... Proposition Y... Proposition why not? With marijuana now at the bottom of the police priority list, Buzz felt the sinful smoke had suddenly lost that rebellious, huddled-in-mom’s-backyard-with-a-lighter-and-can-of-air freshener appeal. Really, if anyone can do it, what’s the allure? If you can’t stick it to “the man,” my peeps, go stick it someplace else... In search of the next kick, Buzz turned his attention to an herb of another sort — nutmeg. Grinding up his mom’s food additive, Buzz concocted himself some tea and gulped it down. Only then did Buzz read up on the effects of nutmeg, where past users’ Internet confessionals speak to days, even weekends and weeks, completely lost to a buzz they can’t shake. At a birthday party for the Buzzman the next day in Mid-City, nutmeg didn’t seem like such a good idea when cowering in the corner of the room, alone. Buzz should have known — it’s all about smoking banana peels this season....... It was a scene ripped right out of a “Hallmark Presents” holiday flick. There, on the Third Street Promenade, was a heated discussion between a minuteman (not the Tony Dolz variety, but a guy in a real-life, tri-flapped, Paul Revere-esque minuteman hat) and a conspiracy theorist. The minuteman had apparently scrambled to the scene, prepared to fight the other man’s notion that the clues to the 9/11 terrorist attacks were all embedded in large number bills printed by the U.S. mint in the years preceding the attacks. Just add a pinch of nutmeg and those ugly plastic Christmas trees and water spouting dinosaurs and it’s a Christmas scene worthy of a bad James Garner made-for-TV movie. “Two if they stand, one if they flee”...... Three days into the nutmeg neurosis, Buzz was enamored by the cleaner inside Santa Monica Place. Cleaning the transparent escalator walls,Workman Willie rides the moveable step thingies and wipes the glass as he travels up, then down, then up, then down... that dude’s going places, and it’s clear for all to see...... Buzz likes to look at mannequins for an inordinate amount of time as much as the next person, but the dude chillin’ outside the Equinox Fitness Club on Monday was maybe a wee bit too obvious about his plastic perversions. There on the street, just beneath a menagerie of mannequins in various athletic poses, was a man with nowhere else he’d rather be. Seemingly trying to catch an upskirt shot of No. 3 (who really is the looker of the inanimate bunch), Horny Hank might’ve been better off standing outside a club and waiting for Britney Spears to spread some cheer.....
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 4, 2006. Read the original PDF.