The President believes NFL players don't smoke pot. His wife just thinks they're damn sexy.

I love abovetheinfluence.com's print advertisements, which have been running in ESPN The Magazine. I wish they appeared somewhere online, but, alas, I can't find them. Perhaps someone out there in blogland has a scanner...& is willing to do the dirty-work.

Anyway, the advertisements have a goofy, sketched style; they kind of look like a single frame from a crappy Cartoon Network show.

Last week, the print ad showed a bummed out, pothead sprawled across the floor. His dog, wearing a leash & obviously in want of a good, old fashioned, American dog-walking says to the pothead, "You disappoint me." Maybe you just have to be there, with the stoner & his judgemental, talking dog, but that ad cracked me up.

This week, a not-so-cool dude gestures at a little, level-headed boy. Perhaps the boy is the pothead from the last issue's advertisement; now recovered, he's walking his dog. The not-so-cool dude says, "i smoke pot to impress the ladies." The little, level-headed, recovered pothead says, "try football."

The timing of the humor of these ads, even though they're static, print advertisements, is killer. So killer that I now reject Allen Ginsberg's poetry, especially when he writes, "I smoke pot every chance I get."

This issue's advertisment is particularly convincing, since:

- No football player smokes pot.
- No football player uses illegal drugs.
- There are is no correlation between playing football & physical injury.
- According to this blogger, you are considerably more likely to be seriously injured while smoking pot than you are while playing sports, such as basketball or football.
- Organized football is a lifetime sport in which, no matter your age or physical ability, you can participate.
- All young men have an equal chance of earning social prestige by playing football.
- Most young women are impressed by football players.
- According to abovetheinfluence.com, students who smoke pot are more likely to have done poorly in school.
- Many football players are eligible to receive scholar-athlete awards.

stay above the influence, &, as always, remember
peace love gap,
Johnny Hatchett