Lots of Soil, Not Many Vegetables

We don’t garden much, but this year we thought we’d grow some purple carrots, garlic chives and green onions in pots around our home. We stopped at Dazey’s garden supply store to look for some vegetable starts, because, as I recall, they used to have a pretty good selection in the Spring. When we got there, the place was mobbed. All around us people were piling sacks and loading and unloading trucks in every available space. We asked about plant starts. They told us they don’t do plants anymore.

They’d happily sell me a trimming machine, bubble bags, and all the soil and amendments I could ask for, but they had no plants at all in their “garden center.” They sent me to Sylvandale’s and Redway Feed, both of which, like Dazey’s, were hopping with customers, but unlike Dazey’s, actually had a few plants. Still, the selection seemed pretty slim at both locations.

Back in high school, I used to work in a garden center. We had more plants than all of the “garden centers” in SoHum put together. I mixed mountains of soil, filled thousands of flats with six-packs and soil and watered millions of tiny seedlings every year, for people who grew flowers and vegetables in their gardens. That’s why they called it a “garden center.” I guess we don’t even pretend to grow anything but pot around here anymore.

A friend of mine, who works at one of our local “garden canters” told me they had an order for 600 pallets of bagged soil (that’s well over 1,000 cubic yards of sterilized potting soil, packed into over 30,000 bags) for one customer. I have no idea how many tractor-trailer loads that comes out to, but the delivery driver is going to know that route well by the time it is all delivered. The garden center I worked at couldn’t move that that much soil in a decade, no matter how they sold it. Here, you could sell all the dirt on the planet to Humboldt County pot growers if you could just find enough trucks and drivers to deliver it.

Who’s got the time for a vegetable garden when you’ve got 30,000 bags of soil to open before you plant, and you pay almost as much for soil as you would for all the vegetables you could grow in it? If it doesn’t make sense to grow vegetables that way, why grow pot that way? If it weren’t for marijuana prohibition, no one would dream of cutting down trees or draining salmon streams, or hauling 600 pallets of sterilized potting soil, half-way across the state and ten miles up a muddy dirt road to a hole in the forest, to grow a common, hardy, agricultural staple. None of this makes any sense, outside of the War on Drugs, but it looks like we’ll see more Drug War madness in 2017 than we ever saw before.

2017 promises to be the biggest soil delivery season in Humboldt County history, and our roads are in the worst shape I’ve ever seen them. Just add the cost of the road damage, both to county roads, and to private roads and adjacent habitat, to the long litany of costs born by the community at large for the War on Drugs. I know you don’t want to think about that. You really don’t want to think about the millions of lives, lost and ruined, even though you know some of them. You don’t want to think about what it has done to you and your kids, and how it affects our community. You don’t want to think about what it says about our society, and what it is doing to the Earth. You don’t want to think about it, because you don’t want to know, and you don’t want to know because if you knew, you couldn’t do it. You wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t tolerate it.

 

According to 2^nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell, so far, Humboldt County has only granted 19 cannabis cultivation permits, and they’re holding meetings all over Humboldt County to decide how to spend the tax money they collect from these few growers who paid the fees, made the improvements and submitted to inspections, and still dare to compete with the black market. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Humboldt County’s growers have opted to remain in the shadows to serve the nationwide black market.

 

The County received over 2,000 cannabis permit applications before the deadline last December. Most of those permit applications will never get approved. Growers knew that they could file a little paperwork and pay a fee that would keep the Sheriff out of their hair for a year or two. The black market has always had a cut and run attitude. The fact that over 2,000 people filed applications for permits, doesn’t mean that they intend to comply with state and county regulations, it just means that they intend to cut big this year. Instead of bringing the cannabis industry out of the shadows, Humboldt County’s cannabis permit program seems to have allowed a couple thousand growers to buy cover for all of them for one more big year in 2017. After that, we’ll see what’s left of Humboldt County.

