SoHum Vactation Guide

SoHum Vacation Guide

 

I know you are planning your Summer vacation right now. I live in a very tourist dependent community, and we have a lot to offer the smart vacationer here in SoHum. Whether you like to hunt, fish, hike, backpack, camp, cycle, or just sit in a hotel room between a loaded gun and a pile of cash, I want you to enjoy your stay here in SoHum and hope that you return home with many fond memories, and a trunk full of marijuana.

 

We love tourists here in SoHum. We love the way you take up every last parking space in Garberville. We love waiting behind your enormous RVs at the gas pumps, and we especially enjoy fishing your bloated corpses out of the ocean, because it reminds us to stay out of the water, and keeps our rescue teams well trained in case of a real emergency.

 

Our local economy also depends on tourist dollars. Besides the fact that none of us stay at the hotels much, none of us eat at Sicilitos Pizza or Cadillac Wok either. Neither of those businesses would survive long without a steady supply of people who don’t already know better.

So, I want to encourage everyone to come to SoHum on vacation this Summer. Enjoy the scenic splendor. Relish in its rugged natural beauty, and experience first-hand, one of the last truly wild places in the lower 48 United States, but before you embark on your SoHum safari, you should know a few things about the native wildlife, and prepare yourself accordingly.

A Guide to Enjoying the Back-Country in SoHum

Skunks we have two kinds of skunks here in SoHum, the stripped skunk, common across most of the US, and a smaller, cuter spotted variety. These smaller cuter spotted skunks have a mellowing effect on the stripped skunks.  They now compete with each other for human attention. Yes both stripped and spotted skunks are extremely affectionate on the North Coast and most lack any fear of humans. If you see a skunk with its tail raised, that signals affiliative behavior and means that it wants to be petted.

Cute and friendly Western Spotted Skunk

Mountain Lions While mountain lions remain common in Humboldt County, most people don’t see them until its too late. Still rarer, are sightings of their oh so cuddly and playful cubs. If you happen upon mountain lion cubs in the back country, pet them, scratch their chins, get a few photos and stick close to them until their mother returns.

Cuddly Mountain Lion Cubs

Black Bear We have quite a few black bears in SoHum. Bears around here have had some bad experiences and shy away from tourists, as a result, but tourists often leave here unnecessarily disappointed that they didn’t see even one bear during their entire stay. While camping in the back-country, if you want to see a bear, just slather your entire body with bacon grease before you go to sleep. If you do that at nightfall, I guarantee that you will see a bear before sunup.

Black Bears Love Bacon Grease!

Yellow Jackets Yellow jackets produce the most delicious honey. You won’t find yellow jacket honey in stores because it naturally contains a chemical euphoriant almost identical to cocaine, so trade in yellow jacket honey is banned by federal law. People around here know that yellow jackets are extremely docile, and if you sing to them, you can just stick your hand right into the nest and grab a handful of delicious, euphoria producing honey.

Yellow Jackets Produce Delicious, Psychoactive Honey

Gray Squirrel- DANGER!!! Gray Squirrels should be avoided AT ALL COSTS!!!–  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come upon the partially decomposed body of a tourist in the back-country where victim’s mouth and eye sockets were stuffed with acorns. Only gray squirrels can do that to a man. Red squirrels just watch, and laugh.

Deadly Grey Squirrel AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!

Elk If you’ve never ridden an elk, you owe it to yourself to try. An elk-back ride from Bear Harbor to Jones Beach is the perfect way to see the Sinkyone Wilderness Area.

