Game Over

There comes a point during every acid trip when you realize, "I can not even comprehend how high I am right now. I am so high that there is no way possible in the universe that I could become any more high. No human mind could withstand any more," and then like 45 minutes later you can't even speak or look in a mirror and what you previously thought was the absolute physical apex of survivable intoxication seems more like how you might feel after drinking two beers on cold medicine. That is precisely the experience one has while walking through the "Memphis Jewelry and Gift Show." It is mostly comprised of scores of vendors represented by a rainbow of culturally diverse men selling "namebrand" handbags and "authentic designer fragrances" in a room big enough to park the space shuttle.


There was also a mountain of loose jewelry and "pretzel dippers" for sale. "Pretzel Dippers," I was informed by the manager, "are very big this year." I was not, however, permitted to photograph the pretzel dippers.

There is an endless abyss of loud, poofy-haired, bespectacled beetle-women dressed in jogging suits and adorned with animal print accessories spending the day drinking white zinfandel out of plastic cups, glancing suspiciously at each other, and somehow managing to grunt and waddle their way through the bedlam with an ever-growing cache of bags full of bags attached to their bodies. None of them were receptive to my photographic advances so I was forced to fall back on my training as a wildlife photographer.


In the course of my journey I met this fine lady.

Her name is Becky. Becky is having her teeth "Zoom Whitened." She has decided to take a well-deserved vacation from the stressful jungle of "bona fide" Louis Vuitton handbags and paintings of lighthouses on snowy shores for a little oral rejuvenation.


But wait, there's more. She is actually having this procedure done at a sunglasses booth. It turns out that anybody can just rent these machines to use as promotional tools. You ever seen those Anglerfish that live in the deep ocean and use their light up fleshy thing to lure in prey? To quote Wikipedia - "the fleshy growth from the fish's head (the esca) can be wiggled so as to resemble a prey animal, and thus to act as bait to lure other predators close enough for the anglerfish to devour them whole." Well, the same principle is being applied here by the fine folks at Gulf Breeze Sunglasses. When you rent the machines, they come with two white lab coats so that you can look like a qualified medical professional when you hook patrons' faces up to the laser. I wish I was being sarcastic. They fooled me. I asked the lady administering the treatment about the process and she didn't even know what it was called. Operating the thing is basically like reheating spaghetti in the microwave. See these two "techs" who are "operating" the machine...

...well, they're not doing anything. They're just two friendly, well-intentioned sunglasses salespeople posing for a picture. Becky of course couldn't object to being photographed because she wasn't allowed to open her eyes, and the plastic bit in her mouth keeping her lips spread made it difficult to speak.

If you will now, take a minute and try to imagine a process that will simultaneously make your bones noticeably whiter in a matter of minutes, AND not give you cancer of the head. I felt the pores around my hair loosening just being near the damn thing, let alone giving one a blow job for 15 minutes.

But it's all done in the good name of commerce and who am I to stand in the way? My job is simply to document the world in front of me. So I continue on. Here is another Gulf Breeze Sunglasses employee inviting two patrons to try the machine:


More updates as this story develops.