A Musical Alternative to Reggae on the River

A Musical Alternative to Reggae on the River

I know that many of you can’t wait to put on your wristbands and file into the the sun-baked meadow to breathe the dust-choked air for a weekend of drug-crazed revelry and shit-encrusted porta-potties at the world famous Reggae on the River, now returned to its original French’s Camp location.  Like most SoHumers, I have many great memories of Reggae on the River at French’s Camp.

For instance, I remember having to grab a young man by the shoulders and point him in a different direction to prevent him from peeing on my tent, I remember blowing wads of French’s Camp out of my sinuses for a week after the festival was over, and I remember that it was at Reggae on the River at French’s Camp that I first learned to shit standing up.

When I moved to Humboldt County, about 15 years ago, I liked reggae music. I thought it was alright. As a long-haired vegetarian pot smoker, I respected the Rastafarian religion, even if I did not exactly identify with it, and I sympathized with the oppressed and impoverished people throughout the Caribbean, especially those who inhabit the “trench-town” around Kingston Jamaica. I still do. In fact, I sympathize with them more, now that I’ve seen firsthand how greedy drug dealers and concert promoters exploit them.

My experience in SoHum, however, has turned me off to our premier Summer festival, and the music it celebrates. Between the greed and ugliness exposed in the reggae wars, the bourgeois dope yuppies who blast it out of their giant diesel trucks, and the egotistical homophobic fundamentalism expressed by some Reggae artists, I’ve kind of ODed on Reggae. Like the rehabilitated “Alex” in A Clockwork Orange, the music I once enjoyed, now makes me sick to my stomach.

So I won’t be at Reggae on the River this year. Instead, I’ll be at another concert, a free concert, listening to an artist whose music means more to me than the music of everyone who has ever played at Reggae on the River combined. That artist would be me.

I will perform on electric didgeridoo on Saturday August 3, from 6:30-9:00pm at The Works Records in Eureka, as part of Arts Alive. It’s been more than 5yrs since I last performed in Eureka, and I sound better now than I ever have in the past. If you’ve never heard me play before, you’ve never heard anything like it. I play electric didgeridoo, and I have developed a sound that is totally original and that words cannot describe.

All I can say is that I have discovered the sound I was born to make, and on Saturday August 3, I’ll happily share it with anyone willing to listen. At this rare, free performance, I’ll celebrate the release of two new CDs of original music:

John Hardin, Live Electric Didgeridoo documents the birth of this new sound. Recorded at live gigs at The Hemp Connection in Garberville. Live Electric Didgeridoo captures the energy of those live performances where this new sound finally took form, after over a decade of gestation. Live Electric Didgeridoo contains 12 very different didgeridoo solos, both very different from anything you’ve ever heard before, and different from each other. You’ll hear many of them performed live at The Works Records in  on August 3.

210 C St. Old Town Eureka

Tin Can Luminary, Um.. Uh… Gum Eh? is an album of music I composed over the past year, using a unique collection of circuit-bent toys and acoustic-electric instruments that I built myself. My partner Amy Gustin and I added vocals to this mix to create a very eclectic pop album that is both accessible and avant-garde. Recording Um… Uh… Gum Eh? involved multiple overdubs, computer manipulations and unpredictable instruments, making the music on it prohibitively difficult to recreate live.

I will bring a few of my homemade and circuit-bent creations to the event, and demonstrate them between sets of live didgeridoo music. Anyone interested, will have the opportunity to hear a few tracks from Um… Uh… Gum Eh? at the event on Saturday August 3 from 6:30-9:00pm at The Works Records in Eureka. Both CDs, Live Electric Didgeridoo and Um… Uh… Gum Eh? will be available at the event for $10 each. See you there.

BTW you can also find Live Electric Didgeridoo and Um… Uh… Gum Eh? at The Works Records in Old Town Eureka, People’s Records, on the square in Arcata, and at The Hemp Connection in downtown Garberville, anytime, in case you can’t resist Irie vibes at French’s Camp this weekend.

Slightly Less Obvious Consequences of Ending Marijuana Prohibition

While we’re on the subject of marijuana prohibition:

The Rand Corporation recently published the results of their latest study on the economic effects of legalizing cannabis.  To great fanfare, they predicted that if legalized, the price of pot will fall, while the number of users will rise. This prediction shocked people who were also surprised to learn of the Pope’s religious affiliation, and that bears shit right on the ground in the middle of the woods. Since this kind of speculation seems popular these days, I offer:

Slightly Less Obvious Consequences of Ending Marijuana Prohibition

Farmers Markets – sales rise

Grow Shops – sales fall

With legal farmers growing cannabis in local soil fertilized with manure from animals that live on the farm, we’ll finally taste Humboldt County’s Terroir. But, we’ll no longer import enough potting soil every year to build a small island nation off the coast of Petrolia.