Listen to Neighbors on KMUD

 

 

I spend a lot of time in this column talking about what’s wrong with Humboldt County. I write about what’s wrong with Humboldt County, because that’s where we should focus our attention, but today I want to tell you about something really cool going on around here that you ought to know about: Neighbors, not my neighbors, or your neighbors, or even The Neighbors, as I have been informed, but Neighbors.

Neighbors are a really tight little band in Arcata, playing some remarkably original music. They’ve been playing together since they were teenagers, and have incubated their own unique sound over almost two decades. Classically trained piano and organ player Peter Lisle dreams up these delightfully witty, complex, sophisticated, unpretentious psuedo-pop songs, which he also sings. The rhythm section of Dan Boburg on drums and Sierra Martin on bass bring this extremely challenging material to life, and make it dance.

Neighbors don’t rely on any of the latest high-tech gadgets to make their high energy pop music, instead they turn strong composition, intelligent lyrics and old fashioned musicianship into something new and different that you really should check out. Musically, they remind me of Frank Zappa’s, Orchestral Favorites-Studio Tan, phase. Peter’s vocals reminds me of They Might Be Giants, only more so. Neighbors are not a bar band, and they don’t make background music. Their music demands to be listened to, and deserves your full attention. I’m afraid I don’t hear this kind of creativity in music nearly often enough, and I think people should listen to Neighbors, just to be reminded of what human beings are capable of when they work together.

Peter writes charmingly accessible lyrics, often about literary themes. Enkidu Must Die is Peter’s musical interpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Winded Mare recounts a famous scene in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Earth Abides is based on a science fiction book of the same name. Peter has also written some more personal songs. Helicopter tells the story of Peter’s challenging love affair with the aircraft of his dreams, and Mountain Road tells the true story of a camping trip too harrowing to remember, with consequences too severe to forget.

I heard Neighbors play live at the Bird Ally X appreciation benefit last December, and they blew me away, so I arranged to interview them for my occasional KMUD radio series, The Adventurous Ear. During the interview, Peter told me the story of what happened on that fateful camping trip in the Trinity Alps, and what he told me made my jaw drop. I’d tell about it, but you really should hear it in Peter’s own words, and you should hear the song he wrote about it. You’ll have a chance to do that, this Thursday, March 23 at 5pm when KMUD will air a brand new edition of The Adventurous Ear featuring: Neighbors. You can listen live at 5pm on Thursday, or anytime thereafter on the archive, at www.kmud.org

The show also features most of the music from Neighbors eponymous 10” red vinyl record, which you can find at People’s Records in Arcata. It’s the best new record I’ve heard in quite a while, and I recommend it to everyone. I know that not everyone will like it, but I recommend it to those people even more. Take the time to appreciate what these young men have done. It’ll make you feel better about being human.

Helping the Economy Isn’t Helping

When you hear people talk about how much the marijuana industry helps our local economy, you should remember that what’s “good for the economy,” these days, is really bad for you, our community, and the environment. Whether you build nuclear power-plants, frack for natural gas, make wine or produce black market marijuana, practically everything we do to pump-up the economy, destroys the environment, enslaves the community and kills people. The economy has simply gotten way too big.

 

After generations of mindlessly pumping-up the economy, we seem to have forgotten that the economy is supposed to serve our needs. Of course we need an economy of some sort, and up to a point, economic activity is a good thing. Up to a point, economic activity puts food on the table and keeps a roof over people’s heads. Up to a point, the rising tide of economic growth raises all boats, but beyond that point, economic growth becomes a tidal bore that destroys everything in its path. We have passed that point.

Look at us. We’ve gotten used to the violent crime, social problems and environmental devastation that come with the terrible racist injustice of the War on Drugs. We know it’s wrong, but now we’re afraid to let it go, because it might hurt the economy. We’d rather have dangerous violent criminals and homeless drug addicts on our streets, and let racist cops prey on people of color all over this country, than risk a possible downturn in the local economy. Could we possibly get any more depraved? …or stupid? What is so valuable about “the economy” that we’re willing to sacrifice our humanity, our community and our planet to protect it? Can’t you feel the economy tightening its grip on you, every day, wrapping its coils around you like a python and squeezing the life out of you? Why would you want to make it bigger?

