Not So Good

I spend a lot of time here standing atop my soapbox pontificating and otherwise pretending I am wise to the point of being damn near knowledgeable. Alas I must confess that although I do have some mad game, there are certain areas in which I take craptacularity to stratospheric levels never heretofore attained. With that brief introduction, here is a list of things that I completely suck at to the extent where I should be considered among the worst in the world - an accomplishment in itself I suppose.

10. Relationships - I am single and have been for a few years now so that should say about all that needs to be said there. No need to get too in depth on that subject as I am already contemplating various methods of suicide that wouldn't hurt too badly. If this list had eleven spots, enduring pain would be the thing I am eleventh worst at doing.

9. Darts - Honestly, I do have some skills as far as the game of darts goes. I can hit the board pretty near what I am aiming at on most occasions and keep myself in games against most people that aren't experts. Once we get to the bulls-eye I am pretty much screwed. If the target were the size of the Grand Canyon's vagina I would still somehow miss the thing. Don't try to watch me and my brother play a game, as this shortcoming is genetic and you may not live to see the end of the contest. I swear the one pictured above is not my fault.

8. Golf - Sports have always been an area in which I excel or at the very least one where I am competitive. Not so much with the great sport of golf. If the idea was to knock the ball into the water, the woods, or the sand I would be among the all time greats. Unfortunately, the goal is some little round hole and no matter how hard I try I can't hit it within the unfairly small amount of strokes I am allotted by the fiendish bastards who designed the game.

7. Science - I was always a fairly decent student even if I never met Mom's requirement of getting a 105 on every test I ever took. I was a B+ student for most of my academic career until my social coming out party (the last couple years of college) when I forgot to attend lectures for awhile, which apparently has some connection to academic success. My performance in science classes, however, was consistently below par regardless of the exact focus of the class. I was consistent if nothing else. Here are my results as I remember them. HS Biology: C, HS Chemistry: C, HS Physics: C, College Biology: C, College Astronomy: C. You probably get the picture by now.

6. Fixing Things - Handyman I am not, if anything needs repairing in my household I either pray my roommate's brother Rhea visits or I call a professional. Removing and replacing a light bulb is on the very edge of my fix-it skill set. One of my proudest accomplishments was successfully changing a flat tire in only thirty minutes earlier this year. I am the man.

5. Cooking - I have already written a bit on my weaknesses in the culinary arts so I will just direct you to one of my older posts if you would like to delve further into my massive cooking skillz yo.

4. Singing - I think I have a pretty good voice and I take every opportunity I can to show off my awesome pipes. Sadly, the human race has been unable to appreciate this rare talent of my and in reality most folks are unable to endure being in the same building with my warped warbling. Please skip the one where you ask me who sings a song I am singing and then I answer _____ and then you tell me I should leave that song for them to sing. I have, in fact, heard that joke before. A lot.

3. Being quiet - I was actually a pretty good kid growing up, kind of a nerd (I know you are shocked) and rarely in any serious trouble. The one thing that got me in trouble (beside my attempt to read the entire Stephen King anthology during classes in 9th grade) was my loud voice. I was born with a sad condition known as unabletowhisperitis. Anytime I got involved in a conversation with another classmate the teacher's annoyed rasp would soon be heard in response, letting me know that it was time for me to either shut up or leave her class. I was officially banned by the government from joining the army, not because I am gay (hell its one of the best places to meet like-minded guys) but because my deep rumble of a whisper would have inevitably lead to the death of my entire platoon.

2. Training employees - During my illustrious career in the restaurant business I have had the unfortunate luck to occasionally rise so far in my job that I am asked to teach the ropes to those lower on the ladder than myself (yes that is pretty low). Since I only devote on average 2% of my brain to thinking about work while I am at my job it is hard to use my personal experiences to assist others. Usually I forget to tell the trainee about 96% of the pertinent information necessary to make them a great employee. As a side note, did you know that 47.4% of statistics are made up on the spot? Thanks to Stephen Wright for doing the research on that one.

