You’re So Vain…

I bet you think this blog is about you.  This weekend officially kicks off the summer season ushered in by the first summer holiday, Memorial Day.  As much as I love the summer holidays, Memorial Day, Forth of July, and Labor Day, they fail to offer my favorite edible joy…candy. 

Hello my name is L. Kyle and I’m a candyholic. 

There are certain holidays which we celebrate such as Christmas and Easter which have their own themed candy, I call those “candy holidays.”  Halloween and Valentine’s Day, although not holidays, do bring forth a cornucopia of confections.  I realize that loving candy into your adult years may seem a little childish, but I’m okay with that. 

The summer holidays do have their fair share of junk food; hotdogs, chips, bratwurst, but candy is really not a central theme.  One item that does seem to go hand in hand with summertime is alcohol.  Alcohol seems to be the “adult” candy.  Some people no doubt look forward to sipping, chugging or shotgunning their favorite beer just as much as I enjoy eating a Cadbury Egg or double fisting Snickers bars.  Of course there’s an appearance of “cool” associated with alcohol and not candy. 

Actually alcohol is about the only vice which is regarded as socially acceptable.  Loving junk food is not cool.  “Are you really going to eat that second bag of M&Ms you fat slob?”  You really going to have that fifth beer? 

Smoking, which was socially acceptable in the 1920s is not really socially acceptable anymore. The mid-90s saw the lawsuit of big tobacco.  In addition to the $216Billion tobacco companies must pay to the 46 State Attorneys General named in the lawsuit, the four major tobacco companies were forced to cease from certain marketing practices.  So long Marlboro Man and your rugged persona.  So long Joe Camel and your cartoonish charm which enticed young kids to smoke. 

Instead we see an over abundance of smoking cessation ads, nicotine patch and gum ads and those ads with people speaking with robotic voices because they had their vocal chords removed.  Which is funny because there has not been a television or radio advertisement promoting cigarettes since January 2, 1971.  It is true that smoking has claimed a spate of lives in our country.  According to the Centers for Disease Control nearly 500K people every year die from smoking related diseases.  In fact the CDC reports deaths related to smoking total more than HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined. 

Forty six States felt burdened enough by the medical expenses for these people that they sued big tobacco.  But what about the scores of people dying due to alcohol related diseases or alcohol related accidents?  Why are the States not suing the major alcohol manufactures for the havoc their products wreak?  Sure the government tried to prohibit the manufacture and distribution of alcohol from 1919 to 1933.  However, bootleggers and organized crime became such an epidemic that the government repealed prohibition of alcohol and allowed the States control alcohol themselves.

Although alcohol does not claim as many lives as smoking does, it could be argued that the lives alcohol does claim are more tragic than smoking. Which seems more devastating: “Yeah my Dad died from emphysema, but he did smoke two packs of Camel lights a day for 35 years, so we kind of saw it coming.” Or “My Dad was killed on his way home from work when a drunk driver plowed into him.” 

The CDC also reports that 79,000 alcohol related deaths occurred in 2009. Besides drunk driving, which according the CDC was responsible for 32% of auto accidents and 10,000 deaths in 2009, alcohol is also a factor in more than 75% of all sexual assaults. Some national studies even find a causal relationship between domestic violence and alcohol abuse.  The CDC also reports that binge drinking, that is consuming 4 or more drink in a two hour period, costs this nation $223Billion a year!  The World Health Organization reports that worldwide alcohol is responsible for 2.4 million deaths.  That’s more than AIDS/HIV! 

So why has smoking been vilified in our society?  Sure, smoking claims a lot of people, but when was the last time someone was so buzzed with nicotine that they crashed their car killing other people?  When was the last time someone smoked so much and woke up after having sex with someone they didn’t know?  Or when was the last time rapist slipped a date rape drug into someone’s cigarette and then sexually assaulted them?

Now I’m not defending smoking, but I had a hard time understanding why smoking has been so demonized in our nation.  That was until I realized it was all about vanity.  Smoking makes your clothes stink, it makes your car stink, makes your breath stink.  Let’s face it, smoking makes you look bad.  Ever see someone who you thought was attractive until you saw them smoking?  "You smoke?  Gross!"

Our society is obsessed with vanity.  Sure we are into healthier activities these days; Cross Fit, P90X, The Biggest Loser, The Thigh Master.  Yes, we do these things to be healthy, but really we do them so we can look in the mirror and be happy with what we see.  Smoking is associated with unhealthy lifestyles.  Drinking though; have you ever seen the television ads?  Everyone looks pretty fit.  Attractive people drinking beer or Captain Morgan’s or Smirnoff Vodka and they all look like they are having a good time.  Shoot we even have “light” beer so you can be drunk and skinny. 

