…if Akon was singing the hook. If Rihanna, Beyonce and Shakira were dancing in the video. And life made a shred of fucking sense:
Dear America,
I take it back. I don’t apologize.
Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.
I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.
Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.
You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.
Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities…
This time I mean it: go read the rest. But this time you don’t need me to tell you that.
February 3, 2009 at 6:55 pm
[...] 2: The brilliant and ever lyrical Poor Man Institute gives you a tasty-lick of my link. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)More Fantasy [...]
February 3, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Life makes sense. After the third bong hit.
February 3, 2009 at 7:47 pm
If Nabisco made chlorine flavored Mystic Mints, I’d never get back in that goddam pool again.
Pass the M&Ms.
February 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I would not want to smoke pot with that guy.
“Hey, let me start it off,” said Phelps.
Phelps lights the bowl. “Burble, burble, burble, burble, burble, burble, burble…”
“Dude, c’mon,” I said.
“Burble, burble, burble, burble, burble, burble, burble…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………..I guess I cashed that bowl. Let’s go again.”
February 4, 2009 at 7:06 am
word
February 4, 2009 at 9:51 am
swoof: that’s hilarious
I think his mistake was being in South Carolina…
February 4, 2009 at 11:19 am
In a related story, Phelps has just been hired as an expert on science and global warming policy by Brookings.
February 5, 2009 at 7:42 am
My guess is that both Phelps AND Mark Spitz hit the bongs. Probably do a wake and bake and then fifty laps before going to the IHOP for like 20 pancakes each.
February 5, 2009 at 8:11 am
Wow. Hadn’t even thought about the munchies implications.
February 6, 2009 at 3:54 am
If only there was this much public outcry when a famous athlete raped somebody. That would be a world that made sense.
February 12, 2009 at 7:08 am
Another famous life-long cannabis devotee: Carl Sagan. Yup, the hippee-lettuce sure makes you dumb.