As I'm sure you've noticed, this month High Times has raised its price to $2.95 an issue. Now while to some of you that'll just mean cutting one or two of your buds a little closer to the stem, others may find the increase a bit more inconvenient; at any rate, I feel an explanation is necessary.
It's hard to believe it's been a year since I began writing this column; in that time we've gone from probable cause to jury trials (with a bunch of heavy conspiracies in between). There were letters from the lawyers and the people, criticizing, encouraging, cajoling and getting pissed off at the stuff I'd written.
BY NOW WORD must have reached you of the sensational new sex-and-marijuana research report published in a recent issue of the highly respected journal Science (sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science). Aside from giving the lie to hysterical scare stories about marijuana and hormones promoted by scientists who have pawned their objectivity and sacrificed their common sense in their greed to leech off government-funded antimarijuana efforts, the new study once again proves how finely tuned and, yes, prophetic are the sensory antennae of yours truly the Connoisseur.
LIKE BIBLE SALESmen, they trudge door to door in suburban communities. Articulate, well-dressed young people armed with brightly colored magazines and theoretical tracts, they claim to be waging a “war on drugs." They tell you marijuana is destroying the brains of American youth, and they link this to a supposed recent upsurge in the use of heroin and other hard drugs.
IN 1977 NCLC’s LEADERSHIP HIRED AN OUTSIDE SECURITY expert to advise them on how to guard Lyndon LaRouche against presumed assassins. LaRouche believed himself to be a prime target, at the time, of left-wing terrorists, who had just slain Jurgen Ponto, head of West Germany’s Dresdner Bank.
Subject: National Caucus of Labor Committees Aliases: U.S. Labor Party, National Democratic Policy Committee. Address: 304 West 58th Street, Manhattan, plus about 30 offices or post-office boxes around the country. THE CULTLIKE NATIONAL CAUCUS OF LABOR COMMITTEES, led by perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, Jr, has followed a bizarre course from the far left to the far right of the political spectrum.
IN ITS ATTEMPT TO BECOME THE GUARDIAN OF PUBLIC MORals, NCLC has long crusaded against casino gambling, and especially against Resorts International, which owns and operates an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino. The NCLC book Dope, Inc. (sold via the National AntiDrug Coalition) devotes an entire chapter to Resorts, depicting it as the linchpin of an international Zionist operation for laundering drug money.
ALTHOUGH THE NATIONAL ANTI-DRUG COALITION MAY ENjoy support from sincere individuals who have no direct link to NCLC, there can be no doubt that NCLC dominates the NADC: NADC and its monthly magazine, War on Drugs, have their headquarters on the fifth floor of 304 West 58th Street in Manhattan, in an office suite that is also the national headquarters of NCLC and provides space for at least seven NCLC business fronts.
BEGINNING IN LATE DECEMBER 1980 AND CONTINUING INTO 1981 a series of defectors from the organizations controlled by Lyndon LaRouche have given investigators a somewhat more clear picture of the murky interworkings of LaRouche’s apparat.
YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO THOSE CALifornia cops. When it comes to creative law enforcement, these guys can’t be beat. Feeling like they’d been embarrassed too much last year, the cops this year have zeroed in on California’s fall sinse harvest with a vengeance.
COLLOQUIUM '81: Higher Consciousness and Creativity
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It was billed as “Colloquium II: The Future of Consciousness." Heady, pedantic stuff. But in the end, it came off as a cross between a psychedelic class reunion and a Friar’s Club roast. Which was just as well. The big names of the consciousness movement drew the droves to bucolic Santa Cruz, California, last July, to convene among the magnificent redwoods.
Outside Jingles' Stadium Bar and Grill, a youthful vendor is peddling Mad Dogs on buns to a boisterous, postgame crowd of Wisconsin football fans. Out of the throng looms a towering lout in a red and white jersey, a belligerent look in his eye.
CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, AS THE SPANIARDS named it, is an old city that still evokes the colonial past with its romantic stone architecture. It was already old when Sir Francis Drake burned it to the ground in 1572. Now, besieging the timeworn heroic citadel, shimmer the modern steel skyscrapers that house the casinos, the international hotels, the luxury apartments and entertainment centers for exclusive cosmopolitan clientele.