1. Making lists - See what I mean? I couldn't even think of ten things.

100th Post

We here at Thoughts Askew are all about customer service. As a way to commemorate my 100th post (I know it seems like 987 to me as well) I will be writing about whatever you the dedicated reader would like to hear about. Tired of hearing about politics, food, drink, or who would win a fight between Danzig and a group of dead black men? Make the puppet on the keyboard entertain you with a story about a water-skiing squirrel (that would be cool as I already have a picture). Please send in your requests over the next few days and I will count the votes and start pounding out your story on Monday. Thanks to all of you out there who care enough to visit and especially those of you who comment, you make it worth the time and effort I put in here.

Health Tips(y)

As Congress prepares to debate the merits of changing our health care system, I have built my own special bunker to insulate me from the shitstorm of lies that is on its way to a 24-hour news network near you. 75% of Americans currently favor the public option, a system under which you can choose to either keep your current health insurance or pick a government created plan. The companies that have been ripping us off - you know the ones who have continually increased premiums until they are utterly unreasonable and discontinued the coverage of people who have expensive illnesses - won't allow their little scam to come to an end easily. These fellows have profit margins to look after. How would their stockholders feel if the system saved lives but lost money?
Hey ass hole, you might say (if you've met me before) health care reform is hugely expensive and our government is running huge deficits. How can we as a country afford to take on such a burden? I would ask, how can we not? The system we are now saddled with financially cripples individuals as well as businesses who are forced to split the costs. Recent media reports have suggested that 46 million Americans have no insurance at all and that number is rising among our country's youth.
In the long run public health insurance plans make fiscal sense. Nations that provide their citizens with cheap medical care see a rise in preventative measures, resulting in a decrease in catastrophic illnesses. You know, the kinds that cost so much green you could build a golf course with it. A national system can also free capital for businesses, who currently devote a huge chunk of their resources towards employee health care. These millions of dollars can be invested and put to use rebuilding our stumbling economy.
If the public option works as planned the average American will be able to spend less on health care. With premiums having doubled in just the last nine years that is no small chunk of change. Government competition will skew free market forces, causing the insurance companies to adapt or die.
Many people will complain that the government has an unfair advantage and there is no way the companies will be able to compete with their resources. I contend in this instance that is perfectly okay. The capitalist business model has consistently failed when applied to two aspects of our society - education and health care. In these venues the goal is not survival of the fittest, but determining the best way to help as many people as possible. In fact you can see a bit of an analogy for the public option when you look at the interplay in higher education between the public and private sectors in the United States. There are public (state run) colleges as well as private colleges both competing for students and each have been able to find their own niche and thrive. As long as the private colleges provide something that people need they will survive. The same is true of privately run insurance companies.
All of what I have said thus far is important, but there is a perhaps less logical, but certainly more humane point to be made here. Sure health care reform is great if it helps our economy and contributes to smaller deficits, but the bottom line is saving and improving lives.
Although I don't agree with all the points that Michael Moore makes in his move "Sicko," the main theme throughout was that we are all human beings and we owe it to one another to do all we can to protect others who are sick or injured, regardless of whether there is a financial benefit involved. The job of a doctor is not to save only the lives of those that can pay. Good, quality health care is a human right, something that should be guaranteed by the Constitution to all Americans.

