Two Whiskies and a Spliff: Fainting at the Opéra and the Shortest Job Interview. Research.

It was the shortest interview I ever had.

He threw me out of that office.

So fast.

I thought I was gonna faint.

You ever faint?

Everything goes light, your arms and legs

(from the blood surging to core

Leaving the extremities to their own devise.)

That’s how it was on the elevator down.

And then in the street my head pounded from adrenaline

Like when you wake at the wheel

to the sound of rubber over reflectors

After dozing at 75.

That day I leaned on a light pole, then doubled over.

Viscerally torn in pieces

But couldn’t vomit.

And I couldn’t cry either.

This feeling was different.

Shame.

The shame in confronting my own hubris.

I was sure everyone passing by could see it on me,

or smell it on me, the stink of shame:

from failure, from Hubris,

to have believed that which you are not.

Thought I was a real hot shot

cause I used a briefcase or somethin'.

Cripes.

I heard coffee cake voices on the sidewalk:

"There's the guy who just got chucked out of that office"

If it wasn't the shortest interview,

it was the most humiliating.

I can still get the sick feeling from the experience

Thinking about it now.

So I’ll stop that.

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Fainting at the Opera, Carmen, The Met, NYC:

I don't know if it was the first time I fainted

And I don't think it was the last time,

But it was before the turn of the century

That's for sure.

Lincoln Center, The Met, NYC Opera.

They let just about anyone in that place

(who's willing to stand).

I think I paid 10 bucks.

I may have been wearing