chewie

REVIVAL! REVIVA! RARRARARA!

2010-12-17T12:23:00.000-08:00

Dudes. ladies. man, how long has it been? it's been a long time. i've been many places. but primarily oregon. and i've chewed many things. i'll have to re-chew most of them and document them here, because let's face it, a majority of them have gone un-documented, but, such are the travails of chewdom.

anyway.

re-inventing watermelon is sort of akin to re-inventing the wheel. '5' (why five? WHY FIVE??) is calling theirs 'Prism'. Watermelon, it's not just a flavor, it's a refractive device AND a shape! I MEAN!

what it isn't, is a gum that tastes like something other than a post-beach spritz from a thirteen year old girl addicted to Bath and Bodyworks. i am chewing, i am tasting, i am...suddenly really worried about what Adam Morris thinks about my braces. wth.

BRAND: 5
PACKAGING: the now-ubiquitous flip-top envelope. black. vaguely menacing. don't leave it alone for very long with your lip balms.
TASTE: put it on a Swiffer, and, I'll get behind it all day long.
GOING THE DISTANCE: it beings to taste like...burning. there's no way around it.

in other news, i still don't brush my hair, i cut my own bangs, i do my own stunts.

It's Gonna Get All Meta

2009-12-14T13:58:00.001-08:00

I don't know. maybe the world isn't ready. ready for this jelly.

or this gum! we can leave my recent weight gain out of this.

now, one of the hallmarks of any great education is being in a room filled with people who will, at one point in time or another say, 'i really feel' about something. (this is not to be confused with the hallmarks of a great meeting where people will mostly use powerpoint transitions to get their point across, or, a great conference where you'll be there to consume your weight in free slightly stale breakfast pastry. go team!)

what people fail to mention when they're feeling things is that the OTHER harbinger of the bachelor's degree to come is the 'meta' of anything.

all of which is to say that this gum should probably be looking around for a diploma. because it is GUM wrapped INSIDE of a BREATH MINT. METAFRESHNESS, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

don't look now, but Jonathan Lethem is cutting you off in line at RiteAid.

company:Hershey, by way of the Ice-Breakers Family, official gum of the relaunching of the Titanic. good taste in support of bad! you can't lose!
the taste: your gum fell out of your mouth into your grandmother's handbag, where it did a sexy little roll-around in the pulverized remains of a pack of certs. nature can be so beautiful. so...cruel.
goin' the distance: the initial hit of that powder is so sweet, you have to come back for another piece. and another. and...another. and...what is this stuff again? my teeth are whiter AND i can ride that unicorn! METAFRESH.

Reunited, And It Tingles

2009-12-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

oh, gum bitches. i'm back. i've discovered that there are two other chicks out there reviewing gum, who have some internet notoriety, but that's cool, you know? there's enough gum to go around, and, if things get ugly, hey, i KNOW PEOPLE. people...people.

i left you in the arms of some truly terrifying she-beast gum, and i've returned with something that puts america's so-called dentifrice xenophobia to the test:

Eclipse Breeze Exotic Mint. And his beloved, Exotic Berry. (flavors! with genders! i'm about to lose my Smith diploma to an angry mob). This gum has more bling than T-Pain, or any other rapper with a T somewhere in his sobriquet. Fo' real--bronze foil all up in the hizzy. It is the Bollywood of chew, as it totes not only your usual ingredients ending in 'tol' but, a secret weapon:

cardamom. put a bindi on your bad breath.

company: Wrigley's, and their sub-brand, 'astrological phenomenon'
flavor: the cool kiss of mint chutney blown across a hot stream of calcutta sewage. with cardamom!
goin' the distance: it did, indeed, build a taj to entomb my red onion breath. and then rang finger cymbals over its corpse.

UNCLE.

2009-05-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

no, seriously kids.

from beginning to end, this gum wrote the jokes itself. kung fu panda on the label! let's start there! i haven't even unwrapped it yet and i sense that something is probably really wrong, because an obese cartoon is telling me that putting this in my mouth can win me the ultimate adventure.

in modern dentistry.

seriously, if the gum before last was a centreless failure, this stuff is like the Cytherea of chew. i shit you not.

but i knew that going in. i mean, i was in seven-eleven, picking up a gum called 'Hubba Bubba Glop'. in 'strawberry gush'. THE SEX ACTS NAME THEMSELVES I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COMPETE HERE.

