TASTY FREEZE

I see by today's USA Today that drug dealers are now attempting to lure young people to use methamphetamine by peddling flavored meth. Among the flavors being found by DEA agents are strawberry, chocolate, cola, and other soda flavors (Dr. Pepper would seem to be a natural here).

Well, if this is true, it is absolutely unconscionable! It is outrageous!

When are we going to stop coddling and pandering to this younger generation?

When I was young and strung out, we took our narcotic and stimulant drugs without any fancying up, the way God or Pfizer or No-cuts Norman made them. If your speed tasted like battery acid, well, by God, that was the price you paid to burn another hole in your frontal lobe. If you wanted to honk something fruit-flavored up your nose, you went to the House of Pancakes. Some of us, anyway.

I recall a hit of DMT in 1977 that made everything I ate taste like burning rat droppings for three days. They don't make drugs like that anymore.

Chocolate flavored crank! Preposterous. Next thing you know, they'll be selling fruit flavored vodka.

Eh? Say what?

Tarnation!

WHY DID HARVARD APPOINT A WOMAN AS PRESIDENT WHEN THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN JACK LA LANNE?

The current newsstand edition of Newsweek has a big cover story--well, actually an extended, multi-article feature--on "Exercise and the Brain" that comes off most convincingly. Based on the copious research evidence presented, there can be little doubt that physical fitness and mental fitness are very much linked. The basic point of the feature is that with exercise and physical activity, one's intellectual processes are enhanced and fortified, while without healthy regular workouts, one's neurons shrivel and one's intelligence wanes. To quote the opening article, "No matter your age, it seems, a strong, active body is crucial for building a strong, active mind."

Point clearly proved, and point well taken, Newsweek.

Just one thing. For the love of God, don't let Stephen Hawking see this magazine.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I NEED HELP?

Right off the bat, I want to apologize to my multitude of faithful reader (Wassup, Muggsy! Hope they've restored your exercise yard privileges!) for not having posted for a number of days which I am too distracted to calculate at the moment. Just a few quick pickup thoughts in passing:
I'm not saying it would be a good idea, but I bet that if someone out there had one or two kids with serious, MAJOR medical expenses for chronic or congenitial or just way bad fucking luck medical conditions, and that person happened to drive a truck right over Karl Rove, to the extent that the coronor, after giving nature 12-15 hours to take its course, declared the late Rovester deceased of natural causes, well, I think it likely that certain unnamed interests might be more than willing to front the expenses for...wait...hold it...shh...oh shit, they're doing a bed check! Delete this at once. Ha ha. Just kidding. Even so..

ALL CHANGE IS BAD, PART 152

Although I enjoy expressing derision for teenagers today who "don't know how good they've got it compared to my generation blah quack babble" as much as anyone my age, I wince with sympathy for the adolescents of Pequannock Township, New Jersey, where they just announced that about 75 percent of the local high school students will now be randomly given a test for ethyl glucuronide, which can detect whether they've consumed alcohol anytime in the previous 80 hours. A test conducted on a Monday morning would cover everything back to midnight the previous Thursday. Holy shit.

And I thought the goddam chemistry tests were hard to pass.
I wouldn't have made it through my sophomore year without a suspension.
Well, unless they graded the test on the curve.

I also enjoy Daylight Savings Time as much as anyone, but as Groucho Marx once said to a mother of 13 on "You Bet Your Life,"
"I love my cigar, too, but I don't enjoy having it shoved up my ass."

Hmm. That doesn't look quite right. Actually, I believe it was "...but I take it out of my mouth now and then." Yes, that's it.

In any case, they've decided to move the change to DST forward by two weeks, and the return to Standard Time back one week in the fall. This has ruffled the hair of many who rely on the temporal accuracy of computers, such as airlines and bomb makers and the like, because the computers will not only fail to shift to DST on the new date, but will shift again on the old date after adjustments have been made.

I don't care, of course.

But I am annoyed by the change because it takes place just as we've gotten to the point where my wife no longer has to take a flashlight with her when she walks the dog at 7 a.m., and also no longer has to carry a Stoner assault rifle, which is strongly recommended by law enforcement officials for anyone venturing out of their homes after dark or before dawn if they live within a certain distance from Richmond, California.

I believe the current official "hazard radius" is 350 miles.

But now she'll be plunged back into the darkness for what--four more weeks or so?
It sucks, I tell you.

Still, I've got to admit that she does look really hot in body armor.

GETTING BITCHY IN THE EMERALD CITY

Today's Facet of Contemporary Reality That Continues To Baffle Me comes to us from Seattle, where touchy residents are most offended about a newly opened pet store aimed at providing for the upscale and discerning female canine. The problem is its name, which is actually quite appropriate.

High Maintenance Bitch.

They're indignant about the name, and even more so that its sign is "visible from a major intersection in the Wallingford district." (For the record, however, I once lived in the Wallingford district for several months and never came across anything major, intersections included. But that was way back.)

In any case, I just don't get it about the word bitch. What the hell is so offensive? It's a female dog, for Chrissake. It's a perfectly acceptable word. I've never understood why or how it is considered to be obscene, or even crude.

Shit and fuck and asshole and piss and pussy and prick and so forth I can understand--although pussy falls into a gray area, and is acceptable when followed by cat, or even a photo of a cat. These words have to do with bodily functions of a personal or repellent nature, or sex, or the organs thereof, and while I wouldn't mind if they appeared daily overhead in skywriting, I can see where people with tighter moral standards might be genuinely troubled.

But bitch, I just don't get it. It's like bastard. It's a perfectly neutral descriptive noun, used as a fairly mild insult, compared to numerous possible alternatives. And their clientele consists quite literally of high maintenance bitches: pampered, upper-middle-class female dogs.

I could understand if people took offense at, say, a clothing store for gay males called High Maintenance Cocksucker, or even one for African Americans called High Maintenance Nigga.

But High Maintenance Bitch? The only thing that phrase calls to my mind is Martha Stewart.

ODDS THAT JAY LENO WILL DO MORE OR LESS THIS GAG TONIGHT: 3-1 IN FAVOR

George Bush yesterday told a gathering of businessmen that excessive salaries for incompetent CEOs had to be reined in, and called for corporations to tie executives' compensation to their performance on the job. By that standard, I calculate that Bush should not only return his entire salary for the past six years, but also owes the country $184 billion.

NEXT STOP, HONEY JUNCTION

Actual news item today:

"NEW YORK (AP) - Available soon from City Hall: an official New York condom in a jazzy wrapper, perhaps one printed with a colourful subway map or some other city theme.
New York City hands out 1.5 million free condoms a month in ordinary wrappers, and health officials figure people would be more likely to actually use them if the packaging were more distinctive."

Yes indeed, nothing puts me in an amorous mood faster than images of the New York subway system. And who wouldn't want to insert their manhood into something that calls to mind a subway train roaring down the tracks. Presumably, they'll be available in urine- and vomit-scented versions. With little slogans printed thereon, such as "Get your freakin hands off me, asshole!" and "You call that a dick?"

I am reminded of a bit I used to do onstage...
"I just read where Safeway is going to start selling their own brand name condoms, which I thought was in questionable taste until it occurred to me that it's hard to come up with a better, more appropriate name for condoms than...Safe way.
Well, of course, maybe...Lucky.
Or...Pay 'n Pak.
Long's.
Piggly Wiggly.
Never mind."

Then Lucky supermarkets was bought out by Albertson's, and the comedy scene dried up; a one-two punch that convinced me to retire. Que sera.