on getting pulled over, but if you are, an officer can check your blood alcohol level instantly with his little blow-buddy machine. There is no machine like that for pot. Always insist on a urine test if you’re pulled over, because that cannot be administered in the field and lots of times the cops don’t want the hassle of risking a time lapse and you pissing clean. I think everyone who’s smoked pot will agree that it’s a different kinda altering substance than booze. Driving stoned and driving drunk are probably both bad. But I know I’d rather be smoky than sloshed if I had to choose between the two while driving a van full of nuns or something. I’m a terrible driver, but I make up for it with aggressive tendencies. I’m also negligent as fuck when I drive as is. Turning my head constantly to check mirrors always rats up my wig in the shoulder/neck area, so I usually just speed up instead of checking my blind spot. With pot, I’m paranoid as fuck that I’m gonna be arrested, so I’m smart enough to wear a shorter wig.
The other good thing about marijuana is that you can’t overdose. Not that it’s a goal or anything. I’ve never OD’d or blacked out, but I also had my first drink at six. My grandmom owned a bar and rationalized letting me try blackberry brandy because she thought it had fruit in it. By nine I knew I hated vodka, and by ten I knew why Malibu Barbie was so happy: it was all the coconut rum the dumb slut drank.
Not many can go as hard as a drag queen, so don’t judge those who might need a quick ER trip. Overdosing in your twenties is fine. Everybody gets one free OD. But if you do it in your thirties, you’re not doing that right. You know damn well by then that your party should never impede your social life to a degree that there are sirens louder than whatever everyone is trying to jam to. We’ve all had those times when a three-day weekend turns into a five-day tweakend. At some point, you’ll be like “Why is Judge Judy airing on a Sunday?” and then you’ll realize it’s actually Tuesday and you definitely missed your bru
nch plans. This is when you’ll wanna empty the ashtrays, open the windows, and breathe some new life into your brain… especially if any of the following ever made ya go “Hmmmm…”:
• If you know that baking powder must be substituted for baking soda in combination with crack cocaine, plus 1 teaspoon of water when cooking in high-altitude climates, you might need to Google “in-patient recovery.”
• If you have to set a timer for your dosages in order to have a good time.
• If your porn tastes are veering into the more extreme subcategories, like suffocation, sounding, fisting, transsexual donkey adventures, cake farts, or anything else so far from the beaten path that even guys from Berlin pass, you may wanna explore what has pushed you in those directions. Amphetamines (e.g., tina, coke, Adderall) affect your brain’s ability to get turned on. It sometimes makes it harder for you to get into the mood without pushing boundaries further than you would without them. A totally straight high school friend of mine got really into transsexual porn once he got into crystal meth. (I know this because he Facebooked me after ten years of nothing, asking if I “partied” and if I was coming back to my hometown for Christmas. I recognized immediately that his motivation was to get some dirt in my skirt and I gave him a hard pass/soft maybe.) Another friend ruined his sex life and several duvets with his popper use. He couldn’t get off without them and just stopped having sex without them. He also liked to inform people rather loudly that it wasn’t herpes on his lip, it was just a poppers burn. It actually resurfaces your skin like a peel if it comes in contact too fiercely.
• If you’re ever worried about having to piss clean, you pretty much have a problem. You should be able to stop whenever you want. Otherwise, it’s officially something you should get a pamphlet for. Don’t try to Google “shotgunning marijuana through your ears” because you think you can get high without it showing up on a drug test. It doesn’t work. Britney didn’t shave her head just because she had split ends. She shaved her head because she probably thought she was gonna lose custody of her kids if they drug tested her with a hair strand test. It’s gonna show up.
Despite what was written in the classic song “Blurred Bynes,” you can smoke a Glade PlugIn. Never did I witness Amanda Bynes doing so, though. She walked in on my pissing once at a friend’s BBQ and was sketch as fuck. (Hi, Bert and Clay!)
• If you’re at the dentist and you ask for a few more minutes on the nitrous just to “relax,” you need to get your parking validated and go. It’s not a day spa for you and your good-time gums. It’ll also make your dental hygienist look at you judgey as fuck. (Hi, Deann!)
• If you ever say you’re gonna “do some Motrin” or “do an Adderall,” you have a problem. You take medicine and you do drugs. #Duh.
• If you’re ever wondering if there’s a recreational level of carbon monoxide use just to try it, you should move to someplace with just a carport. There is no “recreational level” of carbon monoxide use. There’s either “not at all” or “suicide.”
• If your BF is your weed dealer, and you start dating him and stop giving him money, that kinda makes you his crackwhore. Pussy market value usually doesn’t outweigh pharmaceutical needs, be they recreational or necessary.
• If you’ve ever found yourself in a relationship with someone who supplies you with drugs and you still pay him, well, then you’re a crackwhore with a side of stupid. If either of you breaks up with the other, debtiquette dictates that you must at least offer to start paying for ass or grass, respectively. Don’t try calling your dealer at eleven p.m. Make a plan early and stick to it, preferably while the sun is up. You don’t wanna start pre-partying with an RBV and then have your friends show up with a bottle of G or something incompatible like that.
