A harmless cannabis joke is at the center of controversy after fans reacted to commentary on a recent Jeopardy! episode. The show is often the topic of bizarre controversies affecting its older viewership, seemingly invented out of nothing.
Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik already faced a steep battle to be accepted by fans. For instance, Bialik was confronted on social media earlier for wearing the same outfit repeatedly on the show.
Following the 2020 death of beloved longtime host Alex Trebek, Bialik was selected to host the game show and co-host another version of the show with series champ Ken Jennings. Jennings won 74 consecutive episodes of the show—the longest streak the show has ever seen. Nearly every show host faced uphill odds trying to fill the shoes of Trebek.
Current contestant Bonnie Kistler, who is a novelist, chose the category “Ripped From The Headlines” for $400 on the May 24 episode of Jeopardy! broadcast as Season 38 Episode 182.
Contestants were confronted with the phrase, “Marijuana issues sent to this ‘committee’ generally composed of members of both houses of a legislature.”
Contestant Ryan Long, who is the current reigning champion of the show, guessed “What is a bipartisan committee?” but he guessed incorrectly. Long is a Rideshare driver by trade and won 12 episodes of the show in a row undefeated.
Jeopardy! co-host Bialik said the correct question was “What is a joint committee?”
Bialik added “Get it?” with a snicker, referring to the double meaning and drawing some guarded laughter from the crowd.
Even the slightest allusion to the “devil’s lettuce” is enough to stir controversy to the show’s fans, who are typically older in age. In 2011, Newsweek reported that the show’s median viewer was 65 years old—after the show spent years modernizing. Before then, the median viewer age was 70!
It’s not the first time the joke about “joint committees” has appeared. In 2015, Massachusetts Senate President Stanley Rosenberg brought up a legislative item on cannabis reform and noted that it would take place in joint committees. Rosenberg said, “That’s really funny. I didn’t try to be funny. They are called joint committees.”
While the joke was well received by most viewers, some Twitter users weren’t having it—slamming the show as well as Bialik, who wasn’t being easily accepted anyways. One Twitter user wrote, “Oh, but won’t the #Jeopardy writers PLEASE think of the children watching, and their delicate ears that were just exposed to a cannabis reference?” referring to an oft-cited The Simpsons episode.
Why don't people let her alone!!!!! I love her quirkynes. If you don't like her don't watch. I don't like Ken so I don't watch when he is on easy as that
Fans already begged Bialik to be “considerate of the kids” regarding adult themes. One user responded, noting how alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis. “ignorant jokes like yours don’t help.”
I checked your TL for tweets condemning alcohol answers & found nothing but this "joke". I know it's all funny to pretend that cannabis is dangerous, but many people are alive right now only due to medical cannabis & ignorant jokes like yours don't help https://t.co/VSSKpJcPje
— Andrew McFarlane (@farlanewastaken) May 26, 2022
The late former show host Alex Trebek could toss around a joke or two about cannabis as well.
When interviewed by Marlon Stowe for The Daily Beast, Trebek recalled one time he got wasted on hash edibles, by taking too many of them by accident. We all know how that can play out.
“It was by accident! I didn’t know what they were,” Trebek said. “I had just arrived in California and went to a friend’s house for dinner, and there were brownies. I love brownies—I’m a chocoholic—and I didn’t realize that they were hash brownies. And… whoa. That threw me for a loop. I took down about a half-dozen.”
Fans of the show are urged to give Bialik a chance as the new show host, along with Jennings and any other new hosts.
The world of cannabis-infused dining keeps getting more delicious, thanks in part to contributions from world-renowned chef Todd English.
English is the master chef behind LastLeaf, a new brand of food designed to satisfy your appetite and get you high.
LastLeaf’s first two products center on an American staple: macaroni and cheese.
There’s two flavors of the mac: pasta shells with white cheddar and classic elbow macaroni with cheddar, both of which come infused with ten milligrams of THC isolate.
For English, preparing meals with cannabis is personal.
“I saw my sister and a number of my relatives go through horrible cancer,” English told ABC News. “My sister passed away, unfortunately, but during the time she was in remission, I would prepare things with cannabis and it seemed to really help her get through the struggles of how she felt after chemo.”
Cannabis-infused food has exploded in popularity in the last decade, with more than a dozen states and multiple cities throughout the U.S. legalizing cannabis use for adults.
For now, LastLeaf’s mac and cheese products are only available in California, where adult-use cannabis has been legal since 2016, but ABC News reported that English “hopes to expand the line to more cities that have legalized marijuana for recreational use” later this year.
“Consumers are ready for it, but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get embedded into the marketplace,” LastLeaf founder and CEO Keith Burkard told ABC News.
“The cannabis industry started out with a lot of secondary food groups like drinks, chips, snacks, chocolates, candies,” Burkhard added. “We’re introducing primary food group edibles.”
LastLeaf says it’s taking a different approach to cannabis-infused food, with its emphasis on “savory flavors and micro-dosing.”
“We work with top-rated, creative chefs to provide culinary products for the American at-home chef,” the company says on its website. “Cooking, just like cannabis, can be adventurous and fun, but we deeply believe in the healing powers of food and the cannabis plant, individually and together. Now we get to share the best of both worlds with you.”
It’s in California where another famed chef plies his trade with cannabis-infused meals.
“Cannabis deserves to be recognized as the superfood it is and plated with other foods,” Sayegh told High Times in an interview earlier this year. “It’s way past time for diners to be enlightened to this point. In my mind, cannabis is just another food at the table with the added bonus of inducing happiness. My team and I witness this every time we feed our guests. It’s not rocket science, it’s the science of foods that uplift and heal.”
That line of work is nothing new for Sayegh, who is also the brains behind Nostalgia Bar & Lounge in Santa Monica.
The bar offers customers a chance to catch a buzz in a cozy, intimate space.
Its website bills the experience thusly: “Creature comforts from back in the day are reimagined utilizing Sayegh’s technical culinary background, paired with expertise from THC’s team- Chef and Partner Jared Ventura, Services Director Jack Goldberg, and Beverage Director Bradley Fry, to create playful New American bites and a quality bar program at Nostalgia. Guest can sip inventive CBD- and terpene-infused cocktails that draw inspiration from nostalgic delights like Otter-Pops, Orange Julius, and Capri Suns, play old-school board games like Operation and Battleship in the lounge, or kick back on the numerous picnic tables situated on the expansive outdoor patio.”
Another state with legal weed is cracking down on unregulated cannabis retailers. This time, it is lawmakers in Connecticut who are taking on the practice of “gifting,” through which illicit weed shops sell a product (say, a T-shirt) that comes with a cannabis “gift.”
Now, under a bill signed into law last week by the state’s Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, that loophole could be tightening up.
According to the Connecticut Post, cities in the state “can now fine residents up to $1,000 for gifting a cannabis plant or other cannabis-related product to another individual in exchange for any kind of donation, including an admission fee, or as part of any giveaway such as a swag bag,” while the state itself can “can also separately issue $1,000 fines for failing to pay sales taxes.”
“Gifting” has become a go-to practice for marijuana retailers who haven’t gone through the proper regulatory channels to obtain a license, or who operate in states where cannabis is legal for adults but the regulated market has not yet launched.
The Associated Press reported that unregulated “cannabis bazaars have cropped up [in Connecticut] since the drug was legalized last year,” and “[t]housands of people have attended the events, often paying a fee to be admitted, and exchanged cannabis-related products for other items or received them along with the purchase of an item such as a T-shirt.”
In New York, where adult-use cannabis has been legal since March of last year, regulators have targeted businesses that have purportedly taken part in “gifting,” warning them that the legal retail market does not officially begin until later this year.
The New York Office of Cannabis Management sent cease-and-desist letters in March to a number of businesses it suspected of employing the practice, saying that continuing to do so could jeopardize their prospects for retail licenses.
“New York State is building a legal, regulated cannabis market that will ensure products are tested and safe for consumers while providing opportunities for those from communities most impacted by the over-criminalization of the cannabis prohibition and illegal operations undermine our ability to do that. We encourage New Yorkers to not partake in illicit sales where products may not be safe and we will continue to work to ensure that New Yorkers have a pathway to sell legally in the new industry,” OCM executive director Chris Alexander said in a statement at the time.
And in Washington, D.C., where voters approved a ballot initiative legalizing recreational pot in 2014, medical cannabis suppliers have objected to the practice of “gifting,” arguing that the illicit businesses are hurting their own legal operations.
Despite cannabis’s legal status in the nation’s capital, weed sales remain illegal due to an ongoing Congressional ban on the commercialization of pot there.
While the measure had support among some cannabis business owners in the state, other weed advocates objected. Businesspeople who engage in gifting have also defended the practice.
