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11/09/2004: "Must Smoke TV."

Hypothesis: Television makes kids smoke pot, but scares them away
from harder drugs.

Argument: Like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body
Snatchers I failed to notice that something strange was happening in
my town. It was the late 70's and everybody started having cable TV
installed and, the minute that they had more than three channels to choose
from, their kids started smoking pot. How I failed to spot this trend, at
the time, is beyond me. Maybe I was too stoned.

Don't get me wrong, I don't smoke pot and - in my entire life - I've
probably smoked pot less than 15 times… which is pretty amazing when you
consider that a full third of my existence was spent as a professional
musician. My drug of choice has always been caffeine - loose tea to be
precise. You see there are two types of caffeine high: "hot" and "cold".
"Hot" caffeine occurs in coffee, soda, and chocolate and provides a quick,
powerful, but short lived buzz. "Cold" caffeine (which occurs almost
exclusively in loose, green tea) provides a milder buzz that comes on
slower but lasts for hours.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that every time there was a joint nearby, a
television was even closer. And why not? You don't have to be a genius to
realize that TV and marijuana go together like Fundamentalism and head injuries.

Of course, it wasn't always like that. From the mid-Fifties through the
early Seventies, television shows were either so funny (Ernie Kovacks'
Show, Get Smart, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart) that you didn't need to
be stoned to enjoy it, or it was so well done (Edward r. Murrow, Playhouse
90, You Are There, The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald) that you had to
straight or you'd miss something important. But that was all before the
rise of cable.

In order to compete with the growing popularity of cable TV, the networks
began airing crap - crap so awesomely bad that most of the audience under
the age of 25 was forced to get high just to make it through a half hour
sitcom without gouging their eyes outta their heads.

The rise of cable TV also coincided with the rise of the ultimate stoner
device - the remote control. Now Rainbo ("But I don't spell it with a 'w'")
didn't have to put down her joint and get up off of the sofa in order to
simultaneously enjoy reruns of Time Tunnel and, the greatest
weed-powered show of all time, Lost in Space (Ever see the episode
with the guy in the carrot suit?).

Why RCA never marketed a combination bong/remote control remains a mystery.

While television and pot have enjoyed a long relationship, TV's partnership
with other drugs has been far less fruitful. How many hockey fans have
consumed a six pack and then kicked their TV screens in as the result of
an unexpected, last minute goal? Who could snort coke and watch
Hardball? No matter how much blow you do, Chris Matthews is always
more wired and obnoxious than you are. Today are mental institutions are
filling with people who attempted to drop acid and watch Trading
Spouses: Meet Your New Mom.

Speaking of TV for the Burning Man crowd, full points to the Discovery
Health Channel for their show Impact: Stories of Survival. The show
presents dramatizations (and occasionally actual footage) of what happens
when Murphy's Law collides head-on with Darwin's theories. Last night's
episode featured a guy who managed to get a boat's anchor stuck in his
skull.

And the judges give nothin' but 10's to the Outdoor Network for their
mind-bendingly painful show Mysterious Encounters featuring
Cryptozoologist, and last woman left in the bar at closing time, Autumn
Williams. This show seriously has to been seen to be believed. Each week
a grouper of "researchers", who travel around in an RV, investigating
sightings of mysterious creatures which are usually described as
"Gorilla-Human hybrids" but almost always turn out to be deer or rabbits.
Mark my words, this program will someday be remembered as "The Cheech and
Chong record of Television".

Replies: 4 Comments

on Tuesday, November 9th, pathos said

Here's a deadlier and even more frightening combination: pot and online sci-fi / fantasy role-playing videogames.

It's not only that mingling among elves and alien monsters is an experience you only fully appreciate when wacked: the grind and endless repetitive action these games demand require you are either stoned out of your skull or lobotomized. That blurry shape jumping out of your window was your social life, closely followed by your work productivity. Well, at least it sure beats watching reality shows and absorbs you so much you are able to forget for a little while all the vileness going on in the world in your little bubble of escapist bliss.

Pathos - MMORPG recovering(?) addict.

on Tuesday, November 9th, pathos said

Oh, that was interesting about "Cold" caffeine.

on Tuesday, November 9th, Mochi The Jackass said

So, by "loose" green tea, you mean just the tea leaves, not in a little paper bag? Or do you mean something entirely different and I'm just retarded? If you mean the first thing, how, exactly, does that affect how the tea affects you?

on Wednesday, November 10th, irving pac-man (or irrelevant, if you like) said

or cough medicine and online activity, or cable tv. (especially adultswim, on the cartoon network)

I always liked that crappy iced tea mix, if i wanted a caffeine high, myself. I do like green tea, but am rather lazy. (what's wrong with tea bags?) I grew up drinking something called kukichia or boncha (sp) tea, but i believe it didn't have caffeine. Was loose, though.