Don't Drink & Surf
for release 05-23-05
Washington D.C.
We all know what the dangers are of driving while intoxicated. Most of us wouldn't get behind the wheel while we're schnockered because we want to avoid the possible physical and legal consequences. Before we crack the bottle of Bushmill's single malt we want to be comfortably and safely at home. That sounds like the prudent policy, doesn't it? Maybe not.
We think that we represent the height of responsibility because we don't get behind the wheel of our badassed red Mustang 400 cubic inch monster car when we've had a few on top of our Adavan or our Ambien, but we don't think a thing about crawling into the computer cockpit of our high speed connection and putting the pedal to the medal on the internet Superhighway. Dear readers, i must warn you against this practice. It's more dangerous than using a cell phone while driving.
It's not so much that you are in danger of waking up the next morning with seven emails from lonely non-smoking, 'social drinking,' college educated, interested in camping and hiking, petite or buff perfect mates sent to you by the dating service that you joined last night after the third drink, or discovering that you had opened a bank account for that nice Mr. Ombazi from Nigeria who kindly offered to split his 33 million dollars with you, or that you had poured your life story out on an internet bulletin board, not to one perfect stranger over a couple of gimlets in a neighborhood bar, but to ten thousand perfect strangers.
And it's not that after the fourth drink your sales resistance plummets and you gave out your credit card number god knows how many times to perfect strangers on Amazon or eBay and will just have to wait for the UPS truck to come to find out the results of your shopping spree. It's not even so much that on your favorite bulletin boards or chat rooms, all the avatars start looking pretty good around closing time even the ones that are obviously photoshopped or anime and then Travelocity informs you that you have purchased an airplane ticket to Cincinnati for a rendezvous with some gorgeous lonely nymphomaniac who calls herself BambiLust. It's ok, you can still cancel the ticket.
Oh yes, the internet is the greatest explosion of information since the printing press. But what we must remember is that while the printing press gave us The Guttenburg Bible and Shakespeare and the Declaration of independence, it also gave us Mein Kamph and supermarket tabloids. It's just as easy to publish bullshit as it is to print the truth, and many times it is more profitable. This is true in spades on the internet.
The net has put the world's news at our fingertips and has provided heretofore unimagined access to research materials. (wikipedia etc) You can Google anything that has ever been written, thought or dreamed of. Candidates have used the net to raise funds and spread their messages. Every manner of mainstream or fringe opinion is advanced. I might get drunk enough one night to contribute to MoveOn.org but the Swift Boat guys would have to slip me a mickey to get me to type in my credit card number.
Every wild story and urban legend and odd-ball opinion has a home on the internet. You can read and believe that they are putting asbestos in tampons or or that Al Gore hates Christ or that the voting machines in our last election were controlled from satellites.
For about six years now, there has been a wonderfully politically incorrectemail circulating on the net, having been variously attributed to George Carlin, Ted Nugent and Andy Rooney (all of whom have disavowed it) as well as numerous others. And there are slews of other misattributions putting concocted words into the mouths of public figures of every stripe. Somehow words mean more when they seem to come from the lips of a celebrity. It's like when a drag queen does a Cher imitation in full regalia, high heels and sequined dress. It's just more convincing than if Antoine did it in his hairdresser's smock.
The internet is full of good information. It is also the greatest repository of bullshit in the history of mankind. It is a purveyor of snake oil and all manner of flim-flammery from phony drugs to every possible permutation of the chain letter and the pigeon drop. A friend of mine, who is by all observation, an otherwise intelligent person, sent me a forwarded email the other day. It was one of those chain letters that is designed to steal all of your email addresses as well as the email lists of everyone to which you forward, if you are naive enough to respond.
It sounded pretty good, some petition for an honorable cause, but to the sober eye, it was clearly a scam to harvest email addresses. If I was into my cups, I might not have been so discerning and responded just out of courtesy to my friend. As a result I would have had to wade through the assorted herbal viagra and mock-amphetamine ads or discount human growth hormone in my email box and the ones that promise to show me videos of teenaged girls fucking baseball bats and the ones that offer to refinance the home that I don't own, because it would drop my payments and who cares if I would have to wait until I'm one-hundred and forty years old to own the damned place.
Yes, dear readers, there are as many hazards on the internet highway as there are on the road to the Baghdad airport. It's caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.You are wise to maintain a high level of skepticism and to consider your sources. This is harder to do late at night sitting in front of a half empty bottle of scotch. As anyone who knows me can attest, i'm not one to begrudge a person taking a stiff one. Even a few stiff ones. But let me implore you, my friends, when you drink, don't get behind that keyboard, don't drive on the internet superhighway.
The Poet's Eye droops from time to time late at night. To save me from little indiscretions and financial faux pas, I have installed a breathylizer on my mouse.
"Well, I took me a woman late last night
I's three - fourths drunk she looked all right
'Til she started peelin' off her onion gook
She took off her wig, said, "How do I look" ?
I's high flyin', bare naked... Out the window."
--Bob Dylan
