Of Paradoxes

This past Friday a bunch of my friends went out, ending the night at Lou's, our local 24-hour deli. Personally, I ordered a breakfast sandwich better suited to my phenotype as a form of slow-acting euthanasia than a hot meal, a bacon-egg-and-cheese with hash browns and ketchup on a roll.

Typically I would partner such a sandwich with a tall iced tea and some kind of snack cake. On this particular evening I found a small piece of carrot cake I'd liked a month or so back, but my usual tea brands were either unappealing or not present. In a decision of questionable logic I selected a tallboy of Drank extreme relaxation beverage.

Holy mother of God, I have never been such a believer in a product living up to its advertising claims since I got hungover from trying 5-Hour Energy on an empty stomach before beer and reheated pizza. Granted, I'd been awake for fifteen hours, did manual labor for six and a half of those, then bowled so hard I ended up hurting both my knees and one side of my ass and just consumed a giant hot meal, but by the time I finished off that two-serving can of Drank I was feeling mellow.

Everything felt slowed down. I felt calmer, more fulfilled and taciturn. My voice felt deeper and for some reason I kept thinking off celebrities like Louie Armstrong and Charlie Murphy and Forrest Whitaker.


But it occurs to me: what would happen if you drank a Red Bull along with a Drank?

I am reminded of The Adventures of Pete and Pete episode "Grounded for Life," in which Little Pete is grounded for the whole Summer after scorching his father's perfect lawn. Why did he do this?

He wanted to see what would happen if you left a humidifier running next to a dehumidifier.



So what would happen if you drank a Red Bull along with a Drank? I'm not entirely sure. Probably nothing. I'm not really in the mood to try, but based on the additive method of mixing colors, I'd assume mixing the yellow and purple drinks would make you pee brown for three days.

Either that or your kidneys are just shutting down.

On Purple Drank

Tonight was a good night. There was drinking, there was gambling, there was me actually winning for a change, and when we went to get some food there wasn't Dean peeing in Lou's deli.

Mazel-tov.

Sadly, I was informed of something as I stood cradling my coveted Stewart's brand grape soda, which I laughingly referred to as my purple drink.

I was informed of this.

"Drank." Purple Drank, in fact.

Let's break this down. It is a grape-flavored soda product that is legitimately named DRANK. As in, "Hey, nigga, get offa mah drank. Get cho own drank. That's mah drank." And yes, it has to be said like that, because this is honestly the most offensively racist drink ever. You remember that"Cocaine" energy drink? This is worse. By far.

"How?" you ask? How could a drink be so offensive to merit my crass and bigoted deconstruction?

How about the fact that this is marketed as the very first "Extreme Relaxation Beverage," an anti-energy drink? A drink with the slogan "Slow your roll?"

Who needs an anti-energy drink? According to the 'Community' tab on the Drank website the top consumers are "Our Favorite Rappers" and "Athletes and Work-Out Freaks."

So what is Drank? From there video it "tastes like grape soda actually," "but it's light and refreshing." The Old White Guy On the Street said "I don't know what it tastes like, but it's good." Glowing reviews. A headline seen in the same video reads "Sit Back, Relax, Chill Out and Pop A Can of Drag-Ass." So ass is involved somehow. Of the three ingredients listed on the site's 'Our Product' tab – Melatonin, Valerian root, and rose hips – I'm going to assume the former is a generic term for ass. For the record, the sub-heading blames hip-hop culture for this beverage.

So let's see, it is a grape-flavored, purple drink created by and for 'urban' populations with a reputation for and even a delight in being lazy.


Sometimes you just wonder how a man can walk, what with having balls big enough to literally prey on the marketability of stereotypes.

Luckily I was raised Jewish. The only thing like that I have to watch for are loose banking regulations and limited-time-only sales that really are too good to pass up.