PORTLAND, OR--Tim Kesey, a Portland-area stoned person, found himself watching figure skating last Saturday afternoon. The incident occurred while Kesey was sitting motionless on his couch after taking several bong hits. Too tired to switch channels, the 30-year-old sat through the entire US Figure Skating Championship, and found it strangely relaxing and enjoyable.

“Well I did a bunch of bong hits and then I was just sitting there on the couch,” said Kesey, an unemployed graphic designer. “Figure skating was on and my first inclination was to change the channel, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I kept thinking ‘I’ll pick up the remote control in a minute.’ But a minute turned to two minutes, two minutes turned into half an hour, and before I knew it, it was all over. I guess time flies when you’re completely immobile.”

Though Kesey vaguely recalls enjoying himself, he doesn’t remember much else from the skating show.

“My memory fails me a little,” he said. “I don’t remember many details, just an overall sense of appreciation for what the skaters were doing. It’s funny how you can look at something and not actually see it. At times it was as if I was looking through the TV. Figure skating and pot sure are a good mix.”

Kesey has no particular fondness for figure skating, but said that he would consider watching it again under similar circumstances.

“I could see myself watching it again if I was baked and just didn’t feel like channel surfing,” he said. “But next time I might try something a little different. I might actually try to put some music on. I bet if you put on Dark Side of the Moon, and cue it up right when the figure skating starts you would see some pretty cool shit. I’d have to find someone to press ‘play’ on the CD though. That’s a lot of trouble to go through.”

One of the things that appealed to Kesey about the figure skating was the grace of the athletes. One man in particular, Johnny Weir, impressed Kesey with his creativity and skill.

“The guy who won the championship, I don’t know what his name was, but he was spinning around in circles so fast I could barely see him,” said Kesey. “Then he jumped up about three feet in the air and did a split and landed perfectly. I didn’t know figure skating was that cool. I mean, it doesn’t sound that cool right now, but at the time it really blew me away. And I’m not easily impressed”

Tim’s roommate, Doug Pierson, rolled his eyes when told of Kesey’s newfound interest in figure skating. According to Pierson, Kesey doesn’t have high standards when under the influence of marijuana.

“Tim’s not the most demanding person while he’s smoking pot and channel surfing,” said Pierson. “I’ve seen him sit through filibustering on C-Span. I’ve seen him watch junior high talent shows on local access cable. And don’t even ask him about those strong man competitions on ESPN2. For six months it’s all he ever talked about, until he discovered Celebrity Poker.” “The funny thing is, he doesn’t really pay attention to what he’s watching,” he continued. “The only thing that rouses him out of his trance is when a Dominos commercial comes on. He’ll say something like ‘Man I’m starved,’ then look over at the phone and contemplate calling, and you can actually see the resignation appear on his face as he realizes that its not going to happen.”

Nevertheless, Pierson said that Kesey is already telling his friends about figure skating.

“Oh yea, he’s going around telling people that they should try to sit down and watch figure skating sometime,” he said. “It’s the same thing he did with the celebrity poker thing. For like, 6 months, he went around saying it was the coolest thing in the world. You go around saying stuff like that, and its like announcing that you’re a pothead.”

Officials from the figure skating world acknowledged that the majority of their TV viewers are stoned people too tired to change the channel. Still, the sport welcomes any new fans.

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