How do you get your hair all awesome like that? – John P
I’m presuming you’re referring to the hair in the Ask Matt Labash mug shot, as opposed to the hair on my back. The forelocks you speak of aren’t hair at all. At least not human hair. It’s a hat-wig, made out of horse-hair and synthetic fibers. That shot was taken as I came off the south fork of the Snake River in Idaho, after fly fishing with Dick Cheney, for a piece that is now the title chapter of my soon-to-be-released book from Simon & Schuster, Fly Fishing With Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys. (Make all your friends buy it. Your enemies, too. Deal-sweetener: The first 5,000 customers will be sent pictures of Jim Treacher’s feet. So you can stop pleading for them on his blog, Catsitter1952.)
As everyone who has ever been in a drift boat with Cheney knows, he’s an inveterate pot smoker. While I was stalking cutthroat trout, he kept making fire, singing Ben Harper’s “Burn One Down” (Let us burn one/ From end to end/ And pass it over/ To me my friend). When Cheney passed the dutchie to me, I had to ask the vice president to extinguish it on account of the hat-wig. It’s highly flammable.
What happened to my real hair? I shaved it off and donated it to terminally-ill children. Then I thought, “What do they need it for, when the children’s hospitals always give them those smart-looking hats?” So I took my hair back, and gave them gift certificates to The Outback instead. It was the right thing to do. What would you rather have? My hair, or some delicious Kookaburra wings? That’s not even a contest. Instead, I donated my hair shavings to the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Now, they sit in a glass case right next to James Wolcott’s Hello Kitty slippers, the ones he used to blog in, when not trying to trick his own cats, Roland and Jasper, into thinking they had “two new adorable sisters.”
Is booze good for one’s health? – Karl (last initial withheld)
Like most things, Karl, it depends on whom you ask. There are many conflicting studies. That’s why when going over the medical literature, I only subscribe to those studies which say that booze is good for your health, because I think consistency is important. While scientific consensus has changed many times over the years, the current conventional wisdom seems to hold that two drinks a day can be good for you, due, in part, to alcohol’s antioxidant and anti-thrombotic effects.
But I always feel it’s best to err on the side of safety. Take vitamins, for instance. Do I just take one multi-vitamin with lycopene for optimal heart and prostate health? No. Even though it contains 100 percent of the daily recommended value of vitamin C, I still take a vitamin C supplement, bringing me up to 933 percent of my daily recommended value. Additionally, I take a super-B complex with more vitamin C, which sees me clocking in at a whopping 1,183 percent of my daily recommended value.
That’s nearly 12 times the daily recommended value of vitamin C. And not only have I never had scurvy, but I feel great! Translate that to alcohol consumption: If two drinks a day are recommended for a man, imagine how much more healthy you’d be if you consumed 2 X 12, or 24 drinks a day. You’d be just about the healthiest person alive.
There are other ancillary benefits to drinking as well, such as making more tolerable those who insist that drinking is bad for you.
What are your opinions on Adderall and other concentration-enhancing drugs? I have a fun job that’s just challenging enough, and not anywhere near over my head. But I can’t manage to get my work done at the same pace as my colleagues, who are no smarter than me. Should I get on a drug to work harder? – Mark W.
As the kids in my D.A.R.E. class will tell you, I’m pretty much against all drugs, illicit, concentration-enhancing, or otherwise. I take my drug cues from former New York Knicks great Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who wrote in his indispensable ’70s-era book of moral instruction, Rockin’ Steady, A Guide to Basketball and Cool: “I don’t need grass, because I can sky on myself.”
Do as Clyde says, Mark: Sky on yourself. You shouldn’t be concentrating on the busy beavers working around you. And you probably can’t anyway, or you wouldn’t need Adderall. But drugs are never the answer. They tend to get in the way of more important things, like drinking (see above).
What is a “throne-sniffer”? I’ve heard Tucker Carlson use this term, but wasn’t sure if it meant pervert or toady? – Flataffect
Have you watched Keith Olbermann since the last election? Do so, you’ll understand.
Who do you want to see on the No-Fly List? – Justin S.
The doorknob-elbowed fat guy that keeps getting sausaged into the middle seat next to me. He smells like old Speed Stick and Cinnabon residue. He keeps me awake by mouth-reading Dan Brown. And he leaves me little room to practice my in-flight isometric exercises, which make me both stronger and more flexible in the event that I have to foil a terrorist attack and/or make sweet monkey love to a flight attendant in the lavatory.
You’re a dick, and you can’t write. So go f— yourself and your gay boy Tucker. How does his spunk taste in your mouth? – “Mark Benton”
Mr. Olbermann, the tech staff here at The Daily Caller can trace IP addresses, and we know it’s you. Look, I know you’re upset. I know you’re always upset. But if you have a problem with the site, please state it clearly and constructively in a letter of concern to management. This, sir, is neither the time nor place.
Matt Labash is a senior writer with The Weekly Standard. His first book, “Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys” will be published next month by Simon & Schuster.