TAHOEJIMBO420'S Blogger

Don't Let Verizon and Google Set the Rules for Net Neutrality - Common Cause

2010-08-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Don't Let Verizon and Google Set the Rules for Net Neutrality - Common Cause

Davidaron presents

2010-05-24T08:23:00.001-07:00

Quote of the Day (wouldn't fit in status)

2010-04-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
Jim Morrison

Spring Greetings

2010-04-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Ganja Babe

2010-04-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ganja Babe from Khat Baker on Vimeo.

The Acid King By Peter Wilkinson Rolling Stone Issue 872 July 5, 2001

2010-01-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Acid King
By Peter Wilkinson
Rolling Stone Issue 872
July 5, 2001
For more than two decades, authorities believe, Leonard Pickard was a
major player in the LSD underground. Now, sitting in a federal prison,
he tells his tale for the first time. Late last year, a new prisoner arrived at the Shawnee County Jail in Topeka, Kansas a polite beanstalk of a man from the San Francisco Bay Area who stood out amoung the petty criminals who make up the majority of Shawnees inmate population. He spoke in a rapid whisper, practiced
yoga, meditated in his cell and read difficult books on mathematics and
physics. Along with his prison blues, he wore sandals with socks. A
princely mane of silver hair fell almost to his shoulders.
The mans name was William Leonard Pickard. A few days before, on
November 7th, 200, the fifty-five-year-old Harvard graduate had been
arrested not far from an abandoned Atlas E missile silo outside Topeka
and charged with being one of the busiest manufacturers of LSD in the
world, a chemist with the means to cook up acid by the kilos. If the
governments charges prove true, this would make him one of the high
priests of acid manufacture, part of a clandestine fraternity that
probably numbers no more than a dozen worldwide.
Acid cookers are notoriously hard to catch. A lab can be set up quickly
and broken down easily, and it only takes about ten days to perform a
series of complicated chemical reactions to produce a sizable batch of
the drug enough, once diluted and dipped onto blotter paper, for
hundreds of thousands of hits. The trickiest part of the process is
obtaining the precursor chemical known as ergotamine tartrate, or ET.
Heavily regulated in this country, where it is used to treat migraines,
ET is often smuggled in from Eastern Europe, where sale of the compound
is less restricted. Acid manufacturing might be one of the last criminal enterprises where those involved are motivated by more than the prospect of making money.
Even now, more than three decades after the Summer of Love, to cook acid
is to perform a sacrament, a public service. Members of this small band
operate with great stealth and are rarely informed on by their
associates, even those facing long prison terms. The Drug Enforcement
Administration had not taken down an LSD lab since 1991.
The case of U.S. v. Pickard is just the latest, and perhaps final,
chapter in the strange and often fantastic tale of William Leonard
Pickard and his journey from a privileged boyhood in Atlanta, through
the manic, hallucinogenic heart of the 1960s, to the forefront of social
drugs research in the 1990s, conducted at some of the nation's most
prestigious universities. Along the way, under various aliases - he
crossed paths with such rock stars as Sting, and befriended members of
the British House of Lords, State Department officials and the district
attorney of San Francisco, Terence Hallinan. He earned a master's from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he studied drug trends in the former Soviet Union. Pickard also has a rap sheet stretching back to his teens and has served
two prison terms for manufacturing drugs, including LSD and the rarely
seen synthetic mescaline. In recent years, though, his life seemed to
come together - he'd fathered a child and had become a serious convert
to Buddhism. He had a Job at a respected drug-policy think tank, and he
planned to attend medical school so he could finally dedicate his life
to alleviating the suffering of others. But he had also become bizarrely
entwined with - and then, he says, hideously betrayed by - a man named
Gordon Todd Skinner, a Porsche-driving pot dealer from Tulsa, Oklahoma,
twenty years younger than Pickard When Pickard comes to trial, most
likely later this year, the proceedings promise to shed light on the
dangerous and secret world of LSD manufacturing for the first time in
decades. Perhaps greater truths will be revealed, too.
In some ways, the story of Leonard Pickard and Todd Skinner is a story
about the collision of Sixties idealism with the materialism and
pragmatism of the nineties -Timothy Leary's America versus Bill
Clinton's, if you will. And its moral will be clear even before the
Judge calls the court to order; The sweet but easily corruptible dream
of the flower-power generation never really stood a chance - but It was
fun while it lasted.

The Acid Triangle
Most of the Acid consumed in the past thirty years is believed to have
been made in temporary basement and warehouse labs in and around San
Francisco's Bay Area, a part of California drug agents call the Acid
Triangle. The last time those agents made a significant (1 million hits
plus) acid bust, in 1993, they identified a supplier who lived in
Bolinas, the northernmost point of the triangle.
A supplier, that is - not a chemist. The narcs never located the
chemist. LSD today is a much lower dose (20 micrograms versus 2oo-plus)
than the high-test stuff Augustus Owsley Stanley III sold as orange
sunshine'' in the Sixties; more of a party high than an eight-hour trip.
"Triple set - LSD that is reworked three times to in- crease purity -
it's not found as often," says Dave Tresmontan, special agent in charge
of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement's San Francisco office.
"The LSD today tends to be a little dirtier and not nearly as
sophisticated as it once was," It's difficult to tell exactly when
Leonard Pickard first involved himself with LSD. BNE believes he was
part of the legendary Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which operated in and
around the Acid Triangle in the late 1960s and early 1970s, selling
hashish and LSD cooked by Owsley and other important chemists like Tim
Scully and Nick Sand.
The Brotherhood's philosophy, at least the beginning, was simple and
beneficent: with LSD, turning people on, expanding consciousness and
changing the way people perceived the world took precedence over making
a profit.
When the subject of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love came up one day in
the Shawnee County jail, Pickard stopped short of admitting any contact
with the group, but did speak of their activities with a certain knowing
reverence: "I understand there have been a few LSD chemists that would
never make a batch of LSD ever, ever, without offering prayers for the safety of the people that might use it. And it should act as a good
medicine throughout the world. So I'm told." He added, "I think their
mantra was something on the order of, 'Those that say, don't know. And
those that know, don't say." Pickard smiled, conspiratorially, as he
talked, sitting cross-legged and as calm as a Buddha on a plastic chair
in an interview room barely big enough to contain his
six-and-a-half-foot frame.
A federal trial in San Francisco in 1973 crippled Brotherhood operations
and seemed to fragment the cooking culture, or at least send it further
underground. BNE didn't take down a lab of any real size in the Acid
Triangle for years after the Brotherhood case, just a few seizures now
and again. "We might find some pretty good chunks, 15,000 hits or
100,000 hits," says Dave Tresmontan. Then, in 1988, reports came into
the Bureau of strong chemical smells emanating from a ware- house in the
city of Mountain View, California, about forty-five mites south of San
Francisco. On December 28th, as the narcs arrived to execute a search
warrant, a tall, pleasant man of forty strolled out of the warehouse,
carrying multiple pieces of identification bearing a number of different
names. His real name was William Leonard Pickard.

A Little Preppy
Leonard Pickard grew up precociously in Atlanta, a city unfamiliar in
the 1960s with the concepts of tolerance and experimentation. His
father, William, practiced civil law. His mother, Lucille, a Columbia
University Ph.D., researched fungal diseases at the Centers for Disease
Control. The Packards lived comfortably in the city's genteel northwest
suburbs, a social, church-oriented neighborhood populated by academic
families.
"The governor of Georgia's mother taught me Sunday school," Pickard
rhapsodized in a letter from prison.
"Suits on Sunday, no alcohol, learned to handle rifles at nine. Read
endlessly. Azaleas, rhododendrons, lightning, Fireflies. Many happy
moments as a small boy observing paramecia under my great-grandfather's
microscope. Visiting scientists from all over the world stayed with us.
Much conversation." Something of a science prodigy, Pickard spent the
summer of 1962 interning at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.
A year later, at the age of seventeen, he won a Westinghouse Talent
Search, one of forty teenagers recognized as he top science students in
the United States. Twenty-two scholarship offers rolled in, unsolicited.
Pickard chose Princeton.
The temptations of Greenwich Village jazz clubs, a brief train ride
away, distracted him, and after less than a year, he dropped out: "I
wasn't as smart as I thought I was,'' out: Supported by his trust fund,
Pickard hit the road, looking for "greater experience of the human
condition than tenure track might have provided.''
As he wandered the country in the mid-196os, trouble found him
everywhere. Eighteen years old and freshly removed from Princeton,
Pickard was arrested twice in Alabama in 1964 for forging checks. The
following January, he was arrested for stealing a car, "joy riding," as
he recalls. "Youthful idiocy." Pickard showed up on the West Coast in
1967, where he met Talitha Stills, Stephen Stills' sister. "It was an extraordinary time," she says. Everybody was hanging around Berkeley and
Stanford, whether they were enrolled or not, because they were involved
in the protests. Leonard was hanging out at Stanford with a lot of the
people who were in the know. He was beyond university before he ever got
to university. He had a real interest in medicine and the chemistry and
pharmacology underlying the drug movement.
Stills also remembers a less studious aspect of her friend's
personality. We were sort of the rich, bright kids she says. "Leonard
had his little trust fund, so he could just dedicate himself to going
out. He was all over the place. It was almost impossible to keep tabs on
him. He was a pretty serious ladies' man." For a period of about seven
years, Pickard lived the life of a psychedelic freebooter, part of it in
a commune in Austin.
It was a time, he says, of "naked moonlight swimming, endless campfires
and theology in the High Sierra, refinement of the soul in the vast
deserts, finding what was of true value in the world and what was proper
conduct among others." In 1974, Pickard formally returned to school,
enrolling at Foothill College, in Los A1tos Hills, to study biology and
chemistry. Then he was off to San Jose State, from 1976 through 1978, to
study organic chemistry and neurophysiology. Then Pickard, in his early
thirties, seemed to discover his calling: cooking illegal drugs, but
doing so with a Californian epicure's taste and sophistication.
Besides chemistry, he knew the law, and rather than brazenly break it,
Pickard tried to skirt it. The first compound he experimented with was
MDMA - a drug few had even heard of at the time but now known as
Ecstacy.
To get around the fact that it was illegal, Pickard fiddled wit the
formula and came up with a chemical cousin, MDA, a somewhat trippier
version of the drug. In time, Pickard's neighbors in Redwood City
complained about chemical odors wafting from his apartment. Sheriff's
deputies who knocked on the door on October 10th, 1977, discovered a
functioning drug lab in the basement.
Alan Johnson, chief inspector at the Santa Cruz, district attorneys
office, interviewed the young chemist. "I had a delightful conversation
with Leonard," Johnson says. "He struck me as a really bright kid. He
was dressed in a little V-neck sweater. He was a little Preppy. We're
talking about a whole different culture back then," Johnson recalls.
"Todays Cookers just get a recipe from some criminal. They mix a little
of this and a little of that. They don't really know what they're doing.
This fellow was trying to change the MDMA to make it legal. He was
making the argument, and it was a new argument, that he's manufacturing
an analogue.''
Ultimately, Leonard's analogue argument failed. In 1978, while taking
chemistry classes at Stanford, he was found guilty of attempting to
manufacture a controlled substance, a felony, and served eighteen months
of a three-year sentence. In a letter from prison, Pickard offered up an
elaborate excuse, denying that he had been brewing illegal drugs.
He claims that he was busted after he was trying to sell some lab gear
that once belonged to a brotherhood of Eternal Love chemist, gear that
contained traces of MDA. Incarceration didn't seem to quell his fascination with clandestine
chemistry. In February 1980 not long after his release, police in
Gainesville, Georgia, arrested Leonard Pickard for making amphetamines.
A few months later, in June, authorities in Deland Florida, pinched him
for distributing MDA, the Ecstasy analogue.
No threat of imprisonment, it seemed, could interfere with Leonard's
quest to liberate the collective mind. "I believe it was genuine, his
belief that psychedelics were helpful," says Rick Doblin, a Harvard
Ph.D. who is leading the effort to have Ecstasy for clinical study in
the United States, and an acquaintance of Packard's. "I think he was
after money, but he had a romantic notion about the value of
psychedelics, like a lot of us do."
123,278 Pills and 89,802 Tabs
By 1987, the two strands of Pickard's life came together when he turned
up at San Francisco State University and fell under the influence of the
legendary drug researcher Alexander Shulgin, a white-haired eccentric
who, with his wife, Ann, has dedicated his life to studying
hallucinogens and advocating their therapeutic value.
For many years, Shulgin counted himself among the few researchers in the
nation allowed to possess Schedule I drugs (like MDMA and 2C-cool.gif,
and his books on the subject, among them PIHKAL, A Chemical Love Story
(PIHKAL stands for "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved" are
perennial underground best sellers. "I hold Sasha as a real hero," says
Pickard, who claims to have received "letters of condolence'' from
Shulgin after his arrest.
Nobody is exactly sure when, or if, Pickard actually set up the LSD lab
in Mountain View, but by 1988 it was operational. The lab was contained
inside a trailer - of the type you might see at a construction site -
that had been dragged into a warehouse in an industrial section of the
city. It contained state-of-the-art lab equipment, including a
roto-evaporator, heating mantles and a pill press, an item that DEA
restrictions make almost impossible to obtain. On the floor were stacked
boxes of blotter paper in a raft of colorful, eye-catching designs:
Escher heads, album covers, samurai shields and black-and-white tropical
scenes.
After Pickard had been at the spot for some time, apparently cooking
acid by the kilo, neighboring businessmen reported smelling chemical
odors. Agents of the BNE moved in. "It was a huge lab," says Ron Brooks,
special agent in charge of the BNE'S San Jose office, who was on the
scene that day in Mountain View. "He was making windowpane, microdot and
blotter.'' And it was a diversified operation. Pickard was making not
only LSD but a synthetic mescaline, which is very difficult to
synthesize, and a bunch of other stuff. He was an excellent chemist.
Excellent and prolific, on par almost with Owsley himself in terms of
output. Bear, as he was known, claimed to have turned out a total of
three or four kilos during his storied career. Agents found a beguiling
note tucked inside a brown vial in the Mountain View trailer, which
seemed to be addressed to one of the chemists distributors and to describe the scale of his operation. As I prepare my third kilogram of
LSD, it said, I think with amusement of our last conversation three
weeks ago, when you called me a liar, and I had to walk you down the
hall to get you the very first gram that was supposed to be offered to
you preferentially. Since July of 1984, our friend has taken thirty
grams in that year, thirty grams in the second year and seventy-five
grams in the last six to eight weeks. The recent change indicates that
someone close to you has accessed an existing system as well as its
potential problems. I hope you can monitor these proceedings in some
way, since you come from the finest psychedelic heritage, prior to being
seduced by some sleezy cocaine and qualude {sic}nightmare. Whether
Pickard wrote this note, and who the intended recipient was, have never
been made clear.
A kilo of drugs might not sound like much if youre talking about pot or
coke or heroin, but a kilo of pure LSD is enough, DEA estimates, for 10
million trips. One of the criminalists who donned protective gear to
process the trailer crime scene, Lisa Brewer, counted 89,802 tabs of
acid and 123,278 acid pills, a form of acid rarely seen in 1988. Only
Pickard knew how much product had been already mailed to middlemen. This
was not the big one, Brewer says of Pickards laboratory. Nobody sees
these.
Later, when Ron Brooks consulted Darryl Inaba, a leading drug expert at
the Haight-Ashbusy Free Clinic, he mentioned the fact that hed collared
a guy making synthetic mescaline. No fucking way, Inaba replied. Thats
just too hard to make. There are only a few people in the whole world
that might have the capability.
It was a beautiful, pure white, needlelike crystal, recalls Brooks.
Aparently, it was only synthesized several times, ever, and Pickard was
a guy who knew how to do it. That was the only time we ever saw it. Guys
like him do that just as a challenge, just to prove they can do it. I
dont think theres a market for it. It probably cost him way more to make
than he could ever sell it for.
Not surprisingly, a BNE search for Pickard accomplices proved fruitless.
We followed up leads in Daly City and in San Francisco, says Brooks,
also out in the southern East Bay, but never had anything solid. He was
very good about covering his tracks, and he and his circle of friends
were all the masters of using multiple identities and blind mail drops
and phones forwarded to other phones. I recall Mr. Pickard back in the
interview room, says BNE agent Tresmontan. He played a lot of things
close to the vest. I remember him sitting there with his legs crossed,
very calm, very friendly, somewhat guarded. My thought was, Heres a very
intelligent individual, maybe slightly eccentris.
When agents first encountered Pickard in the warehouse, he warned them
not to dismantle the lab. This is all bad stuff, Pickard advised. If I
were you, Id burn this place to the ground. I wouldnt process this
scene. Somebodyll get hurt.
Pickard proved to be right. One BNE agent on the scene, Max Houser,
somehow got dosed upon entering the lab, even though he wore a full-body
protective suit and a respirator. Whitin an hour or two, Houser went
into convulsions. An article about the case in a California forensics
journal describes what happened next: The agent was taken to the
hospital, where they administered Valium by IV to calm the anxiety. A few hours later, he was discharged and went home. He was in the shower
when the Valium began to wear off and he began convulsing again. This
time he was taken to the Haight-Ashbury clinic and treated.
During his time in the emergency room, the article continues, he
reported a loud, buzzing and distressing sound that totally drowned out
all the other sound. The hospital people were talking to him, and he
could see people were talking to him, and he could see their lips move
but could onlu hear the loud noise. He was finally able to determine the
noise was coming from the automatic door that leads to the emergency
room.
The agent is starting to feel better but still has bouts of depression
and anxiety. These bouts continued for months.
Pickard expressed only limited sympathy for Housers plight. I regret his
difficult moments, he told me, although I suffered he same effects
without the benefit of protective suits a statement in which Pickard
seems to admit, for the first time pulicily, that he was indeed an acid
cooker, or at least spent time around LSD labs. Anxiety can spin out of
control when taken to the ER with a mind-set expecting psychosis and
surrounded by people who are inexperienced. Ideally, a talk-down should
suffice. A meadow and friends would be a completely different experience
than guns, radio, and fear, I am told. Even now, its almost impossible
to study overdose phenomena like these. Sustained exposure to unkown but
massive dosages of LSD, Pickard pointed out, as experienced by the few
unkown individuals worldwide who are responsible for its distribution,
has no parallel in clinical settings. I understand various psychiatrisrs
and pharmacologists would like to interview them, but they are,
necessarily, unavailable.
In 1988, Pickard was sentenced to eight years in Californias Terminal
Island Prison. Released early, in 1992, he went to live at the Zen
Center, on Page Street in San Francisco, and came under the wind of the
centers spiritual leader, Blanche Hartman, better known as the Abbess.
She took me hand when I left prison, Pickard said. I lived there for two
years as a monk.
Pickard claims he tried to chart a new course: I lost contact with a
large early portion of my life after the prison years. He paid about
$350 a month for one of forty small rooms at the center. With the other
students, Pickard rose with the 5AM bell, sat in meditation for an hour
and a half, chanted, helped clean the temple and then ate breakfast.
Monastic practice involves twenty-four hours a day, says Hartman. The
bulk of the day he did whatever he was doing, and I have no idea what it
was.
I never felt fully invited into his personal life, Hartman adds. There
was always an air of mystery about him. I assumed he had some money left
over from his earlier days dealing, but I have no idea.
He was trying to change, she continues. I dont know if I want to say
live more constructively. I dont know how he felt about his
manufacturing LSD, whether he thought it was good or bad. I never asked
him about it. My guess is, even though its illegal, he didnt think it
was wrong to make LSD, because he thinks theres something beneficial
about making it, or he wouldnt have done it. Leonard Pickard returned to school during his two years on Page Street
to study neurobiology at the University of California at Berkeley with
David Presti, an authority on addiction and the way that drugs- from
stimulants and depressants to psychedelics and steroids affect the
brain. Under Prestis guidance, Pickard focused on drugs of abuse rather
than his old area of interest, the possible therapeutic applications of
controlled substances. (Though Presti has described Picakrd as a dear
friend, he was unwilling to discuss Pickards work at Berkeley, missing
an appointment for a planned telephone interview before backing out
entirely.)
From Berkeley, with Prestis backing, Pickard arrived at Harvard in 1994
and found work as a neurobiology research associate at the medial
schools Division on Addictions. There he met Mark Kleiman, a junior
member of the faculty who was already a leading authority on social
drugs and drug policy. Following the lead of RRick Doblin, another
member of the Harvard drug research crew, Pickard applied the Kennedy
School of Governments masters program. Kleiman oversaw Pickards masters
project, a second year paper that focused on drug problems in Russia,
discussing the extent to which the emergence of a free-market economy
had led to a proliferation both of drug consumption and of drug
production and traffic. Leonard spent some time talking to people in
Russia, says a Harvard source. He was obviously very good at that. He
made contact with various figures in law enforcement, including the FSB,
which is the successor to the KGB.
Experts in this field have to be careful about their reputations.
Researching the use of illegal drugs is regarded with suspicion by many
in law enforcement and on the right wing, who worry that by not
demonizing these drugs, researchers tacitly advocate their use.
Everything, as Rick Dolbin says, needs to be done with the permission of
the DEA and other government agencies. When another of Pickards teachers
at Harvard, Mark H. Moore, Guggenheim Proffesor of Criminal Justice
Policay and Management, heard vague details about Pickards prospective
funding sources in Russia, he felt uncomfortable. I didnt know their
reputations, recalls Moore, who knew nothing of Pickards criminal
record. They were unfamiliar to me then and have remained unfamiliar
with me now. One Harvard source calls Pickard the kind of student who
was more talk than action. He presented himself as a person who was
well-connected and could see what was happening in the drug scene, but
he was never able to make much out of that or demonstrate the truth of
what he was observing. I ended up regarding him with a great deal of
skepticism. Nothing ever happened with him.
Pickard received his masters in public policy from the Kennedy School of
Government in 1997, and when Mark kleiman moved to California a short
time later to head an influential drug-policy group at UCLA, Picakrd
followed. Pickards work was not funded by the university. He took trips
to Russia to seek funding, and on one of them he met his current wife,
Natasha, a lovely pre-med student in her late twenties whom Pickard
brought back to the united States with him. Pickard, Natasha and her
father shared a small apartment. Kleiman was impressed enough with
Pickard to name him as his deputy. Pickard gave Kleiman his word that he
wasnt cooking any drugs in the United States.
Again, the subject matter of Pickards research involved drug use in the
former Soviet Union. This time, Pickard concentrated on evaluating a
deeply flawed Russian system of estimating the extent of its drug problem. Working with Kleiman in California, however, Pickard seemed to
grow lazy. Even though it wasnt our money, he didnt actually produce
much, says a UCLA source. We fell for the story, the he was a brilliant
guy with sort of an outlaw past that he was now trying to transcend.
During this period, Rick Doblin socialized with Pickard back in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Sasha Shulgins home in Northern
California. But Dolbin says he never trusted Pickard: What can you say
about somebody who always wears a suit and tie to meetings that are
usually more relaxed He wanted to pass in a lot of profeddional circles
or responsible circles, even anti-drug-abuse circles. It felt like he
was playing the role.
Hed tell these shadowy stories that were somehow connected to Russians
who had made out in privatization in perhaps less than completely
ethical ways and who wanted to help out their country by studying drug
abuse issues. I didnt know what to believe. I always felt there was more
going on than he was saying. There were some major missing pieces in
what he was sharing.
A Brand-New Friend
In the psychedelic community, the graying tribe gathers several times a
year, in this country or in Europe, to discuss new drugs and drug
research, to burn incense and chat about Native American art. It was at
one of these gatherings, devoted to the study of psychedelic mushrooms,
in 1997, that Pickard met a man who impressed him with his generosity,
intelligence, humor and charm. His name was Gordon Todd Skinner.
Like Pickard, Skinner is a big, rangy man, though Skinner is the bulkier
of the two at 240 pounds, bald, with a ZZ-Top type beard. One
acquaintance describes his look as a cross between an Amish man and Bozo
the Clown. To Pickard, Skinner was something of a fellow traveler. When
I met him, he was using exotic structures every week or every few days,
Pickard says. He loved to eat ayahuasca [a hallucinogenic plant] and its
various analogues.
Skinner told Pickard he was an expert in international finance and
boasted about various celebrities he supposedly knew, including Warren
Buffet, the Omaha, Nebraska, superinvestor. In the beginning, at least,
Pickard says he believed Skinner, especially when Skinner told him that
he could raise money from Buffet to fund his drug research. The Buffet
money, Pickard figured, would be a ticket back to Harvard. Skinner
struck Pickard as somebody who had access to large amounts of money,
often receiving electronic transfers but always cash poor. He probably
couldnt draw more than $3,000 out of his accounts at one time, Pickard
says.
Besides Warren Buffet, Skinner also claimed to know Sting. In October
1999, when the star hit San Jose, California, on a tour stop, he
attended a party Skinner threw at a house he was renting in Stinson
Beach, a home formerly owned by Jerry Garcia. Chris Malone, who
installed a stereo system in the house for Stings visit, says Skinner
and Sting acted like old friends. Pickard was there, too. Through his
publicist, Sting acknowledges attending the party, where he met some
very charismatic people, but would comment no further.
By Tulsa standards, Skinners family was well-to-do. His father Gordon operates the Skinner Clinic, a chiropractic office. His mother,
Katherine Magrini, one of Tulsas leading hostesses, according to the
Tulsa World, runs Gardner Spring, for many years a manufacturer of
standard and custom-made industrial springs, with sales of $5 million to
$10 million annually. She also started a gourmet candy company,
Katherines Supreme Gourmet Chocolates, and sits on a wide variety of
Tulsa benefit comities. After divorcing Gordon Skinner, Katherine, in
1981, married Gary Magrini, an agent with the Criminal Enforcement
Division of the IRS. For a time, Magrini was assigned to the Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
As a boy, Todd Skinner loved math. He attended Cascia Hall Prep, a
Catholic boys high school in Tulsa, and thou he never earned a college
degree, he says he studied for a while at the University of Heidelberg,
in Germany. There is no way for me to describe the depth of Todds
knowledge, says Moise Seligman, a retired Army major general who has
been a friend of the Skinner family for twenty years. Ive never met
anyone who could sit in the same room with Todd Skinner, as far as brain
power is concerned.
All along, Skinner would tell Seligman that he loathed drugs. He was
bitterly opposed to the whole dope process. He would never stick a
needle in himself, he would never sniff something, or whatever you do to
take it.
On and off through hi twenties, Skinner worked at his mothers spring
plant. Other times, he wandered around California and the Caribbean,
sometimes with a friend from Holland who described himself as a
manufacturer of powdered milk. Skinner, like Pickard, used a number of
aliases, telling different people in different places that he was Dwayne
Miller or P.C. Carroll or Gerard T. Finegan. He also developed a nose
for trouble. After leasing a seventy-eight-foot oil-field utility vessel
for use off the coast of Louisiana, Skinner installed fancy electronic
gear on the boat, then wrecked the craft, which he had failed to insure,
off the coast of Jamaica in a hurricane. Custom officials in the Cayman
Islands boarded the boat and gave Skinner an hour to leave the country.
Skinners friend Mo Seligman ended up getting stuck for part of the
$80,000 in unpaid lease bills.
By 1989, Skinner was in the pot business. He made a poor showing with
that, too. When he and a friend from Tulsa tried to move forty-two
pounds of weed in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, undercover cops nailed them
and indicted Skinner on conspiracy charges that left him facing life in
prison as a drug kingpin and held him on $1 million bail. Waiting for
trial, Skinner spent about a year in prison in New Jersey. Then, from
behind bars, he cut his teeth on another business, one he would return
to during his friendship with Leonard Pickard: the unclean business of
being a snitch. Skinner struck up a friendship with another inmate, John
Worthy, and mentioned he had thirty pounds of pot to sell. Having piqued
Worthys interest, Skinner went straight to the D.A> and laid out the
deal. His bail was reduced to $500,000, and he returned to Tulsa, where,
at the behest of the New Jersey prosecutors, he had taped some calls to
John Worthy. These calls are almost comical. On the tape, Skinner pleads
with Worthy, who can barely scrape together $2,000, to meet him at a
hotel in Vineland, New Jersey, and take possession of $34,000 worth of
weed.
If Worthy wasnt satisfied with the quality, Skinner assured him, he'd take the load back. I can sell it the next day. Youre not gonna be stuck
with anything with me. Im not in the business of screwing someone over.
Im too fuckin busy. I want you to find a product that you can get rid of
in a hurry. Anyway, a man in Skinners position never stuck people with
bad shit. The big weed dealers dont do that, Skinner tells Worthy on
tape.
Skiner was a motherfucker, says Brian OMalley, one of Worthys lawyers.
He got friendly with my client and said, Hey, we can make a million
bucks, giving my guy visions of the life of Riley, whoever the black
Riley is. This guy wove a web. The way he saw it, he had no choice but
to screw somebody else, pass the weight on.
The day after Worthys arrest at the Vineland hotel, Skinner pleaded
guilty to one reduced count of conspiracy and was back on the street,
with a three year term of probation, which was terminated in less than
two. Years later, an appeals court would throw out John Worthys case,
ruling that Skinners taping of phone calls from Oklahoma violated New
Jerseys wiretapping laws.
Owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various lawyers and other
creditors, Skinner filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Tulsa in 1992. He
didnt fold his tent in the face of adversity. He simply relocated. He
meandered north to Kansas, and in 1996, through a trust, took control of
an abandoned Atlas E missile base on Say Road, in Wamego, and moved in.
Decommissioned Atlas E and Atlas F sites ring the city of Topeka. The
last nuke left the state in 1986, and since then these eerie monuments
to the Cold War have been snapped up by people looking for unusual
places to live. One former nuke base serves as part of a Kansas high
school. Most consist of vast, multilevel underground chambers, connected
by metal ladders. Built to withstand the blast from the worlds most
powerful nuclear weapons, the Wamego base provided Skinner with 15,000
square feet of underground space on a twenty-eight acre plot of land.
Why would Skinner be attracted to such a place I have no idea, says his
mother, and I dont give a damn.
Skinner offered her a deal. Todd said to me, Why dont you move your
manufacturing up here in Kansas says Magrini. And we did. This arm of
the company, went the word around Wamego, would manufacture springs for
NASAs Space Shuttle program. Some Gardner employees arrived from Tulsa.
Skinner also hired a few local people to work a small spring-making
machine. Big rolls of wire would arrive from Tulsa about twice a month,
the wire would be wound, and the springs would be shipped back to
Oklahoma. Skinner employed local cops to work around the base as
security officers and gardeners.
Drawing on what seemed like an unlimited budget, Todd set up about
sprucing up the base interior. Computers were installed, as well as a
new kitchen and a twelve-line phone system. Skinner mounted his oak bed
on a pedestal and installed a bathtub lined with marble. Baskets of
massage oil sat in the corner of another room. Young women, local girls
in their twenties, were in and out of Skinners tub. From an audiophile
shop in Sacramento came an 800-pound, $120,000 Dynaudio Evidence stereo
system. The speakers, one of only five pairs in the United States, went
for eighty-five grand. Connecting cables alone cost $10,000. Todd would
buy CDs and never listen to or even opn them, just leave them scattered
around the floors, Pickard recalls. His tastes didnt compare with his
equipment. According to Chris Malone, who installed the system, Skinner mostly listened to Seventies pop Cat Stevens and Styx. Outside the
underground chamber, Skinner parked his latest automotive purchase:
three late model Porsches, including a 4WD Boxster, which sells for
about $225,000.
Life at the missile base resembled some sort of kooky Sixties idyll.
Every few days in the course of a year or so, Skinner would call Pickard
in California and regale him with tales of psychedelic drug trips.
Pickard, of all people, understood where Skinner was coming form. He was
in his early thirties, says Pickard. I guess he was exploring. He had
nothing else to do. Livestock, including llamas and chickens and
rabbits, and even Clydesdale horses and a mule, roamed the property. A
vegetable garden thrived. Fruit, nut and pine trees were planted, and a
water-pumping windwill was installed. Skinner employed a number of local
people, at around $7 an hour, to clean, paint and garden, paying them
with checks drawn on the Tulsa accounts of Gardner Spring Inc. Much of
the time, it didnt seem to matter what work got done or how quickly. One
woman, who baby-sat Skinners two young children once in a while, spent
three days digging thistles, for which she received a $235 bonus.
Men, friends of Skinners, would arrive from California and other points
west and stay for weeks at a time, guys with long beards and long hair
who looked like zombies. One spent hours cutting up apples for oatmeal;
another urinated in a glass jar and carried it around with him wherever
he went. These guest smoked weed freely. Morning beers were available.
Strange deliveries were common: a dozen pressure cookers here, a
truckful of acetone there. Todd and his friends worked at night. Some of
them would still be there in the mornings when Id arrive for work, but
they didnt stay around long, says Janice Eichen, a Wamego resident who
worked at the base for a year. Youd ask them their name, and they would
only tell you their first name.
Todd thought he had all the money in the world, Eichem says. He could
buy anything in the world he wanted to hear him tell it.
One day in April 1999, the party turned deadly. An employee of a Tulsa
computer company, Paul K. Hulebak, 41, slumped over in front of a
computer screen. Pickard, it turns out, was sort of a witness to
Hulebaks death. Skinner was on the phone to me, describing his latest
drug episode, Pickard says, at the time Hulebak overdosed on narcotics.
Ive got a problem, Skinner told him. Call you back.
An autopsy turned up track marks on Hulebaks body and listed the cause
of death as a multidrug overdose methadone and hydromorphone, a
methadone derivative. Sheriffs deputies investigated but found no drugs
or needles. The base, Pickard explained, had been sanitized of fentanyl,
dilaudids, et cetera.
Several rooms underground, always locked, remained off limits to all
except Skinner and jis right-hand man, Gunner Guinan. The son of a
carpet-industry executive from Hoboken, New Jersey, Guinan, like
Skinner, loved computers but didnt seem to have an extensive employment
history. Gunnars sister, Dr. Eva Guinan, director of the Bone Maroow and
Stem Cell Transplantation program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institue in
Boston, says her brother had lived in Kansas for a while but that she
had seen him only twice in the last ten years, at family gatherings. She
says she knew nothing of the DEA investigation in Wamego and had never heard the name Todd Skinner.
Residents of Wamego, a down-at-the-heels village of 5,000, wrote Skinner
off as a spoiled rich kid and Gunnar Guinan as his loopy factotum. But
coffee-shop conversation often came around to the question of what was
really going on at the missile base. What was the spring-plant story a
cover for A few locals figured the base for a methamphetamine lab. The
county sheriff called the DEA, but nothing came up of it.
Two years ago, Skinner abruptly evicted his mothers business from the
missile base. One day he tells me to move out, at enormous cost, Magrini
recalls angrily. Youve hit a subject here that Im not going to relive. I
brought everything back to Tulsa, and thats where its going to stay.
In the course of the last year or so, neighbors noticed Ryder trucks
rumbling along Say Road almost twenty-four hours a day and then
disappearing behind a locked gate. Youd see all these rigs from
Oklahoma, Missouri, says Linda Lada, who runs a beauty shop near the
base entrance. I couldnt figure out why, because the spring factory was
supposed to have been closed.
Security, always tight, included a sophisticated camera monitoring
system, motion detectors and infrared sensors. One day I was driving a
pickup that had New Mexico tags on it, recalls Janice Eichem. And, boy,
as soon as I pulled in there and walked up to the Quonset hut to clock
in, here comes Gunnar: Whose pickup is that I said, Im driving that. Its
my ex-husbands. And he said, Youre the only one in it, then I said,
Yeah. Finally Gunnar relaxed.
Pickard and Skinner and an entourage that included Skinners mother and
Moise Seligman spent a few days in Las Vegas last June. Seligman came
along to talk with Skinner about a solenoid valve that Skinner was sure
could make them millions: I was out there to discuss this valve with
Todd, and I met Pickard. I came home from there and told my wife, I met
a man named Leonard Pickard, and he was a distinguished gentleman. Ive
never met anybody whos impressed me as favorably in recent years.
Katherine Magrini, there at Skinners invitation to celebrate Mothers
Day, was less impressed by her sons new friend. Pickard, she say,
introduced himself as Leonard Thiessen. This Leonard is a real
sleazeball, whatever his name is. He sounds like a bag of crap. I was
immediately suspicious of him.
Pickard alleges that Skinner, in Vegas, had more on his mind than
solenoid valves. Skinner, he claims, also engaged in some smurfing, or
money laundering, buying $200,000 worth of chips, gambling a bit and
then redeeming the chips for the casinos cash. Why Skinner was doing
this, if he did, remains unclear. Skinner, thorugh his Topeka attorney,
Thomas Haney, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Renovating the base, Skinner did business with several local contractors
and for a while paid his bills promptly, or at least his Kansas sidekick
Gunnar Guinan paid them. Gunnar was the one who would call on us when he
needed work done or wanted to buy parts, says Toni Stremel, office
manager at Thermal Comfort Air, which installed a hot water pump on the
property. He would come in with his shirt unbuttoned, the hair on his
chest sticking out, and hed be bragging about how he had to go to Kansas
City to pick up a bride that hed ordered out of a magazine. Guinan would lay a briefcase fill of cash on the desk and flip it open. Hed take out
what he owed us and walk away.
Leonard Pickard visited Todd Skinner at the Wamego missile base a
handful of times over the past couple of years, staying either a few
days or as long as a few weeks each time. But, he says, he never enjoyed
the place: it wasnt comfortable, and the karma was wrong. The only real
bedroom belonged to Skinner; guests slept on mattresses out in the old
missile bay. Leonard also disapproved of Skinners manner toward his
so-called friends: Todd was imperious. He treated everybody as workers.
Rather than a psychedelic temple, as Skinner intended, Pickard says the
base became more of a temple to the ego.
Last summer, Skinners cash flow mysteriously dried up, and, Pickard
says, his use of psychedelics increased. Skinner cracked up one of his
Porsches and totaled Gunnars truck. Concerned, Pickard approached
Skinners mother, Katherine Magrini: I talked with her numerous times
about Todds profligate ways and about how hes accident prone. This boys
got to slow down, because not a week goes by where theres not some sort
of situation happening. Theres no peace ever.
Magrinis voice exploded over the phone when I asked her to verify this
exchange. What she shouted. That is a bold-faced lie! Why, that sack of
lying crap! Where is that son of a bitch Im going to go up and sue his
ass with a bevy of lawyers.
For the first time, bills, thousands and thousands of dollars worth,
went unpaid. A number of contractors sued to get their money. Gunnar,
Toni Stremel says, called here wanting to know if we would trade out a
baby grand piano for our debt. The Sacramento audio store filed suit
against Skinner in August, having been paid nothing on its $120,000
bill.
More important, as far as Pickard was concerned, Skinner wasnt making
good on a promise to come up with $440,000 to fund some new drug
research at Harvard. Months and months dragged by while Skinner
supposedly arranged for the money to come from a foundation run by
Warren Buffet. I was hanging on because I really wanted to do this
project, Pickard says. I was dying to get back to Cambridge. When
Pickard contacted officials at the Kennedy School about the Buffett
arrangement last June, they knew nothing of it. I was taken for an
enormous ride, Pickard claims. Id been lied to. Once I realized it was
all a charade, I felt very used and started backing away.
Skinner faced difficulties of his own. One night the previous January,
gambling at Harrahs Prairie Band Casino on the Pottawatomi Indian
Reservation, not far from Wamego, he had hit a run of good luck. Asked
for identification when cashing in his chips, he produced a phony
Interpol badge and declared himself to be a special agent of United
States Treasury Department. Sheriffs deputies, alerted by casino
officials, arrested Skinner later that night, and federal prosecutors in
Topeka soon filed a two-count felony indictment against him. Skinner
pled guilty last June to possession of a false identification, a
misdemeanor, and was fined $10,000.
Pickard says he tried to avoid Skinner. I decided it was best to step
away from him. He was unpredictable and kind of crazy. From mid-July
until October, we had no contact. His life was unraveling. Then he called me. Remembering the conversation, Pickards eyes hardened. It was
a controlled call. Controlled in the sense that DEA agents, including
Special Agent Karl Nichols, a clandestine lab hunter with the agencys
Richmond, California, office, were listening in, tape recorders rolling.
Just what they discussed, and previously why Skinner may have fallen in
the arms of the DEA in the first place, remains unclear at this point,
although both mysteries may be cleared up at trial, during which Pickard
will be represented by William K. Rork, one of Topekas leading
criminal-defense attorneys. This much is certain: That monitored call
last fall set in motion a series of events that could end Leonard
Pickards colorful life as a free man and snuff out whatever future he
might have had as an innovative scientist. It may also, if the
government is to be believed, have significantly curtailed the
production of American-made LSD.
The Silver Buick
October 23rd, 2000, 8:40PM. Driving a rented tan Buick Century, Leonard
Pickard swung into the parking lot of the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in
San Rafael, California. While his pregnant Russian wife, Natasha, waited
in the hotel bar, Pickard met with Todd Skinner in a room upstairs, as
DEA agents listened in an adjoining room. The sit-down lasted about
thirty minutes. Skinner and Pickard talked about a number of LSD-related
topics, including the eventual setup of an off-shore lab. Skinner called
Pickard on October 29th, wanting to know when he could get the keys to
the Dodge, a phrase the two men used to describe the acid lab.
Pickard and a friend of his, Clyde Apperson, a computer consultant from
Sunnyvale, California, appeared at the Wamego missile base a few days
later, on November 4th, driving two rented vehicles, a silver Buick La
Sabre and a fifteen-foot Ryder truck. Skinner, never shy, seemed fuller
than ever of braggadocio. Im not afraid of the Mafia or the government!
Pickard recalls Skinner declaring, Im more powerful than you realize!
whereupon Skinner left for parts unknown. Pickard and Apperson set about
unloading the Ryder truck with Military crates full of glassware and
chemicals. Six kilos of ergotamine tartrate, worth $600,000, were
stashed in the silver Buick. That much ET, the government claims, is
enough to manufacture 15 million doses of LSD. Loading complete two days
later, Apperson slipped behind the wheel of the Ryder truck, and Pickard
took the Buick. It was time to move out, to a new lab site, prosecutors
allege, somewhere near Aspen, Colorado. Pickard claims he was merely
carting the lab away to destroy it and prevent further legal trouble for
his friend Skinner.
They didnt get far before a unit of the Kansas State Highway Patrol
clicked on its red lights and pulled them over. Though Apperson was
quickly captured, Pickard scampered off into the night, sprinting across
snowy ground into the woods, two highway patrolmen half his age in hot
pursuit, a chase that eventually joined by DEA agents, helicopters with
infrared scanners and tracking dogs. Pickard eluded them for nearly
eighteen hours before deputies from the Pottawatomie County sheriffs
office brought him in. His wallet, later found at a convenience store in
Wamego, contained a Mastercard in one of Pickards several alias, James
Maxwell, three false identification cards under that name, a business
card from UCLA in his real name and eleven telephone calling cards.
That night, Sheriff Anthony Metcalf dropped by Pickards cell in the local lock-up. Pickards manners impressed him: He looked like a
distinguished old gentleman. If somebody said to me, Hey, theres a
big-time doper over there, Pickard would have been the last guy youd
ever think of.
Metcalf visited the missile base during a cleanup that lasted several
days and employed a squadron of technicians wearing bright-blue
hazardous-materials suits. How big is this, and who is this guy he asked
one of the DEA chemists on the scene. Theres probably seven people in
the world that could run an operation this large, and Pickard was one of
them.
Pickard on Ice
While Pickard adjusted to life at the Shawnee County Jail in Topeka, I
tried to track down some more information about him in California. It
was a frustrating and often fruitless task. An address for Pickard in
Mill Valley, just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, turned
out to be a MailBoxes, Etc. in a mall. Another address, in Berkeley, was
also a mail drop, the Berkeley Mailroom. LSD distributors, BNE agents
told me, traditionally use businesses like these to ship out their
product. Until Pickards wife, Natasha, mailed me some of his research
papers, I could not find the address of the apartment in San Francisco
that Pickard shared with her and her father but neither, at least early
in their investigation, could agents of the DEA.
The same was true for Todd Skinner. He moved out of the Wamego missile
base, which is now on the market for a reported $1.5 million. A visit to
his last known address, in Berkeley, turned up no traces of the elusive
informant. A member of Pickards defense team says that Skinner has been
seen around Mendocino, the picturesque village north of San Francisco,
in between trips to Topeka to huddle with federal prosecutors.
Pickards friends some feeling betrayed, others worried about
repercussions for their own drug research are not rushing to his
defense. After Talitha Stills read about Pickards arrest in the Santa
Cruz Sentinel, she told me, quite frankly, You just cant hold a bad boy
down. But when I called Sasha Shulgin to inquire about the learned
chemists relationship with Pickard, Shulgin began, He was a student of
mine100 years ago, but hes been in his own little world, which I dont
really know that much about. Ann Shulgin interrupted our conversation.
Wed rather not comment at all on this entire matter, she said. Its very
sad, and I dont think we have any information that could possibly help
you. The Shulgins are not the only friends of Pickards distancing
themselves from him. Agents who searched Pickards apartment in San
Francisco on November 15th turned up a supportive letter written by the
citys district attorney, Terence Hallinan. When I was in private
practice, I represented Leonard Pickard on some legal matters, it read.
I always found him to be an honorable person who kept his word. Hallinan
wont comment further. Mark Kleiman, Pickards mentor at Harvard and his
boss at UCLA, also declined a request to discuss his friend.
Either caught red-handed or very carefully set up, said Blanche Hartman,
the Abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. It sure doesnt look good. I
was surprised and dismayed, and extremely sad. His girlfriend gave birth
just days after he was arrested. She was totally distraught.
Leonard Pickard maintains he is guilty only of being in the wrong place and the wrong time. I am not a psychedelic chemist, he told me
resolutely. Then, he adds, Remember, I just left Boston in 97. I cant
obviously be making kilos of LSD and doing my work at Harvard in the
meantime. Besides, he said, LSD is more than a bit pass in the world of
social-drugs research he now inhabits: Im concerned with the need for
new regulatory structures for new drugs of abuse. Im more concerned with
whats coming than with whats present.
After the bust, Todd Skinner called his old friend Moise Seligman. Says
Seligman, He said, I want to send you some articles on Leonard Pickard.
I am mentioned in there. I am in no way involved with him. You know me
and drugs. He was not a drinker and not a drug man of any kind. A few
weeks later, Skinner called again, to invite Seligman and his wife to
join him in Washington or New York, where Skinner would purportedly
receive and award for his work on the Pickard prosecution. Todd said, If
they are successful in locating the cash that Pickard may have stashed,
I would come in for a portion of that money, up to a third. Skinner
promised to call back with more details, but never did. I dont know
where he is. I dont know if he got an award or got shot, says Seligman.
More than anything, in the course of several meetings in the Topeka
jail, Pickard sounded embarrassed by the current federal case against
him, frustrated that the whole business couldnt be sorted out in a
gentlemanly fashion by rational men. At a detention hearing in January,
Pickard stood before a federal judge and offered, in essence, to trade
his freedom for somebody elses: If released, even in the most severe
constraints, I would immediately proceed to report to the federal
building [and] cooperate even aggressively with DEA in any matters that
they wish. The judge, however, refused to grant Pickard bail.
Almost every week, Pickard wrote letters from jail. Sometimes two or
three arrived on the same day, with carefully worded answers to my
questions, interspersed with Van Morrison lyrics and quotes by a wide
variety of luminaries from Berkeley fixture Wavy Gravy and poet W.H.
Auden to Carlos Lehder, the assassinated Colombian cocaine baron
(Cocaine is an A-bomb pointed at the heart of America). The letter gave
me the impression of a man in complete control, confident thqt the
breadth of his intellect and experience would enable him to surmount all
obstacles. Mare than once, he hinted at a wilder tale to be told only
after his trial ends: A post-disposition retrospective would be a more
thrilling and soulful read.
Rick Doblin wont want to hear it. Hes been caught multiple times in the
past and has felt it convenient to supply the police with information on
people who have been involved in other drugs that he doesnt think are so
useful. Thats a difficult game to play, he says. Once you start
cooperating, its easy to lose sight of what your own values are.
The drug-dealer code of honor is that you dont turn anybody else in,
Doblin continues. Thats lost from the public consciousness. And thats
more true from the old days, from the pot dealers. That sort of shifted
when the pot dealers got into coke. But thats always been the case with
the LSD dealers. Thats why the DEAs been very rarely busting labs and
major distributors for LSD.
The DEAs investigation of Leonard Pickard continues. Does Pickard have
anything to offer the feds Agent Nichols believes Pickard employs a
worldwide distribution network. So far, Pickard hasnt shown any inclination to discuss such a network. This time, it would seem, the
pressure Pickard feels is somewhat greater than it was in 1988, when he
was a single guy cooking drugs in Mountain View. He missed the December
2000 birth of his daughter, also named Natasha, and held the child for
the first time, for a minute, inside a Kansas courtroom surrounded by
armed federal marshals. Thinking about this tearful moment later,
Pickard wrote, It was a glimpse of limitless joy. Surrounded by the
sacred, I whispered what love and comfort I could, and vowed to return
to them. I could have held them, and hold them even now, forever.
Says Pickard, If this ever went away, Id probably go straight back to
Cambridge and finish my Ph.D.
I regard myself as marginal, or as they say in Zen, nothing special. My
regret is not giving more to society in the form of substantive
research, but perhaps some time is left to do that, God willing. In
March, after local jailers grew frustrated handling Pickards many phone
calls, federal authorities transferred him from the relatively calm
Shawnee County Jail to the maximum-security federal pen in Leavenworth,
Kansas, a prison notorious for its violence and gang activity.
Even now, Leonard Pickard is surprised that Todd Skinner has done
nothing to help him. I though he would at least provide some legal
support. But I guess not. He must feel really lousy, assuming he has
feelings at all.
I forgive him his confusion, he wrote in a letter. He is, after all,
somewhat like the Wizard of Oz. Seemingly very impressive, but behind
the (stolen) amplifier, quite small and afraid.
Skinner faces new problems of his own. On May 16th, state authorities in
Kansas arrested him on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the
drug-overdose death of the computer-company employee, Paul hulebak. The
dead mans sister, Kirstin Reynolds, a ballet teacher in Tulsa, says,
Todd Skinner is evil. He considers himself very smart, but I can tell
you from speaking with him numerous times that hes used to dealing with
stupid people. Skinners sidekick, Gunnar Guinan, she says, spilled the
beans.
Looking back on his life, Pickard wrote, All in all, a complex story.
Suffice it to say that everything was done with dedication and focus,
and I have prepared for this day for many years.
In another letter, Pickard enclosed a prayer, one favored in times of
trouble, amoung psychedelic people in the Sixties.
May the long-time sun shine upon you
And all love surround you
And the clear light within you
Guide your way home.
If you see fit, Pickard wrote, you might include that, for the young people

