Bart Gets Smart

Cannabis March and Rally in Seattle Saturday, May 14

Cannabis Freedom March 2011

Seattle

This Saturday, May 14

Rally and March from Volunteer Park to Westlake Park

Live music, speakers, and activism in motion.

It will begin with a rally at Volunteer Park at 11 a.m., with live music until noon followed by speakers from noon unti 1 p.m.

The march itself will begin at 1 p.m. at Volunteer Park marching to Westlake Park and arriving at 2 p.m.

At Westlake the rally will continue with speakers from 2-3:30 p.m. then more live music from 3:30-5 p.m.

Please join us in ending the prohibition against cannabis.

For more information:

email: cannabisfreedommarch@gmail.com

call: 206 618 6458

Follow: www.twitter.com/cannabisfreedom

Blog: http://maryjanesgirl.com/Cannabis_Freedom_March.php

Have Some Cannabis While Watching This

It's OK, You Won't Be That Way For Much Longer

Where Are You, Dean Latimer? Thanks For Everything

Back in 1977 when I started smoking marijuana, one of the first "stoner" things I did was start reading High Times magazine -- which was a lot different back in the day than it is now (more of a "lifestyle" magazine then than a grow book).

And one of the first great writers I discovered within those wonderful pages was the estimable Dean Latimer, with his street-smart attitude and hard-bitten reporter's instincts, his eternal skepticism when confronted with official pronouncements and his healthy disdain for authority.

Latimer, who started out in the late 1960s with the Screw-like Kiss magazine (this was before the rock band), made a name for himself in the early '70s at National Lampoon before moving to High Times. He had it goin' on.

"I wanna be able to write like this guy," my 17-year-old self thought.

Latimer's words refused to just sit there on the glossy pages of High Times.

They sang, in a way that words can do sometimes when they are shot through with the resonance of a life well-lived, with a rich repository of earthly experience, with a seasoned but eternally fresh viewpoint that makes no wimpy compromises, brooks no interference in its intrepid search for truth, cowers before no sacred cows, respects no undeserving authority.

When I read Dean Latimer, I believed in the possibility of knowledge winning over ignorance, of reason prevailing over silliness, of truth triumphing over deception.

Yes, Latimer -- although he never knew it -- was a major motivator for me to pursue journalism and polish up my writing chops.

And although I feel I've never scaled the heights of an on-his-game Latimer, I do credit the guy for a big chunk of the "tone" that is present in my writing to this day.

Dean has vanished, perhaps somewhat mysteriously, as far as I know. After the 1980s, his appearances in High Times became less frequent, and they never found a comparable dude to replace him.

Dean co-wrote one book, Flowers In The Blood: The Story Of Opium (1981) along with Jeff Goldberg. It is, sadly, now out of print. Amazon says he also wrote the 1999 tome How To Pass A Drug Test: High Times Guide.


The only two real examples of Latimer's writing that I was able to find online are, first of all, "Inside Dope: Raising Appalachia," a High Times piece which appears to come from June 2002, which is actually a long time after I thought he'd stopped appearing in the magazine.

Secondly, I found a great article Dean wrote for Penthouse magazine in 1974, when he was at the height of his powers. It's a real gem, and it's called "Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji And Why Is He Saying All These Terrible Things About God?"

It was doomed to be so. The teenaged Guru is everywhere chaperoned by his businesslike brother, Bal Bhagwan Ji, and his formidable mother Mata Ji, and their image resembles an Oriental Osmond Family. Donny and the Guru have about the same number and intellectual quality of fans, in fact, except that the Guru's are 10 to 15 years older, and they have babies whom they name after the Holy Family. The Guru's family, in brief, is at once exotic enough in appearance and address, and yet bourgeois enough in structure, to appeal irresistibly to the spiritually insecure millions of the West. Unhappily, his commerce with his Eastern homeland is nowhere near so fortuitous.

What a rush of memory and emotion it is to read Dean's words again.

It's very sad to me that a writer the caliber of Latimer has been largely forgotten by the world in this digital age -- so much so, that I was unable to Google up a photo of him.

