Canadian Political Prisoner Returning Home from Wrongful Incarceration
Thursday, July 11, 2013
100 Things
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Almost 100 Things
1. I once drove the Goodyear Blimp. (My Dad was a Goodyear exec.)
2. The FBI had a file on me when I was 15. They'd heard about the curtains I'd made from real flags and really took a dim view of it.
3. I have had many fun hitchhiking adventures.
4. I am a huge Simpson's fan and named my website after an episode.
5. I've been divorced once. I was devastated.
6. Used to have a classic cherry-red Studebaker [car].
7. Took ballet, acrobatics, and tap for years growing up with my sister.
8. I have two children.
9. I have lived in 2 different co-existing communes in rural Tennessee, in Venice Beach, CA, in Atlanta, GA, and briefly at the Chelsea in NY. Met a few characters there.
10. I bought my first twelve-string guitar when I was 17 from Dunham's in Asheville, NC.
11. I used to belong to the Mickey Mantle Fan Club when I was 11 years old. But I also really liked the great Roger Maris.
12. I still meditate and do yoga daily.
13. I probably had more fun in my old navy VW bus (that I painted the moon, sun and stars on), than anything. Many taboos were slayed, initiations held, and numerous trips were taken. This was 1969-70 when they were still quite unique.
14. I was a bartender for a dozen years. It was my evening job.
15. I met my husband while I was a bartender.
16. My husband played lead guitar in the band where I was a bartender.
17. I recently had a milestone birthday.
18. My favorite food is coconut shrimp.
19. I used to be embarrassed by the fact that I'm such a sports enthusiast, but now I celebrate it. And I love to play golf.
20. I am a big Duke University Blue Devils Basketball fan.
21. I have had some of the same best friends for over 35 years and we're in contact every week.
22. I am a recovering drug/alcohol addict; and have been drug-free since 1991; and only 4 or 5 drinks since then. No dope. Marijuana doesn't count.
23. Some of my very best friends weren't able to do the same thing and have already passed on far too soon.
24. I miss my best friend, Janet. She was a nurse who succumbed to the occupational hazard. My very best friend since 13.
25. When I was young, my mother taught our neighbor to sew and the neighbor gave me piano lessons.
26. I used to jog eight miles a day.
27. And I worked out literally every extra minute I had during the day.
28. This exercise blitz was supported when I was a full-blown cocaine addict.
29. I had two car wrecks as the driver by the time I was fifteen years old. It's probably why I worry so much about my teenage daughter in a car.
30. I like making quilts, wall-hangings, clothes, anything on my sewing machine or by hand. I've made two quilts by hand.
31. I didn't learn to sew until I was over 30 and made all my young daughter's clothes, some of mine and some of my husbands.
32. I was first paid to sing when I was just 14 at a place called the "Waggon Wheel". They passed around a cigar box and took up a collection for me.
33. I persuaded them to let me sing "Play With Fire" & "Time is on My Side" [Stones] & "Eve of Destruction", "Don't Think Twice". Where else was a 15 year old girl going to get this opportunity in Smalltown, USA? I later sang in 2 different bands after being a street musician.
34. I am the oldest of two daughters.
35. I have a rescued mixed breed (golden retriever/chow) dog named Buddy.
36. My favorite color is black.
37. My dad passed away in 1990 on my daughter's 2nd birthday. I still miss him madly. Everybody loved my Dad.
38. I once took Prozac for depression. Not long after losing my Father.
39. I don't recommend stopping it abuptly. I was weeding by moonlight in a manic frenzy soon after a self induced withdrawal.
40. I used to wear glasses but at my last DMV trip they said I didn't need to wear them to drive so I think my vision is improving with age. Pretty strange.
41. I believe marijuana should be legal. I know. You're surprised.
42. I registered to vote in 1972 to cast my first vote against Nixon when he ran for president. He had visited my college campus in 1971 and it was the first big organized protest I went to.
43. I protested against the Vietnam War in DC and at college many times and have only been maced twice and detained once. (I got to sign myself out.)
44. My family nickname for me is Sude or Sudie.
45. I like to play Mah-Jongg.
46. I was confirmed an Episcopalian, and so is my family.
47. But am currently a practicing Buddhist We attend in the back of a bookstore.
48. I still cling to many Sixties ideals--1) Love everybody. 2) Share what you have. 3) Whatever gets you through the night.
49. I am a compulsive list maker and organizer.
50. If I had been born a boy, my parents were going to name me Mike.
51. I first went to see Jimi Hendrix on May 9, 1969, with Bill Sherrod. I was 16 and was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
52. My great-grandmother died just a few years ago when she was 107.
53. My husband has never worn a wedding band. He also doesn't like to wear a watch or earring or necklace. I'm sure there's a good story there somewhere but he's not talking. But a pocketwatch works fine for him.