Marijuana activists smoldering over Hurley bust

2009-10-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

A sobering experience
Marijuana activists smoldering over Hurley bust

by Jesse J. Smith

To hear Joe Barton tell it, a terrible crime occurred on the morning of Friday, November 14 at his two-story house in a serene, isolated corner of West Hurley in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains.

According to Barton, armed men stormed his home, holding him and his son captive for hours before making off with thousands of dollars in cash and thousands more in valuable property. The fact that the armed men were from a county-wide anti-drug task force and their haul included 45 pounds of marijuana, hashish and marijuana-growing equipment, doesn't change the charge - armed robbery - leveled by Barton, a 62-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran and longtime marijuana legalization advocate.

Four days after the bust, Barton sat in his living room with his son and codefendant Jay Debberman, 33, beneath a bookcase holding a tome on constitutional law, a copy of Ron Paul's Revolution and a sign reading "Smoking Room." Outside the window, down a long, gently sloping hill, one can see the narrow gravel and dirt causeway across a wide swamp that vexed police investigating the case. The front door remains splintered from the battering it received at the hands of a heavily-armed raid team, but the house appeared relatively neat, at least compared to photos Barton displayed showing piles of clothing and furniture scattered around the place following the raid. He said the disorder was the result of police trashing the house. A few days before, a detective told the Daily Freeman that the two men lived in a state of squalor, a charge that clearly still rankles. "[During the raid], they said, you have marijuana, you have no rights, they called us dirty hippies," said Barton. "That's a hate crime."

Four marijuana legalization advocates crowded into Barton's living room Tuesday to listen and weigh in as he, pointedly unrepentant, described the raid and his plans to fight the charges.

"They stole my marijuana and they violated my rights," said Barton sitting in his living room with his son. "This is the government making war on the people and the Constitution does not give them the right to do that."

According to police, members of the Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team (URGENT) raided the house at 473 Spillway Road after receiving an anonymous tip about a "large-scale drug processing and distribution center" operating out of the two-story clapboard home where Barton and Debberman have lived for about three years. Police painted a sinister picture of a well-concealed weed farm protected by its isolated location on the far side of a swamp, as well as a system of motion detectors around the property and generators to conceal the amount of electricity used for the indoor growing operation. Police said they spent two months investigating the marijuana operation hindered by the inhospitable terrain and wide open space around the house.

400 plants confiscated

Police said they came away from the raid with 400 marijuana plants, weighing in at 45 pounds, along with nearly $30,000 in cash, hashish and hash oil, "chukka sticks," police batons, daggers and equipment used for growing and processing the herb. Police also described a DVD recording seized during the raid that depicts Barton "describing in a historical and biographical fashion the way he rose from a drug user in the 1960s to drug dealer in the present," and includes descriptions of the self-proclaimed "hippie" smuggling pot from Mexico and outlining the difficulties of laundering drug proceeds.

Barton and Debberman tell a different story. In their version, the motion sensors were a simple home security system, and had not even been installed, the three Titan generators were still in their original packaging and were intended to deal with power outages in the winter and to be used in a "free people's convention" for marijuana reform he's putting together. Twenty thousand dollars of the money seized, they said, was in donations for the conventions, while police added Debberman's coin collection to the tally of suspected drug proceeds. The men also accuse police of "stealing" everything from a display table, which Barton uses for selling homemade jewelry (and which he claims later appeared in a newspaper photo piled high with seized weed), to flashlights and a pair of night vision goggles. As for the marijuana, Barton and Debberman freely admit to growing it and in fact, take pride in the quality of their "100 percent organic, chemical free" product.

"It wasn't schwag," said Debberman, who works at the High Falls Food co-op. "It was high quality, medical grade marijuana."

The men declined to discuss the purpose of the marijuana growing operation except to say that police had found no evidence that they were selling the herb. Barton said that the 45 pounds of marijuana cited by police included wet dirt clinging to the plants when they were yanked from beds of Rubbermaid tubs in the grow rooms, as well as unsmokable leaf cuttings. When dried and processed, the operation would have yielded about eight pounds of pot, most of which Barton said he planned to smoke himself or give away for medical use. Barton said he uses the plant to treat his arthritis and post traumatic stress disorder. One of the activists at his home Tuesday, Abigail Storm of Woodstock, said she had been using marijuana donated by Barton to treat a local man suffering from terminal cancer. While major physicians groups have signed on to the idea that marijuana can ease the suffering of cancer patients, Storm claims that oil extracted from the plant can actually cure cancer.

"The man I'm taking care of needs two ounces [of marijuana extract] to be cured and what [police] have done is stopped the process," said Storm who said she is a lobbyist for a group called Citizens Against Marijuana Prohibition. "I have to get more bud donated and I have to go this week and bang on the governor's door to get him to sign an executive order to stop the eradication of marijuana because it cures cancer."

Doomed defense

Barton said his battle for legal marijuana dates back to when he was in his 20s and saw a 16-year-old neighbor sent off to a mental hospital after his parents found pot in his bedroom. In 1971, he represented himself at trial in New Jersey on drug charges by arguing that his religious beliefs compelled him to smoke the weed. The judge didn't buy the argument and Barton spent 18 months in prison. Over the years he represented himself in two more unsuccessful legal battles, always based on his belief that marijuana is a divinely sanctioned, medically beneficial herb, not a dangerous drug. He and Debberman are planning a similar, and apparently similarly doomed, defense this time around.

"I doubt any lawyer is going to fight this case the way we want to fight it. They'll say 'We can get you a lesser charge,' but nobody wants to take on the system," said Barton, who claims that he gets by on disability payments from the Veterans Administration and money made selling jewelry. "I already know we won't get a fair trial because they leave us no way to defend ourselves. I'm 62 years old and, if they lock me up, I'll die in prison and the taxpayers are going to have to pay for my funeral."

Despite their dim prospects for success in court, medical marijuana advocates plan to lobby politicians, including U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-Hurley) and state Assemblyman Kevin Cahill (D-Kingston) on their behalf as part of a wider push to end marijuana prohibition. Legalization advocates point to the accession of a Democratic majority in the state Senate, where a medical marijuana bill stalled last year after passing the Democrat-controlled Assembly and moves in Washington, where Hinchey sponsored an amendment to prevent federal law enforcement officials from going after medical marijuana users and sellers in states where it is legal, as evidence that their battle for medicinal pot is gaining traction. If New York's laws do change, they say, Barton and Debberman will be needless casualties of what they believe is a fruitless war on marijuana.

"We called Hinchey and we're trying to get his help," said Rob Robinson, executive director of the New York chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML). "If he would make a public statement, that would be great, we want to see where these guys support really lies."

Reached Tuesday, Hinchey spokesman Jeff Lieberson said he was unaware of any attempts by Barton and Debberman's supporters to contact the congressman. He said the lawmaker's support for medical marijuana extends only to preventing federal interference in states that already have medical marijuana laws on the books.

Cahill, who has spoken on the assembly floor about his father's use of medical marijuana while battling terminal cancer in the late 70s, said that, while he supported legislation to allow for controlled use of the drug in a medical setting, state drug laws remain in force.

"The bottom line, the reality, is that we are a society of laws and it is still illegal in New York State," said Cahill. "And as long as it is illegal people can be, and obviously are being, arrested for it."

Federal charges?

Barton and Debberman remain free on their own recognizance after Hurley Town Justice Elizabeth Corrado turned down an Ulster County District Attorney's office request that the men, who have lived in Ulster County for 30 years, be jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail. On Wednesday, November 19 URGENT co-commander Det. Lt. Ed Brewster said that the team was still investigating the case and was looking into whether there was an opportunity to bring federal charges against the men.

"We're looking at how big their distribution network was, depending on where that leads, there could be some federal involvement based on the weight," said Brewster. "Obviously 45 pounds of marijuana is much more than personal use as far as we're concerned."

Barton and Debberman face a host of felony charges including criminal possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance (for the hash oil) and weapons possession which could send them to state prison for years. More immediately, the men face eviction from their rented home after, Barton said, claiming that police told his landlord they would move to seize the property if the pair was not kicked out.

"Marijuana people should not be locked up," said Barton. "We're not hurting anybody, if you want us to pay a fine, or tax it, okay, but to lock us up; that's wrong. I don't care how much you have."++
For more on the case, visit http://www.ulsterpublishing.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=473257

Move over Amsterdamn Nor-Cal is taking over!

2009-07-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

And a big thumbs up to wxii 12 for writing this non-biased piece!

This article explains what I see everyday........If you live in Northern California this is what you can expect to see or experience.. Move over Amsterdamn Nor-Cal is taking over!

Source:http://www.wxii12.com/money/20099327/detail.html

Peace and Sweet Cali Nugz, Drew

SAN FRANCISCO -- A drug deal plays out, California-..style:

A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over the phone is there.

An eighth-ounce of organic marijuana buds for treating his seasonal allergies? Check. An eighth of a different pot strain for insomnia? Check. THC-infused lozenges and tea bags? Check and check, with a free herb-laced cookie thrown in as a thank-you gift.

It's a $102 credit card transaction carried out with the practiced efficiency of a home-delivered pizza -- and with just about as much legal scrutiny.

More and more, having premium pot delivered to your door in California is not a crime. It is a legitimate business.

Marijuana has transformed California. Since the state became the first to legalize the drug for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force.

No longer relegated to the underground, pot in California these days props up local economies, mints millionaires and feeds a thriving industry of startups designed to grow, market and distribute the drug.

Based on the quantity of marijuana authorities seized last year, the crop was worth an estimated $17 billion or more, dwarfing any other sector of the state's agricultural economy.

Experts say most of that marijuana is still sold as a recreational drug on the black market. But more recently the plant has put down deep financial roots in highly visible, taxpaying businesses:

Stores that sell high-tech marijuana growing equipment. Pot clubs that pay rent and hire workers. Marijuana themed magazines and food products. Chains of for-profit clinics with doctors who specialize in medical marijuana recommendations...

The plant's prominence does not come without costs, say some critics. Marijuana plantations in remote forests cause severe environmental damage. Indoor grow houses in some towns put rentals beyond the reach of students and young families. Rural counties with declining economies cannot attract new businesses because the available work force is caught up in the pot industry. Authorities link the drug to violent crime in otherwise quiet small towns.

"For those of us who are on the front lines. It's not about pot is bad in itself or drugs are bad," said Meredith Lintott, district attorney in Mendocino County, one of the country's top marijuana-..producing regions.

"It's about the negative consequences on children. It's about the negative consequences on the environment."

Still, the sheer scale of the overall pot economy has some lawmakers pushing for broader legalization as a way to shore up the finances of a state that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The state's top tax collector estimates that taxing pot like liquor could bring in more than $1.3 billion annually.

On Tuesday, Oakland will consider a measure to tax the city's four marijuana dispensaries, which the controller projects will ring up $17.5 million in sales in 2010. The city faces an $83 million budget shortfall, and expects the marijuana tax to raise $300,000.

Advocates point out that making pot legal would create millions if not billions of dollars more in indirect sales -- the ingredients used to make edible pot products, advertising, tourism and smoking paraphernalia.

With a recent poll showing more than half of Californians supporting legalization, pot advocates believe they will prevail. And they say other states will follow.

Tim Blake is the proprietor of a 145-acre spiritual retreat center which holds an annual marijuana bud-growing contest in the heart of Northern California's pot-growing country.

Politicians, he says, are "going to see the economic benefits, they're going to see the health benefits and they're going to jump on the bandwagon."

___

On a property flanked by vineyards, Mendocino County farmer Jim Hill grows marijuana for up to 20 patients, including himself and his wife. He believes passionately in marijuana's purported ability to treat the symptoms of diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's; he says his wife suffers from a serotonin imbalance, and he uses the drug to treat digestive problems and intestinal cramping.

Hill's plants enjoy careful nurturing in a temperature-..controlled greenhouse. On a recent spring day, his college-age son spread bat guano to fertilize two dozen 6-foot-tall plants.

Hill is 45 years old; he says he spent $10,000 to set up the garden. Patients receive their drugs free in exchange for helping with his crop.

"It's kind of like living on an apple orchard," Hill said. "You don't pay for an apple."

Though marijuana is cultivated throughout California, the most prized crops come from the forested mountains and hidden valleys of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties -- the Emerald Triangle.

The economic impact of so much pot is difficult to gauge. Authorities say the largest grows are run by Mexican drug cartels that simply funnel money from forest-raised crops back into their own bank accounts.

Still, marijuana money from outdoor and indoor plots inevitably flows into local coffers. Marijuana increases residents' retail buying power by about $58 million countywide, according to a Mendocino County report. The county ranks 48th out of 58 counties in median income but, by counting pot proceeds, could jump as high as 18th.

Businesses benefit from mom-and-pop growers who cultivate pot to supplement their incomes and from marijuana plantation workers who descend on the Emerald Triangle from all over the country for the fall harvest. Pot "trimmers" can earn more than $40 per hour.

In Ukiah, the county's largest city, business owners say the extra cash is crucial. "I really don't think we would exist without it," says Nicole Martensen, 37, whose wine and garden shop is stocked with bottles from county vintners.

The skunk-like smell of marijuana hangs over the town of about 11,000 during the October harvest, when cash registers brim with $100 bills. Sometimes the wads of cash spent in Martensen's shop come dusted with pot.

But Ukiah banker Marty Lombardi says existing businesses cannot compete with pot industry wages for workers. Lombardi's bank does not make loans to anyone suspected of trying to fund a pot operation, but he said most growers do not need them.

"I don't think you or I have any sense for how much money is generated," he said.

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says medical marijuana operations that follow state and county laws will face no hassles from his department. His deputies left intact 154 marijuana grows they visited last year, he said

"If you're living in the boundaries, I'm not going to mess with you," Allman said.

Which is not to say that there is no legal risk to growing, selling or buying marijuana. Federal laws still apply, and pot dealings not deemed medicinal are considered criminal by the state.

Local, state and federal authorities pulled up 364,000 plants across Mendocino last year. And the state Department of Justice reported more than 16,000 felony arrests and nearly 58,000 misdemeanor arrests for marijuana offenses in 2007 -- the highest numbers in a decade.

Sparky Rose sits in the federal prison in Lompoc, serving a 37-month term. Law enforcement officials insist he is one of many sellers who have used the medical marijuana law as a guise for old-time drug dealing. Rose does not disagree, although he would like to think he helped some legitimate pot patients in the process.

A one-time Web designer, he started out in 2001 making $15 an hour as a "bud tender" working the counter at an Oakland club. Four years later, he was overseeing a dispensary chain with stores in seven cities, 283 employees and sales reaching $5 million a month.

That's not as much as it seems, he says. Much of the money went to pay salaries, to purchase equipment and to buy 200 pounds of marijuana each week.

Rose says he was making $500,000 a year before his 2006 arrest, a sum he considers fair given the chain's volume and the risk he assumed as the company's public face. Before opening a new location, he would meet with local officials and police to get their implicit OK.

"We operated out in the open, and the feds knew who we were and they let us do it for four years, so as time goes on you get this comfortable feeling," he says.

"While I was still in the business, a lot people would ask me, 'I'm thinking about starting a club, what advice do you have?' "And I'd say, 'The biggest warning is sooner or later, you will start to think it's legal.'"

___

Even people accustomed to buying marijuana over the counter are impressed when they visit the Farmacy, a dispensary-..cum-New Age apothecary with three locations in Los Angeles. Decorated in soft beige and staffed by workers in lab coats, the Venice store sells organic toiletries, essential oils and incense along with 25 types of pot stored in glass jars, including strains such as Beverly Bubba and Third Eye.

Anyone can shop there, but to buy the cannabis-..infused gelato, olive oil, soft drinks and other "edibles," customers must show a doctor's recommendation,.. have the information verified by the doctor's office and obtain a patient identification number for future visits.

During a two-hour span, the dozen or so customers who made a purchase all bought pot products and paid the 9.25 percent state sales tax on top of their purchases. The clubs, which are not supposed to turn a profit, call their transactions "donations."

Allen Siegel is 74; he is dying of cancer and wants to try smoking marijuana to ease his pain without knocking him out like prescription drugs do. So his wife Ina brought him to the Farmacy for his first visit as a legal pot patient.

"You go in there and they have so many choices," she says.

California's "green rush" was spurred by a voter-approved law 13 years ago that authorized patients with a doctor's recommendation to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. Although a dozen other states have adopted similar laws, California is the only one where privately owned pot shops have flourished.