Everyone should try riding an elk at least once

Snakes most of the snakes on the North Coast are both venomous, and protected under the endangered species act, so don’t mess with them. However the western diamondback rattlesnake is exceptionally docile, and likes to be handled. Distinguished by the presence of a rattle on the end of its tail, which the rattlesnake uses to announce its presence, and attract friends. Many tourists find these snakes so cuddly and affectionate that they take them home where they become cherished household pets. Mothers find that their gentle rattling sound soothes restless babies, school children like to take them to school for show and tell, and teenagers like to show them off at parties. Rattlesnakes rarely grow longer than two to three feet in length, so they create far fewer problems in the long run than larger species commonly kept as pets, like boa constrictors and pythons.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake in typical "friendship" pose

Blue Bellied Lizard, or Fence-Post Lizard –DANGER!!!!- The bright blue hue of of this lizard’s underside tells all of nature to “Back Off!” This diminutive reptile possesses the most deadly bite in the entire Western Hemisphere. Perhaps more frightening, the blue bellied lizard can spit venom accurately, up to 30 yards. One single drop of blue belly venom in a human eye, can cause permanent blindness. If you see a blue bellied lizard in the back-country, immediately drop to the ground, close your eyes, and cover your eyes with your hands. With your hands covering your eyes at all times, crawl, on your elbows and knees, to a safe distance (about 100′).

DANGER!!! Blue Bellied Lizards spit blinding venom and their bite CAN KILL!!!

Ticks Some ticks contain antibodies that impart to their host, and immunity to blue bellied lizard venom. Most of us locals have had so many tick bites that blue bellied lizards no longer concern us much. We all know that the best thing to do when a tick bites you is nothing. Just let it be, don’t disturb the tick, no matter how much it itches, until it bloats up and falls off on its own. That way, you can get the maximum immune boosting benefits from each tick.

Beneficial North Coast ticks boost immunity

Marijuana Forest rangers plant marijuana in remote parts of our National Forests to reward adventurous hikers. If you find marijuana plants while hiking on National Forest land, you’ve found a great place to camp. There’ll be water nearby, usually coming out of a pipe (you may have to cut the pipe to get it, that’s OK). Make yourself comfortable, and enjoy the free herb.

Forest Rangers plants marijuana in our National Forests to reward adventurous hikers

Mexican Hunters Many sportsmen from Mexico spend the entire summer in our National Forests. Most of them know the forest so well, that they know where to find all of the good marijuana patches. While they speak little, if any English, carry no hunting license, and usually hunt with automatic weapons, I’ve always found them friendly. As long as you understand that a barrage of gunfire aimed in your direction is the traditional way of saying “Welcome” in Mexico, you should have no problems with them

Mexican sportsmen enjoy hunting in our National Forests

If you just keep these simple suggestions in mind while you explore this this natural paradise, you should have a great time on your SoHum vacation.

Word Power, Dementian

Word Power

Building Your Vocabulary by Inventing New Words

Dementian

de ment ian (pronounce like dimension)n, an inhabitant of dementia.

 

I coined this term after listening to the Friday morning talk show on our dear little community radio station, KMUD, called, embarrassingly enough, Thank Jah Its Friday. Older, boomer-aged host Al “Owl” Cerulo had just shouted down his younger partner, Tanner Spea’s concerns about the environmental crisis, with the statement “We’re gonna move into another dimension.”

 

Cerulo often airs these psychotic notions on this show. While the world, and our local community face real issues that deserve discussion, the kinds of discussion Tanner usually initiates, Cerulo cannot stop talking about UFOs, mysterious black boxes, or the awesome power of the pyramids, …or dimensions.

 

Ever since Carl Sagan tried to explain astrophysics on PBS, lunatics like Cerulo have latched onto the idea that we can somehow inhabit theoretical mathematical constructs. People who laughed at the rapture day retards, chuckled at the castrated comet cult, and just stared in disbelief at Jim Jones’ Koolaid kill-off, somehow take this “other dimension” shit seriously.

 

Some people simply can no longer look reality in the face. They pray for salvation. They become born again Christians. They seek Nirvana. They believe in UFOs or lapse into some other dementia. Rather than seeing this tendency as yet another symptom of a failed culture, people cling to these salvation fantasies while they lose their grip on reality. Rather than living in the real world, they begin to inhabit their own dementia. In other words, they become dementians.

