The Secret DJ tells a story of taking magic mushrooms on a flight to Miami

I often have to check my luggage for drugs. Usually a nice airport security staff member will do this for me, but I like to do it myself first. When you are a DJ people genuinely do throw drugs at you. Sometimes quite literally. They can put a ‘gift’ of drugs in your bags at the club with all the best intentions in the world. It doesn’t occur to them in a few hours the same bags will go through scanners and x-rays, expert dogs and machine-gun wielding professional sadists. Also there was every chance someone like my Tour Manager would put some in there ‘for safe keeping’ and then forget. So it is always best to check.

My Tour Manager and I were bound for the yearly conference of our industry in Miami. The Winter Music Conference, or WMC, set itself up in the 80s as the go-to conference for the global industry. Naturally, being American, they really and earnestly believed all that nonsense. We usually had all our business done for the year by the time it came around, but it didn’t hurt to be seen there. Our hosts usually locked up all the booze, drugs and women when the Brits were due to arrive, conditioned as we were by bizarre Victorian licensing laws to attack everything like wobbly Vikings in a blind panic that everywhere would stop serving us at 11pm and the Queen might be angry.

Boarding imminent, I went to the toilets and had a rummage. In a rarely-used crevice I discovered a withered bag of dried nonsense. I couldn’t quite work out what it was at first. I had a sniff and a feel. It looked like leaves or herbs, but not marijuana. Possibly the remains of a mummification process, or satanic ritual. I went back out to the departures lounge.

“I think I’ve got a large bag of magic mushrooms. I’m fairly sure they’ve been there since forever and have since been through every airport in the world, undetected.”

My Tour Manager wasn’t interested really. He was keen on fast, expensive things. I went over to the bar and ordered tea for two. Then I ditched the tea and put all the contents of the bag in the hot water pot. Wheels would be off the tarmac in 20 minutes.

“URGH!”

The Tour Manager had a habit of saying words from 1950s children’s comics that were only ever written down, never spoken.

“PFFFT! This tea is vile!”.

“Shut up and drink it.”

I felt bad-but-not-bad. You should never spike a friend, no matter how much it needs doing.

We both drank all the tea.

I woke up feeling most peculiar. I was on the plane, but not actually on the plane. It looked like a plane’s interior, but it was like a cartoon of a plane. Or rather a line drawing of one. A good draughtsman’s job of work. I was experiencing a strange sensation, like floating. I turned to the Tour Manager, who for once looked fairly beatific and serene.

“I feel floaty.”

“You’re flying,” he replied.

“Am I flying? That is amazing.”

“If you press that magic button up there a sexy woman appears.”

“Really?! That is also amazing. Can I try?”

“Please. Go crazy.”

“Hahahaha.” I pressed some buttons and a lovely lady appeared. I gestured towards my Tour Manager.

“He says I’m flying!”

“He’s quite correct Sir. You’re flying,” she replied.

“That is just … amazing.”

“It’s fairly commonplace, sir.”

“Oh no. That is very cynical, madam. It’s a beautiful thing. You should try it.” I turned to the seat next to me.

“AAAEEEE! He’s vanished!”

“I think he went to the lavatory, sir. Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Please, just bring him back! He’s not a bad person at all, just a bit different.”

“I’m right here you idiot,” came a voice.

“AAHH! How on earth do you do that!?”

“Well what happens is, you take loads of antique hallucinogens and I don’t.”

“Of course I did, you fool! I know that! And so did you.”

“You’re being an idiot, and no I didn’t.”

“Am I? Makes a change. Tsssst, hehe … oo. Watch! Watch! Watch this!” I pressed the call button again. The attendant appeared.

“Yes sir?”

“Ppppfffftt…. hhh hhhf … excuse me …. tssssfff pppffft hehehehehe … HOW HIGH ARE WE? Hahahhahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!”

“About thirty thousand feet, sir.”

“Aaaah …hahahahahaha! hehehehe ffffft!”

My Tour Manager intervened. “I’m terribly sorry, but he’s a bit simple.”

“Pfffffft hahahahaa!”

“He’s a sort of high-functioning savant. I’m his doctor – pleased to meet you.” He was doing his best to shine, waggling his ridiculous eyebrows at her in an almost passable impression of a civilian. Normality was never his strongest attribute.

“Doctor!? Hahahahaha! Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! How high are we now? Pffffttttt. Doctor!”

“Yes, it’s quite a sad story really. I may need some help with him at the other end. I have to say, you seem like a very capable young lady; perhaps you could assist me? Have you ever considered the nursing profession…”

He warbled on, looking to me exactly like a total freak pretending to be something else. The stewardess seemed to see through it too, as she was backing away as professionally as she could without bolting, causing a massive panic and possibly explosive decompression.

“Bit stuffy in here, needs a door opening” I burbled vacuously.

The Tour Manager replied by twisting both nozzles above me and sending a jet of arctic air into both my dry eyeballs with an effect not unlike Mace. I don’t remember anything else.

Next we were floating across a strange, featureless desert planet made of indistinct haze and what seemed to be boiling hot tarmac. Well… my Tour Manager seemed to be floating. I was more rolling. He was pushing me along in an airline-issue wheelchair. I wheezed indignantly at him.

“It was this or getting carried off the plane strung up by their paramilitary police,” he replied, wearily. “You nearly emptied the whole plane singlehanded while it was in the air. The noises coming out of you were goatish. Some Exorcist-level honking. Vomit was sort of green, too.”

“Ah. Can you go a bit faster? It’s very hot.”

“Welcome to Miami. Please fuck off and have a nice day,” he countered, topically.