Perhaps the only City Pages award more controversial than Nihilist in Golf Pants winning Best Right Wing Blogger, is their choice for "Best Cheap Thrill." No, they didn't choose reading the Nihilist, which certainly qualifies. And they didn't chose my favorite option, intercepting the WiFi bleeding out from the Maplewood Plaza movie theater and blogging from their parking lot - which I did last week, before seeing Mrs. Henderson Presents - and it was free and undeniably thrilling.
No, instead, the journalists from the City Pages chose that old family favorite - taking crystal meth. That's methamphetamine to your local emergency room doctor and a crime to your local peace officer. But to the City Pages, well, that's just an affordable good time.
A defense for their position has been released by that paper's editor, Steve Perry. He says that it was merely "satire" and only talk radio show listeners are "seriously dense" enough not to realize that they wrote an article critical of crystal meth a mere three years ago.
Well Shecky Perry, that defense sounds more like satire than your ode to crystal meth. But, if it was intended to be humor, like it or not, its success is ultimately defined by the audience, not the comedian. Blaming the audience for not appreciating your subtle, cryptic genius - that's what I call seriously dense.
Being a consumer of City Pages bark and snark for over a decade, I can attest this crystal meth tribute is more opaque in it's delivery than is customary when they're trying to be funny. Like this rim shotter from Steve Perry just before the election in 2004. You know wild, hyperbolic language like this has to be a joke (right?):
On November 2 we won't be voting for anything like the measure of change we deserve the chance to vote for. We will be casting our ballots in a referendum on whether we wish to pause and reconsider our march toward a homegrown American fascism.
At its most benign, the crystal meth promotion appears to be an attempt to have it both ways. A defense of taking the drug for those cool enough to handle it (it's not so bad, no worse than alcohol which you hypocrites take all the time), while giving enough plausible deniability to wriggle out, if it so happens that someone reads it other than the stoner subculture the City Pages caters to.
Given their offended, perplexed reaction to the criticism, it seems the City Pages didn't think that anyone besides the stoner subculture would take them seriously. In the future, maybe we should take their advice in that regard.
Obligatory Chicken Hawk questions that demand answers: Did the anonymous author of this "satire" ever use crystal meth? And did they find it thrilling and no worse than alcohol? I think that's important context to help us understand where the City Pages editorial perspective is coming from.
On its own, crystal meth is a destructive drug. Crystal meth addiction destroys one's health, it rends families and friendships, and it gets people into serious legal trouble. These are bad enough, but it is also well documented that crystal meth addicts are much more likely than the average non-addict to engage in other risky behaviors above and beyond drug use. This is partly due to the uninhibited mental state brought on by the drug, and partly due to addicts' desperation to get more of the drug. In any case, here are some of the most common risky behaviors associated with crystal meth abuse. 2-fma buy us
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