Man vs. Hot Weiners and Pig Racing: A Trip Through the Halls of Raleigh

Those of you who remember your geography will know that Raleigh is the capital of our North Carolinian neighbor. Having been educated in South Carolina myself, I just learned that titillating factoid last week. But there is much more to the town than just a silly little golden dome and a herd of hyenas calling themselves state legislators. Part of the collegian triangle composed of North Carolina State, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina, Raleigh is home to some of the most cutting-edge science-related research in our great nation. Rumor has it that Doctors Doom and Frankenstein share laboratory facilities located in the nearby suburb of Cary.
The aforementioned schools also play a mean brand of basketball. Well, except for North Carolina State, which is better known for its excellent meteorology department. Duke is coached by the famed Mike Krzyzewski, which in Polish means Ratlike son of Lucifer and if correctly spelled in Scrabble will net you 3,724 points. UNC is the current national champ in the sport, and so much better than all those other loser schools that they can only hope to be allowed to sniff alumnus Michael Jordan's jock strap one day.
So now you know a little bit about the town of Raleigh, but surely not enough to want to visit, unless you like watching college basketball or nerds fiddling with chemistry sets.
The average traveler needs a place to eat and drink and otherwise be entertained. My own ignorance was equivalent to the empty expanses of the Russian steppes, so I contacted a couple friends of mine who just happened to be current residents in the hopes that they would fill the vast open spaces of my mind dedicated to such things with a cornucopia of Raleigh-related tidbits.
First we hooked up with Paul Absalom Hoover IV, a lifetime resident who is nowhere near as dignified as his name makes him sound. He promised to take us to some places that are quintessentially Raleigh. Since my man Paul is a famous chili-dogger in his own right, our first destination was the Roast Grill, and I confess to being hooked as soon as I saw the Hot Weiners sign outside the restaurant. To say the place is a dive would be to greatly overstate its size. You couldn't fall down inside the joint without smashing your noggin on a wall first, much less attempt to dive.
The Roast Grill was opened in 1940 by Mrs. Mary Charles and is still run by her daughter and grandson. The restaurant is known for their hot dogs and you better be a fan yourself or don't bother stepping inside the door. The menu involves a bevy of choices, including hot dogs, hot dogs, and also hot dogs for those who happen to like hot dogs.
Your condiment choice is also a bit limited. Customers are deterred from using ketchup by the $15 price tag on the RG's only bottle and the likelihood that the owner will bite off your head at the neck if you are foolish enough to ask for some, then laugh while your blood spurts like a crimson geyser. Loaded dogs come with chili, onion, and mustard. Cole slaw is also available if you want to be different, you know, like all the other different people.
The Travel Channel's Adam Richman, host of Man vs. Food, visited the restaurant recently for the show and managed to set a record by obliterating 17 of the tasty dogs without having a reversal (this is a polite term used in eating contest circles that means exactly what you think it does). Always without fear except when I am scared, I thought about challenging his feat, but chose against spending the rest of the day in the fetal position. Adam washed down his meal with a bottled beer, which along with Coke, makes up the vast amount of drinks available at the Roast Grill. I went the Miller High Life route myself.
