#The last picture taken of John Belushi

[aiiaiiiyo]

[alovevigilante]

Me: Ok. I’ve made an executive decision on behalf of all of us...

Me also: are you an executive?

Me: yes.

Me also: at what company?

Me: ours. Yours and mine.

Me 3: and mine too!

Me: yes, at threes company, ok? Will you just listen to me? (The other me’s sit, silent) thank you. Now, we have all come to terms with the fact that we’re 46 and still not sure where the hell we fit in in society, let alone a career to help aid it, right?

Other me’s: yes, Agreed, (hub hub etc...)

Me: ok, good. Well, not good, but yes, we all concur. Now, we, collectively, are a fucking mess, so I propose this: we start from scratch. At zero point, ok? Ok! Great!

Me also: um, question?

Me: yes?

Me also: I don’t mean to be a contrarian or anything, but we’ve been here on earth now for 46 years, and we’ve experienced a butt ton. So, how do you just scrap it all, and have that be something that’s widely accepted by society as a whole?

Me 3: yeah! Cause I saw this one “I love Lucy” where she couldn’t even audition for a tv show without having some experience.

Me: yeah, but we’re completely walking away from the entertainment industry...

Me also: yeah, but what are we going to do? Walk into a different profession, let’s say, being an astrophysicist, and they say, “hey lady, where are your degrees and your on the job training, & oh, I see here on your non resume that you have never even taken a physics class. Were you in a coma for 50 years or something?” And then we’ll look like an asshole.

Me: good point. So, since we can’t start at a zero point, how do we make life ok from where we’re at if we’re feeling lost and confused about what to do next?

Me 3: I dunno.

Me also: well, maybe we can mediate.

Me: eh. You feel like that?

Me 3: not particularly. Me also?

Me also: I was hoping one of you would do it for me...

Me: no.

Me 3: no.

Me also: fine. Any other ideas?

Me: well... how about thinking about shit.

Me also: that’s what got us in this mess to begin with!

George Carlin: hello ladies! May I be of some assistance here?

Me 3: why not? We’re plum out of ideas...

George: ok, well, let’s simplify a bit, Kari, singular, let’s chat.

Kari: hey George.

George: love the pic you choose to rep me.

Kari: yeah. You’re being a lil Italian when you talk with the garlic clove shaped hand you got going there. 🤌 🧄 🇮🇹

George: Yeah. I’m diggin it. But you know, in your mind, I’m one of the reasons you’re here in this ass place.

Kari: you are? how do you figure?

George: people don’t like the fact that you write on behalf of the deceased.

Kari: well, Tim burton did it in beetle juice and a lot of folks love him..

George: ok Kari, can I be Frank... Sinatra-like with you?

Kari: I dunno, can you?

George: yeah. Just pretend I’m sporting a fedora, a cigarette in one hand, and throwing my jacket back over my shoulder with the other looking at you coyly.

Kari: ok... if you want to... but is the cigarette in his pocket? Cause if it’s lit, that shits gonna hurt his Netherlands eventually....

George: (like Sinatra) no. Now listen up, baby, it’s not normal to write on behalf of a dead person that was not a character, and that whom was once alive. People get touchy about it. We have friends still alive that knew us and probably don’t dig it.

Kari: I see.

George: so it seems like we’re at a crossroads here. What do you want to do about it?

Kari: do about what?

George: your writing! It’s freakin everyone out! Kari, look, you know how normal Hollywood is, ok? They are all normal, non creative, in the box gladly thinker kinda people...

Kari: they are?

George: yes!!! Come on, keillor, get with the program! You are too far fetched for these folks! They want normalcy, and sameness, and only all the shit that’s ever been shat!

Kari: George, are we talking about Hollywood California, here? Or Hollywood podunk nah? Because Hollywood California is where all the creatives go to create!

George: right! And guess what, Kari Keillor! You are not welcomed in Hollywood, California! They have a sign up with your picture on it at the airport that says, “beware! No to this woman! Too much with the weirdness! She writes dead people!”

Kari: I write live people too... hey, do I have a cowboy hat and a mustache on for my mugshot on that sign?

George: nice one Cookie Monster! Well, Keillor why not?! You may as well, because this story has as much validity as any other story you make up and make worse in your head cause you’re sensitive about of your writing...

Kari: you’re the one that said all that shit! You planted it in my head!!!

George: so I did, but remember, I’m a facet of you. So, decide. Is there any validity to what I/you said?

Kari: how the hell should I know?! I haven’t been in lax recently...

George: right! So you never know until you try talking to some people.

Kari: I’ll call the airport... Listen, George, I’ll be perfectly Frank Sinatra with you now, ok.?

Don rickles: no mere woman can be like ole blue eyes...

