This essay's inspiration is an email that a friend forwarded to me, in which the sender (whom I'll call "the raver") protests this website:
...which includes this video:
The objection was the "blatant attempt to link coffee to speed" (duh), which the raver found "disturbing and disgusting," based on "first-hand experiences with seeing the effects of meth."
Poor dear.
Actually, in terms of sheer gross-out factor, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's
anti-meth site is far more disturbing:
...because it's real.
The poster was entreating others on the list to email the owners of Meth Coffee with a message stating, "Meth isn't funny." (In the interest of fair-mindedness, here is the address if you want to give those bean-pushers a piece of your mind:)
OK, now, there is a vast distinction between the image of meth being used to sell coffee, and a message that promotes or even normalizes meth use. (Would you want to be that guy in the video?) Unfortunately, the raver conflates the two, and thus raver's mini-campaign smacks of someone with a personal agenda making an appeal to "right-minded citizens" in the interest of "the public good."
Meth Coffee's website is a case of satirical marketing. One of the points of satire is that it's humor with a sarcastic bite. Sarcasm is used to sell many things (here's an example: JimGoad.net), and it's supposed to hurt a bit. If it weren't based on an uncomfortable truth, it wouldn't be satire, right? Remember Wacky Packages? Actually, they're back, and they're still big. Wacky Packages are satirical representations of existing consumer products, and the most successful lampoons are the ones that come closest to commenting on the actual product, such as CRAM canned meat product, Horrid spray deodorant, Rice-A-Phoni, the Monotony board game, Raw Goo Spaghetti Sauce, and Kook Cigarettes.
Satire is one of my sacred cows, even though it's the anti-Cow, if you will. I am oxymoronic by nature. Irony might as well be my middle name ... and if there's one thing I have little indulgence for, it's the literal-mindedness of individuals like the raver who take the fun, folly, and sacred foolishness out of life. Heaven knows how much tasteless advertising most of us confront on most days of the year anyhow, and at least methcoffee.com is doing it on purpose. With a vengeance, even. I respect the intelligence behind that campaign, just as I appreciate the shock value behind the "Faces of Meth" concept, the "FUCK YOU!" aspect of Jim Goad's ad promoting his book, and the satire of product packaging embodied in the Wacky Packages line. They are all way over the top.
For the record, I have had a problem with meth use, and I didn't feel threatened or offended by this website. I thought it was a hilarious send-up of the speed-freak culture, which most of us deride anyhow. You know what the twelve-steppers in my little backwoods town used to call coffee? "Christian Crank."
(Crank, for the uninformed, is a form of speed, generally the less refined, brown and powdery version. And practically everyone I met at my former town's chapter of Narcotics Anonymous was there to stay off speed. A fresh pot of coffee was a mandatory fixture at every NA meeting I attended -- in fact, I heard the joke from a crazy old twelve-stepper who was refilling his cup.)
I won't knock anyone else's recovery process. Everyone has to get off drugs in their own inimitable style, and I'm sure we all have "triggers," some more obvious than others. Nor do I wish to deny the emotional pain of seeing a loved one succumb to addiction -- I've been there, too. But, if anything, the Meth Coffee ad campaign makes a case for the absurdity of speed-addicted behavior. So, whether the raver is a former user, a current user, or just trying to be supportive, I object to the projection of personal issues onto others. In other words, I think this person has some work to do before getting out the hook. And don't we all? We are most likely to control others when we lose our sense of humor about ourselves.
In that spirit, here are some product names I dreamed up while thinking my way through this issue:
Heroin Chocolates
Cocaine Soda (whoops, that's been done)
Ecstasy Bread (as opposed to Wonder Bread)
Psilocybin Sugar
Hashish Lipstick
Mescaline Tortilla Chips
Crack-Whore Nail Polish
Amyl Air Freshener
Sex Addict Disposable Douche
Nicotine Candy (whoops, that's been done, too, under various names)
Try making up some of your own, if you like -- it's fun.
Any time you start placing restrictions on what is and isn't "permissible" language, you give increasing power to the "taboo" words anyhow, and you are, however subtly, encouraging a form of politically correct thought control that is unhealthy and undesirable in a free-thinking society -- and in ours, too.
The minute I catch myself thinking that any subject is too serious and troubling to successfully make a joke out of, I remind myself of "The Producers" and "Springtime for Hitler."
That's not to say that I've never been offended by attempts to make humor of serious subjects. (I loathed "Life Is Beautiful" with a fiery passion -- you can read my review at http://www.gretachristina.com/lifebeautiful.html if you like.) But any kind of blanket statement that X is serious and therefore you can't make humor about it... well, it's just silly.
Posted by: Greta Christina | January 16, 2007 at 11:22 AM
That's a great example, Greta. I love Mel Brooks' humor -- what a genius.
Another good example from the movies is Heathers, one of my favorite films -- a successful satire of teen suicide and group conformity, among other heavy topics.
In case you didn't know, you can locate all the good lines from a movie, or all the movies by a particular director, at imdb.com -- just use the search box. Here's the URL for Mel Brooks, though:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000316/
--Bill
Posted by: Bill Brent | January 16, 2007 at 12:34 PM
For the soundtrack of "Tempest in a Coffee Pot" I hereby offer the lyrics from a faux old timey song I first heard on Morningside Heights in the late 1960s:
"Well I like dex better than sex
Cause dex keeps me up all night
Well I like dex better than sex
Cause dex keeps me up all night
One thing I don't know in this whole wide world
Why a bow legged man
Wants a knock kneed girl
Well I like dex better than sex
Cause dex keeps me up all night"...
Posted by: Ron Bass | January 16, 2007 at 06:36 PM
Ron, I love it!
Did you know that it used to be popular to crack open the plastic tube in a Vicks Inhaler, remove the mentholated strip, and soak it in a cup of coffee? Apparently the speed content was enough to produce a pretty decent buzz. So, actually, "meth coffee" has been around before!
The formula has since been changed, of course.
And I'm stoked cuz I just found a great deal on coffee beans at the market today. I've gone without for most of a week, so I'm sure that first cup tomorrow will have a stronger kick than usual, LOL.
Thanks for posting those lyrics.
--Bill
Posted by: Bill Brent | January 16, 2007 at 09:19 PM