After demolishing our hot dogs, Paul took us to the Player's Retreat, located just outside of the gates of the North Carolina State campus. The pub had an immense selection of beers on tap, but I was most impressed by the tremendously large beer collection that lined the top of their walls, seemingly stretching out into an eternity of hoppy goodness. Every brand in the world seemed to be represented, including many that are no longer produced. I could have spent the whole day drinking their draft beer and staring in jealous admiration at their bottle stockpile, but I had more exploring to do: the North Carolina State Fairgrounds awaited.
Having lived my entire life in the South there is an inner redneck always percolating inside me, fixin' to burst out at any moment. I reckon that redneck was one happy sumbitch on this day, as we walked through rows of ancient tractors, past the pig-racing area, the impressive tractor-pull arena, and the only known shotgun-firing booth in America towards the free food samples. Various purveyors were hawking their wares and we took the opportunity to try BBQ sauces, liver mush, fried pork, and generic cereals that are in no way cheaper rip offs of real brands (I recommend the Cocoa Poofs and Loopy Fruits). Despite all the tasty flavor sensations turning our mouths into Mr. Happy, we had come to the fair for a reason and at five o'clock the time had come - the pig races were ready to commence.
The fans gathered on bleachers in tense anticipation as the emcee, dressed in the required overalls and cowboy hat, announced the racers. Bets were made on the sly and the starting gun fired, the pigs shooting out of their gates like a house afire. I hadn't heard squealing like that since the time I rafted down a river with Burt Reynolds. Ducks, goats, and pot-bellied pigs were also brought out to entertain us with their dazzling speed. I would like to use this space to personally thank Dale Porkhardt, Jr. for winning me a wager in the pot-belly race.
Tired and beaten down by the sun, not to mention the otherworldly excitement of the pig races, we headed to meet another Raleigh friend, Robert Mera, a PHD candidate at NC State, soccer expert, and banana hider extraordinaire (that is not a sex joke believe it or not). His mother, the divine Patricia Velasquez de Mera, had promised to cook us dinner. Having enjoyed her victuals before, I was not about to turn down her hospitality.
The Mera family hails from Ecuador, which borders the Pacific Ocean, and we were treated to some fine Latin American seafood, including a tilapia dish with rice and green olives as well as a corn cake that melted in my mouth so fast I thought for a second it must be made of M&Ms. The piece de resistance however, was the shrimp ceviche (also spelled as cebiche or seviche) . Ceviche is a method of cooking that involves soaking the meat in lemon juice, whose acids actually cook the flesh while also making it tender and juicy at the same time.
Velasquez's version was tossed with tomato, onion, and garlic and was so delicious that everyone I tried to converse with during the meal told me to shut the hell up. Well that didn't actually happen, but it sure would have if anyone had bothered to remove their face from their bowls.
After departing the hacienda we finished our tour of Raleigh off by heading downtown for a free concert. Candlebox, performers of such classics as "Maybe" and "Far Behind" was rocking Moore park led by their singer in his bad-ass neon blue glasses. Although I don't profess to being a big fan of their work I couldn't argue with the price. Apparently a lot of people agreed with me, since there were more people there than the day back in 1997 when Candlebox were accidentally mistaken for a group of serious musicians.
Sipping on my blueberry beer that I had inadvertently purchased from a untrustworthy shyster manning the so-called beer booth, I sat back and enjoyed the show from an excellent vantage point as far away from the stage as possible. Raleigh had provided enough quality pork and alcohol to give even the great Anthony Bourdain a culinary boner. I wasn't too terribly displeased myself.

