It's Only Rock-n-Roll ... But If I Could Just, Maybe, Lie Down Here For A Minute ... ?

I've just finished reading Life, the biography of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Amid the anecdotes of his childhood, meeting Mick Jagger, getting the band together and off the ground, and their subsequent success and fame, there is, of course, the sordid history of his drug use.

While reading this book, I came down with something nasty - drainage, coughing, sore throat, chills. I went to the doctor and she prescribed me 875 mg of the antibiotic Amoxicillin twice daily and 10 mL of something called Entre-S Suspension with pseudoephedrine, chlorpheniramine and dextromethorphan, also twice daily. I believe it was the latter of the two medications that, as the medical professionals say, knocked me on my ass.

There I was reading about Richards and his binges of pharmacy-grade Merck cocaine, heroin, pot, Jack Daniels and whatever else the Stones's touring doctor had in his little black bag. And while imbibing, he's barely steering clear of prison in Canada, France and Fordyce, Ark., bedding groupies, staging larger than life tours, jamming with Gram Parsons, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, taking phone calls from Hoagy Carmichael and writing the tunes that would become Exile on Main St., Sticky Fingers and Tattoo You.

I went to my son, JP's, Christmas program at his school all hopped up on this Entre-S Suspension and all I could think of was that I wanted to crawl back home and onto the couch for the rest of the day. In fact, that's just what I did. I have spent days on this sofa doing little more than reading about Keith Richards because that's all the dextromethorphan would allow me to do.

So my hat's off to the guy. It may only be rock-n-roll, but I'm going to need a nap and about five days recovery time.