The future Mrs. Vinehamner (and Salvia! Lots of Salvia!)

I finally found something I like about Miley Cyrus…

And then the world forgot about Afghanistan for a few days.

Steven Tyler and Justin Bieber publicly asked her to call them. Mainly because they wanted to know where to get some. And Steven Tyler needed to know what Salvia is, too.

Billy Ray Mulletfuck, like a Yokel Yoda, had the following to Tweet on the topic: “I’m so sad. There is much beyond my control right now.” Well, that was actually an apology to his fans on Twitter. Both of them appreciated his thoughtfulness.

You hypocritical hillbilly horse-humper! Your crocodile tears would hold a lot more water if the man who brought us “Achy Breaky Heart,” and stuck his daughter on the pole weren’t saying it. Don’t believe me? I wouldn’t recommend watching the entire video, because it means that you’d have to listen to the fucking song, but the last two seconds, THE LAST TWO SECONDS, are the most telling thing about this performance.

But the first thing we have to do, darling, is get you past that gutter drug, and smoking weed, as God intended. A brief aside.

Salvia sucks. (factorum)

If they were worth a shit, people wouldn’t still be smoking weed by the acre — The prophet Hagbard on the legal smokeables you can buy in High Times.

I have a slightly used quantity of Salvia, which has been sitting on my desk since July. Anybody who is of legal age, can contact me about it. I have taken a total of two little pinches from it, and it’s not that it’s too strong, I just have no desire to try it again.

I came relatively late to Salvia, literally, a couple months ago. Just like Miley! With a few exceptions, I’m still usually up for new drug experiences. I should have known it sucked because you can buy it in places like Cig Mart, Smokes 4 Less, and the other usual “class establishments” where you can get off-the-beaten-path varieties of Pall Malls. Since parents’ groups were against it (because it’s legal for anyone over 18) I knew it was at least worth a try.

The price of it corresponds to how “powerful” it is. And in a world where fifty bucks gets you a medical marijuana prescription, and another fifty (or less) a pop will get you an eighth of decent shit, it doesn’t make economic sense. Even when you use hillbilly math.

Naturally, I wanted to start at the top. Maximum strength. 20x. “Shamanic Grade.” The guy at Cig-A-Rama knocked $20 off the price because I thought $40 for something that was most likely going to amount to nothing was a sucker’s bet – I don’t give a fuck what the PTA says. “Plus,” I said, “I’m only trying this shit on a lark. I can get some good weed for that kind of money.” And for the four glorious weeks it was open, there was a weed collective about two doors down.

Shamanic grade… Must have been a bitch coming from the tribe with an overabundance of people with an extra chromosome.

It looked like the remnants of a bowl of weed in a little coke baggie. It actually looks like gunpowder. Nothing to write home about. “Why that little shit! I’ll never buy cigarettes in there again… I mean, first, I’ll have to start them. THEN, I’ll never buy them there,” I promised myself.

Admittedly, it does have hallucinogenic effects. In my case, it blurred the dividing line between reality and television to the point where even Kung Fu Panda seemed really deep. But it wasn’t trippy, so much as it was uncomfortable. An animated jaguar with the voice of Deadwood’s Ian McShane spouting bastardized Eastern philosophy is a little hard on the Central Nervous System when you’re fucking sober. The next time, I was watching a South Park, and I felt really sympathetic toward Kyle because he lost an egg.

All of this would be lovely if there wasn’t a purple and gold (Laker colors! Yay!) striped hyperspace tunnel, constantly pin wheeling to the right, reminding you that you’re in an artificial state. In my experience, good hallucinogens sort of sneak up on you. I guess it sort of does that. You’re so jarred by the body effect, that it takes a couple minutes for your mind to catch up with your altered perception.

As for the body effect? If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a couple minutes of video at 30 frames per second is more math than I want to do. So let’s let Daniel Tosh do the heavy lifting for me.