I want to use this spot to once again thank Paul and Sally Hoover, Robert and Sara Mera, and Senora Velazquez de Mera for their hospitality. I had a great weekend and hope to see you all again soon.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Guantanamo Bay is the subject for this month's series I will call "exposing the trough of bullshit constantly being fed to us by our elected leaders". Not a short title but it does get the message across.
This week's subject is the projected closing of Guantanamo Bay and the eventual destinations of those imprisoned there. The pack of prevaricators have gotten up on their soapboxes to proclaim, "Not in our backyard" and "The citizens of my state won't be safe with these crazed terrorists here." As if they are going to be frolicking in our fields or picking up our children at the daycare center. Not so much.
Rather the eventual destination of these alleged (remember none of the prisoners at Guantanamo have actually been tried in a court of law and we don't know whether these military tribunals which Obama has unfortunately continued to back are even legal) criminals is a Supermax prison.
If you are not familiar with Supermax, here are some details to enlighten, brighten, but hopefully not frighten your day. Supermax prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for twenty three hours a day. They are given one hour of recreation, after first being strip-searched. The exercise period is not social hour, no terrorist plots can be fomented when you spend the hour alone in a concrete chamber (a separate room used by individual inmates during the recreation hour).
If you haven't figured it out already, prisoners have no direct contact with one another, their only human contact is with prison officials. The windows in the cells are designed so the prisoners can not even figure out where they are within the facility.
But these are resourceful criminals, they can probably escape! What can these puny civilians possibly do to protect us from that eventuality?
"The prison as a whole contains a multitude of motion detectors and cameras, 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors, and 12 ft (3.66 m) high razor wire fences. Laser beams, pressure pads, and attack dogs guard the area between the prison walls and razor wire."
With such state of the art detection equipment it is a pretty hard place to escape. In fact, no one has even bothered to make a serious attempt except in that prison break show on Fox, a program which is as fictional as the lies the idiots in Congress have been feeding us.
Here are some famous criminals who are already being housed in the Federal facility in Florence, Colorado:
1. Zacarias Moussaoui - yes the terrorist also known as the "20th hijacker" from the 9/11 attacks. So obviously there is no history of dangerous terrorists being held on U.S. soil. He was hardly a mastermind though, we couldn't risk having any of those here...
2. Theodore Kaczynski- AKA the Unabomber, guilty of planning and perpetrating numerous bomb attacks throughout the US over a twenty year period.
3. Richard Reid - Muslim fundamentalist known as the shoe bomber, demolisher of Nikes and attempted destroyer of an American airliner in route from London.
4. Eric Rudolph - a local hero of the town of Murphy, NC, (ignorant redneck town of the year ten years running now) Rudolph used to routinely bomb abortion clinics as well as random bands of innocents in Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 games in Atlanta before his subsequent capture. He is now serving a life term at Florence.
5. Terry Nichols - the accomplice of Timothy McVeigh who somehow avoided the gas chamber, Nichols shares responsibility for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people.
6. Robert Hansen - These first five just liked to blow stuff up, they weren't real risks to national security in the long run. We wouldn't house someone like that in our backyard would we? Oh yeah, we would, Hansen has been imprisoned in Colorado for eight years after giving away national security secrets to the Russians, our greatest enemy at the time, over a twenty year period. That Cold War thing is so 1980, though, our biggest fear now is Al Qaeda and Muslim fundamentalists. We couldn't risk keeping any of their leaders here could we? Surely another deadly attack would have occurred as a result of having them within our borders?
7. Ramzi Yousef - Of course, if you think that you would be wrong. Yousef is the convicted planner of the first attack on the World Trade Center, the 1993 bombing. He has been residing in the Florence Supermax for over a decade now. Maybe the Colorado prison is at its capacity for dealing with lunatic terrorists (prison spokesman recently said they have only one unused cell) and we don't have any other adequate place to house them than Guantanamo.
8. Omar Abdel-Rahman - nope the blind Shiek who helped Yousef plan the Trade Center bombing is held in a separate facility located in Butner, North Carolina. That's pretty damn close to me, I had no idea I should have been shitting myself this whole time. Or....
9. Jose Padilla - The alleged planner of a dirty bomb attack in the United States who has never been tried on those charges (mainly because he was tortured until he became basically a vegetable) the Padilla flotilla was for several years housed in my home town of Charleston, where he was at least in military custody. Hopefully he is never turned over to a civilian prison since we know that it is much too dangerous to have one of these fellas there. * Update* Oh wait he is housed in Florence too now.

