Coffee, Counterfeit Speed, and Weed

The endless summer is ending.

Image by Felix from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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“Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp and playing my Hohner harmonica.” -Abraham Lincoln (maybe...)

Dear Gentlereaders,

Coffee, it turns out, at least for now, is officially good for you in moderation. If you're unaware of this, or don't believe me, check out the Worldwide Web of Contradictory Knowledge (WWCK), or just ask your favorite artificial intelligence. 

{What if a given gentlereader isn't online?}

Given that this column is published in cyberspace but not in meatspace, except for that one old Luddite trapped in a geezer storage unit in West Virginia (long story), this is a moot point. However...

{Wait-wait-wait. Whaddaya mean by "at least for now?"}

Well, Dana, even if you're not a current events/input junkie like me, you're likely to be aware that these sorts of pronouncements are subject to change when/if enough new studies come along to debunk the current orthodoxy. 

"Trust the Science" should be rendered as trust the science but pay attention because the science is subject to change, particularly when it comes to food, drink, and psychology. For example, we recently went from moderate alcohol consumption is good for you to alcohol is poison in short order.  

But for now, you can relax (if you haven't had too much coffee) and enjoy the fact that your coffee addiction isn't as problematic as you previously thought. Well, assuming, of course, that you're not consuming more than 400 milligrams of caffeine a day. 

{400mg? Says who?}

There have been a lot of studies done, and "medical experts" seem to agree on that number, including the folks at the FDA. If you follow the link, you'll find a lengthy, highly detailed web page devoted to the subject. 

Coffee-consuming consumers, most consumers I suspect, know what coffee jitters are. And given the popularity of "energy drinks," you don't have to be a coffee lover to know what consuming too much caffeine can do to your brain/body.

A good friend of mine thought he had consumed enough caffeine to accidentally kill himself several years ago when he and I were both still young enough to think we were bulletproof and ten feet tall. 

Like I said, this was a very long time ago. 

We were both Goody Bar men who worked out of a Good Humor depot in suburban Pittsburgh at the time. A Goody Bar man and/or a Goody Bar lady was an individual who was employed driving a Good Humor ice cream truck and sold, you guessed it, Goody Bars. 

For the record, as far as I've been able to discover, the term Goody Bar was/is(?) a local Yinzer word for Good Humor Bars restricted to the greater Pittsburgh area, youse know what I mean?

{Cool, yet another column about ice cream trucks.}  

Ackchyually, Dana, as indicated by the headline, it's a column about coffee, counterfeit speed, and weed. Given that it's possible to like, literally die from overdosing on caffeine, your snark is not appreciated.

{Haughty sniff. Anyway...}

Anyway, although Good Humor trucks, in fact, all sorts of ice cream trucks you might've encountered working the streets of your neighborhood had just crested the hill and were about to start down the slippery slope on the other side, and then vanishing, the depot in question was still jammed with white ice cream trucks with blue lettering built to Good Humor's specifications at the time.        

In a far corner of that depot that was at the opposite end of where the company offices and a hooge, outdoor walk-in freezer were located, there was a large Oak tree that was actually located behind a chain link fence on an adjacent business's lot. 

As I said, it was a large Oak tree. Several of its branches overhung the corner in question and provided a canopy that shaded a truck owned by local legend...um, Steve. Steve was an entrepreneurial sort who helpfully provided weed to his fellow drivers to supplement his ice cream sales. These same people were known for "toking up" with each other in that same corner before going to work.  

I know what you're thinking, gentlereaders; you're asking yourself the obvious question. Given that weed was illegal at the time, and given the reputation of people who drove ice cream trucks, and given that these same people spent their workday behind the wheel of fairly large and heavy vehicles, why was this tolerated by the people in the offices at the other end of the world parking lot?

I can't speak for them, but I assume it was for the same reason the drivers spent their days working long hours in the heat (the majority of ice cream trucks weren't/aren't air-conditioned) and taking a lot of crap from both kids and their parents. 

Money.

Amazingly, while I was there at least, there were no accidents or incidents related to weed consumption that I'm aware of. 

{I've got a question. Why was Steve "locally famous"?}

Given that this is a (more or less) family-friendly column, dear gentlereader, you might want to stop reading here if the sexual adventures of others give you the vapors. 

[INSERT PAUSE HERE]

Steve was locally famous for once being caught in flagrante delicto with a comely companion by one of the office denizens.

{Huh?}

He was getting a blowjob in his ice cream truck. 

{Moving on...wait, what's any of this got to do with coffee and "counterfeit speed?"}

There was an interesting, short-lived phenomenon going on in the Pittsburgh area at the time that came and went in short order. Back then, as now, it was possible to buy clearly labeled caffeine pills at your favorite outlet for over-the-counter drugs.  However, someone was opening pop-up stores selling what they called "legal speed" (amphetamines).