“I do not deserve to be punished for this, nor does anyone else,” Justin Welch, a member of CT CannaWarriors and the New England Craft Cannabis Alliance, said in defense of the practice at the time of the bill’s introduction. “For too long now, good people have been persecuted for their involvement with cannabis. The grassroots cannabis community that exists here in Connecticut will not cease to exist, whether you pass this bill or not. Moving forward we need sensible cannabis policy that looks more like a craft beer policy.”
An Illinois judge last week lifted an injunction that barred the state from issuing licenses for recreational pot retailers after a delay that claimed the better part of a year. The ruling from Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Mullen potentially clears the way for state regulators to issue 185 licenses for adult-use cannabis dispensaries, although further legal action could put the process on hold again.
Mullen ordered the stay on issuing new licenses for recreational dispensaries last year after lawsuits against the process were filed by applicants who alleged that they were unfairly excluded from lotteries to award the permits. State cannabis regulators have since authorized a new lottery process to give the plaintiffs another chance to win a license.
Mullen lifted the stay on Friday, clearing the way for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to award the 185 conditional adult-use cannabis dispensary licenses held up by the order to applicants selected in three lotteries that were held in 2021. In a statement released by the agency after the ruling, the IDFPR said that it would release detailed information on the next steps applicants must take after receiving guidance in a related case in federal court.
“Today is a key development toward our ultimate goal of creating the most diverse, inclusive, and robust adult use cannabis industry of any state in the country,” IDFPR secretary Mario Treto Jr. said in a statement from the agency. “We stand ready to swiftly move forward in ensuring Illinois’ standing as a national leader in the advancement of cannabis equity.”
Creating an Equitable Cannabis Industryin Illinois
Black and Latino entrepreneurs had argued that the state’s process for issuing adult-use cannabis licenses has failed to produce a regulated weed industry that reflects Illinois’ diversity. Under state law, the first 75 dispensary licenses were supposed to be awarded two years ago. But problems with scoring the applications resulted in only 21 applicants out of 700 qualifying to participate in a lottery to award the licenses.
Mullen lifted the stay after one of the plaintiffs in the litigation, WAH Group LLC, asked the court to end the ban on issuing new licenses. The company has won the rights to three licenses, making lifting the ban advantageous to the plaintiff.
Ryan Holz, an attorney who represents other businesses that have also won licenses and some applicants who were excluded from lotteries, praised the judge’s decision to lift the stay.
But he warned that additional businesses left out of previous lotteries may ask for a new injunction. And in its request to the court, WAH Group noted that Cook County Judge Celia Gamrath has said that a separate cannabis business licensing case could take months or years of litigation to resolve.
In March, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that the IDFPR would be enacting new rules to simplify the dispensary application process and remove barriers for social equity applicants. Noting that the agency is required to issue another 50 recreational weed dispensary licenses by the end of the year, the governor’s office said that the “Pritzker Administration is committed to ensuring the new legal cannabis industry reflects the diversity of the state.”
“From day one, Illinois has been dedicated to leading the nation in an equity-centric approach to legalizing cannabis, and these proposed changes to the application process will make it much easier for social equity applicants to pursue licenses,” Pritzker said at the time. “I appreciate all the feedback we have received from stakeholders since the start of the cannabis program, whose work informed this proposal and is continuing to make Illinois’ growing cannabis industry the most equitable in the nation.”
The IDFPR noted in its statement last week that the department is working to finalize plans for three corrective lotteries to award cannabis business licenses, one for each of the lotteries held in 2021, that are scheduled for next month. Details on those lotteries will be released on the agency’s website once plans are finalized.
The Peruvian Ministry of Health (MINSA) has decided to do something radical. Namely, obtain public comments on their next version of pending cannabis legislation before they actually pass it. This legislation amends the law passed last year which allows patient groups or collectives in Peru to legally grow their own supplies by further defining the right.
Medical use of cannabis and cannabinoid-based drugs has been legal here since November 2017. However, after the government updated parts of the law they received heavy criticism from advocates who said that patients still did not have enough access. This version will also incorporate guidelines on the artisanal production and processing of the plant by patient organizations.
It may sound like semantics, but this is actually a very important step.
The Home Grow Dispute, in Peru and Beyond
No matter how much authorities just don’t like the idea, let alone parts of the established corporate cannabis industry (which has also opposed the idea directly in places like Canada), the right to grow at home and distribute medical cannabis grown in patient collectives will not die.
During the 1980s and 1990s, for example, when AIDS was still a death sentence, patient collectives began operating in major cities. The biggest “threat” to their existence has in fact been legalization.
Now as the cannabis revolution spreads globally, the same issues are arising repeatedly.
In Germany, for example, despite initially allowing patients to obtain specific cultivation licenses from BfArM, this right was eliminated with the legislation passed in 2017, mandating insurer reimbursement when prescribed by a doctor.
That right is about to be at least partially reinstated if the rumors are to be believed. It is widely expected that home grow at least for “recreational users” will be a part of the legalization legislation now being drafted by the German Ministry of Health. How the Germans will deal with patient collectives is still an open question—but one that clearly makes sense given the pushback from the major insurers about coverage for the past five years.
How to regulate that, however, is still very much undecided, just about everywhere. For example, in South Africa, these issues are very much front and center as the government struggles to pass its first cannabis legalization bill to create structure for the commercial production of cannabis.
In countries like Peru, much as in South Africa, with a less robust public health system than European countries, there is less competition from the established industry, let alone pharmaceutical companies. People there cannot afford medication. Cannabis is just one of them.
Allowing people to grow at home will significantly alleviate demand on the health system if not give critically ill people access to medicine they otherwise would not have.
There is, in reality, no way to prevent patients from organizing to obtain home grow from somewhere—even if they cannot grow their own. The conditions that this drug treats effectively are still on the edges of being treated effectively with more conventional medications. Chronically or terminally ill people are rarely deterred by a still jail sentence.
The Re-Awakening of Patient Collectives
Organized into patient collectives or not, the issue is coming back, and in a big way, as Europe proceeds with legalization. Malta dipped its toe into the recreational discussion last year by allowing home grow. Luxembourg looks ready to do the same this year—and it is clear that Germany will have to consider these options.
Beyond this? In both Spain and Holland, there already is a defacto “home grow” movement that is, at least in Holland, being increasingly regulated out of existence—at least formally. But it won’t last long.
Indeed, in the U.K. recently, where medical cannabis legislation has repeatedly stalled, a patient who operated a collective and delivered cannabis oil to literally hundreds of patients was just given a slap on the wrist by authorities after his grateful clients testified on his behalf.
Peru, in other words, may be on the right, and potentially only, track to deal with this issue.
Adicta es referente indiscutido de la generación dorada que, allá a principios del milenio, puso al electropop argentino en el mapa, del under hacia el mainstream. Y tal vez el exponente más oscuro, melancólico, misterioso y cargado de mística.
En 2022, el grupo trabaja en nuevo disco, anuncia un show muy especial para fines de mayo y se hace cargo a a la vez su lugar de mito y su condición de entidad viva en permanente mutación.
Y es Rudie Martínez, tecladista, synthman, productor, programador y la mitad del históricamente reconocido como dúo, quién dirige la orquesta y marca el rumbo. Luego del fallecimiento de Ciudadano Toto en 2015, letrista y voz principal, sus canciones siguen siendo honradas en nuevas voces y nuevas versiones, y se mezclan con canciones nuevas concebidas dentro de un renovado espíritu abierto y colaborativo.
Rudie Martínez junto a Adicta
La banda funciona hoy como colectivo: “Que venga el que tiene ganas de venir”, dice Rudie. Y rescata que, en mayor o menor medida, siempre fue así: según el momento, Adicta tuvo entre dos y diez integrantes. Hoy, la voz principal la encarna Maia Tarcic. “Una gran amiga que está muy entusiasmada y aporta mucho de su energía”, describe, contento, el productor.
El show de mayo revisitará viejos himnos y también canciones que hasta el momento sólo fueron tocadas en vivo: no del todo nuevas pero sí inéditas. Tarcic estará a cargo de la voz en el concierto y también en el nuevo álbum, que espera ver la luz antes de fin de año.
“Que venga el que tiene ganas de venir”
El nuevo álbum lleva ya dos años en proceso. Según los cálculos de Rudie, el primer single será lanzado cerca de la primavera. Va a ser el primer larga duración de la banda (que sí sacó singles y álbumes de remixes) sin Toto.
Adicta tuvo su período de mayor actividad durante la década del 2000 y mantuvo apariciones esporádicas durante la década pasada. En esta nueva etapa, los integrantes fijos de Adicta son Rudie y Maia; pero no son lxs únicos.
“Rescato ese espíritu de colectivo de bandas consagradas como, por ejemplo, Massive Attack. Pero hay muchas bandas así. Son principalmente bandas de productores y yo me considero de esa línea. Siempre me consideré un productor que compone. Y si bien la banda mutó por algo particular, después siguió mutando por motus propio”, explica el músico, quien no se siente un solista para nada.