Head Shops – sales rise

Hair Salons – sales fall

With the prices falling and availability increasing, demand for marijuana rises, which means more people will need, pipes, rolling papers, bongs etc., and since pot is so cheap, I’ll also take a couple of those black-light posters, some incense, and a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee. On the other hand, stoners hate getting their hair cut. The more pot you smoke, the more averse to haircuts you become. Anthropologists believe this well documented side effect of marijuana use to be at the heart of many tonsorial religious traditions from Rastafarianism to Sikhism. Business booms for makers of tams, turbans, and ponytail-holders, but barbershops take a beating.

Grow lights – sales fall

Lava lamps – sales rise

As grow houses close down, makers of HID lamps, ballasts, and reflectors see sales tumble. As more of us discover the pleasures of cheap, plentiful marijuana, sales of lava lamps, plasma spheres and mirrored balls soar.

Custom Trucks – sales fall

Custom Bicycles – sales rise

As more people get stoned, fewer people want to drive large, loud or fast vehicles and a plethora of unique pedal powered and electric vehicles, conceived in a hashish reverie, and hand built by stoners, take the streets. Others will have to chop a lot of firewood to pay for that new truck. A lift kit only means they’ll have to lift that firewood that much higher. They’ll skip the custom bumper, wheels and headache rack because they might need to take a day-off sometime in the next six years.

Energy – demand falls

Energy drinks – demand rises

As grow houses become a thing of the past, those electric meters won’t spin nearly as fast, but you can’t get your stoned ass to work without 300mg of caffeine in your system.

Unemployment – rises

Interest in work – falls

As grow shops, truck dealerships and hair salons lay-off workers and outlaw growers lose their source of income, the ranks of the jobless swell. However, thanks to the 80% drop in the price of marijuana, pot smokers will only have to work half as much to enjoy the same quality of life. Why work harder than you have to?

Reggae music – sales rise

Classical music – sales fall

Who am I kidding? No one buys music anymore.

Pit bull popularity – falls

Cat popularity – rises

With pot legal, fewer growers need dangerous watch dogs to guard their grow or stash. Stoners, on the other hand, prefer a pet they can relax with, and no one knows how to relax like a cat.

Costa-Rican real estate – sales fall

Costco – sales rise

Pot growers often used illegal profits to buy real estate in Costa-Rica, Mexico or Hawaii. With those profits gone, tropical real estate markets feel the pinch. But, with the price of an ounce of bud dropping to about $35, pot smokers can afford to buy Oreos by the pallet.

Incidents of arrest – fall

Incident of “I’m sorry, what did you just say” – rise

With pot finally legalized, the cops have one less tool with which to fuck people over. And…I’m sorry, what was I talking about?

Murder v Money

 

Murder v Money

In response to last week’s post about marijuana prohibition, I received a notable comment from Joel Meilke. I found the comment notable not because it was especially well thought out, or because it brought up a fresh perspective, quite the contrary. Joel’s comment was notable because it articulated the most common knee jerk reaction to any discussion about ending marijuana prohibition around here. Joel described Humboldt County’s tradition of almost weekly, prohibition related homicides and disappearances as “a conundrum”, weighing them against the amount of money the black market marijuana industry brings into Humboldt County.

I like Joel, I mean, I’ve never met him, but I enjoy his cartoons in the North Coast Journal, and he did post the very first comment in this blog, back in May of 2011, so I appreciate him as a reader, but money ain’t everything folks, and counting the dollars is no way to measure the effects of prohibition on Humboldt County. Joel lamented that the local economy might contract by as much as one-third without the massive government subsidies that pay for the arrest, conviction and incarceration of millions of innocent, mostly poor, mostly minority, and mostly young Americans across the country.

They say “Money talks”, and I’ve lived behind “The Redwood Curtain” long enough to know that most people here really don’t give a rat’s ass about what goes on in the rest of the country, and couldn’t care less about the people who pay for Humboldt County’s marijuana crop, so long as someone shows up with the cash to buy it from them. That’s why I wrote about the ways marijuana prohibition negatively affects us, the predominantly white, middle-class residents of Humboldt County, despite the influx of illicit funds it brings.

Even so, last week’s post barely scratched the surface of the negative side-effects of prohibition on our local community. It would take many volumes to analyze to real cost of prohibition here in Humboldt County, but we all suffer the consequences of marijuana prohibition, and often in ways you might not consider.

