With apologies to that Scientologish book and movie, I have the Secret:  give one person in the venue a syringe of polio, and warn the crowd.

Infecting someone with Live Man Non-Walking disease is the perfect antidote to reckless raving.  There’s nothing the raver loves more than superlimbinality, with a close second to glowsticks.  The downside to forced sitting is denying the United States the opportunity to harness the vast reserves of green energy these engines of eccentricity produce every weekend, though bum cup-shaking can make up much of this.  Rob-Lowe-in-"Thank-You-for-Smoking" Syndrome is another risk, but Zen garden-tending unleashes itself on others only when the gardener relates his tending at sushi happy hour.

Of course, the person given this awesome power to FDR must be blameless, unbiased and in complete control of his passions (and yes, I mean "his" - come on, women?).  In other words, a figure like Jesus...'s fictional predecessor, Plato's philosopher king.  Someone who can see the Form of expressive dancing at concerts and make the call, unblinking and swiftly, when the DA emerges in the pit.  (Peripheral DAs, usually in the back of the crowd, are a subject for another day.)

You may rightly object:  What happens if a group of DAs decides to gang up on the Polionator, like suicide bombers on the Mossad or Agent Smiths on Neo in the second Matrix?  How will he (and yes, I’m firm on this male thing) manage to prick every prick?  Aren’t we just escalating the violence?

To which I respond: Shouldn't you be having sex with your ridiculously tall wife, Dennis Kucinich? The obvious answer is, the Polionator just starts sticking everyone as fast and recklessly as he can.

When concertgoers realize they can be unjustly pricked because of the DAs, they will police the crowd themselves to halt any wriggling that deviates beyond a personal sphere.  Women will kick the offenders (typically male) in the groin, and men will grab their arms and twist backwards, known as Biffing.  Even small transgressions will be swiftly dealt with, like Rudy Giuliani’s police department applying the Theory of Broken Windows.

And all will dance happily ever after. Also, perhaps, warily.

But when your mommy had an affair with a blogger, and your daddy doped up with his own blood before the race, who can you trust for moral clarity? Put down your 12-sided die and grab your inhaler - the tag on your shirt is the answer.

That's as ridiculous as taking courage from your Nirvana-era No Fear shirt that you wear while watching "Clueless" on TBS, you will surely say. But think about it: Where else can you find so much information on how to live in such a small space?  Plato took 320 pages to discuss the nature of justice in The Republic, but your shirt tells you in 2 square inches who made it, what it's made of, how big it is, and how to take care of it, probably in multiple languages. It's practically biblical, with the exception of a redemption narrative (found on all manner of stain removers). Ignore the wisdom on your tag, and your clothes will pay the price, becoming noticeably musty in five years.

It's not a full thesis on the good life, of course, but it's a start. And without your tag to guide you, where will you find moral direction? The trendy shirt-wearer will cut off the tag to avoid the possibility of flipping out and drawing the dreaded two-finger "L" from a snarky observer. But once the tag is gone, how do you even know which way your shirt goes on?

This is not an abstract problem for those postmodern dressers who scorn any kind of adornment on the front or back or a shirt. The tagless clothee's only option for deciding how to dress may be what "feels" right, an ambiguous judgment call that relies on imperfect human notions of what is good, not the revelation of a tag.  Our society already covers up its moral muck by turning its shirts inside out instead of washing off the sinful stains, proudly rocking the exposed knittings that connect sleeves to body like a man sleeping with his father's wife in the approving view of the congregation. Put your shirt on backwards, and soon there will be no social norms for shirting and pansexual orgies will be more common than FarmVille on Facebook.

Call me a strict apparelist, but I believe society crumbles when we vainly decide to cut the tags.  That's not just your neck itching - it's your conscience calling.

There's nothing more imperialistic than trashing other cultures, even if you're not so ballsy as to name the runners-up, bronzes and Certificate of Participation recipients in the league of nations. That's why past, current and probably future presidential candidate, former Massachusetts governor and Olympics hostess Mitt Romney is our Imperialist of the Week.

