Tyler Perry « tonygrands.com

^Take a moment to appreciate the animation…

A friend of mine, Desho (pronounced Dee Show), is putting his album together & found me a few weeks ago to see about me doing guest verses on a couple of tracks. Of course, I was with it. It’s like riding a bike, a bike that you loved to death & every time you get a chance to ride again, you jump at the opportunity. Over that course of time, he’d dropped off a couple of tracks to me, but we never set a concrete date to record. Which was cool too, because I hadn’t really found the time (or piece of mind) to sit down & bust some raps like I wanted to. Like I used to back in the day. Finally, all the planets aligned & we set aside Friday night to go & record. By this time, one of our homies, DVS, was also pulled into the mix, which was even better. We were all part of this L.A. underground crew called Live Wire some years ago & I hadn’t seen my nigga in a minute. I was actually the most excited I’d been in awhile about doing anything that didn’t involve my son.

See, after I kicked Death’s ass, I became somewhat of a hermit. A lot of my friends stopped hanging around me & the things I had done for years no longer had a place in my daily life. I was pretty much a completely different person than I was previously. But, in a good way. Needless to say, I didn’t get out much, recreationally. When I had a chance to get out of the house AND record some music AND hang out with a couple of my friends (as opposed to nesting under “homies”), I was all for it. Who, in my position wouldn’t be? Friday night, Desho scooped me & I must say, I was happy to be back at a part of life I’d missed out on for the last couple of years. The plan was go pick up DVS, head to Desho’s to go over the songs a few times & shoot the proverbial shit for a few, then head to the studio.

Now, I’ve known Desho for at least 13 or so years. Hell, we even worked together when I got robbed. & I know he smokes weed. Not like how most cats smoke weed, either. Desho smokes what I refer to as “Superweed.” Superweed is an umbrella term I use for weed that’s way stronger than the average grade that your local weedman readily has available. Superweed usually requires connections with some fella who takes his drug trafficking very seriously. But I digress.

We get to Desho’s crib, go inside & get comfy. You know how genuine chemistry brings out the chatterbox in grown ass men. Mid-convo, I smell it. The Superweed. Desho’s rolling up. See, as y’all know, for 2 years, I’ve been completely sober. Before that, I smoked weed everyday. Getting high was nothing new, & I’d decided that tonight, I was getting high, albeit the first time in about 720 days, but nonetheless. We sparked up the blunt & after only a few (strong, healthy) pulls & massive coughing, I was getting right. As I drifted into the zone, I remembered how much I missed getting high regularly, but also realized I’d passed that particular point in my life where I could blaze copiously, just because it was there. We had the track(s) blaring in the background, purple smoke dancing under the ceiling lamp, all was good. For about 15 minutes. Remember, Desho smokes Superweed.

I went from “buzz” to “high” in a matter of minutes. “Faded” came a lot quicker than I recalled. Now, the music sounded different & I was in a completely other place than I was when I walked in. For 15 years, “faded” was where my high stopped, out of tolerance if nothing else. But not tonight. “Faded” became a distant memory as “stuck” began to crawl up my back like a giant spider. Maybe I just lost the episode of the first time I got really high in my memory bank somewhere between child births & life changes. Regardless, I sat in the chair, unable to move, talk or feel my body. All I could do was hold my head for the sake of it not rolling off of my neck & across the floor into the kitchen. I thought to myself, “I did’nt plan for this part.” I forecasted that I was going to enjoy myself that night, but not to the point of being unable to enjoy myself, if you smell my cologne. Shit, we had work to do. In fact, as I inched toward the event horizon of my intoxication, Desho wants to go over the verses we have. Dude, I couldn’t remember shit that I’d written less than 6 hours ago. & what I wrote down, which sat on a notebook directly in front of me, I literally could not understand. I seriously doubt I’ve ever gotten that high. Like, an undesirable high, where I didn’t even want to go back home, much less pack up & travel to another place to do something that would require a decent amount of professionalism & concentration.

One thing I learned after all those years of drinking was the ability to pull myself back down when I start floating away. Those who know what I’m saying knows that mastering your “drunk” is way harder than mastering your “high,” so to speak. This should be a cake walk. It took a solid 10 minutes of concentration & meditation, but I started to level off to where I could relax & be “faded” again. In the car, on the way to knock out the songs, I told the guys that tonight was a “Tyler Perry” moment for me. No homo. Hanging with old friends, talking like men & coming to the conclusion that, some things in life, I’m just not able to do like when I was a kid.

When I woke up Saturday morning, my wife joked about the amount of empty cookie wrappers strewn across the living room table when she got up. She said she thought to herself, “yeah, he got high last night.” Since wifes nag as a hobby, most wife’s in her position would’ve asked if I drank in some awkward, roundabout way, which would’ve turned a normal conversation into a power struggle, but not mine. We laughed about the wrappers & my revelation that I’m growing up. Like the first time my son beat me in a video game.

Funny how shit happens, things change & life just keeps on rolling along, ain’t it?