More on the Politics of Meaning

I’ve been smoking WEED for over forty years, no brag, just fact. The periods that I’ve either tried to slow down or outright quit, has been hampered in my diluted mind by the fact, Life’s still too weird for me to take sober.

I have this theory; Life has no meaning except what we give it. That’s why Life’s always changing and yet, as we see every day as we grow older, it stays the same, only the player’s name have been changed. Life is how you look at it...

Let’s start with the Swastika. This striking, iconic symbol that represents Nazism and all that is evil has immediate effect for anyone with a shed of decency in them. Even though these days anyone we don’t like, we call the ‘New Hitler,’ but even that flippant use of Der Fuehrer’s name doesn’t diminished the impact of seeing the living stamp of Nazism splashed on a storefront window or hurriedly drawn on a gravestone. The symbol has been used by every civilizations since the Hindus, but I think we can all agree, Adolph made it all his own. So much for the Swastika.

This just in...

Over the weekend here in Frissy, I read that a Swastika was painted on the Russian...err...the Jewish Community Center over there on Presidio. I was pissed. Then I found out that the vandalistic marking was three inches by five inches. Yes, it is still a hate crime, no matter the height or dimensions, but what about the hate crimes over the weekend where people were hurt and maybe killed? I’m looking at you Phoenix.

Speaking of...After the passage of the Bill making it illegal to live in AZ unless your white, the next day, someone had concocted, created a Swastika five feet high, made out of refried beans.

The great Mel Brooks said his only job in life is to make fun of Adolph Hitler, tearing down the man. I think Mel would say a hearty, “Ole,” on the refried-take on a nasty symbol. See into it what you may... It is like one Swastika was a joke and the other was threatening. I let you decide.   

They are finally closing the LA dispensaries after much discussion and profits were made. I’m telling you, the greed of LA is going to kill the Medical Marijuana issue. They can’t help themselves. It’s really a town that doesn’t know how to say no, and worst, they send someone else to do their copping. Hey LA, this is why you’ll never be cool...

More WEED Weirdness...

This morning around 3:30am in Billings, Montana, a Medical Marijuana store was firebombed. The word, “Not in our town,” was spray painted on the burnt out windows. Remember this isn’t Frissy where you can get a card for having a pain from wearing high heels, this Montana where you need MS or another debilitating disease that weakens your flesh and spirits for a card. Today in Billings, there are police in black SUV’s patrolling the area with the Hardin Police Department seal stamped on the cruiser’s front doors. Only problem, there isn’t a Hardin Police Department. It is a front for a Blackwater-like company posing as Johnny Law. And the Militia of Montana, that’s their official name (guys, you might want to smoke some WEED, come up with more of a creative name than just looking outside at a street sign for some inspiration.), has called Billings’s home for decades. Its funny what passes for compassion and what passes for concern? I guess it’s how you look at it...

With everything that’s going on in Greece, I really recommend Costa Graves’ great film, yes, film, “Z.” I saw it stoned at a campus theatre in the beginning of the Seventies, I think, and to this day, it is still one of the best political thrillers of all time, even if nothing happens. See it; you’ll know what I mean. Or not...

Poor Mel Gibson, a stripper has come out talking about her and the Lethal Weapon’s love affair. Mel gives new meaning to the passion of the Christ. That is one horny son of God. Irony? You did know that the word ‘passion’ as in “Passion of the Christ,” means Death or Execution, right. Wouldn’t it be weird if the 400 mill Mel made for his religious movie gave him too many temptations? Marty Scorsese made it out okay.

Do farmers and the guys who deliver stuff really talk movie grosses? Does the regular Jane Two-Liter even care about weekend openings? Why do we care that Iron Man 2 is closing in on the Dark Knight money. Is our love of money so great that we literal follow the path of dollars even though we don’t care what we’re seeing?

Here’s your top fifteen grosser from just five years ago...

1      Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

2      The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe       

3      Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire      

4      War of the Worlds 

5      King Kong     

6      Wedding Crashers 

7      Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

8      Batman Begins      

9      Madagascar    

10    Mr. & Mrs. Smith  

11    Hitch      

12    The Longest Yard  

13    Fantastic Four

14    Chicken Little

15    Robots

Which one of these classics do you watch over and over again? Which one of these babies that you might have stood in line for or bought the non-knock off t-shirt celebrating the film’s release and that you saw it and believe in its cinematic reverence?  Which one of those movies, yes, movies, did you run out to see because you thought your life couldn’t go on if you didn’t? Can’t wait for Robin Hood, yes I can...