So quit with the bullshit and the lies Senators and Representatives, I have grown a bit tired of yawning at your pathetic efforts to deceive me. Now chill out and listen to some old Fugees as they teach us about Guantanamo Bay. Actually, they don't teach us a damn thing but hell they slipped the word into a song so god bless 'em!

No Sex in the Champagne Room, But Plenty of Drugs and Rock and Roll

After some goading from a faithful and no doubt severely twisted reader of my befuddled musings, I have decided to plunge ahead with my previously mentioned threat to create the official CD for the drug user in all of us.
In truth, great music would hardly exist without the aid of the occasional narcotic. The oft-frustrated comedian Bill Hicks once yelped, "Drugs have done some good things. If you don't believe me take out all your tapes and CDs and burn 'em. All those musicians who have created all that music that has enhanced your lives over the years? Reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll fucking high on drugs."
Take warning, though, this will not always be a happy ride - these substances, which can at times expand our consciousness and create great art also can come with the hefty price of addiction, obsession, and even death. I have tried to create a mix that illustrates the whole picture, a drug train, to quote Social Distortion - the good, the bad, and the ugly, building from the softer drugs up to the harder narcotics and their at times terrible consequences.
I will also include some honorable mentions here and there just in case you want to expand the mix into a boxed set.

Since I have already dedicated a mix tape purely to songs about booze, we will skip that silly sissy stuff and move on to the most commonly used illegal narcotic, marijuana, the wacky weed that has inspired countless bards throughout the years.

1. "I Love You Mary Jane" by Cypress Hill and Sonic Youth. Who better to lie in the grass and sing of its joys than the fellows from Cypress Hill, who have nearly created their own genre (ganja rap?) by doing that very thing. The tune, from the Judgement Night Soundtrack, also features hipsters Sonic Youth as the back-up band. Money shot: "Sugar come back, gets me high, if you wanna party, well shit I'm gonna, as soon as she comes...."

2. "Stoned Immaculate" by the Doors. Jim Morrison wrote a short and simple song about the joys of visiting the nether regions which exist within us all. He takes us there by creating a hazy musical atmosphere that has been unmatched by any of his peers (if there can be said to be any) over the last forty years.

Honorable Mentions: "Glazed" by Rocket from the Crypt, "Herojuana" by NOFX, and "Marijuana" by Hayseed Dixie. Why not add "Mr. Bake-O" by Adam Sandler (from the era when he was still occasionally funny) to inject a little comedy into your day? R. Alton has also pointed out my near-criminal negligence in omitting "Smoke Two Joints" by Sublime.

Next up, cocaine: the white powder that rarely kills, but can be ferociously addictive and some claim invariably leads to harder drugs. Some bands wrote a song about it, goes something like this...

3. "Bananas and Blow" by Ween. The masters of any genre they attempt, Ween goes calypso with this gem, that tells of the joys one can experience sitting on the cabana and subsisting solely on the two substances that give the song its name. I can't say I want to drown my nose in white powder afterward, but I sure am ready to relax on the exotic beach and enjoy an alcohol-laced beverage.

4. "Cocaine Blues" by Johnny Cash. "Cocaine Blues" is a warning of a song that takes us on a trip to the darker side of narcotics. It is the story of a man sentenced to "99 years in the Folsom Pen" whose troubles start only after he takes a shot of cocaine.

Honorable Mentions: "Cocaine Lil" by the Mekons. Also, give a listen to the comedy track "Cocaine" by Richard Pryor, someone who had a firsthand experience or two with the Peruvian marching powder. For those of you waiting for country music to be represented, quit before you die of old age, I don't really know any (unless you count Cash). However, a friend of mine recommends Hank Williams "Od'd in Denver."

Time to expand our minds with a little lysergic acid, brewed up in the lab just in time to give birth to the colorful era of the 1960s.

5. "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. Words don't do justice to this classic, a song that takes Alice down the rabbit hole and into a world that exists in the back of our mind, but can only be reached with a little assist from our friendly neighborhood pharmacist, someone always happy to help you feed your head. Take the pill that makes you larger, take the one that makes you small, just skip the one that doesn't do anything at all.

6. "Third Eye" by Tool. Tool's music often speaks cryptically about the joys of the mind-altering experience, but the band doesn't make any effort to hide their pro-drug leanings in this epic thirteen minute track, from which I have taken the Bill Hicks quote used in the introduction to this piece.

Honorable Mentions: "No LSD Tonight" by Jeffrey Lewis and of course just about anything from the masters of psychedelia, Pink Floyd - let's go with "Comfortably Numb" if you want to pick one single track.

We move to the world of pills, a sordid place where our fear and anxiety can be transformed into serenity with the addition of a few milligrams of Prozac here and a small dose of Xanax there.

7. "Mother's Little Helper" by the Rolling Stones. Who can blame mom if she needs something to calm her down? With a busy day ahead of cleaning and caring for a bunch of crazed rugrats, who wouldn't want to put their head in an oven? A little shelter from the mother's little helper will help to minimize her plight!