Notice that Salvia Eric falls to the left. That’s because you feel as if your body is being pulled left, like you were hyperactive puppy trying to go in the opposite direction of your master. I don’t mind saying that the scientist in me would like to experiment with a lefty, to see if they feel as if they’re being pulled right. So unlike quality hallucinogens, you have to sit wherever you start – it fucked with my motor skills that much. [I, for one, prefer the beach or the mountains. Or Disneyland.] Don’t worry, it doesn’t last long enough to fret over being sedentary for too long.

It’s not a constant, slow pull to the left, either. Otherwise, it would counter the right-leaning pin wheel, and all would be well. It’s like a dramatic yank, always to the left.

“Bad dog.”

The only thing I can liken it to is an attraction in the Penny Arcade on Main Street in Disneyland. You’d put in a dime, and hold two metal posts, one in each hand. Servo-motors would purr, and a miniature generator would light with a charge. It would slowly run an electrical charge through your body, a needle measuring your “manliness” by how many volts you could take. The thought that somewhere in the 1920’s adults considered this “entertainment” says a lot. I was twelve and had a dime to blow at Disneyland. What’s your excuse?

Finally, every last sweat gland on your entire body empties itself.

…and you listen to Bush. Was there no paint handy to huff?

L.I.T.? WTF???

Of course, it’s now headline news. Why? She didn’t get arrested. Salvia is legal for people over eighteen – and if she were smoking a cigarette, I think the “outrage” would be slightly less. The only thing she really did wrong was that she let somebody take some bytes of a private party. [And trusting whatever little weasel took them.] Very dumb, if you’re famous – and to date, not perceived as out of control. Regardless, people who speculate about such things wonder whether or not she’s becoming an L.I.T. or Lindsay in training.

I say: not yet, you assholes! But keep trying!!! Keep dog piling more and more photographers on top of her, making her world smaller and smaller, until she’s left with nothing but take-out food and a heroin addiction!

The problem is that a significant portion of her demographic, or more to the point, their parents, aren’t quite ready to part with their Hannah Montana sheet covers. Now, lazy parents have to explain the very complex chain of hypocrisy that is America’s drug policy, or at the very least, they have to explain that big kids get to do big kid stuff, and that the baby tee and the belly ring only make you look old enough. Many parents don’t like the hard questions.

They like the dilemmas that can be wrapped up in a half hour on a Disney shitcom. Explaining why you can do some things at 18, others at 21, others at 18, but only with a prescription, and then still others and your age doesn’t matter… it staggers the mind, and I don’t even have anyone I need to explain it to. The kid with the subscription to Bop! Magazine – her parents’ heads must have popped like Yul Brenner’s in Westworld.

It’s tricky, playing to an audience of children, but having adult proclivities. Just ask Paul Reubens. But just like the shitstorm over Pee Wee’s pee wee, Hannah Montanna’s bong toke is really a whole bunch of nothing.

And I should lighten up on Bush. She was raised on “Achy Breaky Heart.” Bush must sound like the fucking Velvet Underground. In fact, that got me thinking. I’ve never really thought about dating a woman that much younger than me before. But I make bad decisions, word is that she’s into older men…

Boo… part one: Ghosts suck. Happy October, everybody!!!

Ghosts suck. You heard me. Of all the “monsters” in this world, ghosts are the worst – and by that, I sure as shit don’t mean the scariest. Not by a long shot.

For the record, using simple logic, this ire has to be predicated on a belief that ghosts, the afterlife, the great beyond, whatever, exist. Right? So understand that, critical as I may be, I’m not in any way, shape, or form saying that if you believe in ghosts, you’re a fucking idiot or something. I’m just not in the mood to discuss metaphysics. At least not right now – and it’s not because I’m worried about the ghost, or ghosts, I believe to be residing in my current place.

