ECSTASY SOMEWHAT LEGALIZED IN SWITZERLAND

You must have heard by now: The Supreme Court of Switzerland has ruled that Ecstasy is in the same class (B), legally, as marijuana. While the Court emphasized that they didn't think Ecstasy was harmless, they did hold that it was not "a serious threat to its users' health, either mentally or physically."

Good for you, Swiss judges. You understand that though many legal substances are harmful in some way, especially when consumed in excess-- cigarettes, bacon, chocolate-- they also often confer benefits, chief among which is sensual pleasure. Ecstasy is even more beneficial than that: It seems to liberate people from their industrially-formulated emotional straightjackets-- a factor to be factored into any human equation. One civilization's most serious threats, after all, is unfriendliness....

THE FATHER OF VINYL, DEAD AT 100

Guess who died? The guy who invented vinyl. His name was Waldo Semon and he was 100.

Semon was a chemist who came up with a particularly useful formulation of vinyl in 1928, while working for B.F. Goodrich, the rubber company. He had been playing around with polymers that other people thought were useless, when he finally concocted a new plastic that could be molded and stretched, and was waterproof and non-conductive. The Wall Street crash of 1929 kept people from wanting to jump into marketing the stuff, but in the '30s Semon got a patent for it and Goodrich began manufacturing it. Soon, vinyl goods like shower curtains and raincoats started appearing in stores.

Semon was thus chief progenitor of the Golden Age of Vinyl, which dawned in the '60s and would eventually encompass blobby Naugahyde sofas, kitchen floor tiles in avocado Congoleum, shoulder bags by Lark, Camaros with pebbly-textured tops, and, most importantly, classic James Brown LPs.

Thanks, Waldo. Way to invent.

What's Up With... Spike Lee and Those Ads for the U.S. Navy?

You probably saw the ad in the June/July issue of Vibe-- right there with So So Def records and Dada footwear, in prime editorial space, between the article on Eightball and MJG, and the "Wipe Out" fashion spread. At first, you might think the ad is for a sexy sci-fi movie, since nine-tenths of it is a picture of a giant, hulking, grey metal vessel right out of Alien, complete with towering antennae and holes that look like air intakes or exhaust vents. But the other one-tenth is a picture of an idealistic-looking young recruit dressed in white, plus some text about developing honor, courage, and commitment.

"Let the journey begin," is the tagline. Now, with all due respect to the Navy's peace-keeping functions (and to the fact that it gave the nice folks at Vibe some bucks to run its ads), two questions should arise in the minds of readers whose favorite MCs are always stressing the importance of seeking truth: A) "Where is this journey to?" and B) "Is anybody gonna suffer once we get there, and why?" Right? 'Cause if we respond to the So So Def ad, all we do is buy the upcoming Jermaine Dupri album. If we respond to the Dada ad, we buy the sneakers and get to look supposedly dope. But if we respond to the Navy ad, we join an armed force and agree to support a military-industrial agenda that, given history, is probably always dangerous to some poor population, somewhere.

Maybe the manufacture of records and sneakers depends on this agenda, and maybe not. Maybe we want records and sneakers at any cost, and maybe not. But this is shit we're thinking about-- especially now that Spike Lee has agreed to use his formidable powers as director/producer/creative director to make a series of commercials for the U.S. Navy. We just read that he's signed up to make six-- and that he's "using hand-held cameras to give the commercials more of a documentary feel."

Um, we don't know about you, but we're feeling kinda mixed about the fact that the master of Malcolm X is working on pseudo-docu-mercials for the U.S. Government....

TOMMY HILFIGER'S NEW TV SPOTS FOR "FREEDOM": FEW ENOUGH? SIX TOO MANY?

If you've ever wanted to see millions of dollars in creative development get pissed away in millions of dollars of media buys, you would only have had to watch this weekend's TV spots for Tommy Hilfiger's new fragrance, Freedom.

The spot was everywhere-- on NBC, on E! The first time we saw it, we thought, "Oh, there's that new Tommy fragrance." The second time we saw it, we thought, "Oh there's that new Tommy fragrance again. I guess it's for both men and women." The third time we saw it-- and this is all during one hour on Saturday afternoon-- we thought,"Hmmm, that Tommy commercial, again. The music's, uh, really great."

It was when we saw the commercial for the fourth time the things started to turn. We thought, "You know what? That music's actually kind of annoying. And besides, how arrogant is Tommy to think that he can get everybody to go to the mall tomorrow, to get a bottle of Freedom, if he blankets the airwaves with commercials for it today?" The fifth time was the clincher. We were fed up, and we knew that others were, too. Having heard Tommy himself say over and over again in the spot that he dedicates his new fragrance "to the youth of America"-- his well-rehearsed sincerity decaying progressively in its multiple reverberations-- you could feel the credulity of an entire demographic shutting down across the nation.

Which, of course, won't keep us from buying the stuff, if it smells good. We just won't believe in it, that's all.

What's Up With... Parental Alarm over Pokemon?

Sure, in the last three years since Pokemon was introduced we've learned that Nintendo has figured out a way not only to tax children-- who must have the cards, the figures, the comic books, and/or the game itself-- but to further endear them to violence by making it cutesy.

The most dangerous part of the Pokemon phenomenon, however, has just been revealed: the new CD, released in the wake of the megahit movie. Incorporating tracks by Britney Spears ("Soda Pop"), Christina Aguilera ("We're a Miracle"), NSYNC ("Somewhere Someday"), Billy Crawford ("Pokemon Theme"), 98 Degrees ("Fly With Me"), and many more stars of the aggressively harmless synthpop category, the CD is so threateningly far beyond upbeat that Saturday morning TV looks like Shoah by comparison.