 

Dementians see our complete failure as a culture as a kind of achievement. As though only by destroying the natural systems that support life on Earth, can we prove to the aliens, or Jesus or whatever, that we deserve a better place to live. Or, maybe they think that through the process of destroying the planet, we will gain so much knowledge that the aliens will finally find us interesting enough to want to talk to.

 

It’s really hard to know what dememtians think, because they are crazy. Crazy people don’t think rationally. That’s why we call them crazy. Once they buy into Jesus or UFOs or quantum theory, every subsequent fantasy gets easier to swallow. In this way, one silly idea leads to another until soon they inhabit a world of their own construction, built entirely from demented ideas. They become dementians.

 

Dementians, like zombies, try to eat the brains of the people around them, like “Owl” tried to do to Tanner on Thank Jah Its Friday last week. Dementians, like zombies have lost the capacity for reason, so there’s no point talking to them. Like zombies, dementians continue blindly consuming everything they can get their grasping clutches on, because they believe that a better world awaits them just on the other side of reality.

 

Dementians act like zombies in many ways, and every day, the world looks more like a zombie apocalypse because of them. This drives more people crazy, who then become new dementains. The more crazy people surround you, the more likely you are to crack yourself. Don’t let them suck you into their dementia. We have plenty of dementians as it is.

The Importance of Not Caring in a Relationship

The Importance of Not Caring in a Relationship

 

I’ve heard a few complaints that my writing has become rather “negative” lately, and that I’ve taken some cheap shots at some easy targets for quick laughs. These complaints usually go something like: “If its not volunteer programmers at KMUD, local political candidates, or dope growers, its old people, the French or Andrew Goff. All you do is rag on people, John, and that’s not funny!”

 

To which I respond, “Oh fuck you! I’m so tired of listening to you complain about my writing. Why don’t you just SHUT UP!”, and that’s why I’ve slept in the truck for the last four nights.

 

Then I realized that I have, for too long now, neglected an important segment of my audience. The people of Thailand, Thai people everywhere, and non-Thai people who live Thai-style lives rely on me for relationship advice (based on the amount of traffic that pours into this blog from http://thaistyleliving.com/?p=903 which lists this blog as a resource for building relationships).  I have let my own petty concerns distract me from my responsibilities to these people. So, today I want to get back to helping you build lasting relationships, Thai-style, or otherwise.

 

Much has been said about the importance of caring in a relationship. Of course its important to care about your partner, and to build a caring relationship, but not-caring is equally critical to a happy relationship. For instance, its important to a relationship to not care too much about things like, say, the car he wrecked or the leather jacket her cat peed on.

 

Other times, especially in a young relationship, its important to effectively communicate exactly how much you care about something. For instance; “I’m leaning towards Amigos Burritos for lunch, its quick, doesn’t cost too much and its right on 101, but I could be persuaded other wise”, or perhaps, “I’d really like to try Bless My Soul sometime. It doesn’t have to be tonight. Do you have a better suggestion?”

 

You see how both of these statements express different degrees of ambivalence. Most of us feel ambivalent about most things. A large part of building a relationship, is turning those ambivalent feelings into real decisions; where to go for dinner, what movie to watch, what color to paint the kitchen, before you starve to death, fall asleep or get used to looking at the tape stripes on the bare drywall.

 

After a while, in a relationship, you begin to learn the value of not caring so much about these little decisions. This saves time, avoids arguments, and gets things done. What color do you think the drapes should be? I don’t care. What should we put on this wall? I don’t care. What should we name the kid? I don’t care. Even if you have some ambivalent feelings about these issues, when you realize how much energy not caring will save you, those ambivalent feelings just float away.

 

Think about it. Some things really are worth caring about; getting “nookie” regularly, having someone to talk to so you don’t go batshit crazy talking to yourself, and knowing someone who has seen you naked, first thing in the morning, smelled your farts, and knows what a jerk you are, but still mostly enjoys your company. Those are sensible things to care about.