8. "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. A bit of a stretch for this category I admit, this song is about the inherent dangers of getting too heavily involved in the party scene. Van Zant's brilliant insertion of a line about quaaludes, a mainly forgotten pill commonly abused in the 1970s allows the Southern rockers to eke into this category.

Honorable Mention: If you can find it, there is a great audio track to insert here - the scene from Walk Hard where Tim Meadow's character explains pills to Dewey Cox. There are three or four similar episodes in the flick and if I can get my hand on them, they are going in my collection for sure.

The poppy plant has brought Oriental bliss to the United States for centuries in various forms, from opium to morphine and finally through the joys and ultimate pain of heroin.

9. "Golden Brown" by the Stranglers. A song that rides like a carefree merry-go-round and shares the ecstasy of those first heroin experiences when our brain's pleasure centers are caressed by the narcotic's tempting embrace. Never a frown....golden brown.

10. "Post Blue" by Placebo. Placebo takes us into the future of our heroin abuser, now living in a world of co-dependency where love, drugs, and sex are all part of one emotion, a need to feel something that has been taken away by the years of abusing heroin and other drugs that should have been left in the capable hands of the fashion models who know how to take them in the properly irresponsible manner.

Honorable Mention: "Heroin Girl" by Everclear and "Mr. Brownstone" by Guns N' Roses.

There are of course many other different ways we can abuse our body, and expand our mind, and various combinations in which we may do it. Here are a couple of examples:

11. "Special K" by Placebo. As the only band to appear twice so far, Placebo has clearly earned an advanced degree in writing about drugs (and sex). In order to find new material they have been willing to sample the entire pharmacy, including Special K, also known as ketamine, a cat tranquilizer which has some interesting effects when ingested by humans. To quote an expert:
"At low doses, K is a mild if weird stimulant. At medium to high doses, it becomes a very powerful paralyzing psychedelic. Its effects are like a combination of cocaine, cannabis, opium, nitrous oxide, and alcohol." Sounds like a bit too much fun for me.

12. "Crack Pipe Burned My Hand" by the Coolies. A song that could, I suppose, go into the cocaine category, but this version is chemically altered, more addictive than cocaine, and just so much funnier to talk about for some inexplicable reason that I will leave it to Dave Chappelle to explain to us one day. The Coolies, a defunct band out of the 1990s Atlanta scene, go the humor route on this track and the results are scrumptious enough to make me want to sprinkle crack on a dead hooker.

Honorable Mention: "Hash Pipe" by Weezer and "Methamphetamine Blues" by Mark Lanegan.

Now that we have sampled everything our neighborhood dealer has to offer, let's take a look at the results.

13. "Junkhead" by Alice-in-Chains. One of the most haunting songs ever written, this is the most obvious cry for help among the many attempts Layne Staley made. An unapologetic paean to drug culture, "Junkhead" asks the question, "What's my drug of choice?" and gives the answer "What have you got?" Staley's subsequent death from an overdose leads one to believe he was a little too fervent in practicing what he preached.

14. "Cure for Pain" by Morphine. "Junkhead," which I referred to as haunting, is like a trip through Candyland compared to this frightening suicide note of a composition offered up by bandleader Mark Sandman. Although Sandman would live six years more after "Cure for Pain" was released on the album of the same name, the writing was on the wall. He collapsed of a heart attack and died on stage during a 1999 show in Rome. The money shot: "Someday there'll be a cure for pain -that's the day - I throw my drugs away."

Honorable Mention: Placebo's "Commercial for Levi." Honestly if you turned this mix into a box set you'd have to dedicate a whole CD to Placebo and this song about a man's attempt at saving a friend from addiction would be right at the top of the list. If you want something a little more light-hearted, check out the NOFX jam "Drugs Are Good."

Now that our drug mix has gone to the brink of death - there are only two results: continue on that grim path or to come back from the edge.

15. "The Needle and the Damage Done" by Neil Young. A short and sweet ballad by a man who has produced an endless supply of such gems. When you end with the words, "every junkie is like the setting sun," its safe to assume things have not gone well.