(Hubba Bubba Glop: ON YOUR FACE.)

each of these fuckers is the size of a robin's egg too. round. red. mysterious. containing a world of gush/glop. exactly like Mars.

sliced open and inserted, one half at a time (sometimes, you're just not sure you can take the whole thing at once, to start...OH GOD MAKE ME STOP), the sensation was not unlike those trays of flouride that you used to get in elementary school. somehow, you'd always end up seated across from the boy you had a crush on and there you'd be, both foaming and drooling uncontrollably into a paper napkin while the nurse explained the beauty of oral hygiene.

this is exactly like that. only you're basting your teeth in soon-to-be-flavorless sugar water instead of 'maui island blast' flouride gel. (it all tasted like fermented tub grout, who were they kidding, really?)

the things i do for you people. my mouth will never be the same.

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.
JUST LIKE YOUR MOM.

Company: Hubba Bubba. they also have a ranch just outside of Reno. real nice girls, at the Hubba Bubba ranch. snap 'em just like a piece of...gum.
Flavor: pornberry. the pornberry tastes like porn! violet, get your hand out of the condom jar!
goin' the distance: sadly, it shoots its wad early, never to be regained. at least i'm warning YOU. don't make the mistakes i did.

po-mo kangaroo

2009-05-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

so, ladies of the interwebs, i don't know if you do this, but, i do this. i think i have a pouch in every single handbag i own, often festive, there's one with mexican day of the dead skulls on it in my glove compartment even (not a bag, but, like, the car equivalent of a purse, discuss). and in this pouch are things that I Might Need But Probably Haven't Used In A Year. twelve kinds of lip balm, travel dental floss, a usb card reader, etc. sometimes, they also serve as a sort of morbid empty gum container mausoleum. the gums that have gone before. boldly. baldly. or, in the case of this stuff, not so much.

the cool thing about this stuff is that it came from Switzerland, via a friend who understands that when she goes abroad, i'll want a present either related to food and the making thereof, or, a chewing implement.

the not cool thing about it is that when you say 'rainforest mint', Trident Switzerland, i fully expect there to be some tart melange of monkey tang, brazilian loam, and fruit bat essence going on in this shit. what you get instead is...something that's vaguely spearmint. maybe spearmint dipped in bongwater. there you go.

some of you will have no problem with that. some of you will go and watch this video instead and think about what might have been.

Company: Trident. by way of Geneva. Gum without strong political opinions.
Appearance: "14 Gums. Sugarfree."
Goin' the distance: monkey, wherefore art thou? Cometh back from thy Neverland Ranch. Take off thine overalls. Run free.

P is for Preparation

2009-04-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

does anyone else remember that gum that had the distinct liquid center? i'd unwrap a piece, and slowly bend back the corners until a droplet of shining ooze appeared in the thin skin of the gum. gum can prepare you for puberty in unexpected ways.

anyway. this mentos business claims to have a new soft center, sort of like arlen specter. when i bit it in half, however, i can't say that i saw any such thing. the gum, i mean. not arlen. arlen tastes like ashes and canada mints.

the first time i encountered mentos gum i couldn't even get the package open. sometimes old farm animals just want to unwrap gum the way that they used to, and reveal its mysteries one little squeeze at a time.

yeah.

Company: Mentos. apparently a product of turkey! who knew?
Appearance: a slender green plastic flip-top hard case that is SURPRISINGLY TRICKY TO OPEN I'M NOT KIDDING.
Goin' the distancea: tartness followed by the taste of paper pulp. yee-haw. if you get a big enough wodge going in there, you could probably spit something out that you can write a letter on.

hangover by frito lay.