For instance: Haven’t you noticed the proliferation of overpriced mediocre restaurants around here? Aren’t you tired of paying through the nose for disappointing meals out? If so, you can thank marijuana prohibition. How’s that?”, you ask.

Simple. Drug dealers are the quintessential nouveau riche. They don’t mind being overcharged, so long as they get to flash the cash. Drug dealers spend money much more indiscriminately than working people. They also tend to value convenience more than quality, appearance more than substance and generally lack good taste. The restaurants in Humboldt County reflect that.

Were it not for prohibition, we might have fewer restaurants, but we would certainly have better restaurants, and we would have cheaper restaurants. Besides that, the restaurants would have much less trouble finding decent help, and the people who work at the restaurants would have an easier time finding a place to live that they could afford, because half of the available housing would not be full of grow lights and pot plants. That’s how marijuana prohibition makes restaurants in Humboldt County suck.

Fewer murders, better restaurants, cheaper eats and more affordable housing are just a few of the ways that ending marijuana prohibition would improve the quality of life for the residents of Humboldt County. Sure, less money will come into the county, but most of that money ends up in the hands of a few rich, greedy bastards who mostly use it to fuck the rest of us over. Besides, without the financial incentive that marijuana prohibition provides, a lot of those bottom-feeders would move out of the county to search for some other dark, murky slime-pit in which to lurk.

So don’t worry about the economy. The economy will not suffer. The economy never suffers. Grieving mothers suffer. Crime victims suffer. Children who see their parents hauled away in handcuffs at gunpoint suffer, but the economy does not suffer. People who pay too much for mediocre food suffer. People who work for a living but can’t find an affordable place to live suffer, and people who pay too much for pot suffer, but the economy doesn’t suffer. Salmon suffer, the environment suffers, and the community suffers, but the economy does not suffer. The economy never suffers because the economy is not alive. The economy doesn’t feel a thing. No matter how much we suffer for the economy, the economy will never return the favor.

Remember, Reagan broke the unions to help the economy. Bush relaxed environmental standards to help the economy. Clinton signed NAFTA to help the economy. Bush II cut taxes on the rich to help the economy, and then we all bailed out the bankers to save the economy. How stupid can we be that we haven’t figured out that when they tell us something is helping the economy, that means it’s hurting most of us?

So fuck the economy! If you want forests and salmon and a place to live, and you think there should be plenty of marijuana for everyone, then work to end marijuana prohibition. If you want overpriced mediocre restaurants full of nouveau riche drug dealers, murderers, and greedy slimeball bottom-feeders, because it’s “good for the economy”, I suppose there should be a place for you. Call it Hell, and go there.

Prohibition Kills

Prohibition Kills

Marijuana is a beautiful plant, but marijuana prohibition is an ugly thing. Sadistic, racist cops all over the country use marijuana prohibition to target minorities, especially minority youth.

Violent drug gangs use marijuana prohibition to finance their weapons purchases.

Bloodthirsty corporations use marijuana prohibition to sell dangerous, addictive and synthetic substitutes,

and many otherwise law abiding citizens have been lured into using it to supplement their income, despite the risks involved

By now, marijuana prohibition has gone on so long that it has become an institutionalized evil. Lots of people have gotten used to making a good deal of money from this one very bad law. At the same time, millions of people go to jail, lose their jobs, suffer needlessly, and pay exorbitant prices for a harmless, hardy weed that, despite over 10,000 years of human consumption, has never killed anyone.

Thanks to marijuana prohibition, however, lots of people lose their lives in the marijuana black market. In this small rural community alone, at least three people have been murdered, and a couple more have gone missing in marijuana prohibition related circumstances in the last few months. They were by no means the first prohibition related murders in Southern Humboldt, nor will they be the last.

Like the frequent law-enforcement caravans that snake through the hills, and the violent raids they inevitably lead to, murders and disappearances have become a fact of life around here. People have gotten used to these events, and hardly bat an eyelash when they occur, but without prohibition, we wouldn’t have the cops, and without the cops, we wouldn’t have the money, and without the money, we wouldn’t have the murders. Prohibition creates this vicious cycle of oppression, crime, and violence that destroys families, ends lives, and creates tremendous hardship and suffering for millions of people.

Prohibition costs a lot of money too. Taxpayers pay for all of those cops, courts, jails, and probation officers that process the 750,000 or so marijuana arrests annually in the US. They also pay for a lot of misleading anti-marijuana propaganda, eradication campaigns, and surveillance. Outdoor grows displace and destroy natural habitat, divert water and pollute the environment. The conversion of residential housing into indoor commercial marijuana farms makes housing more expensive, and the lights, fans and pumps used in clandestine marijuana grows contribute to global climate change, the costs of which continue to mount.