Los Angeles County alone has at least 400 pot dispensaries and delivery services, nearly twice as many outlets as Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital whose coffee shops have for decades been synonymous with free-market marijuana.

Promoted as a way to shield people with AIDS, cancer and anorexia who use marijuana from prosecution, the 1996 Compassionate Use Act also permitted limited possession for "any other illness for which marijuana provides relief."

The broad language opened the door to doctors willing to recommend pot for nearly any ailment. In a survey of nearly 2,500 patients, longtime Berkeley medical marijuana advocate Dr. Tod Mikuriya found that more than three-quarters of the patients used the drug for pain relief or mental health issues.

Dispensaries began selling marijuana, although they were risking federal charges. Some operators have become less fearful since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this year that the Justice Department would not target pot operations following state laws, reducing the risk of random federal raids that existed under the Bush administration.

California's pot dispensaries now have more in common with a corner grocery than a speakeasy. They advertise freely, offering discount coupons and daily specials.

Justin Hartfield, a 25-year-old Web designer and business student, founded WeedMaps.com, where pot clubs and doctors who write medi-pot recommendations.. list their services and users post reviews. Hartfield says the site has brought in nearly $250,000 in its first year.

Hartfield exhibited at THC Expo, a two-day trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center that attracted an estimated 35,000 attendees in June. There was hydroponic gardening equipment and bong vendors and bikini-clad models wearing leis made of fake marijuana leaves.

Like just about everyone else connected to the cannabis trade, Hartfield has a letter from a doctor that entitles him to buy medical marijuana from a dispensary. But he sees no point in pretending he is treating anything more than his taste for smoking weed.

"It is a joke. It's a legal way for me to get what I used to get on the street," he said.

He recalls telling the doctor who provided the referral that he suffered from insomnia and anxiety, though neither was true. As he signed the paperwork, the doctor "congratulated me like I was getting my degree from Harvard."

___

What would happen if marijuana were legal -- not just for medical uses, but for all uses?

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, wants to tax and regulate all pot as it does alcohol. State Board of Equalization chairwoman Betty Yee, a supporter, projects the law would generate $990 million annually through a $50-per-ounce fee for retailers and $349 million in sales taxes. (The state now collects $18 million each year in taxes on medical marijuana.)

The state would not start collecting taxes on marijuana under Ammiano's bill until the federal government lifts its restrictions on the drug.

That's not enough for pro-pot activists who want Californians to vote next year on a proposal that would allow adults to legally possess up to one ounce of pot and allow cities to sell and tax the drug.

"Local governments are malnourished and in need of revenue badly," said Aaron Smith, state policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization. "There's this multibillion-..dollar industry that's the elephant in the room that they're not able to tap into."

Lintott, the Mendocino prosecutor, is not convinced that legalization would put an end to the underworld's marijuana operations. She argues that big-time growers would never bother filing tax returns. "Legalizing it isn't going to touch the big money," she says.

But others predict the black-market business model would fall apart.

Large-scale agri-..businesses in California's Central Valley would dominate legal marijuana production as they already do bulk wine grapes, advocates argue. Pot prices would fall dramatically, forcing growers to abandon costly clandestine operations that authorities say trash the land and steal scarce water.

And legalization, supporters insist, would save state and local governments billions on police, court and prison costs.

But others survey California in 2009 and say the cannabis future is now. Richard Lee has parlayed a pair of Oakland dispensaries into a mini-empire that includes a marijuana lifestyle magazine and a three-campus marijuana trade school. Oaksterdam University's main campus is a prominent fixture in revitalized downtown Oakland.

All without legalization.

"It's like here's reality, and here's the law," Lee says. "The culture has gone so far beyond the law, people have gotten used to being able to get quality product. They are not going to go back."

..

Medicinal Cannabis Update for South Lake Tahoe

2009-07-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

The drought has been broken and South Lake Tahoe has joined the rest of California, opening 3 new Medical Cannabis dispensaries.

Tahoe Wellness Collective. Dispensary Address, 3445 Lake Tahoe Blvd. City, South Lake Tahoe. State, CA. Zip Code, 96150

City Of Angels 2 909 Third Street South Lake Tahoe CA 96150

Patient To Patient Collective 2314 Lake Tahoe Blvd. South Lake Tahoe CA 96150 Phone (530) 541-3240

as well as one on the North Shore in Tahoe City:

Tahoe Herbal Care Tahoe City CA 96145 (530) 563-8423

I hope this helps patients that need medication but are unaware or uninformed of their locations.

SUPPORT THE AMERICAN HORSE SLAUGHTER PREVENTION ACT

2009-07-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

SUPPORT THE AMERICAN HORSE
SLAUGHTER PREVENTION ACT

Dear Member of Congress:

After four years of increasing public demand for an end to horse slaughter, you have an immediate opportunity to end this cruel practice. Congressional Horse Caucus Chair John Sweeney (R-NY) and Representatives John Spratt (D-SC), Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Nick Rahall (D-WV) have introduced H.R. 503 to prevent the slaughter of horses for human consumption abroad. We ask you to support this bill, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. Horses have always been a symbol of America..s free spirit. No other animal stirs such an emotional reaction. Horses have carried our leaders into battles, pulled our wagons into the untamed West, and thrilled us through sport. In fact, horses such as Secretariat, Man O.. War and Citation are considered among the top 100 athletes of the 20th century. The famous story of Seabiscuit, a once ..unwanted horse.. turned great champion, was recently considered for an Oscar.

Yet regardless of their fame and notoriety, no animal should be hauled across the country under the unhealthy and cruel conditions slaughter-bound horses face. Following their faithful service to humankind, our horses should not be killed at one of the three foreign-owned slaughterhouses in the United States so diners abroad can feast on their flesh. We strongly support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and have rejected arguments from those who claim ending horse slaughter will be bad for horses. Don..t be misled; ending horse slaughter will be nothing but good for horses, and we are confident that once you consider the facts, you will agree.

We urge you to follow the outstanding leadership of Representatives Sweeney, Spratt, Whitfield and Rahall on this issue and support H.R. 503. It..s not only about saving the lives of thousands of innocent horses; it..s about a better America.

On behalf of my friends, I thank you for your urgent consideration of the effort to end horse slaughter. If you would like more information, please visit www.saplonline.org.

Sincerely,

Willie Nelson
LUCK TEXAS

Ed Asner
Shane Barbi
Sia Barbi
Barbara Bosson
Ed Begley Jr.
Randy Bernard,
CEO, Professional Bull
Riders, Inc.
Kelly Bishop
Linda Blair
Barbara Bosson
Bruce Boxleitner
Jeff Bridges
Christie Brinkley
Rita Coolidge
John Corbett
Alex Cord
Catherine Crier, Court TV
James Cromwell
Sheryl Crow
Tony Curtis
Ellen DeGeneres
Ron Delsener
Bo Derek
Clint Eastwood
Mike Epps
Will Estes
Shelley Fabares
Morgan Fairchild
Mike Farrell
Jorja Fox
John Forsythe
Morgan Freeman
Kinky Friedman
John Fusco, screenwriter
Richard Gere
Melissa Gilbert
Whoopi Goldberg
Jane Goodall, PhD.
Merv Griffin
Arlo Guthrie
Gene Hackman
Merle Haggard
Jack Hanna
Daryl Hannah
Tess Harper
Tippi Hedren
Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit
George Jones
Ashley Judd
Toby Keith
Eddy Kilroy, Hank..s Place
Carole King
Carson Kressley
Kris Kristofferson
George Lopez
Wendie Malick
Peter Max
Mrs. Roger (Mary) Miller
Steve Miller
John Trudell
Leonard Cohen
Bonnie Raitt
Stewart Copeland
Pierce Brosnan
Keely Brosnan

2009-05-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

A rejuvenated Grateful Dead winds up first tour in five years
By Paul Liberatore
Posted: 05/11/2009 03:17:07 PM PDT
Updated: 05/11/2009 11:21:08 PM PDT

Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh (left) and guitarist Bob Weir (front) perform at the Shoreline Amphitheater. The Dead performed its first homecoming show at the end of their first tour in five years in front of a packed house of fans at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Sunday. (Special to the IJ/Douglas Zimmerman)Fourteen years after Jerry Garcia's death, the four surviving members of the Grateful Dead have finally come together again as a band.

And the 20,000 Deadheads who sold out the Shoreline Amphitheater Sunday night for the band's homecoming show couldn't be happier about it.

The Shoreline concert, the first of two at the airy Mountain View venue, came at the end of the Dead's first national tour in five years.

"It's everything I could have hoped for," said 49-year-old Scott Bucey of Corte Madera, a member of the Marin Symphony board and a Deadhead since 1978. "It brings us back to where we were before Jerry died in 1995. I only wish that they had done this sooner."

Wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, Bucey was at the concert with his

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart address the crowd to be patient for the start of the concert because thousands of ticket holders were still outside the amphitheater at the scheduled start of the concert Sunday. (Special to the IJ/Douglas Zimmerman)wife, Jennifer.
"The people in the audience are saying, 'This is it, finally,'" she said. "'It's taken 14 years, but this is it.'"

After they lost Garcia, the Grateful Dead's lead guitarist and charismatic paterfamilias, the four other founding members - guitarist-singer Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann - feuded over business and personal issues. The only thing they seemed to agree on was dropping "Grateful" from their name in honor of their fallen bandmate.

That's why this 20-plus-concert reunion tour has become such a milestone in the 40-year history of the Marin-based band.

And even in the worst economy since the Great Depression, the Dead remain a highly attractive touring act, playing major markets like New York and Washington D.C.
"We're selling 15,000 to 20,000 tickets every night," said Tim Jorstad of San Rafael, the Dead's business manager. "In this economy, that's really good. The guys are stoked."

Mickey Hart certainly was, standing backstage before the show with a lit cigar in one hand and a drumstick in the other.

"We really found each other on this tour," he said with his characteristic energy and enthusiasm. "We're renewing our friendship. We're starting to become a group again."
The man who has promised to reunite the country, President Barack Obama, also did his part in reuniting the Dead.

They came together for the first time at a Warfield fundraiser for Obama the night before the California primary. And a huge Obama benefit concert in Pennsylvania last year sealed the deal for this tour.

The president was so grateful for their support that he invited them to visit him in the Oval Office when the band played in Washington D.C.

Rolling Stone magazine ran a photo of him and the band under the headline "Deadhead in Chief."

And it turns out that several members of the president's staff, including senior advisers Pete Rouse and David Axelrod, are Dead fans. With other West Wingers,

Huntington Beach resident Julie Postel (center) holds a Grateful Dead poster before the start of the concert. Her first Grateful Dead concert was in 1985. (Special to the IJ/Douglas Zimmerman)they were happily grooving at the band's April 15 show in D.C.
That same night Hart invited Tipper Gore, a longtime friend, to sit in on drums on "Sugar Magnolia."

At Shoreline, the Dead started 45 minutes late, waiting for the jubilant crowd to file in from the vast parking lots, and played past the amphitheater's 11:30 p.m. curfew. Bolstered by lead guitarist Warren Haynes of the Allman Bros. Band and Government Mule, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti from Weir's band Ratdog, the Dead played classics like "Sugaree," "Sugar Magnolia" and, to close the first set, an operatic rendition of "Uncle John's Band" with pipe organ harmonies.

The packed house seemed to move with the music like one giant undulating organism at a pot party. Balloons and beach balls floated above the crowd and occasionally bounced onto the stage.

The Dead, concentrating on their trademark improvisational rock, may disdain showmanship, but they know how to put on a show. During their traditional "Rhythm Devils" and "Space" numbers, a sexy group of five female fire dancers came out to add even more heat and light to the far-out proceedings.

The Dead seemed extra soulful on more introspective songs like "Unbroken Chain" and a 20-minute version of "Help on the Way." Because they are now among rock's senior citizens, choosing "Touch of Grey," their only Top 40 hit, as their final encore seemed symbolic.

Asked if they will tour again, Hart said, "We need to get through this tour first."

But the sense was that, as long as they remain healthy, this tour may be the beginning or a late career revival. Or not.

"Since Garcia died, everyone was unsettled musically and personally," said Hart's wife, Caryl. "It took a long time to find a new balance, and that's what you're seeing now."

The Dead play again at Shoreline on Thursday night. There's no telling when they may do that again. As someone close to the aging band said: "If you're a Deadhead, you don't want to sit this one out."
MY SHOE

Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grateful Dead fan Tahoe Jimbo 420 wears tie-dye shoes before the start of the concert. (Special to the IJ/Douglas Zimmerman)

DEA Raids a Cannabis Dispensary

2009-03-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

http://hightimes.com/video/ht_admin/5225

A week after the Attorney General defended state-sanctioned medical marijuana, federal agents raid a cannabis collective in San Francisco.

WATCH THE VIDEO

I made the local NEWS

2009-02-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

Medical marijuana has become a growth industry in Colorado

2009-02-05T12:49:00.000-08:00

Medical marijuana has become a growth industry in Colorado
By Joel Warner
published: February 05, 2009

Michael Lee tends to his latest crop of medical marijuana.

Scott Carr (above) is the THC Foundation's regional manager in Colorado; Warren Edson (right) co-authored the state's medical marijuana law.

Subject(s):
medical marijuana, dispensaries, Cannabis TherapeuticsSee photos of 12 strains of Cannabis Therapeutics' supply at westword.com/slideshow

Behind a locked, unmarked door in a Colorado Springs strip mall, the state's largest marijuana dispensary is open for business.

The operation's aromatic showroom is packed floor to ceiling with pot and anything and everything related to it. "Welcome to Cannabis Therapeutics. Intended for prescribed medical use only!" announces a large sign on the wall.

Glass cases display Baggie upon Baggie of pot — 35 varieties in all. Those looking for cheap medicine can go for the $250-an-ounce, bargain-basement Holland's Hope or upgrade to $300-an-ounce Thunderstruck or $400-an-ounce Purple Haze. Big spenders can opt for top-shelf meds such as a crop of Chocolate Chunk priced at $500 an ounce. It's all available to buy loose or ready to smoke in pre-rolled blunts. And, for green thumbs, cloned marijuana seedlings sit in a bubbling tray of water, waiting for the right buyer.

Today an older woman is here buying some Silver Skunk to help ease lingering pain from a shattered right femur she suffered in a car accident, as well as recurring migraines and fibromyalgia. "I don't like marijuana, but I have no choice," she says as she pays part of her $136 bill in cash and puts the rest on a debit card.

A mother in a track suit leaves her teenage daughter pouting in the lobby while she shops; a younger fellow in baggy jeans and a hoodie samples some Mexican True Blue.

A staffer is ready to help newbies who've just coughed up their $25 annual membership fee establish what mixture of sativa and indica, the two core strains of medical marijuana, is appropriate for their particular illness. For multiple sclerosis, it's best to go with a cross breed that's at least 65 percent indica, known for its relaxing physical high. Sufferers of debilitating stress, on the other hand, typically opt for sativa, which provides more of a mental high.

To administer the medicine, there is a smorgasbord of colorful glass pipes and bongs available, courtesy of a Manitou Springs glass blower. For those who don't want to smoke their determined dosage, there are vaporizers to help clients inhale it, as well as THC pills, THC oils, THC butter, THC fudge, ice cream, bubble gum, hot chocolate mix, cheese, fountain drinks, roll-on pain relievers and bubble bath. Stashed away in a cabinet are jars filled with marijuana marinating in Don Julio and Cazadores tequila.

"It's not about getting high," says Michael Lee, the owner of Cannabis Therapeutics. "It's about getting medicated." Lee founded the operation three years ago under the auspices of Colorado's Amendment 20. The constitutional amendment — approved by voters in 2000 — allows people with cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, muscle spasms, severe pain, severe nausea and other medical conditions to use marijuana.

With a recommendation from a licensed Colorado doctor, patients can obtain a state-issued Medical Marijuana Registry identification card to show to police — though it does nothing to change the fact that the federal government still considers marijuana illegal. Patients may cultivate their own medicine or designate a primary caregiver to provide it for them. Lee and his colleagues at Cannabis Therapeutics, for example, are designated caregivers to more than 600 patients around the state.

This arrangement has proved lucrative: Lee, 44, says his dispensary earns about $105,000 a month, $75,000 of which he says goes back out the door for more monthly product. This onetime owner of a Colorado Springs flooring company insists, however, that his current occupation is more than a business.

"I clinically died. I can't lie. I won't lie," he declares, gesturing to a faded news clipping on the wall. It describes a car crash years ago in Santa Barbara, California, in which a young passenger was killed, and notes that "the driver, Michael Lee, 19, suffered head and internal injuries, and his condition is listed as critical."

After being clinically dead for 41 minutes and spending eleven days in a coma, he turned to marijuana for healing. Years later, lingering pain and muscle spasms led Lee, who is also a member of local mega-churches New Life and Radiant, to become one of Colorado's first certified medical marijuana patients, and he soon found himself helping other people who used marijuana for pain and illness. Now there's no more established operation around for getting medicated.

Lee has signed contracts with seven Colorado growers — all legal under Amendment 20, he promises, because they're registered caregivers for some of his patients. Each grower provides him with roughly a pound and a half of dried marijuana per month. Cannabis Therapeutics is also insured, says Lee, who convinced his insurance agency to design a dispensary policy just for him.

He also has a good relationship with the Colorado Springs police, having invited them in for a tour in 2006 after the cops caught wind of the operation.

"It was very educational," says Lieutenant Catherine Buckley of the visit. "It was not something the officers see on a daily basis."

When the Environmental Protection Agency poked around in response to a complaint about alleged chemical dumping, they couldn't find a single health or safety violation. All in all, says Lee, who goes by the nickname "the Herbologist" on websites like www.rollitup.org and www.weedtracker.com, everything here is square with Amendment 20. After all, his lawyer, Warren Edson, co-authored the law.

That leaves Lee in the center of a booming state industry. The number of patients who've received a medical marijuana ID card recently crested 5,000, twice what it was a year ago. And while it's hard to determine the absolute number of active dispensaries, there are at least two dozen, along with clinics dedicated to helping people obtain marijuana ID cards, lawyers and tax attorneys hanging shingles as authorities in pot law, even an ad hoc university churning out potential new dispensary owners and employees.

"In the last year, it is my understanding that the number of dispensaries in Colorado has grown from two to about thirty," says Keith Stroup, founder of the national pot lobbying group NORML. "Without question, there are more medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado than in any state other than California."

But the cottage industry is fraught with problems. Many doctors refuse to recommend marijuana, in part because possessing and smoking pot is still a federal offense, while a bad few could be exploiting the medical marijuana laws for financial gain. As an unregulated and gray-area industry, there are also inconsistent practices, high prices, oversized egos, safety concerns and possible black-market involvement — not to mention disregard, if not outright hostility, from law enforcement and city officials.

A major change could be on the way. On March 18, the Colorado Board of Health — the advisory board for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — will consider new medical marijuana regulations.

Along with expanding Medical Marijuana Registry application requirements, the proposal would require caregivers to offer additional services to their patients besides providing them with pot. Most significant would be the reinstatement of a five-patient-per-caregiver limit the state health board put in place after Amendment 20's passage, a restriction that deterred the growth of Colorado dispensaries until it was overturned in Denver District Court in 2007.

The new rules "could have an impact on the large-scale operations," says Ron Hyman, registrar of vital statistics for the CDPHE. "I would say it probably will."

The changes could make business more difficult for Lee — but by that point, he may have already moved on. When an anonymous caller threatened to kidnap his young son several months ago, it was one frustration too many. Lee moved his family, got a German shepherd to guard his son and started thinking about selling his dispensary.

"I'm done. I don't care anymore. I've seen a dark side to this," fumes Lee. "I clinically died. I demand life to be fair!" His face turns crimson and his temper bubbles to the surface. Exasperated, he decides to let off some steam. Excusing himself for a minute, he gestures to an employee to fetch him his foot-long Technicolor pipe.

"I'm gonna go medicate."

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For a bunch of supposedly lazy stoners, Colorado's marijuana activists are a committed bunch. At 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, hundreds of people gathered at Regis University in northwest Denver for the Colorado Marijuana Reform Seminar and Activist Boot Camp.

"I think this speaks volumes about our movement," Brian Vicente, executive director of the drug-policy reform organization Sensible Colorado, told the group.

There were nicely dressed middle-aged folks, older couples in knitted sweaters and younger guys wearing backpacks decorated with Grateful Dead patches. A full day of activities lay ahead: sessions on lobbying strategies and media relations, plus panels featuring Denver City Councilman Chris Nevitt, Colorado State Representative Paul Weissmann and Colorado ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein. Lunch would feature sandwiches donated by Cheba Hut, a restaurant chain offering its signature "'Toasted' Subs" in Boulder and Fort Collins.

And just so everybody knows, Vicente reminded the group, "This is a non-smoking workshop. We are here to change the laws, not break the laws."

Vicente and his colleagues have big plans for Colorado, building on years of victories. In 2005, Denver became one of the first cities in the country to have its voters "decriminalize" marijuana by making it legal for people over 21 to possess up to an ounce of it. Two years later, the city's voters agreed that law enforcement should make adult marijuana possession its lowest priority. Part of the plan today is to strategize about ways to pass similar initiatives in other Colorado communities. While an attempt to pass a state law decriminalizing up to an ounce of marijuana failed in 2006, activists here believe it's only a matter of time before such legislation passes.

"This will be the nail in the coffin of the drug war," Vicente continued. "Colorado will be seen as the place that ended the government's ninety-year prohibition of marijuana."

It all started with Amendment 20. The law allows a person suffering from certain illnesses or that individual's caregiver to possess up to two ounces of marijuana or six marijuana plants, but it doesn't specify much about the relationship between patients and caregivers. To help fill in the holes, in 2004 the CDPHE developed a five-patient maximum for caregivers, says Hyman. "We were trying to determine how many patients a caregiver could provide for that would be significant and reasonable," he explains.

But when Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves suspended that limit in 2007 because it lacked public input, caregivers were allowed to take on as many patients — and their marijuana quotients — as they liked, even make a business out of it.

That, it turns out, was part of the plan all along for Amendment 20, the only medical marijuana law in the nation that's a constitutional amendment.

"The plan was to write it into our constitution so it couldn't be tweaked," says Edson, the law's co-author. "There is a reason there are no limits to the number of people you can be a caregiver for. There is a reason a caregiver isn't specifically designated as a doctor or a nurse. It is left open to a broad range of individuals."

For one thing, if doctors were responsible for actually providing patients with marijuana, the federal government might retaliate by revoking their Drug Enforcement Administration-issued licenses, which allow them to prescribe narcotics.

Furthermore, Edson had noticed the inklings of a dispensary industry developing in California, whose open-ended 1996 medical marijuana law led to an industry there that now boasts hundreds of such businesses. He decided that an entrepreneurial take on medical marijuana would encourage product diversity, innovative practices and competitive prices, all to the benefit of patients.

"I like to see some of these places where a patient has some options," he says. "Where it's not just one guy in his basement with one type of medicine."

So while other states included impediments to dispensaries in their medical marijuana laws or eventually had lawmakers implement such restrictions, in Colorado the free-market approach was allowed to flourish.

The results were evident at the activist boot camp. In a side room, staffers in vendor booths handed out brochures and business cards for dispensary operations, not to mention marijuana-friendly medical clinics and drug-law-savvy lawyers.

Denver real-estate broker Michael Griffin says he's recently picked up three clients, all looking to open 1,500- to 3,000-square-foot dispensaries in the area: "People are noticing it as a viable business. Once it's legal, I think it's no different than a liquor store."

Michelle LaMay has also found a niche. Last fall, the longtime Denver activist launched "Cannabis University," a day-long, $250 program that gives students a run-down on marijuana laws and growing practices. It's for patients wanting to produce their own medicine, and a mini-MBA for those wishing to break into the business.

"I'm hoping the vast number of caregivers and dispensaries will have to hire some people. And maybe they will hire our students," she says.

While they go by different names, dispensaries or caregiver cooperatives operate under roughly the same model. Patients who wish to buy pot must designate that operation as their primary caregiver on their medical marijuana license by filling out a state health department application. Since the law doesn't say where the pot has to come from, dispensaries can theoretically pick it up anywhere: indoor grow rooms overseen by a dispensary's owner or employees; out-of-sight backyard gardens tended by patients; middlemen hawking stuff from large, clandestine outfits squirreled away in the mountains or in networks of fluorescent-lit basements.

According to Amendment 20, the marijuana is legal as soon as it gets into a patient or caregiver's hands, so no need to ask too much about its provenance.

Many dispensaries operate quietly, relying on word of mouth, while a few advertise openly. If Edson's predictions are correct, local dispensary owners could eventually be servicing a statewide client base of 50,000 registered patients.

"It's a full-on gold rush," says Paul Saurini, producer of Marijuana Radio, a weekly pot-themed radio podcast recorded in a slick studio in the Santa Fe Arts District and broadcast in many a dispensary. "People are rushing here to make a buck. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but I think it's a fascinating moment for the movement."

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To get a Colorado Medical Marijuana ID card, Colorado residents first need a doctor who will recommend them for the confidential state registry. And to get that recommendation, many patients turn to the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation in Wheat Ridge. Of the 5,000 people on the registry, about 2,700 relied on its services.

One of those is Sandra, who's been on the registry since 2005, but who, like all medical marijuana patients, has to go through the state's annual renewal process. That means another visit to the foundation's 1,500-square-foot, third-floor office in a professional building on Wadsworth Boulevard.

Sandra, her pigtails streaked with gray, sits in a solemn, bare-walled waiting room surrounded by people filling out paperwork or watching a marijuana video on TV. It's a scene that's playing out in similar waiting rooms across the country: the nonprofit, known as the THC Foundation, also has clinics in medical marijuana-friendly states like Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Montana, California, Nevada and Michigan.

Eventually, Sandra is called into the office of Eric Eisenbud, a lanky Colorado ophthalmologist. Before Eisenbud has a chance to review Sandra's history — her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 1995, her MS-related leg spasms that qualify her for medical marijuana, and the recent discovery that she has degenerative disc disease in her spine — Sandra blurts out, "Thank you for being here for us." She's well aware how hard it is to find a doctor who will recommend patients for the registry. Before she found the THC Foundation in 2006, she asked her primary care physician to recommend her for medical marijuana — and says the doctor nearly threw her out.

Eisenbud's heard hard-luck stories like this before. "My feeling is that a large number of doctors in Colorado are open-minded, but they've been misinformed," he says later. Much of the confusion and apprehension in the medical community stems from the fact that after Amendment 20 passed, then-attorney general Ken Salazar warned doctors that they could face federal charges if they participated in the program. It doesn't help that the Colorado Medical Society hasn't taken a stance and that the American Medical Association has said it won't recognize the medical use of marijuana without further studies. (Other prominent medical groups, such as the American College of Physicians and the British Medical Association, have endorsed the idea of medical marijuana.)

Many doctors play it safe by not dabbling in marijuana at all. At Denver Health Medical Center, physicians are allowed to write letters to help patients get registered, says hospital spokeswoman Dee Martinez. But patient Eric Easter counters that notion, saying his doctors refused to recommend him for the state registry: "They said they don't do this even if you were dying of AIDS."

"That's where we come in," says Paul Stanford, the Portland-based founder of the THC Foundation. "When we first moved into Colorado, in 2006, there were only 700 medical marijuana cards statewide." Now, three years later, the Wheat Ridge clinic sees about seventy new patients a week, says Scott Carr, the foundation's regional manager in Colorado. Carr also believes the foundation has helped the medical community warm up to medical marijuana. According to the state, more than 500 doctors have now signed for patients here, and some insurance carriers cover THC Foundation visits. "I've had HMO nurses call and ask what the best vaporizer is for patients to buy," says Carr. The clinic even has a competitor — an operation called CannaMed that opened in Denver offering similar services. CannaMed representatives did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

But the THC Foundation also has at least one critic: its former doctor on duty, Shawn Elke Glazer. "They're all about making as much money as possible until marijuana gets legalized," says Glazer, a former Libertarian candidate for state representative who now runs the Colorado Green Cross medical clinic in Wheat Ridge.

She believes the THC Foundation signs up as many people as possible so they'll fork over the $200 visit fee, whether they warrant medical marijuana or not. The fact that a marijuana dispensary now operates in the same building as the foundation raises red flags as well, since it could put the clinic in violation of a 2003 Supreme Court ruling saying that doctors can't assist patients in obtaining marijuana.

Stanford calls that nonsense, but Glazer isn't the only one who has questioned the foundation's motives. In 2005, the Oregon justice department began looking into the Portland-based nonprofit for potential IRS violations, such as a $100,000 reimbursement it made to Stanford. "It's an ongoing thing. It has caused a little extra scrutiny, but it hasn't caused any problems whatsoever," Stanford says.

Carr notes that the Wheat Ridge clinic only works with patients who have medical records proving they qualify for the state law and turns away those who don't. He also adamantly denies association with any dispensary, including the one that operates in the same building. The owners of that business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, concur that there's no connection.

Sandra has no complaints about the THC Foundation, and she'll follow it when it relocates to bigger digs near Speer Boulevard and I-25. Yes, the cost of the visit on top of the $90 annual state registration fee isn't easy on her budget, especially since she spends about $300 a month on marijuana. Still, she's grateful for its existence: "Thank goodness the service is here and it's helping me. This place is safe."

In the past, she didn't feel so safe obtaining her medicine. In 2005, before the THC Foundation opened, she went to a Loveland doctor who charged her more than $400 for the service. Then, to get marijuana, she relied on an operation run out of a former Denver church called the Colorado Compassion Club. The club operated at night and had armed guards at the doors, Sandra says. "There were all these people, and I didn't feel safe at all. It was like being in a bread line."

After that, Sandra was referred to Ken Gorman, a well-known Denver pot activist and one-time write-in candidate for governor.

"I don't have my medical certification up to date," she remembers telling Gorman when she reached him by phone. "Are you sick?" he replied. "That's all I need to know."

"Here was someone I'd never met, and he was so kind to me," says Sandra, who decided to make him her caregiver. She never got a chance to follow through. That weekend, on February 17, 2007, Gorman was shot and killed in his home.

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Gorman's death, which is still unsolved, sent shockwaves through the medical marijuana community. It also created a vacuum that permanently changed the industry in Colorado.

Today there are storefront operations like Cannabis Medical, the Healing Center, North Reasonable Access Denver, Denver Patients Caregivers Cooperative and the Kind Room, and delivery services like Confidential Caregivers Unlimited and the Organic Medicine Club. Among them are settings to suit every taste, from dorm-room-like operations with mismatched thrift-store furniture and mega-sized posters of killer kind bud to dentist-office-like venues complete with cushy couches and bubbling aquariums.

Because state law doesn't explicitly sanction dispensaries, the businesses try to protect themselves by making sure that everyone involved is either a patient or a caregiver. "Most of their employees are patients themselves and are listed caregivers for some of these people," Edson says. "And most of the dispensary owners are listed as caregivers for some of the people. But the equivalent of a pharmacy just doesn't exist under the amendment." That's why dispensary owners typically consult with a cadre of lawyers, squirrel away documentation listing their patients and are reluctant to talk to the press.

"We hate to be this evasive," says Daniel Tsirlin, co-owner of Alternative Medicine of Southeast Denver, a newly opened dispensary. "Why not let people know? On the other hand, you don't want to be the first to do anything. Be the second."

That's a good approach, judging by the comments of Jeff Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Rocky Mountain field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"We are investigating some dispensaries throughout this region," Sweetin says, without giving specifics. "The DEA investigates large, well-organized, well-funded organizations. Some of these dispensaries rise to that level." Sweetin is concerned that elements of the medical marijuana scene are tied up with organized crime, in part because Amendment 20 doesn't include rules about where dispensaries can buy their pot.

Early last year, authorities busted a multimillion-dollar marijuana ring involving dozens of indoor grow operations in the north metro region — and Sweetin believes there's a connection to the medical marijuana scene. "It's the largest, most organized indoor grow operation I have ever seen," he says. "I don't believe that's coincidence. I believe they purposely moved that operation to Colorado."

For the most part, however, he says the dispensaries are the problem of local and state agencies — and so far, no one seems to know exactly what to do about them.

Police officers are frustrated by trying to differentiate between illegal drug users and state-certified patients and caregivers, says Captain William Nagle of Denver's Vice and Drug Control Bureau, especially since the only time state health employees can verify certifications is during weekday business hours — not the most conducive time for drug cops. When mistaken raids have occurred, judges have sometimes demanded that law enforcement return the confiscated marijuana and paraphernalia — though police say that by doing so, they could be breaking federal law themselves.

Dispensary owners have grievances, too. While they operate without problem in Denver, other cities haven't been as welcoming. Former Aurora dispensary owner John Chipman says he was hardly up and running before he was run out of town because a city ordinance there didn't allow businesses to operate in violation of federal law. "They said they don't have pit bulls, they don't have massage parlors and they don't want any dispensaries," he says.

Others have problems with crime. Last November, Fort Collins dispensary owner James Masters told reporters that his operation had been burglarized or vandalized nine times in a month. While Masters couldn't be reached for comment, several sources claim these crimes were part of a rash of medical marijuana robberies — including, according to Carr, an attempted break-in at the THC Foundation.

Patients have their own complaints, grumbling that the current business climate is filled with grandstanding and ego clashes, slapdash practices and exorbitant prices. There's no easy way for them to shop around to find better options, however, since they're required to designate only one caregiver.

Officials, law enforcement, caregivers and patients can agree on one thing: The industry should be regulated. They say they'd like to see consistent health standards and better communication between police, government agencies and medical marijuana operations, not to mention dispensary-specific rules and licenses. But since Amendment 20 is written into the Constitution, there's no easy way to tweak the law without a vote of the people, not to mention courting antagonism from either the state's growing medical marijuana community or the federal government.