54. My husband always plays guitar left-handed upside down, like Hendrix, and has cut a few records back in the day. He actually had the same producer as Jimi. (Or was that the same manager?) My husband has lead a very full life.
55. Being a mother is everything it's cracked up to be. It's my greatest joy.
56. I believe everyone should try LSD once in their lifetime. It's certainly a mind-expander and helped me fast-forward my thinking in my formative, early college years. So I majored in psychedelics in college the first time around. I went back again for another degree in 1992.
57. My husband just found out he has Type II Diabetes.
58. He also has Hepatitis C
59. So does my sister.
60. Christmas 2003, she was very ill and in the Intensive Care unit for 10 days. Real touch and go not knowing if she'd make it. I don't know when I've been so scared. (UPDATE: See #66)
61. Trying to cope and adjust with everyone around me being ill.
62. Who am I? Queen Bringdown and the Buzzkills? Pass that spliff and stay awhile. You want more? I really don't enjoy talking about myself much and I certainly don't want to divulge much either.
63. In college, I recall good-looking guy came by the university in his converted old bread truck and parked in front of the Student Center where all us 'ne'er do wells' were lounging. He set up a table with SDS pamphlets and we all signed up and discussed Nixon's pending arrival on campus. He talked to us about the ROTC program and how to take over that building. It was the college student's "Fuck You" to war. Within a year I was onboard with NOW, SDS, and along with Arfus Apple & Suzy Creamcheese in an art and performance troupe of drama and art majors and assorted friends. I was seventeen and plugged in. Believe it.
64. I'm in the early stages of working on an autobiography/memoir. I'm not that vain. I just was chicken to tell my kids so they can sit down one day and read about me before they came into the world.
65. Biggest misconception about me? That I'm a wise-ass. I am the sweetest, most gentle spirit that you'll ever meet.
JANUARY 2006
66. My sister, Robin passed away on November 24, 2005, Thanksgiving morning at 6:00am. She was two years younger and was my best friend. I thought we had another year with her, but she passed on to the other side. More people are there than are here now. She died from liver cancer brought on by Hepatitis C. By the time we got the diagnosis of the cancer, it had already spread to her lymph nodes and it was just a matter of time. I told her I was going to *fix her*, but we both knew that was wishful thinking. On her hospital bed when she was no longer lucid, her look said it all. She was scared and there was nothing I could do to help her. Coldplay's "Fix You" had come on the radio a few weeks earlier when we were driving back from her most recent diagnosis. Or death sentence, as it turns out. I didn't like Coldplay. Robin hadn't heard it before so I turned it up and sung the song to her. By the time it was over I was convinced I could heal her with the help of drug trials or last resort treatments. I began researching like a motherfucker and was making plans to take her to Mexico when I got the call from Mother that Robin was in the hospital. She came back out in a hearse.
67. After Robin passed on, my Mother was all alone and scared to live by herself. She's sacrificed so much for me so I moved in with her into my old family home in Tennessee. My dear husband and sweet daughter are still living in NC for now, but we stay in touch every day.
68. Did you guess that I was the town outcast? My friend's parents wouldn't let me hang around with their kids. I was a free spirit and still am. My kids are sad they can't find ways to rebel and shock me. Unless one becomes a Republican, I'm pretty much shock proof.
TO BE CONTINUED...
July 3, 2008
69. My daughter delivered a beautiful boy September 9, 2007. Phoenix Sebastian. He's perfect in every way and I'm a brand new grandmother. Today he's 10 months old, is taking his first wobbly steps and can alone stand by himself. He has 7 teeth already and is eating solid food very well. I couldn't be more proud of my daughter and I tell her that at least once a week. He has a little mohawk but I would like to see it grow.
70. I enjoyed a satisfying career with J.Crew and they later closed down in my town. After my Mother ended up alone in another city the universe decided my next course for me. I moved in with her and I began working for myself as an independent contractor so I could care for her. Dig this-- I'm not very hard on myself and I work when I want to and need to. I still can't get over that I'm working at home on my computer. And the money is good. I found the uber grande dickola this time.
71. I've been seperated from my husband for 3 years now. I don't really mind. Honestly? I would really like to date again.
72. To be continued...
THE WALRUS SPEAKS
Monday, July 14, 2008
from sasha frere-jones...
This one is self-explanatory. Here’s the description included on the video’s YouTube page:
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.Lennon talks about his problems entering the United States and his general feelings about the economics of war. Levitan reports that some of his friends—Canadians!—don’t like the Beatles because they smoke marijuana and are “hippies.” Lennon suspects that “squares” are involved.