2009-04-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

when you're having a blue moment driving home from work late at night and stopping at the seven eleven for a diet pepsi seems like a good idea, it isn't. because you will probably also buy honey bbq 'flavor twists' that you'll eat while watching the Vicar of Dibley at one a.m. thinking about how that whole 'you find love when you're not looking for it' thing seems to mostly work for other people. including people in early 90s sitcoms on the BBC. who are vicars. if you become a vicar in england, would you get a little cottage in a village populated by eccentric yet lovable sheep pederasts and the local wealthy landowner who sternly disapproves of lady vicars but eventually loves you just like everyone else? there could be something to vicaring. but i still refuse to get cats. anyway.

if you're having a blue moment, or a series of them, don't, for the love of god, fall into the open arms of frito lay. unless you like swilling pepto early in the morning and tossing it back up shortly thereafter. weirdo. get this something blue instead. good for weddings! good for fooling yourself into temporary optimism! probably also good as emergency tub caulk.

Company: Extra (under their 'Fruit Sensations' line--is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously like a prophylactic tagline...?)
Appearance: one of those little flip package dealies that's sort of gum as cigarette nouveau, or, provides the temporary illusion of having a card case to flip open for special someones at bars. 'gum?' you say, oh so suavely.
Goin the distance: this is actually pretty inoffensive, if you're a fan of fruit-based gums, as opposed to mints of various hues. sweet, but not too sweet. berryish, without being overly cloying. with a full-bodied lingering finish and notes of fresh water, peat, and cassis. wait, what?

brown: the color of broken dreams

2009-04-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

it seems like i mostly get urges to review gum when i wake up in the morning, so, despite promises to people that i'd take actual photos, you know, well-lit, posed photos of chewing apparatuses (apparati? the hell? there goes seven years of latin...), i lied. here's more bedhead, a lack of a bra, and a Powell's tshirt. oh, and, SOME GUM!

now, this isn't exactly new. i've had it for over a year now, i think. it lives in my boulevard of shattered hopes drawer, where i keep items like this gum, a pregnancy test, and an emergency bar of dark chocolate. and my passport. and a swiss army knife. i think there's also a ticket stub to a red sox game in there somewhere. you get the idea. anyway. i'm the person (a girl person, in this instance) who will go into a drugstore/bodega/etc. in the middle of nowhere, find the grossest looking gum in the joint, and buy it. that's how i came to own this.

it seems inoffensive enough. hell, it even smells like chocolate. and then you remember. this is gum. gum smelling like chocolate. chocolate that you will chew ROUGHLY FOREVER BUT NEVER SWALLOW. and you begin to suspect that all is not well at the BubbleYum factory. is that an odor of sulphur when you open the wrapper? (which is, subsequently, also the odor of Failed Hopes. maybe with a dash of horseradish thrown in.)

Company: BubbleYum
Flavor: someone has fermented the inside of tootsie pops. and then made them impossible to swallow. the only logical thing to do is spit them out. SPIT THEM OUT.
Appearance: a long chocolate-colored foil brick. i just realized that i've also described hash. that works. this gum looks like hash! but cheap!
Goin' the distance: you don't want to. this is pretty much a two second novelty chew. once you realize it's not, in fact, going to get you high, start looking for a place to put this shit. possibly on the inside of a napkin at a deli. or inside of a flaming brown paper bag on your neighbor's porch.

canada: the freshmaker.

2009-04-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

the entire nation to our north has drymouth. they didn't want to suffer in silence any longer, and, they figured they might as well lavish some hydratory attention on their neighbors to the south. we could all be drinking water, but, that seems so 2008. this is the year of my tenth high school reunion, and that can only mean one thing: GUM.

gum with a 'hydrating sensation'. it's green. it comes in sexy metallic packaging just bursting with design flourishes in the form of multiple circles. perhaps they suggest the rings formed by motion in a pool of water, cascading ripples of sensation that flow outwards from the single fixed point of hydration in your oral cavity. is it porn? is it gum? all i know is that it's canadian. and it's in my mouth. rawr.

Company: Orbit
Flavor: 'watermelon mist' (like, you know, if your local carwash sprayed atomized garden beauties. into your face. from a safe distance.)
Appearance: pale blue packaging with an excess of po-mo neo-atomic bukkake
Goin' the distance: i can't detect any particular moistness or hydration going on behind my molars, but, it has a sprightly somewhat cucumbery faux melon flavor profile. the bad news: it sticks to your lips like crazy when you try to snap it or blow a bubble. maybe you enjoy having neon green gum smegma spangling your kisser. i prefer to not appear as though i've been fellating swamp thing after he attended a bonne bell floorshow.