Sins of the flesh
Totally wired: Yawn! Bites didn’t sleep a wink last week, and for once it didn’t have anything to do with snorting an entire eight-ball of biker crank. Indeed, it was quite the opposite, as reformed coke head President George W. Bush declared November 30 National Methamphetamine Awareness Day. As the very existence of this White House Office of National Drug Control Policy-sanctioned holiday reminded us, the days when an enterprising individual blessed with a camping trailer, a Bunsen burner and enough pseudoephedrine to treat a rhino with rhinitis could cook up a batch of kick-ass crystal are fading faster than a tweaker at the end of a three-week run.
Heck, you can’t even buy pseudoephedrine in the store these days, not directly across the counter at least. They no longer stock those bubble packets of tiny red pills on the shelves. Instead, they have these little index cards that you have to take back to Mr. Pharmacist, who will politely inform you that no, it’s not OK to buy three-dozen packets at once. Thus Bites’ bout with insomnia last week: Until one man is free to purchase as much cold medication as he desires, is any man truly free?
The answer is no, but freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose when it comes to the War on Drugs, which, like the War on Terror, we always seem to be on the verge of winning and losing at the same time. On the one hand, the number of drug busts, positive drug tests and meth-lab explosions are way down. On the other, the meth-monster refuses to die, so last summer Bush unleashed the National Synthetic Drug Control Strategy, which is akin to John Poindexter hooking up with the late Hunter S. Thompson. Total Methamphetamine Awareness, baby. Now pee in the cup.
Heckabites: Props to Beckler at Heckasac, the popular local blog that habitually hazes and praises the still incomprehensibly blogless SN&R, for sharing the love with old Bitey last week. Beckler agreed with Bites’ take on SMUD’s failed push into PG&E’s Yolo County turf. “It seems like people would catch on that PG&E was spending so much money and spreading lies to defeat it, but I guess most people only knew what PG&E told them.” That’s why they call it TV, Beckler. Thanks for the plug. Back at ya.
Unfortunately, Beckler found SN&R’s November 16 cover story, “Live Nude Girls,” slightly less praiseworthy, particularly the story’s use of the word “perineum,” a clinical term for the patch of skin that lies between the genitals and the anus. The post sparked off a lively exchange in which readers proposed their own slang term for that particular anatomical region, including the taint, the nacho, the grundle and the chode.
TGIFU: While Beckler conceded that the article on local strip clubs “was kinda hot,” the folks who run the region’s TGI Friday’s restaurants were kicking SN&R to the curb—literally. It seems the sight of an attractive, scantily clad female on the cover was too over-the-top for a corporate chain eatery that serves margaritas by the bucket and marinates its meat in Jack Daniel’s. That’s right, the TGI Friday’s management gave SN&R the old heave-ho because we dared to show a little too much flesh.
What can Bites say? One man’s obscenity is another man’s Sizzling Triple Meat Fundido. Where some see beauty, others see Potato Skinny Dippers. While most decent local restaurants prefer to tastefully advertise their fare in the pages of SN&R, TGI Friday’s has its own Web site, where this fat guy dressed in red and gold tights calling himself the Inferno urges you to “bring it on!” Hey! Didn’t George Bush say that once? Now that’s truly obscene.