Kari: Shut your misogynistic, ass-kissing pie hole, Pickles.

Pickles rickles: oh fuck... she does it to me every time...

Frank Sinatra:, you tell him, baby!

Kari: I’m 46. (Back to George Carlin) Anyway, look George, I have had a few successful people from my entertainment past either shun or block me for no apparent reason, so I’m pretty sure that I’m not well received again, for whatever reason... probably because I wrote the truth about a second city class I took when I was 16, about the current state of snl which I am completely unfamiliar with because I do not watch it, and the way comedy has changed or not over the last many years. Come to think of it, maybe it was because I love frank oz, and frank was mad cause I wrote that belushi John was teasing him and calling him an asshole, another ironic statement because clearly frank oz, NOT an asshole, was many of the muppets for years, and Frank is one of my idols! (Not a true central religious figure to me, but someone I admire a lot...)

Frank Sinatra: who loves ya, baby??

Kari: (to Frank) kojak. (Back to herself) Or it could be because i called bill murray, the beloved patron saint of comedy, an asshole like me, yes, I said like ME, out of jest and irony, because yes, he cared about the kid in meatballs making friends, ok?! That’s probably it. & yes, i was kinda stoned when I wrote it, and also yes, I still can’t figure out why the movie was ducking named “meatballs”, cause there wasn’t an Italian to be seen in it! Ok?! And come to think of it bill as Peter venkman in ghostbusters 2, written in part, by him I think but let’s just say yes cause it supports my point, called all of New York City and it’s tri state area, all 3 million people, miserable assholes, and they took a head count, & they still (probably mostly) all love him! & that shit was good (I love that movie so much) and it was made in 1989, and that was a long ass time ago, ok? And some of those people, have procreated since then, and again, they all love bill Murray and now those “miserable asshole’s” kids, ALSO love Bill now! Double the miserable assholes! Why?! Because he’s funny, and much like me when I’m being tongue and cheek, he didn’t mean for people to take the shit he says seriously! See for yourself! https://youtu.be/t1gkRAWvxOs (1:15 on)

So yes!!! I just think people are not into that kind of talk from me and me alone, even though it wasn’t coming from a mean or spiteful place. It was coming from a place of love for my craft, and of both frank oz, and bill Murray. The rest, as I say once again... I dunno....

George: Kari, frank just told you he loves you, and you blatantly ignored him...

Kari: no, he asked who loved me. He didn’t say he loved me.

George: Keillor, stop being so mean to the dead crooners, ok?

Kari: pickles isn’t a crooner! He’s a ye olde well paid curmudgeon who made fun of everyone like a jerk fach.

George: um, Kari...

Kari: no, ok? No! The difference between me and pickles, besides everything under the sun other than the fact we’re both human, is the fact that I am pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of the way we are set up as society, and wanting to heal it within myself to make it a more palatable world for me and my family and friends and acquaintances to live in. And pickles thought making fun of people was ok. What royal lineage did pickles come from that he’s able to rip on everyone the way he did? And even if he was of a royal bloodline so fucking what?! And dude got paid to be mean! And normal people made him rich and famous! And how did that become prevalent, let alone celebrated in this world?! Roast em! Yes! Hilarious.

Dean Martin: oh noooo... hey, listen pally...

Kari: dean, don’t get me started, ok? Cause I like you, I really do, but you know how I feel about that shit... Listen, Dean, you left a legacy here that was mostly great, but in my opinion needs a lil tweaking. Instead of “roasts” which people do to this day, and I can’t see how it can make the honoree feel anything other than like major ass, we should have “toasts” (copyright Kari keillor 3/19/21 actually before this date but I never published publicly...)

Pickles rickles: toasts?!? What is THAT supposed to mean?!

Kari: it means, my curious lil ornery pickles, that instead of roasting someone and being a mean rotter egg to them, you can “toast” them. Cheers to you, honoree, we salute you, in a hilarious way, by being honest about you but not vicious, viper like, and cruel. It’s where everyone laughs together cause it’s not a character assassination, instead of ripping on someone. It’s being funny, and yes, in a KIND and uplifting way. Where you actually celebrate the person being honored. Now, will that take a lil more brain power then the go-to usual jerk fach? Yes. But, it’s a challenge I hope everyone will accept for the good of all of us. Cause I guarantee that no one walks out of a roast feeling great. And if they do, cause they thought they killed or whatever, they probably did. And not in a good way. And that, again, is ass. No one wins. It’s a short lived feeling, the feeling of “one upping” a person. It never makes you feel better about you in the long run.

Dean: I see. I think I’ll go work on my volare now...

Kari: see?!? Now THAT I like! It’s not at anyone’s expense!

George: oh shit.... kari.... Why do you give a fuck about all this?

