Verbal Haze

Damnit Smokey

One day I was watching TV and I saw a familiar face: Smokey the Bear. I love Smokey. He always taught me about the lay of the land and reminded me of my responsibility to prevent fires in highly vegetated areas called “forests”. The alliteration that used to roll off of his bear-tongue with that heavy grizzly-bear accent is just a classic slogan. But neigh!

Today Smokey has changed his tune. The alliteration of “only you can prevent forest fires” has been completely destroyed. The 65 year old green-movement icon has gone senile. Smokey now says in every commercial “only you can prevent wild fires”.

This is a travesty folks; however, if you check out the new subtext for Smokeybear.com, you’ll find that they have come up with somewhat of an ironic new slogan “Get your smokey on”. While I see what they are trying to do (encourage you follow the example of Smokey), it may also encourage many rednecks who often camp and hunt in the woods to, in fact, get their smoke(y) on.

Smokey the Bear has really been trippin’ lately based on these two incidents of word conflagration. So Smokey now doubles as the forest fire prevention icon and is now embarking on a new quest to also be the favored icon of many stoners as he encourages them to “Get their smokey on”.

So kids, take the advice of our beloved bear and get your Smokey on but remember, if you ever want to do so while venturing through mother nature’s forests, think fire safety and use a bong.