Most of these costs are born by the general public, not by the producers of marijuana. When an industry raids the public commons for profit, pollutes the environment, injures or kills employees without compensating them for their losses, we say they have “externalized” those costs. That means that they’ve managed to keep the real costs of producing their product off of their books, and foisted them onto someone else, who does not share in the profits from the business. Because of the externalized costs involved in marijuana prohibition, most of us, whether we consume marijuana or not, suffer real losses ranging from loss of freedom and income to the loss of home, career or loved ones, while a few people reap tremendous profits which mostly go unreported, undeclared and untaxed.

Yes, marijuana prohibition is a tremendously unfair, but effective method for redistributing the wealth of working, taxpaying citizens to people who don’t play by the rules and don’t care who they hurt. In this way, marijuana prohibition brings out the worst in people, and attracts the worst kinds of people.

Unfortunately, marijuana prohibition attracts these unsavory elements to our charming little rural community. We ignore it, because with this unsavory behavior and these unsavory characters, comes money. It seems that just a little sprinkle of money can make the unsavory, quite palatable, but still, we should not forget where all of that money comes from.

A lot of marijuana money comes from our nation’s youth. High school and college students buy a lot of marijuana. Most of them don’t own homes, so they have no place to grow their own.  Besides spending a lot of money on marijuana, young people disproportionately become victims of prohibition related violence, including that metered out by law enforcement and the so called criminal justice system.  Of all the things available, and attractive to young people these days, marijuana is one of the safest.  It should also be one of the cheapest and most freely available. Prohibition has turned it into an expensive luxury and made it a commodity worth fighting over.

Marijuana smokers endure a lot of workplace discrimination. Arrest records, drug testing and honesty can severely limit a marijuana smokers employment opportunities. As a result, marijuana users tend to work at lower paying jobs. High marijuana prices severely impact their lives, but they prioritize marijuana because, as Freeweelin’ Franklin used to say, “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”

Cancer patients and others who need medical marijuana to treat pain, nausea, seizures, or other conditions, form a rapidly growing segment of marijuana users. Marijuana is an effective medicine, and many argue that it makes a good preventative tonic as well. Marijuana prohibition makes healthy people sick, keeps sick people from medicine that can help them, and people die as a result.

Without a doubt, marijuana money comes disproportionately from the poor, the young, and the sick, the people who can afford it least, and many of them do without other necessities in order to afford the high prices demanded by black-market dealers.

Without marijuana prohibition, Southern Humboldt would be just another poor rural community struggling to cope with economic hardship, but just imagine how much better life would be. Murders would still shock us. The people who work for a living around here could afford to live here. We’d all still have plenty of pot, but so would everyone else in the country, and no one would drive up from the city to try to kill us for it.

Most pot consumers could afford to take a three-day weekend every week because the only reason most of them work on Friday now, is so they can afford the pot they smoke all week. Anyone who wanted to, could grow all of the marijuana they wanted in their garden, and cops wouldn’t bother anyone about it. Anyone who had to deal with serious illness or chronic pain would have access to all of the natural medicine they needed, whether they could afford insurance or not.

In a post-prohibition world, we’d work a four-day work-week, and all of us would have plenty of marijuana. When you got the munchies, you could order a pizza, and have it delivered by a laid-off cop, and when you needed a pick-me-up you could order a cappuccino, and a former drug-dealer would make it for you. Doesn’t that sound like the kind of world you want to live in?

A Summertime Tour of Garberville, CA

 

A Summertime Tour of Garberville, CA

Well it’s summertime in Garberville again, which means it’s hot enough that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, if you don’t mind a little dog-doo and a few cigarette butts in it. Still, it’s the best deal you are likely to find on breakfast in Garberville, so bring a spatula. Yes summertime is the time of year where tourists flock to SoHum in droves to see the highest priced gasoline in the entire country.

Tourists often find our local culture just a little odd, and you can see the puzzlement on their faces as they wander the streets wondering: “Does everyone in this town smoke cigarettes?”, “Why, of all of the dog breeds in the world, does everyone here have a pit bull?”, “How come every single parking space in town is full, but all of the stores are empty?”, “Did all of these people come to Garberville just to stand on the sidewalk and smoke?”

I wonder these things myself sometimes, but I know that there’s more to Garberville than brand new pickup trucks, second-hand smoke, and ugly, ill-mannered dogs. No, there’s something special about Garberville that you just don’t find everywhere, at least you won’t find it anywhere between Willitts and Eureka. . That is, a bathroom. Since Garberville is the only town with services between Willitts, about a hundred miles South of Garberville, and Eureka, about seventy miles North, damn near everyone going North or South has to stop in Garberville or risk kidney failure.

