Chuck Klosterman - Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

1. This is probably not true.

2. Two entities that—to the best of my knowledge—are not in conflict.

1. Except, of course, my mom.

2. One Web designer actually told me that focusing a discussion around the topic of porn sites “insults” the Internet, prompting me to ask him if the Internet gets jealous when I use the microwave.

3. Best known for her role as the teenage werewolf slayer.

4. Are people (besides Al Gore) still using this term? Probably not.

5. Well, actually, “yes.”

1. Proof that America is ultimately a sympathetic nation surfaced in 1976, when a consumer election sponsored by General Mills indicated that over 99 percent of Trix eaters felt the flamboyant six-foot rabbit deserved a bowl of Trix, which places his approval rating on par with Colin Powell in 1996.

2. This is not to be confused with the short-lived Oatmeal Cookie Crisp, a cereal fronted by the good-natured wizard “Cookie Jarvis.”

3. Although this would make you very cool in Syria.

1. Until now, I suppose.

2. This is less true now, since unpopular kids are more willing to wear trench coats to school and kill everybody for no good reason.

3. In fact, M*A*S*H followed this template so consistently that these twists ultimately became completely predictable; whenever I watch M*A*S*H reruns, I immediately assume every guest star is a flawed hypocrite who fails to understand the horror of televised war. It should also be noted that there is one Saved by the Bell script that borrows this formula: When beloved pop singer Jonny Dakota comes to Bayside High to film an antidrug video, we quickly learn that he is actually a drug addict, although that realization is foreshadowed by the fact that Jonny is vaguely rude.

4. It’s been several years since I’ve seen this episode, but what I particularly remember about it is that—while intoxicated—all the kids sing a song in the car…and in my memory, the song they sing is Sweet’s “Fox on the Run.” However, that just can’t be. It was probably something like “Help Me Rhonda.”

1. I know nobody uses the term Generation X anymore, and I know all the people it supposedly describes supposedly hate the supposed designation. But I like it. It’s simply the easiest way to categorize a genre of people who were born between 1965 and 1977 and therefore share a similar cultural experience. It’s not pejorative or complimentary; it’s factual. I’m a “Gen Xer,” okay? And I buy shit marketed to “Gen Xers.” And I use air quotes when I talk, and I sigh a lot, and I own a Human League cassette. Get over it.

2. Case in point: When Episode I — The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, all the adults who waited in line for seventy-two hours to buy opening-night tickets were profoundly upset at the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks. “He’s annoying,” they said. Well, how annoying would R2D2 have seemed if you hadn’t been in the third fucking grade? Viewed objectively, R2D2 is like a dwarf holding a Simon.

1. As opposed to this essay, which tends to be philosophy for shallow people.

2. Unfortunately, this does create the one gaping plot hole the filmmakers chose to ignore entirely, probably out of necessity: If Leonard can’t form new memories, there is no way he could comprehend that he even has this specific kind of amnesia, since the specifics of the problem obviously wouldn’t have been explained to him until after he already acquired the condition.

3. Holland’s #1 memory-destroying vodka!

4. For those of you who’ve seen Mulholland Drive and never came to that conclusion, the key to this realization is when the blonde girl (Naomi Watts) masturbates.

1. This is similar to the way rich white kids in places like suburban Connecticut fell in love with N.W.A. records in the early nineties.

2. Although it should be noted that David Lee Roth seemed to have no problem with Ronald Reagan hailing from California.

3. And don’t even get me started on the line “You’re my fact-checking cuz”!

4. Like Tesla!

1. It should be noted that certain experts disagree with me on this point; some are prone to classify one genre of serial killers as “mission-oriented,” which means they aspire to kill specific people (such as hookers) in order to improve society. Other classifications include “visionary motive” types (who imagine voices inside their head), “thrill-oriented” killers (who find the process of murder exciting), and “lust killers” (who actively get a sexual thrill from torture and execution).

2. One of the Zodiac’s many coded missives included a reference to the semi-esoteric mathematical concept of “radians,” which are 57.3-degree arcs used to calculate circles (2 × pi radians = 360 degrees). Amazingly, it turns out Zodiac’s victims were always found at perfect radian intervals in relation to the summit of nearby Mount Diablo. It does not appear that this could be a coincidence, especially since one of Zodiac’s victims was a cabdriver who was instructed to drive to a specific location before being shot. This kind of “evil mathematical genius” behavior is part of the reason some people erroneously suspected that Unabomber Ted Kaczynski had been the Zodiac Killer as a younger man.

3. In fact, Eric gets kind of annoyed when people dwell on the fact that Gacy sometimes dressed as “Pogo the Clown” and performed at children’s birthday parties. “I think the clown stuff is really overdone,” he says. “He was just doing that as part of a civic group—it was really just an outreach of his political involvement.” Weirdly, this is true: Gacy was a political junkie who was once photographed with then–First Lady Rosalynn Carter. You’d think the GOP could do something with this.

1. These are people I would phone immediately if I was diagnosed with lung cancer.

2. These are people whose death from lung cancer would make me profoundly sad.

3. These are people I would generally hope could recover from lung cancer.

4. Obviously, I’m not counting the New York Post or The National Enquirer or anything else that defines itself as a tabloid, as those publications have no relationship to journalism.

5. Then again, maybe these people are just way Zen.