According to whitepages.com, there are seven people with the name Dean Latimer living in the United States, but none of them is anywhere near New York City, so they probably aren't the Dean I remember.

I don't even know if Latimer is still among the living, but, Dean, if you're out there, THANK YOU.

And if anyone else, anywhere, knows what became of Mr. Latimer, please let me know.

All Together Now: A Marijuana Garden Is Not A 'Lab'

In an embarrassing display of Bad Journalism, the Miami New Times, one of the sister Village Voice Media blogs of my paying gig, Toke of the Town, has called marijuana gardens "labs."

That's right. Growing God's green plants from the earth now pretty much equals cooking up meth, boys and girls!

"Oh, it's just semantics," one of my friends said. Well... when "semantics" is used to justify locking people in cages for decades (you can get a life sentence for growing pot), then "semantics" becomes a problem.

I thought it was bad enough this week when a couple of yokel media outlets in my home state of Alabama called a marijuana grow room a "lab"... but to get this kind of fathomless stupidity from a supposedly "alternative weekly" just rankles.

Deeply clueless reporter Francisco Alvarado, in "Top Five Florida 420 Busts in 2010," a December 30, 2010 story in the Miami New Times helpfully tells us:

"Marijuana production is at an all-time high in Florida and so are grow house busts. The local, state and federal law enforcement weed eradication program has seen a 50 percent spike in the number of grow labs [emphasis added] in less than four years."

And now, having unbecomingly fallen for a simple-minded yet deceptive cop turn of phrase, he digs the hole deeper:

"It's easy pickings for Johnny Law when you think about it. Growers are stoners. They concoct hair[sic]-brained schemes to build impregnable Kush farms over multiple bowls of Fruit Loops after smoking some Super Lemon Haze."

Hey Francisco, why don't you just let the cops write the story for you? Way to reinforce 1970s pot stereotypes, man. Just so you know, we stoners enjoy those about as much as you must love colorful, "witty" Hispanic slurs.

So here's my comment to Francisco, made on the page of his trashy little article:

Francisco, marijuana gardens are not "labs."

This Orwellian phrase -- which tries to turn growing plants into something sinister and dangerous -- is not only dumb, it's just bad journalism. Quoting a cop calling a marijuana grow operation a "lab" is one thing.

But doing it yourself? That makes me doubt everything in your story.

As if THAT wasn't bad enough, you helpfully tell us that "growers are stoners" and imply that means they are too stupid to avoid getting busted.

Are you aware that most growers are never caught?

Unlike sloppy journalists, who get called on their very public mistakes.

My New Year's Eve Appearance On John Doe Radio

Oddly Enough, This Has Happened To Me

Splish Splash. How Was I To Know There Was A Party Goin' On?

Sometimes a nice relaxing herbal bath is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Outlaws We Remain: The Guitar Army Fights On

Years and years ago when I was a young man, my sister gave me a 1972 book called Guitar Army by a political activist named John Sinclair, a Detroit dude I idolized who got sentenced to 10 years in prison for two joints.

Sinclair, who managed the seminal rock band the MC5, also founded the far-left, anti-racist White Panther Party, which sought to change the world by uniting rock and roll music -- which John called a weapon of cultural revolution -- with politics.

John Lennon gave a Concert To Free John Sinclair and he ended up getting out after a couple years.

Well, anyway -- things are coming full circle.

My boyhood idol, John Sinclair, has now quoted me in an article he wrote Nov. 10 for the Detroit Metro Times. I just found it this morning, and I was thrilled.

Here's the quote:

The White House also is spending about $239 million this year to fund local drug-trafficking task forces, Steve Elliott adds at newsjunkiepost.com, "which in the real world, usually means local cops dressing up like Rambo and tramping through the woods in a wasteful, quixotic and doomed attempt to stop the burgeoning marijuana industry."

This Taco Bell Has A Smart Manager...

Come on, all you other California fast food franchises... Support the people who support you! Light a fire on November 2. YES ON 19!