I completely forgot to write my column last month because my son, Dillon, got married in Santa Cruz, Calif., to Emma, a beautiful and gracious young woman whom I am proud to call my daughter-in-law.

Now, on every corner of Santa Cruz is the scent of marijuana from all these folks with medical marijuana cards. People (who looked pretty healthy to me) were smoking so much pot, by purely second hand smoke I must have become too stoned to remember my deadline.

But even more disorienting were all strange food habits. One woman in a vegan delicatessen was ranting about the "evil GMOs" ("genetically modified organisms"). I suggested that maybe we could resolve world hunger by genetically engineering disease resistant crops. She went psycho on me, yelling so much as she got into her dirty BMW 328i that she closed the door on her blond dreadlock. She sped away so fast that I didn't have time to read all the bumper stickers. (I'm pretty sure she didn't have a medical marijuana card. She definitely needed one.)

Later, I bought a bunch of strawberries from a farm. A tie-dye clad artist living in a colorful Airstream Trailer screamed that they weren't organic and that I I was eating industrial pesticides. Actually, the strawberries were quite good. I wanted to ask if the marijuana he was smoking was genetically modified, but my wife pinched me.

I wasn't much bothered by all of this, until Emma, who follows a gluten-free diet, somehow convinced my wife to go gluten free for the "health benefits." So when my 100 percent Italian wife, Carla, came home with gluten-free pasta, I decided that in the spirit of the 1960s, I'd write the lyrics for my protest song:

I like gluten, I like GMOs

I like carbs and Oreos

Organic foods, they cost too much

(Inorganic stuff you shouldn't touch)

Gimme caffeine and Lucky Charms,

And salmon raised on a farm.

And bacon, beef and dairy.

Dairy Queen makes me merry.

Beer and whisky and gin

In moderation is no sin.

Tofu is gross and goat cheese is foul

Almond milk and probiotics are bad for my soul

Gimme mozzarella and burgers from Five Guys

I love ketchup on my French Fries.

Honey is good when it's made from clover

Olive oil makes me a good lover

But not in a chic way, like shallots or a scallion,

Rather it's because it's what I eat, being Italian.

Now, I know that my protest song is going cause a lot of readers to write in about how appalled they are that a cardiologist is endorsing burgers and fries. OK. I acknowledge that burgers are decidedly not heart healthy. But I admit that every once in awhile, they just hit the spot. On the other hand, unless you have Celiac Disease, what's so bad about gluten? Or GMOs?

And who can prove to me that organic fruits are more healthy. The organic food industry wants me to believe it's better for me, but I've never read good medical data that says so. My wife just got mad at me for writing this, so I wrote two more lines to my song.

"Health benefits are claimed by the big organic food firms/But eating organic apples is only healthy if you come from a family of worms."