Kari: you know why George? Cause this has become our accepted collective energy! The haves and the have nots! Take away your money and what have you got?! Who are you, without the people who have made you who you are?! People, make other people in the 3D reality we live in. So take away everyone’s cash money, homes, clothes, and all the cars, and all the shit, and what do ya got? A bunch of naked humans starring at our different body bits, ok?! We’re All the f’n same. So think about it. What are we each individually contributing energetically to the whole of us? What message are we sending the next generations In our every day lives? I’ll tell you what message. Whatever we feel about ourselves individually both good and bad. THAT’S what energy we all give, and receive from one another. That’s what we’re teaching the kids. They model themselves after how we feel, and how we choose to think, and how we decide to act toward others. So let’s all collectively recognize that, and how we treat other human beings and wake up first inside ourselves then beyond ourselves so we can all make the whole, better.

I am not an asshole or a human joke or any other kind of joke. I’m not going to cry over the fact that I’m not accepted by people who’s energies don’t match mine. And by the by, no one is a joke, no matter who they are, or what their socioeconomic standing is. So I don’t wear an ascot and a smoking jacket, and a neck full of gold chains and chest hair, holding a whiskey on the rocks with an umbrella in it saying “see that?! be somebody!” ok?! I’m not Steve Martin in the jerk, ok? https://youtu.be/tBfXTyzaUfQ

I’m not even close to Hollywood! I live in the Midwest! I’m Kariwood, ok? And I’m not even kari wood, I’m no woods, ok? cause I’m pretty much never in the woods or the outdoors for that matter, so much so that I just purchased a sweatshirt that says, “indoorsy” on it, ok? True story! So yeah. Cause one time I was in Wisconsin in the woods, and I was thinking, “look at me! I’m in the woods! Weird, no?!” (Cause never in the woods, but I thought, I’ll give it a shot! What’s the worst that can happen?) And guess what? Despite my shower the night before, I felt something on the base of my skull the next morning, and I picked out a really nasty, creepy and scary tick. And it was alive, and disgusting, and wiggly. And I started screaming. And I am still freaked out to this day about it. And that happened at least 17 years ago. And I didn’t like it. So that’s how “non woods-y” I am... I’m not even a fan of woodsy the owl, ok?

So I don’t know how I feel about all that. All this to say that I am definitely not Hollywood, but yes, I am included, as a “somebody”. I may not be an award winning, keillor, but I am still somebody, and I may not be rich and famous, but yes, I am somebody, and I may have been on one trajectory and now I do t know what the heck I am now, ok? It’s true, and yes, I’ve posted this before and I’ll keep posting it until everyone in me gets on board with it, yes! I am still somebody because yes, dear me, we are all this: somebody! : https://youtu.be/tu0lNcrZjG8

George: hard to argue with that.

Kari: eh. You know what I am, George?

George: yes, Kari. I know what you are. But do you?

Kari: well, I feel, like I’m one of those kids on Sesame Street sometimes, looking up at and intently listening to Jesse Jackson, wondering how to get from small to big, and from where I am, to the success that he reps, you know? The importance of being admired by many. Having a big platform to play on. A huge soapbox to stand on, you know?

George: yes. I get it, Kari, I really do. And we’ve all been there. But everyone’s story about themselves, is different. How we all got to where we are, was our own personal trajectory that we designed with our beliefs. And our thoughts. There’s no set pattern or manual to follow. The only energy you must follow, is your passion and your joy, aka the love. That’s it. So, if you want to be, and decide to be, you ARE Hollywood,. Because Hollywood isn’t a specific person or group of people, it’s a place, and an energy. Hollywood is what you make it to be with how you view it. You don’t have to “be” Hollywood to be in Hollywood...

Kari: you said I wasn’t allowed in Hollywood..

George: you may not be. All I’m saying, is that you are whatever you decide you are. The end.

Kari: well, am I or not? Cause I don’t want to go and be turned away. Besides, I love visiting olvera st.

George: Its a fine street, it is. Great margaritas... listen Kari, you cannot achieve anything in this life that you don’t truly believe is in the realm of your possibility. So yes! You can be, and pretty much are are Hollywood keillor, even if it’s in the Midwest in your own home.. You are creative, and love the arts, and are nutsy, and ballsy, and you may hold the title as being the first person to ever separate the two, and bring them back together in a scote sack, ok? So keep writing, and be yourself.

Kari: I dunno. But what I do know is this: I did it again...

George: did what?

Kari: reactivated all the shit memories and feelings from the past that I’ve felt about my career, allowing myself to relive all those fun feels of inadequacy and upset alllll over again.

George: aww, it’s happened to the best of us. Listen Kari, you are, in my humble not so humble opinion, since I’m still you, a loving person. So you reflect that way; with humor, and yes, absurdist, surreal comedy.

