suds & buds
The news last week was that hemp beer was coming to market. It's like someone invented a Supermodel without a larynx. Hemp beer! What a combo. Now you can rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time!
Sounding like a bad joke, (or a good one) the latest use for industrial hemp is in a brew. Hempen Ale, by the Fredrick Brewing Co. of Fredrick Md., is said to have a nice creamy head. It has a creamy head? We used to call a marijuana user a "head." All of this is coming together nicely. Will this lend a new meaning to the term: pot belly? Do you get high and low at the same time? Will this beverage cause an uncontrollable urge to eat pretzels?
The beer is described by the brewery's president as having, ". . . kind of a nutty taste. It tastes like beer with a twist." People who smoke dope act nutty and one twists a joint--this is obviously a sinister conspiracy!
Nervous Nellies will denounce this horrible product, saying that the wrong message is being sent to kids. If it is the wrong message, it will be lost in the noise of all the other wrong messages we send kids daily, so chill. And while you're up, draw two.
push back
From the people who brought you banner ads: PUSH! Well, not really, but please--can we just miss the point by a mile or two or what? Interactive entertainment means choice and invitation. Research involves selective requests. Push means narrowcast targeted content. Targeted content does not equal choice. Choice equals interactivity, push equals television. Get with the program.
The smoke and mirrors number crunching that The Neilson Ratings and Arbitron numbers use don't work with the web. Ad tracking is revealing the awful truth.
As the web becomes more and more commercial, we can expect to see increasing hysteria surrounding Push technology. Push will allow the advertisers to sink back into their cushy realm of smoke and mirrors once more, as they can espouse the number of desktops where an ad is running as if it matters. As if anyone was even paying attention.
buttheads
I consider smoking cigarettes an intelligence test. You smoke, you fail. Easy. The smoker's claim is, "We were tricked. . .they said 'fresh as springtime' and all I got was this lousy tumor!" Face it: smokers are idiots. So too, apparently are tobacco company officials.
James Morgan, president of Philip Morris is a three pack a week man who has tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking several times. He suffered a collapsed lung and finally offered meekly that cigarettes, "may possibly" cause cancer. Mr. Morgan "maybe might" be an idiot too. The summer home of the president of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco burned down last week--an unextinguished cigarette butt is suspected to be the cause. (Doh!) Two weeks ago the chairman of Lorillard Tobacco Co. Alexander Spears suggested that cigarettes are no more addictive than carrots. Uhhh. . . what's up doc?
The tobacco industry has been hit so many times of late it looks like they may be weakening. Some tobacco companies however would rather fight than switch.
Meanwhile, the companies' lawyers try to figure out how to pay out the least amount of cash to end the litigation--all the while protesting that no viable scientific evidence exists showing a direct link between smoking and cancer. Only an idiot would believe that.
toothless
How many time have you called the Better Business Bureau before you decided on one vendor or another? Okay me neither. It's a good idea with no teeth. Think that's too harsh an assessment of such a nice, friendly-sounding organization? How about this from their own material:
"Better Business Bureaus do not endorse any company, product or service and participation in a Better Business Bureau program is not a guarantee by the Better Business Bureau of the company's performance."No teeth. I rest my case.
The precursor of an "award shield" plastered on a web site, The BBB shield on an establishment's door or wall was supposed to suggest a kind of seal of approval. That the business met some quality standard--like a degree of honesty or making the right change. Not that the BBB was guaranteeing that or anything. . .
Hobbling along, trying to keep up with the rest of the world, The Better Business Bureau has announced its intentions to give shoppers on the web that added sense of security in an electronic commerce situation with (wait for it) a little award shield.
How very special indeed.
For a fee, and after meeting certain requirements, a company is allowed to display the BBB logo on their site. No one, apparently, informed the BBB that stealing a GIF file and putting it on an uncertified site takes about thirty seconds. Trying to police this kind of thing on the entire world wide web is, of course, hopeless. Happy shopping.
gonzo
The first book that made me laugh out loud was "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson way back in the Seventies. A work lauded as the beginnings of Gonzo Journalism (which mixes equal parts fact, opinion and Hunter Thompson's hallucinations). No one else can really pull it off.
I have a special affinity for the good doctor as Hunter was born in my home town of Louisville, Kentucky. Now he lives outside of Aspen with his drugs, guns and peacocks in my adopted state of Colorado. Dr. Thompson made a rare public appearance in Boulder, Colorado last week. As predicted he was late. As usual there was trouble.
After a 90-minute rambling and sometimes unintelligible discourse (mainly about his troubles with Aspen police) Hunter exited the stage and headed for his dressing room. As the stomping of feet and thunderous applause continued upstairs, Thompson pondered how to end the show with flare. He decided to spray the audience with a fire extinguisher to "liven up the crowd."
The theater's 27 year-old security guard didn't think it was such a good idea and decided to intercede. (Now keep in mind that Hunter trained with the United States Army, rode with Hell's Angels, is an excellent shot and was a former candidate for Pitkin County Colorado Sheriff.)
The guard had made a bad decision complicated by a wrong move. He received a clean extinguisher shot squarely to the face and Dr. Hunter Thompson was served a summons for third degree assault. All in all, a good night.