Sex, Drugs, and...

My second girlfriend came in college. After seven years of dating the same person, it became a necessity to have someone, anyone! I’ll never forget how difficult it was to realize the work it was going to take to get some arse. It takes you out of your comfort zone. You have to be aggressive. There is no room for doubt. There is no room for failure. “Seek and conquer” as the cave men must have known. Please remember this was before the advent of “Date Rape.” This was the 80’s. This was an era where there was more beer consumed per capita in Chapel Hill, North Carolina than anywhere in the entire country. People on the “Hill” were serious about their beer consumption. It was not that different on most college campuses. Unfortunately past Governor Jim Hunt stopped that. He was trying to stop DUI fatalities which later became DWI’s. What’s the difference? An acronym is an acronym even with PC. Driving Under the Influence. Driving While Impaired. Changing the name of the law isn’t going to effect it’s perpetrators. What did though was it’s consequences. Once in the United States you could drive with an open beer. After Jim Hunt became governor you went to jail for getting stopped for a DUI. Jail! That is a stark contrast to what was happening before. Hunt raised the legal drinking age. In North Carolina you could drink beer and wine at age 18. That seems reasonable seeing as you can get carted off to war at that age. Die for your country, drink a beer. Governor Hunt changed that and made the legal age 21 for everything. That bit of legislation changed the 80’s forever. You could no longer drink freely and recreationally like hundreds of thousands of students had been doing at UNC for decades. Bars and clubs could not get the same patrons. In Fayetteville they even went as far as making all bars membership only if they sold less food than alcohol. That meant on a burning hot summer day you could not walk into a bar and buy cold suds unless the establishment set up a kitchen and sold more than 50% food. Mom and Pop bar owner were out of business. Imagine not being able to walk into a pub and have a cold beer without the auspices of a restaurateur. Some folk don’t want a restaurant like the people in Scotland and England. What is going to happen to all those pub owners when the people realize they can’t smoke? Unconstitutional? Great Britain doesn’t adhere to the U.S. Constitution. We forged this country to get out from under the tyrannical rule of the British replete with their conservative values. Still smoking is being outlawed on a massive level infringing upon the freedom of the American people. If private businesses are going to be choked financially by government, then the people eventually will turn to their private homes. If business is the way that freedom is going to be curtailed, then the people surely will unite and do what they like to do anyway. Who cares if there isn’t money exchanging hands under the scrutiny of Uncle Sam. Oh, this is called Socialism! Peoples' needs and desires are met in a humanistic way. This makes them happy. They endure. So what if there is no Coca Cola, chocolate, and bubble gum as the movies depict? The Russians had vodka, and it went a long way in keeping the people happy in the midst of bitter cold, food shortages, and poverty. If your government provides the basic things people need to be happy, then commerce isn’t necessary unless you want to be the next gadzillionaire. What would you do with all that money? Free coffee. Free clean and nutritious drinking water. Free booze. Let the good times roll! In that era the American people knew it took something other than real life to provide good times, because the bitter reality of survival was not that far away at any moment. Remember the Indians, our Native Americans? Remember the Lost Colony? Plague, famine, and freezing? It seems the Republicans know nothing of this. It seems millions of dollars is all it takes to feel good. The memory that you will never be wanting is enough to keep your pleasure center titillated. For the rest of us, we need anodynes. An anodyne is something that deadens suffering. Sex is an anodyne. Crystal Meth is an anodyne. Crack is an anodyne. Cigarettes are an anodyne. Alcohol is an anodyne. Most people are not happy, so it take a little work to feel good. The Republican party is not making that easy. Black people know how to feel good. They listen to good music. They drink a couple of 40’s in a brown paper bag. They dance to Hip/Hop music. Basics like jazz. The internet and video games have become the newest drugs. Television with its Reality programming and shock nightmaria certainly isn’t an anodyne. Who feels good when watching people scream at each other? Sex may be the best anodyne of all, and I had to have it. It was time. I picked up the phone and called a girl. I asked her to see a play at our college. We went and had a good time. A week later we were having good sex. It makes you happy. It completes you. It reinforces our most basic but integral animal desires. It is Sigmund Freud. Crack and Meth are not good drugs, but the American people deserve to feel good. With our polluted environment, diesel trains blasting away 24/7, aircraft patrolling our blue sky, and little clean air to breathe, drugs become a must.