Kari: well, I’ll try.

George: You already do. Your credentials are superfluous. Your love and support of you no matter what you do moving forward is what you’ll feel when you choose to, and it’s available anytime you want to feel it. And when you feel that, it really doesn’t matter what you do.

Kari: ok, well, thanks George. It’s nice to know I have you around.

George: Kari, you were once told that you are golden, no?

Kari: well, I was told that I’ll be golden at some point moving forward doing whatever it is I choose to do.

George: right. So, when are you going to decide to experience that?

Kari: hopefully soon.

George: Kari, why do you chop to talk to and write about us “passed over folk”?

Kari: I dunno. I guess it’s cause I love and miss you guys in theory, even though I didn’t know you personally. And I like to re-experience your energy, as I appreciated and admired it. It helps me feel better.

George: you’re now golden.

Scene.

Appendices: if you choose to perform this scene, good luck. I’d like you to do it all in one breath, if you are a more advanced, and professional actor. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💕💕💕💕

[back-and-totheleft]

Romantic, freewheeling, containing fathoms

IT'S early in the piece but maybe the best way to explain the allure of Oliver Stone’s romantic, freewheeling autobiography is to tell you how one of my best friends took on the experience.

My mate, a self-confessed Stone nut, downloaded the audio version of Chasing the Light - as read by the author - and then proceeded to drive around Cork city with the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter for company. “Love how he paints a picture of post-war optimism in New York circa 1945-46,” he messaged me. “Take me there...” Throughout his storied but turbulent career, Stone has certainly taken us places - the steaming jungles of Vietnam, the (serial) killing fields of the American heartland, the fervid political theatre of El Salvador, the grassy knoll. Even if we didn’t always like the destination, more often than not it was worth the journey.

Reading Stone's words in Chasing the Light, it’s impossible not to hear that coffee and cognac voice. The words roll from the page, sentences topped off with little rejoinders, just about maintaining an elegant flow. Drugs are mentioned early and often, while the word “sexy” features half a dozen times in the opening chapters alone. As in his best movies, Stone displays a positively moreish lust for life, at one point referring to how the two parts of the filmmaking process, if working well, are "copulating".

The book tells the story of the first half of his life, up to the acclaim and gongs of Platoon, and it’s clear that his own sense of drama was underscored by his family background, which is part torrid European art flick, part US blockbuster. His mother, Jacqueline - French, unerringly singleminded - grew to womanhood during the Nazi occupation of Paris. She downplayed her striking appearance as the jackboots stomped the streets but quickly scaled the social ladder, becoming engaged to a pony club sort. Enter Louis Stone.

Considerably older than Jacqueline, Louis quickly zoned in after spotting her cycling on a Paris street. In no time Jacqueline has jilted her fiancée (who, remarkably, appears to have turned up as a guest at the wedding), Oliver is conceived and one ocean crossing later, William Oliver Stone is born.

This family contains fathoms, Stone's father straight-laced and Commie-hating on the surface, yet a serial adulterer (even threesomes are mentioned) and positively uxorious towards his own mother. "It was sex, not money, that derailed my father," he writes. Louis's infidelities nixed Jacqueline's American dream, and Oliver’s with it. Jacqueline ultimately cheats on Louis, not simply via a fling but a whole new relationship, and with a family friend to boot.

What’s even more interesting is Stone’s reflections on *how* it was dealt with. Already dispatched to a boarding school, he learns of the disintegration of his family down the phone line. It has the coldness of some of the best scenes from Mad Men, children of the era parceled off to the side even as momentous events in their home life detonate in front of them. As things veer ever more into daytime soap territory, Louis then tells his son he's "broke", echoing the impact of the Great Depression on his own father's business interests.

By now, Stone is unmoored. He has secured a place in Yale but blows it off for a year and heads to Saigon to teach English: "I grew a beard and got as far away from the person I'd been as I could." On his return he decides he is done with academia; he'll be a novelist in New York, much to the distaste of his father. "That's why I went back to Vietnam in the US Infantry - to take part in this war of my generation," he writes. "Let God decide."

And here we are at the pivotal moment in Stone's adult life. Plunged into the strange days of 1968 in the jungle, he recalls a scene in which his patrol group comes under attack, imagining itself surrounded. Time elides and a metre may as well be a mile, explosions going off everywhere and bullets flying amid paranoia and uncertainty that borders on the hallucinogenic. "Full daylight reveals charred bodies, dusty napalm, and gray trees."