El álbum todavía no tiene un nombre definido. Sobre a qué sonarán estas nuevas canciones, Martínez arriesga: “Un sonido electro muy seco, muy synthwave aggiornado. Algo que nunca dejamos pero ahora se potenció al no tener guitarras ni bajos. Es electrónico casi puro si no fuera porque tenemos baterista. Un poco retro, un poco música disco, un sonido setentoso que me gusta muchísimo, respeto y admiro”.
Y sigue: “El otro día escuchábamos las maquetas y decíamos ‘creo que lo logramos, recuperamos ese sonido’, ese techno primitivo que todavía tenía instrumentistas como batero o bajista”.
“No cometamos más el error de juzgar al más joven”
Fiel a su espíritu de director de colectivo, Rudie es profesor de producción musical y de ensamble en una escuela de música, lo cual lo hace estar en permanente contacto con músiques muy jóvenes.
Y a él, que fue artífice de “lo moderno” y “lo incomprendido” veinte años atrás, lo que escuchan y hacen le encanta. Cita a la música urbana, el pop e incluso el rock que hacen las nuevas generaciones.
Rudie en el escenario con Adicta
“Hay cosas espectaculares”, afirma. “Hay gente que tiene mucho prejuicio. Es un espanto eso, pero te digo: hay bandas de los noventas que deberían aprender de estos chicos. Cantan increíble, producen increíble, suenan increíble, tienen una auto difusión espectacular, no necesitan sellos discográficos ni lamerle el orto a nadie… aprendan a respetar”.
Rudie mira al pasado con cariño y humor y al futuro con esperanza y fascinación. Admira a las nuevas estrellas de la música: “El Tiny Desk de Nicki Nicole es una obra maestra, Lil Killah hace una fusión entre el folklore, el hip hop y el trap… préstenle atención a cómo producen, cómo tocan, lxs músicxs que tienen, los videos que hacen. Es arte. Cuando salimos nosotros decían ‘¿Qué son estos, disfrazados y gays’ y éramos disfrazados y gays, así que estaba buenísimo, por fin alguien entendió [ríe]. No comentamos más el error de juzgar al más joven. Este país no va a crecer nunca así, anclado en el pasado. Yo no adhiero a nadie que esté orgulloso de ser un viejo choto”.
En esa capacidad de ofender a los que vinieron antes, la generación del trap y Adicta se parecen. “Me gusta la rebelión, me gusta ser un poco subversivo en la música y que la gente que estuvo antes esté incómoda. Esa es una pulsión rockera, aunque la gente diga que esto ya no es rock”, dice.
“No estás haciendo música para dos generaciones, la estás haciendo para tu generación, y lo que digan los demás no importa. Y no estoy dando ningún consejo: no lo necesitan, están haciendo la música que disfrutan y que es una patada en los huevos para mucha gente y eso está muy bien”.
Y lo más gracioso es que, siendo en su mayoría chicxs recién salidos del secundario, son pocos lxs alumnos de Rudie que alguna vez escucharon Adicta. “El 90% no. Y está muy bien eso, no tienen porqué saber el currículum del profe”, dice el músico.
“Creo que cada uno tiene su droga”
Siempre se relacionó con la noche y el reviente a la poética de Adicta (los nombres no vienen solos) y a su sonido herencia de los ochenta. Y Audioperú, el proyecto con el que Martínez se hizo conocido en los ‘90 y que por años coexistió con Adicta, lo presentó en su momento como uno de los primeros íconos ravers argentinos.
“Mi filosofía es la libertad absoluta. Desde el porro hasta la eutanasia”, asegura el productor, que si bien ya no está en su punto álgido de fiesta y consumos, los vivió de adentro.
Rudie no fuma -aunque se considera “absolutamente pro cannabis”- porque la faceta control freak le juega en contra: “Soy tan acelerado que ya estoy desde el principio pensando en cuándo se me va acabar el efecto. Pero esta es una casa cannábica”, cuenta, y afirma que tanto su marido como el 99.9% de sus amigos fuman marihuana. “Esta es una casa freestyle, digamos. El que tiene ganas hace lo que se le canta”.
“Yo creo que cada uno tiene su droga. Yo con el porro lo intenté y lo intenté varias veces pero mi mente resolvió que está mejor así”. Rudie se despierta antes de que suene el despertador, trabaja entre 10 y 12 horas por día y cuando llega a la casa se fija qué queda por hacer: la confusión inducida por el cannabis no lo ayuda para nada.
Rudie Martínez, Adicta
Para él, las drogas son una cuestión personal, que puede tener mucho potencial y que incluso son muy importantes a la hora de hablar de la historia de la música y del arte en general: “Yo a veces a mis alumnos les hablo de drogas. Imaginate que enseño música electrónica, a veces hablamos del origen de ciertas cosas y hay que hablar del éxtasis, por ejemplo”, ejemplifica.
“Antes de los 30 era más careta que la fotosíntesis”
Rudie dio sus primeros pasos en la rave en el año 93, haciendo música electrónica y pinchando. Luego llegó Audioperú. “Sabrás que es mi fuerte”, dice, consultado sobre la rave. “Me encanta. Ya no voy tanto porque creo que fui a demasiadas. Muchos años de tocar en Niceto todos los viernes, ya no lo puedo hacer más”, se ríe.
Rudie no se metió ninguna pastilla en la que fue la primera explosión del éxtasis en Buenos Aires, porque en ese entonces era, en sus palabras, “más careta que la fotosíntesis”. Recién probó las drogas sintéticas a los 30 años, más precisamente el día de año nuevo del 2000. Sus amigos le dijeron “listo, ya basta” y le dieron de todo: “Obviamente estuve como dos días de fiesta y me encantó”, se acuerda.
Llegar a esa edad virgen de pastillas era toda una rareza dada la escena a la que pertenecía. El músico cuenta que pasó casi toda la década tocando en las enormes y ya legendarias fiestas de Parque Sarmiento a tracción agua mineral, sanguchitos y alfajores.
“Terminaba a las 6 de la mañana, me iba a mi casa, me hacía un café con leche, me comía unas medialunas y me iba a dormir. Ni conectado con todo eso”, recuerda.
“Cuando saquéPeruvian, el disco de Audioperú de 1998, un periodista me preguntó si había tomado éxtasis alguna vez y cuando le dije que ‘no’ me mandó a tomar”, recuerda entre risas. “Y tardé como dos años más, pero cuando arranqué no paré: estuve del 2000 al 2003 poniéndomela jodido. Después ya paré otra vez”.
La última vez que tomó algo por el estilo fue el fin de semana anterior a la cuarentena obligatoria: fue al baño, unas personas le pidieron una foto y luego le convidaron un poquito de MD. Y la pasó bárbaro. “Pero ya no es habitual en mí. Tengo 53 años; no soy careta para nada pero ya tengo una vida muy ocupada y no puedo estar del orto”.
Pero la experiencia con los sintéticos y la fiesta, asegura, sí que le cambió la vida para bien. Aunque le resulte un estilo de vida sostenible en el tiempo: “Con esto de ser muy acelerado, muy ansioso y muy analítico, me relajaba tanto que llegaba a pensar ‘la vida puede ser de otra manera, mirá, está bueno’. No dejaba de ser un pesado, pero pensaba ‘a la gente le chupa todo un huevo, ojalá pudiera ser así’ y por un tiempo lo intenté”.
“Vengan a la fiesta sin globos”
Comenzaron como incomprendidos. Luego contribuyeron a instalar el electropop oscuro, la melancolía y el culto a los ochentas, siempre desde los márgenes. Hoy, nuevamente, la canción pop rock electrónica que hacen ya no está de moda.
¿Y cómo hace Adicta para seguir siendo clásico, retro y moderno a la vez? Dice Rudie: “Las modas y los sonidos fluctúan y yo no veo ningún problema en eso. Estoy un poco harto del triunfalismo argentino, que si te va bien sos genial y si te va mal sos una mierda. La verdad que eso no es así, estamos nosotros para demostrarlo. La gente cree que nos va mal pero en su mente, porque a nosotros nos va genial. ¿No desbordamos lugares grandes, no estamos llenos de dinero? Esa será su visión del éxito. A la gente que piensa eso le digo ‘hacete un par de discos clásicos como los nuestros y después hablamos’. ¿Qué banda se sostiene sin haber sonado nunca en la radio, sin haber salido casi en la tele, sin tener una multinacional detrás, sin haber tocado en ningún festival, y que encima un disco de hace 22 años siga vendiéndose en una reedición?”.
El disco del que habla esShh!, su primer álbum, relanzado por Beach House. Mientras tanto, pronto le tocará el turno aMiedo, el que les hizo asomar la cabeza a la gran rotación con hits como “Tu Mal”; “Así que a mí no me importa lo que hayan hecho otras bandas, y no me importa dónde vaya a estar parado mañana. Estoy vivo, haciendo nuevo material, muy ocupado, tengo amor, amigos y un gin tonic”, sigue Martínez, contento.
