Lady and the Scamp

I have been asked to reflect on my experiences dealing with a young lady named Julia Rose, who first caught my attention on Facebook a couple years ago. She has a Facebook tribute page dedicated to preserving and distributing the works, and highlighting the memories, of Peter McWilliams.

The Lady

Here is Julia speaking about Peter in a public YouTube video taken at one of the many rallies, conventions or speaking (and singing!) venues she attends.

The Scamp

The many uplifting stories of Peter, as well as his accompanying trials and tribulations, are too broad to relate here. I know I would feel blessed to have my own wikipedia page, let alone a youthful cheerleader like Julia, so long after my ashes are scattered. FWIW, I have chosen to honor my personal memories of Peter by ending all my correspondences with Enjoy. But I digress. Let us move on to my personal account of this energetic young lady.

Getting to Know Her

The first time I spoke with Juila was when she contacted me thru Facebook after seeing my New Year’s tribute to Peter here in this blog. She indicated that she was in contact with Peter’s mother who had inherited a great deal of Peter’s literary memorabilia, some of which she was letting Julia share on the web.

We chatted on Skype a couple times times after that. We communed over the ghost of Peter, his legacy and his works. She probed my calcifying neurons for first person recollections and stories from my calls and correspondence with Peter, the majority of which (sadly) came during the hectic months of his arrest and deprivations under the thumb of America’s fascist drug warriors.

Julia shared with me that Peter’s mom was reluctant to publicize the more risqué or controversial aspects of Peter’s political life. Julia’s main interest in honoring Peter was his poetry and self-help writings.

All that touchy-feely emotional hoodoo is just fine by me (and the 32.4% of me that is gay), but the rest of me negotiated stridently with Julia for a much more prominent emphasis on the politics of the subject that cost Peter his life. She agreed and promised to discuss the issue with Peter’s mom.

She seemed a rather shy and reluctant spokesperson at first, but as the last couple years have shown, her message and music have bounced to one event or the other all over the planet (or at least a tri-country area).

She’s some kind of a hippie-chick rock goddess guru within the medical marijuana community these days now that she’s embraced my early mentoring. I’m too old to even keep up with her frenetic pace on Facebook, but I proudly point her out as a protege and someone I knew before they got famous.

Enjoy.

Sucker Bets

Today’s blog entry inspired by the following video from Ricard Wiseman

Judging by the Youtube comments on this video, not everybody is “in” on the joke.  This has me pondering the political implications of applying the “special forces” that Richard is displaying here to work in the field of presidential polling. Googling….

Turns out that application of Richard Wiseman’s magic new technology is already patented for politics by some dude named Nate Silver.  Dam you Nate Silver, you and your fancy devil-inspired numerology.  The American populace was TOTALLY IN THE DARK over Nate’s reliance on ARABIC numbers!  Holy shit people.  And you were worried about a mosque at Ground Zero?  I’ve actually heard rumors that this Nate Silver is suspiciously effeminate and if that doesn’t scare you out of your complacent fog of universal non-comformity then there is no hope for any of you.  Noting such complacence has me considering calling the Saint Bernards off their search for survivors in the recent avalanche on Bullshit Mountain.  Free round of smelling salts to all my wing-nut friends!!

I just found the next-best-thing to the “sure thing”  sucker bet to replace the one Richard is teaching me. ruining for me.

I am predicting the Petraeus affair will make it’s way beyond SNL and into cartoon or sitcom form before my birthday on the 24th of Nov.

Two and a Half Men is gasping for new material like Charlie Sheen snorting up coke at a hooker party, so that’s my sitcom pick.  Bart Simpson’s blackboard seems a likely choice for first animated take-down. Leave your guesses in the comments if you want to play along.   Let me know if  there are any Petraeus joke sightings I have missed.

In return I toss you this brief tidbit.  Funniest one yet, and comes directly off “non comedy” nightly news in Colorado.  They “snatched” the wrong book cover photo off Google for their nightly news.

The REAL sucker bet is getting an internet newb to bet against there already being 10,000 tweets linking this Colorado graphic “mishap” with the recently passed marijuana legislation there.  Talk about low hanging fruit!!

Enjoy.

Election Roundup 2012

I have a Facebook and Twitter feed to prove I was up REAL late here in Germany, watching the election and putting my bony fingers of contention to good use. In fact, the night of the election my fingertips were bouncing off my keyboard faster and harder than a midget cowboy riding a Dutch hooker.   For the record, I am only willing to shell out for food for the hungry, universal healthcare for the masses and a nickel more for a pizza so the delivery guy can afford $4 gas AND a dentist.  If any of you oversexed Democrats high on legalized hippy lettuce wants to see that rodeo in Amsterdam, you’ll have to pony up for your own ticket.  I promise you’ll get a far more graphic demonstration of the metaphors applied in the aforementioned simile.

