One of the few enjoyable things about the Writer’s Guild strike two years ago was that I had the time and general lack of daily purpose to get stoned a lot more. It was nice. After a morning of awful picketing in the January freeze we’d go back to the closest apartment, smoke up and play video games or get something awesome to eat. One day after picketing by Fox, Donald Glover (by the way his movie Mystery Team is in theaters now. GO SEE IT!) got all crack heady and told us we had to go the nearby Bon Chon restaurant for the best fried chicken he’d ever had.

The strike was one of the weirdest times of my life. I’d literally been in the guild for a month when they decided to go on strike putting my still very precarious writing career on indefinite hold. I’d quit my day job, gotten a more expensive apartment, sunk a good amount of money into travel to and from L.A. and then BAM I was out of work as quickly as I started. And no one knew when or if it would end.

To make matters worse my dad, for a reason I still can’t exactly figure out, HATES unions. His Reaganite hatred of unions is surpassed probably only by his hatred restaurants that don’t serve free bread and Arab people. So pretty much every conversation I had with him at the time ended with him telling me I was an idiot for being on strike and I should just stop it already…  as if being on strike was the equivalent of smoking cigarettes. If only I had the will power to quit this goddamned strike we could all live healthy happy lives again.

So I was tense.

Which is where the marijuana comes in.

I’ve never been an avid smoker. Don’t get me wrong, I love weed. I smoke weed semi-often. I’m seriously considering getting a prescription when I move to LA. I have a drug dealer on my iPhone favorites here in NY. But I’ve got boundaries. If I have shit to do that night or the next day, I don’t smoke. If I’m going to be around anyone but close friends who would find my stoned hop-scotching between laughing convulsions and silent paranoia uncomfortable, I don’t smoke. If I’m planning to do anything physically active in the next day, I don’t smoke. Simple rules like that cut out the vast majority of my smoking opportunities.

But the strike created a perfect storm of reasons TO smoke; Nothing to do- CHECK; No one to see all day other than my out of work writer friends-CHECK; Crippling depression- CHECK.

And with that I began to set my schedule around one of my favorite NYC past times… the daytime stoned adventure. Now weed, for better or worse, is generally used as a night time recreational substitute for (or addition to) alcohol. But the drug’s properties are so perfectly suited for bumbling around the city in the middle of the day! The bright colors of daytime, the fast service and lunch specials of off hours restaurants, and the wonderful simplicity of uncrowded public spaces. NYC is to daytime-NYC as The Muppets are to Muppet Babies.

To make it even better, the city is basically designed for people with questionable mental abilities! If I’m lost anywhere, there’s a map on the every subway. If I’m being unsafe, the god-like voice of Regis Philbin will tell me to buckle-up. My credit card works everywhere, regardless of how much money I actually own!

So today our dumbed down adventure was to a land of magical fried chicken called Koreatown. But much to the dissapointment of our munchying eyes when we got there the place was closed and told us come back at 6pm.

“6pm? That’s 3 hours from now!?”

“Let’s just go to your place and play with your dog.”

“You got a dog?”

“Remember Lincoln logs?”

“I need to take dump.”

The rest of the strike went by similarly. Picket, smoke, bumble around, picket, smoke, play with Pally’s dog, picket, smoke, try in vain to grow a strike beard…

I kept forgetting to go back to Bon Chon because, you know, I was stoned.

And then word of the strike ending came. Our strike was actually considered relatively successful, getting a host of concessions from the studios & networks that the guild had been hoping for. It was an enormous relief. My brief mid-20’s stoner phase was coming to a close. I knew what I had to do:

Smoke a ton of weed, write on my hand “BON CHON FRIED CHICKEN 314 Fifth Avenue DON’T GET LOST!” and get in a cab.

What followed was the greatest orgy or crispy, moist flavor i’d ever experienced.

The Korean fried chicken is totally different than American style fried chicken- and I’d argue better. Without a trace of chewy fat leftover, every part of the perfectly fried outside has the sweet crackle of candy. The inside is cooked perfectly through, steaming hot from the center out. The meat is thicker, juicier and leagues better than the paltry, bulk processed wings of standard joints. The soy garlic sauce that lightly coats the skin manages to be perfectly salty and sweet at the same time, making it near impossible to ever feel tired of the flavor as you’re eating it. And all this with a significant amount less grease than it’s American counterparts.

Even the side dishes at this place were amazing. My roommate Merisa ordered a cooked salmon & egg sandwich that blew our minds.

And the soju! Fresh squeezed lychee soju, like a sweet fine nectar that also gets you messed up!

And the Asian waitresses! Each one cuter than the last! Each shirt tighter and more low cut than the previous!

It was the most perfect night in a long time.

Weed had got me through a difficult time, and I was coming out the other side ok.

I’ve gone back a couple times since, this last week was the first time with Merisa though. Everything was delicious as always, but we weren’t stoned, cause you know, we’re grownups and stuff now.

We tried to order again the delicious salmon & egg dish that we had the time before, but the waiter had no clue what we were talking about. He said nothing like that has ever been on the menu. We insisted we had it, and it was amazing. He said maybe we were thinking of another resturaunt. We were pretty sure we hadn’t mistaken this place for another Korean dance club restaurant hidden in an office building. But he looked at everything on the menu, and nothing seemed to match. And POOF the Keyser Soze of sandwiches was gone. Did it ever exist at all?

It’s a lot like my brief hiatus as a total stoner. I know it happened. I’m glad I did it. But maybe it’s better it just stay a memory.

I’ve got shit to do.