Thursday, December 16, 2010

In defense of Four Loko

BY STEVE JANOSKI

It was about this time last year that one of my compatriots asked if I had ever heard of a drink called "Four Loko."

"This stuff is gonna' take off dude," he told me as he palmed the big purple can. "This Four Loko make you craaaazy!"

The drink he was referencing was an alcoholic drink that has malt liquor at its base but offers a heavy shot of caffeine along with it. While I liked the name, and the flashy packaging immediately attracted me, my days of drinking caffeine-laced alcohol ended before they began some years back when a friend of mine drank a six-pack of "BE" (the short-lived Budweiser energy drink) and severely drunk and very wired till dawn. I had also had numerous brutal encounters with malt liquor that taught me to stay away from such killers of the soul. But still, who knew this tall purple can would cause so much controversy?

As usual, we can blame the future of America: college kids. They have taken to Four Loko in droves (as they do with anything that has any remote chance of ending their young lives), and have killed the fun by drinking too much and slamming their cars into trees, oncoming cars, people, and anything else they're playing slalom with that night.

So a year later, and the Four Loko banner is pasted across the newspapers and TV screens as everyone from universities to the authorities are attempting to ban the drink, which they say is excessively dangerous because of the mixture of caffeine and alcohol. Unfortunately, what no one is talking about is the excessive stupidity that comes from being young and dumb, as that's what's truly to blame. I'm not going to cast stones because I've made more than my share of mistakes, but never once did I think to sue Jameson whiskey for my troubles—the stuff didn't drink itself.

Blaming Four Loko for the crashes and mishaps of drunken college students is like blaming Plaxico's gun instead of his trigger finger for the bullet hole in his leg. But a story from the Orlando Sentinel reports that for the second time in two weeks, lawsuits have been filed in Florida against the maker of Four Loko, Phusion Projects. One lawsuit, filed by a passenger who was severely injured in a mid-August car crash, alleges that the driver drank Four Loko the night of the accident. The passenger is now suing the driver, the convenience store where the drink was sold, and Phusion Projects for making it. The article also states that another Floridian is suing the company because his son spent the day drinking Four Loko before killing himself with a .22-caliber pistol.

Other high profile cases have abounded, and there's been no shortage of ambulance-chasing lawyers to take the suits to court on the behalf of distraught parents and relatives who are blaming a liquid for their sorrows instead of the person who committed the act.

Older folks often lament the rejection of personal responsibility in the young, but this beyond that; this is even worse than the people suing the cigarette companies as if the company put the smoke in their mouth every morning. Young people screw up, and if they're not screwing up because they're drinking too much Four Loko, they're screwing up because they drank too many Red Bull and vodkas. If it's not Red Bull and Vodkas, it's whiskey and cocaine. It's the nature of this beast— it likes to stumble around incoherently late at night and sleep on the lawn. Putting the blame on anything but the beast itself is distorting reality. These people need to own up to the fact that they're screwing up, and take the consequences for their actions. Doing any differently, which includes suing a company because of your misfortune, is cowardly.

Banning this drink might even lead to an upswing in drinking Irish coffees because the now-tweaking youth of America needs a jolt of caffeine with their liquor to get their buzz on with. But let me tell you, if they even considered banning Jameson because of it, these college kids are going to have a lot more problems on their hands than the trees they're hitting.

The Meadowlands Redemption

BY STEVE JANOSKI

It’s hour two of my incarceration.

I am lodged in a tight seat barely built to accommodate my 5 foot 7 inch frame, with my knees tucked close to avoid kicking the back of the head of the person sitting in front of me; how a larger man could sit for four hours in this diminutive folding chair was beyond me.

Whenever I stand to leave, an audible growl arises from my peers. The people sitting next to me stand on their chairs and breathe in deeply to allow me to pass, grumbling under their breath with lowered heads.

I get out of the aisle, and into the heart of the building. The walls are a frigid cinder-block gray, and every 15 feet is another state trooper clad in their Schutzstaffel-esque winter uniform, replete with Sam Browne belts and saucer hats.

Some of them hold German shepherds tight to their sides; the dogs eye every person with tempered suspicion.

I head toward the bathroom, and stand in line like a cow heading to slaughter for my turn in the cramped, disgusting quarters.

A helicopter hovers incessantly over the parking lot outside; its maddening hum can be heard throughout the halls.

I thank god that I’ve quit smoking; there may be snipers on the roof, and I fear that if I moved too fast for the exit, I’d catch a bullet in the back.

Freedom lies beyond those concrete walls, but I’ve paid too much money to skip out now. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.

In the far distance I can see the other great building, the place that nearly 137 years ago, they said would one day be a mall.

It is still unfinished though, and its ugly loading dock façade rises like a great wart on the meadows, a heaping monstrosity that’s a shining example of all that’s wrong with New Jersey.

It’s not time to think on that now though.

I walk up to a beer vendor, but they tell me that because the second half has started, there will be no more alcohol served to ease my suffering.

I curse silently, and realize that I should probably go to the bathroom again before I go sit down because once I am there, I am there.

Before returning though, I go buy a pretzel for a friend. It costs $8.75— and it uses up the last of my commissary. It is neither the best pretzel in the history of the world, nor made of gold.

They conned me in here. They said that my favorite team was playing, but my favorite team doesn’t actually play so much as gimp and bound around the field underneath the vivid lights of a losing scoreboard.

This day is different— they’re winning against another hapless punching bag of a team, but it doesn’t lessen the strain.

I head back toward my seat, dejected and beerless with an inferior pretzel in my hand and the lonely hope for a Miller Lite in my heart.

I can already tell that I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again in 20 minutes due to four hours of tailgating, and I rue my constant lack of planning.

I stop at the entrance of the aisle, and the angry groans rise again as the people begin shifting and shuttling around in their seats in a vain attempt to make room for me.

My odyssey complete, I cram myself back into the seat.

"Where’s the beer?" she asks me.

"Rehabilitated?" I ask. "Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."

She looks at me.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind," I say, shaking my head.

You know, for $1.6 billion, they could have put a space shuttle in the parking lot of the old Giants Stadium and left it how it was. It would have been way cooler.

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/111574809_The_Meadowlands_Redemption.html?c=y&page=1