My first day in Prague with Beny

I was in Prague from May 26th to July 2nd in 2017with a Creative Writing class with Columbia College Chicago.

One of the first weekends there, my German friend Beny came to stay with me for the weekend, and he is one of the best people to have fun with in a place. And he is back in Chicago until November 9th! So I'm excited to be with him again.

He first showed up in Prague late at night, we met up with our fellow classmates at a pub, then went to sleep soon after to rest up for the next day.

We got up and went to get something to eat at a restaurant. Czech food is very good, but I was going very heavy on the goulash in my first week there and my stomach was not used to it. As Beny and I finished our meal we left and as we were walking down the street, I felt a fart coming, so I began to break wind and a little extra came out. So I went back to the restaurant to take care of this and Beny went off to go buy cigarettes.

I cleaned up and found Beny near a scooter rental place. We soon rented these bad ass scooters for two hours and began riding around Prague in them! Good thing I shit my pants, or Beny might not have found these scooters. We went all over the city, up hills and down streets and it was a lot of fun. Beny is extremely social and friendly, so through out the day he was asking locals which places were the best to go to at night. We learned quite a few, and soon we went to see a British improv team called "Men With Coconuts" as a part of the Prague Fringe Festival.

After that we ended up going to the Stalin Monument that night. It's on a giant hill that you have to walk up many paved steps to get to. There's a big statue of Stalin there that you can sit near and overlook the city from. There was a DJ there playing techno, places to buy drinks, and we met some fun people, talked and had a great time.

Beny and I with a vague view of the city

Later Beny and I went to Cross Club around 1am. It was a really cool night club. From the outside, there was a bunch of little bridges connecting to one another, with benches and people hanging out.

Inside there was a couple of different bars and little dance areas playing good techno. Beny soon saw a group of three attractive ladies, and he approached them and we all started talking.

We soon found out that they were from a country called Georgia and they were all named Miriam. They had a spliff of some kind, that they began to smoke it and gave us some. I took a few hits and felt fine. For some reason I thought it was just tobacco. I began chatting up one of the Miriam's, as I felt some vibes of attraction.

The other Miriam handed me the spliff again, and there was a weird sense I got from this. When I hit it again, it came to me that there was something else in there other than tobacco. I began to get very in my head and anxious. I was still trying to hit on the one Miriams, and I had mustered up the courage to put my hand on her leg, and she was okay with this. We were attempting to speak to each other, but with the language barrier, it was difficult. I nervously moved my hand up closer to her thigh and back down again and she very overtly grabbed my hand and slapped it onto the table. This was embarrassing, and I continued to linger at the table for another few minutes awkwardly. I soon left and went to a table with Beny.

He was with some fellow German guys, and some Czech guys. They were beatboxing and rapping, but it died down quickly. I was sitting across from a Czech guy who started talking to me incoherently, and it was scaring me, as he was staring at me and taking long pauses between his speech.

"Sorry man, I can't understand you, do you speak English?" I said continuously.
"I crazy... I get gun, I go boom.... You understand?"

He might have said this a few more times, and combined with whatever I had smoked, and the chilly temperature outside I felt quite vulnerable. So I soon left with Beny to go and dance inside to some techno. It was warm in there, and I was able to enjoy my high and the music.

We stayed in this club the whole night, I was soon walking around and talking with people from Scotland, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, England and Prague.

I remember this one German girl approaching me and speaking to me only in German. She was very pleasant, smiling and touching my arm a lot. I only responded to her with things like "I can't understand what you are saying, I don't speak German." And she would respond in German, with a big smile and affirming head nods. It was like she was having a conversation with herself through me. She soon thanked me, squeezing my arm and walked away. She said no words to me in English, it was so bizarre and interesting.

I met back up with Beny, and as it got light out, we were talking with some guys and they asked us, what we thought of "E=Mc squared" and it delved into a deep philosophical discussion about being good and self discovery. Beny was saying that to him it meant letting go of your ego or "eggo" as he pronounced it, and becoming best friends with yourself. Other people said stuff like "The universe is within yourself" and "When we breathe we are breathing in God."

