Why Banning Four Loko Won't Work

You’ve probably heard of Four Loko, an alcoholic energy drink named after its four main beverages – alcohol, caffeine, taurine and guarana.  It also contains carbonated water, sugar, natural and artificial flavoring.  Four Loko is a big hit these days on college campuses, where, you may be surprised to learn, alcohol consumption among students is popular.

Recently several states have banned the sale of Four Loko, saying that combining energy drinks with alcohol represents a public health concern.  There’s been a recent trend of college kids binging on Four Loko and subsequently blacking out.  Once something like this happens three times, the news media loves to pounce on it with an series of “hard-hitting enterprise stories.”  Panic in the streets ensues.  Now there’s more hubbub associated with Cream, an alcoholic whipped cream, which is already generating controversy of its own.

Personally, I don’t do drugs.  I don’t advocate drug use.  I don’t even drink much anymore.  This past weekend I got through a 10-hour high school reunion on the strength of one beer and one screwdriver and, after being dry for the final eight hours of the night, was more than sober enough to drive home without incident.  I can’t envision myself ever being a regular Four Loko drinker.

But I’m also of the mindset that legislating morality and stupidity begins a slippery slope that ends in a police state.  Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol in the 1920s, unless you define “working” as the onset of organized crime.  Prohibition also isn’t working for the War on Drugs, unless you define “working” as the onset of gang warfare.  

Do politicians really think college kids will stop binging simply by banning Four Loko, or are they just taking a stand to make them look good the next time they're up for re-election?  College kids have been abusing alcohol for centuries.  Here’s a sample conversation of what’ll happen in the post-Four Loko world:

College Student #1: “Yo, dude, what are we gonna do tonight?”

College Student #2: “I dunno, man, we can’t buy Four Loko anymore.  It’s banned.”

College Student #1: “I know, dude! Let’s buy some regular energy drinks and mix them with vodka! That'll have the same effect as Four Loko!  Seven or eight of those and we’ll get totally hammered!”

College Student #2: “Great idea, dude!  You fly, I’ll buy.”

College Student #1: “Then we’ll go to that bar where all the smoking’ babes hang out, and drink Jack & Cokes all night long.  It'll have the same effect as Four Loko.  Man, after we down eight or nine alcoholic beverages mixed with caffeinated beverages, those babes are gonna be all over us!”

College Student #2: “Fuck yeah, dude!  We’ll get so hammered.  Those girls will totally wanna fuck us!” 

College Student #1: “I can’t wait to get loaded!  This is gonna be the best night ever!  Rock and roll, man! (Primal scream.)”

The best way to stop binge drinking (are you listening, parents?) is to educate kids – or if you are the kids, educate yourselves – on the dangers and consequences of alcohol abuse. 

It’s sad that some students have to learn the hard way.  But there comes a point in life where Social Darwinism takes over.  You can’t save people from their own stupidity.  Passing laws banning certain alcoholic beverages doesn’t stop kids from abusive those beverages.  It only creates more useless laws for kids to break.

The Worst and Best Of the Holiday Songs You'll Hear For The Next Month

Now that Thanksgiving weekend is over, I feel like it's officially the Christmas season, which means one thing – holiday songs everywhere on the dial.  I have mixed emotions about this; some of these songs make me feel festive and spirited, others make me cringe and turn the radio dial.

At the risk of being a Grinch, I’ve presented my list of the 10 songs I could do without, but before you call me blasphemous, I’ve followed it with the 10 I could listen to all year long.  So here goes.

The Bottom 10....

10) Bruce Springsteen – "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" I know this’ll piss off hard-core Springsteen fans, but I'm not afraid to make unpopular decisions.  This time of year I can’t be in the car for two minutes without hearing this song.  I concede that maybe that’s the radio stations’ fault, but it's not even December and I’m already sick of this song.

9) Bob Geldof et al, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" With a roster that includes Spandau Ballet, The Boomtown Rats, Wham! and Big Country, this was hardly a group of all-stars.  If you’re gonna pick an era to grab a bunch of British rock stars for a collaboration, the early ‘80s was probably the worst.

 

8) Paul McCartney – "Wonderful Christmastime" See Springsteen, above.

7) Bryan Adams – "Christmas Time"  When I was in middle school, Bryan Adams could rock with the best of them.  Then he released this song.  Next thing you know, Bryan Adams was the successor to Christopher Cross and Robbie Dupree as the dominant force of the yacht rock genre.  Any song that single-handedly emasculates an artist gets on this list by default. 

6) Elvis Presley – "Blue Christmas"  There’s a reason I don’t listen to a lot of Oldies or country, and this is it.  I don’t know who sings the awful background vocals in this, but whoever it is deserve coal in their stockings.  