16. "Whoops I Od'd" by NOFX. Known best for their word play and humor, some of which is indeed delightfully juvenile, the boys at this veteran punk outfit can put together a deadly serious song when the urge strikes them. "Whoops I Od'd" is the first person account of a man who has overindulged a bit too often and is in the midst of paying the price for his indiscretion. He is lucky enough to live through the experience, but whether he learns from it or not we do not know.

17. "Gravity" by A Perfect Circle. The last track from the CD "Thirteenth Step"is also the perfect ending for this magical musical tour. The title suggests the wobbly first step taken after a former abuser has completed a twelve-step program. These songs are very personal, as they recount singer Maynard Keenan's attempt to overcome his addiction. "Gravity," which ends with the line, "I choose to live," demonstrates Keenan's determination to end his downward spiral and not end up like Staley and Sandman.

Honorable Mention: If you are a little bit down after these last tracks, kick back with Black Grape's "Get Higher" which mocks American drug policy by using actual audio from Ronald and Nancy Reagan. "Treatment Bound" by the Replacements sticks closer to the motif while somehow still carrying the snotty vibe you can usually expect from most of the band's early catalog. Comedy tracks by Dave Attell and David Cross both entitled "Drugs" will also suck those tears right back up into your welcoming eyeballs.

If you believe I have made any egregious errors here, and if you love music I am sure you do, feel free to suggest any possible omissions, I am always looking to enhance my collection.

Editor's Note: He forgot Blue October's "Hate Me" and K's Choice's "Not An Addict," but what are you gonna do, he's just a junior travel correspondent.

Will the Real Joker Please Stand Up

Just watched Christopher Nolan's "Batman: The Dark Knight" the other evening, which I realize puts me on the last train to latesville, but hey sometimes it takes me a while to get around to doing things. The one piece of knowledge I was equipped with going in to the flick was that Heath Ledger did a phenomenal job as the Joker, perhaps even better than the legendary Jack Nicholson. I admit to being a fan of Jack and such a claim made me skeptical. Was this another case of the artist being put on a pedestal because of an untimely early demise?
Thirty minutes in, though, I had to concede that Ledger's performance was incredibly freaky, I would not have wanted to be in the same country with the psychopath who was dancing madly on my screen and killing or frightening to death everyone in his sight.
All of sudden, though, in the midst of the scene where Bruce Wayne fetes Harvey Dent, I came to a shocking realization. Heath was mimicking another actor. I couldn't put my finger on who at first, for the man being impersonated is not very likely to scare you unless you live in the state of Minnesota and aren't Jesse Ventura.
The real Joker was in fact not a complex character evolved through the use of brilliant acting technique, but rather a reproduction of the mannerisms and speech patterns of one Al Franken. Yes, the same Al Franken who wrote for and starred as a cast member of Saturday Night Live for many years, most notably as Stuart Smalley, host of the show Daily Affirmations. The very same subversive who has carved out a political career by first broadcasting a show 0n Air America Radio and subsequently riding that gig to the post of United States Senator from Minnesota (assuming Norm Coleman finally admits that he lost the race before the term expires).
I thought, maybe I am just crazy, it could be I just was unconsciously unwilling to admit Ledger had acted Nicholson into a corner. I searched the IMDB comments page to see if anyone else had noticed the same thing. After flipping through a hundred amateur reviews of the movie I found nothing. It seemed I was wrong - until I found the smoking gun.
Reality bites and the truth is as plain as day when the two are put side by side. It seems patently obvious that Heath had long ago seen the similarities between the two while doing his character research. I found pictures of Franken side by side with the Cesar Romero Joker from the old TV series (see above) as well as the Jack Nicholson Joker.
Don't be sad though, Ledger fans, what is acting but mimicking the behavior of others ? Who is to say that in the light of this new evidence (well probably not new, but it is to me and probably you) that Heath Ledger was not still a fantastic actor who put in a stellar farewell performance? He is still Jack Nicholson's bitch, though.