Imagine being awakened at dawn, not having a clue where you are, flat on your stomach, soaking wet, drunker than a skunk and thinking you're drowning. What fun!

It all started with my doing my Playboy interview with Oliver Stone in 1987 while on the set of Wall Street. He was shooting some of the beach house scenes with Michael Douglas in the Hamptons over Memorial Day weekend. Platoon had just won some Oscars and Oliver was very hot. Back in those days, Playboy demanded that you lay down a good 12-15 hours of recorded interview from which to cull the final project.

Stone had given amply of his time to me over several days and we were finishing up at mid-day in a cafe not far from the hotel we were staying in.  As we walked back toward it, just as we got to the corner, a gleaming, silver BMW pulled up with Charlie Sheen at the wheel. Rob Lowe was riding shotgun. In the back seat, well... I don't want to be sexist or gross, but the only way I can describe it was like looking at a bushel of breasts. There were two --maybe three-- knock-out young women giggling and jostling each other.

Oliver stuck his head through the window to take a peek and was more or less salivating.  Lowe looked at him and said, wink, wink, "We're having a party at my place tonight. Hope you can make it," explaining that the backseat babes were "Italian models."

Stone almost had a visible anxiety attack, explaining that his then-wife and his young son were on location with him and he would love to come and would love to be there and would love, love, love to get away that night but didn't know how he was gonna pull it off and sneak out.

After Sheen and Lowe took off, Stone asked me if I couldn't invent some sort of story another, like I needed another 5 hours with him and then maybe both of us could go to the party together.  I declined. First of all, I was and am married. Second, and hopefully in that order, it wasn't all that appealing to be at a party where some hot gal says to you: "Let's see. There's Oliver Stone. There's Charlie Sheen. There's Rob Lowe. And, I'm sorry, I forgot who you are?"

Stone and I parted company and I could see he was just about gnawing his knuckles trying to think up an escape plan.

That night there was very little to do. The place we were staying in wasn't that hot either. I had plans to drive back to see some friends in Brooklyn the next day and then catch a late plane out of Newark.  My only option that night, just to pass the time, was to take a back table at the second rate comedy improv club inside the same hotel. 

I ordered a glass of Wild Turkey and sat back to take it easy. Within five minutes, Oliver walked into the club and his eyes locked with mine and he sat down next to me. Look up the words Caged Tiger and you'll see what he looked like. He REALLY wanted to be out with the Italians but clearly couldn't BS his way past his wife so here he was stuck in the hotel with me.

He asked what I was drinking and he immediately ordered a bottle of Wild Turkey and he filled my tumbler -- and his. Things started to get pretty blurry pretty quickly. All I really remember is that soon the table was filled with Long Island groupies who were fawning over Ollie.  I also remember him ordering the second bottle.

And the third.

And then, blackness. Nothing. Zip.

The next thing I know I'm drowning. It's dark, cold, my head and stomach are spinning and I'm soaked and maybe under water.  It took me a few seconds to get a minimum of bearings and I then I realized I was laying face down in the grass on top of a sprinkler that had gone off on its 5:00 a.m. timer.

Apparently, I had tried to get back to my room at some point but had blacked out in the grass courtyard in front of it.

I have to say that the cold shower concentrated right on, um, my mid-section, allowed me to sober up just enough to figure that much out. I crawled to my room and held onto the bed face down as it pinwheeled. I had the shakes for two days and have never in my life gotten anywhere near that drunk again (I barely drink at all nowadays).

About ten years later, I was at a party with Stone in L.A. He had remarried and I think he became a Buddhist or something. Anyway, we reminisced a bit about the Playboy interview, which he remembered very well. But when I asked him if he recalled anything about getting bombed that night when he couldn't make it to Sheen and Lowe's party he shook his head.

"Nah, I don't remember that night," he said. "There's whole parts of that year I can't remember."