Everyone's favorite flip-flopping Mormon has a new book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, which says President Obama is a foreign-policy pyro, providing "kindling" for anti-American fires burning around the world. Obama should talk more about "America's values" and shun "the self-loathing of Western intellectuals," which is to blame for the explosion of baby mamas and implosion of John Adams' name-recognition (pre-Paul Giamatti), Romney says.

Mitt may be the greatest denigrator of The Non-American Way since P.J. O'Rourke's brilliantly offensive "Foreigners of the World" study for National Lampoon. And there's nothing more American than putting other people in their place. But why stop at A(Me)rica Against the World?

Some religions are better than others too. Southern Baptists are better than (in descending order) Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, Presbyterian Church in America, Free Methodists, Anglicans, Practicing Catholics, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Lutherans-Missouri Synod, Sufi Muslims, African Methodist Episcopalians, American Baptists, Buddhists, Confucians, Hindus, Presbyterian Church USA, Conservative Jews, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Unitarians, Reform Jews, Animists, United Methodists, United Church of Christ, Shiites, Sunnis, Wahhabis, and Episcopalians. If you belong to a mainline, George Costanza's "Opposite" religion is better than yours, because at least he believes what he's peddling.

Mitt may not agree with my rankings, but he can't argue with the premise. Some cultural mores are better than others - people who walk single file when passing, call women by their first names, use puns for mating purposes, spurn micro-enterprise, pronounce curses on snow, judge libertarians as attention-whore hedonists, elevate taco-shell bowls above Jimmy Carter, and tell kids to stop plagiarizing their parents' taste in music.

That's my right as an American, dammit - to tell you what's what and possibly to draw pictures illustrating the demerits of your views. Show Mitt your appreciation by purchasing his latter-day golden plates of truth.

But you know what's even harder to swallow? Interracial bliss.

You can put a snoring black man and a bemused black woman in bed together (another subway campaign, promoting marriage) and it looks about right, but every portrayal of interracial couples makes them seem like Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch's "Lov-ah" characters from SNL. Wrapped around each other, beaming, endorphins rushing as their eyes meet and their globules of melanin wriggle with excitement, these diverse dyads have no problem that some combination of big booty, no booty, slanted eyes, Afro, Jewfro, horn-rimmed glasses, grillz, purple highlights and wispy goatee can't fix. The power of colorful love can even win elections - ask New York City's new public advocate, white guy Bill De Blasio, his black wife and whack (white/black) kids, who starred prominently in his TV ads.

This is more ridiculous than anything Balki Bartokomous opined on. Interracial couples fight all the time, over their differences as much as their common humanity. My Asian-American warned me from the start not to call her "oriental," which is only supposed to refer to inanimate objects, so I already have a cultural minefield to avoid. For fun she nibbles on "fish snacks," the suicide bomber of disgusting munchables dressed as normal treats, whose aroma explodes my nose whenever her mouth approaches mine.

As a laid-back white guy whose earning prospects in the creative industries are magnitudes below the painfully productive Asian doctors and bankers my gal's relatives pushed her toward, I'm already viewed warily by her family, and giving them a bag of oranges won't help. Neither does my love for Conan O'Brien, whose comedy is "not natural" according to the gal's dad. Then there's the language barrier - I'm looking around befuddled as the Cantonese flies around the dinner table and bits of English creep in. The same occurs even for my Mandarin Chinese friend and his Cantonese gal. Two Wongs don't always make a right.

The next time you see a colorful couple laughing it up, drinking in love on a billboard, shake your head in disbelief. There's only one certainty that comes from an interracial pairing: Their kids, like Fred Armisen or any mid-level bad guy on "24," will be able to play characters of multiple races, hence better earning potential. Isn't that what really brings us together?

The Mussed look had its day. And I think that day is now over. And even if it's not over for those kids who are currently being weaned on Jonas Brothers firehose spray ejaculations, surely it's over for thirty-somethings. Isn't it time you stopped pretending to be 24 and too damned cool for the world? Isn't it time you actually took the time to present a look that doesn't say, "I made it this far, you should be proud I put in the effort to even come"?