"The reason you don't have clear and positive regulatory enforcement is that a lot of entities are afraid to piss off the feds by setting up any kind of regulatory environment," says Matthew Kumin, a San Francisco attorney who consults for numerous California dispensaries. "You have something that should be happening more but isn't because of fear."

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Michael Lee runs his soil-dusted hands under the faucet at Cannabis Therapeutics. He's spent the morning planting new strains of marijuana seedlings in a grow room, preparing for his next big endeavor. He just got a call finalizing his purchase of $20,000 worth of dirt that he'll use to fill a 30-foot-by-97-foot plot of land he's obtained at an undisclosed spot along the Front Range. Eventually, he says, he'll ask United States Department of Agriculture officials to inspect the site, since his plan is to grow certified organic marijuana.

That way, even if he does sell Cannabis Therapeutics, he'll still be involved with producing medicine for it and other dispensaries. He'll also continue to operate Genovations Laboratories, the research-and-development company for marijuana-infused products that he runs out of a secure warehouse space near Cannabis Therapeutics. There, thanks to an expensive extraction machine and a full-scale chemistry lab, he's pulling THC out of plants and inserting it into tinctures, foods, maybe someday into self-replicating yeast. "I can medicate your hot dogs," he says. "I can medicate your hamburgers."

And while Lee may shift his business focus away from his dispensary, he and other owners say the proposed new regulations won't go through without a fight.

"We're probably going to rent buses. We are going to try to get 1,000 patients there," says Edson of the March 18 Colorado Board of Health hearing. "I've been dealing with these [medical marijuana] folks for ten-plus years. I don't think the attorney general's office and the health department appreciates what is about to happen."

The health department's Hyman understands that the meeting will be "energetic." The point, he says, is to include as many people as possible in the process, which is what Judge Naves said the department didn't do when he struck down the five-person-per caregiver rule in 2007.

Lee believes it will take another vote to make changes to Amendment 20, and despite his talk of selling Cannabis Therapeutics, he has many more plans. A few doors down from the dispensary, he's opened a patient activity resource center, where, amid a pool table, a massage chair and a cappuccino machine, patients meet with caregivers and receive alternative treatments for their conditions.

"It can't just be about weed," he says. "You're going to see more places like this once the bar is set, because the state will say places like this can stay open while others have to close."

And he has even bigger dreams for the day marijuana becomes legal for everyone: A gentlemen's club, ready from day one, with prices starting at $500 an ounce. After all, he says with a grin as he reaches for his bowl, "Why shouldn't I be a household name?"

DEA Defies The Obama Administration

2009-01-24T08:41:00.000-08:00

DEA Defies The Obama Administration; Second Day In Office
By Betty Nuggs Northern California Cannabis Clubs Published January 23, 2009

The DEA continues to defy Obama's claim to end all funding distributed toward performing raids on medical marijuana facilities. In defiance, the DEA performed three senseless raids on medical marijuana dispensaries that led to no arrests, but only an organized legal form of robbery.

January 22nd the DEA raided Holistic Solutions in South Lake Tahoe. This was the first Federal raid to occur since President Obama took office. However, no arrests were made only cash, medical marijuana, and paperwork were confiscated. Successful medical marijuana dispensary owners are already paying state taxes up to $300,000, which doesn't even include federal taxes that are double that number. Not only is arresting medical marijuana dispensary owners not progressive, but how about double taxing honest taxpaying business owners by robbing their facility of money and product through legalized thuggery progressive? The only progress made through an action like that, is fear. Government funding should be used to fight terrorism against our country, not incite within. Our country is ready for a change and we fully supported and elected the individual who promotes that change.

Please exercise that same power and let your voice be heard by calling the White House. As provided by Americans for Safe Access, if you are speechless about these events, please feel free to use this dialogue below when calling the White House.

President Obama's position on medical marijuana is no secret. This is the single most important action you have been asked to take this year. We need President Obama's support. Once you've made this phone call, please forward this message to friends and family. Then visit www.whitehouse.gov/contact to copy and paste the above message.

Call The White House Today!

White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111

"Hi, my name is _____________. Today, the Drug Enforcement Agency raided a medical cannabis dispensary in Tahoe, California. The dispensary was raided by DEA despite numerous statements by President Obama saying he would end federal interference with state medical cannabis laws. I'm very concerned about outgoing DEA officials undermining these state laws and aggressively threatening innocent Americans. I'm also concerned about DEA taking action that is an affront to President Obama's position. I am pleading with President Obama to issue an immediate suspension of all federal funds used to investigate, intimidate, arrest, or prosecute individuals who use or provide medical cannabis in accordance with their state laws. We are being threatened by our own DEA. Please help us."

Useful Links:
We have provided the following links for reference:

http://www.examiner.com/a-1413681~Feds_raid_Peninsula_s_only_marijuana_club.html

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2008/nov/06/will_obama_end_the_medical_marij

Obama on med pot
This is from November of last year:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/25/479649.aspx

"My attitude is if the science and the doctors suggest that the best palliative care and the way to relieve pain and suffering is medical marijuana then that's something I'm open to because there's no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain,” Obama said. “But I want to do it under strict guidelines. I want it prescribed in the same way that other painkillers or palliative drugs are prescribed.”

Morphine, of course, is Schedule 2, which means the doctors have to file each prescription with the DEA, who are on the lookout for doctors that prescribe "too much." This is considerably more restrictive than, for example, the med pot regime they have in California.

So, reading between the lines a little bit, it would seem that the president-elect wants to move marijuana from Sched 1 (no medical use) to Sched 2 (yes, medical use, but really, really closely watched, and only if you really, really, need it). Schedule 2 means the doc has to file each prescription with the DEA. If this happens, what happens to the marijuana dispensaries in California?

Well, one answer is that they would have to close their doors, because there is no longer a justification for them. Those people who really need the pot can go through the "strict guidelines" and get it the precise measured doses that they need rather than the free-for-all you have in California. The new Michigan initiative, which as I understand it would allow patients to grow their own, would seem to be out as well. All these local initiatives will be replaced by the Schedule 2.

All of this is consistent with the "Dear Friend" note you got from Obama for America, and I'd consider that a real possibility.

Since the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, the federal government has had the task of regulating prescription drugs. As it ought to; having a patchwork quilt, each state drawing up its own rules is very cumbersome for a matter as complicated as this.

A BRIEF LIST OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SMOKED MARIJUANA

2008-12-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

Wooden Bears

2008-12-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

To all my deadhead readers and friends.

I got an e-mail the other day from a guy named Keith who said he had seen a picture of my old truck the warthog, and he wanted to send me a bear for the rear view mirror. I answered and told im that the warthog had gone to the junkyard in heaven, and he answered back saying he wanted me to have one anyway.

I got not one but two in the mail yesterday, a small magnet and a larger one we just hung on the christmas tree. They are beautiful and if you want one here is Keith's e-mail address:
kpolfuss@yahoo.com and his website is:

http://www.geocities.com/kpolfuss/Beartracks.html

So check out his site, and help a brother and your karma and pick one up.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA FARM FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN

2008-12-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

Buddhist prayer flags lined the walls and a German shepherd slept at the foot of a mint-green couch as Valerie Leveroni Corral considered life and loss from her office chair.She spoke about the impending loss of a home and garden that has provided medicine to the sick for over 15 years as she discussed the impact her work as co-founder of Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) has had on her life.“The best thing about WAMM is this community of heroes. We are courageous and generous and wacky,” Corral said. “We’re everything. We see each other’s frailties and each other’s strengths. And during the hardships, and the hardest thing of all — death and illness — we still manage to find the way to survive.”WAMM, a local nonprofit organization that has provided free medical marijuana to the terminally ill since 1993, faces possible extinction.Corral, and separated husband and WAMM co-founder Michael Corral, face the loss of the land on which WAMM’s marijuana plants grow.Due to a combination of legal blows, the Corrals are fighting to keep WAMM afloat.A lawsuit following federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raids on WAMM’s garden, complications with inheritance of the property upon the death of their land partner, and the inability to qualify for a loan may seal the fate of WAMM.“We are constantly chasing money instead of chasing the integrity of our efforts. It turns into this kind of financial dance,” Corral said.She said that because of generous checks that arrived by mail from WAMM supporters, the organization will be able to survive December.Corral continues to hope for a miracle.“I’m still hoping that there might be an investor or a philanthropist who might see a possibility — something that we could build on.”Ben Rice has been WAMM’s lawyer for 15 years and a friend of the Corrals for more than 20.Rice says that what crippled WAMM financially was the raid on its plants and property in 2002 by the federal government.“Because the government did that to WAMM, they have never been able to regain their financial footing,” Rice said.“It’s always hard for a nonprofit collection that’s based on the goodness and passion of people like Val and Mike to sustain itself, but WAMM had been able to do it for a number of years.It was [the DEA] taking that much of their medicine — roughly a year to two-year supply — which forced WAMM to turn to other methods of getting their medicine to people. It really set them back and also caused a lot of health issues for people.”In response to the DEA raid, WAMM filed a lawsuit against the federal government. Six years later, the lawsuit has yet to be resolved.Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana to seriously ill patients, was passed in California in 1996 by a 56-percent yes vote.Emily Reilly, a former mayor of Santa Cruz and member of the Santa Cruz City Council, expressed her sadness.“The loss of the WAMM land is really a sad day for this community,” Reilly said.“It’s sad for WAMM but especially for this community, and this country really. The fact that we’re just not able to have some logic and compassion over this issue is really shameful. Medical marijuana has never been about the illegal use of recreational drugs — it’s about having compassion for sick and dying people. That’s all Mike and Val have ever been focused on and it’s a loss for us all.”Corral acknowledged the support Santa Cruz has provided WAMM over the years.“We live in the most amazing community,” she said. “We have really been alive and survived this long because of Santa Cruz and the people that live here. Because of our City Council, our Board of Supervisors and also because of community members, our attorneys … the support has been just overwhelming and amazing.”Corral and WAMM recently became involved with a nonprofit program called Raha Kudo, the Design for Dying Program.“It is designed to take care of people when they are dying and to keep people at home — whatever they choose, however they choose it,” Corral said.Regardless of the situation regarding WAMM’s garden, Corral said Raha Kudo (Persian for “the pathway to heaven”) would continue.Corral recently wrote an article about a Raha Kudo patient and friend named Laura Huxley in which she described Raha Kudo.“[The article is] a snapshot into the way a person designs their own death,” Corral said. “I talk with a lot of people about dancing with death — about kind of entering into a courtship with death, so that people are not so afraid of this ‘grim reaper’ thing.”“Death is so natural,” she continued. “It’s what happens to everybody. We’re talking about it differently. What’s important about [Raha Kudo] is that we can engage with one another, be there at people’s deaths. And I’m often at people’s bedsides.”Corral said her work with WAMM has provided her a perspective on life.“A great thing about WAMM is living with a constant reminder of the uncertainty of life, because it’s so uncertain,” Corral said. “I’ve learned so much to trust that in the unfolding of our lives, the most remarkable things can happen if we don’t stay fixed on some single notion.”

Please consider donating to keep this wonderful organization alive!!! And don't forget to repost this too.

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Countdown

2008-11-29T06:34:00.001-08:00

2700 year old stash found!

2008-11-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

By THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour."To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife."This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont."It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."The tomb also contained bridles, archery equipment and a harp, confirming the man's high social standing.Russo is a full-time consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine approved in Canada for pain linked to multiple sclerosis and cancer.The company operates a cannabis-testing laboratory at a secret location in southern England to monitor crop quality for producing Sativex, and allowed Russo use of the facility for tests on 11 grams of the tomb cannabis.Researchers needed about 10 months to cut red tape barring the transfer of the cannabis to England from China, Russo said.The inter-disciplinary study was published this week by the British-based botany journal, which uses independent reviewers to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of all submitted papers.The substance has been found in two of the 500 Gushi tombs excavated so far in northwestern China, indicating that cannabis was either restricted for use by a few individuals or was administered as a medicine to others through shamans, Russo said."It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years."Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis."I hope we can avoid some of the political liabilities of the issue," he said, referring to his latest paper.The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.

Currently listening : Blood on the Tracks By Bob Dylan Release date: 2004-06-01

A Thought (or two)

2008-11-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

Well after being told that a few people like my writing, I have also had an experience that I had only heard about. Writers Block. For a long time now, I haven't been able to express myself via written word. This feeble attempt is my first attempt in a long time, for good or bad. Here goes...

Having voted for Barak Obama, I THOUGHT I was actually going to see things change, (maybe too soon on my end), but, with the choosing of the VP, all the way down to the cabinet positions. It's Washington as usual
But so far (I have to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt) all I have seen are the OLD, TIRED, Professional politicians that go through the revolving door. Hillary as Sec of State? might as well appoint Bill too. There is a LOT of baggage there alone. Didn't those people just finished a particularily nasty primary race? Never once heard Bill actually come out and truly endorse our new President, ever.

I'd say more, but I had to sell my soapbox to pay my rent.

Speaking of, all of these bailouts, from corporations through home owners, not once have I heard a peep about some of our brothers and sisters who can't now or ever will actually own a house. Of course those people are not really equal, they don't /can't contribute to campaigns. There are a LOT of people a paycheck away from being homeless, who have no say in things, but society doesn't see or hear them anyway, so most don't even bother. I've been there, invisible even at 450+ lbs.

I can still hope for things to CHANGE, and dreams are free...

Finally

2008-11-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

South Lake Tahoe has finally joined the rest of California!
We have a Medicinal Marijuana doctor with a practice IN TOWN!
ABBY COHEN, M.D. 530 541-3286 SOUTH LAKE TAHOE

Remembering Kesey 11/10/2001

2008-11-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Article & photos by Tim Owen
Saturday, November 10th, 2001 marks a day of mourning and reflection here in Eugene, as we deal with the passing of our friend Ken Kesey, author, storyteller, cultural pioneer, innerspace astronaut, family man and salt of the Oregon earth.
A day as typically Oregon-beautiful as I've seen; warm, hazy sun, not the slightest stir of a breeze, upper 60s, a myriad of stunning cloud patterns floating ever so slowly across the sky... but the quiet stillness, the pastel colors against the glittering greens of the tree covered rolling foothills; an unmistakable omni-presence of magic, of energy release, of peace, of joy.
Kesey lived just a few ridges to the East of us, about 20 miles away. I saw him countless times about town and at events over the past 20-plus years I've been here. When I would bump into him on the way to the bank or store when we lived just a few miles apart, he was never in too much of a hurry to stop and exchange a few words. His mastery of word crafting was always at the ready. The first time we crossed paths was backstage after a Dead show outdoors in rural Oregon in '82. Mingling in the afterglow of a great day, my simple greeting led to Kesey spinning a 10 minute thought provoking tale about a frog and a muskrat. I wish like hell I could remember it now.
Ken's family here in Eugene has a vast presence as well as past. They moved here to live on his grandparents' farm in 1943, when he was eight years old. While attending the University of Oregon, where he became a star wrestler, he married his high school sweetheart, Faye Haxby, in 1956. Receiving a literary fellowship to Stanford, Kesey would then embark on a four year whirlwind that would produce the cornerstone of his most affective contributions to the changing and expanding face of America.
After volunteering for LSD experimentation at Stanford in '61 and '62, he completed his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Published in '62, the novel struck a nerve at the core of our society by serving as a wake up call on a nation stirring out of a long slumber, challenging the predisposed norms and the terms of sanity.
In '64, Kesey's second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, was published. A sprawling, ambitious work immediately heralded as a great American classic, Kesey had brought to life with his vividly captivating descriptions a unique, mystical land called Oregon, whose harsh and unrelenting nature shapes the tough and original members of the Stamper's, a rural logging family in the 30s.
That same year he had banded together some fellow LSD experimenters, called them the Merry Pranksters, and set out on the road as a traveling psychedelic show in a rainbow day-glo 1939 International bus called "Further," which he bought with earnings from Cuckoo's Nest. A notorious adventure of LSD-induced fun and chaos ensued as they pranked their way through America, forever immortalized in Tom Wolfe's book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At that time, the relatively unknown Grateful Dead became the house band for the Pranksters, and they maintained friendships throughout the years.
In 1968 Ken moved back to Oregon and a rural farm south of Eugene, where he turned a huge barn into a large rambling house, raised a family, worked the land, raised cattle and immersed himself in the community. Ken Babbs, fellow Prankster and lifelong friend, lived nearby, and together they collaborated on Prankster adventures over the years. Ken's brother, Chuck, and his family founded and still run the successful Springfield Creamery, as well as operating a retail natural food store in Springfield until the mid 80s.
Kit Kesey, Ken's nephew, has been a concert and video producer over the years, and in recent months took over the McDonald Theater in downtown Eugene and refurbished it as a live music venue. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters recently performed there at a benefit in October. The last time I saw Ken was in early September, the night he introduced Taj Mahal at the grand opening of the theater, while I was shooting the event.
Kesey contributed immensely to raising the bar in challenging the status quo to re-examine, renew, and embrace such fundamental American terms as "freedom," and "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and to live them. He was full of stories, bigger than life, yet casually present, a ruggedly independent individual, who contributed endlessly to family and community, and the celebration of life. As one of Americas most affecting and colorful modern pioneers, he was truly a great American hero. Always ready to take a playful poke or a chastising swipe when he smelled bullshit, regardless of where it came from, he was never mean spirited. His approach to life was not from an adversarial or confrontational stance, but an offering of goodwill.
Ken's creativity wasn't limited to his immense depth as a writer. He continually sought new theatrical vehicles and happenings to relay his message, whatever it may be. You might be listening to him read a new children's book and tell stories, in full shaman's garb on the steps of the library, or hearing him recite his heart-felt tribute to Jerry Garcia, or watching him belt out "Gloria," with Kool-Aid jug in hand, wearing a U.S. flag suit and top hat, backed by Bob Weir, Jack and Jorma.
For a production of his childrens story, Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear, Kesey collaborated with the Eugene Ballet, with music by Art Maddox and sound effects provided by Keseys whimsical invention, The Thunder Machine.
Ken s generosity and compassion came across in many ways. He often teamed up with musician and friend Mason Williams for Mason's annual Christmas show with the Eugene and Portland Symphonies. A few years back in Portland, Kesey showed up on stage in the role of a street Santa. A down and out alcoholic with a pint in his pocket. Directing members of a choir into the audience to collect money for the poor, he and Mason were able to hand out over $6,000 to homeless street people. The shocked symphony was reluctant to have Kesey return the next night, but rather than more antics, he delivered a wonderful reading of St. Matthew's Christmas Story.
Sharing this valley and this community with Kesey has always been somehow comforting, being part in some sense of the continuing adventure, swept along just a little "further". His absence will leave a gaping hole around here, way bigger than you could drive a bus through. The world, as it is, will be a scarier place without him and his sometimes flamboyant but always thought provoking escapades.
His life was honored in a solemn and celebratory memorial service at the McDonald Theatre, drawing a full house that filled the lobby and spilled out onto the street, where admirers milled about the psychedelic bus waiting to take him on a last ride home to his resting place.
With Kesey's rainbow marbled casket center stage, speakers included his career-long literary agent, Sterling Lord, University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmeyer, musician Mason Williams (who spoke and performed) and close friend and fellow Prankster Ken Babbs. Zane, his son provided various video clips of Ken at home and performing that brought smiles, laughter and tears.
As the bus carrying Ken Kesey pulled out of sight, the clouds parted and a brief glimpse of a rainbow lit the sky. Farewell, my friend. " The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer -- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer."
--Ken Kesey
(C) Article and Photos by Tim Owen

Hey Saraha Palin!

2008-10-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

Oh and by the way, you truly suck, and I shudder to think you are #2 behind a 72 year old fossil.

Yogi comes to visit

2008-10-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

This happened only a mile from my house here in South Lake Tahoe! A couple of months ago there was one walking along the top of my backyard fence. There are about 300 of them in the Tahoe Basin.

Epidemic (Where the DRUG WAR should be waged)

2008-09-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

King of Smear

2008-08-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

One of the most vile smear peddlers of the 2004 election has found a new target.

Jerome Corsi just published a new book full of rehashed distortions and the same old lies about Barack Obama, and the right-wing noise machine is in full gear promoting it.

In 2004, Corsi helped launch the Swift Boat smear campaign with a book of distortions and lies he wrote about John Kerry. We cannot afford to let Corsi get away with the same dirty tricks that fooled so many people then.

The media have shown that they aren't going to stop him. It's up to you to spread the truth.

Sign up to get involved and join the Rapid Response Team:

http://www.democrats.org/rapidresponse

Together we'll show Corsi, the Republicans, and John McCain that Barack Obama and the Democrats don't back down from a fight.

Thanks.

----

The latest research on Jerome Corsi:

TOO CRAZY EVEN FOR SWIFTBOAT LIARS

Corsi Was Dropped From Unfit for Command Promotions Because of His Anti-Muslim, Anti-Catholic Comments. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote in an editorial, "Consider the book "Unfit for Command," put out by a collection of partisans who have now made it acceptable for veterans to attack each other's war records. The current National Review carries a piece decrying the bookstores that fail to carry "John O'Neill's book." This is curious in that the volume has a second author, but Jerome Corsi has dropped from the marketing because he has been revealed as the author of religiously bigoted remarks published on a Web site. Corsi not only considers Muslims to be pederasts, but he took the trouble to slam Catholic priests and refers to the pope as senile. Rather than wonder whether a book written by such a man can be trusted, the marketing tactic has shifted to pretend Corsi doesn't exist." [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania), 9/19/04]

O'Neill Tried to Minimize Corsi's Role in Unfit for Command After Bigoted Comments Came to Light. "In a bit of historical revisionism, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth founder and Unfit for Command co-author John O'Neill distorted Jerome Corsi's role in co-authoring the book. O'Neill's backtracking comes on the heels of Media Matters for America's documentation of Corsi's history of posting bigoted comments. During appearances on MSNBC's Scarborough Country on August 10 and CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports on August 11, O'Neill downplayed Corsi's role in writing the book. When asked about Corsi's involvement, O'Neill asserted, Corsi was "simply an editor and not really any sort of co-author." But an MMFA item entitled "Unfit book materials show Corsi more than just an 'editor,'" revealed Corsi to be much more than simply an editor of the anti- Kerry book. [Media Matters Press Release, 8/13/04]

"Anti-Kerry Book Author Apologizes for Slurs." "One of the authors of a new anti-John Kerry book frequently posted comments on a conservative Web site describing Muslims and Catholics as pedophiles and Pope John Paul II as senile. In chat room entry last year on freerepublic.com, Corsi writes: 'Islam is a peaceful religion - just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed.' In another entry, he says: 'So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it'." [AP, 8/10/04]

ONE PARANOID BOOK OF LIES AFTER ANOTHER

Corsi Wrote a Book Saying Bush's "Globalist Agenda" Is Leading to a North American Union. "The real reason behind President Bush's push for immigration reform, says author Jerome R. Corsi, is to unite the United States, Mexico and Canada by erasing borders and creating a "North American Union." That is the theme of Mr. Corsi's new book, "The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada," which says the Bush administration's 'globalist agenda' is leading to a merger of the countries through the implementation of policies and laws to open trade barriers and renovate the highway systems in anticipation of increased travel within the new megastate. Mr. Corsi said a growing number of Americans think the North American Union is being forced onto Americans. Government officials say the idea is no more than an unjustified conspiracy theory spread through the Internet. Mr. Corsi said the impetus of the plan was the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, announced by leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada at Waco, Texas, in 2005." [Washington Times, 7/18/07]

Conservative Human Events Writer: Corsi Isn't "Any More Worthy Of Being Taken Seriously Than Those Who Think Jews Rule The World Or The 'Truthers' Who Think President Bush Is Responsible For 9/11." Under the headline "There Isn't Going to Be a North American Union," John Hawkins wrote, "Yesterday, Jerome Corsi was prattling on about the North American Union again after Michael Medved deservedly spanked him for spreading conspiracy theories. While I don't think Corsi is any more worthy of being taken seriously than those who think Jews rule the world or the 'Truthers' who think President Bush is responsible for 9/11, I thought I would respond to him one last time. (I think that's about the fourth time I've said that.) Now, why respond again? What's the point? Well unfortunately, a lot of conservatives consider this conspiracy theory to be so preposterous that they believe it's beneath them to even bother discussing it, and that leaves Corsi and his ilk to dominate the debate. And since there are a lot of conservatives being taken in by this North American Union nonsense, somebody has got to step up to the plate." [Human Events Online, 1/10/07]

Editor of Human Events: "I Guess There Are People Who Believe In" Corsi's North American Union Conspiracy, "But There Are People Who Believe In Bigfoot." "Corsi plays on growing nationalist fears. He sees a scenario in which a North American Union is born and shares a currency, the "amero." Even some right-wing standard-bearers regard the fears as over-blown. Jed Babbin, editor of the conservative newspaper Human Events, says: "I guess there are people who believe in [the plan for a North American Union]. But there are people who believe in Bigfoot." [Newsweek, 12/10/07]

Corsi Wrote a Book Disagreeing With Most Scientists That There is a Limit to Oil. "All his life, Jerome Corsi's been told that we're running out of oil. "I remember driving with my dad in a 1952 Plymouth and listening to him talk about the end of oil," says the 59-year-old New Jersey author. "Hasn't happened yet, and it's not going to happen." What makes him so sure? He doesn't buy the fossil fuel theory--that oil comes from dead plants and dinosaurs. He believes it comes out of the ground naturally, and that there's more coming up all the time...Eighteenth century Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov found biological debris in oil and concluded that it must have biological origin. "I'm at the point where the dinosaur theory seems silly," says Corsi. "You take a pile of cats and you bury them, dig them up 10 years later and you don't get oil." "The truth is that there is so much oil around the world that it's been easy to find," Corsi says. "We're awash in oil. There's more oil today in proven reserves than ever before in human history." [Western Standard (Alberta), 2/13/06]

Corsi Wrote a Book Claiming Democrats Were Being Corrupted by Iranian Funding and Helping Iranians Get Nukes. "After their bitter campaign 2004 experience with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John Kerry and his fellow Dems aren't waiting to be shot at again. Yesterday, aides to Sens. Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy jumped all over literary mugger Jerome Corsi, co-author of the Kerry-bashing best seller 'Unfit for Command.' They knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the face (metaphorically, anyway) over his next Democrattrashing tome, 'Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians.' The book - which Nashville's Cumberland House Publishing won't release till next month - claims Democratic pols are being corrupted by Iranian money and helping the nuke-seeking mullahs in Tehran." [Daily News (New York), 2/24/05]

Corsi Wrote Unfit For Command Although He Was Not a Veteran. "Though not a veteran himself, Corsi co-authored ``Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." [Boston Herald, 1/25/05]

THE WRITINGS OF A PARANOID AND HATEFUL MAN

To read more of his posts, follow this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?name=jrlc

HATRED AND INTOLERANCE TOWARD ISLAM

* "Let's see exactly why it isn't the case that Islam is a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion? Where's the proof to the contrary?"
* "Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects."

ATTACKS ON JOHN KERRY...WITH NO MILITARY BACKGROUND

* "First let's undermine the US in Vietnam. Then we can go for gay marriage. When you get to be Pres. JFK-lite, there will be no end to how much of America we can destroy."
* "Just don't let anybody put a tablet with the Ten Commandments in front of the school where that girl wants to wear a Muslim scarf -- OH, No --- then the RATS would complain. Anti- Christian, Anti-American -- just like their Presidential Candidate -- Jean Francois Kerrie."
* "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal gradparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
* "Kerry has a long history of Communist supporters."
* "Kerry offers a clear choice. Anti-American hatred."
* "John F-ing Commie Kerry and Commie Ted discuss their plan to hand America over to our nation's enemies."

DESPICABLE WRITINGS ON ISLAM SHOW BLIND HATRED

* "The only good Mullah is a dead Mullah." [12/21/01]
* "Forget about democracy. Just get out the checkbook and put everybody in Iraq on the payroll. That's all they want. Pay them first, democracy (or some b.s. Islamic version of it) will follow." [6/18/03]
* "Mohammed-al-Mohammed proclaiming guidance from his hate-god allah-i'll-be-da*ned-allah kills another dozen women and children by convincing a teenager to blow him/her/self up for victory in another world. Haven't we all had enough of this stupid "religion"?" [5/17/03]
* "Another Mohammed-al-Mohammed Islam religion of hate maniac bites the dust. (Top Iraqi army official surrenders") [5/17/03]
* "Certainly can't be one of the Islam is a Religion of Peace hijackers?" [Bus Hijacking Near Bremen, Germany] [4/25/03]
* "One more Mohammed al-Mohammed el-Mohammed Mohammed iced -- great. " [Car Bomb Kills Egyptian Islamist in Lebanon Camp] [3/1/03]
* "Let them build mosques -- seems about all the Germans are worth these days."( Germany's Economic Woes) [2/6/03]
* "Islam - the Legacy of Clinton." (AFP: Two Chechens with belts of explosives stopped in Moscow) [12/24/02]
* "Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects. A throwback, Medieval, anti-modern, anti-science, anti-knowledge doctrine." [11/26/02]
* "Forget it -- the only thing these Islamonazis understand is force -- time to nuke the Temple of the Dome and send this "religion" back to Hell, the place it came from. " [11/17/02]
* "Go for the Oil Fields. Set the mad dog lawyers loose!!! Let's ROLL!!! Take even the diapers from their heads. Remember -- according to the Koran, Islam approves of lying as long as it is to non-believers. Saudis are lying killers who harbor killers." [11/17/02]
* "All-ah be damned. What took him so long?" [11/14/02]
* "Islam is like a virus -- it infects the minds of the believers. Islamonazis are, unfortunately, the logical extreme of the "religion."" [11/13/02]
* "Good plan -- raise OBL from the dead every time we get ready to ice another Islamonazi -- ON TO BAGHDAD. LET'S ROLL !!!" [11/13/02]
* "Nuke the ISLAM-nazis and let's move on. No more MUSLAMO-fascists!!" [11/10/02]
* "Islam has declared World War III against everything non-Muslim. " [10/28/02]
* " When will the liberal media wake up to see that Islam has declared a World War against everyting non-Muslim. May Allah be damned to the hell Muslims wish to create on earth." [10/25/02]
* " Are there any Islamic "clerics" who aren't violent?" [10/20/02]
* " May Islam join the garbage heap of worthless religions we have grown beyond. Any believers of Hermes out there?" [10/13/02]
* "Muslims regularly trash religious sites holy to others. Jerusalem has a series of sites the Muslims have wrecked (e.g., the bus station they placed below the "Golgatha" site honored by many as an alternative location for the Christ's crucifixion). Seems like the Muslim principle that it is okay to lie to infidels. Very different mindset -- no respect for anything non-Muslim" [9/30/02]
* "ALL Arab MUSLIMS lie (the Koran endorses lying to infidels, namely us) -- none of these names are real -- Abdallah is really Mohammad Mohammad Mohammad readily altered to include Atta or Haj or whatever else they decide to call themselves for the moment." [7/10/02]
* "Gotta love this stupid religion, ISLAM -- Makes the Nazis look like a Sunday stroll in the park. ISLAM -- it's gotta be straight from HELL. Just the Devil in disguise -- that seems to about sum it up." [6/14/02]
* "Arabs lie. ISLAM preaches lying to Infidels. Fingerprints don't lie. Boo-hoo -- time to demand IDs to check into hotels and passport registration for all foreign nationalists who want hotel rooms. Also, ID checks and passport registrations for anyone renting an apartment." [6/5/02]
* "Let's get rid of all the Saudi Arabians -- that would have gone a long way to preventing Sept. 11." [6/5/02]
* "Yet another violent raghead named Mohammad. What's new? Islam looks like a cancer, a plague, a deadly virus. No doctor worries about the free speech rights of cancer cells." [6/5/02]
* "Yet another Little Islamic Man of Hate. Is there any other kind?" [5/31/02]
* "The only thing the Islamic world understands is force. Let's destroy a few of these hate schools and start targeting these mad preachers of hate." [5/22/02]
* "Let's see -- who is it not politically correct to profile? Islam the "Peaceful Religion" whose Fundamental believers are insane, suicidal killers that hate America and all democratic societies? Or Arabs whose racial hatred of Jews drives them to create secret societies of terrorists sworn to eliminate Israel and all states who support Israel?" [5/20/02]
* "Finally a way to end Jihad. Maybe the whole Arab world will blow itself up -- live by the sword, die by the sword -- seems an ancient formula. Bye, Bye Jihad." [5/20/02]
* "I repeat: Muslims, cancer cells. It's hard to tell the difference. No doctor worries about the First Amendment rights of cancer cells. The therapy is to eliminate cancer cells so the body can go on living. Great to repeat it -- keeps the thread going. Let the Muslims stop preaching terror and I'll revise my view. Meanwhile, Muslims, cancer cells is an equation that works." [5/20/02]
* "May all these Arab maniacs explode and kill themselves -- next time, maybe they will take Arab*RAT with them. Best solution to the homicide bombers is that they eliminate themselves, with as little loss to civilians as possible." [5/20/02]
* "I repeat: Muslims, cancer cells. It's hard to tell the difference. No doctor worries about the First Amendment rights of cancer cells. The therapy is to eliminate cancer cells so the body can go on living." [5/19/02]
* "Muslims, cancer cells. It's hard to tell the difference. No doctor worries about the First Amendment rights of cancer cells. The therapy is to eliminate cancer cells so the body can go on living." [5/17/02]
* "File under the category "Islam is a worthless, violent CULT, not a Religion."[3/28/02]

CORSI HAS LOST TOUCH WITH EVEN THE FALSE REALITY HE LIVES IN

FALSE: "We find there is even uncertainty whether Stanley Ann and Obama Senior were ever married in a church." [p. 44] REALITY:CORSI ADMITS ON THE SAME PAGE THAT OBAMA'S PARENTS HAD A LEGAL AMERICAN MARRIAGE

TIME Reported On Obama's Parents' Divorce Records. TIME reported, "On Feb. 2, 1961, several months after they met, Obama's parents got married in Maui, according to divorce records." [TIME, 4/9/08]

Corsi Cites Time Story To Say "Divorce Papers Confirm..." Corsi wrote, "Other sources say divorce papers confirm that a civil ceremony was held on Maui, on February 2, 1961, when Ann was three months pregnant with Obama." Corsi cites the April 9th, 2008 Time story for his reference to Obama's parents' wedding. [p. 44]

EVEN A LITTLE BASIC RESEARCH DISPROVES CORSI'S FABRICATIONS

FALSE: "Senator Obama could claim to be a citizen of Kenya, as well as of the United States. Obama can trace his heritage back to his mother, who was born in the United States and was an American citizen when he was born, and to his father, who was born in Kenya and was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born." [p 103]
REALITY: OBAMA CANNOT CLAIM KENYAN CITIZENSHIP

Kenya Does Not Allow Dual Citizenship Applications for People Over 21 Years of Age. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management writes of Kenya, "DUAL CITIZENSHIP: Not recognized except for persons under 21 years old." The Kenyan Constitution writes, "A person who, but for the proviso to section 87 (1), would be a citizen of Kenya by virtue of that subsection shall be entitled, upon making application before the specified date in such manner as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament, to be registered as a citizen of Kenya: Provided that a person who has not attained the age of twenty-one years (other than a woman who is or has been married) may not himself make an application under this subsection, but an application may be made on his behalf by his parent or guardian." [U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Kenyan Constitution]

Even if Obama Had Applied for Dual Citizenship Before He Was 21--Which He Did Not--It Would Have Expired. "A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some other country other than Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya, made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament." [Kenyan Constitution]

INVENTING WILD CONSPIRACIES ABOUT ANYTHING HE CAN

Corsi Wrote a Book Claiming Democrats Were Being Corrupted by Iranian Funding and Helping Iranians Get Nukes. "After their bitter campaign 2004 experience with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John Kerry and his fellow Dems aren't waiting to be shot at again. Yesterday, aides to Sens. Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy jumped all over literary mugger Jerome Corsi, co-author of the Kerry-bashing best seller 'Unfit for Command.' They knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the face (metaphorically, anyway) over his next Democrattrashing tome, 'Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians.' The book - which Nashville's Cumberland House Publishing won't release till next month - claims Democratic pols are being corrupted by Iranian money and helping the nuke-seeking mullahs in Tehran." [Daily News (New York), 2/24/05]

---

The DNC Rapid Response Team is a grassroots rapid response group for Democrats to push back on misleading media, spread the truth, and take positive action.

