I wrote this column in
2 minutes and 17 seconds.
I typed more than 300 words per
minute, including the time spent getting the ideas out of thin air
and editing myself, running the spell-check, and the ultimate
writer’s reward, patting myself on the back.
It’s a new
world record for column writing. How can I, a mere mortal, do it?
Let’s just say, if the San Francisco Chronicle
investigates me for possible abuse of performance-enhancing
steroids — expanding on its case against the new superhuman
home-run king, Barry Bonds — I have no comment, at least not until
I talk to my lawyer.
You see, thick-necked sluggers —
including some who’ve confessed and more who’ve fallen under
suspicion — are not the only beneficiaries. Steroids, whatever
their nefarious side effects, can juice up anyone. I see many
suspects. And it seems to be a Western thing, more than in other
regions. Our rootin’ tootin’ society, characterized by the
two-pistoled cartoon Yosemite Sam — whose boots rarely touch
ground as he blasts in all directions — seems addicted to
performance boosters.
Check out California’s bulging
megagovernor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former body-builder and
action-movie star must be setting the record as the strongest
governor ever. Arnold could whip all the other 49 current state
leaders at once, with one hand, while pressing a Hummer upward with
the other hand. Does Arnold look like natural evolution culminating
in the 2007 modern man? Only if you include manmade chemistry.
Atop our politics, how do you think Wyoming-rooted Dick
Cheney — 66, mechanical-hearted, clogged-veined — keeps on
running the most powerful nation with a ruthless grip? Cheney is
surely setting a record as the most powerful vice-president ever,
though his lawyer would probably also fend off the steroids
question with a “no comment.”
Really, it goes way beyond
steroids. For popularity of illicit drugs such as marijuana and
cocaine, compared to national averages, the people of Colorado,
Montana and Oregon rank very high, and those in Washington,
California, New Mexico and Nevada are noticeably above average.
Utah has the biggest percentage of people taking pain relievers for
nonmedical purposes, according to an authoritative 2005 federal
survey. Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming rank very high for
alcoholism.
Millions of people get their heartbeats and
respiration cranked up by Starbucks, the Seattle-based caffeine
cartel. The whole construction industry in boomtowns from Phoenix,
Ariz., to Bozeman, Mont., runs on Red Bull energy drink. Chaws of
tobacco power the rodeo circuit. A lot of Rocky Mountain oil and
gas drillers, working their 24/7 shifts of dangerous labor in all
weather, are said to run on meth.
How great would
Hollywood be, without silicone implants and wrinkle-erasing botox
injections? Ditto for Las Vegas.
All that high-priced
Western art — the paintings and sculptures of cowboys and Indians,
bears and landscapes? The artists often consume mind-altering
substances they imagine enhance their creative acts. That
rainbow-hued Santa Fe-carved coyote you bought for a loved one? Do
you think the carver was sober the whole time?
How about
the famous festival called Burning Man, where every year crowds get
high on anything and everything to party amid flames in the Nevada
desert? Telluride, Colo., hosts the somewhat more sedate annual
mushroom festival, which celebrates some of the hallucinogens,
masquerading as science. Some Southwesterners openly blast off on
more hallucinogens they get by chewing or smoking a wacky cactus,
peyote, claiming it’s a religious rite.
What’s the
official state snack declared by residents of Utah? Jell-O. A
subregion called the “Jell-O Belt” extends outward from Utah, into
parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico
and Colorado, corresponding to the predominance of the West’s most
noticeable religion, Mormonism, whose followers prefer sweets like
cinnamon buns to pump up their energy levels. Anyone imagine that
Jell-O’s million flavors and colors are all pure and chemical-free?
It extends to how we treat the land and other
species. Almost all our crop and meat production, from California’s
Central Valley to Idaho’s dairies and cattle, is based on an evil
synergy of weed-and-pest-killing chemicals, stimulants and
manufactured hormones. Those long plumes of orange powder the
planes and helicopters drop on wildfires, trying to retard the
flames on millions of acres — does that look natural?
So
it seems a bit hypocritical for any Westerners to tsk-tsk Barry
Bonds or put an asterisk by his name in the home-run record book.
Who are we kidding? Our whole region rates an asterisk.
Ray Ring is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is the paper?s Northern
Rockies editor in Bozeman, Montana.
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