Money ruins everything. Comic-Con, the convention that everyone makes fun of in San Diego because it is so geeky and so honest in its hero worship of all that is Marvel, is moving to LA, actually worse, Anaheim. Why? Because it is making money now and the studios have learn that geeks rule when it comes to...well, thinking matters, like books and science fiction. The geeks really care and will pay for something if it’s cool. Speaking of Iron Man 2, there are no longer movies, only vehicles to get us to the Playstation on time, before the buzz leaves the platform.

 You know that the gamer biz brings in three times the revenue of your Hollywood movies. That’s where the really money is. But you lose half your life playing the games.

New York is still not allowing pro-pot billboards. Norml wants to put up a billboard along a causeway that is traditionally used for your more political messages. The message this time was N.Y. busts more people for pot than anywhere else in America. Bloomberg, the mayor stood up on a set of some Queens yellow pages and piped, “No way!” to the sign that would have brought a little attention to his big city.    

Too fat too fight?

The military is very concern. It seems they can’t find the right candidates for war and even sadder, they can’t promote the ones they have. Why? Because Sgt. Wideglide is too bulky, too big. Today’s military is popping out of their buttons to serve, but being rejected for being obese. So what are they doing about the ones who are being all they can’t be? Start with young’ins by going to the orchard, to the source as they say in Chicago. They’re going to the Child’s garden, or as teachers call it, kindergarten to pluck the young fruit.

It is the Majors and Generals idea to start whipping the ‘Merican kids into shape, starting with kindergarten.

After all the special meetings and hearings concerning our school lunches that have been debated in congress or at your local PTA’s. After having our governments endorse a packet of ketchup as a legitimate vegetable with a straight face. Even when some plucky Brit who was raised on moldy bird and over-cook everything, thinks that he could come to our country to try to change our children’s grazing habits in order to make them healthier right before our calorie-loaded eyes on the telly. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the reason we implement a smarter dietary program is so that we have a better military pool to choose from? Remember, drones can’t do it all by themselves.

Aren’t there the willing and skinny in Billings that would be happy to enlist?

I don’t care what you say, after five minutes of Betty White talking dirty, I’ve seen enough. But it is great to see a show biz veteran honored, even if it was a one-joke show. Oops, there goes my NBC boycott. Wait...Here it comes back again. Leno has stopped me from watching Friday Night Lights. Is it really a boycott when you can order the season on Netflix in a month?

Again about the War on Drugs...

So we may have Marijuana legal here by this November. Why? Everyone says money. We need the taxes. While a person gets busted every ninety seconds in America for WEED, there is a new compassionate angle to stopping the busts. Is it because regular, other-wise law abiding citizens are being sent to jail erroneously? No. Is it because it seems like everyone you know is smoking the shit? No, it is because of Lassie.

I am not a pet or a PETA person. I believe animals should be care for and loved, but I have a problem when we love our pets more than the strangers we share the world with.

There is a new attention being brought to the police procedure of approaching a drug house, no matter what kind of drug house. When your average crime fighter advances to a call, a possible drug house, the accepted procedure has always been, kill the dogs in the front of the house or in the yard, tied up or not. As the sheriffs approach, they take out all animals. I guess this is ruffling the fur of concern animal lovers everywhere. It is becoming an issue in your more country-like living where ducks and geese are ‘a squawking. The City people don’t have the same concerns or the lazy dogs sleeping on the porches in the afternoons.

See, people in their fifties, sixties and seventies are being busted now. Hippies are older and they’ve taken their stash with them into their old age. I can’t imagine having a disease that the only relief comes from ingesting an herb for reducing pain or stimulated an appetite that’s given up on the idea of eating from many chemo treatments ago. The police are at your front door with their distinctive cop knocks, and your dog of fourteen years lies in the yard, breathing its last breaths.

Will our love of animals save our specie from being sent to prisons for smoking something that some can smoke legally and others, can’t? I guess it just depends how you look at it...

More later...