Sign up for the DNC Rapid Response Team now:

http://www.democrats.org/rapidresponse

Writers Block

2008-06-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.Here are last year's winners....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Closing down the Warfield with Phil and Friends

2008-05-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful Sunday morning as we finished breakfast at one of favorite little stops on the way down the mointain (it's The Getaway Cafe,before the bug station in Meyers). I am the kind of guy who once gets behind the wheel doesn't want to stop until I have to, but springtime in the Sierras slows me down enough to appreciate the beauty of it and the rushing American River.

We got through Sacramento and up I80 to SF without a hitch rolling in about the same time the fog lifted at 1:30PM or so. Our hotel checkin wasn't until 3, so I did a little tourism, as Rubi (a naitive San Franciscan) had never been to Coit Tower. So we kiled a little time and money $4.50 to ride a rickety assed elevator,but the view was worth it.

Before we knew it it was check-in time and we pulled into the 55PARC hotel, a block from the Warfield, and got a room on the 14th floor(it was awesome), a little rest a few drinks and it was off to Market Street. The usual Tenderloin zoo was in full force as we paitiently waited to get inside and when we did we were seated at a table about midway through the first floor (disabled seating) and after settling in we split up the cubensis and waited for both the show and the other things to come on.

And just as we start to feel funny, (I was wearing my wizard hat) and someone handed this old wizard a big brown vial...now I am very experienced but this night of DIAMONDS was the most micrograms I think I have ever done at once, and damn was it awesome. It seemed the backdrop was something organic moving and changing colors (or mabye it wasn't)
From the opening notes of Come Together > Dark Star with Bobby Weir,Molo,and Phil, I knew we were in for a special treat. And it truly met all of our expectations, it was such a night (and morning)

Then as things got stranger and stranger, and more and more colorful and beautiful I ran into an old friend named Hugh Romney a.k.a. Wavy Gravy, who said high and graced our presense for a few minutes. By this time the second set had started with Jackie and Larry doing a several beautiful acoustic numbers, Goodnight Irine and Sing Me Back Home .
Deep Elem Blues ?Instrumental? The Warfield Waltz Love Please Come Home & Goodnight Irene again
SET LIST

Phil Lesh & Friends Sunday, May 18th, 2008 Warfield Theater, San Francisco, California

Prior to 1st Set: Phil comes out and says “It’s going to be a long night, so settle in and get comfortable.” He then says there will be a lot of special guests and special music and they are not really sure what they are going to play, “just like the old days.”

1st Set

(78 Minutes 9:17pm – 10:35pm)

Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, & John Molo

Come Together >

(BW) Dark Star > (Phil sang 1st verse, Bob sang 2nd verse)

Loose Lucy (BW) West L.A. Fadeaway * (BW)

The Wheel > *

Not Fade Away *

* with Jeff Chimenti from Ratdog and Larry Campbell

Phil introduces Jeff Chimenti and Bob Weir, calling Bob “my prodigal brother.”

Phil then says “Bob, John, & I have been wanting to do that for a long time and I am glad you got to see it.”

2nd Set

(29 Minutes 10:44pm – 11:13pm)

Acoustic Set w/Larry Campbell & Jackie Green

Lorene

Sing Me Back Home

Deep Elem Blues (LC on lead vocals)

Texas Crapshooter

The Warfield Waltz (as introduced by LC)

Love Please Come Home

Goodnight Irene

3rd Set

(90 Minutes 11:40pm – 1:10am)

Phil Lesh & Friends

Shakedown Street >

Like a Ball & Chain

Big River (LC on lead vocals)

Mississippi Half-Step * >

Althea * Mexican Girl *

Stella Blue (Instrumental) * >

Sugaree *

* with Mark Karan from Ratdog

4th Set

(15 Minutes 1:15am – 1:30am)

"Skinny Singers" Jackie Green & Tim Bluhm

The Ballad of Spider John

Where The Rain Don’t Go

Squeaky Wheel * * with Nicki Bluhm on backing vocals

5th Set

(90 Minutes 1:55am – 3:25am)

Phil Lesh & Friends

(Balloons drop from the ceiling)

Sugar Magnolia

Unbroken Chain >

Mountains of the Moon >

Terrapin (Inspiration) >

I Know You Rider

Donor Rap, Band

Intros

E: Jam > * Truckin' > * And We Bid You Goodnight

* * with Mark Karan from Ratdog

All in all it was one of the most fantastic shows I have attended in a very very long time, and I have been going to shows since I was a pup of 13, I am so proud to say I have turned my wife into a true deadhead, who enjoys them as much as I do, and I know,

OUR LOVE WILL NEVER FADE AWAY.

Obama on Medical Marijuana

2008-05-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Marijuana Policy Project Alert
May 12, 2008

On the verge of becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has renewed his commitment to protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail.
Here is a quote from Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt from an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle:
"Voters and legislators in the states — from California to Nevada to Maine — have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve their pain and suffering. Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this choice — though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regulation like other drugs.”
With Sen. Obama now widely expected to win the Democratic nomination and in a year when Democrats are favored to win the White House, this means we might be only eight months away from having a White House that stands with us on medical marijuana access.
You can also watch a video of Sen. Obama talking about medical marijuana here.
In the months leading up to the New Hampshire Democratic primary election, MPP helped persuade all of the Democratic presidential candidates and three of the Republican candidates to pledge to end the arrest of patients in states with medical marijuana laws.
In response to questions from MPP on the campaign trail, Sen. Obama stated that arresting medical marijuana patients is not a good use of resources and promised to end the federal raids on state medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has also promised MPP that she would end the raids.
Unfortunately, the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), earned a grade of “F” from MPP for his inhumane stance on medical marijuana. In response to repeated questions from MPP on the campaign trail, Sen. McCain incorrectly stated that a majority of medical experts oppose medical marijuana, and he also gave a patient who was politely questioning him a glimpse of McCain's famous temper.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who also remains in the Republican race, has been an outspoken opponent of marijuana prohibition and has consistently voted in favor of legislation to end the DEA's raids on patients.
Please visit MPP's campaign site, www.GraniteStaters.com/candidates, for statements from each of the candidates.
MPP is the only drug policy reform organization that's systematically influencing the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana — and punishing those who don't. Would you please consider making a donation to support our work today?
Sincerely,
Rob KampiaExecutive DirectorMarijuana Policy ProjectWashington, D.C.
P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.
P.P.S. You can opt out of receiving fundraising mentions in the e-mail alerts I send you in 2008 by visiting www.mpp.org/2008optoutpreference at your convenience.

Mountain Girl on the Doctor

2008-04-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dear dear man, a ball of energy, and so useful and kind to spirited people, and women, and all of us, sadly, he's gone.

I was fortunate that he lived long enough for me to meet him, he kindly invited me up to his house, just 4 weeks ago. March 24th. Life has some twists and I caught one. Sad, but good. At 102, yes.

I had given a speech at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, home of historic medieval alchemists, over the weekend, and was honored to be asked to meet the great wizard himself. It was a lovely ride up into the hills, going from Easter flowery spring, to howling winter in a few klicks. His house perches over a great fall of fields down to France on one side, and back to solid snowy Switzerland on the other. It's a a concrete flat-roofed modern home, not large, set with cherry trees and swaying alpine firs, pasted with ice.

His dear wife had just passed away around Christmas, after a long illness, and you could see how hard it had been for him, that he'd been through a terrible ordeal.
He was so sweet to me, chatted and joked about musicians and black market LSD, chocolate and cherry trees, instructed me very seriously about the importance of hanging upside down every day, to improve the blood flow to the brain.. The snow flying outside, I sat on the warm polished wood bench by the window and he sat in a small ornate chair, with an ornate brocaded footstool. We compared chocolates. His old friend Juri Styk brought along some little cakes which we split up but no one touched.

I asked him about purification of LSD, wasn't it a long process? He denied it vigorously, saying " LSD is very easy to make, you just do the recipe and if it crystallizes, that is it, it's done and very pure. No need to do anything else. " And then launched in to a rapid exchange in German with his lovely daughter sitting on the couch, a petite elegant mother of two paying very close attention to her father. ( Juri later told me it was about Dr. Hofmanns eldest son, who had rejected LSD all his life till just recently, and then absolutely loved it and wanted more.!)

I wish my German had been better, I could have spoken to him more easily. His English was excellent, anyhow, and I told him a little about the Grateful Dead, and he lit up and said he had always been hearing about them, they played existential music, yes? And from small beginnings, it got large? With the help of LSD, the energy and telepathic melting together as they played... he understood that. He asked about Jerry. And Juri reminded him about the Acid Tests, and he lit up again and said "Oh yes, the Acid Tests. and the Grateful Dead played there long ago?, and you were there? " And I smiled, yes, and pulled out the Acid Test diploma I had made for him. I presented it in the usual fashion, saying that he had proven beyond doubt that he had fulfilled all the requirements and had certainly passed the Acid Test, and had earned this Acid Test diploma!
He took it and tried to read the PaulFoster decorations, and then had me sign it, with both my names, and date it. He said it was no good unless I signed it. I took a picture of him holding it up. He was really delighted! Not just being polite, either, but actually giggling.

Dr. H. bragged proudly that he now had three women to look after him. And he hoped they wouldn't argue about him.

And then it was over, and we stood up, and Dr. Hofmann staggered , almost fell as he got to his feet, and I steadied him up. He must have weighed about 85 pounds, so small and light. And perfectly mannered, took my arm and walked me to the door. Juri took a final picture of him with my camera, and the doctor smiled and asked me to come back, and bring the sun please. The wind whipping the snow out of the trees as silent puffs of feathers. The walkway to the car was thick with ice. A few cat tracks showed the way. I didn't get to meet the cat, who sleeps on the doctor's bed since his wife passed away. Now wheres the cat sleeping tonight?

I had been thinking hard yesterday and today, about getting this meeting all written down, as the conversation ran to many topics in my short hour or so with him. I wrote a couple of letters to friends today, about my visit with the great man, and didn't realize he was dying today. Chances sometimes only come once, and I'm so glad I took this one. I'm really sad, mostly for myself. Wanting more, not to be.

All my love to my dear, living friends, MG

2008-04-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

RIP albert hoffman, father of lsd

albert hoffman husband and father/inventor of LSD
died today at the ripe old age of 102.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Hofmann
much luv to the man, chemist and philosopher responsible for millions of lives hanging in the balance, living on the crest of a wave, people dreaming the undreamable, lives living the reality of unreality,
and discovering secrets of the universe,time and space
all wrapped up in a few hundred micrograms of lysergic acid
and our brains the enigma trying to solve the riddle
wrapped in the enigma
and searching to find the lost chord, while hearing colours, and smelling sounds,
smelling colours (ah the ol factory hues)
and the searching for the answer to the answerless questions,
on quests to understanding
and
prosperity............
the doors of perception have been thrown wide open
for any innocent bystander to see
at a few bucks a hit, or a good deed done for only to be a good person.
hallucination engines running smoothly,
running on organic fuels that make and bake our bread.
generations of iconic music and lifestyles have been paved around
the invention of the fellow dr.
lives have been lost and/or won in psychological battles on the
minds psyche battlegrounds.
psychic energy has been begged,borrowed and stolen,
and then given freely to any who beckoned and pondered its restorative experience
today the angels sing
and countless souls will feel the shiver up and down the
proverbial spine and smile and never know why..........
rip dr.albert hoffman, you've had a good run sir.
and your accomplishments will NEVER be forgotten.
luv
me2

Friend of the Devil

2008-04-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Endless war on the installment plan

2008-04-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

The Hippies Were Right

2008-04-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

Published on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 by The San Francisco
Chronicle

The Hippies Were Right!
Green homes? Organic food?
Nature is good? Time To Give The Ol' Tie-Dyers Some Respect

by Mark
Morford

Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and
positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the
newly "greening" America and don't say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive
choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East
lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this
perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic
optimism.

OK?

I'm talking about,
say, energy-efficient light bulbs. . I'm looking at organic foods going
mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target
and I'm talking saving the whales and
protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small
town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos Ben &
Jerry's ice cream at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation's
oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look
around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of
cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and even
the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart
are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment
because, well, "it's the right thing to do" (read: It's purely economic and all
about
their bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally
screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese
sweatshops).

There is but one
conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet)
pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly,
nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in
our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along.
Oh yes they did.

You know it's true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating
whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working
with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health?
Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of
animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMA seeds? It
came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient
cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the
sidelines and from far off the goddamn grid and it's about time the media, the
politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered
apology.

Here's a suggestion, from
one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so
industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to
help offset all the savage damage they've done to the soul of the planet all
these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from
the former hippies themselves.
You know, from those who've been working for the health of the planet, quite
thanklessly, for the past 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a
storehouse of good karma.

You think?

Of course, you can easily argue that much of the "authentic" hippie ethos —
the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for
civil rights, the experimentation — has been totally leeched out of all these
new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single
technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone and
Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this
somehow make
the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not.

You might also just as easily claim
that much of the nation's reluctant turn toward environmental health has little
to do with the hippies per se, that it's taking the threat of global meltdown
combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the
nation's incredibly obese ass into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up
to the savage gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts
wondering, oh my God, what's going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and
free shipping from Amazon? Of course, without the '60s groundwork, without all
the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we'd
be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed.

But if you're really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie
movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural
credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack
off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and
avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva
Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what's called the reactionary
simpleton's view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of
culture as a whole. You know, just like America.

But, you know, whatever. The proofs are easy enough to trace. The
core values
and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so
intact and potent even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their
extant power.
It's all right there: Treehugger.
com is the new '60s underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible
tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes
to NIN to the Dixie Chicks are writing savage anti-Bush, anti-war songs for a
new, ultra-jaded generation.

And oh
yes, speaking of good ol' MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new
respect. Staid old Time mag just
ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by
Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing
psychospiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA.
Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire
"excessive," "naive" drug culture of yore in favor of much more "sane" and
"careful" scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for
attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups
and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.

Still, the fact that serious scientific research into
entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science,
pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent history is
proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about expanding the mind and
touching God through drugs were onto something after
all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now — though that
might be due to all the mushrooms he's been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein
and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.

Of course, true hippie values mean you're not
really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don't give a damn
for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture
upside the head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair
and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva
and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, nimrods.

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how
we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting
tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness
and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling
actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You
know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore.

Right?

Thoughts for the author?
E-mail him. Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and
Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

© The San Francisco Chronicle
-------------------------------------
original source article with links
in this article that work (I don't have time to put all the links in this copy
paste here)
http://www. commondreams.
org/archive/2007/05/02/915/

On Psychedelics by BEAR OWSLEY

2008-02-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

There has been a trip taken by many people over a number of years, starting in the 1960's. It is a trip to renew our connection with the planet we live on and its lifeforms. It seemed as though this journey was a natural and important one for our survival and the survival of the world as our home. We thought of ourselves as exploring new ways of looking at the universe, but as it turns out, the adventure is almost as old as man himself.
One of the ideas that developed throughout this period was that the psychedelics (I still feel most comfortable with this old term coined by Humphrey Osmund) were some sort important hormone -like substance which was necessary to the human race, like the various hormones which the body produces within its structure. Unlike these hormones, there are others, perhaps you could call them "planetary hormones" which the plant world produces for the use of animals, and are part of the Gaia or conciousness of the biomass of the whole planet. Healing plants are part of this category. The ones which alter our state and perception of the universe around us are no less important to our development as enlightened entities than those which heal our bodies. Research into the ethnobotanical practices of indigenous peoples around the world show that only the "modern" or western (ie. ours) cultures place any opprobrium on the use of these plants. In fact only the "west" is in the business of trampling on the environment with out regard for the conciousness of the whole or of its importance to us as a part of it. Indigenees almost universally hold that the planet is something alive and that their role is as the protectors of that life. The concept of "owning" the land is nearly impossible for these people to grasp.
I thought that we might just survive and the planet with us if we could manage to get enough people to experience the view which the psychedelics sacraments give. I know that some of you who will read this will object to the term sacrament, but the word is completely appropriate. With the advent of Christianity sacrament has come to be divested of the old meaning and to assume a more ephemeral definition. The magical plants used by folks for tens of thousands of years have been for the most part forgotten. People need to alter their perception of the world around them, in fact it seems to be something done by all animals. In the west there is only two permitted options Alcohol and tobacco. I'm not going to belabor the point, but this "choice" is not something which leads in any way to higher ground.
Shamanism and the use of plants to alter conciousness has a long and respected history in the development of human society. Today it is still found in parts of the world, coexisting with the modern forms of accepted religious activity. In fact, in places like the remote areas of Mexico some of the old ways are openly part of the worship rituals of the Catholic church. Not usually the plants, but the Native American Church in the US has certainly achieved a synthesis of sacred plant use and a form of Christianity. Perhaps this (the inclusion of aspects of Christianity) was necessary to be accepted as a real religion, although that seems odd, the scientologists have succeeded in having their organization accepted as a "church", and it has nothing even remotely suggestive of a spiritual nature about it. Or perhaps it's to do with the fact that the people are the dispossessed Indigenees of a land of colonial immigrants. Or with the fact that they are using the plants.
Today the followers of the Grateful Dead have been preyed upon by law enforcement at many of the venues the Dead visited. They could not peacefully practice what is to them a true religious practice without persecution. I guess it'd be the modern version of feeding Christians to the lions practiced by the government of Rome a couple of thousand years ago. So much for the rhetoric of "freedom of religion", so oft repeated nowadays. So what if the psychedelic of choice is LSD rather than peyote? Is it OK to eat peyote if you are a native American indigenee but not if you are a white or black or other native of America? Since when is there any difference? Why should there be some sort of barrier to joining any religious group? There is only one answer: you are not allowed to be different, to think original thoughts, to act as if you were really free. You are not supposed to experience the world in any way differently to the way those in power wish you to.
It is a fairly modern turn which has led us to this point in time. Plants have only in recent times been unlawful. Although there have been reactions to the introduction of various kinds of psychically active plants into social use...coffee caused a bit of a stir when it was first introduced, as was chocolate. Still, the prohibition movement is a phenomenon of this century. First the war against alcohol, which failed to successfully introduce laws through Congress outlawing booze (the Supreme Court declared that Congress didn't have the authority to do that), succeeded in pushing through an amendment to the Constitution. This was a terrible mistake, and the country still has a powerful Mafia as a direct result of the huge "money for nothing" fees people paid to have access to the drinks they wanted. Even the Volstead amendment didn't criminalize use or possession.
With the repeal, those used to the easy money, having acquired money and therefore power, set about to have introduced new laws which would recreate the money tree. This time they were able, by claiming that the drugs represented a "health and safety" problem, to get passed and approved by the court laws outlawing a variety of plant derived drugs from cannabis to coca and opiates. The inclusion of cannabis may have been the desire of certain industrialists to limit the competition hemp fibers presented to the emerging synthetic fiber industry. Funny thing the court actually said that a tax stamp created with the express intent of never being issued, therefore a defacto prohibition was constitutional! Harmless and joyful cannabis, the wonderful plant which has adapted itself so completely to the service of man, was depicted as a Killer of Youth, Creater of Madness, with all the power of a popular press in the full vigor of its prime. Whether Hearst was paid off to do this, or just thought that anything sensational enough to sell newspapers was ok, will probably never be known.
Today we are seeing a more moderate approach to the hemp matter. People are rediscovering all the uses to which this plant can be put, from making paint to paper. Still there is a weird aversion to the medicinal and recreational values so celebrated throughout history until recent times. "Drug free" strains are touted for the production of fiber and oilseed. What a load of nonsense, as if the conventional recreational drugs were safe and desirable? Even the opiates wouldn't be much of a problem if they weren't illegal, forcing a myriad of eager dealers into the streets for the money for nothing of the black market created by the laws.
Society should never intentionally create a black market. All black markets are a danger to the community due to the lack of controls and the high delivery fees that they force on the delivery system. Likewise there is a huge loss in revenue to the normal flow of commerce through the community. The amounts of money available leads to the inevitable corruption of all who attempt to interfere in the flow of goods in this black market. Black markets made fortunes to the entrepreneurs of the world wars. Tires, fuel and meat made fortunes for those who could divert supplies to their clients. Anything can be a black market. The only thing required is scarcity, or illegality, and a demand for the items.
The use of psychedelics as a part of the religious experience has forced literally hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding people into the black market for their supplies. Due to the dangers and costs many have had to turn to dealing to gain access. Within a community which is devoted to the ingestion of these sacred substances there are many who feel that it is a noble calling to be the source for their friends and fellow worshippers. Hold on, some may say, what about those who are merely thrill seekers? Well, maybe the first time a person uses LSD or the other entheogens, they may be motivated by such a motive. The nature of the experience is that of a profound union with the universal mind. This takes place over time, at first things happen one way, then they change with further trips.
The term, "War on Drugs" is a non sequitur. There cannot be a war on anything except people. The question is, why does the government want to wage a war against its own people? The simple principle of harm reduction dictates that all drugs should cease to be illegal. Very few people would become junkies without someone on the street corner offering it to them, with the added attraction to the young of defying authority. Likewise the widespread belief that advertising is a form of speech which should be protected, and therefore unregulated, is wrong. Advertising is a form of coercive behavior, directed at producing a response without regard to the real merits involved, as long as there is a profitable result for the advertiser. This has nothing to do with the value to the individual or to the community. Tobacco is an excellent example. Joe Camel has been implicated in the early commencement of tobacco use by children. Why advertise tobacco? Any one would not have any trouble knowing about the stuff as long as it was available. No coercion can be intelligently defended.
As well, what about the ads "You can win a million" promulgated by the usually government run lottos? Anyone with any knowledge of gambling knows that the odds against winning are around 50 million to one. You are far more likely to be struck by lightning, or even a meteorite than to pick the winner in a lotto. But the ads imply that it's easy...not one word about the odds. Somebody has to win, I hear it said, but the roll over to super jackpots should put paid to that one. Even so, it's the people least likely to afford it that wind up pouring their money into it in the vain hope of being the lucky one. I don't think such things should be outlawed, people want to gamble, take drugs, smoke tobacco and/or pot, and they should not have these activities criminalized. But neither should they be the subject of advertising.
The US Constitution directs the government to "provide for the general welfare" illegality of drugs creates a health and welfare crisis of immense dimensions. Unknown dosages, unknown composition, contamination both chemical and biological. Death and disease are the direct result of the laws, not the use of various drugs. So far as I know the Supreme Court has never ruled as to whether the laws on drugs violate the powers given to congress. Judging on the basis of the Volstead Act, it would appear that they should throw the lot out. But there is no mechanism whereby a case may be forced to the attention of the court. Perhaps in the current climate of illogic, where a kid who introduces a couple of people he knew, one who grew, and one who sold marijuana, can be given life in prison, although he didn't see the weed nor share in any monies, the electorate might pass an amendment to the constitution to continue the insanity.

Zane and the Ducks need your help, part of the Kesey legacy

2008-02-16T16:12:00.001-08:00

Ken Kesey would be kicking up plenty of dirt about the way the new athletic director is treating his beloved Oregon Wresting. I am Ken's son, when I was young I learned about his passion for this team. Eventually my brother and I were lucky enough to be University of Oregon wrestlers, my father couldn't have been prouder. Every one of these Ducks spilled sweat, tears and blood for the team, my brother died in a wreck while the teams van was traveling to Pullman, you can't give any more than that!
Now with a single underhanded stroke of Pat Kilkenny's pen, our team is axed in favor of baseball. Wrestlers are good sports and never argue with the official, but something smells completely wrong here. My coach, Ron Finley, the nicest guy you ever will meet has been calling in all the favors he has ever done to raise money to pay for this program. Ron is obviously well loved, as he has raised nearly 3 million in cash and pledges. Yet Kilkenny just seems to scoff at these monumental, heartwarming efforts. It is exactly during this kind of stink that Ken Kesey would step in and make sure the people see the ugly truth of what's happening. I am not Ken Kesey, but I will no longer be silent while this tragedy unfolds.
We CAN save Oregon Wrestling! I am calling all wrestlers, pranksters, and friends of Kesey past and present to join me Saturday aboard Ken's bus FURTHER for an evening of spreading the word loudly throughout the town.
I will start at Roaring Rapids Pizza around 4:00, all press is welcome, we will have plenty to say!

Zane Kesey

Pleasant Hill, OR

484-4315

keyz@key-z.com

For a great website about Oregon wrestling, go to:
saveoregonwrestling.com/?cat=1

! Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler !

2008-01-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

Well, another fantastic road trip is in the books! Although the weather called for snow on show day (and for days ahead) we lit outa Tahoe in a sunshiney daydream and took a short side trip to see our new granddaughter (yep, I am a grandpa now) in Placerville and then on our way nonstop to see Phil & Friends at the Mardi Gras Ball at the Bill Graham Civic in San Francisco.

We got to our motel in Berkeley (same one as last show at the Greek. even the same room) with 90 minutes to spare to get downtown. Rolled into the civic and got parked whithout a hitch (except the $12 fee) and got treated super well by the staff at the show, being disabled got us great seats on the balcony so we were able to catch all the excitement unobstructed.

For most of the shows we have attended in the last couple of years, it has been pretty much shoot from the hip aand usually by showtime funds are running low, well this time I planned ahead so's we had plenty of duckets to spend, and good thing we did, it cost us $20 for 2 domestic Miller beers (24oz.) to wash down our shrooms.

Just as I started coming on Dumpstaphunk opened the show, and damn were they smokin hot, they tore the roof off, if I was Phil, I wouldn't wan't to follow these guy's too often, Ivan Neville has quite a crew put together, and it just jumped with Louisiana soul.

Give San Franciscans a reason to dress up in costumes and the will not disappoint you, there were costumes of all sorts and during Phils break there was a contest for best costumes and was won by a giant blue bear!

Phil opened the show with a Jackie Greene fronted One More Saturday Night, and on with the show!
Set One: (1 Hour 18 Mins. 9:21pm - 10:39pm)

One More Saturday Night
Brown Eyed Women
Pride Of Cucamonga
Cold Black Devil >
Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion >
In The Midnight Hour*
Viola Lee Blues >
Caution >
Viola Lee Blues

Phil: "More music and special treats on the way!"

Costume Contest w/Phil as MC (11:07pm - 11:18pm)
Won by The Dancing Bear!

Set Two: (2 Hours & 15 Mins. 11:34pm - 1:49AM)

Shakedown Street > #
Iko Iko > * # (MARDI GRAS PARADE w/Floats, Dancers, Stilt walkers, Dragons, & Costume contest participants dancing in front of the stage)
Truckin' > * #
Jack Straw
St. Stephen >
The Eleven >
Unbroken Chain
Fire On The Mountain >
I Know You Rider
Morning Dew >
Uncle John's Band

E: (1:55AM to 2:08AM)
Phil w/Family member of Jeff Setzekorn (who died, but saved 4 lives) doing the Organ Donor Rap
Box of Rain

* First time played (with this lineup)
# With Ivan Neville on Keyboards & Vocals

It was one hell of a show! And my only criticism was, OK Jackie is the front man, but he spends too much energy trying to outplay Larry Campbell instead of playing rhythm. And I wondered after a whole tour why he still needs to use charts to play? I usually don't criticise so these are merely observations and didn't affect our enjoyment at all, Rubi loves Jackie Greene and has nothing bad to say about him.. And even though it was dumping rain in the city and we had to drive through a whiteout to get home, nasty blizzards again, we made it safe and sound by 6 o'clock Sunday night.

If you went to this show and didn't have a great time something is wrong with you! We go to see our friend Melvin Seals next weekend can't wait for that one! And Jackie Greene is doing a show here in South Lake on Feb 17 and you can bet we will be there, (I work it that night for Renegade Productions anyway).

Well, another for the books, and a pair of happy hippie deadheads waiting for the next show...

Another Shady Essay

2008-01-10T10:46:00.001-08:00

Deadisticism

The Magic and Mysticism of the Grateful Dead

by Matthew Rick

"They're a band beyond description,
like Jehovah's favorite choir.
People join in hand in hand while the music plays the band
Lord, they're setting us on fire"

-- "The Music Never Stopped" by John Barlow and Bob Weir

Centuries from now, if someone were to dig through the pages of rock 'n' roll history it is doubtful that they would find a 20th century musical act that would generate more mystery, curiosity and misconception than the bizarre entity known as the Grateful Dead, with its tie-dyed legions of the faithful, the Deadheads. Believed by many to be the musical "keepers of the flame" of the elusive "spirit of the Sixties," the Dead were also, consciously and unconsciously, involved in the creation and continual reinvention of a living, growing mythical universe, filled with images, archetypes and references ranging from the mundane to the arcane.

Since their inception in 1965, the Grateful Dead had always been associated with magic, mysticism, and folklore. Even the band's former name, The Warlocks, meant a group of male wizards. Through the years, from their legacy as the House Band at the Merry Prankster's Acid Tests to their disbandment following the death of singer / guitarist and reluctant frontman Jerry Garcia, magic remained a vital ingredient in the Grateful Dead experience.

According to Deadhead lore, Jerry Garcia drew the band's name from a 1955 Funk and Wagnall's New Practical Standard Dictionary of the English Language. The definition was as follows:

grateful dead - The motif of a cycle of folk tales which begin with the hero's coming upon a group of people ill-treating or refusing to bury the corpse of a man who had died without paying his debts. He gives his last penny, either to pay the man's debts or to give him a decent burial. Within a few hours he meets with a travelling companion who aids him in some impossible task, gets him a fortune, saves his life, etc. The story ends with the companion's disclosing himself as the man whose corpse the other had befriended. 1.

This definition of the Grateful Dead gives an image of the band that is closely linked to karmic retribution (or, in the more vernacular, "what goes around comes around.") Such sentiments were evident everywhere at Grateful Dead shows, from lyrics such as "whichever way your pleasure tends, if you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind" to the gifting of "miracle tickets" (free tickets handed out -- often by complete strangers -- to ticketless heads in the lot.)

But what's in a name? After all, Garcia merely drew the name at random from a dictionary and liked it for its weird appeal. He apparently had no knowledge that the curious moniker had roots which may date back to a passage from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The passage, included in part on the cover of the band's first album, today graces the walls of many head shops across the nation. It reads:

Amidst the sullen Darkness there shown a solitary Lite
For it is known 'Neath the Sands of the Pharoahs
That deep in the Land of Nite,
The Ship of the Sun is drawn by The Grateful Dead.2.

Alone, a name associated with cryptic references is not enough to account for the mystique surrounding the Dead, though. There was no mistaking that they were not America's standard Top 40 pop music fare. Even during the anti-war '60's, the Dead gave little lip service to the protest movements. Their early lyrics, most often the work of Robert Hunter, were more likely to sound like zen koans than New Left political rhetoric, and the music had a style that was too erratic to be easily packaged into commercial radio.