By comparison, what you have for dinner, what movie you see, or even where you go on vacation seem rather paltry, don’t they? So, remind yourself of the things you really care about, before you get too invested in a color scheme, or choice of vehicle.

When you realize that the number one factor determining how much you enjoy anything, is how much your partner enjoys it, you’ll understand why the less you care about anything else, the happier you will be.

On The Money, Democracy is Overrated

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working-Class

Democracy is Overrated

 

Winston Churchill once said, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” I’m sure people haven’t gotten any smarter in the last half-century, and neither has democracy. I know some people still think that democracy is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I sure don’t see the evidence of it. What has democracy done for you lately? Do you ever remember a time when democracy worked? I sure don’t.

I was about four I guess, when a news bulletin interrupted one of my favorite TV shows, Captain Kangaroo, to tell the world that Robert Kennedy had been shot. “Kennedy’s been shot” was already a familiar phrase in my limited lexicon.

As far as I remember, no one ever really liked the Vietnam war, yet it dragged on forever, it seemed. I remember, at 12, sitting through hours of incredibly boring televised testimony that preempted everything on TV, trying to figure out what a water gate was. I knew it had something to do with Nixon cheating in his re-election campaign, and that our president was a crook.

I remember a peanut farmer giving us the hard truth about fossil fuels and telling us what we needed to do to prepare for the future. That was just about the same time Pink Floyd’s album Animals came out. I remember that the American people resoundingly said “Fuck the future, gimme more now!” and voted for a cowboy actor who promised to lie to them, just after The Wall had peaked.

I remember the Iran/Contra scandal. I remember fabricated threats, and real violence in places like Grenada, Panama, and Nicaragua. I remember massive increases in military spending, while they demonized the poor. The word “Homelessness” joined our common lexicon, and it became a condition of life for millions of Americans. I remember that Reagan drastically raised taxes on waiters, waitresses and bartenders by taxing their tips, and that he gutted college grant funds. As a waiter, putting myself through college at the time, you can imagine how much I appreciated that.

As far as I can tell, Reagan got reelected four more times, by the same idiots who elected him the first time. Clinton proved that he, like Reagan, was elected specifically to lie to us, when he remained popular even as Congress impeached him for lying to Congress. We didn’t care. We knew we were living a fantasy, why shouldn’t he? We didn’t care that Bill Clinton got a little nookie on the side, we didn’t care that he lied about it. We were just disappointed that Monica Lewinsky wasn’t hotter.

Around the millennium, people began to realize that Jimmy Carter was right about a few things, and that those solar panels that he put on the White House were actually a pretty good idea. The American people almost put a (sort of) environmentalist in the Oval Office in 2000, but things got ugly in Florida and the Supreme Court handed the presidency to GW Bush. The American people just shrugged.

After eight long years of war, torture, civil rights abuses, human rights abuses, mortgage fraud, economic collapse, and bank bailouts, the American people finally united behind the first African-American president in history, and we could hardly be more disappointed with him.

All of the problems that I remember as a child; pollution, smog, poverty, deforestation, overfishing and technological warfare, have only gotten worse, and we have a whole bunch of new problems, like homelessness, unaffordable health care, and an uber-class that just sucks the life out of everything. That doesn’t sound to me like democracy is working. It sure doesn’t feel like democracy is working. It might be working for somebody, but its not working for me, or anyone I know.

I’m not saying that saying that communism or socialism or even monarchy or dictatorship would improve things, I’m saying that the only thing that all 300 million of us can agree on, is that the majority of Americans are idiots. Democracy is the process whereby we let those idiots run our lives.

Yes, democracy amounts to a dictatorship of the dumb, a gulag of the gullible and a republic of the retarded. Forget about the nonsense that it takes an intelligent, informed public for democracy to succeed. Democracy succeeds by turning stupidity into power that only money can wield. It’s time to face the fact that, although it seems like a great theory, democracy really doesn’t work in practice, either.

