Valium Leads to Altered State

I don’t recall ever having been on Valium before, and the last thing I want to do is become a pharmaceutical company shill. But I’ve got to tell you, the stuff isn’t half bad, particularly if you live in California.

The last couple of weeks are a bit of a blur for me, thanks to surgery and the aforementioned anti-anxiety medication, along with a full menu of painkillers, antibiotics and steroids. It’s a strange brew that makes you feel like you could easily swat a home run -- if only you could get up off the couch.

There isn’t much to do in such a pleasant stupor but stare at the wall, watch television, or wonder if the high court’s medical marijuana decision would have been different if Pfizer were the grower. I did a little of all three, but mostly I watched television, which, as we know, is mind-altering enough on its own.

I realize none of the following events might actually have happened, but in my own reality, I vaguely recall that Phil Jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges, Michael Jackson is now coaching the Lakers but not allowing player sleepovers, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided the state should have a special election each time there’s an earthquake.

Then there was the “Downing Street memo” suggesting the U.S. argument for war in Iraq was -- don’t fall over backward -- trumped up. Fortunately, the Valium helped me endure the shock. Given the continuing chaos in Iraq and the military recruiting crisis, I almost placed a call to the Bush twins to see if they planned to enlist in Dad’s noble war, but I lost my train of thought while dabbing at my drool.

In the middle of all this, I watched a high-speed chase in which a motorcyclist actually eluded police by speeding into the Glendale Galleria parking lot. This was cause for concern because I live near there, and I can now imagine all televised chases ending at or near the JC Penney, with dangerous perpetrators abandoning their vehicles and blending in at the food court or inconspicuously trying on Eddie Bauer’s smart line of cotton casuals for summer.

But let me get back to the Jacksons because I think I might have gotten them mixed up, thanks to the drugs and the disorienting effects of general anesthesia.

It’s actually the dark-skinned Jackson -- Phil -- who’s going to coach the collapsing Lakers and Kobe Bryant again. He showed up for the news conference with sandals and beads, but no donkey. Even for $10 million a year, that makes him the highest-paid baby-sitter in history and perhaps the strangest Jackson not living at Neverland.

Michael Jackson, on the other hand, proved his critics wrong and turns out to be a prince of a guy who for unknown reasons connects only with Elizabeth Taylor and Cub Scouts. He was acquitted of all charges and went home to his Ferris wheel and pet monkeys, or whatever he keeps up there, and cheering throngs awaited his arrival.

Before my surgery, I would sooner have taken my child to a train depot and put her on a boxcar bound for Biloxi with 14 hobos on their way to a wino convention than allow her within 200 miles of Michael Jackson. But with diazepam as a mellowing agent, I wanted to drive the family to Neverland and join the acquittal party, singing the “Thriller” soundtrack in tearful glee at the exoneration of a persecuted celebrity.

Speaking of celebrities, I read on the warning label that Valium’s side effects include hallucinations, memory loss and urination problems. So help me out, if you don’t mind: Didn’t our world-famous governor just force a special election on us not long before I went under the knife?

For several days, I’d wake up from what felt like a coma, turn on the news, and hear more talk of a special election -- or was it a tsunami warning?

Are we having elections and earthquakes every day now? I wondered.

Talk about deja vu all over again. I was half expecting a special election, at a cost of $50 million or so, to determine when I might be released from the hospital.

Sure, they’ve got some sticky differences in Sacramento, and we all know stubbornness by union-fed Democrats and business-goosed Republicans makes for uncivil divides. But these yutzes can’t even agree on the time of day, let alone have an adult discussion about fair compromise.

The governor/emperor who was going to fix everything by building a new era of bipartisanship, blowing up boxes, rooting out waste and fraud, throwing away the credit card, asking no one for money and dropping a wrecking ball on special-interest politics, as it turns out, has no clothes.

But I’ve got enough Valium -- is it cheaper in Canada? -- to turn it all into harmless entertainment and also to cut the glare from Arnold’s hair tint, which has not been seen since Woody Woodpecker went out of syndication.

My feet are up, I’ve got three pillows under my head and I can’t remember the last time I smiled so much. We’ve got a governor who talks about becoming a national environmental leader while driving a fleet of Hummers. Do I even need the drugs?

Maybe the threat of the special election is really just a smart negotiating tool. The warring parties could certainly boost their public images by doing some of their own work, instead of sloughing every bit of it off on us. But don’t hold your breath.

I’m floating, eager to watch six months of sweaty money grubbing, partisan adolescence and brain-sapping political advertising as a prelude to an entirely unnecessary special election. Plenty of time for me to speculate, self-medicate, and reflect on the genius of the governor’s school reform proposal -- to name just one of his grand initiatives -- which is sure to revolutionize public education.

Instead of two years for teachers to get tenure, under Arnold’s plan, they’d have to wait five years.

Is it too late to make it 10 years in Michael Jackson’s case?

*

Reach the columnist at [email protected] and read previous columns at

latimes.com/lopez.