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Dreck for success Yo!

 

 

Every culture has a method for measuring success.  The stock market rises and falls with the hemline.  In the ‘60’s when the mini-skirt barely concealed women's upper thighs, the Dow Jones Industrials got regular peeks at a chorus line of steamy summer cuts.  In the ‘70’s the maxi-skirt dropped to the ankles and hid a sulking DJIA and an economic funk that was the trademark of Jimmy Carter’s 4-year experiment with incompetence. 

 

Popular culture measures success by raising the bar of excellence to lower and lower depths.  These days, entertainment splashes around in a subterranean vat of lurid vulgarity where the applause-meter is set to respond only to F-bombs, simulations of sexual congress between primates, and anything that extols the virtues of farts and fecal matter.

 

The downward spiral of popular taste is pioneered by Sarah Silverman, a faux comedienne who excavated a career from the lower colon of banality by imitating a turd.  Or listen to the Grammy-winning song “F-ck You” a witty ditty performed by a 3rd-tier gargler named “Cee Lo Green,” frequently mistaken for “See Mo’ Green,” not far wrong considering his "song" had 30 million hits on YouTube.

 

“Hits,” as you probably know, is 21st century buzz for saying a performer laughs all the way to the bank while others calm their stomachs with Tums.  Art is a reflection of the culture that burps it up.  One reason heart-burns like these gain in popularity is because the majority of pop culture consumers think style means class.  Well, there you go.  Urp! 

 

Earlier this year a young lady peeled off her panties for a vid-cam and plopped her bootay into a gooey cake.  The video was a stupefying visual of dimpled flesh squirming in chocolate mousse, topped with a game-ending – ta-DAH! – fart.  If hits on YouTube is a criteria, then performance art saw its finest entry, ever.  The girl’s act can still be seen on CakeFarts.com, but it got 20 million hits before it was banned on YouTube.

 

Fashion editor John Malloy wrote a column called “Dress for Success,” where he stated the highway to fame was paved with a natty wardrobe.  OLD school alert!  The NEW school yardstick is the Yiddish word “dreck,” code-word for cheap, worthless, trash, or more to the point, shit.  Dreck for success Yo!  C’mon!  We know you want it!  15 million hits of fame is yours for the drecking.  

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

Smoke dreams: free-falling through fog-colored glasses

 

Long ago I regularly stuffed my body with substances that didn’t belong there.  Exotic stuff like Acetylpyrazine, alpha-Amylcinnamaldehyde, Butyl Phenylacetate, Bisabolene, Maltodextrin, 3,7-Dimethyl-6-Octenoic Acid, Isoamyl Benzoate, for example.

 

Primary ingredients for LSD or marijuana?

 

No, just some of the 200+ chemical ingredients in nicotine.

 

If nicotine sounds lethal, it is.  So lethal that it’s been used as a pesticide for centuries.  But when we’re young, we’re the bullet-proof heirs-apparent to the indisputable truth that we're omnipotent and we could withstand the toxic consequences of our bad decisions.

 

People say they smoke because they enjoy it.  It relaxes them.  Maybe so.  Scientists found that nicotine elevates the levels of a neurotransmitter called dopamine in the parts of the brain that produce feelings of pleasure and reward.  Good a reason as any to smoke.

 

Next month is a personal milestone – I'm celebrating 20 years since I filed a restraining order against cigarettes.  People ask me, “Don’t you miss cigarettes?”  Well, no, that’s why I quit smoking – so I’d no longer yearn for the abuse.

 

Y’see, nicotine is addicting and I didn’t smoke for enjoyment.  Fact is, I wasn’t even aware most of the time I smoked.  I just mindlessly lit up and puffed one after the other.  Why?  Dopamine, remember?  I smoked because I was a dope.  See the connection?

 

People say it’s easy to quit smoking.  I agree.  It’s so easy to quit that I quit more than a hundred times, before I quit quitting and actually quit.

 

Nicotine addiction is like a dream where one free-falls through life with fog-colored glasses and cigarettes produce a smoke screen to block the healthy rays of emotional growth and awareness.  Addictive behavior traces its roots to core issues.  Becoming a non-smoker begins a process of recovery where we have the chance to discover the glitches and fix them.

 

After 20 years in a smoke-free zone I had my “Ah-hah!” moment.  I learned that I wasn't hooked on nicotine at all.  My Jones of choice was – ta-DAH! – avoidance.

 

Cigarettes are the perfect complement for avoiding unpleasant stuff.  Don’t like the way someone looked at you?  Puff!  Didn’t get that promotion?  Puff-puff!  Put on hold for an hour while trying to get through to a customer service rep?  Puff-puff-puff!

 

I kicked the cigarette habit, but the avoidance monkey is still on my back.  Even after 20 years.  This post was scheduled to publish ten days ago (notice the date on the cartoon), but didn't make it.  The topic I set out to expose as the core of my addiction - avoidance - is what prevented me from making the deadline.

 

Maybe it's too soon to celebrate.