Much of this was due to their bizarre heritage. Coming from backgrounds in a diverse range of musical training and interests ranging from roots music, folk, jazz, classical, bluegrass and blues, The Dead went from being an amateur jug band to plugging in and becoming rock 'n' rollers. With the additional perspective lent by the infusion of LSD, and a creative space to improvise and explore new musical terrain, provided by the Merry Pranksters, an iconoclastic cadre of Beat inspired psychedelicists, the Dead began what Garcia would later describe as a thirty year "psychopharmamusicalogical experiment." The result was a band that was much more interested in exploring their musical potential than in cutting singles.

In describing how the Warlock/GD performances at the Pranksters' Acid Tests would change to suit the moods of the audience and venue on a particular night, Prankster Ken Kesey said, "They weren't just playing what was on the music sheets, they were playing what was in the air. That means that the band [had] to be supple."3.

Then there was the Cassady factor. Through the influence of Neal Cassady, the infamous Dean Moriarty of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and, later, the madman who comandeered the Prankster bus FURTHUR from coast to coast, the Grateful Dead became, in many respects, the spiritual legatees of the Beats. Similarly, the Deadheads were the natural descendants of the Dharma Bums, carrying on the rucksack revolution where Kerouac's little St. Theresa bum left off.

During and after the Acid Tests as the band continued to play off one another's strengths and weaknesses, they developed a sense of "misfit power" and found their analogues not in music history texts but in the pages of science fiction novels. A particular favorite was Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human, in which the main characters comprise an entity that is collectively more powerful than its component parts.

At live performances, the band discovered that this organism was made up not only of themselves, but of the audience as well. In time, a reciprocal agreement developed between them and their audience. At their best, energy was exchanged, raised to higher and higher plateaus, reach a peak or crescendo, and then taper, allowing for a safe re-entry into the trials and tribulations of everyday life, often providing new insights brought about by a change of perspective.

Although unwilling to interpret their role as a vehicle for personal transformation, the band acknowledged that they were interested in utilizing the music as a vehicle for something than extended beyond recreation.

As Jerry Garcia would later say, "I think basically the Grateful Dead is not for cranking out rock and roll, it's not for going out and doing concerts or any of that stuff. I think it's to get high. To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe." 4.

Some nights the band and audience were capable of achieving this lift-off. Other nights they were not. But year after year, this band beyond description would tour the country, playing more sold-out concerts than any other band in the known history of the universe.

Dead Tour became the natural heir of West Coast bohemianism. The passing of the torch from the Beats to the psychedelicists, through the being of Neal Cassady, is well documented in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. When the Haight-Ashbury district became crippled by floods of homeless children and too many wolves in sheep's clothing, the Dead moved north to Marin and Mendocino counties and the "scene" continued to thrive where it began -- on the road. The road was the central spiritual metaphor that ran throughout the Grateful Dead universe. The band and fans would criss-cross the country two and three times a year, and Dead Tour became the archetypal Fool's Journey of the Saint of the Circumstance on the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion.

As many a Tour Head will attest, the magic of the Grateful Dead was in being present -- witnessing that moment when one of the band's legendary space jams would open up and the music would lift off into the unknown. These moments also brought with them experiences of personal revelation and a sense of connectedness, a feeling of being part of a larger whole, not unlike being cells that make up an organism.

Once these feelings began to be articulated, heads began to discover that they were not alone in these sensations and subsequently they developed a language to talk about these shared experiences. Perhaps the most common and easily accessible term was "the groupmind -- the collective identity or gestalt created at Deadshows."5.

With The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in many ways the definitive book on West Coast psychedelia, Tom Wolfe tried to capture the mojo, the groupmind gestalt, shared between the Merry Pranksters, and, by extension, the people who attended the Acid Tests by describing it in terms of sacred geometry. The phenomena was The Unspoken Thing, which occasionally gave way to kairos -- the supreme moment -- a time when temporal time intersected with universal time to bring about -- COSMO! -- a lightning flash of illumination. Zen master satori!

"Every once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right."

Nevertheless, there was no way to force the mojo. The supreme moment could be coaxed along by band and audience, but there were never any guarantees.

"We can raise the sail, but we can't make the wind come. 'Raising the sail' is preparing to be moved. Spirit is the wind, the sense of musical well-being, of being together. This is a unanimous process." 6. -- Mickey Hart

Magical references abound in the Grateful Dead universe, and heads frequently consult oracles and use synchronicity as signposts. In recalling his earliest travels with Neal Cassady, singer/ guitarist Bob Weir speaks of "Radio I Ching" and the words on the radio corresponding to the spontaneous raps pouring from Cassady's mouth. In time, the Deadheads began to recognize a similar phenomena as Radio I Ching -- hearing the band sing thoughts that mirrored their own consciousness. Or the outer world, as in the case where the Dead played their crowd pleaser "Fire on the Mountain" in Portland, Oregon, at about the same time that Mount St. Helens erupted for the second time in three weeks.7.

Synchronicity, or presence of "meaningful coincidences" abounds in the Deadhead cosmology. There is even an example of one such "meaningful coincidence" in a popular translation of the I Ching text. The fifty-sixth hexagram, Fire on the Mountain, is described "The image of the Wanderer." As noted in the previous paragraph, "Fire on the Mountain" is a highly popular Dead tune. What could better describe a Deadhead than "the image of the wanderer"?

Similarly, references to Deadisticism appear in other obscure texts. The term Dead Head for example: "In the alchemical process there was a phase called the 'Caput Mortuum,' or 'Dead Head,' -- the 'Nigredo' or 'Blackening' that was said to occur before the precepitation of the philosopher's stone."8. If taken to its natural conclusion, this would seem to imply that the Deadhead phenomena, on a universal scale, is an alchemical phase (the Nigredo perhaps describing the prevalence of self-destructive hedonism on Dead Tour?) necessary before the precipitation of universal enlightenment. (Or simply "furthur" proof of what Prankster Wavy Gravy refers to as "the Cosmic Giggle"?)

On the band's side of the laminated curtain there are plenty of references to magical symbolism as well. In the early Seventies, band members and extended family began a company to do extensive tinkering with experimental sound equipment (producing such results as their legendary Wall of Sound). For the name of the company, Bear, the band's resident alchemist, chose Alembic, an alchemical vessel wherein gold is distilled from the dross. In a 1973 Deadheads newsletter, St. Dilbert, the patron saint of Hypnocracy, used Uroborous, the ancient mystical symbol of a serpent swallowing its tail, to describe the bands viscious circle of More Gigs - Larger Halls - More Equipment - Bigger Organization - Larger Overhead - More Gigs... ad infinitum. (If the poor saint only knew how Uroborous' hunger would grow in twenty years to follow...)

According to the largely unpopular book The Dead by Hank Harrison, Harrison claims that during this period he was making regular trips to the Warburg Institute, home of one of the world's most extensive libraries of hermetic literature, and bringing back mystic volumes that the Dead were reading voraciously.

In addition, there is evidence that individual members of the band, to varying degrees, were interested in actively exploring and utilizing techniques that have come to be called "magical." Though reluctant to speak of such things, fearing (perhaps quite wisely) that Tour Heads will mistakenly give unwanted weight and misunderstanding to their words, the Dead venture into specifics on occasion.

Lyrcist Robert Hunter is a poet in the manner described by Robert Graves in The White Goddess. When Hunter speaks of "invoking the muse" to produce his finest works, he insists "the muse is not a trope."9.

"I've got this one spirit that's laying roses on me. Roses, roses -- can't get enough of those bloody roses. (The spirit) gives me a lot of other good lines too, but if I don't put the roses in, it goes away for a while. It's the most prominent image, as far as I'm concerned, in the human brain. Beauty, delicacy, short-livedness... There is no better allegory for -- dare I say it? -- life, than roses. It never fails. When you put a rose somewhere, it'll do what it's supposed to do. Same way with certain jewels -- I like a diamond here, a ruby there, a rose, certain kinds of buildings, vehicles, gems. These things are real, and the word evokes the thing. That's what we're working with, evocation."10.

Apparently a similar muse was visiting Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse when they first discovered the "Skull 'n' Roses," one of the most prominent Grateful Dead symbols. Skull 'n' Roses (or Skullfuck as the band likes to refer to it) was originally an illustration by Edmund J. Sullivan in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a Persian spiritual text. The design was utilized by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse as the center piece of an Avalon Ballroom poster for the band in 1968. "We had been looking for something to use for the Grateful Dead. Kelley and I just looked at each other and said, ' There it is, the perfect picture.' And so we designed a poster around that picture. We knew when it was finished that it was really hot because it felt right. It just fit so good with the name. The skeleton that symbolized death and the roses that symbolized rebirth and love. It just said Grateful Dead."11.

Throughout their career, the band ventured into numerous unorthodox waters, always pushing the outer limits of what it meant to be a rock 'n' roll band. While never espousing a particular philosophy or belief system, they took pleasure in playing "power spots," often on auspicious dates like solstices and equinoxes. In 1987 during the much publicized Harmonic Convergence, the Dead played Telluride, Colorado, following a set by Babatunde Olatunji. And, of course, the band played historic concerts in Egypt in 1978, where some members of the band's extended family were even allowed access to see the Ship of the Sun.

Very few, if any, people on the Grateful Dead Tour would admit to believing that they thought Jerry Garcia was God, but the widespread belief that the Deadheads were a personality cult who worshipped Garcia persisted. This was most evident in the rumors and mystery surrounding The Spinners (more formally, The Family of Unlimited Devotion). The Spinners were a communal group of young people in peasant dresses and other austere clothing who would twirl in the hallways of Deadshows and were often seen prostrate on the floor of the venues after Garcia would finish songs.

When asked about the Spinners, Garcia replied, "They're kind of like our Sufis. I think it's really great that there's a place where they can be comfortable enough to do something with such abandon. It's nice to provide that. That's one of the things I'm proud of the Grateful Dead for. It's like free turf."12.

When asked how he felt about the Jerry is God phenomena, Garcia responded with characteristic humor, "Anybody who thinks I'm God should talk to my kids." Did he mind being the focal point of a religious group? "Well, I'll put up with it until they come for me with the cross and the nails."13.

Caroline Rago, formerly a core member of the Family of Unlimited Devotion, said that the idea that they believed Jerry was God was a misconception. In the Spinner cosmology, she likened him more to an avatar -- describing a role similar in many respects to the one attributed to Bob Marley by Rastafarians. "He was the cosmic minstrel who provided the channel," she said.14.

Well into his eighties, the prominent mythologist Joseph Campbell discovered the Grateful Dead. Not usually a fan of rock 'n' roll, Campbell's interest was piqued by the Dead's myth making capacity. After attending a concert and seeing the audiences interest and enthusiasm, he claimed that they were "the antidote to the atom bomb."15.

Expressing and appreciating love and humor are perhaps the most crucial keys to understanding Deadisticism. Any attempt to describe the spiritual or transcendent qualities of the Grateful Dead without mention of the humor present on all levels, is sorely lacking. Humor is, in fact, the single most vital element in the Grateful Dead, perhaps even more crucial than the music itself. The Dead's roots are in Prankster antics, and it is this sense of benign mischief that has been the social glue holding band and fans together through many a difficult year. "When you lose your sense of humor, it just isn't funny anymore," Mr. Gravy reminds.

Why has the Grateful Dead become one of the most cherished myth making faculties in the last half of the twentieth century? Perhaps because they have never tried to impose meaning or belief systems on any of their listeners. Perhaps because they recognized early on that the whole was more powerful than its component parts.

Through it all, very few people in the band's nucleus or immediate family, were willing to offer definitive statements. If the Dead were dogmatic about anything, it was a dogmatic avoidance of dogma. Perhaps John Barlow summed up the phenomenon best. "[Deadheads] have what I consider to be one of the most positive developments in the history of spirituality: a religion without beliefs."16.

End Notes

1. Official Book of the Deadheads, Paul Grushkin

2. This passage has often been cited as coming from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but according to Bob Stone, it appears nowhere in the original Coptic.

3. Video short by Pete Shapiro following the video "Tie-Dyed: Rock 'n' Roll's Most Deadicated Fans."

4. Garcia: A Signpost to New Space, p. 127.

5. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads. p. 127.

6. Grateful Dead Family Album, p. 227.

7. Grushkin, p.11.

8. Holy Blood, Holy Grail, p.82.

9. Lecture, The Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, July, 1993.

10. Bay Area Music Magazine, cited by Brandilius, p. 150 GD Family Album.

11. One More Saturday Night.179-181.

12. Magical Blend

13. Magical Blend

14. Discussion, Light the Song: A Contemplative Retreat for Deadheads, Northfield Mount Herman

15. Campbell quote -- lecture at SF State "Ritual and Rapture: From Dionysus to the Grateful Dead." (Author's note: This concept was not unique to Campbell. More than one psychedelicist has noted that LSD was discovered at the same time as the splitting of the atom, intensifying humanities' spiral into the unknown. And one year before LSD was declared illegal in the United States, the Grateful Dead appeared, singing lyrics penned by a man who'd been introduced to LSD by the CIA funded MK-ULTRA program. The MK stood for Mind Kontrol.)

16. Skeleton Key, ix.

Thanks Dr. Timothy R.I.P.

2008-01-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

Thanks: Dr Timothy
Date: Jan 3, 2008 4:40 PM

And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. -- Ezekiel 34:29

"The Lord said unto me, 'I will take my rest and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs.' “-- Isaiah 18:4-5

Jesus • Medical Marijuana • Relevant Quotes
"Lord, when did we see thee sick or in prison and came unto thee?" And the King will answer and say unto them, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." -- Matthew 25:39-40
Go forth, and visit a prisoner today. http://www.hr95.org
What is the Word of God on the Cannabis plant?
The hemp plant (scientific name: cannabis, slang: marijuana) is one of the many useful herbs "yielding seed after its kind" created and blessed by God on the third day of creation, "and God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:12) He gave hemp for people to use with our free will.
God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth.To you it will be for meat." … And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:29-31) The Bible predicts some herb's prohibition. "Now the Spirit speakth expressly, that in the latter times, some shall … speak lies in hypocrisy … commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. (Paul: 1 Timothy 4:1-3)
The Bible speaks of a special plant. "I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more." (Ezekiel 34:29) A healing plant. On either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare 12 manner of fruits, and yielding her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelations 22:1-2) A gift from God.
How was cannabis used in Biblical times and lands?
Cannabis was used 12 ways: clothing, paper, cord, sails, fishnet, oil, sealant, incense, food, and in ceremony, relaxation and medicine. For so the Lord said unto me, "I will take my rest and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs. For afore harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches." (Isaiah 18:4-5)
What about cannabis today?
Hemp today has thousands of uses. Modern technology has devised many new uses for the hemp plant&emdash; like biomass energy, building materials, fuel, and plastic and so on. Hemp is ecological and its seed is among the best food crops on Earth. Selected varieties produce flowers that provide an herbal relaxant and a spiritual tool. Its herb is used globally as medicine.
Does the Bible discuss drugs?
Alcohol is the only drug openly discussed in the Bible, so it must serve as our reference. Wine is drunk during religious occasions such as Passover &emdash; the Last Supper of Jesus and His disciples. It remains a sacrament in modern church services.
Jesus began his public life by miraculously turning water into wine at the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-10) when the reception ran out. The Bible distinguishes between use and misuse. It says, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. (Proverbs 31:6-7) but Woe unto them that … follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! (Isaiah 5:10)
Yet the simple joys of drinking were also sung. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oil to make his face to shineth. (Psalm 104:14-15)
Did Jesus speak about choice?
He said not to criticize other people for their habits. "Not that which goeth into the mouth defiled a man; that which cometh out of the mouth defiled a man." (Mat. 15:11) The apostle Paul wrote, I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. … For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Paul: Romans 14:14,17)
Did He speak of government?
Jesus said to keep church and state apart. "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and unto God the things which be God's." (Luke 20:25) As we have seen, it was God, not government, who gave man the herbs to use. And it was government that put Jesus to death.
Property forfeiture laws?
He warned us about seizure and forfeiture laws. "Beware of the scribes which …devour widows' houses…. The same shall receive greater damnation." (Luke 20:46-47) Jesus, too, was a victim. The soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part. (John. 19:33)
What about the Drug War?
Blessed are the peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9)
It was God who created cannabis hemp and told mankind to use "every green herb" on Earth. The Bible speaks of mercy, healing and a persecution of God's children. They persecute me wrongfully; help thou me. (Psalms 119:86) Prisons and drug wars do not save souls. The Lord… hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)
What should the ministry do?
Teach God's truth. Warn your congregation that the war on marijuana is unchristian and must be ended. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you will be no priest to Me … for I desired mercy and not sacrifice. (Hosea 4:6, 6:6)
Remember: Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving…. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine. (Paul: 1 Timothy 4:4-6)

Summary analysis of the foregoing discussion
What does the Bible say about marijuana? The Bible says that God created hemp for people to use "as meat," (ie, to consume), that its seed oil is to be used as an ointment, and that cannabis is "to be received with thanks-giving of them which believe and know the truth." Paul also warned that some people would "speak lies in hypocrisy" and prohibit us from using it.
It also says that we "shall not bear false witness" about people who use cannabis, nor judge them because that judgement is reserved to the Lord. The Lord hates those who speak lies and sow discord among brethern. For those people harrassed and imprisoned for using cannabis rightfuly, Jesus offers these words of comfort, "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness's sake: For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
What would Jesus do regarding medical marijuana?
Despite common knowledge and widespread scientific support, the federal government has for nearly 30 years kept cannabis in schedule 1 as a deliberate way to deny patients access to medical marijuana. This includes people suffering from asthma, cancer, migraine headache, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, and provides relief for many other conditions. As a result, people at various locations across the USA have had to risk and suffer years in prison for providing medical marijuana to patients as an act of compassion and personal conscience. What would Jesus do? He chose to break the law in order to heal the sick.
"At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn, and his disciples were hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. 2) But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day 3) But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was hungered, and they that were with him? … 10) And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered, And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. 11) And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? 12) How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. 13) Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. 14) Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. 15) But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all; 16) And charged them that they should not make him known." (Matthew 12: 1-2, 10-16) (also see Mark 3, Luke 13, John 9)
Should people give blind obedience to government?
Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, 2) Why do thy disciple transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." 3) But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? … 7) Ye hypocrites! … 12) Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? 13) But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. 14) Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind, And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. (Matthew 15:1-3, 7, 12-14)

Passages from the King James Bible that are relevant
to the legal and moral status of Cannabis sativa, L.
And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:12)
God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Gen. 1:29-31)
(No prohibition of cannabis or any other drug is made in the Ten Commandments: See Ex. 20:1-17)
(Cannabis is mentioned in Ex. 30:23 but King James mistranslated it as 'sweet calamus') :
Moreover, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 23 Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even 250 shekels, and of qaneh-bosm [cannabis] 250 shekels, 24 And of cassia 500 shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: 25 And thou shalt make it an oil of holy anointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. 26 And thous shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony, 27 And the table and all his vessels, and the candlestick ahd his vessels, and the altar of incense, 28 And the altar of burnt offerings with all his vessels, and the laver and his foot. 29 And thou shalt sanctify them, that they may be most holy: whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy. (Exodus 30:22-29)
* As one shekel equals approximately 16.37 grams, this means that the THC from over 9 pounds of flowering cannabis tops were extracted into a hind, about 6.5 litres of oil. The entheogenic effects of such a solution -- even when applied topically -would undoubtedly have been intense.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oil to make his face to shineth. (Psalm 104:14-15)
The Lord said unto me, "I will take my rest and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches. (Is. 18:4-5)
And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. (Ezekiel 34:29)
(Jesus:) "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Matt. 15:11)
One believeth that he may eat all things. Another…eateth herbs. … Let us not, therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Epistle of St. Paul: Romans 14: 2,3,13,14,17)
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereupon thou hast attained. (Paul: 1 Timothy 4:1-6)
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielding her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev. 22:1-2)
Other relevant quotes:
Intoxication:
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. (Prov. 20:1)
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and wine unto those of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. (Prov. 31:6-7)
"Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! (Isaiah 5:10)
(Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana: See John 1-10. He also served wine at the Last Supper.) Prohibition:
(Jesus:) He said unto them, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and unto God the things which be God's." (Luke 20:25)
"Then came Peter to him and said, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, "I say not unto thee until seven times: But until seventy times seven." (Matt. 18:21-22)
(Jesus:) "If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand." (Mark 3:24)
(Jesus:) He saith unto them, "Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him.... That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man." (Mark 7:18-20)
Forfeiture:
As troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests commit murder in the way by consent. (Hos. 6:9)
(Jesus:) "Beware the scribes which desire to walk in long robes and … the highest seats in the synagogues and the chief rooms at feasts; Which devour widows' houses, and for a show make long prayers: They shall receive greater damnation." (Luke 20:46-47)
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part. (John 19:23) Persecution:
Thy commandments are faithful: They persecute me wrongfully; help thou me. (Ps. 119:86)
(Jesus:) "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake: For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:9-10)
(Jesus:) "The King shall answer and say unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethern, ye have done it unto me." (Matt. 25:40)
Tolerance:
These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood; An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief; A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethern." (Prov. 6:16-19)
(Jesus:) "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other, and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also." (Luke 6:27-29)
Truth:
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning: and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. (Proverbs 1:5)
If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked. (Prov. 29:12) Judgement & Punishment:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." (Is. 61:1)
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you will be no priest to Me…for I desired mercy and not sacrifice. (Hosea 4:6, 6:6)
(Jesus:) "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matt. 7:1-4)
(Jesus:) He beheld them and said, "What is this then that is written, 'The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner'?" (Luke 20:17)

Was Timothy Leary Right?

2007-11-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

published on Thursday, 19 April, 2007
By JOHN CLOUD
Time

Are psychedelics good for you? It's such a hippie relic of a question that it's almost embarrassing to ask. But a quiet psychedelic renaissance is beginning at the highest levels of American science, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Harvard, which is conducting what is thought to be its first research into therapeutic uses of psychedelics (in this case, Ecstasy) since the university fired Timothy Leary in 1963. But should we be prying open the doors of perception again? Wasn't the whole thing a disaster the first time?

The answer to both questions is yes. The study of psychedelics in the '50s and '60s eventually devolved into the drug free-for-all of the '70s. But the new research is careful and promising. Last year two top journals, the Archives of General Psychiatry and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, published papers showing clear benefits from the use of psychedelics to treat mental illness. Both were small studies, just 27 subjects total. But the Archives paper--whose lead author, Dr. Carlos Zarate Jr., is chief of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Unit at NIMH--found "robust and rapid antidepressant effects" that remained for a week after depressed subjects were given ketamine (colloquial name: Special K or usually just k). In the other study, a team led by Dr. Francisco Moreno of the University of Arizona gave psilocybin (the merrymaking chemical in psychedelic mushrooms) to obsessive-compulsive-disorder patients, most of whom later showed "acute reductions in core OCD symptoms." Now researchers at Harvard are studying how Ecstasy might help alleviate anxiety disorders, and the Beckley Foundation, a British trust, has received approval to begin what will be the first human studies with LSD since the 1970s.

Psychedelics chemically alter the way your brain takes in information and may cause you to lose control of typical thought patterns. The theory motivating the recent research is that if your thoughts are depressed or obsessive, the drugs may reveal a path through them. For Leary and his circle--which influenced millions of Americans to experiment with drugs--psychedelics' seemingly boundless possibilities led to terrible recklessness. There's a jaw-dropping passage in last year's authoritative Leary biography by Robert Greenfield in which Leary and two friends ingest an astonishing 31 psilocybin pills in Leary's kitchen while his 13-year-old daughter has a pajama party upstairs. Stupefied, one of the friends climbs into the girl's bed and has to be pulled from the room.
A half-century later, scientists hope to unstitch psychedelic research from their forebears' excesses. Even as the Clinical Psychiatry paper trumpets psilocybin's potential for "powerful insights," it also urges caution. The paper suggests psilocybin only for severe OCD patients who have failed standard therapies and, as a last resort, may face brain surgery. Similarly, subjects can't take part in the Ecstasy trials unless their illness has continued after ordinary treatment.

Antidrug warriors may argue that the research will lend the drugs an aura of respectability, prompting a new round of recreational use. That's possible, but today we have no priestly Leary figure spewing vertiginous pro-drug proclamations. Instead we have a Leary for a less naive age: Richard Doblin. Also a Harvard guy--his Ph.D. is in public policy--Doblin founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 to help scientists get funding and approval to study the drugs. (Doblin, 53, says he was too shy for the '60s, but he was inspired by the work of psychologist Stanislav Grof, who authored a 1975 book about promising LSD research--research that ended with antidrug crackdowns.) Doblin has painstakingly worked with intensely skeptical federal authorities to win necessary permissions. MAPS helped launch all four of the current Ecstasy studies, a process that took two decades. It's the antithesis of Leary's approach.

All drugs have benefits and risks, but in psychedelics we have been tempted to see only one or the other. Not anymore.

Grateful Dead fan is security chief

2007-11-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

Source: Guardian Unlimited

A Whitehall high flyer chosen by Gordon Brown to oversee the security and intelligence agencies is a cycling fan with a passion for the Grateful Dead.

Alex Allen, 56, was yesterday made chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, responsible for assessing reports from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

But his private interests are available for all to view on his personal website, with photos of him windsurfing to work up the Thames, in a bowler hat and pinstripe suit, during a transport strike in the 1980s. The site shows Allen sporting a skin-tight cycling outfit, playing guitar, and celebrating his 50th birthday with family and friends.

Extolling his favourite band, he says: "I first saw the Dead in the mud at Bickershawe in 1972 and was so knocked out ... I have been a Deadhead ever since." Beside listing computers and bridge as among his interests, the site reveals his west London address as well as home and mobile phone numbers.

Allen, currently the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, was the principal private secretary to John Major and Tony Blair (he says, "It's the same job as Bernard in Yes Prime Minister for those who watched that!") before becoming British high commissioner for Australia.

The JIC became notorious in the controversy over the Iraq weapons dossier published in the build-up to the Iraq war. The resulting Butler inquiry said the JIC chairman should be "someone with experience of dealing with ministers in a very senior role and who is demonstrably beyond influence and thus probably in his last post".

Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: November 16, 2007

Of Krassner,Kerouac,and Leary as Pranksters?

2007-11-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932) was the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. With the radical humor of his publication shattering taboos and breaking barriers, Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s.
Paul Krassner is indeed a writer/activist. Jack Kerouac never got on the bus, but one of his inspirations Neal Cassaday a.k.a. Dean Moriarity in On the Road, was one of the original core member/prankster for sure. The famous bus trip took place in 1964, (I was all of 10 and had not the slightest clue this was going on in my hometown) with New York Worlds Fair was the original destination so Kesey had a few years on the Beatles. Kesey's second novel Sometimes a Great Notion demanded his presence in New York, so Kesey bought a 1939 International Harvester school bus that he and the Merry Pranksters painted in day-glo colors, and outfitted it for a cross-country trip. With Neal Cassady at the wheel, they left La Honda in June 1964 and began their now legendary journey across the country, smoking marijuana, and dropping acid along the way. The top of the bus was made into a musical stage and when it detoured through some cities, the Pranksters blasted a combination of crude homemade music and running commentary to all the astonished onlookers. They arrived in New York in July after an arduous journey, whereupon Neal Cassady introduced them to Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg embraced the new legends immediately and arranged for them to drive to Millbrook to meet the other psychedelic pioneer, Timothy Leary. Jack Kerouac was not impressed and had little to say to either Kesey or the Merry Pranksters. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were not pranksters and Millbrook was a another astral plane ( or airliner ) all together albeit definitely pioneers treading different pathways on the same trail.
I think we need to look beyond and into the humor...psychedelics have been fun much more than religious in my experiences and I like that aspect the most.

Filesharing Lawsuits

2007-10-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

Louisiana State University's Response to the RIAA Letter.

Dear Mr. Peters:

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. The following has been posted on my Web site, and it should address some of your concerns. (http://www.lsu.edu/chancellor/issues/index.htm).

Issue: The RIAA has traditionally engaged in scare tactics and over- ambitious lawsuits. As an LSU student living on campus, what steps has/will LSU take to protect the privacy of students who use peer-to- peer networks for legal purposes? And what steps has/will LSU take to protect its students from the RIAA's scare tactics?

Answer: I assure you that LSU strives to protect the privacy of its students, faculty, and staff. Concerning the issue of peer-to-peer file sharing, Information Technology Service (ITS) has educational material available online at File Sharing at LSU and www.lsu.edu/itpolicy on actions you can take to avoid copyright infringement, and ways in which students who use peer-to-peer applications for legal purposes can protect themselves. In addition, the institution has implemented preventative measures to insure appropriate use of peer-to-peer applications on our campus network and within the residential housing network we support.

I want to take a moment to explain in a bit of detail about how RIAA notifications work, both in the past and now with their new tactic. Indeed, you are correct that they do seem to be taking ever more aggressive actions.

First, ITS (on behalf of the University) does not reveal the identity of students in response to any notification from RIAA (MPAA, or others) regarding potential copyright infringement – unless a legal court order is issued (a subpoena). Here is how the notification process works.

These entities notify LSU of their belief that their copyright is being misused, under what is called the Digital Millennium Copyright (DMCA for short); they give us the only details they can get via the network – the IP number of the device alleged to have infringed on their copyright. The DMCA law then requires LSU to pass on these notifications to those connected to our network at that address. We do not reveal that information to the entity issuing the DMCA complaint. We alert the student – not the RIAA. We do monitor the individual's response to the complaint and there are actions we take as a University network provider (detailed in those Web links above).

If the University is served with a subpoena (legal order from a court of law) requiring the name of a person associated with that IP address – usually the result of the problem not being addressed, then and only then do we reveal the information we have on the person – as required by law. At this point, LSU cannot do otherwise and be within the law.

The latest RIAA process is a step beyond the DMCA notifications, but again falls short of a court-mandated action. Now, the RIAA is notifying universities that a particular IP number is infringing copyright and that they intend to eventually issue a subpoena to sue that person in court – but they're offering a chance for that individual to settle in advance without going to court. What LSU will do in this new process is to proceed with forwarding the notification to the user involved (as if it was a DMCA complaint, which after a fashion it is) – but again, we are not revealing their identity without the legal subpoena. We are also going to send along information we have on the law, so the person can best judge what to do.

The news stories also talk about the RIAA asking universities to keep log files. How LSU is interpreting this is as follows. They do not want us, should they issue a subpoena later, to then say “… we erased our network records (say, after the end of a semester) so we can not tell you who had that IP address anymore.” LSU, at the time the notification is received, makes note of to whom we sent the letter; and we've kept that information. We are not tracking the use of that user or computer nor are we keeping data about any use. This is the limit of what we feel we must do under the law. Despite comments in the media from other institutions, I have confidence that they, too, are doing this minimal record keeping.

As a point of fact, in the two years that I have been at LSU, we have not once received a court-order/subpoena to reveal an individual's identity. LSU also is well below the national average in receipt of DMCA complaints as well, and as my recent broadcast memo stated, we have not received any notifications in this most recent RIAA action. I believe that LSU students by and large respond appropriately to initial DMCA notifications, and thus there is no need for the RIAA to go further. This has been our experience to date.

I assure you that the Office of the CIO here at LSU, through its Information Technology Security & Policy function, is closely monitoring the actions being taken by the RIAA, and will work with University Counsel on insuring our network environment continues to promote compliance with the law that protects both copyright owners and the privacy of our network community. We are also working to ensure that the LSU community stays informed of developments.

Again, LSU is committed to providing a safe, secure environment for faculty, staff and students.

Ken Kesey

2007-10-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

In 1999 Chris Comer & Rob Ervin at WAIF-FM's Chris & Rob late Night Talk Show took a wild ride with the author of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", Ken Kesey. Preparing for a trip to the UK, the late Mr. Kesey was loquacious about his past and his upcoming trip abroad with The Merry Pranksters and his famous bus FURTHER. In typical Chris & Rob fashion, this interview was alot of fun. Check it out!

http://www.chriscomerradio.com/ken_kesey/ken_kesey8-3-99.htm

Fall with Phil

2007-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

IT WAS A DAY TO REMEMBER, FROM THE SMOOTH GLIDE OFF THE HILL, WE HEADED FOR BESERKLEY. ONLY TO ARRIVE TOO EARLY TO CHECK INTO OUR MOTEL (WHICH FILLED WITH PHANZ) KILLING AN HOUR AT A SEAFOOD JOINT (SPANGLERS) AT THE FOOT OF UNIVERSITY AVENUE, GETTING RIPPED OFF TO THE TUNE OF $50 FOR 2 APPETIZERS 2 BOWLS OF CHOWDER A CUP OF JAVA AND A BLOODY MARY. WE BUZZED BACK TO THE MOTEL AND LITERALLY THREW OUR BAGS IN THE ROOM AND CAUGHT A CAB UP TO THE GREEK IN A CRAZY TAXI RIDE. WE GOT OUR SEATS IN THE DISABLED SECTION (EYE LEVEL WITH THE STAGE).