Tellingly, Stone focuses on this arguably cinematic episode while other incidents in which he is actually wounded don't receive the same treatment. By the time he leaves Vietnam he has served in three different combat units and has been awarded a bronze star for heroism. So many of his peers were drafted, yet he had decided to go. You never get a direct sense that his subsequent career is in any way a type of atonement, yet it is never fully explained. "Why on earth did you go?" he is asked. "It was a question I couldn't answer glibly."

From this point on, Chasing the Light mainly becomes a love letter to the redemptive power of the cinema, pockmarked with acerbic commentary on Hollywood powerplays. Stone's firsthand experience of jungle combat gives him a sense of perspective that no amount of cocaine or downers can ever truly neutralise, and it also imbues him with a sense of derring-do. At NYU School of Arts, his lecturer is Martin Scorcese, an educational home run. Watching movies is a place a refuge, writing them a cathartic outlet. It leads to visceral filmmaking, beginning with his short film Last Year in Vietnam. That burgeoning sense of career before anything else brings an end to his first marriage - "'comfortable' was the killer word". The seeds are sown for the plot that would germinate into Platoon.

As he moves past the relative disappointment of his first feature, Seizure, the big break of writing Midnight Express, and then onto the speedbump of The Hand, his second movie, Chasing the Light becomes a little more knockabout, though no less enjoyable. Conan the Barbarian, for which he wrote the screenplay, became someone else's substandard vision, Scarface a not entirely pleasant experience as his writing efforts move to the frosty embrace of director Brian de Palma. Hollywood relationships rise and fall like scenes from Robert Altman's The Player. His second marriage, the birth of his son, the slow-motion passing of his father, and all the time Stone is chasing glory on the silver screen.

By his late thirties it feels like he's placing all his chips on Salvador, a brutal depiction of central American civil war based on the scattered recollections of journalist Richard Boyle and starring the combustible talents of James Woods and John Belushi. His own high-wire lifestyle is perhaps best encapsulated in his reference to Elpidia Carrillo, cast as Maria in Salvador: "Elia Kazan once argued against any restrictions for a director exploring personal limits with his actresses, and I wanted badly to get down with her," he writes with delightful candour. Yet ultimately "I convinced myself that repression, in this case, would make a better film." Note: in this case.

Salvador was a slow burner, not an immediate critical or commercial success, but then in the style of a rollover jackpot, it started climbing the charts just as Platoon is about to announce itself to the world. Despite some loopy goings-on, that shoot in the Philippines had never gone down the Apocolypse Now route of near-madness, the drama mainly confined to warring factions within the production team. Ultimately, Platoon was the movie mid-Eighties America wanted to see about Vietnam. The book finishes in triumph, Stone clutching Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

There are piercing insights and inconsistencies dotted throughout. Stone lusts after good reviews but rails against the influence wielded by certain writers, such as Pauline Kael. He makes frequent reference to his yearning for truth and factual accuracy, yet hardly raises a quibble with The Deerhunter, the brilliant but flawed movie by sometime ally Michael Cimino which - particularly in the infamous Russian Roulette scenes - delivers an entirely concocted depiction of North Vietnamese forces. But then again, Stone revels in what he says is the ability to "not to have a fixed identity, to be free as a dramatist, elusive, unknown."

We've come to know him more in the decades since - through the menacing Natural Born Killers, the riveting but wonky conspiracy of JFK, the all-star lost classic U-Turn, even the missed opportunity that was The Putin Interviews. As my friend, who is the real authority, correctly observes, Chasing the Light is also weighted with nostalgia for a time when political dramas and anti-war films were smashing the box office, something hard to imagine today.

The second volume, if and when it arrives, will surely make for good reading - or listening. Buckle up your seat belt and take a spin.

-Noel Baker, “Oliver Stone’s freewheeling autobiography tells the story of the first half of his life,” Irish Examiner, Jan 17 2021 [x]

[lorajackson]

Is Legalizing Pot a Great Benefit for states?

Is Legalizing Pot a Great Benefit for states? Everyone remembers Cheech and Chong and their movie up in smoke. That was too many years ago to admit. So much has since then. Yet it hasn’t. 80-year-old farmers are still smoking and so are the kids on pretty much every college campus across America.  

11 states in the US have legalized pot or recreational marijuana, 33 states if you include medical marijuana legalization. However, there are some states out there still, like Georgia, where the smallest amount can land you in jail and your property seized.

Then we have Bernie Saunders, who said that he believes pot should be legalized in every state, charges should be dropped and those serving time for marijuana released and their records expunged! I am sure that will get him more than a few votes, but he has a point.

Saunders stated that the US has the highest number of inmates than any other country! Yes, you heard that right! The land of the free, has 2.5 million people in its prison system, the highest incarceration rate of ANY OTHER COUNTRY! Nearly 700,000 of those, marijuana law violations.