The ones here suck too. Maybe even worse than the average ghost. They just make loud noises that startle me while I’m meditating or writing. Give me a little homework to do, and it will feel just like high-school. Hiding in the clothes drier was my little brother’s favorite trick – give that one a shot. Go nuts, you spectral fuckheads.

When I say shit like that, my friends – believers and “non-believers” alike – say, “You better be careful, man. You don’t want to mess with that shit.” Did I miss a meeting, or something? Have I busted out the black candles and started a seance? Why are people so afraid of ghosts? All they can do is haunt you. And what does that really mean?

• They knock a lot of shit over.
• The move shit. Like, three inches. Generally, not when you’re in the room.
• Animals have not only the ability to detect them before you, they have a visceral, hate-filled reaction to them.
• They startle you by being someplace that you don’t expect them to be.
• Worst case scenario, they knock you around a bit.

I’ll even acknowledge poltergeists and possessions. [Who the fuck am I to say they aren’t real just because I don’t have any experiences with them? I’ve never seen a Kudu up close, either, and I still believe they exist.] It’s just that, in the face of a wide pool of anecdotal information, they’re the exceptions, not the rule. And when you piece together the evidence, ghosts are more like the non-corporeal version of a bad roommate. Kind of like living with every asshole in Animal House, all rolled into one.

Take for instance, this “chilling” scene from last year’s big thing in horror, Paranormal Activity:

This ghost obviously isn’t too powerful, otherwise, this stunt would have involved a bowl of warm water. That’s right, it’s even lamer than the oldest sleepover prank in the book. Perhaps pulling the covers away from somebody’s feet was the way you really fucked with them in 1874. Sure, it’s fucking creepy – but mainly because somebody’s there in your bedroom with you and your girl. The only real “harm” to come from this is that she’s going to have to take a longer shower in the morning to defrost her feet. That really sucks.

What ghosts really are is fucking annoying as hell. The “scary” thing is that you can’t see the asshole(s) doing whatever annoying shit they do – and if you think about it, that’s more something to get over, than to be afraid of. Let’s take a look at another scene from Paranormal Activity through a different window:

 

Don’t get me wrong, that’s freaky as shit. However, where’s the ghost really going to take her? To the gates of Hell itself? Highly unlikely. On another side of the prism: you don’t have to go to college to have lived with people who thought it was funny to drag your ass out of bed in the middle of the night, just to fuck with your world.

Look what happens when I take the audio from a random scene from another classic (ahem!), You, Me and Dupree. The scenario and the audio don’t quite match up, but it’s not quite the point anyway. I just wanted to replace the sound of blood-curdling screams with annoyance toward a roommate:

See? Now it’s a situation where the asshole simply has to go. Depending on the severity of the haunting, and the potential for grievous bodily harm, [For example: the goddamn ghost keeps dragging you toward the stairs.] sure, you could call a religious official, but why? Being one myself, I can only encourage a spirit to “go to the light.” What if the ghost has really overstepped some boundaries? Then what do you do? I say call in a spiritual professional who’s got no problem with revenge. Whether or not they’re a hoax is almost irrelevant, call a practitioner of the Dark Arts.

If you want to be cool about it, you could issue a warning:

A preacher is the least of your problems, you bastard son of a pirate whore! You should be so lucky to have a kindly, old Irishman sweat for a couple hours while encouraging you to go to the light. I know practitioners of witchcraft! If you don’t watch your shit, my friend, I’m going to have a fucking warlock imprison your ass in an amulet, then donate it it to Jan fuckin’ Crouch!

So this holiday season – go out and get nice and afraid of something that deserves your fear: serial killers, suburban kids who actually think they’re vampires, Republican heavy metal fans, whatever. Have a ball! But make 2010 the year you tell all the ghosts in your life that they can stick around if they wish, but you won’t acknowledge them, or their bullshit, anymore. And if they really want to push it – this isn’t like the year they died. We’ve got phonebooks now, and an exorcist is just one option.