The animation is gorgeous, though not “terrifyingly genius.” And I recommend going to the YouTube page and clicking on “Watch in high quality.” via
I MET THE WALRUS
The Injustice of Schapelle Corby
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Injustice of Schapelle Corby
Bali, Indonesia. Schapelle Corby, a 27-year-old Australian woman, languishes in Kerobokan Prison for a crime she insists she didn't commit. Shapelle had flown to Bali in October 2004 to join her sister Mercedes (married to a Bali man) for a two week vacation at the beach.
Among her luggage was an unlocked boogie-board bag. When she arrived in Bali and was asked by customs officials to open the tote, she discovered a ten-pound bag of cannabis flattened next to the board. Though she says she knew nothing about the marijuana, Shapelle was immediately arrested, never imagining the firestorm that would ensue.
* HBO is now showing a documentary on the back story.
*Related:
Help Bring Schapelle Home
Family's Website
Schapelle's Website
Do you think she's guilty or innocent? I'll tell you what I think in the comments.
Drug-War Bulletins
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Three of them:
1. In Seattle, a fifty-six-year old man died last Thursday after being refused a liver transplant because he had followed his doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C. From the Associated Press story:
His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class…
The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.
At some, people who use “illicit substances”—including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it—are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months.
The cruelty and stupidity of this beggars belief. This patient did not need “drug treatment.” He was already undergoing drug treatment. Nor did he need to get “clean.” He was already clean. It’s the drug war that’s dirty. (H/t: John Leone.)
[Read More »]
Monday, December 31, 2007
Best of 2007 Weed Reviews
Late in 2007 LAist began weed reviews, a sporadic column featuring a different variety of marijuana while presenting it as though it were a wine review, and of those different kinds of pot 3 stood out as superior to the rest.
#1 Weed of Los Angeles: Sour Diesel.
This pot is a consistent crowd pleaser. We liked it so much we reviewed it twice. Its that kind of stuff that you would smoke even if pot didn't get you high, just for the taste. It's a great strain and comes highly recommended.
#2 Weed of Los Angeles: OG Kush
OG Kush is the best of all the kush sub-strains. Forget bubba, master, hindu and all the others... OG wins. And its because its the most consistent, most pungent and knocks you off your ass the hardest. OG Kush truly is the original gangster of kushes.
#3 Weed of Los Angeles: Trainwreck
Our #3 is the most appropriately named of the bunch. You feel it all right in your face, as though you had your block knocked off by a freight train. Makes sense, eh? It is also uniquely pungent, and like OG and Sour-D can be found at your local weed outlet or stoner friend's living room.
Honorable Mentions in no particular order go to: Odyssey, Super Silver Haze, Pot of Gold, Afgooey, and Skunk #1.
link
Friday, September 21, 2007
No Extradition for the BC3!
Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, and Greg Williams are Canadian citizens who were heavily involved in anti-prohibition activism for over ten years.
The United States Justice Department and DEA want Canada's government to extradite these three political activists to face 10 years up to life in US prison! The extradition hearing has been scheduled to begin on November 5th, 2007. Canadians and Americans MUST do their part! Even a phone call makes a difference!
Click the image below for five things you can do to help the BC3 fight extradition!
If you support drug-reform, harm reduction, or basic human liberty and freedom of choice, please take a few minutes and do whatever you can.
link | Watch the 60 Minutes CBS broadcast about "Marc Emery, Prince of Pot" at Pot.tv
Sunday, October 8, 2006
* Marijuana product placement on grocery shelves? link
* Visualize that the Holy beings enter your heart chakra or a Dharma wheel in the form of lights before you move anything on the altar. There really is a method to moving your altar. link
* A Pima, Arizona, couple has stepped down as leaders of a church that considers marijuana a sacrament and deity. The government contends the church is a front for drug trafficking. link
* Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox - A documentary. link
* I didn't know Richard Clarke had a website. link
* BBQ-ing with Bobby Seale - Yes, that Bobby Seale. link
* Help Hastert Hide the Perv and more silliness - link
* David Byrne offers up “Record Companies: Who needs Them?” and gives his opinion on the Montreal music this week. link
FULL MOON
Take some time around this Full Moon to create more balance in your life, in whatever way you feel called. Use the tools you have to stay centered. listen to your heart, and remember: "To go out of our minds at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind you come to your senses! When you come out of the conditioned, limited and unaware mind the center of gravity naturally shifts to the heart." --Alan Watts
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Deerskin jackets and potter’s wheels, geodesic domes and star charts, instructions on raising bees and on repairing Volkswagens, advice on building furniture and cultivating marijuana: all this can be found here, along with celebrations of communal life and swipes at big government, big business and a technocratic society.