Sure society doesn’t like alcoholics; they have a problem.  If you have a problem with alcohol then there are rehab programs and 12-step programs, but it’s all kept on the down low.  Those programs have as much confidentiality as a lawyer, a doctor or a priest.  Want to stop smoking?  There are myriad of plans, gums, patches and commercials to help you with that.  Need to stop drinking?  Don’t be silly, of course you don’t.  Unless you have a problem then meet me in basement of a church on Wednesday afternoons, but don’t tell anyone.

We also don’t like the Homer Simpson-style beer drinkers with beer bellies and stains on their shirts.  But according to the commercials you won’t ever look like that.  According to Bud, Coors, Keystone and Miller you will always have a good time, always be fit and always be funny. 

The bottom line is that alcohol is just as destructive as smoking, if not more.  But we demonize smoking and glorify alcohol use because we are vain.  People can still drink (and are encouraged to) so long as they remain healthy looking, never develop an addiction and never kill anyone. 

Vanity of vanities all is vanity.

Leftovers Enjoy.

L. Kyle

Help! Decency is dying...

Too late, it’s dead.  Decency just died.  It had been dying for a while, but a new song by British circus performer turned pop-singer Neon Hitch just sent decency into cardiac arrest.   Over the radio it is tough to make out the words but it sounds like “She loves you good, but I can love you better”  After reading the lyrics I realized why the word love was hard to make out, because Ms Hitch doesn’t  spell love L-O-V-E, instead she spells it F-U-*-K.  Here’s a link to the lyrics http://www.metrolyrics.com/fk-u-betta-lyrics-neon-hitch.html.   Thanks to the FCC, songs like this have to be edited for public consumption, but really anyone with a smart phone can access the unedited version of the song from anywhere.

It is true that there have been other times when decency has been beat up and put in the hospital.  In 1987 George Michael released the “I want your sex” single which peaked at number 2 on the America’s charts and stayed on the Top 40 charts for 10 weeks.  In 1990 Hip Hop group Salt and Pepa released a single called “Let’s talk about sex”, which also did well on some American charts.   According to the website http://www.songfacts.com/ there are237 songs dealing with the issue of sex.  Certainly there are more songs than that produced dealing with this issue, so perhaps this list represents the most popular or ones that aren’t shrouded in another message.  Suffice it to say that Ms. Hitch is not the first to pen an explicit song about sex.  It could be argued that she doesn’t even take the top prize for most vulgar song, that record could be owned by the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Gwar, 2 Live Crew or Insane Clown Posse. But those groups have not made it on mainstream radio.

So what makes “F**K you better” the song which killed decency?  Well…just look at the title.  It could be its unabashed message that sex is nothing more than an act in which one person can perform better than another.  Her message could almost be the same message an insurance agent or perhaps an auto mechanic could use: “We know that we aren’t as attractive as your current auto mechanic, but we can change your oil better”.   It could be her music video which shows nothing else than her dancing around in her underwear.  Or it could be that her song reached Number #1 on Billboard’s Top Dance Hit Chart and is currently climbing on the Hot 100 Chart.

Perhaps it’s not so much of the content of the song, which apparently Ms Hitch wrote after an ex-boyfriend started dating a model, that killed decency, but perhaps it’s the fact that this song is being embraced by the consumers of pop culture.  The biggest consumers of pop culture in our society are between the ages of 12-19 years old. According to Marketing Daily American teenagers posses nearly $216 Billion in buying power.  El Salvador and 90 other countries in the world do not have the kind of buying power which American Teenagers have.  This is why the purveyors of popular culture will do what it takes to get that cash. 

Sometimes what it takes to get that cash is to give singers like Neon Hitch the opportunity to write and perform songs which most would argue are not appropriate fare for any 13 year-old.  Yes sex sells.  The pornography industry made billions last year and will make billions this year and billions every year until Kingdom come.  In a broader sense, it’s not just sex that sells, it’s taboo that sells.  Popular music has always made money from what was taboo. In 1963 it was somewhat taboo for the Beatles to sing about wanting to hold your hand.   

Not to defend Mr. Michael and his song “I want your sex”, but at the very least he sung about sex as part of a relationship.  His song was certainly taboo, but that was probably the point, to push the boundaries of what was taboo and okay to talk about in the public sphere.  It seems though that mere taboo topics are not enough anymore.  It’s not enough anymore to allude to sex like the song “Slow Ride” by Fog Hat or even sing about one night stands like “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns.  No, those songs are not enough to shock the decency out of people.  There is no taboo anymore and now the likes of Neon Hitch must revert to being visceral in their language to ensure that people pay attention.  Another song about sex?  That won’t get people’s attention, but if we repeat the F-word enough, surely people will notice. 

Once taboo is no longer taboo, the only thing left to do is attack decency.  And that is what Ms Hitch’s song does, it attacks decency.  It attacks decency to the point that decency just died.

Leftovers.  Enjoy.

L. Kyle