IT WAS THE indentured Hindu servants and field hands—brought 3,000 miles by their British subjugators to clear the jungles and serve high tea—who introduced marijuana to the Jamaicans back in the mid 19th century. The locals took to ganja smoking like a Canadian beaver to a silvertipped spruce, and the rest, as they say is history (Ganja itself is an Indian word; Jamaicans call their primo stash either lamb's bread or Kali-herb, Kali being the consort of the powerful Indian deity Shiva.) Jamaicans love experimenting with cultivation techniques.
HARVESTING, DRYING, CURING and storage of Cannabis floral clusters to preserve and enhance appearance, taste and psychoactivity are often discussed among growers. More floral clusters are ruined by poor handling after harvest than by any other single cause.
Not since Luther banged his 95 Theses onto that old church wall has there been such consternation in the Christian world, following the recent unearthing of a set of tapes containing the oral testament of the late Rev. Billy Sol Hargus. Hargus, the eminent electronic evangelist, who disappeared a few years back following an unsuccessful attempt to walk on the Sea of Galilee, claimed to be God's second son.
WHY I HATE COCAINE (And Won't Allow It In My House)
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Sheera Stern
ON THE SECOND MONDAY OF EVERY month, my boss here solemnly announces that he's never going to buy cocaine again. I don't ask him why and I don't ask him why he's made the same resolution in favor of abstinence every month for the past eight. It's his way of telling me what a hellzapoppin' weekend he just had and would I please go away until the curse of the bourgeoisie ceases to cast its pall over his jangled central nervous system.
NIBBLE-DE-DOO-DAH Erotic chocolates for loved ones and those you'd like to offend. Dolly Lolly Bosom Buddies, Hot Lips, Sweet Cheeks, Wee Weinie and Jumbo Frank, priced from $3.95 to $9.95. Order information on request. Unmentionnibbles, P.O. Box 1561, Saint Louis, MO 63163.
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Hirobo Enstrom D-S 22
$800
JUST DON'T TELL US WHAT YOU'RE USING IT FOR The Hirobo Enstrom D-S 22 can do 70 mph, carries a payload equivalent to, say the weight of a portable video camera, and can be fitted with pontoons and navigational lights in case you're offloading—that is, flying—at night. Cost is about $900 for the kit; $1,800 prebuilt. For maximum flexibility pair it with the top-of-the-line preprogrammable Futaba FP-8JN radio control unit, about $800. N.B.: FBI monitors purchase of radio-controlled planes. We found ours at Polk's Hobby, 314 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10001.
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DEAL FOR REAL Or the next best thing —fun. An attack-strategy game based on the economics of the dope marketplace, designed by a cop. Grass, $795, ppd. E.M. Lee, 34 Rodney Street, Port Jefferson Station, NY 11776.
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$13
THE ART OF BEING A HEAD Fantasy art from Rick Bryant and Esteban Maroto. Portfolios suitable for framing. At bookstores or direct from the publisher, $13 ppd. Continuity Associates, 9 E. 48th St., New York, NY 10017.
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$170
DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT And with a television so small the screen's only 1.5 inches, why should you? It's black and white, weighs only 1.2 pounds, and can be powered by rechargeable battery AC/DC, or plugged into the cigarette lighter of your car. The Travelvision TR-1010P lists for about $170. From Panasonic.
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WHAT A COME-ON! A T-shirt that says "Massage My Back" can be a lot of fun if you give it to the right person. Massage instructions, scaled to shirt size, are printed on the back. T-shirt ($1345, ppd.), sizes S, M, L. Panties ($4.25, ppd.) in ladies' 5, 6, 7. Magic Fingers, 2210 Wilshire Blvd., #426, Santa Monica, CA 90403.
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WHAT A CARD! Outrageous greetings for the near insensible. Eight cards with envelopes, $8.50, ppd. Sweet B Images, 250 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10107.
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POT OF THE MONTH To your friends who already have the HIGH TIMES calendar in every room, give the other pot calendar. The 1982 Marijuana Calendar, And/Or Press, P.O. Box 2246, Berkeley, CA 94702.
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IS IT CHRISTMAS YET? For your friends who don't know, The Zippy Calendar, $5.70, ppd. Last Gasp, 2180 Bryant St., San Francisco, CA 94110.
