I Ate Mushrooms and Went to the 'Entourage' Movie

by Stefan Heck

Certain pairings are timeless classics. Peanut butter and jelly. Sports and beer. Marmaduke and laughter. And now, in 2015, psychedelic mushrooms and the Entourage movie. Vince, Ari, and the rest of the boys are back in town, and what better way to experience a two hour cameo-fest than on hallucinogens in a theatre full of guys named Nicky?

6:51 PM

I buy one ticket to the opening night of Entourage. My buddy Reptar drops off a ziplock bag filled with Psilocybe mexicana. I have never been more ready for something in my entire life.

7:00 PM

I ingest the mushrooms. I print out the tickets. 8:45 PM. Let’s do this.

7:21 PM

I’m hungry. I quickly run out to Subway and pick up a footlong Cold Cut Combo — Italian Herbs & Cheese, naturally. I go for the combo: Sun Chips, Diet Coke. Hell yeah, player.

7:56 PM

Back at my apartment, the mushrooms start to kick in. I am aware of my thoughts. I am aware of my breathing. I am aware of my own awareness, and I’m aware that I’m aware of that, too.

8:03 PM

I vomit up the Cold Cut Combo into the toilet. You can still tell I went with Italian Herbs and Cheese because there are bits of Italian herbs and cheese floating around, inside the toilet. I consider going back to Subway and asking for a refund, but decide against it when I realize that I’m dying. I am going to die. Death has come for me on my bathroom floor.

8:48 PM

I’m still in front of the toilet. I remember reading something about ego death on Erowid. Is that what this is? I say the names of friends and loved ones out loud in a futile attempt to maintain a grasp on the last threads of my humanity. Mom. Dad. Grandma. Grandpa. Dave. Thank you, Dave, for letting me use your Netflix account. I’m sorry your recommendations are filled with National Geographic documentaries about Russian serial killers.

9:04 PM

What did I want to be when I grew up? Have I grown up? Is this what I am? Is this what I wanted? I want to talk to my childhood self. I want to assure him that high school won’t be that bad. I want to warn him about September 11th, but also let him know that jokes about September 11th are okay now.

9:16 PM

I finally manage to get up. I sit down in front of the TV. Like Mike is on TBS. “Very Funny,” indeed. I settle down to watch. Maybe enjoying one of my favourite movies will calm me down.

9:26 PM

Okay, why would a halftime show contest involve an actual NBA player playing in that very same fucking game. Are you shitting me? He should be in the locker room, talking strategy with his coach and teammates. What about the potential for injury? Can you imagine the controversy? “Star Player Blows Out ACL During Halftime Show.” What a disaster. No way would anyone clear that.

9:31 PM

And another thing, you have the NBA rights, and you make up a team called the Los Angeles Knights? Those jerseys look like shit, and the logo is garbage. They’re like something from a movie where they didn’t get the NBA license. But they did! You had the license! Make him play on the Clippers! This was back when they sucked, so you’ve got the added bonus of taking a real-life laughingstock to the top of the standings. Jesus. How did you fuck that up?

9:38 PM

Okay, wouldn’t he have had to enter the draft or something? What’s the CBA have to say about this? I mean, yeah, it’s a fairly unprecedented situation, but there has to be something in there that covers it. Like, it seems unfair to the rest of the league that the Knights get first dibs on this child prodigy.

9:41 PM

I just remembered how this movie ends. Calvin loses his magic shoes but still gets the game-winning assist. What’s the lesson there? Even if you lose your basketball powers, you’ll still be good enough to play in the NBA? That’s bullshit. That is total bullshit.

9:47 PM

Holy shit… the visuals are fucking crazy right now. The walls are melting and freezing at the same time. I just feel… at peace. Everything is going to be all right.

9:52 PM

It’s the scene where Calvin throws paint all over the side of NBA superstar Tracy Reynolds’ house. I get irrationally angry. No fucking way would he just laugh that off. First of all, it looks like total shit. You have completely ruined the previous paint job. It’s orange fucking paint and you just fucking splattered it everywhere. You know how much that shit is gonna cost to get removed? Christ, of course you don’t — you’re an orphaned child playing professional basketball somehow. And don’t even get me started on just, like, the basic underlying premise of the movie. A kid playing basketball? Okay, so let’s just… let’s just for a minute assume that a pair of running shoes struck by lightning somehow magically absorbed the skills of Michael Jordan. All right. Even if these shoes imbued a thirteen-year-old boy with the power to play basketball like His Airness, he’s still, like, under five feet. The shoes don’t give him the strength of a grown man, just the skills (which, again, come the fuck on.) You think someone like Dirk Nowitzki isn’t just going to slam him down to the ground? Jesus, what about Rasheed Wallace? Rasheed Wallace would ruin a kid, no question. Ball don’t lie, you pre-pubescent motherfucker. Let’s be real here: even if Calvin somehow got into a fucking National Basketball Association game, he’s suffering a season-ending (if not career-ending) injury within the first five minutes.

10:07 PM

Oh shit, the Entourage movie. Right. It started like an hour and a half ago. Damn it. Okay… let’s think this through. Maybe if I call the movie theatre, they’ll restart the movie for me. I’m sure they’ll understand.

10:13 PM

I read the Wikipedia summary of the Entourage movie. Sometimes it looks like the words are moving around. Pretty crazy.

10:17 PM

All right, the Like Mike page is total crap. It’s filled with fragments and run-ons, and it doesn’t even touch on how unrealistic the whole thing is. It just treats the reader like a child. Like a stupid, stupid child. Looks like I have some work to do.

10:51 PM

Someone named Lipnicki91 locks the Wikipedia page for Like Mike and reverts all my edits. This is fascist bullshit.

10:55 PM

Lipnicki91 sends me several threatening private messages and a link to the Wikipedia article for “Guns.”

11:02 PM

I am now banned from Wikipedia. Fuck this, I’m going to bed.