Whatever you do, don't listen to this disc! Test audiences of 3-to-8-year-olds responded to forced repeated listenings by sinking into profound and persistent vegetative states. Reports are that a number of comatose kids have choked on their own drool, their formerly bright little eyes rolled back in their heads!

The Opinionator On... The Guy Who Cuts In Front Of You At The Open Bar

Last week I went to the opening of a benefit photography show in a giant Chelsea party garage. The invitation had said "open bar," but when I got there I discovered that there was, in fact, only one bar for a crowd of maybe a thousand people. So immediately I joined the hundred or so people who thought it more important to line up for free liquor than to go greet friends or look at the photographs.

Except we weren't a line; we were a clump. You know what open bars are like: everybody pretending to socialize while aggressively scrutinizing the bartenders, who are taking too much time searching for cranberry juice, uncorking a bottles, or explaining to some jerk on a cell phone why there's no Jack, or if there is, why there's no more ice; everybody kinda mincing and squeezing forward, while those already served struggle outward with their drinks; everybody kinda hyper-aware of everybody else's position and trying to look cooperative, even if unwilling to give anybody else a fucking inch.

I was badly in need of a vodka-- actually, three of them, which I planned to pour into one glass, as is my practice at parties like this. And I was encouraged when the chick in front of me suddenly swore and bailed. I had claimed a few square millimeters of her space by shifting my weight forward onto my left leg, when this guy outa nowhere butted ahead of me. I was gonna let it go, but then he parlayed his lateral insinuation into a full-blockage stance, directly in front of me. Now I'm standing there with the back of this guy's "so shabby it's supposed to be cool" brown corduroy jacket in my face. I couldn't even see the bartenders. Plus, the guy looked like a model, which I found extra-annoying.

While considering what to do, I smiled my vacant "Isn't this a great, big fabulous party?" smile-- although some primitive part of me needed to push this fucker the hell out of my way. If it had been a normal party, I suppose I would have fumed for a few minutes and then, if I things didn't speed up, charged off to another bar. But there was only one bar here, and I was stuck.

Stuck, that is, until I realized there were some Platform stickers in my pocket. Have you seen Platform's current stickers? (We'll send you some, if you ask for them by email.) They're orange circles with a multi-dimensional black-and-white "P" in the center, and they're big. How great one of these stickers might look on this guy's back left shoulder, I thought. Surrepticiously I reached into my pocket, withdrew a sticker, discreetly cracked and peeled off the backing, and palmed the thing, while continuing to look around, smiling. Then, with military precision, I executed a half-turn to the left, as if to wave to a friend across the room, bumping the guy gently, then apologizing with a friendly "Sorry!" and a manly pat on the shoulder. When I withdrew my hand, the sticker was right where I wanted it.

Later, I saw the guy circulating, talking with friends. The sticker was still on his shoulder. Fucking jerk, I thought. Did I feel proud? No way. Vindicated? Not particularly. No, by that time, I'd sipped most of my triple and was enjoying was how easy it was to turn a highly-paid pretty boy into a billboard for my company. What other strategic stickering opportunities might this party hold, I wondered....

AMERICA'S #1 TOXIC POLLUTER POKED SILLY IN "THE AWFUL TRUTH"

Since we're total fans of crusader/filmmaker/people's philosopher-activist Michael Moore, we wanna remind you again to watch his show "The Awful Truth" tomorrow night (Sunday) at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET (6 p.m. and 10 p.m. PT) on Bravo. If you don't have Bravo, this show is probably a good excuse to get it.

This week Moore gives his "Man of the Year" award to the guy he's singled out as the #1 toxic air polluter in the country: Ira Rennert. Rennert is chairman of the Renco Group, whose subsidiary, Magcorp (Magnesium Corporation of America), is belching tons of awful shit into the air from a sci-fi-movie-type mega plant near Salt Lake City, Utah. Conveniently for fun-making purposes, Rennert is also building one of the largest homes in the country, in Sagaponack, New York. Among other things that piss Moore off, the house has 39 bathrooms.

Moore's been needling Rennert for quite some time, with his entertaining and totally righteous blend of showmanship, moral solidity, and common sense. Rennert's got a restraining order against him-- which shows that a powerful environmental defiler can also be kinda weak-- so Moore may come no closer than 150 feet to Rennert, whose office is in Rockefeller Center. Which meant that when Conan O'Brien wanted to interview Moore, he had to shout questions out of the 9th-floor window of his Rockefeller Center studio, down to Moore, on the street.

What's mystifying is that, in another sphere, Rennert pays close attention to ethics: as a Jewish community leader and chief sponsor of the Orthodox Caucus's Torah Ethics Project. "We face up to tough issues" goes the project's motto; its Statement of Conscience urges "the use of respectful and sensitive speech and behavior toward all men and women, Jewish and non-Jewish, in private as well as in public."

Now this goes way beyond fun-making purposes. Rennert apparently needs some help in reconciling his ethical activism with his industrial sloppiness. If you can provide any help, we think it's your responsibility to do so. You may write Rennert at Renco Group, Inc., xx Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10111-0100. Or you can try to get him on the phone at 212-xxx-xxxx.

Check out tomorrow night's "Awful Truth" first, though. Just to see what the best kind of activism looks like.