E invita: “Vengan a la fiesta sin globos”.La cita es el 28 de mayo, horario trasnoche, en La Tangente. “Post doce de la noche. Volvemos al espíritu under porteño. Era necesario, ¿no? Estábamos todos un poco antirock”, celebra.
“Va a haber varios amigos invitados que no quiero adelantar quiénes porque es una sorpresa. Pero estamos armando un muy lindo show. Adicta cada tanto aprieta un botón de reboot pero las canciones siguen intactas. Y, bueno, viva la música”.
Generation Z has been shaped by a variety of dynamics that have dominated their young lives: technology and social media, social justice movements and, according to fresh research, abundant access to cannabis.
The study, released last week, found that 69% of individuals aged 18-24 prefer cannabis over alcohol.
In fact, the figures were comparable among the next two age cohorts: 70% of those between the ages of 25 and 34 said they also prefer weed, while 68% of those aged 35-44 said the same.
The numbers are indicative of emerging generations of young adults who came of age at a time when a large and growing number of states and cities throughout the United States have legalized recreational cannabis for adults.
Moreover, polls routinely show large majorities of young Americans support ending the prohibition on pot.
New Frontier Data noted in the study’s analysis that Generation Z, AKA “Zoomers,” or individuals born between 1997 and 2012, “were between birth or age 15 when the first states legalized cannabis.”
“Gen Z is the first generation to be of legal consumption age in an environment with widespread adult-use cannabis access,” New Frontier Data’s vice president of public policy research Amanda Reiman told Bloomberg.
Bloomberg reported that New Frontier Data’s study “included 4,170 current cannabis consumers and 1,250 nonconsumers, found that the preference seems to fade with age, with just 44% of respondents aged 65 to 74 choosing weed over booze.”
While the research suggests a greater familiarity and comfort with cannabis, it also indicates that young people are generally less drawn to alcohol and tobacco than their older peers.
“A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health by researchers at the University of Washington looked at alcohol and tobacco consumption among Gen Zers in Washington during 2014-2019,” the New Frontier researchers wrote. “Those findings saw declines in each past-month alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking, and cigarette use during that period. It is possible that the reductions were related to an overall disinterest in alcohol and tobacco among individuals in Gen Z, an observation supported in the New Frontier Data Consumer Survey.”
“Cannabis consumers aged 18-24 were most likely to say they never drank alcohol (19.7%), and the least likely to say that they drank every day (5.9%). They were also the most likely (among those under age 55) to say that they never used tobacco (39.3%), and the least likely (among those under 65) to say that they used it every day (26.3%),” the researchers continued.
Among individuals aged 18-24, “more than half (56%) reported replacing some of their alcohol with cannabis, compared to nearly 60% among ages 25-34, and more than 60% among 35-44-year-olds,” according to the study, which noted that those “rates declined further among older cohorts, from over 44% among ages 45-54, to about 43% among ages 55-64, and nearly 30% among ages 65-74.”
“The numbers suggest that young people are learning to navigate the legal cannabis landscape without adopting compulsive, increased use, and may also be less likely to consume either alcohol or tobacco, thereby making cannabis their drug of choice,” the researchers wrote in their concluding analysis. “Considering that cannabis carries a lower risk of dependence than do either alcohol or tobacco – and presents no risk of either fatal overdose (e.g., alcohol) or long-term impacts to the lungs (e.g., tobacco) – it suggests that the younger generation may indeed be making more considered choices about their consumption patterns.”
A new study published this month adds further evidence that levels of THC detected in the blood or breath of cannabis users is not a reliable indicator of impairment. Researchers also found that levels of THC in blood and breath did not provide reliable evidence of how recently a test subject had used cannabis.
In their introduction to the study, the researchers noted that “finding an objective measure of recent cannabis use that correlates with impairment has proven to be an elusive goal.” Some states have enacted laws that set per se legal limits on the amount of THC a driver may have in their blood, similar to the 0.08% blood alcohol concentration limit in effect nationwide.
Critics of per se limits on THC concentrations in blood or breath have argued that such limits have little bearing on the level of impairment or intoxication, which can vary widely from person to person despite similar levels of THC concentration.
“These findings provide further evidence that single measurements of specific delta-9-THC blood concentrations do not correlate with impairment, and that the use of per se legal limits for delta-9-THC is not scientifically justifiable at the present time,” wrote the authors of the study published by the journal Scientific Reports.
To conduct the study, the researchers recruited a group of test subjects, most of whom were daily cannabis users. The scientists then determined the THC levels in their blood and breath prior to and after inhaling cannabis.
Before inhaling cannabis, most subjects had residual THC levels of 5ng/ml or higher, which exceeds the per se legal limit in several states. The authors noted that THC at such levels was detected despite “the absence of any impairment.” After the test subjects inhaled the cannabis, the researchers noted an inverse relationship between THC blood levels and impairment of performance.
“Our findings are consistent with others who have shown that delta-9-THC can be detected in breath up to several days since last use,” they wrote. “Because the leading technologies for breath-based testing for recent cannabis use rely solely on the detection of delta-9-THC, this could potentially result in false positive test outcomes due to the presence of delta-9-THC in breath outside of the impairment window.”
New Study Backed by Previous Research
The results are consistent with the findings of a study published late last year in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review. In that study, researchers affiliated with the University of Sydney analyzed all the available studies on driving performance and THC concentrations in blood and saliva.
“Higher blood THC concentrations were only weakly associated with increased impairment in occasional cannabis users while no significant relationship was detected in regular cannabis users,” wrote lead author Dr. Danielle McCartney of the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics. “This suggests that blood and oral fluid THC concentrations are relatively poor indicators of cannabis-THC-induced impairment.”
To conduct the study, the researchers reviewed data from 28 publications that studied the consumption of inhaled or ingested cannabis. They then analyzed the association between THC concentration and driving performance, using measures of driving-related skills such as reaction time and divided attention.
The researchers documented “weak” associations between THC levels and impairment among infrequent cannabis users. But they observed no significant association between blood or saliva THC levels and impairment among regular pot users, defined as those who used cannabis weekly or more often.
“Of course, this does not suggest there is no relationship between THC intoxication and driving impairment,” McCartney said. “It is showing us that using THC concentration in blood and saliva are inconsistent markers for such intoxication.”
The authors noted that the findings in the study call into question the validity of widespread random mobile testing for THC in saliva in Australia and the reliance on THC levels by law enforcement in the United States.
“Our results indicate that unimpaired individuals could mistakenly be identified as cannabis-intoxicated when THC limits are imposed by the law,” said McCartney. “Likewise, drivers who are impaired immediately following cannabis use may not register as such.”
Professor Iain McGregor, the academic director of the Lambert Initiative, a long-term research program studying the medical potential of cannabis, said that “THC concentrations in the body clearly have a very complex relationship with intoxication. The strong and direct relationship between blood-alcohol concentrations and impaired driving encourages people to think that such relationships apply to all drugs, but this is certainly not the case with cannabis.”
“A cannabis-inexperienced person can ingest a large oral dose of THC and be completely unfit to drive yet register extremely low blood and oral fluid THC concentrations,” McGregor added. “On the other hand, an experienced cannabis user might smoke a joint, show very high THC concentrations, but show little if any impairment. We clearly need more reliable ways of identifying cannabis-impairment on the roads and the workplace.”
Federal law enforcement continues to make fewer and fewer arrests for weed, according to data released by the Department of Justice, a trend that dovetails with the new cannabis laws that have bloomed in the last decade.
From 2010 until 2020, there was an 11% decline in cannabis-related arrests by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers, the report from the Justice Department said.
That same time period saw a seven percent decline in arrests for crack cocaine, and a six percent decline in arrests for powder cocaine.
In raw numbers, the DEA made 8,215 arrests for cannabis-related offenses in 2010, compared with 2,576 in 2020.
The number of pot-related arrests declined each year in that decade.
The cannabis reform advocacy group NORML also pointed to data from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC), which reported that “federal convictions for marijuana-related activities have similarly declined over the past decade.”
“Marijuana law enforcement is becoming less of a federal priority in an age where the majority of Americans believe that cannabis ought to be legal,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “It is vital that Congress takes action to amend federal law in a manner that comports with this reality,” he continued.
The decline in weed arrests coincided with a period in the country that has seen a growing number of states and cities end prohibition and legalize recreational pot use for adults.
Polls consistently show broad, bipartisan support for cannabis legalization.
But despite the change in laws and attitudes, cannabis remains illegal on the federal level as a result of its status on the Controlled Substances Act.
With Democrats controlling Congress and the executive branch, there is hope among advocates that legalization will finally go national.
In April, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act, a measure that would remove pot from the Controlled Substances Act.
Democrats in the Senate have said that they will offer up their own legalization bill. That was initially supposed to happen by the end of April, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer later said that the bill will likely be unveiled before the Congressional recess in August.
