August 7, 2009

If you were thinking you could pick up a couple of ounces of pure testosterone at this weekend’s Texas Testosterone Festival, think again. To score the real stuff you’re going to have to go across the border and meet an acne-scarred Russian guy in some seedy cantina in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He’s probably going to make you do a bunch of Jell-O shots and take you to the donkey show, but if you want that competitive edge. On the other hand, you could just buy some online at Steroid.com. Hey, it’s cool. You’re not playing right field for the Cubs or defensive end for the Saints. You just want to bulk up a little so you’ll get a little more action down at Oilcan Harry’s. Of course there’s also the side benefit of looking like you could kick your boss’ ass … or tap it if you felt so inclined. Still, when purchasing any kind of drug, there are dangers involved – and they don’t always have to do with your dealer being all methed out and paranoid. More often than not your drug dealer is a multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical company pulling the puppet strings of your personal physician. Can’t sleep? Don’t give up your Starbucks grandes or your Rockstar Energy Drinks or your late-night porn surfing. Just throw back some Ativan or Ambien, and you’ll sleep like the dead. Feeling a little down in the dumps? Don’t give up your daily regimen of habitual pot smoking, couch potatoing, and junk-food binging, try Zoloft, Prozac, or Paxil instead. You’ll feel like you just hung the moon – instead of feeling like your ass is the size of it. So maybe the big pharmaceutical companies aren’t all bad. At least they don’t have scabby skin or rotting teeth like proper drug dealers, but that doesn’t mean they’re less nefarious. Drug companies not only have their hands up the asses of doctors; they’re “directing the American health-care debate” by greasing up legislators, as well. They probably wouldn’t be above recruiting poor Mexican kids to whack consumer health-care activists, but their game is much more polished than that. Americans spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on legal drugs. In contrast, illegal drugs are chump change. If you think selling crack to school kids is morally reprehensible, you might be able to work up a little indignation at the usurious cost of prescription drugs for elderly people on fixed incomes. It turns out that old age is really depressing, especially when you can’t afford to spend money on anything but the anti-depressants your doctor prescribed to avoid having to figure out what was really wrong with you. Maybe the answer to America’s health-care woes is for old people to start flooding across the border to buy testosterone … and maybe some adrenaline to wash it back with. That might keep the doctors in line. Nothing is scarier than a raging old coot, especially since so many own firearms to protect themselves from drug-crazed teenagers. Maybe they could redirect their rage at profit-crazed pharmaceutical companies. Something good might finally come from too much testosterone. Sounds crazy, though, doesn’t it? Sort of like promoting an event called the Texas Testosterone Festival, which, believe it or not, is happening this weekend at the Palmer Events Center. Yes, the Test Fest is two man-tastic days full of butch stuff: a bikini contest, a model search, a video-game tournament, a fantasy football mock draft, a home-brewing demo, a hot rod show, a poker tournament – the kind of stuff that takes big, hairy balls. Oh yeah, and there’s also a jujitsu tournament. If all this sounds a little douchey to you, maybe you aren’t getting enough testosterone, eh?