5) Elton John – "Step Into Christmas" Again, see Springsteen.

4) Adam Sandler – "The Chanukkah Song"  (Parts I, II, and III) Admittedly, it’s important to have Jewish representation during the holiday season.  But Sandler really runs out of gas in parts II and III, throwing in a few folks – such as "Flashdance" star Jennifer Beals – who aren’t even Jewish.   And let’s face it, Sandler’s singing voice is worse than fingernails on a chalk board.

3) Burl Ives – "A Holly Jolly Christmas" As much as I enjoy watching the old Rankin-Bass “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” special every year, I have to either change the channel or throw the mute button on when they play this song. The lyrics don’t even make sense – “I don’t know if there’ll be snow / But have a cup of cheer.”  Huh?  What the hell is a cup of cheer?  You can't do any better than that?  An aside: it’s interesting that this was written by a guy (Johnny Marks) who’s Jewish.  Maybe Adam Sandler should’ve substituted Marks for Jennifer Beals.  

2) Frank Loesser & Lynn Garland – "Baby, It's Cold Outside"  Turns out Loesser wrote this song just for kicks and he and his wife Garland sang it during holiday gatherings with their friends, calling it “their song.”  Then, Loesser sold the song to MGM, which infuriated Garland.  A few years later, they divorced.  Any song that leads to a couple’s divorce should be automatically barred from Christmas radio rotation.   

And the No. 1 worst holiday song..... 

1) George Michael/Wham! – "Last Christmas"  Pretty self-explanatory.  I don’t expect holiday songs to rock, but this song makes “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sound like AC/DC.

So now that you think I'm the Grinch, here are my 10 favorite holiday songs of all time.... 

10) Vince Guaraldi Trio – "Linus & Lucy"  Technically this isn’t a holiday song, which is why I don’t have it higher up.  But radio stations play it a lot this time of year, and it does factor pretty big in the Peanuts Gang's Christmas play.  Plus, as this list will show, my life has been heavily influenced by Charles M. Schulz.

9) Thurl Ravenscroft – "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"  Any song sung by the voice of Tony the Tiger deserves to be on a Top 10 list for something.  Plus, thanks to this song I discovered how much fun seasick crocodiles can be.

8) Bare Naked Ladies, featuring Sarah McLaughlin – "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" The antithesis of the Bryan Adams song above, this collaboration is funky and cool, by far Canada’s greatest contribution to Christmas.

7) Vince Guaraldi Trio – "O Tannenbaum" Only Vince Guaraldi can take a stodgy old Christimas carol and turn it into the kind of tune that you could hear at a hoppin' jazz club on a Saturday night.  Plus, it’s a great TV moment when it’s the background music for Charlie Brown killing his dinky tree with the lone ornament.

6) Bob Rivers – "I Am Santa Claus" Here’s the best part of this parody of Black Sabbath’s “Ironman” – as a kid, when I was beginning to figure out that (spoiler alert!) there’s no Santa Claus, I asked the very same question as Rivers – “If he’s getting toys for everyone, Santa Claus has to be a billionaire.  Wait a sec…”

5) The Waitresses – "Christmas Wrapping" Who would’ve thought that the brains behind songs like “I Know What Boys Like” could kick it for Christmas, too.  Not only a good holiday song, but an early influence in the rap genre.  Plus, I always thought lead singer Patty Donahue had a nice voice (though she must’ve been doing a little too much smoking; she’s been dead for quite awhile now).

4) The Royal Guardsmen – "Snoopy's Christmas"  When last we left the Red Baron, he was chasing Snoopy into a the Halloween party from “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," which led to Lucy kissing Snoopy while bobbing for apples. It's good to see everything turned out OK for all involved. 

3) Straight No Chaser – "The 12 Days of Christmas"  A mashup that has everything – in addition to the 12 Days, you’ve got Rudolph, The Dreidel Song, and even Toto’s Africa.  The only minor negative is, no Vince Guaraldi.

2) Trans-Siberian Orchestra – "Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24" I first heard this song at a Patriots game back in the late ‘90s and, true to form, this is one of the few Christmas songs that really rocks.  I wanna tackle someone whenever I hear this.

And, in my humble opinion, the No. 1 holiday song of all time....

1) Vince Guaraldi Trio – "Christmas Time Is Here"  Come on, is there any other choice for No. 1?  Snoopy is dragging Linus across the pond by his blanket as I write this.  An aside: it’s a travesty that nobody has put together a Wikipedia article on this song yet.

So those are my lists and I'm sticking to them.  You're free to disagree, or create your own list.  Here's hoping I hear more of my top 10 this holiday season.