If this interventional page didn’t work, and you go to jail, sorryboutit. I tried. I’ve been inside and it was not fun. I didn’t mind the cavity search, but there is nothing to do. I came to the conclusion that cops are mean sometimes because they have to wear super ugly, unflattering uniforms, which makes them act out on others and fuck up minorities. I was alone my whole time there in the LGBT section, other than this one cellmate for, like, eighteen hours who took the loudest dump in front of me, ruining my Oz Christopher Meloni fantasy. I stacked up the four bunk mattresses in my cell and had a nice “Princess and the Pea” fantasy nap. I could hear the music from the club across the street from the sheriff’s station in WeHo. I distinctly remember them playing “Stranger in my House,” ’cause who doesn’t love Tamia and plus irony. My other legal suggestion (and this is from my LA Lawdog man) is this: if you ever have to take a lie detector test, act like you have a cold and sneeze and sniffle a lot. It throws off the bearings and makes the measurements tweak more than the walking-on-sunshine girl from Intervention.
32
How to SUCK LESS at
ENTERTAINTING
COMPANY PICNIC
I love going out. I got my first fake ID when I was sixteen by standing in a college park in West Philly and offering any white blond people I saw two hundred dollars for their ID. I found one within an hour and gave him my full name, address, and home phone number because I wanted him to be sure I wasn’t trying to steal his identity or anything. I just wanted to fuckin’ party. And party I did.*
I got fired from my dinner theater job because I threw a plate of spaghetti and called a woman a cunt, mainly because I was wickedly hungover and I snapped when she called me a “rude little fag.” I said it was improv, but either way, after that I decided to never let a stupid job stand in the way of my going out. So I started to work in clubs.
Clubs are a stable line of work for unstable people. People without custody of their kids, people who’ve been in recovery. People who can’t find time to get their roots done or their weaves tightened ’cause they sleep all day during regular people hours. Vampires. People who smoke menthols. People who substitute work friends for friend friends. People who figured they’d be at the club anyway so why not get paid to go (that last one was me). I started managing strippers in West Hollywood when I was nineteen, founding a stripper booking agency called Boxmeat and performing in drag at the same age. Along the way, I’ve seen lots of piss-poor behavior (a lot of it in mirrors).
It was always my goal to run away and join a circus as a kid, and I now feel like I did just that. It’s not only because I find myself under a big top in a new city each night but because I’ve literally done every job at a club. I’ve handed out popcorn at leather parties and I was a closing performer at the Life Ball in Vienna for fifty thousand people while singing a song I wrote about buttfucking. These are bible truths from an international glambassador. I mean just look at the pictures. Does this look like someone who’s dying on the inside? Nope!
Errant testicle meat is often described as bubblegum because it looks like smashed Bazooka Joe on a sidewalk and it’s been in people’s mouths at some point.
Every time I’m onstage, I think of it as a chance to make a ton of new friends. Especially if I have a mic in my hand. It’s my job to keep the night going at a pace that everyone can enjoy, whether they’ve got alcoholic atrophy or coke jitters. It’s the entertainer’s job to always put a positive spin on things, even when something sucks. Energy up and attitude down. If some shit happens, just wipe it up and flush it. Sure, you can mention the pink elephant shit in the room, but talking shit is not how you make friends, and that’s what you want really… friends, right? Friends who give you money. In business school they call it “marketing,” I bet. I dunno. I didn’t go to business school. I hear they also teach you to find a niche and fill it. No one was managing strippers in LA before I opened Boxmeat, so I basically checked that off niche-wise, and now I can get my niche filled in return as easy as one text, two text, three text, whore.
Tipping is a huge part of nightlife. It helps you get treated in a manner better than those who don’t tip. When people tip a stripper, bartender, performer, or bouncer, they’re not tipping for t
heir health. They’re tipping to buy someone’s undivided attention for a split second, whether it’s to lightly graze a taint with a dollar or to communicate “There’s more where that came from” to a security guard to overlook the giant line and let you in. Time is money and rarely is it unwelcome. Wait. I forgot about mouth money. If I get sick at a club, I want it to be from making out with a stranger and not from putting your dirty five-dollar oral offering into my mouth. Upon examination, the two things most found on money are cocaine and feces.
If there’s a show going on, it’s not the best idea to interrupt a performance unless there’s money in your hand. If you know a song, sing along. But don’t get crazy. I mean look at what happened to that other kid from Glee, right? If you do interrupt a performer, it’s best to be prepared for anything. I’ve seen big girls use their bodies as weapons onstage to physically hurt people by Operation Dumbo Dropping some punk for pulling focus.
Speaking of huge chunks of flesh flying through the air, it’s always a good idea to make sure you know you’ll be caught when stage diving. Sometimes people would rather keep their drink than hoist a hog body.
These nice people literally pulled off my fake nails as keepsakes in Rio.
Don’t fuck with a stripper either, because they have a way of marking the bad tippers. A simple hug from behind will leave glitter or makeup all up the back of a man’s shirt, so he doesn’t know it but his girl at home sure will when she cleans it. It’s called “booty dusting.” Getting got by the game is just the way it goes. Not every performer is a single mother trying to get back custody of her kids. I mean what would you do if your son was at home, crying all over the bedroom floor ’cause he’s hungry—and the only way to feed him is to sleep with a man for a little bit of money? I would go to cosmetology school while working nights and maybe not go ass to ass with a girl named Diamond at a junior high friend’s apartment.