Oregon One of the First States to Legalize Marijuana

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Oregon. One of the first states to legalize marijuana. Oregon in 2019 is estimated to have sold $752 million dollars of legalized marijuana products and an additional $45 Billion of medical marijuana products. The State Tax Revenue off those sales? 70.3 Million! I would say the richest states in America are those that have legalized marijuana. Not only are they profiting greatly from legal sales, they are not filling up their county jails and prisons. That is saving them quite a bit of money too!

Legalizing Cannabis is absolutely a great benefit for states. It is a win-win for them, so let’s talk about the benefits of cannabis, the consumer and the growers.

Medicinal Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana~

I sat down with three people in Southern Oregon who rely on cannabis for their medical issues and will swear by it. I will share their stories but first, let’s talk about the growers.

Southern Oregon is one of the most absolutely gorgeous places you will ever visit. Nestled in the Cascade Mountains is the Siskiyou’s that run along the Rouge River down I-5 not far from the California border. There, you will find Jim Belushi and his 93-acre farm. Most of you will recognize the name but you probably did not know that Jim is on a mission.

A mission of the heart. You see, Jim truly believes that his brother John would still be here today had marijuana been legalized. He knows that the past is the past but has made it his personal mission to create exit doors on our nation’s opiate crisis. Jim is the FIRST to establish an opiates-for-cannabis trade-in program. Opiates claimed forty thousand lives last year, marijuana claimed zero.

Belushi loves Oregon and finds a real spirituality in growing ‘the girls’ on his farm. Last year he yielded 400lbs of the American Weed which a strain has been lovingly named Blues Brothers after his late brother John. Now four hundred pounds sounds like a lot, and it is but there is a problem.

“The Oregon market is a very tough market because it is so over-saturated and I consider myself being successful if and when I break even.” ~ Jim Belushi

Whoa!?!? WHAT? four hundred pounds of weed yielded last year and not breaking even? HOW COULD THAT BE?

THAT IS THE PROBLEM PEOPLE! Remember when I mentioned the Revenue the State of Oregon made last year on marijuana sales? That is part of the problem. The State is regulating prices. Not specifically, but when you factor in the black-market sales, we will get to that in a minute. The cost of growing legally:

laboratory costs to identify the exact percentage of the levels, legal storefronts, employee costs to grow and trim- legalization means no paying anyone under the table.

State taxes

State licensing fees

Ect., etc, etc

The only one who is really raking in the profits here in the State. So now let’s talk about the black-market sales. These are the guys who are not applying for, or who have been denied OLLC licenses to sell to the medical or recreational customer in Oregon. Even farms like Belushi’s can still ONLY sell within the state of Oregon. There is no Interstate commerce for marijuana yet.

This is also a problem because the price of an ounce of weed in Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado can vary as much as forty dollars. The other problem of not having interstate commerce it when states like Oregon become so saturated with product, and the supply is not anywhere near the demand, many legal growers will turn towards the black market. They would rather take the risk than see their product go unsold.

Why is Demand so Low?

Well, let me ask you this. IF you wanted an apple, and it cost you $25 at the local market, but the guy at the corner had just as good of an apple for $15, which apple would you buy? I think most of us would go for the just as good but cheaper apple. The States are really making it hard for the guys trying to follow the laws and do the right thing. Most of them are not breaking even although the States are doing great!

Why are these growers taking this risk? Working so hard and barely getting by? I asked Jim. This is what he said.

“I saw a guy awhile back. He was in Afghanistan and saw things that he said no man should ever see. He told me that he suffers from severe PTSD, he cannot sleep most of the time. He said that he even finds it difficult to talk to friends, family, or even read his kids a book. He let me know that MY PRODUCT, has given him his life back, that because of cannabis he can sleep at night, he can read to his kids.”

I also met a woman who had suffered a brain tumor several years ago, who has severe migraines at least 20 days a month. She told me that since she began taking THC oils in a pill form, she has her life back.

There are so many stories just like that. Stories where people choose cannabis and its natural healing properties over opiates and drugs that have severe side effects and damage organs when taken long term. Stand outside a dispensary one day and ask some questions. And if you believe that marijuana is a ‘drug’ that should be illegal, I absolutely promise you that after hearing some of these stories you will change your mind.

There is so much that needs to be improved when it comes to legalizing cannabis. It is of many opinions, that is should be legal in all 50 states, resolving the interstate commerce issue. States should take their hands out of the money pot, or at least back off a little so the growers are not going in the hole trying to grow. We have already lost many of our Farmers in the western states because of this same exact problem!

Did we not learn anything when in one county in Idaho last year had over 170 homestead sales because our farmers could not grow their crops for anywhere neat price they could sell them – resulting in so many bankruptcies. That is another story, but not too far off from the possible future of the growers of marijuana just trying to do the right thing.