We suppose there are merits to the mussed look--it gives you a certain slackness that renders as unaffected when viewed through the lens of teenage uncertainty. But aren't you supposed to have most of life figured out by now? We think the rule should be, if you have a mortgage, you can't do the bed head look anymore. Or if you work at any financial institution. Or if you have kids.

Deliberate Bed Head is about as stunningly original as a tube of toothpaste, and even less meaningful. Now, I know what you're thinking. It's not just the look. It's an entire indie culture projected onto fashion and style and food, and the bed head look is predicated upon a preconceived notions of what is cool. It's thumbing the establishment and square fascism of corporate tooldom!

Except that every corporate stooge, from exec to unpaid intern, is sporting the look. So what does that make you, Mr. Indie Fare? You're not supporting the revolution just because you buy a bottle of TGI Catwalk and stick your legs in a pair of skinny jeans.

You may think mussing your hair gives you authority to speak with passion about things like Darfur, climate change, and the latest Apple Orgasmo that you can stick in your embroidered jean pocket, but isn't it more accurate to say that adjusting your hair so it looks unadjusted is the paramount of hypocrisy? You might think you have a mind of your own with that f**king independent look, but marketing execs have you pegged, my shallow friend, and you're the first person they line up against the wall to shoot when the real revolution comes.

Combing your hair might just be the craziest, most daring thing you do all day. You might give it a try, and see the world through a pair of adult eyes. Keep your youth. Don't hold on to your malignant hair style. I suggest you do what Colonel Zaroff does in "The Most Dangerous Game." Let the bed head out into the jungle. Then hunt it, shoot it, and stuff it for future visitors to see what a man you really are.

The problem is libertarians don't want you to think they're Squares. Everything is fucking ridiculous or shitbrained - try making it through a libertarian sentence without casual swearing of the fourth-grader-fitting-in variety. They love alcohol, tobacco and drugs - I mean, who doesn't? But they have no perspective on how to enjoy oneself imbibing, smoking or ingesting of other forms. Everything has to be over the top, to show you're not a Prude.

A Washington Post profile of Reason magazine's re-location to D.C., and the anything-goes parties it brought along, has always stuck in my mind: "Once a month, culture comes in the form of magazine release parties at assorted Dupont dives and wafts of conversation like 'This can't be good for my liver' and 'Jeremy has passed out in his own vomit.'" Yes, we get it - you obey No God But Yourself, or Adam Smith's invisible hand, or that cute coed dressed as an NC-17 anime character at your Burning Man Lite party. Anything with the whiff of traditional morality, Christian charity or personal humility - such as frowning on Randian spouse-swapping - is simply poor taste.

Of course, I'm simplifying and in some sense inveighing against a particular cultural anarchy espoused by the young, hip libertarians in urban settings. If you were around farmland for any period last year, you saw the Ron Paul for President signs flowering like fields of Afghan poppies, and surely freedom farmers share little in common with leather-clad, swarthy magazine editors in D.C.

But these are the folks who give libertarianism its national face, to the extent anyone could pick it out of a police lineup. They would do well to remember Ben Folds' proverb: "There's always someone cooler than you."

Once the lamest thing you could admit to, enjoying your parents' music is now all the rage, showing you can subvert the crushing orthodoxy of your generation in favor of someone else's shrieking, sobbing bandwagon.  And yet the Beatles are the most mainstream 'rent-rock band imaginable, defeating the purpose of wearing a band shirt.  One member, relative or sex partner of the Fab Four is on some form of media every second of every day, most likely The Today Show, a Pixar movie, a hip-hop mashup on YouTube, or come September, the latest Rock Band release.

So what would you wear if not the Beatles?  Pink Floyd has some cool artwork. Jimmy Hendrix's drugged-out face and coif are iconic.  And every indie band worth its eyeliner and crotch filler today offers a shirt with a respectably creative design, so your friends will Google them after your hookah party, download the album from some sketchy offshore site, and set their iLike alert for the band's next local show.  My Halloween, Alaska shirt, for example, features the title of the band's latest album in Cyrillic, which only my Kazakhstan-bound friends in the State Department could translate.