These pills were not amphetamines; they were caffeine pills disguised as illegal amphetamine pills. Real amphetamines, available only by prescription or from that shady friend of your friend, came in various forms. If you're old like me, you may remember the famous "black beauties," plain back capsules, but I understand they came/come in all sorts of other shapes and sizes as well. 

I confess to being an individual who smoked entirely too much weed in a past life, but I was never a pill head, so my knowledge is limited. In fact, I avoided partying with pill heads of all stripes as strenuously as I avoided hanging out with juicers back in the day. I didn't care for all the drama (he said self-righteously).

Long story short...

{Too late.}

Although I remember these pop-up stores (there was one in my neighborhood), when I went a-googlin' I could find nothing about them, so I can offer no proof they existed. In my defense, local authorities found a way to quickly shut them down anywhere they sprouted. And, I can't remember how it quickly became common knowledge that they were selling cleverly disguised caffeine pills. 

{Probably all that weed you were smoking.}

Harumph! I do clearly remember the friend who told me about what he thought was a near-death experience from taking too many of them. He and some of the other members of the Oak Tree Smokers Club used them to counteract the effects of smoking too much weed. 

As in, "Screw this, I'm going to park my truck, get something to eat, and take a nap."

One hot summer day, Steve found himself sweating far more profusely than he thought was normal. He then noticed that his heart was beating abnormally fast, and it felt like it was accelerating. While he was dealing with some customers, he noticed that his hands were starting to tremble, and he was hit with a blinding headache. 

He quickly concluded the sale and made for the nearest, safe spot. There's no official name for these spots, but all experienced ice cream vendors know where to head on their routes when things get weird, such as when they want to give a kid a bitch slap, or when privacy is needed for some reason. 

He pulled over, got his frozen towel out of the freezer, and draped it over his neck. Then willed himself to calm down while trying to decide what to do next. Cellphones weren't a thing just yet, so he couldn't dial 911. He didn't want to knock on someone's door looking and feeling like he did in the middle of his workday in an area he frequented six, sometimes seven days a week. 

So being bulletproof and ten feet tall, he decided to just suck it up and wait it out. Fortunately, he didn't have the massive heart attack he thought he might be having and reasoned that it was the "legal speed" that was the source of his problem. 

Once he knew he was going to be okay, he tossed his remaining pills into the bushes in disgust and went back to work. Winter always feels like it's just around the corner when your income depends on warm weather. 

{Say, I don't suppose that he...}

No, he didn't hear a celestial choir or a comforting voice telling him to go into the light. 

Have an OK day, 

Colonel Cranky

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Higher Education?

Image by Daniel from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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"Learning to play two pairs is worth about as much as a college education, and just as costly." -Mark Twain

Dear Gentlereaders,

I follow an online publication called The College Fix, "Your daily dose of right-minded news." It features articles written by conservative/libertarian college students about goings-on in various and sundry colleges and universities. 

I also keep an eye out for such stories in other publications.

INSERT METAPHORICAL THROAT CLEARING HERE: 

For the record, I am, more or less, a conservative/libertarian. However, I hold a position or two considered to be lefty notions, such as semi-socialized medicine for example, and I don't "identify" as either a Depublican or a Republicrat for two reasons. 

First, from what I can tell, the majority of politicians of both parties are more concerned with their careers — and power/money/ego/etcetero — than doing what's best for their city, state, or country. 

Second, due to social media, a thoroughly corrupted fourth estate, and the sort of politicians mentioned in the previous sentence, we're up to our necks in people who earn their daily bread by promoting division, outrage, and Us vs. Themism by exploiting the tribal nature of H. sapiens inherited from millions of years of having to belong to a tribe or expect to die. 

{Dana here, I've been asked by management to pre-apologise to any and all of those offended readers who subscribe to the belief that the Earth has only been around for a relatively limited time or similar beliefs, particularly given that the cranky geezer who writes this column holds somewhat unorthodox religious notions. At Cranky Inc., live and let live is company policy.}

And now, back to our show. Thanks, Dana. I've taken it upon myself to monitor the multiple wacky Wokies still running loose at our institutions of higher learning despite the fact that (hopefully) America seems to be waking, in fits and starts, from the bad dream that is Wokism. 

{That reminds me, what's all this fuss about Sydney Sweeney about? I heard...} 

All you need to know is, find her and her jeans commercials cute or tacky, the Wokies have been unable to cancel her, and Normies don't think she's a spokesperson for white supremacy. 

Meanwhile, Sylvana Ross, a Cornell grad student, recently gave a talk at the Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology. “...one of the premiere international opportunities for sharing research on evolutionary biology.” 