Schumer has made no secret of his desire to pass a legalization bill.
Last year, he said that the party was eager to move on the issue, despite President Joe Biden’s own misgivings about ending prohibition.
“We will move forward,” Schumer said at the time. “[Biden] said he’s studying the issue, so [I] obviously want to give him a little time to study it. I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will. But at some point we’re going to move forward, period.”
“In 2018, I was the first member of the Democratic leadership to come out in support of ending the federal prohibition. I’m sure you ask, ‘Well what changed?’ Well, my thinking evolved. When a few of the early states—Oregon and Colorado—wanted to legalize, all the opponents talked about the parade of horribles: Crime would go up. Drug use would go up. Everything bad would happen,” he added. “The legalization of states worked out remarkably well. They were a great success. The parade of horribles never came about, and people got more freedom. And people in those states seem very happy.”
There were other notable takeaways in the report from the Department of Justice, which noted that “U.S. marshals made 120,112 arrests [in Fiscal Year 2020], a 42% decrease from the 206,630 bookings in FY 2019.”
The report also said that the “coronavirus pandemic drove an 81% decline in arrests and 77% decline in cases charged from March to April 2020,” and that of “the 26,696 Drug Enforcement Administration arrests in FY 2020, the most common drug type involved was methamphetamine (8,783 arrests), followed by powder cocaine (4,474 arrests).”
Steven Jung grew up in Northridge, California, otherwise known as the Valley in Los Angeles, a wide expanse of suburbs just east of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
He began his career in operations leadership as a captain in the U.S. Army, where he held both strategic and tactical roles.
“Along the way, I told myself I was interested in business and became an economics major in college,” he shared. “But I always thought if it didn’t work out I was going back into the Army.”
Jung holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from the Columbia Business School, graduating in 2009. He immediately went into finance, working with several private and public companies, before working for Twitter, responsible for scaling its revenue operation.
He was then Head of Business Operations for LendUp, a Google-backed financial tech company based in San Francisco, before working as President and COO for Weedmaps, a leading tech and media company in the cannabis industry in Southern California.
This path to the cannabis industry led him to PAX, a leading device brand in the U.S. and global cannabis market, and makers of hand-held vaporizers, pods, and merchandise.
Founded in 2017, PAX’s technology was developed and launched more than a decade ago with the debut of its first device and cult classic, PAX 1, for vaporizing loose-leaf cannabis.
Its new line (available soon in California), PAX Live Rosin, features 11 seasonal, small-batch cultivars, including favorites Blue Dream and Pineapple Express, and contemporary cultivars including Tahoe Rose and Wifi Mints—all available in one and half gram units.
“Live rosin is extracted from fresh or frozen flower that has never been cured or dried,” he explained. “So, the difference is in the terpenes—and the flavor is superior because it’s so fresh.”
Courtesy of Steven Jung
Educate Thyself
Once Jung crossed over into the cannabis industry, he took it upon himself to learn methods of creating products—kind of a backdoor approach to understanding how things work.
“I learned how to make rosin at home using dried flower,” he explained. “I used homemade equipment—hot plates, manual levers—and it’s amazing how much of this wisdom is already out there, now commercial or large-scale. It’s been fascinating to see how much of this industry was pre-existing.”
In fact, the entire multi-million dollar cannabis industry did exist before and within the medical market, since 1996, when California first implemented its compassionate care program. Even in illegal states and countries, the medicine was being made—albeit, via word-of-mouth only—for decades.
“We in the corporate space need to respect the knowledge already out there,” he concluded.
Courtesy of Steven Jung
Help for Vets
As a former veteran of the armed forces, Jung has a soft spot in his heart for those who might be helped by cannabis. This he knows first hand after being helped himself.
“When I got out of the army, I was having sleep issues,” he shared. “I don’t formerly have a diagnosis for PTSD, but was feeling the symptoms when a friend suggested I try cannabis to get some sleep.”
Jung had been getting just two to four hours of sleep at night, with healing deep sleep a rarity.
“I had tried sleeping pills, but didn’t really like that grogginess or the eventual dependence—it just felt unnatural to me,” he said. “The first time I tried cannabis for sleep, it was a rudimentary edible, and I didn’t see it as being effective. Later, after I’d entered the cannabis industry and was able to try more consistently made products, I found what worked.”
Jung’s preferences are Era life with any of PAX’s sativa Live Rosin—Blue Dream, Jack Herer, or Pineapple Express. For edibles, he prefers 5 to 10 milligram doses. His favorite brand is anything by Mellows and Wyld gummies.
Cannabis therapies induce Rapid Eye Movement (REM), inducing a deeper sleep. According to Sleep Foundation.org, cannabis is also said to stop nightmares, something common with vets suffering from post-wartime PTSD.
In a paper published in PubMed, five milligrams a day of THC enhanced sleep quality and reduced frequency of nightmares associated with the disorder.
Author’s Note: Like many of these papers or observations, it’s important to note that it only states a delivery of “THC,” with no mention if whole plant was used, or if the delivery to the system was smoked or ingested. We do know that all the beneficial compounds working together give a much different effect than just one compound, and that smoking and ingesting can give different outcomes, depending on your own alchemy. That said, CBD alone is also said to have the same beneficial effect to calm for a better night’s sleep.
“I use cannabis at the end of the day to decompress, as a sleep aid, and for better peace of mind,” he said. “I’m also passionate about getting veterans access to the plant—as you know, it’s such a huge issue.”
In the military, he said, it was difficult accepting the idea that he needed anything to help him sleep, as asking for help comes with the brand of weakness.
“Illness and injury are a sign of weakness in the military,” he continued. “Because of this judgment, vets have a lag around how to deal with health issues. Lots of behavioral change needs to occur to heal yourself once you are out.”
Personal and Proactive
Growing up within the Asian culture, Jung said his parents didn’t necessarily tell him and his sister what to do, but they did have a sharp focus on school. His sister, he said, took the virtuous path, attending Harvard Medical School, becoming a doctor.
“She checked all the boxes along the way—Then you have me,” he laughed. “When they look at us now, my parents see similar outcomes, but different paths. Once I left the military they struggled to understand—Then I left the cozy world of high-finance for Twitter and had to explain to them why that was a viable move.”
Crossing over to cannabis, he said, took some time for mom and pop to understand.
“It was an uneasy conversation, to say the least,” he said of breaking the news to his parents. “But, they told me if I felt this was another right path to take, they trusted me. Bottom line, they want my sister and I to have meaningful and productive lives, and this has been accomplished for both of us—with me firmly and happily in the cannabis industry.”
Today, Jung said he’s able to see clearly the wrongdoings of the failed War on Drugs from the other side of the desk, so to speak.
“I think back to when I was in grade school, listening to a police officer from the D.A.R.E. program in our classroom talk about drugs—they seemed nice, but it doesn’t take long to see the discrepancies of what we were told. I started questioning everything—Where does the stigma come from, and is it something I can still believe in?”
His homework on industrial hemp alone, in seeing how the plant could save forests, replace plastic, and so much more, was enough for him to question the politicians using the subject of hemp and cannabis as a tool, perpetuating the ignorance of misinformation lingering for decades.
“Once you start digging, you can see how the political agenda impacted our current view of cannabis,” he added.
In the military, he said, he believed he was in a greater-good organization. He felt fulfilled, met a lot of good people, but said he always felt like something was missing. When he was able to step back, he saw his role in the cannabis industry as a place to do more, to help more people on a different and grander scale.
“When I was able to get past my own stigma of the plant and false beliefs of this industry, I began to realize how blessed I am that the plant found me,” he surmised. “At the time, I didn’t understand how important it was to be a part of something larger than myself—to be a part of an industry doing good things in the world, while healing humans, is rewarding beyond words.”
It all began the night the moonmen landed. I was lying on my rack, considering the night’s entertainment options. Crabby could “borrow” the sergeant major’s car again. We could all drop acid, drive up to Disneyland and harass the boots on their first liberty from Camp Pendleton. We could pull up alongside a cadence-calling detail of uniformed gyrenes, lean out the windows and taunt them with such epithets as “Baby killers!” “Murderers!” until they charged after the car down Anaheim Boulevard screaming: “Faggots!” “Hippies!” That was a goof, sure. But it was old hat.
We could smoke-bomb the mess hall again. Or we could revive last month’s officer-impersonation craze. Here’s a playback from that scam:
“MP shack, Pfc. Jones speaking, sir.”
“Pfc. Jones,” I said from a pay phone on base, “this is Captain Hawkes, the 214 duty officer. Send every available man and truck over to Barracks 214. We got a damn race riot on our hands out here. And I mean on the double, private.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
Three minutes later, the MPs pulled into Barracks 214’s parking lot with their sirens shrieking, and while the silly turds were storming the building, Buster Block flattened the tires of their paddy wagons with an ice pick.