By wearing a Beatles shirt, with its clip art-film logo, the wearer proudly proclaims:  1. I'm so beyond Lady Gaga.  2. Music doesn't have to be complex, it has to be GOOD!  They GOT that!  3. I like the same thing everyone else has liked and ceased to be controversial or noteworthy for 40 years.  You might as well pledge your undying love to the standardized test.  To show some appreciation for a real pioneer, slap a silhouette of Bach on a t-shirt and wear it under your blazer to the next art walk.

First, the word itself. Fruit. It looks vaguely Gallic, but the sound is more like a phlegmatic easing his airways. Visually, it's a nasty, sickly, mushy word. The real beef I have is when did fruit take over the lexicon? Things started becoming peachy. A reporter might get a plum assignment. Turks and then Frenchmen began wearing banana hammocks. Mothers gave raspberries to babies, or if feeling particularly keen, to Former President Bush. A father's son might be the apple of his eye, and if you were feeling whippish, you could put a cherry on top.

Moreover, one was rewarded for the fruits of labor, and REM's "three miles of bad road" woman might be called a sad tomato. And what the hell is Fruit of the Loom? California is sometimes referred to as the land of fruits and nuts, which naturally brings up gay pride, whose symbol is the rainbow. And what fruity candy's motto is "Taste the rainbow"? The grapes of wrath might be a bitter draught, but an apple a day keeps the doctor away, or so I've heard through the grapevine.

Feeling spiteful? You've got sour grapes. You can buy a lemon but you won't be able to drive very far, especially in the Big Apple. A banana republic may be bad governance or good clothing. Honeydew is the money melon. You can put the lime in the coconut, but that'd make you plum crazy.

It's time to reclaim language from the bondage of fruity metaphors. Let's dispense with fruitastic gymnastics and stick with the practicality of the straightforward word.

Colas have an inglorious history, from silently trafficking narcotics to making polar bears look gay.  They are the target of scapegoat-searching school boards, codeine-popping cougars and a Federal Communications Commission with delusions of relevance.  All but one have no complexity, no subtlety, no joie de vivre.

All but Dr. Pepper.

When it comes to the Doc, it's a lock.  Invented by a German pharmacist in 1885, debuted nationally at the frickin' World's Fair in 1904, Dr. Pepper has thrilled and challenged soft-drinkers since America's rise on the world stage.  But it didn't need Joseph Hearst to fire the first shot.  In the realm of marketing gimmicks, the Doc's perfect interplay of 23 mouth-orgasming flavors lays waste to the Colonel's 17 herbs and spices or Cheerios' promise to cut your cholesterol by 4 percent in 6 weeks.  Why is there no home-brewing cola movement, as there is for beer, you may wonder?  The King of Beers has long served a shell kingdom of Scantily-Cladians and Fraternitites.  But by the Doc's maroon-and-white stripes we are healed.

Yet several have abused the good doctor's name in recent years, slapping on senseless monikers to lure us into imbibing, like the whore of Babylon or Georgina on "Gossip Girl."  Dr. IGA, Dr. K, Dr. Topper, Dr. Publix, Dr. Bob, Dr. Chill, Dr. Chek, Dr. Lynn and Dr. Perky - like unlicensed software, these criminals pose as our favorite fizzician but download malicious cola and "pop"-ups into our stomachs.  They take the green away from Dr. Pepper when his Medicare payments are falling and peddle their quackery to the 45 million Americans without health insurance or modest brand-recognition abilities.

Sure, these Doctorgängers are cheap enough for practically any budget, and mix just as well with plastic-bottle vodka.  They will keep you awake to finish that legal brief or extended foreplay.  But this foreign parade of Dr. Nick Riviera knockoffs will leave you morally bankrupt, and practically a traitor to your country.  Dr. Pepper has hit the spot for nearly 125 years and dared us to dream big.  It deserves your intimacy - until you pop your first Cherry Coke.