July 2006

Imagine an uppercase U. A big U. Look at it from above. Let’s pretend that this U is your tongue. Now let’s pretend that you are in an airplane over the Gulf of Mexico and you’re happily eating some pumpkin seeds and reading the issue of Wired with Stephen Colbert on the cover and you haven’t even thought about your tongue in months and months. Are you still with me? Now look at that capital U / your tongue. See the top left-hand side? Let’s say we hit a little turbulence and your back teeth slice right the hell through that. There is blood. And pain. Oh, God, the pain. Fast forward 24 hours. It still hurts. It hurts to swallow. It hurts to talk. Are you going to take that U / your tongue for granted again? I didn’t think so.

Here’s something that’s been nagging at me lately: Why don’t you ever see commercials for fruits and vegetables? I realize that apples and bananas and squash aren’t really all that sexy, and the mega-corporations that sell them all — Dole, etc. — do some vague advertising for their processed products (like OJ and pineapple chunks). But where are the celebrity endorsements? It seems like every other day there’s a new report on how damn fat everyone is. The government blows money like a drunk at a strip club on pointless crap like invading other countries and getting boneheads elected to office. Why don’t the people running this country shell out a few bucks for a tomato ad to run during Fear Factor? Wouldn’t it be great to see Paris Hilton being sexy peeling a banana? How many little American chubbies would skip Taco Bell and grab an apple if Tom Cruise popped into prime time to say how cool it was to eat one? Just a thought …