The thing about marijuana is the lines are drawn, your either for it or against it. But are you really getting the full picture? The benefits? What are your thoughts?

Read More Here

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Back Story

Stephen Bishop, Class of 1969

Stephen Bishop San Diego’s Hometown Boy Keeps Going “On and On”

Virtually everyone in San Diego had their Stephen Bishop story in the late 1970s. I had mine! At the time I was a self-styled rock musician at Grossmont High School. I played some guitar and sang a set of Dylanesque songs with the five flat notes I could hit. Yet, there were enough polite, fellow students who could tolerate me. So I wound up at many a Grossmont HS house party, singing my songs in somebody’s living room. Needless to say, once, I remember finishing a set and taking a break. And a girl came up to me, a girl I secretly liked, and said, “Bob Dylan is so 1960s. Why don’t you play “On and On” by Stephen Bishop?”

Stephen Bishop was born at Balboa Naval Hospital in 1951. His family moved several times around San Diego in his early years, from Chula Vista to North Park to Del Cerro. Young Stephen attended several schools, including John Muir, which the kids called “John Manure,” and Jackson Elementary. Finally, the family settled on Mohawk Street in the College area, where Stephen went to Horace Mann Junior High and Crawford High School. (Interestingly, another great San Diego songwriter Jack Tempchin also went to Crawford.)

He got an early taste of the limelight when he appeared on the Johnny Downs Show at nine years old. Johnny Downs was a big, local celebrity in San Diego at the time with his own variety show for kids. Stephen remembers sharing the stage with the Oscar Mayer mascot, a little person dressed as a hot dog.

Bishop was in junior high when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. The British Invasion proved to be a life-altering experience. “I was a newspaper boy,” Stephen says. “While on my route, I saw a guy and a girl in a car listening to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’” Putting two and two together, he quickly concluded that music was a good way to meet girls.

Soon afterward, his older brother bought him an electric guitar and Stephen started to figure out how to play on his own. He learned to play the British stuff: the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night” and “Gloria” by Van Morrison’s Them. He was also playing Southern California surf guitar.

Unfortunately, Bishop’s stepfather, an opera singer and teacher, didn’t take too kindly to rock ‘n’ roll and the new British sound. “I had to hide my guitar and practice and write songs in the closet.” It was difficult to keep his affinity for British rock ‘n’ roll a secret, however. He began pronouncing his name “Stave” instead of “Steve.” He grew his hair out and began collecting Beatles trading cards. And, most prominently, he began speaking with a British accent. All the while, he was writing songs and progressing on the guitar.

Influenced by seminal San Diego rock band the Other Four, Stephen and his neighborhood friends formed the Weeds while attending Crawford High School.

Living close to San Diego State proved fortuitous and the Weeds made a decent name for themselves, playing Frat parties, dances, and venues along El Cajon Boulevard. At this time, they also entered a Battle of the Bands competition in Clairemont, winning second place. Their set included some early Stephen Bishop originals. And when the judges were handing out the awards, one commented to Stephen that he was going to be an accomplished songwriter someday.

At this time, he had another brush with music stardom when he met Ray Charles at the singer’s Tangerine Studios.

The Weeds broke up as high school came to an end. In 1970, Bishop realized that if he was going to become that accomplished songwriter, he would need to pack up and move to L.A. He would spend the next several years, walking all over Hollywood and knocking on doors.

“I lived in a motel when I met Milt Rogers at Dot Records.” Then, Bishop got a job making $50 per week as a staff songwriter at Edwin H. Morris Publishing. “I’d write silly songs with names like ‘A Hair in Your Enchilada’ and ‘Beer Can on the Beach.’” At this time, he wrote “Daisy Hawkins,” a song recorded by Jerry Cole.

Finally, his friend Leah Kunkel, whose sister is the late Mama Cass, slipped some of his demos to Art Garfunkel. Garfunkel recorded two of Stephen’s compositions: “Looking for the Right One” and “The Same Old Tears on a New Background” for Garfunkel’s platinum Breakaway album in 1975. Soon, Bishop was signed to ABC Records to record his own album, which became Careless, released in 1976. All in all, it took Bishop six years to break into Hollywood and finally make it.

Careless went Gold, buoyed by the two singles “On and On” and “Save It for a Rainy Day.” Stephen’s second album, which refers to his nickname, Bish went Gold in 1978.

Over the next 40 years, Bishop would release 19 albums, including his just-released We’ll Talk About It Later in the Car. He’d record and perform with an A-list of other artists, including Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, and Sting. And he’d have his songs covered by a who’s-who of popular music: David Crosby, Kenny Loggins, Johnny Mathis, Steve Perry, and Barbara Streisand plus nearly two dozen others.