She's working on her doctorate and has been researching "...how past racial segregation in housing, or redlining, has altered house ants’ genetics across urban and rural neighborhoods." 

One Haley Branch also gave a talk. 

"Haley Branch, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, while giving a presentation titled 'Ableism as foundation for evolutionary biology,' voiced concern over how the 'axiological assumptions' of evolutionary biology are built off of a 'white, heteronormative, Christian, Western, male framework.'"

Click on the link to the article and you'll discover that there's no shortage of woke, alleged scientists who are working hard to save the world by mandating  “mandatory LGBTQIA+ DEI education trainings” at all such conferences. 

Stockholm, Sweden, is famous the world over as the inspiration for the psychological phenomenon known as Stockholm syndrome. 

Nowadays, the gang at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm is providing "...a series of postmaster courses, public seminars, field studies, publications, and discursive exhibitions that together form a platform for education and research..." via a series of courses called Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies.  

Why? Dildo-architecture. 

As Paul B. Preciado points out, "The dildo-building as structure is the only model upon which the development of the erect urban skeleton has been developed...he signals 'dildoarchitecture' as foundational practice of patriarchal societies." My emphasis. 

He goes on to say that, "The dildo-building is the empirical reinscription of phalic transcendental power in social urban space. ...every building is a sacrament of the heterosexual institution of the reproduction of love-power." 

{Huh...seems so obvious when you think about it. I wonder what a city that glorifies the vajayjay would look like?} 

An interesting side note, according to Wikipedia:

 "Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the standard tool for diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses and disorders in the United States, mainly due to the lack of a consistent body of academic research and doubts about the legitimacy of the condition."    

Last, but not least, is my personal favorite. Emily Pool is a high school history teacher in Colorado and the winner of this column's You Can't Make This Shi Shtuff Up Award. Ms. Pool is doing an outstanding job preparing her students for college. 

The following paragraph, which I stole borrowed from the aforementioned The College Fix, neatly sums up her perspective on the Incan civilization. 

"Emily Pool, who according to her LinkedIn page is 'talented in successfully differentiating learning styles in for [sic] socially, economically, and racially diverse classrooms,' says in her vid the Inca were 'kind' about dispatching their victims via sacrifice…because they drugged them first."

{       }

Right? As you can see, there's a link to her video in the paragraph above, but I've no idea if it will be of any use to you. It's from a posting on X that includes a TikTok video. While I can post YouTube videos with the best of 'em, I know next to nothing about X (this column has an unused account there) and even less about one of Emperor Poo Win Nie's American propaganda outlets, TikTok (that I avoid like the unvaccinated victims of Measles).

{Wait-wait-wait. Didn't you have Measles when you were a kid? That means you're immune.}

So I'm told, but that was roughly 200 years ago, so I'm not taking any chances. On a related note, younger gentlereaders, I/we geezers and geezerettes know how much you enjoy dunking on us for our perceived lack of technical skills. But often as not, it's deliberate. Many of us consciously guard against the diminishment of our attention spans, as well as the social media addiction that's built into the software.

{Is that why you can barely use your smartphone?}

Bulldicky! I mostly use my phone as a traditional phone by choice, but far be it from me to criticize those who are content to watch video content via tiny screens and have no idea what high-quality audio is. 

{Far be it from you, huh? And Bulldicky?}

ANYWAY, Ms. Pool also thinks that if you find human sacrifice appalling, given all the other horrible stuff that's happened in history, this is an indicator of your "quite white education." She uses TikTok because it "democratizes education."

In her defense/on a related note, here's another College Fix article that quotes archaeologist María Belén Méndez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico explaining why the Mayans killed kids.

“It’s not that [its practitioners] were violent,” Belén Méndez said, just that sacrifices were “their way of connecting with the celestial bodies.”

Have an OK day, 

Colonel Cranky

{Wait-wair-wait. Some of your columns seem to be running a little light on total words lately. Aren't you supposed to be striving for a 1,500-word minimum since you only publish every other week nowadays? What about providing your readers with their money's worth?}

I'm dealing with some mildly annoying health problems at the moment that are doing a number on my energy levels and which also generate brain fog. If I've mentioned this before, forgive me. As I said, brain fog.  

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Copyright 2025-Mark Mehlmauer-All rights reserved

       

A Long Time Ago...

 

Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to stick to probability, and truth ain't." -Mark Twain (corrupted, but improved)

Dear Gentlereaders,

A long time ago in a column far, far away...

{Hold up there, Sparky, that doesn't make any sense.}

True. I'm referring to a column I wrote a long time ago, Dana. It's a cheap clever ploy, along with the title of this column, to snag an unsuspecting reader or two who might think they're clicking on a post about Star Wars. 

{Clickbait. Got it.}

No-no-no. It's a clever ploy; clever ploys are covered by my poetic license.