Kube Kommander, how goes it?” Buster himself was standing before me in his summer service “A” khakis, a Black Panther beret and a Marx brothers sweatshirt. A 19-year-old professional juvenile delinquent from birth, Buster’s goal was to take over the U.S. Marine Corps by his next birthday and the rest of the world soon after.
“How did a clown like you wind up in the Crotch, Buster?”
“I infiltrated.”
“Infiltrated?”
“Sure. The revolution’s got to start somewhere, Kube Kommander. And who, I ask you, is better prepared to lead it than a U.S. Marine?” “Meaning you, of course.” “Of course! But you’ll be my second in command. I have big plans for you, Kube Kommander.” “Buster, when I joined up, I thought I’d be storming gook beachheads like in the movies, saving the world from the Red Menace. I wanted to see some action.” “Come the revolution, you’ll see plenty of action. And look at it this way, you have a starring role in the greatest war movie of all time—’Black Sheep on Dope.'”
Starring role indeed. Most of my three-year hitch had thus far been spent at El Toro, the Marine Corps Air Station, in Santa Ana, California. There, as an integral part of Marine Fighter Squadron 214’s Buildings and Grounds crew, I helped keep America safe for democracy by keeping the outfit’s barracks shipshape and policing the surrounding grounds of butts and litter. The Black Sheep Squadron of World War II infamy, 214, led by Pappy Boyington and his zany band of boozing brawlers, whose exploits would one day be popularized on the boob tube series “Baa-Baa Black Sheep.”
And we, the 214 Buildings and Grounds crew, were Pappy’s children, circa 1969. Me, Buster Block, Crabby Bornman, a former Chicago hood, and a hillbilly from some backwater swamp south of the Mason-Dixon line who joined the Corps for the free shoes—the first pair he’d ever worn—and the close to $80-a-month base pay, which he reckoned made him “’bout as close t’being a damn zillionaire as I’ll ever get.”
Buster, the hillbilly and I were awaiting discharge: my three-year hitch was about up; the hillbilly was getting out on a medical—he’d been transferred into the Black Sheep from a naval hospital in Japan, where the docs recapped his gourd with a plastic plate, replacing the chunk of skull zapped out by the slopes. Buster was being processed out on a section eight, and Crabby had actually been booted out of the Corps three months before, but he hung around the base, chowing down at the mess hall, peddling drugs and pimping off a stable of women marines on Sunset Strip.
When Buster Block was busted in rank for ”conduct unbecoming a marine,” which translated in civilian lingo to “wearing unshined shoes.” I, being the next senior man in rank, assumed command of the “Cube.” Crabby, the hillbilly, Buster and I were quartered in this Cube (actually, it was more of a walk-in closet), partitioned from other Cubes by gray metal wall lockers. The Cube was a crash pad, a haven for wandering hippies, flippies, kooks and weirdos, so had Buster Block proclaimed in a notice posted in the Laguna Beach Mystic Arts World Book Shop. Runaway teenyboppers were fed, fostered and fucked in the Cube’s confines. With lights out at nine came strobe rays and wine. Hendrix wailed and brain cells sailed. And I was The Man.
Crabby and Buster had presented to me a T-shirt with KUBE KOMMANDER stenciled across the chest in Magic Marker. Over the midsection was a decaled eagle, globe and anchor insignia of the United States Marine Corps. North and South America had been replaced on the globe by a peace symbol. The back sported a profile of Private Black-jack, the outfit’s sepia sheep mascot whose care and providing for came under the auspices of the Buildings and Grounds crew.
Crabby Bornman had a battalion of crabs permanently encamped in his pubic hair. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the battalion had several scout platoons on constant recon for new bivouac sites.
When Sgt. Maj. William Fain Watson, Jr., was assigned to the Black Sheep, he announced at morning formation:
“If I leave the keys in my car, it’s for a reason. Call it a test, call it what you will. But gentlemen, I trust my men, always have. I’ve been a sergeant major almost ten years now, and no marine in my command has ever betrayed my faith. And the day one of my men violates that trust will be the day I retire from the Marine Corps.”
Within the hour Crabby had heisted the car and Watson’s ceremonial noncommissioned officer’s sword which happened to be in the trunk. Watson found the sword later that evening, stuck through his desk. After making up a duplicate set of keys, Crabby returned the car, too, with a note of thanks and a squad of his finest crabs on the front seat.
Crabby Bornman was the honcho of the base drug-dealership. Armed with a 9mm Luger, he climbed the ladder of free enterprise, mauling competitors, single-handedly holding up hamburger joints, gas stations and Taco Bells until he had looted enough dough to make his first big dope score in Tijuana, where he also picked up his first cadre of crabs.
Buster Block, by pointing out its lucrative potential, had no trouble interesting Crabby in his plan to spearhead the counterculture revolution from the palatial Glendale estate of his father, Buster Block, Sr., a millionaire used-car flimflam man.
“Kube Kommander, I got it all figured out. We can’t miss.”
“You’re crazy, Buster, it’ll never work.” “The place is impregnable. We’ll slaughter ’em.” “You mean they’ll slaughter us.” “The place is a fortress. I’ll work the machine gun from the balcony. You and Hives can feed the ammo belts.” “Who’s Hives?” “The family butler.” “Buster, you’re insane.”
“When they come swarming over the hills in their helicopters, we’ll blast ’em out of the sky. We’ll mow ’em down like Robert Taylor did them Japs in Bataan.”
“I saw that movie, Buster. They killed Taylor in the end.”
“No they didn’t. He was still shooting during the fade-out.”
Buster’s dad, Buster Block, Sr., the bunko used-car dealer, who interrupted the Cube’s midnight movie soirees every eight minutes with commercials for his reconverted shitboxes, had spent thousands of dollars on lawyers’ fees to keep his son out of the brig. The inexperienced military prosecutors were no match for Mr. Block’s bigname attorneys. Time after time they upstaged the court-martial board and had each case dismissed on a technicality the opening day of the trial.
When the military was not prosecuting Buster for drugs or sedition, they were hounding him about his unmilitary appearance, especially his sideburns. He was once permanently restricted to base by Sgt. Maj. William Fain Watson, who, upon measuring them, found that they were an eighth of an inch longer than regulation.
Buster counterattacked. He and Crabby broke into the administration office and appropriated from the sergeant major’s desk evidence of graft, pilfering and other improprieties committed by the brass. They deposited the incriminating documents in a bank safe-deposit box and sent copies to Alan Cranston, Ted Kennedy and other senators of liberal persuasion. Buster concluded each cover letter with “Can you help me? Or does the USMC run the Senate too?” Thus was a congressional investigation launched over two eighth-inch strips of Buster Block’s sideburns.
Buster and Crabby wore with honor the Black Sheep misfit tag. “We have a tradition to live up to here, mister,” Buster once lectured me.
“Why’s that?”
“Lee Harvey Oswald served on this very base.”
“Really? That figures.”
“Chuck Whitman was a marine, but not the same caliber as Oswald.”
“Who’s Chuck Whitman?”
“He went bananas and picked off a dozen nobodies from a tower in Texas.”
“What do you mean ‘nobodies’? I don’t get it.”
Buster looked both hurt and surprised. “Kube Kommander, surely you believe in quality over quantity?”
Sgt. Maj. William Fain Watson referred to our Cube as “the asshole of the Marine Corps.” “My name is Sergeant Major William Fain Watson,” he announced after our Cube had once again failed weekly inspection. “Remember that name so you don’t ever forget it. Because if you do forget it, I’ll remind you. And if I have to remind you, you’d best never forget it again.”
“You know,” said Buster, later that same day, “I can never remember that lifer’s name.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“The tubby one with all the stripes and the itty-bitty mustache.”
“Sergeant Major William Fain Watson?”
“Is that who he is?”
“What about him?”
“He came by the Cube while you were out. He said it still looks like a shithouse.”
“It is a shithouse.”
“He told me to tell you to get it squared away.”
“What about the rest of you guys? You live here too.”
“You’re the Kube Kommander,” Buster saluted. “He also told me to tell you to trim your mustache because it reminds him of that goddamn taco bandit, Zapata.”
“He tells me that every time he sees me. Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah. He told me I have beady eyes and a criminal forehead. And he told me to remember that his name is Sergeant Major Whatshisface, and that I shouldn’t forget it, because if I did forget it, he’d remind me, and if he had to remind me, I’d best never forget it again. He said you’d better remember too.”
On Monday mornings, Buster, Crabby and I left the hillbilly behind to swab the barracks and shovel sheep shit while we reported on sick call. The three of us suffered from an assortment of physical and mental ailments to which the navy corpsmen gave a blanket diagnosis of “terminal malingering.”
After our visit to the dispensary, we’d hitchhike five miles into Laguna Beach to the Cosmic Eye Bookshop to pick up our “medication”—orange barrels—dispensed by the local hopheads who hawked their chromosome bustin’ psychedelic wares to assorted locos and jarheads in need of a dose of sunshine.