Election Tweets

I have some Tweets from the evening that are more precious to me than my kids.  I’ll pull more screen shots out later and mix them in with my old vacation photos, either on a future blog post, or over at my house when we’re finished with sanctifying Christmas by stuffing our faces with cranberry sauce, before the start of the sacred NFL Xmas game extravaganza.   Just in case you think my football analogy as sui generis:

It’s times like these that are made to reminisce on things that happened back in the “good old days”.  If you can’t wait to see my full set of tweets, they are out there in the wild, but take caution.  Think of my tweets as “highly concentrated snark”.  Reading a couple of them is equivalent to chugging two large Red Bulls.  Do not read them while driving or operating heavy machinery.

The Setup

Things weren’t looking good for Romney even before the sun came up on election day.  His commie-loving son had just been caught trading arms for hostages with Putin in Russia, and only days after his Dad was on TV trying to scare everybody in America about the missing Czarist WMD’s in his foreign policy debate with Obama.

The Main Event

The spectacle of visible human suffering on election night 2012 was one I shall never forget.  A shot heard round the world.  The carnage was so total, and the chaos so complete, that at least one news anchor sprang from her perch running wildly about, on a frantic search to find somebody, anybody, who would confirm Karl Rove’s theory of a flat Earth.  This theory, bolstered by more than a quarter billion dollars of the most sophisticated research the Creation Science Institute could muster, added that extra touch of schadenfreude we’ve all come to expect in reality TV shows (or Slasher movies) produced over the last decade, so we at home were all thoroughly prepped for a big twist.

Nobody Could Have Predicted

That is, if we TOTALLY ignore this guy who had been repeated phoning, texting and emailing the Romney/Fox campaign extolling them NOT to volunteer to go down into that dark basement, but the promo trailers had been blasting America for months and it was clear from seeing those, that the Republican party was married to a stale plot device with the same loving ferocity Mitt has expressed towards the dim-bulb blonde he chose as his wife.  What a conundrum!!

Republican Reaction (Aftermath)

Dixie hadn’t experienced a November event anything nearly this tragic since Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864.  Obama, like Sherman had “destroyed much of the South’s physical and psychological capacity to wage war”.

Just like Lincoln in the aftermath of the Great Northern War of Aggression, Obama still has a bit of mopping up in order to ensure a proper southern reconstruction.  This task is particularly difficult considering the unrepentant and thoroughly unreconstructed “Sons of the Confederacy” pictured above in Oxford Mississippi.  This strapping band of Brooks Brothers racists were busy going Johnny Reb, burning Obama campaign material in pseudo effigy, just on the off chance they could re-inspire the spirit of nineteenth century racism.  The only thing missing were the white robes and official seal of the KKK, though to be honest, I think at least half of those folks had some type of cross dangling from a gold chain around their necks.  They try to keep their racism tucked under their tshirts, but sometimes there’s an accidental “nipple slip” that makes it past the seven second delay.

Insane US politics is only one of the many minor perturbations that I have been dealing with lately, though to be fair, the 2012 election seems to have consumed the entirety of the last four years.  The megaphones on Bullshit Mountain began blaring immediately after Obama was overwhelmingly swept into office back in 2008 (in lieu of the old soldier & his organ grinder monkey sideshow act).  Good times?  You Betcha’).

Just to give the Republicans a port in the very stormy seas of their defeat, I finally found an EXCUSE for them to pass around that doesn’t rely on Karl Rove under-counting the Black kids crowding the candy aisle at Walmart.  They can thank me later:

I’m out.

Enjoy.

What Friends Are For

The following is the text of an email I sent to Micaela McGuane (Twitter, Facebook public and personal, blog).  She works for MassCann (Facebook) and has some sway in regard to the speaker selection at this years Boston Freedom Rally.

Julia Rose, who runs Peter’s Page, a tribute site for Peter McWilliams asked me to send Micaela a personal endorsement on her behalf, in her attempt to secure a speaking spot at the Freedom Rally, and I thought I’d share it with the web, since I am fully supportive of the efforts of both these energetic young social activists.  I follow them both through social media and would encourage anyone who supports a change in the status quo of an intolerable, expensive and abusive American marijuana prohibition policy that’s long overdue for change.  It’s a cause I shared a common communion with Peter before he was administratively and physically strangled to death by the implementation thereof.