It was awesome to see all these different cultures speaking the same language of humanity.

We went home around 9am and after that night I became present to the magic of Prague, and I felt that European people are present to this magic of life and being a contribution to the universe.

Beny and I have had other European adventures that I will go into more, and this was the first one! :)

A Double Cop Encounter

I was with my friend Kevin one night back in 2012 sometime. It was a summer night, and he was driving us around in the suburbs, and we were looking for somewhere to smoke weed. We found a bench and parked near it and got out and sat on it, we began packing a bowl to smoke it.

We took a few hits, and very soon, a cop car pulled up flashing it's lights. My first instinct was to lay down flat on my back on the ground, with my head up. As if that was somehow going to hide me.  I suppose I was attempting to either melt into the earth, or disguise myself as the grass, to be left unseen. Kevin soon told me to get the fuck up and run with him into the abyss of tall weeds.

Some cops yelled at us to come back, and we did not. We ran deeper into the weeds and I lost a flip flop, I was upset about this. Kevin and I were scared and kept going further and further into the weeds.

We were far enough into the weeds to not be seen, and to see the car. The cops did not follow us into the weeds, and we waited a few more minutes and they eventually left.

Kevin and I retreated back to his car, and drove off. For some reason, Kevin felt like driving further into the neighborhood, as to not immediately leave the scene of the crime, onto the streets. I believe that was his logic. He was driving us around this neighborhood, and I was panicking that the cops were going to find us near the scene of the crime.

Finally, Kevin left the neighborhood, and we went over to our friend Kyle's house. I also had a bag of beer in Kevin's car, and was excited to drink them when we got to Kyles, and reduce the anxiety of what we'd just escaped.

We got there as Kyle was walking out to get some food. He told us to wait there as he would be back in a few minutes with his food. I was very stressed out and anxious, I felt that drinking a beer would calm my nerves a bit. So Kevin and I sat on the curb, I cracked open a beer by myself as Kevin did not want one.

I was about half way through my beer and a cop car pulled into the parking lot that we were sitting in. I put my beer down, grabbed the bag of the rest of them and began walking away.

"Hey, where are you going?" The cop asked. Kevin was in front of me, walking away, but he soon turned around to talk to them. "We are just waiting for our friend!" Kevin called back, I tried to grab him and prevent him from talking to them and was unsuccessful. I put my bag of beer, which had my weed inside that bag, down behind a car.

The cops came after us upset and demanding things from us. "Sit down, why were you walking away from us?"

I didn't have much of an answer for him. Kevin was not doing anything, so he was upset, because I was the one doing illegal things. They questioned us, and I was very pissed off, I thought they were going to give us drinking and or possession tickets. I also had my bowl in my pocket and was scared they were going to find it.

I thought to myself, "I don't care if they put this on my record, I'm gonna move to L.A. one day and be rich and famous, maybe I'll do porn and make a bunch of money."

One of them found the bag of beer I put behind the car, and they lectured us for awhile. Our friend Kyle walked passed them with his food, and I imagine was quite surprised that we managed to get in trouble with the cops in the short time he spent getting his food. They never searched us, and allowed us to go hang out with Kyle without giving us tickets.

We went up to Kyle's apartment, and sat on a bed with a piece of paper on it with a big pile of broken up weed on top of it. I scooped it up with the bowl that I had in my pocket the whole time. I began smoking it with a racing heart beat, upset that they had taken away my ability to get drunk that night, and scared about almost having been arrested.

An Almost Fist Fight in Carbondale

So, around April 2014 near the end of my one year studying at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I began taking antidepressants (Paxil CR in the morning, and Trazodone at night), as I was dealing with depression, and had taken a break from this kind of medication for awhile. Doing this gave me a "not give a fuck attitude", and a freedom to be and express myself more intensely than before. I soon began to smoke weed again, as I didn't get paranoid about life anymore, and I was generally happier.