Triassic Attack

There’s a consequence to staying at your high school class reunion until 5 in the morning and not getting home until 5:45 a.m.  It really fucks with your sleep schedule the next day.  I was a zombie all day Saturday, napping here and there and trying to catch up on sleep, but at 1 a.m. I was wide awake. 

Fortunately, it was SciFi Channel to the rescue, in the form of Triassic Attack, a SciFi original movie, which is an automatic stamp of quality. Dinosaur skeletons, locked in a university museum in a small town, come to life after a Native American guy does a rain dance.

All the formulaic plot developments are here.  The sheriff of this small town has some Native American blood in him, and the locals encourage him to get back in touch with his cultural roots to stop the dinosaurs from running amok.  He has a wild-child daughter who dates the local ne'er-do-well.  The townspeople do stupid things -- when someone's trailer gets knocked over and he hears roaring noises outside, he goes outside to investigate.  There's that scene that's nothing but 5 minutes of exposition about the tribe and how only they know how to kill these living skeletons.  And of course, they kill the skeletons at about 2:55 a.m., only to realize at 2:57 a.m. that they didn't quite kill all of them. 

The only upset in the movie was that the obnoxious, arrogant university president with the British accent survives the carnage.  I consider this a real missed opportunity.  But other than that, a good cure for insomnia.  On cheese value alone, I give this movie a 4.          

The High-School Class Reunion

Last night was my high school class reunion.  I was supposed to go with a friend, who had to back out at the last minute because of a family emergency.  As a result, I almost didn't go.  The idea of going solo nearly spooked me into staying home.

While high school was fun, we always remember (or at least I do) the not-so-fun part, the insecurity, the belief that everybody hated you, and that nobody would ever like you.  Even though it was mostly in my head, sometimes I found myself dwelling on the negative.  There's strength in numbers and when your friend can't go you feel a little more susceptible to those negative thoughts, especially when someone inevitably doesn't remember you and is staring at you blankly, or remembers that they did indeed dislike you.

But I'm glad I mustered up the intestinal fortitude to head on over anyway.  It was a good time.  Every reunion I've gone to, I always find myself hitting it off with someone I never talked to in high school, which is always fascinating to me.  And then hitting it off with the people I was friends with.  I wouldn't say I'm super close to a lot of people I went to high school with, but as a class it impresses me how we all got along, at least on a superficial level, and managed to avoid much of the cliquiness that sometimes seems to be what high school is all about.

And there are those who made me feel glad I went, those who said stuff like, "Phil, you get it," and "You carried me in chemistry class as my lab partner" (even though if anything it was the other way around) and "The cool thing about you, Phil, is that you're always smiling" (even though I'm not always smiling).  It's great to catch up with everybody, but sometimes it's the little comments that make you feel good about yourself, like you're definitely glad you pulled yourself off the couch and forced yourself to go.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

OK, lessee, what do we got here:

* Turkey
* Green beans
* Mashed potatoes
* Stuffing
* 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola
* Two aluminum foil sheets of brownies
* One gallon of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup ice cream

Awesome.  This should last me through the weekend.

I'm Not the Poe Toaster

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  Not much going on, though I'm excited because I've been placed on a 5 favorite authors list, along with Roald Dahl, Thomas Boswell, Edgar Allan Poe and Clive Barker. 

Clearly it was tongue-in-cheek. 

I will also say this -- I'm not the Poe Toaster.

Dear Larry

Dear Larry Fitzgerald:

It's come to my attention that after your Arizona Cardinals lost the other day to Kansas City, you did a little bit of grumbling about playing for the Cardinals.  I can imagine how frustrating it can be playing out in the desert now that Kurt Warner is a professional dancer for ABC's Dancing With The Stars.  But I have just the solution for you.

You're still under contract with the House of Cards, and the treading deadline has come and gone, so it's a little too late to do anything about it this year.  But what about 2011 (or, if there is no season because of a strike, 2012)?  Have you considered a career in New England?  Arizona's practically a different country, so you may have missed the news -- we traded Randy Moss earlier this year because he was rapidly turning into the old, whiny, no-effort Randy Moss again.  Good for team morale -- the Pats are 5-1 since the trade.  Bad for the deep ball -- New England has only one completion of longer than 30 yards since the Moss trade. 

We could use someone to stretch the field.  Plus, unlike Moss, you're not afraid to actually go across the middle.  The best part about it is, New England has an extra first-round pick next year because of the 2009 Richard Seymour trade.  I know there will be other suitors -- Kansas City's head coach is your old offensive coordinator.  But think about it, New England is as close to a Super Bowl as anyone.  This is your chance.

Seize the day, Larry Fitzgerald.  Plant a bug in Cardinal management's ear.  You have nothing to lose but your chains.