How could the romantic, utopian culture of the 1960’s, with its deep suspicions about modernity and its machinery, be closely linked to one of the most important technological revolutions of the last hundred years?
link
login: bozetta
password: rednose
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The Republican Party has a new voter registration project in Fresno. It involves luring people to sign a LEGALIZE MARIJUANA petition and then re-registering them as Republicans.
link
Friday, August 4, 2006
Local and federal law enforcement officials said they're aware dealers like Eric are turning to craigslist and other Web sites to sell pot, but the amounts sold are generally so small they're not very concerned.
Eric, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used, says he doesn't make much of a profit — if any — but sells enough marijuana so he can smoke for free. He sells small amounts — usually an eighth of an ounce, which brings in $30 to $40. Most clients are friends or friends of friends, Eric said.
Pretty ballsy, I'd say and good that they don't pick on them.
link
Monday, March 27, 2006
[Where to cop in Asheville]
"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life."
-- Frederico Fellini
Monday, March 20, 2006
A man named "Kenny the coke freak" once lived in the basement of the three-story brick building at 9 Bleecker St., just off the Bowery. In the early 1970s, when Kenny no longer could pay the rent, the Yippies moved in.
More than three decades later, the counterculture group founded by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin is looking to turn its Bleecker Street headquarters into a museum. The state Office of Cultural Education is recommending that the Board of Regents grant a five-year provisional charter to the Youth International Party - which spearheads an annual march calling for the legalization of marijuana - at its March meeting next week. The Regents are likely to follow the recommendation.
The items to be on display will include some of the cremated ashes of acid guru Timothy Leary and an American flag blazer donated by Hoffman's son, Andrew, who lives in Indonesia. [More...]
Yippie Museum Approved
Saturday, October 15, 2005
In 1967 the Beatles were in Abbey Road Studios putting the finishing touches on their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At one point Paul McCartney wandered down the corridor and heard what was then a new young band called Pink Floyd working on their hypnotic debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. He listened for a moment, then came rushing back. "Hey guys" he reputedly said, "There's a new band in there and they're gonna steal our thunder". With their mix of blues, music hall influences, Lewis Carroll references, and dissonant experimentation, Pink Floyd was one of the key bands of the 1960s psychedelic revolution, a pop culture movement that emerged with American and British rock, before sweeping through film, literature, and the visual arts. The music was largely inspired by hallucinogens, or so-called 'mind-expanding' drugs such as marijuana and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), and attempted to recreate drug-induced states through the use of overdriven guitar, amplified feedback, and droning guitar motifs influenced by Eastern music.
This psychedelic consciousness was seeded, in the United States, by countercultural gurus such as Timothy Leary, a Harvard University professor who began researching LSD as a tool of self-discovery from 1960, and writer Ken Kesey who with his Merry Pranksters staged Acid Tests - multimedia 'happenings' set to the music of the Warlocks (later the Grateful Dead) and documented by novelist Tom Wolfe in the literary classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) - and traversed the country during the mid-1960s on a kaleidoscope-colored school bus. Suzy Hopkins, formerly *Suzy Creamcheese, a dancer and inspirational figure on the underground scene in Los Angeles and London, remembers the visceral way psychedelic culture affected the senses. 'There's a difference between a drug and a psychedelic. Drugs make you drugged and psychedelics enhance your ability to see the truth or reality' she says. For her, LSD and music created a kind of alchemy. Many psychedelic bands explored this sense of abandonment in their music, moving away from standard rock rhythms and instrumentation.
* She's ONE of the Suzy Creamcheesees.
MORE
Sunday, June 19, 2005
[more »]
Yippie Speakers will keep the Yippie spirit alive with updates on the original pranksters and the appointed (or annointed) new millenium Yippie types.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
This should be enough to make us all quit smoking. Gross.
ETC
Post from yesterday that I'd accidentally left in draft mode. Actually, it was the drummer's fault.
Sunday, June 20, 2004
» The Dirty Martini has been around for sometime, but I see where the Dirty Sue martini is launching a huge ad campaign. It's the cleanest dirtiest martini around.
» A bold advertising campaign (Australia) that aims to wipe out marijuana's reputation as a "soft" drug will hit NSW cinemas this week. One includes the ad-line: "Pot. It mightn't kill you. But it could turn you into a dickhead." I kid you not. Link
» Celebrate the Summer Solstice today at 8:56 pm EST, June 20. Solstice revelers will gather at Stonehenge to watch the sunrise.
» Happy Father's Day to all you Daddios out there.
» 'Best of San Francisco' award-winner, Tish is celebrating a birthday today! Stop in and wish her well.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Mixing oral history, autobiography and a large dose of firsthand sources from High Times to Foreign Policy, the book moves across time and culture, starring one drug after another, from marijuana to MDMA.
Salon Link; Amazon Link
War stories that are worth a look...