The day of the night the moonmen landed, I was taking a shower when Buster happened by.
“Kube Kommander, open your mouth. I have something for your head.”
“Acid?”
“Organic mescaline.” He held up a horse capsule, half the size of his pinky.
“Yow! Where’d you get it?”
“Friend of mine, Charlie Manson. He’s running a commune on an old movie ranch out in the desert.”
“Commune, huh? Lots of free-love chicks?”
“Orgy city, Kube Kommander. I’ll take you up there next week.”
“Sounds decent.” I took the capsule from Buster, put it on the back of my tongue and swallowed a mighty gulp of shower water.
I stepped out of the shower stall, toweled myself dry and threw on a clean pair of skivvy drawers. Buster and I made our way back to the Cube where Crabby and the hillbilly were absorbed in a mystery movie about an ax-murderer. The hillbilly was guzzling Coors, and I took a long swig off one to wash down the cap of mescaline that was still sticking in my throat. The hillbilly didn’t indulge in drugs, but hung around Crabby, fascinated by his tales of big-time crime in Chicago.
Crabby got up and left at the next commercial, just as Buster Block’s dad was telling everyone which freeway to take to reach his used-car lot. The hillbilly left too, to scrounge up more beer.
The mescaline was doing its job. Already I was hallucinating. I strolled down the corridor to the head, where a look in the mirror told the story: One eyeball and several teeth dropped out of my skull. My mustache had grown into a bushy boa over six feet long and was winding itself around my neck. My white-wall marine haircut resembled Curly Joe’s of the Three Stooges. “Woob-bub-bub-bub-bub.” I deftly marblehopped the white and green Chinese checkerboard-tiled floor back to the Cube.
“Buster, your friend Charlie was right. This shit is dynamite!”
Buster leaped from his seat. “Don’t you ever sneak up behind me again, ever!” he screamed. He pulled me close to him. “The Ax-Murderer is loose in the barracks,” he whimpered, then rolled his eyeballs back into his head.
“Buster, take it easy, it’s only a movie, man.”
“Where’s Crabby’s pistol? I’m gonna snuff that psycho before he chops my head off!” He opened Crabby’s wall locker to search for the Luger, but the locker was empty except for a sack of dirty laundry. Buster dumped the clothes out on the floor and began rummaging through them.
“Crabby always carries his pistol,” I said. “Calm down, Buster, get a grip.”
“We’ve got to kill the Ax-Man!”
“Buster, it’s only a movie.” I turned off the TV.
“He’s gonna fuck up the revolution!”
“Revolution? What revolution?”
“Tonight we strike. That stuff you ate wasn’t mescaline.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Hahahahaha. You fool!”
“What was it, Buster?” I asked, my voice trembling. “A megadose of belladonna and sunshine. Me an’ Crabby’s been passing ’em out all day. We’re turning everybody around here into raving lunatics, then we’re taking over the base.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes! We’re gonna rename the place El Dope-o. After that the sky’s the limit— California, America… the world!”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes!” Sparking bolts of lightning shot from Buster’s head as he confirmed: “Crabby’s trucking ammo crates up to Glendale right now. My old man’s out of town. We swiped an M-60 machine gun from the armory and set it up on the balcony outside his bedroom window.”
“Oh, shit!”
A collection of radiating spheres, hillbilly beer cans, metallic cones, Crabby clothes and blinking neon isosceles triangles began to grow and expand until I thought they’d crush and smother me. Buster’s blatherings turned from Ax-Man and revolution to the inevitability of a redskin attack; he had been popping down the dope like Good ‘n’ Plenty since noon.
“There’s thousands of Injuns massing outside the Cube,” he said in a doomed voice. “Look, here comes one now!”
Red and out of breath, the hillbilly had reappeared with a fresh six-pack of Coors under his arm. “Ah stole this from the PX,” he wheezed. “Ah had a whole case, but the MPs were hot on mah tail an’ ah had to scuttle the rest.” He yanked a can out of the pack and staggered over to me, throwing a palsied arm around my neck. “Have a cold brew, ol’ buddy, you look like you can use one.”
“Get out of here, you dumb grit!” I cried, pushing the hillbilly through a flaming pyramid. He must have hit the light switch on the wall, because everything went black. I groped my way out of the Cube, into the corridor. “I’m cuttin’ out before the MPs get here, Buster. You and the hayseed can spend the rest of your twisted lives in the brig together for all I care.”
“Never mind the MPs, Kube Kommander, what about these Indians!”
Indian war whoops and “yip-yip-yips” spurred to a gallop my flight from Buster’s insanity. Catching sight of the MPs entering the front door, I detoured into the head, found an empty shithouse stall and locked myself in. I sat on the bowl, scrunched my eyes shut and prayed for a miracle of deliverance from the impending Armageddon.
My prayers were heard.
I was on a sunny island. Dorothy Lamour, leading a bevy of exotic native girls, presented me with a bouquet of orchids. Cocoa-skinned and saronged, the young lovelies began feeding me tropical fruits and dancing around an incredibly oversized penis that seemed to be my very own. Then Dorothy started massaging my mulesized member until whistling Fourth of July rockets shot through the air, volcanos erupted, sparkling multicolored pinwheels twirled, bands played and, screaming, my brain burst in a fire storm of red, white and blue. Through the smoke and flames there came Sgt. Maj. William Fain Watson, plowing a tank through my harem of squealing girls.
I dropped from heaven into hell.
With my skivvy drawers sopping from the orgasm, I barreled out of the shitter, back to the Cube, ignoring the pitchforked Mickey Mouse devils blocking my path, bursting through hallucinations like so many soap bubbles.
One of the rodent demons was, in fact, the hillbilly, who went crashing against a set of wall lockers.
And the nightmare was only beginning.
In the Cube, Buster was struggling on the floor.
”Buster,” I cried, tearing at my hair stubble, “it’s the end of the world!”
Buster’s pupils were the size of dimes. “It almost was the end of my world, Kube Kommander. I was lucky to escape with my scalp—no thanks to you. If those giant crabs from Crabby’s locker hadn’t eaten all the Indians, I’d be buzzard bait by now and my hair’d be hanging in the tepee trophy room.”
We were moving deeper and deeper into bonkers territory. Buster was running around in little circles now with his wrists crossed over his head. “Let’s knock off the bullshit and get me untied.”
“What?”
“The giant crabs were feasting on the last redskin and I was bushwacked by the AxMan. He got the drop on me and tied my hands. Hahahahahahahaha!”
“What’s so funny?”
“Crab got ‘im. Ate the dude up, ax and all. Then the crabs all turned into flowers and trees. You shoulda been here, Kube Kommander, it was unbelievable.”
“Buster, I’m scared. Let’s turn ourselves into sick bay.”
“The hell with that. Let’s turn ourselves into B52s and bomb the base.”
“Buster, I’m serious!” I shot to my feet.
“Hail, Cerious!” Buster saluted. “Caesar sends greetings from Rome.” He picked himself up off the floor, and, popping a cap of dope, sauntered over to the window. “Where the hell is Crabby? He oughta be back by now—God, Kube Kommander, look at this.” “Now what?” “The MPs are out there rounding everybody up!” I rushed to the window. “Oh, no! They’re carrying people out of the barracks wrapped in straitjackets.”
Buster was rubbing his hands in glee. “It’s all going according to plan.” “Plan? What plan?” “Long live the revolution!”
I fled the Cube, gnashing my teeth, wailing about the MPs raiding the barracks, slowed only by the sticky wetness between my legs… Jesus. My skivvy drawers were still drenched with semen from the orgasm in the head. If the MPs found me like this they’d toss me in the brig till doomsday. I ripped off the drawers, stuffed them in the trash barrel at the end of the corridor and flew naked back to the Cube.
Christ! My name was stamped on those drawers—KUBE COMMANDER. I raced back down the corridor, tore the name from the canned skivvies and flushed it down the head toilet, making sure it disappeared. Back to the Cube. There was no place to hide, only Crabby’s empty wall locker. I yanked it open: “Hillbilly! What are you doing in there!”
“Ain’t you heard? The MPs are cartin’ ever’body to the hoosegow!” He hopped out of the wall locker and sprinted out of the Cube.
Where the hell was Buster? He had touched off the revolution and vanished. I lay down on my rack with my head under the covers, waiting for the MPs to carry me from the barracks in a straitjacket.
Sounds of approaching footsteps. My number was up. The covers were yanked off my head.
“Buster!”
“Kube Kommander, you look positively bughouse.”
“I’m scared, Buster, the MPs are gonna bust us.”
“Don’t worry. The MPs are all over at the mess hall. I just smoke-bombed the place. Let’s relax and watch some TV. The moonmen are about to land.”
“Moonmen?”
“That’s right, Kube Kommander, the astronauts are touching down in their lunar module.”