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wizard robe
$350
DRAPE DE CHINE No rock group should be without hand-dyed, hand-sewn fantasy clothing in china silk or crepe de chine. Pick something out for yourself, too. Left: wizard robe ($350); above: halter ($45), camisole ($50), harem pants ($120), socks ($8). To order, write for brochure, $1. Fit to Be Dyed, P.O. Box 449, Kelseyville, CA 95451.
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Zippy Stories
$8.95
IS IT A CULT YET? Bill Griffith's Zippy Stories, the collected adventures of everybody's favorite pinhead. At bookstores, or $8.95, ppd., from And/Or Press, P.O. Box 2246, Berkeley, CA 94702.
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DON'T FACE THE SUPER BOWL WITHOUT IT Never mind the point spread. Pigskin Vegas, the board game endorsed by Jimmy the Greek, organizes play-by-play betting. Just add a television, a coupla six-packs and some gullible friends. Wherever toys are sold. Boxed set, $17; case model, $2499. From Jokari.
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NEONOSPHERE A tribute to Voyager II, in neon, for wall or tabletop. No installation necessary. $280, ppd. Neon New York, 55 Bethune St., New York, NY 10014.
TO GET A TABLE WITH A VIEW, SOME PEOPLE WILL MAKE RESERVATIONS AT SOME FANCY-schmancy dineria and then wait months for their number to come up. A more imaginative couple bought a skyline for their dining room and, presto, they had a window on the world.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Joint Chiefs of Staff today called a Priority One Red Alert when every soldier in the U.S. armed services suddenly came down with symptoms of terminal marijuana toxicity. Unfortunately no one on duty at the time was capable of implementing the emergency measures.
The Rev. Dr. J. Frederick Muggs, first primate of the ultrafundamentalist Charismatic Congregation of the St. Louis Zoo, emphasizes his point in a televised revival sermon against the theory of evolution by squeezing the innards out of a full-grown marmoset.
COTE D'AZUR, France—Former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr announced yesterday that he has violently seized control of his own body, and intends to keep himself at his mercy until "someone, anyone at all, purges Iran of the demoniac ruling clique, whatever it is this month, and pledges total repentance and restitution for the suffering to which they have subjected my people.
MALIBU BEACH, CALIFORNIA—Retired movie actor Ronald Reagan, 61, has angrily pledged to mobilize residents of this exclusive seaside community against the Irv-Hal Independent Development Corporation, which last week began drilling for oil on the edge of his multimillion-dollar beachfront property.
It seems I have been writing this column with a wrong assumption about the readers of HIGH TIMES. AS a military man I don't have too much contact with hipsters and beatniks and drug addicts and so forth. Nobody below the rank of captain does. Naturally I assumed that the kind of hashhead we had around today was much like the hairballs that used to get shot by our National Guardsmen during the 'Nam conflict.
185 CHILDREN OF THE RULING CLASS are now born with a silver spoon in their nose. Robert S. Wiedei; Oui, October 1976 186 A MAJOR COMPONENT OF A PLAN to combat the considerably higher death rate from cancer in the poor would include education. This would be most useful, Dr. Freeman, director of surgery at Harlem Hospital, said, in persuading black males to stop smoking.
In the heyday of Hollywood (the '20s to the late '40s) the big studios may have been run by venal, conniving, barely literate sharks and dolts (such as Harry Cohn, who claimed he could judge the quality of ,a picture by whether or not his ass itched), but say one thing for the dolts: They had an appreciation for "kultcha"—all the kultcha they could buy.
DARYL HALL AND JOHN OATES have had one of the most confusing careers of any pop group in the last decade. They have written songs and fronted bands that have played in virtually every musical style of the time, from folk to fusion to glitter rock to new wave to disco to traditional rhythm and blues, yet they are best known for the mass success of pop/MOR singles like "She's Gone," "Rich Girl" and "Sarah Smile".
MILES DAVIS IS THE GREATEST trumpeter/stylist since the legendary Louis Armstrong. Davis's musical concepts and ground-breaking bands changed the course of postwar jazz several times; and he changed the face of both jazz and rock in the late '60s and early '70s with his popularization of fusion.