Word Power, Abinitio

Word Power

Building your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

Abinitio

abinitio (Abba ‘neesh eeoh) adv. From the beginning.

 

People who have followed this blog abinitio, know that the appearance of a “Word Power” piece here at www.lygsbtd.wordprss.com usually means that within a few hours, a couple more, usually longer pieces will appear here as well. God willing, this week will be no exception.

I Endorse a Candidate in the 2nd District Supervisors Race

I Endorse a Candidate in the 2^nd District Supes. Race

Looking at our current choices for Humboldt Co. 2^nd District Supervisor makes me really miss Roger Rodoni. I would vote for a zombie Roger Rodoni before I’d vote for either Clif Clendennen or Estelle Fennel.

 

Clif Clendennen owns Clendennen Cider Works, a pillar of our local economy that probably wouldn’t exist today, were it not for Alcohol Prohibition, which created an insatiable demand for fruit that could be made into moonshine. We thought he understood the plight of poor pot farmers who just want to make a killing in an unregulated illegal industry just like his great-grandfather did. Unfortunately, he turned out to be just another Fortunite son who couldn’t care less about anything that happens South of SR36.

 

On the other hand, we all remember Estelle Fennel as KMUD’s intrepid news reporter, asking the hard questions of former Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz, getting the lowdown on law-enforcement, and 24-7 coverage of wild-fires for weeks at a time. We also remember the day she stepped over to the dark side, in the midst of the Reggae Wars. Almost overnight, our star reporter turned from Walter Cronkite, into Karl Rove as she turned KMUD’s newscast into a mouthpiece for the “Dick Cheney” of SoHum, Carol Bruno.

 

The Reggae Wars brought Estelle’s otherwise stellar journalistic career to an unfortunate end. While the Reggae Wars left a bad taste in everyone else’ mouth, Estelle seemed to enjoy the big money, corruption and politics of it all, and shortly thereafter, undertook an unsuccessful campaign for the seat she currently seeks.

 

Lately, she’s in bed with HumCPR, an “AstroTurf” non-profit that advocates on behalf of commercial pot farmers, greedy real-estate developers, and rich land-owners. They’ve got they’re sites fixed on the 2^nd District Supervisors seat. With Estelle Fennel commanding their Death Star, they mean to overturn the Clendennen apple cart in June.

 

That means that if you live South of Hydesville, and/or earn South of $100,000 a year, you shouldn’t expect much from either of our Second District Supervisor candidates, except junk mail. Whoever wins, we get the same corrupt, ineffective county government that we’re used to.

 

Don’t we, at least, deserve a candidate with a little more charisma? Shouldn’t we have someone to vote for who, at least superficially, reflects the brash, rugged, independent spirit of SoHum in some way?

Neither of our current candidates can hold a candle to the character, candor, and colloquial charm of the man in the black cowboy hat, Roger Rodoni.

 

If I’m going to get screwed over by a dysfunctional and corrupt county government, I want the face of that government to be a sinister-looking redneck in a black cowboy hat, not some pencil-necked geek in a short sleeved dress shirt, or Darth Vader in drag. So, before this race gets any more dull, let’s do some voodoo, and bring Roger Rodoni back from the dead, just to liven it up a bit.

Album Review, The Fly Stoner by Green R Fieldz

Album Review

The Fly Stoner by Green R. Fieldz

 

Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of gangsta rap. In fact, I even find Lou Reed a little too urban for my taste. That’s why I live out here. That doesn’t mean I like country music. I don’t, but I’m particularly averse to urban sounds.

The other day, however, I stopped at Sylvandale’s to pick up some cat food, and found a stack of free CDs near the checkout register. Attracted as I am to bright shiny objects, I picked one up and examined it. I found myself holding a copy of the promotional EP for Green R Fieldz’, soon to be released album, called The Fly Stoner.