Think about it. For the economy to grow, it has to get better at prying money out of your pocket. Think about how hard you have to work already, just to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. If you have that much money, these days, you are doing OK, but how does it help you if those things cost three percent more next year?

If you have a little more money than that, you probably have a long list of stuff that you want to buy. It’s not like people don’t already like to spend money, or that there aren’t enough things to spend it on, but as the cost of housing and food goes up by three percent every year, the amount of other stuff you can afford, goes down, so that doesn’t really grow the economy. To keep the economy growing, you have to find ways to force people to spend more than they want to spend on things they can’t afford to do without.

 

That’s why the health care industry has become so critical to economic growth. As people weigh the costs and benefits of working longer hours vs eating lower quality food vs going homeless, their health suffers, whichever decision they make. Deteriorating health, then motivates people to work more hours, eat lower quality food or go without housing in order to afford expensive medications. These medications have a higher profit margin than either housing or food, and in many cases, people feel a stronger and more visceral need for them, than they do for other basic necessities. As people find themselves unable to afford wholesome food and adequate housing, those high profit margins on drugs that people can’t live without, keep the economy growing, but it sure doesn’t make life better for people.

Now that so many of us are already maxed-out, economically, it becomes more important than ever, if you want to grow the economy, that is, to exploit the failing health of every American, effectively, efficiently, and most of all, profitably. Moreover, food and housing must become less affordable, and attainable, so that more young, healthy, people, do without. That way, they get sick sooner, and become so desperate for drugs that they’ll sacrifice their homes and nutrition to the more upscale, luxury market, who can afford to pay more. That’s what economic growth has planned for you, so don’t get too excited about it.

Greed is a disease. It’s a sickness of the soul that destroys and consumes the people infected with it as surely as greedy people destroy and consume the community and environment around them. No matter how much they have, they still feel that lack, that missing something, that drives them to acquire more. For many, what they lack is self-respect, and all of the drug money in the world won’t buy that for them.

Whatever the cause, greedy people have a weakness of the spirit that makes them endlessly needy, but rather than treat them as though they need rehabilitation, we glorify that sickness, celebrate it, consider it a God-given right, and take pride in it as American citizens. Greed gave us President Donald Trump, nationally, and greed made us love the War on Drugs locally.

You cannot build strong communities with sick, weak, greedy people, and this economy makes us sicker, weaker and greedier every day. Everywhere I look, I see desperate people struggling to keep their heads above water, while they step over, and often kick their poor neighbors who have already gone under. Whether you are treading water, sinking, or have already hit bottom, the economy is where we are all going to drown if we don’t find a way to stop this disease.

When we care more about making the economy grow than we do about the people in our community, we have clearly lost our way. The greedy will always want more, and that desperation will destroy us all unless we stop it. Greed is a disease that preys upon the weak. The strong know that everything they need is available to them and have plenty to share. We need more strong people in our community, more than we need a strong economy.

To have strong people in our community, they need to be able to put food on their table and a roof over their head at a price that doesn’t make them work themselves to death, or do something they’re ashamed of. Thanks to the War on Drugs, we have entirely too many people around here who are all too eager to do things we should all be deeply ashamed of. Don’t let them contaminate your thinking with their sick, twisted logic. The economy isn’t helping you one bit, and anyone who says they are helping the economy, really means that they are helping the economy fuck you over. Don’t do anything to make it easier for them.

Going Off-the-Grid

The other day, an associate told me about her most recent PG&E bill. They told her that she owed them more than $500 for one month’s service. That’s a lot of money. I can understand why she was outraged, and I sympathize. I’ve never had to deal with PG&E, and I’ve certainly never paid a ransom like that, but it’s only because I learned my lesson elsewhere.