I was jovial, loud, expressive, abrasive, aggressive, flirtatious, confident and many other things. I was going for what I wanted without fear of consequence, and pushing boundaries in a nihilistic fashion. I was doing stand up, playing basketball, and going to class and parties, nearing the end of my time in Carbondale.

There was one Saturday night where I was walking home from a bar around 2am and I was walking passed some houses, and in one of them was a frat party happening. So I walked inside and was greeted by a few people.

I went to an area with some couches with a bunch of people there and I sat down next to some girls and some guys. I was drinking and being a bit weird. There was a muscley guy who lived there who asked me for my name, and I wouldn't give it to him, as I felt like being difficult.

"It's okay that you're here, I just want to know your name."
"Josh" I said. I might have said some other names too, and he left me alone as I wasn't really telling him my name, but was just being silly. There were some girls next to me that were on their phones, basically ignoring the party. I had a big issue with this, as they were good looking, and their phones were interfering with me being able to hit on them. So I said something like.

"Hey, why don't you get off your phone, there is a party happening." They ignored me, and there was a guy standing up next to them who said.

"Yeah, we're keeping it that way."
"What?" I asked.
"We're keeping it that way. She's my girlfriend don't talk to her."
I mockingly shrugged at him as we had a short back and forth until he said.
"I'm gonna kick this kid in the face."

I stared at him, as he'd just threatened me. We had been drawing some attention to ourselves, and as I stood up menacingly staring at him, people became alarmed. The muscley guy who asked me for my name earlier got in my face saying.

"That's my boy right there, don't be talking shit to him." I continued to stare at his boy, while people around me were saying. "You should just leave." I didn't want to, I felt slighted, and I wanted to fight this guy one on one who was talking shit to me for talking to his girl friend on the couch.

The muscley guy took off his shirt, creating an audible gasp from some surrounding folk and began telling me to get the fuck out of his house. I wasn't budging, so he put his hand on my chest, slid it up to my throat and shoved me backwards. This really annoyed and embarrassed me

I was outnumbered, and not stupid enough to take on a whole living room. I saw that I was defeated and I listened to the surrounding people's advice to leave. I began walking to the door and saw a skateboard propped up near the window. I briefly considered picking it up to wack somebody, or smash it against the window. Luckily, I did not do that.

As I approached the front door, I looked back at the muscley dude. I'm not sure why, I guess just to piss him off or "show them" that they should be ashamed for kicking out such a fine individual from their party. He saw this as a taunt I presume and charged me, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!" 

He shoved me out onto the porch. I smashed into the railing, and grabbed half a beer can throwing it at him just as he shoved me again down the steps of the porch. Hitting the railing again I jumped down the rest of the steps to make hastily away from him.

He and three other guys chased me out as I ran away a bit, but I also remember looking back at them taunting me and being intimidating. So I was kind of backwards shuffling away so I could yell at them and make some less than favorable remarks to them as well as we soon parted ways.

I crossed the street and walked by their house again as that was the direction I had to go to go home. As I walked passed there was one guy out on the porch who was yelling things at me. I pulled down my pants and showed him my ass hole. Which provoked him to reply. "Yeah I bet you like getting plugged up!" Which I replied something along the lines of me enjoying it, but only by his father. I then yelled "Luke Warner mother fuckers remember that name!"

I walked a bit further and saw a group of four guys standing there who asked me what happened. I told them, and they invited me inside to chat for a bit. I remember it as a profound moment, because I was fed up with school and wanted to quit to do comedy. One guy just kept telling me to make it happen, as I was probably repeating myself a lot after awhile. I soon left to go home and sleep.

I wanted to leave SIU around February but stayed until late May/June, completing all of my classes to come to Chicago and do improv at Second City and many other things around comedy.

This is one of the few times in my life where I've been involved in a physical altercation. I soon resorted back to my kind natured self, and this was the second to last time I got involved with taking anti depressants. I have been off them for a couple years and plan on never going back on them again.

I was asking for trouble, and the combination of new medicine, and alcohol affected my pride, ego, and my sense of justice was a bit off kilter. I did some other foolish things during the period of being on this medicine, I'm sure all delve into more soon.