“Looner module?” Buster switched on the set and a simulated version of America’s first moon landing focused in. The image abruptly changed. Buster’s dad was smiling out at us, spewing a new pitch: “Hi, friends, Buster Block here with dynamite deals for your next set of wheels. I can’t take you to the moon, but why don’t you come on out to Glendale for a ride in one of my reconditioned Chevys. Let’s talk turkey, folks—these specially marked down beauties are just the thing for—”
“Shit,” said Buster, turning his dad off, “what an asshole.”
“The moonmen!” I let out a mad laugh and rushed to the window, scanning the sky. “I want to see the moonmen!”
“Moonmen mah ass.” The hillbilly was back. “It’s them jungle bunnies runnin’ loose out there hopped up on bad dope.”
“How do you know they’re not moonmen dressed up as jungle bunnies?” said Buster. “Maybe it’s an invasion.”
“Well, feed me corn and watch me grow!”
“Hillbilly, be a modern-day Paul Revere. Roust up the barracks patriots. Tell them the moonmen are coming!”
The hillbilly’s funny bone had been struck and he loosed a stream of degenerate cackles, staggering out of the Cube, echoing Buster’s call to arms: “The moonmen’re comin’! The moonmen’re comin’!”
We heard a muffled scream and peeked out the Cube. Bobo Bello, the Black Sheep’s Neanderthal barracks sergeant, was at the end of the corridor, his hairy leglike arm wrapped around the hillbilly’s neck:
“Every night you druggie bastards keep me up. I can’t get no SLEEEP!” he roared, slugging the hillbilly out the front door.”
From outside the barracks came a sickening crunch of metal against metal and the shattering of glass. Buster and I looked out the window. The hillbilly was sprawled out on the sidewalk. Ten yards from his twisted form, in the parking lot, perched upon the hood of a rapidly disintegrating late-model Chevy, was a demon-eyed, sweat-dripping, panic-stricken black marine, swinging a sledgehammer at a clip that would have intimidated John Henry himself.
“Hey, Buster, I know that guy. He works on the flight line. He just bought that buggy from your dad with his six-year reenlistment bonus.”
“Serves him right,” said Buster. “That dope I gave him brought him to his senses.”
“Six—” pow! The poor slob was picking up the tempo. “Mo’—” smash! “Years.” Boom! “Six—” whomp! “Mo’—” fwap! “Years.” Kablam!
A siren and flashing red light hearkened the arrival of the MP paddy wagon. John Henry was handcuffed and heaved into the back of the truck. They spotted the hillbilly out cold on the ground and pitched him in too.
The MPs pulled out as Crabby Bornman screech-stopped Sgt. Maj. William Fain Watson’s candy apple red ’66 Chevy station wagon in front of the barracks. The car, California license plate 1451, power steering, power brakes, low mileage—a real family wagon—was a steal at $795. Buster’s dad said so himself when he sold it to him. This was the fourth time the car had been stolen in six months.
Crabby got out of the car and walked over to the window. “The revolution’s off,” he told Buster.
“Why?”
“I drove up to Glendale with the ammo crates. Your dad was on the balcony with that butler, Hives. He was feeding ammo belts into the machine gun while your old man kept firing at the moon. Then the cops came and—”
“Buster, look!” I interrupted. “It’s your dad. He’s back on the TV!”
The moon landing had been interrupted by a special bulletin, an at-the-scene report from the estate of a Glendale man who was running amok, holding off half the L.A. police force with automatic weapon fire. The camera crew zoomed in on one of the cops leaping from a second-story window onto the back of the triggerman, who was then wrestled into handcuffs by a swarm of fuzz.
“Just take the freeway,” shouted the battered maniac. “Take the freeway. Drive right in, I’ll be there. Take the freeway. Take it that way! Take it any way!” he screamed.
“Looks like Dad found the acid stash,” said Buster Block, Jr., with disgust.
The first rays of light had already climbed the Santa Ana mountains and were winging westward for Hawaii when I was rudely shaken awake by the slab of beef that six hours earlier had strangled the hillbilly. My eyes locked on Sergeant Bello’s right bicep, where a USMC bulldog growled: DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.
“Report to Sergeant Major William Fain Watson,” Bello barked, “at zero-nine-hundred.”
Numbness. After so many late-show gangster movies, I finally knew how that last day on Death Row began. The past years of my marine life were reeling before my eyes when Buster crashed my thoughts.
“So, what’re you gonna do, Kube Kommander?” he said, sprawling upon his rack.
“How about if I cry and tell him what a good boy I’ll be if he gives me another chance?”
“Watson doesn’t like marines who cry.”
“Why me?” I lamented.
“Why not you? You’re responsible, you’re the Kube Kommander,” Buster saluted.
A few months till my discharge and this had to happen; 0855—at least I was prompt. My mustache was trimmed and I’d cleaned up the Cube before reporting. Maybe they’d knock a couple years brig time off for that.
A baby-faced lance corporal sat behind a desk outside Watson’s office, typing the squadron plan of the day for the morrow. The boy’s face had never felt a razor. Just a kid. The replacements were getting younger every day. The door to the sergeant major’s office whisked open and I walked in tall, a sneer on my lips. “Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face,” Watson scowled. I snapped to attention, but my “Yessir!” never passed my lips; it stuck in my mouth alongside my heart, for crouched in a corner, partially hidden by the Black Sheep color standard and the Star Spangled Banner, were the hillbilly and the drooling shell of what had once been John Henry, the hammer swinger.
I froze in my spit-shined shoes.
Watson handed me a piece of paper with the outline of a human face. Horizontal lines, bisected by two vertical bars, formed a tight frame around the upper lip.
“This,” he said, “is a guideline for the proper military mustache. Make sure you keep yours regulation. That womb broom you had reminded me of that goddamn taco bandit, Zapata.”
Watson himself had a pencil-thin Boston Blackie mustache. He stood six feet five inches tall and weighed over 300 pounds, an Oliver Hardy on stilts.
The baby-faced clerk opened the door and in came the MPs. “Lock these bastards up and throw away the key,” Watson ordered them.
I shuffled to the door with the hillbilly and John Henry, who looked like zombie extras in a John Carradine movie I’d once seen.
“Where do you think you’re going, Zapata?” Watson demanded. I faced him and smartly snapped back to attention as the MPs handcuffed John Henry to the hillbilly and led them away.
“You men let me know right away if you hear anything about my car,” Watson told the MPs.
“Yes, sergeant major—uh, Private Blackjack was picked up last night at Disneyland. Should we send a truck up there to pick him up?”
“Disneyland? What the hell was that sheep doing at Disneyland?”
“Riding the monorail, sergeant major.”
Watson staggered backwards and said in a soft, disbelieving tone, “Riding the monorail…” He shook his head. “Pick him up and restrict him to his pen.”
“Yes, sergeant major.”
“And you, cum-bubble, that Cube you live in is a shithouse.” “It’s all squared away now, sergeant major.” “It is, huh? Well, see that it stays that way.”
“I will, sergeant major.” “You’d fucking well better. Dismissed.” Dismissed? Had the governor come through with my pardon? Was I out of the hot seat? I reached for the door. “Just a minute, corporal.” “Yes, sergeant major?” “Last night?” “Last night.” “What were you doing last night?”
“Well, I uh—” Omigod. I was either still hallucinating or Buster Block was creeping in the window behind the sergeant major.
“Well?”
“I was, uh, watching the moonmen land—I mean the astronauts landing on the moon.”
“Oh…”
Buster broke open two fat horse caps and dumped the white powder into the cup of coffee on the sergeant major’s desk, stirred it up and disappeared back out the window.
“That was quite an achievement, wasn’t it, corporal?”
“It… it certainly was, sergeant major. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
“Neither will I, corporal, neither will I.”
I left Watson’s office and kept walking, never looking back. I wanted to hide out somewhere, away from the loony lambchops of the Black Sheep squadron, someplace the Marine Corps would never dream of looking for me.
Passing the airfield, I saw the monthly marine replacement draft loading onto the Pan Am jet for ‘Nam. I joined the line, boarded the plane and took a seat in the tail section of the craft. The flight across was uneventful; I passed the time getting drunk with a party of American Indians, who babbled endlessly about Ira Hayes’s flag-raising venture on Mount Surabachi and how they were going to shove Ho Chi Minh’s chopsticks up his ass. I wondered if they might not be refugees from one of Buster Block’s hallucinations.
When we landed in Da Nang, I debarked with the rest of the cannon fodder and kept walking. I made my way out of the camp perimeter and disappeared into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where I finally found peace.
*This story is dedicated to Kenny Perkins, who lived it with me.
THE MOONMEN RETURNED,
THEY’RE BACK ON THE GROUND,
BUT YOU, MY FRIEND KENNY,
WILL NEVER COME DOWN.
Rudie Martínez junto a Adicta
Rudie en el escenario con Adicta
Rudie Martínez, Adicta