I WASNT REALLY SURE I WAS GOING TO MAKE THIS ONE AFTER ALL MY PREPARATION AS I HAD BEEN IN THE HOSPITAL 5 DAYS BEFORE WITH A BLOOD CLOT IN MY LEG, THHANKS TO SOME GOOD DOCTORING FROM BOTH MY DOC AND MY WIFE (WHO TOOK A LITTLE TOO MUCH JOY WITH THE INJECTIONS) I MADE IT!
tHEY OPENED THE SHOW WITH jACKIE GREEN (A LOCAL PLACERVILLE NATIVE) SINGNG GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOL GIRL, AND FROM THERE, WELL LETS JUST SAY WITH THE HELP OF A LITTLE MOLLIE THINGS GOT A LITTLE SWIRLY, BUT I DID GET PICTURES VIDEO AND A SETLIST:

Phil Lesh and Friends 09/23/07 The Greek Theater Berkeley, CA Set 1 Good Morning Little Schoolgirl Good Lovin' > Why Don't We Do It In The Road > Deal The Weight Gone Wandering * Cumberland Blues * Supercede You * Set 2 Jam> Playing in the Band > Mexican Girl Candyman Fire on the Mountain (Pee Jam) St Stephens A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall The Wheel > Eyes of the World Sugar Magnolia Doner Rap Encore: Going Down The Road Feeling Bad # * with Barry Sless on Pedal Steel # with Mark Karan on Guitar

IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE SOME OLD FAMLIAR FACES AND PHRIENDS ALONG WITH THE NEWBIES (WITH LOTS OF KIDS AND BABIES THERE TOO. MY BIGGEST BITCH WAS THE STENCH OF TOBACCO THROUGHOUT THE SHOW. i MEAN IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A DO WHATEVER ATSMOPHERE, BUT PEOPLE SEEMED TO HAVE NO REGARD FOR OTHERS ON THAT ISSUE. AND IT ENDED JUST LIKE IT BEGAN WITH A CRAZY PAKISTANI CAB RIDE BACK TO THE TRAVELODGE AND LATER THE NEXT MORNING BACK UP THE HILL TO MY MOUNTAIN HOME.
OTHER COMMENTS FROM PHILZONE WERE:
Good show. Kinda strange there was an hour-long break between sets. Setlist with Greene leans towards blues and Dylan stuff. Great Playing and St Stephen and fun to hear Phil bring Why Don't We Do It In The Road back. Sless played pedal steel on a smoking Cumberland and a Greene tune. Mark Karan came out and played on GDTRFB encore.
Highlight of the show was Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. And Jackie's version of Sugar Magnolia was hot, eat your heart out Bobby ;) Mark Karan, coming out for the encore only, looking bald and beautiful took the instrumentals where they needed to go. This band is great, but NEEDS someone like Mark Karan to join them on tour, someone who can tear into the Guitar - It was evident when he took the stage for Going down the road, that the band was missing IT. Jackie is great as a rhythm guitarist, that leaves Campbell on lead, He's good - but I'd prefer to see him pick up some of those instruments he brought along and never played...of course, that would mean that there would be a lead guitarist void, which there kinda was all night anyway. harsh? maybe... doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the show, or the experience, it was top notch, I think we're all a bit spoiled from hearing a more intense lead than what we got tonight
A couple of notes before I turn off for the night. The vantage point from near the sound board with the open stage and my binoculars gave me a good perspective of the comings and goings... The show was a family night at The Greek. So many kids, it felt great. My 15yo son was totally into his first Dead-family experience. I love the west coast. Barry was around all night, and it was obvious that he was scheduled, as his pedal steel was barely covered with a blanket. He was out by the soundboard later and looked totally relaxed. I wish he were on for the whole tour. Mark Karan was side stage for the whole 2nd set, sitting with his guitar, strumming to all of the songs. It was great to see him smiling and joyfully singing to Eyes, and even greater to see him rip up GDTRFB. Class act from Phil to make the space for him. JC was all over the place, looking fine in his red shirt and black hat. He was organizing the photographers all night and even arranged for a video camera toward the end of the show. He seemed to be on top of the world and dancing for Sugar Magnolia, as was everyone else in the theater.
Phil and folks put on a top-notch show tonight. It's the second night out, and there were some rough spots (Jackie caught the band off guard once or twice and vice-versa), but wow. WOW! First set was long. Jackie Greene plays hard, and this was a rock show. Sless was a perfect touch to the Jackie Songs, which I thought were very solid- Gone Wanderin' is a new favorite. Fire on the Mountain? Ah yes, and as they played it the lawn up top was lit by the setting sun and the fire was there, indeed. Hard Rain was a second set highlight. It's great to have a fresh rocker that everybody in the crowd already knows the words to. Eyes was well done but pretty standard arrangement. And the Sugar Mags? I see Jackie's been dipping into the Bobby songbook, and with great results. The house was shaking. Mark Karan coming out at the end was touching- I hope he's doing well. All in all, the band was full, though I think Molitz was a little low in the stew, and Larry Campbell, though great, didn't really step out. This group has much potential, and it's good to see Phil out again. Strange, his stage/monitor mikes got tripped up a few times and had Phil giving musical directions audible on the PA... gotta fix those little things. In the end, nobody got hurt... Thanks everybody for such a beautiful day among friends!
Bring on Mark Karan or Barry Sless or SOME other aggressive confident crowd-pleasing guitarist, since this music is BUILT for lead guitar breaks, and neither Jackie nor Larry are consistently rewarding crowd-pleasing emotionally paying-off guitarists. They both have their great strengths as guitarists, but Mark Karan INSTANTLY showed what had been missing all night long: confident, aggressive, melodically rewarding LEAD guitar! Of course, on a lot of songs it doesn't matter so much, but on the Dead songs like St Stephen or Eyes Of The World in particular, no-one was stepping up and playing RIPPING leads as and when required. Sigh. That's why I liked Schoolgirl > Good Lovin' > Do It In The Road > Deal openining brace: the band seemed quite new, quite unlike the many Phil and Friends bands I've known and loved; tight, skanky, focussed, rock and roll. It was kind of cool. But then as the show progressed, it became more like the complex, polyrhythmic Weird that Phil just can't resist, and I love so much... so it was mostly ALL GOOD, but dang, someone's gonna have to get confident on guitar in that strange brew Phil loves to mix. Unless Molitz is going to start filing some of those breaks, which would be cool if we could hear him, which we usually couldn't today... And I was going to save a serious review till later! So this is just a start. Hey, it was a GREAT show (in places), HARD RAIN alone worth the price of admission. Really! Later, I gotta set back and patch my bones...

Tarnished Galahad: The Prose and Pranks of Ken Kesey by Mathew Rick (Shady Backflash)

2007-08-28T20:48:00.000-07:00

Tarnished Galahad: The Prose and Pranks of Ken Kesey

by Matthew Rick

Once upon a time a young man of American
background thought he had discovered the Great
Secret, the Skeleton Key to the Cosmos, the Absolute
Answer to the Age Old Question asked by every
Wizard, and Alchemist and Mystic that ever peered
curiously into the Perplexing Heavens, by every
Doctor and Scientist and Explorer that ever wondered
about the Winding Ways of this world, by every
Philosopher and Holyman and Politician that ever
listened for the Mysterious Song beneath the beat of
the Human Heart.... the answer to "What Makes It All Go?"1.

Contemporary author, psychedelic pioneer or "beatnik in lumberjack country", Ken Kesey is an American writer and cultural figure who defies definition. He sprung onto the literary landscape in 1962 with an instant classic, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, followed it two years later with the towering masterpiece Sometimes A Great Notion, and then abandoned novel writing for 28 years to host a series of zany pranks and intrepid trips, interspersed with shorter written works at irregular intervals. The process of evaluating his life and work is, therefore, at least as erratic and whimsical as the man himself.

Born in La Junta, Colorado on September 17, 1935, the youngest of two boys, Ken Elton Kesey moved with his family to Springfield, Oregon in 1946 where he spent many years on a family farm. Reading the Bible and listening to stories on his grandmother's knee, he developed a deep appreciation for homespun yarns and Christian ethics. In high school, and later in undergraduate school, Kesey was a champion wrestler and set state records that he holds to this day. After high school he ran off and eloped with Faye Haxby, his high school sweetheart, and they had three children together, Jed, Zane, and Shannon. Even in the most renegade chapters of Kesey's career, his life is laden with honesty and integrity. The boy voted "most likely to succeed" in his high school class, Ken Kesey became an unlikely candidate for one of the most controversial figures in the psychedelic underground.

An excellent student, Ken Kesey graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Speech and Communications and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to enroll in the Creative Writing program at Stanford. His writing class that year, with Malcolm Cowley, became legendary and he produced drafts for two novels, one of which became One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Perry Lane

The atmosphere in the San Francisco Bay at that time captured Kesey's imagination instantly. While attending Stanford, he and his family lived in a low rent section of Palo Alto called Perry Lane. By night Kesey and fellow Stanford writing student Ken Babbs roamed the streets of San Francisco's North Beach hitting coffee houses, jazz concerts, and poetry readings, absorbing the atmosphere created by the Beat poets and what Kesey termed "the Neon Renaissance."

In time these late night musings, and the powerful influence of Jack Kerouac's On the Road and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, became the central subject of one of his earliest novels, an unpublished manuscript titled Zoo.

No less influential was the neighborhood where Perry Lane stood.

Perry Lane was basically old housing left over from World

War I. When the United States got into the war, the

Stanford farm was taken over as an Army camp to train

soldiers. They put up this shotgun housing. They just lay

these little framed cabins in a row and a squad of soldiers

would live there. Those shacks, the ones that survived,

became the Perry Lane community.

A bohemian village grew up there. From 1920 until they

were torn down, the houses were occupied by artists,

writers, and people trying to live cheaply. Over the years,

they had been modernized, fixed and built-up. By the late

sixties, you had Stanford literary types living there,

drinking wine and having intellectual discussions. It was

into the middle of this community that psychedelic drugs

were introduced.2.

At the suggestion of Vic Lovell, a friend on Perry Lane who was studying psychology, Kesey volunteered to participate in a series of "psychotomimetic" drug experiments at the local VA hospital. Participants in the VA hospital experiments met one evening a week, and were paid $20 a session.

Under the influence of the drugs, Kesey felt as if he'd developed extra-sensory perceptions, such as an ability to see into other people's thoughts. Believing that he could get more from the drugs in an environment that was not so sterile, Kesey smuggled handfuls of the drugs home to share and ingest amidst the artists and free spirits on Perry Lane.

According to Lovell:

We pioneered what have since become the hallmarks of

hippy culture: LSD and other psychedelics too numerous to

mention, body painting, light shows and mixed media

presentations, total aestheticism, be-ins, exotic costumes,

strobe lights, sexual mayhem, freakouts and the deification

of psychoticism, eastern mysticism, and the rebirth of

hair.3.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Interested in getting direct access to the psychedelic drugs, Kesey took a job as a psychiatric aide at the same VA hospital. Ingesting various substances and working all night at the mental institution became the inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. According to Kesey, the narrator's voice, which many consider the masterstroke of the novel's success, came one day when he'd done a particularly strong dose of peyote and the first three pages poured from him, establishing a narrative tone that was used effectively throughout the novel. The three pages remained virtually untouched after numerous revisions.

Chief "Broom" Bromden is the novel's narrator -- a large paranoid Indian who feigns deafness because people ignored him early in life. In time he decides that it is much more "cagey" to hide in shadows and avoid conflicts. Chief Broom is given the title both because his father was chief in a tribe of Colombian Indians and because on the ward he is given the duty of sweeping.

Since the tale is told from his point of view, its descriptions of the ward and its inmates have been distorted. Early in the novel Bromden lets this be known, but insists, "It's the truth, even if it didn't happen." This distorted narrative technique allows Kesey the freedom to exalt the novel's protagonist and to grossly exaggerate the negative characteristics of the novel's authority figures, the central antagonists.

Because he feigned deafness since entering the ward years earlier, Chief Broom is able to see and hear all. What gives the novel its hallucinogenic quality, however, is Bromden's perception of the ward as a mechanistic monster entirely under the control of the head nurse, Nurse Ratched.

The ward, (or the Combine, as it is also called) is portrayed entirely by cold, mechanical descriptions. This is evident early on in passages such as the following description of Nurse Ratched:

She's really lets herself go and her painted smile twists,

stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and

bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery

inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load.4.

These metaphors continue throughout the book, and it becomes very clear that the Big Nurse does not merely represent a cog in the machine that is the Combine, but is herself the machine. She represents everything that sterile, mechanized society had to fear in the early 1950's, and in many ways, she embodied, early on, the very society that Kesey's psychedelic escapades sought to liberate people from.

Into this sterile Combine comes the rowdy promiscuous gambler, Randle Patrick McMurphy. He is everything a bawdy Irish drunk can be, and his presence immediately sets the ward on edge. Thus the stage is set -- R.P. McMurphy witnesses the Big Nurse's smooth mechanical control and immediately sets himself to the task of rattling her cage -- taking bets on the outcome.

To say that the challenge has overt sexual connotations is an understatement -- the very challenge that McMurphy sets himself to is to prove his own virility against the castrating influence of the woman that he describes as nothing less than a ball cutter. This description of Nurse Ratched leads to the development of the novel's central theme -- that of life in favor of mechanization.

Even while the plotline runs along this simple, linear challenge, mounting to a conventional climax, Kesey's use of Chief Broom as the narrator provides for an altogether unconventional perspective. Bromden's intense, colorful, "hallucinatory" episodes take the reader into the heart of Kesey's imagination and allow the reader to experience the horror of The Combine as the ultimate oppressive machine. Bromden lies awake at night watching what, undoubtedly, were flashes of some of Kesey's own psychedelically induced insights, and sees the horrors of the Combine as only a neurotic possessed of second sight can see them -- people gutted only to find electronic wiring rather than blood and intestines, mindless humming and whirring that drones on endlessly, a knob on the wall which the Big Nurse manipulates to slow and speed up time on the ward, these are but a few of the many examples the Chief gives, witnessing the manner in which the people in the ward have ceased to be human and have allowed themselves to corrode into emotionless automatons.

McMurphy is not merely up against the Big Nurse and her ward, but against all the controlling aspects of society, which molds its conformists into dull mechanical robots for the Combine.

The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up

mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and

in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product

goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better

than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart;

something that came in all twisted and different is now a

functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole

outfit and a marvel to behold.5.

The novel is broken up into four distinct parts, each containing ten chapters. The four parts give the structure of the novel a feel very much like a sporting event, or a chess game, with the final quarter being the novel's Endgame. The entire focus of the structure is set from the beginning around the inevitable confrontation between Nurse Ratched and R.P. McMurphy, and the question of how this conflict would be resolved.

More important, however, is McMurphy's role in helping the men on the ward achieve, and accept their own liberation. In this respect, one of McMurphy's primary functions in the novel is to serve as redeemer for the rest of the patients. In Kesey's words "[McMurphy] was inspired by the tragic longing of real men on the ward" (at the VA Hospital where Kesey worked as a night attendant during much of the writing of this novel.)6.

Midway through the novel, McMurphy begins to realize that he will only be released when Nurse Ratched feels he is fit to return to society. This realization has many of the other patients suddenly believing that McMurphy will tow the line for an early release. For a whole section it looks as if McMurphy will do just that, but it then becomes obvious that kissing ass did not sit well beneath his boastful pride. The hell-raising McMurphy introduced in the early scenes returns in full swing, breaking plate glass windows, taking patients on weekend-long fishing trips, and smuggling booze and prostitutes into the ward after hours. This is when the novel's real showdown begins.

In the end, McMurphy proves to be a tragic hero, and one who must make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Redemption. In this case, the Redemption is the return of humor and strength he brings to the men on the ward, notably Chief Broom. McMurphy is the Dying God who must be slain to allow new life to spring forth.

One interpretation of Cuckoo's Nest views McMurphy as "A Dionysian Lord of Misrule" who "presides over a comic fertility ritual and restores instinctual life to the patients."7. Another sees the novel as a romance centering on the waste-land theme, in which McMurphy is "a successful Grail Knight who frees the Fisher King and the human spirit for a single symbolic and transcendent moment of affirmation."8.

The breadth and variety of interpretations of Cuckoo's Nest are almost as intriguing as the novel itself. It received instant critical acclaim, becoming standard reading in many fields of psychiatry. In addition, it was adapted into a successful Broadway play and an Oscar award winning Hollywood movie. Despite this popularity, Kesey often felt that readers had missed the point -- that the novel was not merely a battle of McMurphy versus the Big Nurse, but rather it presents the challenge that each of us faces in the mechanistic world of the Combine. The Combine is Kesey's Babylon, a crushing overpowering Authority which squelches humanity and individuality in favor of conformity and estrangement from one's emotions.

Cuckoo's Nest was also heavily criticized for its views towards sex and race. Kesey was portrayed by many as a misogynist and a racist, a reputation that he has still not fully lived down. The manner in which Kesey focuses on sex roles and racial stereotypes resurfaces time and again in critiques of his works. Nowhere is his blatant treatment of the tension between the sexes so vivid as in Cuckoo's Nest, however.

Such criticisms as the following were not uncommon:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a very beautiful and

inventive book violated by a fifth-rate idea which made

Woman, in alliance with modern technology, the destroyer

of masculinity and sensuous enjoyment.9.

Sometimes A Great Notion

After finishing Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey immediately began writing his second novel, Sometimes A Great Notion. In order to research the novel, he sublet his place on Perry Lane and moved north to Oregon. He took residence in a local logging community and wrote about a stubborn Oregon logging family, the Stampers.

The novel was a tremendous effort, and one which ultimately created Kesey's most intricate and experimental writing. The scope of the novel, particularly in regards to its work with characterization and point of view, is enormous. Critically, the novel met with mixed regards, and it never quite reached the level of commercial success of Cuckoo's Nest. Nevertheless, it was a major milestone in Kesey's career.

"Come look", the opening paragraph of Great Notion invites. The river, the mighty Wakonda river, is the central feature of the setting, and a great deal of the novel. But "look closer" -- zoom in on the arm dangling from a front porch stubbornly jutting out from the riverbank. It is a human arm with all the fingers but the middle one tied down. The arm is a message. Hank Stamper is the messenger. His message is NEVER GIVE A INCH! He is the novel's central hero.

The novel's storyline begins at the end and then backtracks through the memories of Viv, Hank's wife, looking through a scrapbook. The tale is an epic in the sense that it traces a family's history back a few generations, but it is primarily concerned with a single generation and within that generation the relationship of two half brothers -- Hank and Leland.

NEVER GIVE A INCH! This defiant maxim becomes the backbone of the Stamper tradition and it becomes the cause of the novel's many interwoven conflicts. NEVER GIVE A INCH! The words were written by Henry Stamper at the birth of his first son, Hank. NEVER GIVE A INCH! The words were written in a schoolboy scrawl over the most putrid yellow paint he could find -- paint that he'd splashed on a plaque given to him by his father Jonas A. Stamper, deserter and Kansas religious man, upon the birth of Hank. The plaque initially bore a portrait of Jesus Christ above the words "Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the earth." Henry would have no part of such nonsense. His father had deserted him and he'd be damned before he'd raise his boy to revere meekness. He decided NEVER GIVE A INCH! was a more appropriate code to live by and hung the plaque above the newborn's bed. This maxim came to be the core of Hank's personal philosophy. The rest of the novel is then structured around the need to "make Hank give up."10.

In sharp contrast to the figure of Hank Stamper is his half brother Leland Stanford Stamper. Leland is as insecure and neurotic as Hank is bold and self-assured. While Hank's mother died very early in his life, leaving the boy to be reared by Henry and the equally stern teacher of the Wakonda Auga river, Leland is portrayed as a momma's boy and an intellectual. What exacerbates the rivalry between the boys is that Myra, Leland's mother, seduces young Hank on his sixteenth birthday and the two become lovers, an event that does not go unnoticed by Leland, who watches everything through a hole in his bedroom wall.

"Just you wait 'til I get old enough," Leland whimpers, sounding every bit the part of the 97-pound weakling who's just had sand kicked in his face. A primary focus of the novel is Leland's attempts to measure up to Big Brother Hank, who chides, "you should be a big enough guy now, bub."

Taken together they represent rugged West Coast individualism (Hank) and East Coast intellectualism (Leland). In addition, they represent the conflicting loyalties Kesey felt towards his robust wrestling friends and the artsy intellectual crowd he encountered on Perry Lane.

The concept of self-reliance emerges time and again, polarized as it is between dependent Leland and independent Hank. Interwoven with Kesey's message about the need for self-reliance and individual freedom is the message that such freedom can become a cage. Because Hank is strong and dependable, he becomes a target for the other characters to prove themselves. .

Leland decides that his most potent act of revenge would be to seduce Hank's wife, Viv, by far the most sophisticated female character in all of Kesey's novels.

In addition to the rivalry between the brothers, exemplified by their relationships to work and Hank's wife Viv, there is a secondary storyline, which is that of the Stamper logging mill against the union. This conflict centers around the Stamper mill's decision to cross a union picket line, effectively ostracizing the entire Stamper family from the town. This conflict is no less important in terms of Kesey's determination to "try to make Hank give up" and gives the novel its rustic Oregonian feel.

Hank's central conflict is to remain strong despite the mounting pressures lumped on him by Leland and the local logging community. Much like R.P. McMurphy, he must carry the weight of the other character's weaknesses.

What separates the two novels is the manner in which this strength is portrayed and the characters fulfill their destinies. Particularly useful in understanding the manner in which Great Notion was constructed are Kesey's manuscript notes.

The question of self reliance emerges time and again.

In Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey examined what the hero owes to

others; In Notion he examines what the hero owes to

himself -- and, paradoxically, how being true to the self

ultimately serves the community.11.

"Making Hank give up" is part of the novel's questions about suicide. This is evident from the start. The novel gets its title from the song "Good Night Irene."

Sometimes I live in the country,

Sometimes I live in the town

Sometimes I get a great notion

To jump in the river and drown.

As was previously mentioned, the novel opens with the conflict's resolution. Viv, tired of being a pawn in the power struggle between the brothers, decides to make her exit. Hank alienates the town in his refusal to give in to the demands of the local union, and Leland, strengthened by the events which slowly unfold in the story, emerges with confidence, if not outright heroism. All of these events are hinted early on, but it is immediately apparent that Kesey is only willing to yield the Big Picture a little at a time. He does this by threading numerous storylines and points of view together so that they form a colorful mosaic that makes up the story's entirety.

As one reviewer pointed out:

In the beginning, the reader is likely to be confused. For

instance Kesey abruptly turns from third person to first

person and back again with no explanation. He uses italics,

parenthesis and capitals to introduce elements from one

story into another, and the reader doesn't know who's who

or what's what. But, with a little patience, he finds

himself and understands what Kesey's trying to do.12.

Kesey told Gordon Lish that in Great Notion he was "fooling around with reality and what reality can be."13.

This was no doubt heavily inspired by the influence that psychedelics were having on his own framework of "what reality can be," a question that Kesey returns to time and again throughout his life.

The book was well received by the critics, but required too much attention for the average light reader and, as a result, did not sell as well as Cuckoo's Nest. Even readers who looked for a challenge were scared away by the book's size and complexity. This was also evident in the film version of the novel, which, like Cuckoo's Nest, had a number of stars but did not become a box office success.

Following the publication of Great Notion, Kesey reflected:

After two successful novels and ten times two successful fantasies, I find myself wondering 'What to prove next? I've shown the buggers that I can write, then shown them I can repeat and better the first showing, now what do I prove?'

The answer seems to be 'prove nothing.'

A clever challenge, chaps, and one, I confess, that stirs the fight in me. Now anyone can crank out a nice compact commercial and vend it as literature, but how many are there capable of advancing absolute proof of nothing?'

'Not many, no, not so very many.'

'Then, by jingo,' slapping his thighs vigorously, 'Let's do it!'14.

In the eyes of the East Coast literary establishment, Kesey did a fair job of "advancing absolute proof of nothing" for over 20 years. His next novel would not appear until 1992, a full 28 years after Great Notion, though he published a number of shorter works, and his bibliography includes a consistent trickle of short stories, plays, and experimental writings.

The Merry Pranksters Search for the Cool Place

The next chapter of Kesey's career is carefully documented in Tom Wolfe's best seller, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The period marked for Kesey a departure from writing novels into a period of living theater, in which he was actively engaging in comic book heroism and prankster theatrics as a means of jarring reality out of the restrictions of middle-class American society. Kesey's motives were never particularly political, so much as they were artistic.

After the completion of Great Notion, Kesey returned to California, where he purchased a 1939 International Harvester school bus, which he and his friends painted,

with everybody pitching in in a frenzy of primary

colors, yellows, oranges, blues, reds. It was sloppy as

hell except for the parts Ray Seburn did, which were

manic mandalas. Well, it was sloppy, but one thing you

could say for it -- it was freaking lurid.15.

The front destination sign read "Furthur" with two u's, while the back read "Caution: Weird Load." The bus was equipped with one of the finest stereo systems of the day, capable of, among other things, broadcasting outside the bus from speakers on top of the bus. The bus also contained sleeping accommodations, a platform on the roof to host theatrics, photography equipment, and a refrigerator kept full with acid-laced orange juice.

Behind the wheel of the bus, Kesey placed Neal Cassady, the model for Dean Moriarty from Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Cassady had arrived on Perry Lane while Kesey was still in Oregon gathering information for Great Notion. The character of Dean Moriarty had made a tremendous impression on Kesey early in his North Beach years, evidenced by his early novel Zoo, so to have the flesh and blood Cassady standing before him talking a mile a minute was, for Kesey, nothing less than astounding.

"I saw that Cassady did everything a novel does, except that he did it better because he was living it and not writing about it,"16. Kesey would later claim.

Like Dean Moriarty, Neal Cassady was a high strung Denver kid, aged more than a decade since the events in Keroauc's novel took place, who was constantly living on what Wolfe called Edge City, eager to "Go! Go! Go!" non-stop in a chaotic frenzy of amphetamine heightened emotions and experiences. He took the transformation from alcohol and jazz to acid and rock 'n' roll in stride, as though it were a natural step in his evolution.

The bus trip began on June 14, 1964.

Kesey loaded all of his friends from Perry Lane, many with newly acquired Prankster nicknames, onto the bus and took off on a cross country road trip to New York for the publication party of Great Notion and the New York World's Fair. In the process they filmed "The Merry Pranksters Search for The Cool Place," Kesey's concept for the world's first acid induced "cinema novel."

"None of us are going to deny what other people are doing. What we are we are going to wail with on this trip."20.

In addition to buying the bus, Kesey began Intrepid Trips, Inc., a motion picture company built on the capital from his two novels. Kesey had been extremely interested in film as an interactive medium for years. This is little surprise, considering his undergraduate work was centered around drama and communications. In Great Notion, the reader often gets the feeling that Kesey has geared the writing towards a cinematic audience, attempting to take the camera literally into the psyches of the various characters. When Kesey set out to make the cross-country bus movie, one motive seems to have been a desire to take film outside of its ordinary confines the way he did with language in Great Notion. The official duty of Intrepid Trips was dubious since the only movie it ever produced ("The Movie") was never released commercially (and has only recently been made available on video tape) and only shown publicly at the Acid Tests.

What Intrepid Trips did do was something quite different.

The trip took the Pranksters from the Golden Gates of San Francisco down south through Arizona, Texas and Louisiana before swinging north, where they dropped in on Timothy Leary's New York religious organization, the League for Spiritual Discovery.

By the end of 1965, according to Faye's bookkeeping, Intrepid Trips, Inc. had spent $103,000 on various Prankster enterprises. Living expenses for the whole group ran about $20,000 for the year, a low figure considering there were seldom fewer than ten people around to be taken care of and usually two or three vehicles. Food and lodging were all taken care of by Kesey.17.

The Pranksters returned to La Honda in August of 1964 and set about editing the forty-five hours of home movies.

Once relocated to La Honda the Prankster enclave expanded rapidly. Among the many that journeyed to La Honda was Carolyn Adams, dubbed Mountain Girl. She became a core Prankster almost immediately and later gave birth to Sunshine Kesey, her first and Ken's fourth child.

The parties also did not escape the notice of local police. Knowing their home was under surveillance, the Pranksters made a huge sign, intended for Federal Agent William Wong, which they hung on the top of their house. It read: "WE'RE CLEAN, WILLIE!"

The police, unconvinced, obtained a warrant, and:

On April 23rd, 1965 at 10:50 pm the sheriff, seventeen deputies, Federal Agent Wong, eight police dogs, cars, wagons, guns, posses, ropes, walkie-talkies, bullhorns -- Cosmo! the whole freaking raid scene -- and right up to the end the Pranksters played it as they saw it: namely as a high farce, an opera bouffe. The cops claimed they caught Kesey trying to flush a batch of marijuana down the toilet. Kesey claimed he was only in there painting flowers on the toilet bowl.18.

The absurdity of the scene, played out as it was in the local media, only increased Kesey's growing legion of admirers. Rather than slink down out of the public eye, Kesey responded to continued police surveillance by posting a huge banner across the entrance to his property: THE MERRY PRANKSTERS WELCOME THE HELL'S ANGELS!

The act was so outrageous that it left local law enforcement flabbergasted. Those attending the parties found the events no less impressionable. As journalist Hunter S. Thompson (who introduced Kesey to the Hell's Angels) would later recount:

San Francisco in 1965 was the best place in the world to be. Anything was possible. The crazies were seizing the reins, craziness hummed in the air, and the heavyweight king of the crazies was a rustic boy from La Honda named Ken Kesey. He had the craziest gang in the West. LSD-25 was legal in those days, and Kesey's people were seriously whooping it up. It was a whole new world. 'Do it now' was the motto, and anything not naked was wrong. The best minds of our generation somehow converged on La Honda, and Kesey had room for them all. His hillside ranch in the canyon became the world capital of madness. There were no rules, fear was unknown, and sleep was out of the question.19.

The parties at La Honda grew and evolved until Kesey had the idea to create a geodesic dome and began work on a series of multi-media sight and sound shows that came to be known as The Acid Tests.

The Acid Tests were a culmination of all Kesey had learned from psychedelics and alternative forms of self-expression. Among the many sensory manipulations in the tests were flashing lights and moving screens playing more than one movie simultaneously (including "The Movie") while the sounds of San Francisco's growing circle of acid rock bands played on all night.

The combined effects of Kesey's Prankster activities, the emerging sounds of San Francisco's psychedelic Renaissance and the catalyst of vast quantities of acid made for the legendary status of the Acid Tests.

As Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead explains:

There were no sets. Sometimes we'd get up and play for ten minutes and all freak out and split. We'd just do it however it would happen. It wasn't a gig, it was the Acid Test where anything was OK. Thousands of people all helplessly stoned all finding themselves in a room full of people, none of whom any of them were afraid of. It was magic. Far out beautiful magic.20.

The tests in turn created an atmosphere of no-holds-barred eccentricity that soon blossomed into San Francisco's flower powered Haight-Ashbury district.

For Kesey the psychedelic heyday came to an abrupt halt in 1966 with his second arrest for possession of marijuana. (The first arrest had been April, 1965, during the raid at La Honda.) Soon after he was placed on probation for the first charge he was caught on a rooftop with Mountain Girl on a second possession charge.

Kesey had been upping the ante, a little at a time, directly confronting the authorities with his audacity. The government was more determined than ever to put an end to the theatrics of the promising young Stanford student they had inadvertently introduced to psychedelics.

As Kesey would later joke:

What was it that had brought a man so high of promise to so low a state in so short a time? Well, the answer can be found in one short word, my friends, in just one all-well-used syllable: DOPE!21.

At the trial for the second bust the judge called Kesey "Tarnished Galahad," a title Kesey found amusing. Later, while on the lam in Mexico he commemorated the occasion by composing a song :

Down to five pesos from five thousand dollars

Down to the dregs from a lip-smacking foam

Down to a dopefiend from a prizewinning scholar

Down to the bush from a civilized home.

What people once called a promising talent

What used to be known as an upstanding lad

Now hounded and hunted by the laws of two countries

And judged to be only a Tarnished Galahad.

Tarnished Galahad -- did your sword get rusted?

Tarnished Galahad -- there's no better name!

Keep running and hiding 'til the next time you're busted

And locked away to suffer your guilt, and shame.22.

Knowing he would not be given a merciful sentence, Kesey feigned suicide and fled to Mexico where he remained for close to nine months. In the fall of 1966 Kesey crossed back into the United States on horseback with a guitar slung across his back, telling customs agents he was Singing Jimmy Anglund, Las Vegas country and western singer. He showed a Bank of America identification card to prove it. He immediately began to make a number of flamboyant public appearances, including a radio broadcast from a Bay area station.

"It's time to go beyond acid," he claimed, and announced at an October 2, 1965 San Francisco State University Acid Test that he would be hosting an Acid Test Graduation. "The question is no longer CAN you pass the Acid Test, but DID you pass the Acid Test?"23.

I think it's time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. I don't know what this is going to be in any way that I could just spell out, but I know we've reached a certain point but we're not moving anymore, we're not creating anymore, and that's why we've got to move on to the next step...24.

Kesey was getting careless. He hoped was to make one final appearance at the Halloween Acid Test Graduation and then, when the police descended on him, as he had no doubt they would, his superhero comrades would let down a rope which he would scale to the helicopter waiting on the rooftop and make one last heroic getaway.

He was caught before this could occur.

The capture added an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion to Kesey's plans for an Acid Test Graduation. Kesey had been presenting his theory for going "beyond acid" for weeks -- ever since his return from Mexico -- telling people "you find out what you came to find when you're on acid and we've got to start doing it without acid."25. To those who hadn't heard this theory, though, it suddenly looked as though he was copping out, telling the growing legion of acidheads in the Haight-Ashbury that acid wasn't the way, and that he had cashed in his chips for a more lenient sentence.

The Acid Test Graduation took place on Halloween as planned. Diplomas were handed out, and the event became another of the infamous Prankster "happenings."

Three weeks later, on November 30, Kesey went on trial for his second count of possession of marijuana. The trial ended in a hung jury, as did his retrial the following April, and Kesey put in the plea nolo contendre to the lesser charge of "knowingly being in a place where marijuana was kept" and was given a ninety day sentence. In May he lost his appeal of the original marijuana bust and was sentenced to six months on a county work farm, a $1,500 fine and three years' probation, a sentence ironically similar to McMurphy's in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kesey served his two sentences concurrently.

