... AN ISLAND

A few years ago I picked some items up from a friend's house. While there, this friend told my helper and me that he had some Gilligan's Island episodes collected on video tape. In addition to this he also had some 'weed'. In went the VHS tape and out came the 'stuff'. (I must state that I 'smoke up' very infrequently.) The episode rolled -- it was the one where Gilligan, in order to gain favour with some visiting natives, marries the fat daughter of the tribe's chief -- and we lit up. I sat closest to the television and every time there was some funny stuff happening on-screen, my buddies, who were sitting behind me, would crack up laughing: While laughing uproariously myself, I was thinking, "wow, man... the laugh track's in Stereosonic Sensorsound!" Well, my lord, for a show which is funny under normal conditions, smoking some fine 'grass' while watching only convinces you that it is Art. And there were things I never noticed before. The 'smoking' proponents are right. This experience reminds me of a Bob Dylan song; one which he has yet to write, "Fine Grass and Gilligan's Island". Back in film-school a classmate of mine once proclaimed, "you know what show is hilarious when you're on 'mushrooms'?... Batman". Gotta go...