Of course, “On and On,” which charted at #11, continues to be his signature song.

He has two Grammy nominations and one Oscar nomination. Phil Collins and Eric Clapton have loudly praised him as a songwriter. Along the way, he was mentored by Chaka Kahn’s manager Bob Ellis, Simon and Garfunkel’s producer Roy Halee, and E.Y. Harburg who co-wrote “Over the Rainbow” with Harold Arlen.

“To write good songs, you have to get your heart broken,” says Bishop. If that’s the formula, it’s obvious that Stephen has taken the heartbreak to heart. “I put a lot of time into songs,” he adds. It shows. Stephen is viewed as a craftsman within the songwriting community. Rooted in those early rock songs that were written to get the girls, his songwriting brims with the various stages of romance, from love found to love lost. He also isn’t afraid to reach back into the American Songbook and sample influences from a bygone, pre-rock ‘n’ roll era.

In addition, he’s acted in and written music for several major motion pictures, working with John Landis on four movies including Animal House, Blues Brothers, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Twilight Zone: The Movie. In one iconically-1970s moment, Bishop is seated playing folk guitar on the stairs of the Animal House fraternity when John Belushi, clad in toga, grabs the guitar and smashes it. He has also acted or provided music for several other movies including Tootsie, White Nights, and Somebody to Love. Stephen’s performance of Dave Grusin’s “It Might Be You” for the mega-hit Tootsie became an instant 1980s classic. Most recently, he wrote “Almost Home” for the 2018 remake of the movie Benji.

However, he’s also very proud of the “quirky” aspects of his career. He used to do a lot of fundraisers and tennis tournaments and met a lot of the celebrities who also participated. One of his favorite memories is once playing for Patty Hearst, following her famous foray into radical politics.

Bishop has steadily released new material over the last four decades, averaging a new album every couple of years. The year 2019 proves no different and he has just released a new album and a new collection of songs We’ll Talk About It Later in the Car. The album includes a recording of the Benji theme “Almost Home” along with three cover songs. But it also contains nine new songs that stretch across the pop music palette.

“In Dreams I Fly,” one of the covers, is soul-searching, introspective, and almost psychedelic at times. “One in a Million Girl” brandishes Bishop’s Top 40 chops with bubblegum perfection. “Like Mother, Like Daughter” takes the listener on a ride to the country charts while demonstrating Bishop’s storytelling talents, developing a narrative about life as it is passed down from one generation to the next. “In Love with a Violent Man” furthers the journey down that country road, this time exploring, through brilliant storytelling, the more brutal side of American relationships. “Nora June” is about love lost. So is “French Postcards,” which musically hints to the accordion-infused “musette” of Parisian sidewalk culture. “Tiny Pillow” drips with love and longing. Again, to write good songs, you need to have your heart broken. That motto is apparent on We’ll Talk About It Later in the Car.

However, after 40 years and counting, Stephen Bishop’s first hit “On and On” continues to be the song that most defines his career and public persona. “I wrote it living in Silverlake. My landlady had lots of exotic flowers. They made me want travel somewhere else.” Traveling somewhere is what he has done indeed.

In fact, he’s now writing a book about his travels, a collection of personal, behind-the-scenes stories aptly titled On and Off. Next year, 2020, will mark 50 years since Bishop started pounding the pavement along the Sunset Strip. And after 50 years of knocking on doors, attending awards ceremonies, recording, and touring, he has the stories to back up a fabled career. There are stories about meeting fellow songwriters such as Michael Sembello, who wrote and recorded the hit “Maniac” for the movie Flashdance. And there are stories about his encounter with music royalty, such as the time he was seated next to James Brown and a date at the Grammy Awards. “The book contains crazy, interesting things,” says Bishop.

Dedicated to the quirkier views of the world, today he enjoys reality shows such as Dr. Pimple Popper, Naked and Afraid, and 90-Day Fiancee. These days, “I’m kind of a home body. I stay at home with my dogs.”

He’s also performing and doing shows. In fact, Bishop is no stranger to touring, having performed in South America, Europe, Japan and, as he proudly adds, the Philippines 11 times. “The theme from Tootsie ‘It Might Be You’ is on every jukebox in the country.”

His next big show is at the Grammy Museum in L.A. on November 7. Tickets can be purchased online including at Stephen Bishop’s official website. And he’s set to play on the ’70s Rock & Romance Cruise scheduled for February 2020.

However, don’t call him a “’70s singer.” “I’m an anytime singer not a ’70s singer.” By the longevity of his songs and his popularity, that might be truer now more than ever. Regardless which era you place him in, Stephen Bishop is a really nice guy who writes and performs some very nicely crafted songs, *Reposted article from the SD Troubadour by Raul Sandelin of November 2019.