Commitment

by Gus Langley

I was roofied once.

At the time I was doing a weekly stand up show at a hip local spot in Vegas. Usually these shows would be pretty wild. They were a threat to easily go till one in the morning. This night I had decided to go a little easier on the booze because I had a 5:30 am.

But you know how that goes. An old friend showed up. The crowd was solid. Before you know it were drinking pitchers of some kinda beer that was darker than the ally out back we smoked weed in.

Late into the evening we decided to step back into said alley to smoke a blunt, as was tradition. I had about a half a pitcher of beer left, so I kindly asked the comedian we had been chilling next to if she would mind keeping an eye on my beer. She was happy to oblige.

Well....one blunt turned into 3 and 45 minutes later we were headed back inside. The guardian of my pitcher was gone, understandably, but the beer was still there. I considered that a win. I was wrong.

The next part I'm not really sure of. I don't know if she was trying to drug me...or if one of the local neck beards was trying to drug her. Either way, I'm the one who drank the rest of that pitcher. It tasted completely different. It literally tasted like crushed up pills. No, I won't explain how I know that.

Anyway, that's when things went sideways. I apparently went back on stage and made I top drawer ass of myself. I was wasted. Not one too many.....wasted. Which was out of character for me. At the time I was known to do a little drinking on the clock, but this was 7 sheets to the wind shitfaced outta nowhere. Thank god that old friend of mine was there.

He knew me of old and knew something was wrong. He wouldn't let me drive home. He is one of the heroes of this story.

Flash forward to 9 am the next morning. I awaken to about 15 phone calls from the production I was working on. At this point I was already almost 4 hours late for call time.

Upon standing to leave my bed, I realized several things. My car was still at the bar. I'm wearing someone else’s clothes... and I am sick. Like... the most hungover I've ever been. Like... 'just please kill me' level hangover. That being said, I had to get to the set if I didn't want to get fired from this pilot.

My roommate stepped up to the plate and offered to give me a ride to the bar to scoop my car. He is the second hero of this story. Not only did he give me a ride, but he was relatively chill about needing to pull over so I could vomit blood several times. He got me to my car and I began to speed to set.

I get to set and it turns out we are filing on location at a church. What fun. Here I am looking like a hot mess. It's hot out and I'm the sickest I've ever been. Luckily, I was playing a total party animal character, so I decided to finish the blunt I found in my ashtray and headed on in.

When I checked in with the production managers it turned out I had really only missed one shot. As it turns out, the director mistook my bedraggled appearance for character work. Instead of being fired for my lack of professionalism....I was being praised for my commitment to character. Everyone was so impressed. I spent the rest of the day napping on the marble floor between takes. It really helped. All in all, it turned out pretty well.

My takeaway? Always finish your beer... unless it tastes bad.