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What Michael Phelps Should Have Said

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months a year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have, without a shred of evidence, beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

…

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen…is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

I’m so nostalgic for the carefree days of silly suburban vandalism. Thinking of a new Wes Anderson take on Clockwork Orange…suburban droogs who battle ennui with “grinching.”

Four teenagers were arrested by Marietta police for “grinching” — allegedly using a machete to destroy some of the inflatables.

Note to self: anger goes much further in virtual worlds. The next time I feel like self-immolating, I’ll be sure to do it in Some Other Life.

While I’ve always felt somewhat estranged from the world of puzzles and games, I don’t agree that it is an activity that is necessarily at odds with reading or other creative pursuits. But this dude does:

It’s a terrible thing to behold: on commuter trains, in Starbucks, in offices, the Slaves of Sudoku hunched over their puzzle books, addicted to the mind-numbing hillbilly heroin of the white-collar class.

Heh, nice. But not everyone can crank out a novel on a train, and even if the rank and file of commuting cattle everywhere were to start writing poetry, would anyone want to hear it? Uh, careful what you wish for.

What are some of the other defenses of the puzzle people? “It trains the mind.” No, sorry; it only trains the mind to think in a tragically limited and reductive fill-in-the boxes way. I’d say that instead it drains the mind. Drains it of creativity and imagination while fostering rat-in-a-maze skills.

Not necessarily. It’s at least some form of mental exercise. Having recently attempted (unsuccessfully) a few crosswords I would say that they do increase your appreciation for memory related chores. But me, I think I’ll wait until I can download a “google for the human brain” applet and forget memory altogether.

I don’t know what’s cooler, BMX being an olympic sport, or being able to bid on a FULL SIZE Viper or Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica.

Sometimes I think the kid in me just might live forever.

Get ready.

It doesn’t really bother me that corporations have further co-opted hip culture with their viral marketing hijinks. But those popcorn cellphone videos? Who knew.

But Cardo’s commercials point to the ugly side of what Rob Walker calls “murketing,” the obscure form of persuasion that has been on the rise in the ad business in the last couple of decades. The cell-phone popcorn ads peddle false consumer-safety information in an attempt to trick people into buying Cardo’s wares.

I’m not so worried about the false information being peddled on those who voluntarily watch videos of cellphones supposedly popping popcorn on youtube. After all, you are on youtube. Buyer beware, be very aware.

End of the world hedge funds? Cool. Apocalypse investing… Armageddon insurance…a whole new way to look at diversifying your portfolio. I was thinking about gold but this is much more interesting.

I became intrigued by an oddity that I came to think of as the end-of-the-world trade. The trade is the purchase of insurance against what would in effect be the failure of the modern capitalist system. It would take a cataclysm – around a third of the leading investment-grade corporations in Europe or half those in North America going bankrupt and defaulting on their debt – for the insurance to be paid out.

The Corna. Who knew? Can the Italians shed some light on this please? Personal histories, anecdotes, etc., anything involving anyone in the Dio family and their relationship with the Moloch would be appreciated.