When he returned from prison, Kesey moved to Pleasant Hill, Oregon where he purchased a farm and lives with Faye to this day. This is also where the tale presented in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test ends. Kesey claims the book is "96% true"26. . and it is the image of him that has endured in the public eye.

Kesey's Garage Sale

In 1973, Kesey's Garage Sale was released. As the title implies, the book is a strange assortment of Kesey's thoughts collected from a variety of sources. Kesey calls it his comic book.

The book promises "5 Hot Items, Guest Leftovers and a Surprise Bonus." Taken together, the contents offer invaluable insight into the character of Ken Kesey as one of the era's most colorful and creative visionaries.

In his fiction, Kesey took up the "character" created in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, renamed him Devlin Deboree (Devil in Debris) and began to write semi-autobiographical tales that serve as Kesey's own reflections on that period in his life.

The first place that Devlin Deboree appears is in "Over the Border," a 136 page screenplay complete with cartoon doodles in the margins. The subject of the play is Kesey's journey as a fugitive in Mexico. The significance of the work lies in its self-reflection. Much, if not all, of Garage Sale is an attempt by Kesey to come to terms with the results and ramifications of the psychedelic revolution that he played so central a role in. "Over the Border" is, then, a coming of age story for that particular social movement. Kesey grapples at length with the value of "revolutions", even to the extent that Houlihan (the charicature of Neal Cassady) refers to him as a "psychedelic fascist". It is clear that Kesey sees the power inherent in potent mind altering substances and wants nothing to do with Manson-like power tripping.

Kesey's bold, self-reliant characters continue to examine social responsibility, and at the heart of the tale is Kesey's heavy dependence on moralizing. This is perhaps a bit too transparent in the play, but when taken in the context of the rest of Garage Sale, it provides remarkable insight into Kesey's personal transformations.

Also of interest are Kesey's "Tools From My Chest," Hot Item #3. Originally printed in Stewart Brand's "Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog," Kesey's Tools are short reflections on a number of people, places and things that he had considered valuable in his life.

Topping the list is the Bible. It is only the beginning of a list that includes the I Ching, Dawgs, Dope, Booze, Burroughs, Joan Baez, Eldridge Cleaver, William Faulkner, Timothy Leary, Pogo and many many others. Some of the Tools are tributes, others friendly anecdotes.

"Spit in the Ocean"

Much of Kesey's work during the next 20 years was just as erratic as Garage Sale, often appearing at very irregular intervals through a publication of the "Intrepid Trips Information Service" called "Spit in the Ocean." In "SITO" Kesey utilized the format of unpredictable literary comic books to pilot his "Seven Prayers by Grandma Whittier," a concept Kesey calls "form in transit." From these six volumes, Kesey managed to create a number of short works that reappeared in altered forms in "Rolling Stone" magazine, a later book called Demon Box, and a script that was altered to become The Further Inquiry. From the first issue on, it is clear that "SITO" is yet another of Kesey's experiments in alternate forms of expression -- including rotating the editor of the publication every issue.

In 1981, Kesey's son Jed died in a van accident returning from a high school wrestling match. The death of the child devastated Kesey. He buried his son in his back yard and built a monument to memorialize the boy on Mount Pigsah. Kesey still makes frequent reference to the death of his child, as is evident in the following excerpt from an interview:

I was driving around one time after Jed died. He'd been dead about two weeks and I was driving to a wrestling match and I was driving and weeping and I was talking to him and I said, 'Oh Jed, we really loved you' and I thought that doesn't sound right. 'Loved.' You can't use it in the past tense. It's in the present. If love isn't stronger than death then fuck it. I can't bear it.27.

Demon Box

In 1988 Kesey collected a series of his short stories and magazine articles into the volume Demon Box. It is dedicated "To Jed across the river riding point." The book sold moderately well, but critics considered it to be a hodge-podge of little literary merit (similar, in many respects to criticisms of Garage Sale and SITO.) A significant portion of the book is devoted to stories about Kesey's life on the farm raising of his children. In addition, there are three pieces which act as Kesey's reflections upon the dreams of the counterculture.

The children's story "Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear" is by far the best storytelling in the book. It tells the classic underdog tale of a wiley little squirrel (Tricker) who defends his homeland and outwits Big Double from the high ridges who comes down from the hills "DOUBLE BIG, DOUBLE BAD, and DOUBLE DOUBLE HONGRY a-ROARRR!"

Kesey begins the yarn in the voice of Grandma Whittier, asking, "Don't tell me you're the only youngsters never heard tell of the time the bear came to Topple's Bottom?" The story is obviously intended to be read aloud to children (a feat that Kesey pulls off brilliantly in the video "Still Kesey.") His tale is simple but convincing in true comic book "good guy / bad guy" style. Kesey calls it "the best piece [he] ever wrote. It works on its own and it really is cohesive as one piece."28. The story was later released as a single illustrated volume.

Particularly enjoyable, and also useful in terms of evaluating Kesey's attitude towards the counter-culture, was the story "The Day After Superman Died." Again Kesey draws on superhero imagery to convey the magical quality bestowed upon the Pranksters by psychedelics, this time in reference to Neal Cassady. The story begins with a frustrated Devlin Deboree sitting at a writing table in his barn staring at a blank page after staying up for two days getting wired and trying to respond to an old writer friend (Larry McMurtry from Kesey's Stanford class) who chided, "So what's the Good Old Revolution been doing lately?"

Deboree is at a loss for an honest response. The year is 1969. The Manson murders have just made front page news, the Haight has turned to needle drugs and violence, and all Deboree can think to respond is "Dobbs and Blanche had another kid... Rampage and I finally got cut loose from our three year probation..."29. (p.58) Then he moans aloud and declares, "Pox on both houses. On Oregon field burners poisoning the air for weed-free profit and on California flower children gone to seed and thorn!"30.

As if in response to his curse, up trudge two road-weary hitchhikers, fresh back from Woodstock and eager to meet the famous Devlin Deboree. One is a scruffy old tattooed road dog with a dark thick beard. The other is a bright eyed golden boy eager to speak about the "stone primo groove" Deboree missed in upstate New York. In the course of interacting with the two, Deboree comes to realize he has little sympathy for them, and sends them away.

No sooner are they on their way up the road (or so he believes) then in pulls Sandy Pawku, an old acquaintance from the Prankster days. (The names used are the same as in "Over the Border" and so the Pranksters are referred to as the Animal Friends.) She's made a special trip to the farm to deliver news of Houlihan's death. Reflections on this death become the premise for the writing of the story, and the attempt to answer the question just what has the Good Old Revolution been doing lately?

Houlihan is Kesey's pseudonym for Neal Cassady, and so the news of his death plays a central role in Kesey's evaluation of the Sixties and the role(s) the Pranksters played in them. The story's success lies largely in its avoidance of sweeping statements about the cultural importance of the Prankster experiment and deals matter-of-factly with the more gloomy aspects of the counter culture. As Kesey once said, "Woodstock was beautiful and historic and even perhaps Biblical, but Altamont was much more honest. Success is a great spawning ground of confidence, bald truth is found more often up against the wall."31.

Along similar lines is the story "Now We Know How Many Holes it Takes to Fill the Albert Hall," reflections written after John Lennon's assassination in 1980. Kesey insists that the story is not written as "a nickel valentine to a dead superstar" but rather contains some telling statements about where he sees the psychedelic vision going. Lennon's song "Give Peace A Chance" is cited as exemplary of this vision. "Maybe it was time to talk a little of that old sky pie once more," he concedes, "Else how are we going to be able to look that little bespectacled Liverpudlian in the eye again when the Revolutionary Roll is Up Yonder called?"32.

The Further Inquiry and Caverns

Demon Box was followed in 1990 by two selections with decidedly different styles and motives. One, The Further Inquiry, is a mock trial in which Neal Cassady is being tried post-mortem for the statutory rape of Katrina "Stark Naked" Daniels. As noted earlier, it was originally published in the Cassady issue of "Spit in the Ocean" as "Further: The World's Greatest Home Movie," with an Introduction by Ken Babbs. The page long intro by Babbs is absent in the book length version, which is unfortunate because it does much in few words to clarify the contents of the script without giving away any of the surprises.

The other, Caverns, was a compilation novel written with a University of Oregon graduate Creative Writing class and published as the work of O.U. Levon (U of O Novel). Neither of the works made enormous splashes in the literary scene, but both show Kesey's continuing commitment to experimentation with styles and forms of expression.

Sailor Song

Two years later came the long awaited third Kesey novel, Sailor Song. Set in a small Alaskan town on the Northwestern edge of the United States in the near future, the novel is Kesey's "science fiction" book, dealing with environmental destruction, the End of the World and the fate of the Deaps (Descendants of Early Aboriginal People). The novel's heros are Ike Salaas, and Alice the Angry Aleut. Plopped smack in the middle of the novel is "The Sea Lion," Kesey's children's story, and it is around this story that the novel is structured.

Ike Salaas, legendary Bakatcha Bandit from the environmental wars of the Nineties is holed up in Kuinak, Alaska trying desperately to ignore his growing love for Alice when her albino son shows up, fresh out of jail and sharply dressed, with proposals to use the town as the site for a major motion picture endeavor. He wants to film "The Sea Lion," a popular children's tale modeled after the style of Pacific Northwest Indian tales. There is the promise of a great deal of money wrapped up in the deal, and the additional interest of turning the town into a theme park after the movie becomes a success.

Ike is suspicious from the start, particularly with Alice's son, Nicolas Levertov, whom he knew from his years in the "slam." He wants as little to do with this development project as he wanted with the corporations that were ultimately responsible for the death of his hydrocephalic child years earlier. Perhaps less, because the corporations at least spurred him to a series of eco-terrorist monkeywrenching actions. Ike just wants to hang his hat and watch the inevitable coming of the End Times.

What is clear from the novel's onset is that Ike will be allowed no such luxury and that the manner in which he deals with this conflict is the heart of the tale. Interspersed with the central storyline are a handful of classic Kesey quips, including the Dreadful Great rock band and the Loyal Order of Underdogs (an acronym for LOUD, denoting their noisy temperaments and monthly Full Moon Howl.)

While a great many passages demonstrate that Kesey still has a flair for "turning a phrase", this is not enough to save the novel's overall weak storyline. The story frequently loses the reader and the ending is particularly confusing and unresolved. Numerous critics of the book felt likewise and it came under harsh judgment from the East Coast literary establishment. A few did not stop short of insulting the novel.

"Writing that is so ill at ease on the page that it seems on the verge of converting itself into a bad television mini-series and then being canceled for lack of interest before we can put it down."33. the Washington Post chided.

After more than thirty years of waiting, it is little surprise that Kesey's new novel came under such close scrutiny. Many were eager to form an opinion of the ever-present question, "Has Kesey burnt himself out?"

Despite the pressure to "prove himself", Kesey is not centrally interested in besting his earlier efforts. The third novel seems in many respects to be a half-hearted attempt to respond to the taunts of a legion of fans saying, "When you gonna write another book, Ken?"

When "doing nothing" had ceased to stir the fight in him, Kesey rose to the bait and created another novel.

"TWISTER!"

In 1993, following a Grateful Dead concert in Eugene, Oregon, Kesey held the premiere of "Twister: A Ritual Reality in Four Quarters." Kesey's "ritual reality" is a play structured loosely around the Wizard of Oz, with each of the characters facing turn of the century crises in the world today. The three crises are The Hungry Wind, The Lonely Virus, and The Restless Earth. They deal, respectively, with tornadoes, plagues and earthquakes, all of which Kesey cites as being on the rise.

This is just shit. It's happening. No blame. Happening and on the rise it would appear. What can we do to delay it? Probably zilch. To stop it? Likely less. But to survive it? Now that sounds more promising. There is evidence of bad shit having been survived before. Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: "When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try pain picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it." So "Twister" is my try.34.

The play was panned from the start, being overlong, too loose and largely uninteresting. One critic called it "a musical catastrophe."

Kesey's career shows that he has returned time and again to his first interest in communications and drama, but his abilities as a prose writer far outweigh his efforts as a playwright.

Last Go Round

Most recently, (1994) Kens Kesey and Babbs collaborated on their first published book. The result is Last Go Round, a "real western" about the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up. The three central characters are George Fletcher, an orphaned Negro man, Sundown Jackson, a Nez Perce Indian rider, and Jonathan E. Lee Spain, a shining example of Anglo Cowboy Western Americana. The central occasion bringing them together is the dramatic rodeo, the Pendleton Round Up. Both Jackson and Fletcher have reputations preceding themselves. Spain was a complete unknown.

What gives the novel its unique character is the fact that it is history. Not textbook history, but genuine American folklore centered entirely around a historical event. Kesey is careful to point out in his Introduction that he is not dealing with facts as they agree in a dusty old history book, because no two tellings of the tale agree. Rather he is dealing with what is believed to be the truth, and that may be an entirely different thing.

He gives the reader "the benefit of a little trick I have discovered to tell the difference between true history and false; the True is generally uncertain, wishy washy, vague, while the False is often downright positive."35. In addition to being further evidence of Kesey's need to fool around with what reality can be, it may also be a fair estimation of how Kesey felt gathering facts for writing the novel.

Kesey first heard the tale from his father at age 14 when a trip out West was delayed because they were caught in Round Up traffic. Last Go Round is a brilliant example of Kesey's storytelling skills. Because it is less ambitious than Sailor Song, Kesey's narrative tone is able to take over, and the reader is pulled along. The novel has the flavor of Mark Twain telling a Louis L'Amour tale. It is Kesey's finest longer work since Sometimes A Great Notion.

FURTHUR!

As a major twentieth century American writer, Kesey will always be remembered for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion. For many writers that would be more than enough. For Kesey, the central exercise is always to push onward.

Always comes the moment when it's time to take the Prankster circus further on toward Edge City. And always at this point some good souls are startled. Kesey can remember them all, people who thought he was great so long as his fantasy coincided with theirs. But every time he pushed on further -- and he always pushed on further -- they became confused and resentful.36.

To those who know and love Kesey, he is the warm hearted grandfather with the twinkle in his eye, the unapologetic hell-raiser still willing to endorse the decriminalization of marijuana and psychedelics, or the Oregon farmer, up in his years, and perhaps a bit eccentric at times, but generally as rural looking as a wheat field. Kesey has a reputation for style, class and charisma, with more than a liberal dash of humor. While his public image will always be largely centered around Tom Wolfe's work, it is clear that Kesey has continued to be an inspiration to those who know him long after his years of psychedelic parties and confrontational antics have ended.

Kesey is an American warrior on the eve of the Apocalypse and a mythic American hero sprung from the pages of his books and into history with comic-book heroism. He is a thumbed nose in the face of authority and an underdog who has challenged adversity to emerge victorious.

His advice to young writers?

One of these days you're going to have a visitation. You're going to be walking down the street and across the street you're going to see God standing over there on the corner motioning to you saying, 'Come here, come to me.' And you will know it's God, there will be no doubt in your mind -- he has slitty little eyes like Buddha, and he's got a long nice beard and blood on his hands. He's got a big Charlton Heston jaw like Moses, he's stacked like Venus, and he has a great jeweled scimitar like Mohammed. And God will tell you to come to him and sing his praises. And he will promise that if you do, all the muses that ever visited Shakespeare will fly in your ear and out of your mouth like golden pennies. It's the job of the writer in America to say, 'Fuck you God, fuck you and the Old Testament you rode in on, fuck you.' The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful. Anytime anybody says come to me and says, 'Write my advertisement, be my ad manager,' tell him, 'Fuck you.' The job is always to be exposing God as the crook, as the sleaze ball.37.

Bibliography

Books by Ken Kesey

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking Press, 1962.

Sometimes A Great Notion. New York: Viking Press, 1964.

Kesey's Garage Sale. New York: Viking Press, 1973.

Kesey. Edited by Michael Strelow. Eugene, Oregon: Northwest Review Books, 1977.

Demon Box. New York: Viking Press, 1988.

The Further Inquiry. New York: Viking Press, 1990.

Caverns. (with O.U. Levon) New York: Viking Press, 1990.

Sailor Song. New York: Viking Press, 1992.

Last Go Round. (with Ken Babbs) New York: Viking Press, 1994.

"Spit in the Ocean" Vols. 1-6. Pleasant Hill: Intrepid Trips Information Service, 1974-1981.

"Twister!" (unpublished manuscript) courtesy of Emily Hunter.

Zoo (unpublished manuscript) courtesy of The Kesey Collection, University of Oregon Library.

Secondary Sources

Books

Garcia, Jerry, Reich, Charles, and Wenner, Jann. Garcia: A Signpost to New Space. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1972.

Gravy, Wavy The Hog Farm and Friends. Foreward by Ken Kesey. New York: Link Books, 1974.

Lee, Martin A. and Shlain, Bruce. Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion. New York: Grove Press, 1985.

Leeds, Barry H. Ken Kesey. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981.

Perry, Charles. The Haight Ashbury: A History. New York: Rolling Stone Press, 1984.

Perry, Paul. On the Bus. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990.

Plummer, William. The Holy Goof. New York: Paragon House, 1990.

Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven LSD and the American Dream. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1987.

Tanner, Stephen L. Ken Kesey. Boston: G.K. Hall & Company, 1983.

Thompson, Hunter S. Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. New York: Ballantine Books, 1967.

Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1968

Articles

Ken Kesey's Last Prank Paul Krassner

"Ritual Reality" Mary Jane Fenex and Matthew Rick The Cryer April 8, 1993, Ed.II, Vol. 7

The Whole Earth Review "Rubbing A Stone Smooth" Jeff Forester No.61, December 6, 1988 p. 46-50

Lish, Gordon. "What You Lookin' In Here For, Daisy Mae?" Genesis West. Vol. 2 No.1 Fall, 1963 pp.20-29

"Ken Kesey: The Art of Fiction" The Paris Review #130 Spring, 1994 pp.58-94 New York

Julian Moynahan, The New York Review of Books, September 10, 1964 p. 14.

Contemporary Authors (Detroit: Gail Research Company, 1962.) p.530

Granville Hicks "Beatnik in Lumberjack Country"

David Streitfield, The Washington Post, September 9, 1992 p.C7

Paul Krassner Ken Kesey's Last Prank High Times March 1991 No.187

Audio and Video tapes

"The Merry Pranksters" Key-Z Productions (Pleasant Hill: 1990)

"The Acid Test" Key-Z Productions (Pleasant Hill: 1990)

Acid Test audio tape San Francisco State, October 2, 1966, unpublished

Works Cited

1. Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale (New York: Viking Press, 1973), p.33.

2. Paul Perry and Ken Babbs, On the Bus (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990), p.25)

3. Stephen Tanner, Ken Kesey (Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1983) p.13.

4. Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (New York: Viking Press, 1962), p.11.

5. Cuckoo's Nest, p.40.

6. Garage Sale, p.7.

7. Tanner, p.47.

8. Ibid., p.47.

9. Julian Moynahan, The New York Review of Books, September 10, 1964, p.14.

10. Ken Kesey, Ken Kesey (ed. by Michael Strelow) (Eugene: Northwest Review Books, 1977) p.24

Ken Kesey, Sometimes A Great Notion (New York: Viking Press, 1964) p.12.

11. Contemporary Author (Detroit: Gail Research Company, 1962) p.530.

12. Granville Hicks, "Beatnik in Lumberjack Country," Saturday Review, July 25, 1964, p.21.

13. Gordon Lish, "What the Hell You Looking in Here For, Daisy Mae?" Genesis West, Vol.2 No.5, Fall 1963, p.23.

14. Kesey, ed. By Strelow, p.94-95.

15. Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1968) p.61.

16. William Plummer, The Holy Goof, (New York: Paragon House, 1990) p.135.

17. Wolfe, p.122-123.

18. Ibid., p.134-135.

19. Perry and Babbs, p.xv.

20. Garage Sale, p.42.

21. Wolfe, p.4.

22. San Francisco State University Acid Test audio tape, 10/2/1966. Later printed in the opening pages of Demon Box.

23. Ibid.

24. Wolfe, p.339.

25. Ibid., p.324

Mike DeFillipo, The Riverfront Times, November 17-23, 1993. p.9.

26. Kesey, ed. by Strelow, p.v.

27. Author interview, Boulder, Colorado, 1/23/1993.

28. Ibid.

29. Ken Kesey, Demon Box, (Viking Press, 1988.) p.58.

30. Ibid., p.58.

31. Garage Sale, p.220.

32. Demon Box, p.321.

33. David Streitfield, The Washington Post, September 9, 1992, p.C7.

34. Personal letter to Allen Ginsberg, August, 1993.

35. Kesey, Last Go Round, (New York: Viking Press, 1994.) p.41.

36. Wolfe, 30.

37. Robert Faggen, The Paris Review, No.130, Spring, 1994, p.93-94.

2 of 10 MORE FOR INTREPID TRAVELLER

2007-08-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

QUESTIONS FROM ROBERT REGISTER

Boss:

You & I have been corresponding now for about 10 years.

Now I'd like to axe you some queerstions just like all those students do.

I'd like to ask you about 10 questions so here's the first two.
-- Robert Register

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjectivity
What do you think was Kesey's opinion of intersubjectivity
or "subjective reality"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quale

Whoa, I am completely lost in these hazy probings of human intercouse carried to such deep extremes. I've never been much for psycho ramifications, being a simple minded soul. As for Kesey's opinion, I can't venture a guess but I know he would have come up with a unique interpretation more scientific/literary than anything anyone else could invent. It might even have meant something, if anyone could figure out what. Leaving them scraching their heads is a talent Cassady had in abundance and he taught us well. Master of the universe in action.

2. What are some of your memories of legal segregation in the Deep South during June of '64?

Stopping for gas and seeing the signs on the restrooms and drinking fountains: colored. white. Sandy spraypainted his hand bright flourescent red and, while it was still wet, laid it on the colored drinking fountain (which was porcelain white), leaving a flaming red handprint.

Lake Ponchatrain, where we went for a cooling swim, and didn't notice till we were in the water that we were the only lilly whiteskinned swimmers. Afterwards, we called it backward integration.

THIS WEEEKS NEWS FROM NORML

2007-08-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

This Week’s News fromSupport our efforts and Re-Post!(to re-post a bulletin simply hit “reply” then copy and paste the text into your own bulletin.)
And as always, for more details visit our blog.

State Medi-Pot Laws Not Associated With Increased Drug Use, Study Says

World’s Largest Annual Pot ‘Protestival’ To Take Place This Weekend

Preemptive Use Of Cannabinoids Enhances Pain Relief, Study Says

State Medi-Pot Laws Not Associated With Increased Drug Use, Study Says

College Station, TX: The enactment of state laws legalizing the medical use of cannabis is not associated with an increase in the drug’s recreational use, according to statistical data published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
Investigators at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, analyzed cannabis use trends among two high-risk subgroups (arrestees and emergency room patients) in five cities and five metropolitan areas in states that have enacted medical cannabis laws. In the four states (California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) analyzed, researchers reported, "[T]he introduction of medical cannabis laws was not associated with an increase in cannabis use."

Previous studies performed by the University of Michigan and others have also reported that liberalizing marijuana penalties is not associated with an increase in pot use.

Texas A&M investigators speculated that the passage of medical cannabis laws may "de-glamorize" the drug’s use and "thereby [does] little to encourage [its] use among other" non-medical patients.

A previous study of state medi-pot policies by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that the laws have not led to widespread abuses among the general public.

"Fears that allowing the physician-supervised use of medical cannabis will ‘send a mixed message’ to young people or lead to a significant spike in pot’s personal use are unfounded," said NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano. "Such concerns, though popular among opponents of cannabis law reform, are based on rhetoric – not fact – and should not guide public policy."

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, "Do medical cannabis laws encourage cannabis use?" appears in the May issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy.

World’s Largest Annual Pot ‘Protestival’ To Take Place This Weekend

Seattle, WA: Event organizers are expecting nearly 150,000 attendees at this weekend's 16th annual Seattle Hempfest taking place this Saturday and Sunday at Myrtle Edwards Park in downtown Seattle. More than 70 speakers and 60 bands will participate on five stages during the two-day event, which is now recognized as the largest marijuana law reform gathering in the world.

Speakers at this year’s event include NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, NORML Founder Keith Stroup, and PBS travel host and NORML Advisory Board Member Rick Steves, as well as NORML Board Members George Rohrbacher and Jeffrey Steinborn. Musical reggae artist Pato Banton will headline the festival.

The Seattle Hempfest is an all-volunteer effort and is free to attend. Donations are encouraged and attendees are urged to ride public transportation to the event.

For a complete schedule of this year’s Seattle Hempfest speakers and events, please visit: http://www.hempfest.org.

Preemptive Use Of Cannabinoids Enhances Pain Relief, Study Says

Montreal, Quebec: The daily administration of the synthetic cannabinoid agonist WIN 55,212-2 prior to surgery produces enhanced analgesic activity in an animal model of neuropathic (nerve) pain, according to preclinical data published in the European Journal of Pharmacology.

Investigators at the University of Montreal reported that the preemptive administration of WIN 55, 212-2 in the days leading up to surgery produced greater neuropathic pain relief than did the administration of the drug immediately prior to surgery. "[Although] WIN 55,212-2 decreased mechanical alloodynia (skin pain) and thermal hyperalgesia in neuropathic animals, … the group receiving pre-emptive WIN 55,212-2 had significantly greater anti-hyperalgesic and anti-allodynic effects compared with the group receiving [it] before the surgery," authors concluded.

Previous preclinical trial data of WIN 55, 212-2 indicates that the agonist can significantly reduce brain inflammation and improve memory in an animal model of Alzheimer’s. Administration of the drug has also been associated with the inhibition of prostate cancer cells.

Clinical trial data published earlier this year by investigators at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California's Pain Clinical Research Center reported that inhaling cannabis significantly reduced HIV-associated neuropathy compared to placebo.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, "Preemptive antinociceptive effects of a synthetic cannabinoid in a model of neuropathic pain," appears in the European Journal of Pharmacology.

NORML and the NORML Foundation: 1600 K Street NW, Suite 501, Washington DC, 20006-2832
Tel: (202) 483-5500 • Fax: (202) 483-0057 • Email: norml@norml.org

ED COUNTY FINALLY

2007-08-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

27 Day old Trichomes on AK47

As of this week, adult pot smokers deemed to have "serious medical conditions" can apply for a county permit and pay an annual $114 fee to use the psychotropic drug legally with a doctor's prescription.The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors recently authorized the Public Health Department to locally implement the California Medical Marijuana Program. The MMP is voluntary and intended to provide patients with an identification card that could be used as evidence that they have a physician's recommendation to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. In El Dorado County, the identification card program began Wednesday. The California Department of Health Services established the MMP in 2004 to facilitate the registration of qualified patients and their primary caregivers through a statewide identification system. The medical marijuana identification card can also assist law enforcement officials in determining whether individuals using marijuana meet the requirements of California's Compassionate Use Act, also known as Proposition 215.The Compassionate Use Act exempts patients, their caregivers and physicians who recommend the use of marijuana for medical purposes from state criminal laws for the possession, use, transportation, delivery or cultivation of marijuana. However, the Act does not protect marijuana plants from seizure nor individuals from federal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act. To qualify for the MMP and apply for a medical marijuana identification card, an individual must be 18 years of age and older with a serious medical condition and certification from a physician indicating that medical marijuana is appropriate for their condition. Caregivers, whose patients meet the above criteria, are also eligible for the MMP. Identification cards are good for one year only. Applicants must re-apply, show proof of continued medical need, and pay the registration fee each year.The cost of the medical marijuana identification card in El Dorado County is currently $114. Applicants with proof of current Medi-Cal/CMSP benefits will be charged $57. All fees are non-refundable, even if the application is denied. Applications for the MMP are available at the Emergency Medical Services Agency located at 415 Placerville Drive, Suite J in Placerville and may be picked up weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and 1p.m. to 5 p.m. Completed applications will be accepted by appointment only.For additional information on the MMP, please visit www.dhs.ca.gov/mmp. To schedule an appointment to return an application, or for further questions about the program or the ID cards in El Dorado County, please call (530) 621-6500. The Public Health Department plans to post additional information about the MMP, including downloadable application forms, on their Web site at www.co.el-dorado.ca.us/publichealth by Sept. 1. Identification cards may be issued to those with qualifying medical conditionsWhat is a "serious medical condition" that allows for medicinal use of marijuana? "Serious medical condition" means all of the following medical conditions:-- Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-- Anorexia-- Arthritis-- Cachexia-- Cancer-- Chronic pain-- Glaucoma-- Migraine-- Persistent muscle spasms, including, but not limited to,spasms associated with multiple sclerosis-- Seizures, including, but not limited to, seizures associatedwith epilepsy-- Severe nausea-- Any other chronic or persistent medical symptom that either: 1) Substantially limits the ability of the person to conduct one or more major life activities as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 2) If not alleviated, may cause serious harm to the patient's safety or physical or mental health.

More Q's for Ken

2007-08-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

Final questions from David Wills

What influence did Vietnam (both the war and the country) have in shaping your life and the lives of your friends?

Revealed to those whose eyes are open the idiocy and prevarications of the bunglers in goverment so far removed from the lives of us mere mortals they think they can get away with anything. Well, they can. For a while. When I was in Vietnam I tried to figure out what we were doing there. Stemming the red horde was the ostensible reason, and it was a good opportunity for the military to try out new weapons and tactics, but there had to be more to it than that. Oil or rubber or opium. Pristine beaches. Hiltons on the seashore. Elephant tours to the native Montagnard Villages. Tiger hunts with crossbows. Camouflage face paint and flapping loin cloths. Book the tour, Granny, we're gonna explore the tunnels. See the light! There, at the end. The truth revealed. It shall set ye free. Free of gummint bungling, of mowing the lawn, of ingesting the poisons. We gonna buddy up, conserve and share our natchral goodies. We gonna plow the lawn and plant a garden. Compost our garbage and throw out the chemicals. Deep six the glamor products and sharpen the hoe. Thumb our noses at the corporate propaganda. Give an elbow to the ribs of the knowitalls like me. Pinpricks to all the hotair balloons floating out of capitols and courthouses and city halls all over the land. We don't have to take back what's already ours. We merely have to see it, use it, dig it, groove, baby, groove. Heaven on earth is here, or as Cassady said, "It was so simple it eluded me."

Finally, what are you doing these days? Tell us about skypilotclub and your poetry, music and protest of the last few years.

What's to say. This bumper sticker sums it up: So many books, so little time. Skypilotclub was a supposedly brilliant way to pay for a website by enjoining potential members to cough up some bucks in order to share the costs, while at the same time accumulating club goodies like patches, decoders, T shirts and stickers. Also, a lot of the stuff I write and the vidies I make and the music/rap CDs I create, are all available online. Every once in a while I summon up the local prankster/skypilots and we cobble together a musical skit we perform wherever we can find a shed or room willing to let us in. What good does it do to protest? Allows you to vent your spleen but as Kesey said, "You vent your spleen often enough you end up with a ventilated spleen." So we don't protest, per se, but we try, in a humorous creative way, to puncture the balloons of pomposity and idiocy with our own over-the-top pomposity and idiocy, hopefully illuminating some godawful truth. What's mostly revealed is our poor pitch, for we can't carry a tune, let alone a message. Two examples of this are The Ballad Of Johnny and Jim, and Guantanamo, now available on DVD from www.skypilotclub.com.

A skypilot is the person who, when you are so high you are stuck and can't get down, comes and gets you and brings you down safely.

namaste!

tahoejimbo420

http://tahoejimbo420.bravehost.com

http://tahoejimbo420s.blogspot.com

http://www.myspace.com/tahoejimbo420

"I've opted for fun in this lifetime..."~Jerry Garcia

Q&A wit Boss Babbs

2007-08-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

More Questions from David Wills

You've described yourself as falling between the Beat and Psychedelic generations. So how were you influenced by the Beats, and how did you influence the counterculture in the years following the bus trip?

We are on a path to far away that came across the seas to comingle with the indigents already here in order to formulate great literature and spiritual awakening exemplified by the writings of Melville and Poe, and the transcendentalists, and Whitman, Jack London, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Steinbeck and Hemingway and Faulkner and Kerouac and Mailer etcetera etcetera; not to forget the other arts of dance and painting and music etcetera etcetera. The beat goes on. Expanding through psychedelic awakenings and awarenesses of spantaneous eruptions of joy and glee in order to puncture the balloons of stuffy rigid necked spouters of ancient ugly arguments they keep alive with hot air, having too much money along with utter disregard for the sanctity of life of those who are poorer, dumber, different, another color or religion; all that old malarkey the counterculture thumbs its nose at while practising the disciplines that will save this world from destrucktion. so ther.

How would consider the Pranksters' and the Acid Tests' roles in modern American culture?

When I was a kid, world war one was over forty years ago and it seemed like it was another century, another time. Ancient history. Now, the action of the 60's that happened over forty years is still alive and well. I speak all over the place (sometimes only to myself, but as Cassady said, That way you can have an intelligent conversation) and everyone wants to hear the stories, what our motivations were, was what we were doing something meaningful, does it have enduring importance that people today (especially the kids asking) can use in their lives. This being the fortieth anniversary of the summer of love, the questions and answers are being re-examined once again, down to the nitty gritty, just like the jug band. Speaking of that, where did Steely Dan get its name? Inspector John Rebus in the new Ian Rankin novel supplies the answer. The only role that matters is jelly roll, thus we have morton. When it rains it pours. Make like a duck and let the water run off your back. These and many other secrets will be revealed.