I love electricity. I always have, and a lot of the things I enjoy doing, like audio/video recording and production, cannot be done without it. Back in the ’90s, I worked with a number of environmental non-profits who would call me whenever they needed anything videotaped, because they knew I was sympathetic and had access to equipment. I shot one nuclear accident, a few exciting acts of civil disobedience, several colorful protest demonstrations, and a whole lot of long boring meetings.

I stood there, pulling focus, and monitoring the audio, as Yankee Rowe officials explained “burps” of radiation they released into the air, and into the river. I watched officials from the Mass. Department of Public Health explain the findings of the health study of the community surrounding the Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Plant, which showed elevated cancer and birth defect rates. I squinted into the viewfinder as cancer survivor and schoolteacher Stacia Falcowski showed me the drainpipe where radioactive effluent from nuclear power plants flowed into a pond in a city park in her backyard, and I watched the Geiger-counter confirm her accusations. Stacia Falkowski lives in Springfield, Massachusetts, next to Unifirst, the company which launders uniforms from New England’s many nuclear power plants.

I watched the Public Utilities Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission screw rate-payers, tax-payers, and future generations with the false promise of “clean, safe, too cheap to meter” nuclear power. I saw how corporations, investors, politicians and bureaucrats work together to make the worst possible decisions for ratepayers, but the best possible ones for their investment portfolios. I saw civic-minded citizens make heroic sacrifices of time, energy and money to educate their community and organize resistance to nuclear exploitation, and I saw how utility companies use money, lawyers and public relations flacks to overwhelm citizens efforts to oppose them.

I’ve seen enough to know that they pump dead bodies, crippled children, the habitat of endangered species and humanity’s future through that power grid, and that’s what comes out of your wall to make your TV glow when you pay your electric bill, whether it’s Conn. Ed or PG&E. At the time, I think I only paid about $25 dollars a month for electricity, my share of a bill split four ways, but I really resented paying it, because of what I had witnessed.

That’s when I started thinking about what it would cost, and what kind of changes I would have to make to move my little A/V production studio off the grid. Twenty years ago, in 1997, after a lot of thought and a good bit of research, I made the leap and purchased a pair of 75 watt PV panels, a charge controller and a 250 watt, pure sine wave, inverter from the Solar Living Center in Hopland. The whole system, with a battery, and accessories cost about $1,500, more than a month’s salary at the time, and as much as I could afford.

Soon, my solar powered PA system began providing sound at anti-nuclear protests in Vernon VT. Shortly after that, my production studio went off-the-grid, and shortly after that, so did my partner Amy and I. We haven’t paid an electric bill since, but that’s the least of it. Energy independence feels great. It’s like the difference between booking a cabin on a cruise ship, and having your own sailboat.

I soon realized I could play, record, produce and perform, anywhere. I started playing outdoors, improvising on electric guitar to the natural sounds of the environment. Jamming with nature changed how I thought about music and composition and turned into a thing. These improvisations felt really good, and tended to attract audiences, which then turned into a cross-country tour, culminating with two weeks of mixing, mastering and exploring in the Mojave Desert, and my third solo album.

This solar powered tour also led me to discover Redwood Community Radio, KMUD, and through it, the community of Southern Humboldt. Lots of people, I discovered, have their own “sailboats” out here, and well know the taste of freedom they bring. They even have a shop in town that sells them. Every time we told someone how much we liked it here in Southern Humboldt, they asked us, “Why don’t you stay?” So, we did, and now it’s home.

Maybe two people going off-the-grid means nothing in the big picture of global climate change, and I’m sure Conn. Ed didn’t even notice we were gone, but going off-the-grid felt empowering, liberating, and it changed my life for the better, in ways I would have never imagined before I did it. If you’re on the grid, you have lots of good reasons to resent paying your electric bill, more than you probably know. The price of solar PV panels has dropped precipitously, and electric bills have only gone up since I made the leap back in 1997. What are you waiting for?

 

Even assuming that I would have never paid more than $25 a month for electricity, my system has paid for itself many times over, and I continue to rely on it today. Hopefully it lasts another 20 years or more. I recommend going off-the-grid to everyone. It’s not that hard, and it can be more rewarding than you might imagine.