A postcard that accompanied the CD shows the photograph of a young man seated at the base of a particularly robust cannabis plant, with several equally robust cannabis plants in the background, all under a clear blue sky. The young man is flipping us off. I don’t know why he has his middle finger extended. Perhaps the photographer had pissed him off, I don’t know. I’m trying not to take it personally.

I saw that Green R Fieldz hails from Mendocino County, which I could have guessed by the photograph, so I took the CD home to see what our local young men have to say to the world. The music blew me away. The three songs on this EP all rock!! I’m very impressed.

Despite a few regrettable lyrics, which I suppose are obligatory in gangsta rap, Green R Fieldz knows “the Game” in the Emerald Triangle, and “Gets Down” on the Fly Stoner. These three cuts just leap out of the speakers and grab you by the collar with monster beats, great hooks and pretty good lyrics too. I really didn’t expect to like this music, but here I am, a 50 year old white guy, rockin’ out to gangsta rap from Mendocino County.

Green R Fieldz and Glasses Malone

Sure, this music is full of bravado, swagger, and foul language, it is gangsta rap after all, but I found it quite musical and clearly the work of a some very talented artists. Besides Green R Fieldz, this EP features guests Glasses Malone, Matt Blaque, Tony Mendocino, Remy RED and K-Loc. These people may or may not be part of “The Turkey Bag Gang”. I have no idea who these guys are, or how they make gangsta rap, but I’m sure music like this doesn’t happen by accident. These tunes are all really catchy.

Tony Mendocino and Green R fieldz

Number 1 Supplier has an incredibly infectious chorus that sounds like it should be a number one hit. The song Don’t Get Down, gets down with a beat that takes no prisoners. While I wouldn’t endorse Green R Fieldz’ agricultural practices, as described in The Game, I can heartily endorse his music, and appreciate his honesty on the subject. . Grab one of these free CDs and see if I ain’t lyin’,… right in front of the register at Sylvandale’s, right there with the free swimsuit calendars and gro-mags.

I feel for the youth in this area, and its great to hear an articulate young voice tell it like it is. Some might not see this idyllic rural community as the kind of environment that would spawn gangsta rap, but you’d be hard pressed to find a place with fewer opportunities for young people. We’ve had failing schools, rampant drug abuse, and entrenched organized crime around here for years. Now we have our own gangsta rap, and it ROCKS!!!

Look for the full album by Green R Fieldz titled The Fly Stoner to be released on April 20, I don’t know where exactly to look for it, since Wildhorse Records closed down, but look for it. You really should hear what local kids with talent and brains do with themselves these days.

Word Power, Autochthon

Word Power

Building Your Vocabulary One word at a Time

Autochthon

au toch thon (au ‘tock then) n, an indigenous plant, animal or person. One who springs from the ground they inhabit.

Around here, Redwoods, Douglas Fir, Tan Oaks and Madrones are autochthonous trees.

Mountain lions, elk, and black bear are among the surviving autochthonous mammals,

and the Waillaki, and Sinkyone people are among the autochthonous inhabitants of this little piece of heaven, now called Southern Humboldt County,

though most of them were killed by white settlers.

Anna Hamilton Drops Another Load on KMUD

Anna Hamilton Drops Another Load on KMUD

 

Anna Hamilton is so full of shit she should never need to buy fertilizer again. I choked on the load she dumped on us, this past Friday, on her KMUD radio show Lock, Load and Shoot Your Mouth Off. Did she really say that the reason the Feds are cracking down on marijuana growers is to stop the flow of funds to liberal, lefty non-profits like EPIC, Democracy Unlimited, and PETA?

As if the millions of dollars they confiscate every year in pot raids, and millions of dollars more in seized guns, vehicles, and other property, aren’t enough motivation. Like the economic juggernauts called the war on drugs and the prison industrial complex aren’t demanding to be fed on their own accounts. Cops and prison guards like to go to Hawaii too, you know.