The column in question mentions a fictional organization I created out of thin air called the IUPPPP&PVTTOT, which is short for the International Union of Professional Perpetually Protesting Protestors and Perpetual Victims of This, That, and the Other Thing.  

{More clickbait. Got it.}

No-no-no. Merely witty satire, which is also covered by my poetic license.

Truth, as Lord Byron pointed out in Canto 14 of his epic poem, Don Juan, is stranger than fiction. 

{Gimme a break, you've never read...}

Byron's poetry is only one example of the many things I've never read, nor plan to. I was about to say that I discovered this because of my predilection for looking up the origin of commonly used quotes/phrases. Irregardless, the truth is often stranger than fiction.  

For example:

If, like me, you somehow missed the latest nationwide, Because Trump, protest march, permit me to get you caught up. 

John Lewis, a civil rights icon famous for (among other things) leading the first march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 that resulted in the unarmed marchers being attacked by a gaggle of good ol' boys — cleverly disguised as state and local police officers — with nightsticks and teargas. An incident that has been known ever since as Bloody Sunday.      

Mr. Lewis, who went on to become a congressman who represented Atlanta from 1987 to 2020, died on 7/17/20. He's credited with coining the phrase good trouble, by which he meant nonviolent protestors getting together to object to an injustice of one sort or another.

{Shouldn't that be congressperson?}  

Last month, a nationwide Good Trouble Live On protest took place on 7/17/25, which you may have missed, as it was kind of a bust. Note to self, don't schedule a nationwide protest to take place on a Thursday, timing is important. Also, don't try to capitalize on the reputation of a lesser-known civil rights icon who died five years ago. Five years ago is ancient history nowadays. 

{So, who exactly put this thing together, or tried to anyway?}

Obviously, you're a product of my subconscious, Dana. I also wondered about that, fascinated as I am by the hundred million or so global nonprofit organizations staffed by people whose job it is to seek justice and promote protests and who inspired my fictional creation, the IUPPPP&PVTTOT. 

I did a deep dive into the WWCK (worldwide web of contradictory knowledge), but was unable to pin it on a specific individual or organization. The Good Trouble Lives On website mentions a handful of "Partners." I stopped counting when I got to 100.

While searching the web for info about the poorly executed protest, I came across an organization called Crowds on Demand, "...your home for impactful advocacy campaigns, demonstrations, crowds for hire and corporate events." 

Yes, Virginia, a bit o'-googlin will reveal to you that there are firms that will supply bodies for your protest -- if the check clears. In fact, there are several. Back when I created the IUPPPP&PVTTOT, I had never even heard of Crowds on Demand. I was vaguely aware there were/are various and sundry such firms, but I've never looked into the phenomenon till recently.

{Yet another failure by this column's official current events junkie, it would seem.}

Thanks for pointing that out, Dana. I was also surprised to discover that this sort of thing is hardly carried out in the shadows. While I imagine that in most cases, neither the organizers of a given protest nor the firm supplying sign-carrying H. sapiens want you to be aware that at least some of the alleged protesters in your town are actually employees...

{More likely independent contractors, I would think. Companies that make their money via gig workers and people trying to survive via side hustles prefer that the help deal with their own taxes and the like.} 

The CEO of Crowds On Demand wants the world to know that the bodies his firm supplies to his customers are carefully screened. If violence and looting break out at your "mostly peaceful protest," it won't be because of the people rented from his company. 

{I wonder if there's a money-back guarantee?}

Adam Swart, the CEO of Crowds on Demand, explains in the video that his firm also has high standards when deciding on whether or not to do a deal with a given customer.

Mr. Swart says he was offered $20,000,000 to supply protestors for the failed Good Trouble Lives On protest, but he turned it down. Not because he necessarily disagreed with the aims of those who organized this Because Trump protest, but for professional reasons. 

He explains his reason is the same reason George Clooney doesn't appear in Marvel movies: Integrity. If he doesn't think a given protest will be effective in accomplishing its goals, he's prepared to leave the money on the table so as to maintain his company's reputation. 

Crowds on Demand is in the "persuasion business," you see, and has to protect its brand. 

{       }

I know, right? While some of us might think that supplying paid protestors to whomever is willing to pay is morally dubious, Mr. Swart apparently doesn't. He is a professional, however, and wants us to know that he won't accept your $20,000,000 if he thinks you're wasting your dough. 

{So who offered him the money?}

He won't say, that would be unprofessional. 

{I wonder if he charges extra for picket signs?}

Have an OK day, 

Colonel Cranky

Scroll down to comment, share my work, or scroll through previous columns. I post links to my columns on my Facebook page so you can love me, hate me, or call for my execution via social media. Cranky don't Tweet (Xclaim?).

Copyright 2025-Mark Mehlmauer-All rights reserved