I stopped to buy ten dollars' worth of bunk Jamacian reefer in Washington Square Park. I was walking with a girlfriend, we'd just finished sushi lunch, and I said, "Sugar, let's get a little dime's worth, we'll go up onto the roof and smoke a joint. We'll be romantic."

She says, "Great."

I'm not gonna smoke pot in the park, there's kids there, for chrissakes.

Little do I know that the French Connection is in full effect, and there's people in a third-floor brownstone with binoculars, and walkie-talkies, watching the dreads, who are sellin' these little bits and pieces. Thirty steps outside the park, I got two guys on my case like white on rice.

"New York City Police," and the arm in the back, and they put me in a van with fourteen other characters, and we wait there for four hours, as one by one, they usher people into the precinct station. And you're on a chain gang-a single chain, with your left arm, or your right arm, depending on what side you're on-chained to the main. I'm hooked to a Jamaican dread named Tree. If you saw his haircut, you would know why he got that name.

Says, "Say, mon, I know who you are. You don't have to go t'rough dis. I give you my number, I deliver."

I've got a law student two seats behind me; "Hey, but if he doesn't deliver...I'll defend you."

We have a fashion photographer in the back of the Econoline, going, "Irregardless, we'll have great photos."

Now keep in mind that this Friday the Branch Davidians, the wackos in Waco, Texas, are threatening to torch the place, finally. And that Monday morning is the Rodney King verdict, part two. So you have a nation in tension, in anxiety mode. Okay?

So out of the tree line and down into the clearing wanders Diamond Dave. I'm halftime comedic relief. Now if you're gonna be a true rock star, you gotta have one drug bust on your resume. And it's best if it's a light one. Well, there's nothing lighter than ten dollars' worth of bunk Jamaican reefer, picked up on the hoof in Washington Square Park. So you have this guy holding up a plastic bag the size of a saddle blanket, on CNN International, this tiny, little thimble-sized plunket of pot.

CNN International, for forty-eight hours, all Saturday, all Sunday, every thirty minutes, ther's a picture of Dave. It was right out of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities-Sherman McCoy, who fell into the machine.

So we march into the station, not hinking that there's gonna be a hundred twenty members of the fourth estate waiting for my most imminent arrival.

Howard Stern calls me up the next morning, he says, "So Dave, you lookin' for publicity?"

I said, "Howard, this is a thirty-five dollar pot bust. It's a hundred dollars if your dog poops on the sidewalk. If I was looking for publicity, I would have pooped on the sidewalk."

Two months later, he says, "So what's the outcome?"

I say, "Well, since the wackos in Waco, the only difference between me and the Branch Davidians is they stopped smokin' two months ago."

What's curious-and these are barometric readings of placement, you know, somewhere in the hierarchy, the social caste-I'm not on the A list of anything. But for ten dollars' worth of bad guage, I'm on CNN International every thirty minutes.