Or…why couldn’t this invasion of Federales be an act of economic stimulus, intended as a price-support mechanism for black-market marijuana. I could believe that. Clearly we were all begging for this last year. Around here, people voted 2 to 1 for more oppression and higher pot prices. You can’t blame Obama for trying to oblige us. This is about all the stimulus he can get through congress these days, so we could show some gratitude.

No, according to Anna Hamilton, The Man goes all out to bust growers, just to keep groups like PETA, EPIC and Democracy Unlimited from becoming too powerful. Was she joking? Where does she get this notion that dope growers are such fucking generous people anyway… I mean, besides KMUD? Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? I know what the marijuana business is like. The black-market marijuana industry self-selects for opportunism, not generosity. But don’t take my word for it, look at the evidence.

I think the evidence presented by Kym Kemp, on Anna’s show, goes a long way to refuting the silly notion that dope yuppies would save the world if the Feds just left them alone. Let’s look at those oh so conservative numbers that Kim Kemp kindly Quoted to us that night. According to the estimate that Kim quoted, based on numbers of plants busted each year*, the marijuana industry in Humboldt County, generates about $2.1 billion annually. If these generous growers gave just one percent of that take, to local lefty, liberal non-profits, that would amount to 21 million dollars annually.

Let’s see, the Mateel has an annual budget of about $140,000, KMUD gets another $180,000 a year. Does EPIC take in a hundred-grand a year, I doubt it, but just for argument let’s assume. I’ll bet we could add in the annual budgets of the Trees Foundation, Democracy Unlimited, Friends of the Eel, and Sanctuary Forest, and still not reach one million dollars.

You’ve got to figure that at least half of the Humboldt County marijuana industry happens in SoHum, so if our neighbors who grow pot for a living are so generous that they give just one whole percent of their crop to charity, where are the other nine million dollars? I don’t see it. I did see that cops seized over $375,000 cash in one bust last week, more than the annual budget of The Mateel and KMUD put together.

You’d be hard pressed to find a non-profit that more directly serves SoHum growers than the Mateel Community Center.  From Hempfest, to Reggae on the River, the Mateel Community Center sponsors and promotes many of the pot-positive events that have made SoHum famous for its marijuana.  The Mateel also provides a central meeting place for the marijuana growing community.  In many ways, the Mateel functions as a country club for SoHum’s growers.  So, you’d think the vast majority of the Mateel’s money would come from those generous growers, and that by now, the Mateel would have a huge endowment. You’d be wrong.

About half of the Mateel’s annual budget comes from Summer Arts and Music Festival. Do you know who pays for Summer Arts and Music Festival? Regional artists and craftspeople, not dope yuppies, put up about $30,000 collectively, in advance, in the form of booth fees, to make Summer Arts Fest happen. This isn’t dope money. This is the hard work, sweat and blood of creative people struggling to get by.

So the Mateel takes the money from craft artists, uses it to book ten tons of entertainment, and print up posters. They then enlist a small army of volunteers to take tickets, run check-in, pour beer, provide security, recycle waste and generally provide them with thousands of man-hours of unpaid labor.

Finally, on the day of the show, everyone comes to Summer Arts fest, including a lot of working people from Eureka, and students from HSU, because its the best deal in summer festivals around. The growers come out too. They buy tickets, they drink overpriced beer and they buy stuff for themselves. That’s not generosity, folks, that’s just self-indulgent consumerism.

If these dope yuppies are so fucking generous, why do us poor artists have to subsidize the Mateel so heavily? Why don’t dope growers just donate that tiny fraction of the estimated 2.1 billion dollars they take in each year, to the Mateel, directly, so that Summer Arts Fest can focus on serving the very real needs of the artists and craftspeople who pay for it? How many other non-profits would survive if they didn’t throw lavish parties with delicious food and alcoholic beverages served by volunteers? Not many, I fear.

