BECAUSE I GOT MY MTV WATCHING THE CULTURE for signs of decline is usually a volume business, but sometimes an item cries out for individual attention. This week it’s the phenomenal success of “Because I Got High,” a disarmingly cute song about smoking pot by a Mississippi rapper who calls himself Afroman. Radio stations across the country have been absolutely barraged with requests to play the song, which entered Billboard’s Top 20 last week after outstanding gains the week before. “With its lazy baseline, subversive doo-wop harmonies and sing-along hook,” writes a critic from Variety, “Afroman’s ‘Because I Got High’ is the likely winner in the song of the summer sweepstakes.” It has made the once obscure Afroman, né Joseph Foreman, into an overnight celebrity who has now been interviewed by Time, the Washington Post, and Howard Stern, among others. His fame is certain to increase with the opening of Kevin Smith’s new movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, on whose soundtrack “Because I Got High” can be heard. And yet, despite all this hype, MTV refused to play the song’s video because it was too pro-marijuana. They insisted that some scenes first be deleted. The New York Post, among others, found this quite ironic, given MTV’s unequaled permissiveness in every other area of programming. Where does a cable channel get off broadcasting Undressed, a graphic comedy about teenagers having sex, or Jackass, a variety show featuring a guy who will accept practically any dare short of killing himself, while refusing to play a video that “actually points out the negative aspects of drug use”? The Wall Street Journal seconded that motion and wondered, “Is someone at MTV too stoned to think straight?” Not that The Scrapbook wants to become known as an authority on the subject, but it strikes us that MTV knows more about marijuana than either the Post or the Journal. “Because I Got High” is as “negative” about pot as a Cheech and Chong movie. The singer does complain that getting high has stopped him from showing up to class (“I could’ve cheated and I could’ve passed”) or to work, and has stopped him from having sex and making his child-support payments, but this is no story of personal downfall. “Because I Got High” doesn’t so much warn against being a pothead, as make the pothead an object of fun, a sort of charming layabout and likable screwup. In fact, “Because I Got High” was recorded with several voices on it to create the sense of a bunch of goof-offs sitting around while one of them leads the group through the verses of this rollicking call-and-response song. And the biggest laughline on the recording comes right after the singer says he should’ve pulled over when he saw the cops, but he had gotten high. “Now I’m a paraplegic, and I know why / yeah, yeah / because I got high, because I got high . . .” If anything, the song makes light of drug-induced disaster. It’s a pity that the most humorous pop song in recent years is about getting high, but The Scrapbook is pleased to find MTV for once on the right side of the culture war. UNLEASH HYDE REP. HENRY HYDE PROVES HIMSELF a political treasure in both hemispheres. Late last week, on August 24, Hyde was in Taiwan to speak to the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce. People on the mainland won’t be allowed to read what he said. But here in the States, we don’t have that problem, so The Scrapbook figures it will pass along the choicest part of Hyde’s address. We particularly commend it to our friends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Taiwan’s mere existence as a prosperous and stable Chinese democracy is a challenge to the regime in Beijing because it is proof that its propaganda about the impossibility of democracy in China is false. Democracy is not only possible in China; it already exists. Taiwan proves that an authoritarian regime is not necessary for stability and for progress, that democracy will actually enhance these. This great truth is not limited to Taiwan; it embraces all of China. “This is a deeply disquieting message to the regime, even if delivered quietly. I believe it is one reason why the regime in Beijing is so determined to bring Taiwan under its control. “So that there is no ambiguity, no misunderstanding, the United States must publicly state that we will never allow Beijing to subvert or destroy the world’s only functioning Chinese democracy and thereby eliminate its subtle, yet powerful influence on the Chinese people. The eventual freedom of one-fifth of humanity is simply too important to us and to the future of the world. “Instead of backing away from Taiwan, we should hold its democracy up as an inspiring example to all of China. We must protect it, not only because we have a duty to come to the defense of freedom, but because it provides tangible hope that the world’s largest nation, with its ancient and profound civilization, will one day enter the ranks of the free nations of the world.” GREIDER’S BLOCK NATION COLUMNIST WILLIAM GREIDER once described Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill as sounding like “Uncle Bonzo, flapping his gums with crank pronouncements on how the world ought to work.” It’s an apt description of Greider himself. Take his latest column. Greider is very angry with Daniel Patrick Moynihan for his work on President Bush’s Social Security commission. Moynihan’s commission, charged with exploring policy alternatives to keep Social Security solvent, is playing “deceitful word games” on the American people, Greider complains. Worse, he writes, “Big media, with a few honorable exceptions, are respectfully swallowing the big lies.” Now, we’re not normally defenders of “big media,” but listen to Greider’s example: “In its news columns, the Washington Post described defenders of Social Security as ‘know-nothings’ and ‘Luddites.’” In its news columns? Yet another example of the Post’s well-known pro-Bush bias? Well, not exactly. Here’s how the actual passage, from a July 25 piece by Amy Goldstein, reads: “In an uncommonly vitriolic exchange for a presidential commission early in its work, panel members called their opponents ‘know-nothings’ and ‘Luddites.’ In turn, a key House Democrat called on President Bush to ‘throw out this commission that has no credibility’ and begin direct, bipartisan negotiations over Social Security’s future.” The only “big lies” and “deceitful word games” here are Greider’s. WELCOME TO MILWAUKEE SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, The Scrapbook wondered with amusement at Milwaukee mayor John Norquist’s rather enthusiastic embrace of American Communists. In a letter welcoming the Communist Party U.S.A. to its convention in Brew City, Norquist boasted that the city is “widely known for our socialist traditions” and its people “share many things in common with the long history of the Communist Party and all those engaged in the fight for a decent life for working families.” Norquist’s spokesman, Steve Filmanowicz, assured The Scrapbook that Norquist had nothing to do with the letter. The mayor, he added, was on vacation at the time. But Norquist was in Milwaukee last week, when President George W. Bush visited the city to address a VFW conference. And though Norquist found time to speak to the veterans, he didn’t apparently have time for an appearance or two with the leader of the free world. Norquist insists it wasn’t a snub, and the Bush White House has taken no offense. But others aren’t so sure. “Generally, if a public official of a top level comes to town, the mayor greets him or her, even if that person is of another party,” said former Milwaukee mayor Frank Zeidler, a Socialist. “If Bush can meet Putin, an ordinary Democrat can meet Bush.”