Yes, Garberville comes as blessed relief for many road weary travelers, and since every bathroom in Garberville is clearly marked “For Customers Only”, they all feel obligated to spend a dollar or two while they are here, even if they had the good sense to fill-up in Willitts, and know that gas will be at least a few cents cheaper in Eureka.

But Garberville is so much more than a key chained to a foot and a half long piece of PVC pipe that is teeming with bacteria. While you are here, you might as well see the sights, and experience the historical significance, aesthetic highlights and cultural diversity that makes Garberville so unique.

First on our tour, close to the center of Garberville, just West of the only stop sign in town, you’ll find the historic Cadillac Wok Chinese Restaurant. The Cadillac Wok has been open for more than fifty years at that same location, and so far as I know, no one has ever eaten there. Perhaps you’ll be the first.

Just across the street from Cadillac Wok, you’ll see the Garberville Post Office. These have become increasingly scarce in Humboldt County, and who knows how long the one in Garberville will remain open, but most days you can still stand in line behind dreadlocked twentysomethings buying multiple thousand dollar money orders with stacks of ragged bills, just like in the old days.

Cut through the back parking lot of the Post Office, and you’ll see what remains of the last full-service gas station in town. Ironically, the old Ed’s Full-Serve was closed down because its restroom failed to meet specifications of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The station closed despite the fact that many disabled Americans really appreciated the service of having someone pump gas for them.

Across the street from the old gas station, you’ll see one the the most popular skate boarding spots in Garberville. You can find the shredded kneecap skin of dozens of local youths embedded in the concrete there, just under the retaining wall at the end of the long sloping parking lot belonging to the Sentry grocery store.

Just North of the skateboarding wall, you will see a windmill, and metal sculpture of a horse, directly beneath the windmill, you will find a barrel full of water that the windmill circulates.

If you stare into that barrel long enough, you will see golden coy fish swimming in it. They say nothing’s easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Don’t try it, those fish are armed, but they won’t mess with you if you don’t mess with them.

The horse sculpture and windmill stand next to a coffee kiosk called Geddy Up. The interesting thing about Geddy Up is that the floor on the inside of the kiosk is significantly higher than the sidewalk outside. Because of this, when you order coffee there, you find yourself talking directly to the belly button of the attractive young female barista inside, who is always wearing low rise jeans and a halter top. Maybe that’s why it’s called Geddy Up. The belly buttons make good coffee, but that’s mostly beside the point.

Just a half a block North of the coffee bellys, you’ll find a man with dark hair, glasses and mustache smoking a cigarette. He’s been there as long as I can remember. He occasionally says “Hi”, and he’s always smoking.

Just downwind from the smoking man, you’ll find Garberville’s newest eatery: The Healthy Choice, a great place to grab a salad or smoothy while you enjoy all of that second-hand smoke.

A little way North of the smoking man, you will come to The Hemp Connection. Here you’ll find the latest hemp fashions, smoking accessories, and the latest issue of High Times magazine. You’ll also find another smoking man, 4:20 Dave. Somehow, I find his smoke much less offensive.

Continuing North on Redwood Drive, you’ll pass the North Valley Bank. This bank is significant because every dog in Garberville relieves itself on this stretch of sidewalk. The bank has posted little doggie doo bags, and signs encouraging people to clean up after their dog, but mostly the signs distract pedestrians who read the clever signs, and then step right into a steaming pile.

Across the street from the steaming pile, you will see the Town Clock. Beneath the clock, you will find The Town Clock Square. Town Clock Square contains a shop where you can get a hoodie that says “Humboldt” on it, another shop to buy smoking accessories, and a place where you can get a haircut while you shop for a gun.

North of town Clock Square, past the Garberville Theatre, you’ll come to The Branding Iron Saloon, which features Lotto drawings every five minutes and a pole where local women practice their pole dancing skills. The Branding Iron Saloon is a place for serious drinkers, but the pole is strictly for amateurs.

Beyond the Branding Iron Saloon, at the far North end of town, you will find the only patch of shade in all of Garberville, in a controversial patch of greenery known as the Demulling Memorial Grove. Because the Demulling Memorial Grove is the only green and shady place in town, people tend to congregate there. Because people tend to congregate there, many people want it shut down.

Just South of town Clock Square, you’re back at gas station alley. Whether you choose Shell, Chevron, or Union 76, you can rest assured that you are getting the most expensive gasoline that you’ll find anywhere in America.

I hope you enjoy your visit to Garberville, and come again soon.