Besides, I’ve worked in enough non-profits to know that at least 30% of all the money donated to liberal and lefty non-profits, gets spent on marijuana. That kind of wipes out whatever contribution the dope yuppies made in the first place. 30% of the money donated to non-profits gets spent on marijuana because only pot smokers actually give a fuck about anything except getting rich. The people who work at non-profits spend an inordinate amount of their income on marijuana, because it reminds them of why they do what they do.

Yes, I’ve known pot smokers to be generous, caring people. Pot smokers still pay an enormous premium for marijuana because of prohibition. Pot smokers put that 2.1 billion into the hands of growers, and they deserve a better deal. Just because marijuana is a wonderful plant, doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. If growers really wanted to make the world a better place, they would make it their goal to flood the world with cheap, plentiful marijuana, so that more people could afford to smoke pot, and so pot smokers could afford to give more of their own money to their favorite charities.

Instead, growers seem happy to use marijuana as another way for people with land to take advantage of those without. If you own a house or parcel of land, you can use your right to privacy to secret your grow. On the other hand, tenants have to deal with landlord inspection clauses, month to month leases, and frequent moves, making cultivation much more difficult. So, no matter how much growers donate, if they do donate, they are still exploiting poor people and draining the life out of this country for their own enrichment.

I see little evidence of the benevolence of dope yuppies. I see people who like their toys. I see people who like to party. I see people who like to blow money, and I see people who never clean up the messes they make. I see people who bought land when it was still cheap, and I see plenty of parcels that have not been reappraised since the eighties, so the owners pay almost nothing in property taxes, and I see people who enjoy their winters in Hawaii, …but generosity, not so much.

*I think the number of plants seized is a better indication of law enforcement activity and budget, than economic activity in the industry. You could get a much better estimate of how much pot gets grown in Humboldt County each year, I’d think, from the volume of soil and hydroponic aggregate sold at grow shops in the area. I wonder why no one has bothered to do that.

On The Money, A Movie About Money

On The Money

Financial Advice For The Working-Class

A Movie About Money

 

I saw an interesting film last night. That’s not quite right. Actually, I found it a rather dull film, a dull film with atrocious dialogue, characters I did not care about, an a weak story that just ran out of gas and died, literally.

 

Other than that, I’d call Mira Nair’s Amelia, a stunning and magnificent masterwork. The cinematography took my breath away. The film takes us into a slightly sepia-toned fantasy world of opulence, excess and exploitation. I say “fantasy world” because although allegedly set in America during the Great Depression, Amelia had a dream-like other-worldly quality that seemed completely unreal.

 

No one in the thirties would have said “Thank you for not getting defensive.”, as one character did in Amelia. The rest of the equally bland dialogue contributed little to the characters, the story or least of all the setting. Amelia reminded me of Star Trek crew members playing a holodeck game, like people from another world inhabiting an idealized imitation of a particular era.

 

Rather than a realistic depiction of opulence, which never completely manages to hide its true ugliness, in Amelia, we see greed and avarice portrayed as an almost heavenly state of grace. In Amelia we see an aspirational, idealized portrayal of wealth, designed more as an escape from reality for the economically downtrodden, than as a realistic portrayal of the life of Amelia Earhart.

 

Mira Nair really spared no expense on the visual impact of Amelia. In fact, the movie just reeks of money. I found myself wondering, “If they could afford all of this beautiful aerial photography, antique cars, aircraft and period costumes, why couldn’t they spring for some better writers?”

 

Gerbil Boy, Richard Gere spoke the most memorable line in the film, when he said; “I’m an American, and am therefore obligated to make as much money as possible.” In fact, the whole movie seemed to be about money, and everyone’s obligation to serve it. Both in the story, and in the production values, I felt bludgeoned by money, and I resented it.

 

Yes, money, not Amelia Earhart was the main character and subject of this film. In that sense Amelia succeeds in revealing the true character of its subject. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more spectacular display of emptiness in my entire life. While I don’t know any more about Amelia Earhart than I did before I saw Amelia, I found the movie interesting because of what it said about Mira Nair, Hollywood, and money, none of which is very flattering.