I’ve been requested to speak up on behalf of Julia Rose, a young lady I initially met on Facebook as a result of our mutual interest in preserving and honoring the memory of Peter McWilliams.  Peter is a man I consider one of the more eminent martyrs in the American drug war; a war that’s morphed into an assault on individual rights and basic human decency.  By now, I’m pretty sure others have emailed you on Julia’s behalf so I’ll assume you have some familiarity with the subject.

Julia noticed my New Year’s tribute to Peter, posted Jan 2010.  She sent me an invite to her newly created Facebook tribute page.  I have followed the fervor and devotion she has thrown into preserving the many causes, as well as the personal sufferings, of Peter McWilliams.    I’ve also had the pleasure of a few personal chat sessions with Julia, so I know she’s a skilled communicator.  I’ve since discovered she is also a singer and songwriter.  She’s written and recorded a tribute song to Peter McWilliams that’s received favorable reviews and airplay as well.

When Julia personally messaged me to remind me she’s got her heart set on speaking in the Boston Freedom Rally, it was an easy call for me to sit down and take the few moments necessary to offer support to a young lady who’s doing great work on behalf of the memory of Peter.  Knowing Julia, you’ll find her easy to work with as well as someone the freedom loving people of Boston would be lucky to meet.

Enjoy.

Good Idea Gone Horribly Awry

First a little background. I first struck up an email friendship with Peter McWilliams after reading his book “Ain’t Nobody’s Business – The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in America” many years ago. It was at a time in Peter’s life when he was very active in the medical marijuana movement, having stumbled onto the relief the drug gave him in combating the nausea brought on by his AID’s medicines. He was eventually jailed and charged for conspiracy to grow medical marijuana. This was clearly a retaliatory measure from the DEA to silence him and his inspirational message on the subject.

As part of his plea deal to avoid continued incarceration, he was forced to stop using cannabis to control his nausea or face a long prison sentence and forfeiture of bond (his mom’s house!)

His compliance with the orders of the court saved his mom’s house, but cost Peter his life. Shortly after sentencing, Peter ended up choking to death on his own vomit from the uncontrolled nausea the marijuana had previously abated. While you may never have heard of Peter, he was high profile enough to have attracted the attention of a John Stossel (on 20/20), who did a segment on his death at the hands of the police state. Peter died in 2000.

Fast forward to 2010. A person I’ve never met, a seemingly gently soul with a desire to honor Peter’s memory, sets up a Facebook tribute page on behalf of the memory of Peter. She’s been amazing in her efforts to honor Peter, going so far as to write a tribute song which has received a fair bit of radio play. She’s also working on a video to honor Peter as well. She saw one of my pro-Peter posts and invited me to join the Facebook group which I promptly did.

At the time, I was totally unaware that there were ulterior motives behind the effort. Perhaps ulterior is too dark a word. Maybe “competing interpretations of Peter’s life” would be more accurate. Peter was many things to many people. That’s not up for debate. The problem with the tribute page on Facebook is that it’s being run, not as a PUBLIC tribute (why Facebook then?), but as a repository of goodwill specifically tailored to make his mother feel better about her son. Therefore, some aspects of Peter’s politics and passion are NOT WELCOME on the page, lest it ‘upset’ the remaining members of his family. I have been chastised in private messages from the group for mentioning aspects of Peter’s work, simply because of family politics.

I can understand the desire to shield the family, but I do not agree with the idea one bit. I’ve mentioned topics that Peter wrote and spoke of loudly and proudly when he was alive. Subjects he took the time to commit to his writings and public speaking venues. Subjects that not only was he was passionate about, but that I am passionate about as well. The latest smack-down from the group aimed at me comes as a result of my mention of Peter’s stance towards legalizing prostitution.

In the bizzaro world of Peter’s Page, such topics are considered taboo because of the aforementioned family sensitivities. I might feel more compassion for their position if Peter himself hadn’t been so forthright on these very same issues when he was alive. Peter never shied away from confrontation about issues he felt strongly about and neither do I.

Why the family should feel shamed by discussions surrounding the subjects so near and dear to Peter is puzzling. I can’t help but wonder how far Peter’s Page wants to take this newly found protectionist attitude? For chrissakes folks, we’re talking about a fellow who confronted not only the medical/prison industrial complex, but also the issue of his own homosexuality in a society openly hostile towards same.

His family should feel no shame at all. They should be angry about the way he was treated by authorities and proud that he stood up for what he believed in. The work that Peter did in advancing the cause of medical marijuana has advanced greatly since his death. That said, even the Obama administration, despite public statements to the contrary, is still raiding medical cannabis dispensaries in states that have legalized it’s use in that regard. The war is far from over. I will not let the memory of a fallen comrade, nor the advancement of the goals he believed in, be glossed over for the sole purpose of defending the delicate sensibilities of family members he himself apparently discounted when he was still alive.

Enjoy.